And a very good evening for everybody. 
The program is... 
What is the program? 
Off the hook. 
It's off the hook. 
That's what it is on WBAI. 
This is Emmanuel here. 
Over on the other side of the room is Kyle. 
Yes. 
Coming in clear and loud. 
Good. 
I expect nothing less. 
And way over in the distant part of the room is Alex in Skypeland. 
Good evening. 
You know, we talked to a friend the other night who happened upon us by accident. 
And instead of immediately turning to another station, as most people do, he told us that he thought we were all, and this is when we were more people, we were all in the same room. 
It seemed like we were all together. 
In actuality, we are nowhere near each other in many ways. 
And this is all virtual. 
But it sounds like we're all in the same place, doesn't it? 
We work very hard. 
It does sound that way. 
Mm-hmm. 
Wow. 
What a great time to be alive, huh? 
Isn't that something? 
We don't have to be around each other. 
Yeah. 
Yeah, it really is. 
It's incredible. 
No, I do look forward to the day when we are a little bit nearer to each other geographically. 
But this does show you the tremendous potential. 
You know, you could be in another part of the world entirely and still be part of Off the Hook. 
Well, I'll tell you what I miss. 
I mean, I miss seeing you guys physically and being in the same room. 
But, yeah, I miss our Wednesday night rituals after the show, which, you know, I don't want to give away too much of it. 
But, you know, we usually bicker about where we're going to go get something to eat. 
And then we go someplace great and have, you know, it's just I miss the camaraderie of Wednesday nights. 
We bicker over the check, too, at the end. 
Don't forget that. 
Mostly. 
Yeah. 
Well, and because we're right, that's why. 
Mostly it's reviewing notes about how the show went and all the different things that we plan on improving. 
Yeah, and you left out the pre-show sessions where we practiced the script and all that. 
Yeah. 
I don't miss that, I'll tell you. 
And vocal exercises. 
Yeah. 
And, of course, it's all the driving. 
You know, we have to start at about noon to get there. 
That's one thing that's different. 
And I think something worthwhile and is unique about being able to take advantage of technology in different ways that people have with working, whether it's flexible working or distance, you know, conferencing to just everyday connecting. 
I think that people value it and use it in more but in their own ways, whereas I think a lot of - I don't know. 
I was pretty resistant to using it. 
I still am. 
Well, you know, in a way, this is a microcosm of what a lot of people are going through with their, you know, work days. 
And I think maybe what we wind up settling on is kind of a compromise between a virtual presence and an actual real-life presence, kind of like what we did with the conference where we had some virtual. 
Well, we had, you know, a lot of in-person as well. 
But the potential of the technology and also the importance of the in-person get-togethers, I don't think either of those should be cheapened. 
Yeah, you know, and - but on the other hand, too, the - you know, we've built our own rituals here now, you know, as part of the show. 
We're no longer able to accept live listener phone calls. 
It's changed the show a bit, but we've added an extra hour every week, more than an extra hour every week, and dedicated to solely taking listener phone calls, leveraging a separate technological platform, YouTube. 
But, you know, it reinforces everything that I thought about those kinds of forums in that they are dwarfed in comparison to the traditional radio forums. 
Yeah. 
We hear from people all the time that just, like I mentioned, happen upon us by accident. 
People remember shows. 
When we open up the phone lines and we're on the air, we get a ton of calls. 
It's a fraction of that on YouTube, even with all the publicity. 
It just isn't the same. 
I know there are exceptions. 
You know, there are people who have managed to get podcasts in the millions and things like that. 
But for the most part, you can't match radio. 
And that's why we cling to radio so desperately because it is vitally important. 
I think I speak for most of WBAI because we recognize the importance of radio over just a multitude of clamoring voices trying to get your attention that you'll find on the Internet. 
You have to seek them out for the most part. 
As WBAI, we are in the airwaves. 
We're there for the taking. 
Almost every car, I believe, still has an FM radio in it. 
And a lot of people still - I don't know how many people really listen to the radio in their homes. 
I'd like to hear, you know, maybe when we take calls on the YouTube part of the show later, people can let us know if they actually do listen, you know, gather around like those pictures from the 1940s of the whole family lying on the floor listening to the radio. 
I don't know if that happens anymore. 
But I like to think that there's a radio in people's houses that they turn on. 
And, you know, the recent hurricanes, that was a major part. 
Up in Nova Scotia, CBC Halifax was so vital for the people that didn't have power listening to what was going on in the overnight period and throughout the daytime and down in Florida more recently. 
People were listening to the radio when they had no power and no idea what was happening next. 
So you can't get that on the Internet because it can, you know, connect to the Internet if everything is failing, if the cell towers are down, if there's no power. 
Yeah, a battery-powered or hand-cranked radio, something I still want to get, that will always keep you connected. 
Yeah, write in and tell us maybe or call later. 
Talk to us about your favorite portable radio because I think that's the one thing. 
It's accessible and it's a very versatile medium. 
And, like, you're describing situations where you really need to take hold and get information out to people and focus on that, whether it's a - or perhaps an event of national interest. 
We carry those things here at WBAI. 
So remember to give at give to WBAI.org. 
Yes. 
And, yeah, just a special shout-out to everyone behind the scenes making it happen through all the different fundraising events and milestones we've reached technically just trying to keep things updated and ready for new producers and new information on shows like this. 
Now, I believe if you call the special pledge line, somebody will answer. 
I don't know that's for sure, but the phone number is 212-209-2950. 
Maybe one of our listeners can call and make a contribution and then call us later on the YouTube show and tell us if that worked and if you were able to make a donation. 
And you'll be the star of the show for that moment anyway. 
Next week we're not on because the station is doing a fundraiser of a different sort with different people, and that's fine. 
That's part of the way we operate right now. 
But you can pledge and say that Off the Hook is your favorite show. 
You can do that on the site Kyle mentioned. 
Give to the number 2. 
Give to WBAI.org. 
Or by trying that phone number, 212-209-2950. 
Because that support is so key in allowing a station like WBAI to even exist in the first place. 
And we've existed since 1960, if you can believe that. 
1960. 
That's, you know, 62 years ago. 
And if you look at any other radio station in the New York City area, any other radio station, I defy you, defy me one that has been on the air longer at the same frequency with basically the same format that they started out with, which in our case is a format of just about anything. 
You know, if you listen to WBAI over the course of any day, you will hear so much variety, more so than any other station. 
So keep that going. 
Pay it forward. 
212-209-2950. 
Give to WBAI.org. 
Keep cranking that radio. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
Hand crank. 
I really want to hand crank. 
Turn it up. 
And yeah. 
I bet a couple cranks and you can listen to a good part of the show. 
Keep going maybe halfway through the show. 
We want to hear all about it. 
It's weird. 
We're fascinated by this kind of different technology and ways of using it. 
It's weird because we didn't start the show thinking about fundraising. 
We just sort of segued into it because it matters, because this matters to us. 
You know, we're not being told to say this right now. 
This is how we feel. 
This is how we absolutely feel about keeping WBAI on the air, keeping non-commercial radio in the middle of the FM dial strong in New York City. 
And people all around the world have told us how much that matters to them. 
So please keep it going so that we can do another 62 years and who knows what the world will look like then. 
Alex, do you have any closing thoughts on this? 
And then we're going to move on to some actual news in the world of technology. 
No, nothing further to add. 
I think you've got it covered. 
All right. 
Moving on. 
We're moving right back to where we were in the spring. 
Apparently, Elon Musk is going to buy Twitter after all. 
Oh, my God. 
This never ends. 
Okay. 
So, Alex, correct me if I'm wrong here. 
What he's offering to do now is pay the original price he offered. 
So he offered a price, and that was rejected, and then he offered a higher price, and that was accepted, and they changed his mind and say, I don't want to buy them. 
And then Twitter sued him, and he said, oh, no, okay, well, then I'm going to go back and offer the first price. 
Is that about right? 
Yeah, that sounds about right. 
You know, it's a little imprecise, but probably correct. 
Okay. 
So what do you think happens now, or has something happened since I printed out this story a couple hours ago? 
That's a good question. 
I've been stuck working, but I don't know. 
I think what happens next is they can possibly strike a deal here. 
The trial was set to roll forward, I think, next week or the week thereafter, and I think Elon Musk doesn't want that to happen for whatever reason. 
And this would have been a trial in the public eye right before the midterm elections. 
It would have been massive amounts of attention, and I would presume that there are a lot of facts and things like that that perhaps Twitter would not want to be part of that official public record at trial. 
So going back to the drawing board and going back to the purchase, it seems to be like what's happened here. 
Well, you know, I'm looking at this with a real sense of dread because I don't know if you saw what he said, was it yesterday, the day before, about Ukraine basically saying, So should the people have the right to decide what country they want to belong to, being super insensitive to the brutality of the invasion against Ukraine and just basically trying to turn it into a whole big festival of pick your country without giving any thought to all the people who don't have that ability right now, who have been driven from their homes, and not to mention the bullying tactics that basically say might makes right, just to make it into some simplistic, well, do you believe in freedom or not, that type of a question. 
This is the guy that's going to be at the helm of Twitter. 
It really fills me with dread. 
Yeah, I'm not optimistic. 
Yeah, I mean, and it seems to be part of this larger scheme of control over a medium and also the message, another way to immerse himself in partisan politics, power, Section 230 issues, First Amendment. 
I mean, I just don't like the whole idea of having to deal with Elon Musk on all of these issues forever. 
No, it's definitely going to be unpleasant in many ways. 
And he has pretty much promised to bring Trump back onto the platform, which, you know, that'll basically make it nosedive, I think, and make it completely irrelevant and unpleasant. 
You know, it's been so nice without him there. 
But to have somebody say, yeah, you know, let's open it up to all forms of speech, including hate speech, including outright lies, including all kinds of threats and bullying and terrible tactics like that, it's going to be a sad day. 
But, you know, they haven't accepted the offer yet, I don't think, and they still might decide just to sue him. 
So, I'm not really in favor of that, but I think it's the better of the two choices. 
Yeah. 
I mean, it would be tricky, I think, to proceed on the basis of the original lawsuit. 
I think they were asking the court for a specific performance, right, which was essentially asking the court to compel somebody to do what they promised to do in the first place. 
So, if he's offering to do what he promised to do in the first place, it's hard to go back into court and litigate the issue. 
Yeah, but if that offer was rejected, it kind of seems like a weird tactic to lowball it. 
And, of course, I don't know if $44 billion is lowballing it. 
But, you know, to do that, to have it rejected, to offer something higher, then change your mind and say, okay, well, we can avoid all this if we just do what I wanted to do in the first place. 
I don't know. 
I think some judges might have a problem with that. 
Well, it's nuanced. 
And then there's also, you know, Twitter could allege that there's been massive reputational damage to the platform as a consequence of all of these shenanigans involving Elon Musk. 
And, you know, it's quite possible. 
I mean, he brought to light a lot of issues, the veracity of which I'm not sure if, you know, they've ever been proven. 
So, you know, there may be additional claims that Twitter would have against Musk. 
But if you think about this from the perspective of the bottom line, which is, frankly, how Twitter has to think about this, remember, they have to think about shareholder value and their fiduciary relationships. 
And so if Elon Musk is offering them a sum that would benefit the shareholders without going through costly, burdensome litigation that could further damage the reputation of the platform, they very well may take it. 
Yeah, you're right. 
Because, you know, my opinion is that whatever it is he is offering is so overvalued that they'd be fools not to take that. 
Because, okay, let me ask you this. 
Live journal. 
If I offered you a live journal and you had infinite funds, how much would you pay for it? 
Or what's another one? 
I don't remember the names. 
MySpace, was that a thing? 
Friendster. 
Friendster. 
How much would you offer for these? 
You know, I wouldn't pay $1,000 for them. 
But there was a time when they were probably worth billions in the eyes of some. 
And then the fad moved on. 
And they're not worth anything anymore. 
That's going to happen to Twitter at some point. 
So you're paying all this money. 
It's like people who buy racehorses. 
I can never understand this. 
You know, the horse is going to die at some point. 
And what happens to your investment unless you win all these races? 
I'm going to get all kinds of letters from horse racing fans now. 
But the point is, this is something that is not - it's not like buying a house. 
It's not like buying something that's going to last. 
It's a fad. 
It's something that will change in value and that value inevitably will go down. 
I think that one of the strategies, at least the ambition, is to change this into something even more than what it might be. 
I think there's some visionary stuff, some talk of that. 
This will be part of an evolution to 3.0 from 2.0. 
Who knows what we're doing? 
Now you're scaring me. 
Right. 
What are you going to change it into? 
Okay. 
You know, I'll watch. 
I'll sit on the sidelines. 
I'll get some kettle corn. 
I'll watch. 
There is a very long list of failed .com companies, you know. 
So there's - yeah. 
I mean, is there a peril in this that people are kind of at the mercy of? 
I think that's valid. 
We need more open platforms. 
We need more democratically run companies that put on social media networks. 
That we trust for information. 
I think that's something that's at stake here. 
Yeah. 
Standards. 
Standards are important. 
When somebody misbehaves, you don't let them keep misbehaving. 
Okay. 
Interesting story out of Washington State, where I believe you're from, Kyle. 
Well, this has to do with a hacker who basically was accused of - well, she was accused of all kinds of things. 
Alex, I think you'll be interested in this. 
A 37-year-old former - I'm reading this from actually the Department of Justice website, the U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of Washington, dated yesterday. 
A 37-year-old former Seattle tech worker was sentenced today - again, that was yesterday - in a U.S. District Court in Seattle to time served and five years of probation, including location and computer monitoring for seven federal crimes connected to her scheme to hack into cloud computer data storage accounts and steal data and computer power for her own benefit, announced U.S. Attorney Nick Brown. 
Paige A. 
Thompson, a.k.a. 
Erratic - that's her name, her handle - was arrested in July 2019 after Capital One alerted the FBI to Thompson's hacking activity. 
A federal jury found her guilty in June of 2022 following a seven-day trial. 
At the sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Robert S. 
Lasnik said time in prison would be particularly difficult for Ms. 
Thompson because of her mental health and transgender status. 
While we understand the mitigating factors, we are very disappointed with the court's sentencing decision. 
This is not what justice looks like, said U.S. 
Attorney Nick Brown. 
Ms. 
Thompson's hacking and theft of information of 100 million people - I'll read that again - Ms. 
Thompson's hacking and theft of information of 100 million people did more than $250 million in damage to companies and individuals. 
Her cybercrimes created anxiety for millions of people who are unjustifiably concerned about their private information. 
This conduct deserves a more significant sanction. 
Thompson was found guilty of wire fraud, five counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer, and damaging a protected computer. 
Using Thompson's own words in text and online chats, prosecutors showed how Thompson used a tool she built to scan Amazon Web Services accounts to look for misconfigured accounts. 
She then used those misconfigured accounts to hack in and download the data of more than 30 entities, including Capital One Bank. 
With some of her illegal access, she planted cryptocurrency mining software on new servers with the income from the mining going to her online wallet. 
Thompson spent hundreds of hours advancing her scheme and bragged about her illegal conduct to others via text or online forums, asking the court to impose a seven-year sentence. 
Prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memo, Thompson's crimes were fully intentional and grounded in spite, revenge, and willful disregard for the law. 
She exhibited a smug sense of superiority and outright glee while committing these crimes. 
Thompson was motivated to make money at other people's expense, to prove she was smarter than the people she hacked, and to earn bragging rights in the hacking community. 
I am proud of how quickly our cyber task force worked together to recover the victim's personal information and prevent further harm, said Richard A. 
Kaladi, special agent in charge of the FBI's Seattle field office. 
This case is a good example of why companies and individuals who believe their data has been stolen online should immediately contact the FBI. 
Judge Lasnick scheduled a December 1st, 2022 hearing to determine the amount of restitution Thompson must pay to her victims. 
Well, interesting case, and interesting to see the Department of Justice not happy with how something turned out. 
It's also interesting to see a judge actually show some compassion and not send somebody off to prison. 
Why couldn't we have gotten this judge for Virgil? 
I'd like to know. 
I also want to focus on a story that ran in the Seattle Times yesterday, because it phrases things just a little bit differently. 
So keep in mind what I just read from the Department of Justice, and listen to this now. 
The former Amazon engineer, whose 2019 hack-compromised 100 million credit card users' accounts, won't spend any additional time in jail. 
So from the press release, we didn't know she would spend any time in jail, but yes, she was in jail. 
Convicted in June on seven hacking-related charges, Seattle resident Paige Thompson was sentenced Tuesday to time served and five years of probation for violating an anti-hacking law known as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. 
Thompson, 37 years old, was responsible for one of the largest data breaches in U.S. history. 
She downloaded data from more than 100 million Capital One users, including 120,000 Social Security numbers and about 77,000 bank account numbers. U.S. 
Attorney Nick Brown said Thompson did more than $250 million in damage to companies and individuals. 
You know, reading the press release made it sound like, to me anyway, that she was responsible for stealing millions of dollars. 
It just kind of sounded like she was really up to something, and it was all about money. 
But no, not really. 
Prosecutors argued successfully that Thompson used a software tool she built via Amazon Web Services to look for misconfigured accounts. 
She then used the accounts to hack and download the data of more than 30 entities, including Capital One. 
The bank's internal system recognized Thompson's queries as coming from a friendly computer, so it fulfilled her data requests. 
Arrested in July 2019, Thompson remained jailed until November of that year. 
In 2020, Capital One agreed to pay $80 million to federal bank regulators' claims that it lacked security measures it needed to protect customers' information, something that DOJ left out. 
Yeah, they had to pay $80 million. 
In December, the bank settled for $190 million in class action lawsuits filed by customers whose data was exposed in the breach. 
Add those numbers up, and it comes very close to $250 million. 
Thompson's federal defender, Muhammad Ali Hamadi, said in an email that the $250 million damage figure is a result of Capital One's failure to protect the public's data, rather than Thompson's actions. 
At the sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnick said time in prison would be particularly difficult for Thompson because of her well-documented mental health issues and because she is transgender. 
Thompson had contended she was attempting to collect a bounty for spotting the vulnerability in the systems of the companies she hacked. 
Such payments are sometimes paid to white-hat hackers who try to identify and mend vulnerabilities in companies' online defenses. 
The jury in her case, and I want you to listen to this, the jury in her case found that she did not intend to commit fraud with personal identifying information that was downloaded onto her computer. 
In closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Friedman said she wanted data, she wanted money, and she wanted to brag. 
Well, don't we all? 
In a letter advocating for Thompson, a friend wrote that Page saw a situation where the information on which the financial system depends for its security was left utterly unguarded by its custodians. 
The individual also wrote that while Thompson was wrong for not reporting it, any random person with a computer could commit nearly limitless fraud. 
Again, something DLJ left out. 
Other supporters wrote that Thompson struggled with substance abuse and dependence as a way to self-medicate for her mental health. 
She was on pre-trial supervision for over three years, did not test positive for using controlled substances, and she was never diagnosed with a substance abuse disorder, according to her attorney. 
The defense said during the trial that her actions were legal because the breach company's systems performed as they were programmed. 
So, there you go. 
Two different sides of the same story. 
What's your feeling on this, Alex? 
My thought on this is, you know, well, I've got a lot of thoughts on this one, but this is exactly what my panel was about at HOPE this year, which was about the new interpretations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and as part of that panel, I would invite everybody to go onto YouTube and check it out. 
It's from HOPE this year. 
The CFAA has come a long way, or has it? 
That was the panel, and we had an FBI agent, an active FBI agent, who was involved in computer crime investigations and cybercrime issues, as well as kind of global threat risk and kind of more advanced cyber adversaries and things. 
We also had the co-chief of the Complex Frauds and Cyber Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office from the Southern District of New York, and the Managing Director of the National Cyber Forensics Training Association, who is also a lawyer and former FBI agent. 
And we were talking about these new guidelines for the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, whereby in May this past year, the Attorney General essentially changed the rules about how prosecutors should look at computer crime and created an exception for good faith security research or, quote-unquote, white hat hackers. 
And so that, you know, if you didn't have the intention of harming others or harming the public and you were performing good faith security research, as that was defined, ironically, in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of all acts, of which you are quite familiar, Emanuel. 
And so long as, you know, the intention was good, that there wasn't any malintending, you didn't intend to do harm, that it was good faith security research, and that you intended to address some kind of vulnerability or do this in a manner that wouldn't harm the public, it shouldn't be considered a crime. 
So, given the facts that you read, at least, you know, from one half of the articles there, it seems to me quite problematic that you have this U.S. Attorney's Office that's incredibly disappointed with the result here, because obviously the intentionality or the mens reo, which is a critical element of any crime, which is the intention to commit the crime, it seems like it really wasn't present. 
I mean, maybe she did, obviously, know and intend to transgress certain access controls and parameters of other systems, but if she did it for the purposes of good faith security research, this is something that, according to the U.S. Attorney's own guidelines, shouldn't be prosecuted anymore. 
But this is something, again, we addressed directly at Hope this year, which was, and that's why the panel was entitled, the CFAA has come a long way, or has it? 
Because this new policy change to the U.S. Attorney's Manual about CFAA and how they should treat all different types of crimes, it really is, in a sense, old wine in a new bottle. 
Because, as I just mentioned, every time a prosecution occurs, you have to think about the intention of the defendant. 
And so what Sagar Ravi, who was the co-chief of the Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Southern District of Vermont, indicated that, you know, he thinks that this really didn't make much of a change or it shouldn't have made much of a change because those types of good faith security researchers should not have been prosecuted in the first place. 
So I see there being, I see this as being a harbinger of hopefully what will be more good news on the horizon, which means that, you know, we should have fewer prosecutors like those that were described in the article being really disappointed about a result here, you know, that doesn't overly and harshly punish somebody who performed a minor amount of computer trespass here. 
And hopefully we see more and more judges recognizing that these are, that the crimes before them are in a sense, or rather in many senses, depending upon the facts and circumstances, could be victimless and shouldn't be treated with the same kind of crazy rigor and overzealousness that we'd seen, you know, people like Kevin Mitnick be charged with or treated in the past. 
So I see this as a real positive result, Emmanuel. 
Well, I certainly agree with the conclusion there, but I'm not quite sure about whether or not the judge was following that line of thinking because after all, what he said was time in prison for somebody with mental health issues and somebody who's transgender would not be advantageous, implying that if neither of those were the case, that a prison sentence might very well have been handed down. 
So I'm not sure that he is totally on board with the changes that you've outlined. 
Well, quite possibly. 
But I do think that if the facts were different here, and that there was some measure of intentionality or an intent to harm the public or to misuse the data that she had downloaded or that they had downloaded, I think that I think the judge would have come down a lot harsher. 
I think that the judge taking individual facts and circumstances of a person into account relative to a Computer Fraud and Abuse Act charge here is certainly progress in the right direction. 
It shows a level of empathy that we don't see very often in these types of cases. 
So it's hard to say what was going on in the judge's head, but I think he did take the facts into account in meeting out that decision. 
Well, you know, what I liked about this story, the story, not the press release, is that the words of the charged friends, you know, they were heard. 
You know, her friends were heard saying what she did was not wrong. 
She wasn't trying to do something bad. 
And the security was terrible. 
And someone else could have just done the exact same thing. 
It's not like the system was compromised. 
It was already compromised before anything had actually happened. 
Getting those words out, as we know with Virgil's case recently, it can be impossible. 
We never got to have those words said in court. 
All the people who wrote on his behalf to keep him out of jail, we never got to say that he didn't actually break into any system or do something malicious, that he was basically curious and looking for possible holes. 
All that the public heard was North Korea and cryptocurrency and a guy who thinks he's smarter than you and all kinds of things that just triggered people with power to go at him with everything they possibly could. 
So I'm happy to see a case like this where that didn't happen, but I want to see more cases like that where you actually do get your day in court, where you actually are able to say these things and let the truth be laid out there for all to judge. 
Yeah, I'm in agreement with that. 
And I think, you know, Virgil's case was really unique in a lot of unfortunate ways, but it does go to show you that the outcome of any case can be contingent on the judge that one draws. 
And that's entirely random. 
I mean, this is something that the great legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin famously described in, I think it was Law's Empire, is one of his greatest books, was that, you know, sometimes it all boils down to what the judge had for breakfast. 
And that's the sad state of affairs that we live in. 
One thing I really noticed here was that, yeah, the scalability, like the types, the way that this is, the system that was vulnerable and the way that this data is stored allows for those numbers, the amount of people, the amount of data. 
It allows it to be just astronomical. 
And it reminded me of how reliant a lot of these businesses are on contractors, on service providers like Amazon. 
And they're trusting a very, very large company with a lot of different employees, a lot of surface for access control and stuff. 
And you've got to wonder, no matter how good a bank, for instance, no matter how great their security is, if all of their infrastructure is susceptible because it's linked up to an even more vast system because, well, you know, there's no other, there's no cheaper way than to pay for Amazon buckets. 
And, you know, who cares if they leak? 
There's no other alternative or we don't want to pay for doing it ourselves. 
This call, really, it makes it a huge playground for people that are malicious, that do want to do something, is a target, and can touch a vast amount of sectors if it is found to be vulnerable. 
That really seems to be an underlying aspect of this, a huge, huge story that is maybe not as clear. 
Now, given this individual, they're, you know, I can't speak for their character, and I agree with, you know, your sentiments in large respect in how they're treated. 
And leniency, you know, we would like to see it a little bit more, but I'm not clear even from either of those stories that you read, E, that there was this sort of good faith, like, oh, I'm doing a report for the company. 
It seems like if you work there, that makes it even worse because, well, if you're really looking into this, you should be doing this formally with your department, with a team of people, with some supervision and tools, you know, but on the side, and then you throw in stuff that's kind of hard to talk about, like, in a good way, like bragging, I don't know what evidence they had. 
And again, that seems like it can be blown out of proportion, and it doesn't speak well of, like, some kind of formal analytic project, you know? 
You see, that's the thing, though, with DOJ, is that they exaggerate certain things. 
Bragging, who knows what that could be? 
That could basically be saying, yeah, I know what I'm doing, wanting money. 
Well, I was going for a bug bounty, which, you know, awards somebody with money. 
So there you go. 
That's, like, you know, obviously in it for the money. 
Yeah. 
So they have ways of distorting what the actual motivation was. 
Look, this was something that she was punished for, spent time in jail, and apparently there'll be restitution come December 1st. 
So, and having something like this going on in your life since 2019 is a bit disruptive. 
So I think, you know, the message was sent. 
Why are we so fixated on sending people to prison all the time? 
You know, seven years in prison for this? 
Really? 
Who was harmed? 
Who exactly was harmed? 
You know, if anybody out there is a Capital One customer, hey, guess what? 
Your data was insecure, and somebody was able to download it. 
And now, you know, that's been revealed. 
But, you know, I think the security system that was inadequate, you know, Capital One was rightly fined. 
And you have to look where the blame actually should be. 
Well, my only question therein is, like, okay, you're trusting Capital One, but in trusting them with your business and your info, you're actually implicitly, without your knowledge, you're trusting Amazon. 
What if you don't? 
Yeah. 
What if you realize how bad that is? 
And if you were told that you're not, because it's infrastructure, it's operational and stuff like that, it's a black box to you as a customer, you don't realize you're inherently accepting whatever hiring or whatever storage or software design elements that Capital One is taking on as a liability by contracting service from them. 
So it's kind of - that's a little odd to realize where your data - you know, you have no control over that. 
That's a business decision they're making for you. 
Go ahead, Alex. 
I think, you know, on the subject of this disappointment that was expressed at the sentence here, you know, it strikes me as just more of a fundamental problem that we see within the legal system itself, that it's seen as some kind of zero-sum game between the prosecution and the defense here, when it's not the way it was designed or should be thought of at all. 
You have to think about, you know, these prosecutors work for the Department of Justice. 
Justice should be the goal here in every single case. 
You're supposed to work justice. 
Prosecutorial discretion is just as important, and I think it can be argued, is more important than prosecutorial zeal. 
And a lot of this is born out of a lot of this need to over-prosecute or to be overzealous when it comes to this is because they want to have a record of being hard on crime and getting really great results or, you know, harsh sentences when they leave that office. 
You've got to send a message. 
You've got to send a message to everybody. 
High convictions. 
But there's got to be a better way to measure the success or failures of a prosecutor. 
Hey, they got a guilty verdict. 
They won. 
You know, that should have been the end of it. 
They got a guilty verdict in June. 
They won on the merits of the case, but they, you know, they got a meager sentence. 
And, you know, according to them, but according to the judge and according to the defendant and according to, I think, us, she received a just sentence. 
You cannot be disappointed when justice is served, when you work for the Department of Justice. 
Am I wrong? 
I mean, you're a lawyer. 
You understand how this all works much better than I do. 
But am I wrong in thinking that penalties, sentences, that is basically the territory of the judge? 
The prosecutor should be concerned with moving the case forward and prosecuting the case, not with the sentence. 
Isn't that something that is inappropriate for the prosecutor to really be a part of? 
Well, the prosecution recommends certain sentences, and sometimes the judge will go along with it, and sometimes the judge will not go along with it. 
It's up to the discretion of the judge. 
The prosecution does not sentence a defendant. 
Sometimes they work out, like in Virgil's case, there was a plea agreement that was worked out, and the judge sentenced the defendant in accordance with the plea agreement between the defendant and the government. 
But the judge always has the discretion to go below that agreement or to go higher than that agreement. 
It's totally up to the judge, and the judge, I think, rightfully saw what a just result would look like here and shaped his order accordingly. 
So, you know, it's a bit armchair quarterbacking here, I think, for the government to come in and say it was a bit harsh. 
It really is up to the judge, but it could be armchair quarterbacking for us to say, you know, a judge's sentence was too harsh in other cases. 
Well, everyone has their opinion, and I guess DOJ has an opinion as well, so we'll just leave it at that. 
I want to thank listener Tim for writing in to us last week with some updates on the story we were talking about, Girls Can Code, having their books banned in Pennsylvania. 
We had an updated article from a newspaper there called Center Daily Times entitled, Pennsylvania District Didn't Actually Ban Girls Who Code Books. 
Here are the facts. 
An uproar over book bans was reignited when those behind the movement to close the gender gap in technology caught wind that the book series Girls Who Code popped up on a banned book list. 
But the book series was technically not banned in classrooms, according to the Central York School District in Pennsylvania, at least not officially. 
Seems like a bunch of conditions here. 
It's true that four titles from the series appeared on a list of books banned in the 2021-2022 school year. 
So it kind of seems like they were banned. 
The free expression nonprofit Pen America compiled the list and used the data to publish a report that showed specific groups were behind the book bans sweeping the nation. 
Pen America researchers documented 2,532 instances of books being banned, some of which were covered in the news media, such as the controversy around Girls Who Code and other bans reported directly to Pen. 
The report published last week states, according to the Central York School District, the series was never banned. 
Instead, the books were included on a list of resources that was later pulled. 
I'm having trouble distinguishing the difference here. 
Educators in the school district say that meant the book was effectively barred from being taught in classrooms for about 10 months. 
Okay, you know what? 
In England, when you get barred from a pub, and I know this is from personal experience, if you get barred from a pub, it's equivalent to being banned from a bar in the States. 
So banned and barred mean the same damn thing. 
So, okay, they say the series was never banned, but it was barred. 
Okay, the four Girls Who Code books, which is Team BFF, Race to the Finish, The Friendship Code, Spotlight on Coding Club, and Lights Music Code. 
Oh, that's the one. 
Yeah, they were included in a diversity resource list of some 200 titles the Central York School District curated after the killing of George Floyd in 2020. 
The series is a spin-off of tween book series, such as the Babysitter's Club and the Saddle Club. 
It highlights the stories of girls who are into coding and their adventures with the coding club at their school. 
And many of the protagonists are young girls of color, according to the founder of the Girls Who Code company, Reshma Sojani. 
Girls Who Code has an active chapter in the Central York School District and is offered as an after-school program. 
Wow. 
Now, shortly after the school district released the diversity resource list in 2020, there were complaints. 
The school board voted to put the resource list on hold and that teachers not use the titles for class instruction, with the exception that they could continue to use resources that were already in place before they were put on the diversity resource list, and that included the Girls Who Code series. 
The decision to withdraw the list that added black voices to the curriculum dredged up national attention. 
The board then voted to reinstate the list and make the resources available to teachers again in September 2021. 
All right, but you know what? 
There's some technicalities here, but for all intents and purposes, there was an attempt to ban these books in that district. 
So I'm not sure what all this, you know, backpedaling is, but it sure seems like the story was right to have been reported. 
I just wish the story had been reported when it was happening a couple of years earlier. 
But what our listener Tim pointed out, an interesting twist, is that Girls Who Code are now being criticized for working with orange dealer Raytheon. 
So after the attack from the right, the organization is now being attacked from the left. 
And yeah, as reported by Motherboard, Girls Who Code, a nonprofit to support women pursuing careers in tech, including the games industry, is taking part in a new student mentorship initiative with Raytheon Technologies. 
Raytheon, as you may know, is a weapons manufacturer that has sold arms to Saudi Arabia, which has been used to kill civilians, etc., etc. 
We all know how that ends. 
So, yeah, it's a never-ending story, I guess, but it's two different stories, but interesting all the same. 
Thanks, Tim, for writing to us with that update. 
Go ahead, Al. 
I think that the motherboard coverage of the Raytheon connection, by the way, was just absolutely ridiculous. 
I mean, it seemed to me like utter clickbait designed to capitalize on a leading headline with some smutty, nonsensical crap, frankly. 
I mean, that was just absolutely ridiculous. 
I mean, sure, you know, Toyotas are also used by ISIS, and it doesn't mean that, you know, anybody who works with Toyota is somehow promoting that agenda. 
I mean, come on. 
This is ridiculous. 
These are girls who are getting into coding. 
Well, yeah, that's certainly true, but I don't want to basically muddy the waters here. 
Raytheon does build weapons, right? 
Toyota doesn't actually build weapons. 
They're a government contractor. 
Yeah, they might also hire girls who code, so. 
Right. 
Yeah, they do a tremendous amount of things. 
Raytheon doesn't just build weapons, and it's not like girls who code decided to work with them because Raytheon builds weapons. 
No, that's unlikely. 
I agree with you there. 
This was a platform that, you know, was probably giving them some kind of boost up or some kind of funding. 
You know, I just thought it was particularly exploitative of Motherboard to try to draw out this. 
But, Alex, you know, if Raytheon came to us and said, hey, we'd like to sponsor the next conference you guys put on, don't you think that might be a little problematic? 
Or if they pledged to the radio show even, not that they ever would. 
Honestly, I don't think so. 
I think there's plenty of good that Raytheon does. 
I mean, look, and also, you know, Raytheon is not in and of itself an evil, you know, company. 
I mean, this is - there are plenty of government contractors, part of the defense industrial base, that build things like missiles and weapons. 
And, you know, they keep our country safe. 
I disagree with the characterization that all government contractors in the defense industry are bad. 
I think that's wrong. 
Okay, we're going to have to end on that. 
And, of course, the place to address your letters to Alex will be OTH at 2600.com. 
But we can continue this conversation over time on YouTube. 
Go to 2600.com. 
Click on the link on the top of the page. 
Or see us in two weeks. 
Have a good night.