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Telephone keeps ringing. 
So I ripped it off the wall. 
I cut myself while shaving. 
Now I can't make a call. 
It couldn't get much worse. 
But if they could, they would. 
Bum-diddly-bum for the best, expect the worst. 
I hope that's understood. 
Bum-diddly-bum. 
Bum-diddly-bum. 
And a very good evening to our program is off the hook. 
Emmanuel Messina with you on this. 
Delightful Wednesday evening. 
And I'm joined tonight by Kyle. 
Yeah, I'm over here. 
And we have Rob T. Firefly. 
Good evening. 
And we have Alex over in Skype land. 
Good evening. 
And special guest rejoining us after a period of, I think, 14 years is Arseny. 
Arseny, you there? 
Hey. 
How are you doing? 
Welcome back. 
Last show you did with us was in 2008. 
How did you find that out? 
I looked it up. 
Well, the Internet is a treasure trove of information. 
And that was the last show that we saw you on. 
Unless you called in or just dropped in casually. 
But you've been living in a rather interesting place over the past decade or so. 
You want to tell us anything about it? 
Yeah, yeah. 
I've been living in Russia. 
I had to relocate recently. 
But, yeah, I mean, it's kind of moved there after been living there for five years more or less. 
I have a company that used to have operations in Russia. 
So I spent a lot of time there. 
And I work in we make mobile games. 
So I'm still in tech. 
But, I mean, like I guess listeners might be interested like what's going on there. 
Yeah, we hear other things are happening over there as well. 
Let me just say I'm so happy that you're out of there. 
I was talking to you for a while. 
You were still there. 
I was very worried that things might get even more tense. 
But it's good to have you back over here, at least for now. 
Yes, I'm now in New Jersey, a really nice place. 
But, yeah, I mean, you know, being there, I'm ethnically Russian. 
So for me it's like, you know, a second home. 
But, I mean, like, you know, this isn't a political show. 
This is more about tech. 
And I think like the two main things that are really different and maybe something that I had to get used to being outside of Russia is like the banking system there is really nice in terms, you know, from a consumer point of view, you know, which is weird because, you know, Russia is like ex-communist, you know, they don't have banks. 
You know, you can send money just to phone numbers. 
So everyone is very used to having the ability to do electronic funds transfer, you know, for as little as, you know, pennies. 
And then you get here and then what is it? 
Zelle or whatever the other one is. 
And then you have to write what the money is for? 
What? 
Yeah, I don't know if they check. 
But it is something that's a little bit different over here. 
It's very different. 
But I guess what I'm getting at is it's kind of a mindset difference where if you are thinking, hey, you know, I don't even need to carry cash around. 
But I think the more interesting one, many more relevant one that, you know, I can bring up is like this right to repair. 
And it's like in the U.S. 
or, you know, in normal countries, Western Europe, it's like this whole thing. 
You buy something and you can't get original parts to fix it yourself. 
And that's just so ridiculous. 
And I can't believe that, you know, we have to talk about this. 
And kind of in Russia, the mindset was always like if this is my thing, you know, I shouldn't buy a new one. 
I'll just fix it. 
I'll fix the one that, you know, whatever isn't working. 
And that goes, you know, outside of goes to clothing, cars, whatever. 
But there was always, you know, we have a game company, a lot of employees, and like we work on some sophisticated equipment. 
And it's like I can just bring that to some guy and he'll fix, you know, these drawing tablets that I don't know what parts are in them. 
But he fixes, you know, they were fixed without original parts. 
Maybe with original parts. 
I don't know. 
But it's like it's, again, it's a different approach to the problem. 
It's like, well, like, you know, original parts, whatever. 
And then it kind of like after around the time when I was off the hook, you know, I was into the maker space scene and stuff. 
And, like, there's no hack spaces and make spaces in Russia because, like, everyone has one in their house basically. 
It's like a given. 
And that's kind of like that's a different point of view. 
I thought that was very interesting and I'm looking forward to when things get back to normal so I can spend some more time there. 
Me too. 
You know, I would like to get back in touch with people over there. 
But, you know, there's a way to go. 
But that's fascinating about right to repair. 
I know, you know, when I went to Cuba, obviously, you can't get parts there for different reasons. 
And people fixed their cars using all kinds of material that was just lying around. 
And these are cars from the 50s and the 40s. 
So they're able to do that. 
With today's modern cars, of course, that's pretty much been rendered impossible because if you don't have the computer codes, you're up a creek. 
But it's interesting to think about it along those terms. 
Alex, Rob, did you have anything to add? 
No? 
Okay. 
I do. 
Well, you got to answer in less than ten seconds. 
Kyle first and then Alex. 
I was just wondering do older items tend to last or stay around longer as a result of the repairing going on? 
Yeah, yeah, yeah. 
I think it's like you, I mean, the striking thing was like people wouldn't replace things frequently. 
And like, of course, you know, you want the new fancy TV, but there's all these other things in your life that there'll be a guy who fix it. 
They even have sneaker or like shoe cleaning places. 
And like, you know, if you're into sneaker culture, it's nice to clean your sneakers. 
But like there's a, there's like a handful of sneaker cleaning places around where I'm living. 
It's very interesting kind of different mindset that I, that I think is just internationally welcomed. 
Yeah. 
That's a great spirit just to, you know, keep waste out of keep the life cycle extending instead of creating more waste in the, the, the life cycle of stuff. 
Do they clean the sneakers while you wait or do you have to come back? 
Well, no, you know, Russia's not perfect. 
So I remember I get my sneakers in and came back, they messed up the order and they're just like, Oh, here you go. 
You don't have to pay. 
Okay. 
How'd they mess it up? 
What'd they do? 
He forgot. 
I never paid. 
Wow. 
Cause it's so easy. 
You like, you just send the, send the guy on his phone number. 
I think. 
Oh, wow. 
That's an organized chaos. 
Yeah. 
Alex, go ahead. 
I didn't expect to be talking about shoes tonight, but I do see that how the lack of cobblers, especially in Manhattan, I mean, there's, they're almost non-existent could be some kind of cultural bellwether with respect to the right to repair or, or give you some kind of idea about cultures or rather the relevance of repairing items and the significance of, of how throw or just sort of disposable items are to a culture. 
Because I'll tell you, I mean, there used to be a cobbler right near my apartment in Manhattan and it's, it's been gone for over 10 years now. 
And I was very hard to find someplace that will fix a shoe or, you know, mend your leather or something. 
So I can see how that's just a different mentality. 
But anyhow, I think you and I might've been in touch like 10 years ago or something. 
I haven't. 
But where have you been in Russia? 
Like, no. 
So where, where exactly were you? 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
So I was, I've been in St. 
Petersburg and for folks unfamiliar. 
So Russia has a couple of major cities, but Moscow is very, very big and St. 
Petersburg is the second biggest. 
And then there's some other countries, some other cities, I don't know. 
But St. 
Petersburg is very European looking. 
It has a big Swedish background and it's, it's perfect to have a creative or used to be perfect to have a creative company. 
It has a lot of artists, a lot of universities for, for art and tech as well. 
Good spot. 
I don't know how I know you, Alex, did I ever get in jail? 
Did I ever go to prison? 
You had to help me out. 
I think you might've actually helped me out. 
You might've helped me out with something like 10 years ago, where I needed some connections in Russia for an investigation. 
I'm almost positive. 
It was you. 
This is something, but yeah, St. 
Petersburg is absolutely awesome. 
All right, let's put a stop to that right now, because we don't know what you're saying. 
I want to welcome Gila who has arrived courtesy of the New York city subway system, which I believe was, was holding her for a while. 
And just for her, her edification, we are joined tonight by arsony, former cohost of off the hook from at least 14 years ago. 
So welcome. 
I guess this is the show where nobody talks. 
Okay. 
Well, I have a story here, which I thought was kind of interesting about, about Twitter. 
You might've heard about this. 
There's a bit of a problem, another problem with users having a lot of their data compromised. 
Twitter put out an interesting notice today. 
I don't know if you folks saw this, but it was actually in the form of a tweet. 
And that led you to a webpage that was entitled update about Twitter. 
Incident alleged incident regarding Twitter user data being sold online. 
I don't think it's alleged. 
I think that is really happening. 
They say we take our responsibility to protect your privacy very seriously in response to recent media reports of Twitter users, data being sold online. 
We conducted a thorough investigation and there was no evidence that data recently being sold was obtained by exploiting a vulnerability of Twitter systems. 
And then as a, a section right after that called what happened, I'm going to read you the very beginning of that. 
As we previously informed users in August, 2022 in January of 2022, we received a report through our bug bounty program of a vulnerability in Twitter's systems. 
As a result of the vulnerability, if someone submitted an email address or phone number to Twitter systems, Twitter systems would tell the person what Twitter account they submitted email addresses or phone number was associated with. 
If any, this bug resulted from an update to our code in June of 2021. 
When we learned about this, we immediately investigated and fixed it. 
I go back to the statement they made today saying that there is no evidence that any of this was obtained by exploiting a vulnerability of Twitter systems. 
And in the very next paragraph, they say this happened through a vulnerability in Twitter's systems. 
What am I missing here? 
They're contradicting each other in their own press statement. 
And anyone have any thoughts on this? 
Yeah, it just, it just seems like they're not quite sure what's going on. 
And that seems consistent with what we know about the state of their workforce at the moment where they've still, I don't, I don't think they've come back from when they laid off a bunch of their staff kind of haphazardly and in ways that are engendering all sorts of responses and possible legal action against Twitter. 
So, yeah, we don't know who's there to check on these things or maintain these things. 
And it's, it's all a bit of a mystery and it seems it's a mystery even to them. 
But this is simple proofreading. 
It's just, it's simply looking at what you're saying and then looking at what you're saying in the next paragraph and seeing if you're saying the opposite in that second paragraph. 
Now I don't have the number in front of me, but it was in the hundreds of millions, I believe of users that had their private information compromised and currently being sold somewhere. 
Is that, does that seem about right? 
Does anybody have the, the actual number? 
I don't have the number in front of me, but just to put out there, you can check to see if you're in this latest data set of leaked data by going to have I been poned.com. 
That's have I been P W N E D.com. 
And put in your email address that you use with your Twitter account and you'll see what happens. 
I think the vast majority of the people that I've asked who use Twitter, including myself, including Gila, who's just arrived. 
We, we all, we all are in that data set. 
I'm saying over 400 million instances of of user data being compromised, supposedly. 
So just check that I'm in it. 
I'm also in some weird Russian database. 
I'm sure you're in a lot of weird databases. 
Twitter, 200 million, 2023. 
Yeah. 
Wow. 
That's a lot. 
That's a big deal. 
And you know, the thing is though, it's, it's, it's, you know, social media. 
I wouldn't really give information on there that I wouldn't expect to be compromised. 
At some point. 
The thing that worries me, a lot of people rely on Twitter for private communications. 
I've, I've had activists, you know, openly communicate through DM on Twitter, and it just doesn't seem safe. 
And this is the kind of thing that can easily be compromised. 
And, and you could have all sorts of information you don't want to get out revealed. 
I'll also add to that. 
And I think, you know, one of the things that we talked about time and time again on this show is that Twitter is a social media platform, but it has been used for, you know, everything from the dissemination of legitimate news to interactions between nuclear powers. 
You know, I mean, you have negotiations and talks happening between world powers on Twitter. 
And so a lot of these politicians and a lot of people who may be in the diplomatic services also rely on Twitter for private communications. 
And I've seen in, in my research and many investigations, I've seen really, really sophisticated targeting of Twitter accounts for, for breaches and compromise because people want to get into those DMS. 
So, you know, this makes it easier. 
And, and on the other hand, we also get so desensitized to all of these data breaches and the large numbers that we see associated with them. 
But we forget that for every one of these breaches, there's already a preexisting massive amount of data that has been exfiltrated, excuse me, from other companies. 
And when you combine all of these data sets together, you can begin to piece and weave together a mosaic about somebody's life, perhaps, if that's what you're looking for. 
And all of this breach data, all of this exfiltrated data, once you combine it, you add it to, I mean, I don't want to use too many buzzwords, but you know, now we're, we're in this age of artificial intelligence and machine learning and data mining is becoming easier and easier and easier. 
So, you know, once you, once you have all of this data out there, you know, you can never put it back. 
It's very, very difficult for an individual then to reclaim control over these types of data sets or have an additional measure of control over, you know, what he deems to be the private details of their life. 
You have all these, this legislation that comes coming out, you know, in California of the California Consumer Protection Act, all these different state laws that are designed to protect the privacy of individuals, but there's no reining this back in once the data is out there. 
It's a, it's a problem that's going to exist forever. 
Very true. 
And we're in control of how much data we put out there about ourselves. 
We're in control about whether or not we give them actual phone numbers, actual addresses, actual political affiliations. 
You can lie. 
It's okay. 
You can lie on social media. 
You can lie to strangers. 
It's, it's, um, we don't have to make our lives an open book. 
And I, I, I fear so many people have done that just assuming that they can extend the same level of trust to the entire world that they do to their own close circle of friends. 
The world doesn't work that way. 
Yes, Rob. 
But even in terms of that, though, like this breach, uh, it seems it consists of, uh, excuse me. 
It consists of the public information you put out there on your social media by choice. 
The one main piece of information that's non-public that can be attached to that with this latest breach is your email address. 
It's the email address you use with your Twitter account. 
And that's not normally published online by Twitter. 
So, uh, those, those people who don't want their email addresses out there want to be left alone. 
Um, they're the ones that are going to be hit by this latest breach. 
Well, let's think of a way to defend ourselves against that in the future. 
Can we have, uh, perhaps a system that forwards email, uh, to a different address. 
You give, uh, Twitter, um, a, a, a dispensable address that forwards to where you really are. 
And that way you can reply, uh, or you can, you can, um, enter the code that they send you and they don't actually have your real email address. 
Does that, does that seem something, um, that we could, um, feasibly do? 
That, that's something I do in fact. 
Uh, but, um, my, identity theft at that point. 
So, it is possible for you to have very secure passwords if you just engage in a few tricks, like say, use the first letter of a sentence that is rather long, but you remember it word for word, and every first letter is a part of the password. 
And you can basically change the case, you can be lowercase at the beginning or at the end. 
You can do things that only you would remember, and you can apply this for many passwords without having to write things down or worry about not remembering it. 
They're little tricks, all sorts of little tricks. 
It doesn't involve giving everything away to some trusted entity that turns out to make a big mistake and bring you down with them. 
Folks, any thoughts on this? 
Yeah, any time you add another entity between you and your stuff, that's another point of failure. 
That's just very basic security concepts right there. 
So, yeah, if there's something else you depend on and something else you have to give your information to, that's something else that can go wrong. 
I just want to mainly to remind myself, because I catch myself, the temptation to reuse. 
Don't reuse passwords. 
Don't use it in any other place than the one place where you use it. 
Just don't. 
I know it's tempting, I've been there too, and you think, oh, I'll never really use this system, I'm just testing this out, I'll use the one I always use. 
Don't do it. 
Make a different one. 
If that's not a system someone has access to, okay, maybe you write it on something just because it's temporary and you're testing something. 
But then throw the tape away when you're done, if you tape something to it. 
But don't reuse it, just always use different ones. 
Here's my trick, and I'm going to reveal actual passwords I use, and I feel secure doing this because I'm not telling you what I'm using them for. 
But I use a password, and this is kind of clever, the password is password, because it's a password and no one would ever think that I actually use the word password. 
P-A-S-S-W-O-R-D, you know, regular, but then for the next system I use, I replace the A with an at sign, so it's P, at sign, S-S-W-O-R-D. 
And basically I just go down the keyboard for every single system I use, and I have different passwords. 
All different passwords for, what? 
You're looking at me disapprovingly, Kyle, is that not a good system? 
I would put the caveat, don't do derivations, you know, variations on the theme of a password. 
Like, if you use a phrase like, I hate typing passwords, don't use, I kinda hate typing passwords necessarily for, you know, a system, a related system, or something adjacent, or, you know, that someone would say, hmm, maybe it's the same one as this, or maybe it's, you know, some variation, or they're using, you know, rainbow tables, and it comes up, I don't know. 
But you should try to keep them either very unintelligible or a phrase that's never used, or a combination of a lot of weird stuff and phrases. 
Whatever you can do, just do what's comfortable for you, and keep it different. 
Gila. 
Hi. 
Welcome. 
I'm sorry I was late. 
I want to thank the MTA for that. 
But, so I have a password tip that I got from someone years ago, who used one of their childhood phone numbers, but replaced some of the numbers with the letters that you'd find on the keypad. 
And he said the only people who were gonna be able to guess that password were his siblings, and he was pretty okay with that. 
But, so there you go, there's a tip. 
Until the siblings go, you know, dark, and wind up working against you, you know. 
So true, so then don't tell your siblings that you've done that. 
But, the other thought that I had though, going back to LastPass for a second, thinking about identity theft, and thinking about people who have LastPass accounts that may still be active, but don't have the ability to get in there and change their stuff. 
You know, not to bring everybody down, but my late father had a LastPass account. 
He had a lot of stuff in there. 
And what's going to come from that is, I'm curious. 
You know, we hadn't ever downloaded his Twitter stuff, so his Twitter account is still active. 
There are things that we deactivated after he passed away, but there's stuff that we just didn't think about. 
So I'm really curious how that, like, I'm actually now terrified of what could happen to that. 
So sorry, that's where my mind went when you started talking about LastPass. 
Well, I mean, this is going to become more and more of an issue with all of us in the coming years, and things that these companies probably have never thought of. 
Yeah, yeah, I've thought of this too. 
I had, let's say, a relative or family friend that had an email account that was compromised. 
And I immediately thought of the other people related to them, because they may have gotten past it. 
Like, oh, it's, you know, no big deal. 
I just made another account and they moved on. 
But I think it's good, you know, some of us maybe with a mind for it can maybe help them understand that this actually, you know, whatever information was in there could still be used in some way. 
It's not over just because you made a new account and you've accepted that you lost access or that someone gained access to all of those correspondence. 
You need to continue to be vigilant for people exploiting what information was there. 
And if it's, you know, correspondence with, you know, whatever it is, bills or personal finance, all that stuff, intimate, you know, letters, regarding family wellbeing and so forth, you know, all of that, it's very personal stuff that people have in these webmail accounts. 
And it's just good to remember, you know, that you should try to remember what was lost and how it might be used if it is in the future. 
All right, well, speaking of things that seem obvious, we have to learn hard mistakes anyway. 
I don't know if everybody's been focused on this. 
I don't know if we talked about it on the show, but California has, for some reason, decided it's a good idea to digitize license plates. 
In fact, I'm looking at a Gizmodo story right now where they basically describe it this way. 
The past several years, California has been on a weird mission to digitize its car tags. 
Advocates claim this modernization effort will offer a host of benefits to drivers, really, including visual personalization and easy in-app registration renewal, because, yeah, that's really what we need. 
But we all know, if you're gonna do something like that, it's gonna get hacked. 
It's going to get hacked, and it did. 
It did. 
There's a story that just came out. 
Security researchers have hacked digital license plates. 
Yeah, only a few months after the California legislature passed a law to legalize these digital plates, that is exactly what happened. 
In a blog post published last week, bug hunter Sam Curry noted that he and his friends had recently managed to attain full super-administrative access to all of the user accounts linked to the company called Reviver. 
They're responsible for selling California's modernized plates. 
Reviver sells a thing called the R-Plate, or a SmartPlate. 
Why isn't it called the S-Plate, then? 
R-Plate, okay. 
Basically, it's a battery-powered digital display that gets affixed to a vehicle's rear and then projects the car's information. 
Battery-powered? 
What happens when the battery runs out? 
That seems so dumb. 
How is this different from a license plate? 
I'm looking at, it's literally a screen that has a license plate. 
What's wrong with license plates? 
That's so simple. 
I'm surprised they didn't make it machine-readable, like just a barcode so no one can read plates. 
So, the plate, and I'll get to barcodes in a second. 
The plate allows users to share different graphics and words on the plate, because that's been always the complaint, that you can't do that. 
It also comes with an app that includes car monitoring and safety features. 
Safety features for a license plate? 
I don't know what that's, that's code for something else. 
The going rate for one of these things, also available in Arizona and Michigan, because why not, only 20 bucks a month. 
Yeah, 20 bucks a month, so now you get to pay 120, no wait, you get to pay, why can't I do math anymore? 
Over $240 a year. 
That's a lot. 
Just to have a license plate. 
Yeah, unfortunately, Reviver's pricey high-tech solution also comes with some high-tech problems. 
Curry and his friends investigated the Reviver app and website, discovering a vulnerability that allowed them to gain full administrative access to all user accounts and vehicles for all Reviver-connected vehicles. 
So, not just hacking into one license plate, hacking into all of them. 
Now, what could they do with this access? 
Among other things, they found they had the power to track the GPS locations of every single registered user, manipulate data on users' plates, i.e. 
send a message to the cop behind you, and even, oh my, the mind boggles, even report specific vehicles as stolen, because they have this thing. 
If you look at the graphic of this article, above the license plate number, it says stolen, that's the name of the car dealership that you bought the car at. 
It's, I guess, the equivalent of mobile swatting. 
You basically have all these cops to pull you over because your car is advertising that it's stolen. 
I can go on with all the things that they could do, all the mayhem they could wreak, but it's stupidity. 
Buying into something like this, fixing a problem that isn't there. 
Is anyone surprised that this happened? 
I'm surprised it happened so quickly, but I think we all knew it was coming. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
Not only is this fixing a problem that isn't there, but it's causing so many more problems. 
I mean, if you think about where the license plates are in a vehicle, and you're driving around, things are flying around on the ground, on the road. 
Little bits of things are always getting flung at cars and chipping paint and stuff, and now you have an expensive electronic screen there instead of a plate made of metal that can take a few scratches. 
This is amazing. 
I'm looking at the picture of this thing on Gizmodo, and yeah, it also seems like there are really no upsides to this that do the job better than a plain piece of metal license plate. 
Yeah, this seems like California being a victim of its own success with tech and innovation. 
They just wanna keep on the cutting edge to kind of validate their own importance, even if it's a flop. 
Okay, I think I figured out why anyone would want this thing, though. 
Yeah, tell us. 
So, because I'm looking at someone tore it apart, so it's an E-ing screen, so that's kind of cool. 
But basically, the example here is like, if you're in a parking garage, you don't need to put the paper thing on your dashboard because your license plate will say that it paid. 
Wow, the time that would save in my life. 
That's a no-brainer. 
But if it has a GPS that knows where the car is, like, that's wonky. 
Yeah, because it's not just the car, it's you, because you're in the car. 
It's a tracking device that will always know where you are. 
Yeah, like you're giving the Department of Motor Vehicles their own kind of GPS tracker, like LoJack, but it's basically for their purposes, so your speed, anything GPS can tell you. 
Arsene, I have to ask, what is motor vehicles like in Russia? 
It must be a different level. 
Oh, well, listen, I just never had the opportunity to buy a license, but my friends all went through that process, and what else? 
Oh, here's an interesting one. 
You can be pulled over by a police officer in a taxi and can be fully searched, and that's very scary. 
You mean the passenger can get pulled over somehow? 
Well, I mean, the taxi gets pulled over, and you can be fully, you can be searched. 
The passenger can be searched. 
You know, great way to find guns and drugs, but, like, I don't, what, you know, there's no reasonable, there's no reason for that. 
And that's off, that's spooky. 
But, yeah, I mean, you know, seatbelts not required in the cars, I think. 
I've been in several cars that don't have seatbelts in the front. 
Wow, I mean, we used to do that. 
Fell out of favor. 
Maybe it's those same cars. 
Yeah, I mean, there are people who say that's an overreach of the government to require this, but, yeah, that's an argument I don't wanna get into. 
Rob, go ahead. 
Yeah, just thinking about these digital license plates, I mean, there are things that the plain license plates have enough of a problem doing. 
I don't know if you've seen the stories that have been going around lately about people taping things to their license plates, like sticking a piece of plastic or a leaf or something so their license plates can't get picked up by the scanners at things like toll gates so that they can get through without paying. 
And that's kind of an epidemic in this city. 
They can't stop people from doing that, but they're going to instead introduce things like this that you could do all sorts of other shenanigans with. 
I mean, that would be fun. 
Change your license plate to someone else's license plate and they can pay all your tolls for you. 
I just thought, as you said that, what about everybody has the same license plates, like Spartacus license plate? 
Oh, wow, Spartacus, that's a great license plate. 
Everybody is racking it up on one plate. 
Oh, it's one letter too much in New York. 
You can only have eight characters. 
Good idea, though, good idea. 
I said I was gonna get to barcodes. 
Actually, it's QR codes. 
The city of Melbourne in Australia has this system where they're fighting graffiti, okay? 
And they're fighting graffiti by putting up these QR codes everywhere. 
And it says, scan to report graffiti and street waste. 
And people are supposed to use their phones and scan, and I guess it tells them the location of where they are and they go out and they clean up the graffiti. 
Well, it turns out somebody is replacing all the QR codes with another QR code. 
And those QR codes forward to a documentary about hip hop culture on YouTube. 
And that documentary explores graffiti as part of hip hop culture, it's ingenious. 
It really has saddened the Melbourne Lord Mayor, Sally Capp. 
It couldn't just be a mayor, it'd have to be a Lord Mayor. 
Okay, Sally Capp said it was not yet known how many of the QR codes had been vandalized. 
Is that the right word, vandalized, or just simply replaced or modified or... 
But they believed it was still small in number. 
The hacking of the QR codes is so frustrating, Lord Mayor said. 
I think it gives people some insight into what we're dealing with these vandals, with taggers and with graffiti across our city. 
The brilliance of this is though, how do you know which QR code it is? 
They look the same. 
You have to actually scan it yourself and probably is an advantage to the people on the other end if you go to their site over and over again. 
The city of Melbourne is investigating how many of the QR codes have been affected and is assessing whether an alternative will be needed in the future. 
Our team is replacing the QR codes where we've become aware they've been patched over. 
They really go into detail about this. 
The Lord Mayor said the city of Melbourne had initiated discussions with Victoria Police and would draw on CCTV footage to see how we can catch these culprits. 
The QR codes have been instrumental in helping us be more responsive to cleaning the city. 
We've cleaned more than 150,000 square meters. 
Okay, you know what, this goes several pages more. 
How about this? 
Lord Mayor, if I may say so, why don't you just put up a sign with a phone number on it or a website or something like that? 
You know, why do you need the QR code? 
Because you can't tell when the QR code has been replaced. 
And the phone number at least, well, I guess I could replace the phone number, but I don't know. 
People have been dealing with this for a long time. 
It really shouldn't be this much of a challenge for you. 
Yeah, I think graffiti has evolved. 
It's not what it was in the 70s and 80s. 
And she's, yeah, rightly saying, yeah, this points out what we're dealing with. 
We're dealing with people that are passionate and they have more reason than ever to be putting statements up and getting their message out there. 
There's a lot of enthusiasm for public art and murals and tagging and stuff. 
People have a lot of different reasons to be spraying on stuff and being subversive in that way because so many other areas of life seem to be ever more controlled and less free in that way, in that form of expression. 
And as the times change, the tools and techniques, graffiti artists have that, they know what this technology is and it just doesn't surprise me that they would innovate in a kind of snarky way. 
Go ahead, Alex. 
This whole notion of replacing QR codes as well as something that we have talked about, I think a couple of times on the show over the last couple of years. 
QR codes essentially just serve you up a URL. 
Anything that gives you a URL or a web address shouldn't innately be trusted by any means, but yet we've become so conditioned to trusting QR codes throughout the pandemic. 
If you remember, all the restaurants removed their menus because we had this crazy notion that we know now that the coronavirus could just spread very easily through touching things. 
And so menus were removed and QR codes that would link to a menu were replaced in nearly every single restaurant that you went in from the middle of 2020 until today. 
I mean, so many of these restaurants still just have QR codes as opposed to printing menus. 
It drives me absolutely nuts because I hate using the QR codes. 
But it's something I'd said years ago is that I'm really surprised we don't hear people replacing these QR codes to link to some kind of phishing site or basically push out malware to a particular phone. 
I mean, it would be a really easy way to do this because everybody trusts these QR codes. 
I think it was the Super Bowl last year where you even had a commercial. 
It was a Coinbase commercial, I think, of a QR code just bouncing around the television screen. 
You know, and probably thousands of CISOs and security practitioners around the world are just smacking themselves in the head saying, oh my God, you know, all this training about not trusting URLs and QR codes has just gone out the window because all our employees probably just, you know, raised their phones to the screen trying to figure out what the hell that commercial was about. 
So QR codes can be dangerous. 
They can be fun. 
I've got a QR code morale patch, actually, that Rick rolls anybody that would put it up to my jacket. 
So there's all kinds of fun things you can do, but they're really dangerous too. 
I had a little Russian story. 
So it sounds like the point of these QR codes is if you want to report graffiti, scan this code that gives you like a phone number, and then you call and say, hey, there's a, at this spot, there's whatever. 
So very surprisingly, in St. 
Petersburg and in Moscow, you can take pictures of violations. 
For example, a garbage can is not cleaned. 
And there's an app where you just submit the photo. 
And by law, they have to respond within five days or whatever. 
And it really works. 
And then, of course, the joke is that, you know, if you want your garbage can cleaned faster or if you want snow out, you know, just write some politician's name on it, you know, in graffiti and take a picture. 
It'll get clean. 
But surprisingly, it does work. 
That is something. 
Hey, folks, we're at the end of our hour, but we are going to be going to YouTube for overtime at 8 p.m. 
Go to Channel 2600 on YouTube or simply go to the URL at the top of the 2600.com webpage. 
I wanted to spend a moment, though, on what is a rather sad anniversary, a very sad anniversary. 
In fact, it's 10 years to the day that we lost one of our brightest stars in the hacker world, Aaron Schwartz. 
I can't believe it's been 10 years. 
He took his life after being targeted by the federal government for the crime of trying to make academic papers more accessible. 
It's a crazy story, a story that would take a long time to really go into, and it has been documented quite well. 
I just wanted to give the opportunity to anybody who wanted to say anything about Aaron, who was on off the hook once, and was just such a pleasure to talk to, somebody who had such ideas. 
It just makes me realize that when you target somebody, with all the weight of the legal system, oftentimes you don't know what you're doing to an individual. 
You don't know the pressure that that can create. 
You don't know the harm that that can cause, and I don't think those responsible have ever been held to account for the loss that they're responsible for. 
Yes, Alex, go ahead. 
I wanna say, at Hope this past summer, we addressed the actual law that has been now, the prosecutorial guidelines for the Department of Justice for the law that Aaron Swartz was charged under, the CFAA, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, have been revised now to provide for an ethical hacking exemption. 
And had that revision been in place when Aaron had been, or when charges were even sought, or when a prosecutor was thinking of bringing charges against Aaron, they probably wouldn't have occurred. 
He probably would never have been charged. 
So you look at just how quickly times have changed here. 
One of the things that always stuck with me is that we had an FBI agent who was on the panel, the whole panel that I put together, and we were discussing this, and we brought up the Aaron Swartz case. 
This was not something that we ignored at Hope. 
And his response, I thought, was really, really heartfelt, because an FBI agent who investigates cybercrime said he thought it was a tragedy that Aaron was charged, and that it was a real tragedy that we don't have his voice today, because he was such a bright star and such an incredible mind, and that it would be wonderful to have his thoughts on things like content moderation, on these data breaches of a week, and how technology can be used and abused in society. 
So we've really come a long way. 
It's sad what happened, and I can't believe it's been 10 years. 
And with that, we'll have to close the show for tonight. 
You can write to us, oth at 2600.com, or please join us on YouTube, Channel 2600, and of course join us here on WBAI next week at 7 p.m., and please support WBAI.org. 
Good night, everyone. 
  And welcome everybody on YouTube for Off the Hook Overtime, as we continue our conversation and basically take phone calls a little bit later on. 
We're not taking phone calls right away, we'll take them at some point. 
Rob, did you make it okay in Skype land there? 
I did, and we appear to be on YouTube, I can hear us, we're a little low. 
A little low, boy, we're always low. 
So, I don't know what else I can bring up. 
I can just talk louder, I guess. 
Okay, Alex and Arsenae, you both made it as well, right? 
Yes. 
Present. 
Okay. 
And Gila is on her way back to her seat. 
Okay, as long as she doesn't go back to the subway. 
Yes. 
Okay. 
No one's in a rush for that. 
So, we have other stories that we can discuss, and we can take phone calls a little bit later. 
Oh, and Kyle's here as well. 
Welcome, Kyle. 
Yeah. 
I don't know if we, are we still low, Rob? 
The last thing we need are people calling up and saying, we're too low. 
So, that seems to happen on YouTube a lot, and I'm not sure why. 
It's pretty quiet. 
I can turn this thing. 
Yeah. 
I can turn that input off. 
I don't know if that helps. 
I just adjusted it in the software. 
Okay. 
So, we have a software solution, which hopefully will make things a little bit better. 
Unfortunately, it takes us about 20 seconds to find out if it made things any better, because that's just the delay that we're dealing with. 
But, I mean, no one's reaching out about it on social media. 
Because they can't hear us. 
Because they don't know how to do that. 
Okay, fine. 
You know, I want to talk about, we're mentioning swatting a little bit, but apparently, this story, according to our friends over at WRAL in Raleigh, North Carolina, the FBI is seeing more swatting crimes as people hack into ring doorbell cameras. 
Yes. 
Oh, boy. 
Ring cameras can be a great safety tool, but the device can be manipulated by criminals if you don't take precautions. 
In one home, a strange voice came over a ring camera into a little girl's bedroom. 
Why is there a ring camera in a little girl's bedroom? 
I thought they're for doorbells. 
Oh, it's probably a, like, a baby monitor type device. 
Okay. 
And that's a ring camera as well? 
Possibly. 
All right. 
I have a lot of security cameras in all our offices, and I think that the ring cameras are way cheaper than having a, like, a normal, so that's, you know, that's why you'd want to maybe do that. 
Okay. 
Well, apparently, these things are getting access like crazy. 
There's another instance where cops knocked on the door of a home after responding to a fake call of a disturbance, and both are examples of what the FBI calls ring swatting. 
I'm not sure why the FBI is taking the lead on this. 
Maybe state lines are being crossed. 
Well, actually, two men have been accused of carrying out a nationwide swatting spree and hacking into dozens of ring cameras, and they have been indicted by a federal grand jury in California. 
So, I guess, in their case, it's federal, because they were traveling across the country doing it. 
One of the incidents allegedly occurred in Darien, Illinois, about a year ago, when police responded to the house. 
They found nothing going on and determined it to be a hoax. 
Nothing going on here. 
The cameras are vulnerable because they are not properly secure. 
It said Cyrus Walker, who's a cybersecurity expert with Chicago-based Data Defenders, LLC. 
According to Walker, you have to not only secure the cameras, but the internet network that allows them to connect to each other and the outside world. 
Who knew? 
The one thing I recommend is that users make sure their wireless networks are as secure as they can be, which means that they have strong passwords, that they are not broadcasting their SSID, that they have encryption enabled to the highest degree, and that they separate the networks. 
Walker said cameras are not the only way in for hackers. 
And, you know, this isn't about hackers. 
This is about people, mischief makers, criminals. 
Who knows what? 
You know, if you have default passwords and things that are super simple to defeat, you don't need to be a hacker to even do that. 
You can get in with TVs. 
You can get in with game systems. 
You can get in with refrigerators that are connected to the internet for some reason. 
With default passwords, all of a sudden you hop onto that and you're on the internet, on their internal network, and you can control other things. 
This guy said the first thing you should do when you buy a new connected device is change its default security settings. 
The device that you bought, someone else bought that also. 
They have the same default settings. 
So it's extremely important that when you crack the tape on that box and you plug it in, the very first thing you do is change the username and the password on that device so that only you have access to that device at that point. 
Until you lose the piece of paper that you wrote it on and you have no way into your damn refrigerator. 
Yeah. 
Walker concluded that cybersecurity is not difficult, but it does require people to do more than just plug in their devices and turn them on. 
Remember when we used to just be able to plug our damn devices in and turn them on? 
Now you have to set all kinds of security settings and everything like that? 
Yeah, I do remember. 
And I think that a big problem in our community is we're not kind of evangelizing enough about the kind of next steps of basic networking. 
Like specifically, you mentioned setting up subnetting. 
I've talked about it. 
It's been on my list of things, you know, to really master and to implement in various places. 
And I think that we're not like when hackers get together, it's like assumed. 
Oh, yeah, everybody knows. 
Everybody does. 
Everybody, you know, and then nobody's actually building on the knowledge. 
And this thing of like coming at it like, yeah, I want to learn a really basic thing because I know it's important to learn and I know it's important to know how to use. 
It's sort of assumed so often that people and people are sort of afraid to even ask. 
And I think that's something that as hackers, we should be really concerned about how much we're teaching people and how much we're teaching ourselves and like encouraging people to go beyond just like, you know, one subnet, you know, one IP scheme for your for your office or your home network. 
You should be comfortable with all of the various ways you can segment and compartmentalize. 
I talk about that all the time, mainly because I want to hear more people talking about how to do it in basic ways, because I myself have found there's just not enough teaching. 
There's not enough like reiterating of how to do basic firewalling and subnetting. 
And I actually learned it by by by working on secure drop because that's you have to do that to set that up. 
So, you know, it's learning by doing. 
We need to be a lot less like elitist and make less assumptions because the stuff we talk about seeps out and becomes stuff that the mainstream absorbs. 
And if we're not talking about it and we always make assumptions that, you know, everybody is on this certain plane of understanding. 
Right. 
I think we do a real disservice to ourselves and everybody who might listen to us. 
Oh, absolutely. 
Well said, too. 
And I get that same frustration where, you know, I'm questioning something involving technology, something involving perhaps an appliance and met resistance for, you know, criticizing or questioning or trying to figure out a way of doing something differently and not just following the rules. 
And I can imagine people who don't have any technological knowledge or ability to speak of and have no interest in obtaining more of it, what they have to deal with just to just to, you know, basically cope in today's society. 
Yes, Rob. 
It's also with this particular problem, with the issue of swatting, it's important to recognize why this is particularly a problem with, say, these ring cameras, because part of the culture behind the people who would pull a stunt like that is with a hacked ring camera or some other way of watching. 
They get to see the chaos that they're unleashing upon their victims. 
And this is also why swatting is something that a lot of people who do things like live streaming, streaming games, Twitch, things like that, are finding themselves at the mercy of people who would unleash a swatting on them. 
Because then you get to watch the swatting happen and you get to see what's going on. 
And so when you're putting in cameras in your home and you don't control fully where that video signal goes or you don't secure that video signal in all the ways that you can, you're putting a great deal at risk. 
Can someone explain to me why a refrigerator would need to be on the Internet? 
I just I'm trying to figure that one out. 
I mean, OK, I guess you want to turn it off maybe if you're away. 
But why? 
Why do you want to do that? 
Gila? 
Do you have an idea? 
I mean, OK, I would like to preface this by saying that I don't think a refrigerator needs to be connected to the Internet. 
I'm not endorsing this concept at all. 
However, there are people who think that if your refrigerator is connected to the Internet, that it can analyze what's in it and it can say, OK, you have eight eggs and a block of cheese and a bunch of chives. 
Here are five recipes that you could make with these things. 
And also I can add material to your shopping list because of the thing like you're missing one ingredient that you would need. 
So I'm going to add this to your shopping list and then you can go to the store and come back and hear five more recipes you can make. 
Again, I'm not endorsing this as a concept, but this is the selling point. 
Is that where we are right now where we need some device to tell us how many eggs we have? 
I mean, you know, you're capable of opening up the door and seeing that yourself and then looking up something and saying you can even say to a personal assistant, hey, give me a recipe for this thing. 
Instead, it's making these decisions for you and just being a bit aggressive, I think. 
But the tradeoff, the real tradeoff is that, you know, you have a security vulnerability because you have a refrigerator with a default password. 
Actually, that R plate we talked about would be a pretty good display for a fridge. 
It's got the e-ink. 
Just turn it sideways. 
I don't know. 
You know, sometimes I think we get what we deserve. 
And we should always have the ability to not have to be on the net for every little thing. 
So as long as people have options and they get a refrigerator that just refrigerates and does nothing more, you know, I think we'll be okay. 
I think there is an undervaluing of being not on a device. 
And what perhaps these manufacturers are thinking is the behaviors in society right now are such that people are constantly looking at screens. 
So the idea that, well, let's just make them more comfortable, you know, like, we'll just add to the sort of landscape of information availability that they're so accustomed to now. 
And it's just like they're swept up into the behaviors, not realizing that they could actually differentiate and sort of if they're thinking in a more counterintuitive way that perhaps this is the last frontier of device that's not connected. 
And that's a selling point, you know, it's all how you look at it and think of the, you know, the additional components and supply chains you're reducing by not doing that and so forth and scaling. 
And maybe you can have a better product as a result of not trying to throw all these features just out of consumers' perceived comfort they need. 
I was just afraid that the next frontier is going to be the toilet. 
I'm surprised it isn't already, to be honest. 
I think there are already devices. 
Analyze your output. 
Uh-huh. 
Uh-huh. 
How often, how much, what kind. 
Scoring. 
There was something like that at CES. 
And then talk to your doctor. 
Yep. 
Did you say it's CES? 
C-E-S. 
Oh, C-E-S. 
Okay. 
There was a, uh, there's a tool. 
It's like a $400 analyzer. 
Put it in your toilet and pee on it. 
Say no more. 
Um, let's move on to, um, Alex, I'm curious about your opinion about this. 
This, uh, new Louisiana law that's going to require ID to view porn. 
Uh, yeah. 
Uh, any website that has, uh, more than a third, uh, percent. 
Pornographic content is now being held responsible for checking users' ages if they are residents of Louisiana. 
Um, yeah. 
As of Sunday, January 1st, a new law requiring those websites, um, uh, to verify individuals' age using a government-issued form of identification. 
It's called HB 142. 
Uh, it was introduced by Republican, uh, represent, do I have to even say that? 
Uh, representative Lori, uh, Schlegel, um, and, um. 
Oh, I can't wait for her license number to be spread around and used for this. 
As it should be. 
As it should be. 
Uh, it aims to not only keep anyone under the age of 18 from watching porn, but to hold accountable the websites that readily supply it. 
Pornography is creating a public health crisis and having a corroding influence on minors. 
Uh, this is according to legislation, uh, due to advances in technology, the universal ability of the internet, and limited age verification requirements, minors are exposed to pornography earlier in age. 
Pornography is destroying, um, oh, now we're going on to her, her words. 
Pornography is destroying our children. 
You know, children are destroyed, and it's because of pornography. 
That's why. 
That's the reason. 
It's obvious. 
Uh, they're getting unlimited access to it on the internet, and, uh, so if the pornography companies aren't going to be responsible, I thought we need to go ahead and hold them accountable. 
Um, that's grammatically wrong, for one thing. 
But regardless, um, yeah, you know, when I was a kid, we had magazines. 
And, um, you know, there was no age check on the magazines if you had one in your hands. 
I have a story about that. 
We all have stories about that. 
Yeah. 
But this is insane. 
Alex, any legal thoughts about this? 
Uh, I mean, it's so crazy. 
It really is. 
What the hell is beeping? 
Um, yeah, absolutely nuts. 
Something's beeping. 
Wait, hold on a second. 
Can whoever is beeping, or whatever is beeping, please stop it? 
You heard that? 
You actually heard that? 
I hear beeping. 
What? 
Are you beeping? 
I, no, I think that was, I think that was, you know, nine floors down from me outside. 
I think a truck was, was backing up. 
So. 
Well, can you stick your head out the window and tell them we're doing radio and to please shut the hell up? 
Thank you. 
Um, to disconnect the fridge. 
Yeah, I could. 
I absolutely could, yeah. 
Um, in any event, back to the issue, though, of requiring some kind of identification in order to view porn, I mean, I, I, could you imagine a situation where that data is then misused? 
I mean, it's totally insane. 
It's really nuts to, to think about this. 
It's also crazy to think that, um, kids aren't going to figure out a way around that. 
Number one, to access pornography. 
It is like, if they actually implement that law, the only thing you would have to do to avoid it entirely would be to use a VPN, right? 
So I think, you know, VPN services that run in the state of Louisiana, unless, unless they're going to outlaw VPNs, there's going to be absolutely no way to enforce that. 
Um, and I just think it, you know, as a law on its face, you know, seems to be protecting minors. 
You know, I, I see it as particularly privacy intrusive, not necessarily something that would, would be unconstitutional as I could, as I understand it at the moment. 
Right. 
I mean, there, there are so many other flaws though, you know, with the law that, um, I don't think it would need to be unconstitutional for it to be, uh, vetoed or tossed in a trash can because it's, it's, um, it's also in a sense requiring these, um, porn sites, right? 
If you think about the collateral consequence here, if the issue that Louisiana state legislature, uh, the Louisiana state legislature has with porn sites is that they're horrible, bad influences, corrupting organizations. 
They shouldn't be trusted. 
Um, well, they're now going to require those very same corrupt, horrible companies and to collect data, including, you know, driver's license photographs on every single one of their citizens. 
So in that sense, I could see this as the legislatures, uh, why can't I speak? 
The legislators in the legislature, you do putting their own citizens at risk because of some ridiculous, uh, notion that children are at risk, uh, from, uh, pornography on the internet. 
I mean, it's just that the internet has been full of pornography for so long, if that is the case, it's really taken them a long time to, to wake up. 
And the thing I really don't get is, uh, do they not know what VPNs are? 
I don't want to keep harping on VPNs, but a VPN will simply allow you to disguise where you're coming from and bypass this entire thing. 
One other thought I had is that this, this in their mind is the solution for the children. 
How many times is, has, uh, um, uh, eliminating any concept of sex over history? 
How is that, um, gone? 
I mean, there's like Alex, uh, indicated there's ways around these things, uh, determined, uh, people will, will seek out those alternatives, as you said, and, and in, um, whatever form it takes. 
The hope is that one of those alternatives is a Bible that instead of picking up, you know, porn, they'll pick up a Bible instead. 
There's a lot of that in there too. 
That's always number two. 
When number one is porn, number two is, is religion. 
But it's not, it's not the thing, you know, and just treating it as though, oh, we'll just do this. 
And of course the adults, they're the ones that have to, uh, submit and, uh, and, and suffer this to, uh, basically to, um, treat adults, uh, uh, with suspicion, hostility, and, and basically, uh, um, they pay the costs in, in the interest of these, these specious minors out there that are, that are, um, uh, being ruined. 
Go ahead, Gila. 
Um, whose responsibility is it to figure out what sites are 33.3 or more percent pornographic? 
Yeah, that's a good question. 
I was, I was thinking about this, right? 
Like if you think about, first of all, who's defining what is pornographic and where that line is drawn. 
And if you, you know, there are times when you're just surfing, I don't know, going through Twitter, going through your social media and you're flipping and you're flipping and you're flipping and like joke, joke, penis, it happens. 
Um, also having grown up in an abstinence only world, um, I grew up in the Midwest in the nineties, pretending sex doesn't exist, doesn't make it go away. 
And in fact, makes kids more vulnerable to, uh, sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy, uh, rape. 
If you don't know what you're saying no to, you also don't know what, if you don't know what you're saying yes to, you don't know what you're saying no to. 
And the more we hide it, the more dangerous things become. 
I was talking to a friend of mine about something else. 
And I said, if something is defined by its absence, if the point is the thing's absence, then its presence is much more weighted than it would be under other circumstances. 
But yeah. 
And you know, what if something is 33.2% pornographic? 
We're okay with that. 
Yeah, apparently, apparently that's all right. 
And where's the, the upset over violence and other things that, that are ruining young people? 
You know, it just seems like a very specific case. 
And as Gil indicated, it's, you know, it's got implications for their overall health and development. 
If you completely stifle any kind of education about it, they want it out of the schools. 
No information about anything. 
And just like you said, from the Bible. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
There's also the fact that like, the people trying to regulate pornography have been doing historically such a bad job of defining what pornography is. 
There are things that people who are not adults should have access to things like sex education, things like health information. 
You know, if you if you look up what's happening to your body when you're adolescent, on Wikipedia or something, there are people who would look at that and say, that's porn. 
And, you know, that's going to get pulled into this whole mess of like, how much are we hiding from the kids? 
Who's defining what is or isn't porn? 
The whole, oh, I'll know it when I see it. 
You know, concept doesn't actually work in in terms of law and practice. 
And of every place in the country world, really, any place in the world, this could be coming from. 
I am sorry. 
Louisiana. 
What do you mean by that? 
They say they beads in hand. 
They say this. 
This is what I'm saying. 
This is what I'm saying. 
Like, you could. 
If Girls Gone Wild were still a thing. 
And I know it's not anymore. 
But they used to film a lot at Mardi Gras, right? 
Like entire hours of stuff from Louisiana. 
So all I'm saying is glass houses, Louisiana. 
That's all. 
Good point. 
I'm confused about something. 
Maybe Alex, you can shed some light on this. 
But the law, it's meant to apply to citizens of Louisiana, I think, not websites in Louisiana. 
And if that's true, if it's just meant for citizens of Louisiana, what happens to a site in Germany? 
What happens to a site in New York? 
Are they all expected to follow this backwoods crazy law that they just came up with? 
Do you have any idea? 
You're muted, Alex. 
I'm so sorry. 
You're saying, you know, what happens? 
The question is, what happens when one law? 
I'm sorry, Manny. 
What was the following? 
The question is, is this law for Louisiana citizens or websites that are in Louisiana? 
I think it would apply to any website that had patrons or visitors in Louisiana. 
Any website in the world? 
Yeah. 
So how is Louisiana going to get a site in Germany or, as I said, New York to follow these crazy laws that they're coming up with? 
Yeah. 
I mean, that's another issue. 
That's called, you know, extraterritorial effect. 
So the extraterritorial effect of this may be that, okay, well, they could be fined in the state of Louisiana. 
So other companies outside the United States are going to comply with that law because they don't want to be fined in the state of Louisiana. 
We own 2600.xxx. 
And I want to be fined in the state of Louisiana. 
So folks, just... 
You have to add 34% porn on there. 
33.1. 
33.1. 
You know, if somebody out there can run the site, we'll take all the heat. 
I want to just... 
I want to add one last thing. 
I think we've been talking about porn for 20 minutes, but maybe that's for the after-after show. 
But, you know, this smells like they have a system that verifies IDs, and this is going to require a lot of websites to start utilizing it. 
And that's kind of what this is all about. 
And then, you know, gambling sites are already filtered pretty heavily in the U.S., so there's some states that you can do, you know, lottery online, others you can't. 
So the systems are there for it. 
And if they extend that to porn as well, I mean, that's a lot of local revenue probably for, you know, whatever regulators they have. 
And that's what this sounds more like, you know, someone trying to get some money versus for taking the children. 
Yeah, like including the vendors. 
If they've already established a contract, you're kind of saying it could jump into other... 
kind of diversify the sources of ID checks. 
Yeah, I'm embarrassed to say this. 
I'm not a porn expert. 
So, you know, I just assume that if you go to a porn website, there's porn there. 
But do you have to pay to get to the porn? 
I mean, if something is just there displaying pictures, how do you... 
You know, with gambling sites, I imagine there's money involved. 
It's gambling after all. 
So that's where all the age restrictions kick in. 
But if it's just a site that's displaying images without any payment, I'm not sure how you would ever be able to control that. 
That's a good point. 
I mean, I guess ideally they're going to come after the sites and say, hey, if you want to operate in our state, you know, you've got to put this software in that we're going to give you. 
It's our SDK. 
But what does that mean, operate in their state? 
You know, who would want to put a box in Louisiana with all these crazy regulations? 
Obviously, they'll be able to reach you wherever you happen to be. 
You could be on the space station. 
They could force the server to be hosted there, too. 
But it doesn't sound like that's what they want. 
They also would... 
If a firm did not want to participate, they would basically put the onus on them to kind of like geofence any traffic from there and or send all of the Louisiana traffic somewhere else saying, sorry, we can't do this because we're not participating in such and such law. 
Here's a form. 
You can contact your state officials and so forth if you don't like that, etc., etc. 
But I feel like it's the same thing with like sites that have alcohol or any kind of adult stuff. 
It's basically that splash on the front that says, are you 18 plus or are you 21 plus? 
That's the moment. 
If it's a free site, if there's like some kind of private login because you have to be a part of a club and give a credit card number or something, that's going to already have kind of its own home screen that's locked out from any of the content until you register. 
But any kind of free site, it would just basically, it would probably be something in front of the landing site akin to that age check. 
And there always may ways around it. 
You know, there always have been, there always will be. 
Doesn't mean that you can't, you'll keep an eye out for where there are issues. 
But this kind of overreach, that's a bit much. 
Gila, did you have something else? 
I did. 
I did. 
I'm sorry. 
I'm still like, I'm fixated on this. 
So why is it the internet? 
Why is the internet the only place they're worrying about protecting kids? 
Are they also saying that Cinemax can't broadcast in Louisiana anymore? 
Because I'm reasonably willing to pause it. 
I mean, I'm sorry to pick out one specific network, but I mean, come on, we know what those schedules look like. 
Is that 33.3? 
I said I'm not an expert, but I do know that that's not porn on Cinemax. 
But would Louisiana say that it is? 
I mean, are we talking about measuring insertion points? 
Are we talking, I mean, like, who's, I'm serious here. 
Plus or minus 10% side boob. 
Exactly. 
Like, what's the line? 
You know, we're going to be on the list now. 
We're going to be on Louisiana's list. 
I have a question, though, for Gila. 
Yes, Alex. 
What do you mean by insertion point? 
You know, Alex, there are books we can recommend where you can catch up on all this. 
Alex, you have children. 
You have two kids. 
I don't get this. 
Yes, I needed a diagram for that, too. 
So, you know. 
I'm just saying. 
Anyhow, I'm very curious what our listeners think. 
And it might be a good time, since we're approaching a half-hour mark. 
I saw a smattering. 
There are just two more stories I wanted to very quickly get to, because one of them is so sad. 
This is a very sad story about a woman in Georgia who's been hacked. 
And Google sends me stories about hacking. 
And their qualification for what a story about hacking is has gone down recently. 
See if you can find what the line is these days. 
But basically, hackers apparently broke into Sharon Barber's Chick-fil-A app this week. 
And there's nothing funny about a Chick-fil-A app, Gila. 
And they loaded it with hundreds of dollars from her checking account. 
I think the problem is they broke into your bank. 
Oh, no. 
They didn't break into a bank. 
Because she gave the Chick-fil-A app access to her bank. 
That's what happened. 
And this is the best part of the story, which comes from WSB-TV. 
They seemingly ordered half of Chick-fil-A's menu. 
Seemingly. 
Because they haven't finished the research on that yet. 
They don't know if they've actually ordered half of the Chick-fil-A menu. 
But seemingly, they did. 
They spent $100 so far, said Barber. 
And there's about $100 left on it. 
On her app, I think. 
Not on the menu. 
Barber says she feels helpless watching the charges rack up on her app. 
She's just sitting in her house looking at the money go away. 
And all the Chick-fil-A's going to some hackers somewhere. 
She's in Augusta. 
I imagine drinking scotch or something watching this happen. 
They order whatever their heart desires at two Chick-fil-A restaurants in Maryland. 
But don't they have to go to those places? 
If you know where they are. 
I mean, it's a news story. 
So it seems like they should be able to catch the people. 
No matter how many times I change the settings. 
No matter how many times I change my password. 
They still are able to hack into my account. 
Well, she's one of countless Chick-fil-A customers across Georgia and the country who say their Chick-fil-A accounts were hacked this week. 
Something tells me there's a problem with the app. 
That's the common denominator there. 
The Atlanta-based company calls the activity on their app suspicious and fraudulent. 
Oh, gold star for them for figuring that out. 
They're encouraging victims to call their Chick-fil-A cares hotline. 
Yes, there's a Chick-fil-A cares hotline. 
And please, I'll give a prize to whoever can get that number because it's not listed in the story. 
The Chick-fil-A cares hotline. 
I want it. 
I want to know how much they care. 
I waited over an hour to talk to someone, said Barber. 
And when I did, they just kept reassuring me that my bank will give me back the $200 that was stolen. 
But that can be a lengthy process. 
Now, Channel 2, which is WSB, Channel 2 in Atlanta, they have a consumer advocate named Clark Howard. 
And he gets things done. 
And he says, key thing with any app that you have on your phone, never, never, ever, not ever tie it into a debit card. 
If that app is ever breached, that debit card is a direct tie-in to your checking account. 
And the money you need to live on and pay your bills is gone. 
Yeah. 
So listen to Clark. 
Knows what he's talking about. 
Yes, Kila. 
So back. 
No, I'm kidding. 
If you go to the Chick-fil-A customer service website, there's currently a splash bar on top that says, We are investigating suspicious activity on some customer accounts. 
We're committed to protecting customers' data and are working quickly to resolve the issue. 
Learn more. 
Also, I found the number within like two seconds. 
And they're open. 
Listen, they're answering until 10 p.m. 
tonight. 
Okay. 
If you want to call them. 
I don't want to call them. 
Do you want the number? 
I do want the number. 
Yes. 
Okay. 
It's 866-232-2040. 
And that's toll-free. 
Wow. 
That is toll-free. 
And they're open until 10 p.m. 
Eastern Monday through Saturday. 
They're not open on Sunday. 
There are no Chick-fil-A open on Sunday. 
And, you know, I had this idea years ago when Chick-fil-A came to Long Island. 
Since they're closed on Sunday, and since they're very anti-gay, why isn't Sunday the day for everybody to simply plant rainbow flags at your local Chick-fil-A? 
Because nobody's going to be there to tell you not to. 
And it can just be known as the gay place on Sundays. 
Or add it to their Chick-fil-A flagpole. 
Because they all have one. 
Yes. 
Yeah. 
Absolutely. 
McDonald's, too, if you want. 
But my real question is, and again, this goes back to, you know, a question about refrigerators on the Internet. 
Why do you need a Chick-fil-A app to buy Chick-fil-A? 
Why can't you just buy Chick-fil-A? 
Go ahead, Gila. 
You have the answer to this, too. 
Yeah. 
Because I, you know, for the same reason that you have the Dunkin' Donuts app or the Starbucks app. 
Or, you know, you get your loyalty points. 
You get your free stuff. 
You have special offers. 
Others, I will admit I'm a sucker for a special offer. 
And yesterday was Starbucks Double Star Day. 
And it was very exciting for me. 
Okay. 
But you know what? 
I go to a coffee shop, too. 
It's not Starbucks. 
But I go to a coffee shop. 
And I buy something there. 
And I use a credit card. 
And I get points. 
And occasionally I redeem those points and get free coffee. 
And I don't use an app. 
I just use my credit card. 
And they keep track of customers that way. 
Isn't that enough? 
They're taking better care of you than Chick-fil-A does, I guess. 
Well, that's not hard. 
I think there's a couple things going on. 
The systems, like the kinds of terminals a lot of places are using, Square, Clover, Toast, whatever these different touchscreen POS checkout systems are, I think they keep track of that as, like, a feature of the small business or whatever coffee shop implementing their particular tool. 
It's like, oh, yeah, you can have your loyalty, your points system. 
And they will basically mine the credit cards as they're run through that system. 
The apps are a way to sort of have that same feature but remotely. 
And also you have the captive audience where, like, you can update them about news and information. 
You can mine their behaviors looking through menus. 
What kind of news information is Chick-fil-A going to be giving them? 
Let me finish. 
They have important updates. 
I'm sure there's plenty of updates in their app right now. 
But just let me finish. 
The points in that system could be more broadly implemented, like, with a larger chain, not like your local coffee shop. 
So, in other words, the POS systems I was describing are kind of mimicking what, like, large chains like Starbucks or, in this case, Chick-fil-A are doing with their homespun apps that are integrated into the broader reward system. 
And that allows them to not rely on credit card companies and they get much better information. 
It can also support, like, ordering and picking up where, like, you can't really do that. 
Like, you have to walk in and use your credit card at a Chick-fil-A because you're not using the app. 
Or same thing with, like, a large chain like Starbucks. 
Don't you have to walk in to get the food? 
How do you get the food? 
No, I mean ordering. 
You can't order until you get there. 
The convenience of having the app is you can order on the way out the door and by the time you get there, you're walking out with your order. 
Because we're all in such a hurry. 
Well, time is everything, you know. 
You know, my way, using a credit card, I'm not linking it to a bank account and they can't, like, rob me blind. 
And, you know, I watch people drinking coffee and depleting all my savings. 
I wasn't saying it was good. 
I was just trying to make a distinction between the different ways these things are being implemented. 
Okay, last story here, then we'll open the phones. 
Again, Google, thank you for sending me these hacker stories. 
Here it is. 
Drivers blown away by McDonald's car hack that makes eating fries far easier. 
It's bound to come in useful. 
That's literally the headline that I got. 
McDonald's car hack that makes eating fries far easier. 
Okay, let's give it a chance. 
There could be some real information here. 
A man has taken to... 
Wait a minute. 
It's all caps. 
M-A-N is all caps. 
You know what it is? 
It must be one of these newspapers that has the initial word in all caps. 
So it's not meant for emphasis. 
I think so. 
I shouldn't have probably said it that way. 
But it is all caps. 
A man has taken to social media to share his McDonald's hack that makes eating fries, far easier. 
The video was uploaded to TikTok. 
Oh, here we go. 
By Healthy Junk Food. 
That's the guy's name. 
Healthy Junk Food. 
And viewers are blown away by it. 
Well, I'm not sure about that. 
But the TikTok user simply orders a large cup when ordering fries at a Mackey's drive-thru. 
Mackey's? 
Oh, this is a British newspaper. 
That's what this is. 
A Mackey's drive-thru. 
Okay. 
We should be writing this down, by the way, because it's a little complicated. 
TikTok user simply ordered... 
Why do you have to be a TikTok user? 
Why can't you just be a human? 
Well, that's how he identifies. 
Fries. 
Okay. 
All right. 
He orders a large cup when ordering fries. 
The cup perfectly fits in his car's cup holder. 
Well, they don't all fit in every car's cup holders perfectly. 
But anyway, that makes it much more stable than using the box that the fries usually come in. 
You know what? 
That's the whole thing. 
He puts the fries in the cup. 
Or else it gets the hose again. 
No, it's, um, I was, okay, there was like eight pages about this, and literally I got to the end of it with the second sentence. 
He gets a big cup and pours fries into the big cup, and he feeds off that while he's driving. 
And that's the whole thing. 
Okay, so now we have reaction to it. 
He says to the McDonald's worker, I was wondering if I can get a large fries, but please put it in a large cup. 
When they serve him the fries, he says to the staff member, it's a good idea, right? 
She answers, yes! 
Exclamation point. 
And, oh, apparently that's a video. 
So you could see that in video on TikTok. 
It's gotten more than a million views and 5,000 comments. 
But you know what? 
We have just gotten stupid. 
This whole planet has just turned into a bunch of morons. 
What? 
I'm not supposed to say that? 
I can't condemn the human race? 
Because I think we are condemned right now. 
If that gets a million views, putting French fries in a cup, and that's called genius. 
And this, I'm reading an eight-page, we printed this out. 
We used eight pieces of paper and ink to print out this story. 
And it's just about somebody putting fries in a cup. 
I learned how to do that when I was three. 
For God's sake. 
I'm sorry, listeners. 
Just a complete waste of time here. 
No comments on this story. 
It doesn't deserve them. 
Do we have a phone call? 
We didn't give out the phone number. 
How is that possible? 
Do you want me to hang up on them? 
No, no, no. 
We'll take it. 
But let's give out the phone number for the benefit of those people. 
802-321-4225. 
Did I give it out right? 
802-321-HACK is our telephone number. 
And we have a phone call. 
Good evening. 
You're on off the hook. 
Overtime. 
Go ahead. 
Is anyone there? 
Is this one of these days where they can't hear us? 
Hi, Emmanuel. 
Calling from California. 
This sounds like Rebel. 
Rebel, is that you? 
Hello? 
Rebel, can you hear me? 
He can't hear me. 
Calling from California. 
Yes, I'm calling from California. 
Wait. 
Rebel, can you hear me? 
Tell me that first. 
Yes, I'm calling from California. 
Okay, he can hear me. 
You're delaying a lot. 
What's Rebel calling from? 
Don't make it worse, Alex. 
So you're in California. 
You know, you called us in California once before, and you were driving a Tesla. 
Are you doing the same thing now? 
Yeah, I drive that car again. 
I don't like it. 
I'm driving a Dodge Charger, which is a lot nicer, a lot, you know, nicer looking and better, you know, just easier to, you know, use and not all this tablet thing and touchscreen. 
And I couldn't even get the winter. 
You know, it rained here yesterday. 
Oh, no. 
And I managed to get the winter wipers working, but I couldn't get the processors to work. 
You know, I've said this many times. 
I've said that I think in cars, everything should be in the same place. 
You know, windshield wipers should always be in the same place. 
Every car is different, and you have to figure it out. 
And God forbid, you know, it happens suddenly when you need to use them. 
You know, you might need five minutes just to find it in the first place. 
Well, the Nissan Leaf, you don't have to do that. 
I mean, the Chevy Volt, you don't have to do that. 
But when did you become an expert on cars? 
You know so much about cars all of a sudden. 
You have lousy cell phone coverage. 
I'll say that, though. 
Okay, briefly. 
That was brief. 
I'll give you that. 
That's about as brief as you can possibly make it. 
Are you still there, Rebel? 
We're going to move on if you continue being a robot. 
Okay. 
He's done. 
Rebel, for the record, we did not hang up. 
I can't believe that guy is still calling in. 
Oh, my God. 
Arseny. 
That's why you fled to Russia, right? 
I mean, yeah. 
I thought it was safe. 
Rebel has been calling us since, I think, the 1990s. 
And usually, he's the first caller. 
That's why it's important for the next caller to call us now, 802-321-4225, and hopefully we'll get a different opinion on something else. 
Or we won't. 
No calls? 
You're nodding. 
Does that mean yes, no calls, or yes, we have a call? 
I don't know. 
Kyle, you keep nodding. 
I don't know what that means. 
That's part of the phone. 
Oh, yeah. 
Drive me crazy. 
You're supposed to pick up on it. 
Okay, I'm picking. 
Wait. 
Should I pick up? 
No, pick up on my... 
You know what? 
Forget it. 
You deserve this. 
Here. 
You have a call. 
Why don't you just say that to start with? 
Good evening. 
You're on off-thook overtime. 
Okay, sorry. 
Oh, for God's sake. 
I'm out of here. 
I'm keeping voice over IP. 
I don't know. 
I guess I must not be getting very much internet. 
When that happens, Rebel, you have to talk louder. 
That's how you keep the IP. 
Hey, I'm talking louder. 
All right. 
There it is. 
No, it's not me. 
It's the internet where I am. 
Let me explain. 
The IP is weak. 
Your strength in voice goes over the IP like a numerator over a denominator, and hence it strengthens the whole thing. 
So talk louder. 
Louder voice. 
Louder V. 
Carry the O. 
Louder IP. 
See? 
Simple. 
Yeah. 
Okay. 
Can you hear me? 
Yeah, see, it works. 
Okay. 
Now, when I was in, all right, I just want to mention quickly, ask a question quickly. 
Louisiana does not want porn sites, but what if you use a VPN, but can't they go to the VPN and say, well, which internet provider used this VPN? 
Alex, maybe you could answer that. 
Could that be repeated? 
I'm sorry. 
You're not paying any attention, are you, Alex? 
I wasn't. 
You called me. 
Alec, Rebel, ask the question again for the benefit of Alex. 
All right. 
When you use a VPN, does the VPN that you're using know where you're coming from? 
Like, I'm in California, and I go to the, like, my friend's Wi-Fi, let's say. 
Yeah, yeah, yeah. 
The answer I think you're looking for is yes. 
So your VPN, when you connect to a VPN, it's going to have a log of the IP address that you used, your actual IP address that you used to connect to that VPN server, right? 
Now, to combat this, to combat being in possession of this particular data, most VPN services will say, as part of their business model, that they don't keep any logs. 
So if anybody asked them for the information, it wouldn't be there, but technically they would be recording it, and you'd be surprised how many VPN services actually do keep logs. 
But do you think that's... 
But if they're the VPN... 
What Rebel is asking is, do you think that's a way for companies in Louisiana to be forced, or companies using, having customers in Louisiana, to be forced to turn over information if they use a VPN? 
Oh, I mean, maybe. 
I mean, if they're, yeah. 
I mean, if they're constantly connected to VPNs and seen as some kind of way around a system, then, yeah, maybe. 
I mean, it's possible. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
I wonder if that defense would work for the site itself. 
Like, if I wanted to put up a porn site and say, well, sorry, Louisiana, but I don't keep logs of IP addresses or locations of where my visitors are coming from. 
I just don't log that, and so I have no way of knowing if my patrons are from Louisiana or from, you know, the planet Zog, so good luck enforcing your thing on my site. 
But then some state representative is going to go to your site from Louisiana and say, look at all the porn I just accessed for eight hours, and you didn't do anything to stop me, and therefore we're going to charge you with a crime. 
That's how they work. 
So a VPN, when you log on to a VPN, they know where you're coming from, but the site that you're going to, we're going to have to ask the VPN, who accessed our site from your VPN? 
Yes, but I wanted to mention, you're not necessarily required, like, VPN is a concept. 
It's not necessarily just service providers. 
So if you were really, you know, into building it, you could have a virtual server or pay for IP in another state and implement VPN service there and basically get out of state by connecting to your own machine and just make sure when you implement that, you don't have any logs there. 
There's a lot of different ways to do it. 
You're not necessarily tied into trusting that a service is going to protect you. 
You can set up all kinds of crazy community networks and, you know, trade access with people in other parts of the country. 
It depends on, you know, how seriously you need to connect. 
Obviously, this is a little bit more for leisure, I'd say. 
But, you know, there are other reasons to be able to get information in a place that's not allowing you to. 
Yeah, I feel compelled to bring as much porn as possible to Louisiana now. 
I don't know. 
It just, it feels like a mission. 
So if I go to 2600.com on a VPN, can you guys go to the VPN and say, who logged on through your VPN on this time in this state? 
Wow. 
No, because we wouldn't, we wouldn't do that. 
We wouldn't keep it necessarily. 
And we wouldn't, we wouldn't inspect it in the way that you're thinking. 
And we wouldn't know which IPs necessarily unless we went through all of them, analyzed them and figured out which ones were actually a part of a VPN service. 
And then independently figured out which VPN service to contact once we eliminated all the private IPs that just aren't using that. 
But it's, it's beyond the scope of the way we would manage our website. 
But that's not necessarily, we accept that that's not necessarily how every website is run. 
So it's potential, potentially, but not in the case of our website. 
It's not something that we want to keep for any, any period of time. 
And we don't keep logs at all. 
So it's just for the record. 
Now, okay. 
So we're at this casino and you know, I went to the, the restaurant and I, you know, had some dinner and you know, the, the little old people at this casino. 
Um, and, um, I, I noticed that, you know, um, you know, they take the credit card, they, when they pay the bill and when I pay with my credit card, they ask for ID. 
I mean, I, they didn't, I don't think they asked anybody else. 
They asked for ID. 
And for me, I mean, well, I was happy to give it to them, but. 
You're saying they didn't ask anybody else or that you've never seen this before? 
I don't think so. 
I, I think so. 
I mean, maybe cause I'm, you know, wearing a black Raiders jersey and blue jeans and a hat backwards. 
Maybe that's why. 
Yeah. 
Nobody in California does that. 
Um, I don't, that's, that's, I'm not sure what the state rules are. 
I know in New York, uh, it's, it's, it's not legal to ask for ID with a credit card. 
I'm pretty sure that's, that's, uh, Alex, do you know more about this? 
Yeah. 
I just said, I just thought that, you know, one reasonable explanation, uh, for them asking you and nobody else for identification when using a credit card rebel was possibly that the woman was a very good judge of character. 
Well, you could say that, but also another possibility, what is your credit card signed? 
Uh, if it's fine, no, I don't think they, um, sometimes if you don't sign your credit card, they will ask for ID to, so they can compare your signature. 
Sometimes they do that. 
Maybe that's, or, or so they can prove it's the same name. 
Maybe it's because I'm, you know, maybe it's because I look like I'm 25 when I'm really like 40. 
So you just had to get that in. 
Okay. 
Yeah. 
Rebel looks incredibly young. 
I guess, you know, I'm, you know, there's like old people there and then I'm the only one that's like, like I said, you know, in a black Raiders jersey and with a hat backwards and, you know, yeah. 
And no one's dressed like that in decades. 
I know. 
Uh, maybe you're stuck in some kind of time capsule that, uh, no, I'm just curious. 
I mean, I, I, I'm happy to provide my ID. 
I just, you know, an observation. 
Gila, go ahead. 
Um, Rebel, can I ask what kind of credit card you were using? 
It's a, uh, debit card. 
It's a, you know, a Chase debit card. 
And can we get the last four digits of that, please? 
No, no. 
It's a, it's... 
Why? 
No, it's... 
I'm being polite. 
Don't listen to a brother. 
It's... 
Well, because I think there may be different requirements for a credit card versus a debit card. 
And if they didn't have, you know, the thingy-bobber that you could put your pin number. 
I'm sorry. 
I just said pin number twice. 
No, you know what? 
Well, you know what? 
I did use my debit card, but I did not have to enter any PIN. 
So she took it somewhere and processed it and brought it back to me. 
Like, ran it as a credit card. 
Right. 
She cloned it. 
All right. 
So she's going to be getting Chick-fil-A all over the country now. 
That's what happened. 
I guess I won't have enough money to come back to New York. 
Well, it was nice seeing you when we did. 
And we'll remember that forever. 
Anything else, Rebel? 
Because theoretically, we have all the calls out there. 
I was going to go to Phoenix 2600, but my battery and my phone went out. 
The number one excuse for not going to the Phoenix 2600 meeting is that people's batteries have run out. 
So you're not alone there. 
All right, Rebel. 
Well, it's good hearing from you. 
We have to take some more calls now. 
Be safe out there in California and let us know next week where you are. 
Misbehave. 
Yes. 
All right. 
Take care. 
I'll be in Florida next week. 
All right. 
Spoiler alert. 
Fine. 
Now we know where he's going to be. 
Okay. 
The Rebel tour continues. 
All right. 
So 802-321-4225 is our phone number. 
No doubt wearing a Dolphins jersey. 
Maybe. 
Yeah. 
And a hat upside down on his head. 
Yes, Arshney, we still get calls from Rebel every damn week. 
He's active. 
He's out there. 
Mixing it up. 
Doesn't even let us give out the phone number. 
No, which we've done now. 
And we'll give it a few minutes. 
Basically, what we do is we wait around to give people a chance to say what's on their minds. 
And if they have nothing to say, then we move on. 
Yes, Rob, you have something to say. 
Yeah. 
Just to give that phone number out again, it's 802-321-4225. 
Or if you'd like to call us toll free, you can get us that way at 833-755-2600. 
And that's what it sounds like when the phone rings. 
Absolutely. 
Wow. 
No, I'm lying. 
That's the doorbell. 
We don't have a call, Kyle? 
Okay, you know what, folks? 
We're going to just leave in a few minutes because we've said everything we have to say. 
So now's the time where you can say what you want to say. 
And it doesn't matter. 
New callers, old callers, just give us a call. 
But the next couple of minutes, we won't have anything more to say. 
Yeah, anything that you've hacked, that you noticed that was unusual, technology, telephones, news stories that you thought would interest us and that we missed somehow. 
Anything. 
You know, we love to revisit stories. 
If you have updates for things, it's all welcome. 
That's what this hour or so is for. 
Yes, Rob. 
And just to give out information on something that will be happening four weeks from now, actually, the next 2600 meeting, the one in February on the 3rd, Friday the 3rd, after that, there's going to be a little memorial get-together in honor of our friend Jim, who we recently lost. 
Pam, Jim's widow, has arranged a gathering that's going to take place at a nearby diner. 
And so if you're local and you come to the 2600 meeting, you want to come along to that, the information is on nyc2600.net. 
Yeah. 
Can I say, I had an opportunity to visit the City Group building in recent weeks. 
And I'm amazed by what they have done to that space. 
It is such an incredible hangout. 
There's all these little places that you can go to have, like, a conversation with somebody, like, just counter space with - it's kind of like being in Tokyo. 
You know, all these little tiny places where they serve all kinds of different things. 
All types of food. 
Yeah, all types. 
There's multiple places to get a drink, and it's just really fresh and expansive, lots of places to sit. 
Yeah. 
You don't have to go to an establishment. 
You can sit out in the open area. 
And I imagine, Rob, I haven't been to a meeting in a while, but you don't have to go anywhere afterwards, do you? 
You can simply stay there. 
No, you really don't because there's a lot of stuff to eat. 
There's a lot of options, stuff that fits all sorts of dietary requirements. 
There's a halal place, there's a kosher place, and there's a pizza place. 
So, you know, that's all three of the food groups right there. 
I didn't see a single big chain. 
They all seem to be fairly independent. 
Yeah, and everything I've tried there so far has been pretty good. 
It's a decent food court, and it's really pleasant what they've done with the place. 
It's almost worth that, like, 13 years of remodeling they were doing. 
Unbelievable. 
It took a lot. 
13 years. 
I don't think it was 13 years. 
Felt like 13. 
Yeah, it did. 
Do we have a call? 
We do. 
Oh, okay. 
Let's see who's out there. 
Good evening. 
You're on Off the Hook Overtime. 
Go ahead. 
Hi, this is Johnny Fusion. 
Hey, Johnny. 
How are you doing? 
I'm doing pretty good. 
Feeling better. 
Yeah, you called us a couple of weeks ago about articles you had written, and you were getting over some health challenges. 
Yes, indeed. 
Got some good news from my doctors. 
Okay, that's great. 
At my clinic this week, so that was good. 
Good to hear. 
Fantastic. 
And hopefully... 
Working on a new article for you guys. 
Yeah, I was going to say, hopefully you're writing another article for us. 
That'd be great. 
Yeah. 
I put down about 1,100 words on it this morning. 
Nice. 
To go on with the 1,500 words I wrote earlier. 
That's 2,600 words. 
Did you add them up? 
2,600. 
That's what you get. 
Yeah, 2,600 words right now, and it's almost done. 
Cool. 
Just working on the conclusion. 
Okay. 
All right. 
Well, we encourage anybody out there, and just like you're doing, write, write freely as just an exercise. 
Get ideas out there. 
Come back to them. 
Revisit it when you can. 
But we are always interested in what people have to say. 
And it allows you to take your time to articulate the thoughts, and you don't have the pressure of giving a talk at an event or calling and being on the radio necessarily. 
You get to spend the time forming your idea. 
And we just really love to see people that enjoy and feel empowered by that, because that's the whole point of publishing and then sharing about it, and especially in the technical realm. 
So please keep it up, and I encourage everybody out there listening, just write, write, write. 
Please write and share with us your ideas for the future, maybe nostalgia, stuff from the past, or what's going on now in your world. 
It all applies, and we'd love to hear more about it. 
So that's just fantastic, and keep it up. 
Yeah. 
I've been a professional writer for, oh gosh, like 30 years now. 
Wow. 
I was first published as a teenager, but I was first paid in my 20s. 
Cool. 
So I wanted to talk a little bit about Aaron Swartz. 
Yes. 
You know, and the anniversary of his unfortunate death. 
Go right ahead. 
You know, it was, you know, it was 10 years ago. 
I was 40. 
And I remember just being shook, because we, because I, I followed his career, you know, him starting Reddit. 
And I think he just embodied the hacker ethic. 
You know, especially with this thing that the federal government both prosecuted and persecuted him over. 
And that's the sharing of information. 
Like, he was trying to make information more freely available. 
And we had this really bad law. 
And they just said, oh, you know, we have this bad law. 
Here's someone doing something that's costing these journals potential money. 
Because, like I said, last time I called, capitalism ruins everything it touches, and it touches everything. 
Because, I mean, that's really what the crime was. 
There, they, you know, they were making less money from these academic journals. 
But information should be free. 
I mean, that's the cornerstone of the hacker ethic. 
And I really, I really don't consider it a suicide. 
I think the government killed him, honestly. 
Just because it was such an over-the-top prosecution in what he was facing sentence-wise. 
And how he, and the way the law was written, he couldn't mount a good defense. 
And it was a real miscarriage of justice. 
Couldn't agree more. 
Couldn't agree more. 
And, you know, we've seen the effects it's had on people in the past. 
We've seen the overreach. 
We've seen the overzealous prosecutions of individuals in the past. 
Alex, you know this quite well. 
The success rate, if you call it success, of the federal government when prosecuting cases is close to 100%. 
Because they have unlimited resources. 
And the people that are trying to protect themselves or defend themselves don't. 
And they either have to plead to something as part of a plea agreement or they simply lose and lose a good part of their lives. 
And in some cases, they lose their lives entirely. 
And I agree with the caller that, you know, we can put the responsibility for his death on those people that did not see this as a human being. 
You know, they saw this as something, a threat that needed to be stopped by any means necessary. 
And it's just, it's unforgivable. 
Alex, go ahead. 
Alex, you're muted again. 
I don't know. 
It takes a second to unmute, even these days. 
You know, one thing I feel compelled to mention about Aaron Swartz and sort of remembering him and just kind of putting things in context, too. 
But, you know, our very own, you know, Virgil Griffith actually worked with Aaron Swartz. 
You know, they were buddies. 
They worked together on the TOR2 web proxy. 
And, you know, it's something I think about a lot. 
There's a lot of parallels between those two cases. 
And, you know, I don't want to have to feel it, but, you know, Virgil and I have even, you know, talked about that. 
And it's just such a tragedy in both instances. 
It really, really is. 
It's horrendous. 
Yeah. 
Ten years. 
Unbelievable. 
The things that he could have contributed, accomplished, shared in, in those ten years and beyond. 
You know, it's just, it makes me really angry that, that we've all lost so much. 
You know, Kyle mentioned SecureDrop before. 
He was, he was fundamental in the development of that invaluable app. 
And, and, and so much more. 
Yeah, I think about that every time I'm interacting and, and, you know, working with the freedom of the press and, and just thinking about it. 
It's in the back of my mind, like, this would not be without his efforts and vision. 
And, and, like you said, what, what would he be guiding now? 
What, what in Freedom of the Press Foundation, what would he be guiding there? 
Would, you know, what other things would he have taken on and be leading and, and guiding people with his vision throughout this technical landscape, you know, that we're living in now? 
It's, it's really, it's, it's hard to think about, but I'm glad we are now. 
Yeah. 
Rob, did you have something? 
Yeah. 
Um, today, just, uh, thinking about how it's been 10 years and it seems crazy that it's been 10 years. 
Um, but, uh, I, I went back, I was listening to, he was a guest on our show on August 15th, 2012, um, talking about SOPA. 
Uh, he very, uh, strictly was not allowed to talk about his case. 
Uh, we arranged all that beforehand, um, when I invited him on, but he talked about, uh, the SOPA fiasco, which, uh, which was another, uh, thing that he was trying to correct and, uh, and fix. 
And, uh, educate people about, uh, and, uh, he was in town doing a talk about that and, uh, it was, it was great getting to know him a little bit. 
He came out to dinner with us after the show afterward and, uh, just having the chance to chat with him. 
Um, you knew you were with somebody who was a brilliant mind and so young and so much potential. 
And it, it, it's mind-boggling to think of all the things he could have accomplished. 
Um, I also went back and listened to our episode from January 16th, 2013, which was our first, uh, edition after, um, Aaron's death. 
And, uh, Virgil was actually, he called in for a bit to talk about him. 
Um, um, and, uh, yeah, that's, uh, it was a somber show to be sure, but, um, it was also just, uh, just all the, all the notes that we were getting and that we were seeing and the swell of, uh, support out there for the life he lived and, uh, what could have been and what an injustice had been done in him. 
Um, um, the best any of us can do with, uh, any of that is learn from it and, uh, do what we can to, to improve things so that this doesn't happen again. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
I appreciate those people that are around that are unique. 
And, uh, I remember that day too, you know, when he came to the show and we hung out afterwards and, uh, you know, sadly it was the only time I got to hang out with him, but I, I was just so impressed with what a positive force he was. 
And, um, you know, you mentioned brilliant minds. 
There are many brilliant minds out there, but a brilliant mind that can actually, um, uh, be open and inviting to those people that don't have, uh, his level of, of, of knowledge. 
You know, that's a rare thing. 
A few people have both and he had that and it was just such a joy to be around him and to talk to him even in that brief period. 
I just, you know, so soon after that, that we lost him and I just, you know, it would be a different place now had he, had he, had he stuck around. 
Gila, go ahead. 
So I didn't know Aaron. 
I didn't know any of you people until a few years after he passed away, but, um, I'm going to turn to the tradition of my faith tradition and the faith tradition that Aaron was raised in. 
And say that there are a couple of things that are said, uh, and we say that somebody's memory should be a blessing. 
And more recently, the term has come up that somebody's memory should be a revolution. 
And I think that is probably the best way that we can perpetuate his memory is that his memory should be a blessing and a revolution and a way that will keep us motivated in something that, you know, be the change he wanted to see in the world. 
And that's how we keep his memory alive, I think. 
I think that's something that, um, he would be honored by and, uh, he certainly appreciates that. 
And, um, the show that Rob mentioned, of course, is in our archives as are all of our shows at 2600.com slash off the hook. 
Um, Johnny, I got to thank you for, for bringing that up, getting us all to, uh, to reminisce and, and, and, um, pontificate a little bit about this. 
Yeah, I listened, I listened, I listened to his sofa show, uh, this afternoon before, um, the live show today, actually. 
That's how I spent my afternoon because I, cause, um, and actually I did something a little bit to honor him, you know, because, um, I set up a new Mastodon account, uh, the Dallas Fort Worth 2600, uh, group. 
And you can set up a new Mastodon instance. 
I'm the third user on it. 
Cool. 
And one of the things you can do is you can set up for your Mastodon feed to be converted to RSS, which he invented, if I'm not mistaken. 
Did he? 
Is that true? 
He was, uh, he was 14. 
Wait, wait, Aaron Schwartz invented RSS at 14? 
He did. 
Wow. 
It's just amazing that I'm still learning these things. 
That is incredible. 
You know, it's like he has such a legacy. 
You know, he contributed so much to the internet that we know today. 
And he was robbed from us by the federal government. 
Yeah. 
It's, it's not just the federal government. 
It's, it's, it's the attitude, you know, the attitude of, um, punishment for stepping outside the norms or challenging the system. 
Um, you see that everywhere, you know, you see that in schools, you see that, you know, in local governments and state governments and, you know, in, in, in people. 
And it's something we have to get away from, we have to embrace the differences. 
We have to embrace those people who, um, are, are making new boundaries and challenging the old ones, you know, and not think of them as enemies, not think of them as, as threats. 
Because oftentimes they're the hope, they're a salvation of sorts. 
Yeah. 
That's one thing I like about living in California is we tend to embrace our eccentric. 
Uh-huh. 
Of which I'm definitely one. 
Well, that's good. 
And embrace that, please, you know, and please continue being that way. 
I would just like to say, coincidentally, it's also where Rebel is. 
All right. 
You know what? 
It just kind of blew the whole mood there, Alex. 
Thank you. 
But no, Rebel is, is, is definitely one that qualifies. 
Absolutely. 
And, uh, wouldn't have it any other way. 
The more, the merrier in my, my view. 
Yeah. 
I agree with that. 
Arsen, was there anything you wanted to add to any of this? 
I just didn't want to leave you out. 
No, no. 
Just, uh, happy to see you guys again and, uh, definitely keep being weird, everyone out there. 
Well, you too, obviously. 
Uh, Johnny, again, thanks for calling us and, um, please keep writing that article and, and, and many more, hopefully. 
Yeah. 
I should be done in a day or two. 
Okay. 
Maybe tonight. 
Awesome. 
Well, we were, we're waiting by the electronic mailbox. 
I'll be submitting it soon. 
Thank you. 
All right. 
Take care. 
Be well. 
Bye. 
And, um, I guess we can open up just for one more phone call because it's getting a little bit late here and, you know, we have to, uh, put the cows to bed and all that kind of thing. 
Uh, yes, Rob, you have, uh, your hand raised. 
Uh, just, uh, just to be perfectly clear, uh, Aaron Swartz, uh, didn't invent RSS single-handedly. 
Um, there was an RSS dev working group that, uh, consisted of a handful of people from all over the world, but Aaron was one of them and, uh, he was, he was instrumental in it and he was 14. 
Unbelievable. 
So unbelievable. 
You know, those of you listening or, you know, whether it's now or in the future, there's somebody like Aaron that you know or know of, and you have to encourage that person and support that person and defend that person. 
They need us, you know, and, um, we can't allow things like this to happen again. 
And, and help the, help guide them into projects like that, because that's a perfect example of, um, whenever we talk about silliness and kind of young people doing just kind of seemingly, uh, just mindless stuff on social media, but you know, that doesn't mean, and then thinking that that's the, the internet, like that's being online. 
And I think, you know, reminding people and, um, steering people that are interested towards projects that are technical or that, you know, might be a challenge for them. 
It's a puzzle, you know, that kind of stuff. 
I think it's, it's just so crucial to remind people that are just getting familiar with the internet that, you know, it's not just one app. 
It's not just, uh, uh, one website or one TV program you stream. 
Um, there's so much to it. 
It is, um, a lifetime of knowledge to try to learn about computers. 
Any, you can't learn everything, like any one part you could spend a lifetime just trying to perfect your understanding of it. 
And it is a constantly evolving field. 
It's changing. 
There's many people collaborating and working on projects like RSS that will be the, uh, the infrastructure and there'll be the, uh, protocols for the next silly form of entertainment that, uh, uh, uh, mindless youths are, are using, but be that as it may, it'll be still, uh, uh, amazing and important and, uh, um, more for it, for having, um, new people with new perspectives jump in and get to work on it. 
Absolutely. 
All right. 
Uh, I guess that's it. 
No phone call, right? 
No, we're, we are, uh, we're clear. 
There are no more calls. 
I'm calling it then. 
That's it for the show tonight. 
Um, arsenate, it was so great seeing you again. 
Uh, and, um, uh, after 14 years coming back into, uh, into off the hook different because we're not all in the same room as we used to be. 
I hope that day comes again soon. 
Um, but, uh, any, any, any thoughts or observations? 
I realize we can do this anytime. 
You don't have to be in New Jersey for us to connect to you. 
You could be in St. 
Petersburg or wherever it is you happen to be these days. 
And it's, um, that's the magic of how we're doing things now. 
But I was wondering if you had any, uh, perspectives or thoughts or observations. 
I don't know. 
I think, uh, I'd love to join you guys again at some time. 
Uh, very good to see you guys. 
Um, and I really, uh, like the warm messages that you're sending to people. 
I, I, I do occasionally listen. 
Um, but I think for me, usually this, this, uh, is too late to, to listen to the show live. 
How did you get involved, uh, both in the, the show and in the hacker community? 
Do you remember? 
I mean, I was always a hacker, but, um, hacker at heart. 
I don't remember. 
Too many things have happened. 
I'm getting too old. 
We're all getting old. 
You look like you haven't aged a day though. 
I mean, it's incredible. 
That's nice to hear. 
I'm also, uh, I'm also a 15 year old looking boy that that's 40. 
Wow. 
Is that how old you were when you were doing the show? 
15? 
No. 
Oh, I don't know. 
We don't take ID. 
Yeah. 
Not like Louisiana. 
No, no. 
Although if we get broadcast into Louisiana, we might have to, I don't know. 
Um, all right. 
Well, great seeing you all. 
And, um, again, write to us. 
OTH at 2600.com. 
Uh, and we will be back with overtime next week at eight o'clock. 
And of course, off the hook next week at seven o'clock on WBAI. 
Please write to us OTH at 2600.com. 
And you can find us all over channel 2600 on YouTube. 
Um, I think we're still hacker radio show on Twitter, but more importantly, I think there's a Macedon, uh, for this program. 
Maybe, uh, Rob, you can give that out as well. 
Is that still suspended? 
Did we get it back? 
Yeah. 
Did we ever get that back? 
We have it. 
It's hacker radio show at Macedon dot social. 
Um, we, our profile is still hidden by the moderators of that instance for some reason. 
So we're looking into that and trying to get in touch with them and, uh, figure out what's going on, but you can still bring it up. 
You just have to click through an extra thing. 
Maybe we should move to a different radio show at Macedon dot social. 
The thing is with Macedon, if you don't like how you're being treated, you can go somewhere else. 
Yeah, that is true. 
Is there a dot antisocial? 
I'm sure. 
I'm sure there is. 
Well, we could start it if we want to look into it. 
We can apply for dot antisocial during the next round of GTLD application. 
There we go. 
That's a little support. 
All right, folks. 
See you later. 
Good night.