You are, that's the second, you're not only possessing it, you are delivering it to
someone not authorized to receive it any more than you were. Well, words like that
mean that literally, as far as the words are concerned, everybody here reads a
classified document in the New York Times and certainly the journalist can be
prosecuted under that. And obviously a breadth aspect there and in
business is enormous. Well, that's never gone to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has never ruled on that.
That law should be found unconstitutional.
And you're listening to radio station WBAI New York. The time is 7 o'clock. It's Wednesday night.
Time once again for Off The Hook.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a cut.
We couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
Bum diddly bum for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood. Bum diddly bum!
And a very good evening tour by the program is Off The Hook. Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
Joined tonight by Mike, Rob T. Firefly, and Kyle.
Hi everyone.
And we're all in the studio this week, so it's a little smaller than usual, but I think we're going to find it a lot of fun like we usually do.
And we have a telephone, too.
We have a telephone. We're not going to be using it, though. But we're encouraging our listeners to use their phones to call our pledge line.
I'll give out the number now, get that out of the way. Area code 516, which is local, by the way.
516 is right around here. 620-3602.
516-620-3602.
We're going to be detailing the premiums we're offering tonight for this edition of Off The Hook, and I should point out also that we are not on the air next week.
Next week is going to be some kind of a special, but we'll be back in two weeks.
And so this is our last fundraising show.
So we hope to get a good performance, a good turnout from our listeners.
And the thing is, we're in our brand-new studios here up at Harlem Community Radio, thanks to the generosity of WHCR and the folks up here.
So we don't know how we're doing as far as calls.
We can't see the calls coming in because it's going to a call center on Long Island somewhere.
516-620-3602, that's their phone number, but we don't see the calls coming in, and we don't have Internet connectivity.
So that one week, a bunch of weeks ago, we were able to see emails coming in when we had pledges.
We don't even have that now.
So we have to basically sort of sense it out, you know, that out there in the ether someplace people are calling in and that our words are landing.
And I feel people calling already.
Do you guys feel it?
Tell me you feel it.
It's hard to say, but if people call 516-620-3602, maybe we can do an experiment.
They call the number, and we'll see if there's, like, shaking or something in the room.
Yeah, we could do that.
And we're going to mention the premiums in a bit, but really the greatest premium of all, of course, is keeping WBAI on the air, keeping us on the air.
And you can get that premium right away.
Just call and say you want to make a pledge, 516-620-3602, and they'll be happy to help you.
And tell them your favorite radio show is off the hook.
That's important.
It really is.
And you can do that any time.
You can do that any time, or you can go to WBAI.org and pledge there.
I think after midnight, that's how we do it now.
But if it's during regular hours, you can call 516-620-3602 at any time.
Emmanuel?
Yes.
My favorite radio show is off the hook.
Well, that's good.
That's good.
But I don't see you with a telephone in your hand making a pledge, and that's important.
That's an important part of it.
I know people stop me in the street all the time and say that, and it's gratifying.
It never gets old.
But for this particular hour, our last hour during this fun drive, we would really appreciate people calling in
and helping to keep this place going.
This place really manages to survive.
We're in a new temporary home, and we're still coming to you.
We're going to find a better place to be.
We got out of Wall Street in the nick of time, I think.
And the future is going to be very interesting, and we'd like to take as many listeners with us as possible
into that future, which I think is going to be exciting and fun.
So we have some stories that we're going to focus on, and we'll go into the main focus of the hour,
which will be, I think, a lot of fun for people.
Again, that phone number, 516-620-3602.
But first, some news.
And this is something that, Mike, I think maybe you could give us some more background on.
But something happened yesterday with the Supreme Court.
They turned back a challenge to a federal law that broadened the government's power
to eavesdrop on international phone calls and e-mails.
It's a 5-4 vote, and it basically, according to The New York Times,
they say it probably means the Supreme Court will never rule on the constitutionality of that 2008 law.
First of all, what is this law?
There are so many laws.
Is this a law that was made in 2008 that basically involves international phone calls and e-mails?
Yeah, this is the amendments to the FISA bill, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
And in 2008, there were some amendments which make it even easier, basically,
for the government to spy on your international telephone calls.
So there was a lawsuit brought, and this one in particular was brought by a number of human rights activists
and journalists and attorneys who want to be able to make international phone calls.
And for various reasons, they don't want the U.S. government to be listening to those calls surreptitiously.
Their contacts overseas may not want the U.S. government to be listening to those calls,
so it affects the willingness of those contacts to talk to the people in the United States.
And so they filed a lawsuit to challenge this law.
And what the Supreme Court ruled was not that it is legal for the government to do these things.
They didn't rule on that question at all.
What they ruled is that these plaintiffs may not challenge the law.
They do not have standing to challenge the law.
And that's really almost doubly frightening because maybe the law is unconstitutional.
Maybe the Supreme Court, if you ask them, they would say this law is unconstitutional.
But what they've said is, we're not going to tell you.
We don't want to think about this bill itself.
Now they're saying that the plaintiffs lacked, what's the word they used?
Standing.
Standing to challenge the law.
So if they lack standing, who has standing?
Who can challenge this law?
Do they even say that?
Why would they say that?
That would make it too easy.
So nobody can challenge these laws.
I mean, that's my interpretation of this.
I mean, that's what The Times is saying.
The EFF and the ACLU have sort of pinned their renewed hopes.
There's a lawsuit in San Francisco filed by Jewel, Mr. Jewel, who is – we've mentioned him on the show in the past.
He used to work for AT&T.
And so he has seen the secret room where the NSA interconnects with AT&T's equipment.
Where is the secret room?
The one he saw was in San Francisco, which is why the lawsuit is out there.
But presumably there's one in many of AT&T's large international switching facilities.
And so he has potentially a little bit more ground to stand upon to file the lawsuit because he actually has first-hand knowledge that the spying is going on
other than these other journalists and whatnot who are speculating with very good reason but haven't proven that they are being spied upon.
So there's some hope for that lawsuit, but I don't know.
All right.
Well, it doesn't sound very optimistic.
It sounds a little scary.
And it's only one law of many that we're concerned about.
And it's not nice to know that nobody seems to have standing to question it.
I mean, so what we're building in this country is a system of secret law that no one knows what the law is and no one knows who enforces it and no one knows what they're doing.
And I mean, I should be more frightened by this, but it's happening so much that I almost am numb to it.
Well, that's part of the strategy, isn't it, to make you kind of resign to it?
It happens all the time.
So it's nothing new.
And we just grow to accept it.
And that's kind of sad and scary.
Okay.
There's this other story, too.
I don't know if this is related or not or so many different things going on.
It's kind of hard to keep track of it all.
Several members of the Senate Intelligence Committee wrote to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court this month to ask the court to prepare summaries of classified opinions that represent significant interpretations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, FISA, in order to facilitate their declassification and public release.
Can you translate what I just said?
Because this is really kind of overwhelming.
All right.
I can try.
So as we mentioned, the FISA Act allows the government to spy on foreign nationals and also the conversations between U.S. people and foreigners.
And sometimes the government has to apply for a warrant under this act.
But the thing they apply to is this court, the secret court called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, FISC.
And what's special about this court is not only that there's only – only the government goes there.
The person being spied upon doesn't get to be represented.
And also all their decisions are secret because I guess they're going to use this information for secret purposes so they don't want to know what information they're getting.
So everything is secret here.
And what these congresspeople have asked – and do you have the names of the congresspeople?
Oh, gosh.
Hang on a second.
Yes.
The Senator Merkley, Senator Dianne Feinstein, they're from the Senate Intelligence Committee.
So the Senate Intelligence Committee is supposed to oversee intelligence gathering in the United States.
But they do not know what this court is deciding.
Not only we don't know, but the people overseeing the court don't know what the court is doing.
They don't know what the government is doing.
We've seen some numbers released that say that this court basically never says no.
But what these senators have asked, you know, hey, court, is there any reasoning behind your decisions?
Why are you approving everything all the time?
And don't tell us necessarily, like, who is being spied upon.
Don't give up any of the secrets.
But it's just like tell us the laws that you're making up, the case law that you're making up,
so that we as the public and they as the congress can know what laws are being applied
and the congress can maybe even change them if they want.
Should we be trusting these senators?
Are they looking out for us?
I mean, sure.
It's better that they get what they want for sure than that they don't get it.
Any reasonable person, I think, would prefer that we don't have secret courts making secret laws at all.
But if we do have that, then I guess it would be nice to have a summary of what they're doing.
But that takes away all the secrecy.
Just a little bit of secrecy.
But the really scary thing about all this is that the average person walking down the street going about their business
has to know what the laws are in order not to break them, you know, in certain cases.
If you suddenly found out that something mundane that you do in your daily life that doesn't hurt anybody is illegal,
but they're not allowed to tell you it's illegal, but you're just breaking the law and you're going to be punished for it,
that would be ridiculous.
But that's the position we're in now.
There are laws in place.
There are laws being enforced.
And we don't know what they are.
We're not being told what they are.
And if our congress people can ask this question and get rebuffed and not get the answer, then who can?
Well, that is something to ponder.
And as we said, there are so many laws, so many new things going into effect that we can't keep track of it all.
And, of course, we depend on our listeners to help us out as far as that goes.
Send us email, oth at 2600.com.
Tell us if you have heard something that concerns you or that you have questions about it that you've heard in the news.
There is another law that apparently is going into effect, if you've seen this story around.
More laws?
Well, just more restrictions and surveillance and things like that.
This involves ISPs that are now monitoring for copyright infringement.
This, according to Wire, the nation's major Internet service providers, on Monday, only two days ago,
said they were beginning to roll out an initiative to disrupt Internet access for online copyright scofflaws.
Note that phrase, to disrupt Internet access.
Now, it's a so-called copyright alert system.
It's backed by the Obama administration, was pushed heavily by record labels and Hollywood studios.
So you know it's got to be good.
Yeah, the plan, more than four years in the making, includes participation by AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time, Warner, and Verizon,
and others could join soon.
Now, after four offenses, this plan calls for those particular residential Internet providers to initiate so-called mitigation measures
that might include reducing Internet speeds and redirecting a subscriber's service to an educational landing page about infringement.
Yeah, let the doctrinization begin.
The plan does not prevent content owners from suing Internet subscribers.
The Copyright Act allows damages of up to $150,000 per infringement.
The Center for Copyright Information, which is the group running the program,
maintains it is not designed to terminate online accounts for repeat offenders.
However, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the DMCA, our old friend,
demands that Internet service providers kick off repeat copyright scofflaws.
The program monitors peer-to-peer file sharing services via Internet snoop Mark Monitor.
That's not a guy. That's a program.
Mark Monitor of San Francisco.
The surveillance was to have been deployed sooner, but the various delays included Hurricane Sandy and ISP reluctance to join.
I don't know. What do you guys think about this?
So one thing that's amazing about this is that you made a slight mistake at the beginning.
You said this is a new law. This is not a law.
This is a voluntary program that your Internet service provider is complying with whether you want it to or not,
even though there's no legal requirement that they do.
If we had, you know, competition in this country between Internet service providers,
then maybe you could go to a different one, but we don't have that.
Well, yes, you're right. It's an agreement.
And don't you think, though, they could easily pass a law and make this something or maybe this is the prelude to passing a law?
If it was a law, then look, we've criticized the Congress on many occasions on this program.
They deserve a lot of the criticism, but at least there is some process for public input into laws.
There is no process for public input into this thing.
And that's great. You know, just great.
So this will be monitoring peer-to-peer networking.
And usually people don't take enough precautions when they hook up to these things.
Your IP addresses will be easily sent over.
And you might get, on the first offense, you'll receive an email alert from your ISP saying the account may have been misused for online content theft.
Now, on the second offense, the alert might contain an educational message about the legalities of online file sharing.
On the third and fourth infractions, the subscriber will likely receive a pop-up notice asking the subscriber to acknowledge receipt of the alert.
I can hardly wait to see these little pop-ups and see how we can defeat them and figure out ways around this.
But it's really kind of intrusive and crazy.
Yeah, but what might be fun about this is that, you know, all of us in this room where, you know, writers and artists, photographers, you know, people that have copyrighted material.
I mean, those copyrights are automatic.
The minute we create something, it's our copyright.
So there is stuff floating around the net that I think all of us have had a hand in.
And I think it's nice of them to voluntarily scan everybody in the world who's using torrents for our work and to protect our interests.
Because, you know, what if somebody is selling a T-shirt with, like, one of my paintings on it without asking me or crediting me?
You know, that wouldn't be cool.
So for them to be scanning the – wait, wait.
Is this something that's just for large, perhaps, organizations with lots of money that make copyrighted material?
We all create things in this room.
And I don't think any of us have received an invitation to be protected by this.
So, yeah, you're right.
It's only for the people that make a ton of money as it is and who basically benefit from all this.
When people are trading free television programs online, I think that sort of raises the attention of those particular pieces of crap that they're trading online.
So it's just a way that they think they can make more money off of people and a way to intimidate others.
We've seen people victimized horribly already by these accusations.
And it's just not a healthy place to be going.
I think that broadband in general, like the bigger issue in this country, broadband is, like, pretty lousy and very overpriced in this country.
And these kinds of things ultimately are going to be seen as, like, hostile towards the public.
And that we are probably going to be moved to assemble our own sort of, like, public utilities and create broadband deployments that we actually own.
As, like, you know, you see in some rural areas with public utility commissions.
It's just – it's pretty hostile.
Like was said, there's not that much competition for broadband access.
And people ultimately, I think, are going to build their own networks when pushed.
Because you shouldn't feel like not only are you paying for lousy service at an exorbitant rate, but now you're, like, participating.
You're volunteered in this sort of, like, drag net to make you basically a criminal for sharing information online.
I mean, the other thing about these programs is that they don't work.
All these programs that have been tried for automated copyright enforcement, they all have a ton of false positives.
If you create a legal satire of a copyrighted work, your satire might get dragged into this drag net and you might get these notices.
Yes.
The educational thing, whatever it is, I'm sure it will not –
Fair use?
No.
They said there's some education – you'll be sent into retraining or re-education.
Right.
The splash page of learning how to – yeah.
Whatever that is, I'm sure it will not be audited for actual correctness about what the law says.
The YouTube, I know, has something – some copyright school and some people who have been sent to YouTube copyright school report that it is just –
it takes this copyright maximalist position that is not actually what the law says.
I'm sure this thing will be similar.
It's all insane.
Right.
There's no uniformity in that kind of – the statements that are made, they're independently implemented across the private carriers.
So you have this breadth of opinion that none of it's actually very accurate.
It's entirely possible.
Yeah.
And you mentioned the YouTube copyright school.
Now, I hope you guys will continue to be friends with me after I admit this, but I was once sent to YouTube copyright school.
Oh, my goodness.
And it was over a video that I had up that was later – the takedown was later overturned because I was allowed to use what I was using.
However, I still had to watch this copyright school thing in order to be allowed back into YouTube.
And, yeah, it was everything that Mike said and more, and it was done with quote-unquote cute little cartoon animals as well.
It was terrible.
Another really interesting thing is that the people that are, like, serious about getting these kinds of, like, forms of media and whatever, they're going to find better ways anyway.
So, I don't know, dragging in – again, dragging in people that are more or less innocent or sort of small potatoes, it's not actually going to solve a problem of, you know, systemic file sharing and that kind of thing.
I want to continue this discussion about tracking people by their IPs and things like that because there's all sorts of other ways that's done and how it's affecting the entire community and it will affect people in the future.
But we need to focus on getting calls to come in because this is, as we mentioned, our final Pledge Drive show of the winter season.
And we have something special lined up for you guys tonight.
It's called the Hacker Hardware Extravaganza or whatnot.
What we are offering, we're offering two levels, two package levels here, one for $75 and one for $125.
Phone number again, 516-620-3602.
Now, for the $75 package, you will get one of those amazing digital multimeters.
And, Rob, I know you were playing with the multimeter last time.
I was.
We don't have one here with us right now, but what kinds of things can one do with a digital multimeter that you would call?
Oh, all sorts of things.
If you're interested in hardware, you can use it to test levels of voltage.
You can test for continuity in a circuit and all these things, which are basically different ways to probe and explore a device that you have in front of you.
Or test one that you're building if your interest is at that level.
Or just repair things around the house, see if power outlets in your house are working.
Things like that.
So you can get hold of one of these, and it's a really handy thing to have.
And there are lots of little tutorials on YouTube and stuff about some of the beginner stuff you can do with one of these.
And they are just very, very handy, and every hacker needs one in their toolbox.
Yeah, it's so useful.
You cannot actually understand how something works or fix something if you can't measure what's going on electrically.
It has settings for resistance and, as Rob said, voltage and current and things like that.
And it's absolutely critical that you can figure out what actual numbers are going through the circuit and do the math and get the right resistance.
And it basically makes things safer, too.
Instead of having something that could smoke and blow up and all that, you actually have things right as far as the way the voltage is and the way the circuit is meant to be designed properly and that kind of thing.
So you can basically have all kinds of things being built and assembled with a multimeter.
But it's a great way to learn.
It's a great way to get introduced to the whole hardware aspect of the hacker world.
But that's not all we're offering for a pledge of $75.
We're also offering 12 DVDs, 12 hardware-related talks from the various HOPE conferences that comes with that package.
So you get the digital multimeter and you get the 12 hardware-related talks from HOPE conference for a pledge of $75 to 516-620-3602.
I'm sorry, how many talks?
Twelve.
Twelve?
Twelve.
And they're hour-long each.
Yeah, approximately, about 54 minutes each.
So it's basically 12 hours of some of the best information you can get about how hardware is created, how you can make your own hardware.
Yeah, I have an excerpt of one that's rather unusual.
We first tell people if they want to pledge $125, and we really do appreciate when people call in and pledge more, because it helps the station, helps keep us on the air.
And that's what it's all about, 516-620-3602.
For a pledge of $125, you get the digital multimeter, you'll get the 12 DVD talks, and you'll get Spy Pens.
Yeah, the ever-popular Spy Pens that we gave away last year, and the phones almost broke from all the people calling in for those.
For $125, you'll get your own Spy Pen, and that allows you – well, Kyle, I think you know something about these, right?
They're really cool.
Actually, it's about the size of a cigar or like a fountain pen, and they're designed much like a fountain pen, very classy, sort of very large.
It looks exactly like it.
I mean, does it write too?
I'm not sure if it writes.
I didn't pull the cap off and test it for that.
I think we actually tried that.
I'm sure they probably have some sort of writing ability.
If not, I mean, it looks very, very much like a fountain pen if it was in your pocket or something like that.
But basically, it holds an SD card, and it has a USB and some sort of battery, and it can record at a fairly decent HD TV quality.
I believe it's like 720 progressive or something like that.
HD TV on a fountain pen.
Yeah.
What a time to be alive, really.
516-620-3602.
So, what I do is I call 516-620-3602, and if I want this, I say, I would like Hacker Hardware Package Number 1.
Okay.
Yeah.
I think that's how it goes.
I think you have to say it the right way because we can't run down the hall to these people.
They're somewhere.
They're in a different city.
But, yeah, Hacker Hardware Package Number 1 is a $75 package with a digital multimeter and the 12 talks.
Hacker Hardware Package Number 2 is the $125 version of that with a digital multimeter, the 12 hardware-related talks and DVD, and the spy pens.
516-620-3602.
We're only offering this between now and 8 p.m. Eastern Time on February 27th, 2013.
So, if you're debating getting this, we would suggest making that phone call now, 516-620-3602.
Now, what we have, we have lined up an excerpt from one of the talks, and you will get this talk with either package and 11 more not like it,
but with a similar theme because every talk is different in one way or another.
This one has to do with graffiti, and I think that's pretty interesting because it's not your typical what you might think hackers are involved in, building things and electronics and all that.
This is a presentation from Hope Number 6 back in 2006 by the Graffiti Research Lab,
and they are dedicated to outfitting graffiti writers, street artists, protesters with all sorts of open-source technologies for urban communication.
And the panel discussion here gives an introduction to geek graffiti and focuses on the Eyebeam Open Lab with all kinds of attention paid to public domain, do-it-yourself hardware hacking.
So, we're going to take a brief listen to that, an excerpt from that talk in 2006.
One of 12 talks that you will get with your pledge to 516-620-3602.
Again, $75, you'll get the 12 talks.
You'll get the digital multimeter, and for $125, you'll get that plus a bonafide spy pen that you can use for all kinds of nefarious purposes and maybe not nefarious purposes as well.
But for now, let's go back to 2006, Hope Number 6, and the new engineers of graffiti.
Yeah, this is one we get a lot.
It's probably fairly relevant in that the materials that we use do cost more money than, say, a can of spray paint that someone stole.
You can also steal LEDs, too.
Spray paint is very expensive these days.
It's not quite that big a discrepancy.
But yeah, I guess that's a good question.
The cost of covering the cube?
The cost of covering the cube?
Somewhere between $0.25 to $0.50 per LED throw, depending on how many we buy.
Something like the cube, where there were 600.
You guys can do the math.
It's certainly not as expensive as the shows that the art non-profit we work for puts on.
So it's not funded, then?
Are you getting money to do that?
We are getting money.
It's funded by a number of very prestigious art grants to do this.
MacArthur Foundation and whatnot.
Do people see it?
They do.
The process for the first throwie video, I think, laid out what would happen for all the future ones.
We go, we do this, we're up there throwing these throwies on the building, pretty lame, whatever.
And then a group of people who are totally unassociated with us come up and they immediately get it.
I like that young gentleman who ran up and did the two-foot vertical grab of those throwies.
Right before that, he had turned to me and said, you guys are bombing this, yo.
And then he went and did it.
So he got it right away.
So that's actually the more cool part.
So those guys, they're not on our agenda.
They actually are more interested in getting something for themselves.
So they go out and they grab them, they throw them back a few times, and they're like, I'm just going to take as many as I can.
And that's cool, too, because it's a bit like the subway system hacks that graffiti artists did in the 70s and 80s,
in that they would use the subway to transport their giant paintings all over the city.
So they would get all five boroughs using just one train car.
And we've also had the joy to work with a lot of kids.
Kids are great because they're all anarchists.
None of them vote.
And I thought this was a very sort of astute comment.
And not only did they sort of predict the youth of today, their involvement in the graffiti tomorrow,
but they also predicted that they would eventually sell out and allow their work to just be sort of co-opted into the similitude of art.
Okay, so you saw a lot of the stuff that we do.
We're not particularly hardcore.
We're pretty soft core guys.
And people don't really take a lot of our stuff very hardcore.
They actually tend to go in the opposite direction as hard as they can.
So here's a site, Parent Hacks, where people have figured out that they can use throwies to mark their, like, soccer mom caravan.
And if we were really worried about looking like putzes, like, this would be really hurtful for us.
But we're not.
It's totally cool.
It's really pretty cool that people can find other ways to use it.
You know, not everything that other people have done has made us sort of happy.
Sometimes we feel like Eric from Instructables said that we have a lot of vanilla ice nemeses,
nemeses who are out there trying to take our projects in a very sort of soft and fluffy direction.
But then again, when they do it, they tend to innovate and they improve it.
FridgeLights, who refuses to attribute his electrograph to our sort of work that we did preceding him,
because I got in an argument with him in a comment thread, has actually brought a lot of innovations to the electrograph.
He used AC power.
He made a kind of different setup.
The only thing that sucks is that now I have to ask, people ask me, like the guys from Solarbotics,
oh, that's awesome.
You guys do these murals.
It's cool that you guys have learned from FridgeLights how to make them.
But either way, we suck it up.
Certainly there's other people that are out there who are interested in our little games and fun for their own commercial game.
And we actually buy LEDs from this company.
They're really nice dudes.
They're really like with it kind of guys.
They actually suggested they would give the 2600 staff 10,000 throwies if someone could get them root server error log access.
I really don't know what they were asking.
I forwarded it on to Emanuel, but there's like some promise of a lot of throwies, I think,
if you could do something really legal for this Chinese company.
This is close to home.
These guys are just in New Jersey.
Who is this?
Okay.
We're going to fade it down right there.
We're not going to comment on whether or not we help them out.
But that's just one of 12 talks that you'll get with the two packages that we're offering tonight,
the Hacker Hardware Package Number 1 and the Hacker Hardware Package Number 2.
The first one, $75.
The second one, $125.
516-620-3602.
Again, 12 hardware-related talks.
The talk on the new engineers of graffiti is only one of those talks.
We have 11 others that you will get for your pledge to 516-620-3602.
And, again, you'll get the digital multimeter as well.
And for a pledge of $125, in addition to all that, you will get a spy pen,
which will allow you to spy on people or things or whatever suits your fancy.
516-620-3602.
And if $75 is a lot, and for many people it is, you can donate any amount.
Every little bit helps.
And while we won't be able to give you our premiums for less than $75,
we still really appreciate your support, and it still counts toward keeping this show
and this station on the air.
516-620-3602.
And we do stay on the air.
In fact, Kyle and I were talking about this before the show, the history of the station,
how we've survived so many tumultuous adventures over the decades,
many before my time back in the 70s and 80s.
All kinds of things have happened.
So people look at what's happening now, where we suddenly find ourselves uptown in Harlem,
very different from where we've been for the last bunch of years down on Wall Street
and before that 35th Street.
We had a church at one point.
We had a different studio in a different place.
There have been strikes on the air.
There have been shutdowns.
There have been all kinds of things over the years, but one thing always happens.
We always come back on the air, and we survive to tell about it
and to do all kinds of other alternative things.
In fact, if you look at the FM radio dial in New York City, we're at 99.5,
right there in the middle of the commercial dial.
If you look at all the other radio stations, you'll be hard-pressed to find any
that have lasted the 53 years that WBA has.
I think with your support, we will last another 53, assuming FM lasts another 53 years,
and we will continue to be the most interesting station on the air.
I say that because lots of times people hear things they disagree with,
and they might lose track of the fact that it's still interesting.
Even if you don't agree with what you're listening to at the moment,
it's still fascinating.
It's still different.
It's still something that if it makes you stand up and start shouting,
well, okay, that's good radio as far as I'm concerned.
I don't think very many other radio stations are doing that.
They kind of lull you to sleep, and they want you to pay attention to the ads.
We don't have ads.
We have you.
We have you, our listeners.
516-620-3602.
Please call in now.
Pledge for either the Hacker Hardware Package No. 1 or the Hacker Hardware Package No. 2,
75 or 125, or anything else that is being offered over there.
The important thing is to make that call, make that pledge, keep WBAI going strong.
I just want to add that the DVDs are full-color video,
and so we're playing excerpts of the audio from those,
but there's lots of diagrams and different characters associated with the community,
and they're describing things.
A lot of times they have visual aids and stuff, and the video is really great.
If you can put it on your big screen or whatever,
sit back and maybe work on some things on your machine and glance up
and have interesting content to watch and listen to while you're doing something else maybe.
You've been doing this, haven't you?
Yeah, yeah.
I like to sit down while I test some of this stuff, and I've been helping archive it,
and that's one of the things that's really interesting about what 2600 does
and the HOPE conferences are all about.
We record things.
We've been recording things for quite a long time with these conferences,
and it's great content, and there's so much stuff going on during the events.
I don't know.
If anybody's been to an event, it's really hard to catch everything,
but to go back and see it then and compare it with the news and what's going on now
and the way people looked at the issues and the way they approached them,
the way they hacked stuff, the way they got around certain things
and pushed the dialogue further, I don't know.
It's a great, great way to look at the history,
and it's just really, really special that it was captured at the time
and that we have it here to offer tonight.
So please call 516-620-3602.
Yeah, you know, the history part of it, it never ceases to amaze me,
whether it's the radio show or the magazine or the conferences.
We capture the history, and we learn from that.
Kids today are watching things that happened before they were born
and finding it really, really interesting or reading things that were written
at another time when technology was completely different.
You don't learn anything by not studying the past,
and I think that's something that applies not only to our show here at WBAI
but to almost every program that you listen to,
and that's why the radio station itself needs to survive, needs to last, needs to prosper.
516-620-3602, you can help make that happen.
The Hacker Hardware Package No. 1 and No. 2, 75 and 125.
Get the digital multimeter.
You'll get the 12 hardware-related talks from the HOPE conferences,
and for the 125 package, you will get a spy pen, which is all sorts of fun.
It's just what speaks to what you're saying.
Kids, they don't know a world.
A lot of young people say they don't know a world without broadband,
and here we are talking about how there's limitations being set and throttling,
all these kinds of things because of the types of traffic you're generating online.
And I think when you go back and listen to the history,
you realize that the Internet and digital communications are still evolving.
We get to define it.
That's empowerment, knowing that.
We get to help, and we get to stand up and say this is wrong,
and young people need to hear that, I think,
and get the stories of how it came about
because it hasn't always been this way.
It may be their perspective, but it's still evolving,
and we're still building that network.
As I said, maybe young people will stand up and create their own public utilities
before Google or somebody else comes and decides to give them connectivity.
That's an important point, saying that it hasn't always been this way
because when you don't know of any other way, of course it's always been that way.
But when you go back into history and you actually see things that have taken place
a decade or two ago, you learn that, no, it was different.
If you read something, you learn that this isn't necessarily the right way to do things.
We didn't always have secret courts and warrantless wiretapping
and all the other horrors that we have today.
But the way you learn about that is by listening, reading, watching,
and talking amongst yourselves.
When we say we get to do these things, we mean you get to do these things as well
if you join us, if you become part of the community,
if you come to the conferences, read the magazine, listen to the radio show,
and keep the station on the air.
516-620-3602.
Hardware package number one, hardware package number two, 75 and 125.
You'll get the digital multimeter, you'll get the 12 DVD talks from Hope,
and you'll get the spy pens for 125.
They are so much fun.
Hey, I want to talk about...
I said I wanted to mention something about tracking people by IP,
and there's a story that's been in the news.
We've talked about this before.
You know Anonymous.
They're always in the news, and that's a fun thing.
I think it's great.
I think it really keeps people paying attention.
For instance, just today I read that in Bahrain they have outlawed the Guy Fawkes mask,
and that shows how governments just are so clueless.
They never know how to deal with these things.
So you've got that.
You've got reports that the Anonymous Twitter account was hacked.
Listen to this.
Hacking group Anonymous has had a taste of its own medicine
with its Twitter account hacked by little-known group Russell League.
This is from Sky News of Australia.
You know, as if there's just one anonymous Twitter account.
Rob, I know you had some thoughts about that.
It's not exactly accurate, is it?
Yeah, it's kind of wonderfully ridiculous,
the idea that there would be one official Twitter account to Anonymous,
which by itself, by definition, is decentralized.
There is no official anything of Anonymous.
There's no official Twitter of Anonymous.
There are at least a dozen high-profile, high-traffic, informative Twitter accounts
that are anonymous in one way or another.
There are probably hundreds more that are popping up every day
just because anybody can start one and anybody can do it,
and it's just as valid and just as much a part of the whole banner of Anonymous as anything else.
They say that the Anonymous' Twitter account was down for around three hours
before they regained control.
Now I'm just wondering, how does that work?
You call up and say, yeah, I'm the president of Anonymous.
My Twitter account was hacked.
Can you please reset the password?
It's just laughable, the way that it's being portrayed in the mass media,
how these things actually operate.
So I was planning to hack the official Twitter account of Anarchism.
Are you telling me this is a bad idea?
Yeah, you need to apply for that.
It's a lot of paperwork involved.
But okay, so getting back to the subject of Anonymous and IP tracing,
the story of the LulzSec, one of the main members of LulzSec,
who turned out to be a narc himself.
We're talking about Sabu.
He was in the news because his sentencing was postponed again,
according to this story in The Guardian, and he could face 124 years,
which is pretty insane, obviously, for any kind of a crime.
But, yeah, that's what they're talking about.
Now they basically are saying that he was due to appear at a Manhattan federal court on Friday
for sentencing on ten counts of hacking, one count of bank fraud,
and one of identity theft.
That's what adds up to 124 years.
Now he's also alleged to have had four vehicle motors worth $3,450
sent to his address in New York,
which I don't know why that's not even included in what he's being sentenced for.
Maybe that's something else that he's being sentenced for.
Maybe he hasn't been found guilty of that, or I don't know.
He also is alleged to have used, and this story, by the way,
doesn't say alleged anywhere, so I'm kind of wondering about that.
He used more than a dozen stolen credit card details, they say,
to make a number of purchases worth more than $1,000,
which is the floor level for higher penalties under the federal code,
and supposedly by being involved with WellSec and Anonymous,
helped with DDoS attacks on places like Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen, Zimbabwe,
PayPal, Visa, and MasterCard.
You like how I included them in with the countries.
Also Fox News, Chicago Tribune, Sony Pictures Europe,
Sony Music Entertainment, PBS, Nintendo.
Anyway, the point is, a lot of stuff here,
but what they say in this story, which kind of rubs me the wrong way,
they say his FBI handlers discovered him
selling stolen credit card details on Facebook.
Okay, fair enough.
They traced him to his home, though,
when he used an unguarded Internet connection
to go on the 2600.com site,
which is popular with young and old hackers.
Okay, several things there.
Obviously that's something we're involved with, 2600.com.
What are they talking about?
Are they talking about him logging into his Shell account,
which he had a Shell account on the 2600.com machine?
Are they talking about going to the website at 2600.com
and viewing something there?
Both of those imply, through this story,
that as soon as you connect to that site,
they know who you are and they trace you.
And I can assure you, we don't do that,
and if we were aware of anyone else doing that,
we would certainly be screaming about it.
What I suspect, and I think, Rob, you agree with me on this,
is that he was actually using the IRC network,
which is technically not 2600.com.
It's 2600.net, irc.2600.net.
Hi, all you people on the IRC network listening to us now.
And what happened was, incredibly to me,
he logged in directly from his home
and his IP address showed up as soon as he signed into a channel,
and that's what they used to track him.
Which, again, I don't understand,
because if he's having engines sent to his home
and they know that he's committing credit cards for it,
isn't that all that they need to find out who he is?
It just seems like this was kind of dropped in there
to make it seem like, oh, you can't trust those people at 2600.com,
because as soon as you go there, you're going to get traced.
Yeah, they want to...
It seems to me like they want to paint this picture of this guy
as some devious master hacker with his fingers in everything.
But, like, if you're any kind of a devious master hacker
and you're engaging in credit card fraud,
and as the story also says, selling credit card data on Facebook,
which itself is goofy,
and then ordering three automobile engines to his house
with stolen credit card info,
if you're doing that kind of thing,
you're not a very smart person,
let alone a devious master hacker of any sort.
But, you know, to add to all of that,
oh, you know, he's doing this, he's defrauding this,
and he's going to that 2600 site
that old and young hackers alike are into,
it's... I don't see how any of this could possibly be connected,
you know, apart from being part of some weird narrative
that they want to weave around this guy.
And we have to consider also that everything we hear
is subject to being misrepresented,
to being used for propaganda purposes,
to make somebody look like they're stupid when they're not,
to make us look like we're up to something when we're not,
to plant doubt in people's minds
or to plant assumptions in people's minds.
So always take everything you hear,
whether it's from us or from the government or from anybody,
with a grain of salt, find out for yourself, get the facts.
Right? That's what it's all about.
All right.
But one thing that you shouldn't take with a grain of salt
is the fact that we do need your pledge,
because that is a fact.
516-620-3602.
I want to play an excerpt from another talk,
because we are going to run out of time
if we don't do that pretty soon.
And this comes from our most recent HOPE conference,
HOPE No. 9.
And what we have here is a talk by a deviant alum
who has been on this radio program,
and he's discussing the world of locks.
In fact, this particular talk was called
Mastering Master-Keyed Systems.
One of 12 talks.
Now you know two of the talks.
One will be the graffiti talk, one will be a lock-picking talk.
And you'll get 12 talks total
for a pledge of either $75 or $125
to 516-620-3602.
Just ask for the Hacker Hardware Package No. 1
or the Hacker Hardware Package No. 2.
The difference is,
you'll get the 12 hardware-related talks on DVD
with both packages.
You'll get the digital multimeter with both packages.
For the $125 package, you will get a spy pen,
in addition, that will allow you to record in HD
on a device that looks just like a pen.
516-620-3602.
So let's take a brief listen
to a little bit of this talk
from Hope No. 9
in 2012
from New York City.
How many people get to other conferences
around the world, around the country?
Excellent. Support other cons, support your hackerspaces,
support your makerspaces, support anyone
who wants to learn fun stuff.
And we love it, love it, love it
when people come by the lockpicking area.
We love that in the lockpick village,
most people get it, that locks are not
these magical black boxes
that you're not supposed to look inside.
We think that you should look in
and play with all of them and see how they work.
Understand what your locks are doing.
Understand what they're capable of.
Understand what you're capable of.
And we're going to talk a lot about that right now.
So yes, I'm up here
because I'm dressed in a black T-shirt.
You know that I am with Tool.
I'm usually with my company.
But all in the same, we do the same thing.
We break into stuff.
One, because we think it's fun if I'm with Tool.
And if I'm with my corporate company,
I'm getting paid to break into stuff.
So if you've ever considered a career
in physical pen testing, I can tell you,
it's a hoot, running down stairwells
while security's coming after you
and you've got a backpack full of financial records.
And you're totally never going to jail for it.
It's pretty choice, I'll let you know.
So Tool, where we don't get paid,
is actually where we honestly have even more fun.
Tool is the open organization of lockpickers.
And all we do is go around
teaching people about this
because we think locks are beautiful little puzzles
that should be dissected and understood.
Tool was founded in Holland.
Tool is now here in the U.S.
And as long as you follow the two golden rules
of lockpicking or lockopening, we'll say,
you're usually fine legally.
We're not lawyers.
You can ask Alex or pay him, Alex Montz,
or somebody else, and they'll tell you the law.
But ultimately, if you do not pick locks
that you don't own, and if you do not
try to open locks on which you rely regularly,
you should always avoid hassle.
And we can get into more about what we mean there,
and we always top off every lesson
in the lockpick village with these rules,
but ultimately, none of this knowledge is illegal
unless you do illegal things with it.
So really quickly,
just in case you haven't been downstairs
where we show you that all these different
mechanisms are really one and the same,
I want to give a quick hit
on how locks function,
just to make sure we're all starting on the same page.
Then we'll go through the real meat,
which is master keyed systems.
Most of you do know, I think,
that locks involve pins somewhere
in the most locks involve pins, right?
So internally,
this is a pin tumbler lock.
From the outside,
you can only see a little piece of one pin here.
This is this reddish pin.
We would call that the key pin.
Inside, you see it's the key pin
and the driver pin here,
topped off by a spring,
making this pin stack.
Now, at rest, this lock cannot be turned
if you have no key in it,
because that driver pin is binding.
It is in the way.
Every time you use a lock,
every time you operate it with a key,
the key goes in.
That lifts the pin stack just enough
that when you turn those two pins,
it's at the edge of the plug.
Everything is free to turn
because there's nothing obstructing.
Make sense? Very good.
This is from the side.
Same song, different verse.
It's just a number of pin stacks
reaching back into the lock.
They're all the same construction.
It's just different heights
on those red key pins.
Every time you use your key,
the cuts on your key,
and there you are.
Make sense again?
Everybody nod. Nice and clear diagrams.
Using lock picks,
if you come down to the village,
you will learn that it's possible
to get those pins into the right position,
to get all the pins right at the edge
of the plug without a key.
We're happy to show you how to do that.
It involves basically just stressing
the system slightly, as with a lot of hacking.
You twist and bang on it and see what falls out.
You stress the system in just the right way.
You cause some force and some tension
and some binding, and you reach around
and you can manipulate pins
with sort of a hunting, seeking action.
Please come on down if you've never tried it.
Once again, let's see those hands.
Who's done some lock picking?
Is it easy? Yes.
Who has never opened a lock with picks before?
Beautiful.
I want all those people downstairs.
After Ray does his handcuff demo,
we're going to stick around.
We're around all weekend.
Whenever you come by, learn.
It's just as easy as pop, pop, pop.
Let's say you don't have picks,
or let's say you're in a situation
where you're attacking a more complicated lock,
something not quite so simple.
Let's say you're in a large
institution-type building.
Big offices often will not
want to have a billion different keys
for every door.
Big institutions of education,
colleges, a lot of college campuses and dorms.
All of these are master-keyed systems.
Many of you are probably
familiar with this term,
where there's different levels of permission.
Some keys will only open one door.
Other keys will open a whole series of doors, etc.
I realize it's not
a very applicable talk.
You don't have a lot of big buildings in this city,
but there are probably a couple
I'm going to guess that are master-keyed.
How does it work?
In a nutshell, this is it.
That's all it is.
Additional pins
in some, or all,
but usually just some, of the pin stacks.
We have our red key pins
that we saw before.
I'm afraid I'm going to have to fade it down there.
I'd just like to point out, this looks so much better
when you can see it.
You're listening to it over the radio, and if you find yourself captivated by it,
imagine how captivated you'll be
by seeing the real thing,
which you can do if you pledge
516-620-3602,
pledge $75, you'll get this,
plus 11 other talks,
plus a digital multimeter.
For a pledge of 125, you'll get all that,
plus a spy pen.
You guys here in the studio, you were listening to this
lockpicking talk as well. It's one of our better ones, I think.
It really is.
DeviantDhalam is one of the best people you could get to speak on that subject.
He's a friend of the show,
and it's just great to watch him go on
about his passions like that.
Lockpicking has always been something
that's been fascinating to the hacker world,
and kids are into it.
It's really something.
You might frown upon it
and think it's illegal. It's not.
It's not illegal to know how a lock in your home
or office works.
It's education,
and that's what we're all about.
A former roommate of mine had the best use of that
talent that I've seen, where he
got locks for the apartment that he
couldn't pick, and so he knew they were
more secure than your standard ones.
Education.
That's what we stand for. That's what the
radio station stands for.
I firmly believe that we should be supporting
this place, keeping it on the air
no matter where it is we're broadcasting from,
because the signal travels
so far, so incredibly.
The fact that this place exists in the first place
is a miracle. There's no way
you could have this kind of a signal in New York City
and have this
kind of programming.
Mike, you were saying that no other radio station would broadcast
this kind of material, right?
We were only able to play a brief excerpt,
but what other radio station would
play on the radio how to pick a lock?
Are there
any in New York? Are there any in the world?
Not at this time, certainly, and I don't think
at any time do they talk about this.
It's not because it's not interesting, it's because
it's controversial, because big companies
that sponsor radio stations
wouldn't like it. And we're not only playing it
on the radio, we're offering you a chance to get the
entire piece and learn how to do
this yourself, along with 11 other DVDs
full of technical info on all
sorts of hardware subjects. If you call,
1-866-620-3602
and get Hacker Hardware Package
No. 1 or Hacker Hardware Package
No. 2, which also includes
the digital multimeter and the spy pen.
But, Rob, I hate to be the
voice of doom here.
We can only offer this
package until the top of the
hour. After that,
it's not available. After that, you can still support the radio
station. You can still even say Off the Hook
is your favorite program. You can join the BAI
buddy system. You can go to wbai.org
and pledge there. But if you want
the Hacker Hardware Package No. 1 or No. 2,
you've got to call in the next 5 minutes.
5-1-6-6-2-0-3-6-0-2
Now,
we can't see how many calls are coming in. We have
to have faith
that our listeners are there for us
as we do all these
transitions and move to a new studio
and have a system where we can't see the calls
coming in or get verification of calls coming
in and how much has been pledged for. But we know
that you're out there. We know this is the kind of
thing that you like, and we hope
that you respond and keep us going.
Again, 5-1-6-6-2-0-3-6-0-2
Once more, the Hacker Hardware
Package No. 1 for $75,
digital multimeter, and 12
hardware-related talks from the HOPE conferences
that have been taking place since 1994.
Hacker Hardware Package
No. 2, digital multimeter, the 12 talks,
and a spy pen,
which if you're good, you won't
get into any trouble with. You'll use it
responsibly. That's no fun.
Well, yeah, you're right. But at least
you won't get caught. How about that?
So this is it. We're off.
We'll be gone for the next
couple of weeks. You can write
to us, othat2600.com.
We'd love to hear from you. But please,
in these last few moments,
give a call to
5-1-6-6-2-0-3-6-0-2
5-1-6-6-2-0-3-6-0-2
And during these last few moments, I'd just like to quickly mention
a couple events going on this week. If you remember
Phil Lapsley, who wrote the book
Exploding the Phone, about the history of phone-freaking.
We had him on the show about a month ago.
He is in town. He will be doing
a New York stop on his book tour.
He will be doing a reading from the book at Alpha One Labs
on Tuesday, March 5th, at 7pm
in Brooklyn.
More information on that can be found at
AlphaOneLabs.com
This Friday, there are also 2600 meetings
going on everywhere, including near you,
whether or not you're in town. So go to
2600.com.meetings and find
your local hacker scene. And do give a call
to 5-1-6-6-2-0-3-6-0-2
There's seconds left,
but we know you're out there.
We know you care. This is Manuel for Off The Hook.
See you in two weeks. Good night.
But they won't let me alone
Oh yeah
Oh yeah
Oh yeah
Machines
Machines
They keep right on moving
Machines
Machines
They keep right on moving
Well I've got
to find
a place to rest my head
A machine
Wow that'd be insane
I'm gonna be all dead
Oh yeah
Oh yeah
Oh yeah
Machines
Machines
We made them to serve us
Machines
Machines
We built them to serve us
But till
the day
when I'm buried in my grave
Yes right until
that day I know
I'm gonna be a slave
A slave
A slave
A slave to the
Machines
Machines
They keep right on
Right on
Machine
Machines
Machines
Right on
Machine
Machines
Machines
They keep right on
Machines
Machines
Machines
Machines
So you know how we do it here.