Okay, is this okay? 
How do you sound now, Kyle? 
I think I'm okay. 
All right. 
Now, our friends over in Skypeland, they're the variable here. 
Let's say hello to Rob T. Firefly. 
Hello, from a variable. 
Okay, he sounds all right. 
He sounds all right. 
Now, Gila, let's hear how you sound. 
Hello, from a slightly different variable. 
Okay, all right. 
And, okay, there's no avoiding it. 
Alex, let's see what you bring to the table. 
Yep. 
Good evening, from another variable. 
You could be a little louder. 
I don't often say that. 
I don't often say that, but you could be a little louder. 
All right. 
Interesting. 
I'm using a different setup tonight, because I'm in another location. 
Okay. 
Where are you now? 
Always around the world. 
Yeah, well, I'm in Florida now. 
I'm visiting with my mother and here with the family. 
And, yeah, it's been a little cold, I have to say. 
Okay, a little cold in Florida means, what, 55 degrees? 
No, it's been below freezing. 
Really? 
Wow. 
Yeah. 
I mean, this whole bomb cyclone thing was no joke. 
It is extended, latitude-wise, as far down as Florida. 
I mean, it was literally below freezing here. 
People were freaking out. 
It's just unheard of. 
I think it's by decree, by the governor's decree, people don't have heaters. 
Is that right? 
I don't know. 
I don't know what this governor is decreeing and what he's not decreeing. 
It's believable. 
He's not my favorite guy. 
It's believable. 
For sure, he could do that. 
But I know a lot of homes in Florida do not have heaters, because they don't expect it to get this cold. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
I mean, why would they, right? 
I mean, it's just, it's usually the other way around. 
I mean, usually we come down here in December, hang out with my mother, and it's 80 degrees. 
We're at the pool. 
I mean, it was, and even today, we were at the pool, but it was a lot warmer. 
Wait a minute. 
It's below freezing. 
Hold on a second. 
It's below freezing. 
But you still went to the pool. 
Well, not today. 
Today was about 60-something degrees. 
I'm around the Tampa area, so it's starting to heat back up again. 
So it was maybe 65 degrees, but the water in the pool, which is a heated pool, was around 85, I think it was. 
So the temperature in the pool was much warmer than the temperature outside. 
It was an interesting feeling. 
All right. 
Well, we're five minutes into the show now. 
We've covered the weather in Florida. 
There we go. 
So let's try and move on, because we're not on that often. 
You might have noticed we weren't on last week. 
And folks, I got bad news. 
We're not going to be on next week either. 
There's a lot of different emergency fundraisers going on. 
And we need to also remind people to please pledge what you can afford to WBAI so that we can continue to transmit, which is very, very important in the life of any radio station. 
We don't have commercials. 
We don't have commercials. 
We have alternative programming. 
And when we are on the air, we try and cover as much of that as possible. 
Tonight, it's the last show of the year. 
And as we believe this tradition, even though every time I do this, there doesn't seem to be any history of it, but I thought that we were predicting things for the year ahead and reminiscing over things that just happened this year. 
So what we are asking everybody to do, as is this alleged tradition, which I think maybe we did on overtime last year. 
Maybe that's why it's not on the actual recording of the show. 
I'm going to ask people to basically tell the audience what the most important story you thought this year was in the world of technology or hacking, and also a prediction for something in the world of technology coming up in the next year. 
Who would like to start? 
Who's prepared? 
I did warn you a couple days ago, so. 
I can start, because I did look through a bunch of the stories we covered over this past year, and I don't know if this is the most important one in the greater technological sphere, but it's one which meant rather a lot to me. 
And it was the story about the end of an era in New York City as the final payphones were removed, and then the update to that story, and this was back in May, the update to that story soon after where people were still finding payphones everywhere that worked, and the big announcement was basically nothing for no reason. 
I think that big announcement was propaganda that was fed to the media, and they bit. 
I think LinkNYC had something to do with it, where basically they were saying, I forget where I got that information from. 
Someone told me, and I know that's not an extremely reliable source. 
Kyle, do you know more about that? 
Well, now that you mention it, what I recall of it was that the servicing of existing ones was no longer going to be happening. 
Is that how we covered it at the time, do you remember? 
I think we covered it with a lot of doubt at the time. 
I think it was Titan, some of the ad companies that were sort of more or less maintaining them as ashtrays. 
Yeah, some of them definitely were pulled, and on the west side of Manhattan, I believe some were taken away, but people were sending us pictures. 
There's a payphone in Rockefeller Center in the subway that people keep sending us pictures of, and working, too. 
So they do still exist. 
They're few and far between. 
I think there should be so many more of them, and the emergency situations that we've been experiencing in this state are one reason why. 
Every time there's a hurricane or a storm or a blackout or something, people realize the importance of payphones, landlines, things like that, things that are up when everything else is down. 
And, yeah, you know, you don't make money off of it. 
The phone company doesn't make a profit. 
It shouldn't be about that. 
It should be about the public service, and you may only need to use a payphone once a year or less. 
It's good to know it's there. 
Imagine if every village had one payphone, that you knew where it was, and it kept working. 
I think that would be a good idea. 
Yeah, what really struck me about this story was the big deal they were making of it at the time. 
They pulled out payphones, let's see, on 7th Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets. 
They had press there. 
They made announcements. 
It was a whole to-do. 
And after that, a site called Hellgate NYC called themselves from a payphone and reported on the results. 
Everything was still working. 
This was a payphone, I think, in 14th Street subway station. 
And, of course, there are others still all over the place. 
And it just strikes me how it was a big deal. 
As you said, it was a PR move. 
It was an announcement that they were making to drum up interest in Link NYC and all this stuff and, like, end of an era and everything. 
But, you know, there was this disconnect from the reality of the technical world out there. 
Yeah, I think it was also drumming up publicity for the exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York that the city's last payphone was being transported to. 
Yeah, this was definitely, I think, an interesting sort of situation where everybody kind of seized on a moment and it turned out not to be the case. 
But I think they were saying it was the last city-sponsored phone that, you know, there could still be payphones that were not municipal in the same way. 
I don't think the average person cares about that, if it's municipal or run by a company. 
Well, the solution I think we kicked around was this should be something as a priority in some form or another, like one designated one that is maintained, et cetera, et cetera. 
And we're a year on and still nothing has emerged. 
All right, Rob, did you have a prediction? 
A prediction? 
I'm going to predict that payphones continue to stick around for 2023. 
We're still going to find them out there. 
We're not going to get rid of the last few stragglers. 
There's still going to be at least one working payphone in the city, which I think is a prediction that not everyone will agree with. 
But maybe it's what I think is the case. 
What's interesting is, you know, in 2600, the magazine that we all are affiliated with, we've been printing pictures. 
It started way back, 80s maybe? 
Was it that far back? 
Definitely the 90s. 
We just printed a foreign payphone. 
And then people started sending in pictures of foreign payphones. 
And we have two color pages that are devoted to payphones, four payphones per page. 
And that is the feature that we still get the most mail on. 
People still send, even with all the payphones being disconnected and dying, we still get all these pictures of payphones that managed to exist somehow. 
So I hope you're right, Rob. 
I hope you're right that the payphones continue to exist or we'll have to fill two more pages with something else. 
But people are very enthusiastic about it. 
And some of those payphones are real works of art as well. 
And it's fascinating to see them. 
And people are enthralled by them. 
And we need to have them around. 
They do serve a purpose. 
Okay, I'm going to do my reminiscing first and my prediction. 
I'll make it quick. 
The story for this year for me, and I'm kind of embarrassed to say this because I don't want this to be the story, but the story is Elon Musk's taking over of Twitter. 
Now, it's not, you know, for personality reasons like he would want it to be. 
It's basically about what it means to society. 
And, you know, looking at the level of discourse in the past few days, past few weeks, seeing it go down so dramatically, just looking at the anti-vax propaganda that's out there is so disturbing. 
You know, basically, health is being affected by the misinformation that is now being encouraged on Twitter, which was not being encouraged in years past. 
In fact, it was being acted against because we're dealing with a health emergency. 
And we still are. 
We still are dealing with this. 
It's not over yet. 
Look around. 
Look at what is happening in other parts of the world and what is happening here as well. 
You know, it's not normal yet. 
It's improved, sure. 
But the facts of medicine, the facts of science have not changed, no matter how much you may want them to. 
And unfortunately, what Elon Musk has done is allow these people who don't know what they're talking about. 
You know, I caught one guy basically spreading misinformation, saying that the vaccines are causing more people to die than anything else. 
And he had a doctor in front of his name, making it seem really official. 
And all these people were retweeting him and saying, oh, yeah, you know what you're talking about. 
I looked him up. 
He has a doctorate in artificial intelligence. 
That's it. 
He knows nothing about medicine, knows nothing about diseases. 
But this kind of thing is basically being encouraged now. 
So you not only have liars and scum like Donald Trump Jr. 
and all the others that are out there just basically saying the most vile things and getting attention for that. 
But now you're being rewarded for it. 
You're being encouraged to be the lowest common denominator. 
That, to me, was the biggest story. 
The fact that something that, you know, it wasn't a great place to hang out, Twitter, but it served a purpose. 
And now it seems to be serving a really bad purpose. 
I don't think we should abandon it. 
I don't think we should run away. 
I think we should fight. 
We should, you know, challenge these people at every opportunity and not let them get away with just spreading lies. 
And that goes, that's true in any forum, whether it's here on the radio, whether it's in your workplace, whether it's in the newspaper, wherever you see lies and misinformation being encouraged and spread. 
Keep in mind, a lot of people don't know the facts. 
They'll believe the people who sound the most authoritarian. 
It's a real danger. 
And that is how you lose democracy. 
That is how you spiral into a literally very unhealthy place to live. 
And it's just a really negative development, a really negative development. 
Now, you know, that could have been good. 
That could have been good that came out of his takeover of the company. 
He could have basically added features that people wanted. 
In fact, you know, he is doing that to a degree. 
If he stuck to that, and I mean, just today, there was this ridiculous picture that he posted where basically he's accusing anyone who believes in Black Lives Matter, vaccines, or literally anything. 
CNN was one of them. 
They are brainwashed. 
Those people are brainwashed. 
And people who basically dismiss all of that are the enlightened ones. 
He's gone full right wing. 
And it's really sad and disgusting. 
My prediction for next year, you know, it's kind of related. 
Like Rob's, it's kind of related. 
Because I think truth is going to really be something that we're going to see as valuable. 
It's going to be redefined. 
It's going to be fought over. 
But it's going to be the theme. 
You know, what is true? 
And what is a lie? 
We just had this guy elected in Long Island for Congress. 
Turns out he's lied about everything. 
He's lied about where he worked, where he went to school, how much money he has. 
You name it. 
He has lied about it. 
He hasn't said he lied. 
He said he embellished, which is a big difference. 
Basically trying to minimize it. 
But try that on a job interview. 
If you go to a job interview and you lie about where you went to school and what your experience has been and just about every other detail imaginable, you think you're going to get the job when they find out? 
Probably not. 
And why should it be any different in this particular case? 
So I think things like this, as we see the Marjorie Taylor Greens of the world start to get more power, we're going to realize that just because we say something is true and we know it's true, doesn't mean that it's true. 
It's 1984. 
You know, all somebody has to do is say, no, I don't agree with that fact. 
I don't agree 2 plus 2 equals 4. 
What are you going to do about it? 
I think 2023 is when we're going to have to do something about it. 
So a little bit dark, but that's how I see it. 
Who's next? 
Gila, go ahead. 
Although, because unfortunately, maybe not unfortunately, but Emmanuel, I also think that Elon Musk and what's been happening at Twitter has been, that's my biggest story of the year. 
You can't use my story. 
Well, I'm sorry. 
I've been thinking about it all day long. 
You said we needed to be prepared. 
And I've been thinking about this since you said we needed to be prepared. 
You cannot pull this kind of last minute switcheroo on me. 
So I'm stealing your story. 
I'm sorry. 
But you just said you're stealing my story. 
That means it's not an original idea. 
I'm approaching it from a slightly different perspective, though, if that helps. 
All right, go ahead. 
And I would like to begin by sharing an illustrative story. 
Illustrative. 
Anyway, do you guys remember there was a thing that would be like in a store sometimes and you could put a penny in it and it would like make circles around until it fell into the coin collector? 
Anybody know what I'm talking about? 
Yeah, it's like a donation bin or something. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
Right? 
Like they were collecting money for the Shriners or something. 
Sure. 
I don't know why you couldn't just give it to them, why you had to do all that. 
Because it makes it exciting. 
It's fun. 
So you put the penny in and it would make very large, slow circles and then it would get faster as it approached the center. 
And I sort of feel like Elon Musk and Twitter has been like that. 
We knew this was coming. 
He started talking about it for a while and he was trying to get rid of it. 
He was trying to get out of the promise he had made. 
And those are the really big circles at the outside. 
And as time has gone on and he had to go through with it and then he took it over and then he fired all the staff and the circles have been getting quicker and quicker and quicker. 
And I'm just waiting for the penny to drop because it has become such a mess with everything that has happened with the firing of all the staff, with things he's doing that are skirting legality, certainly in the European Union, I believe, in terms of employment and privacy and things of that nature. 
It, as we have discussed, it is not a fun time to be someone who does not identify as a cis, straight, white, male with far-right politics on Twitter. 
And as a person who does not identify as those things, it's a scary time to be on Twitter. 
And it's interesting to see the Fediverse and watching people trying to get into more decentralized social media. 
And I was actually saying to Rob last night, can someone be the main character on Mastodon in the same way that someone can be the main character of the day on Twitter? 
It's interesting to see networks building and rebuilding. 
And so my, that was my big story of the year, is watching Elon Musk melting down and melting down Twitter. 
My prediction for next year is that it's just going to keep getting worse, and it's not going to continue to exist in the same form for much longer. 
And I don't think he will be the owner and or the CEO probably by June. 
Well, he's not supposed to be the CEO now. 
He got voted out by his own poll. 
Oh, I know he got voted out. 
And then he said if he can find somebody crazy enough to take it over, like, he... 
That wasn't part of the vote, though. 
No, that wasn't part of the vote. 
No, it wasn't. 
He has to step down by his own rules. 
But it's also been interesting watching people... 
I saw somebody say something recently. 
You know, everybody said he was a genius, and I didn't know anything about electric cars, so I assumed he was a genius. 
And I didn't know anything about rockets, and I assumed he was a genius. 
And now he's talking about stuff I actually know about. 
And, oh, not a genius. 
I think that's true of many, many fields. 
Because, and, you know, we get this all the time. 
People will say, I know nothing about technology or computers. 
You guys know everything. 
And no, we don't know everything. 
You know, it staggers my imagination how little I know about some things. 
And it's basically, I think you just have to remember that somebody who has studied a particular field for a long time is going to know more about it. 
It's going to seem like magic to you. 
But they are a human being just like you. 
And I guarantee there's a subject that you each know the same amount of, and there's something that you know more than they know about. 
So that's incredible that you bring this up. 
Because, I mean, for me personally, that's the whole reason I got involved with and was interested in hacking and telephone systems and computers is because I didn't know anything. 
I didn't have as much access. 
I wasn't in the same, on the same academic trajectory, so to speak. 
I didn't have the acumen to study computer science the way other people can do readily now. 
And I just followed my curiosity and tried to soak up as much as anyone would ever teach me, whether it was something I was reading about, conversing or hearing about online, reading information, websites early on. 
And that is critical. 
That's why we're here. 
We're not here to be experts. 
And I think we get really lost in the news cycle and this sort of PR celebrity culture we have in this country. 
It does not apply. 
Like, technology should not be something that is full of just soul superstars here and there and all the other people are just workers. 
You know, to emphasize that point, and we're not going to name names, but just think of some superstars. 
Have they let you down? 
Or have you basically rejected them at some point? 
Inevitably, that is what happens when you live in a world of superstars. 
They get torn down, they turn out to be human, and you're disillusioned by that. 
It's best to not even go down that road. 
The importance of what people are saying, what they're talking about, what we're doing in general in the discussion, what kinds of things are we addressing, how are we changing our approaches and the ways we think about technology and its effects on our society, on our families, on our workplaces, etc. 
And it just so happens it involves security and or software and different emerging things when we talk about it or when we encourage people to write and share what they've experienced or what they've seen. 
So that is the spirit that I think gets a little bit, it becomes either an assumption or it's like stating the obvious. 
But we should restate that we should not aspire to be telling others how things are and being the expert and shooting down or just barreling through organizations. 
Like we should be there to grow and have a little bit more listening in the process. 
But yeah. 
That's one thing that bothers me about the age we're in right now is that we've all been equalized. 
If you're reading a story in a newspaper online, people are given the opportunity to comment on it and their words mean just as much as the person who poured their life into researching the story and putting it into words and publishing it, you get somebody who knows nothing about it. 
Basically, they get to completely dismiss everything that that person has done in their research. 
And somehow that's considered to be fair. 
And it's not. 
It's not fair at all. 
We need to be able to defer to people who have studied something more than we have, who have more knowledge in a particular field as they should when it's about something that we know something about, you know, it's, um, we seem to have lost that skill. 
And just beware of, of tech industry PR. 
It's pretty, pretty filthy. 
Yeah. 
Like pay phones are gone when they're not. 
Yeah. 
All right, Kyle, you're next. 
Oh gosh. 
So a story from, from, from, uh, 2022. 
Well, off the top of my head, and I know this is something I've repeated over and over again this year, and I can tie it into deep philosophical things. 
Don't be Elon Musk, please not Elon Musk. 
No, it's right to repair. 
Oh, um, I talked about it a lot. 
I guess I'll use the story. 
I didn't look back through as many stories as I would have liked to, but we talked about, um, uh, heated seats as a service, this broadly parallels so many software as a service and web 2.0 things, what we're building on top of the infrastructure that we've come to know as the internet and, uh, kind of coming off the last topic, like, yeah, this grand networking experiment, socializing and networking, we've realized, you know, zero trust is, is actually where we're headed, like, it's maybe not ideal to have complete connectivity to everyone because everyone is not necessarily, um, uh, going to, uh, have your, uh, interests necessarily, um, in mind and it, it can become, um, chaotic very quickly. 
But my, um, my thought really behind right to repair in a deeper philosophical sense, um, has to do with in our, um, Western society, uh, the tendency towards, towards monopoly that, that is, um, something that is a very real aspect of, uh, the capitalist system. 
And what we are experiencing is when firms consolidate for the sake of shareholders, instead of creating better, um, better products and, um, uh, care for the kinds of customers they're having and built on the sort of disposable, um, planned obsolescence, I mean, abject consumption for the sake of, um, more transactions instead of, uh, investing in our society deeply, um, and having a broader base of firms instead of single firms that, um, can then marshal their monopolistic tendencies to, um, influence how oversight and regulation takes place on their empires and in turn on our ability to own things. 
So like if car companies like right to repair was talked about a lot this year, but nothing happened. 
It hasn't really happened in New York yet because there's been stiff resistance and it keeps coming up. 
There's, there keeps being stories about it, but the, the, the, uh, long and the short of it is these are monopolistic firms that are not interested in opening up their systems as much as consumers would like. 
And in fact, their business models have much more to do with, um, with, um, predation of their customers, uh, right to own things. 
And I think this is a critique that, um, this year has been shown for what it is, which is predatory and not in the interest of people. 
Can I illustrate, um, what has happened with this bill over the past year to illustrate your point? 
Sure. 
Uh, the final version, uh, enjoyed rare bipartisan support passing the state assembly 147 to two and the Senate 59 to four. 
It's pretty powerful. 
Now, um, there's a big stipulation here though. 
The bill doesn't include vehicles, home appliances, farm equipment, or medical devices, all the useful stuff you rely on. 
And we need access. 
Yeah. 
That's, and, and, but that's, that's why I got such a huge support because it didn't include these controversial. 
That's a short list of the first things we want access. 
It's not even controversial. 
It's just basically, um, uh, where the objections were loudest from those powerful entities. 
Uh, you can list a couple of companies for every single one of those off the top of your head, I'm sure. 
But, uh, the people behind it were hoping to add these provisions later on, but getting the bill as written into law has proven to be difficult. 
Uh, the bill has been parked for months without any movement on the desk of New York governor, Kathy Hochul. 
I don't know what's going on up there, but, um, obviously it's got the support. 
It should pass sitting on a desk. 
Let's, let's find it. 
Let's get it signed and let's improve it. 
Okay. 
And just as an example on the other, the flip side of that, think of Facebook in its heyday when it was making all kinds of ad money. 
Okay. 
Um, in, and, uh, was politically valuable and, uh, propped up with a lot of money. 
They, uh, had things like the open compute initiative where they were giving away schematics for switching hardware. 
Like if you can put this together, take it, you know, that kind of thing. 
Like the, the, the, uh, imperative to, to open up hardware frameworks, to contribute protocols, to build on the network we've built instead of just selling cheap versions of aspects of the service. 
Um, it is possible. 
There are, there are, there have been movements and precedents towards this, that, you know, whatever these firms need, like they, they clearly are mostly interested in profit and not necessarily fixing some of the, the, uh, consequences of the technologies that are being put forth. 
And, and I, I just think, uh, my prediction going forward is, is, um, uh, what, what, what are we doing at this level of production and, and what, what are we doing with the, um, development capabilities that we have and, um, and the, uh, the intellectual properties, the, the ideas that we create and, and, um, and care for in this country are valuable. 
And this goes right down to photolithography and all the semiconductor stuff that's, that's been, uh, talked about as well. 
And what we're building upon in the future, um, you know, we, we need to have a very clear-eyed idea of the consequences of, um, you know, what and how we, we, um, build those things, whether they're open or, or, um, you know, where, where we, um, place our emphasis in, in, um, technology, technological advances going forward. 
What's the prediction? 
The prediction is that it will, um, be sort of a continuing continuation of not trusting people. 
Uh, you know, this idea that we were all networked and it was all great that we're all like socially connected and that's better for society. 
No, no, it's, this is now like maximum, uh, or, or, or like maximum lack of trust, zero trust models and the like, along with this, um, um, unfreeing of the internet, right? 
We're, we're closing off in many ways, networks to you pick a part of the world. 
Um, we're tiering, uh, uh, service levels, uh, with like, uh, net neutrality. 
Uh, you don't even talk about that anymore. 
I can't even talk to people on instant messaging anymore because everyone's using a different system. 
We're fragmenting because platforms are becoming radicalized in one sense and there's churn and people leaving and going, there's monetization. 
Like how many people do you know now that have blogs that are, they charge independently? 
That's great. 
That was very much, uh, uh, um, a direction we've, we've talked about at home. 
Let Kyle finish this point, but first like, and subscribe and please won't you visit our, our donation page, you know, but that is a new model, but it's, it's hard because everyone is in the legacy sense on this. 
Everything is free, but ad powered. 
Well, yeah. 
So we're in that transitional period again, about what are we going to do with, um, our, our ability to create technology because whether it's a network or, um, a lithographic design, like we care about where it goes and how it's used now in a much more visceral sense. 
So my prediction is, um, information is going to become ever more valuable and contested in, in, uh, in what is, I would say a, a theater of warfare. 
Okay, good. 
I was, uh, kidding just now about, uh, the donation page, but I'm not kidding when I say you should visit WBAI's donation page because your contributions are what make this radio show and this radio station possible. 
So go to give to WBAI.org, give the number to WBAI.org, donate whatever you can. 
It's the end of the year. 
So, uh, there's all kinds of tax reasons why, uh, a nice donation would make sense. 
You can also call 212-209-2950. 
Assuming there are people there, uh, you can talk in person and get all kinds of amazing thank you gifts. 
The biggest thank you gift of all is 99.5 FM in New York City, continuing to broadcast at full power, reaching, I believe, uh, four states at this point. 
Uh, and of course, the entire world over WBAI.org. 
This is Off the Hook. 
We talk about technology. 
We talk about hacking. 
We talk about privacy and all kinds of security abuses. 
And tonight we are talking about the end of the year, the beginning of the new one. 
And Alex, it is now your turn to give, um, uh, your idea of the most important story of 2022 and a prediction for 2023. 
Sure. 
I'm going to carry on the theme of the evening, which is, I think, about implosions and collapses and various, uh, um, calamities like that. 
And I'm going to say that, you know, one of the most interesting stories of the year for me happened very recently in November, and that was the collapse of FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange that we had discussed at some length here on Off the Hook, also on Overtime. 
I think, uh, we devoted quite, quite a bit of time to that. 
And I think it's so fascinating to see that collapse so quickly because there are so many lessons to be learned from the demise of, of FTX. 
And I think we learned really clearly that, uh, governance matters in an internal cryptocurrency platform like that, you know, governance and, and controls over who can do what with what currency and how money is, is, is changing hands and moving around and, and how, uh, that's logged and audited. 
That really, really matters. 
And I think that we also learned that transparency is key when it comes to how governance mechanisms work. 
Um, and I also think a really, really important lesson that we learned from the collapse of FTX is that there is no such thing as smart money. 
You cannot follow the investors, the, that have been putting money in like Sequoia and in all of these others that, you know, you would ordinarily say, Hey, these are the smart guys. 
They know what they're doing. 
They're investing in these platforms are investing in these companies. 
Therefore they must have done their due diligence and they must have, they must know that this is a good thing. 
So I'm going to pile on and, and, and that indicates some kind of, um, trustworthiness or at least some kind of, um, maturity, I think with respect to whatever the product or where the company is, uh, you know, as we saw with FTX, that just really isn't the case. 
There's no such thing as following the smart money anymore. 
And, uh, I'll jump right into my predictions unless anybody has anything else to add about, uh, FTX. 
Well, you know, I think, I think you made some really good points there. 
Um, and, and just watching Bankman Freed, like as he's making his way into, uh, into court or prison or whatever his fate holds for him. 
Um, I, I just see a, a kid who basically got way too much power and, and, um, just let it run away billions and billions of dollars and the Playboy lifestyle and all that. 
It never should have happened. 
Never should have happened. 
And, um, you know, I, I, I see how he now realizes how over his head he actually was. 
I wonder how many other people are out there right now, uh, who have way too much power and that when they finally lose control, so many innocent people wind up paying for their mistakes. 
You know, it's, uh, did you have any opinion on what should, what should happen to him? 
Uh, I mean, well, I don't, I don't want to, you know, preempt a trial here and, you know, there's still a lot of facts that are shaking out. 
There's a lot going on with the creditor situation. 
So I, I don't want to make any predictions there, but I, I will, you know, sort of comment on the, you know, the facts of what have happened in the, in recent weeks or rather really within the last week or so, which is that, you know, SPF, uh, agreed to be extradited to the United States and, and actually received bail. 
So he's out in California on bail. 
Um, but he's going to be going to trial, uh, in the Southern district of New York at some point in 2023 and, and probably facing the same cadre of prosecutors that our dear friend Virgil Griffiths had faced in, in his trial. 
And this is, you know, this, this is a very, very tough place to, to go to trial. 
There are extraordinarily talented, uh, lawyers in the Southern district of New York and the U.S. attorney's office there. 
And what I thought was really interesting too, is that, you know, there are very close people connected to SPF. 
You know, I think it was the woman who ran Alameda research and, and I, and I believe one of his closest confidants had already pleaded guilty and the U.S. attorney's office had, had not allowed that fact come out to the public while SPF was weighing whether or not to agree to extradition. 
And because they, obviously, if we knew that people were collaborating with the government, he would have been less likely to agree to extradition and would have fought that over in the Bahamas. 
Can you plead guilty secretly though? 
The, yes, they can. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
Where they can agree to plead guilty, you know, and they, and the, and the plea doesn't have to happen in court until a certain period of time. 
But the fact that they had agreed to plead guilty was not released to the public while SPF was weighing whether or not to, to agree to extradition. 
Alex. 
Um, yes, go ahead. 
Is that, is that, um, part of his responsibility to weigh the likelihood of people he interacted with in his dealings? 
Like that's a possibility he has to judge that possibly they've already pled guilty. 
That's partially why they don't reveal that because they want his judgment to be the, the, uh, fulcrum of that. 
Yeah. 
I mean, it, it definitely is something that he has to factor into what, whatever calculus is going on in his head. 
Right. 
I mean, this is the, the classic prisoner's dilemma. 
Right. 
Quite literally. 
Yeah. 
Right. 
You know, where you don't know who's collaborating and who's getting the benefit of the collaboration. 
And you know, the idea, I guess in the process, still, I'm only, you know, I'm not a game theory expert, right. 
I think would be for everybody to not cooperate, but would I think drive the, the best, what would drive the greatest benefits to all of those parties. 
Right. 
But if you are a collaborator, if you do collaborate with the government, you're the first one to do it, then you'd get the greatest benefit. 
Right. 
So I think the parties we should be concerned about are all the parties that lost so much money. 
What, what happens to them? 
They just out of luck forever? 
No, no, no. 
They're, they're creditors. 
And John Ray III, who is now the CEO and who's taken over FTX and he's in charge of, of winding up its affairs and trying to get access to all of the funds that, uh, were misappropriated or converted and spread around to various places. 
And you think about what happened. 
I mean, I think there's going to be substantial fallout. 
This is part of my predictions here, but the fallout from FTX, you can kind of move right into this, I think quite naturally is going to be really, really substantial. 
And I think there are going to be political ramifications of this on both sides of the aisle because these creditors and, and John Ray III, who's in charge of, uh, making sure the creditors get what's due to them is being very aggressive when it comes to trying to wind back this, this money and looking at what went out of that exchange, I think about 90 days prior to the declaration of bankruptcy in, in November, uh, is going to be really, really interesting, especially because that encompasses the time period leading up to the midterm elections. 
And we know that SBF and some of his closest confidants at FTX had sent a gigantic amount of money over to the Democrats and had funded a huge number of Democrats political campaigns ahead of the midterm elections. 
But let's, let's be clear here. 
It wasn't just the Democrats. 
It was, uh, it was also the Republicans, Republicans received, I think, I don't remember exactly, but I think it was close to $20 million worth of, worth of funds coming from FTX. 
So that's no insubstantial amount. 
Was there any indication that either Democrats or Republicans knew the source of this? 
Oh, they knew the source. 
Yeah. 
I mean, it was coming from FTX. 
I don't know exactly how they did it, but one of the charges that the Southern district has levied against SBF, uh, in, in addition to, to essentially financial fraud, wire fraud is interestingly enough, uh, a violation of campaign finance laws. 
Now by donating all of this money, um, in, in excess of what he was allowed to donate by law. 
But, but did, did the people he was donating to know that he was violating the law by doing that? 
That's, that's my question. 
Well, that I'm not sure that I don't think, I think it would be hard for them to know that unless they understood the mechanisms by which he was getting them the money. 
So I don't think that will, I don't think that they're going to, um, allege some kind of campaign finance crime, um, against any of the members of Congress or the sitting politicians or candidates who had received these funds. 
I think it would be, that would be highly unusual. 
But what's interesting is once they realized that the money came from FTX, uh, and it might be tainted instead of returning it to FTX, they donated it. 
A lot of these candidates had donated it to various causes and, and John Ray III had said that, well, that's not going to stop them from seeking to enforce their creditors as rights here. 
But even if they, they donated these funds to it, to some kind of charities and, uh, charity forward on in the chain, they're going to then ask the money, ask for the money back from whatever that charity is, because the money ultimately did not belong to the candidates or the politicians that received it. 
If they pushed it on, they didn't actually have the right to do that. 
So they're going to try to unwind all of these transactions. 
It's going to be very interesting to see where, um, that money has, uh, has gone. 
But, um, I think part of my predictions here though, that we're going to see more, uh, of a collapse of, uh, of, I think other cryptocurrency exchanges and coins and ventures. 
And, and part of that, uh, Emmanuel is because all of these guys were so highly leveraged with each other that the collapse of FTX is going to have this domino effect or this, this cascading effect. 
And I think because of that, we're going to see more and more breaches and, and, and thefts of more and more breaches of exchanges and thefts of digital assets. 
And this crosses over directly with what we care about, um, on this show, which are cybersecurity issues and hacking issues. 
I think we're going to see that a lot of these exchanges and platforms, how, uh, we're, we're operating with, uh, insufficient security controls someplace that there may be issues with the, uh, smart contract, uh, code that underlies a lot of these particular assets. 
But I think, you know, and here's where, you know, and I've said this before, um, uh, directly on our show, or maybe it was overtime, but I think I'll say it again. 
I think emerging from this rubble are going to be projects that could be, that could be considered, you know, relatively to be on more, uh, terra firma to speak. 
And I think that, you know, as you see a lot of the hype and a lot of the, this excessive money draining away from the cryptocurrency, uh, platforms and, and these nascent blockchain ventures, I think we're going to see more and more kind of mundane projects that actually have, you know, real utility to people's lives. 
I think we're going to see even things like, uh, like NFTs begin to have more actual utility in people's lives other than just some kind of speculative investment. 
I think we're going to see more innovative uses of smart contracts and, and we're going to see that type of code really evolve. 
And I think that, you know, quite frankly, you know, because Ethereum is at the core of, uh, of how smart contracts have been operating. 
And that even though it's a currency, it's almost an ancillary form of what the Ethereum foundation is interested in. 
I think Ethereum and the Ethereum name service are really going to be at the core of a lot of these developments in, in 2023. 
So I think it's going to get worse, but I think in the latter half of 2023, we're going to start to see things, you know, really get better. 
Okay. 
Interesting prediction. 
We're going to hold you to that. 
Uh, we're in our last two minutes, Rob, look like you might have something to say. 
Did you have something to add? 
Um, earlier today I was, uh, in, uh, I was reading a very interesting discussion on Reddit, which kind of ties all this together, what Alex was saying and, uh, the Elon Musk situation. 
Um, because, and I preface this with, I don't know a lot about the stock market and things like that, but I was reading this discussion about how Tesla's at a, at a, at a low for the year. 
And it was driven by Elon's antics on Twitter. 
But, uh, a lot of people are looking at this as the price of Tesla correcting itself and just becoming in line with it's another car manufacturer. 
Um, now that it's not fueled by the whole mystique of, Oh, there's this genius in charge with all these ideas and all this hype. 
Um, now that it's, now that it's, uh, been revealed that basically it's, it's a car company led by this person who is now, uh, acting in this manner. 
Like the Tesla is now losing the hype of being the Tesla and becoming just a car that's got to be judged alongside all the other ones out there now, now that all the other car manufacturers are in the, uh, electric vehicle space and things like that. 
So, yeah. 
Okay. 
Well, that's going to have to be the last word for now, but it's not the last word tonight because we are continuing the conversation over on overtime, which you can get to by going to channel 2600 on YouTube or clicking on the link on top of the 2600.com webpage. 
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All right. 
That's going to do it for us here. 
We are not on next week, but we are on overtime in just a few minutes, eight o'clock channel 2600 on YouTube. 
We'll see you soon.