his call will be charged at normal telstra usa international direct rights if connected.
 the toll-free number you have dialed is not toll-free it calls from outside the united states you will be charged at international direct dial rates, if you do not wish to be charged please hang up now 
we're sorry the number you have reached 99.5 wbai is now off the hook 
the telephone keeps ringing so i ripped it off the wall 
i cut myself while shaving now i can't make call
we couldn't get much worse but if they could they would 
bondily bomb for the best expect the worst 
i cut myself so 
We'll be right back. 
On Skype land, we have Rob T. Firefly. 
Good evening. 
We have Gila. 
Hello. 
And we have Alex. 
Good evening, everyone. 
Those intros are getting more and more complicated every week, aren't they? 
We're going to have to have a meeting about that. 
Welcome, everybody, to the program about hacking, about technology, privacy, issues like that. 
We'll be talking about all that this week. 
You can write to us at OTH at 2600.com. 
That is our email address. 
You can also stay tuned at 8 o'clock for Off the Hook Overtime on YouTube. 
You can find the link on the 2600.com webpage. 
It's right there at the top. 
And you can join us there with such fun activities as calling us by phone or even participating in the online chat. 
All sorts of amazing new technological gizmos that we have. 
But speaking of new technological gizmos, the MTA, those wonderful people who get us around the city and the region, they are experimenting with, guess what, artificial intelligence to - and don't make the joke that I know you're going to make about the people that work for the MTA. 
No, that's not nice. 
Don't say that. 
No. 
They're great people. 
They really are. 
But they're experimenting with artificial intelligence to combat fare beaters on the New York City subway system. 
Yes. 
The humans haven't worked, so they're going to AI now to try and solve that problem. 
Now, the MTA first disclosed these plans in a report issued back in May. 
It was all about the agency's fare evasion problem, which they say cost it $690 million last year, including $24 million lost on the LIRR loan. 
The report noted that the MTA already had begun to experiment with the use of computer technology across seven subway stations to extrapolate the number of fare beaters across the subway system, which is about 16% of all riders. 
Wait a minute. 
16% of all riders are beating the fare? 
Is that true? 
That's - wow. 
That's - I didn't know fare beaters were such a big, big number. 
They should get a vote, then, if there's that many of them. 
I mean, 16%. 
That's a lot. 
Wow. 
The MTA said it had plans to expand the use of the technology to about two dozen more stations by the end of this year. 
The report did not explain how the technology works, because they never do. 
But the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, known as STOP, they're a New York-based privacy and civil rights group, they released the MTA's contract with Spanish technology firm Awaite Artificial Intelligence. 
It explained how the video analytics fare evasion software combines stream video and actual fare swipe data made available by the MTA to zero in on fare beaters. 
The software even keeps tabs on the fare beaters' preferred methods, whether it's jumping over turnstiles, passing underneath turnstiles, swinging the turnstile tripod arms back and forth. 
You've got to get it just right. 
You know, you push it back about a third and then kind of slip in. 
Okay, well, we don't - we can get into the details later. 
Reverse entering at the emergency gates, which is what so many people do. 
People just hold open the gates and people pile in. 
We've all seen that. 
The amount paid by the MTA for the technology is redacted in the documents obtained by STOP. 
MTA officials would not disclose the cost of the contract. 
So they haven't told us how much it's going to cost, how it works, or anything other than the fact that a huge number of people are apparently not paying fares, 16% of all riders. 
And what do you think? 
Artificial intelligence can - I mean, it just seems very vague to me that they're saying artificial intelligence is at work here. 
It seems like they're analyzing video. 
They're analyzing tactics. 
They're learning how fare beaters are able to jump over turnstiles, which they've been doing for decades. 
Where is the artificial intelligence in all this? 
Rob, do you have an idea? 
Yeah, I have the same question. 
I'm wondering what exactly they want the artificial intelligence's help in figuring out here. 
They know people are jumping the turnstiles. 
They know people are passing under the turnstiles. 
Is this going to go any way toward trying to stop these people from doing so or trying to discourage them or pass along their info to the authorities or something terrible like that? 
Just what exactly is it that they want to achieve with this because I don't see how letting a computer watch someone jump over the turnstile gets the MTA another fare. 
Yes, Alex. 
Although, if you combine it with other technologies like facial recognition, then you can begin to perhaps piece together the identity of a fare beater that an AI system has detected based on, say, past fare beater activities. 
It's not too difficult to figure out what fare beating looks like. 
You go under a turnstile, you go over the turnstile, you go through the gate. 
Maybe it'll allow you to better track the individual through the subway systems and then identify them. 
Maybe even, God, who knows? 
What if you combine that tracking system with, like, the Link NYC kiosks that are all around the city? 
You might be able to track this guy back to his home and then send him a bill. 
Or her. 
Or her. 
Or her. 
Of course, or her. 
Yeah. 
You know, I remember, just as an anecdote, a long time ago, probably 1995 or so, when one of our dear friends, after a 2600 meeting, had hopped a turnstile in a subway station and got himself arrested in New York. 
This was a dear friend of ours from Long Island, I remember. 
So, you know, a fare meeting has a long and storied history in our community, I guess. 
Alex is not talking about me, by the way. 
No, I'm not talking about me. 
Clear that up right away. 
Go ahead. 
Kyle. 
Kyle, go ahead. 
I feel like it really will lower the cost overall to do, like, thorough investigations where to look for instances like this, it would take a lot of manpower, a lot of hours. 
I think it speeds it up, all of the organization. 
And instead of someone getting caught once or something, when they do get approached, maybe there's 10 other instances that have been cataloged already. 
It sort of is like the threat of, like, hey, we're going to throw the machines at you and make something that you think will cost us a lot very inexpensive. 
And then do other things in combination, like, okay, this is the type of behavior, this is the instance when we notice it. 
Maybe after or maybe not entirely going after individuals will set up different levels of staffing and so forth at peak hours where this kind of behavior at certain locations is taking place. 
But if you imagine how much surveillance video they have, to go through that with, like, six people would probably be quite difficult. 
But when you think about it in terms of data analysis and with all of these kinds of tools, the prospect of it, I think, is less daunting and, as I said, less costly. 
Go ahead, Gila. 
What if the reason there's not a cost mentioned is because they're not actually going to do it? 
What if they're suggesting it so that we think they're going to do it? 
And, you know, it's like one big psyop and it's going to happen. 
So we're watching you. 
But at the same time, what have we been talking about this whole year? 
Cops in every station. 
Cameras on every train car. 
Like, where does the MTA get to the point where the surveillance has reached a tipping point because has, you know, has police in every station cut down on fair beating? 
No. 
Has. 
I'm kind of at a loss as to what they think this is going to accomplish other than to suggest this in an attempt to scare law-abiding New Yorkers. 
And that's what I think the police don't pay the fare either, by the way. 
They're allowed not to pay the fare, but they don't. 
So I've seen them go through the same door. 
But Tim Minton, Tim Minton is a fun name to say. 
Tim Minton says he's the MTA communications director. 
He says the MTA is using the technology as a counting tool, is not using it to identify users. 
Do we believe Tim Minton? 
I don't know. 
Rob, go ahead. 
Yeah. 
I mean, you mentioned facial recognition and would a system like this, if put into place, basically be an excuse to have facial recognition equipped cameras at every station, which are then used for all sorts of other reasons? 
Who gets access to that data? 
You know, do do the authorities need a warrant for it or can they just hook up whenever they want and see where anyone in the city is who's using transit? 
Well, the group we mentioned, Stop, their executive director, Albert Fox Khan, said he believes at a time where every when every surveillance camera is just one software upgrade from being turned into a facial recognition tool. 
And with more and more cameras across the Long Island Railroad, there's a good risk that the the pilot will extend out there as well. 
And I imagine Metro North Territory and probably everywhere. 
We know that surveillance creed tends to start in New York City, but it definitely doesn't stop there. 
So it sounds like they're writing New York City off, but being careful about the suburbs. 
But yeah, I guess this kind of thing is going to become more and more prevalent, prevalent, you know, as far as seeing cameras and, you know, basically trying to stop people from getting away with something and using that as the excuse that and crime, of course. 
So will people support this? 
Will people say, yeah, it's a good idea? 
I think, you know, based on what we've seen in the past. 
Yeah, they probably will. 
Alex, my thought on this is that. 
This is just such a buzzword. 
Everybody's doing something AI focused. 
The MTA is jumping on this buzzword bandwagon. 
And some contractor for the MTA that's designing the system that will take three or four years and cost $500 million and then ultimately have very limited utility will make out like a bandit and we won't hear anything about it again. 
That's sort of my guess. 
You think we won't hear about this again? 
I think it's I think I just don't see it having great utility in terms of combating fare beating, something that's completely physical in nature, using AI to stop it. 
Unless you have some kind of enforcement protocol that goes along with it, it's going to be I see this being somewhat futile. 
I mean, maybe I'd love to hear our listeners call in and disagree with me on overtime because maybe I'm just thinking about it the wrong way. 
But I think it sounds like a really expensive project with very limited return on investment. 
Well, you know, the physical barriers also are something that it's incredibly easy to just hop over a New York City subway term stop. 
Very easy. 
I've seen other cities where it's it's a much more enclosed space and you'd have to really work to fit two people in there and you certainly can't hop over it. 
And so we might see something like that. 
We might see more, I guess, evolution of the way that that fares are collected. 
But we might also see movements like we've seen in other cities, such as Berlin, where transit becomes free in certain areas. 
It's certainly possible. 
You certainly can do that. 
It's a it's something that our tax dollars are already paying for. 
So imagine that it would be something, wouldn't it? 
Instead of dumping all of this money into these strict policies or ever escalating sort of technological warfare against your passengers and making it that much more uncomfortable and unbearable to use your system, you know, funding it and adequately, you know, making the numbers work in such a way that people aren't actually. 
Needing to buy tickets and so forth. 
Did you ever ask yourself how it's possible you can take an airplane from New York to Los Angeles for maybe two hundred dollars or even less sometimes? 
It's certainly way less than what it costs to to transport somebody using that technology. 
And the subsidies that the airline industry get from from the federal government, from our tax dollars, that is something that really makes a big difference in as far as how they're able to operate. 
If the same thing were applied to mass transit and to rail, you'd see a huge difference in what's possible and in what the problems actually are. 
Yeah, absolutely. 
And I think if 16 percent of people in the transit system beat their fare in some way, I think the question to ask isn't how can we point robots at this to make more money? 
I think the question is, what is the state of public support in the city like where 16 percent of people can't afford the two dollars and seventy five cents to get on the train? 
Yeah. 
And maybe it's OK if something like this is just publicly supported and free to use. 
Mm hmm. 
What if there was a turnstile that was just free, a free turnstile? 
Yeah. 
How would that work? 
Well, like people that can't afford the fare or just need to go on, you know, they that one's paid for like it's public shaming. 
Is that it? 
Are they going to ring a big gong or something when somebody walks through that and say, hey, look, this guy can't afford it. 
Yeah, you're right. 
That doesn't really work. 
I don't know. 
You're making it like a spectacle. 
Yeah, no, it's I think the free model, because like, what is the economic benefit? 
Well, if people like 16 percent don't want to pay, what about the other percent that we should ask them? 
Do they feel like I mean, nobody wants to pay. 
Will they still respect the system, I guess, if it's that was the idea of the select buses, the kind of bus where you get on and you already have your ticket and maybe you're challenged, but probably not. 
And will most people pay? 
And I think most people did. 
That's very similar to a lot of European systems, but maybe that's not working out to the MTA's liking as much. 
But we'll also see other other ideas, I'm sure, in the future. 
We have seen some incredible strides with technology. 
Kyle and I were just using the MTA recently. 
And basically, a lot of the things we've been complaining about over the last decade or two have now been implemented here. 
Things like knowing when the next bus is going to come, knowing when the next train is going to come, having the ability to transfer between systems. 
You know, you can now buy a train ticket from Montauk to Poughkeepsie, one train ticket. 
You can do that because you can take the LIRR, go to Grand Central Station and transfer to Metro North and take the train up to Poughkeepsie. 
And you can have that all on your phone or even a piece of paper, I guess. 
And that's something that was unheard of before. 
But now with the addition of Grand Central Madison, as they call it, the extra level of Grand Central Station way down below, it's now possible to do these things. 
But there are still issues, such as the fact that you can't take a train out to Long Island after 1030 at night, which is insane. 
They're getting there. 
They're getting there slowly. 
It all takes investment. 
And it's cool to see that, you know, some changes, the consolidation of scheduling and the improvements made to some of the technology with and to some of their technology. 
I mean, it is so beneficial to people that rely on that. 
And if you can figure out a way where it is more affordable or just more accessible in all ways, I think society itself is in agreement that this is a good thing. 
This is for humanity. 
Yeah. 
And I think, you know, listening to what people say and what people who have been to other parts of the world, you know, have observed, that is key. 
That is important in developing a mass transit system and developing any kind of a system within any city. 
So hopefully MTA listens to people, takes more suggestions and improves the system, makes it more of a world class type of a thing, which it's in dire need of. 
Alex, do you have one more point? 
Well, I had a question, and I don't want to get us on too much of a digression here, but I'm sure some of our listeners are wondering, too. 
What do you mean by you can't take a train out to Long Island after 1030? 
Are there no trains anymore? 
No, from Grand Central, the new Grand Central Madison. 
Oh, okay. 
You know, they're touting this new station as the second coming, you know, and, you know, it's supposed to be an alternative to Penn Station, but how can it be an alternative if they close down at around 10 o'clock at night? 
That's crazy. 
Look, for instance, you have Yankee Stadium. 
They have a Metro North stop. 
You can take a train directly from Long Island and switch in Grand Central, go up to Yankee Stadium, see the game, come back down, and then find out when you get to Grand Central Madison that the last train has already left. 
You know, that's not the case in Penn Station. 
That kind of thing shouldn't be happening. 
And there's many other improvements that MTA can make, obviously. 
Fair beating is just one thing, but there are many. 
I'm sure our listeners have lots of suggestions. 
But we must move on, because there's many other things to discuss, including the fact that I can't say it. 
I can't call Twitter X. 
Are you guys able to do that at all? 
I mean, I can't even call Facebook MTA. 
Why do they all want to change their names? 
What are they up to? 
Why all these companies that are household words, they don't want to be household words anymore. 
They want to start over again. 
Dela, you have an idea? 
Yeah, because it's not that. 
The meta Facebook thing, we've discussed that. 
That was, you know, the corporate umbrella is meta and Facebook is whatever. 
Elon Musk has a thing about the letter X. 
Like, initially, PayPal was X.com. 
He's been trying. 
I didn't know that. 
That's true. 
Yeah. 
Really? 
And people are like, that's a really stupid name. 
Call it something else. 
Wow. 
SpaceX. 
Oh, my God. 
You're right. 
And one of his kids is called like X something unpronounceable. 
And they call the kid X for short. 
Elon Musk has a thing about the letter X and all the stupid things you can do with the letter X in the same way that he has a thing about the number 420 and the number 69. 
He thinks it's funny. 
Wow. 
So this is Elon Musk wanting X to be the thing. 
Am I hysterical that they had to take the blinking sign off the roof? 
Yes. 
Am I hysterical that the police came when they took down the Twitter sign with no permits? 
Yes. 
Am I fascinated that Elon Musk is not thinking anywhere past his own toes? 
Yes. 
Why does this man have $44 billion to work with? 
Why? 
Does he still have that? 
Has he blown through a lot of it? 
Probably not. 
I think a lot of it's gone now. 
But, yeah, the letter X is, and I have to say that the social media moment of this entire discourse definitely goes to the people who are running the Sesame Street Twitter account because they did a thing about the letter X having a press conference. 
Oh, yeah, I saw that. 
Sesame Street wins this entire discourse. 
Sesame Street always wins. 
Don't get into it with Sesame Street. 
You will not. 
Never. 
It doesn't mean well. 
You say Elon, not Elon, like everyone else does. 
Is that just to annoy him? 
Yeah. 
I would say that, but it's also because I actually know a lot of people named Elon, so that's just how I say it. 
There are more of them? 
I thought he was a - oh, boy. 
Okay, I didn't know there were more people with that name. 
Wow. 
It means tree. 
It means tree. 
Okay, fine. 
Anyway, the story I'm trying to get through here, what should I call it? 
Should I call it X Corp? 
Should I call it Twitter? 
Call it Twitter to anger him. 
Make him mad. 
Call it Twitter. 
He's going to be mad no matter what. 
Okay, but fine. 
Also true. 
Twitter, which is the parent company of Twitter. 
That didn't work out because the story listed both. 
Anyway, they sent a letter on July 20th to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which is a nonprofit that conducts research on social media. 
Basically, Elon accused the organization of making a series of troubling and baseless claims that appear calculated to harm Twitter generally and its digital advertising business specifically and threatened to sue them. 
Yeah, threatened to sue them. 
The letter cited research published by the Center for Countering Digital Hate. 
When they're your enemies, yeah, you got to take stock in what you're doing, right? 
When you're threatening the Center for Countering Digital Hate with a lawsuit, maybe you're on the wrong side. 
Basically, they published research examining hate speech on Twitter. 
The research consisted of eight papers, including one that found that Twitter had taken no action against 99% of the 100 Twitter blue accounts the Center reported for tweeting hate. 
The letter called the research false, misleading, or both, and said the organization had used improper methodology. 
The letter added that the Center was funded by Twitter's competitors or foreign governments in support of an ulterior agenda. 
This sounds like Trump. 
It sounds like the kind of thing he would say about anybody that criticized him. 
It's really kind of nuts here. 
Imran Ahmed is the chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate. 
He said Elon Musk's actions represent a brazen attempt to silence honest criticism and independent research. 
He added that Mr. 
Musk wanted to stem the tide of negative stories and rebuild his relationship with advertisers. 
The Center also said it did not accept any funding from tech companies, governments, or their affiliates. 
It's ridiculous they have to even address that. 
In a blog post Monday evening, Twitter announced it had filed a lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate for actively working to prevent free expression. 
The suit was filed in federal court in the Northern District of California. 
Twitter has also sued Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, and Katz, which is a leading corporate law firm, over what it said were unjust payments related to Mr. 
Musk's $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. 
So apparently that's still a contentious issue. 
But wow. 
It's kind of crashing and burning, isn't it? 
It really is. 
And I'd like to get back to the whole Facebook meta Twitter X thing for a moment because this has had another very insidious effect, which people are noticing. 
On other social media, it is very easy to filter out terms that you don't want to see. 
If you decide I've had it up to here with all this Elon Musk crap, you could filter out the hashtag Twitter and you wouldn't see any posts about Twitter on your Mastodon feed. 
And you can't really do that with the letter X. 
You can't really do that with meta, which is a common term that people use for so many things besides the company that was formerly known as Facebook. 
And so people are having to make the effort to, if they're going to mention X now, they have to still hashtag it Twitter so that people who want to hear about it can still find it. 
And so people who don't want to hear about it can still filter it out because filtering is done by hashtags. 
So this is having the effect that like changing your company's name to just a common letter or a common word makes it all that much more insidious because people will have less ability to control the flow of information and chatter about it. 
Yeah, I'd like to know, is it possible to filter out Elon or Musk? 
Because I notice on my Twitter app, sometimes when I look at something and I look at things less and less, I see this bar across the top that's meant to get my attention. 
And it says, it literally says, Elon Musk is speaking. 
Like, I'm supposed to care about this, but how do I turn that off? 
I don't think I can. 
I think that's something that is just pushed to everybody. 
And it's really, it's kind of disgusting and a little scary. 
Absolutely. 
But I think if we continue to be stubborn and still call it Twitter, just like there are still some baseball fans who call where the Mets play Shea Stadium, I think we can stem the tide, fight back a little. 
Yeah. 
All right. 
Well, speaking of Twitter, leads us to Mastodon and this statement by the EFF concerning the FBI seizure of a Mastodon server. 
They say we're in an exciting time for users who want to take back control from major platforms like Twitter and Facebook. 
However, this new environment comes with challenges and risks for user privacy. 
So we need to get it right and make sure networks like the Fediverse and Blue Sky are mindful of past lessons. 
Last May, Mastodon server Collectiva.social was compromised when one of the server's admins had their home raided by the FBI for unrelated charges. 
All of their electronics, including a backup of the instance database, were seized. 
It's a chillingly familiar story, which should serve as a reminder for the hosts, users, and developers of decentralized platforms. 
If you care about privacy, you have to do the work to protect it. 
We have a chance to do better from the start in the Fediverse. 
So let's take it. 
A story where all their electronics were seized echoes many digital rights stories. 
After all, EFF's founding case over 30 years ago was Steve Jackson Games versus Secret Service. 
And there was a story about the overbroad seizures of equipment in the offices of Steve Jackson Games in Texas based upon unfounded claims about illegal behavior in a 1990s version of a chat room. 
That seizure nearly drove the small games company out of business, but it also spurred the newly formed EFF into action. 
And they won that case. 
But law enforcement's blunderbuss. 
Never used that word in my life before. 
Blunderbuss approach continues through today. 
This overbroad police-seize-it-all approach must change. 
EFF has long argued that seizing equipment like servers should only be done when it is relevant to an investigation. 
Any seized digital items that are not directly related to the search should be quickly returned. 
And copies of information should be deleted as soon as police know that it is unrelated, as they also should for non-digital items that they seize. 
EFF will continue to advocate for this in the courts and in Congress. 
And all of us should continue to demand it. 
But there's a section here about what is a decentralized server host to do? 
Well, basically, EFF has a section called Who Has Your Back? 
And they have recommendations for protecting your users when the government comes knocking. 
And not just for large centralized platforms. 
Hosts of decentralized networks must include possibilities like government seizure and their threat model and be ready to respond in ways that stand with their users. 
First of all, basic security practices that apply to any server exposed to the Internet must also apply to Mastodon. 
Use firewalls and limit user access to the server as well as the database. 
If you must keep access logs, keep them only for a reasonable amount of time and review them periodically to make sure you're only collecting what you need. 
This is true more broadly. 
To the extent possible, limit the data your server collects and stores and only store data for as long as it is necessary. 
Also, stay informed about possible security threats in the Mastodon code and update your server when new versions are released. 
Second, make sure that you've adopted policies and practices to protect your users, including clear and regular transparency reports about law enforcement attempts to access user information and policies about what you will do if the cops show up. 
Things like requiring a warrant for content and fighting gag orders. 
Critically, that should include a promise to notify your users as soon as possible about any law enforcement action where law enforcement gained access to their information and communications. 
So, in the Coletiva case, the hosts were fairly slow in giving notice. 
The raid occurred in mid-May, and the notice didn't come until June 30th, about six weeks later. 
That's quite a long delay, even if it took Coletiva a while to realize the full impact of the raid. 
As a host of other people's communications, it is vital to give notice as soon as you are able, as you generally have no way of knowing how much risk this information poses to your users and must assume the worst. 
The extra notice to users is vital for them to take any necessary steps to protect themselves. 
And as far as users who are joining the Fediverse, you should evaluate the About page for a given server to see what precautions, if any, they outline. 
And once you've joined, you can take advantage of the smaller-scale community on the platform and raise these issues directly with the admins and other users on your instance. 
FEDiverse insists that the obligations, including notify you and resisting law enforcement demands where possible, be included in the instance information and terms of service. 
Making these commitments binding in the terms of service is not only a good idea, it can help the host fight back against overbroad law enforcement requests and can support later motions by defendants to exclude the evidence. 
Another benefit of the Fediverse, unlike the major lock-in platforms, is that if you don't like their answer, you can just go somewhere else. 
So what do you folks think about that? 
Kyle? 
Well, I'm a big fan of that, and maybe it's not as clear in what you write because there's a lot of good points and advice, but not including everything and retaining just out of hand. 
The idea that you can create your own policy frees you in many ways to make it up, make up whatever it is. 
If you're hosting one of these things, you want, but stick to it. 
And commit to something that advantages your users ideally and protects them in the event that something does go wrong. 
There are a myriad of ways to do it, but this extends beyond just hosting one of these Fediverse servers with all things digital and in many other parallel and like circumstances, keeping all kinds of extra information, especially related to customer stuff, it's only going to increase the surface of vulnerability of things that could get out, that could be mistakenly leaked or breached in some way and scattered about. 
For instance, there's some things we do sometimes, third parties and services we use for merchandise, and some of them take pride in telling us that they get rid of certain transaction information. 
We like that kind of policy. 
And I think when people are coming up with a service or they're hosting something like this, be proud of what you're committing to and share that because people like us, people that use different vendors, or when they know those policies, they may choose you instead of other competing service providers because of your stance. 
And because you're running it on whatever scale you are, you're in control. 
By definition, you should feel free to be creative with how long and what kinds of retention, all of those different nuances of the policy. 
They're yours. 
We do the same thing when we run conference networks at Hope. 
We make up what we keep, what we don't, how we handle the traffic and other details when we're handling attendees' information. 
That's important to us. 
You can do the very same thing on these networks if you're building them yourselves. 
And it's easy to do, and it's something that you can advertise and be vocal about. 
Go ahead, Alex. 
A couple of points on this. 
I think, you know, fundamentally, this just goes back down to a very basic principle that we've been espousing on the show for decades, which is if you're hosting somebody else's data, if you have somebody else's data, you have to protect it and secure it. 
Like, that's, you know, just kind of a basic thing. 
So I think, you know, we're dealing with a fundamental problem here. 
What I thought was fascinating, though, is because, and I don't think that we addressed this detail. 
Apologize if we did. 
But as I understand it, the Collectiva.social instance on the Fediverse was actually encrypted at rest. 
However, the FBI seized the server when it was in an unencrypted state because it was during some kind of upgrade session. 
Did we address that? 
I don't believe we did. 
I didn't, because I didn't hear it. 
So I thought maybe I was to put it. 
I think that's really interesting. 
So if you think about that wrinkle, the data was actually secured. 
It was secured. 
It was encrypted. 
And, you know, if you stole the hard drive or you seized it, you wouldn't be able to read the data. 
But the FBI seems to have been either lucky enough or smart enough to seize it during an upgrade. 
So maybe Collectiva.social had put out a notice to its users that it was going to be performing some kind of routine maintenance. 
And the FBI was smart enough to realize that, well, if you're performing routine maintenance, that means the data on the drive is going to be unencrypted. 
I didn't know that's what a routine upgrade meant. 
Well, not necessarily. 
You open up everything to the world and... 
It shouldn't. 
No, I don't think it does. 
Right. 
It shouldn't, right? 
But, you know, but they somehow managed to seize it in a state where they were able to access the data. 
So that's interesting to me. 
That's number one. 
Number two is with respect to the notice. 
That Collectiva.social didn't provide notice about this and they're somehow being dinged for that. 
Well, they might not have actually legally been allowed to provide notice. 
You know, this could have been subject to some kind of gag order when the Fed seized it. 
Oftentimes when the Fed seized equipment or service subpoena, it comes with a request not to talk about it because it could compromise the investigation if information about the seizure or the subpoena gets out. 
So I don't think we should ding them too much on that front. 
But then the third thing... 
Well, you're assuming that's the case. 
You don't know for sure that's the case. 
Right. 
I'm operating under the assumption that that's the case. 
You also called it a request by the FBI. 
And if it's a request, you can turn down a request. 
You can, but you could be messing with an ongoing law enforcement investigation and that's not a good place to be. 
But the third thing is, I think this is really important for our discussion here, which is why did the FBI have to seize the entire server? 
What was it about this server that required it to take everything? 
With the data of 8,000 other users on it. 
I mean, that's the real problem here, right? 
It's that the Federalist has all this data and all these other people. 
It's decentralized. 
But I don't understand the reasoning behind not doing this in the same targeted manner that you would collect information from any other source. 
Why couldn't they send a subpoena? 
Why couldn't they ask for the information via subpoena and have them copy the specific data about the specific user and validate that this is the information that they have? 
I don't understand why they had to take the whole thing. 
Well, I think it was explained by the EFF. 
This is how the FBI operates. 
They did it with Steve Jackson Games. 
You know, they've done it in the past. 
They take everything. 
I've had friends who have been raided, and they took their telephones, rotary dial telephones. 
They take everything. 
I understand that. 
But I think this was just part - this was, as I understand it, not an investigation of Collectiva like it was with Steve Jackson Games. 
This is an investigation that targeted somebody that was using Collectiva, right? 
Is that right? 
That's totally different. 
You know, so the idea that they had to take the entire server, which has everybody's data on it, rather than sending a subpoena or a request or using something called the MLAP process, if it was overseas, the mutual legal assistance treaties that we have in place, whereby the local law enforcement can go and get that information. 
I don't even know if it had anything to do with a user on their system. 
It might have had something to do with somebody in the home where that machine happened to reside, and the FBI wasn't even looking for anything on the Collectiva.social instance. 
They just happened to take that as part of everything they took out of the house. 
That makes more sense, then. 
If it was - you know, they probably shouldn't have, but they could have taken that server if it was an investigation of an individual that resided in that place. 
But whatever it was, it's a wake-up call, and that's why we're talking about it now. 
Rob, go ahead. 
Yeah, just to add that relevant information, according to the statement that Collectiva put out, the home of one of their admins was raided, not to do with Collectiva itself, but to do with their alleged participation in a protest. 
So they were raiding this person for being a protester, and we know when they raid someone's house, you know, they will take everything from a massive server down to the Tamagotchis in the pocket or whatever. 
So, like, this just - the data happened to be in an unencrypted state because this admin was troubleshooting an issue and working with an unencrypted copy of the database. 
And so that's what they got. 
And, of course, that puts the server at risk. 
You know, the FBI now has this information, but it's not apparently to do with the case they were chasing. 
So, yeah, as you said, they were not looking for this data. 
They were not looking to get Collectiva ostensibly, according to what we know. 
So, yeah, that's where things are. 
And it does drive home the point that, like, the strength of the Fediverse, part of the strength of the Fediverse was that anybody with the wherewithal and the know-how and access to the equipment can spin up an instance. 
But when you do that, the instant you start involving other people's data, you have to take the responsibility for it. 
You have to deal with it safely. 
You know, can I - I want to engage in some synthesis here, right, of what happened in this particular case. 
And then I'm going to bring up our dear friend, Virgil Griffith. 
You remember. 
You all remember Virgil. 
I don't think we need to go into exactly - everybody pretty much knows Virgil. 
If you don't know Virgil Griffith, you can look him up. 
He's unfortunately in federal prison in Allenwood. 
But remember what happened in his case before he was sentenced. 
There was this real issue that had arisen whereby the Department of Justice sent a letter to the judge in Virgil's case saying, oops, we had a misconfiguration in our document management system whereby all of the information and evidence from Virgil's case was left in a state that allowed all these other agents from the FBI to look at that evidence that was subpoenaed. 
That was a really, really big problem from a Palantir system. 
The Palantir later claimed that DOJ and FBI had misconfigured. 
It wasn't erroneously set up. 
But nobody's ever really followed up on that. 
As I understand it, the DOJ was supposed to report back to the judge about its investigation into what happened and how many files and things were affected. 
I don't know if they did, but I don't recall ever seeing anything. 
And that's somewhat of a problem and an open issue. 
But separately to that, if that happened in Virgil's case and these things are happening, then all of this data that's seized as part of that raid and put on these document management systems might accidentally be accessed by another FBI agent or another law enforcement agent, perhaps from a different agency, if we don't have oversight as to how the government is handling and retaining this particular type of data. 
That's something that the EFF brought up. 
But I think it can't be underscored enough here, and especially in the context of what we know happened to Virgil. 
Yeah, I think in cases like this, we're dealing with something fairly small. 
We have a much better chance of getting the truth than if you're dealing with something big. 
Do you remember, was it a couple of years ago, I got that notice from Facebook saying that my account had been accessed by the FBI? 
And, you know, they couldn't tell me any more than that, just that the FBI had accessed my account and I should contact them. 
And I tried to contact them and got completely stonewalled. 
Alex, in fact, you were helping me with this, and they gave us nothing. 
All we found out was that this happened. 
Maybe Facebook wasn't supposed to say anything, but they did, and they couldn't tell us any more, and we just couldn't get any more information. 
Why was the FBI looking at that? 
First of all, I barely used Facebook, but why are they probing into my personal accounts? 
And, you know, if this were a Mastodon server run by somebody that you could actually, you know, email and get a response from, I just think I would get more honest responses. 
I think I would actually know something about what that was about. 
You know, to this day, it's a mystery. 
Yeah, there isn't a lot of, you know, oversight or information that goes back to the public from these types of things. 
And there could be a good reason for that, perhaps. 
You know, there are investigations and things. 
But, look, I do think that, you know, this is a big issue, and I think it's being compounded by the fact that you have these misconfigurations and these seizures of massive data. 
And, I mean, if you think about it, we don't leave the house anymore without, like, at least 100 gigs of data on us at all times. 
That's a crazy thing to think about relative to how we lived our lives in, let's say, 1996, where you would walk out of the house with zero kilobytes audio, not even a kilobyte. 
So it's an incredible way we're living our lives. 
We don't even realize it. 
We only have five minutes left. 
I wanted to quickly touch upon this story here. 
Apparently, in New York City, in six Brooklyn police departments, or police precincts, that is, they are testing a new encryption system for their radio traffic. 
And because of that change, which is apparently part of a testing plan, according to Police Commissioner Edward Cabin, the public is now left in the dark regarding breaking news in the Brooklyn North area. 
You used to be able to just turn on the police radio and hear what's going on. 
In fact, there are many apps out there now. 
The Citizen app is certainly one of them. 
All kinds of people are always listening to find out what's going on, journalists. 
Well, insiders say that it may soon be coming to an end, all of that, as NYPD has its sights set on encrypting all of its communications by the fall of 2024. 
NYPD maintains this effort is being done for public safety purposes. 
Others charge it as their way of controlling the narrative and infringing upon the public's right to know and report. 
Do you trust the NYPD to completely control the narrative? 
Because that is what will be happening if they can control who hears what they're doing. 
All of the investigations, all the corruption, all the scandals of the past, where we've listened to what cops are saying to each other as they mistreat suspects or kick down people's doors or just basically exchange their thoughts in racist terms, all of that will be protected. 
All of that will be hidden from us. 
Now, the Citizen app has been operating on a quarter, I didn't know this, a quarter of New Yorkers' phones since 2016. 
You guys have the Citizen's app? 
Yes? 
They used to. 
Okay, I guess that's true then. 
I had the Citizen's app. 
No. 
I deleted the Citizen's app because when I drove somewhere, somebody was able to tell me, hey, you're in this part of New York. 
And that freaked me out so much because I was never given any warning that that would happen, that people could monitor my movements. 
So I didn't like that. 
But a lot of people use it. 
Anyway, the Citizen's app has been breaking news 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 
It allows residents to know what is going on in their communities, and it's, including me being in them, apparently, and it's relied on by some community groups to get information about breaking news, and it comes from unencrypted radio communications, which is something that we in this country are used to, and having that turned off is a big deal. 
And I hope people raise a ruckus about this because I don't think it's acceptable. 
I think this is going to really increase. 
I mean, it's almost a challenge. 
I mean, it is a challenge now. 
I mean, if you make it unattainable, you take it off the table, you basically close people's ears to how the public airwaves are being used and public safety information. 
Like you said, what is going on? 
What might be newsworthy? 
What might affect other citizens? 
So, yeah, it'll be impossible to hear until it isn't. 
You know, the value of the ability to do that will increase. 
People will try to break it. 
Radios might go missing or something. 
You know, that's the kind of scenario you're setting up for. 
Pastor Gil Monroe of the God Squad and amalgamation of more than 100 clergy work on the streets to quell and mediate squabbles that turn violent. 
Sometimes they respond to incidents, including shootings, where they talk to the community and try to remove the urge to take revenge, a common issue when gang violence flares. 
They say we use it for informational purposes, so when we see it on Citizen, we try to confirm it with the police and people who live there or a church close by and ask them to step outside and see what is happening. 
It's one of the tools that we use. 
There are all kinds of - Freedom News TV is another one. 
They provide video to nearly every television news station in the tri-state area. 
They say we can do our job now, but if encrypted radios come, we can only do our job when police notify us. 
Then it is police controlling the press. 
This should never be the case. 
We'll be talking more about this in the future for sure. 
If you have more information or would like to ask us questions or provide commentary of any sort, write to us, OTH at 2600.com. 
We will be back next week. 
We will be on at 8 o'clock on YouTube.com. 
Go to the link that is on the 2600.com webpage, and we'll see you there at 8 o'clock. 
Good night. 


And welcome to everybody here on Overtime.
I seem to have made it. Kyle, are you here?
Thank you.
All right. Good. Rob, Gila, Alex, are you all here?
Hello, yes.
Yeah, I figured I'd just get that over there.
Well, okay, great. And our listeners are here.
And I believe they can chat. Is that right, Gila?
They certainly can. They certainly are.
Hello, everybody in the chat.
As I just said, we are live in the chat and on the stream.
Apologies for the absence of chat.
Last week on Overtime, I was away on assignment and unavailable to mod the chat.
Sorry, gang.
But we are back and all systems are go.
Wow, look at all the words. Yeah, I see it. Scrolling.
Wow. Okay. All right. Good, good.
I won't be looking at the words, though, because I get very distracted very easily.
And I like to say...
That's why I... That's... I've got that. I'm holding it down in the chat, everybody.
So please be nice and try to stay on topic, basically part of the conversation.
Just a quick note.
Okay. Yes. Bobcat, we do have...
See? Those long pauses. That's what happens when people look at the stream.
Bobcat, we do indeed have slow commenting turned on.
We are going to leave slow commenting turned on.
It makes things easier, both for us and, I think, for everybody else.
So thank you.
And Tim in Connecticut, if you've got rules you'd like to share, we'd be happy to hear them.
Rules? Rules?
Sharing rules?
Wait, who's...
Who's talking...
Alex.
...over...
What in God's name is going on?
How are we getting audio?
Which one of you is doing this?
That is coming from Alex, who I think needs to mute on his end.
Alex?
If he doesn't want us to hear what he's doing.
Stop being a pain in the ass.
Are you aware of the show, Alex? You seem puzzled.
Okay, he's not saying anything. He's just playing audio.
I think he's actually...
He got a work call.
...as an emergency he's taking care of, or something.
Okay, well, he should tell us that, if that's the case.
He noted to us in our private little chat...
Oh, well, maybe you should share that information with me, because I don't know what the hell's going on.
Yeah.
Thank you.
He seems to have stepped away, but we have not stepped away.
Okay, so why don't we mute Alex while he's dealing with that?
He has finally...
He has muted himself.
Take care of that.
We can't aggressively mute others.
I don't know how YouTube works. I really don't.
Hey, whoa.
And I'm glad. I'm happy.
This isn't about aggressive muting.
I just...
This is about talk.
Sometimes you want to shut other people up. You know what I mean?
Am I...
You're getting aggressively... You just aggressively muted me.
Well, I just was demonstrating that.
I'm operating the phones for the people.
Yeah.
It's useful sometimes.
Okay, well, I hope things work out on Alex's end, whatever's going on there.
What was this about rules being imposed upon us? What?
It's not so much rules being imposed upon us as, I think, a selected collection of rules that might help us in terms of what's going on in the chat.
See, right away, as soon as we have the chat, now there are rules.
Okay.
So, I'm going to pause...
I'm going to share the rules that Tim has popped into the chat.
If anybody on air or in the chat has issues with them...
I do.
I have an issue.
Yes, yes, Emmanuel, what's your issue?
I don't like rules.
I don't like rules being imposed on chats.
I mean, why can't we just chat?
You know?
The only rules, be nice.
I think we should just be...
Be nice.
Be on topic.
That's basically what they are.
Okay.
That's basically what they are.
You know, don't use all caps or excessive emojis.
I mean, also, I can't read if it's...
I can't read it out loud if it's emojis, so...
Oh, if you can't read, you shouldn't be doing this.
I can't read emojis out loud.
Yeah, paraphrasing emojis is not really helpful because everybody, they don't know all the
different...
You're trying to conjure a visualization.
Emojis are cool and all, but can we just, you know, enough already?
You know, they had their day.
Can we go back to English?
Go back to, you know, whatever language you want to use, but just a language.
I hate emojis.
You know?
No, seriously.
People send me emojis on my phone, right?
And I'm supposed to understand what they mean.
I mean, it's a little tiny graphic.
Okay.
So what...
You sent me a picture of a celery stick.
I don't know what that's supposed to mean.
How does that pertain to a conversation?
I'm pretty sure that means it's time for Bloody Marys.
You got that right.
You got that right.
Or maybe ants on a log.
I don't know.
It could go either way.
Chat is hopping.
Thanks, everybody.
Um, welcome slick hunters from Canada.
And if you have a cocktail or a mocktail recipe, feel free to drop that in the chat using words, not emojis.
Yeah, words are good.
And spell the words properly.
It doesn't take much, you know, just, uh, it makes, it makes it more pleasant to read.
And we may be on YouTube and free of things like FCC regulation, but if we could keep, if we could keep the chat clean more than not, that would be super.
Yeah, you know, unless it's absolutely necessary.
But if it's not absolutely necessary, then, you know, save those words for a special occasion.
That's what I do.
They're like, they're like habanero peppers.
Yeah.
They do good things when they're used sparingly.
Oh, I thought you meant when you bite into one, you definitely use those words because that's what I do.
All right.
Well, whatever.
Uh, so we should give out the phone number.
Uh, it's 802-321-4225, 802-321-HACK.
That's our, our telephone number.
We are waiting for the first call to come in.
While we were waiting for the first call to come in, we did just get a cocktail recipe in the chat.
Wow.
That's the power of chat.
Yeah.
So here you go.
Ready?
No, we're not.
We don't have any of the ingredients, but we'll listen.
All right.
Well, this is just something to keep in the hopper.
Uh, Delchi's Soul.
Four ounces orange juice.
One shot Jägermeister.
Watch as it mutates.
Like my soul.
Um, Delchi, like the one, Delchi from the 1990s that I knew in Brooklyn?
Uh, this is AP Delchi.
That's the same name.
Wow.
Somebody's either impersonating him or, or he's listening to us, which is a great, a great honor to know that.
OJ and Jägermeister, very exciting.
And Bobcat informs us that they're drinking Bloody Marys with wasabi instead of horseradish.
Just kicked up an extra level.
Oh, my God.
Wow.
Mm-hmm.
Delightful.
Does not have to include alcohol.
I've missed out a lot.
Not being on the chat.
Please keep those coming as well as your feedback.
We do have a call.
Don't we also have an IRC channel?
There is one, and it could be monitored, but.
Well, I don't know.
I mean, if it's going on, they should be acknowledged, too, shouldn't they?
Just saying.
IRC.2600.net.
Oh, yeah.
And we forgot to mention.
Slash off the wall.
We forgot to, off the hook.
Get the show right.
This is off the hook.
Off the wall is on two things.
Oh, I said the wrong one.
You said the wrong one.
Okay, but the important thing is it's not the initials.
It's not OTW or it's not OTH in this instance.
You have to secret it out.
Now that people know there's another show.
There's two shows.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I got that wrong, but you don't do OTH.
It's off the hook.
You have to spell it out.
Right.
Exactly.
We forgot to mention meetings that are taking place this Friday coming up.
We did indeed.
Go to 2600.com slash meetings to find one near you or start one near you here in the New York City area.
The info is on NYC2600.net.
And, Rob, you know, in the interest of full disclosure, and I'll always admit when we've done something stupid,
you discovered something today that I cannot believe was happening and that nobody else discovered.
You want to just explain what you found concerning our meetings webpage?
I cannot take credit for this.
This was told to me by our friend Leo, a friend of the show.
You didn't tell anybody, apparently.
Yes.
He told me about it, and I passed it along, where we still had the old meetings page up from before we slashed and burned it all to the ground and started again after lockdown.
Pre-pandemic.
Pre-pandemic meetings.
Now, okay, the webpage for the meetings is www.2600.com slash meetings, but apparently not always, because sometimes people would add something.
Yes.
If you had a slash on the end of meetings like the page used to have, the old page was still there and giving the wrong information.
I didn't even know that was a thing, where, okay, so if you add a slash to the end of a URL, it goes to a different place than if you don't add the slash.
I thought that was something from the 1990s or 1980s.
I don't know that.
Why would anybody want that?
Okay, so, you know, I'm not even sure it's fixed yet.
It might still be broken, because we have to go through a process to fix things.
Yes, so if you want the correct info, it's 2600.com slash meetings with no slash on the end of that.
Don't add the slash.
In fact, we will never have a slash at the end of a URL.
Can we all agree to that right now?
It's not something that we care for.
And this is why.
This is why we don't do it.
Yeah, use it sparingly, only when you need it.
Why would you need it?
So that it's there for you when you need it.
No, it's a stupid idea.
And, okay, so hopefully...
It appears to be fixed.
It is fixed.
Oh, good.
Okay, good.
Well, then you'll have to take our word for it that it was broken before.
I just put it in twice, but it seems to be working correctly.
We never put a URL with a slash at the end.
And we never told people to go there, I don't think.
So if people were doing that, they added the slash themselves or somebody else told them.
All right.
Wow, that was embarrassing, though.
But thanks for pointing it out, Rob.
And thanks to Leo.
Yes.
Do we have a phone call?
Important advice.
Notice things, just generally.
Yeah, we do.
We have a phone call.
Okay.
Sorry for keeping you on hold.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
Over time.
Go ahead.
Hi, Emmanuel.
All right.
You know, a call that starts that way is not something I really want to continue.
That's like a ringtone right there.
That's just, yeah, it should be a ringtone.
But where, you know, should I bring the volume back up?
Because how could, first of all, that's about as entertaining as it's going to get, I think.
And second of all, I'm in fear of what else is going to be said after that.
What do you guys think?
Should we proceed or try something else?
I think we should.
We, obviously, we answered the call.
We did.
Let's hear the caller.
And we should have known that, you know, Rebel's always been the first call.
He's going to be the first call again.
It's never going to end.
We've been greeted.
We should greet back.
Just rip that Band-Aid off and get started.
Okay.
Hi, Rebel.
How you doing?
Hi.
Yes, Emmanuel.
Yes, hi.
Yes, like you do.
IRC, isn't that from the 90s?
I don't think, I tried IRC.
It doesn't work.
IRC works.
It's just, you have to try it the correct way.
I'm on there now.
Yeah, he's on there now.
Go join Rob on IRC.
He'll kick-man you off the channel.
Well, after my question, speaking of ringtones, what I like as a ringtone, like when you call
my cell phone.
I have never called your cell phone.
Let's just make that crystal clear.
I might say, if anybody calls myself a, instead of getting the regular, you know, the general
like ring, you know, like regular, you get a crossbar.
I've never heard anyone try to imitate a ring before, but okay, that's not bad.
Can you do it again, Rebel?
I want to hear that one more time.
That's an electronic switching ring.
Yeah, ESS.
Can you do a crossbar?
That's a step.
Come on.
That's a step.
Come on.
You think I'm an idiot?
Come on.
No, a step is.
That's a different kind of step.
That's a Stroger step, but number five crossbar or number one crossbar.
You can't do that?
That's disappointing.
God.
You know, you've never sounded better, Rebel, but let's continue with this.
Okay.
I like that as my ringtone.
You used to be able to play music as you ringtone.
When you call somebody, they say, please listen to this song while your party has reached
or something.
And the person who owns a cell phone would have a choice of like songs that could play
while they're answering, you know, instead of the ringing.
Not on their phone, but to the person who's calling them.
I seem to recall Verizon offered that they had some kind of thing like that.
And I think you can, you could certainly compose and record your, or record it when you leave
your own, but you mean selectively, like for different people or for different scenarios
or something?
No, no.
Just, just like, instead of music, like, if I was to call, let's say, Emmanuel's phone,
let's say, instead of getting the regular ring that, that I hear on my own, Emmanuel would have
music, I said, please listen to this while, while, you know, the phone is ringing.
Yeah.
Instead of, instead of a ring.
You know, I actually thought of this when I was a kid.
I thought, well, it wouldn't be cool if you heard, like, I actually thought an advertisement
would be interesting to have while the phone is ringing rather than the ringtone.
But that was well before.
Wouldn't it be interesting?
Wouldn't it be kind of cool to have a crossbar ring, like a, like an MS tone?
That would be cool.
Like a crossbar.
That would be way cool.
If you could, yeah, bring it back, bring back the old crossbar, but, but send it out
to the call, the calling party.
So that's what they hear when they're calling you.
Yeah.
I like that idea.
Right.
It can't be.
That's what I want.
I was like, you know what I mean?
Oh, like retrofies the call process.
Yeah.
And people have already done that with, um, with, uh, making like a bell ring on their, on
their cell phones.
How many times do you hear that?
When they were on their cell phone, the bell ring.
That's another idea I came up with in the 1990s.
I said, Hey, wouldn't it be cool if you had a ringing phone that sounded like a regular
desk phone, but it was a cell phone.
So it's like, it's like a setup.
And of course that happened.
I got no credit for it, but whatever.
Right.
Yeah.
Call setup.
The person who is calling the cell phone hears this crossbar ring.
Instead of music, they hear the crossbar, the step ring or whatever, or the MF tones.
I'm pretty sure we just said that.
Yeah.
But okay.
That would be cool.
I'll, I'll, I'll again, express my enthusiasm for it.
I'd record, uh, hold on.
I'm trying to play basketball.
I don't know.
Okay.
What's going on?
I like, no, I was just playing basketball.
You're playing basketball again?
Shooting hoops.
No, I'm just throwing you basketball into the hoop.
I guess, you know, not playing a game.
I'm just, you know.
Wow.
Okay.
Now I'd like to demonstrate how, remember how you say that things are annoying when you
can't get to a person.
When you call Enterprise Rent-A-Core, I'm not going to call it.
I'm just going to demonstrate it.
Um, I'm not going to call it.
You're just going to demonstrate it.
What's the difference?
Well, no, no.
I mean, like, uh, when you call it, it says, welcome to Enterprise Rent-A-Core.
If you have, you know, uh, press one quarter, if you put zero, it says, I'm sorry, please
make a selection.
You know, maybe I'll just demonstrate.
You want to hold?
Are you asking me if I want to hold?
No, I don't want to hold.
I don't want to hold.
I want to keep this conversation going.
And I got to keep on saying what I want to ask.
You say.
Yeah.
So they don't have zero.
A lot of places don't have zero.
Right.
Don't have zero.
And then they'll say, please say whatever, but you don't say anything.
And then it says, I'm sorry, you didn't say anything.
We're hanging on.
Yeah.
Because you have a rotary phone.
We don't want to talk to you.
That's, that's basically what it is.
Right.
But the thing is, is that when you call somebody, I remember you demonstrating this in the 90s
where, uh, you call something and, um, it doesn't, uh, why are we hearing audio
from the past?
Oh, I don't know if people are just trying to, um, those are people in the background.
Okay.
Yeah.
Um, uh, yeah, but when, when you don't call, all right, I'm going to call a particular entity.
I can say what the entity is.
I mean, I'm going to say, I mean, it's going to say what it is, but I'm going to, I'm just
going to call it and demonstrate the fact that it does not, that the fact that that
does not, you know, I'm basically, I'm not going to say anything.
I mean, it just says.
Why is it so mysterious?
Why are you being so mysterious?
Is this a human?
Is this on earth?
What are you calling an entity?
What do you mean?
No, it's a, no, it's not a human.
It's a recording.
It just says, thank you for calling whatever.
Well, that's a human saying it, I'll bet, but okay, fine.
Call it.
No, it's a recording.
It's a recording.
And then if you, uh, if you need the extension, please enter it now for this department, press
one or for that department, press two.
If you don't press anything, it just repeats the same thing.
Thank you for calling.
Okay.
Do you really think we've never heard anything like this before?
Is this something that I know?
Why do we need to hear this again?
I'm sorry.
What?
You demonstrated and then you put zero and then you say, oh, I don't have a rotary
phone.
I have a rotary phone, so I won't press anything.
And then it just goes.
Right.
It hangs up on you.
We've demonstrated this about a thousand times.
Yeah.
It hangs up on you.
I try to rent a car and I, you know, it puts zero and it doesn't, you know, you know,
like, like car rental.
I think, um, the best advice I've, I've found with systems like this, because you're all right.
Like they're getting very distant and they have been since your, your examples.
In the nineties that you recall, try different keys and combinations, even out of frustration.
Sometimes it can confuse it.
He's talking to somebody else.
He's not.
Okay.
He's not listening to me.
Sometimes you can confuse it enough.
So listeners, if, if you're not getting zero to work, if, if star or pounders, other combinations,
sometimes the slight combination of the two weird, weird, um, tests that you can run, like
sometimes might actually get you somewhere hanging up and calling a different company.
Yeah.
Forget them on top.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, like a different company, but what if you have to use that company?
What if you just don't press anything and it just keeps repeating the same menu?
If you don't press anything, it just keeps repeating the same menu.
I'd say their phone is broken.
And you tell them that.
Maybe I will.
No, seriously.
I mean, it's, it's not hard to simply, you know, give people options.
And if, if they don't have a working touchstone phone, then you have it forward somewhere else.
Alex has something to contribute here.
Go ahead, Alex.
And welcome back.
Yeah.
Sorry.
I just got back.
I had a call from Virgil, by the way.
So I was, uh, he says hello.
Yes, he's calling Colette.
Um, Virgil had called, so he says hello to everybody.
And, uh, uh, but, but I, but I wanted to say, I, I, I obviously missed the beginning of
all of this.
It sounds so fascinating.
I'm wondering if we can just go right back to the beginning.
If you click on our channel, you can drag the little thing over and start over again.
And we'll just wait for you.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, no, no, no, no need.
No need.
Wow.
Um, yeah, you can do it later.
You're a little late, Alex.
We're not repeating it for you.
Yeah, you gotta do it.
Thank you, Rebel, for the time.
I know, I was, I was being slightly sarcastic if that wasn't coming through to, to everyone.
I just can't believe you got chastised by Rebel.
Yep.
You got told.
Yeah.
And he's playing basketball, too, so.
That's right.
Yep.
All right, Rebels, this is the home stretch, so what else do you have to tell us before
we move on to the next call?
Um, let's see.
What else?
Um, postal hacking.
You know, you could get free mail instead of paying 50 cents for a stamp to mail letter
or whatever.
You just put the same return address as it says.
Like, if I put OTH at 2600.com, I mean, off the hook, WBAI, whatever, 120, whatever it
is.
That was, that was three studios ago.
Yeah.
Um, uh, and then I'll just put the same address as the return address, and it'll just be mailed
to you, and then it'll be returned to the poster.
You know, that trick was revealed by the yippies in the 1960s, so it's not exactly breaking news
here.
Well, I actually, I, I mentioned it, like, in the 90s.
Okay, fine.
Even if that's true, that's still 30 years ago.
And it still works, I believe.
I don't know if it does.
I don't know if it does.
Well, uh, you know, there was another, there was another one I remember talking about called
Postman's Choice, where you had a postcard, and you'd put a different address on either
side, and you'd just see which one it wound up at eventually, or if it just bounced back
and forth from one to the other until it finally landed on one.
Try that.
And you put a stamp on each side, so it's, you're not even getting away with anything.
Oh.
Okay.
Yeah, try that.
Anything else?
Let's see.
I guess that's it.
Okay, then.
Well, it's been a pleasure, a joy, and all that, and, um, um, we'll probably talk to you
again next week.
Yeah.
All right.
And at the 2600 meeting.
At the 2600 meeting this, uh, this Friday at the Citigroup Center.
Is that right, Rob?
That is right.
Okay.
Uh, starting at 5 p.m.
and going on till whenever.
53rd Street and Lexington Avenue, right down in the food court.
That's right, where it's always been.
Right.
And again, you can find meetings in your area, uh, by going to 2600.com slash meetings.
And just, you know, for safety, don't put a slash at the end there.
All right, Rebel, have a good night.
Okay.
I'll go back to playing basketball.
Yes.
Go, go, uh, work out there.
The ball is in our court.
Uh, yeah.
All right.
Uh, our phone number, 802-321-4225-802-321-HECK.
Thanks for sharing, Rebel.
It was a good, good update.
How's, uh, how's our chat going, Gila?
Uh, it's going great.
Um, people are talking to each other, which is nice.
Um.
And they're not listening to us at all anymore, right?
And that's, that's probably made them a lot happier.
No, actually, it's discussions based on stuff we're talking about.
Okay.
Um, could someone in the chat define IVR for me, though?
Oh, um, it's interactive voice recording.
Are you in the chat, Kyle?
Oh, sorry.
I'm chatting.
I'm chatting.
I'm chatting.
I asked somebody in the chat to do that, to help make them feel like they're part of the conversation.
I'm not allowed to comment.
And you took that from them.
You took that from them.
Well, they're busy talking.
I'm sorry.
Someone else can correct me.
Maybe I'm wrong.
I'm sorry, Gila.
I'm sorry.
Don't assume.
I'm right.
Um, uh, Kyle Bobcat has confirmed.
Thank you both.
I, I learned something new every week on this show, and that's fantastic.
Thank you.
Talking of, uh, chats, um, someone mentioned the IRC, so I pulled that up on IRC.2600.net,
the channel, uh, pound off the hook.
And, uh, I am in there monitoring absolutely nothing going on because everyone is idling.
Pound sign, by the way, not the word pound, just not LB, pound sign off the hook.
I don't know who has never used IRC before.
It's, it's fascinating though.
It's, it's, it's, it's always been fun.
Do you know something we discovered though while we were in, in the, in the break moment,
um, here was we were looking at Twitter and a difference now between the app on my telephone
and the web interface where now my phone informed me that someone has reposted stuff.
It's part of the, the tweet purge.
I don't understand.
In my phone.
So in the changeover to X, they're getting rid of the word tweet.
They're getting rid of everything that's involved with Twitter and all the birds and everything.
Right.
And so the web interface is still telling us that people retweeted the notification about
us being here for overtime.
But on my phone, it's telling me it's reposted, not retweeted.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
So they're taking their own word and destroying it.
Yep.
Do they not want?
Who needs a brand identity?
Twitter.com.
Can I have that now if they don't need it?
I mean, I'll take it.
Wow.
I don't, I just don't get it.
I just, it's just rich people with money just playing games is all this is.
Oh, we have another call.
We do.
I'm sorry for bantering.
Good evening.
You're on off the go of time.
Hi, Emmanuel.
It's Delshy.
It is actually really me.
It is Delshy.
Wow.
Welcome.
How have you been?
Really having a grand old time of things.
Wanted to plug what I'm doing for DEF CON this year.
Okay.
Which is what?
Next week.
Is that next week, by the way?
Or is that this week?
Yes, it is.
Next week.
Next week.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
I stepped on you.
You want to promote what?
HDA or hackers with disabilities.
What it is, is I'm a little miniature department of DEF CON now that provides assistance for
people with disabilities who want to attend.
That's awesome.
Wow.
Top of the hotel room, transportation.
Uh-huh.
Also, I advocate for people with the venue.
We've been able to get concessions, like allowing people to charge their chairs at any outlet
they find, and helping them with making things more accessible.
And we also publish a PDF guide every year, showing maps and where the elevators are, how
to get around if something breaks down, and generally how to have a grand old time of
it while you're at DEF CON.
That's so amazing.
That really is incredible.
And sorely needed, definitely.
Yeah, it's really thoughtful and considerate.
So I hope other people emulate it.
Wow, that's good ideas.
Well, we're officially a part of DEF CON now.
We started out as just a, you know, a helpline.
Now we're an actual, not a village, but a community.
So we actually have three community rooms this year.
One just for associating and hanging out, where we're providing safe recharging stations for
any kind of ability device you have, whether it's an insulin pump or a chair.
We'll have a charging station for you.
So we've got separate lectures for people.
We've got a guy coming in who's giving us a lecture on hacking and modifying power wheelchairs.
And there's also a safe harbor room where people can semi-privately do what they need
to do, like make adjustments to their ability devices, refill the insulin pump, change the
batteries.
It's semi-private, but it's better than doing it in the bathroom.
Definitely, definitely.
Gila, go ahead.
We did have a question from Bobcat who asked if you have a mobile DJ setup.
A mobile DJ setup?
Actually, yes, I do.
I will be DJing in two different locations this year using that mobile setup.
I'll be in the Axe space, which has been moved, I think, to the foyer, to the foot of the
escalators.
And I'll be DJing at GothCon.
And GothCon is what now?
That's a separate party inside of DEFCON.
Okay.
Well, it's really getting huge.
It is getting huge.
We're looking at, what, 30,000-some-odd people.
Oh, my goodness.
We're back to like three hotels.
Plus, we're in the new Caesars Forum area.
You might wind up just building your own city.
You ever think about that?
Because I don't think Vegas is cool enough to hold you guys anymore.
There's a middle step coming.
But, yeah, I think before we take over the whole city, we could probably take over Reno.
That would be a city we could take over.
Wow.
Yeah, I've been to Reno, though.
Not to cast dispersions on Reno.
It kind of depressed me.
Because it was like Vegas, but it was chilly.
Yeah, it is kind of depressing.
But, I mean, size-wise, Vegas has been growing at a substantial rate.
And with all the sports teams we're bringing in and the Formula One racing we're bringing in,
it's just getting bigger and bigger.
So it's kind of catching up, you know, getting as big as DEF CON.
Vegas is catching up.
That's good to know.
Wow.
It's changed a lot.
I've been living here about 15 years now.
Wow.
And it's interesting to live here and watch it change.
I can imagine.
Yeah.
It's, you know, as somebody who can only stand to be in Vegas for no more than three days
at a time, I always wonder, people who live there probably don't venture into the actual,
you know, glamour and glitzy part of it that often, right?
Not that often, no.
Mostly because those people are, you know, the people that fly in and they've got a big
wad of cash and they want to spend, you know, $300 for a $10 bottle of vodka.
You know, those people, you kind of get tired of them after a while.
The locals have their local places they go to, which are just a hell of a lot of fun.
And, you know, you can have your Vegas-esque fun, you know, 24-7-365.
Yeah.
Discovering those places, the times I've been out there going off, you know, off the strip
and just finding the real Las Vegas downtown and also just side streets and other communities.
That was the real discovery.
That's where you had the most fun.
Yeah.
A lot of people are afraid of that.
They're afraid to go off the strip.
And in some cases, they have reason to be, and in some cases, they don't.
One of the newest things that we have out here that is definitely worth leaving the strip
for is we have a sci-fi cosplay bar called the Millennium Fandom.
Oh, wow.
If you remember Quark's from back in the days of the Hilton, Quark's Bar, it's kind of like
that, but without all the official, any one official fandom.
It's a wide open, any fandom you want.
People come in costumes every week.
They've got karaoke nights.
They have theme nights.
It's just an amazing place to hang out and cosplay and be a sci-fi nerd in a really, like,
supportive and positive environment, you know?
Uh-huh.
That sounds awesome.
Alex.
Alex has a question.
Go ahead, Alex.
Yeah.
Well, and more of a comment, too.
But I think you're totally right about going off the strip.
I'll be over at DEF CON in a few days, I guess it is.
It's next week, and I think I'm only going really for three days as well, which is usually
more than a day because, you know, being on the strip, it can be, you know, challenging
at best.
But every year, a buddy of mine, who's part of the hacker community, we all get together
over there, he organizes a whole bunch of dinners and meetings and things like that for
people within his core group, and everything happens off the strip.
And it's really kind of amazing to see all these other neighborhoods and places.
And I remember one year we went to a Filipino restaurant that was off the strip, and it was
in some strip mall, and the food was incredible.
And then it also had karaoke and, like, really kind of super fun karaoke that everybody was
doing while it was eating.
And it was just, you know, a kind of random place.
It was so incredibly cheap compared to, you know, you'll literally spend $20 for a slice
of pizza on the strip.
It's totally insane.
Anything is cheaper than the strip.
Absolutely anything is cheaper.
New York City is cheaper than the strip.
It is.
Yes, it is.
It's far cheaper.
I haven't lived there yet.
Yeah.
It is far cheaper than the strip.
It's pretty incredible.
In fact, lately, they've been upping the prices on everything and starting to charge for things
that used to be free.
Wow.
Well, I went to...
You've got to pay for their $8 million projector domes and stuff like that, you know?
Well, it's terrible.
Last year, I was on the strip, and I didn't want to pay, like, $50 to have breakfast.
I just wanted an egg sandwich, and that's it.
I was hungry.
What about those signs?
It used to say 99-cent breakfast or even cheaper.
They don't have those anymore?
I don't see any of those.
They don't have those anymore.
Not on the strip.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
You can find it on Fremont Street, but you've got to be careful because you'll end up with
some kind of food poisoning or some kind of, you know, gastric disruption.
But, Alex, also, if you gamble a lot, sometimes they comp you the breakfast, so that's a handy tip.
Yeah, they comp you the buffet, but a lot of those buffets have shut down.
That's true.
That's true.
A lot of the buffets, because they never recovered from the COVID shutdown.
Well, same thing we're seeing in New York, yeah, with places that haven't reopened.
Well, but then the other problem with the buffets in Vegas is that if you find one that you want
to go to, you have to wait online to get into it, and it's always an insane line.
It's always going to take, you know, a half hour, 40 minutes waiting on this goddamn line
so that you can spend $40 to have breakfast.
You sound very bitter about this, Alex.
I am.
This was a year ago.
Wow.
But I want to tell you what happened to me when I tried to get breakfast.
So I tried to do, like, a cheap option in getting breakfast.
So I went to Dunkin' Donuts on the strip.
And then I got the bill, and I was like, are you kidding me?
It was, like, almost $20 for a Dunkin' Donuts egg sandwich and a coffee.
Yep.
You know, something that would normally be $4 anywhere else in the country.
And I said to myself, are you kidding me?
You're going to go to the far end of the strip.
But that's far.
Far end of the strip, there's a McDonald's.
It's called the far end of the strip for a reason, because it's on the far end of the strip.
Well, I'm not talking about going into North Las Vegas.
I'm just talking about, like, going past the stratosphere.
Uh-huh.
You know, like, one or two blocks past the stratosphere, there's a McDonald's that has normal prices.
I went on the parachute thing on the stratosphere.
You know, they have a roller coaster on the top of it, and they shoot you up into space,
and you come back down, hopefully.
That was scary.
That really was.
And you're way above the street when you do that, too.
But let's let Alex finish his story.
Oh, that was it.
That was it.
Oh, that's it.
I thought there was a...
There's no...
You know, bring your own food this time, I would suggest.
Yeah.
They're kind of proud on that, but there are ways to get away with it.
I would listen to Ted Elchai here.
He knows ways around all systems.
Sounds like it.
You just have to be casual about it, and you have to just not, you know, go waving around.
Look at me.
I've got food from the outside, because they really are touchy about bringing food and drink
from the outside.
Oh, my God.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
It's terrible.
One thing I would definitely suggest to avoid is the pizza vending machine.
What the hell is that?
They have a machine, they have a vending machine that hands out slices of pizza.
You know, even Tokyo doesn't do that.
Well, they have one, another one that hands out slices of cake, and the cake ones are actually
halfway decent.
But the slices of pizza are not all that great.
You're better off walking the extra 10 feet and getting the slice out of the actual kitchen.
You're best off booking a flight to New York, getting a slice there, and coming back.
Well, that's just a given, no matter where you are, if you want a good pizza.
I mean, that's just a given.
Yeah, if you're going to Vegas, I wouldn't go for the pizza.
I go for something else, but not that.
Yeah, you don't come to Vegas for the pizza, that's for certain.
I mean, we've got a few good places.
Well, how about just going to In-N-Out Burger or something, you know?
It's like, it can't be too expensive, right?
It's not, In-N-Out Burger is not expensive, but it is off the Strip, and it's incredibly
popular.
During lunchtimes, the car line to get an In-N-Out Burger can be down the street.
Wow.
But you've got to change the name.
You get a Bible passage on every cup, and you get the animal menu, right?
They still have that?
Oh, yeah.
They still have all the secret menus and stuff like that.
You know, the thing is, you don't have to go that far off the Strip to get better stuff.
Well, Chinatown has a lot of amazing deals and a lot of different kinds of food.
You wouldn't expect to find a French restaurant in Chinatown, but there is one.
I wouldn't expect to find a Chinatown in Vegas.
Oh, there is.
It's a fairly decent size, too.
Do they have genuine Szechuan there?
I mean, the kind that will just burn your ass off.
Yes.
Okay, Alex, go there, Alex.
You may have to ask for it to burn your ass off, because a lot of people are kind of
like, you know, please don't hurt me.
Get the Sean King chicken and just say, don't hold back.
They'll know what that means.
Hold back.
All right.
I'll remember those words.
Just look for the restaurants that have the asbestos seats.
Okay.
Wow.
Gosh.
Well, it sounds like a fascinating time is ahead for all of you.
I look forward to hearing about it.
Oh, yeah.
And I'll be showing off the bone box that I sent you the picture of.
Okay.
The dog bone, the craft access terminal that I hacked up.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
A couple of months ago.
Right, right.
Yeah, you said you was going to make the back cover.
It's a combination of a blue box, a red box, and a beige box in the body of an old craft
access terminal.
Okay.
All right.
Oh, wow.
That's really cool.
I remember those craft access terminals.
They were fun to come by.
What do you mean by that, come by?
You didn't just having to find one lying inside.
Well, I've heard that certain people got them in some mysterious ways, and they would
show up.
Yeah, well, you know, in Manhattan, it wasn't unheard of to find one just laying on the
street, you know?
Just, oh, wow, look at this.
Next to a phone company van with a broken window.
Yeah, well, that's...
Yeah, well, sometimes you go down to Canal Street, and you'd see one in a surplus shop.
Okay, that's more of my method of getting them on eBay and things like that.
Well, now that they're not used anymore, they show up on eBay for about $40 to $50.
Yeah, it's actually quite fascinating to have.
I got mine at the MIT flea market.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, that's the perfect place to get one, along with a pay phone.
Yeah.
I don't have a pay phone, but I do have my own asterisk server now, so...
Oh, good.
Okay.
I'm having some fun for that.
That's pretty awesome.
Well, Delchai, it's great hearing from you, and I hope you stay in touch.
I hope you're going to be a regular listener, if you have been a regular listener.
Oh, I have been.
I just haven't had a lot of time between everything I'm doing right now.
I don't always have time to participate, but I wanted to get the message out.
Great.
You'd be amazed how many people have responded to HDA over the last four years.
Uh-huh.
I can imagine.
It's a valuable service, and I think it's something that should be at all hacker cons,
all cons in general, but definitely something that I hope spreads.
Here's to hoping.
All right.
Take care.
Enjoy.
Thanks.
All right.
Go ahead, Dila.
All right.
Here is our chat update.
Joshua Pritt, I want to make sure you know that we are indeed seeing your comments, and
he tells us, or Joshua tells us.
I don't want to assume anybody's pronouns without knowing them.
The Hacker Space Makers Local 256 had a portable DJ booth they called Party Squid, which I just
think is spiffy.
Brady McNulty wanted to say thanks for letting me volunteer at Hope last year.
Looking forward to doing it again in 24.
Thank you.
We look forward to the same.
Watch this space for information about Hope 2024 as time goes on.
And Emmanuel, we have a question for you.
Oh, boy.
Slick Hunters from Canada asks, says, Emmanuel seems like a guy who has been all over the
world.
What African countries has Emmanuel been to?
None.
And it really distresses me that I haven't been able to do that.
And I would like to.
The ones I would really like to go to are Kenya, Nigeria, Morocco, South Africa, possibly Egypt.
That's a good start, I think.
Maybe Tanzania.
I'd like to see Tanzania.
And Zambia, you know?
Zambia just won their first World Cup game, Women's World Cup.
That's pretty amazing.
What about Ghana and Gambia?
I mean...
Yeah.
You know, Ghana, Gambia.
If you're going to go for the G countries, sure.
Why not?
But there's a lot of countries in Africa.
If we can name them all, I'd be amazed.
Senegal.
Senegal?
What's wrong with Senegal?
Nothing's wrong with Senegal.
Don't forget North Africa.
That's where I...
That's not a country.
Well, there's Tunisia.
Okay.
Morocco.
Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt.
I said Morocco.
I said Egypt.
You did say Morocco.
Okay.
I wasn't listening.
Not really sure I want to go to Libya.
I'll be honest.
Libya's kind of tense.
I would love to go to Libya, actually.
And I'll tell you what, there are some pretty amazing Roman ruins, something called the Leptus
Magna that is in Libya.
I think it would be a fascinating place to see.
I think it would have been more interesting to see while Gaddafi was in power.
But when I was traveling through Tunisia, and I was there maybe about six months before
the Arab Spring started in southern Tunisia.
Did you plant the seeds for the Arab Spring?
Well, I will say that for many people there, my friend John and I were the only Americans
they had ever met in their entire lives.
So we were kind of like, you know, the representation of the country.
And I don't know.
We might have inspired some people.
Wow.
Okay.
You're so screwed.
I'm obviously joking here.
But where was I going with this?
Oh, yeah.
So when I was going back up the coast, well, rather the border of Tunisia, into this town,
Gabaez, I remember thinking it was so weird because there were literally signs that say,
you know, go this way if you want to get to Tripoli.
So you were that close to Libya, you know, where you're more not supposed to go when
I was over there.
It was really, I thought it was a fascinating country, Tunisia, and really, really beautiful,
amazing food.
It was great.
You know, I think there's lots to be said about that continent.
Oh, my God.
It's probably the most interesting continent of all of them.
Yeah, you're probably right.
Madagascar.
I'd love to go to Madagascar.
Yeah, I think we all would.
No, because Madagascar, it's basically, it's off the coast of the mainland, but it has its
own environment.
There are animals there that only exist there.
There are plants there that you cannot find outside of Madagascar.
It is one of the most fascinating places on Earth, and a lot of it is unspoiled.
And that's one of the places I'd really like to see.
Yeah, I'm there with you.
I'm there with you.
Well, maybe we should all do a road trip to Madagascar.
Yeah, off the hook goes to Africa.
That sounds like fun.
Actually, it would be fun.
Uh-huh.
If you find a way to drive to Madagascar, let us know.
Why?
Because we're going to go by car?
It wouldn't be a road trip otherwise.
That's true.
We might have ferries.
I don't think they ever ferried a Madagascar car.
I'm pretty sure.
How far off of the continent is it?
Oh, from the continent?
I'm not sure.
Maybe they do.
Maybe they have some kind of a boat, I'm sure.
Often these places that are so remote do.
So the answer, I guess, is zero, but aspirational.
Madagascar is really big, but it is off the mainland.
Wow.
Apparently, there are no ferries, no passenger ferries from South Africa, Mozambique, or Tanzania
to Madagascar.
Maybe there are from other places, but I don't think so.
Okay.
So they probably have some kind of ships that show up there.
Well, I'm sure they have ships.
They're on the ocean.
It's not feasible to travel.
They're Indian Ocean, I believe.
So I'm sure from India, there are probably things that come on a regular basis.
It's actually interesting.
It says the only practical way of getting to Madagascar is by air.
This is roughguides.com.
And there aren't even any boats running from Madagascar's nearest neighbors, the Camaros
Islands and Mauritius.
Wow.
It's kind of weird.
Well, maybe they're ripe for boating industry.
You know, maybe we can open up the ferry companies to Madagascar, because it sounds like there's
a lot of potential here.
Well, maybe that would destroy the fauna, the local fauna.
Maybe they like the isolation, and they do it by design.
Possibly.
Possibly.
But we'll never know if we don't try to find out.
That's true.
Any more questions?
Look what this opened up.
Yeah.
Now there's going to be a billboard for a ferry, and it's going to be our fault.
Never going to go to Africa.
Okay, next caller, is anyone?
Do we have another call?
No, no one's here.
All right.
The line is free for the calling.
So it's 802-321-4225, 802-321-HACK.
And yeah, if there's any other questions on the chat, we can address those as well.
Yes, feel free to interject.
And also, if you are calling from the U.S., you can also reach us at toll-free number 833-755-2600.
That's right, yes.
And we've made sure that number still works, right?
Yes, we've tested it recently.
Okay, good.
That was put up by Lucky, friend of the show.
Awesome.
Tim in Connecticut, thank you very much for, yes, it's 1,000 miles from Madagascar to the African continent.
Thank your Alexa device for us by extension.
And Joshua Print, thank you for pointing that out.
Today is Earth Overshoot Day.
What is that?
Today is the day that we have exhausted the resources of the planet to date, I believe.
Wait, today is the day we did that?
Like for the year.
Oh, for the year.
Okay.
I thought humanity ends tomorrow then.
Oh, yeah.
Surprise.
Earth Overshoot Day marks the date in which humanity's demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year.
Well, we made it to August.
That's something, right?
August 2nd.
Should we be proud of that?
What was it last year?
That's how you know how you're doing.
Let's see what we can find out here.
Yeah.
Okay.
Earth Overshoot Day, Geneva Environment Network.
Just Earth Overshoot Day 2022.
Oh, here we go.
In 2022, it was around this same time.
But in 1971, it was December.
Okay, but we all know 1971 was better than now, as far as the environment goes.
Okay.
There's actually a very spiffy graph, which I'm going to put in the chat, because it's very cool.
You can put graphs in the chat?
No, I can put a link to the graph in the chat.
Oh, okay.
All right.
All right, gang.
Check this out.
That doesn't really help people listening.
No, it doesn't.
Check out a URL that you can't see.
If you go to genevaenvironmentnetwork.org, they've got all the information you need about Earth Overshoot Day.
And if it's any consolation, it gives the specific days that Earth Overshoot Day would be globally if every country lived like a specific, if the entire world lived like a specific country.
So if we were all the U.S., Earth Overshoot Day.
Oh, that's bad.
Don't do that.
That's bad.
Well, January 4th, we'll be running out of everything.
March 13th.
The shortest Earth Overshoot Day, for the record, is Qatar, which is February 10th.
However, they're worse than us.
They're worse than us.
Were we all Jamaica?
December 20th.
Jamaica.
All right.
Another reason to support Jamaica.
Well, how about if, is Jamaica the lowest as far as?
Jamaica is the lowest, yes.
Okay.
I was going to say something like Norway.
How did they do?
Let me see if I can find it.
This is fascinating.
It's not searchable.
It doesn't appear to be.
It would be nice.
I'm looking.
I'm looking.
Uh-huh.
I don't see it.
Oh, for a full list of countries, visit overshootday.org slash country dash overshoot dash days.
Okay.
How about we go to this call and we'll have more options in a few minutes.
Good evening.
You're on off the cover, Tom.
Go ahead.
Hello.
Yeah, hello.
Is that me?
That's you.
Yeah, hi.
Is that me?
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah.
I was just wondering, I just have a quick question.
The conference for this year, that HOPE conference?
Uh-huh.
Has it happened already?
No, there is no HOPE conference.
In 2023, there is no HOPE conference.
Right now, we're in even years only.
So, the next one will be 2024.
Oh, that's what it is.
Yep.
I used to hear any talk about it.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Okay, yeah.
That's all I really had.
That's all I had.
Oh, one other thing.
Do you have any thoughts on Julian Assange as far as the news out today?
They're still trying to get him to come back here.
Wait, what's the news that's out today?
Well, I read today, Australians are refusing to, they don't want him deported back to the
U.S. to face justice or whatever.
Right.
Okay.
That's good.
I mean, he's still in England, though.
He's locked up in England.
He's still in England, yeah.
But, I don't know, somehow they're lobbying Biden to just...
Yeah, I mean, they, you know, in my opinion, he should be, he should be released.
He's, you know, if you believe he's guilty of everything he's been accused of, he has
suffered enough, okay, and you would have to be some kind of masochist to want him to
suffer more.
So, you know, and if you think he's innocent, obviously he shouldn't be imprisoned.
So, it's just, it's an embarrassment.
It's shameful that we just are basically ignoring this and saying, oh, yeah, he's going to be
locked up for the rest of his life or something, or whatever he did justifies this.
No, it doesn't.
He needs to be released, go back, and try to live a life, because this is, it's barbaric
what's happening to him.
I've kind of reached the same.
We understand the case, we understand the stories involved, but the world itself would
be different were he to be free, and I think the suffering itself, punishment has been served
mostly due to his self-imposed isolation.
Yeah, but, you know, that self-imposed, everybody was laughing at him when it was a self-imposed
isolation.
Oh, boy, you're paranoid.
Well, now look, look at how he's being treated now.
I think everything that he thought was going to happen to him is exactly what's happening
to him.
So, he was entirely correct.
We may not feel like there's more extensive case and more details, but...
He's not under, like, house arrest?
No, he is in prison.
He is in prison in England.
Yeah, Balmore, I think.
Okay, all right.
All right.
But the ideas we have aren't necessarily the same as the institutions that were affected,
and that, I think, is something we've been very clear about, that the government, the
U.S., may yet continue.
They may stop at nothing.
That is the nature.
Those were the stakes that were in play at the time and stand to this day, regardless of
the administration, I would say.
And that's an important, I think, point that is being made, and that may be why there is
international pressure.
And so, to that end, I think, like, the implications, technically, of what is going on, I mean, yeah,
he may still be at fault.
But as we've said, like, as I'm saying, the world has changed, and he would not go without
scrutiny were he free, okay?
He would be not in a position to do the same, I think, things.
He would himself be trying to reassemble his life, I think.
He would really think he'd want to do the same things again.
Exactly.
Yeah.
He would probably be trying to keep some kind of family and sanity and work on his own
well-being.
And that is what the government is saying they would like, they would wish to deny him
when you're hearing the prospects of that unfolding.
Look, it just makes, you know, the governments look really, really bad.
You wanted to destroy his life, mission accomplished, you did it, okay?
Move on to the next person, you know?
Seriously, there's just nothing to be gained from continuing this.
And regardless of what you think about him, regardless of what you believe or disagree with,
that's where we stand on that.
Alex, go ahead.
Yeah.
One thing to note here is I think, you know, this whole issue has really spanned three
different administrations of U.S. governments.
It really started, the publication had actually started under Obama.
And one thing to remember is Obama prosecuted Chelsea Manning and then commuted her sentence
as well.
So she was given some form of clemency.
But at the time, the Obama administration refused to actually indict Assange because
to do so would be tantamount to it in indicting a journalist for reporting.
That was the policy choice in not going after Assange under the Obama administration.
Now, fast forward to post-2016, Trump is in office.
Trump's Justice Department not only indicts Assange once, and I actually wrote an op-ed
about that indictment, and I thought it was actually legally defensible.
But then there was a superseding indictment that added a whole bunch of other charges seemingly
to make it political.
And it was very clear, and I wrote another op-ed for CNN saying, this one is crazy, and it
is tantamount to prosecuting journalists.
This is a Rubicon that we don't want to cross in this country.
And it's what the Obama administration didn't want to do.
Now, you go to 2021, and we have the Biden administration.
What's fascinating is the Biden administration, its Justice Department, under the direction of
somebody that is a Biden presidential appointee, has not changed at all its policy direction
with respect to the prosecution of Julian Assange.
It's an extenuation of the Trump administration's policy here, not the Obama administration's policy
to not go after journalists.
So what the hell is the Biden administration doing?
I think it's right for us to call out the Democrats for an action and extending what is
a Trump policy here.
It's absurd.
Inaction.
That's very different from negative action, but it's still very harmful.
And maybe it just hasn't reached his desk, but it's something I really think he should
be taking seriously and something that needs to be addressed.
And I would also add, just to put this nice patriotic cherry on the conversation, all of it has,
I think, detracted from the contents of what, journalistically, Julian Assange was doing.
Right.
Okay, the depravity of the U.S. military in the colonial aspirations in the Mideast, the decades of that,
the lost blood and treasure, it's wrong.
And that has been superseded by the skittishness and veracity of the intelligence community and
the way, as Alex described, this has turned into something that is sort of an unrelenting
desire to continue to punish somebody for whatever reason until the end of time.
The people responsible for that massacre, basically, they have never been punished.
They have never even been named.
All right.
And that is the legacy of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning.
I think it's one of the greatest public services ever for democracy.
And look at the price that they've paid collectively.
It's simply not right.
Rob, go ahead.
I think if we're talking about the legacy of Julian Assange, I think, you know, if we want
to look at it charitably and say that the most important things that he was ever going to do,
he did and accomplished, which was he started WikiLeaks, which did accomplish some good things.
After WikiLeaks stopped doing those things, after WikiLeaks took a turn and started promoting
all kinds of crap, I think the torch was well and truly taken up by others out there, our
friends at Distributed Denial of Secrets and other hacktivists who took the example of what
early WikiLeaks was trying to do, further refined it and continue to do that work in ways that are
very important to all of us.
So, yes, he had his role in history and, you know, he is suffering for that.
But on the other hand, the work continues.
And in the hands of, I think, a lot of very capable people who deserve remembering and recognizing.
Right, right.
And we need to continue to question because, I mean, that's what the crux of this is, is does
the military, does the things that WikiLeaks was covering, do they deserve scrutiny?
Is transparency now a part of the process or is it still sort of elusive?
And I think those questions really get lost in the effect of the consequences and the way
this is playing out.
What I worry about, though, is, you know, the next person that takes this on, they're going
to look at how Julian is being treated and say, I don't want that to happen to me.
I'm not going to do it.
I'm not going to, you know, take that take that chance.
And I think maybe that's the real reason why he is being tortured like this, because
they want to make sure nobody else ever dares to expose the war crimes of the U.S.
military.
Exactly.
That's what I mean by skittishness.
That's what I mean by like, it's just, it's, there's this nervous thing.
It's, and it's, I think, even a parallel to the indictment that was dropped this week.
Like the government does not want it to be undermined by whatever mechanism people, you
know, try to employ unless it's protected in some way.
Journalism in some ways is protected.
Leaks and whistleblowers now have, I think, maybe even a little bit more protection than
in the midst of some of those conflicts we've been talking about.
But anyway, we could go on and on and diverge, but that, that's just a taste of where I think
we're at.
Does that answer your question, caller?
Yes, that does.
Okay.
I have one quick question.
Where do you have the, do you have off the hook meetings, like 2600 meetings in Washington,
D.C.?
Would you know?
I don't think we do.
I don't think there are meetings in Washington, D.C.
There might be some in Virginia near Washington, D.C., but the only thing preventing us from having
meetings in any particular place is somebody who hasn't started them yet.
I'm told somebody was asking if we have meetings in Canada.
We don't.
I think we, we had, we have meetings maybe in one city in Canada, but we should have meetings
in, in very many cities out there.
We used to.
In fact, when we, when we saw the, the old webpage earlier today, I was reminded how many
meetings we had in Canada before the pandemic.
So all it takes is somebody going to 2600.com slash meetings, reading the guidelines, which
are really, really simple to follow and, um, uh, starting a meeting on the first Friday
and letting us know how it goes.
And then we publish it and you get more and more people showing up and it'll be amazing.
Gila.
There is indeed a meeting in the D.C.
area, um, in Arlington, caller in Arlington, Virginia.
Um, I guess that is D.C., isn't it?
I don't know.
Yeah.
Well, okay.
It's super close.
I think, but are we listing it as Washington, D.C.
Or are we listing it as Virginia?
No, we're listing it as Virginia, but I searched Washington and then Virginia, you know, VW.
So it was right there.
Oh, it's in Arlington.
So maybe we should list it as Washington, D.C. as well, like we used to.
Your call.
Okay.
All right.
Does that, uh.
Thanks for making my call.
Okay.
That was my question.
All right.
Thanks.
Thanks for your call and for letting us know where we have meetings.
Thanks for listening, too.
Yeah.
I didn't know we had meetings in D.C., but I guess we do.
Do you have more information, Gila, on what we're looking up?
No.
I mean, I did inform the person who asked about meetings in Canada earlier.
I put it in the chat.
The only meeting listed in Canada right now is in Calgary, Alberta.
Calgary.
Yeah.
That's what I thought.
Yeah.
But the Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, we used to have meetings in all these places.
So I'm hoping people.
And they may still be happening.
Vancouver.
And I just don't know.
Yeah.
Vancouver.
Wherever it's happening.
You've got to tell us about it.
If you don't tell us about it, then we can't list it.
Exactly.
Also, a couple of questions that came up in the chat when we got to talking about, while
we were talking about Julian Assange, they're not, they're thankfully not related to Julian
Assange.
Checkers Lane, checkers, all kinds of information about hope and the history of hope, which began
in 1994, are available at hope.net.
Every hope webpage is archived there.
You can search to your heart's content, find out all kinds of information.
To answer your second question, WBAI does not run commercials because we are a non-profit
radio station and we don't do that.
But if you want to help support WBAI, you can go to the website, give to WBAI.org and
become a BAI buddy in the name of Off the Hook.
We would appreciate that.
And Joshua Pritt asks if the secure drop is still available for whistleblowers.
Yes, absolutely.
Yes.
Do we have more information than just that?
Is there more, yeah, more data on that?
Yes.
What more do you need to know?
We should have a link.
The URL is the same.
If you go under submissions, where do you find it?
We're so bad at promoting ourselves.
It's 2600.com slash secure drop.
Yeah, do that.
2600.com slash secure drop.
That's the best way.
But we should put it on the main page.
That is the landing site.
We'll make a button.
You want a secure drop button?
We'll make a secure drop button.
I think that's a good idea.
I think we had one there with the long URL.
It didn't quite make sense.
Somebody stole it or something.
I'm not sure what happened to it.
We had, I believe, a slide at the top for a little while, but it is not currently active.
So we'll come up with something so it is more visible.
But you just type slash secure drop with nothing after the...
Don't put a slash after that.
God knows what will happen.
Then there's a follow-up question to that, which is, is IPFS just as secure for whistleblowers to share material?
Well, also not part of the question, but whistleblowers is kind of hard to say.
Does anyone want to answer that?
IPFS.
So I'm not conjuring up exactly what they are referring to by that.
Yeah.
Somebody look up that acronym so we don't look like idiots.
It's probably a concept that this technology uses.
It's like a cloud-based thing.
It's an interplanetary file system, presumably.
Peer-to-peer.
It's like a distributed file storage protocol.
Okay, so that is more like, I believe, what Distributed Denial of Secrets uses.
It also allows them to scale submissions so they can be much larger.
I'm not sure that that's what they use.
Don't quote me on that.
I can't remember from our conversations with them.
But SecureDrop itself is a relatively good way to anonymize who you are, so long as you
kind of don't scan your driver's license and send it to us, that kind of stuff, obviously.
And it might take a little bit of time to get to the staff.
It might take some correspondence if you want to get attention, because the SecureDrop mechanism
is not totally immune to erroneous stuff.
We get submissions there pretty regularly, though.
And so people do check it.
And I guess it is an option.
But if you have something extremely large, there are limitations.
And of course, the scope of whatever you're talking about would be limited to what you
might imagine the editorial and hacker community would want to share, namely technology, communications,
other things.
If you have a personal crisis, if you are aware of a faith that you don't like, or you have
a faith you think everyone should like, we're not as interested in that per se.
Yeah, there's a lot of garbage that comes across.
I mean, people have sent us legal issues with their landlords and things like that.
Not really what we're looking for.
We're not really something we can help with.
It's for, you know, if you have found a smoking gun somewhere and you don't want to attach
your name to it, that's a SecureDrop is the way to do it.
If you want to write an article for 2600, it's not the way to go because it'll take much
longer.
The way to go there is articles at 2600.com, an email address where we will shield your
identity and basically that's where people submit all kinds of material.
I would just also add, don't talk about using the system.
SecureDrop is used in a lot of different newsrooms.
It's used in a lot of different publications and it's a simple, sort of, more or less easy
to use way to put some layers, to put some distance between a newsroom and someone who
wants to submit something.
So, once you do it, and there are instructions about this on that landing page, but I would
just reiterate, this is kind of like, hey, I just want to leave this here or, hey, I want
to get in touch quietly.
You ought to withhold your interactions with a publication that you are seeking to communicate
with and submit something to for your own safety, for your operational security, depending
on what it is that you are submitting.
And to also protect the ability of the publisher to perhaps review it, perhaps seek advice, however
it may apply to the publishing entity in our case.
So, I hope that's clear, that it is something that is only as good as the ways you are using
it and it's simply a tool, a part of a lot of different options that there are out there.
It's not totally, 100%, you know, everything, but it's a great way for publishers to say,
hey, we got something that we think is in the public interest.
We don't know where we got it.
And oftentimes, when things do break from these systems, how and the exact system that was
used is not the story.
So, you hear about a lot of things that probably got to a newsroom through one of these systems,
but, you know, the Times or the newspaper of record, whatever it is, they're not exactly
talking about the how and so on and so forth.
They're just doing a good job protecting sources.
I guess that's the final word on that.
Okay.
Alex, did you have something?
Not really.
I would just say that I don't know how IPFS is used in a secure way with this distributed
file system, but I would say if you really want to be secure in what you're delivering
and protecting your identity, you would really want to rely on SecureDrop, something that's
been, you know, tried, tested, proven, and maybe there's a protocol where it works with
IPFS.
Maybe that's what they're referencing, but I think, you know, SecureDrop is pretty reliable.
Agila, you were looking up when we were going to run out of things on Earth, right?
Did you learn more about that system?
I did, actually.
So, I know your question was about Norway.
Well, I just wanted to use Norway.
I always thought they were kind of clean, but maybe they're not.
Norway's overshoot day was April, April 12th.
What?
Is it worse than us?
No, they're not worse than us.
U.S. was in March.
Oh, I thought we were in August.
Oh, that's the whole world is in August.
Today's the whole world.
I don't think you said U.S. was in March.
U.S. is in March.
Okay.
The thing I found very interesting is that there's a list of countries that would be none.
But I don't know if it's because of their patterns of consumption or because we don't have the data.
I actually don't know.
How about...
Yeah, go ahead.
No, so I found that interesting.
And also, just for argument's sake, Canada and the U.S. would have hit March 13th.
Canada, U.S. and the UAE all on March 13th.
That's the day after Bahrain and the day before Estonia.
What about Russia?
Tell me we beat Russia, at least.
The Russian Federation is coming in on April 19th.
Oh, wow.
They're better than us.
How about China?
And Ukraine is August 27th.
Really?
Wow.
Really.
China, June 2nd.
How are they so much better?
That's amazing.
Fewer single-use plastics.
I don't know the answer.
That's a good answer.
I'm just making stuff up at this point.
But yes, there's also a significant list of countries for whom there is no overshoot date.
But again, I'm curious as to whether that is about consumption patterns or about data.
So, yeah, it's also, if anybody's curious, if your birthday is any country's overshoot day, do let me know.
Why, do you get a prize or something?
No, I just think it might be interesting to know.
Okay.
All right.
Yeah.
And now I'm curious about one other thing.
Because Canada and the U.S. were on the same day.
And Mexico is five months later.
Mexico is August 31st.
Interesting.
You know, so many of the, you know, less industrialized countries or third world countries have a much better record.
They pollute much less.
I mean, I guess that's not surprising when you think about it.
But we're not so enlightened is my point.
Also, Joshua Pritt, thank you for pointing that out.
There are solutions on the overshoot website for moving the date.
I'm just kind of fascinated by the list right now.
Can you give us one solution?
That probably would be a good note to end on.
Cities.
Loading.
Please hold.
Get rid of cities.
Is that the solution?
Ooh, move the date 13 days.
If we reduce our footprint from driving by 50% around the world and assume one-third of car miles are replaced by public transportation and the rest by biking and walking, Earth Overshoot Day would move back 13 days.
Wait, is that if everybody on Earth did that?
Yeah, if everybody on Earth did that.
Yeah, that's kind of hard to guarantee.
It's true, but if we can invest in the infrastructure for decent public transit, which is a nice envelope for all the discussion we've had so far this evening, because did we not begin by talking about the MTA?
That's always good, but it also shows just how little such a huge part of our individual contributions is a part of the larger equation, where industry has a lot more control over vast amounts of emissions.
It's just not in their corporate interest, so to speak.
So, yeah, should we all do that?
Yeah.
Should the infrastructure be done?
Yeah.
But there's so many other entities that have contributions.
I'm sure there's a section on that, though.
There's a ton of stuff here.
To find solutions to move Earth Overshoot Day, see what you personally can do.
Visit overshootday.org slash solutions slash food or slash solutions.
And, yes, Joshua Pritt, we all are doing this show from our own home studios.
We have been doing this show remotely since 2020, and that's why we have Off the Hook Overtime, because we don't have our multiple phone numbers, and we don't have the FCC.
We're not subject to FCC regulations here, so if somebody calls in and says something that we can't air, we don't get in trouble for having it on YouTube.
So, yes, we have not done this all together in person in three years.
We're all at home.
But we can't stand each other in person, too.
You might as well tell them that.
Well, I mean, there was that.
I don't want to repeat of the scene we had last time we were together.
I will say it has contributed to lower commuting emissions.
Yeah, because we don't go anywhere.
Yeah.
Definitely, yeah.
Shorter commutes, earlier bedtimes.
Realized time.
Right.
More of an agrarian type of lifestyle.
Yeah.
I like that.
Yes.
Bunch of urban cowboys we are.
It is crazy to think, though, that it's been over three years now, I guess, right?
Hasn't it?
And that last time we got together and then had dinner after the show, like we usually do, it was, we had no idea at that point that it would be the last dinner that we would have together after the show.
And for three years.
I mean, it's crazy, right?
That place went out of business.
Yeah.
Well.
And it's true.
Like, we've basically kept away, but it is also still station policy.
You cannot have a group larger than, I believe, two individuals in the studio.
Well, I think that's overdue that we, you know.
I don't know if we, we haven't been updated on it, but we were keeping a distance basically out of respect for the staff and cramming all of us into one space.
All of us mutually having our own consideration for health and proximity and so to speak.
It's not just personality, but so we're open to doing other configurations in the future.
Absolutely.
But this, you know, it's not a negative thing.
It's a positive thing because it's so damn convenient.
We don't have to, I mean, think of, think of, you know, what we are, as Kyle said, not expending in fuel to drive two hours to get to Brooklyn, you know, for us.
And everybody else has their own way of getting there and then doing things afterwards.
So we are saving quite a bit, both financially and environmentally.
But that doesn't mean we shouldn't do more things in the future together.
And I would like to see that as well.
And that's, you know, activity that the city doesn't realize because we're away.
So the dynamic changes.
You know, we like, you know, exploring, you know, what there is after the show.
And, of course, sharing time with one another, being with one another.
That's important.
I encourage everybody to go out there and be with people as much as you can, too.
And this Friday is a good way to do that at the 2600 meetings all around the world.
In unique ways.
The list will be updated tomorrow for Friday with any new August meetings that might show up.
And if you have an August meeting that you're starting or if you've been having meetings that you didn't tell us about, great time to let us know before tomorrow.
Meetings at 2600.com is the email address.
2600.com slash meetings is the web page.
And, yeah, I think that's a great note to end on.
You, too, may support local places after the meeting with your newfound friends.
Go out to your favorite establishments and buy lots of things and keep them in business.
Because certainly in New York, we're seeing a lot of places close.
We've seen a lot of nightlife disappear.
It's getting better.
You know, I was watching Canadian News the other day, and I heard that Halifax in Nova Scotia has more tourists and economic boom than they did before the pandemic.
A lot of that is because of the indigenous games that just took place up there.
And they had an exhibition CFL game, which drew a lot of people.
Things like that.
It's a smaller place, but, you know, if you show up, you can make a big difference.
So definitely take part in things.
It matters.
All right.
OTH at 2600.com is our email address.
Please write to us with any thoughts or opinions.
Any final words, people?
Go ahead, Rob.
Yep.
You can also, if you're in the Fediverse, find us on Mastodon at offthehookathackers.town.
I also want to give a shout out to there is a community on Lemmy, which is the Fediverse equivalent to things like Reddit, which are themselves also, you know, tearing themselves down as we speak.
But there is a Lemmy community at lemmy.world.
How the hell do you spell that?
Lemmy?
Just like the name.
Just like Lemmy Kilmeister.
L-E-M-M-Y.
I would have put one M in there.
Okay.
L-E-M-M-Y.
And I can't figure out lemmings when you say that.
So, Lemmy.
But I was thinking like Lemmy, like Lemmy Adam, like L-E-M-M-I-E.
Well, that would be L-E-M-M-I-E.
Right.
Well, this service exists and it's federated.
And there is somebody who was running a community, probably still is on Reddit for 2600, but is now doing one on Lemmy as well and really working hard on it.
So, it's the 2600 community on the instance lemmy.world, if you're interested in that sort of thing.
You know what would be a good idea is if somebody wrote all this down and we maybe printed it somewhere because I can't keep track of it all, but it would be nice to have a guide.
We could use a slash.
We will put such a thing out on our Mastodon and Twitter, I think.
All right.
Maybe in the magazine, too.
Yes.
You know, share it with us and we'll probably get it printed.
All right.
Sounds good.
All right.
Well, good night, everybody.
Thanks for doing this.
See you next time.