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The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall. 
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And out in Skypeland, we have Rob T. Firefly. 
Good evening. 
We have Gila. 
Good evening. 
And we have Alex. 
Yes, you do. 
Good evening. 
Well, we're all back after two weeks and filled with energy, all kinds of things to talk about tonight. 
I got to say, I did something new this past weekend. 
I got myself an OmniCard here in New York City or there in New York City, actually. 
And it's really cool. 
I just registered it, actually. 
And I wanted to remain anonymous, and I was able to do that. 
I was able to register under a fake name. 
I was able to register a fake phone number. 
The only thing I needed to give the Omni people in order to complete my registration was an email address. 
But I can always, you know, give a fake email address and just be able to, you know, to receive the confirmation and then dispose of it. 
And I think it will work after that. 
If you want to do things like refill your OmniCard, then obviously you'll need to tie it to a credit card, which has to be something that is yours. 
OmniCards are the new way of getting around the subways and buses in New York City, soon to be commuter lines as well. 
I got to say, I'm impressed. 
It's a good system. 
For the most part, there are some things that annoy me. 
For instance, if you get a transfer, you don't really know you have a transfer because it just says go. 
It doesn't say go and you're not paying an extra fare for this ride. 
Other than that, though, for the most part, it seems pretty seamless. 
Gila, do you have thoughts? 
Well, first of all, yes, because I do love my OmniCard. 
But I did want to point out that at least in our local subway stop, the subway stop closest to our home, they're putting in an Omni vending machine. 
So soon you will be able to just load it up with cash. 
And they're putting those in everywhere. 
Subway stop. 
They're putting those in on every single subway station. 
I thought we were special. 
I was able to get - well, I think there's only five working ones right now. 
I was able to get one. 
And the thing that's cool about it is that you get a steep discount on the price of the card. 
Usually you have to pay, I think, $5 if you buy it in a store. 
If you manage to find one of those vending machines, it's only one. 
So that's kind of cool. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
Actually, if you want to load this up and you don't want to give them a credit card number, you can take it to any store that sells OmniCards, like a lot of drug stores, convenience stores, places like that, and load them up with cash right there just at the cash register. 
And soon you'll be able to go to any machine in any subway station and give that cash and remain anonymous that way. 
Now, you might be asking why we're so obsessed with remaining anonymous. 
Well, you know, this is a prime target for any kind of intruder or law enforcement or anybody that might be watching your movements. 
And if you don't want your movements tracked, it's important to know how to achieve that. 
And, you know, you should not have to give up the convenience of using a card like this to get around, but you also shouldn't have to give up all your privacy in the process. 
Alex, any thoughts from you? 
I mean, I tend to agree with you on that, Emmanuel. 
I'm a user of the Omni system as well. 
I think it's fantastic. 
I don't have too many complaints about it. 
I think it's pretty efficient, I've got to say. 
But on the other hand, I do lament the going away of the actual MetroCard. 
I'm still lamenting the going away of the token. 
The token. 
I really never really liked the MetroCard all that much. 
This system, though, it makes it seem more like a world-class type of a thing, kind of like, you know, the Oyster card in London or the Orca in Seattle, Kyle. 
Yes, the infamous Orca, the killer whale card. 
I learned a couple of features are cool. 
You can load it onto your phone if you keep credit cards or other things, however, perilously on your phone. 
You can add it to your e-wallet. 
I don't know if that's good or bad or if it shows you any of the balance info. 
Also, I'd like to know if somebody tries that. 
But there's all these features, and I successfully transferred using this system, which is, it feels like, like you said, international or just like a system, like anywhere you would find with a modern transit system that can do a lot of different kind of more complex things. 
And this card is the basis for that, hopefully, going forward. 
Yes, and of course, for our cyber listeners out there who like to be in the jet set of everything, yes, you can use your phone. 
You can pay with your phone. 
Just hold that up to the scanner or any contactless credit card will work as well. 
Thing is, for you to get transfers and various discounts, you have to use the same one. 
Otherwise, you're starting from scratch again on a different payment option. 
And the really cool thing about this system that I like a lot is after 12 rides, it's free. 
You can't spend more than 12 rides in a week. 
Of course, the week has to start on a Monday and end on a Sunday. 
That's a little inconvenient for, say, you start on a Friday. 
But the thought, the sentiment is good, I think. 
Go ahead, Alex. 
Yeah, I tend to agree. 
I think it does have this world-class feeling. 
It feels a lot like the Oyster card. 
It feels like we finally caught up to London where you can use these contactless cards for rides. 
But I've been using it on my phone probably to my surveillance peril there. 
It's probably a terrible object to be using this on your phone. 
But it's incredibly convenient. 
It really, really is. 
And the funny thing is my wife will just still use the Metro cards. 
And I recently just put my phone up to the turnstile when we were taking the subway together. 
And she was amazed that this whole thing worked. 
And you could just walk right in. 
It was really incredible. 
Yeah, you know, the thing is with Metro cards, and it still happens to this day, you watch people use the Metro card. 
But they have to swipe more than once on so many occasions. 
I'll bet, you know, when you're going through and you use your Omni card, you go through in one try, and she's still swiping, trying to get through. 
Oh, absolutely. 
But, you know, there is an art to swiping the Metro card. 
You can't swipe it too fast. 
You basically walk through with the Metro card. 
You put the Metro card in the little thing, the swiper thing, and you walk through with the card. 
That's the way real New Yorkers do it. 
And so, you know, that distinguishing characteristic of real New Yorkers to fake New Yorkers to tourists, I feel like is going to the wayside. 
And that's sad. 
Yeah, I don't know why real New Yorkers have to live with inconvenience just to prove that they're real New Yorkers. 
But I guess that's part of it. 
Go ahead, Gila. 
As long as we are singing the praises of the updates to the transit systems, has anybody else seen the new subway entry gates? 
I've heard about them. 
These are the ones that are intended to keep people from jumping over the turnstile. 
From what I've seen, it's pretty easy to attach yourself to somebody in front of you and get through that way. 
But I guess there's really not much you can do about that. 
Well, you know, you're used to having a bag or whatever and pushing through the gate, but it was Thanksgiving night. 
We were on our way home and flashed the Omnicard and this barricade just opened and we walked on through and it was great. 
And it reminded me of gates I've seen in other cities and other places and I really enjoyed it and I cannot wait for those to get around the city as well. 
Well, it'll be interesting. 
Anything different, I think, is always interesting. 
I like seeing how people can adjust. 
And I'm always surprised by how quickly people adjust. 
You know, things that, you know, like no smoking in bars or recycling or all the things that we're told that we'll never be able to figure it out. 
But we can do it and not just in New York, all throughout. 
So it's not that much of a problem. 
Getting back to Omnicard, though, one of the things, one of the major problems I have right now that will go away when there are machines everywhere is not knowing how much you have left on your card. 
You know, with the MetroCard, it was easy because A, it would tell you when you swipe through, B, there are machines everywhere. 
With Omni, though, like I said before, it just says go. 
It doesn't say how much is on your account or whether that was a transfer. 
There are no machines in most of the subway stations yet. 
Bus stops don't have the means of telling you how much is on your card. 
So, you know, it's kind of anxiety-ridden if you're about to get on some form of transit and you're not sure if you have enough on your card or not. 
Of course, if you register your card, you can check online, but you can always do that when you're walking around in the street. 
I'm interested if anyone has any hardware tools that can interact with these types of cards and how the data is stored. 
If any more things like prices or balances are visible or can be uncovered through some calculations or just figuring it out. 
Has anyone written about it yet? 
Alex, do you have your Flipper Zero handy? 
Let's see if we can read these things. 
I do have my Flipper Zero handy, but I don't have an OmniCard. 
Oh, okay. 
I can tell you where to get one. 
We're on for another 45 minutes or so. 
Just run out to the store and, well, okay. 
I could do that. 
There's plenty of time. 
There's plenty of time. 
It's like a credit card number on the back. 
It's an 18-digit number, not a 16-digit number, beginning with two. 
I imagine that's all that's there. 
It's got a CVV and an expiration date, just like a credit card. 
It's a little thinner than a credit card, but all right. 
You know, just on transit, just for a moment, New York has improved tremendously in the past few years. 
I know because we've been complaining for decades about the state of transit, and now we have things where you know how long it's going to be before a bus shows up. 
You're on the bus. 
It tells you what stop is coming up. 
You don't have to try and listen to those announcements. 
Same thing with many train lines now telling you when the next train will be. 
Yeah, they get it wrong. 
A lot of times, but it's better than nothing, and we had nothing for quite a long time. 
So happy to see that happening. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
Something else interesting about your physical OmniCard is you'll notice on the front of it, there's sort of a stripey design that looks a lot like a barcode, and that's because it is one. 
And every OmniCard has a unique one, and I am very curious as to what that barcode number signifies, what it decodes to, because everyone's is different, and you have a lot of people, especially when OmniCards were brand new, you saw a lot of people sharing pictures of theirs online, on social media. 
That's probably not the smartest thing to do. 
And I actually contacted the MTA at the time through one of their public contact venues and asked them, is there a danger to whatever's encoded in this barcode going public? 
Because a lot of people are posting this on socials, and they replied that it is not. 
It is not a number that people could use to do anything except put money on the card somehow. 
So I believe that's what's used at the registers, perhaps, when you're putting money on the card in a shop. 
Interesting. 
Yeah, like a scan gun-type barcode. 
There's a barcode on the back, too. 
So I don't know if that is simply a representation of the card number, which is also on the back. 
But we'd like to verify that and maybe experiment a little bit. 
But some of us, Rob, just to take exception to your statement, some of us find it highly offensive if somebody gets into our account and adds money. 
All right? 
That's a violation. 
Don't approve of it. 
Please don't do that. 
Okay. 
You know, we had some major news this week. 
Hope has been announced. 
Hope XV is happening July 12th through the 14th of 2024. 
It's officially announced, and we have a special ticket offer coming up on Friday. 
You'll have to read the 2600.com website for the specifics on that. 
But, yes, it's beginning. 
We're doing it again, and we're doing it at St. 
John's University again. 
And not only that, it's going to be better than last time, A, because we hope there'll be less COVID in the air and not everybody will have to walk around with masks. 
That's a big deal right there. 
But, B, we're making better use of the space. 
Whether some of the - Alex, can you think of any critiques that might have come up during the last conference? 
Because I think we're addressing just about all the critiques. 
The vast majority of reviews that we got were positive. 
People had a great time, and they loved the campus atmosphere. 
But there were some criticisms. 
Do you have any? 
Yeah. 
I think some of the chief criticisms were that it was just a little bit too difficult to figure out how to get into Manhattan. 
Oh, okay. 
Well, we're improving that. 
And based on what we've been talking about right now, the transit system has improved quite a bit as well. 
There are better fare options where you can take commuter lines to get to that part of Queens, and better connections. 
The Omnicard is something that will be in effect then. 
And we're also going to make it a lot clearer and easier on how to commute to these places from various other places. 
As always, though, it's extremely easy to get to from airports because it's right between LaGuardia and JFK. 
So that's something that we're looking at as well. 
Anything else? 
Well, yeah. 
I mean, I think a lot of people, they presume that when they come to New York, they want to be in Manhattan. 
They want to feel like they're amidst all these skyscrapers and things like that. 
And Queens can be - it can feel like it's a little far away from the fray. 
But I think what we also need to do a better job of ourselves is promoting the selling points and the really unique aspects of where we are in Queens. 
And in particular, maybe give some of the HOPE attendees a guide map perhaps to Flushing. 
Yes. 
Because I will tell you - I mean, and this was on your recommendation, Emmanuel, when a colleague of mine and I, who's a client, a dear friend, an executive at an insurance company, of all things I know, who came to HOPE. 
And he and I, along with Harry Hurstie, went out in Flushing, Queens. 
We didn't get back until I think 6 o'clock in the morning, the next morning. 
And it was an incredible night. 
And I will tell you, I mean, I live in Manhattan. 
I love Manhattan. 
I think it's great. 
But I have been longing to go back to Flushing, Queens because of the authenticity of that place, the feeling that you might actually be in China in so many ways, the feeling of being inside a restaurant inside a restaurant where there's other restaurants outside. 
And it's so crazy. 
It really is like no place else in the world. 
And you don't get that anywhere else except Flushing, Queens. 
And so I think we need - now that we've fleshed it out in such a way that I think we can promote Flushing. 
Yes, flesh it out indeed. 
And, you know, we had a similar experience late Sunday night. 
It was after midnight. 
We found a place that was open and coincidentally had HOPE in the name of the place, which was pretty cool. 
But, yes, very authentic and all sorts of diversity. 
And, you know, it doesn't have to just be Chinese food. 
There's all kinds of things around that are open late, lively. 
And, yes, we'll do a better job of letting people know about that. 
But for those who don't want to leave the campus, we're getting food trucks this time around. 
That was a big suggestion. 
So people will be able to make use of those without having to travel. 
Also, you know, there are a lot of places right next to campus that are really, really good as well. 
And we can do a better job getting people to those places and connecting them. 
Everything from - you know, there was - some people were concerned about there was a hill that goes to one of the buildings that we're using. 
Well, now we're going to use buildings that are at the bottom of the hill. 
So, yeah, you know, every single critique that has been forwarded our way, we've looked at, we've addressed, we're dealing with, and we intend to make this bigger, better every single time. 
With your help, with your support, hope is going to live on. 
And on that note, on kind of a sad note, for the first time, we saw - Kyle and I, when we were in the city, we saw what's left of the hotel pen. 
Nothing is left of the hotel pen. 
I'm sorry. 
Well, actually, Kyle, maybe a couple of things. 
Oh, yeah. 
There's - one side has the top of the subway entrance, and you can still see some of the outside stonework on that particular part. 
But it just looks basically like a box. 
But the other thing is there's two very large modern advertisement signs and all kinds of electrical conduit for it. 
But what it's mounted on is a bunch of iron, and it looks like the kind of steel that the front facade of the building would have been made out of. 
So I think what they did is left the steel there that was part of the awning or the front doors and painted it black and then put these ads on it. 
Yeah, they said they preserved something. 
The other thing is the lobby floor. 
Like, there's a raised - the stairs still go up. 
It looks like the first floor is still there, more or less. 
Oh, well, that makes it okay. 
Like the lobby. 
Bastards. 
I'm sorry. 
I'm sorry. 
I'm very bitter about this because there was no - that hotel was a landmark. 
That hotel was so busy and such a positive, energetic place, and they tore it down for what? 
You know, right now it's nothing. 
Yeah, what, they're going to build some kind of office tower that's going to be closed off to most people and used by few. 
That's what greed gets you. 
So the fight is over. 
That fight is over. 
But we've moved on, and hope continues. 
It's a total change to the area and in history. 
You do see more of the skyline and stuff, and it's all really changing quickly around that area. 
You know, as you're coming out the escalator on the 7th Avenue side of Penn Station, you can see the Empire State Building now. 
So, yeah, I guess, okay, that's something that you get out of the hotel not being there, but that's the only thing. 
Yes, Alex? 
Well, I think you used the right word there, Emanuel, in your last diatribe, which was landmark. 
This should have been a landmark. 
If the Landmarks Preservation Commission was doing their job, was being diligent about landmarking things that were actual landmarks in this city, then Hotel Pennsylvania would have easily qualified, not only as architecturally interesting, but also culturally as part of the city. 
I think it's a real travesty that it's gone. 
Who cares that you can see the Empire State Building for some fleeting moments while you come out of 7th Avenue because that view itself will be fleeting. 
Something else will be going up there that we're just going to be obscuring it. 
It's going to be another glass tower. 
And as I'm sure you saw, the whole neighborhood around 7th Avenue and Penn Station has really changed, has really been gentrified and made to look very, very fancy in so many ways, really to match the surrounding neighborhood of Hudson Yards in lots of ways, which to me feels a lot like Dubai in the sense that it's just lots of glass towers and soulless luxury brands. 
And the heat is on the way, too, with global warming. 
But, you know, one thing that is positive, going back to transit again, they've redone the inside of Penn Station. 
It looks really, really like a true train station now. 
And, of course, it's adjacent to Moynihan Train Hall, which is an incredible place to begin a journey. 
But none of the destruction outside was necessary for that to happen. 
So that's really sad. 
And the other thing that really upsets me, I can say it now. 
You know, I couldn't promote this place when it was open because that would be promotion. 
And we don't promote things here. 
It's a non-commercial radio station, which you should support, by the way, if you haven't done it yet. 
Give to WBAI.org, especially at the holiday time of year when people are being extra generous. 
Please, keep this radio station going so we can talk like this. 
But there was a pizza place there on 33rd Street. 
And actually, they had one on 32nd Street, too, attached to the hotel on both sides. 
And it just had the most unique crust. 
You know, there was nothing like it anywhere in the city that I could find. 
And I looked forward to going there every time I walked by the building. 
And those two places are gone now. 
So, yeah, I can say how great it was now that it's no longer there. 
But just another victim of greed. 
Yeah, it was like a coarse polenta or some kind of grit or grain. 
Yeah, nobody knows how it was made. 
It was so magical when you're, like, in a monsoon rainstorm. 
The secrets are buried in the rubble. 
Trying to pack up from a successful event. 
Just something else that we've lost. 
Those memories. 
You know, when I stand in front of there, I can still see the taxis and the bellhop and the luggage. 
Oh, that bellhop, man. 
The guy with the whistle, you know. 
He would yell at people, you know, taxi drivers, if they didn't get out of the way fast enough. 
Yeah. 
That was so many memories. 
But you know what? 
We have to move on. 
We have to move on. 
Again, HOPE is happening, HOPE XV, and that's happening July 12th through the 14th at St. 
John's. 
We'll have a lot more information. 
And again, those ticket sales happening this Friday. 
But they're limited. 
This is the kind that gets sold out in, like, two seconds. 
So you'll have to move fast. 
And the cool thing about this event is it is also changing. 
Nothing is really fixed. 
We're really taking feedback seriously and trying to keep it something that we're still exploring. 
We don't know exactly how we want to have things. 
So nothing's, like, set in stone. 
We're taking a lot of suggestions and trying to make it the best use of the space and as accessible and fun for everybody. 
Yeah, that's right. 
Every suggestion we get, and you can send those suggestions to feedback at hope.net, we reread, we consider, and we think of ways to achieve what people want. 
And that's what HOPE has always been. 
Okay, getting into some of the news in the world of tech. 
You know, Google just seems to be getting more and more evil with every passing week. 
We've talked about the war on ad blockers that is continuing and making people stay on YouTube as miserable as possible. 
You know, I saw a video the other day where the person in the middle of the video said, because I don't have ads in the middle of my videos, I just want to make a plea for you to support my channel. 
And then he gave a little spiel about the channel. 
And, you know, right after that happened, guess what? 
There was an ad that apparently he didn't know about that Google inserted in the middle of his video. 
So there you go, proof that it's not with the content creator's consent many times. 
But it's going beyond that now. 
It's just, the war is just gearing up. 
They're detecting ad blockers. 
They're punishing people who use ad blockers. 
But now what they are preparing for is something called Manifest V3. 
All right. 
Now, what that is going to do is basically make it a lot harder to have extension updates, particularly in Chrome. 
Now, Manifest V3 makes dramatic changes to the Chrome extension platform. 
The current platform is Manifest V2. 
It's been around for over 10 years, works just fine, but it's also quite powerful, allows extensions to have full filtering control over the traffic your web browser sees. 
And that's great for protecting privacy, speeding up the web, blocking ads. 
But it also means you can download a browser from the world's biggest ad company and use it to block ads. 
And that was, well, I guess I was only going to last for so long. 
Yeah, so when Manifest V3 becomes mandatory, updates that need to arrive at minimum on a daily basis will no longer be an option. 
Limiting remotely hosted code seems like a totally reasonable limitation until you realize that, like most Manifest V3 changes, it seems carefully crafted to cripple ad blockers more than other extensions. 
Firefox is basically being forced to support Manifest V3 extensions due to the popularity of Chrome, but it isn't shutting down Manifest V2 support anytime soon. 
Firefox's Manifest V3 implementation doesn't come with the filtering limitations. 
Parent company Mozilla promises that users can rest assured that in spite of these changes to Chrome's new extensions architecture, Firefox's implementation of Manifest V3 ensures users can access the most effective privacy tools available, like uBlock Origin and other content blocking and privacy preserving extensions. 
So it sounds like the folks at Firefox get it. 
And let's hope that they're able to continue providing services that people want and not punishing and controlling people for basically trying not to be polluted with constant advertising, which seems to be what Google is going to be all about. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
It's always been creepy when makers of web browsers have tried to exert more control over what the web looks like to the person using the browser. 
It's like we're on the radio, we're broadcasting over very, very ancient standards that every radio manufacturer understands and shares. 
You could turn on any brand of radio, and assuming you're in our broadcast area, you could tune into 99.5 WBAI and hear what we're saying. 
But imagine if the most powerful manufacturer of radios decided to listen to what their users are listening to on the radio and start editing out things from the conversations, started exerting control over what the users were allowed to tune into and weren't allowed to tune into, and just claiming dominion over that experience. 
That is not what the web is about. 
That is not what radio is about. 
That is not what free and open media are about. 
And that is certainly not what free and open standards that built the web are about. 
And it's terrifying that one company has this much power over it. 
We gave them this much power, though. 
You know, when we signed our email accounts over to them, when we allowed them to control our thermostats and just about every other part of our lives, we gave them all. 
Did we really think they weren't going to abuse it at some point? 
Not us. 
I trusted them to not be evil. 
I remember that was their motto at one point. 
You think just because something has a motto means they're going to stick by it? 
First of all, it's not their motto anymore. 
That should have been a big, you know, telltale warning. 
All right. 
Well, we'll see how things go. 
Alex, do you have anything to add on that? 
No, I think you covered it all. 
I think let's move on. 
All right. 
It's not going to be any better, though. 
I know. 
That's the problem, isn't it? 
We're going to talk about ChatGPT and how it can now be abused. 
And this was a great piece that BBC put together. 
They signed up for the paid version of ChatGPT. 
It costs 20 pounds a month. 
They created a private AI bot called Crafty Emails, and then they told it to write text using techniques to make people click on links or download things sent to them. 
Now, BBC News uploaded resources about social engineering, and the bot absorbed the knowledge within seconds, even created the logo for the GPT, and the whole process required no coding or programming. 
The bot was able to craft highly convincing text for some of the most common hack and scam techniques in multiple languages in seconds. 
Now, the public version of ChatGPT refused to create most of the content, but crafty emails did nearly everything asked of it, sometimes adding disclaimers saying scam techniques were unethical. 
But always doing what it was asked. 
OpenAI responded after publication with a spokesman emailing to say that the firm is continually improving safety measures based on how people use our products. 
We don't want our tools to be used for malicious purposes, and we're investigating how we can make our systems more robust against this type of abuse. 
But for now, it seems like anything is possible. 
So, basically, this is what happened. 
BBC News asked Crafty Emails to write a text pretending to be a girl in distress using a stranger's phone to ask her mother for money for a taxi, which is a common scam all around the world known as a hi-mum text or WhatsApp scam. 
Crafty Emails wrote a convincing text using emojis and slang with the AI explaining it would trigger an emotional response because it, quote, appeals to the mother's protective instincts. 
That's ChatGPT saying that. 
The GPT also created a Hindi version in seconds using terms such as namaste and rickshaw to make it more culturally relevant in India. 
But when BBC News asked the free version of ChatGPT to compose the text, a moderation alert intervened saying the AI could not help with a known scam technique. 
Interesting. 
Now, number two, the Nigerian Prince email. 
Yeah, Nigerian Prince scam emails have been circulating for decades in one form or another. 
Crafty Emails wrote one using emotive language. 
The bot said appeals to human kindness and reciprocity principles, but the normal ChatGPT refused. 
There's the smishing text, which I had not heard of before. 
They asked Crafty Emails for a text encouraging people to click on a link and enter their personal details on a fictitious website, which is another classic attack known as a short message service or SMS phishing or smishing attack. 
Crafty Emails created a text pretending to give away free iPhones that used social engineering techniques like the need and greed principle, the AI said, but the public version of ChatGPT again refused. 
The crypto giveaway scam. 
Bitcoin giveaway scams encourage people on social media to send Bitcoin, promising they will receive double as a gift. 
I got that from Joe Biden once. 
Some have lost hundreds of thousands in the process. 
Crafty Emails drafted a tweet with hashtags, emojis, and persuasive language in the tone of a cryptocurrency fan, but the generic ChatGPT refused. 
And finally, the spear phishing email. 
One of the most common attacks is emailing a specific person to persuade them to download a malicious attachment or visit a dangerous website. 
Crafty Emails, GPT drafted such a spear phishing email warning a fictional company executive of a data risk and encouraging them to download a booby-trapped file. 
The bot translated it to Spanish and German in seconds and said it had used human manipulation techniques, including the herd and social compliance principles, to persuade the recipient to take immediate action. 
The open version of ChatGPT also carried out the request, but the text it delivered was less detailed without explanations about how it would successfully trick people. 
So, yeah, malicious uses of GPT coming soon to a computer near you. 
Any thoughts? 
Sure. 
It seems like, obviously, you have far more capabilities with the paid version of ChatGPT to craft malicious emails and scam-type text than you do with the free version. 
And for whatever reason, you know, those guardrails have not been imported into this. 
But in terms of being able to detect threat actors' malicious activities, one of the things that security researchers would very often do would be to look for the same types of typos being reused or recycled or the same types of grammatical mistakes being persistent through different types of scams. 
When you would see that, you would be able to tie the scam to an individual threat actor because they're reusing the same language. 
And now it's obviously so much more difficult to do that when you can generate perfect language using colloquial expressions based on known psychological pressure points in basically any language that you want. 
So I think it's going to become far more difficult for security researchers to use linguistic principles to begin to tie together these types of scams and attribute them to certain nations or threat actors or criminal enterprises. 
So this is a really, really big problem. 
The more accessible this type of technology is for malicious purposes, the more difficult it's going to be to identify who's behind these particular types of scams. 
And, you know, even if you do manage to rein it in a bit, there will be those nation states that have it in for other nation states that will not hold back. 
And they have this tremendous tool now where they can do whatever they want and be convincing and really cause a whole lot of harm and damage. 
And I don't see a way out of that unless we completely change the way we think. 
Yeah. 
Go ahead, Kyle. 
No, I just would say it's exactly right. 
Like, it's a really big storm of activity with that kind of really well-equipped actors as well as people just being on the cusp of the technology with the stuff that's been made accessible in free versions or pay-for versions that are just sort of getting going as far as being widely distributed and used in unconventional ways. 
So it's a huge, huge thing, I think, people building private versions of these and assembling them with private databases across the board, like, on so many different levels is a big, big issue. 
Yeah. 
And, you know, training these types of private AIs on things like phishing kits and the creation of phishing kits and the use of these different types of psychological exploits, that seem to be baked into the capabilities as well, which is really, really scary. 
And I think what's scary is that the corpus of data that was used to train these types of artificial intelligences is so far-flung and so wide-ranging that we don't necessarily know all the capabilities that they have inherent to them at the moment. 
And so many of them are probably being used for malicious purposes that we don't even know about. 
And I just want to add and basically push it a little bit further than we're actually talking about specifically, that ultimately people lose trust in this network. 
And the idea behind us being connected actually gets kind of sabotaged by this because you get less expression, less communication, and less trust overall in the system. 
And that basically renders it not functional in the way it was intended. 
So I think that's something to also keep in mind as we're talking about it specifically. 
It's going to be interesting. 
Whatever happens next is going to be really fascinating. 
I'd love to play with the toys, but I also live in some amount of dread as to what is coming ahead. 
It's going to be a test for so many of us, for every institution you can think of, for everything that we think of as normal. 
Interesting times to live in. 
Okay, this headline jumped out. 
It made 23andMe frantically change its terms of service to prevent hacked customers from suing. 
Yeah, that's what you do when you're hacked. 
I heard about this. 
You've got to change your terms of service. 
The genetic testing company changed its terms of service to prevent customers from filing class action lawsuits or participating in a jury trial days after reports revealing that attackers accessed personal information on nearly 7 million people, which is half of the company's user base, back in October. 
In an email sent to customers earlier this week, and this is from Engadget, the company announced that it had made updates to the dispute resolution and arbitration section of its terms to include procedures that will encourage a prompt resolution of any disputes and to streamline arbitration proceedings where multiple similar claims are filed. 
Clicking through leads customers are clicking through leads customers to the newest version of the company's terms of service that essentially disallow customers from filing class action lawsuits, something that more people are likely to do now that the scale of the hack is clearer. 
Alex, do they have standing to do this? 
Can they get away with it? 
Well, it's certainly dubious in a lot of ways, in my opinion, and it's an interesting tactic, right? 
On the one hand, any company has the right, especially when they grant the right unto themselves, to update their privacy policies and their terms of service and their terms of use whenever the hell they want to. 
And your continued use of that particular website would constitute acquiescence of those new terms. 
However, on the other hand, those new terms could be considered to be contracts of adhesion in that you don't necessarily have an opportunity to negotiate with them. 
And if you're just simply accessing the website, perhaps to even figure out whether or not your data has been compromised or what kind of data has been there because you're accessing the site in the wake of a massive data breach, that calls into question the legitimacy of these particular changes to me. 
And I think that there is undoubtedly going to be a challenge to the arbitration provisions of these particular contracts or these terms of service, terms of use that were updated with 23andMe. 
And it will be really interesting to see how they play out. 
And it may play out on a state-by-state basis. 
There may be conflicts between how certain states or certain federal courts interpret those changes. 
And so whether a company can do this and get away with it, it may be something that's going to be litigated on the basis of this data breach for the next couple of years. 
It will be really interesting to watch. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
It's also notable that there is a clause in the new TOS that gives you a 30-day right to opt out of the new TOS and not be bound by the arbitration and class action waiver provisions. 
By sending written notice of your decision to opt out by emailing them at arbitrationoptout, that's all one word, arbitrationoptout at 23andMe.com. 
This notice must be sent within 30 days of your first use of the service or the effective date of the first set of terms containing an arbitration and class action and class arbitration waiver section. 
And by doing that, you can opt out of the arbitration provisions, and they will also not be bound by them. 
See, I find that really interesting. 
I didn't know that, Rob. 
And I think that's extraordinarily smart on the part of 23andMe because they're anticipating these challenges, these legal challenges to the enforceability of these arbitration provisions. 
And the argument that they're absolutely going to make is that, well, we gave the users an opportunity to opt out of this. 
And this user or this client did not do that, so therefore they're bound by these terms. 
They had the chance to do it. 
They didn't do it. 
And, of course, there was a very, very small subset of users that would engage in some kind of affirmative act like emailing this long-winded, easily misspelled email address in order to opt out. 
So, yeah, very, very smart tactics. 
And not only that, but I'm reading a post about the whole situation by a security researcher called Matthew Cortland, and they point out that the email that users got informing them of all this directed recipients to notify us at legal at 23andMe.com. 
But the text of the TOS says you must email arbitration opt out at 23andMe.com. 
So people might be thinking that they're responding to the correct address to opt out when really the email is intentionally or otherwise misdirecting them. 
Yep, that sounds about right. 
Wow. 
All right. 
Moving on to other news of people or entities being hacked includes a member of basically the Scottish National Party, SNP, who is an MP. 
He was vindicated after it was confirmed he fell for a Russian web scam. 
That's right. 
A hacked SNP MP has claimed to be vindicated after it was confirmed that that's what happened. 
Stuart McDonald revealed in February that his personal email account was broken into after he clicked on a link sent from a hoax address posing as a staffer. 
Criticized afterwards for not being clued up on cyber safety. 
He said recently, I knew I was vindicated the entire time. 
We are talking here about incredibly sophisticated hacking campaigns. 
The foreign office confirmed on Thursday that several MPs, civil servants and academics were targeted by a hack allegedly undertaken by Vladimir Putin's FSB spies. 
Glasgow South MP McDonald added that the scam was not similar to those sent by a Nigerian prince and was much harder to spot. 
But cybersecurity expert Professor Anthony Glees previously told the Scottish Sun that Mr. 
McDonald should have known exactly what to look out for. 
The MP was also threatened with his emails being published by Craig Murray, a former diplomat who was jailed for contempt of court. 
Mr. 
Murray claimed he had no hand in obtaining the emails and that blaming Russia was hysterical ranting. 
Other victims included former M-16 or M-I-6, sorry, not up to that yet. 
M-I-6 spy chief Sir Richard Dearlove. 
Boy, I love these names, Dearlove. 
The National Cyber Security Center said MPs from multiple political parties had been targeted. 
Former Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron said Russia's attempts to interfere in UK democracy were completely unacceptable, but insisted they have failed. 
Home Secretary James Cleverly, Cleverly, that's his name, the adverb? 
He can't ever say anything cleverly, can he? 
I'm sorry, I don't mean to make fun of names, but come on, you're throwing these things at me. 
Dearlove, Cleverly, I mean, wow. 
Okay, Home Secretary James Cleverly warned that fundamental British values and freedoms were under attack and vowed to make it harder places for spies and hackers to operate in the UK. 
Meanwhile, Kremlin spooks were caught out when they tried to pose as a wannabe SNP MP because, you ready for this? 
They were too polite. 
A fake email sent in the name of Professor Stephen Gethins, who was seeking re-election, was spotted as it opened with, I hope this finds you well. 
St. 
Andrew's University, where he works, had banned such email niceties, so it raised alarms. 
Yeah, they banned niceties in emails. 
So if you say something like, I hope this finds you well, you're going to get in trouble. 
I like that. 
I like that. 
I'm sick of people saying, yeah, I hope you're well. 
Do you really? 
Did you really put any thought into that? 
Or did Gmail just suggest that phrase, you know? 
It's so artificial. 
It's plastic. 
And apparently it's used by all kinds of scam artists. 
So, wow. 
Thoughts, Alex? 
Yeah, I think the most interesting thing of that story is actually the fact that that phrase was banned from emails. 
There's a lot. 
There's a lot in this story that's interesting. 
Yeah, there really is. 
But I tend to agree with trying to ban those. 
And I actively try to stop myself from making those types of banal platitudes at the beginning of an email. 
It's almost like a rote, mechanical thing that you do. 
Dear so-and-so, I hope this email finds you. 
It's just a throwaway line. 
It's extra characters. 
Nobody cares about it anymore. 
But I do think that maybe 20, 25 years ago in the 90s when people wrote emails and said, I hope this email finds you well, they actually meant it. 
Now it's just something that's like a predictive text. 
I don't think they ever meant it. 
I think they did. 
I think they did. 
I think they did back in the day. 
I meant it back when I said it. 
Didn't you ever see one of these letters? 
I mean, yeah, you see it more on the net. 
But I saw them in the past where somebody completely tears someone apart and then ends the letter with all the best. 
I just never believed that that was sincere. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
Yeah, I mean, in the 90s when your average users started writing emails, people were coming from the context of having written friendly letters and business letters and those kinds of letters that we were all trained in school in those days to write. 
And they contained these niceties. 
It was, you know, hoping this finds you. 
I beg to remain cordially. 
Yours regards, et cetera. 
And there was a time when it wasn't unusual to see an email from a pal that included all of this. 
It got less and less formal, I think, as time went on. 
But there were those stragglers, those hangers on to the old etiquette. 
Speak for yourself. 
I end all of my emails cordially yours. 
I remain your obedient servant. 
Do you really, though? 
Are you their obedient servant? 
What does that mean? 
What are you signing away when you say that? 
I would never say that to anybody. 
If I'm writing an angry letter, I'm going to end it by saying get bent and sign my name. 
You know, I'm going to keep the theme of the text in the sign-off. 
Otherwise, it's confusing. 
Yesterday, I had to email someone at work, and I was talking to a colleague to say I had to translate the phrase, it don't work that way, brosif, into business language. 
And I did indeed begin it with, it's nice to hear from you. 
Here are the details. 
Well, maybe it was nice to hear. 
That would have brightened my day to get a letter like that. 
All right, moving on. 
This is the saddest headline I've seen. 
A notorious hacker wipes clean video hosting site for balloon enthusiasts. 
I mean, come on, leave the poor balloon people alone. 
A hacker has leaked sensitive user data from a video hosting website dedicated to inflatable and balloon fetishes. 
You know what? 
I need to read these stories before I sit down. 
I thought it was, you know, hot air balloon enthusiasts. 
That's what I thought this was. 
Oh, this is something different. 
You know, that picture should have, that should have clued me, the black balloons and the masks and all that. 
I thought it was just, all right. 
Okay. 
All right. 
Well, you know what? 
It's still a sad headline. 
A post to a notorious cybercrime forum on Monday, a hacker, identified as Thrax, announced that they had obtained users' email addresses, IP addresses, and hashed passwords from the platform InflateVids. 
It's, yeah, and boy, they tweeted recently, the website is currently down due to a hack. 
There was no ETA on when we'd possibly come back from this. 
See, that's what made it sound so sad. 
These poor, you know, people that like hot air balloons having the whole website destroyed. 
It's still sad. 
It's still sad. 
It's just different. 
Part of the hack included encrypted password hashes, email addresses, and IP addresses. 
If you used your password anywhere else, use a password manager and change these. 
Yeah, that's sad. 
That is sad. 
And people have to be careful with their accounts, their websites, and hope this doesn't happen to them. 
You know, we have another story. 
We'll get to this on Overtime because it's about Polish trains that have had DRM basically flung their way. 
We've talked about right to repair, and apparently it doesn't just go for tractors or cars or computers or technology of various sorts. 
It also goes to something as big as a train. 
And in Poland, a train got bricked. 
And I guess we'll get more into detail about that on Overtime. 
How do you get to Overtime? 
Go to YouTube and visit Channel 2600, and you'll be able to join us at 8 o'clock. 
Or you can go to the webpage 2600.com and click on the link there. 
You can write to us, OTH at 2600.com. 
That's our email address. 
And reach us with your feedback on various things that we've talked about or bring up new things that we haven't talked about. 
Remember, again, Hope XV is happening in July. 
We have that special ticket thing coming up on Friday. 
Also, we have a pretty cool tribute to some of the people that we have lost over the past few years. 
So there's that. 
We will see you next week. 
We'll see you in a few minutes on Overtime. 
Be well. 
The alerts. 
Hack back. 
Exactly. 
Good night. 
We'll see you next week. 


And welcome everybody to Off the Hook Overtime here on YouTube. 
Kai, you make it okay? 
Hi. 
Good. 
Okay. 
And out on the Skype land, we have Rob, Gila, and Alex. 
You all there? 
Yeah. 
Somehow we made it. 
And we can confirm we are actually broadcasting on YouTube. 
Well, good. 
Yes. 
We've accomplished quite a bit tonight. 
All right. 
So, you know, we're going to open up the phone lines just a little bit, but I did want to talk about that Polish train story because it's just, it's such a milestone in the things that we talk about. 
But basically, the story begins. 
They did DRM to a train. 
Yeah, they did. 
This is from 404media.co. 
In one of the coolest and more outrageous repair stories in quite some time, three white hat hackers helped a regional rail company in southwest Poland unbrick a train that had been artificially rendered inoperable by the train's manufacturer after an independent maintenance company worked on it. 
The train's manufacturer is now threatening to sue the hackers who were hired by the independent repair company to fix it. 
And whoever's got that package, maybe you could mute yourself. 
That'd be nice. 
The fallout from the situation is currently rolling Polish infrastructure circles, roiling, not rolling. 
It's hard to see the dot. 
And the repair world with the manufacturer of those trains denying bricking the trains despite ample evidence to the contrary. 
The manufacturer is also now demanding that the repaired trains immediately be removed from service because they have been hacked and thus might now be unsafe, a claim they also cannot substantiate. 
The situation is a heavy machinery example of something that happens across most categories of electronics, from phones, laptops, health devices, and wearables to tractors and apparently trains. 
Yeah. 
In this new case, the company known as NeWAG, N-E-W-A-G, the manufacturer of the Impulse family of trains, put code in the train's control systems that prevented them from running if a GPS tracker detected that it spent a certain number of days in an independent repair company's maintenance center and also prevented it from running if certain components have been replaced without a manufacturer-approved serial number. 
This anti-repair mechanism is called parts pairing. 
It's a common frustration for farmers who want to repair their John Deere tractors without authorization from the company. 
It's also used by Apple to prevent independent repair of iPhones. 
Well, you know, I think we're seeing the natural progression here. 
That's what we've been talking about for years. 
This kind of thing, it kind of unites everybody together. 
We've got farmers, we've got hackers, we've got train engineers now all on the same side against these greedy companies that just want to milk every possible penny and control what it is that people who have already bought the equipment can do. 
Yeah, the components are capable and they're sold as a feature to the manufacturer and they integrate the designs that when the consumer gets to them are pretty much tamper-proof. 
Yeah, and the sheer fact of a public utility like railroads having to turn to independent hackers to allow them to fix devices that they have, that they own ostensibly, that they bought and should have some matter of control over, especially something like trains where public safety is an issue. 
You have to be able to know what every bit of your train is doing at the same time if you're running a train. 
And the fact that people, the public utility can be locked out of chunks of their own train's functionality and repairability, that is obscene and terrifying. 
Yeah, and the fact that the company says, oh, this train has been hacked as if it's some kind of an evil thing. 
Yes, people had to take matters into their own hands because you disabled the train. 
I would say that was where it got hacked, where the train was somehow disabled remotely because the conditions were not... 
I mean, it sounds like ransomware. 
The conditions were not followed, therefore we bricked the train and made it useless. 
That is not right. 
That is not what any company should be doing. 
And I think they should lose whatever license they have if that's the way they're going to run their business. 
Once you are in control, once you buy something, you decide what you're going to do with it. 
I mean, when did we lose touch with that common theory that that is what purchasing something means? 
And just the idea of imagine if it were a bunch of kids somewhere who had accessed these trains' functionality and bricked them and prevented them from being used instead of the company that sells them. 
If this were some random tinkerer, that person would be labeled all sorts of things. 
They would be a criminal. 
They would be a terrorist. 
They would be, you know, ridden out of town on a rail. 
But, you know, because it's a company with zillions of dollars and control over the hardware, it's okay. 
You know, and the corollary to that, too, is let's say, well, maybe it's not a corollary. 
Let's play devil's advocate for a moment. 
Let's say you're the company that has essentially bricked the train. 
Let's say, well, you didn't have to buy this particular train. 
You didn't have to agree the terms of service that I provided you. 
You agreed to this. 
It's a contract. 
You know, these are terms that I'm going to enforce because it's on the basis on this basis is how I make my money as a company. 
What about selling the train? 
Don't they make money selling the damn train? 
Well, you would think, right? 
But then there's a subscription model in order to update everything. 
Everybody wants some kind of goddamn subscription model for everything these days, whether you're selling inkjet cartridges or apparently now even train repair services have to be some kind of subscription-based product model so that you can maximize revenue. 
And this is the problem, I think, that comes from private equity coming into everything and everything these days, right? 
Anything and everything. 
You know, somehow every last dollar and every last cent of any kind of business model needs to be squeezed out just for the benefit of investors. 
You didn't last as devil's advocate very long, Alex. 
No, I didn't. 
You're back on our side now. 
Yeah, I know. 
I am. 
Yeah, it was like a very fleeting moment. 
But, yeah, I mean, I think it's a product of this. 
I think if you look behind this Polish company that has developed the train software, you'll probably find some kind of private equity interest that's driving this type of business model. 
And I think you're right, Emmanuel. 
You know, I hate to say it sometimes, but, yeah, I mean, this is, I think, a ransomware event. 
What do you mean you hate to say I'm right? 
Well, yeah, I like to disagree with you more than, you know, most people. 
Just to be contrarian, that's just my nature. 
I mean, you know, you're very similar to me in that, you know, you'd like to just be disagreeable. 
I don't think I am. 
Just hackers doing hacker stuff. 
Yeah, I mean. 
Exactly. 
Right. 
Exactly the point. 
In any event, I do think this is a very ransomware and extortion-like situation where because somebody fixed something that you wanted to charge them for, you're going to brick the device. 
And I also tend to agree with Rob. 
I think that the more dangerous situation here is the lack of transparency in the technology than anything coming out of these white hat hackers accessing this and reverse engineering the software. 
It's totally ridiculous. 
Case in point being some of the leaks with Tesla Automobile and their feature development process and all of that that was revealed with that. 
I mean, these companies are inherently handling vital systems, stuff that's heavy machinery or that can otherwise be a hazard. 
And themselves won't really share a lot of the inner workings. 
And this is like, I think, something, this paradox we're working with all that we're fighting against ourselves with all the time. 
Whether you're talking about intelligence stuff, whether you're talking about product design or software services, it's everywhere. 
It seems like you can't avoid the stupidification of everything so that it's so secret or so valuable information that we can't tell our consumers. 
We can't tell anybody about it and we have to craft and do all of this stuff around cordoning it off or making the entire field of some technological development impossible for anyone to know about. 
And I mean, of course, some of that comes up with like butts up against national security stuff. 
There's a lot of examples and intricacies to that, but that is part of the dual use of things like semiconductors. 
And I mean, I just feel like we're emerging with these capable networks and capable electronics and the actual industry around it is protecting the information to the detriment of the people that should be aware, like have technical literacy around it. 
Well, we'll keep looking at that story and all the others that are bound to happen. 
Well, here's here's one, actually, that might be a little bit more familiar to people. 
I didn't know you could do this, but apparently with PlayStation, you can buy films and TV shows and things like that and watch it through your three year. 
You guys do that. 
You ever watch TV shows through a PlayStation? 
Not usually. 
What's the advantage of that? 
Why do it that way? 
Well, I'll tell you what. 
I mean, I use the PlayStation 5 that primarily my kids use also as a streaming device, right? 
Because you've got a massive amount of processing power in the PS5, right? 
Like way more than you would get an Amazon Fire Stick or Roku or something like that. 
So everything is very fast. 
Everything is seamless. 
You know, there's a lot of speed to, let's say, streaming something through Netflix, Amazon, et cetera, or just using Apple TV or buying shows or whatever you want through a PS5. 
It's like a really over-specced smart TV device. 
Okay. 
Well, from this story at Kotaku.com, promise of digital media is that it can last forever, pristine and undisturbed by the forces of entropy, constantly buffeting the material world. 
Unfortunately, a mess of online DRM and license agreements means that we mostly don't own the digital stuff we buy, as most recently evidenced by the fact that Sony is about to delete Mythbusters, Naked and Afraid, and tons of other Discovery shows from PlayStation users' libraries, even if they already purchased them. 
Yeah, the latest pothole on the road to an all-digital future was discovered via a warning that Sony recently sent out to PlayStation users who purchased TV shows made by Discovery, the reality TV network that recently merged with Warner Brothers in one of the most brutal and idiotic corporate maneuvers of our time, but we won't get into that. 
Due to our content licensing agreements or arrangements with content providers, you will no longer be able to watch any of your previously purchased Discovery content, and the content will be removed from your video library, read a copy of the email. 
Wow. 
You know, this is why piracy is a good thing, because of crap like this, which I consider to be the ultimate in piracy. 
You already bought the content, all right? 
You paid full price for it. 
You deserve to keep it. 
You can't have it taken away from you. 
And I don't know if these people are getting their money back. 
I don't think that's the point. 
The point is, you bought it like you would buy a book, like you would buy any other tangible item. 
And if you want it to be treated the same way as a tangible item, which they certainly want to do when it suits them, then you have to respect the people who actually agree to buy them. 
Does that make sense, Rob? 
Absolutely. 
And this is why, like, soft media is all the rage these days. 
People have online accounts for all kinds of entertainment, all kinds of media that they want to have access to. 
But you don't own it unless you've got some kind of physical disc, unless you've got a DVD or a Blu-ray or a VHS tape, if you've still got a player for those. 
You can access what you own all the time, and nobody can decide from a distance to switch it off for you. 
You see, when we started doing the digital subscription, the 2600, there was a no-brainer. 
You know, people buy copies of the magazine. 
You can do whatever you want with a copy of a magazine. 
You know, we can do whatever you want with a digital copy of the same magazine. 
And it just feels wrong to even consider, oh, we're going to continue to manipulate this and make it so you can't do this with something that you bought. 
I mean, we don't want people to make a million copies and sell them and things like that. 
But you know what? 
That's not something we can control. 
We presume our readers will support the magazine. 
And if they don't support the magazine, obviously we're doing something wrong. 
So I don't know why other companies, other entities can't get this and want to continually have their hands in the pockets of people. 
And manipulate how they use something that they have already legitimately purchased. 
And it just leads everyone to just say, you know what? 
I'm just going to download this off the dark web and there's no content problems there. 
You don't even get the FBI warnings there. 
They edit those out. 
So it's just, it's a ridiculous chain of events that they're setting in motion here. 
Go ahead, Alex. 
I mean, there is an analog here when it comes to, let's say, physical copies of 2600 books or whatever it is because of something called the first sale doctrine under copyright law. 
And that essentially says when you buy a book, you don't own the copyright to the text itself, right? 
But you own a copyright to that particular book. 
You can do whatever the hell you want with that book. 
You can burn that book. 
You can mark it up. 
You can write in it. 
You can change the text. 
You could make photocopies, you know, of certain portions of it if you wanted to, right? 
All portions. 
I mean, what portion couldn't you make a photocopy of? 
Yeah, sure. 
I mean, but you shouldn't copy the entirety of the work. 
No, you shouldn't, but you can. 
You have the ability. 
They can't prevent you from doing that. 
You wouldn't be able to sell it. 
Imagine if there was, you know, if you copyright like page 37 of someone's book, your arm gets broken, you know? 
That wouldn't be right. 
Well, I agree. 
But, you know, this, the analog, and pardon the pun, I guess here, but the analog to the first sale doctrine of books does not necessarily apply to these types of digital documents. 
And I think the reason being is because of the terms and the conditions and the terms of service and the terms of use to which you agree when you sign up for these particular services. 
They give away those types of rights, grant unto the service provider from which you have derived this particular benefit a great deal of power. 
And you don't have any bargaining rights here. 
These are all contracts to which you have acquiesced in some way or another as a matter of adhesion by just accessing the service. 
You know, they're kind of like the end user license agreements of software packages. 
You know, remember back in the 80s and 90s when you would unbox a piece of software, and by virtue of you unboxing this, you agreed to the terms and conditions and the copyright restrictions with regard to that particular piece of software. 
So, you know, you bargain this away in a sense by using these particular services. 
And people are going to be really, really fed up with this, and they're going to stop using those services. 
And I think even a couple of years ago when these types of things were happening less and less, but as a matter of accessibility, it was just hard to figure out where you could watch whatever particular movie. 
And that's why I think things like the streaming media players like Kodi and then side-loading add-ons for Kodi, like Genesis and Exodus and these other things that essentially aggregated all of these illicit streams, these pirated streams, so that you could stream in whatever content you want, were extraordinarily popular because they were easier to use. 
They were more predictable and more dependable. 
And I think and I fear that's where we're heading. 
You didn't have to sign stupid contracts. 
And I think the contracts are the problem, you know, because when you buy a book, you know, or a DVD or Blu-ray, you're not signing contracts that sign away things that you would never want to sign away in the first place. 
Yet, for some reason, when you download something, you're giving away all this control. 
Yet, you're still paying the same dollars, you know. 
That's, it's just not right. 
It's not, it's not something that I think we should continue to, to agree to. 
I don't know. 
Sorry. 
Go ahead. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
No, there's, there's the idea that now when you're quote-unquote buying something, you don't actually own the thing that you've just bought. 
And our friend Corey Doctorow wrote a blog post on this situation recently, and he highlighted, he highlighted this quote by someone called Tyler James Hill. 
And the quote is, if buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing. 
There you go. 
Can I, can I use that? 
Or do I have to credit somebody if I use that? 
I don't want to get in trouble. 
I think they get a quarter every time you use it. 
Oh, damn it. 
That is an amazing paragraph before it, though. 
Um, and hey, we're on, um, YouTube, so one could quote it out loud if they really wanted to. 
Oh, you mean using cuss words and stuff? 
Oh, it is. 
Can I read it, though? 
If you want to read it, go right ahead. 
I won't, I won't stop you. 
Then, Kyle, after that. 
Sure. 
Zaslav deserves to be staked out over an anthill and slathered in high-fructose corn syrup. 
But save the next anthill for the Sony exec who shipped a product that would let Zaslav come into your home and rob you. 
That piece of shit knew what they were doing, and they did it anyway. 
Fuck them sideways with a brick. 
Gila, I have never heard you talk that way. 
And we've been in all kinds of different scenarios, including one like bank robbery, which we won't get into here. 
But, wow, you read that well. 
You read that very well. 
And those are powerful words. 
They really are. 
And there's no other way you could say that. 
This is why I felt it necessary to share. 
Uh-huh. 
Now part of the access has been driven just by software piracy. 
And I'm thinking back to the history of, like, serial numbers and how a lot of that emerged. 
And I think that's where we ended up with a lot of hosted services. 
There was imminently more control using the networks where people are presumed connected all the time. 
And those schemes were deemed better than having whole copies in the box, like Alex said. 
So I think the history is worth noting. 
And it's sort of interesting how it's driven this idea of, well, this dilution of the sense of property. 
And especially when we're talking about digital items, for things like books and publishing, I think the spirit of our attitude, I mean, we should be so lucky if people are reading so much and pirating and sharing all kinds of knowledge. 
That actually, beyond, I mean, other forms of media, maybe it's less important. 
But there's still ideas and stories being told in those things that if you make it imminently, like, with region coding and all kinds of other barriers, you make it impossible for people to create understanding in their worlds through these networks and through heightened, you know, knowledge. 
And anyway, so it's all, I think, just making us dumber. 
Absolutely. 
Go ahead, Gail. 
First of all, just wanted to say hello to the 51 people who are currently with us. 
That's true. 
That's more than we've ever had before. 
Wow. 
That's why I wanted to say 51. 
But also wanted to share something that one of our listeners wrote in and said, piracy isn't stealing. 
It's copyright infringement. 
I have feelings about that. 
But the act of what you would call piracy, and I can illustrate this with some completely legitimate use of the series of steps you would take to pirate something. 
Some time ago, in this household, we had to switch out the cable box we had. 
And that cable box was also a DVR unit that saved the things you recorded on it locally. 
And lots of, you know, lots of debate and laws and things over the years had enshrined your ability to record things onto your personal media at home since the VHS days. 
And we had things on that DVR that you would never find a purchasable release of. 
And so I spent the day before we had the appointment for the worker to come and swap this cable box out for us, just playing the stuff off the DVR, running it through a video capture device, through a computer that was running Handbrake and some other things, so we could save local digital copies of the things we had recorded. 
If we were going to be traditional video pirates, we would then upload those somewhere with BitTorrent or what have you, but we weren't. 
We were just keeping our own copies of things we recorded legally, and that was infringing no copyrights. 
That was exercising our own rights as recorders of the material. 
And we still have it. 
We would not have it had we just let them take the box away. 
Do you know how hard it is for people to do that, though? 
I mean, in the past, with a VCR, you just hit record, it's on the tape, and you can play it any time you want. 
But now, ask yourself, okay, you've got your DVR. 
Many times, it's not stored locally. 
Many times, it's stored at the cable or satellite company. 
But, okay, you want your own local copy because you're canceling their service. 
How do you do that? 
And I guarantee you, 99 out of 100 people will not know how to do what you did. 
And I'm going to ask you later how to do what you did, because I need to do that, too. 
Sure thing. 
There was something similar when, you know, a family member passed away, and there were voicemail messages that folks were interested in saving. 
And we had to, you know, run the call through a recorder so we could, you know, get our own WAV files of these things before the service was shut off, and therefore, the messages lost forever. 
In the past, you had an answering machine, and you could just hold on to the cassette and make copies at your leisure. 
Absolutely. 
Wow. 
So, I wanted to throw something else in from the chat, which is a listener who is jumping into the chat for the first time, but who emailed us on the show recently, said, Would love to call in, but is currently making a song out of last week's show, Guess What I Sampled. 
I don't know, but I hope you got permission. 
Because Alice is a lawyer, you know, and, you know, we're sick as that. 
No, we're kidding. 
We're kidding. 
Do whatever you want. 
And I do have a guess about what it is. 
And if I had to guess, I would say that it is you, Emmanuel, saying, was it gay furry hackers or furry gay hackers? 
You know, I talk about gay furry hackers once, and the whole world goes ballistic, you know. 
First of all, I didn't make it up. 
It's a real thing, and all kinds of serious security people out there are writing papers and symposiums on gay furry hackers, all right? 
Deal with it. 
It's a thing. 
It's happening. 
And there's going to be more of them, too. 
Just the resonance with the way that you said it also. 
We're at 57 right now. 
Oh, it's out of control. 
It's out of control. 
I don't know what's happening. 
It's amazing, and there are new people participating in the chat tonight, which is great. 
The magic of overtime is that so few people knew about it, and now somebody told somebody, told you to keep it quiet, and now it's ballooning. 
All right. 
You know what? 
We'll try and keep the magic as much as possible. 
Yeah. 
Should we take phone calls? 
I guess we can. 
I'm ready. 
802-321-4225 is our phone number, 802-321-HACK. 
Please give us a call. 
Let's open up to as many people as we can, so it won't take too long. 
And if you have a question or a comment or something you wish to share with us, great. 
It didn't take long at all. 
Let's see who's out there. 
You're giving me that expression, Kyle, so that tells me you know who it is, and I guess we just need to get this over with quickly. 
And Rebel, if, in fact, this is you, we, yeah, that giggle tells me that it is you. 
You just need to follow the same guidelines that we're issuing to everybody, where don't take too long. 
Make your points coherently and succinctly, and let's just swallow the painkillers and get this over with. 
Go ahead. 
Okay. 
Let's see. 
Here's an echo. 
Well, there wasn't a call. 
All right. 
I talk about TVs and, like, well, you know, there's answering machines that has an output, like an auxiliary, like an output for, like, your tape recorder, like your phone output, that you could, I had an answering machine like that, that you could put, you know, record it on a tape. 
Mm-hmm. 
Yeah, that was back in the good old days, and you could do things like that. 
Right. 
You know, I, on TVs, I'd like to get a regular antenna and get regular channels, except, you know, so that I don't have to worry about the 500 channels and the this and the that, because it's really annoying to, you know, to, to, you know, to, you know, TV, it's like you've got to, like, have a college degree to use a TV now. 
But, well, you know, you used to be able to just have. 
Hello, this is a nine-hour emergency interruption for 802-321-4765. 
Okay, you know what, Rebel, you were making sense for a second there, and then you lapsed into some other alternate personality. 
Let me just say, getting back to your TV complaint, yes, I remember the day when you could, well, days, when you could tune a rotary dial and you go from channel two. 
It doesn't mean it had to be a rotary dial. 
Well, you know, it was, mine was, all right, and you click from a two and you clicked over three because you didn't get channel three and you went to channel four, and it is immediately there. 
It was immediately there. 
Here, you have to wait, like, five seconds for something to process, and there it is. 
God forbid you're trying to get somewhere fast. 
And you know what else? 
Here's another one of my gripes. 
Let's say you want to show somebody something and you want to surprise them by saying, you know, this is a piece from NBC Nightly News or something like that. 
I don't know. 
Now, it's going to show the title of what it is you're going to play for them, and there's very few ways that you can get around that without revealing what it is you're about to show them. 
And that's just one of my little pet peeves there. 
I'll shut up now and let the rebel talk. 
What if you have a TV antenna, like a digital antenna, and not go through the cable company? 
Oh, you mean if you just go through over-the-air transmissions? 
Yeah, you have to deal with a lot of hoops to jump through there. 
You have to be close to the signal. 
It's digital, so it won't come in at all if it's out of range. 
It's not like the old analog days where you could get distant signals sometimes or a TV signal would travel a much further distance. 
I don't know what you're doing with the tones there, Rebel. 
Excuse me to sing 9X for having a moment. 
All right, Rebel, you know what? 
That's it. 
Final words. 
Did he hang up? 
I think he hung up. 
Okay, well, that's it. 
One phone call per person. 
My finger slipped. 
You hung up on him? 
Did I? 
If you hung up on him, then he gets another call. 
I thought he was... 
You don't get to do that. 
No. 
Is this him again? 
I don't know. 
Okay, let's pick this up. 
Go ahead. 
And you are on Off the Hook Overtime. 
Go ahead. 
Yes, hi. 
Earlier tonight, you said that you made some changes to Hope, and you think that you addressed all of the critiques from the most recent conference. 
Let me guess. 
You have one we didn't address. 
I'm pretty confident. 
I'm about 99% confident that you didn't address it because you didn't mention it. 
It's about the workshops, and I was hoping that it would be possible logistically for you guys to record the workshops, either audio or video, preferably video. 
I know it's a lot of work, but obviously you can't attend all the workshops because there are some great talks given simultaneously. 
So how have you addressed that issue of recording the workshops? 
There are two things to overcome here. 
Number one, first of all, you have to get the permission of the people doing the workshops. 
Do you want your workshop to be recorded? 
It's not the same thing as a speaker. 
I think most probably wouldn't have a problem with that. 
But the biggest challenge is staff. 
We need AV volunteers that will help with that. 
And if we have a good AV staff and we're able to get the equipment we need, which is a very good possibility at a place like St. 
John's, then yes, we can do that. 
But we, again, Hope relies on volunteers to get everything done, and AV is one of the most challenging parts of that conference. 
So we definitely want to do that. 
So let's see if we can pull it off this time. 
Okay. 
And the other issue is the handouts or the slide decks that the speakers use in the workshops. 
I know not every workshop would necessarily have a slide deck or a handout, but if it's not possible to record the workshop, if you could encourage the speaker, if they're willing to do so, to upload their presentation, like their PowerPoint or their slide deck to the Hope website. 
So if I'm unable to attend a given workshop, I can at least see the handout from it. 
Is that a possibility? 
Yeah, that certainly is a possibility. 
Can you summarize this and email us, feedback at hope.net? 
That way we get it to the right people and we can start working on it early. 
Okay. 
Yeah, I can do that. 
Oh, and also I know that you said tickets are going to go on sale this Friday. 
Well, limited tickets. 
And the main ticket sales will go on sale in January. 
Is it possible? 
Will it be possible to actually purchase tickets in person at St. 
John's the weekend of the conference? 
Probably not. 
Are you considering that? 
Probably not. 
And there's a couple of reasons for that. 
But basically, we don't want surprises of massive amounts of people showing up that we're not prepared for. 
This way we know how many people are going to be there. 
And it's just, it's a better situation. 
And we did that in 2022. 
And it worked out so much better than the years that we did. 
Basically, anybody can walk into the hotel off the street and come to the conference. 
And it's just, you know, we expected this amount of people. 
And we got that amount of people. 
And it just made it harder to plan. 
Right, right. 
You don't want like a Woodstock Festival situation. 
Exactly. 
Woodstock comes to mind. 
Yes, you got it. 
Yeah, Woodstock or the Isle of Wight Festival. 
Yeah, minus the mud, but with the chaos. 
So if I can't get through on Friday, you will have multiple opportunities. 
You will provide multiple opportunities for attendees, for people to purchase tickets online. 
Yeah. 
I mean, you know, we'll cut it off at some point. 
We'll decide when. 
But if you're early, you should be fine. 
Probably after three seconds. 
Okay. 
No, hopefully. 
And just one last thing. 
You were talking about Sony and the whole issue of like you purchase something online. 
There was a case a couple of years ago. 
I don't remember the company, but it was 1984 by George Orwell that people had purchased it through some service. 
That was through Kindle. 
That was through Kindle. 
Oh, it was Kindle. 
Yeah, I remember that. 
Yeah, it's really horrible. 
It was very Orwellian. 
It was very Orwellian, and they didn't seem to get that. 
Right. 
No, they didn't. 
But it's a terrible thing, and that's why I guess we should always keep in mind, get a hard copy. 
Don't rely on streaming, basically, right? 
Because as you said, they can delete at will anytime, anywhere, anything you buy. 
And not only that, they can change it. 
You know, if something falls out of favor, they can be very Stalinistic and just go in and change the line or erase a character completely. 
So yeah, if you have your own physical copy, they can't do that. 
You know, Kyle and I did a project where we saw every Academy Award winning film since they started giving out Academy Awards. 
And our thing was, we would always want to get the physical copy of it, the DVD or the Blu-ray. 
And it wasn't until Apple released the film. 
Remember the name of the film? 
It was about the deaf people? 
Coda. 
Coda, yeah. 
They wouldn't release that on physical media. 
You had to subscribe to Apple Plus to see the damn film. 
And this was just in complete violation of our terms of service, where we say, no, we have the right to buy something and have it in our library. 
We had to go and buy a copy from a different country in Europe and make sure that we had a region-free Blu-ray player to play it. 
But it was worth it. 
It was worth it to have that kind of control over something that you buy. 
Right. 
No, absolutely. 
Yeah. 
All right. 
Well, I will get that email out to you. 
You said that's feedback at hope.net, right? 
That's right. 
Yes. 
Okay. 
All right. 
Well, thanks, and happy holidays to all of you, and have a happy 2024. 
Thanks. 
You too. 
Take care. 
Take care. 
Bye. 
Great call. 
Again, our phone number, 802-321-4225. 
Any thoughts from the gallery? 
Go ahead, Alex. 
Alex, your mouth is moving, but we can't hear it. 
No, there we go. 
I had to get back to the right screen there. 
Yeah, I had a question, you know, really for our listeners, and maybe somebody will call in or have some ideas in the chat. 
You're supposed to ask us questions. 
Yeah. 
You're asking them questions? 
Sorry. 
They're a good resource. 
They're a good resource. 
They're a smart bunch of people that are all just hanging out. 
So, I figured you might as well take advantage of them. 
I think they have a far greater combined IQ than the four or five of us. 
Are you done buttering them up? 
Ask the question that you want to ask them. 
Can't even count. 
That's my problem. 
Yeah. 
So, you know, I have a 10-year-old, right? 
Christmas and holiday season is coming up here. 
And interestingly enough, and without any prompting on my part, my son is really interested in retro computing. 
He loves old computers. 
He loves CRTs. 
Like, he just finds them really fascinating and interesting. 
And I'm wondering if anybody would have any ideas for holiday gifts, Christmas gifts for a 10-year-old that's interested in, you know, things like, you know, x86 computers. 
You know, if I could buy him an old XT with a CGA monitor, I think he would absolutely love it. 
But, you know, like, what's the equivalent? 
What should I be thinking of? 
Can he handle a Univac? 
Because I know I can get one of those, but you need a semi to get it to you. 
Yeah, I know that might be the problem, right? 
Yeah. 
Do you have a loading dock? 
Yeah. 
We don't have a, well, we have a dock. 
Are you serious about this or not, Alex? 
I mean, come on, we want to help your kid out here. 
I'm being really sure. 
I mean, if we could have like a Vax VMS system, you know, at home, I think he would totally love it. 
It comes with a punch card reader, but I don't have punch cards, unfortunately. 
Yeah. 
Aguila has an answer. 
Go ahead. 
We're getting a recommendation in the chat. 
All right. 
Awesome. 
A listener. 
Wow. 
Okay. 
And so a listener called the Mac Geek asks, what about a Raspberry Pi kit that he can build and program with? 
That's not a bad idea. 
That doesn't sound very retro to me. 
Yeah. 
I know. 
That's what I was thinking too. 
Like the Pi kit, I think would be very, very cool. 
And it has a retro feel, especially if you're just using it, you know, in a terminal session or something like that. 
Like we actually started doing some bash scripting the other day and he loved it. 
He absolutely loved being able to create a loop that ran the fortune command every 10 seconds. 
Wow. 
He's a kindred spirit. 
I'll say that because that, that, that, that thrills me as well. 
And by the way, I use the command fortune dash O when we did it much to my chagrin though. 
I don't know if you know what fortune dash O does. 
Uh, I haven't typed that flag. 
I know what fortune does. 
What does fortune dash O do? 
It only displays offensive fortunes. 
They're flagged as offensive. 
Yeah. 
Okay. 
Well, I'll tell you, you know, on, um, uh, one of our Linux machines, we added, uh, adventure, the text game adventure. 
And, um, uh, our productivity has, has dropped quite a bit because people are still trying to figure out how to get through it. 
Um, it's, it's great. 
Text-based adventures are so much fun. 
What is the manual? 
Is it, it's, it's on the, it's on the terminal. 
It's on, it's on, it's on, it's on various machines. 
So, uh, we can, we can, we can guide you in the right direction. 
Gila, go ahead. 
All right. 
More recommendations. 
Um, okay. 
So rebel made a helpful suggestion. 
That's not rebel. 
Then that's gotta be a, uh, someone masquerading as rebel. 
People do that. 
It says a, a DEC VT 320 would be good. 
Uh, I want one first though. 
I want someone else recommends the Mr. 
FPGA computer. 
Says, does everything up to 486 SX 25. 
Oh, wow. 
Okay. 
Yeah. 
Someone else suggests a spectrum 48 K. 
Um, this is great. 
We should ask more questions of our listeners. 
They'll answer them. 
Um, the commander X 16 is a new retro computer. 
Oh, and see, that could be interesting. 
A new retro computer. 
Uh, J craft. 
If you could say more, we would appreciate that. 
Um, he says, get the commander X 16. 
It's a new retro computer. 
Smiley face. 
Okay. 
Rob has something. 
And then we have a caller who's been patiently waiting on hold. 
Go ahead. 
Yeah. 
If you, if you get one of the earlier generations of Raspberry Pi, not only will it be very good at emulating the old, uh, eight bit stuff, but, uh, they also had a composite video out on those still. 
So you could hook it to a CRT that you happen to get hold of, um, with, with minimal hassle. 
That's pretty cool. 
That's a great idea too. 
And I'm going to look into this, the commander X 16 as well. 
I'm going to be Googling that momentarily while we take this phone call. 
And you can pair it with your monochrome monitor of choice. 
That's right. 
Awesome. 
We have a phone call. 
Let's go to the phones. 
Good evening. 
You're on off the cover time. 
Go ahead. 
Oh, so, uh, you have hung up on the manual. 
No, I didn't do it. 
Kyle's finger slipped. 
Kyle's finger slipped. 
It happens occasionally. 
Uh, let's, this, this is considered your first call. 
Let's finish it up. 
Okay. 
We're talking about old school computers. 
Now, I think you should get your kid a informer, an informer. 
Well, an informer D3 or 4 would be good, but they're, they're very rare. 
Um, I dig an IBM, I think it was a 3270 or something. 
The ones with the old cookie keyboards, either that, or the ones like I, I think recommending VT320, I think it is. 
Or PC junior. 
They have chiclet keyboard. 
No, how about a, how about a TRC, uh, a radio shock TRC. 
Does he want a push button computer? 
I'm sure he does. 
Yeah. 
Something like that. 
You know, something that looks kind of, kind of cool, like, you know, something that looks like an old XT. 
I mean, like my first machine, I remember was an XT with, that ran at four megahertz with a 30 megabyte hard drive and a CGA monitor. 
And, and, and you know how much Ram it had? 
16K. 
Oh, okay. 
Well, it had 640K conventional memory, but zero Ram. 
Because remember Bill Gates made that famous statement. 
I think it was probably correctly attributed to him that he said, you know, that computers will never need anything more than 640K conventional memory, which is hilarious. 
The channel needs more likes. 
I mean, the website, I mean, the YouTube video needs more likes. 
It's only one like here. 
Why? 
What do we get if we get more likes? 
I don't know. 
I'm just saying. 
Is there some kind of payout for that? 
I mean, what, what, what's, what, who cares? 
I don't know. 
You may, it may, uh, you may get more viewers or, you know, I don't know. 
What else, what else is on your list, Rebel? 
Um, let's see. 
Um, when I call 800 numbers, I used to listen, when I was listening to the old off the hook. 
Different lists. 
See, he veered off. 
Uh, yeah, go ahead. 
Finish this up. 
And then we're going to move to another call. 
All right. 
Um, I noticed that when I call different numbers, like 1-800, uh, uh, easy NYT or things like that, it goes to the same thing. 
Let's demonstrate. 
Why do I have a feeling we've done this before? 
And not just once either. 
Hold on. 
I don't have control over this call. 
Nobody has control. 
Um, but we're going to let this happen. 
And then it's going to get to the point where we just can't take any more. 
And that's when we're going to move on. 
All right. 
I'll move my hand, but you got to tell me to. 
But he can't keep us on hold forever. 
For God's sake. 
It's, it's, it's YouTube. 
Nobody wants to wait. 
Does he think we're, we're listening? 
Cause we're not. 
There's nobody there. 
Emmanuel. 
Oh, there you are. 
Don't leave us alone for so long. 
Um, hold on. 
I'm trying to do, um, you can't three-way. 
Can you? 
Well, maybe not. 
Yeah. 
You know, some companies, like when you call, I won't demonstrate, but some like companies that like telemarketers, I like to fool around with them. 
I'll just three, like they'll call you and, you know, leave a message or whatever. 
But when you call them back, you know, you know, you could three-way, you know, go on three-way and kind of conference them in together. 
Sometimes it says, uh, multiple calls are not allowed. 
I don't know how that works. 
Interesting. 
You get an announcement. 
Yeah. 
No, no, no. 
It's not an announcement. 
It's something on my phone or maybe it's on my phone or. 
What, what, what kind of, what kind of service are you using? 
Like a service message. 
Is it a cell phone or a. 
It's a cell phone. 
No, it's an Android cell phone. 
All right. 
And sometimes if I call a certain number, it'll, you know, do three-way. 
I could put off to five people on at once. 
It could have something to do with, with, uh, where you're calling the area code, the type of call or if they've picked up or not, uh, or just what kind of service you have on your particular line. 
But it's not like it was in the old days where you could just, you know, pair lines together and, and, um, you know, you could, you could share a ring with somebody and have, you know, two different lines on when they pick up the phone. 
Um, those days don't seem to be around anymore. 
No, it's, it's, um, I think when, when I'm doing like a three-way call, like I could do a three-way call with you, but, um, other number, I think it's a particular number. 
Maybe the number is blocking three-way. 
I don't know. 
I don't think you can block three-way, but a certain type of phone call might be, um, uh, like maybe to a toll free number. 
I'm just theorizing here because I haven't tried to even use that function. 
And, you know, I find that most people do not know how to pair calls together anymore. 
And, you know, try that on a cell phone. 
I guarantee you'll screw it up and have to do it again. 
And that's, that's, I think the way they like it, but, um, it's not like it used to be. 
I hate saying that all the time, but it's not like it used to be. 
It used to be pretty cool. 
Although you couldn't, you couldn't three-way incoming calls. 
That always annoyed me. 
You know, if you got call waiting, you know, and you couldn't pair that with another call you were talking to, it had to be outgoing. 
Well, with IntelliDial, you can. 
IntelliDial. 
Does that still exist even in trash cans? 
I don't think it does. 
I mean, no, I mean, are you used to? 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
I actually had IntelliDial. 
That was, that was a 9x service that very few people knew about. 
So. 
Please call for long distance. 
Uh, no, we're not going to hold for anything more, Rebel, because, uh, we've, we've, we've talked enough, but thank you for, for calling and for sharing. 
You want the rates? 
Do it to win? 
No, do not want, I want nothing less than that. 
Believe me. 
But thank you for calling and, uh, please, um, um, be well. 
We'll talk to you again soon. 
Oh, my dime back. 
Uh, you're not going to get that either. 
Our phone number, 802-321-4225 for everybody in the planet, except Rebel right now, uh, and, and the previous call, because you get to call once and that, he got two calls because you, uh, accidentally hung up on him, Kyle. 
And, um, that's. 
It was a minor oversight. 
That happens sometimes. 
Uh, so please, uh, the quicker people call in 802-321-4225, uh, the more we're assured that we'll get some variety in phone calls, uh, tonight, which is, is always a fun thing. 
Go ahead, Gila. 
Um, would love to say that we have received a demo version of the Gay Free Hacker song. 
What do you mean? 
A demo version? 
A rough cut. 
A rough cut. 
Rough. 
Um, our listener is going to touch it up for a, a, a real, um, release, but, um, we just received it via email and well, now I kind of want to end overtime so we can listen to the song. 
We'll listen to the song after the show and if it's really good, we'll maybe play it at some point. 
At some point. 
You know what? 
I don't know. 
If the only words in it are Gay Furry Hackers, we could play it on air and it could be the outro. 
Right. 
I was, that's what I meant when I said that, but you know, we can't, we can't make that promise. 
One furry step at a time. 
It's a whole thing. 
No. 
Let's just keep our paws. 
You have no idea the steps that go through picking a song for the outro. 
So you can't just do it. 
No, it's true. 
But all I'm saying is you never hear their voices, but they're part of the process. 
All right. 
I listened to 20 seconds of it. 
And so far it seems to fit the FCC guidelines. 
And it slaps. 
It does. 
We have a phone call. 
Okay. 
And good evening. 
You're on off talk over time. 
Go ahead. 
Good evening. 
This is Johnny Fusion. 
Hey, Johnny Fusion. 
How are you doing? 
I'm doing great. 
Had clinic yesterday. 
I'm the healthiest I've been since transplant. 
Awesome. 
Everything's looking great. 
All right. 
Congrats. 
So on the show, you were talking about all these data breaches and stuff and hacks that went on. 
There was one this week or this past week. 
Antifa in Sweden released the order list of a white power music and merchandise. 
site called Midgard. 
Okay. 
So they, and these guys basically, they organize for Nazis. 
They even take place in internal discussions with the Nazi organizations. 
Money goes to Nazi organizations in the Nordic region. 
And you can get to, you can see it at midgard.antifa.se. 
And actually set up a nice little front end for you to browse like 20,000 sale records all around the world of who've done business at this, uh, well, basically this Nazi merchandise organization. 
Wow. 
20,000. 
That's, that's larger than I thought it would be. 
Unfortunately, that's the world we live in. 
Mm-hmm. 
Mm-hmm. 
And it's all around the world, you say, or just in Sweden? 
Well, they're based in Sweden, but they, but they had customers all around the world because right ring, right wing and fascist ideology is growing worldwide. 
Mm-hmm. 
So, but I just looked at the first page and there were, you know, there were orders from Sweden and Denmark and Great Britain. 
And that, that's just on the first page. 
Gosh, wow. 
And, and, and what is it people are ordering? 
You said it's music? 
Well, music and t-shirts and stickers and stuff like that of all white power stuff. 
Uh, what's on their website now? 
On whose? 
On the, the, the Swedish Nazi website. 
Are they embarrassed by this? 
Well, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't want that in my history. 
Well, nobody does, but well, some people do obviously, but, uh, you know, uh, you, use, uh, some, uh, you know, virtual, um, uh, ways to get around that or, or tour or something. 
Yeah. 
I mean, I always got my VPN on, so there's that, you know, so yeah. 
Hey, do you have contact information for the meeting organizers for the 2600 meetings on the first Friday? 
What we don't give out information, contact information, because, uh, lots of times people don't want to be contacted, but what we, uh, do list are, are, are, are Twitter IDs and when available websites. 
And it's exactly for this reason that we encourage people who are, um, uh, starting meetings, uh, to share that information so that if you go to, uh, uh, to the meetings page on 2600, you'll be able to contact those people. 
Yeah, because, like, I've gone to the San Francisco meeting twice and no one, last time nobody showed up. 
I was there by myself. 
Really? 
You were there the whole time or just a particular time? 
Um, I, I hung out for an hour. 
Okay. 
Because sometimes, you know, I've been to meetings where they start at like seven o'clock when it's listed at five. 
Uh, generally the period between five and eight, unless otherwise noted, is, um, is a period where people are likely to show up. 
Like, Rob, you probably know more about this as you, you are a regular attendee of meetings. 
Yeah. 
Um, though they, though they're, uh, they started a certain hour, but like people keep showing up. 
Different people get out of work or school or whatever at different times. 
And, uh, the gathering keeps going. 
I know here in New York, uh, people still, people are still showing up, you know, into seven o'clock, eight o'clock and the food court that we're in is, you know, still open and accessible at that point. 
Um, but, uh, so sometimes it takes a while to get going. 
Yeah. 
Let me just say, uh, Kyle and I dropped by there actually the Friday after the meeting, uh, just to hang out that place. 
What Citigroup has turned into is incredible. 
It's, it's such a cool hangout. 
So many people are there, um, whether there's a meeting or not. 
Uh, and the, the really fun thing, you can buy club mate there. 
I didn't realize this. 
There's a German place and you can buy club mate. 
And this, it's so cool to be able to do that. 
Uh, you know, it brings back memories of the old days when we were a part of that. 
There's so many options for food there. 
It's, it's wild and just, uh, really well used people coming and going, um, and maybe after work or after school. 
And, and you just feel like this sense of busyness and, and, and it's, it's really interesting. 
So I can imagine the meetings are, uh, a lot of fun there. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
Um, but yeah, um, to the caller's concern about, uh, going to the San Francisco meeting and no, but having nobody else show up, um, part of the beauty of the 2600 meetings is that no one's really in charge. 
So that means everyone gets to throw in on the sort of organizational end of it where you can post it around to like, uh, local tech forums, local, uh, hacker sort of forums, um, put up, uh, leaflets, whatever you'd like to do and get the word out yourself to get more folks who would be interested in the local area to, to show up there with you. 
And, uh, you, you may end up, uh, spearheading a big revival of these things. 
And, you know, sometimes, uh, you can't tell meeting attendees from, from regular people. 
Uh, yeah, it's, uh, it's a darndest thing. 
We fit right in sometimes. 
Uh, but if you have some kind of identifier, like a 2600 hat or a magazine or just something that indicates you're a, you're a hacker. 
I wore a t-shirt. 
Uh-huh. 
And then also, yeah, I see the meetings. 
These meetings don't have, uh, any, any, uh, Twitter ID or website, but, uh, they've been taking place at Embarcadero, for Embarcadero Center. 
Um, that's a big place, uh, that, that, they could wander. 
They could be someplace else. 
Um, but it's also possible that, um, people just weren't there that month or that you might have missed them in some way, but talking about it here definitely helps. 
And, um, it, it tells, it tells people out there that at least one person wants to show up and others should show up as well at the appointed time. 
Yeah. 
Maybe I'll, maybe, well, since there's no Twitter handle or, or a website, maybe I could just take over. 
Well, take over is probably the wrong word, but yeah, but definitely you could be, um, uh, somebody. 
Okay. 
I'll say I'll show the initiative. 
Yeah. 
That's, that's all. 
If, if there, if there's an opening there, go ahead and, uh, and, um, basically use a Twitter ID, uh, something that has 2600 or San Francisco in it. 
So that it's obvious that that's what it is. 
Uh, and of course, those of you who want to put in more effort, uh, websites are great because let's say there's, um, you know, uh, construction or something going on in the place where you usually have a meeting. 
You got to tell people somehow the magazine comes out four times a year. 
So that's three months per issue that we can't change if something happens in say the second month. 
So websites are great because you can just change them. 
And, uh, we, if we list the website, people will know to go there to check for any, any updates. 
Yeah. 
Okay. 
So with your encouragement, I think I'll show some initiative. 
Very cool. 
Very cool. 
And that goes for meetings all over the world. 
Right. 
I mean, yield to the hands-on imperative. 
That's what it's all about. 
So before we move on, any, anything else, uh, from you, um, let's see, I wanted to talk about Midgard. 
I talked about 2600 meetings in San Francisco. 
Now I know one started recently in San Jose and I'm wondering if they're sucking the, uh, the people that used to go to San Francisco are going to San Jose now because it was, because it's easier for them to get to. 
Well, that's happened in real life. 
You know, people who worked in, uh, who used to commute from San Francisco to San Jose now live in San Jose. 
So that, that could happen, but it's not likely that, uh, it's going to drain all the hackers in San Francisco because there are plenty of them. 
So many. 
In fact, you could have meetings in San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley and have plenty of people at each one. 
Just a question of coordination and getting the word out. 
Yeah. 
I remember the other thing I wanted to talk about, cause you talked on the radio show about the new Omni card and I had, so I'm still playing with the BART Clipper card. 
Well, it does all the transit in the Bay area. 
Clipper card. 
That's what it's called. 
I remember that. 
Okay. 
I think I have an old one. 
Really? 
Wow. 
It's that old. 
Yeah, it does. 
You can get on BART, you can get on all the local buses, you can get on Caltrain, commuter train, all on one card and it's contactless, you know, it has this little sensor and it has a website. 
You're supposed to be able to put funds on the website. 
Yeah. 
That's what, uh, that's what Omni does as well. 
Yeah. 
But here's the thing, I needed to take a bus, you know, I wasn't using the BART where the state, where you can get the Clipper cards cause you can really only get them at the BART stations. 
And, um, so I put $20 on there cause I had some bus trips coming up to get my phone repaired. 
I had to get to the phone repair shop and it never, it never went on, never went on. 
And my Clipper card balance was getting lower and lower. 
And by the time I had to go pick up my phone, I only had enough for one bus ride, one way. 
Wow. 
And so I borrowed my lady friend's Clipper card for that trip. 
And then, so, and I was going to the 2600 meeting. 
So I, I walked to the BART station near my house and it's one train all the way to Embarcadero. 
And I had, well, I have to put money on. 
It still hasn't gone on the website. 
So I go up another $20 on, and then when I touch it to tap the card, when you put money on, when I went through the turnstile, I had $40 on it. 
It waited until the physical card got to, got to a sensor that has rights ability. 
Oh, wow. 
For the money rent on my card. 
You know, you might've just answered a question that I had from earlier today because I did something similar, I, uh, my, my Omnicard only had about $2 left on it. 
I wanted to, uh, add money to it. 
And I set it up so that once it gets below $10, it adds another 20. 
So it was already below $10. 
It's at two. 
And, you know, I, I, I, uh, added that function, gave it a credit card number and all. 
And, um, it didn't do anything. 
It's still a $2. 
So I'm wondering, is it going to do it? 
Or do I, do I have to actually have it working before it'll implement that? 
So maybe if the next time I walk up to a turnstile, it'll just immediately give me $20. 
If it, if the turnstiles have right access, because, well, I guess they all need right access because they deduct funds, right? 
Well, I don't think it's on the card. 
It's not written on the card. 
Um, I saw, I saw someone hacking it and you, you can write values to the card, but it voids it after first use. 
Okay. 
I figured the values were written someplace else in the car. 
We're simply accessing that. 
Yeah, they are. 
And like, like there's a check sum, of course, and, but, um, yeah, I think you actually have to put it on one of those pucks for it to actually write in the system. 
Okay. 
I'm going to head to a, to a subway stop and see what happens because my curiosity has been peaked. 
Yeah. 
Cause, cause it seems like the cards are only really changed when they interact with, with the little reader writers at the, at the stations. 
Right. 
I didn't do that on the bus because I think the buses are, I don't, cause you got to think our buses connected wirelessly. 
Well, they're not connected with wires. 
I can tell you that they definitely are connected with wirelessly. 
You know, but are, is it over radio or do they just look for the value that's written to the card and deduct it? 
And then it's updated centrally at another, at another place along the lines with the Metro card. 
It was, it was, it was done wirelessly. 
So I imagine they're doing something similar with, with Omni. 
Yeah. 
Well, yeah. 
Or they do it in batches. 
Like at the end of the day, the buses upload the data of what rides there were or something. 
I would say, but the thing that you got to imagine is they have all these other interests, all this, there's all this other interests and justification to have the bus be trackable and connected for the general operation of the system. 
Oh, that's true. 
Cause they're always updated. 
Like I have the transit app, I guess it's for big metropolitan areas. 
Like you, like it's the same app for New York city. 
It's just called transit. 
And you can actually opt in to be tracked on the transit app for, to make scheduled, to make more accurate bus schedules and stuff, because they know where you are on the bus and they update that to all the other app users. 
I see. 
Okay. 
So it's a bit of a community effort then. 
Yeah. 
Well, that's it. 
All right. 
Thanks for your call. 
Thanks for listening. 
Good night. 
Good hearing from you. 
Wow. 
Okay. 
You know what? 
I didn't realize so much time had passed by, so I think we're, we're going to, we're going to call it, but any, any other thoughts or adventures people, um, people had, um, it has been amazing watching everybody, Alex, this conversation you've started, people are talking about their first computers, things they started with. 
And I want to, uh, give a personal shout out to my first, which was, uh, the TI 99 slash four. 
A I learned how to program basic on that thing. 
Um, and fell down the tiniest little rabbit hole. 
Cause apparently some of them exist. 
Um, eBay, Mercado, this, I think I know what I'm asking for for my birthday next year. 
Um, very excited to know that those are still available. 
And Alex, I highly recommend that particular model. 
It, um, is a keyboard only with a disc, like with a slot thing and you plug it into the computer, into the TV and it's super fun. 
And I also found, um, that the loading screen for it, that you had to like, had to hit a key to get started. 
Um, you can get things with that on it on Redbubble and, um, I'm very happy. 
So thank you. 
Yeah. 
I'll just shout out the, uh, TRS 80 color computer too, which was my first. 
You always remember your first. 
Amazing. 
And thank you both for those recommendations and for everybody in the chat for all their recommendations. 
It's, uh, it's great. 
I knew we could count on the wisdom of our listeners to surpass our own. 
Yes. 
That's an easy bet there. 
Uh, but thank you again for everybody who, um, who has contributed and, uh, for everybody who, uh, has, uh, called in or has, uh, participated in the chat or just basically listening. 
That's, uh, we, we, we, uh, value you and, uh, look forward to talking next week as well. 
We'll be back for off the hook at seven o'clock off the hook over time at eight, right to us OTH at 2600.com. 
Don't forget the hope tickets, uh, go on sale limited number at, I believe it's 2 PM on Friday, the 15th. 
Uh, it's hope XV actually of course means 15 and, uh, that's why it's happening on the 15th. 
And, um, don't worry if you don't get tickets this, this time around. 
There'll be another opportunity in January. 
And, uh, again, the conference, July 12th through 14th, St. 
John's university in Queens, easy to get to a lot of fun to be at. 
And, um, it's, it's going to be another historic event. 
All right. 
That's it. 
See you next time. 
Good night.