If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again. 
If you need help, stay on the line and a hacker will assist you shortly. 
It's time for 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. 
Bumbly Bump, but the best is back from worst. 
I hope that's understood. 
Bumbly Bump! 
Bumping Bump! 
Bumping Bump! 
Bumping Bump! 
Thank you. 
And a very good evening to everybody. 
The program is Off the Hook. 
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening, joined tonight by Kyle. 
Yeah, I'm over here. 
Over there and over in Skypeland, I believe we have Alex. 
Alex, are you with us? 
I am indeed. 
Good evening. 
Coming to us live from the boondocks of Pennsylvania, I believe. 
That is correct. 
All right. 
I'm sorry, go ahead. 
You muted yourself somehow, Alex. 
Oh, my goodness. 
You know, two years into this, you'd think I'd have this down, but I don't. 
You know, we're just not that great with technology. 
Pocono Mountains. 
Pocono Mountains, yes. 
Any news of interest this week? 
Obviously, the war continues to be our top story and something that we're going to be focusing on tonight. 
I should also point out we're not on next week. 
So this is the last show for two weeks, and we'll be doing overtime at 8 o'clock on our YouTube channel, Channel 2600. 
So you can join us there. 
You can phone us up and ask questions and say various things. 
I do want to stress that listener mail is very important, and we want to hear your feedback, things that you have to say, positive or negative. 
You know, we've got a fair mix of both. 
Yeah, it's always important to get a reaction, get feedback. 
We always love to get people's insights, hear what kinds of information they've been reading and taking in. 
Yeah, yeah. 
We got an interesting piece of mail today. 
I believe this is from Finland, one of our listeners in Finland. 
I have emailed you in the past. 
I hugely appreciate both your shows, Off the Hook and Off the Wall, which we do on Tuesday nights on a different radio station. 
They are a unique voice, even by global standards. 
You are a good bunch of people. 
Thank you. 
That's just nice to hear that occasionally. 
Yeah, people don't say that enough. 
Well, you don't have to say it, but it's nice when it's said unprovoked. 
You're a good bunch of people. 
Alex, I think that includes you. 
I mean, maybe sometimes. 
I mean, generally people disagree with me when they're writing in or calling in or whatever. 
You can still be a good bunch of person, though, and disagree with. 
Oh, I agree with that. 
I thought it was the other way around, that he generally disagrees with everyone. 
Well, he's disagreeable. 
There's no question about that. 
Well, when he says it like that. 
It makes so much more sense. 
Yeah, yeah. 
Let's talk about him later. 
Yeah, we will. 
Okay, so continuing with the letter. 
I live in Finland, which shares a huge border with Russia. 
And as you are probably well aware, we've had our dealings with them during World War II and other points as well. 
Boy, this has been a stressful time these past several weeks as a fellow non-NATO Russian neighbor was invaded. 
And this is something maybe a lot of people don't know, is that Finland is not a NATO country. 
Neither is Sweden. 
And they're very close to Russia. 
They are friends with NATO. 
They do things with NATO, you know, have picnics and things. 
I don't know. 
But they're not a NATO member. 
So it's very similar. 
It's a very similar type of a situation as, you know, what Ukraine, minus the history, has currently. 
And it's definitely a stressful time over there. 
They have shared interests. 
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 
Anyway, continuing with the letter. 
My optimism has grown with every day the war continues because Ukraine is fighting so bravely. 
And this is not the blitzkrieg that Putin hoped for. 
My God, today I just heard from NATO sources that the amount of Russian troops that have died could be 15,000. 
And when you consider that number, that horrendous number, you know, wasted lives. 
This did not have to happen. 
But what happened to our troops when we sent them to invade countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, horrible as that was, it took about 10 years, more than 10 years, I think, to get numbers like that on our side. 
Obviously, the numbers on the other side were infinitely huge. 
But in a few weeks, 15,000, if that is true, that is a staggering, staggering loss for Russia. 
And one that I assume Putin will be paying for for the rest of his life, however long that may be. 
I feel like, continuing with the letter, I feel like there is a good chance that this will become so expensive for Putin that he will need to give up or be taken out. 
And like you have said, there is no reason for animosity against the majority of Russian people. 
This is Putin's war. 
Amen on that. 
Absolutely. 
One thing I have noticed during this is that even though my brain knows that logically there is a long way from the current situation to a war against Finland, I do have a subconscious chest tightening anxiety going on. 
I think we all can share that. 
Obviously, people who are near the border more so. 
So, thank you for your shows. 
And everyone, please keep donating as much as you can to Ukraine. 
That is probably the best the average person can do right now. 
Signed, Lob. 
Lob, thank you so much for this beautiful letter. 
Made our day. 
And thanks to everybody else who has written in with similar thoughts. 
And even the people that write in with non-similar thoughts, we want to hear all different sides. 
But, you know, one thing we don't want to hear is stupidity. 
You know, and when people say things like, yeah, we work for the government now because we're saying the same thing. 
Or, you know, we're just basically following orders. 
It really, really is annoying. 
And it just it shows that you don't have much thought processing capability to think that because we say that Russia invading Ukraine is bad and the U.S. government at the moment happens to say the same thing, that somehow we're working for the U.S. government. 
That is crazy. 
That is insane. 
Or that we are ignoring other injustices perpetrated by the U.S. or by NATO. 
We don't ignore that. 
If you listen to our history, you will you will find that out pretty quickly. 
But you have to call something out when it is happening right before your eyes. 
And it's just happening before all of our eyes. 
You can go to so many different sources. 
You can watch BBC World News. 
You can watch Euronews. 
You can watch CNN International. 
You can watch Deutsche Welle. 
You can watch France 24. 
You can watch Al Jazeera English. 
You can read The New York Times and The Washington Post and The Guardian and just so many publications and outlets that are basically showing, sometimes live, what is happening right now. 
We have a camera up at this very moment and we're watching the streets of Kiev. 
And it's possible the air raid siren might go off again. 
It's possible there might be a missile strike. 
This is all unfolding in front of us. 
It's not some massive conspiracy to cover something up and attack Putin. 
There are a lot of people out there that really buy into the Russia Today propaganda, which we have called out. 
And when we call something out, it's not just because of who they are. 
It's because of what they say. 
It's because of what the facts actually are. 
And that's something that I think we all need to simply look at and measure and compare and discuss. 
But you don't just throw out accusations and say, well, because you say this, that means you're that. 
No, that's not how it works. 
If you have to adjust your argument based on who you might agree with, then you don't have an argument. 
You just have a platform. 
And you're not actually thinking through the facts. 
Look at what's happening. 
Look at what's happening right in front of you and focus on that. 
As far as the government goes, we're aware getting it right from the U.S. government and national and international diplomacy standpoint, getting it right checks a lot of boxes. 
There's a lot of aspects of this that could be very beneficial getting it right. 
So we're aware of that, that overlap, but misplaced blame, conspiracies, false equivalencies. 
I'm sorry. 
I've been inoculated to it. 
We've been trading this. 
We've been hearing this stuff for, you know, up almost half a dozen years, longer and longer if you really want to get into post-Soviet and Cold War politics. 
So these tactics and that kind of stuff just don't write us, you know, we don't need that. 
I mean, we'll look at it, but we're not going to take it to heart. 
I think it's always good to write because maybe when you write something out, you'll realize, hey, it doesn't make any sense. 
Or I don't know. 
Maybe you'll just feel better or, you know, maybe you'll make us feel better as far as, you know, doubling down on what we believe in and what we say is right and true. 
And all of that and why we think you're a dumbass for accusing us of these things. 
You know, it was the same thing with COVID when we were basically saying, yeah, get the damn vaccine. 
It's effective. 
It's science. 
And all these people were saying that, you know, we're basically working with the medical industry now or, you know, we're just being brainwashed, ignoring the facts, ignoring the science, ignoring what is right in front of them. 
You know, you can't convince people who are brainwashed and they would say the same thing of us. 
But I like to think we have science, we have facts, we have what's actually going on in front of our eyes on our side. 
Yeah, we'll ingest it. 
We probably won't air it. 
And it's, you know, if any, it's basically a window into what's out there, into the things that people are trading in. 
We'll air it, but we won't air it through your particular filters because those filters are basically turning gravity upside down and saying the earth is flat and whatever else. 
And just because someone has a different opinion does not mean that opinion gets equal airtime. 
Well, it better be especially creative. 
But, you know, basically we should be challenged. 
Why do you believe what you believe? 
And I'm all for that. 
In the hacker world, that's what we do. 
You know, we challenge each other and we consider alternatives. 
But to simply blindly buy into something based on no facts whatsoever, basically based on because you want to disagree with somebody. 
Now, that's not the kind of thing that we do. 
And sometimes it makes us shudder to realize who we happen to be agreeing with at the moment. 
Sometimes it's a lot easier than that. 
This is one of those times where it's easy. 
Yeah, Alex, you know a lot about that. 
Yeah, I always do. 
You know, about agreeing, disagreeing, being disagreeable. 
But to speak of which, I feel like, you know, we got to get the show back on the rails here. 
We went off the rails. 
You think we went off the rails? 
You know, sometimes we do. 
Somebody's got to reel us back in. 
And usually that's me, unfortunately. 
Always the fishing analogies. 
You know, when we don't have Rob here, somebody's got to do the dirty work, I guess. 
So, but a couple of things to mention, I think, over the last week, one of which being both Microsoft and Okta seem to have been compromised by a quote-unquote hacker group coming out of, I believe, Brazil. 
Yeah, I noticed that. 
That's bad, isn't it? 
Well, it's really interesting when you think about, you know, somebody who is both a lawyer and a CISO and a security practitioner, you know, the billions and billions of dollars that we spend on cybersecurity and all of these new systems and security controls. 
And then two of the world's biggest companies, one of which focuses entirely on secure authentication, Okta, get popped by a couple of teenagers out of Brazil. 
And as I understand it, I'm not sure of the accuracy of this, but it seems like one of these young persons may have actually been located in Oxford, England. 
One of the ringleaders of the Lapsis Group might have been located in Oxford, England. 
And as an Oxonian, I can take particular pride in the source of many of these hacks. 
But it's a very interesting commentary on the state of our security controls and how they can be manipulated. 
As I also understand the Okta breach, what the threat actors, I don't know if we can call them threat actors or if we can legitimately call them hackers in this situation. 
I'm not sure. 
I think we need to know a little bit more about the intentions behind the individuals who are responsible for this particular breach. 
But it does seem like they went after the credentials of a support engineer over at Okta. 
And I think it's come out today that that support engineer could have altered or modified in some way or reset, let's say, the multi-factor authentication mechanisms for over 360 organizations. 
So that's that's that's fairly that's significant. 
That's a that's a massive breach. 
And there are a lot of very large organizations that rely on Okta and Okta has become has come to be known as, I think, one of the best in the business when it comes to secure authentication. 
And, you know, I leave it to you guys to to talk about, you know, what what does this mean for the state of those companies in the state of our in the state of their cybersecurity posture? 
Well, I think this makes it rather foolish. 
You know, it's it's it's we see the same thing virtually week after week. 
And this is, you know, it's not really that surprising. 
Well, I see I disagree. 
Not surprisingly. 
And, you know, I think that this is a commentary on the fact that it is such a hard job. 
There's such a wide latitude of things that we need to secure, of controls that need to be to be implemented. 
And it's such a complicated conjury of systems right now that there's going to be a vulnerability somewhere. 
And I think this underscores the need for organizations to not be, you know, not have the finger pointed at them and not not be blamed for a lot of these breaches unless they are unless there's gross negligence or or even, you know, actual negligence. 
I think gross negligence certainly. 
But, you know, if there was some kind of duty and they failed to to to shoulder that particular duty with respect to an ordinary security control, I think that that, you know, we can lay some blame there. 
But that these things are going to happen and that organizations need to assume that breaches have happened and will happen and and fighting within the network, taking the fight from trying to just be reactive at the firewall level to what's happening within the network. 
You know, this, you know, this quote unquote zero trust idea that we hear about constantly, mostly in, you know, FUD type information security marketing actually really means something here. 
That segmentations of your networks and using VLANs to logically segment different portions of what is and what is not meaningful within your network, you know, so that if there is a threat actor or there is a breach, it is lateral movement is prohibited to a certain extent. 
You know, these are all things that I think, you know, we have to really start to think about much more seriously given, you know, the Okta and the Microsoft breach. 
If it can happen to them, it can happen to anybody. 
What do you think about this concept of them using their own platform? 
I guess Azure is the cloud based product that Microsoft develops. 
And this development system that was breached had resided on one of Microsoft's products. 
Do you think that's smart? 
I don't think it is. 
I think maybe if you're running a product for sale that people are, you know, going to abuse, they're going to have access to various levels of programmatic stuff. 
I don't know. 
I don't know how it works. 
I've never bought a cloud system somewhere. 
But whatever it is, I think that, like, there's something to that, that, like, it being a widely used product, that it could be evaluated. 
And if you're using it for internal development, using the very system that you sell, it seems like you're opening up a way for people to exploit something. 
You'd maybe want to use something a little bit different or, like, kind of exotic or just weird internally to make it less obvious and less laterally available. 
Does that make sense? 
Yeah, I see your point. 
I think it's a fair point, Kyle. 
On the other hand, too, if you're not using your own systems, you know, that may say something about the company and the state of the system itself. 
But I think there's been an overemphasis on that. 
Like, Google kind of runs their own OS and then develops everything on it. 
And there's been maybe, it's maybe gone too far one way or something. 
Well, yeah, I think we can agree that this underscores the need for there to be some kind of independent third-party assessment of the source code, of the vulnerabilities. 
You know, there's got to be some kind of mannerism or mechanism by which these companies that create this software are not essentially grading their own homework when it comes to assessing the security posture of these products. 
So, yeah, I completely agree. 
But even that's, you know, arguably not enough, right? 
You know, something is going to shake out in one way or another. 
Now, we saw this with the Log4j vulnerability in that very well-known and well-used Java library that was really ubiquitous throughout the Internet. 
That, you know, eventually something will shake out. 
It's a matter of how you detect it, when you detect it, and the process by which you remediated, I think, that makes all the difference here. 
Interesting. 
I don't know if you've caught this story over the past couple of days, but there's a new public database that is being worked upon, and that involves an organization known as the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. 
They've collaborated with 27 media outlets to launch this tracker, the most comprehensive public database of oligarch assets to date. 
It's interactive. 
It displays the vast wealth held outside Russia by oligarchs and key figures close to Putin. 
It's uncovered more than 150 assets worth about $17 billion combined, including property, private planes, company stock, yachts, mansions, and more. 
And journalists are basically discovering these assets by combing through land records, corporate registries, and offshore leaks. 
It's the OCCRP, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. 
Their publisher, Drew Sullivan, said in a press release that Russia under Vladimir Putin has been controlled by a very small group of people, enablers who keep him in power while benefiting from his patronage system at the expense of the Russian people. 
That system has been under fresh scrutiny since Putin's invasion of Ukraine, as Western governments have sought to freeze Putin and the oligarchs' overseas assets and prevent them from traveling. 
Sanctions act as both a punishment for Russia's ruling class and a way to force Putin to back down. 
The idea was first conceived of back in February, before Russia's invasion of Ukraine actually happened. 
That's according to The Guardian, which is part of the project. 
It launched with a list of 35 individuals named last year by the jailed opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, as key enablers and beneficiaries of the Kremlin's kleptocracy. 
Just three weeks after the invasion, 27 of those individuals are subject to sanctions in the U.S. and Europe. 
A further seven have been blacklisted in Canada. 
One of the people on that list of 35 is Roman Abranovich, a 55-year-old worth an estimated $13.5 billion. 
And although he has not been sanctioned by the U.K. and has denied ties to Putin, he recently announced he's selling his Chelsea football club, which he acquired in 2003. 
I believe that sale, though, has been put on hold. 
OCCRP's database shows he has at least $7 billion worth of assets. 
And that includes a seaside estate in the posh French Riviera, a bombardier private jet, and several properties scattered throughout London. 
Others included in the database are businessmen Alisher Uzmanov, Igor Session, the CEO of Russian oil giant Rosneft, and Oleg Deripaska, a billionaire who made his fortune in the aluminum business. 
The OCCRP has released other revealing exposés in the past, including a damning report about Credit Suisse that detailed clients that included criminals, alleged human rights abusers, and parties facing sanctions. 
And the Swiss bank pushed back on that report. 
Joining us tonight is the head of research at the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, Karina Shedrovsky. 
She leads a team of researchers in eight countries who man OCCRP-ID, which helps journalists in the network track down people, companies, and assets across the globe. 
Karina, welcome to Off the Hook. 
Hi, thanks for having me. 
Can you tell us how this project got started? 
Was it something that was completely inspired by Russia's actions, or has this been going on for some time? 
Yeah, I mean, you know, we've kind of always been in the business of untangling these complicated structures of assets all over the world. 
And, you know, as Russia was readying to invade Ukraine, and then obviously after it happened, we saw a lot of news stories coming out about, you know, the oligarchs' assets all over the world, but in bits and pieces. 
And because this is kind of something we've always been doing, we thought it would be really good to kind of have all of this collected in one place where we can kind of put a number to it and show just how vast their wealth actually is. 
And so we worked super, super hard to kind of, you know, pull this together. 
And, you know, what we kind of decided to do to make it, you know, to show that it's a little bit different for everyone else's is that these are all assets that we, you know, have confirmed, like, through public, through records, essentially. 
So a lot of the times you'll see articles about different planes and companies and such that were owned by these oligarchs. 
But, you know, a lot of it is kind of word of mouth and rumor, et cetera. 
So everything, you know, we decided to make this a database that's kind of the place to go for assets that are 100% confirmed by us and, you know, keep it living. 
Is there an address that you can give out that people can look at this? 
Well, so if you go to OCCRP.org, it's, you know, right at the top of our website. 
And you'll be able to see the interactive that, you know, where it is now. 
Like I said, we're going to continue adding to it, as well as some of the stories that we have published so far and that we'll continue to publish that go along with this specific interactive. 
One of the things that I've heard consistently is that these oligarchs love to hide behind LLCs and that they're almost impossible to track down through that. 
Is that something that you folks have figured out a way to defeat? 
I wish I could say yes, completely. 
That's, you know, always part of the problem. 
And I think that that's kind of why this project was so important and so challenging was because even if we do get the records, right? 
Like someone says that Abramovich owns a property somewhere and then you go to the property registry that may be open and you can see that the property is owned by a company, whether it's an LLC in the U.S. or another company somewhere else. 
And his name isn't anywhere. 
So that's kind of been the challenge. 
And there are a few ways that, you know, we've been able to kind of pierce through that a bit. 
And I think the biggest way has been through major leaks. 
So the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers organized by ICIJ, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, has been super helpful for us as we are kind of, you know, embarking on this big project. 
That's so great to hear. 
Their work is benefiting in this investigation. 
And I just in my mind was thinking of the tactics of, like, patent trolls because the same idea, basically, companies that are layers and layers of LLCs that all link back. 
And I think a lot of how that is coordinated or correlated is with addresses and lawyers and, you know, multiple companies being at the same lawyer's address. 
And I think of those kinds of things when I've been reading about some of this stuff. 
And I realized, oh, is it the trolls, the patent trolls that are borrowing these tactics from, like, organized crime or oligarchs and these strategies or vice versa? 
And I think it's that the patent, the IP community borrowed these tactics. 
Because it seems like it's been ongoing and just worked so well that other areas of interest have adopted those techniques. 
Yeah, absolutely. 
I mean, I think that, you know, that's kind of what we focus on a lot is who's actually enabling this and allowing this to happen. 
And it's really the legal systems that are in place that are, you know, helping people basically move their money out of the country or hide their wealth, avoid taxes, launder, you know, ill-gotten gains, whatever it may be. 
And they're using legitimate lawyers, registration agents, trusts, et cetera, that, you know, exist completely legally and are knowingly and willingly helping oftentimes bad actors hide. 
Now, this has not been lost on the Russian government. 
I'm reading here a story from a few weeks ago saying that the Ministry of Justice has declared that your organization, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, has been designated an undesirable organization and you must close up operations in their country. 
That must have really hurt your feelings to find out about that. 
Yeah, some people like to think of it as a badge of honor. 
But, you know, I mean, if you can't have journalists on the ground in certain places, it obviously makes it a lot more difficult to do work. 
So it's, you know, and it even makes it illegal to reshare our stories in the country. 
So, you know, we're trying to reach as many people as possible. 
And, you know, for this specific story, I think audience in Russia is a major audience that, you know, should hear about this. 
So, you know, they're obviously making that a lot more difficult. 
Not only an audience, but sources in Russia. 
There must be so many people there that can help with information. 
Yeah. 
You know, I'm like, but with this, that is true in general. 
And with this project, I think what's really interesting is that, and as you can see, if you actually look at the database, is that it just touches the entire globe. 
So there's actually, you know, sources and such all over the place that, you know, have helped us in the past. 
And we're hoping continue to help us as we continue to build this database. 
Go ahead, Alex. 
Karina, we're so excited to have you on tonight. 
Thank you for joining us. 
Yeah, I'm sure our listeners are really enjoying this as well. 
What are some of the patterns that you've seen here in terms of geographies or items? 
You know, it's such a fascinating and bizarre world these Russian oligarchs have, you know, where they are essentially siphoning money from the government, somehow funneling it over into these foreign jurisdictions, and then leading these absolutely luxurious lives. 
That have no relation whatsoever and no bearing whatsoever to ordinary Russians on the ground, you know, that are eking out a living. 
So, you know, where do you see these assets clustered? 
You know, are they in France? 
Are they in Italy? 
Is there any pattern? 
Yeah. 
I think there's a pattern in terms of, you know, the luxurious places. 
We found a lot of, you know, really nice villas in Italy. 
There's, you know, villas and such in Croatia. 
And it's kind of just, you know, where can you get the biggest mansion? 
That's, you know, where we've been seeing most of the properties. 
And, you know, as we're starting to uncover these assets, you know, a lot of these assets that we included in the database are things that have already been known around the world. 
Other journalists have uncovered and such. 
But there's also a lot of new assets that we uncovered as well. 
And, you know, the world is huge. 
We decided to focus on these 35 people to start. 
And the idea is, you know, where do we look and where do we try to uncover these assets? 
And there are a few countries, jurisdictions that we decided to focus on that we thought would be, you know, they were more likely to own property or, you know, companies. 
But in addition to that, the companies and properties are airplanes, private jets, and mega yachts. 
And those, you know, there's only a handful of jurisdictions that they actually register those. 
The Isle of Man was huge. 
Luxembourg, Cayman Islands, et cetera. 
So those were kind of places that we decided to start focusing on. 
And then you can see patterns in terms of where people are starting to actually move their money after the sanctions started. 
So you actually can watch the yachts and airplanes start flying to Dubai or back to Russia and, you know, starting to move out of Europe in places where they've been sanctioned to try to hang on to their assets or as many of them as they can. 
I'm going to monopolize you here for a minute. 
You know, we're live on the air in New York City. 
And so what about New York? 
Can you recall any assets in New York? 
Yeah. 
I mean, there are tons. 
There are - so we actually decided to - we had three weeks to put this out. 
We had to limit ourselves a lot, which is why this is kind of a project that we've decided is going to, you know, just live on and we're going to keep adding to it. 
So we decided to, you know, not focus on the U.S. in our first round, but there are tons of assets in New York specifically. 
And like you had mentioned before, they are owned by LLCs that are registered in Delaware, for example. 
So I, you know, I can't think of addresses off the top of my head, but the answer is yes. 
And, you know, we basically - a lot of them still we don't really know about, right, because we just can't absolutely prove it with 100% certainty that the true owner is, you know, the specific oligarch that we're looking into. 
But, you know, based on past reporting and such and some of our current reporting that has not been released yet, there are other assets in New York and the rest of the U.S. that we are definitely going to include, you know, going forward. 
Yeah, and with that in mind, you know, if you think about what sanctions are, in essence, all it is is a list. 
It's just a list. 
Your name is on a list somewhere. 
If you're a sanctions, you're a sanctioned organization, you're a sanctioned individual, your name is put on a list, and it's the naughty list. 
It's kind of like, you know, Santa's don't, you know, coal list at Christmas, right? 
But so if your name is on this list, in reality, all you have to do to get around sanctions is to form some kind of LLC, maybe with some kind of BVI overlay that's then owned by a trust. 
And, you know, the people that are examining these lists, you know, whether they're yacht dealers or luxury jewelers, whatever it is, seem to have an incentive not to really dig too far. 
So to your mind and, you know, based on what you've seen with respect to these Russian oligarchs and others, I know you've been involved in so many interesting journalistic projects that involve asset tracking. 
Do you think that sanctions are effective because this is something that we keep banging on about from, you know, from the pedestals of the White House about, you know, we're doing this in lieu of military force and lieu of sending people over in Ukraine to put boots on the ground. 
We have sanctions. 
Do you think they're effective? 
I think they're effective as long as you can identify all of those assets. 
And I think that that's kind of what we're attempting to do, right? 
We're trying to say, OK, we actually know that this LLC that owns this property in New York belongs to this guy. 
So hello, government. 
You know, this is something that should also be seized or, you know, sanctioned or taken away from him. 
So I think that they, in theory, will work. 
But as long as people are, you know, hiding their wealth, it becomes a lot more difficult. 
And I know that the authorities are having just as much trouble as we are actually confirming the ownership of a lot of these assets. 
So, you know, there's yachts that are rumored to be owned by Usmanov. 
And I know that was seized. 
And it took a really long time to actually follow the ownership chain up and say, OK, this is 100 percent his yacht. 
So, you know, it's only as effective as long as you know their assets. 
And also, I think that it's, you know, it goes to the last country that's willing to take their money. 
So if the UAE is willing to take all of their money and doesn't really care and they can just move all of their money into the UAE, fly all of their jets there and sell all of their yachts there, then it doesn't really matter that they're sanctioned elsewhere if they can kind of, you know, keep doing business just somewhere else. 
Yeah, I'm really hopeful that the overall climate, specifically here in the U.S., as far as attitudes around this, given the circumstance, given the severity and the nature of these particular sanctions and why they're being imposed, I hope that there is a little bit more help and willingness, I think, to get some of the answers that are needed to trace some of that stuff. 
And in response to the just general idea of sanctions and their effectiveness, I think I'm very much I hear where Alex has gone with that. 
I'm just hopeful and I think a lot of people are that this is this is a lag period between when sanctions are imposed and they've been successively increased and broadened in breadth, but their impact and actual effects are sort of a rolling thing in my mind that that will just be ongoing and continue. 
And the benefit of this tactic is that it is all entirely reversible in many ways, reputations aside. 
But that this is something that really hasn't fully reached a crescendo of impact. 
Is that the way anyone else has thought of this? 
Yeah, I think so, for sure. 
And, you know, and I think that leads into another question here, too, for Carino that I had in particular, which was that, you know, you mentioned this, the seizure component of this. 
And I think, you know, in the United States and elsewhere, it might be difficult or the authorities may be reluctant to seize certain property unless it's used in the commission of a crime or is is derived from the proceeds of a crime. 
And, you know, we've got that pesky Fifth Amendment that says, you know, nobody can be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. 
So that that can be a little tricky. 
So we have this concept of due process. 
You know, before we take something, we have to provide the owner of that property some form of process. 
And that and due process generally means an opportunity to be heard by an impartial tribunal most of the time. 
So, you know, are you seeing it difficult or getting pushback from governments once you identify these assets? 
And is it frustrating to see that they're not being seized? 
But then on the other hand, too, I've noted that, you know, over the last few days, at least, governments like Switzerland have been actually seizing assets. 
So there may be this opportunity for your organization to work with with governments and facilitate the seizure of these these Russian assets. 
Yeah, I think that, you know, that's a big part of why we're doing this, you know, not to help government specifically, but to kind of just expose these things in general. 
And, you know, we some of the assets that we have been exposing are new that, you know, haven't been seized yet, haven't been reported on. 
And the idea is, like I said earlier, to say, hey, look, you know, this property still exists. 
And we have been seeing governments, you know, seizing assets as well as deregistering planes. 
So the Isle of Man last week deregistered, I think it was 18 planes that were linked to that were Russian owned that, you know, for the longest time we had been tracking these planes because we thought they were connected to certain individuals. 
And then, you know, it kind of was confirmed to us when the Isle of Man actually just deregistered them, meaning that, you know, they're currently not registered anywhere and therefore can't fly, et cetera. 
So I actually do see, you know, a lot of governments actually acting. 
And I think that that's something, you know, Kyle mentioned about awareness now increasing. 
And I think that, you know, I don't want to say silver lining because there's no silver lining to what's happening in Ukraine right now. 
But, you know, we have been in the business of exposing this stuff for years and saying that, you know, the fact that these murky institutions exist and the fact that you can hide money abroad is bad. 
Right. 
And should change. 
And, you know, we've had a kind of niche audience and people, you know, and now all of a sudden I think people are starting to realize, wow, these systems actually are really bad. 
And hopefully this is the opportunity to actually do something about it, because, you know, none of this is new. 
People are just starting to pay attention to it. 
And, you know, it's not something like they didn't just buy the houses yesterday. 
They've been hiding these assets deeper and deeper for years. 
And it's the systems and the laws that are in place in these countries that have been allowing it. 
And, you know, making their jobs more difficult now that they're trying to actually do something and seize the assets. 
And I'm sure they're thinking to themselves, like, wow, I wish I didn't make it so easy for them to, you know, buy this property without me knowing who they are. 
So hopefully, you know, as this awareness, you know, continues to spread and increase, governments, you know, kind of continue on with this momentum and start, you know, changing the actual systems in place that have been allowing them to do this for as long as they have. 
It must be not so much of a challenge to find a super yacht in the area, because super yachts seem to be the thing that all these oligarchs have, in addition to private planes and mansions. 
Is there a database of super yachts? 
I mean, I don't know anybody, the super yacht, but if I saw one nearby, I'd want to know who owns that. 
And I figure word must go out saying there's a super yacht in the area, it belongs to this particular person, or we don't know who it belongs to. 
Is it possible that through crowdsourcing, we could just sort of keep track of all these things that are just floating around? 
Absolutely. 
And, you know, that's something that we've actually been doing for ages was we have, you know, we've been tracking planes and yachts. 
And this is based off of crowdsourcing, right? 
Like, my number one source has been Twitter. 
There's tons of hobbyists who basically look at airplanes and take pictures of them. 
And same thing with yachts. 
And then sometimes someone actually spotted someone on that yacht. 
And now kind of the public has and, you know, knows that some or has an idea that this yacht or plane belongs to this person. 
But, you know, and this is something that we've always been tracking and keeping track of. 
But the problem is, is that we couldn't actually include all of them on our actual database because we still couldn't actually confirm the ownership 100%. 
So we actually had put out a call for help. 
You know, we had kind of our top 10 most wanted assets where they were assets that we just know and so many people know or think we know belong to certain individuals. 
But we just like did not have the evidence to absolutely 100% prove it. 
So we actually, you know, part of this project was a call to the public to basically help us crowdsource this project. 
And, you know, we'll then be able to follow those leads and hopefully confirm a lot of them. 
But, you know, it's kind of just that's exactly it, just crowdsource information. 
And the official registries where people actually register their boats and planes are not very helpful at all. 
For people tuning in, we're talking with Karina Shedrovsky, head of research at the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and specifically talking about tracking Russian assets. 
And, Karina, as I understand it, you have some particular expertise in plane tracking. 
We'd love to hear more about that and how you got into it and how you do it. 
Yeah, it kind of just happened upon me. 
But, you know, the plane tracking is twofold. 
One is to obviously connect it to certain individuals that we're interested in. 
And then the second is actually tracking their locations, right, and where they actually are. 
And like I said, most of the planes that we had kind of been tracking in the past were based on crowdsourcing, based on Twitter, based on blogs. 
And very few we were able to absolutely, with 100% certainty, connect to the people that we thought they were connected to. 
But we were still tracking them anyway. 
And what we actually found was that, you know, tracking their actual location helped us in connecting them to the specific people that we thought were on them. 
So if we know that somebody has been, you know, around in 12 different locations and we could see that their plane was in those exact same 12 locations, we are pretty certain that that's a plane that they at least, that they either own or they at least use. 
So there's a number of tools that we actually use to track the planes. 
One thing I want to mention is that, you know, anyone could do this. 
There's websites online that if you know some identifying information about the plane, you can actually, you know, go to something called Flight Radar and track where it is. 
If you don't pay for it, you can just see, you know, live tracking. 
But these websites, actually, you can request to have your plane's data redacted. 
So we're now relying on a lot of kind of, again, open source, uncensored ADS-B, it's called data, where we can actually track the planes that are trying to remain hidden, but we can actually still see where they're going. 
So that's been helpful in, one, identifying their assets as, you know, the jets themselves, but also in kind of confirming whether or not they're still using the villas that we, you know, we're pretty sure that they owned as well. 
For example, we are looking at Igor Shuvlov, one of the oligarchs that we covered in this database, and we had evidence that he owned a villa in Tuscany. 
And we kind of, this was in one of the new assets that we had uncovered, and we basically were able to use company records and the land registry to actually find this villa. 
But the problem was, is that it was ultimately owned by a BVI company, or until 2017. 
And we knew that that BVI company was connected to him, but, and we knew he owned it, because, thanks to the Panama or Paradise Papers, but then it stopped owning that, you know, the property. 
The BVI company kind of went away. 
But what we saw when we actually tracked his jet was that it was still landing right by that villa. 
So we're kind of able to track the movements and confirm our suspicions or, you know, basically help our reporting to add like another level of confirmation that, you know, whether it's the asset itself as the jet or other assets that they're actually flying their planes or helicopters to. 
And do you have any sense of what influenced family members, like transference of some of this stuff to people related to someone on a sanctioned individual's list? 
What does that look like? 
Or how have you navigated some of those sort of layers or removed individuals? 
Yeah, really good question. 
I mean, you know, even that example that I just gave you with Shuvlov and the villa, that BVI company was actually owned by his son, who was 24 at the time, I think, when we kind of discovered the ownership. 
So, you know, we are actually looking into the close family members and the known, you know, proxies while we're trying to track the assets of, you know, the people of interest. 
Because, yes, we've seen a lot that they're, you know, just transferring the assets to people very close to them. 
Well, I'm just so impressed with how you're activated in this moment. 
And your work is so, so, so needed and welcome. 
And people love a puzzle. 
And like doing a top 10 that you want help with, that is so great, because it really gets people excited about figuring out, trying to solve a problem and bringing everything they can think of to it. 
Karina Shevdrovsky is the head of research at Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. 
And you can go to their website, OCCRP.org. 
Karina, if people want to help, what can they do? 
Yeah, well, two things, I guess. 
So one, we are, like I said, we are crowdsourcing this. 
So if you go to the project page, we have, it's literally a Google form. 
So if you have a lead and you think that you might, you know that someone might, you know, own an asset that we don't know about yet, please submit it. 
We're going through all of them. 
We've already had some really helpful tips, which is actually really exciting. 
So, you know, just for this specific project, that would be a huge help. 
And we're looking for, you know, all of that information. 
And, you know, another thing I guess I want to mention is we have a webinar coming up on April 1st where journalists that were working on this project are, you know, journalists from The Guardian and OCCRP are talking about, you know, how we did it and what we did. 
And the way that you can attend is if you become what we call an OCCRP accomplice. 
So if you donate however much money you want, you can then become an OCCRP accomplice and come to this webinar and future webinars that we do on big projects that we release. 
Awesome. 
Karina, your work is amazing and your organization is amazing and it's really making a difference. 
I'm not sure what kind of feedback you've gotten from people in Ukraine, but I'm sure everyone there would be most appreciative of these efforts. 
And maybe people all around the world will see the value of this. 
Appreciate it. 
Thanks so much. 
All right. 
That's going to do it for the show tonight. 
We will be back in two weeks with another edition of Off the Hook and we're coming on overtime on YouTube on Channel 2600 in just about nine minutes at eight o'clock. 
Alex, I know you have something to say. 
Yeah, I learned last night that we have an interesting contingent of listeners that are wandering around Dead Horse Bay in Brooklyn. 
Just want to give them a quick shout out. 
What is Dead Horse Bay? 
Well, that's something that you'll have to look up. 
We can talk about that on Overtime. 
It's a very unique place in Brooklyn where much like what Karina does, there is treasure to be hunted. 
Well, there always is. 
That's something in the hacker world that we know a bit about. 
Hey, more stuff is happening with Hope coming up July 22nd through 24th in New York City at St. 
John's University in Queens. 
Go to hope.net for more details. 
We're looking for more speaker submissions, volunteers, you name it. 
It's going to be an amazing conference. 
2600 meetings coming up the first Friday of the month in cities throughout the world. 
Go to 2600.com slash meetings for more information on that. 
We're going to go out with a classic tune with some new lyrics that might pertain to what's going on in the world. 
See you at Overtime at 8 o'clock and on the air in two weeks. 
Good night. 


And welcome everybody to YouTube, Off the Hook Overtime, as the three of us, me, Kyle, and Alex, join you on YouTube. 
And Alex, are you there in Skype land? 
I am indeed. 
I'm here. 
And you're monitoring to make sure we actually make it onto YouTube, right? 
It's not just YouTube, it's channel 2600. 
Channel 2600 on YouTube. 
That's the elite portion of YouTube. 
You're the best channel. 
It doesn't suck. 
I can confirm that we're on. 
I was hearing myself. 
Why am I hearing myself? 
Do you hear that? 
Yeah, it's pretty loud. 
Okay, that must be you, Alex. 
That must be you. 
You asked him to test it. 
Yeah, but I didn't ask him to keep reverbing, did I? 
That was us reverbing. 
I didn't hear anything. 
I don't know. 
You guys might be hearing things. 
Yeah, we might be hearing things. 
This is what makes us think we're crazy. 
Yeah. 
Wow. 
You know, Karina was really interesting. 
That was one of the best conversations I think we've had in a long time. 
And, you know, you never realize there are these people out there that are just doing amazing work. 
And this, tracking down oligarchs. 
I can't think of anything more important right now. 
I got to say, the last two weeks of our shows, you know, last week we had Emma Best on from Distributed Denial of Secrets. 
This week we had Karina Shadrofsky from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project tracking Russian assets around the world for years doing this. 
I mean, these are some seriously badass women that we've had on the show over the last two weeks. 
And I am just so chuffed to see the role that women are playing in information security and cybersecurity and whistleblowing and actively, affirmatively tracking Russian assets like this. 
I mean, it's really absolutely incredible. 
And I think these I think we're in Women's History Month right now, too. 
Right. 
So I feel like these are two women on these last two weeks that really embody that they are the personification of it because they are making history. 
And I'm proud that we were able to document that in some small measure of the last two weeks. 
Yeah, it's it's incredible. 
The things that are being accomplished. 
And it's just it goes to show the power of the individual and just everybody pulling together. 
Especially in a moment where there's just this confluence of so much stuff going on and making sense of it, figuring out how to respond in a crisis, a real crisis around the world. 
But with with the skill and an acumen, just real talent here. 
So it's it was just incredible conversations we've been having amidst all of this incredible, crazy, wild news. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
So if there's an oligarch in your neighborhood, tell tell people about it. 
You know, you can you can help. 
You can you can be a part of of this whole justice justice league, I guess, is what we we are forming here. 
Oh, C.C.R.P. 
dot O.R.G. 
Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. 
And yeah, all the information being being pulled together is having an effect, a huge effect, just like everybody fighting against an invasion is having a huge effect. 
It's it's unbelievable. 
I really didn't expect things to be going well. 
It's horrible to say this well for the Ukrainians because it's a horrible situation that they're in there. 
Their cities are being destroyed. 
So many people having their their lives lost or destroyed in one way or another. 
But they still have their country and they are actually winning the battle at the moment. 
Anyway, question is, what is Russia do next? 
I guess we'll we'll have to keep paying attention. 
And we're doing that. 
We're we're watching all different sources of media, reading all kinds of reports, seeing how certain people react. 
And the whole thing is it's fascinating and horrible at the same time and having these discussions. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
With listeners out there reading your letters at O.T.H. 
at twenty six hundred dot com. 
It's all part of it because we're building consensus and elevating consciousness one one step at a time with with this kind of back and forth. 
And it's it's how we like kind of hash out and process what we've witnessed collectively and what kinds of ideas we have for it going forward. 
It helps. 
It does help to have these these conversations. 
Alex, did you have something to say? 
No, but I just I just got feedback from a colleague and good friend of mine who's listening to the show. 
And he said that for him, that was the best off the hook ever. 
I, you know, I would not dispute that. 
I would say that's that's quite possible because it was a really interesting discussion and very enlightening. 
And it's something that I think people want to know more about. 
And dare I say it might inspire people to do more on their own as well. 
That's that's what we're all about at BAI, in the hacker world, as individuals. 
And that's what our listeners gravitate towards. 
Yes, Alex. 
One thing, you know, we didn't touch on during Off the Hook, and I think we should touch on it now, is that when you're dealing with Russians, you're dealing with people who have been known to to take out their adversaries in particularly horrific ways and public ways. 
You look at what happened to Litvinenko in central London and the Millennium Hotel, you know, a place where I've stayed myself in London. 
You look at what happens is happening to Navalny. 
You look at what's happened to many of Putin's opponents. 
And I think we really have to acknowledge, too, that for Karina and all of her colleagues over, you know, with the Organized Crime Reporting Project, there's a great deal of bravery that goes into putting your name associated with a project like that and just being out in the public saying, this is what we're doing. 
We're tracking you. 
We're watching you. 
We're watching your planes. 
We're watching your yachts. 
And we're going to take affirmative steps to make sure that everybody knows where they are and that they get seized, that you no longer can play with your luxurious toys. 
I mean, that takes some serious chutzpah. 
And it's also interesting that not being able to play with your toys is the strategy of fighting back in this particular case. 
I think it's ingenious because that speaks to all of it because when rich people can't play with their toys, that's when they get really upset and that's when they want to change whoever it is that pulls their strings. 
So I think, you know, it might seem like a real long game at the moment, but I think it will be an effective one. 
I find that it is a strategy that is jarring to those individuals because they've become sort of conditioned to this lifestyle and maintenance, the cost of maintaining that. 
And it's, you know, whatever it takes to maintain it and have that associated prestige. 
But I will say there's nothing that billionaires hate more than fake billionaires. 
Oh, yeah. 
So, you know, it's not just the regular people that have been angered. 
It's the other people who feel their ill-got gains are valid or more valid. 
They don't like people faking it, making them look bad with their bigger yachts when they didn't legitimately have ill-got gains. 
And anyway, I'm just pointing out that in many ways, these individuals don't really have a right to that wealth or that lifestyle. 
And that has anchored - it just broadens and deepens that, and especially at the governmental levels because they see their systems. 
And it's all just laughed at as like paperwork and made a mockery and it's not going to stand any longer. 
And these are, you know, institutions from the very top to the bottom that are coordinating and having an impact. 
Where I really hope the reaction comes from, a strong reaction, is the people of Russia because they are the ones that can really affect change. 
It's not going to be easy. 
It's not going to be quick. 
But they have so much. 
They have so much and such history. 
And getting rid of a jerk like Putin once and for all would be an incredible accomplishment. 
And, of course, only the first step because there is so much that needs to be done after that. 
But they don't deserve to be going through this. 
Imagine 15,000 of your brothers and sisters dying for nothing, for stupidity, for bravado. 
That's what we're looking at right now. 
And it's, you know, for a country that did nothing to you, except maybe insult the leader's pride a little bit. 
It's disgusting. 
It's so horrible. 
To say nothing of brainwashing your own people into fighting for your unjust cause. 
That brainwashing continues. 
I mean, you know, people still are quoting Russia Today talking points. 
We see it ourselves. 
Both on the right and the left, you see people, you know, accusing you. 
Of siding with, I don't know what they accuse us of siding with. 
But basically, not siding with Putin. 
They don't say that. 
They know that's not really a good selling point. 
But it's, you know, yeah, we happen to be saying similar things as far as pursuing justice and getting rid of an invader. 
And I think most people with a conscience would say something like that in that particular case. 
I'm not for war. 
You know, never am. 
But there are times when you have to fight back. 
This is one of those times. 
You know, what happened in former Yugoslavia. 
That was another one of those times. 
World War II? 
Yeah. 
But, you know, all of it can be avoided. 
It's always a sign of failure when you're in that position in the first place. 
And we certainly have failed on many fronts. 
And this didn't have to happen. 
And, you know, we can go back decades to point to why it developed the way it did. 
But right now, you got to deal with what's in front of you. 
And what's in front of you is horror. 
And that has to stop. 
And what we talked about tonight, it's a great way to get that process going. 
Yeah. 
It's, like, been years and years of nuance. 
And, you know, playing games over, you know, these little issues, these little sort of feuds and sociocultural things and misinformation here. 
And these little fits and spurts, of course, having fake billionaires elected as our president. 
That kind of stuff has been a real thrill. 
But we know what it's really about now. 
And nobody's confused. 
I'm not. 
And, yeah, criticize. 
I was just as anti-war when it was invading Iraq and Afghanistan. 
I didn't want that. 
It wasn't something I had control over. 
And I was resistant to it. 
I didn't want this war. 
I wouldn't. 
I would prefer we weren't in other places fighting and not using the diplomatic systems. 
All that stuff I said is a mockery to the Russians or to autocrats around the world. 
Just a bunch of paperwork and appearances, you know, keeping up the facade of obeying the rules-based society we live in and doing whatever the hell you want elsewhere in reality. 
So, yeah, we get it. 
We know what it's about. 
And it's unfortunate to, you know, have to agree with your own government. 
I know that's terrible for left-leaning politics. 
Kyle, they happen to agree with us. 
I think that's what it is. 
We would have reached this position no matter what they said. 
They happen to agree with us. 
And it happens, you know, a broken clock's right twice a day. 
So occasionally that's going to happen. 
And that should not be what decides how you land on the issue, what the government is saying. 
Like I said, this ticks a lot of boxes for the government, but that's not where the people are coming from. 
They know they've seen what this is, what has transpired. 
And the aims and ideological ends behind it, and it's not something people are going to put up with. 
And it is something that many nations are aligned very strongly right now in terms that would make your eyes water. 
Like this is a critical moment for unity around the world. 
Brian is one of our listeners. 
He's a software developer out in Portland, Oregon. 
And he wrote in with an interesting story. 
First of all, he said, I love all y'all. 
I've been listening for decades. 
Hope to be listening for a few more. 
Well, we hope to be doing it for a few more. 
But the story he sent in is fascinating. 
I don't know if you guys heard about this. 
But the developer of JavaScript library Node-IPC, it's used by the popular VUE.js framework, deliberately, the developer deliberately introduced a critical security vulnerability that for some people on the net would destroy their computer's files. 
Yeah. 
Brandon Miller, who goes by the handle RIAevangelist on GitHub, created Node-IPC, which is fetched about a million times a week from the NPM registry. 
And I don't understand half of what I'm saying right now, but I know a lot of people do. 
It's described as an inter-processed communication module for Node supporting Unix sockets, TCP, TLS, and UDP. 
FYI. 
It appears Miller intentionally changed his code to overwrite the host system's data, then changed the code to display a message calling for world peace as a protest against Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 
GitHub on Wednesday declared this a critical vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2022-23812. 
The malicious code was intended to overwrite arbitrary files dependent upon the geolocation of the user IP address, according to GitHub. 
Between March 7th and March 8th, versions 10.1.1 and 10.1.2 of the library were released. 
When imported as a dependency and run by a project, these checked if the host machine had an IP address in Russia or Belarus. 
And if so, overwrote every file it could with a heart symbol. 
Version 10.1.3 was released soon after without this destructive functionality. 
10.1.1 and 10.1.2 were removed from the NPN registry. 
Version 11 was then published, and the following week, version 9.2.2. 
Both brought in a new package by Miller called Peace Not War, which creates files with love from America.txt in users' desktop and OneDrive folders. 
This text file is supposed to contain a message from the developer stating, among other things, it supposedly contains this, war is not the answer no matter how bad it is. 
Though some folks reported the file was empty. 
And that's because they had no soul. 
But regardless, whenever Node-IPC versions 11 or 9.2.2 are used as a dependency by another project, they bring in Peace Not War and run it, leaving files on people's computers. 
Version 9.2.2 has disappeared from the NPN registry along with the destructive 10.1.x versions. 
Vue.js, for one, brought in Node-IPC 9.2.2 while it was available as 9.x is considered a stable branch, meaning there was a period in which some Vue developers may have had .txt files show up unexpectedly. 
In other words, I welcome other words. 
Not too many people fetched the destructive version as big apps and frameworks will have used the stable branch, which, for a short period, dropped text files. 
Anyone using bleeding-edge versions may have had their files vanished or found manifestos saved to their computers, which is exactly what will happen to you in Russia. 
You'll vanish or you'll have manifestos thrown in your face. 
So consider it just a little, you know, warning there. 
Miller has defended his Peace Not War module on GitHub saying, this is all public, documented, licensed, and open source. 
I'm not sure if that's the right defense for this. 
But, you know, I admire the sentiment and the passion. 
Glad he's thought it through. 
And the fact that you don't mind that you're throwing a hand grenade at yourself in some ways. 
But, okay. 
Earlier, there were more than 20 issues flagged against Node-IPC about its bad behavior, and just now plenty more over on Peace Not War. 
Some of the comments referred to Miller's creation as protestware. 
Protestware. 
Yeah. 
Others might call it malware. 
The programmer was not available for comment. 
But, boy. 
I like that. 
You know, so much for software development being boring. 
It's not. 
People get their hands dirty. 
Go ahead, Alex. 
I mean, it reminds me of that old adage that, you know, one man's protestware is another man's malware. 
You know, people have been saying that for hundreds of years. 
Well, I like also this idea that we're familiar with in the cryptography world that software is speech in some ways. 
You know, this is a way of doing that. 
I'd love to see more of this phenomena. 
It's speech and it's a Molotov cocktail. 
It can be both. 
Yeah. 
Well, you know, also, it's a really interesting concept, you know, to recognize here, which is that the supply chain for any particular piece of software can incorporate so many other libraries, so many other functions that you really never know who's going to creep up in your supply chain. 
But it also gets to this issue of, you know, when there is some kind of armed conflict here, is it safe for the nations involved in an armed conflict to actually update their software? 
You know, this type of thing is going to discourage, let's say, Russians and Belarusians from updating and patching their software. 
Yeah, but Alex, also, we're facing all kinds of cyber attacks where we have to update things for security purposes. 
So what do you do? 
Of course. 
And I also was thinking of that, do you remember the story about the surveillance cameras where there was an overlay? 
That to me is, it's not a software package, but it's also, it's a form of protest where you're exploiting vulnerability, but the payload is really just a message overlaid in the video pattern. 
But I love the idea that it's maybe getting a little bit more popular. 
And yeah, as you said, even if it does scare an adversary into not updating, that makes a lot of their software less or more vulnerable in some sense, right? 
Yeah. 
And going back to what Karina was talking about earlier today with regard to sanctions and enforcing sanctions, this raises then the issue of, is it a sanctions violation to push out software updates to geographies like Russia? 
And if it's your own software, I mean, you can do whatever you damn well please, right? 
Well, there's export bans on certain types of software. 
I think that's what you're getting at, right, Alex? 
Yeah, that's right. 
Sanctions. 
You know, is that, does that constitute some kind of transaction? 
Oh, I see. 
And more so in this case, because it's not specific types of software, like cryptographic export bans. 
This is like, you're a sanctioned country, you may not get any high tech anything, chip, no chips for you, no nothing for you, including updates from whatever this module is, you know? 
I see what you're saying. 
How many people in Belarus do you think got the patch, got that particular patch? 
I mean, I don't know, maybe quite a few. 
Certainly a number in Russia must have. 
But I mean, think about this. 
I mean, think about if this invasion had happened several years earlier and sanctions regimes were viewed or interpreted to encompass software updates, especially things like operating system updates. 
What if Russia and Belarus were stuck using Windows 7 forever? 
There's worse things. 
No, there's a very high likelihood that they will be stuck in that situation. 
That's kind of what I meant when we were talking where there's a lag. 
This stuff has been introduced. 
It is now on the table, but it is only in the interim, this lag period, and in the intervening year, maybe two years, where the effect is their software is getting old. 
So it is, sure, as of now, just like it was last month. 
That may not be noticeable, but in the intervening time, that risk becomes, it explodes. 
It becomes a much more vulnerable surface as novel techniques, things that have been audited in some way and reworked. 
That stuff then becomes necessary to function. 
Or in some cases, the vendors themselves have pulled out. 
I think Oracle was one, a lot of the vendors. 
So they may still be using databases or proprietary systems from those vendors, but those systems may not, even now, maybe immediately, or maybe after that intervening time, they may in immediate ways not have certain ports or certain telemetrics and so forth to function in the way they're intended to, patched or not. 
So there's a lot of implications to this. 
Do you think Russian tanks get software updates? 
Well, that's a little different. 
That's a whole... 
I'm just thinking outside the box here, but imagine if they got wireless updates or even had to plug in to get one. 
Well, a lot of the tanks specifically are very old. 
Yeah. 
But there's a lot of people that are experts on the weapons that are going on right now. 
And I've been going through some of the comments on the weapons tracking social media accounts. 
And some of the systems are really, really valuable as far as allied nations being curious about how electronic warfare systems are working that the Russians have deployed. 
You know, those are now kind of on the battlefield, kind of waiting to be picked up and examined in other places. 
That's a hazard of this yard sale of a war. 
Well, yeah, that's... 
We were having this conversation the other day where basically I was theorizing that maybe the whole purpose of Russia doing this right now is to be able to sample some of the Western technology that's being used against them. 
Because how would they ever have that opportunity otherwise? 
Maybe in Syria, but I can't really think of any other platform or any other theater where there would be Russian or Soviet military equipment up against things from Western Europe or the United States where, you know, occasionally something will be captured and then brought home and examined. 
It is so true. 
You're absolutely right. 
And that that is both ways. 
Both sides are very interesting. 
But if you want to look at this without the human element at all, and you just say this is military industrial complex, going at it with a sort of pseudo, a real war game, but really just, you know, getting all the old stuff out, blowing up all the stuff that's going to expire anyway, getting all those expired MREs, you know, whatever, digested or not, out of the storage and onto the battlefield in this fine display we've all witnessed. 
But it is also a prime reason that NATO and allied nations are only going to deploy like ground weapons, maybe these sort of more advanced javelins that maybe they can be disabled or otherwise kind of wiped remotely. 
Or maybe there's aspects of the newer stuff that they don't really mind getting out there. 
Or it's, it's known enough that if someone takes it apart, it's like, it's already old enough that we're going to develop something more advanced. 
There's probably a lot of different things that are thought through with that. 
But it's also the reason why it is that you have to make a decision as to like, okay, do you want the latest and greatest American weapons or, or allied NATO nations systems that could fall into hands? 
It's the, it's just as risky as putting like an American battalion or, or a NATO troops in direct proximity. 
They don't belong there in the first place. 
Their equipment could become a blowback that is used in, in subsequent conflicts. 
And it is a real calculation and consideration in this particular case. 
Alex, we have a phone call, but go ahead and we'll, we'll get to the phone call after you. 
I was literally going to say, uh, I thought we were taking phone calls during the time. 
Well, we didn't get out the phone number. 
Somehow. 
Yeah. 
Somehow we have a phone call, even though we didn't get that phone number, but the phone number is 802-321-4225-802-321-HACK. 
Uh, good evening. 
You're on off the hook overtime. 
Greetings. 
It's Kirby from Etobico. 
Oh, Hey, it's, uh, up in Canada, right? 
Yeah. 
What a difference. 
A couple of weeks makes, eh? 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
You don't have those angry convoy drivers. 
We do now. 
Mike, I suppose they've driven to, um, the Ukrainian border to fight the, um, people that are, uh, threatening their freedom. 
Yeah. 
That's a real freedom convoy. 
These guys, I don't think they, they have the stomach for that, but no, what we have is we have a bunch of angry truck drivers driving around, uh, the beltway in Washington, D.C. 
It's a road that basically goes around Washington, D.C. in a circle. 
They won't go into the city. 
They believe the city somehow is a foreign country. 
I don't know what that means, but they just keep driving around. 
They get, they get frustrated at the traffic because there's always traffic on the beltway. 
And I guess they thought they were going to bring the traffic, but they didn't realize the traffic was already there. 
Uh, you know, I listened to them on the radio and, uh, you know, I hear them talking amongst themselves, but they, they don't really seem to be accomplishing anything. 
Yeah, I know. 
I, I, I hear you. 
I hear you. 
So how's, how's everybody doing? 
Oh, you know, we're, uh, we're getting by where, you know, we're doing okay working on a bunch of, uh, a bunch of stuff and trying not to, uh, go too crazy watching the news. 
Yeah, I know. 
I got, um, I got my ticket to, uh, the convention and. 
Oh, awesome. 
You're coming. 
Yeah. 
We're going to fly down there and I've been talking to Mitch. 
I might, uh, get involved with some of the events. 
That'd be great. 
Yeah, you know, uh, we, we encourage everybody to get as involved as, as, as you possibly can. 
Uh, it's, it, because that's, that's more fun than anything. 
Attending is great, but actually participating and helping to build and, and create and, and just try out new ideas. 
We're in a, a brand new space. 
We have all this, uh, acreage that we can, we can play with, uh, and, um, and, and it's, it's basically our first get together in four years. 
So it's really going to be a magical environment. 
And for me, it's not that big of a deal. 
Like we have a international airport, which is about 20, 25 minutes away. 
And then we have a downtown airport. 
Oh, wow. 
And both of them have an airplane. 
I mean, it's, it's faster than me going, you know, across town. 
It's about an hour. 
Wow. 
So, I mean, you can just fly and land in either, right? 
I guess maybe not LaGuardia, but Kennedy. 
And, um, which one does the downtown airport flies to not the main airport to Newark. 
Is that right? 
Yeah. 
Newark. 
Yeah. 
Newark's a little further away, but, uh, JFK is right down the road. 
The way they put it is the way they put it is you got to take an Uber here or you got to take an Uber there. 
Yeah. 
If you do Uber or Lyft, it's, it's really simple as far as just getting from one place to another, but we have buses too. 
Well, anyways, the, I, I'm looking forward to it. 
And, and, and the reason I do mention it is because I'm, you know, I was, I was emailing and, uh, Mitch emailed me back and I just, um, figured, you know, the more people get involved, the better. 
Absolutely. 
It's so crucial. 
I really don't think this is going to be a room full of people watching somebody. 
I think it's going to be a room full of people doing things. 
Yes. 
A few rooms of people doing things. 
I was thinking about it. 
It's so funny. 
You mentioned that I was thinking about the other day and it's really the self-organized and self-directed stuff that outnumbers the things that we organize. 
I mean, we do our, our tracks and we have the information and stuff. 
We have activities around that, but we end up just trying to organize and get people, uh, uh, aware of all the activities. 
Cause once we're underway, we have, we have lightning rounds. 
We have, we have, uh, workshops. 
We have so many different things that people are, uh, kind of that emerge at the event that people are posting, uh, like last minute, Hey, come check this out. 
I want to tell you about my thing or this, this, uh, uh, organization or this, um, this tool, this, uh, uh, idea I have for some software, whatever it is. 
Um, we are, we're really just trying to get people aware of it. 
Once, once the things are underway because so much is going on at hope. 
Yeah. 
And, and, and basically we'll be able to do things we weren't able to do at previous conferences, right? 
We can assign rooms to various projects and that'll be their room for the weekend. 
And, uh, people can come and go and, and, and participate in all these different activities in addition to the talks and just the overall atmosphere. 
No, it sounds fantastic. 
I mean, a university campus or some aspect of it, but the vibe is already different. 
You know, it's, you know, the whole thing is just, and, and the fact that it's the first time, that's the best part. 
Yeah. 
It's, it's like resetting the clock, you know, we're kind of like going back to the beginning and, and just rebooting hope. 
And, uh, it's, it's going to be, uh, it's going to be cool, but it's going to be very, very different. 
And, you know, we're sad that the hotel is being demolished. 
We fought like hell to prevent that from happening. 
Multiple times. 
Even after we left the hotel, because, you know, we left because they just jacked up their prices. 
But then it just sort of rebounded on them and, uh, and COVID hit and, and, and, and then their, their owners got super greedy and now it's going to turn into this sterile office tower and it's going to be awful. 
Alex, did you have something to add? 
You guys would have been 105. 
You guys would have been 105 fighting for the hotel. 
Absolutely. 
Why not? 
Every, every, every last breath. 
Somebody's got to. 
Go ahead, Alex. 
Well, no, but the thing is though, I think, I think now the opportunities outweigh the, the, the legacy. 
Well, not the legacy, but the history, let's say, because, you know, I'm very sentimental. 
I'm very sentimental with physical things, with objects, with artifacts. 
Right. 
As, as you know, from the past, I work in museums and stuff. 
And sometimes I go down to the museum and volunteer with a meteorite just to see visitors and to show them something and say, how old do you think this is? 
And they say, well, no, it's a four and a half billion years old, you know, but you want to touch it? 
And, and, you know, it's just like that object creates this, um, it bridges that gap between concept and reality. 
You know, when you said visitors, I thought you meant the meteorite. 
Oh, not too. 
That's a certain, you know, it's synchronicity there. 
It kind of, uh. 
For sure. 
For sure. 
We feel the same way about the hotel, but it, it is, uh, this idea, hope as an idea that we're, we're bringing with us and also the people that those, that idea and the individuals that make up our, our attendees and, and, uh, volunteers and so forth and speakers, that's also a mad, a mad, a maddening, I guess, variety and amount of support and, uh, and, and that history that's coming with us to this new space. 
So we were, we're as, as kind of, uh, upset or broken up about it, but it's, it's this new possibility, this new hope that I think is, it's going to get us over that quickly and realize these new memories we're going to make. 
Alex, I know you've been trying to say something for a while. 
Go ahead. 
Well, two things. 
Now, now, now I want to say not just one thing, but two things. 
It's actually, uh, by the way, speaking of meteorites, I don't know if you know, but my, my wedding band's actually made of meteorite with the, uh, Wittmann Staten pattern on it and it's, um, encased in palladium. 
So really, uh, you know, kind of neat, uh, and very unique, uh, wedding band that I have. 
Wow. 
You just, you just took a meteorite. 
How was, what's, what's for the anniversary? 
Dinosaur bones? 
Well, you know, we used those in the car, you know, uh, the, uh, uh, what, what the hell was I going to say? 
Oh yeah. 
About, uh, Hotel Pennsylvania. 
So, um, as many people, I like to cycle into the, to my office when, uh, when I get into the office and, um, I had a problem with my bike and the, in the axle in the back over the last couple of days that I had to get fixed. 
So I was walking in and I made the deliberate choice to walk past Hotel Pennsylvania. 
As I was heading up and the, uh, the demolition has started and the whole thing is fenced off. 
Now there's porta potties lined up. 
You can only see into the lobby through this fence. 
And if you go down 33rd street heading East from, uh, 7th Avenue, you will see that, you know, every few minutes people are coming out the side of the hotel with these massive dumpsters, you know, what, what, what I guess, you know, our, our, our British colleagues would call skiffs. 
Uh, and there's, it's just tons of rubbish that they're throwing out now. 
So the hotel is being emptied out. 
It is actively being demolished. 
It was really sad to see that, uh, twice in one day. 
You're saying the structure itself is being demolished, not just what's inside. 
Well, not, no, not the structure itself yet. 
Okay. 
Not the structure itself yet. 
I think they have to gut it first. 
They have to gut it first. 
They have to get all the like drywall, all the fixtures and wood panels, anything like that. 
Then once it's just like this superstructure, then they'll implode it or wrecking ball it or both. 
Real tragedy. 
Real, really sad. 
I find in Toronto, there's been a lot of that too. 
Obviously, like we had this explosive growth where, uh, you know, there's an announcement that a building is going to be torn down. 
It's like down in three days kind of thing. 
Wow. 
They'll probably leave. 
And then they're like, Oh yeah, we'll, we'll pay the fee. 
We'll pay, we'll pay the fine. 
Right. 
We'll pay the $400,000 or whatever. 
Cause they're going to build an 80, 80 story skyscraper there or something. 
Yeah. 
They'll probably, um, keep like one wall standing for tax, you know, historic. 
No, we're going to get a plaque. 
We're going to get a plaque out here for the whole history of the hotel will be summed up in a plaque on a wall. 
That's probably inside an office building that you won't be allowed in. 
They'll, they'll remove just, just enough to not to keep it somewhat historic and then the rest will just be brand new and like a sky writes into outer space, I guess it's sad, but you know what? 
Okay. 
We're moving on. 
Sorry to interrupt you. 
No, go ahead. 
Um, very important. 
Very important. 
I promised that I would make, uh, give a shout out to oddball. 
Okay. 
Um, she's been in virtual school for two years and she's doing a really great job and I just, hello and we love you. 
Awesome. 
Very cool. 
All right. 
Yeah. 
Well, thanks for your call. 
Good to hear from you. 
Look forward to seeing you at hope and please spread the word because we want as many people as possible to, to experience the magic. 
All right, gang. 
All right. 
Take care. 
Y'all take care. 
All right. 
That's, uh, thanks for joining us from Canada from, from the Toronto area, I believe. 
Yeah. 
Thanks for joining us, Kirby. 
Yes. 
Yes. 
Thanks very much. 
Our phone number, 802-321-4225-802-321-HACK. 
And, uh, it's your chance to, um, say hi to us and share whatever you're doing and, and ask questions or make statements or things like that. 
Uh, we're not on next week, so this is pretty much your last chance until April. 
Think about that. 
We have a call. 
Okay. 
Let's, uh, let's, let's take that. 
You got it. 
You don't have to press one anymore, do you? 
No. 
Google got rid of that? 
They just quietly fixed it. 
I love how Google just quietly gets rid of things. 
Well, then they don't have to admit they made any kind of mistake. 
They never admit they do anything wrong. 
Then they can tell you, you are a bad user. 
They'll, they'll reconfigure and say, you have to come with us and do that. 
You know, everyone is always, I'm sorry, go, go on a charade here. 
Everyone is always praising Google for their spam filter. 
You know, they always say, what a great spam filter gets rid of all the spam. 
You know, it also gets rid of a lot of the mail. 
Okay. 
Go through your spam folder every now and then, and you will be amazed at the things that are in there that you want to read. 
For instance, you know, if, if you buy something from a store that you've bought something from before, it wound up in spam for some reason, you know, it shouldn't have gone there. 
It should have gone directly to you. 
I have, um, uh, forwarded mail from, from, uh, one of my shell accounts onto one of my Google accounts, uh, Gmail accounts. 
And it was labeled as spam. 
Me, it comes from the recovery address of the Gmail account and it's labeled as spam. 
So yeah, you know what? 
It does get rid of the spam, but it gets rid of so much more. 
And I would rather, you know, false negatives than false positives. 
Did I get that right? 
Yeah. 
I'd rather get spam than have my real mail disappear. 
Cause you are still that last layer of filter. 
Something like that. 
Yeah. 
I just, I want to be able to read my mail. 
Okay. 
Instead of it filtering more than, than you would like it to. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
So please, if you have a Gmail account, look in your spam box. 
I think you'll be surprised. 
Alex, I've read a lot of mail that you've written from that shell account. 
I just want to say Google might've been right. 
Oh, wow. 
See, this is what happens. 
It just gets into people's brains. 
That was, that was really low. 
Yeah. 
Well, that's what, that's what, that's what it does. 
I can't believe you said that like on YouTube. 
That, that's like the nastiest thing. 
Forever. 
Forever. 
On channel 2600, no less. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
Unbelievable. 
I have a few more things to say, but we have a caller. 
Uh, good evening. 
You're on off the hook over time. 
Yes. 
Could you turn on the, but it's, you're now distorted. 
Remember how I used to complain that nobody can hear you now it's too loud. 
So when you've got to turn the level down, you're not distorted. 
Um, hold on a second. 
Hold on a second. 
How come the levels look good, Kyle? 
And, uh, people tell us we're distorted. 
Where should I be looking at the levels? 
Because they're fine here. 
They're fine there. 
And they're fine over there. 
Is there a fourth place I have to look at the levels? 
You're not answering me. 
You're just looking at a screen. 
In the streamer, uh, I had boosted them after Rebel complained about it. 
Was it too high? 
Wait, you boosted them after the same person complained about them? 
In the software streamer, yeah. 
And now he's complaining that it's too high. 
Is it better now? 
Is it better now, Rebel? 
Uh, well, I mean, at the beginning, the middle of the show, it was, uh, yeah, it was, well, I mean, I can't, it's going to confuse me if I, uh, I mean, I have to hang up. 
Well, okay. 
No, no, no, no, I'm just, um, well, I just want to let you know that, but also about the Google thing with the voice, it still cuts you off. 
Like it says, you know, it could be like maybe through four or five rings. 
Then it says, you know, you, with your voice saying, this is really a busy signal. 
It really should give you more rings. 
It's like the 9x thing. 
Remember when they used to, uh, cut you off at the certain amount of rings? 
Well, I remember when they didn't. 
I remember when you'd be able to ring a phone all weekend. 
I remember when they didn't too. 
But you know, on that subject, you know what I think would be really, uh, you know, like when you call the cell phone, you could say, please, uh, enjoy the music while your party is reached or something like that. 
They'd play music instead of you hearing the phone ring, like not the person calling the cell phone, they'd hear music instead of a regular ring. 
Remember that? 
I believe so. 
That's, that's something I don't really remember. 
But what I think would be interesting, I, why can't we make our own thing? 
So I could have like an old, like crossbar ring or step, which ring, like instead of hearing music, you'd hear a step ring, like, you know, things like that. 
Right. 
I'm sorry. 
We're trying to fix the levels now. 
So now you got us distracted. 
So, uh, you're going to have to talk for a little bit. 
Well, Alex here. 
I, um, I, that, that was a great impression that you gave over there. 
I, I still think that, um, we were really onto something last week when the suggestion arose. 
I don't recall from, from whom it came, but that, um, we dedicate an entire hour, 45 minutes or so to you, uh, you know, doing your impressions of various rings and switches. 
I, I think you, you've got such an incredible repertoire. 
We'd love to hear more of this. 
Okay. 
Well, well, um, yeah, I, of course I'll be at the whole conference. 
So, and I live right now, like a couple of miles away, so it's going to be convenient for me to get there. 
Yeah. 
I mean, what, what other, what, what other, uh, impressions can you get? 
Can you, can you do? 
I mean, I have, I have tapes. 
Remember I have tapes from like years ago that I, you know, you know, you know, when, when you used to call the opera, when you used to call long distance, like, you know, like on a crossbar and the crossbar that I was on, you know, when you asked the guy of the last kitchen, it would go. 
Yeah. 
And then we'd start ringing. 
Can you do a, can you do a human red box by any chance? 
A human one? 
He's asking you to do a human red box. 
Can you do that? 
Oh, oh, a red box. 
Can you imagine someone just tuning in now? 
What? 
You're so good at that. 
Yeah. 
You really are. 
Rebel, can you whistle 2600? 
Actually, no. 
I would say good. 
Okay. 
No, not everybody can. 
Not everybody can. 
Admitting what you can't do. 
Yeah. 
That's a strength. 
We can't all be Kevin Midnick, you know? 
No, you can't. 
You know, we can't do that. 
So Rebel, uh, you're from Queens, right? 
Yeah. 
You must be thrilled that Hope is in your backyard now. 
Yeah. 
It's going to be really easy for me to get there and, you know, do things. 
And I really hope there's going to be old computers there. 
Well, if there are people that, uh, that will talk to the vintage computer people, I imagine they'll be there and we can set up a whole big thing. 
Like terminals and things like that. 
Like, maybe we could set up a, like a network, like a, like a, like a bring, not really a mainframe, but like a, you know, a couple of like, you know, text terminals or like text, like data entry terminals. 
Someone can wheel in a UNIVAC, you know, why not? 
Actually, no, you don't even need that. 
You need a, uh, Raspberry Pi or something. 
You hook it up to the internet or something. 
I don't know. 
Oh, wow. 
That's that and the UNIVAC. 
Those two things together. 
But, uh, we'll be bringing our, our phone booth and our phone van and all that kind of thing. 
And, and I imagine a lot of other people. 
Phone booth? 
You have a phone booth? 
We have a 1950s phone booth. 
Yes. 
It's been a while, hasn't it? 
1950s? 
No, I like having the 1970s or 60s. 
Well, you'll be disappointed. 
This is from the 1950s. 
Rotary dial. 
And, uh, it's, uh, it works. 
Oh, and what about, uh, the coin first? 
Remember the coin first phone? 
We had to put the dime in before you get the dial tone? 
This would be one of those. 
It doesn't ding, you know, like on television with the bell, but, uh, it's, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's close. 
Um, also, I'd like to talk about scam calls. 
I've been getting, you know, of course I know, you know, all the, the, the tricks that people, um, you know, the people call from like different phone numbers from around the country, different area codes and different numbers. 
And even call from like my number, like they'll call from nine one seven number that's, you know, and then the, the same exchange, but it's, you know, not, you know, it's somebody with an Indian voice saying, would you like Medicare? 
Would you like do this? 
Or, uh, I'm from, uh, the student loan forgiveness center. 
Of course I don't have a student loan, but then when you try and call the number, you don't get any. 
Yeah. 
And what's happening there is a caller ID is being spoofed and basically replaced with a number from your exchange to make you pick up thinking it's a neighbor, but it's actually somebody from anywhere. 
Yeah. 
But how do people overseas make phone calls? 
Don't they have to pay for these? 
Or are they just using voice over IP? 
Of course they're using voice over IP. 
Why would they not use that? 
It's that's, that's, that's the, we talk to people all around the world and they'll pay a penny for it. 
So, you know, everyone is using the system to do that and they figured out a way to spoof call or I can call a number in like, you know, other countries and not have to, I mean, using voice over or I mean, cause Google voice doesn't work. 
I mean, you're not, you know, the Google, the Google voice stuff didn't really do make any phone calls. 
You remember how you used to be able to make phone calls on Google? 
Right. 
There are ways I don't at the moment know them because I don't make that many phone calls overseas, but I know people are able to do it. 
Yeah. 
They have like a way you can fund your Google voice account and they charge you international rates. 
I think they're comparable to like, I mean, they're okay. 
They give you the, you can look through the list of all of them, but it's similar to like what you'd see on a phone, a mobile phone plan now, like seven cents or 10 cents. 
I don't know who, where, who would do that when you could just FaceTime or, or, or the equivalent, you know, and that doesn't cost anything or use WhatsApp or a signal, a signal phone call. 
Maybe I'm thinking of an older version and they don't do that anymore, but it seems they wanted to be able to like sort of allow you to dial out from Google voice. 
I just, yeah, I just assume that it's, uh, it's relatively simple to call anyone anywhere pretty much. 
That's using a plane. 
When I had the, um, a number of one of the, uh, scam, what I did was I made a video actually. 
And, uh, I, I, on my cell phone, I could do like conference calling. 
Like I could put one person on hold and then call another again and then put them on hold and conference them in and then take those two people and then conference another one. 
And I've done this and they were like talking to each other. 
And, uh, well, that's, that's good. 
That's fine. 
Would you like me to demonstrate? 
I could call them now. 
Uh, you know what? 
We're, we, we, we're running out of time, Rebel. 
We don't, this is our last week for two weeks. 
So, um, uh, we'll let our imagination carry us there. 
Any other, any other thoughts for us though, before we open up to another call? 
Um, not really. 
Um, let's see. 
So, uh, yeah. 
So it'd be interesting to have a ring on your cell phone that sounds like, you know, that you can make yourself instead of, you know, yeah, absolutely. 
I've got some, I'm working on on my, uh, phone, my handset, uh, from that I'd used previously that we talked about some of those, uh, interval signals. 
Interval signals are great. 
Those are fun, but yeah, it's, it's, um, it's too complicated. 
It should be easier to compose and to, to customize certainly, uh, with ringtones. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
I, I'm having trouble with ringtones on, on, on, on, I use signal for some reason. 
Alex, whenever you message me on signal, I'm supposed to get a certain tone, but you just get a little beep and I don't know why that is because I, I, I assign one ringtone to any signal call that I get or a signal message, but for some reason it doesn't apply to Alex. 
I don't know why that is. 
Haven't you done that twice and it doesn't seem to retain it? 
It retains it for most people. 
Just that's weird. 
Yeah. 
I've never sent you a message on signal, but that's not me. 
And if, if it takes me a long time to respond, it's because you just have a little beep and it's hardly audible. 
All right. 
And, but everybody else has like a symphony orchestra that I, I hear no matter where I am and I, I quickly answer them. 
So it's not personal. 
It's just for some reason, the signal doesn't like you. 
I don't know. 
Wait, now how does the signal work? 
I never heard of it. 
Can you, uh, uh, signals is basically a way of sending secure text messages and, uh, and, and occasionally making phone calls. 
Uh, it's encrypted and it's, uh, it's an app. 
It's like WhatsApp. 
It's better than that. 
It's a messaging app that runs on top of your, uh, your phone's OS and sort of interacts with your messaging and stuff, but also puts this sort of, uh, end to end encryption on top of it so that you can trust that your messages are not being intercepted. 
Yeah. 
You can have a desktop client as well. 
You can do things like set messages to expire where they'll disappear after a certain amount of time, or you can archive them. 
Uh, it's, and you can, you know, it doesn't cost anything to call somebody. 
That's why I say if you're in a different part of the world, it should be easy to call somebody if they have a signal account. 
All right. 
Now with signal account, do you have to give them your phone number? 
You have to, you have to, you have to link your phone number with it. 
It does just for the SMS specific functionalities. 
I believe, uh, you do not necessarily need a, a phone number to connect, to communicate with somebody if they're on signal. 
Is that true? 
Or actually, I think you need some kind of number to work, to have a, uh, an account, whether desktop or mobile. 
Well, you need a phone. 
Yeah. 
Cause you're using the phone system. 
So no, you, you, you need a phone number of some sort that you have access to. 
I don't know, Alex, you might know more about this. 
But to, you don't need phone service to use it in the way we're talking about. 
Right, Alex? 
I think that's correct. 
I think you can use, um, you know, a phone that's just connected to the internet to do this. 
Like, could you use a Google voice number for signal? 
Oh, that I don't know about that. 
That I haven't tried. 
You know what I'm saying? 
Yeah. 
Like not an actual cell phone. 
The idea is to give as little information to any of these companies as you possibly can and still be able to use their services. 
I'm sure you could do it with a SIM, like a prepaid number. 
Uh-huh. 
It's all the same, you know, uh, maybe on a different handset or, or you have a dual SIM handset, something like that. 
There's, there's a lot of possibilities for what you give this program. 
I think this would be a good workshop at Hope for people to just figure out ways of doing this. 
Yeah. 
What's your favorite end-to-end, uh, uh, software program or what, what kinds of ways and cool ways are people using these things? 
Because it's one thing to have, you know, the capability and stuff, but what kinds of things, how are you making it work for you? 
Uh, we're always interested in that. 
So it's a good question. 
Is there a way, is there a way to make like on my PC, I have, um, you know, my, my earphones here. 
I have my, uh, my headphones, which I could plug in and add the microphone for my cell phone because, but I could also plug it into my PC because it has a earphone jack. 
Is there a way to make my computer of a phone? 
Like, I mean, like make phone calls from my computer. 
Is there like any app or a program or something? 
Is it? 
Well, is that what that's? 
A fax modem. 
No, no. 
Or a software modem or something that you could, you could dial from your computer, right? 
I mean, those are capable of interacting with phone lines, but, um, I don't know. 
There, there, there's probably, um, there's probably sort of unified communications tools or what you, I think you're describing is like a software phone that would dial out from your PC, right? 
I mean, these are like, kind of like what, uh, kind of like what Google voice does or used to do. 
Right. 
Yeah. 
I mean, getting one that's customizable, that's not a part of one of those services, you know, you might not have as much luck. 
A lot of the emphasis for developing that, as I was sort of throwing out unified communications, a lot of that went into voice over IP, uh, people getting sip, uh, direct dial, um, whatever DID, I don't know what the terms are also something I haven't set up and explored myself, but a lot of that customization was stuff people wanted running their own PBX or switching, um, like, uh, using free switch or some of the other packages out there. 
Cause it, it allowed that machine to both, um, you know, be a PBX, but also you could program it with a, uh, uh, IP phone and, uh, use it to dial out with whatever phone lines or a VoIP system you have. 
Rebel, it's, it's been delightful, uh, conversing, and, uh, we look forward to talking to you again in the, in the, in the near future. 
Bye. 
All right. 
Take care. 
All right. 
Uh, open up for one more phone call. 
Cause, uh, we've been on almost an hour on overtime. 
802-321-4225. 
Uh, can I bitch about something? 
Cause, uh, this has been, uh, bugging me last week or so. 
Yes. 
Uh, we were talking about services and, and not giving out personal information as, as much as you can and, and having to, um, uh, do without as the oligarchs are learning. 
I've been kicked off of Facebook. 
You know this? 
Yeah. 
For no reason. 
No reason at all. 
The only reason is that apparently, uh, I'm a target or that's, that's how they described it. 
They say, I have an account, uh, that could be targeted by hackers. 
Uh, so they basically said, uh, you have to have this particular, uh, protection on your account, something called Facebook protect. 
It's like, uh, it's like the mob coming in and saying, you know, you need the, you need protection from us. 
Otherwise something bad could happen. 
Um, a notice was sent to selected accounts and I'm one of the selected accounts, uh, deemed at particular risk from hackers telling them to enable an enhanced security feature called Facebook protect. 
Like this happened, uh, last Thursday, actually. 
I didn't know about it until Sunday. 
Cause I don't really look at Facebook. 
I tell people this all the time. 
And, um, the thing is sometimes I like to see what's, you know, what somebody's up to, or I also use it to tie into Facebook messenger because that allows, um, my old trillion application to, uh, uh, to be able to get instant messaging, just like the days of aim, but none of that works if I can't log into Facebook. 
All right. 
So anyway, I was given a few choices on what I could do. 
Problem is doesn't work. 
And people are complaining about this. 
There was a, a story, uh, in a few newspapers, a New York post is the one I'm looking at right now. 
Um, they say many people thought that the original message was a scam and they ignored it. 
Yeah. 
I ignored it. 
I ignore anything I get from Facebook. 
Uh, this came from security at facebookmail.com. 
It just didn't seem very legitimate. 
Um, after the, uh, deadline of March 17th past, users were told they had to switch on Facebook protect to get in. 
Uh, but those who, uh, went ahead with it claim the setup system is broken. 
I'm claiming the same thing. 
They're still locked out. 
Yeah, I can't get into my damn account. 
Uh, the author authentication tools, uh, such as a text message to prove that it's you are not working. 
One user said I got locked out from Facebook indefinitely today because I didn't respond to emails from Facebook that looked like a scam about its new Facebook protect system, which I was required to enable by today. 
So far the text and security key options don't work. 
Someone else complained on Twitter saying the Facebook protect thing is so annoying because it's not letting me turn it on and I need Facebook for work. 
So I'm really hoping Facebook fixes the stupid code. 
As of today, they have not done that. 
They haven't fixed it. 
It's super annoying. 
It's super. 
So I'm not being, I'm not being, you know, annoying, uh, by, by not responding to people. 
I'm sorry. 
Uh, I can't get in and I don't know how much I really care about this. 
You showed me this today. 
It's so funny because, um, two factor authentication has been around for a long time. 
Uh, it just seems like they're kind of late to the party on this and finally getting around to it. 
Um, and they might've had it before. 
I don't know. 
I didn't use it because I didn't really care that much. 
I think they're, they're, they're, they're, yes, they're, I would say, um, they're ramping up their efforts. 
You're right. 
It is probably more the case that they have had this for quite some time. 
It just had not been adopted because no one really took, um, you know, securing their Facebook account as seriously, uh, which is probably healthy. 
You shouldn't, um, be so sort of dependent on it, but at the same time, now they're saying, okay, yeah, we really want to know that these accounts we've identified, uh, are secured in this way. 
And, uh, we're going to do, we're going to encourage you, uh, by, uh, making it sort of required. 
So in this way though, you showed me exactly how this worked and I don't know, it, it is so simple in, in many other, uh, uh, web based, uh, service providers. 
You, you click something, you, you choose what you want. 
We went through it, um, picked a authenticator as we've done in other situations, uh, uh, setting up this kind of authentication and it basically, uh, accepted the authenticator and, and, uh, went forward, uh, should have worked only to a certain point though. 
It was set up with that. 
And then, um, as soon as it wanted to, uh, sort of take you away from that, uh, setup for the authenticator, you're right back at the, Hey, you need to have Facebook protect. 
I got the six digit code that changes once a minute. 
And I entered that code and, uh, I said, whoops, something went wrong. 
We don't know what it is. 
We're working on fixing it. 
And I imagine that's the same message that's been, uh, spewed out for the last week. 
So, you know, I, I, I might be able to get around this just by having them, uh, uh, SMS me on, on an actual phone number. 
Facebook doesn't have any of my phone numbers and I don't want them to have any of my phone numbers and I'm not going to give them any more personal information. 
So we're kind of at a standoff here. 
I think this is kind of a phishing attempt on Facebook's part to get more information from me and, uh, they're not getting it. 
Not like that. 
So, um, uh, other options are what I'm going to be using until, uh, you know, I give up on them entirely. 
Alex, do you have any, anything to contribute? 
Coincidentally, uh, there was a, uh, proposal last week from something called FIDO, the Fast Identity Online Alliance. 
Um, they published a, uh, white paper outlining their proposed web authentication changes that would do away with passwords entirely. 
Just, you know, done with the password and, um, you know, a lot of people are not so sure about all of this, but, um, you know, it's, it's an interesting proposal and a lot of people have been talking about this over, over the past week that this, this FIDO Alliance may be onto something and we may finally see passwords become a thing of the past. 
Uh, okay. 
But, you know, you're not going to see stupidity become something of the past. 
So as long as humans are involved somewhere, it's always going to be a security hole. 
Yeah. 
Even if it's the next, like the solution, the next thing that we got to do migrating from whatever's not working now itself will be a challenge. 
Uh, but it's, I, uh, certainly a hopeful development. 
I haven't heard nearly enough about that either. 
Uh, so it's, it's good that there's some, some sort of possibilities there. 
Let's take this phone call. 
Good evening. 
You're on off the hook overtime. 
Yeah. 
The world's running out of, uh, IP addresses and banks still give out four digit passcodes. 
I don't think we're getting off the passwords anytime soon. 
Uh, greetings from a guy who's no longer in the, uh, Beijing Olympic bubble. 
Oh, wow. 
It's, uh, it's our friend who, uh, who was in Beijing for the Olympics and now, wow, that was such a fascinating series of calls from you. 
Oh yeah. 
It's been great. 
And I got to say, I've been listening, uh, since I've been back, I'm back a month, uh, as of today. 
Um, and, uh, you, you guys have been rocking it with the last couple of weeks of radio have just been some of the best radio I've heard in a long, long time. 
Well, thank you. 
That means a lot to us. 
We really appreciate the sentiment. 
Thank you. 
We were working really hard to, uh, to keep things going, keep interesting stuff and discussion going and technical stuff, uh, intact here. 
So appreciate the comment. 
So how's it been since you got back? 
Yeah, your coverage on... 
Go ahead. 
I'm sorry. 
How's it been since you got back? 
It's been good. 
I've, I've taken it really easy, uh, at home as long as I could, but, uh, I'm back on the road. 
I'm doing some compliance work. 
Um, but, uh, the, you know, the Beijing, uh, story really became the Ukraine story. 
Uh, the flight path that I took out of China was over Russia. 
That's no longer an option into France. 
Uh, spent my last night before coming home in Paris and watching the coverage there. 
I, I left, uh, Europe a day and a half before there was war in Europe again. 
And it was just really, it's, it really kind of mind blowing, uh, watching it covered in a different language, but understanding along with, uh, what's going on, uh, how Europe was seeing, seeing this. 
And then looking at the coverage at home, um, I was at an international hotel in Paris and I was able to watch news coverage from all over the world, including Russia, uh, while I was there, it was, it was, it's really just watching the difference in coverage, uh, across the world on all of these subjects. 
It's just amazing. 
Were there any that stood out in particular? 
I imagine you probably had access to Russia today, which you probably wouldn't be able to get access to now. 
I don't think. 
Yeah, I don't, well, I know they, they suspended their operations in the U S on their own, uh, a couple of weeks ago, but they did have an international channel, but I have no idea. 
I doubt they're, I still, I doubt you could still get them in Paris. 
Um, yeah, I did have it. 
It was just, you know, Russia today was talking about the military operation. 
Um, everybody else really seemed to be focusing on it. 
Um, you know, France had decided just a couple of days beforehand that, you know what, you know, the U S intelligence was right. 
They're going in, uh, Russia's definitely got all intentions on going in, um, watching their coverage. 
Uh, the thing that shocked me the most is, uh, that Vladimir Putin would have his name spelled differently in, in, in French. 
It's a poutine as if you're getting a dish in, uh, in Canada. 
Really? 
Are you sure they weren't just, they weren't just making a joke on the, on the network? 
I, I, I don't think they were. 
It was across, it was across all the different coverages. 
Uh, you know, and then I decided to get away from the news and go look at the Eiffel Tower because it's going to be a while before I get back to Europe. 
Yeah. 
That was a good move. 
Definitely. 
That was a good idea. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
I drank some wine, you know, it was good. 
Uh-huh. 
No, Paris is amazing. 
I miss it so much. 
And you know, as far as. 
I really can't wait to go back. 
Spellings of names, you know, Zelinsky, I, I see sometimes with one Y, sometimes with two Ys, uh, it's, it differs depending on where you, where you're watching or, or how much research the people do. 
Yeah. 
So, uh, one of, uh, while we were in, uh, in, in Beijing, one of the, uh, reporters our agency had with us, uh, was not a sports reporter. 
He's an international reporter. 
And, um, a couple of, you know, a few days into this whole Ukraine situation. 
Uh, he started talking about maybe having to leave early and go there. 
Um, his original intention was to stay a little bit after the Olympics, get out of the bubble and, you know, go about the city as long as the visa was good. 
Uh-huh. 
Uh, but the world changed on him. 
And, uh, he's now, he, he made it through the Olympics, but he's now on the, uh, uh, he's on the front lines, really. 
He's, he's been in Poland. 
He's been into the Ukraine areas. 
Uh, he's been outside of Belarus. 
It was, it was, it's just amazing to hear the places this guy's covering. 
So, now, he, he was a reporter or he wasn't a reporter? 
Oh, no, he's a reporter. 
He's not a sports reporter. 
He's not a sports reporter. 
Okay. 
What, was it his idea to go there or was he assigned to that area? 
I, I, it, it, it was kind of a mutually, uh, agreed upon situation. 
You know, the, uh, uh, agencies, it's a very loose thing. 
You know, they're, they're, they're either, um, you know, full assigned or they're, they're freelancers or they're dedicated freelancers, but, uh, international reporters are all over the place. 
And, uh, there's, there's a ton for agencies, uh, all over the West that are right up and involved in this whole thing, covering it from the inside, getting out, using satellite phones to communicate back using satellite internet because services are disrupted there. 
Right. 
Right. 
Um, we've, we've been asked to, uh, if we still had some of the burner phone SIM cards that we could send forward, uh, because they'd really like to use them there because our, uh, international plans are, are, are in short supply out there. 
Interesting. 
Wow. 
Now you've, you've been traveling quite a bit and you've been able to, uh, you know, working in the media yourself, but also watching the media. 
Is there any particular outlet that you think did a particularly good job as far as coverage of this? 
Um, you know, with, with language, uh, and, and, and translation and all that, um, I, I, I really do think, uh, you know, the Western staples seem to have done a pretty decent job trying to frame the Ukrainian situation. 
I find, uh, you know, in China, there was no, there was almost no coverage of it. 
Um, well, it didn't happen while you were still in China, right? 
It happened right after the Olympics. 
Right, right. 
But I mean, you know, the, uh, you turn on CNN international and they're talking about a, a buildup of forces event, you know, you go to, uh, you go to China, uh, uh, CCTV and they're talking about what the favorite food of the Olympic athletes were crop reports or something like that, you know? 
And when it's like watching the today show all the time or something like that, it is, it is, you know, it's, it's kind of like, uh, uh, I don't know if you've seen the, uh, don't look up movie. 
Um, but if you did, there's a part where the American, uh, uh, chat show, the morning chat show just can't take anything seriously. 
And they just keep trying to keep it light and keep it light. 
And that's kind of the thing on China's news. 
Even, even the death and destruction type things. 
It's like, keep it as light as possible. 
As irrelevant as possible. 
That's pretty much what they're after. 
Yeah. 
If it's, it's like, you know, if it's, if it's watered down, people accept it. 
Well, and that's not untrue as well. 
I mean, people, uh, you know, want escapist fare, which is unfortunate. 
It's, it's, it's how these things happen in the first place. 
But, um, I know Kyle and I have been, uh, doing a lot of monitoring of, of media and, uh, the ones that we have found that are, are pretty accurate and, uh, you know, intelligent and, um, uh, provide the best coverage. 
I think CNN international, uh, not domestic, CNN international, sometimes domestic as international, which is good, but not all the time. 
If you ever see, you know, someone's name at the bottom, you know, as if the name is more important than what you're watching, it's probably not that good, but it shouldn't be focused on that. 
Uh, BBC world news, uh, Euro news is, is, is really good. 
Uh, Al Jazeera English, France 24 for their, and Deutsche Welle from, from Germany for their exceptional French irreverence. 
France 24, uh, has honorable mention. 
Yeah. 
And you can get that on YouTube. 
That's, they have a live feed on YouTube. 
So if your cable company doesn't carry these things, you can find most of them, you know, on a Roku or something, but, uh, France 24, I'm angling to going to at least one more Olympic games. 
So, um, I'm committing to learning French by the time I have to go there. 
Uh, so maybe I'll start watching their news. 
They're, they're great. 
And I, they're, uh, um, always had a soundbite of, of just humorous soundbite of Ukrainian soldiers. 
Uh, one morning, a soldier remarked that he was going to multiply the Russians by zero. 
And, uh, there was another soundbite of a young soldier showing like the, uh, javelins and, uh, the, um, uh, rocket propelled, rocket propelled grenades. 
And he said, look, see, see our gifts. 
These are the gifts we have for the Russian invaders. 
Come to our country. 
Come visit us. 
We'll welcome you with these. 
Oh, well, I don't know how they keep this interview. 
You know, they said the revolution wouldn't, wouldn't it be televised, but it's going to be streamed as like crazy. 
And the memes are going to be really tasty. 
By the way, this might not have been clear when we were saying these networks, including France 24, they're all in English. 
So, uh, you don't have to learn a foreign language. 
They all have really good English coverage. 
Okay. 
Did you have something, Alex? 
Oh, no. 
I was going to ask about the, the English issue. 
I wasn't sure if France 24 was in English, but it is. 
Yeah. 
They have an English feed. 
Some cable companies have it, but it's on, it's on YouTube. 
The one that a lot of people don't get in this country though, is Al Jazeera English. 
They are amazing. 
They're really, really good. 
Just watch their coverage for a day and, and argue with me about that because, uh, they, they really, I did watch some of their coverage in, uh, in, in, in Paris, they had that on the, uh, on the TV in the hotel room, which is really, uh, that's the advantage of having stations that are in different places. 
They have bureaus there. 
They have entire channels dedicated to those local languages. 
And then, yeah. 
And you know, that's what I mean when I say, you know, we watch a multitude of different media outlets. 
They're not all coming from the same place. 
They're coming from all over. 
They have different backgrounds and perspectives. 
And if you get the same basic story from all of them, I'd say that's pretty close to truth. 
That's pretty close to what's actually happening as opposed to just believing blindly what some state sanctioned network is telling you. 
Or, you know, or, or like me, I walk into my local pizza place, which is also a bar and it's just the place where people go to get Fox news pushed into their head. 
Oh Lord. 
So I stopped going there because I just can't, I can't be bothered. 
Yeah, that's a statement, you know, you have to, you have to express yourself somehow. 
And I, I wouldn't go anywhere that's, that's, uh, that has that kind of propaganda just being pumped out all the time, Alex. 
Yeah. 
It seems so unfortunate caller that, that they have Fox news play. 
It sounds like it should be an otherwise really fun place. 
I mean, a pizza and a bar together. 
Sounds great. 
Yeah. 
It's funny. 
It's, you know, well, alcohol and anger go together. 
So yeah, sure. 
Sure. 
Sure. 
It does seem that way. 
But, um, you know, there, there, there are, there are worse, you know, Fox news is bad, but there's OAN and there's, there's news. 
Oh, absolutely. 
And, and it's just unbelievable that people buy into this crap. 
I mean, they're, they're basically pirating the same thing that Russian state TV is saying about how, you know, Ukraine is, is a Nazi regime and that they're, they're building all kinds of chemical warfare capabilities. 
And yeah, it's, it's, it's basically widely believed that, uh, the reason that, you know, Russian propagandists are saying this is because they want to be able to justify using chemical weapons themselves by saying that it was about to be used on them or, or a, a, a fake attack would actually be from them in the first place. 
And we can be critics. 
And we'll have people parodying it here soon, right away. 
Yeah. 
And we have to make the distinction between the punditry and the actual, uh, like news, news divisions of those companies. 
I know Fox news had a reporter that was killed. 
Yeah. 
That was there. 
And Hey, you know, content, critical theory aside, whatever the kind of reporting and how it was framed, whatever that was, uh, like, uh, we're on team journalism here. 
And, and, uh, you know, essentially the ability to go to a place and operate freely as a journalist is something that, uh, I think everybody is, is, uh, on side for in this particular, uh, scenario because it's, it's so critical in the moment. 
And, uh, and regardless of perspective, um, we are for the type of societies that allow journalism to exist. 
Yeah, absolutely. 
It's, and, and, and, you know, journalism got the bad rap here and, you know, the January six crowd really hates reporters, uh, you know, but they're doing the people's work. 
This is, this is, you know, everyone's, everyone hates their journalists, but they, they are mentioned in the constitution, you know, um, everyone likes to, you know, the, the second amendment crowd likes to beat on about that second amendment, the first amendment and the press are in there well before that's mentioned. 
So, you know, let's, let's, let's take it as a whole. 
Absolutely. 
Like as a photographer, there are situations where you can go to a place with a camera and people are amazed. 
They're thrilled. 
You're doing something really interesting. 
They, they want to know all about it. 
They are happy to have, uh, to be in, in a photograph or, or totally, um, um, uh, welcoming and, and, and interested in, in whatever you're doing. 
There are places when you can bring a camera or a certain type of camera and, uh, or a microphone and, uh, you get a totally different reaction. 
And I think that's something that people involved in media, they just, they're kind of like they're game for it. 
They're not doing it so that they can, um, be lauded and loved everywhere they go. 
And, um, and, and vice versa, when they're beat up upon constantly, you have to kind of appreciate that they are there in moments when, um, when you're trying to get the story. 
Yeah. 
And, and honestly, um, since I started to, I do IT work, but since I started working with journalists, it's become one of my charities, uh, that I give to is, uh, you know, journalists overseas, uh, facing real threats, you know, um, covering certain topics, turning up dead family members. 
So, um, you know, you can research a number of journalist charities, uh, that, that protect, uh, the free CPJ expression of journalism. 
CPJ is one of them, uh, the committee to protect journalism, uh, a fantastic organization. 
So, yeah, just, uh, so, so cool that, um, we're able to talk about different sources we like and, uh, yeah, there's good and bad in any industry and media is no exception. 
Yeah. 
And, you know, the, the, the journalists themselves, you know, I don't really have a problem, even if they reach different conclusions, it's, it's the, the personalities, the ones that have, you know, entertainment factor, uh, it's basically what they're all about. 
Uh, they're not journalists, but they, they pretend to be. 
And I think, you know, even Fox news has their journalists. 
Yes, we see that, but they're overshadowed so much. 
They don't get enough. 
No. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
They could, they could be so much better. 
Anyway. 
Well, I mean, you think about Tucker Carlson, uh, you know, basically praising these people who ended up killing a colleague of his, uh, just, it's, it's disgusting. 
It really is. 
It really is. 
Yeah. 
You have to, you have to, you have to nurture, you have to grow, uh, your, your, your investigative and your talent pool in the realm of reporting, not grow your personalities and brands and, and, and all of this, uh, uh, stuff that's really commercial. 
And it's not actually, uh, uh, in the spirit of, of the type of reporting that people expect in an institution like that. 
Anyway, I wonder if that type of reporting exists after this, uh, going forward. 
I mean, are we turning out new journalists on, on a big enough, uh, plat, you know, number to, to cover the news in the future? 
You know, it's, it, it seems like we have shortages everywhere. 
And that's, you know, if you were to look and talk to your guidance counselor, they're going to tell you not to go into journalism. 
There's no money there. 
Of course. 
And it just really makes me terrified. 
I'm terrified for the future of what this looks like. 
Well, also think about what we're seeing right now. 
I think journalism is really, uh, getting a boost as far as what they're bringing, what they're bringing to the table. 
And I hope that inspires a lot of people to actually get involved in this. 
The, the individuals in the industry themselves finding purpose is, is important as, uh, as being supported and, and as a career path and so on. 
And I know it's when I was studying, it was either, yeah, journalism or a PR and we have a lot more PR and probably too much PR right now. 
So I think that, yeah, there has to be, it starts with the local papers. 
You got to have these like venture funds that are buying them all up. 
You have to stop that, uh, and flipping, uh, uh, publications. 
They don't have the interests of, of reporting and independence and the spirit. 
They just are, are, uh, looking for a quick, quick buck and, uh, move on to something else. 
It's predatory and it's wrong. 
And it's, that's what happens when you disintegrate those local bureaus. 
It, it becomes, uh, consolidated and, uh, almost irreversible in some situations. 
And this, this, uh, the streaming and, uh, uh, social, social aspect that we're, uh, seeing in this war coverage is new. 
I don't know that it can replace it, but it's certainly augmenting what is missing. 
Yeah. 
Uh, yeah. 
I'm, I'm hoping that, uh, we're at a stage where we start to, to realize the value of true journalism, newspapers, radio, television, the people who go out there and report the stories and not try and, and, and make every blogger the same thing as, as, you know, every Walter Cronkite. 
Uh, it's, um, you know, there's a world of difference and I, I hope that we start to, um, to remember that. 
And listen, really great hearing from you again. 
Welcome back. 
Are there any, any closing thoughts that you have for us? 
No, I've, uh, so I, I, I think I'm halfway through an article I have to send to you if you want to print it. 
Oh, please. 
Yes. 
Anything in forever. 
Uh, and, uh, I'm going to, I'm going to try to get away from the family and hit a, uh, 2600 meeting, uh, next week. 
So awesome. 
We'll see. 
All right. 
Well, best of luck on both of those endeavors. 
Thanks for listening and chatting with us. 
Yes. 
Good. 
Good to have you out there. 
Take care. 
We'll talk to you again. 
Yeah. 
And that's going to do it for calls tonight because we're, we're, it's 19 after nine. 
It's time for, uh, our drink. 
Yeah. 
We need to, we need to, uh, bust a bottle of something. 
But wait, you know, somebody mentioned the second amendment. 
I just want to close with this. 
Uh, turns out the national rifle association, those, those people who imagine that they are in favor of the second amendment, when actually all they do is distort it. 
Uh, the NRA has confirmed. 
It was the subject of a ransomware attack that took place last October. 
That's according to a report from Gizmodo. 
Uh, the attack brought the NRA's network down for two weeks. 
Yeah. 
And a filing to the federal election commission, the organization's political action committee explains the NRA experienced a ransomware attack on October 20th, 2021 that brought its network offline for two weeks since the NRA wasn't able to access email or network files until the second week of November. 
The NRA failed to report nearly $2,500 worth of donations, which was the reason for the file. 
That seems a little low, doesn't it? 
That they, uh, they were down for two weeks and now they got $2,500 worth of donations in that period of time. 
Was that to help them? 
I don't understand. 
Uh, last year, a Russian cyber criminals group that goes by the name of grief took credit for allegedly hacking the NRA and posting what appeared to be stolen documents on the dark web. 
You see, this shows you that there are good people in Russia. 
There's hacking going on all over the place, but, uh, you know, the bad guys are always taken down by somebody, uh, grief, which is said to be associated with well-known Russia based hacking group, evil court, our old friends, uh, threatened to release more documents if their payment threshold wasn't met. 
Yeah. 
I'm not a big fan of, uh, ransomware, but, um, I am a big fan of making the NRA pay. 
However, however you can. 
So, um, more power to them. 
Uh, nobody knows though if the NRA ever actually did pay up, but they're pretty much going down in flames one way or another. 
And I was, yeah, it's a little tie into the second amendment to Russia, to hackers. 
It's, it all kind of, it's tied up in a neat bow there. 
Well, what do you think, Alex? 
Yeah. 
Well, look, it could be interesting to look at, you know, large payments of Bitcoin going from one place to another on certain dates. 
If you can narrow it down to October, I remember when there was a suspicion of this. 
Um, but I, I have a question for you guys. 
I'm wondering if you might know the answer to this, but you know, well, why do you think it is that so many NRA members wear sleeveless shirts? 
Uh, maybe they get tangled up in the sleeves when they're trying to put them on. 
I don't know. 
Uh, I think it's because they believe they have the right to bear arms. 
No, I don't think that's it. 
I don't know. 
It's a different reason. 
I don't think that's the right reason. 
No, I don't think you're, no. 
Sleeveless shirts, bear arms. 
Why would they want bear arms? 
You know, do they get cold in the winter time? 
No, I think, I think you're, I think you're a hundred percent wrong on that. 
I think it's probably, uh, it might be a style thing. 
It might be, uh, that they just want more freedom of movement. 
Like if they wave their arms around, like, you know, a windmill, that kind of thing. 
Uh, or, or, or hold on a second tattoos. 
Yeah, there you go. 
People have tattoos on their upper arms and that what's what, if you're wearing a sleeve, you don't see it. 
So this is a way of showing that off. 
That's the reason. 
That's the reason. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
Um, yeah, well, there's, you know, I was trying to make an NRA joke and I, you know, you took it very seriously. 
Oh, no, go ahead, please. 
I love NRA jokes. 
Well, that was the joke. 
Why, why do they, why do the members wear sleeveless shirts? 
Why do they wear sleeveless shirts? 
Because it's bare arms. 
We just went over this, Alex, for God's sake. 
No, bare arms. 
That's the wrong approach. 
You know what? 
We'll talk afterwards. 
We'll sort this out. 
How about this one? 
But I want to hear this joke. 
I want to, if you ever tell me the joke, I want to hear it. 
I'm sorry. 
What's that? 
Oh, no, I was just saying that there's a distinction. 
There are Russian hackers and there are Russian state hackers. 
And there are hackers who are in a rush. 
I get it. 
That's funny. 
That's how you tell a joke. 
That are a Russian. 
Uh-huh. 
See? 
You should take notes, Alex. 
I think we should just take another phone call. 
We know when that we're done with phone calls. 
We've disconnected the phone. 
The phone has been unplugged. 
Silly after-hours jokes time. 
All right. 
We are done for the night. 
Thank you, everybody. 
Write to us, OTH at 2600.com. 
Please send us stories and feedback and criticism, whatever you feel like. 
Great show. 
Great talking to everybody. 
Everybody who called. 
Good to see you, Alex. 
And go back and forth on this stuff and delve into all these stories. 
There's so much going on. 
So please write us, as you said. 
And all the listeners have next Wednesday off. 
So do something fun. 
You know, you're not obligated to us anymore. 
You can go outside and do something different. 
Or find some sanctioned, seized assets somewhere. 
There you go. 
That is a good thing to do. 
All of the tools, all of the information is out there. 
You just have to go get it. 
And we'll talk about Dead Horse Bay more next week over in Brooklyn. 
Yeah, whatever that was all about. 
Alex, I have to ask you, and this is unprofessional to do this on the air, but I have to ask you to let us know when we're out because the person who usually does that is not here this week. 
So I'm going to hit the right buttons, and then you're just going to say, okay, we're done. 
And then we can communicate off air. 
All right, folks. 
OTH at 2600.com is our email address. 
Have a good two weeks. 
See you in April. 
We'll see you in April.