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One, two, three, go!
And a very good evening to everybody.
The program is off the hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
Joined tonight by Mike.
Hi there.
Happy Wednesday.
Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
Kyle.
Hi.
And Bernie S.
Greetings from Philadelphia.
Well, here we are.
Another Wednesday.
Another Wednesday has come and gone.
Sorry for the confusion at the beginning.
I forgot to even intro the show, but our CD broke.
It has our theme on it.
Thanks, Rob, for finding the theme on some other place on the Internet.
Isn't the Internet great?
You can find everything.
But, folks, you know, I have something, a slight bone to pick with listeners out there.
A week ago we went on the air and we talked about the HOPE Conference, which, by the way,
the HOPE Conference is a brief period, three days, in fact, of sanity.
Sandwiched right between the end of the Republican Convention and the beginning of the Democratic Convention.
This summer, it's taking place here in New York City.
Now, based on things that we've been seeing happening, this could be the last summer of this country or of the current system or whatever.
Everything's falling apart.
And we all know that dark days are ahead of us.
So these three days are, you know, we need this.
A lot of us need this.
And it's something to look forward to.
Now, last week we were talking about this, how people can get a free ticket to the conference.
And it was, I thought it was a very simple challenge.
All you have to do is get some kind of a legal threat from Donald Trump.
You know, make fun of his hands or make fun of his sister, insult him in some way, hack his website, hack his phone, hack his whatever.
There are so many ways.
You know, you don't even have to do much to get him angry.
And all we require is a letter of some sort, a cease and desist letter.
It doesn't even have to be, you know, it doesn't have to go to court.
Just a threat of some sort has to have his name on it.
You know, we haven't gotten a single example, a single letter.
It's been a full week.
Now, I know you can do this in a couple of days.
People have done it.
It's not that hard.
And it's a free ticket to the conference, unless you're in prison.
But hopefully that won't happen.
I don't know, Bernie, am I being too hard on the people?
No, it's good.
I mean, we did hear through the grapevine of some things happening, but we can't really share those details.
But, you know, I would think that, do we know if the Trump campaign is suing anybody for any kind of anything,
even unrelated to what we're talking, unrelated to our outreach?
No, it's a love fest.
I think it's not very much a love fest.
I think they're suing everybody and everything.
They're kind of like, Trump is kind of like walking Scientology.
It's basically you question or say anything and all of a sudden you've got lawyers.
And just keep in mind, even if he wasn't running for president, how much of a jerk he is and how easy it is to get him angry.
So, you know, I thought it was a very simple challenge.
I mean, yeah, we could have other kinds of contests, I suppose, but this was something I figured we'd have a winner by this week.
And I'm very disappointed.
I know our listeners can do more.
Maybe it's going to take some time for these plans and plots to hatch and develop.
Kyle, we don't have time.
Time is not on our side.
Good ideas.
They need to sort of incubate and grow in the right way.
Yes, Rob.
Well, also, this is going to have to work at the speed of Donald Trump's campaign's legal staff.
And I'm sure they've got a lot on their plate.
I'm sure it would also take Mr. Trump a very long time to write any sort of legal threats, what with his very small hands.
But, yeah, I think it would be good.
You're going for the ticket, aren't you?
Okay, all right, good.
This is the kind of thing we need to see.
Absolutely.
I mean, it's one thing to get blocked on Twitter.
Everybody can do that.
That's easy.
It's real Donald Trump is his Twitter handle.
You can just insult him once you're blocked.
Okay, but we need more than that.
You know, we need something in writing, something legal, something with a threat behind it.
And, you know, and of course, we can only offer one of these.
So it's first come, first serve.
Bernie, I think you had something.
No, go ahead.
Okay.
So write to us, OTH at 2600.com, with your attached legal threat or whatever, or if you have any further questions.
But this is serious.
I mean, you know, I was practicing.
Go ahead, Kyle.
I was going to draw it into sort of some of the larger themes that this is related to.
And what we're calling this is a world of Trump.
What would that be in relation to technology?
It's a very good question.
Well, first of all, I'd like to conduct an exercise here, if possible, very close to an exorcism.
But I was practicing earlier today.
You saw me.
Yes.
And it got difficult.
It's not easy.
But I can say something now that I could not say yesterday or even earlier today.
I'm going to try to say it on the air now.
All right, I don't think it's forbidden.
President Trump.
Yeah, I said it.
President and I can say it now without all those things happening when I tried to say it before.
You're getting better.
You're definitely can.
Can you guys say it?
Can you guys say that word?
Those words together?
Can you're sweating?
Look, this is this is a possibility.
We're going to have to face it.
No. Yeah.
You see, that's where I was this morning, Mike.
I mean, haven't we given this man enough airtime?
Oh, but we're going to give him so much more.
He may.
Well, that's what we're going to discuss.
What will happen if this guy does get elected will happen to the world of technology.
But first, I want to see, is anybody capable of saying the words?
Bernie, how about you?
You know, I'm going to have the same trouble that Kyle had.
I can get I can get the first word out.
But the second one, I can't get it.
You're from Pennsylvania.
You're used to unreasonable things and nightmares.
I'm going to have to practice like you did before I can get it down.
It hurts at first.
Don't do it too quickly.
That's my advice.
Having been there, it takes time to get it right and to say it.
But what we're dealing with, what we're looking at, everyone, everyone, please listen up.
I mean, what we're looking at is a future, a future with a potential for Trump.
And that's exciting for technology.
And we want to know the way this will work.
And part of that is, how will it work when, say, you are given a letter?
So that is part of the contest here.
We want to understand the technology of Trump.
Well, or lack thereof.
Okay, so that is something that we were thinking about on the way in here.
And maybe maybe people have some ideas.
And part of that is issuance of these letters.
And we'd love to see one.
So what would it be like under, let's just call it PT regime for now?
Yeah, that'll be easier for people can probably say that the hypothetical here.
I was thinking about this.
I'm sorry.
What's that, Bernie?
As in PT Barnum, a sucker is born every minute.
Okay, well, you know, the parallels are remarkably similar, but we don't get into that.
I'm thinking mostly on as far as as the world of hacking, the world of technology.
I see a very simplistic, heavy-handed approach.
I mean, yeah, we've seen that in the past, but I see even more so in the future.
Look at the the recent Apple case and and his reaction to that.
If this guy winds up in the White House,
I think it could be the end of freedom on the net in our country of high technology being developed without fear.
There's so many possible nightmares here of encryption being seen as something tantamount to illegality.
And the thing is, he has a lot of power now.
He will have even more power than Mike.
On this issue, is there much difference though between him and Obama?
I mean, Trump has, as far as I know, not expressed any position on this issue.
Obama has, and it is not the position I like. On many, many other issues, obviously Trump is worse.
I don't want to say there's no difference in general between the two of them,
but on the right to have information that the government cannot get into,
Obama's position is about as bad as it can get, as far as I know.
Well, I think you might be expanding your boundaries a little bit if there is a PT regime.
I would like to say, you know, can you think of a single leader in that office who would not say or do the same thing?
I mean, I think it's just something that when you're president of the United States,
yeah, you want that kind of control. I think that's a given.
It's incumbent on you to interpret what kinds of resources investigative arms of the executive
might want to have expanded and in that kind of recirculates into legislation and stuff.
And that kind of revolving tour of administrative officials and defense officials and so on and so forth, it plays in.
The way I feel about it, I just think that even a President Bernie Sanders would be saying these types of things,
a President Elizabeth Warren would be saying the same types of things.
That's just, there's a certain amount that you just wind up doing when you're president of the United States.
But I think with Trump, it would be far, far worse, like unimaginably worse.
Unapologetic.
Yeah, that we try to imagine what's unimaginable. Rob?
I think we're going to build a firewall and we're going to make China pay for it.
Yeah, stuff like that. You know, it's going to be so simplistic.
Does he have an understanding of technology at all? Is there any indication that he does?
Is that better or worse? I mean, if we assume that the president,
any president is going to take the worst possible position, then maybe you want an incompetent one?
I don't know. It's hard to say.
Well, you know, we tried that with Bush, didn't we? George W. Bush.
And we had eight years of incompetence and it didn't seem to help anything.
People actually embraced it, which scares me because it shows that this kind of thing can happen.
I'm the only one, and actually Jim's here too. Hi, Jim.
I'm the only one other than Jim in the room who remembers when Reagan was elected.
And I think listeners will back me up on this, that people thought that was a joke.
People thought that was, this can't possibly happen, this actor.
That's right. You're right wing, aren't you? Okay. Sorry.
I don't mean to offend, but I think you would remember, too, that back then people thought differently.
They didn't think of him as the magnificent man he turned out to be.
Okay, whatever. The point is, the point is, even Jim's laughing at that.
Perceptions change. Perceptions change over the years.
And what's unfathomable today is normal tomorrow.
And just look at our society. Just look at the things we're doing.
Look at the state of schools, where you have to go through a metal detector to get into schools.
Look at the proliferation of guns everywhere.
These are things that even 20 years ago would have been unimaginable.
But they're normal now.
When kids grow up in these environments, they think of it as nothing else they could possibly compare it to.
So when you get a guy like that in the White House, that becomes the new normal.
And our reality will change.
And being at the cusp of high tech, I think it's going to affect us profoundly if that were to happen.
And this is the time to start thinking about that.
Yeah, I think that a part of that is the development of technology as being something that is normal.
And that is timed with this.
So if those two things were to intersect, it could very well influence the trajectory of maybe not necessarily the technology itself,
but definitely its implementation and the interpretation of its use legally in this country.
So that would be basically parallel to an APT administration, would be sort of this normalizing.
And I say that in the context of the mainstream, like what maybe mainstream journalists,
like the sort of depth that they understand technology.
I think that the conversation around it, like you can say an IP address in like a mainstream news article and people might like,
they would know what that means.
You wouldn't have to IPv6 or IPv6.
If you say one of those, I'm not sure.
But that's that's a part of this.
So how would sort of ubiquitous technology, how would that play in a Trump administration?
So wouldn't it would not be something you could deny.
And so and the convergence of different things as like information that's privately held about you in sort of government,
traditional coffers, right?
Traditional ways of getting information about you mixed with like the devices and other platforms that give so much more about,
give so much more detail about our individual lives.
And the thing to remember about any administration is that I don't think anyone's expecting the president,
you know, her himself to be a sysadmin type of level of understanding of technology.
But any president is going to just surround themselves with advisers and experts and people like that to try and clue them in on these topics.
And we have to imagine sort of who are the sorts of people that Trump is going to surround himself with?
Yeah.
And take external advice from and looking at Trump's history with things like starting,
you know, false start businesses that never got off the ground or like beginning to build some building somewhere for a hotel that ended up just petering out halfway through and never coming to be.
And these aren't the actions really of somebody who maybe takes all the takes all the ins and outs of a situation into mind
or like investigates much of the realities of a situation when he wants to just go do something.
I don't know.
I think his failed business attempts are his most endearing qualities.
It's the pigheadedness and the bullying and the threats of violence that really worry me,
especially somebody in a position like that when he doesn't get his way.
What is he going to do it?
I mean, this don't kid yourself.
This is tantamount to neo-fascism in our country.
And it's an important issue that we has not been taken as seriously as it should have been,
which is why we're at the stage we're at right now.
For those listening in the future, we just went past what they call Super Tuesday number three,
where Donald Trump won just about every state and is poised to win the Republican nomination.
We'll find out, I guess, the day before hope, which is kind of going to be really interesting.
It won't overshadow hope, that's for sure.
But wow, I never thought I'd see anything quite like this.
But also, Mr. Trump has a particular background with technology that none of the other candidates have,
which is that he made all that casino money.
So he was benefiting from technology that exists in order to fool people.
Yeah, I certainly, I guess what I'm saying is that I see them fancying it, right?
Enjoying it insofar as it serves whomever their interests lie with.
And I don't know that that's going to be everyone in this country.
I know that it's not going to be everyone in this country.
In fact, it's going to be precious few in this country.
I'd like to know, I guess, go ahead, Bernie, go ahead.
I don't know for sure that Hillary Clinton's positions on, for instance,
this encryption issue would necessarily mirror her husband, who was in the White House for eight years.
But William Jefferson Clinton pushed very strongly for key escrow,
which basically means the government would keep a backdoor key to your information ready at hand,
or have access to it ready at hand.
That ultimately failed.
But if Hillary's viewpoints are similar to her husband's,
we can probably look forward to the same thing if she were president.
Can I read just very briefly a brief quote from President Obama,
what he said at the South by Southwest conference about this issue?
I would like you very much to do that.
But first, I would also like to invite our listeners to take part in a quick poll for the next 10 or so minutes.
We're just going to ask people, what is your idea for how to stop Trump from getting any further?
If you have any ideas, because this is your opportunity to share it with the world.
Our number is 718-780-8888.
We have more to talk about, but I think this is an important issue that we should spend a few minutes on anyway.
718-780-8888.
And just a reminder, if the phone rings more than 10 times,
we probably can't pick up because you get transferred to Neverland.
So I would call as soon as Bernie finishes reading this statement.
Go ahead.
Okay.
This past weekend, President Obama was speaking at the South by Southwest conference in Austin,
which is sort of a technology, cultural music conference.
Not as large as Hope, but it's still an interesting topic.
Oh, stop. It's like 50 times as large as—
Actually, no, it's not.
It's huge.
They've been artificially making it smaller and smaller because it has gotten so big.
At least that's what I read.
The last couple of years, they've been trying to cool it a little bit.
Maybe I was reading about the number of people that were in the room to hear the president was smaller than Hope.
Yeah, that might be it. That might be it.
A parking lot or something.
Well, here's what President Obama said.
He said, quote,
If, technologically, it is possible to make an impenetrable device or system where the encryption is so strong that there is no key,
there is no door at all, then how do we apprehend the child pornographer?
End quote.
Then he said, how do we disrupt a terrorist plot?
He went on to say that if the government has no way into a smartphone, then, quote,
Everyone is walking around with a Swiss bank account in your pocket.
End quote.
And then finally, he said, quote,
This notion that somehow our data is different and can be walled off from those other trade-offs we make, I believe, is incorrect.
End quote.
To me, it seems like this guy doesn't really understand the technology,
or he just figures that government should really have access to everything.
Or it's the last couple of months of his last term, and he doesn't care, and he's just kind of toed the line.
Yeah, he has no power anyway now, because it's his last year.
It doesn't count, according to Republicans.
So whatever.
I disagree.
You bring up child porn.
I think that right away is like a knee-jerk argument,
even if it's off the cuff or like a just, you know, random example.
Child porn terrorism, that's how you get what you want, by always calling that up.
It's a standard argument.
But what people forget is that, you know, we didn't have smartphones years ago.
We didn't have the proliferation of data about us spreading all over the Internet.
It's gotten a lot easier to track people down and to find out things about them.
So I don't want to hear this nonsense about how it's suddenly hard to apprehend and investigate and things like that.
There are more tools than ever.
And yeah, you know what, there are some tools that protect privacy as well.
Very few people know how to use them, but hopefully that will increase,
and people will know how to protect their own security.
I think the other thing he said about having a Swiss bank account in your pocket,
like, I think that's almost like a little classist,
as though like we're not allowed to have a Swiss bank account, all of us.
Oh, it gives me ideas.
Right? I mean, what's wrong with that?
A friend of mine who lives in Switzerland reports that they just don't let Americans open up bank accounts there anymore.
It's too much paperwork.
So, you know, they can do it.
And they want to do it to your cell phone.
All right. So we saw people didn't follow my instructions.
A lot of people called in and they were all gone now because they got transferred someplace.
Call us 718-780-8888.
We're looking for ideas on how to stop Donald Trump from becoming,
well, I don't know, you know, I don't mind him becoming the nominee for the Republican Party
because of something that Margot Rubio said about if he becomes a nominee,
it's the end of the Republican Party.
And I like that. That's good.
But maybe that's too much of a risk to take if Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders
don't launch a strong enough campaign or if there's some kind of a scandal or something like that.
So the idea is how do we keep this from becoming reality?
Because the possibility is very real.
Let's take a couple of phone calls.
Good evening. You're on off the hook. Go ahead.
How do you do?
By the way, I have to tell you, Emanuel, I've been listening to your show for I don't know how many years.
It's got to be 20 years.
Oh, you need a break.
When you used to play dial tones from other countries or busy signals.
That's how long I've been listening.
Wow. Well, you're a trooper.
I got to give you that.
I really have. Anyway.
I don't know you can stop Donald Trump.
I think he's going to.
I don't think he's going to be able to do any of the things he says he can do once he becomes president,
because running the country is not like running a company.
There's too many obstacles for him doing.
He can have a couple of executive orders,
but like they were talking about what he was talking about killing terrorist families.
The military isn't going to follow those kind of orders.
So maybe he gets the NSA or the CIA to do it for him,
but it's not the same thing. You know what I mean?
Yes. It's a blowhard. Okay.
That's a blowhard.
He's just saying things that if you look at if you give anything that he says,
just the slightest bit of thought you say, wait a minute.
I'm going to take 12 billion people out of the country.
So what you're saying is that he will not be an effective president.
He won't get what he wants.
But what we're looking for today is how to keep him from becoming president in the first place.
Do you have any ideas on that?
Well, would you like Ted Cruz instead? I mean, what are you doing?
No, no. I mean, that's a horrible alternative also,
but we'll focus on him another week maybe.
Yeah, I actually wrote something about the fact that Donald Trump is kind of like the Howard Stern of politics.
He has brought down the level of discourse to just insults
and things that are not really important in the same way
that Howard Stern started talking about farting and penis size and lesbians.
And all of a sudden it's all over the media.
Not all of a sudden, but over a period of time.
So that Donald Trump now has turned politics from its patrician,
The gentleman from Missouri is incorrect, too.
You know, you're a nitwit. You know what I mean?
But people seem to welcome that change.
They seem to welcome what they call honesty.
And, you know, you bring up a good point.
And actually, Donald Trump actually makes Howard Stern look like a good candidate.
I would welcome that in exchange for this.
Listen, we're going to move on to other phone calls.
Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening for so long.
And I hope you continue listening. Bye.
All right. Take care. And good evening.
You're on off the hook. Go ahead.
Anyone there? Hello? Yes, go ahead.
What's what's on your mind? Yeah, I was listening to your program.
I just tuned in a few minutes ago about stopping Donald Trump.
And I just want hello. Can you hear me? Yes, we hear you fine.
I just wanted to say I heard earlier today that House Speaker Boehner would try to prop up Mr.
Ryan. I don't know if you heard anything about that.
It's kind of like I don't know what they look term for it,
but they can vote in or put in somebody else besides Trump if he gets a nomination or he's threatened to get the nomination.
Did you hear anything about that? Well, I heard a couple of things.
I heard that Paul Ryan was suggested by that Paul Ryan himself shot the idea down.
So that apparently is not going to be happening.
But the other thing I heard, which is more disturbing, was in an interview with Trump where he is suggesting that even if he doesn't get the 1237,
the magic number of delegates he needs to win the nomination outright,
he if he has the majority and does not get the nomination,
there will be violence in the streets. And that's that's something that, you know, we've seen before.
We've seen this kind of thing before. We've seen the attitude of the mobs that come to his his rallies.
And that's worrisome. Antichrist. That's what's giving you more credit.
I think that he's yeah, that's one way to look at it for sure.
Because I mean, if you look at it, people that are protesting Trump are not this homogeneous.
You have white, you have students, you have Mexicans, you have Muslims.
So he has to realize he's not intelligent because he has to realize he's trying to divide people along lines of like race and class.
But everybody's in this and everybody stands to lose.
So he seems like he's running for high school president.
That approach has worked in the past, though. And it's my worry that it's going to work again in the future.
I don't think Trump himself actually is the antichrist, only because if he were, I think he'd be doing that job much more badly.
I'm with some of what she said, but I do think there is some strategic fracturing of of of various allegiances and common that like different dichotomies in society.
That may be just the right mix, kind of like what you said as it having been effective in the past.
We have full switchboard. Let's try to quickly go through, see if we have any other ideas here.
Good evening. You're on off the hook. Go ahead. Speak up, please.
You're on the air. What I hear, I want to stop Donald Trump.
OK, how do you how do you propose to do that? Correct. Well, the Republican Party has created Donald Trump.
They have created him, yes. Who was degrading, castigating the president, the United States, the Republican Party, shut them out.
They didn't do a thing about it. Now they create a monster and the monster is tearing them apart.
How you stop that monster? Is by voting for Hillary Clinton.
Well, OK, that's that's the obvious way to stop him in November.
But do you think it's possible to stop him before November? I don't.
All we can stop him if they if these super PAC would have poured enough money on to that guy from Ohio.
Governor Kasich. Yeah. Yes. And if they can pour enough money at him, he can stop.
Well, that's that's the tactic they have been using as a tactic that he's actually been been pointing to as ineffective.
They're throwing all this money. Florida was a good example of that.
And it's not working. And people seem to like that. They seem to like somebody who, ironically enough, is a billionaire.
But saying that the the existing campaign system is is bought and sold and he's he's bucking that trend.
Trump has appeal to the lowest denominator in politics.
That's for sure. And that is what is happening because he himself is drags.
He doesn't have the capability and intelligence to be a president of the United States.
Other people behind him exactly like him.
That's what worries me. There are so many people like that and millions and millions of devout followers.
Thanks so much for that call. Actually, I think that listener is in line to get the free ticket to hope,
because I think of Donald Trump listening to this right now. He'd already be preparing legal briefs to shut him up.
Yes. Wow. I can't believe how many people are calling in.
Yeah, this is great. Well, yeah, I didn't want to devote the entire show.
Just a few more minutes because we have other things to discuss as well.
Let's take this call over here. Good evening. You're on off the hook. Go ahead.
Oh, OK. That person is not there anymore. Good evening. You're on off the hook. Go ahead.
Hello. Good night, Emmanuel. Hi. What's on your mind?
I was calling in response to your question about how we stop him.
Yes, please. All right. You're a very intelligent person.
So I don't want to sound like I'm playing with you.
But I think the unfortunate thing is that as I see it, I don't know that there is a way to stop him.
I was hoping when he first came around on the scene and he started talking that, you know,
just the fact that he wasn't really saying anything that people would eventually, you know,
those who are looking for issues and things that are going to help change the country and or even move it along the line that they wanted to go would be,
you know, discussed it by the fact that he wasn't even saying anything.
And then he started saying what he actually had in mind.
And I thought that alone would have pushed people to the edge where I mean,
the kind of ludicrous, ridiculous, disgusting things and vile things that come out of his mouth.
You would have thought by now the country would have been past that.
The unfortunate thing is, like one of your callers said before, he's appealing to the or bringing politics to the lowest denominator.
And unfortunately, there's a lot of the lowest denominator that exists in our country today.
If he actually is going, I think what people should start doing right now is looking at options as far as almost treated like it was, you know,
the Vietnam War. Start thinking about how you're going to get to Canada or someplace else to get out of this country.
Because if that guy does win a nomination, there's a chance he might win the presidency and the world is in trouble.
Well, the world's in trouble, too. And then, you know, move to Canada was one of the top search terms on Google during this whole this whole fiasco.
And I don't know if that's going to be enough. Like you say, the whole world will be doomed.
And and maybe that's not going to solve anything.
I mean, as big a fan as I am of sort of fatalism and pessimism,
I'm even fatalistic and pessimistic about the chances of that strategy succeeding because these sorts of racist neo-fascists are popular all around the globe.
We saw just this week the the so-called Alternative for Germany party got huge amounts of seats in state elections.
Is that is that Pegida supported or they're the the the acceptable neo-Nazis?
I don't know how you want to describe them. They would describe themselves quite differently, of course.
But, you know, unfortunately, we're stuck on this planet or fortunately.
And there's only just so many countries we can move around in circles to in an except in an expectation that that strategy would succeed.
There's a lot of interest now in going to Mars. And I think you have Donald Trump to give credit for some of that.
Getting off this planet might be the best solution. Let's take one more phone call.
Then we're going to talk about other things. Good evening. You're on off the hook.
Go ahead. Hello. Yes, go ahead.
Yeah, this the one of the reasons we should object to Trump is because he wants to ban encryption.
And if you ban encryption, Americans can't securely order pizza over the Internet.
So I think that's something that would resonate with the voters.
That's a major concern, I suppose. Yeah.
I wanted to comment on the last caller that regarding the lowest common denominator and appealing that they're out there.
Right. And they're looking for reasons to get to to get react, to get reactionary, get riled up.
That was one thing I heard in the conversation that speaks to this.
And that's just it. It's like that's the kind of that's the kind of things people unfortunately care about.
If they can't get their pizza, then they're going to get upset about something.
And this is the same kind of attitude. It's oversimplified and inconsiderate.
He may be onto something here, because if people see how this affects their daily lives,
how these simplistic solutions can completely wreck everything, they might actually start paying attention.
That's a good point. Oversimplified and inconsiderate, I think, describes the entire Trump campaign.
Yes. Oh, you really want that ticket, don't you, Rob?
All right. Thanks. Thanks for that call. Thanks, everybody, who called in.
You can continue writing to us. O.T.H. I'm sorry, at 2600.com.
And we'll take phone calls a little bit later on on other issues or if people really feel strongly.
I suppose I can continue to talk about this. Mike, did you have something else?
I mean, I was just going to say the caller made that suggestion as a joke,
but it's literally true that the the electronic economy that we're trying to build cannot function without encryption.
If the odds of fraud were, you know, 50 percent every time you tried to buy a pizza,
you could not buy a pizza online. And, you know, we have we have to weigh that as trivial as it sounds.
We have to weigh that against all the other things.
So just for the record, I don't think I heard one way to stop Trump.
Yeah, everyone has their opinions and and prophecies of doom.
But yeah, that's that's sort of what I was looking for to see if there were theories as to how to actually stop him.
And we've seen precious few of those over the last few months.
And, you know, I think that's sort of sort of a perverse fascination with, well,
let's see what happens if he actually does go further.
I heard some ways to mitigate the the effects of Trump on you personally.
How would you do that?
Yeah, like trying to get as far away from being at the effect of Trump.
But no real solution for stopping him.
The thing that bugs me is that he's from New York.
Are we going to get blamed for this? You know, he doesn't represent folks.
Listen, he does not represent New York. New York's a wonderful place.
And people like that are well, there are some of them, but we don't like them.
Let's say Vegas. Yes, that's where we should be from.
A little bit more appropriate. There are nice people in Vegas.
Don't don't get me wrong on that. But he'd be more suited.
And he's very comfortable there, too, I think.
OK, more things to talk about, because we do have other things going on as well.
Well, did you hear this story? This is completely a different story.
But I thought it was it was very amusing.
There's this guy who was riding around the commuter trains in Chicago.
And he was arrested in an undercover undercover sting over cell phone jamming.
One of our favorite topics. Dennis Nickel is 63 years old.
He's a certified public accountant.
He had allegedly created his own personal quiet car in recent months with an illegal device.
He imported from China, according to prosecutors and Chicago police.
Now, what's unusual about this is that he was charged with a felony count.
And it was a really big deal for a couple of days.
Unlawful interference with a public utility.
Now, what's weird, I think, Bernie, you pointed this out.
What's weird is that cell phone companies aren't public utilities, are they?
No, they're not. In fact, their cell phone companies fought very hard legally to to not be public utilities.
So they would not be regulated as such. So I'm wondering if this is a legal loophole.
I actually called this guy's lawyer. He didn't answer the phone.
I got his voicemail. I just said, I hope you're looking into the defense strategy,
that the statutory language may not actually match the alleged offense or activity,
because cell phone companies are public utilities.
This is an example where old statutes don't really match up with the current situation when it comes to technology.
Well, you know, you might have some effect, Bernie,
because yesterday prosecutors reduced his felony charge of unlawful interference with public utility
to a misdemeanor charge of tampering with communication services.
So maybe maybe that voicemail was shared and they say, oh, yeah, we can't do this.
And well, logic seems to be prevailing a little bit.
Yeah. Interesting. That point you made is it seems to have brought some truth or had some truth to it after all,
because it's it's it's the the interpretation has been basically conflated with the traditional interpretation of the public switch telephone systems,
systems, role and legal status. But these private, private mobile carriers are just that private.
And it's part of the reason why they have so much control and power over every aspect of the service that you purchase from them.
They can change the prices. They can they can throttle limit your data.
I mean, of course, that's under a bit of scrutiny, I think, or I hope I would hope still and has been.
But all of those things that you pay for are not something that is being given to you in any way over a private service other than the spectrum.
Is that right, Bernie? It's pretty much that's the only public part of a mobile phone system.
Yeah, that's pretty much right, Kyle. I don't know how many of us are old enough to remember tariffs where where, you know,
each state public utility commission would determine every year or periodically at least what what the rates would be for local and long distance telephone service.
And it was set in stone until the company applied for another rate increase or decrease, which almost never happened.
And then it would have to go before the state public utility commission and there were hearings and all that.
Telephone companies don't do that. They don't have to because they're not public utilities.
They just change their rates at will. Sometimes they charge you more than they even told you they were going to charge you.
And you really don't have much recourse. So it's interesting that the ignorance of the district attorney's office who charged this guy in Chicago
didn't even seem to realize that the cell phone company he was this this defendant was allegedly interfering with was not a public utility, but in fact, a cell phone company.
Yeah. And this extends to towers and every part of their infrastructure.
They have to go to different locales if they want to install new equipment and appeal to the local communities there.
They don't they don't have any sort of federal or regional site allocation or any kind of deal in there.
They have to do that and negotiate all of that towers and the like on their own as a private communication service.
So it's good to see that that was changed in this case.
What do you think of the actual this guy? I mean, kind of sounds like a jerk.
The guy. Hold on. I take exceptions because I've been that guy on when I first draw your own conclusions.
I didn't make them. I had my cell phone jammer. It came from UAE, though.
Isn't that right, Bernie? That's Dubai.
The United Arab Emirates was a great source for such things.
Yeah. Harder to get now. But if you if you search online for them, you can find them and they will ship them to you in plain boxes.
Mark is something other than what they really are as a testing equipment.
Yeah, that's what they that's what they call it.
But, you know, I think back years ago when I had one of these devices and I was on a train and everybody around me was having these loud conversations with people who were not there.
And there was no quiet refuge. There was no place to go.
And it was just such a magical thing to be able to turn on this device and have the guy behind me just say hello.
Hello. Hello. About 18 times before he finally gave up and started reading a damn newspaper.
And I was able to not have to hear details about his life.
And you know what is for his own protection, because I jot down details of people's lives when they keep talking loudly.
And, you know, I use them for future use.
Who knows? I'll buy you a pair of noise canceling headphones.
Look, the point is we need to balance the right of people to talk on phones with the right of people not to have to listen to loud conversations that, you know, have have no bearing on their lives and to ride peacefully.
I think you're absolutely right that we need to have a balance.
I don't think the way to get that balance is to have, you know, angry people taking unilateral action, though.
Well, it's quiet, unilateral action.
And it's just, you know, they can I mean, this guy, this guy was apparently enough of a repeat pattern that they're able to, like, track down.
This is the guy who's doing it and catch him.
If you're just doing it like once a year, then then you're probably going to get away with it.
It's true. Photos of him holding a device on Chicago Transit Authority trains.
It's circulated online for months.
So everybody seemed to know who he was.
And, you know, if you see the guy, you just move to another car and problem solved.
But he was arrested as he switched on a device as an undercover officer near him spoke on his cell phone on a southbound train.
They really went to a lot of trouble to catch this guy.
But, you know, how about you just subscribe to, oh, I don't know, T-Mobile and then you won't have that problem because you won't have service anywhere.
Oh, snap. Yeah.
I had a couple of questions. I'm curious if he understood the implications of using such equipment in relation to the FCC and and communication services in general.
Clearly going into it. I mean, maybe not. Yeah, exactly.
But and perhaps had he had a little bit more information about what he was doing and how it might be perceived legally, legally, he he would maybe have been a bit less careless
and more strategic in his jamming.
And the other curious thing about this or that that I'm getting from this is that the CTA has cell service.
Well, I mean, it's outside, right? Is it above ground?
Was it? Well, they say commuter train.
OK, so it was not any. OK, I read that as a underground system as well.
Underground systems have CTA is partly underground.
I mean, they have in the downtown area.
It's underground. Sure. Yeah.
You know, the thing is, we just need to reach a balance on this.
And Germany, people talk on the phone on the subway and you barely hear them because they talk quietly and because the subways are quiet, too.
For some reason in this country, people are extremely loud and obnoxious.
And yeah, you can expect a reaction to it.
I'm not saying it's right. It's legal, but it's understandable.
And people deserve to be to be spared from it.
Yes, Bernie. I mean, there is there is a danger of using these devices, however remote.
For instance, suppose this guy was on the train and the train went off the rails.
He was running his running his his cell phone jammer and the cell phone and the and the train went off the rails as an Amtrak train did last year in Philadelphia, where seven people died.
He probably would not be able to turn off the cell phone jammer had had his car crashed.
And then people would be trying to call nine one one.
And that would have been a real problem.
Well, only people in that car would have the problem.
People in other cars, presumably the range on these things is that really varies.
But the bottom line is, it could it could it could cause a problem.
However unlikely that could be a problem.
And he could have been charged federally.
Yes, he has regulations on that.
But do you have the authority to fine and even arrest people?
They've charged somebody like ten thousand dollars once for using a GPS jammer, I think.
So this is a this is a federal crime.
He was charged under Illinois state law.
But it does have public safety implications.
And you never know when when a situation like that could arise.
But is that is that implying that before we had cell phones everywhere, that all trains were unsafe and that we couldn't be safe because we couldn't call nine one one immediately?
You know, it's not at all.
I'm just saying that now everybody assumes that they can call nine one one in an emergency.
And if someone is using one of those devices near someone who needs to call nine one one, they won't be able to do it.
So that that is a problem that is probably unlikely.
It's a problem. Yes.
Go ahead, Rob. But legislating these things on the on the basis that there is something in a very small percentage of of events that that might happen, that might be some extreme, extremely bad thing is dangerous.
That's where you get things like encryption protects the child porn.
So jam wisely if you're jamming at all.
OK, go ahead, Mike.
I mean, I just want to say that many commuter and intercity railroads have designated parts of the train which are it's forbidden to use a cell phone.
And it sounds like the policy suggestion here, this guy could have pushed for such a thing to be created on the CTA rather than doing it himself.
I'm surprised it doesn't exist there.
And personally, I find the the people in those cars who shush you to be far more obnoxious than people talking on their cell phones.
But that's a matter of personal preference.
And I don't mind living in a world where both preferences can coexist like a cell phone user.
But OK, how about this?
You're in the quiet car and someone's using a cell phone.
Do you endorse the use of a cell phone jammer?
This is the system that seems to have been come up with, is that if you even like think about talking on your cell phone, a very obnoxious person will come in and loudly shush you.
And I think that is a fine solution.
What if there is no such person?
It does happen.
Sometimes you're in the train car without an obnoxious person is turning that device on.
I've never been in the quiet car without there being many obnoxious people there.
I'm sure it happens.
But but if that happens, this guy sounds seems like he has no problem being the obnoxious person.
It happened to Chris Christie.
Governor Chris Christie was on the quiet car of Amtrak.
That's right.
And and he was yammering loudly on his cell phone.
And a bunch of people told him to shut the hell up.
Why do you think he lost the presidency?
The quiet car block is very powerful.
Well, people tell him to shut the hell up even when he's not on the phone.
It's called the Christie be gone.
And on that on that subject, do we think TV beguns are intrusive then?
Because, hey, they're turning off television sets.
People are watching TV.
Maybe they're watching, you know, some emergency program, too.
And, you know, it could be it could be a danger.
We we regularly promote TV begun on this program.
Are we saying that's wrong now?
That's a different thing.
That's blocking a just receiving a signal as opposed to an actual communication.
A national emergency, Bernie, supposing nuclear war was suddenly declared by,
oh, I don't know, Albania and and President Obama's on television giving instructions.
And then something happens and some guy drops his TV begun.
He can't turn it off and nobody can watch TV.
Does Albania even have the boom?
No comment.
It's not regulated.
The infrared spectrum is not regulated by the FCC or by any state law.
But who knows?
All right.
Hey, a couple of pieces of email that we've gotten from from listeners.
This is my friend Gonzo.
I've been calling the Hotel Pennsylvania all week about reservations for the conference
and not getting anywhere.
You know, we've got a lot of letters like this.
Let me tell you where things stand right now, because I just got an update today.
There is a major problem with the the group rate section of the hotel's Web site.
So it's not just us.
It's their entire system.
It's been broken for a couple of weeks now.
They're very flustered and upset about it.
There's some kind of mapping issue is what they what they told me.
And hopefully it'll it'll be up soon.
They're very aware of us.
They're aware of our needs.
If you have not yet booked a room at the hotel and you want to book a room, we suggest just
holding off for a little while until we give you a go ahead on that, that the system is
fixed or keep checking the Hope.net Web site and clicking on the hotel section.
And when that link actually works, that's that's when the system is fixed and you can
get the discounted rate or you can just book a room at the non-discount rate if money is
no object, or you can book a room someplace else, too, if you actually want to be able
to book a room quickly.
But it doesn't affect the conference at all.
The conference will be happening July 22nd through 24th.
Is that that's a day, right?
Yeah. OK. And more information.
Hope.net is our Web site.
And we are looking for speakers, people giving presentations on all kinds of things.
I know we've gotten a bunch of submissions just on the topic of car hacking alone.
We've been talking about that and in weeks past.
And it's really cool to see to see a big interest in that.
We're seeing biohacking, you know, social engineering, all kinds of distributed denial of
service attacks and ways to to protect yourself against that and malware and ransomware,
everything. There are so many different conversations to have.
Bernie, do you have something?
Car hacking is another topic that's going to be talked about.
That's the one I just mentioned. Yes.
The the email address, though, if you have a topic, speakers at hope.net.
But read the guidelines first on the speaker section at the hope.net conference.
Hope.net website, that is.
What else? We have a couple of minutes.
We'd be taking. We did promise that we take a couple of phone calls.
Is anybody else out there? Our phone number, 718-780-8888.
Wish we had more time because we have so much to talk about, Rob.
But we should also mention that we're not just looking for speech speakers.
We're looking for projects as well. Yes.
Give us an example of what a project is.
Oh, we've we've had all sorts of interesting projects that I hope in that's not an example, Rob.
OK, then then what was your favorite? We asked you for an example.
You brought it up. I know you have lots of ideas for projects.
Well, there's a there's a traditional project on the the online radio station,
which which interviews, which is just online.
It doesn't broadcast over the air, but radio Stadler, radio Stadler,
that was the original name of the Hotel Pennsylvania back in the day.
Stadler radio. Yes. Connects. Connects.
Yeah. Thank you. Stadler. Hotel Stadler.
I think it was anyway. Yeah, it's a really amazing radio or audio studio that set up to interview speakers and people who are running other workshops and guests.
And and things and interviewing them.
And it's just like being in a radio station.
There's a there's a table with microphones and a board.
OK, that's one project that we have a lot picking village.
We've got the the ham radio people.
We've got all kinds of here's a project teaching kids how to solder.
Emanuel, yes, go ahead.
And we will have an interesting project this year.
I've been working with some folks.
We will be this may be the first hacker conference to have its own amateur radio repeater.
They will be a repeater that anybody brings their their UHF amateur radio handheld will be able to communicate with other people through a repeater.
And they'll be Easter eggs.
And you can connect with the telephone, do all kinds of fun things with it.
Well, so we have we have the Hacker Space Village where you can bring your hacker space to hope and have it represented in kind of like a camp camp setting.
Although you're inside.
In the past, we've had public terminals available for people.
We've had telephone systems of various sorts on on old equipment shown off.
We've had a lot of things.
Segway Rides, of course, is another project.
But if you have ideas, write to us and we'll make it happen.
Yeah, we can do that.
There's a capture the flag being being organized.
Capture flag tournament.
Anyway, we said we'd take another phone call or another phone call, too.
Let's try to do that.
Good evening. You're on off the hook.
Go ahead.
Hello, Emanuel.
Hi, what's on your mind?
OK, so you're talking about stopping Trump, right?
Oh, we're still on that.
OK, yeah, go ahead quickly.
OK, so the thing that I was thinking was I heard reports in the past of anonymous fighting from election fraud.
They fought back and prevented the Republicans from stealing some sort of election or what have you.
So this shows that anonymous, the collective, you guys, all you guys out there, you have the power to influence and control these electric voting machines or what have you.
So if it is that imperative, mobilize the forces.
You can do this.
You guys can get in there.
You can get in the voting machines.
You can manipulate whatever you got to do.
And you can literally just stop Trump.
Stop him.
Yeah, but that seems to be suggesting that voter fraud is the way to do it.
Is that is that is that really the only the only option we have?
Well, I mean, you talked about some of the previous options out there and it seemed like, you know, the legitimate means are off the table.
And I just figured, you know, hackers, you know, this is your thing.
This is your show. And if we're talking about justice, we're talking about doing the right thing behind all the people out there.
And I would say, yeah, man, that's that's just a tool.
And if the Republicans are willing to use that tool to get their tool into the presidential chair, then we should be willing to fight back on the same level, on the same playing field.
I think the best way I mean, I'm not really all for that.
But I think that definitely we should pay attention to electronic voting and have scrutiny and auditing and verification of what kind of systems these are.
And I think this is a subject subject that's going to become particularly important as this as this election moves along here.
We're going to be ever more interested in how accurate this is.
But I think getting people to turn out and vote, just letting it run the way it ought to without fraud, I think, is kind of the best I'd be able to hope for.
Well, it's going to be it's going to be really fascinating.
The weeks ahead, unfortunately, we're out of time tonight.
I wish we could talk longer about this, but we'll have future weeks and I'm sure things will get more dire than right to us.
O.T.H. at twenty six hundred dot com.
That is our email address.
We will be back again next week with another action packed edition of off the hook.
Until then, it's a manual for off the hook saying, why is the cart machine not working?
Didn't touch anything. Sure.
OK, I'm going to press this button.
Oh, I think I got something there.
Oh, I don't want to.
Don't forget, take it to 11.
Never possible.
Turning up the volume to 11 on a dime.
Turning up the volume to 11 on a dime.
Turning up the volume to 11 on a dime.
Turning up the volume to 11 on a dime.
I don't want to.
I don't want to.
In the morning, I'm a man.
And it's time I think about you.
I just want to press a wine.
I don't know what I would ever do now.
I could think about it because I'm turning up the volume to 11 on a dime.
Man, you're like money on my mind.
And it's time.
I think about you.
I just want to press a wine.
I don't know what I would ever do now.
I could think about it because I'm turning up the volume to a limit.
you