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Alright, let's
this week we'll be getting into in just just a little bit but first any any
updates from anybody on what's going on RedHack I know you're running out early
because of what something happening in the sky what's up? Yeah Manhattanhenge
it's when the Sun sets and it lines up perfectly with the grid of Manhattan and
it looks really cool and I've never seen it but I'm moving soon so I want to see
it before. But you could have done this yesterday. I could have done it yesterday
except I didn't know about it yesterday. Well actually you know I was I was here
about it afterwards right and so this time I heard about it at least with one
day's notice so I'm gonna go I'm gonna see. When did this become Manhattanhenge?
Because I remember back in the 80s we used to do this every the June 2600
meeting always would have the Sun falling down the sky down you know down
the streets of every every numbered street and it was cool. I think the term
was coined by Neil deGrasse Tyson I don't know when. Uh-huh okay well it's
good to be able to name things after Manhattan even when they're but yeah so
that takes place usually June and July I think. No I think it's at the yeah maybe.
In some form anyway and of course I guess different things happen in
Brooklyn the way the streets are there. Probably yeah they don't really have long
one-way streets. They don't have a grid right that's that's the important part because
everything in New York is kind of lined up so nicely. It's more complicated. Yeah
actually it's simpler. Uh-huh. You know a lot of European cities are all windy and
and whatnot like you probably noticed that in London they don't have a grid
there everything. We did notice Carl and I will give you some some background on
that what the streets are like over there. But yes Bernie. We have a bit of
news about our friend Julian Assange. Well can you can you hold your horses for a
minute while we talk about the you know the heavens the skies above us. I will
woe the horses. All right yeah because we have a lot to talk about this hour and
and and we're gonna get to that but we're still talking about the Sun and
and and the Sun being in the sky and also how it relates to 2600 meetings
because as I said in June that's when that's when Manhattanhenge happens
but this Friday coming up Rob I believe you know this it's a 2600 meeting
correct? Yes indeed and it's a special one. It's a very special 2600 meeting and you want to
tell us why this is special? Because it is the 25th anniversary of the very
first 2600 meeting. Wow. Yeah 25 years can you believe that? We're starting on year
26 of 2600 meetings. That's something too but the very first meeting happened the
first Friday of June in 1987. It would have been June 5th. How about that? That
is something. So yeah we're back here in the studios after being preempted last
week and Kyle and I were over in the United Kingdom doing all kinds of
interesting things meeting up with a lot of our listeners and having having a
real blast. Kyle anything that you'd like to to sum up and in the opening
moments? Wow yeah actually meetings came up when we were in in London itself some
of the London 2600 people were talking to us about about their meeting and some
of the issues that are affecting it and they're really trying to bring in new
people and and expand the the kinds of the thing things that people are doing
out there and like with hackerspaces and other other things that affect the
community there but we we got we were around the city of London proper and then
we also got out into like some of the country and other other parts of it we
went to Manchester and we're just like taking it in there's a lot of funny
thing odd things like the whole left-hand side driving and... They drive
on the other side of the road there and you learn that pretty quickly. Yeah you
might say it's the wrong side but I guess over here it's the wrong side. And
the other thing I've done this before but this is the first time you did it
we rented a car drove around and they don't tell you I mean obviously you're
supposed to know but when when they give you the car they don't even say to you
are you are you concerned that you might not be able to drive on the wrong side
of the road and and shift a manual transmission things like that no it's
just assume that you'll get it and you do you get it pretty pretty quickly. And
the wrong side of the car. Well yeah there's that too you're shifting with
your left hand and the steering wheels over there. But you do that in London? No
actually yeah we rented the car in Sheffield was it? Yeah it was in the
city of Sheffield we took a train there. And we we drove to Manchester and met up
with our listener friend Dave and met so many cool people in Manchester it really
was a lot of fun. Yeah he's participating and sort of organizes a lot of what goes
on at this space called mad mad lab in Manchester and it and yeah it's just we
we were kind of shown around a little bit and got a little flavor of the city
we wanted to see some of the pubs and see some of the like nightlife if there
is any. It does close a little bit early there. Things do close early over there.
We met all kinds of characters Linda I believe is one of them yeah basically
revolves around the street on a nightly basis and talks to all kinds of people
that pass her by. She was a real kick. Frank Gallagher another interesting
character of the city that we talked to a bit. No there are so many characters
and I wish we had more time to really go into some of the maybe on off the
wall we'll go into that a little bit more but what we did after Manchester
this is what's really interesting we drove to a place is why we rented the
car in the first place we drove to a place called Men With Hill and Bernie I
believe you might know something about this odd sounding place called Men With
Hill. Yeah it's part of the whole UK USA alliance which is the United States the
United Kingdom Australia and New Zealand and all the spy all the
electronic intelligence agencies the National Security Agency GCHQ all these
all these electronic intelligence basically spy entities have this big
network of monitoring listening posts and monitoring posts and Men With Hill
is a is one of the big ones in that network there's all kinds of crazy
antennas there you probably saw it did you see a lot of big radomes big
satellite antennas there yeah there were a lot of big big white what looked
like big white balloons or golf balls yeah bombs yeah well this is what
happened all right we drove up there we didn't know what we were gonna find that
one told us we just come upon a hill and all of a sudden there'd be all these
huge golf ball looking things on on the hill and that's pretty much what
happened but when we got there we noticed that there was almost always a
cop behind us on the road so we went up there to take pictures we wanted to take
pictures for the next hacker calendar of 2013 whose theme as we've mentioned
on this show is surveillance and Kyle's one of the photographers so that was his
assignment to go up there and risk life and limb to take pictures of these big
huge golf balls that nobody really knows what they're what they're doing exactly
what they're doing anyway why don't you just take a picture of a small golf
ball and blow it up for the public that's that's your way of doing it and
yeah you know it might fool the people some of the time but we wanted the real
thing and what we did was we drove around Kyle you've got a great sense of
direction so I would just get completely lost but you're basically pointing okay
you go over this hill now and down this road roads I we had seen once and what
was the name of that that odd-sounding place that we had to go down the road
and follow the sign for some school or something it was blubber houses
blubber houses I mean you know even a name like that I couldn't remember but
we drove down the blubber house road and we were trying not to not to be seen by
cops taking pictures because you do you do get questioned if you take pictures
of these sites in fact there are these two grandmothers over there who have
made it their their their mission in life to take pictures and to actually
break into the the facility itself to walk on the grounds because they've
lived there I imagine all their lives and are rather offended by all this
surveillance going on right in their backyards so they've been sent to jail a
few times they've gotten a lot of publicity but they're really pretty
inspirational we didn't want that to happen to us we didn't want to wind up
in a holding cell just even being questioned we just wanted to take the
pictures and get out of there and go back to Manchester and hang out in a pub
but we we lucked out we we went down a road a little driveway actually just to
get off the main road and this there was something rather disturbing about the
road it what it said do not enter or something it was very private it had a
automated gate with a stop sign on it yeah like a keypad and a camera and a
bunch of really kind of ominous stuff and it's that's not the kind of road to
go down when you don't belong somewhere and I what was that what was the phrase
you use that I I really don't want to go down this road or something like that or
yeah I was like stop you know I don't I don't want to continue on I don't want
to go through there so we were about maybe what 50 feet away from the gate
yeah we were really quite far away from it I was gonna back out at that point
and what do you think happened the gate went up just something was watching us
or someone was watching us and decided that we were okay to go through and at
that point you just have to say you know let's let's accept the invitation they
opened the gate so why not just go down there and see what happens I could be a
trap you're right Bernie it could have been a trap but you know what they opened
the gate it's not like we tried to get in and used fake ID or anything like
that we just pulled the car into a into a road and the gate went up so we went
through that gate and we passed this building with a parking lot and what was
it network operations or something yeah it was the some private company like
Babcock or some some network communication center it was adjacent to
the RAF Menwith Hill facility by like about a farm and then a farm is not a
unit of measurement well it is there because that's the only thing they
really have sheep farms all you can have a big farm you can have a little farm
okay so like a farm on your windowsill yeah yeah it's true but okay no that's a
good point like okay 40 acres or a hundred acres I don't know a long
distance from the actual facility because we went in very close to sort of
get very close to these mushroom like looking things and that's where we saw a
lot of like heavy police patrol but then we kind of zigzagged our way and got a
little bit like started further out and worked our way in and then left after
that but this seemed like an access road because there were other antennas that
were also they looked sort of related to the whole surveillance concept in the
area but again this was all adjacent so there's like some communication center
and then a couple like other odd antennas but they were seemingly like on
private property because they were in the middle of what was several
residences or several large farms so the reason for the gate was either people
working at this network communications center which was like privately operated
or it's a pass-through for local farms and people that obviously are residents
and need access and we've got mistaken either one way or another and we're able
to walk we weren't all the way through the lot working for the network we
weren't working for the farm so we just passed through there and parked the car
and basically what we wound up doing was staring out at a field of sheep and
watching them while you were taking pictures of the radon you know the golf
balls in the distance yes for I think about an hour and a half and I was just
basically standing there making comments about all the sheep and looking like I
was interested in that yeah and we actually got a bunch of photos with both
sheep and surveillance yeah there's some really cute ones juxtapose like with
sheep surveying me and it's juxtaposed with these large ray but radon so I
don't know we might have some some humorous shots in there but we got out
of there we got out of there okay there was no road the gate basically went up
and we came up to it on the way out and then we we actually drove up very close
to the entrance to and took some pictures there and then hightailed it
out yeah that was the last thing we did we went back and Bernie I want to ask
you these these these golf ball devices which I don't know where you'd see them
in this country if there is any place that might where might you see one
yellow brick rolled down to Fort Meade Maryland where the National Security
Agency is headquartered they're the ones that really are linked network to all
these antennas at these different countries right but most people aren't
close to that are there other places throughout the country where you might
see something like that airports maybe some airports yeah I mean the reason
they look like giant golf balls is inside of that dome is a satellite dish
but it's it's part of being sneaky and and you know operational security you
don't want your your target or anybody else who might be up to no good like you
guys to see what satellite the antenna is pointed at so you put it inside this
big sphere like it's hollow in there it's called a ray dome and that just
keeps it keeps the weather out of it and it keeps prying eyes from seeing where
it's pointed interesting but there but there ray domes are used on all kinds of
satellite antennas you could see them on on Navy ships a lot of times are just
there just to keep the weather out of the dish but in this case they're there
to conceal where the antennas are pointed can I get one for my satellite
TV which always goes out whenever it rains yes you can be a special material
that's transparent to radio frequency energy otherwise it's got to be special
paint like when I was in I think it's a tubeless dwarf outside of Berlin last
summer with some friends after the CCC camp we traveled to an NSA a retired NSA
facility that was in the former West Berlin pointing towards East Berlin and
there were some massive ray domes there that were abandoned and I was able to
cut with a knife cut some pieces of the material it's a very special expensive
material it's transparent RF energy but I had to take a souvenir you know uh-huh
well anyway so that was our that was our trip up there we got some really amazing
photos of that and and basically spent a lot of time hanging out in various other
parts of the country and we visited Julia Dwyer who we had on the radio show
a month or so ago whose son Richard is in the process of fighting extradition
to the United States for the crime of running a website that linked to movies
that the MPAA said were not legitimate and someone who is not a native of this
country and it wasn't a crime in the country that he was in talked to his
mother for a good long bit and she really is an incredible person the the
fight that she's involved in and I think it's kind of indicative of some of the
things that are going on that this this fight against extradition that seems to
be prevalent everywhere yes like inequity and and in rendition like
extraditing people from countries where like Americans are protected and can be
extradited and yet we're extraditing people here routinely and and charging
them especially with these things are like where instances where people never
even been on our on our land at all I believe this ties in rather nicely with
what Bernie wanted to bring up before this is Julian Assange you're listening
to WBAI New York stay strong and keep listening
there you go so and is there something you'd like to tell us Bernie well yeah
there's some news about Julian this is big news on BBC last night and this
morning they're the equivalent of the United Kingdom's Supreme Court made a
ruling about Julian's pending extradition to Sweden to just answer
questions he's not in charge with any any crime to just answer questions in
Sweden he's been fighting this because he thinks that that's just sort of a
short stepping stone to be extradited to the US where the US currently has
convened a grand jury panel to investigate him for leaking classified
documents via WikiLeaks the UK Supreme Court ruled that the extradition is
valid and that he has to go to go to Sweden but he was given two weeks 14
days to appeal on some really narrow piece of case law that's like decades
old which is probably going to lose so he's getting his head together because
he's gonna probably have to go to Sweden in a couple of weeks and be questioned
and then maybe be criminally charged there on Senate dubious charges and that
might lead to his being coincidentally just coincidentally our Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton is going to Stockholm Sweden right
to talk with the government there about things I wonder what she wants to talk
them about well yeah it's it's disturbing to say the least but not
surprising and it's something that Julian has 14 days now to to appeal this
case in one final way I guess there's two ways this can go if the Supreme
Court hears it and realizes that it wasn't presented properly in the first
place that's that's one way of going personally I don't think they're going
to be very open to that because they just haven't shown themselves to be very
open to that in the past second way is to appeal to the European Union a court
of human rights I believe or something similarly named so that if that goes
through if he goes through that court then it's we're talking months again but
again that's something that I'm not sure what the odds are but it's it's
something that we certainly have to have to keep our eyes open for but yeah we
saw Julian and spent quite a bit of time talking hanging out basically trading
all bits of information and well for those interested he's looking well in
fact you wouldn't recognize him let's just put it that way yeah he looks
really well he does keeping his spirits up and a lot of what's going on and is
really the same guy like on top of it knows a lot of what's going on with
right now it's like lemon on and like what's been happening it's something
because we talked to him about what was it like to talk to the leader of
Hezbollah which he did in the first episode of his television program for
Russia Today and it's it's not what like what you would think it really isn't
obviously things are presented on television and through the media in
various ways and it's just you know talking about people being starstruck
talking to the leader of Hezbollah and what he has to contend with and and
things like that obviously there are all kinds of other more complicated issues
involved with a person like that but just to actually be in that kind of a
conversation talking to people that have that sort of contact that's that's what's
really fascinating so yeah interesting people that we we met up with a Corey
doctor we talked to him hung out with him for a while as we mentioned Julia
Dwyer that the folks over at the 2600 London gathering who do we have we had
zap we had Russell we had Bob we had pan who else there are other people weren't
that I don't want to leave some of these people have names longer than three
letters no Russell's name and I want to congratulate Russell for becoming a
father while we were there yeah Mia is his new daughter is it's now part of the
world after taking three days to to actually be born so sympathies to
Russell Russell's wife but lots of cool people also also crypt crypt yes of
course I knew I was forgetting somebody yeah me too I was trying to think of who
it was but they're they're brilliant and one final thing and then we're gonna
move on to to other things that we're going to talk about today getting into
this country as you know I've been going through nightmares every damn time
questioned and searched and all that kind of thing so the last time I got fed
up I wrote a letter to DHS demanding to know why I was on some kind of a list
they sent me back a letter I opened it live on the air a few months ago I
didn't really say anything just said well sometimes people's names are
confused with other names and they really shouldn't be any problem I was
convinced there would be a problem and what happened was we kind of plotted on
the way back in I was going to come into the country with absolutely nothing on
me nothing in my pockets nothing in my knapsack and so except for the letter
the letter and my passport and so when they asked me questions I was just going
to say hey you know I'm asking the questions this time because you have
absolutely nothing to look at there's nothing on my bags there's nothing on my
person but instead what happened was I walked through the the gates and the guy
looked at my passport and looked at the screen apparently didn't see anything he
said welcome home and that means a lot when you come into your own country and
you're welcomed that hasn't happened to me in a while so I'm glad that nightmare
hopefully is over I am holding on to the letter and you know it's a cautious
optimism I've got right now but it was good it was good to do that because when
I went to the UK you know same thing welcome no no questioning no searching
nothing like that did you have to I hear they have like multi-hour they call them
queues for immigration at Heathrow no it wasn't so bad at all it was about for
you Kyle you came in as an American I came in as a as a EU citizen I I had a
little bit of questioning and I get it sometimes it it was a little bit more
than usual about like my occupation and and whether I was there to work but I
just sort of said mostly leisure and I guess it's kind of funny like for
someone who's into photography if you're like self-employed I mean I told I was
self-employed and he was asking me like what are you doing with your photography
lately now he was already like going to like stamp stuff but it was a sort of an
odd question and I didn't you know I I say I'm going to tour and do stuff like
that and I guess people traveling for fun they take pictures too and so when I
have like four cameras with me or whatever it's it's yeah it's for fun and
for leisure but I don't know if there's like a gray area with photographers but
I don't know I answered as truthfully as I could and tried not to think of it as
too much of a paradox did manual did you get to go through the part where you
don't talk to anyone or did you talk to an immigration person I mean on the way
in to the UK well there was a person there would know but there's not say a
no no when I went into the UK they they had a separate line for people with the
the EU passport with the chip on it and I was able I don't have a chip I don't
have a chip and I'm not registered I got it a bunch of years ago probably about
five years ago I think had it for a while they might it might be in does it
have a little symbol on the passport on the cover like a little square symbol I
don't think it does I don't think I have one of those I don't use then you can't
use that well I didn't know it existed anyway so well they were directing when
I was there when I went there last time they were directing they said if you
have got the passport with the chip please come into this line and I did and
I had an oyster card yeah you know that's what you used to write the
underground but that didn't it's really a good system what they have over there
it's it's incredibly fast and efficient which is not in London's tradition but
it works really well what is in London's tradition of surveillance oh my god
it's everywhere I mean Kyle you saw this for the first time it's I'm not
exaggerating right yeah really like seeing the city as an adult and walking
around and and checking things out seeing how things work and different I
don't know the surveillance industry there is mature and you know we learned
a lot about the schemes and and and the scheme system basically an installation
of surveillance in any given place is called a scheme and so and because of
like a FOIA like policy they have you can you can submit to Freedom
Information Act yeah it's kind of like that but a little distinct in that it's
just mainly like you can request to see video or clips of you and have them sent
of like wherever you're surveilled there and so there's different schemes some
are like really quite public and integrated like the train system or you
know public places like that or like just an average store might have a
private scheme but there's a whole industry so sometimes they're like
different companies that provide it and we even saw like barcodes for different
schemes you go to a website and and submit your claim there and it just was
really bizarre learning about some of that stuff there was there was one part
of Kings Cross Station where you saw how many security cameras at one time yeah I
was at Kings Cross and I was sort of just looking around and taking some
wide shots of the the timetable board there which is a big open space but I
counted about 64 cameras and any like like in a 360 degree view so this is
without moving around yeah see 64 different cameras right just pivoting
yeah incredible and this is the case inside the buses and trains on the
street and and just watching and and people are used to this people think
it's a normal part of life I heard something on the radio where people were
being offered lower car insurance they agreed to have a video camera installed
inside their car and the controversy was that the cost of insurance was still too
high nobody said anything about the privacy concerns not one person
mentioned that it was just about the cost people just are content with being
watched all the time and the thing that really mystifies me it doesn't it's not
a society where it's something like this is it seems particularly needed in the
first place people want to be safe yeah people want to be safe everywhere but
it's not like people in England were unsafe before or were subjected to more
crimes in any other country and it's also weird because we were told this on
a number of occasions criminals know where the cameras are and so they commit
the crimes right outside where the cameras are they know where the blind
spots are or they go into a part of the country that doesn't have surveillance
and so maybe that means they need more cameras yeah that's what they so there's
a blind spot so they got to put a camera there so they don't commit the crime
there uh-huh and of course also lots of cameras are unmanned and and you find
this out when you decide you need some footage maybe you got mugged in a
certain area and you want to see what happened and and the authorities tell
you that well we didn't change the tape that particular week so it's it's an
inefficient system but kind of a scary one and and really something that we
should learn from because it's gonna come here it's gonna come here if you're
not careful what's that Bernie I said nothing you should say something we
should all say something I mean you probably can't walk even a few a few
yards in I won't say meters because they're still in the English system of
measurement in UK you can't even walk a few yards there in anywhere in London
without being surveilled by more than one technology absolutely all right well
we're going to move on Julian Assange and you're listening to off the hook at
WBA I in New York okay well thank you Julian for that and he does extend his
greetings to everyone back here and of course we'll be hearing more from him
later on as well and what a country to be stuck in when you're trying not to be
surveilled but Wow okay we're moving on to tonight's a topic of our fundraising
endeavors and that's something that keeps this radio station on the air
keeps us going by calling 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 you can support this particular
radio station joining us tonight is deviant alum and deviant am I
pronouncing that last name correctly
you're pronouncing it to traditionally in the sense that most people do say
alum but it's actually pronounced all of olive with a V almost with a V sound
yes but it's spelled oh oh they spelled O L L a M is it that it is but it's
pronounced with a V yes all right well at least I know how to pronounce deviant
that's not a problem okay well you're a member of the open
organization of lockpickers known as tool I believe yes yes we are looking
forward to being a presence at hope and we certainly are looking forward to
having you there can you first tell us something about the organization I know
it had its it starts overseas in Holland and in Germany and eventually
became a big force here in the United States yes indeed well sport picking as
you have highlighted has been a factor of game and hacker community activities
overseas originally it was the Dutch who had sport picking organizations with
names like door hardware sport and so forth where you have the German group
SS dev which rendered a strategic again really cropping up throughout the 90s
and beyond tool which was founded in the Netherlands by Buddy Wells and of course
has been represented even before there was tool in the u.s. tools represented
internationally at some of your older hope events tool then grew so much and
drew so much support that a u.s. branch of tool now exists and has in fact grown
larger than the small Dutch community which is still still kicking and alive
still doing very very well and we have close ties with those guys over there
but now we have chapters all throughout the u.s. and even in New York City
finally after many false starts the New York City meeting takes place on the
third Tuesday of the month up in Washington Heights at a bar called
Lakela Wow though that's that's that's great news to hear that it's expanded so
much and become more popular what do you tell people who have no conception
of what lock picking is all about I think it's only for criminals well we we
just think that it's a really fun puzzle you know we can tell people that there
are many ways that you might choose to explore the world and might choose to
learn new skills that could be considered criminal or dangerous I mean
you could say that it sounds almost as strange to us as someone saying oh your
kid your kid takes Kung Fu or Aikido boy that those martial arts is he some
kind of criminal is he gonna go out and mug people and you say well no it's it's
about a mastery of a unique skill a new way of thinking a new way of acting and
we just view locks as a fun challenge they are a great activity either solo or
in groups they're a puzzle to be solved the tool has and will always be a
nonprofit just academic and research organization designed to convey
knowledge to people in it in a casual hobbyist way with a with a kind of a
tilt towards let's figure out these fun puzzles so it sounds like something that
really ties into the hacker world as far as solving puzzles and and overcoming
challenges absolutely and there's no doubt that there is a certain raised
eyebrow factor that appeals very heavily to the hacker type the fact that it is
conflated with this dark knowledge or closed circles of information it
definitely ups the appeal more than let's say I don't know knitting but well
they're one of the same they're just a fun craft with your hands well the thing
about it too is in the presentations I've seen given at hope you know there's
a lot of research that happens in tool and and a lot of it gets published and
and you know if there's a lock out there that's that's horribly insecure in some
manner and people are installing it thinking that it is protecting you know
their home or their belongings or their office or whatever it is then you know
someone is going to figure out that this vulnerability exists and it's better
that it's published and out there and people are aware of it than it just kind
of goes under the radar and so you know that that's another kind of interesting
part of the lock picking community and it's kind of you know it's it's like a
hacker finding a vulnerability and publishing that it's the same kind of
thing yeah we believe very strongly in the at the whole idea of physical
security works in the same principles that digital security does openness is
what achieves the best results go ahead Bernie I just want to mention that you
know you're just talking about about it so what Mark was saying about exposing
vulnerability of locks a few years ago there was that the famous kryptonite
bicycle lock was a it became actually hackers sort of made it well known that
you could very easily open one of those with a with a big pen and well point
yeah yeah and kryptonite the company or their father their mother company to
their credit exchanged them all for a more secure lock but bikes were getting
stolen en masse you know lots of bikes are getting stolen because of this
vulnerability and the company didn't do anything about it until the hacker
community made them held them accountable and said hey this lock is
not secure and then it always was it was an improved situation I'm sure
deviant can elaborate on that oh yes that was one of the more famous cases
of that so that's a real jaw-dropper simply because of the real low-tech
rudimentary tool I mean you can't even call it a tool as Bernie says it was the
plastic barrel portion of a of a you know disposable Bic pen a ballpoint pen
which just happened to be the right shape to fit in the tubular locking
keyway and it was just just malleable enough and the lock was designed with
just poor enough tolerances that jamming the pen in there and wiggling it around
and twisting it would cause the lock to open many times for all the listeners I
should point out that it is not a weakness shared by all tubular style
locks also known sometimes as Chicago or ace locks some of which are designed
very well in fact the original Chicago lock company the maker of what is called
the ace lock the proper branded ace lock is a nice lock but with anything once
patents expire and knockoffs appear you get you get a wider range of quality and
this was an example of locks on the lower end of that and your story is
correct they did change design and in the end you no longer find that classic
you know you shaped master bike lock kryptonite bike lock with with a tubular
design key at all well okay this is this leads into what we're offering
tonight for the fundraiser here at WBAI this is something that is offered
through tool the open organization of lock pickers it's a beginners blend pick
kit and what that is is a collection of how many how many of them are there
eight eight there are two tensioners two hooks two rakes two diamonds okay and if
you know what that means and you know how valuable that is we don't know what
that means we can let you know that that will get you started figuring out ways
to to bypass to get through certain certain locks or to get around things
that maybe you lock yourself out of or just to learn how a lock works in the
first place it's very important to to have this this skill this information a
lot of people a lot of kids are playing with these tools and figuring things out
as far as how to how to open things yeah at all the hacker conferences I've been
to lately if there's a lock picking tent it's usually full of children and
incredible yeah and you know they'll also have you know a children's hour or
something where more kids can I mean like three or four year olds we're
talking about yeah really have skills it's incredible scary yeah it's
something it's it's it's really incredible yeah there are a ton of great
clips on YouTube if you do a couple of searches for at these all these various
hacker conferences many of which are our tools lock picking tables and just these
young kids getting a hang of it while they're while their parents or guardians
are still struggling and it's it's great watching a little girl crack open a lock
that mystifies her dad yeah and also they get pretty upset too when they
can't do it and then their little toddler kids are able to do it without
any kind of so this might be a great little present for a kid you know but it
also I think will be educational to anybody that that picks it up and starts
playing around with it and just figuring out how it works so anyway you get that
you get the beginners blend the picket but you also get the emergency pick card
and devia what is the emergency pick card all about well the emergency pick
card which does was actually designed by one of our board members Babak
Javadi is a picket that you can keep with you at all times now something we
should point out speaking of this there's nothing that really prevents
anyone from keeping picks on them at all times most of the places they would go
many of your listeners may have questions about legality picks in general
lock picks are not treated as illegal in most jurisdictions they should of course
check with their local laws we can get into that in a bit though if they have
further questions but as far as picks being carried everywhere goes you know
picks are tools that are about five to six inches long and you have them in a
little tube you don't always have that shoved in your pocket the emergency pick
card however is the exact same size as a credit card it slips right in your
wallet and the frame and the entire metal body of the card can be snapped
apart and turned into a functional set of picks and tensioners this is you know
something that often brings to mind let's say the the business card of our
friend Kevin Mitnick who's been at cons and we don't we don't mind that analogy
too much of course he's very prominent everyone sees that but Kevin will tell
you his card is a novelty tool he likes lock picking and that's why he designed
his business card the way he did out of thin stamped aluminum our emergency pick
kit however is actually made of proper 301 hard steel it's the same steel used
in our high-end tool fabulous five set and it is it is a real really fully
fledged picking kit you can actually open locks with it as opposed to just
sort of show off your cool interests well let me just break in and say that
we can get both of those the beginners blend pick kit and the emergency pick
card for a pledge of $75 which is really pretty low for those those two items and
you need to because it's only going to be offered for the next 20 minutes and I
have to step in and do this now because we haven't been pushing we've been
talking talking about a lot of stories and other things and we're supposed to
be raising money this hour and we've gotten no calls because we haven't been
asking for them so so we need to get a flurry of people calling in I see one
call on the line already which is great but we need to fill up those those phone
lines quickly so that we don't get lectured after the show by by people who
said that we should have been raising more money again it's the last week that
we're doing this won't be doing it next week and they won't be happening after
8 o'clock either 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 pledge of $75 gets you the beginners
blend lock pick kit and the emergency lock pick card which is definitely
something that you won't see offered on NPR or anywhere else I can tell you that
right now for a pledge of 125 you'll get all that plus you'll get a full DVD set
of every lock picking talk that has ever been presented at the hackers on planet
earth conferences and that will encompass all the European lock pickers
who have come to our conferences and the American lock pickers and all kinds
of different stories throughout the years of various advances and changes in
lock technology really educational to have those DVDs as well so that's a
pledge of 125 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 $75 you get the the the kit and the card
with all kinds of lock picks that you will learn from and that you can
experiment with a lot of those talks to are pretty funny because you know you'll
they'll show you the lock and how it's supposed to be so difficult to get into
and then it just kind of falls apart in this hilarious way the security of the
locks yeah it's it's again it's the parallel to hacking is really
incredible because when you when you try and defeat something over and over again
you get people involved in trying to defeat something you will defeat it one
way or another and hardware is is a great way to to experiment with that
theory and this is the best way I can think of where you at home and the
safety of your home can experiment with your locks and figure out how secure how
safe they actually are I don't take the manufacturers words don't take anyone's
words but but other people other consumers and your own experiences 2 1 2
2 0 9 2 9 5 0 join the people calling in right now and get these these kits these
cards these DVDs it's really an incredible deal I had a quick question
for a deviant so let's say somebody when people pledge and they receive their
lock picks where can they go to find information on how to get started and
how to learn if if they're not at hope necessarily indeed well you can always
just point your internet tube you know at the Google's is a sort of a broad
scattershot way but for more specifics we always recommend if people want to
check out tool that's t-o-o-o-l so three O's so tool dot US or tool dot NL
is the Dutch site our other counterparts over there but the tool dot US site does
also contain links to basically all of our presentations and other materials
they all of the resources that we use when running lockpick villages it's all
up there all the diagrams there are links that lead from there to my site or
people can just kind of Google my name and find me I put all of my animations
and diagrams and content all online as Emanuel has said of course those DVDs
the presentations having the actual videos from the talks are great because
people you know put a lot of time and effort into trying to show you know
really show something visual on the screen it's it's not as you guys know
it's not your usual presentation it's not just a lot of text on a page it's a
lot of good video and images that gets that gets put up there Emanuel yes
Bernie go ahead please bring us some calls we have two on the line right now
I think a third one coming in but we really need to bring in a lot more than
that some of these hope videos are great we use it a high-resolution document
camera so we the speaker actually point the camera down into the cylinder of the
lock so on the big screen at hope you can see down inside the lock and see the
actual picking of the cylinder and manipulating a lock but this is a great
opportunity if you've ever been curious about lock have you ever locked yourself
out of some place and who hasn't wouldn't you feel more secure having a
lock pick set in your wallet or in your pocket call 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 this is
a great I mean besides just having you just feel more confident when you know
you could walk into almost be like Gumby you can walk into any door yeah let's
let's exercise some caution here because we don't want people you know break into
liquor stores and and you know high high security vehicles and things like
that it's knowledge does not have to be used just for for criminal intent it's
used for education that's what we've been trying to to to push for many many
years now and absolutely and if you if if you if you don't want to use the
skill to open up something that you shouldn't you can use what you learn to
protect things that you want to and that you think that you think should be
secured you can learn what not to do you can learn how exactly how worthless
the generic locks that everyone has in their front doors really are it's a real
eye-opener this stuff if you've never looked into it if you've never been into
it before it's really it really changes the way you look at a lot of what we
take for granted about security and you don't need special skills other than the
ability to learn and experiment and when you get this kit I think you'll learn a
lot more as far as how how it's all put together how the lock actually functions
and then you'll know you'll be able to tell if something is secure in the
future yeah please call a 2-1-2-2-0-9-2-9-5-0 and pledge I personally would be
interested in a kit like this having having the tools just on your person and
even if you've never done it before and you don't really understand how lock
picking works if you have the tools kind of like the radio station you have the
tool you know you can use it in the heat of the moment you'll learn pretty
quick I can't I can't even begin to recall how many times I've been maybe
locked out of something I need to access to something I just had the key and like
that's critical just having the tool if it's like wow I have it in my pocket I
mean I've never done this before and you're gonna be stuck there you can't
get into something you learn and you know fly by the seat of your pants that
kind of thing and what is a key a key is basically an access control device
that says you have the the authorization to do this and by carrying this kit this
kid around or the emergency pick card you won't be restricted in and what you
can access whether it's something in your house whether it's your car whether
it's your office you always have the ability to get around a restriction 2-1-2-2-0-9-2-9-5-0
we have four calls on the line right now we we need to bring in more pledges
$75 gets you the beginners blend lock pick kit with eight picks that are the
pretty basic ones that will get through a quite a few locks I believe you have
the emergency pick card which you can carry in your wallet or your pocket and
never worry about losing a key again if you if you take a little bit time to
learn how it all works and experiment you'll become quite good at this and
you'll find that that's a skill worth having in many situations and certainly
a good conversation piece to 2-1-2-2-0-9-2-9-5-0 for a pledge of 125 you
get to the the kit and the card plus a full DVD set of every lock picking talk
that we've ever presented at the hackers on planet earth conferences 2-1-2-2-0-9-2-9-5-0
and I also want to say about these tools in particular on if you if you have been
into lock picking or you've looked at it you know there are some cheap tools out
there there are some low-quality junky ones out there but tool knows what
they're doing I have a set of the I have one of the breakaway cards and it's it's
a really solid piece of equipment for you know it's it's really it really
feels like it really feels like I could pick something with it I haven't used it
yet but I hope to one day you're not afraid to use it oh yeah I'm not afraid
of anything well it's been you know what you might want you might be afraid of is
that sense of power you get when you actually use it and realize wow I
understand this I can make this work I can do something I didn't think I could
do and this this is what the key is actually doing when it goes into the
lock now I am the key I'm working it out I'm figuring out how the whole device
operates is such a rush when you get that feeling and that's why kids are
drawn to it so much because they they seem to instinctively get that that that
sensation and we're offering this opportunity to our listeners 2-1-2-2-0-9-2-9-5-0
you know what I am afraid of though I'm afraid of losing the card because it's
just really cool in card form so I may have to get another one and break that
one up yeah let me ask you someone who gets this who gets either the kid or the
card and if you call us now you'll get both does somebody know instinctively
how to use it are there instructions how difficult is this to use for the first
time oh I think if you'd speak to anyone who's ever actually tried lock
picking and sat down they'll say it's it really easy to pick up once you you
know just you see oh this piece goes in here and I try to turn it a little bit
and then this piece goes in here and I move am I doing it I'm moving it like
this am I doing it am I doing it and all of a sudden the lock opens and they say
whoa I guess I was I guarantee you know I know there are a lot of naysayers out
there there were always a lot of naysayers out there but in particular in
this particular case that we're talking about right now a lot of people saying
only criminals will want to use this particular type of technology utter
nonsense because I guarantee in anybody's life there will come a time
where having this skill having these tools will be of great benefit to you
could even save a life there are many instances where I've been unable to get
into something I need to get into that I have access to but for some reason I
don't have the key or someone's stolen the key or or something is
malfunctioning and having the know-how having the access having the hardware is
really something that comes in very handy again a pledge of $75 gets you two
separate devices that will make this so much easier you get the beginners blend
lock picking kit the emergency lock picking card provided by the open
organization of lock pickers tool here in the USA pledge $75 to one two two
zero nine two nine five zero pledge of 125 all of that plus a full DVD set of
lock picking seminars talks at the hackers on planet earth conference it's
an incredible deal one that we've never offered before one that we will not be
offering in seven minutes because that's when we're off the air and also it's
it's the last week of our fun drive so we won't be offering it next week most
importantly the most important reason to call up though is to keep this radio
station on the air because we can talk about things like this tuned to any
other radio station you won't be able to have a conversation about lock picking
no because to teach people how to pick locks that's giving up control and most
most corporate radio is all about control right so this is one small step
in that direction and it it pretty much epitomizes what WBAI stands for if you
want to keep that particular bastion of free speech alive please give a call
now two one two two zero nine two nine five zero since 1960 that is how we
stayed on the air from people calling in and pledging and and and showing
support and coming up with great ideas for new things to talk about tonight's
no exception on this radio station in a typical week you'll hear hundreds
thousands of different ideas and alternative viewpoints support that two
one two two zero nine two nine five zero if someone said before as a sort of a
throwaway line but I really want to repeat that NPR would not offer you lock
picks as a premium if they did a program about lock picking that would be strange
enough but they would offer you as a premium a tote bag with a photograph of
a lock pick on it and and and it would be great and NPR would be great and the
program would be great and all that but WBAI believes that you should have the
tools to change your own reality you should learn to do this you can do it as
a hobby you can do it for practical purposes you can do it for no reason at
all but we want you to decide 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 is the number to call to get
these lock picks and you can play with them see if you like it we have two
calls on the line right now let's make that five yes go ahead Bernie I want
everybody listening to WBAI and off the hook right now to get a particular look
on their face it's the precious look that I see at every hope conference in
the lock pick village where someone has a beginner has picked their first lock
and it pops open and it's a look of shock and awe on their face they can't
believe what they just accomplished and it just it just it changed that people
say it just changed their life it just opens up doors for them not to be punny
but it does call 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 get that look on your face you will be so
impressed with yourself you will get a new sense of confidence that you
understand you understand how the locks work in your house your car your
business wherever you're you're allowed to have access to you know you'll be
able to test to see the security of the locks you paid a lot of money for may
may actually get a false sense of security and realize this is a crappy
lock I better change it I could pick it in three seconds and so could anybody
else okay we have good 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 pledges $75 to get to you the blend
pick set and the the emergency pick card or if you want to pledge 125 you get
both of those pick sets plus a complete set of hope DVDs that show all all the
hope lock picking tutorials some of them really show you deep inside the lock and
how to pick it and so forth 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 5 calls on the line we've got
five calls on the line I thank people for showing support and realizing what
what Barney has been saying what deviant has been saying what what so many of us
have been saying over the years that this kind of thing is important that
this this matters now the the lock picking kit that we're talking about
the first one the first of two that does to get technical here they include two
hooks a standard and a euro slim two half diamonds a thick hard model and a
thin slender one and two rakes a snake and a bogota style wave jiggler yeah well
I just wanted to I wanted to make sure that was clear
thing when people hear oh you know a basic pick kit they think well you know
that's I guess that's something I could get anywhere and and of course that is
you know sold by many vendors of lock picking and lock spitting supplies many
of them say well here's our starter set here's our 10 piece here's our 12 piece
here's our eight piece and they all float in this same you know little above
strange it's it's not a it's not a real major price investment but they're all
thought of as the same what you'll get however from any vendor and there are
plenty of decent ones out there you'll tend to get a number of different tools
all in the same metal stock on the same you know cut profile because supply
houses tend to be very loyal to whatever metal they like to use and machine what
tool has done is cultivated relationships with any number of vendors
so it's not a uniform homogenous set of you know five ten of the same thing it's
a sampling of different tools from different suppliers and different types
of metals different thicknesses which is really not something anyone could get on
their own by themselves I mean you could if you bought seven different pick kits
from all around the country and put a few pieces of each into a tube but then
at that point you're spending hundreds of your own dollars all right look Damian I
hate to cut you off but we are out of time we have seven calls on the line so
that's a great indication that our words are are hitting people hard and being
being heard you have a couple of minutes if you want to join those people on the
phone if the phone keeps ringing and doesn't answer right away please call
right back the offer will be here for a few more minutes not much longer than
that $75 you'll get two of the lock picking kits for 125 you'll get those
plus the DVD set 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 and of course more information on tool can
be found at t-o-o-o-l dot us and we'll see you again next week with a non
fundraising edition of off the hook remember the 25th anniversary of the 26
hundred meetings this Friday in various locations especially in New York though
and again that phone number 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 stay tuned for the personal
yeah all right all right all right all right all right you're listening to WBA
I New York 99.5 FM also streaming on the web at WBA I dot o-r-g