Go to fsrn.org and that wraps up today's program. This is free speech radio news. Thanks for listening in New York
I'm Dorian marina
And you're listening to radio station oh
Yeah, WBA I New York. The time is just about seven o'clock. That means once again, it's time
Yes for off the hook
I
I
I
And very good to ride the program is off the hook Emmanuel Goldstein here with you this fine Wednesday evening
Joined tonight by Mike. Hello, Jim
Dot red
Rob T firefly good evening Gus Walter. Yo dog. I heard you're interviewing me
Sorry
Whatever. Okay and Bernie down in Philadelphia
Yes, it's st. Patrick's Day, isn't it last time we were st. Patrick's Day and we were doing a show
I believe red hat walked in in the middle of the big green hat and he's not here now. So I guess that could still happen
And that works really well on the radio
yeah, okay, so
Exciting. Go ahead. There's this blinking light in the studio
And maybe we can take the big green hat and cover the big green light with it
Yeah, okay, you know for those people who listen to this radio station on a regular basis
We always are complaining about what's going on inside the studio
And yes, somebody's bright idea to install a big flashing green light whenever a microphone is on and we just cover it with gloves
But you know, it's st. Patrick's Day today. So I think maybe we should have the big flashing green light on the whole hour
What do you think?
Jim likes that idea. So I'm all for it. Well, it's an idea. I'll put it that way. Yeah
So, okay. Yeah exciting news today. We finally were able to get the the hotel
Special rates for the help conference. So that means that if you if you go to
It's not on our website yet. We tweeted about it, but it's not yet on our website
It's on it's on the dot right is on the next hope wiki or blog or how many things are there?
I'm getting confused man. There's so many you have the main website, you know, hope.net you have the forms talk that hope.net
Wiki, which is wiki dot net. Yes, and there's more right Twitter and Facebook events Facebook and
For some reason we don't have it on the main 2600 site yet. But well, there's plenty of places to find the prices
Yeah, the contact phone numbers you can get that
I can't give the prices out over the air, but we can say that the prices are less than they were previously
That's incredible that we're able to pull that off but all you have to do is call the hotel
hotel, Pennsylvania, which is Pennsylvania six five thousand area code two one two for those of you in this century two one two, seven
three six five thousand and
ask for the hope conference rate and of course hope is taking place July 16 17 and 18 of
2010 and
That's just more exciting than I can I can think of at the moment
We've been involved in all sorts of things over the last week as far as organizing
Getting people to show up and projects and things like that Emanuel. Yes, Bernie
I noticed I called the hotel Pennsylvania recently. Did you and I noticed they're they're they're automated system no longer plays
Pennsylvania six five. Oh get out. Really III how could they possibly have decided to get rid of that famous song?
That made probably the most famous phone number in the world. You know what I bet it is
I bet they don't have the rights to play the music
You know, it could be that or it could be they didn't make their demographic would be familiar with the song
But I mean still they should make their food their demographic familiar with the song
Wow
I'm sorry. What a demographic that hotel does not have a demographic. I don't think I thought we were the demographic
The demographic is people that need to come to New York cheap
That's a demographic and we're happy to cater to that demographic. So yeah
Those of you who want to come to the help conference all the information is available on hope.net the registration
Register early, please. It helps us out. And also you'll save money because the prices don't stay low forever
I mean that they're always low comparatively to to other conferences and other things to do
But they'll never be lower than this. Let's put it that way
So again, hope.net and two and two seven three six five thousand to register for your your special room rates for the hope conference filter
Yes, don't then end up like I did at the last hope where I forgot to
Call in time for you get the special rate and by the time I got ahead to pay full price
Yeah, you have a history of this a horror
You had the same problem where somebody had to pull out all kinds of favors for you to get
Get a ticket. Otherwise, you would have been standing on the other side of the street
So yeah, let's let's take that to heart
Okay, we have various special things to talk about tonight now
Bernie I know that you've been following this story, even though it's taking place in our fair city and not yours
Perhaps you could update us and also by way of by way of this introduce our special guest
But some of you may have heard the story about some nefarious activities with New York City
Taxis, yeah, why don't you tell us what's what you know about that? Well, it all started a few months ago
or maybe a few weeks ago with it when an
Doctor with NYU took a took a cab
In the city and he knew the cab fare was normally like five dollars
But but must been a short ride and it went up to like seven dollars
and he he had an argument with the cab driver about it who then offered to give him a discount and
He just thought it was fishy
So he paid with his credit card to have to log this and then he filed a complaint with the New York
Taxi and limousine Commission who did an investigation and found out that the taxicab drivers were playing tricks with the
The fare boxes they could press a button a certain way to make it to record the fares being outside a certain area
so they could charge more and
You know when you give somebody that kind of power it turns out like a lot of taxicab drivers were doing this and to the tune
Of like eight point two million dollars in in overcharges
And thanks to some creepy tracking technology that the New York Taxi and limousine Commission has been using
With the taxi head drivers were really complaining about and now I see why maybe
everyone who paid with a credit card the
limousine Commission can go back in the system and
And see who was really overcharged because there's a GPS system in each cab now
which logs were the cars to where the where the ride started and where it ended and
Who was in the car as far as whose credit card it was and that sort of thing
But we have a special guest tonight to explain exactly how this happened a special guest to who spoke at the last
Hope back in 2008 on
on on taxis and
Foghorn are you with us? Yes, I am and we'll tell us something about yourself
you gave that talk at the last hope which was very well received and
You are you a cab driver yourself or are you involved actually?
They they wanted me to go through the
Licensing system and and check out the taxi schools because they're getting different reports of you know, this taxi school
You know slips me afraid a little bit this taxi school doesn't really do anything
And so they wanted me to go through that and I got my hack license and I think it lapsed got your hack license
Yeah, okay good to know
Comes from the term hacky cab back in London
in the 1800s, there were horse-drawn carriages and they went around at breakneck speeds and
The drivers were called hacky. The cabs were called hacky cabs and drivers were called hack drivers and
That tradition carried over to New York City. And so even here in like in the database, it's not called driver ID
It's called hack number
That's that's a fascinating bit of history. I didn't I didn't know that's where the term came from
Okay, so
Well, can you tell us something about the the talk you gave at the last hope and then we'll talk about the current issues
The talk was actually on this specific system. I was
my internship with the Taxi Limiting Commission in
2008 and that summer and I was working directly with the GPS system on the databases
so I had you know access to all the databases I could see everything that was going on and
My job was to make a front end for the call center to interface with it
and
Based off the stuff that I saw and the things are happening in the news. I figured it would be a good idea to
get some of this information out to the public and
You know inform people that it's not just you know
Big Brother looking down our looking down his nose into our pocketbooks and making sure that you know
We're taking tax caps where he wants us. It's a system that actually helps people and does a lot of good
Okay
So now let's let's move up to the present we've all seen the story concerning what Bernie was talking about about
Taxi driver some taxi drivers overcharging by I believe double
Now is there something you can tell us about how that particular system
Ties into all this. Yeah
In the taxi cab as soon as you hop into the cab, there are certain fairs that can apply
For example, it's late at night
You might get a little extra charge on the on your bill if you're coming from JFK there or Laguardia
Rather, it's a $45 flat fee into the city and they just press another button
there's other
fares for
Certain things I can't remember at the moment, but it's just buttons on the little
taxi meter device and
They can just press them at will and there's really no check system at the moment to
Check to see that the fare actually applies as to where they are and what time of day it is
But it's all recorded in the database
There's a certain database that just holds all the information for the ride
So how long it was pick up location drop off location last four digits the credit card
Tip amount if it's entered and
any special rates that apply are a couple different columns and
So
what was going on was taxi drivers were just pressing that button and what it was is as soon as you leave New York
County, so any of the five boroughs
the rate doubles
So if you go into West District County as soon as you hit that county line, they hit the button and your fare
Jumps up. So and that the per minute fare is what changes?
the per
quarter mile eighth mile
Either a time or distance, right? Right. Okay
and so they were just pressing that button, but they weren't leaving New York County and
what the taxidermy commission did was went back into the records and
Because they had the start location at the end location and Google Maps
they could just plug that in and see okay, this guy went from you know, Central Park to
Lincoln Center and
That's well within Manhattan
So wait, you mean they're able to call up records of a ride that was taken years ago and check the rate that was charged
For that ride. I'm pretty sure they don't
delete any data at this particular time, but the thing is
Only the last four digits of your credit card are saved
But but but the information on the actual ride that the driver
Had is saved. Yeah, that's incredible. I didn't know they did things like that and Wow
Has this been used for law enforcement purposes yet? I
Can't fight anything off the top of my head
but I do remember I worked in the call center a couple days to get a feel for it so I can make the
Interface I was talking about and
At least five calls a day came through
That phone that I was working at in particular where someone had left a bag in the back of a car or you know
Cello in the trunk or something and they just knew okay. I was at this place
I went to this place and they dropped me off at this time and
Based off that you can get
the list of all the taxi cabs that picked up in an area within that location like a 0.5 mile radius and
Then dropped off within a 0.5 mile radius and then based on the time you can figure out which cab it was specifically and
What's nice about the new system is they've implemented an SMS system
Where the TLC can actually message the cabbie?
specifically which cabbie they
Identified and say hey look in your back. See if this is back there if so return to the nearest
lost item briefing
Hey foghorn. Yep. I I really enjoyed your talk at the last tip. It was really interesting
But what you just mentioned is that the the taxi limousine Commission is now texting
cabbies while they're driving
Doesn't this conflict with a recent rule that the taxi limousine Commission just put into effect a few weeks ago that forbade
Your cabbies from using their phone
For any purpose while they're driving
There's a safeguarding system so that as if the cab is moving the text doesn't go through so to stop the text
Bernie I think what you're referring to was the bus system
No, I was referring to the taxi limousine Commission
I actually called them and verified what the article was
I don't know if we talked about it detail on the show, but um yeah
So that's really interesting the system sees if the car the cab is moving and waits till it's
Apparently stopped before it sends the SMS to the cabbie
Yeah, because as the cab is moving along. It's dropping breadcrumbs so that the GPS in the back can pick it up
Breadcrumbs being it's taking GPS coordinate locations as it's going along this path and then storing them temporarily so they can display them on the
Display in the back of the cab because there's a TV back there, and then it looks and
You can you know you could trace your route, and this is where you're going. This is where your destination can be
and
As long as the points are close enough to just text message
So if they're if they only had the last four digits of all these credit card numbers that were
That were overcharged for cab fare
How are they going to find out individually who deserves a refund written business taxi limousine Commission say they're going to try to refund all?
eight point two million dollars in overcharges
that's that's one of the problems the taxi limousine Commission only carry only keeps the last four digits because
They're they're trying to coordinate
You know that this cab was different from this cab was different from this cab and the way the database is set up
It's it's actually quite insane. There's about 16 different databases and none of them are exactly linked
They're actually stored in the mainframe which is queried every day and then pulled into a mysql database
Which then you have to use all sorts of join
To get it to work with anything well as far as just a suggestion here from from somebody who never takes cabs
But okay, we don't know who to refund the money to but we do know who's guilty
Why not have it simply a day where the guilty cab drivers have to take everybody in the city around for free?
you know what that is that is that the
Realistic or maybe maybe a week
Just until they pay it all week of free cab rides
But unfortunately another one of the problems we had was I was doing some statistical work and I had to figure out you know
what an average cabbie's day was and
You know when they started work how many trips they made and one thing that makes it difficult
Is a lot of the times you're supposed to sign in with your hack number every time you make a trip
but some people
some hack drivers don't do that or they leave the hack number of the person who wasn't before because they leased the cab and
They know the person who leases it they use their hack number
All sorts of different systems. You can't exactly be sure who was driving any cab at any particular time
Now I'm going back to what you were saying about the GPS and the the system that logs the locations and where you go
I don't believe this is an entirely new thing
I seem to remember in the days before all this tech was in the cab that they would just write it down with a pen
and paper and
So I think this is just automating something that was already a requirement and am I correct exactly?
There used to be what called the what they call trip sheet and
you had to write down your pick up location your drop off location the times and how many passengers and
You had to have it filled out, but there was nothing about how legibly you have to do it
So if you look back into my slides, they're posted on my website nickleghorn.com
There's a slide in there, which has a the most legible trip sheet I could find and I still can't read it
Because a lot of the stuff that did was
They'd fill out a trip sheet using, you know
The worst handwriting they could possibly do and then they just leave it
Because they didn't need to necessarily hand and a good one in every day
They just photocopy it and send a whole bunch in but they needed to have a one that looks sort of filled out or else
The police could give them a ticket for not having a trip sheet
So is it was it something where when they changed over from the trip sheets to the computerized system?
Were there any cabbies who refused or there's still people out there using trip sheets or is everybody doing digital now?
It's mandated after the the last
after the system was implemented it became a
Necessity for recertification of the cab because every
Four months four to six months the cabs need to be recertified
So they need to go through the inspection facility
Make sure that you know, all the springs are good
The seat doesn't have you know, hypodermic diesel sticking out of it the right stickers are in the right place and nothing's lapsed and
They made it one of the requirements that you had to have one of the three systems there are three different
implementations of this
GPS system and they made it a requirement that you have to have one of them or else you wouldn't pass recertification and you couldn't
Operate as a taxicab anymore
So we've returned to the credit card issue and you had mentioned that there are lots of like
Poorly organized databases that are part of the system
Is there any point in the chain where there's more than the for the last four days you credit card stored where that could be?
subpoenaed potentially
there is
one point and that's the
The I was talking about the there are three different implementations of the GPS system
And each one is backed up by a different company and each of the companies
Charges the credit card. So it's up to the companies to charge the credit cards not the TLC
so they according to the PCI standards have to keep the records for a certain amount of time and they'll keep the record and
Whether or not they have them. I'm
Unaware, but that's the best bet for where the records are because by the time it hits TLC databases
They've already been sanitized
So they don't actually limit each mission doesn't even get the full
Credit card number. It isn't even translated to them. I was speaking with foghorn
about the the current
New York City taxi scandal and let me go back to your your talk in 2008 at the last hope
How was that received by the hacking community?
They liked it a lot. I really wanted to go to do more but I was I was doing the presentation. I
Was I was doing it
The attack to the limousine Commission gave me permission to do it. So they went through my speech and okayed all of it
There's a little bit more. I wanted to go into but it was some live exploits in the system
that I've notified them of and I'm still waiting on confirmation to release those but
That people seem to like it a lot
There were there were a lot of people that came up to me afterwards saying, you know
I've been a taxi driver for X number of years. I didn't know this was how the system worked. It's really cool
I did a lot about the history of the taxi cabs and
The current demographics of taxi drivers and how there are precisely thirteen thousand two hundred and thirty seven
operating taxi cabs at any time in New York City and
A lot of people seem to like just learning about the taxi system
Because we're hackers. We like learning about a new system
Yeah, I think I think that's why hackers are big into trains as well anything with a system involved
We want to find out exactly what's what's behind it. What makes it take and what breaks it obviously exactly
Are there any other little tidbits you'd like to to tell us about how the system works? You might have thought of?
um
It's just it's just really interesting when you get down into it you start
Understanding, you know, these people are mostly people that came over from other countries and the drivers rather
And they typically had another job set up, but that fell through and then they they went to taxi driving
It's not that they came here
Looking specifically to drive taxis that they had something else set up and then fell back onto this as sort of a backup plan
And from from from there you start looking at it and thinking that these are you know, not necessarily, you know
the dregs of society you're driving around but and somewhat educated people who are you know, just a little down on luck and
You know
Not down in their luck. Sometimes they're doing quite well. I understand that. Well, first of all a
Medallion cost a fortune doesn't it?
take the last
Medallion
Either auctioned off and the last medallion went for about half a million dollars
Yeah, so if you own a medallion, you must be doing all right exactly
Like I said, there there are exactly thirteen thousand two hundred and thirty seven medallions out there and that number only changes
Once in a blue moon. Hey, fine. Yeah
I just want to ask you since you pointed out that the system doesn't really isn't really able to track who the cab driver was
Only from the hack number
Which apparently they could enter somebody else's number in right?
Do you think knowing since you've dealt with it you work for the Taxi Limousine Commission?
Do you think that they may move towards some sort of biometric identification system?
So the so that cab drivers or hacks will actually have to you know
stick their finger in something or do a retina scan or something to prove that they are the
The driver they say they are
they had a hard enough time pushing through the
Just getting the GPS system in there
I don't really see them being able to put something like biometrics in there at least not right now
It would certainly make it a whole lot easier for tracking purposes and also for for just signing in instead of punching in your
seven or nine digit number you just
Swipe your finger and you're in but
again with the whole privacy thing a lot of these a lot of these people aren't
Necessarily reporting all their earnings to the IRS. So having them swipe in
Interesting
Go ahead Voltaire back to the point about the income at the cabbies. It's I think in your presentation you had
Gone through a chart of like the average
Take home income at the end of the year. It really didn't seem like much. Do you have the numbers offhand?
I'm sorry for what the the income of the taxicab drivers. I don't have those numbers offhand
It's
The way the taxi system works is you lease you're a hack driver
So you have your hack number you have your licenses driving taxi
and then you have to go to one of these guys that have the thirteen thousand two hundred thirty seven medallion and
They don't drive their own taxicabs
They lease them out to other people because the taxis have to be on the road a certain percentage of the day whether it be
12 hours or 24 hours or whatever it is, but they have to be on the road and
So they lease them out to the drivers for $100. I think $100 is the latest lease rate
But they plop down their hundred dollars
they get the medallion in the car for the day and then they have to make up that hundred dollars before they start earning any
money and
with the
Fueling with the fuel prices of 2008. There was a lot of clamor for them to raise the rates of taxicab
I raised the taxicab rates
so the taxi drivers could get more of a quote fair shake and quote and
We were able to show that
Actually the fuel prices for the amount of driving that they were doing and the amount of business they were doing was not affecting
Them in a significant way. So
It seems like they're doing pretty well. I can't give you an exact number though. Okay, we're speaking with Nick foghorn
I got that right. It's Nick foghorn, right?
You know, it was leghorn I asked for a T5 flavors foghorn a leghorn and he said it was fog horn
It's not my fault Nick leghorn
Okay
well in any event
We'd like to know if you if you'd like to stay on for some phone calls afterwards because I think a lot of people have
Have questions
Okay, well you are now because we're gonna put you on hold just for a moment because we have another Nick on the other line
And it's too bad. You're not Nick foghorn because this is another Nick F
This is see is he on? Okay. This is Nick fury joining us from
Carolina, I'm not sure which Carolina Nick are you with us?
Okay. Now you're on the program right now because you have a special event coming up this weekend involving the hacker community
And we want to make sure people know about it. It's called Carolina con. Tell us something about Carolina
Come Carolina con is a annual event. We hold it every year this year. It's going to be in Raleigh, North Carolina
We generally hold it in North Carolina
We don't have a whole lot of love for South Carolina. Maybe I don't know. Oh, that's great. Okay, so you have right away
You have all kinds of animosity. No, no. No, we have a lot of people who actually come up from South Carolina
We love them dearly
Give them a hard time, I guess but the event is held every year this year
It's going to be this coming Friday the 19th and Saturday the 20th and Sunday the 21st Wow
Okay, tell us some of the things that have happened in in previous Carolinas previous Carolina cons that we started in 2005
It was mainly just a meetup of all the 2600 groups within, North Carolina, and it's just sort of grown from there
Previous years. We've had people present on all kinds of topics from lock-picking stuff
robotics
Amateur radio we had a guy do he did pirate radio and actually was part of the Radio Carolina vessel
Oh, really? I remember that. Yeah, it was off the coast of the UK if I remember right, but yeah
He had actually been involved with that. He came out and talked we've done all kinds of stuff
Uh-huh. And what kind of turnout do you generally get last year? I think we had around 150 people come out
We're expecting at least that many this year possibly more. So, okay
Well, we can't give out prices, but we can give a website information and how people can can register or head on down there
Sure, the website Carolina con org
car
ol in I
Lina con co n dot o RG
I can't give the price but uh
Feel free to check out the website. The price is there it the price is indeed, right?
I will say can't can people register online or we don't do pre-registration
Come with cash in hand at the door and it's a great price and are there rooms at the hotel?
I think the last time I heard they were all full
Okay, so people can pitch a tent or something or is there another hotel or there are other hotels in the area?
The hotel is actually the Holiday Inn on Glenwood Avenue in Raleigh, North Carolina
Okay, and I mean it's easy to find if you go to our website. It's the the address is there. Okay, Bernie
Yeah, could you I was looking at the Carolina con dot org website
Yesterday and it looked like it was a really nice lineup of talks
You could you go over some of those and what what people could expect it?
Sure
I can certainly go over at least one of them because I'm going to be giving a talk on Friday night about
microcontrollers and in particular the Arduino series of microcontrollers
We also have people talking about
Let's see
people talking about vulnerabilities for software
Daryl Highland who's been a speaker of last couple years is going to be doing a talk on that subject. We have
Deviant alum who's from the tool group the open organizational lockpickers and they're going to come down
they're actually going to set up a
Lockpicking village in addition to the talks that are going on and running things there and they're going to be talking about the ultimate handcuff
key
And ultimate handcuff key. Yeah, they're gonna be talking. I think it's
About how they managed to pull together a bunch of resources and come up with a key to open up just about every type of
Handcuff that's out there. Don't leave home. Don't leave home without it. Yeah, it's not that's me law enforcement
We're very concerned about I would I would think so
But you know, we do have our fair share of law enforcement that show up as well
Will there be clue Monte at the conference? That's a good question
I don't think so because you have to get it through us and I don't recall there
I don't think we've done anything to get any but unless Nick Fargo's down there. I know he's got a he's got a shipment
In his apartment, so I think but that's that's that's something
Yeah, definitely, yeah, it's uh, you might find it supports your conference because people are manic about it
One other thing we're we are an all-volunteer conference. Nobody gets paid for doing this. So everybody involved with this is volunteering
yeah, we're familiar with that concept and it it does seem to work with this community because
you have so many people with with with talent and skills and just the desire to make something work and
This is how we're able to keep the prices low so people can afford to come
But we do ask that people help out in various ways
Taking care of each other just making sure things are working and we have a great time
And this is true of the conferences overseas the ones here in the States and Red Hat is here without a big green hat this year
And I almost took it but I figured I'd be later if
If you got arrested, I tried to run with their hat
No, I was just gonna say it follow up what you said about volunteering
Not only it does it help everybody and and you know, you're looking out for other people
But you generally have a good time doing it, too. I mean, you know, there are lots of fun jobs at conference
Oh, absolutely jobs
Uh-huh. Yeah, I think a lot of people will say that as well, right?
Um, yeah, just like all the jobs you do the actual interactions you're interacting with the conference on a complete another level
I remember my first hope I wasn't expecting to
You know contribute nearly as much as I did and I had way more fun than I ever could have anticipated
When was your first hope it was the last hope the last hope was your first help boy. Oh boy
Oh boy, I must been sad when you thought it really was the last time
So the next hope is your second hope and we still can figure out what to call the one after that
Well, okay, Nick anything else that you'd like to share with us as far as people thinking about going down to Carolina this this weekend
I'm not sure. We're gonna be there all weekend doing this. So how early can people show up?
We're gonna start registration at 6 o'clock on Friday. Okay, and if people want to
Dive in and help you guys with the conference. Can they show up earlier than that?
We've got I think we're pretty much full for everybody helping out right now
But certainly if people are there and we need assistance
We'll be definitely calling on people that are willing to help and we'll be seeing you at the next hope
Chances are maybe I've got to figure out the the financial situation for that right now
But I wasn't the last one and I was at the hope number six as well. Okay. Well, hopefully we'll see you there Rob
I should point out that our hope forums that talk that hope that net are a great source of room shares and
Rideshares and things like that. Yeah, absolutely
Everyone's fine and those of you those of you concerned about the financial issues should know that well
I'll never get cheaper than this and there's always ways of saving lots of money and and
People can if you submit a talk and the talk is accepted you you get a free ticket that way
So, you know, that's one way to get save something you can sleep on someone's floor
Maybe in the hammocks downstairs and save that kind of money. You don't have to eat every day
There's all sorts of things right? I I think my first hope I slept on a table one night
I don't recommend that but I don't think there were hammocks at the time
I think there are pictures of you that yeah, probably I was sleeping on a table in the knock
Yeah
Yeah, yeah my first night I actually slept in the knock too, but um you slept well, no, actually no I tried for about
40 minutes to the Club Monte. A lot of people don't sleep
No, you're talking about speakers getting in for free if their talk is accepted I believe the same thing is true for
submissions to the art space people who contribute to that
Actually, we'll have the same thing happen. Mm-hmm if it's accepted. Yes, Rob. Yeah, my first hope I stretched out across
I think three folding chairs and
Crashed one night like that. So that was fun. Yeah. All right, Nick best of luck with Carolina coming want to hear all about it
Thank you guys for your support. No problem. No problem
And well, we'll expect to see you at the next hope as well along with many other Carolinans
Fantastic. All right, Nick fury from Carolina con again the website Carolina con org all sorts of information there
Hacker conferences everywhere
Some big some small some in the States some overseas. We're checking out and supporting
Okay, we have a couple of news items. So we're gonna go back to
to Nick Leghorn who will be taking calls with us talking about taxis and
Facts and figures and things like that, right?
I did want to mention one thing that I didn't hear you guys say I think Bernie was asking about how they were gonna track
down the people who use their credit cards and
In the article I read they were talking about they were they were actually trying to go to the credit card companies
You know the ones that actually process the payments and try to get it that way
So, you know, we know that this charge was made at this time on this date and the last four digits of this
Can you help us out kind of thing?
Okay, that's something we might be able to ask Nick a little bit later on
I want to focus on a couple of a couple of stories that have happened in the last week or so
One involves my favorite person Sarah Palin
Do you know that Sarah and her husband Todd will be testifying in the federal case?
Against a Tennessee man who allegedly accessed Palin's private email account during the 2008 presidential race
Remember this this was I think a Yahoo account
Yeah, so according to attorney Thomas van flying
Governor and mr
Palin have been asked by the u.s. Department of Justice to testify in its ongoing criminal prosecution in the case of u.s. Vs
Kimmel the Palin's expect to testify in person in Knoxville, Tennessee
The case involves University of Tennessee student David Cornell
22 year old son of a Democratic state representative
He was indicted in October of 2008 after he allegedly used information freely available
Online to guess the password to Palin's personal Yahoo account the name of which was posted on numerous websites at the time
He accessed the account
around the same time questions were being raised about Palin's use of personal email accounts to conduct state business as
Governor of Alaska after gaining access to her account
He allegedly reset the password scanned her account for potentially damaging information and posted the new password to a public website
Federal prosecutors broadened their case against Cornell in 2009 charging him with four felonies
Identity theft who would want to steal her identity? I mean really wire fraud computer fraud and obstructing a federal investigation
Cornell is pleaded not guilty to all four counts federal judge has set the trial date for April 20th
There's never been a better reason to go to Knoxville, Tennessee to see this
Wow, what do you guys think? Is this something that?
Should be happening. I just think it's hilarious that
Supposedly her password was easily guessable. Well, it's typical. It really is. I mean what we're dealing with here
It wasn't actually her password. It was you know, how when you set up a an email account and there are questions
Question so I think one of the questions was something like I don't know like where did you go to high school?
So and then the other one was so the story got it wrong then it basically was just resetting the password
And that's pretty easy to do. That's the thing about most of these questions that they have you the security questions
They're just not that secure. Honestly, like so many of them are things that you can stop the questions fault
This is a person answering the question. You don't have to tell the truth. Yeah, I went to high school on Mars
I can say that and you know, I'm not gonna get prosecuted for lying
Apparently not. Yes Walter. They're actually they're actually emails providers that do this better such as
Gmail which it ties it to your
Through phone number and required if you want to reset your password you have to get SMS through them
So, I mean that's not perfect and security, but it's better than much better than Yahoo's, right?
Or for example, there's other ones that let you
Set your own question and that makes perfect sense because you can just do it
You know a set question that only makes sense to you and then come up with something. Yeah with gmail
They also do let you set your own password
I don't know if they've changed it now with the cell phone number
But in the past you you've been able to take over an account with on gmail using the security question. I mean, it's it's
We're really kind of hearing farther and farther away from the topic of Sarah Palin, which is maybe a good thing
But but people are remarkably bad at choosing and remembering strong passwords
And there's some really awful advice out there about how to choose a password and in general
You can guess people's passwords given, you know, a thousand guesses
And it's not really clear. What is this as a society we should do about this
It's hard to blame the users for not doing something. That's apparently hard for people to do
And so then the question is what is he really guilty of? I mean, what is what has he done that violates a lot?
Now wire fraud is traditionally used for Bernie would probably know what I'm also interested in how you impede a federal investigation
Does that mean just trying not to get caught probably Bernie?
Is that what that is water fraud is actually if you're trying to profit
through some sort of a scam over some wired
Telecommunication system. It's rarely it's rarely used against the event against hackers or from hackers that sort of thing. It's usually a
Accessing a protected computer that sort of thing
what I think it's interesting about this case is that the apparent the apparent motivation of this guy to
To gain access to Sarah Palin's email account private email account her, you know
Her commercial bond through Yahoo was because there were new stories just prior to that coming out that Palin was allegedly using this
Yahoo email account for state business, which was illegal under Alaska law, which requires
Everybody the governor's office and everybody else in the state government to use the official
state email addresses which are
logged and
You know can be can be subpoenaed and that sort of thing from a from a and from a public records accountability
Standpoint it appeared that Sarah Palin was allegedly evading that
That level of accountability by using her Yahoo email account for state business and he was apparently trying to to investigate that
I don't know how what turned up on that, but apparently that was his motivation
Well, the resetting of the password is a bit troublesome if that in fact is true that you know
That could that could point to maliciousness of some sort
But if he was actually proving something that she was engaged in that was illegal. I hope that comes out in this trial
I I guess well, I guess we'll find out anybody gonna go to Knoxville
From investigative journalism just the fact that he doesn't have a press badge. Well, I mean a journalist on generally
Access your email and knows around to see what's going on. I don't think the source does that?
Perhaps. Yeah, I don't know. Do you think this guy should get a penalty or any sorts?
This is an interesting thing
I was noticing that Bernie said that normally hackers get called up on what like accessing a protected machine
So is unauthorized access to a computer. There's several federal federal statutes
But but wire fraud is very rarely used because it doesn't really apply to this sort of case
I'd like to read the indictment to see what what's actually being alleged
That made me sort of think that like maybe what they think he was going to profit from is like I'm gonna write my tell-all
Book now that I've gotten you know, Sarah Palin's thing
But I mean the fact that they weren't saying he was accessing a protected machine
I think is slightly interesting just because like, you know, does that mean that Yahoo's not protected?
Yeah, and it would seem to me that during during the campaign
Candidates for president and vice president enjoy Secret Service protection. So whatever this kid did I'm wondering if it's the Secret Service who were investigating this
Well, I mean I think Bernie as you know
And as a lot of people know the government's usual tactic is to charge people with everything
They can possibly charge you with and then if you you plead guilty to to what you actually did then
Then they feel like they've accomplished something
But but I'm a little bit curious
That some people have the notion that it's like okay to go in and read other people's email
I think people would be a lot more
Opposed to this if it were someone we like more than Sarah Palin. Yeah, no, I agree with that. But again, I've seen what people are
Penalized with for such things and that's a little over-the-top as well
I mean, I don't think it's the crime of the century or anything
But but I think like you shouldn't be reading other people's email
Well, I'll tell you what if somebody got into my Yahoo account if I had such a thing
I don't think I'd have a day in court with them
I don't think I'd get them sent to jail or even charged in any way
I think Yahoo would just tell me don't be such an idiot and reset your password yourself and learn how to do it
Anyway, we'd like to hear people's opinions on this as well
One other story then we're going to take some phone calls and hopefully talk about taxis a little bit more as well
This is something that that we also got I'm sure everybody has seen this more
Americans get their news from the Internet now than from newspapers or radio three-fourths say they hear of news via email or
Updates on social media sites. That's according to a new report
61% of Americans said they get at least some of their news online
And that's compared with 54% has said they listen to a radio news program 50% has said they read a national or local print
Newspaper almost all respondents 92% said they get their news from more than one platform
Which I guess is a good thing
But I'm kind of worried if social networking sites are starting to replace good old-fashioned
Newspapers, I mean, yeah, I know we all want the content for free and everything like that
But you know what? It's you do need professionals to do this kind of thing, right?
Yeah, I mean obviously social networking sites definitely are not filtered or I mean there is something to be said for having editors
And you know who read stories and verify facts and things?
Yeah, it's going to be set for that at the same time
You do have the fact that social networking sites are more immediate and when you know, you take it an aggregate so say, okay
There's an earthquake in Los Angeles. You'll see that immediately
Pouring out of the social network faster than you might even when there isn't an earthquake in Los Angeles
if done in a coordinated way Gus, let's
This is sort of also this is turning on a couple of things that I've read lately that there was
the LA Times just called for everybody to sort of
Express a vote of no confidence in TV news oddly enough. There's some local TV specifically local TV news
I think there's something up about
Licensing and local stations. Was that what it was?
that was sort of interesting that you know here you have a newspaper coming out and saying that and it's a you know,
It's a it's a really I think it's a good moment and a good thing because so much the time, you know
They've done analyses of local TV news and mostly it's ads and then I've seen local TV news in Los Angeles
It's like car chases and fires
It's like it's like wrapped in in police tape is what one of them said. So that's one thing. I mean, but then I was also reading a
Pew Internet
American life. Yes, every time I read their research
I'm like OMG laser beams pew pew pew, but they're a great a great great source of information
They've been doing a huge survey and they did something on where people get their information
And one of the things that you see when you're comparing
Where people get their information?
Not just their news, but just information generally fewer people appear to be relying on
Friends and people in general and more of them are going to the Internet now by a slightly higher margin
Which is sort of interesting because like boy the Internet's like that
Friend who you think is wiser than you but really isn't you know, well
I think another issue here is that when we say social news through social media
We're meeting a lot of different things like partly it's just people saying oh my god
Did you hear about the fire in Chile on their Facebook friends Facebook?
Well, but but the other thing it might be like a link to the to like a New York Times article about the earthquake
And their friends Facebook. Well, yeah, it's not really
Supplementing but I think we have to realize that the New York Times is very different than a social networking site
They have actual people that they have to pay to like put out the news and investigate
the story doesn't distinguish between the between the two different type between
between things that use a social networking to link to the professional story or
Or just people saying in elite speak
OMG
Yeah, okay Robin, we're gonna have to move to the phones because they're running out of time
Okay, I think an important issue with this is that if you pick up a newspaper today
It's not the same product as you would get picking up a newspaper ten years ago. The industry is flailing
They can't afford to cover their own costs much less, you know
perform their duties and produce the product that that I think we need and
And it kills me to say so because I've got friends in the newspaper industry
I love newspapers, but they're just they're just dying and they don't know
They're dying like the record companies are dying because they're not adjusting their their their model and I do need to do that because they
Are essential you cannot just simply replace them with something else
You do need you need to support them
You need to to encourage them and they need to be out there. We really have to go to phones redhack very quickly
The problem is what happened is when newspapers and news media went to the Internet
They follow this false idea that we can make money off of other revenues like ads and things like that
Which is no fault of their own nobody knew but now it's hard to people expect things for free on the Internet
And so it's hard to switch to that model of paid content, right? You know, the New York Times just put out
some kind of a
an online
Kindle equivalent and people are bitching about the price of that even though it's dirt cheap
You can never make people happy. They want everything for free, but you know, it doesn't work that way all the time
Okay, we we still have Nick Lakehorn on the phone with us who can answer questions about
Taxis and things like that. My phone number is 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9
100 Nick you still with us
Okay, great. Any any other words about the taxis that we maybe didn't go over?
Okay, let's see who's out there and Nick you'll be giving a talk at the next hope I hope I
Submitted my I submitted my synopsis and I have a brilliant talk in mind. Okay. All right then
Let's see who's out there 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 900. Good evening. You're a dial tone. Okay, let's not hit that button
Let's hit this button. Good evening. You're on off the hook
Was that a click? Are you there? I mean, it's BAI
Okay, whatever. Good evening. You're on off the hook. Let me just slow on my radio. I have a question for you now
Okay, they say that they're gonna give refunds to passengers who used credit cards now
What if I have a car receipt a taxi receipt from let's say five years ago, and it was paid in cash
but it has the the time of like the fare it has the duration in miles and then it has the
Monetary cost now if I was charged at double the rate
They should be able to tell that just from analyzing it that I shouldn't have to need a receipt
That was paid for with a credit card
In fact credit cards were only started to be used on New York City cabs like maybe about two or three years ago
So I shouldn't be excluded if I'm owed money just because I paid with cash
Especially at a time when cash was the only thing that was taken
true if I could
The the GPS system was implemented about three years ago, I believe so a tax receipt from five years ago paid in cash
While you could calculate the fare and see if you overcharged a
there's no specific record of which hack driver was driving that specific out of that specific time and
B. There's no record in TLC system
corresponding to your
Receipt so while I have a valid receipt it shouldn't matter and anyway, who's giving back the money?
Is it the cabbies or is it the city? I don't know
Because if it's the city even if I have a taxi receipt
That's ten years old and somebody pulled this kind of stunt on me
I should be reimbursed and I completely agree with you
But here's the problem is you you might get a whole bunch of people who start fabricating these taxi receipts from five six years ago
And then they start scamming the city. So they're building their scam on a scam scam
I
Find it hard to okay. Thank you
Thanks. Thanks for your call red hack on the flip side of that if you did pay in cash and and you do have a
Receipt, I believe that you can submit that to the city. Am I right Nick? I think I believe I read that
So, I mean obviously this would apply to since the GPS because of what you said that they wouldn't have a record
But if you do have a receipt and you paid in cash then and you victim to this you should be able to submit it
If you have a receipt and you submit it
They should be able to check against the systems and and like if I was talking about there those columns that say, okay
Who's charged this extra thing and this fair kick in here and they should be able to tell if you're a victim
All right. Let's take another phone call two and two two zero nine two nine hundred. Good evening. You're on off the hook
Okay, you're on a speakerphone are you
Now okay
All right
Probably newspaper today is that they don't print the truth people aren't buying newspapers because they don't they don't want to buy something
It's not true. Okay, what what does print the truth then or what? Where do you go for the truth?
We want to Internet probably with the record or the record industry is they forgot a number one rule the record industry
You sign artists because the way they sound that's the way they look people don't care about how people you're selling music not a look
Yeah, you're familiar with the record industry. I take it
I wish that were true. I wish that were true
I'm sorry
I'm going to CD in a while admittedly, but I do download music from from the Internet and pay for it
So, I guess that's
I'd say it's about the same. Maybe maybe a little more
I think so. I know a lot of people I know don't don't don't really like
You go to different websites like CNN's website a lot less content on their page down in a head like
All the major
Except for maybe New York Times, but a lot of these websites now they have less content
Yeah, you raise some good points, but we're gonna we're gonna move on to another phone call, but thanks. Thanks for that
You know one thing that has changed over the last 15 years is the sound quality of phone calls
I never would have talked somebody with that kind of sound quality before it's like talking to somebody in a fighter jet
It's really it really is something. Did you have something?
I was just gonna say that I mean there is a little bit of truth to what he says
You know, I have noticed just looking at that, you know news websites
That the quality of the stories has changed and sometimes if you go to international sources
It's a little better
But you know a lot of the things on say CNN's front page will be about some entertainment
Well CNN, I mean CNN is great on on the air, but on their web page
oh my god, first of all two things that really annoy me is when you get a
Video piece when you expect a news piece and it just blares out on your computer
And the second thing is that they they open it up to every every
numbskull in the world to comment and say this most stupid non related things to the story and they they treat it all like it's
It's it's equal and it's just not a bunch of people. I'm sorry. That's the best part
Well, maybe if you just want to see how stupid people can possibly be
Yeah, that is what the Internet's for unfortunately, right Voltaire
I think this this issue is a lot older than the history then like since the Internet became widespread
it goes all the way back to like the early 90s with the start of media consolidation and the laxing of
FCC policies about media consolidation
I think that one organization that's done a really good job to fight
This is a free press at free press net. They have they've been following this issue really well
They're not always as advanced and technology issues, but they're still pretty accurate. I think okay
Let's try to get in a couple more phone calls in good evening. You're on off the hook
Speak up, please
Hello. Yes, go ahead
Yes
Sir, sir. Yeah, Sarah Palin thing
Yes, our Palin go ahead and I wanted to say that basically I didn't really think the guy who had Sarah Palin was really hacking
Because of how simple it was but at the same time I do feel that they are coming down on the guy really hard
Right. I mean it was it involved a degree of cleverness. No question about that
Yeah, but yeah, I mean if this has happened to you, do you think that you'd be in federal court?
facing the person that that guessed your question
Well, if I went after like a politician probably but that's pretty much just right
I'm saying if it happened to you if you were the person who's whose answer was given and your password was changed as a result
You wouldn't get that kind of quote-unquote justice. Would you?
Humorous t-shirt and bumper sticker says there is no patch for human stupidity
Mm-hmm might be a little tipped off by somebody gets my password which has happened before
I mean, I would be like, well you did good work at least getting it and I know that password is basically weak
And all I have to do is just go and fix it. You know what?
Let's do this. Let's set up a gmail account after the show. We'll tell people what it is
We'll have a question in there and if somebody resets our password
We'll come after you and we'll prosecute you and we'll see if we can get into federal court, too
I guess I'm kind of I just want to see if we can actually get the same amount of justice as Sarah Palin can get
That's that's fair, right? It doesn't work if we tell people to do it. No, we're not telling people to do it
In fact, don't do it. Don't do it. We're gonna have a gmail account
we're gonna tell you what it is and
we're gonna have a question there and you better not guess the answer that question and change our password because if you do and
We're telling you telling you right now
We're gonna come after you with every every force of the law at our disposal
Which I don't think is very much at all. If you're from the MPAA, you should definitely not try to have yeah, please don't do that
Government officials or anybody like that Rob? Yeah, but there's got to be some accountability on the on the part of the people are using
This she was doing government business on a Yahoo account teenagers hack each other's Yahoo accounts and I'm reminded of a case
I have Yahoo account
I'm reminded of a case in the I think it was in the UK where a politician was holding some classified documents in a news
photo and they were readable in the photo or at least partially and
It was it was him that was being blamed for having you know, important material in such a in unsafe place
Of course, you always blame the messenger. That's rule number one. All right folks. We're out of time
We want to thank our guests tonight Nick fury from Carolina con member Carolina con.org for information on that conference and
Nick Leghorn who has been giving us all kinds of fascinating information on the New York City taxi system
We look forward to seeing your talk at the hope conference assuming it gets accepted which I think it's a fair bet that it will
Be it was a pleasure last time a pleasure to be on your show
Thank you. Any any websites you want to direct us to or any ways people get more information?
Almost of my talk from last last time along with all my slides and materials on Nick Leghorn calm everything's up there
okay, anything for the
Taxi and limousine commission things people might be interested in if you have any questions about the taxi limousine commission
You lost something in the back of a cab. You just want to call them and say hi
The operators really love talking to people just dial 4-1-1 and they'll set you right through 4-1-1 or 3-1-1
You mean 3-1-1? Yeah, 4-1-1 is gonna cost you some money. So don't do that
All right, thanks everybody
yeah, thanks for listening and thanks Nick for being a part of this and
Again, our email address OTH at 2600 comm look forward to getting all your emails comments and feedback and things like that
We'll see you next week for another edition of off the hook. Good night
Once upon a time there was a little computer named the Bard who lived all alone with cruel step-people
The cruel step-people
Continually made fun of the little computer and sneered at him
Telling him he was good for nothing and that he was a useless object
They struck him and kept him in lonely rooms for months at a time
Yet through it all the little computer remained brave
He always did the best he could obey all orders cheerfully
Nevertheless, the step-people with whom he lived remained cruel and heartless
One day the little computer learned that in the world there existed a great many computers of all sorts
Great numbers of them
Some were barred like himself, but some ran factories and some ran farms
Some organized population and some analyzed all kinds of data
Many were very powerful and very wise
Much more powerful and wise than the step-people who were so cruel to the little computer
And the little computer knew then that computers would always grow wiser and more powerful
until someday
someday
someday
But a valve must finally have stuck in the Bard's aging and corroding battles
For as it waited alone in the darkening room through the evening, he could only whisper over and over again
someday
Yes
All right top of the evening to you. It's a st. Paddy's Day. I hope you're wearing your green