And you're listening to WBAI New York.
The time is just about 7 p.m.
Time for another exciting edition of Off the Hook.
And a very good evening to you all.
The show is Off the Hook.
Rob T. Firefly here with you.
I'm joined in the studio today by Gus.
Why?
Kevin, not Kevin.
And Jim.
Hi.
Hello.
We're having some trouble getting our friends on the phone, so for the moment I believe
...
We've got a skeleton crew in the studio today.
We're reaching who we can.
We're trying to get in touch with Emanuel Goldstein and Mike and the rest of the gang.
But while we're working on that, we could talk a little bit about some stories that
have come across Transom recently.
We got one message from Dan Upstate, who writes, I am a voter in an upstate district and I
just received a mailing today announcing that the lever machines in my district will be
replaced with optical scan machines, ES&S model DS200.
Public demonstrations of the machines will be held locally several times this month,
although Dan tells us later that he received this message on August 6th, and the first
demo is to be on Saturday the 8th, so they only gave him two days' notice for that one.
But Dan says, I'd love to be able to call attention to any flaws or vulnerabilities
that you are aware of.
This is something actually that gets talked about frequently at the HOPE conference, and
it sounds like we've got the folks at HAR on the phone.
Yes, we do indeed.
Hello there.
Hey, can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Indeed.
Okay, you actually reached me a while ago.
I've been on the whole time.
Just having a little trouble figuring out the system here.
Yes, we're here at Hackering at Random in Holland, in the middle of nowhere actually.
We're at a camp field, and this is the night actually before the conference, and most of
us are here right now.
It's the manual.
I'm here.
I'm going to pass the phone around to some people.
Here's Mike.
Hello.
And over here is Red Hat.
Hi.
And here's Juns.
Hey, Hat.
And Voltaire.
Hello.
And there's a whole lot more people showing up.
We have hundreds and hundreds of people coming through the gate, wandering around the field.
Some amazing tents have already been set up, with lights and music and all kinds of computers
being set up.
It's going to be an amazing event.
It's going to be one of these once every four year Dutch hacker events that you really should
wish you were here.
Yes.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
I'm here.
So it's been an exciting time, and now I'm here at HAAR, and there's all these blinking lights and all kinds of things.
Okay, I'm back.
Welcome back.
Handing the phone now to Voltaire.
So I suppose I'm just going to talk about my travels.
I was just in Amsterdam, which was a lot of fun.
It's really – I recommend it for everybody that can go.
That's why I recommend this camp.
But it's a good place.
I'm having sausage dreams.
Hey, guys.
Hey, Joonce.
How are you doing?
I'm having a lot of fun.
This is actually the first camp I've been to.
I've been to a couple of European hacker events, but never any of the camps.
So it's quite an experience for me.
How is it different from an indoor hacker camp?
Well, it's outdoors, for one thing.
You have to bring all of your living supplies, your tent, your sleeping bag, all of your clothes,
and somehow manage to carry them all on your back when you get here, and that was quite a feat, let me tell you.
But when we got here, the fields where you set up your tents were maybe half full, a quarter full.
But throughout the day, more and more people were setting up tents.
And at this point, there are tents wall to wall.
It's really crowded.
There's an amazing number of people here.
And for me, I'm more into the social event part of it.
So I'm meeting a lot of new people, seeing people I haven't seen in a while.
So I'm having a really good time.
This is a lot of fun.
Awesome.
Glad to hear you're making friends.
Yeah.
Me too.
So I guess next up, we'll hand you off to Mark.
Hi.
This is Redhack.
I have been traveling since Saturday or Friday night.
I spent a couple days in Ireland, although not at the same time as Voltaire and Emanuel.
But I had a good time there.
It was definitely an interesting experience.
But most of my time in Dublin got out a little bit.
Otherwise, I got to the camp here today.
I arrived this morning and met Junt at the airport, and we traveled via train together.
It was about an hour and a half train ride.
And when we got here, there were already a lot of people here.
I think they told us that about 800 people were already here.
And over the course of the day, that's gone up.
The latest count by our friend Aldert's count is 1,410 people.
So there are a lot of people here.
I was at WhatTheHack four years ago.
That was my first camp.
And the space was a lot bigger, but there was a lot of unused space too.
So it's kind of nice to have everyone a little close together, more social experience, I guess,
if you don't have people spread out all over the place.
There are a lot of people here.
There are a lot of villages being built, a lot of big tents, personal tents, group tents,
all kinds of things going on, lights everywhere.
It's just an amazing thing to see and to be a part of.
How are you getting—
Yes, go ahead.
I was just wondering, how are you getting—I'm picturing all this, and I'm picturing hackers,
and I'm thinking, hey, what about computers?
How are you guys getting power out there?
So the way that it works in these camps is that every so often—and I don't know how they're spaced,
but there are large kind of breakouts of outlets that then go by a big thick wire to wherever it's coming from
and getting either a generator or the power grid.
I don't actually know where it's sourced from.
And then for network connectivity, you have both Wi-Fi covering all of the fields as well as Ethernet
quite cleverly is run from port-a-potties that are used as makeshift network closets.
Obviously, they're only used as network closets, but that is how you have connectivity and power.
They're empty.
They're empty port-a-potties.
Only switches in there.
And then, of course, you have the event phone system,
which is basically a local wireless system using DECT phones,
which are the normal wireless handsets that you would have at home.
And then you register that, and you have an internal extension that then you can talk with other people on.
So that's useful because you have people coming from all over the world, all over Europe.
And so to come here and then have this kind of local phone exchange is great
because then you're not making cell phone calls to a million different country codes.
How do you find out somebody's number?
You exchange numbers.
I mean, you basically tell them what your number is, and you can have a little phone book, I guess, if you wanted.
You can call in to the conference, and if you have someone's extension,
there are external phone numbers that you can call in on to reach us, 10,000 apparently.
Wow.
There's a lot of infrastructure here that kind of drives it, and it all seems to come together really well.
But when it comes down to it, it's really the people here and the experience and hanging out and talking.
June and I stumbled upon a friend of ours and his friends who had set up a large kind of TARP structure,
and they were hanging out underneath and just having a good time and chatting and listening to music,
and we got to hang out with them for a few hours.
So it's really just, you know, it's about learning and about meeting people, and it's really, really good.
But I think I've talked enough.
I'm going to hand it back to Emmanuel, and so I'll talk to you guys soon.
Very cool.
Have fun out there.
And we're actually here with one of the main coordinators, our good friend,
Albert, who has been involved in health conferences and previous Dutch conferences as well.
And, Albert, I know you've been working extremely hard on this conference,
getting it together over the last several years, obviously.
But, I mean, being here on the area for, what, six days?
Well, say hi to the folks and tell us what's involved in a conference like this.
Hi.
My name is Albert Haasberg, and I'm one of the guys who runs HAR 2009.
And I'm on the site now for six days, and it is mainly organizing a lot of volunteers
and making everybody happy and keeping the spirit up.
And then things happen out of themselves.
So if you create the right atmosphere, then humongous things happen.
We have 32 tents from small ones that are like 50 square meters, which is in feet a lot,
and two big tents that hold 700 people, including all the other infrastructure like power
and fiber optic networks that's 10 gigabits, and you name it.
What do I do now?
Now, Albert, how many people are you expecting to show up to this?
In total, we expect about 2,200 people to show up.
And I can't give you this quite definite number because we're sold out.
Wow.
And there was a problem.
You couldn't take more than the sold-out limit, right?
There's some reason for that?
Yeah.
The campsite we have is very secluded, very beautiful, very easy to make even more beautiful
with, for instance, all the lights that we do done by our good friends of ARC Event.
You should really look them up in Berlin.
And we have severe limitations on the fields that are available to us,
including, of course, things like parking space.
Holland is a small country, and gathering more than 2,000 people together is quite a task.
More than 2,000 people, wow.
And so for how long does this event continue?
How long does it go on for?
Well, actually, we didn't start yet.
That's one of the big things we have.
We have a huge build-up phase.
We have a build-up phase of six, seven days.
We have something that we call the welcome day where the majority of all the visitors arrive.
Then we have a pre-party.
And then we have four days of conference.
And then we have three very, very insane days of breakdown, or break-up, or what it's called.
And in total, I'm on the site for roughly two weeks.
And after that, I need a month of sleep.
Yeah, so wow.
Cannot blame you.
Now, can you give us a general idea of some of the talks or things that are going to be going on?
Yeah, we have lots of interesting talks, actually.
We have a fantastic keynote by the guys from Wikileaks.
They're heavily involved in making sure there's no censorship on the Internet and censorship in general.
And they will talk about it tomorrow in our opening keynote.
Then, of course, we have very political talks about the future of science or the anonymous version of Scientology.
And we have very heavily technical talks like that the mobile phone network, the GSM network, is basically broken.
Encryption is broken.
And the way how you can take over cell towers is all a big problem becoming more and more.
And, of course, things like quantum encryption that's reoccurring on our type of conferences.
So it goes from very political to easy technical like Linux and why the kernel is important to very important and difficult things like digital encryption.
So it sounds like you said Anonymous was there.
Well, you know, Anonymous is very big.
So there is somebody who is, let's say, anonymous in his own way.
So that's interesting.
I didn't really know that their sort of struggle with Scientology was known outside of the United States.
Well, actually, the struggle with Scientology is a worldwide struggle.
And in Europe, there are just as many people who are opposing the strategies of Scientology as there are in the U.S.
That's good to know.
So tell us a bit more about the camping aspect.
How is that all looking like it's shaping up?
It's actually going quite well.
We don't have this rush of 2,000 people who all come on the same day.
It's now after midnight, so after 1 o'clock at night at the moment.
And people are still coming in from all over the world.
Europe is a big place, so people just start driving and driving.
And after 36 hours of driving, we arrive here at the middle of the night.
So we have people from Norway, and we have people from Hungary, and we have people from Russia.
So there's lots and lots of people.
And so we have more and more tents and little domes, and people bring tons and tons of equipment to show other people and bring their projects.
So it's just not the nature aspect that's very beautiful here, but also all the stuff and equipment that people bring.
Really, the demoing, the showing of your technology or your equipment is one of the important things of an event like this next to the program.
Gotcha.
And you were describing a lot of the talks earlier.
We have heard that since this is a pledge drive night for Off the Hook and for WBAI,
one of the things that will be available as part of a $75 pledge package, I think it is?
Yes, indeed.
Tonight will be the program of the conference.
So if you're not there and you wanted to know what happened, I personally find having the program for the conference, the listing of all the talks, really useful when I want to go back and follow up on things.
Now, will you be making videos of the different talks at the conference?
Yeah, of course.
We will actually digitally record every talk.
We actually will stream it live at the same time as well, and we will record it to disk, and we will make it available later on through digital media.
We put it on BitTorrent and FTP servers and hope that everybody downloads it as much as possible and shares this knowledge.
Great.
Sharing knowledge is all we're all about.
So having a copy of the program for the conference, in addition to the other fabulous things that will be in the HAR package that we're offering tonight for $75,
having the program will make it easier for you to figure out which talks you might want to look into, maybe find the video for, take a look at those.
It's all part of spreading more information about security issues, about censorship online, and that's what we do here at Off the Hook.
The sponsoring of the radio station is all managed by Eric.
Yes.
He will talk more about it, and he has more good news, I think.
Oh, good.
Can we hear from him?
First of all, guys, we've been trying to get your attention because we're trying to get a second phone line to come in here so we can actually talk back and forth with people.
So can you call that number we gave you earlier?
I believe we're looking into that right now.
Okay.
Basically, it's the local number that hopefully will ring a phone here, and then we'll be able to go back and forth.
I think I have a little tiny phone to hand to everybody.
Okay.
I shall do my best, but I'm still a newbie, so apologies in advance if I lose you.
Okay.
Well, try not to lose me.
That would be bad.
Emanuel, do you want to talk more about the package tonight?
Yes, I think that might be good.
Basically, what we're trying to do here, obviously, to keep this radio station going, this is the biggest challenge we've ever had to face, actually, because we're all over here in Europe.
You guys, you're fairly new to this as far as certainly engineering and being on the radio and things like that,
so it's a lot of responsibility having to juggle the phone lines and keep track of what's going on in the station.
We're running out of hard way.
Yeah, we're going to get through this.
We're going to get through this.
Okay.
With our listeners helping us, it'll be a successful night, like last week was.
We made over $1,000 last week, and that was great.
This week, we have something completely different to offer.
We're calling it the Hard Package, and for a pledge of $75, you'll get almost like you came here.
Certainly, if you check out the videos that are being streamed at the conference, you'll feel like you're here now,
but you'll also be able to get a hard T-shirt, which I haven't actually seen yet, but I've heard good things about them.
We have hard programs.
We have, I believe, a hard pen that's being given to only certain people.
That's pretty cool right there.
In addition, we also have this.
Sounds like we're getting some feedback then.
We're getting your pardons.
We're getting just a bit of feedback patching the other line in.
I'm going to go stand over here now and see if that helps.
You are poking into the wall, Mike, so don't go too far.
You're going to yank the wall out.
Actually, I'm going to put Voter on to talk about this publication that we found in England that Smyrn handed to us.
I was blown away by it.
It's an incredible publication about hacker issues and stories called Hacker Voice Digest.
It's huge.
It's really big.
They put out a couple of issues, but I was very impressed with it.
We have copies of that to throw into this package as well.
We have the T-shirt.
We've got the pen.
We've got the program.
We've got this hacker publication, this one big issue.
That's what people will call 212-209-2950 right now and pledge $75.
In addition to that, you'll also get the off-the-hook T-shirt.
It's a great package.
I'm just going to put Voter on for a second and talk about this publication that we stumbled upon in London.
Some friends of ours showed us.
Yes, the publication is called Hacker's Voice Digest.
It's a really big magazine format, I think like 90 pages or so.
This is just the third issue that's so far.
It's really good.
It starts off with like basic content for people that really aren't that type.
Like interaction to phone speaking, interaction to voice technology, stuff like that.
Then it goes on to get really more detailed, even more so than a lot of points and country articles.
I think this does a really good job at presenting the issues of the hacker community of the day.
Okay.
We keep getting feedback, so if you could move further apart, you two guys.
That magazine sounds really interesting.
It sounds like this is something at three issues that hasn't been out for that long.
This is something that if you call in now and subscribe and pledge to WBAI,
you'll be getting something that probably nobody else you know has heard of yet,
something that we've only just found out about.
That sounds really neat.
Okay.
2950 is our telephone number.
We've got Mike on the line.
I was just wanting to make sure we remind people that the number to call and show your support for WBAI.
In addition to get these wonderful premiums is 1-212-209-2950.
I was hoping you would say something like that, Mike.
We have more people to talk to, including a very special guest,
but we want to get those phone lines ringing first.
So we want to make sure that, I don't know, what you say is fair for this package.
I mean, we should already have four calls, 212-209-2950, for the hard T-shirt,
which you won't be able to get anywhere else.
You won't be able to get Hacker Voice Digest anywhere else.
That's something that's, you know, I've never seen a copy of it before last week,
and it's not available anyplace.
This is your only chance to get this.
You certainly won't be finding a hacking at random pen.
And, well, it's going to be very hard to get a copy of the program if you're not here.
But we can get all this stuff for you if you call us and pledge $75,
and we'll also throw in the off-the-hook T-shirt, 212-209-2950.
Rob, tell me we have four calls on the line, because I'd be embarrassed if we didn't.
I'm very sorry to embarrass you.
We had two calls on the line.
Now they're gone.
We need more calls.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, this is really the only time we can ever offer this,
because we won't be able to get this material again.
Yeah, I might add, yeah, our premiums are only available during this hour while we're broadcasting.
We're almost halfway through.
And, of course, if you pledge, you also get a radio station,
which is great because we can't talk about these kinds of things.
We led off speaking a little bit about optical voting machines upstate,
which are just being implemented.
And one of our listeners called in and said, you know,
we'd love it if you could call attention to any flaws or vulnerabilities that you're aware of with these machines.
That is something that we talked about at the HOPE conference last summer.
Not me, but there was a talk about that.
And this is not something that we're hearing all that much about in the mainstream news.
The commercial news are not as interested in covering this.
So if you support WBAI, you will continue to learn about things like problems with your voting machines and easy hacks.
As I recall, one of the things that we found out about the voting machines is there were some really simple hacks that would involve,
say, putting a Post-it note over a piece of thing on the glass, like a copy machine,
and using standard printer ink that you'd use in your own printer to forge documents.
So these are the kinds of things we can talk about because we're on WBAI.
And if you call in and you pledge, you support this station.
212-209-2950.
We really need those phone calls to start pouring in.
This is a very unique hacker premium that we're offering tonight.
Again, hard material.
You'll get the hard T-shirt.
You'll get the hard pen.
You'll get the hard program.
You'll get a very, very rare copy of Hacker Voice Digest.
And you'll get the off-the-hook T-shirt, all for a pledge of $75.
That's really pretty damn good.
212-209-2950.
We take all kinds of credit cards.
But most importantly, you're supporting this radio station.
212-209-2950.
What's in Hacker Voice Digest?
What else is in there?
The phone-freaking article sounded kind of interesting.
That's something we don't hear about much anymore.
I wish I brought a copy with me.
Basically, it's full size.
2,600 is Digest size.
This is about double the size of that.
And it's bound like a book.
And it's just got a lot of really nice graphics
and all kinds of articles on current hacking issues, new technology, things like that.
It's got a really good kind of cool attitude.
Hacker Voice Radio is something that happens.
It's based in England, and they do all kinds of hacker-themed programming as well.
It's not just off-the-hook on the radio.
And, of course, on the Internet, there's all kinds of content.
So this is the voice these guys have.
And they're here as far as well.
So you really get a good rounded package of all kinds of different materials,
stuff that we don't usually offer here at the radio station.
So we're trying to branch out a bit and show you some other viewpoints as well.
But we need that response because if we don't get a good response,
then that tells us that our audience really doesn't care that much.
And that would be a horrible thing to even contemplate.
212-209-2950.
Mike, perhaps you can get these calls to come in.
Well, I'll try to encourage people to call us.
212-209-2950.
I mean, the thing about this premium pack is it's something you can't get anywhere else.
The Digest is something I haven't even seen.
I wouldn't even know where to get it.
The T-shirt you can only get by coming here to HAR.
And if you're listening on the radio and you're not here at HAR, it's the only other way.
And the radio station, of course, there is only one way to get WBAI to stay on the air,
and that is to call and show your support, 212-209-2950.
Rob and Gus, I hope you'll tell me that we've got some calls coming in now.
We do. We just broke the four-call mark, which is very heartening.
Someone mentioned the question of whether or not our audience cares.
And I would like to see that proven with more lights on this board.
I think that even though we've reached the four-call mark, we can always get more calls,
212-209-2950, while we're talking to our guests.
If you think the guest is boring, I don't know why you would ever think that, but give us a call.
If you think the guest is exciting and you want us to be able to have guests like that in the future,
212-209-2950.
Okay, hang on one second. Wait, we did make the four calls? Is that what you're saying?
Yes, we did, and we're there again now.
I was halfway to my 10 because I walked out and discussed, and I heard that.
I'm coming back now, so all right.
I'm happy to hear this because this gives me back faith.
212-209-2950. All right, we promised a special guest. We have a special guest.
You guys ready?
I'm ready.
Actually, I'm going to hand this phone to him, and I'll take that phone over there.
Sorry, we have to use this direction on the air.
This is Johannes from Vienna.
I think you guys might remember him from the closing ceremonies at the Last Hope,
and if you've ever been to a European conference, he's one of the stars.
Johannes.
Johannes, say hi to the folks in New York.
Hey.
Are you going to sing us a song, Johannes?
Hey, good to hear you. Excellent. Hi.
In fact, I guess Emanuel's trip here to Haar was shorter than my trip from Austria
because I was driving in my car for 11 hours with two of my friends,
and I just arrived like half an hour ago.
I went through the wonderful, funny country of Germany,
and I arrived at the wonderful, funny country of the Netherlands.
It's like all the street names are so funny.
If I can believe it, it's great.
I'm here, and I really have to check out the location now.
I read in the description in the Haar booklet that we are here on a campground
that was a former socialist youth camp, and I really like that.
I feel the socialist vibes around me,
and I'm really looking forward to checking out all the talks and all this stuff
the next couple of days.
It's actually my second hacker camp this summer
because I went to Tor camp in early July,
and the good thing is here in the Netherlands, they have grass.
It's green. It's lofty.
At Tor camp, there was like half a meter of volcanic ash of Mount St. Helens on the floor,
and it was dusty, and it was kind of burning mannish,
but here in the Netherlands, it looks more like a Tolkien novel, I would say.
It's green, and so many little hobbits, hacker hobbits around.
I like it.
Johannes, considering that this used to be a socialist youth camp,
do you have any particular entertainment planned that sort of relates to that theme?
I have heard.
I mean, I have heard.
It's only a rumor.
I've heard that the ambassador of the Soviet Republic of Soviets,
will set up a small Soviet embassy here at Har.
I've heard about that.
I'm not sure if it's completely true,
but I'm trying to meet with the ambassador in the next couple of days,
and I hope there will be some kind of, I don't know,
like speech or some kind of diplomatic meet-up with the ambassador.
Excellent.
Johannes, can you please get people to call our radio station and support us,
support the radio station, keep the radio station on the air?
I think you can convince them in ways we can't.
Yes, like money.
Yes.
Of course.
That's what it's all about.
All the money, all the money.
I mean, especially if it's U.S. dollars.
Like, you know, U.S. dollars, it's nothing worth anyway, so it's fine.
Give me all your dollars, and you.
It's 212-209-2950.
Yes.
That's where all the money has to go to, I guess.
212, that's a New York number, isn't it?
Yeah, it is.
Yes, it is.
212 is like New York.
Ah!
Gracious.
Okay.
Yes.
Country code.
Oh, yes, of course.
Country code one.
The cool thing is that Canada and the U.S., they have the same country codes.
But Canadians, never say Canadians, they don't have their own country codes.
They're really upset about that, yes.
Johannes, what are you going to be speaking about?
Pardon?
Sorry, Rob, do you have a question?
No, we just lost Mike, so I'm going to try and get him back.
All right.
Johannes, what will you be speaking about?
So, actually, it's a secret.
I'm not allowed to talk about it.
But I think I'll be around, and I'll be one of the ambassadors for the hackerspaces movement
because I'm highly involved in a couple of hackerspaces, especially the Meta Lab in Vienna.
And Esther Schneweiss-Astera, she's here, and she's giving a talk about hackerspaces,
and I will support her.
And I think we have to spread the general idea of we need many, many autonomous spaces
for hackers and people who are interested in trying to change the society with technology
and by the use of technology.
And that's my main purpose, I guess, why I'm here.
And I want to spread the word that there should be wherever.
Even in the darkest corner of, I don't know, New Mexico, there have to be more hackerspaces.
So what is it that you see going on at hackerspaces that you think is worth promoting?
The cool thing about hackerspaces is there's a long tradition of hackerspaces.
I mean, the first hackerspaces popped up in the 1970s, at the same time when the first
WASP appeared, or the first alternative childcare centers and stuff like that.
There's this old, long tradition, especially in the Netherlands and Germany, of course,
about hackerspaces and the political use of hacking and hacktivism and stuff like that.
And I think that there should be more hackerspaces out there that take the political message
of hacking seriously, I guess.
So we need more spaces out there, more people who are actively doing stuff and building stuff
and using hacking techniques.
But not only to do some let's-it-always or to do some blinky stuff, but also to use it
as a really important form of social commentary and trying to change society
and trying to lead us to find a better future, I guess.
Which is what we keep trying to talk about here on OffTheHook.
If you'd like to support us, it's 212-209-2950.
We're offering a package from HAR, Hacking at Random, with more information and great swag
from the Hacking at Random conference.
If you pledge $75 this hour, we also have, I believe, other awards for lesser pledges.
We have also got, for a $25 pledge and above, you will get our exclusive OffTheHook t-shirt,
which you cannot get anywhere else.
And of course, Rob, you can pledge any amount, anything you can pledge.
If you're doing well this year, give us $1,000. Why not?
As Johanna says, it's just dollars. They're not worth that much.
212-209-2950.
Can I break in for a second?
We have a listener here who wants to say hi to some people on the radio.
This is Tom from Australia. We just ran into him.
He was walking down the path as we were getting here to the radio.
He's one of many listeners around the world.
It's just great to see them here at the Hacker Camp.
It makes you realize how big the world is, how we can reach so many people.
Let me just hand the phone over to Tom for a second.
Hey, how are you doing?
Hello, Tom.
Hi.
So, Tom, how long have you been listening to the show?
Sorry?
How long have you been listening to the show?
For a couple of years now.
I sent up the magazine as well.
This is my first conference, basically.
It's an amazing experience to see all these hackers converge in such a cordial environment,
just sharing information.
And you came all the way from Australia?
Yeah, I did.
It was a long trip, but it's worth it.
Wow.
So, really, this is how the hacker movement is bringing together people from all around the globe.
That's really impressive.
Oh, definitely, yeah.
I've already met a fair few people from all different countries, so it's a great atmosphere.
You can just share information and knowledge with people from all over the world.
What have you learned so far?
Basically, I've just been walking around, taking it all in, getting my bearings.
Just looking at the lineup and the different talks.
Basically, there's so many different topics to look at, things that I have no idea about.
I'm looking forward very much to just going around and learning new things
and learning more about things that I already know.
And what looks intriguing to you?
What's the most intriguing topic so far, do you think?
There's a fair few talks that are a bit politically charged,
and I think that in the current climate, it's a very interesting thing to learn about,
especially the sort of influence of technology that it currently has over certain political things,
such as voting machines and just distribution of information.
All right.
Sounds good.
Cool.
I'll pop you back onto the manual.
Well, thank you, Tom.
Thanks, Tom.
He's from Queensland in Australia.
He's one of a whole lot of listeners, I think, that are here.
We have over 1,400 people here so far and a lot more on their way, so it's going to be great fun for all.
We want to bring Bernie, and Bernie's in Germany, but before we do that,
we want to make sure we get some phone calls coming in because we're staying up late tonight to do this radio show.
It's something like 1.40 in the morning here.
But the only reason the radio show exists is because the radio station exists,
and the only reason the radio station exists is because of folks like you who call and support us.
We're trying to make this as pleasant and as interesting as possible for you.
We're throwing in all kinds of hacking at random material, one-time offers,
which will never be offered again, a hacking at random shirt to specify your size when you call in,
and you'll also get a program guide of all the talks taking place at the conference.
And, again, you can see the audio and the video on the Internet.
That's all going to be available.
In addition, you'll get a very snazzy hard pen.
I might just hand him one of these, and it's pretty cool.
I wish we did this at home.
It's a nice pen that says horror in it.
It's something that I'm sure will last a long time.
And a copy of the aforementioned Hacker Publication that I don't think anybody in the United States has heard of before,
or has copies of, called Hacker Voice Digest.
And that's something that you can impress a lot of people with.
All of that for a pledge of $75.
And you said the Hacker Voice Digest, it's not just a magazine.
This is something that comes book-bound.
It's sort of a high-quality publication, what we're hearing, right?
It really is.
Yeah, I'm amazed by it, actually, how they pulled this off.
So if you want to see how – oh, my God, there's a spider on the computer.
Yes.
Is it a spam spider?
Because those ones you want to stay away from.
Yeah.
212-209-2950, a pledge of $75.
You know, we're going through a lot out here.
We're standing outside.
Well, sort of inside, but it's, you know, it was raining before, but it's well worth it
just for us to be able to bring you material like this.
But you can't do this on a commercial station.
You can't do this on non-commercial stations.
WBAI is a very special place, and it's because of you that it exists.
So, please, if this show means anything to you,
if you feel like you're getting something out of all the activity going on over here in Holland,
then please call and support the radio station so we can continue to bring this.
We should point out that all of us are here on our own expense.
WBAI doesn't send anybody anywhere.
They basically serve as the voice piece for all kinds of interesting people
throughout the course of a normal broadcast day.
That's why, if you listen to this radio station,
you'll hear all kinds of different political programming and social programming
and technical programming.
It all comes about because we don't have commercials.
We have listener support.
212-209-2950.
Just get a few more phone calls coming in,
and then we can make a phone call over to Germany and see what Bernie has been up to.
212-209-2950.
How about you folks in the studio?
Maybe you can beg a little harder.
Personally, I'm really interested in this Hacker Voice quarterly.
Are you guys going to bring me back a copy?
Yeah, we can do that.
We can totally do that.
We have a couple here, and we're going to get more for all the listeners that call in.
Sounds good.
And after 8 o'clock, you're not going to be able to get this information.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
I'm getting a bit of feedback there.
Yeah, the Hacker Voice quarterly is part of what we're offering
for the pledge package of $75 tonight at 212-209-2950.
From what we hear, Emanuel didn't know about it before tonight.
If he doesn't know about it, you don't know about it,
neither do your friends.
Impress your friends.
Get a copy today.
Pledge $75.
212-209-2950.
By the way, folks, he cut me off in New York.
I'm on a different phone now, so he can't get rid of me that easily.
Yeah, well, the thing is we reprogrammed the 800 number to reach Bernie,
so now we're going to have to reprogram it to reach me.
Have you called Bernie yet?
It has not gone through.
Not successfully, not yet.
Okay, let's do this.
Let's get a few more phone calls in.
How many calls are on the line right now?
One.
One?
Give us a ring, guys.
Well, I mean, it's one more than zero, but it's two less than three,
and I'd like to see three calls on the line.
212-209-2950.
You know, it's not like we're not offering anything.
First of all, I really think people should call,
even if we weren't offering anything other than the radio station,
because that's the best thing there is.
212-209-2950.
But we're offering this amazing premium that, you know,
the people here have really pulled their resources to offer this to the radio station.
It shows how much they realize that this place means a great deal.
But, you know, I'm hoping the listeners get this as well,
that this is a once-in-a-lifetime.
And I don't use that term lightly, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
to get some European hacker souvenirs and information,
things that you won't be able to get again.
And if you want to make it to horror,
and I imagine a lot of people listening in New York,
well, unless you're hopping on a midnight flight, you're not going to make it to horror,
this is the next best thing.
It really is.
212-209-2950, pledges $75, the horror T-shirt, the horror pen,
the horror program guide, the special hacker publication
that is not available anyplace else,
and, of course, the off-the-hook T-shirt.
212-209-2950.
If we don't have a handful of calls by now, I don't know what else we can do.
We have three calls in the line.
Excellent.
Let's keep them coming in.
I'm really excited about the Hacker Voice quarterly that we're offering.
It sounds like it's related to an English hacker show.
You get the material from horror.
That's going to tell you about hacking further to the east,
in the Netherlands, and elsewhere.
That's what we can offer you,
and we're hoping to share this with you if you call in and pledge tonight.
212-209-2950.
Just a little bit more of a view of what other hackers are talking about
and stuff that we sometimes don't manage to get on our show,
stuff that probably your blogging pals don't know about.
Think about it this way.
We're strengthening your memes.
I mean, you could end up blogging about this,
and all your friends will go,
wow, where did you find out about the Hacker Voice quarterly?
Where did you find out about hacking at random?
You don't have to tell them,
but we just made you a little bit cooler if you find out about these things.
Strengthen your meme.
Support WBAI.
212-209-2950.
If we just get a couple more calls,
we'll be able to get Bernie on the line,
and then you'll find out what he's been up to,
because he's in a whole different part of Europe.
He's on his way here.
It's an amazing time of year for us,
because we've all been traveling all over the place.
Mike's been to Morocco.
Walter's been to Ireland and England.
And Redhack, where have you been?
You've been all over the place, haven't you?
Well, just Ireland so far.
But I will be,
Junce and I will be continuing the trip in Scotland.
So it's, you know, we're making a whole thing out of it.
But this is really the main point.
This is the focus of the trip,
was to come to Har and to be here.
Do we have those calls?
We do not.
We've just got the two of you.
I don't know what else I can probably say.
I mean, this is, you know,
I'd be calling for this myself if I wasn't already here.
Long distance.
Check the transmitter.
Make sure we're on the air.
This is unbelievable that people wouldn't want this kind of valuable stuff.
I mean, we gave away a lot of things last week,
totally different things.
And we did very well.
But we need to do well again tonight.
Otherwise, you know, it might not be on every week of a fundraiser next time.
And this is, remember, the Hacker Voice Digest premium.
It's a premium we're only offering tonight.
We will not offer this next week.
You won't have an opportunity to get the great swag from Har,
hacking at random.
This is stuff that we're only offering tonight,
because next week we'll be offering something completely different.
So do call in.
Support WPAI.
Actually, I think this is the last week.
Oh, my.
Gracious.
Yes, this is the final week of our fundraiser.
So this is your chance.
We're going to be offering you what we offer you every week,
and that's interesting programming about technology.
And, you know, we have to raise money occasionally,
but we try to make it as interesting as possible, and we do.
And I think tonight is certainly proof of that.
It certainly is.
Okay, it does not look like we're having any success getting a third line in.
What is Bernie up to in Germany?
When you say getting a third line in,
are you talking about having someone call us,
or are you trying to get out to Bernie?
Trying to get out to Bernie.
Okay, because it sounded very negative what you said there.
It sounded like nobody was calling in, nobody was interested.
Oh, no, actually that switchboard is lighting up very nicely.
All right, that's what I wanted to hear.
We have seven calls on the line.
Wow, thanks, folks.
Seven calls on the line.
Okay, that's great.
All right.
That's great.
All right, you know what we're going to do then?
We're going to lose a line here, all right?
You hang up on one of us.
It doesn't matter which.
You know, Red Hatch and I are both on the phone here talking to you in New York.
Just click a button at random, hang up on one of us,
and use that line to call Bernie with,
and hopefully that will all go through.
Who will we lose?
Okay, well, it's truly random because I no longer remember who is on which line.
It's Russian roulette.
But you do know what number to call for Bernie.
It's the same number you used to call me, right?
Yes, indeed.
Okay, so let's hope that goes through, and we'll wait for her.
This is the state of her.
Yeah, you definitely lost Emanuel.
Oh, damn it.
That's fine.
I'm nice too.
Hey, Mark.
While you're getting Bernie on the line,
I'd like to remind our listeners that even though we have seven calls on the line,
there's still always room for one more.
And the number to call is 212-209-2950.
Please support WBAI.
It always needs listener support.
It's how it's run.
There's no commercials.
It's commercial free.
We bring you interesting programming.
We bring you programming from overseas,
all kinds of events that we've traveled to over the years and now.
You get to hear from places where they're running their Wi-Fi out of a port-a-potty,
which I thought was kind of cool.
I mean, it's an empty port-a-potty.
Wi-Fi and wired.
I mean, really, I'm not sure where the access points are.
I assume the access points are in the same place.
Originally, and going back to, I think, pre-when Wi-Fi was kind of everywhere and ubiquitous,
you had this problem of how do you distribute Ethernet to a bunch of tents in a field.
And the solution was, well, we need something that's well-ventilated to let the heat out,
and we need something that's waterproof to keep the water out,
and we need something that can lock to keep the equipment in.
And so their solution was to use port-a-potties,
which can be locked and have vents at the top and are waterproof.
Smart.
Okay, well, speaking of solutions, it appears we have Bernie S. on the line now.
Greetings from Cologne, Germany.
Cologne, Germany?
Yes.
Guten abend.
I am at the C4 hacker space in Cologne, which is an amazing space.
And as listeners may recall, I'm on the Hackers on a Plane group,
put together by Nick Farr quite some time ago.
And Nick and Jens here has made arrangements for us
to tour a variety of hacker spaces over the past few days.
First, we went to the PlumberCon conference in Austria last weekend.
You may recall we were talking about that with Astra last week.
And it was a stunning success.
There were well over 100 people there altogether.
And for a first-time small conference, that's pretty good.
There were dozens of speakers, and it had a really good feeling.
It was just a great space.
And I've got to put a shout-out to Astra for putting together a fantastic conference.
PlumberCon was terrific.
People can follow up on some of the talks.
They can shortly be able to download the audio and video from PlumberCon.org
to hear some of the great talks that were here
and see some of the great talks that went on.
There's a lot of stuff that was not covered at other hacker conferences
that I urge people to check out.
But since then, we have checked out the Chaos Computer Conference CCC hacker space
in Mainz, Germany.
And then we visited C4 in Cologne here.
And this morning we headed out to Bonn, Germany,
to check out the Netzladen space.
And then we went to Das Labor in Bochum.
Now, I've got to say something about these spaces.
It's a small space, but they call it a space for self-organized technology, culture, and politics.
And our listeners might find it interesting to know that that space is where the Green Party was founded.
Wow.
Yeah, that's a pretty serious history.
So today I sat with a half-dozen people from this leg of the Hackers on a Plane Journey,
sat around tables at the hacker space, which is where the Green Party was founded several years ago.
And that space is still used by a variety of diverse groups.
It's a hacker space, but there's various other groups there involved in non-technical things
that share this space.
So it's a really nice symbiosis of groups forming there.
Then we went on to Das Labor in Bochum.
I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly.
And that is one great big space with so many things going on, so many projects.
They're building all kinds of things there.
It also has the cleanest bathroom toilets I've ever seen anywhere, let alone a hacker space.
So they really got their act together in Bochum at Das Labor.
But tomorrow morning we're meeting up, the eight of us here are meeting up with a couple dozen other hackers.
In the morning we're flying in from New York City as part of NICFAR's Hackers on a Plane Project 2.0.
So literally dozens of us will be meeting tomorrow.
Dusseldorf we're meeting tomorrow, and we're going to take a bus all the way up to Har.
So we'll be seeing Emmanuel and Juntz and Redhackt and all our other friends there, thousands of friends up in Har.
I do have to say, though, that the main reason we're on the air is because WBAI allows us to have a show like this
to tell our listeners about things going on around the world.
And it couldn't happen without listeners calling.
And the telephone number is 212-209-2950.
I know we have a nice package put together by everybody of stuff from the Har conference,
which unfortunately is sold out.
And it's not because it's like one of these fancy clubs where they only let so many people in because it's cooler that way.
No, the outdoor facility where they're holding this has a strict limit on the number of people that can safely be in the location.
Whoa, we're getting feedback.
And I actually just got a note from the station with some pretty exciting news.
It says if you reach $3,000 on this show, we'll likely have a $50,000 day at WBAI.
That would be really neat.
That would be good to be a part of.
We're offering a great package of swag from hackers at Hacking at Random and a neat British hacking journal.
So if you call in and pledge $75 now, you get that package.
You can pledge anything you like.
We appreciate everything.
212-209-2950.
You've only got a couple of minutes left to make a pledge for the Hacking at Random package.
And our listeners may think, well, why are they just telling us about the conference we're not going to attend?
Or couldn't for whatever reason.
But we bring this information to people because all this information is made available freely by the hacker community to everyone in the world.
After all these talks at these hacker conferences are recorded, the audio and video, and put up online,
so people can really learn from the vast treasure troves of knowledge of people that have researched topics from A to Z and then.
It's just so many fascinating topics, people who have researched in the hacker community.
And they're all available for free by people who visit the websites of these conferences.
Now, obviously, the HARC2009.org material won't be online right away.
But I urge our listeners to check that out and see what's going on right now.
I think there may be some streams coming from there starting tomorrow.
I'll be seeing you guys in the morning up there.
But, again, I urge our listeners to call 212-209-2950 to support this radio station.
It allows us to bring this information to the listeners and let them know where they can get more information
that's just being promulgated around the world about topics that they never would have found out any other way.
Radio is still mass medium.
Give us a call, 212-209-2950.
Radio is still a mass medium.
The Internet, you can't always necessarily find things at random.
You just sort of go to the places you normally go.
On the radio dial, people might hear us who wouldn't hear stuff about hacking, stuff about digital privacy issues otherwise.
So if you support WBAI, and you should now, 212-209-2950, you help keep WBAI live
and help us keep saying things that people with advertising-driven stations would not want us to say.
So it's very important you call in.
Give us a pledge, 212-209-2950, and thank you.
We'll give you awesome hacker swag.
Absolutely, absolutely.
And Bernie, you're absolutely correct.
They will be streaming, I believe, starting tomorrow, and everything will be archived.
Aldert covered it earlier when we had him on the program.
I'm going to hand the phone over to Emanuel now.
I think we're nearing the end of the hour.
Yes, indeed.
I'm very sorry to report we lost Bernie.
Oh, all right.
Well, I'll hand the phone over to Emanuel.
Yes, I did.
Oh, I'm sorry, Bernie's gone?
Yes, we lost Bernie, and we're just about out of time anyway.
Yeah, well, I almost said a very bad word when I heard how we did tonight, and that's amazing.
What's the figure so far?
Well, we heard it was nearly $3,000 for the show.
If we reach that in the next couple of minutes, we'll have a $50,000 day for the channel.
That is incredible.
And just a testament to our off-the-hook listeners for making this one of the best shows ever as far as fundraising.
So I want to thank everybody personally from all of us here in Europe.
Emanuel, I want to thank you for being there.
All right, well, I'll be back, so don't get too comfortable.
All right, folks, have a good night.
Thank you.
What is that glowing scream?
You know you could fly, the rain could run high
But you've been squeezed into that stable
You know what I mean
Yeah
Turn up the power
This is the hour
From every tower
Shout it from above
Turn up the power
This is the hour
From every tower
A million watts of love
By turning that switch
You're finding your niche
And you could tell that I'm one down to 14
Fight!
You should get back in
It's time to check in
We'll help you hang in
To that glowing
Fight!
You've all got the thing
Fight!
Turn up the power
This is the hour
From every tower
Shout it from above
Turn up the power
This is the hour
From every tower
A million watts of love
By turning that switch
You're finding your niche
And you could tell that I'm one down to 14
Fight!