Hello, you're listening to WBAI New York. 
It's just about 7 o'clock, which means once again, it's time for Off the Hook. 
Really, it is. 
So I ripped it off the wall. 
I cut myself while shaving. 
Now I can't make a cough. 
It couldn't get much worse. 
But if they could, they would. 
But the best is back the worst. 
I hope that's understood. 
We'll be right back. 
We should have Alex. 
Yeah, you've got me. 
That sounded more like Rob than Alex. 
Good evening. 
Okay. 
How are you doing, Alex? 
Alex, it sounds like you're on a plane. 
Or maybe not. 
Maybe I'm not supposed to say that. 
It did sound like he's on a plane. 
Yes. 
He's muted on a plane. 
Alex, did you mute yourself? 
Yeah, we don't need the video, but respond. 
Everyone stop talking over each other. 
I think there's some latency, some serious latency. 
I've been meaning to talk to you about that for a while, Alex, but now is not the time. 
You know what? 
Let's try this. 
Let's see how much latency there is. 
I'm going to count down to one, and you say one the same time you think I'm going to say one. 
Is that clear? 
Yep. 
Okay. 
Five, four, three, two, one. 
One. 
And that's how much latency we have. 
Okay. 
So about a second and a half, I'd say, is what we have. 
Now, Alex, the real story here is you're on an airplane. 
Where are you going? 
I am on my way over to DEFCON, to the other Hacker Conference. 
Oh, that's right. 
That's this weekend. 
That's this weekend coming up in Las Vegas, right? 
Yeah, that starts actually tomorrow. 
So it's going to start tomorrow and go through the weekend. 
I'll only be there for a couple of days and then talk to you about it. 
Well, I'm happy that you did not let that prevent you from taking part in tonight's program. 
Even though you're on an airplane, how high up are you right now? 
I'm about at sea level, actually. 
It's not as scary as it sounds, but it works. 
I'm actually just taxiing on the runway. 
Oh, you're on the runway. 
Wow. 
Okay. 
Don't scare me like that. 
You're on the runway. 
You should be at sea level. 
Okay. 
So what runway are you on? 
I'm over at JFK. 
Flying out. 
I'm on one of the runways. 
So you're in Queens, too. 
Okay. 
So everybody's in Queens tonight. 
That's great. 
How wonderful. 
Yeah. 
Okay. 
So. 
Yeah. 
Something like that. 
So you're going to, I guess you're going to take off while we're talking to you. 
Yeah, I think so. 
I think I will be taking off. 
And I might lose it because I think at that point I'll switch over to the Wi-Fi, in-flight Wi-Fi. 
I'm going to be able to test to see how effective that is, how much bandwidth there is. 
And you can carry on a Skype conversation from 30,000 feet or so. 
Well, now here's an awkward question. 
Are you supposed to be using a device while you're taxiing or taking off? 
That's not an awkward question at all, Emmanuel. 
The answer is absolutely not. 
You definitely should not be doing this. 
Well, wait a minute. 
Hold on a second. 
No, this would count as some kind of interstate crime, I think, if we continued talking like this. 
And since I know about it now, I really... 
I heard that. 
I heard that pretty clearly. 
Alex, why don't you hang up now and we'll call you back or you reach out to us when you're safely up in the air. 
How about that? 
Yeah, that sounds great. 
I'm taking off momentarily. 
Talk to you soon. 
Okay. 
Disconnect, please. 
For the safety of everybody on board. 
My God, I didn't know he was taxiing. 
Yeah, we shouldn't encourage that. 
I would not. 
I feel like we have an obligation to let the FAA take over. 
You know, it's the second time today Alex has been in the news. 
You know what the first time was? 
If you go to NewYorkTimes.com, there's a picture of Trump walking out of a building after pleading the Fifth. 
Yeah, and if you watch the video, you'll see Alex standing in the background because it's next door to a building. 
He had business in it and they were basically keeping everybody from getting in. 
So what are the odds? 
What are the odds of that happening? 
Amazing. 
Yeah, what a week. 
What a week. 
The former president of the United States has his home raided by the FBI. 
Today, the former president of the United States under oath pleads the Fifth. 
It's Wednesday. 
It's only Wednesday. 
But, of course, the big headline is that the Hope videos are out. 
Yeah, a week ago we were talking about tearing our hair out and all the software issues and video editing. 
And I've got to give credit to Kyle here for somehow pulling it off. 
It's like magic. 
I don't know how he did it. 
But he was able to process all of them, all the videos. 
Well, they're mostly up on YouTube. 
We'll get to that in a second. 
But the fact that they're there, that's all Kyle. 
So thank you, Kyle, on behalf of the entire hacker community. 
You're welcome, hacker community. 
And it's my honor to help preserve that. 
And it's important to us to do a good job. 
And we weren't totally prepared, but we responded as quickly as we could. 
And as with a lot of the new things with this event, we just adapted and came up with some stuff. 
But I would encourage people, you know, when you're talking about software specifically for stuff like video, the Free Software Foundation and the message behind that with all of these video and camera protocols and, you know, that there's truth to that. 
Because you run into that so much with audio and video stuff. 
And there's been a lot that's been done with good applications for photo editing. 
The Free Software and Open Software movement has done a lot with that. 
There's been open cameras. 
There's a lot of innovation, even audio software. 
So I think nonlinear editors are next. 
It's ripe for the taking. 
I think that the dominance of only a couple versions, if you've seen anything from software like OBS, which is an incredible open broadcast software package, very much like OpenOffice. 
I mean, we'll be using it later on tonight. 
Yeah, yeah. 
We use it for the overtime show. 
Of course. 
And OBS emerged from sort of gaming and online streaming communities. 
And that stuff needs to be encouraged. 
And, you know, the more we're relying on video, the more we're relying on different technologies. 
I'm thinking of design files for virtual spaces and stuff. 
We should be thinking about the kinds of stuff that we're tying ourselves to and then relying on. 
Because, you know, it's fine if someone like me who is, you know, avid or something like that has been like an albatross and they just like haul around all the abuse that comes with that, you know, and then they're very damaged. 
Avid is the name of software, not your mood at the moment. 
Correct. 
Or, you know, other things like Final Cut or whatever these packages in the industry. 
You know, I've used all of them, a lot of them, a huge amount of them, even ones that, you know, you can't really get access to. 
You used most of them this week, I think. 
I used two main software packages at the same time for a good part of this. 
But anyway, my end of rant. 
But the point is, you know, it's not trivial software. 
And, you know, having a lot of different bad solutions, that doesn't really count as much as having a lot of people working on a good solution that fixes it. 
And there's promising stuff. 
VLC came through. 
The first thing we did is ran everything through what essentially uses FFmpeg and converted it all so we had much smaller, more manageable files. 
Can I just say, when you say we weren't prepared, I don't want it to sound like you didn't know what you were doing. 
Basically, we received all the videos in a format we weren't expecting. 
I believe they were in .mov format. 
But the thing is, they were entire days at a time in one chunk. 
And it's really, really hard to work with massive files in a lot of software and on a lot of computers. 
Well, we have a humble ability to work with video. 
But it's not. 
This isn't, you know, a Fifth Avenue type operation here. 
But, you know, just to be able to process them and to repair issues, that took some doing. 
But you got there. 
Right. 
And a lot of people typically, and this is probably not unusual, a lot of people are set up to work with camera formats. 
Like if you bought a camera that has a specific format, if you're doing, you know, real video production, or you're used to working with intermediate formats. 
If you get something in something that's a little bit more finished, or the software package you're using doesn't normally work with files that big, or your system can't handle files that big, you run into all kinds of crazy stuff. 
Or your graphics, there's a lot of, you know, we got good recordings, and there was a lot of data to go through. 
So just getting our heads around how to move stuff around efficiently, that took a little bit of doing. 
But anyway, we learned a lot and got it completed, which was really the most important part. 
And we want to thank all the people from the hacker community who wrote in to us with suggestions, very helpful suggestions on software to use, methods to go about. 
And it helped get us where we were going. 
And I just can't believe we got it all done within a week. 
It actually was released yesterday on YouTube, and we have flash drives now, and everything is set. 
I do want to talk about the YouTube controversy, because we did have a little dust-up with them. 
I'd like to do that when Alex is on the line, though. 
So let's give him a few more minutes to reach cruising altitude, and maybe we can reconnect with him and then have that conversation. 
But in the meantime, Gila, actually, I'd like to talk to you for a moment, because you have a reputation for uncovering the truth and going after all kinds of, shall I say, people who don't quite have it right. 
You know, I'm talking organizations. 
I'm talking cults. 
I'm talking all sorts of, you know, basic bad guys. 
And you had a bit of a run-in last week when you criticized some Apple products. 
And I understand that your name is now on their most wanted list as far as people who dare to speak out. 
You said something about it being difficult to download music that you buy on iTunes. 
And, well, here's just one of the letters from - I'm not going to read names here, but basically this person takes issue with that, saying there's still definitely a way to manage your music on your iPhone manually. 
Granted, you need to use iTunes to transfer the files, but you are not locked to a music bought from iTunes, nor does Apple use a proprietary format. 
It uses AAC format, which is very open and common. 
And Apple was the first major digital music marketplace to offer DRM-free files. 
So, even if you hate Apple, please do not spread needless lies. 
Yeah. 
Well, it was strongly worded. 
It was strong. 
People are passionate. 
But you don't dare cross the Apple community, because no matter what, they'll come back. 
It's like criticizing Google. 
They have all the fanboys out there that will speak out and say something. 
And no offense to the person who wrote in. 
I don't want any trouble. 
But do you maybe want to correct your statement or modify it in any way, or maybe just back off and not say anything at all critical about Apple ever again? 
So, I don't know if it was necessarily critical about Apple so much as it was critical about my own technological abilities. 
All I want to do is drag and drop, and that I'm having a very hard time doing. 
So, if anyone can explain to me in English without besmirching my reputation or accusing me of slandering a media conglomerate, I just want to put an MP3 burned from a record owned by my father that doesn't exist anywhere anymore. 
I want to put that recording on my phone without having to upload everything I own to iTunes. 
So, if anybody can explain to me how to do that without making me, A, feel stupid, and B, calling me a liar, I would appreciate both of those things. 
Thank you. 
And that was said without any sarcasm, with the utmost respect. 
I just want to make sure people understand that, that Gila is really, you know, asking a true question here. 
Rob, you're sitting right next to Gila, and obviously you can't help her because otherwise you would have by now. 
So, this is not something that is limited to just one person. 
It's basically, you know, we're not Mac people here. 
I'm sorry. 
Well, you know, the last time I used an Apple product with any regularity, it was the Apple IIGS, which doesn't support MP3s either. 
But, no, the thing about this is Apple, as a company, had always, since the old days, marketed itself as the user-friendly option, the option that holds your hand and makes it very easy to do all the things you wish to do. 
So, I think maybe the fact that, you know, this has not been an easy quest for you, Gila, is maybe Apple's fault as a company. 
A failure on the part of Apple. 
Rob, Rob, please. 
Maybe all those fans of Apple are wrong. 
Have we learned nothing? 
They'll come for us. 
They will. 
And just for the record, I say I'm not a Mac person. 
I do own two Macs, two Mac SEs. 
That's what they are, right, Kyle? 
Yeah, they're like classic. 
No, not classics. 
They're later classics. 
Yeah, they're nice machines. 
They hold up books right now. 
Well, one of them doesn't have any motherboard. 
Nobody needs to know that. 
The point is, they're on display, and they're holding up books, and they're doing a very good job. 
Yeah, they're mantelpieces that support bookshelves. 
All right, that bit of controversy aside, do you want to try Alex? 
Actually, I don't want to try Alex if maybe they're, you know, still taking off, although it sounded like they were imminently taking off. 
I'll do what I can. 
Hang on, I got a message from him. 
I put my phone on mute, so I didn't hear the message come in. 
And now I'm trying to get permission to read my own messages here. 
He might be appearing. 
Okay, it says Skype is not connecting, could be blocked, will try through VPN. 
Okay, but there he is on the screen, right? 
Isn't that him? 
Alex, are you there? 
He's muted. 
Alex, stop muting yourself. 
That's our job. 
Yeah. 
Oh, there you are. 
There's your face. 
I'm here. 
Wow, look at that. 
We can see him. 
You can't see him, radio audience, but he looks the same. 
I'm looking out the airplane right now. 
Look at that. 
The sky is blue. 
Wow. 
Okay, well, Alex, it's not about the plane, it's about you. 
All right? 
Can you hear us? 
Something like that. 
Yeah, I hear you. 
Okay, great. 
So, you know, we mentioned that you were in the New York Times today on the front page for being in Trump's shadow. 
So, I was wondering if maybe you had anything to say about that. 
Did we lose him? 
Oh, there he is. 
Now, I'm here. 
Just bear with me with the delay because Skype appeared to be locked on the plane, which is interesting because when I connected it, it didn't get me. 
You're very low, Alex. 
Yeah. 
If he could move the microphone closer to you, that would be great. 
Yeah. 
Can you hear me all right? 
Mostly. 
If you just hold the microphone as close to you as possible, that would be good. 
Yeah. 
Any better? 
That's perfect. 
Oh, it is. 
Okay, good. 
Yeah, I was on my way to work, and my office is right next to the town of the tower. 
Lately, there's been kind of a circus at least once or twice a week outside of New York. 
And today, they've been blocking the street. 
I was waiting to get into the great elevator side of my office because that's how I entered the office on the counter-cycling hit. 
And Trump was coming out, so we were waiting over there, and I wound up being photographed as part of, like, this crowd standing benign Trump. 
I was just waiting, exasperated, and angry for being delayed and getting into the office around. 
Any player showed us why. 
So, I'm literally in the background between Trump and Bush. 
So, it's, yeah, the photograph. 
Just to clarify, not the former president or his family, an actual Bush that you were between, of Trump and, yeah. 
And, by the way, Alex, as far as sound quality, you kind of degraded a little bit there. 
So, maybe you moved your hand or something, but please go back to the way you were before, where you were much louder and clearer, if that's possible. 
Copy that. 
Okay, see, that sounded great. 
That sounded amazing. 
So, listen, as long as we have you here, we wanted to talk about what happened with YouTube this past week, where basically we put all the HOPE talks up, and they're getting a great response, and people, your talk is on there. 
Every talk that took place at the HOPE conference of a couple of weeks ago is now available to watch. 
Except for one. 
There was a talk entitled, Hacker Representation Throughout the Years, A Guided Tour of Hacker Appearances in TV and Cinema. 
This is a talk I really wanted to see. 
I wasn't able to see it live, but it's the kind of thing that I'm fascinated by. 
How have hackers been portrayed in television, in the movies? 
And they did a great talk. 
It was 90 minutes long, and they basically kind of guided you through how hackers have been portrayed, what's realistic, what's not realistic, how the image has changed over the years, et cetera, et cetera. 
It's a fascinating, really good response. 
And it got our stream taken down by Google in the middle of the conference, because they were freaking out over copyright issues, since they were showing clips of movies and TV shows. 
So we basically had to cut the feed to that room to prevent losing the entire conference being streamed online. 
Bad idea to use YouTube as our main way of streaming. 
We're having very serious discussions about how that happened. 
It was a bad decision, no question about that. 
But now we've moved to the stage where we're putting the videos up online. 
And YouTube is the preferred method of seeing them, only because of the ease of use and the fact that everybody is able to get to it immediately. 
But it's certainly not the only place that we want them to be seen. 
But what happened was, when we tried to publish that particular talk, it was blocked. 
In fact, they wouldn't even allow us to put it up on the site where we could say it was blocked. 
It's just, it's hidden. 
You can't even see where it's being blocked at all. 
It's just not there. 
And the reason they gave, and this is the ultimate irony, we had a snippet, and by snippet I mean something like 20, 25 seconds, of a TV show. 
And you know what TV show it was? 
Mr. 
Robot. 
Probably the best program ever about hackers. 
The one that gets it. 
The one that is on our side on all these issues. 
And the one that would condemn these idiotic copyright issues more than anybody. 
And yet, it's their publishing company, NBCUniversal, that says, nope, you can't do this, and we're blocking you, and that's just the way it is. 
Now, first of all, fair use is a thing, okay? 
And when you are giving an academic lecture on a particular work or a particular field of study, you are allowed to do exactly what these presenters did. 
And the audience has every right to see that. 
And I'm really getting sick and tired of how we are all living under some ridiculous interpretation of freedom that allows these megacorporations like Google to just say, no, you can't express this particular thought because we deem it owned by somebody else. 
And I'm not, Alex, if you're still connected to us, but if you are, I'm curious if you had any insight or thoughts on this. 
Yeah, how is it? 
Can you hear me all right? 
Before I keep going? 
No, we hear you fine, as long as you keep loud. 
All right, good. 
Yeah, I mean, look, I think that's a perfect storm of potential copyright person to be flagged multiple times by these algorithms that we discussed before, which are really there for the administrative convenience of these particular types of people. 
Alex, you're fading. 
I don't know why you're fading. 
Are you wandering away from your microphone or something? 
If you just cram it up to your face or whatever, you start off loud. 
You've just got to stay loud. 
Yeah, that's very weird. 
What about now? 
Better? 
Every time you address the issue, you sound fine. 
All right, yeah. 
Well, I think, I'll just keep going. 
I think it's a function of these, you know, obviously these algorithms are used with the readings that potentially flag copywars, copyright copyright materials that will just keep them down. 
Now, if you notified people who said, let me know, hang on, this is fair use. 
But Alex, what you're talking about, you're talking about, if I can understand, what you're talking about is having a lengthy discourse with these entities going back and forth saying, yes, we do have the right, and yeah, you know, I think we would win any such conversation, at least logically we would, but we shouldn't have to do that. 
Nobody should have to do that. 
Think of all the creativity that's being stymied as a result of this. 
And, you know, what's really funny is that I was looking around on our YouTube account, and we've been given access to the same tool. 
Yeah, it just sort of slipped in there. 
There's a copyright button, and you can basically do the same thing to other people that use your material. 
And so I checked it out, because, you know, we have no intention of doing that to anybody, but just to see how it worked. 
And they basically give you a list of every instance where your work is being used by somebody else. 
And do you know who the number one offender was? 
It was some guy who posted a Negative Land film. 
It wasn't Negative Land. 
It was somebody who posted a Negative Land film. 
And somehow YouTube thinks that that's our property. 
And I don't know how they reached that conclusion, but maybe it was when Mark Hosler from Negative Land gave a talk at one of the HOPE conferences and excerpted part of that film. 
And that wound up on a YouTube channel, and YouTube said, oh, that must belong to the HOPE conference. 
So now we can technically go after Negative Land and say, yeah, you shouldn't have this material online, even though you didn't post it, somebody else did, because it belongs to us, even though it's 100% yours. 
This is the logic that we are dealing with right now. 
This is the absurdity and the incompetence. 
It's high time. 
It stopped being the default. 
So yeah, you know, while having our content on other services is a great idea, and I want to do that, we need people to coordinate it, but we also want to keep this on YouTube because we want to have conversations like this. 
We want to be able to expose things like this. 
And you have the situation where that's exactly what's happening. 
And also, I should point out, we are not preventing that particular talk from getting out on our full collections, and we're certainly not discouraging anybody from copying it or making it available in any forum. 
But this is, I think, the beginning of a bit of a battle over this. 
I think we need to stop buying wholesale this attitude that it's only in place to protect publishers or copyright owners. 
The truth of the matter is they're profiting on keeping people, limiting the distribution of ideas. 
And in this case, a talk like this actually goes a long way to educating people to the harms and the tropes, the stereotypes, and behaviors that have really defined and been things that the hacker community has grappled with, and especially media portrayals, how the media around archetypal characters that are hackers or mysterious, unusual technology. 
um, uh, centered, uh, protagonists, um, how that hurts cases, real life cases where people are, um, made out to be, uh, some, uh, incredibly capable person that is thus, uh, to be feared. 
And, and, uh, and that, that is, um, truly what's happening here. 
They're, uh, protecting some publisher, but it's, it's an academic discussion about, um, the groups that, uh, really are due a little bit more protection in light of how wrong this, uh, uh, uh, this has, um, how wrong this has been for them. 
And, and in discussing it, you have to be able to show examples to open it up and, and reframe how all of that stuff has built to the, to the juncture or to the, the kind of present state of, of, of all of those issues for, for our community. 
So I, I think it's just, it's so crucial and ironic, darkly ironic that this talk, one that is to set things straight from, uh, hackers and, and from everything they know of what has been produced creatively about hackers. 
Um, and I, I just get really passionate about that because I know that's the work, uh, that the magazine does and that, um, you know, a lot of the writers, uh, listeners, people who've, who've authored articles or shared their, um, know-how and stuff, they, they take very seriously, uh, uh, their ability to, to tell their own stories and, and, um, you know, we want to honor the, the kinds of, uh, information that people provide and to get things right and to be corrected or at least accurate. 
Um, it's so important. 
And then to, and, but to have this under the guise of, of, uh, protecting some, uh, starving content owners, it's, it's just so, um, uh, misleading. 
And, and, and that's why I think it's just wholesale. 
It's, it's not really what they're protecting. 
They're, they are profiting. 
And I think this is the way we should look at it. 
They're profiting on, uh, on limiting the distribution of ideas. 
I mean, that's what a lot of the music, a lot of the publishing, a lot of the now cinema and digital, uh, uh, art, a lot of that is communicating is telling stories, but, but also spreading information about what's going on around you in the world or about, uh, um, specific things in, in technology or, or otherwise. 
And to limit that and to profit off that, I think should be, um, it should be more taboo than it is. 
Bravo. 
Yes. 
Uh, now Alex, I think you're going to give it another shot as far as, uh, talking. 
Then, then we have Rob saying something. 
Go ahead, Rob, um, Alex. 
All right. 
Sounds good. 
Can you guys hear me any better now? 
Yeah. 
It sounds like you're, you're, you're getting your teeth drilled, but other than that, uh, yeah, you sound fine. 
Did you roll up an in-flight magazine? 
That's right. 
Yeah. 
All right. 
Good. 
Um, you know, I'll, I'll take it back maybe a couple of minutes here because I, I, uh, I couldn't hear what was going on while I was switching in and out headphones and speakers. 
Go right ahead. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
You sound fine now. 
Well, you did sound fine and now you're kind of breaking up. 
So maybe you're going over, uh, enemy territory or something. 
Yeah. 
Don't brag to me. 
But I think. 
Uh, Rob, why don't you go ahead with what you were going to say and then we'll go back to Alex and hopefully, uh, he will have cleared up by then. 
Go ahead. 
Okay. 
I, um, I, it always, it always chills me a bit when, uh, takedowns and, uh, and warnings and, you know, legalese and stuff are left to the robots to do because the copyright, uh, robots will never, uh, there comes Alex. 
That was some long lag there. 
Until you are soon. 
Now go ahead, Alex. 
Okay. 
Uh, Rob, why don't you continue? 
Alex, you be quiet. 
Go ahead. 
Okay. 
So, so the copyright robots are never going to know the intricacies of legal and, uh, and fair uses of, uh, material that belongs to someone else, like in this panel, which I think was, uh, using them as clips to illustrate a, a larger academic point. 
And there's, I think there, there's an argument to be made, um, for, for fair use as, uh, as in effect there. 
And, you know, there are so many perfectly legal, perfectly legitimate reasons that, uh, something you put out there could use bits and pieces of somewhat of some existing intellectual property. 
Um, but the, the default setting on, uh, on these robots is they're infringing, they're breaking the law, threaten them, take down, take down their work, what have you. 
Um, it reminds me of something that happened, um, to 2600 magazine in 2015. 
Um, you may remember the August, uh, or, or the spring 2012 issue of the magazine that was a nice, uh, a nice cover, which, uh, featured as part of it, uh, a picture of an ink splatter that was, uh, a piece of clip art basically used by, by the cover artist and, um, some company, um, which represented the owners of some completely different image that also used that ink splatter clip art claimed that your cover was, um, that 2600 cover was, uh, an infringement and, uh, sent, uh, and sent a nasty email about it or a nasty, uh, letter about it. 
A bill as well. 
They, they wanted us to pay. 
Yeah. 
And, uh, and, you know, that, that clip, that clip art of that pink, of that paint splatter was not the property of, uh, of anybody that was threatening you. 
It just happened to match in the eyes of a computer, part of this other image with part of the cover of the 2600 issue. 
And, uh, it was another case of just the robots, uh, being deep, you know, defaulting to threatening, no humans looking at that and trying to figure out if, Hey, maybe this is, uh, maybe this isn't legit before sending out a threat, a bill, all that sort of stuff. 
You know, it's interesting too, because eventually it did get the attention of humans at that organization who said, of course, this is nonsense and, and, uh, negated the whole thing, but it became known as splotch gate. 
And it was a good example of how something as, uh, you know, innocuous as, as an ink splatter, uh, could turn into the center of a copyright battle. 
And it's just the absurdity of this, uh, you know, it's funny, but it's also serious because a lot of creativity is being stymied as a result. 
And a lot of people are, are living in fear and overreacting to, you know, saying, I better not do this because it might, it might have this effect. 
So, you know, maybe the next time somebody wants to give a talk on, on hacker representation in the media, they'll decide not to do it because of what the robots might do. 
So I can't believe I just said that sentence, but it's literally what people are living right now. 
So, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's a serious issue. 
It's a funny issue, but it's also a serious issue. 
And I think it's one that we need to get on top of this. 
It's an example of how, if you, if you give an inch, they take a mile. 
Uh, and, and, and right now we're living under these bizarre rules where, you know, a particular musical note, um, can, can land you in trouble if it's in the wrong place. 
Gila, it looks like you have something. 
Well, I, I do cause there's, there was an ongoing issue with a YouTube creator that I follow who got copyright struck, had striked, struck three copyright strikes were filed against her channel in very quick succession by someone who she was parodying, who took umbrage. 
And there was a time when it looked like they were going to take the whole channel down, but because of the personal copyrights, like there are people involved on both sides. 
So I can't help but wonder if there was a, an actual action from an actual copyright holder, like if that could escalate things in a way and, and get the attention of some sort of, um, moderator in a way that perhaps the automated processes are not. 
That's one of the reasons why we're talking about it, because we hope to have that kind of a back and forth where, where common sense prevails. 
And what's funny is you mentioned copyright strikes. 
We don't even have any copyright strikes. 
What, what, uh, we got what just notices that this is something that another company has claimed as theirs and they're going to monetize the channel or, or look at the, um, uh, the graphics or the, uh, the statistics from the channel or something as a result. 
Well, and in all cases, this, this particular talk was, uh, had 11 different instances. 
Um, but it's, it's the Mr. 
Robot one that supposedly got it blocked in most of the world. 
And that's, that's what wound up happening. 
It was blocked in the United States was not blocked in the UK for some reason. 
I don't know. 
Maybe people in the UK can see it. 
Maybe some of our British listeners can, uh, can let us know if, if they can find that talk on, um, on the, um, uh, channel 2600, um, uh, page under a new hope. 
Um, but basically we don't have any copyright strikes. 
These were just, um, uh, notices telling us that this is the way it's going to be, uh, laid out. 
It's going to be, um, uh, claimed by another entity 11 different times. 
And one time it was blocked and, um, we can't get access to it to, um, uh, to change that. 
Yeah. 
And I just want to reiterate how, um, here we are since we're, we're not able to interrogate robots, the overzealous robots about it. 
Um, here we're talking about it and it, and it appears like we should not have been prevented from continuing our stream, but the real world impact was a lot more significant than what, what I think our discussion has, has led us to, which is this was innocuous or innocuous and, uh, not a, uh, uh, a reason to be, to be shut out of our ability to stream. 
And it took an appreciable amount of time to fix that. 
Uh, um, and, you know, we were directly involved in scrambling and making sure that people were able to continue to enjoy our event. 
First of all, yeah. 
Let me, let me just, again, reiterate what a bad idea it was to have YouTube be the primary carrier of our conference for, for the stream. 
Um, but, um, uh, what was happening then while that talk was going on, uh, we, we, um, we got one warning and then it was, it was cut. 
And when they cut the, the, um, uh, the live stream, they also cut the ability for people to go back and see any talk that took place the two days before that. 
And that really sucked. 
Uh, and then they issued this warning. 
These are all robots doing this, by the way, issued this warning saying, if it happens again, your entire stream, meaning the entire conference will be cut off. 
So nobody would be able to see the rest of hope. 
So we had to basically, um, uh, overthink everything from that point saying, okay, if you show this image or play this particular, um, um, um, bit of sound, is this going to upset Google YouTube enough to, uh, to cut us off and cut off the whole conference? 
It's a horrible way to think. 
It really is. 
And we should not be doing that at all. 
And again, yeah, we will not be using YouTube as our primary source ever again. 
We will use YouTube because it's a great way to, to reach people and also to, um, uncover things like this. 
But, uh, you always, always must have a backup. 
And this is a great example of that. 
Um, okay. 
So Alex is no longer here. 
We don't know where he is. 
I guess he's in flyover country, right? 
That must be where you go when you can't talk to anybody anymore. 
Uh, maybe we'll hear from him in, in the, uh, 10 or so minutes we have left. 
Maybe he'll be there for overtime. 
We'll see. 
He's probably getting his, uh, beverage service. 
Probably getting beverages now. 
Yeah. 
Um, we'll see. 
Pretzels. 
I don't know. 
When I flew airplanes or flew in airplanes, uh, decades ago, there were, there were phones on the planes. 
You could make a phone call. 
They cost $10 a minute, but still it seemed to sound better than this. 
Okay. 
We have a letter from a Robert, different Robert, not Robert, Robert T. Firefly. 
Um, I was just listening, uh, to you talk about a new hope, uh, which I was a virtual member of as I was at MCH myself, MCH may contain hackers, the Dutch camp. 
What happened to them? 
They were supposed to, uh, be, be communicating with us during a new hope throughout the opening ceremonies, the closing ceremonies. 
And we never heard from them. 
It's, it's like 1997 all over again, where they just vanished. 
I know they, they probably had some technical issues, but, uh, boy, uh, you know, Dutch people usually figure it out much quicker than that. 
Um, but yeah. 
So, uh, if you, if you notice the MCH logo on many of our cards, uh, during the videos, that that's what it was supposed to be. 
Um, and I assume those talks are available someplace as well. 
So I'd like to see those. 
Anyway, I love the fact that, um, you, uh, you streamed the conference at your location. 
We should have done the same and, and, um, reserve some location. 
I'm not exactly sure what they mean by that. 
Um, hopefully they streamed it. 
Hopefully they saved it. 
Uh, I heard you, uh, say that it'll take a while before the videos are online on the infamous YouTube. 
Well, that was last week. 
They're online now. 
Have you considered hosting all your video content at the CCC archive? 
I consider their archive and video team just awesome. 
We do too. 
We, they are very awesome. 
Um, and we certainly have no objections to having our content archived at the CCC archive. 
CCC being the chaos, uh, uh, community, uh, chaos computer club, I guess is the official title. 
They have also the chaos communication Congress and the chaos communication camp, all of which could be CCC. 
Um, but they, um, they're the German hackers that really get things done and, um, they have a great archive as well. 
And we certainly would like to be there. 
Uh, it's just a question of, should they be the, the, the, the primary source? 
Well, maybe they should, but, uh, again, we still want to use YouTube as well. 
Um, anyway, um, it would also be amazing, uh, if you would use their streaming facilities, uh, during an event, the way, um, uh, the content is online right now as, uh, stream, stream dumps and hours later as content. 
I think what he's, what he's saying is that, um, it'll be available immediately, which is what we were hoping to do and weren't able to pull off quite as well as we've done in the past. 
Well, again, this goes back to, uh, a lot of the, the new teams that we were building and, and, and a lot of the influence of course, of CCC, uh, using, uh, various tools and trying to take on some of these things, uh, as, as a group and, and overall basically, uh, reduce some of our, our overhead and, and really build up skills. 
We have a lot of really talented people. 
Let's be fair here. 
I mean, it's Germany. 
Okay. 
Every newborn is wired for fiber immediately. 
Okay. 
They, they just have technology that works. 
They have infrastructure. 
It's, you know, I'm not saying it's easy, but I'm just saying it's the challenges that we go through. 
And this, as Carl said, it's, it was new, a new space. 
We had a lot of things to try out for the first time. 
So we knew there were going to be some rough patches, but the good news is that we got it all in the end. 
Sure. 
And I mean, yeah, don't get me started on challenges. 
It'd be a different kind of show. 
Uh-huh. 
We like challenges. 
Um, okay. 
Uh, Rob, go ahead. 
I think I heard something from Alex. 
Yeah. 
Um, just, uh, for anyone interested in the may contain hackers conference, uh, they do have their videos up. 
You can see it at MCH two zero two two.org. 
That's MCH 2022.org. 
Uh, you can rewatch the talks. 
Uh, most or all of them seem to be in English and, uh, and you can check that out there. 
Uh, okay. 
Uh, so Alex, uh, just texted me saying, uh, I don't seem to be able to, uh, reconnect. 
What I've been asking him though is if you're able to send me this text, why can't you, uh, why can't you connect via a wheezing signal? 
Um, I'm going to just be unprofessional here and call him live from my phone and see if it goes anywhere. 
Um, let's see if that works. 
It might be as simple as that. 
It's, it's ringing. 
His, his phone might be ringing on the plane. 
Can you guys hear that? 
Mm-hmm. 
Yes, we can. 
Well, let's see if he picks up. 
Of course, his phone may be in his luggage. 
Well, his phone's in the seat and he's in his luggage. 
We'll, uh, we'll try this again during overtime, which by the way, uh, starts at eight o'clock. 
We're doing that again this week. 
It's on our, our favorite site in the world, youtube.com channel 2600. 
And I think Alex is just ghosting us. 
I think that's what's happening here. 
Can I just comment on the YouTube critique? 
I think that in our defense, like we can comment about all of these services, but we're, we're still operating in the same space that everybody else is. 
And yeah, like we have a YouTube channel. 
We've, we've curated it much in the way many millions of people around the world have curated their YouTube channel. 
We aren't like head over heels for all and every of these platforms, but just denying our ourselves at every turn, the ability to be on any one of them. 
And then, you know, fielding questions and comments from everybody about why aren't you here and why aren't you there and you should be there and you should do this again, you know, gets exhausting. 
Yeah. 
By all means, we should be in all those places, but to expect us to do all the legwork for all those things, it's a full-time job. 
Oh, everybody is so willing to, to, uh, point and, and, and share all their ideas, but to do what it takes to actually implement that, um, you're really asking a lot and I, I get a little bit perturbed. 
Yeah, but let's be fair. 
I mean, you know, uh, suggesting things, uh, there's no harm in suggesting things. 
Uh, there is a harm in, in, in assuming that we just can do it all ourselves. 
Obviously, um, we need support and more people involved. 
And the thing is when you say, okay, this is a great platform, uh, let's use CCC as an example. 
Uh, okay. 
We're streaming on CCC. 
How many people listening right now know what to do to be able to get to us? 
If I say we're on YouTube, bang, everybody knows how to get there. 
That's the issue. 
We need to make these other alternatives as easy to use. 
And, uh, you know, we could put links up on our page and all that kind of thing, but it has to be something that is also intuitive. 
Now, YouTube has an advantage. 
They've, they've gotten a big foothold. 
Let's see if we can get that advantage, uh, move to some other places as well. 
So that, uh, we do have true alternatives. 
I would just, don't mistake the, um, the use of it as, as some kind that, that we, we're somehow lauding it and, and completely, you know, blind to its, uh, its nuances and, and, uh, shortcomings. 
No, we absolutely understand what we're getting into perhaps more so than a lot of folks. 
So please back off. 
Okay. 
Well, I don't necessarily agree with that. 
I think people should come at us with all kinds of ideas. 
Uh, and, um, just don't expect us to have all the magic answers because, um, we, uh, we're only mortal humans as Alex just demonstrated. 
He said he tried to answer the phone. 
I don't know what that means. 
Tried to answer. 
How do you, okay. 
Um, it was ringing and maybe he dropped the phone or something. 
We'll try again after eight o'clock on, on, uh, on YouTube. 
Um, we'll see what happens then. 
Um, let's see, uh, what else is going on here? 
A couple of stories. 
Actually, uh, Alex just texted me again. 
Uh, he missed an audio call. 
That's what he told me, or that's what the message told me. 
Um, we have, um, all kinds of, uh, potential issues, such as FEMA saying that, um, uh, there is compelling evidence to suggest that certain unpatched and unsecured emergency alert system devices are vulnerable. 
That's according to the chief engineer for integrated public alert and warning system, uh, which is the national system that state and local officials use to send urgent alerts about natural disasters or child abductions, among other things. 
Um, the, um, agency last week urged operators of the devices to update their software to address the issue, saying that false alerts, uh, could in theory be used over TV, radio, and cable networks, the advisory did not say that alerts sent over text messages were affected. 
There is no evidence that malicious hackers have exploited the vulnerabilities. 
Uh, they say it's unclear how many emergency alert, uh, system devices are running the vulnerable software. 
Uh, FEMA referred a request for an estimate of that figure to the FCC, which had no idea what they were talking about, apparently. 
So, um, yeah, uh, that's something to, uh, to be a little concerned about when EAS starts to, uh, become compromised, but it's not something that surprises us because, um, it's all over the air. 
It's all controlled by various beeps and, and, uh, frequencies and things like that. 
Uh, EAS. 
Wow. 
Who knew? 
Uh, and, um, Anonymous has jumped into the, uh, Taiwan, uh, issue. 
Uh, the cyber hacking group, Anonymous has hacked a Chinese Communist Party website, uh, and welcomed U.S. 
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan. 
Boy, they're really trying to start World War III, aren't they? 
Uh, according to reports, the website of the, uh, Helen Zhang Society Scientific Community Federation in China was hacked by Anonymous. 
Uh, after hacking the website, the group posted an HTML page with the text Taiwan Numbawan, the Taiwanese flag and emblem, and images of Pelosi and Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. 
Uh, it also wrote, Taiwan welcomes U.S. 
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 
Uh, this, uh, comes amid Pelosi's one-day visit, um, of the, uh, self-ruled island, which has been severely condemned by the Chinese government. 
Uh, according to reports, the hacked website showed the Anonymous group logo followed by the Taiwan Numbawan meme. 
Uh, this was a reference to a statement made in 2015 by video game streamer Angry Pug to rile up Chinese streamer Emo, really, uh, during a match of the game, uh, H1Z1, because this is how the wars will be fought, really, through video games. 
Uh, the website further showed the national flag and national emblem of Taiwan, followed by the welcoming note for Pelosi. 
However, the website was later taken down by the Chinese authorities. 
And, uh, who can say that, um, we're surprised by that. 
All right. 
Um, we are, um, pretty much out of time. 
Please write to us, OTH at 2600.com. 
We are not on next week on WBAI. 
Uh, however, we are on in a few minutes on YouTube. 
Just follow the link on top of the 2600.com webpage, or just go to youtube.com slash channel 2600 and join us at eight o'clock and call us, you can, uh, share your ideas and thoughts and suggestions and things like that. 
We'd love to hear from you and maybe Alex will join us. 
Good night.