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The Telephone Keeps Ringing So I ripped it off the wall I cut myself while shaving Now I can make a call We couldn't get much worse But if they could, they would Bum-Ding-Lit-Bomb for the best, expect the worst I hope that's understood Bum-Ding-Lit-Bomb! 
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Good job. 
Going on a fox On a fox Thank you. 
Thank you. 
And the very good evening to everybody, the program is Off the Hook. 
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this delightful Wednesday evening, joined tonight by Kyle. 
Hi there. 
And over in Skypeland, we have Rob T. Firefly. 
Good evening. 
We have Gila. 
Good evening. 
And literally popping up at the last second, we have Alex. 
I'm here. 
Good evening, everybody. 
Oh, it's a good night to have another show, I think, because we have them so rarely. 
In fact, we're preempted again next week. 
Yes, we are the show that gets preempted more than any other show on BAI. 
I think we can actually say that truthfully. 
But it's okay. 
It's fine. 
Because we're busy. 
We have other things to do anyway. 
Anyone have any interesting stories or adventures that they've been on this week? 
Long COVID's an adventure. 
Yeah. 
How long is that COVID anyway? 
It's ongoing, but I'm doing my best. 
And I'm back in New York. 
I came back from Corsica last week, so that was a lot of fun. 
It was a bit crazy leaving the island, too, because we had drastically underestimated the amount of time it would take us to drive back to the ferry and realized that we probably were missing the cutoff. 
So I imagine that I'm going to have a steady stream of speed camera tickets throughout the entirety of the route that we took from the south of Corsica all the way up to Bastia in the north. 
And, you know, I'm thinking of doing something artistic with all these tickets that I will inevitably get in the mail. 
Well, it's a good opportunity to learn about the system they have in place with speed camera tickets in Italy. 
How do they track you down and force you to pay? 
Yeah. 
Well, this is France because it's Corsica. 
Oh, I'm sorry. 
That's right. 
But in Italy, I do also, a couple of times a year, I get letters in the mail for outstanding speeding tickets. 
How many countries do you have outstanding speeding tickets in? 
Well, let's not discuss that at the moment. 
But, you know, the issue is how they track you down. 
But it is interesting how they track you down now and the amount of effort that they put into mailing these tickets to people overseas that are never going to bother to pay these things. 
Well, you don't know that, Alex. 
Not everybody has your values. 
Maybe some people will actually say, hey, you know what? 
I was speeding. 
I should pay this and the penalty and the interest and the postage. 
Oh, yeah, maybe. 
But, you know, especially if you're driving a rental car, right? 
Then they get the speed camera. 
We'll capture the plane with the rental car. 
Then they'll run the registration. 
They'll realize that that's a rental car. 
They'll figure out to whom, to what rental agency it was registered. 
Contact that rental agency. 
Figure out who had the car at that particular date and time. 
Get the personal information of that renter. 
And then wherever they are, Italy sends these certified letters in the mail. 
They're very official looking. 
If they don't, sometimes you have to go to the post office to pick them up. 
And you realize, oh, my God, this is this official mail from the government of Italy for a speeding violation or accidentally driving in a pedestrian area in Florence. 
Just something ridiculous like that. 
They put so much effort into this process. 
And you know how many of these tickets I've paid? 
Well, yeah, knowing you, zero is a number I would have arrived at as well. 
But this does give me an idea for our TV production division. 
A reality show or just kind of a reality slash travel show where the goal is to get a speeding ticket in every country in the world. 
Now, I'm not talking about major speeding like, you know, the kind of driving you do. 
I'm talking about just, you know, maybe a few miles over the speed limit just so you get, you know, a ticket, a minor ticket. 
But then you follow the system and see what they do to try and track you down. 
And this is kind of like an ongoing series. 
You go, imagine getting, you know, a traffic ticket in North Korea, for instance. 
What would they do after they give you a ticket? 
How would they try to contact you? 
How do you pay them? 
Things like that. 
You would have, that would be an interesting one because you would actually have to get a license from OFAC, you know, from the U.S. government in order to pay the ticket to the North Korean government. 
Uh-huh. 
Yeah. 
And that could be a two-parter perhaps for that. 
Yeah. 
Absolutely. 
And it sounds like a thrilling series. 
Uh-huh. 
Wow. 
Well, I've had quite a week. 
I told you guys I was on jury duty, I think. 
Did I tell you? 
I'm pretty sure I did. 
But, yeah, it's been something. 
Actually, I haven't been on a jury in quite a while. 
But the funny thing is, and you'd appreciate this, Alex, actually, it's a fraud trial. 
I can't talk about the case, but I can talk about the people, I think. 
I know the guy. 
I know the guy. 
He basically gave me my first job in the industry. 
Yeah. 
No, basically, I would not be where I am now, you know, with the magazine, with the radio, all that, because this guy took a chance on me and hired me. 
You shouldn't be in the jury. 
I'm sorry? 
You shouldn't be in the jury. 
Well, why not? 
I show up on time. 
What do you mean? 
Why should I be in the jury? 
No, no, that's not important. 
I mean, yeah, we know each other. 
It's not a big deal. 
I'm listening to the facts of the case, and I'm going to judge them. 
And there's 11 other people there, too, Alex. 
So it's not a big deal. 
But what you mentioned, though, I did want to ask you, because you are a lawyer, some people are saying I should mention that, you know, I know the guy. 
You know, we don't talk. 
I mean, yeah, we acknowledge each other passing in the hallway, but that's it. 
You know, there's nothing, you know. 
Maybe we exchange holiday cars, but that's not really any of your business, you know. 
Some people say I should have mentioned this. 
It sounds like you're one of those people that said, but why? 
What do you think I can't make a rational judgment? 
I mean, the guy is a good guy. 
There's no question about that. 
He took a real chance on me, and, you know, I owe him a lot, but that's not going to enter into the way I hear the case. 
I mean. 
Yeah, I'm detecting some sarcasm now. 
Are you really? 
Yeah, the sarcasm meter is going off a little bit. 
Now, the naivete was believable at first. 
Thank you. 
Thank you. 
But tell me, though, why in that scenario? 
Why in that scenario would I not be allowed to sit in that jury? 
I mean, yeah, you know, it's not like we live in the same house or anything like that, but, you know, somebody that I have a passing acquaintance with who did me a favor once in the past. 
Is that really going to cloud my judgment? 
Does the system think so little of me? 
Well, it's not a matter of whether it would or would not cloud your judgment, in fact. 
But it is a matter of giving the appearance of partiality, right, so that the verdict could be questioned if it came out later on that you had known this person and he gave you your first job or something like that. 
So you have to avoid the appearance of partiality at all costs, and that includes being extra cautious when it comes to ethical issues like this. 
Even with 11 other people sitting in that jury box with me, that's not enough to counter their weight? 
It only takes one for a hung jury. 
Well, okay. 
Now, imagine if I was the only person making a decision, and imagine if that decision was mine and mine alone. 
Would you say that's a conflict of interest as well? 
Yeah, I would. 
Yeah, for the same reason. 
So pursuing that, Alex, and remember you are under oath, would you say that the judge that one, President Trump appointed to the federal bench, ruling on his particular case right now, that might be a conflict of interest? 
Yeah, yeah, I see where you go. 
No further questions. 
Well, there is, I guess, two sides to this, right? 
Yeah, the right side and the wrong side. 
But tell us about the wrong side. 
I'd like to hear that logic. 
Sure, sure. 
We can start there, right? 
You know, with this theory, right? 
So federal judges are supposed to decide what cases without fear or favor. 
That's why they have lifetime appointments, and that's why they are supposedly beholden to nobody, right? 
It's very unusual for a judge to rule on a case that involves the actual president that appointed them, though. 
That's kind of strange, especially since it's such a recent appointment and a recent president. 
So I can see there being some questions about this, but there is a lot of faith that we put in the federal judiciary to decide these issues for themselves. 
Yeah, but you know what, Alex, I think we put too much faith in that, because obviously there's some kind of quick pro quo here. 
I mean, he gave her a big job. 
You know, he did her a big favor. 
And to just assume that she's above that somehow and isn't going to take his words into consideration a lot more than anybody else's, I think that's the height of naivete. 
I mean, it just seems so. 
And now that she's made the decision to appoint this special master, which nobody else would ever get that kind of preferential treatment, and basically shutting down the case against him, putting it on hold for months, maybe years, while they figure out how is this guy going to go through tens of thousands of documents or a woman, and how are they going to find somebody that they all agree on? 
It's not going to happen. 
And if they don't find somebody, who's going to appoint one? 
Her? 
You see where this is going? 
It's just basically all this power is in her hands right now. 
And our system, if it really were designed well, would have immediately kicked in and said, no, the person you're ruling on appointed you. 
That's an obvious conflict of interest. 
So let's move on. 
There's other judges. 
Why do we have to have that particular judge? 
Well, it's the judge that the case drew. 
Generally, federal district courts will have some kind of lottery system, and it's hard to move away from that. 
I mean, the judge could reasonably have recused herself, and then they would have drawn another judge. 
But she seemed to believe that she could decide the case fairly and equitably without having to recuse herself. 
Look, you might be able to push the issue, bring it to the circuit court, and if you made a motion for the judge to recuse herself and then lost that motion, then you could take it up to the circuit court. 
But I think for the longest time, up until Trump became president, which is still a crazy thing to say in my mind, up until he became president, you could really and reasonably rely on federal judges to be absolutely impartial, regardless of the president that appointed them. 
I mean, if I saw - let's say this had to do with Bush I, and it was a judge that was appointed by Bush I, I think we would have seen a different result. 
But here we have a much more tribal political system that we are living with, and it's not just the issue, the legal issue or the jeopardy that President Trump faces here. 
But I think to a certain extent, because the whole world has changed in terms of the level of outrage and vindictiveness of the public, that has certainly changed too. 
So there may be massive repercussions for this judge personally and for her family if he doesn't seem to fall in line with President Trump, because she owes him one. 
She was appointed by him. 
All of this - this all just adds to this stink or rather the stench, I think, around this particular decision. 
But this is a new thing, struggling with the partiality of the federal judiciary. 
This is why Article III of the Constitution was written to provide for lifetime appointments, because federal judges have always been a reliable, impartial arbiter of the facts and the law. 
Yeah, and I want to agree with all of that, but it seems in the last few years that's no longer the case with the Supreme Court, with what we're seeing here. 
Judges cannot be counted upon to remain impartial, and we have to think about how to deal with that, how to get past that. 
For instance, there's talk of the Department of Justice filing an appeal. 
Do you think it's a good idea for them to file an appeal? 
Yeah, I do. 
I mean, why not? 
Who would they be filing the appeal with? 
That would be with the circuit court. 
Okay, so on the circuit court, are there any judges that Trump appointed there? 
Probably. 
I don't know all the appointees. 
You see the problem. 
It just doesn't go away unless we change something. 
However, though, you know, it's not a single judge on the circuit court that would decide the case. 
But I'm not a single juror that's going to decide my friend Lenny. 
Oh, he's not really my friend, but whatever. 
Yeah. 
Well, you won't let one juror serve, you know, who has some kind of preexisting relationship. 
So the same should not hold true for judges. 
Well, so it's a little bit different with the jury. 
I mean, one juror, one recalcitrant juror could create a hung jury. 
But that's not how it would work in the circuit court. 
Those decisions would be decided by a majority. 
There would be a panel of judges that would be appointed. 
It would be three judges. 
They would presumably not all be appointed by Trump. 
And they are even farther removed, I think, from the political processes and the - but they would have to deal with the same record, the same facts on appeal that were presented to the judge below and determine whether or not she abused her discretion. 
I think that would be the standard here. 
I don't know if they would review this - I don't know what the standard of review is here. 
That would really determine whether or not this would be an appeal that's worth making because if it's a de novo review, meaning they review everything anew, then, yeah, sure, that would be - that's an easier win for the government, right? 
But if it's an abuse of discretion standard, then if there was a reasonable basis for the judge to have made that decision, it would be difficult for the appeals court to overturn that decision. 
But, again, you know, it's a majority of that panel that would decide. 
And then if you're still dissatisfied with that, you can request a rehearing en banc, which means you get the whole circuit, all of the judges over there, and then they can address the issue. 
And then from there, you've got one more stop, and that would be the United States Supreme Court. 
Oh, joy. 
We know how that's going to go. 
That's true. 
And, look, if the government won at the circuit level, then Trump's team could appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court. 
How about this? 
How about so that we definitely get impartiality, we get the Canadian Supreme Court to rule on it, or the EU, whatever, you know, just anybody else. 
Someone with no ties, no relationships. 
I don't know. 
It's a crazy situation, but the end effect is that the investigation is stopped now. 
And if we saw this happening in another country, we would say, wow, that's just proof of how corrupt their system is and how amazing we are because it can never happen here. 
Well, it's happening. 
It's happening right now. 
Yeah, I mean, look, another way of looking at it, and I don't think this is the correct way of looking at it, but it's the benefit of the doubt way of looking at it, is that, you know, this just puts a pause button on the government's aggressiveness here, in a sense, right? 
You know, it's not as if the reins of the Department of Justice are going to change in six months. 
Certainly, this might have some kind of outcome with respect to the midterm elections, but a special master going through these documents is not going to come to any different conclusion about whether a document is classified or unclassified. 
It's marked classified or it's not classified. 
It's marked SCI, sensitive compartments of information, or it's not. 
It should have been handled in one way. 
It should not have been taken out of the proper receptacle or where it's supposed to be. 
So, in a sense, yes, this just puts - it places a pause on this, but having independent review could make the government's case even stronger in the long run. 
Well, yes, but how do you get there? 
Because, again, they have to be - it has to be a person that both sides agree upon. 
Do you see - I mean, I see on Twitter, I see people in Trump's camp seriously suggesting that that person be Rudy Giuliani. 
I mean, can you - that is where we are. 
They think that is the impartial person that should be going through all of this. 
I don't think we're anywhere close to any sort of agreement. 
And then what happens if there's no agreement? 
Because if that judge is the person who appoints somebody, then all bets are off as to fairness and impartiality. 
Yeah, I mean, look, it's process. 
It's going to be stalled for a little while. 
I have faith in the judiciary. 
I have faith in their ability to push this thing forward and in the process. 
It's the best we have. 
I think it's one of the best in the world in terms of fairness, and especially at the federal level. 
It's a different caliber of practice and professionalism. 
And I think we're going to see this march forward. 
It's just going to be more slow than we're used to. 
We've just got to be patient. 
Let the process play out. 
In every case that I have ever been involved in, involving friends and myself and just anybody that is under the hairs of the Department of Justice, we never had an option like this. 
We were never able to say, can we just pause for months or years or whatnot? 
And we also have to remember the public forgets these things. 
You know, a few months from now, who's going to be thinking about it? 
Who's going to want to talk about it? 
And again, you said it might affect the elections. 
Well, that's a big deal if it affects the elections by not having this moving forward. 
And those elections can certainly affect more courts down the road. 
Yeah, every aspect of this speaks to the urgency of it. 
And the fact that a former president's private property was raided in the way it was, we're supposed to believe it was some sort of accident or a mix-up. 
And it's really over nothing to worry about at all. 
There's a lot here that just even getting into all of this procedure they want to try to bury it with. 
There's so much really damning evidence on the surface that to not do everything you can to activate and speak to that sense of urgency. 
It just boggles the mind. 
It's a real waste. 
And his appetite for attorneys and lawyers, it's its own form of opulence. 
Yes, but the fact that we know so much about the evidence, it's because Trump wouldn't shut up himself and demanded that things be made public, and they were. 
Now, if he had asked for this special master without revealing all this information, we wouldn't know any of this. 
We wouldn't know anything about what we're talking about. 
Imagine how easy it would have been to just completely cover the whole thing up. 
So I guess we owe a thank you to Trump himself for not knowing when to shut up and basically helping to reveal just the extent of this. 
Just being messy all over the place, laundry everywhere. 
Look, on this program, we talk about security a lot. 
We talk about when systems are broken or insecure. 
And that's what we're talking about right now is a system that is broken and insecure, the judicial system in this country. 
And we can either choose to do something about it, strengthen it, add some security to it, or we can just deny it and keep going around pretending that it's working fine and blaming the people that expose it. 
And you see how that winds up with computers and phones. 
The same thing can happen here. 
Or top-secret materials. 
Yeah, yeah. 
Alex, go ahead. 
Let's move on to some other stories, but go ahead. 
I'm happy to move on. 
Okay. 
Well, great. 
Our friends over at DDoS, hang on a second, I'm getting my notes together here. 
But basically, our friends over at DDoS Secrets uploaded a cache of data very recently linked to the Oath Keepers that include chat records from the group's private chat room, hosted on Rocket Chat from June 22nd to June 26, 2020, and February 5th of September 19th, 2021, emails from January 13th to September 19th, 2021, and purported membership information from more than 38,000 individuals. 
So, folks, if you suspect your mother or father or brother or sister are members of the Oath Keepers, this is your chance to check the database and find out and see just who's involved and who isn't. 
This actually is being spread around by the ADL, Anti-Defamation League. 
So you can, like, search it. 
I imagine so. 
I haven't gotten it yet. 
We've got a torrent running in the other room. 
That's interesting. 
But basically, in the wake of the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, significant public and legal scrutiny was focused on the Oath Keepers. 
This comes from the ADL. 
A large anti-government extremist group associated with the militia movement. 
Despite the group's national profile, few specifics were known about its membership. 
And that changed in September 2021, a year ago, when the nonprofit journalist collective Distributed Denial of Secrets published, among other data, more than 38,000 names on the Oath Keepers membership list. 
So this list has been out for a while, but it's just - it's getting more publicity now for some reason. 
Perhaps it's more prescient. 
Yeah, maybe, maybe. 
So it's something worth looking into. 
And if you go to DDoS Secrets - let me have the exact URL. 
Rob, do you have that information handy? 
DDoSsecrets.com. 
Dot com. 
Okay, that was easy. 
And you can click the link for Oath Keepers right on the front page. 
Yeah, and just get it yourself and see. 
But this is a story that does not get old. 
And it's good to see it back in the media. 
Sorry, it's slightly confusing, so it's worth spelling this out. 
DDoSsecrets.com. 
Yes. 
And you can't link to it on Twitter. 
They won't let you do it, which is kind of interesting in itself. 
Yeah, and really something we find annoying as hackers because it's basically flagged as hacking material, even when, in large respect, it's - well, often case, once things are released in one form or another, depending on exactly what it is, it's in the public interest, some way or somehow. 
Some journalists, some researchers should be looking at it. 
You know, they were at Hope. 
DDoSsecrets were at Hope. 
And it was a real honor to have them there. 
And you can see the talk on YouTube. 
But these stories are very important to the preservation of our democracy and to get the facts out there and to let people know what's really going on. 
Yeah, and they've been guests on our show several times, I think, within the last year. 
Absolutely, yes. 
Okay, Kiwi Forums. 
You haven't talked about this. 
Who wants to sum up what Kiwi Forums is or was all about? 
Gila, it looks like you've got something. 
Go ahead. 
I got it. 
Are we ready? 
You can't say those words on the radio, just so you know. 
Oh, it's one word, and that word is cesspool. 
Yeah, you can say that. 
You can say cesspool, right? 
Okay, yeah, yeah. 
All right. 
That's the word. 
Cesspools are essential. 
Cesspools are essential, Gila. 
They're essential, but they're gross. 
So I'm just going with the gross part, not the essential part. 
They're not essential. 
That's for damn sure. 
Not essential. 
Yeah, so Kiwi Farms is, was, shell is, was. 
Well, first of all, let's start, let's start with the definition of what Kiwi Farms is. 
Is it, is it a 4chan, an 8chan, a 12chan? 
What, what, what is it exactly? 
Or what is it? 
It's in that vein. 
It's like an 8chan, an 8con, all of those things. 
And basically in the last few years, they've existed solely to brigade and troll. 
Thank you. 
Rob just opened up a sentence for me. 
Become notorious for waging online harassment campaigns against LGBT people, women, and others. 
So basically they're a hate group that goes around targeting people specifically, and they have a massive amount of participants, and they're anonymous. 
Correct. 
Okay. 
All of those things are true. 
And in recent weeks, Cloudflare has refused to drop them as a customer. 
Anybody want to discuss that a little bit? 
Well, Cloudflare is basically, they, they, they distribute requests for your site in such a way as to protect your site against DDoS attacks, and also obfuscate where your site is being hosted, because they're bouncing it through themselves. 
And this is a legitimate service used by lots of people, lots of agencies, lots of companies. 
It's, it's, the, the internet as we know it depends heavily on Cloudflare services. 
But Cloudflare was, was serving Kiwi farms in the same way that before that they had served sites like the Daily Stormer and like 8chan, basically, basically hosting the, the Nazis and people like that, until, like, under, under pressure from, from public outrage and complaints, they pulled the plug on those two sites, but they were digging in their heels regarding Kiwi farms. 
Until very recently, they finally, they finally capitulated, basically, to the increasing public pressure, the campaigns for people to boycott them. 
Companies were re-examining their relationships with Cloudflare, and it, it ran into money for them, one, one can assume. 
So, they finally let, let Kiwi farms go from their Kiwi, sorry, go ahead. 
They, they, they basically took a different approach as far as their, their rationale. 
They, they said it was because of an immediate threat to human life that they dropped them, not because of the bottom line. 
Now, of course, they wouldn't say it's because of the bottom line, but their, a CEO, Matthew Prince said, this is an extraordinary decision for us to make, and given Cloudflare's role as an internet infrastructure provider, a dangerous one that we are not comfortable with. 
However, the rhetoric on the Kiwi farm site and specific targeted threats have escalated over the last 48 hours to the point that we believe there is an unprecedented emergency and immediate threat to human life, unlike what we have previously seen from Kiwi farms or any other customer before. 
So, that's, I don't know what they were reading before, because apparently there were all sorts of other threats and, and horrible things going on in Kiwi farms that they didn't take action against. 
I think maybe their attention was drawn to specific stuff, or they took another look, the proverbial second look at it. 
I, I don't know what it took, but. 
Kiwi farms. 
Oh, we were looking at Kiwi farms. 
Oh, that one. 
Right. 
That's, that's awful. 
We can't have that. 
You know, we actually keep that over there. 
Uh-huh. 
Rob, did you have more? 
But, but yeah, there, um, before, before they made this decision, they were digging their heels in with a blog post that didn't name Kiwi farms, but was obliquely referring to their rationale for, at the time, keeping the side up, um, basically trying to compare themselves to a public utility. 
Um, one quote from it was, just as the telephone company doesn't terminate your line if you say awful, racist, bigoted things, we've concluded that turning off security services because we think what you publish is despicable is the wrong policy. 
So, they, they really, they really, uh, did not want to shut the, uh, did not want to shut Kiwi farms down, um, until increased pressure over the following, uh, week or so, I think, uh, was the time between these, uh, these events led them to actually pull the plug, uh, from their Kiwi farms, uh, went to a Chinese host for a while, then they went to something else. 
Now, now they appear to not be on the internet. 
Um, one other interesting, uh, interesting fact in all this is that the internet archive has also decided to, um, exclude Kiwi farms and their backup domain from the internet archive. 
So, you can no longer look at old copies of where they had people's personal info and, uh, you know, the sorts of things that they, that they existed to spread. 
Um, even the internet archive has, uh, dug in their heels and went, we, we don't need to keep a copy of this chunk of the internet. 
The Wayback Machine, what they do is they, they crawl the web, they create backup of all sorts of sites and pages. 
And, um, uh, if, if you have a page, you can, you can choose to be excluded. 
But otherwise, as you said, they're, they're rarely removed except for, for copyright reasons. 
Uh, the internet archive has previously protested requests to delete alleged terrorist content and, uh, controversial, um, uh, sites like the now rebranded 8chan. 
You can still find those on the Wayback Machine. 
This seems to be different. 
This seems to be a step beyond that, that, um, uh, you know, I, I think people are realizing this is something that actually is directly targeting people. 
It's a, it's, it's violent. 
It's, it's threatening. 
And, um, it's, it's not what free speech is all about. 
It's not what anonymity is all about. 
It's a threat. 
And, um, nobody is obligated to, to help support that kind of a threat. 
Oh, us. 
Right. 
So it's interesting. 
Uh, we're from an article in Gizmodo from this morning. 
Um, Kiwi Farms does appear to have been bouncing around the internet over the last few days. 
And are now following in the path of the Daily Stormer in terms of where they are hosted and where they're finding their security at this point. 
The Daily Stormer, it looks like a kindergarten group compared to this. 
You know, they're, they're just filled with hatred, but these guys are printing contact information. 
I want to read you a story. 
Okay. 
Um, this is a, about, uh, a nine-year-old trans kid who was targeted. 
Uh, a mother has opened up about her nine-year-old trans child being doxed by Kiwi Farms users. 
Um, the forum was reluctantly taken offline by host Cloudflare, uh, this Saturday following a campaign led by trans streamer Clara Sorrenti, better known as Kefals. 
Is my pronouncing that right? 
Um, Kiwi Farms and its users were accused of involvement in some of the most notorious harassment campaigns towards members of the LGBTQ plus community in recent years. 
If it were not for them, the Republicans would be number one, but, uh, they, they took the prize on this. 
The, um, um, this reportedly included targeting, uh, U.S. mother, Debbie Jackson and her trans child, uh, when the trans child was just nine years old posting on Twitter, trans activist Jackson explained, uh, my nine-year-old trans child was so proud and confident that they ended up on the cover of National Geographic magazine. 
It was the gender revolution, but within days we were doxed on Kiwi Farms. 
Now doxing, if you don't know, refers to the act of leaking the private information of an individual or group to the public without their consents, often used as an intimidation tactic and can lead to in-person abuse. 
Um, the kind and gentle folks who call themselves Kiwi Farmers decided that I was a groomer pedophile and that Avery would only be safe if they exposed our full names, addresses, cell phone numbers, places of work, et cetera, to protect the children. 
Don't you know? 
Well, it's unusual way of phrasing it in on Twitter. 
Uh, she explained, she received a Google alert notification about the information leak and described her fear of watching several cars stop in front of her house during an ice storm when her city was essentially shut down. 
Our kids were nine and ten. 
It was just past their bedtime, but they noticed that, uh, mom and dad were still up and talking an awful lot. 
Uh, Jackson continued, we were on the phone with everyone we could think of. 
What do we do? 
How do we stop this? 
The car is in front of our house. 
Jackson eventually contacted local police who directed her to the FBI cyber crimes unit. 
Things became difficult, however, as one of Kiwi's, Kiwi Farm's main draws was the anonymity afforded to users, and Jackson said arrests were difficult because the URL is registered in one state, the hosting is in another. 
Uh, Jackson then described her growing fears as hundreds of stories about the incident appeared across the globe. 
My child was nine, she emphasized. 
They bragged in the thread that I must be watching, so they wanted to elevate things for me to read. 
Some of the comments about driving me to suicide for my child's benefit. 
She eventually turned to Google, which, um, helped removing Kiwi Farms pages from, from search results, uh, relating to their victims. 
Uh, I regularly search our names, she said, just to be sure. 
Uh, I, I, not seeing Kiwi Farms pages. 
Um, but she said that search results were showing up. 
Actually, um, um, I'm sorry. 
Um, uh, Kefals said that search results were showing up for her. 
Uh, and, um, yes, there's still more people that are, are being harassed now. 
Um, Debbie Jackson said, I was, I was devastated to, to read that after all that we had been through, I thought we had done something to keep our trans friends safe. 
I regularly, um, um, search our names. 
As I mentioned, um, Avery is just 15. 
More than a third of Avery's life has been lived in the shadows of the Kiwi Farms terrorism. 
My, uh, bright and confident kid withered away, decided that being a proud and public trans kid ruined their life and didn't even want to acknowledge being trans anymore. 
So, I guess Kiwi Farms are considered that a victory. 
Um, but there's, there's more. 
Things have now changed, she continued. 
I'm going to get my kid back. 
That's it. 
That's the point of this thread. 
I am going to get my bright and shining, confident and happy kid back. 
I honestly don't even know how to end this because I'm crying too much. 
I have my child again, she exclaimed. 
And that, uh, that account came from, uh, pinknews.co.uk. 
And, uh, it just lets you see what we're talking about here. 
This isn't just a site where everybody speaks their mind. 
This is something that is targeted for a specific group of people and they don't care how much they hurt anybody. 
You know, it's, it's all just fun and games for them. 
They're detached from any kind of, um, of, uh, emotion or, uh, morality or, or anything like that. 
So, is there a place in the world for Kiwi Farms? 
I argue not. 
I don't think there is. 
I don't know if I would have said that a few years ago because I don't think I would have realized it could have gotten this bad. 
I'm sure we'll get letters saying that we're selling out again and that we're, uh, basically not standing up for freedom of speech. 
This is not freedom of speech. 
This is terrorism. 
Yeah. 
It's the difference between it being a discussion board or discussion, um, channel, uh, as some of these were originally, uh, conceived of and more like a planning and the command and control type of platform for, like you said, domestic terrorism. 
I mean, uh, going after families and, and, um, minority groups and people, uh, of all stripes just, uh, becoming at the effect of your operation and, and, uh, uh, whims on, on these anonymized channels is, uh, uh, uh, not something that, uh, most people would, would have in their community. 
Let's hope not. 
Go ahead, Alex. 
I mean, the, the, the, the notion that kiwi farms should be allowed to exist or, or people should be allowed to, to, to host this without any regard to the collateral consequences is it's just silly, uh, and short-sighted and in my opinion, um, completely wrongheaded since it, and it, it, um, it would involve to me, I think just a very childish way of looking at something like free speech. 
Um, and, and I think, I hate to say this, it will sound elated to say this, but I think a lot of uneducated people think about the first amendment, uh, something absolute that can never be trampled upon. 
It can never, you know, it has no limits. 
It's, and it's not true at all. 
It's not true at all. 
I mean, the classic example is you can't yell fire in a crowded movie theater, you know, and, and it all boils down to this fundamental notion that one person's freedom ends where another person's freedom begins and you're allowed to speak your mind and do your thing up and until your actions or words impact another person's, uh, sense of security, sense of privacy, or would cross the line into harassment, trespassing, fighting words, things like that. 
So, you know, this notion that our words and actions have no consequences on others that should be accounted for is, uh, a childish, short-sighted, and I think absolutely wrong moral system to which these idiots adhere. 
Yeah. 
And, uh, rather than uneducated, say idiots, because I don't think anyone's going to say, Hey, wait a minute, I'm an idiot and I resent that. 
So, but you know what I like about this? 
What I like about what, how this transpired is the fact that we got here without any government intervention. 
This is all the people doing this. 
This is all the outrage from, from people like us, uh, organizations that hear that outrage and say, we don't want any part of this. 
Didn't take a clamp down from the federal government, state government, anything like that to shut this down. 
It just took us. 
And a lot of people will say, well, that's, that's cancel culture. 
Some things should be canceled, you know, and this kind of thing. 
Yeah. 
Let's, let's cancel that. 
Let's just not go overboard with the cancellation and, and save it for the really special cases. 
Yeah. 
I mean, I believe this is part of the clearly stated policy at the internet, internet archive. 
Um, it goes something like, eh, sometimes we forget things. 
Mm-hmm. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
I like that. 
I think that is a policy there. 
No, we forget the forgettable. 
Well, I mean, the internet archive doesn't forget anything, but some things should be forgotten. 
Sometimes they do. 
Or something just aren't worth remembering. 
But, but, but the story, the story should remain and we should learn from this, that this is what happened. 
And, um, and, and basically be ready the next time it happens, because you better believe it. 
But, uh, you know, cantaloupe farms just around the corner. 
Well, that's the other thing. 
I think the broader concern is, okay, so people are just hopping platforms. 
Now the sentiment necessarily, you know, we can wag our finger and say, oh, this isn't something we want in our community. 
All we want is it actually, um, is that, uh, aim going away? 
Like, are those individuals that are engaging in that? 
However, whatever level of seriousness there is there or commitment to it, um, within any kind of social dynamic like that, but it's, it's a sort of, um, uh, a moving thing that's changing shape and size and numbers, but it's the, the hate there is, is still there. 
It is. 
So I think that the, as you said, the private interests taking a good long look and actually having the discussion, um, however difficult. 
Yeah. 
Now go ahead, Rob. 
This whole, this whole thing, um, and the, the existence of places like Kiwi Farms, um, aid Kuhn, all of this stuff just has me thinking a lot about my own journey because I remember what it was like to be lonely and full of dark thoughts and young and want to break something. 
And I, uh, I did not have a real world community to speak of, but I found my people online. 
Um, the people I found very fortunately for me were the hacker community, were the phone freak community, were people who were exploring and playing and learning and sharing information and, uh, telling jokes and making the occasional prank phone call. 
But, uh, ultimately, um, no one was out to hurt people on these forums that, uh, I found myself on in the old days of, uh, Usenet, IRC, web forums, email lists, that sort of thing. 
And we had our bad apples. 
We had our bad apples. 
We had people. 
There are, there are always bad apples, but, uh, the, the, uh, the sort of crowd wisdom, the, the majority there were people who were, who were there to, uh, to play, to learn, to grow. 
And, uh, I, I just think, you know, what, what are the chances that I found the people I did? 
What, you know, how easy would it have been for me, um, at my, at my lowest to stumble into a group that was, uh, ready to reinforce the dark end of my thoughts, to, like, encourage me to, uh, do worse things than, than I was, than I was, uh, previously willing to do. 
Well, and also. 
And, uh, the, the, the sort of echo chambers that, that can pop up and exist and just reinforce sort of these, uh, these ideals of hate and negativity, um, they exist and the, the threat they pose, I think, is very real, um, not only to people outside, but to the people who find themselves there. 
And also it can be something that then is manipulating and, um, you know, uh, directed in, in ways that weren't something you're originally, um, uh, even aware of or upset over, um, personally, but you become a part of, uh, these radicalized groups. 
So, I mean, it is, it's out there and I think just talking about it and coming up with ways to, um, uh, familiarize ourselves and, and, uh, adapt our networks and, and, and when people are pointing things out, listen to them, you know, and say like, okay, is, is this really deserving of the kind of protection said company is providing them? 
Go ahead, Gayla. 
But I think the thing that occurs to me is how, you know, it's kind of like whack-a-mole, like 4chan went away and it became 8chan and what, 12chan, 16chan, whatever it was, those numbers keep growing. 
And I think about the, the focus at Kiwi Farms, they swatted Keffels, they got her arrested and out of her home and she went into hiding in a hotel and they analyzed the pattern on the sheets to find what hotel it was to find her and keep terrorizing her. 
And the fact that this hive mind put itself to that, the thing that scares me is no matter where they go, what is the way to stop that? 
What is the way to work against that? 
Even if they get driven underground, they're going to come back. 
You see, what you're describing is, is a perfect instance of tools and, and, and something like that, we were able to figure out where somebody is based on a pattern like that. 
We would celebrate as extremely clever and a victory for, you know, for freedom and all that, if we were tracking a bad guy, you know, if we were doing something for Ukraine or, or, or, or just basically fighting against fascism, using those techniques, same thing with any bit of technology, it can be used for good, it can be used for evil. 
And these people are using it for evil right now, but you, you, you can see the power that they have using these tools. 
And as, as, as teachers, as, as those who help to spread the knowledge around all of us in the hacker community should, um, should take heed of who it is that we're teaching. 
And also, are we teaching values as well as skills, you know, cause that is super important. 
You know, we, we talked about bad apples. 
Um, do we give up on the bad apples? 
Do we try to turn the bad apples? 
Do we try and reach them? 
You know, and, and there are some people that I know we'll never be able to reach, but I think we have to at least try. 
If we don't, if we give up on too many people, they're still going to be around and they'll just be using those efforts in, in, in different ways. 
So it's, it's a lot to consider, a lot to think about. 
I certainly see it as like an amorphous idea that is sort of at any one point can be in larger groups and then out in smaller groups, like, uh, dispersing and then, uh, coming back again, like into different larger groups at, at moments in history. 
And we're witnessing it in real time. 
Um, and I just know that, um, people of goodwill, I think have better tools and are better organized. 
I can just only hope that that's the case. 
I'd like to think that, but, uh, you know, tools, uh, can wind up in anyone's hands. 
And one thing that, that we always would say, uh, decades ago in the magazine was imagine this technology in the hands of the Nazis, what they would have done with it. 
And we're seeing that happen now. 
We're seeing what happens when evil people get their hands on high technology. 
So we need to have a plan for that as well. 
We need to know how to counter that. 
We need to know how to, um, uh, be able to, um, uh, take back this power, uh, if it is misused and abused. 
Hey, we're out of time now, uh, but we can continue this conversation on overtime to get to overtime. 
All you have to do is go to YouTube and, uh, find channel 2600. 
It's, it's one of the channels up there. 
YouTube.com slash channel 2600. 
We'll get you there. 
Or you can just with one click, click on the, um, the little, um, square on top of the 2600.com webpage and, um, and, and meet us over there. 
Um, Rob, were you at the meeting last week? 
Was there a meeting last week? 
2600 meeting. 
There, there was a meeting last week. 
I was not there. 
I was out of town, but, um, I'm, I'm told it happened. 
I'm told it was enjoyed. 
All right. 
Well, that's good. 
Um, so there won't be meetings this weekend, but, uh, first Friday of every month and they're coming back. 
There's more and more and more of them. 
Uh, write to us. 
O T H at 2600.com. 
We will see you in a few minutes, eight o'clock over on YouTube channel 2600. 
Good night.