activist Brian Quinn's life and getting teenagers from both sides of three conflict zones together
to draw what peace would look like. For more details and ticketing, go to newyorkpeacefilmfest.com.
Join us Friday, April 1st at 7 p.m. for our kickoff party. See trailers from films and talk
to filmmakers. That's New York Peace Film Fest, April 1st to 3rd. All Souls Unitarian Church,
Lexington at 80th Street in Manhattan. And the time is just about 7 p.m.
You're listening to 99.5 WBAI-FM and it is time for another exciting edition of Off The Hook.
Now I can't make a call. 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!
It's a very, very, very, very, very good evening to you. The program is Off The Hook. Rob T.
Firefly here with you. I'm joined in the studio by Mike. Hi there. And on the phone we should
have Bernie S. Greetings from Philadelphia. Can you hear me? I can barely hear you, Rob.
We keep having this problem. I'm going to see which buttons and levers and switches and other
terrible things I can do with this board we've got here. But until that time. All right. I've
tried all the knobs and levers on my cell phone to no avail. But anyway, I can hear you. Did you
try the knob and lever that says control Rob's voice? If I could just break in here while you
guys are bickering over there on the East Coast, I'm out here on the West Coast and I have to
concur with Bernie that it's very hard to hear you guys in the studio. You've just got to turn
all those knobs all the way up. OK, that's that's the new slogan at BAI. Turn the knobs all the way
up. We've also got Emmanuel and Kyle on the phone. Yes, I'm here. Emmanuel, I can hear you really
well. Kyle, you're yelling into my ear. We're in the same room. You don't have to do that.
We're in Seattle. OK, we had to talk a little louder there because that's how people are here.
But Bernie, I think you're in Philadelphia, right? That's right. I'm in Philly. OK, the rest of you,
where are you? We're in Brooklyn, New York. OK, wow. This is a really cosmopolitan type show.
Let's try this. Am I sounding any better now? Oh, you sound fine. Yeah. OK. And let's let's
try you, Mike. Mike, you're coming in loud and clear. You're listening to one hour of
mic checks here on WBAI New York. We'll try to get the sound just right. This is really confusing
for those of us whose name is Mike. OK, can you hear Mike's mic now any better? I don't hear his
mic. I hear his voice fine. Excellent. Great. Excellent. Then we've got everything where it
needs to be. We can do some kind of show now. Awesome. All right. See you next week at this
time when we will once again come your way and confuse everybody. Yeah. So we are out here in
Seattle sort of after we rode the train, four trains to get here. And we've been basically
exploring and experimenting and having all kinds of fun with various things out here. So we have
some new stories to talk about and some experiences to to share as well. But first, I wanted to ask
if anybody out there has anything that that's happened in the last week? Well, we know about
the FBI Apple drama, how that's been playing out. Is that still going on? It hasn't been
completely solved yet. That was Bernie's touchtone, by the way, just so people know that.
No, it wasn't. It wasn't mine. We only have touchtones here. We're talking about rotary
phones. We didn't hear any touchtones. Really? You didn't hear a touchtone? Nope. No, I didn't
hear any. Wow. You heard it, didn't you, Kyle? I think somebody pin dialed or something. I'm
curious if the listeners heard a touchtone. OK, well, that's an interesting mystery of the phone
network. But OK, if you guys want to jump right into the San Bernardino story, yeah, there's plenty
to talk about as far as that goes. The FBI did manage to hack into Apple's iPhone there. Wow.
Do we congratulate them or what? I don't know. Are we are we happy about this because Apple
doesn't have to fight this case anymore? Or are we angry about this because they still got into
a phone? They had no real I don't know. Do we believe they even did it? I mean,
they're not they're not sharing any information. They could just say, oh, yeah, we got that. You
have no security whatsoever and move on. Yeah, well, we do. We are pretty sure that there was
nothing they actually wanted on said phone, so they don't have to have anything to show for it.
They could just claim to have done what they wanted to do and reinforce the idea that they
can do what they want to do. Well, I mean, it's like, you know, sixth graders basically saying,
oh, well, you know, I can I can defeat whatever it is that you throw at me and not really prove
anything. Thing is, what's funny about this is that Apple now wants the FBI to tell them how
they allegedly got into their phone when they would not allow the FBI to use them to write
any kind of code so that they could break into their own phone. It's gotten really kind of
convoluted and crazy, but I think it reflects a very serious issue here. Namely, if Apple had
allowed this to happen in the first place, we'd have all sorts of requests and demands for access
to other iPhones as well. What I saw, one of the initial stories, maybe somebody could explain
this to me. I saw the headline was that even though the FBI was able to break into this phone,
it doesn't mean that they can break into other phones. I don't understand that. If they could
use some kind of software that this mysterious Israeli company provided them with to break into
the phone, why would that software not work on other phones if it really existed? Whoever wrote
that nonsense. It's hard to say the answer to that question. One reason might be that the phone
in the San Bernardino case is apparently somewhat of an older model, so it's possible that whatever
technique the government and their partners in private enterprise were able to use would not
work on a newer model phone. Without more information, it's really impossible to say.
Exactly. Without more information, and we're not getting any more information.
But I think it is safe to say that any phone of that model could be just as easily
hacked into by the FBI now that they know how to do that.
That seems likely to me, but even that is not certain. It's possible that the method relied
on something, the shortness of the password, the particular batch of that model. I think this is
unlikely, but without knowing even vaguely what's going on here, it's hard to say anything with
certainty. What I think is interesting here is that the government filed a sworn statement saying
that there is no way to get into this device without Apple's help. And then they filed a new
filing saying, oops, we've discovered that there is a way to get in. And it's clear the government
will not be charged with perjury. We don't have to discuss if that's going to happen or not. We
all know the answer. But what's interesting is that the government is proceeding in other similar
cases that have gotten less press attention. They have not dropped all of those cases.
And I wonder if they'll be forced to admit that they know how to get into phones now or not.
They've basically announced that they can get into this one. So
is it going to be taken as read that they can get into whatever phones are thrown at them?
Do we still have our phone guests? I don't even know.
No, we're here. We're here. We're just listening. We paid address to the dialogue here. But that's
just what is missing is the actual conversation about it. It was brought in sort of an aggressive
way to the public. And as we discussed, was a bit of a test to or could have been sort of the
overall attitudes about it. And now here we are coming back with news that is equally as aggressive
in that it's an admission that, well, really, this big company that was perceived to be standing up,
I guess, for this is now at the mercy of their wonderful engineers or whomever they're contracting
for this. So what is needed is actually a deeper look. I mean, yeah, we don't know. Did they get
all the way in or just in enough to say they had accomplished something that they were lying about
in the first place? Well, you know what I understand is that all this got them was the
ability to guess more than 10 passwords to the phone so that they were able to brute force the
phone and then get into whatever was there. And that's really the extent of it. So it's
really just defeating that one security apparatus that's in place that basically bricks the phone
after 10 tries. I mean, that seems likely, but again, we don't know. We don't know what they
did there. They're not saying. Yeah, I think after all this, they should be required to tell us,
okay, what'd you find? Because you put us through this whole soap opera here.
Let's see if it was worth anything. I agree with you, but I think the chances of that view,
which is Apple's view prevailing in the legal system is pretty slim, at least at this time.
It's interesting to note that the government has said, when we find a security vulnerability,
we will disclose it to the vendors in question because we believe that a secure
computing environment is good for the world. And of course, we knew at the time they were lying
when they said that there are certainly arms of the government that stockpile vulnerabilities.
But it's interesting to see that policy not being applied here.
Absolutely. Because if they were to disclose the vulnerability to Apple,
it would basically seal over the hole that they were trying to compel Apple to create for them.
And of course, it's in Apple's best interest to make a secure product, at least according to
their stated goals and wishes. So they really want to know now how the government got into
their phone and chances are the government's not telling. This is like an ongoing 1v1 gaming
standoff with antagonistic, competitive practices just escalating on arms race, really.
More of the same.
I don't see a single good reason. I mean, I obviously see a good reason,
but I don't see a reason why the government would say, yeah, let's tell Apple how we did this.
Two things. Number one, they lose the ability to be able to do it whenever they want.
Apple could write a fix for this overnight, probably. Number two, like I mentioned last
week, it sends a big middle finger to Apple for daring to oppose them in the first place.
And that applies even if they didn't get in, even if this is all just fantasy.
They're basically saying, yeah, your security really isn't all that great,
and we can break it anytime we want. And what do you think that does to the stock of Apple?
Absolutely. And what the government's basically done here is, according to them, now there is
a backdoor in Apple software that Apple doesn't know about, and it's exploitable. And anyone in
the security industry will tell you that if a vulnerability is open to the quote-unquote good
guys, it's also open to the bad guys. You have to assume that someone else out there has this
vulnerability, has access to it, and knows how to work it. I think it's very possible that the FBI
was told to sign a non-disclosure agreement with the vendor. It's been widely reported that a
third party, namely an Israeli company called Celebrite, is the company that came in and
hacked this iPhone for the FBI. And it seems almost inconceivable that Celebrite did not
have the FBI sign a non-disclosure agreement, an NDA, saying you will not disclose our trade
secret and how we did this. So the FBI could probably say, oh, we can't disclose that,
just like the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have non-disclosure agreements with
with Harris Corporation, who make these, not the Triggerfish.
You're thinking of the Stingray, Bernie.
The Stingray devices, thank you. The older version was called the Triggerfish. Yeah,
so law enforcement agencies have been saying, oh, we can't tell anybody about these devices.
We can't even tell judges about these devices, because there's non-disclosure agreements with
the manufacturer. I think we're seeing the same kind of situation here, very likely.
I mean, I don't really care for these non-disclosure agreements, obviously.
These companies that produce the devices, whatever Celebrite is selling, and the Stingray-type
devices, they have a very limited customer base. Unlike normally, consumers, when they buy
something, have very little negotiating power. If the government was to say, we don't like this
NDA, we're not going to sign it, we're not going to buy your product, these companies would go out
of business, or at least out of these lines of business. So I think to blame it on the companies
here, when the government does not represent the public interest, is a bit sketchy.
I'm not blaming the company, Celebrite, if that in fact happened. I'm saying the FBI,
it wouldn't surprise me if the FBI said, oh, we can't tell anybody about it because we have
signed a non-disclosure agreement. They may use that excuse. I mean, they lie about so many other
things. They could lie about that as well. Fair enough.
It's interesting to me, we talked a little bit about stock value, and I can't help but wonder
this isn't sort of also a mechanism of this enormous tax grievance for all of Apple's
profits. Because indeed, these are companies who are doing business in this country. And if
the government cannot exercise control and get what they want in kind for sort of allowing that
offshoring and stuff not to become as popular as some of the, I think, political and voting
citizenry would maybe want to take issue with, especially with conversations around massive
profits too. Hey, I'd like to talk about a phone call we got today out here in Seattle. It was
allegedly from Microsoft, but I don't think it really was. Was it, Kyle?
Yeah, there was like this strange call that I just happened to pick up. And I started talking
to someone who had, it sounded like they were in a market or like outside, maybe there was a lot of
hustle and bustle. And I realized they were in some sort of call center, but I could barely hear
him speaking what was sort of broken English and really just was odd. But I think like instead of
reflexively trying to get off the phone, I was in a playful mood and just let it kind of ride out
and see what would happen. And he was asking me to check something like something, he kept saying
something with computer in it, like over and over and over and over again. And I kept saying,
what? And kind of leading him. And then I ultimately got more information about what
was actually going on. Yeah, he asked Kyle to open up the command prompt and type the command
for the event viewer, E-V-M-T-V-W-R, he spelled it out for us. And he was basically just very
insistent that we do this because I don't know if he was saying there was something wrong with
our computer or if we had downloaded something bad or if they were doing some kind of an update,
but it just, it sounded so incredibly sketchy. I was amazed that they would even think they had
a chance of anybody doing this, but we played along for as long as we possibly could. In fact,
he put the supervisor on the phone and was telling us to type all these things. Of course,
we didn't even have a computer on at the time, you know, in front of us.
But I think, Kyle, you find that a rather ingenious way to really piss him off.
Well, yeah. I kept repeating things and he was describing Windows and asking me what I was
seeing. That was the thing. They want to know what you're looking at. It's almost the analog
of like a remote desktop session because basically that's what they want to get to,
so they don't even have to talk to you or whatever he was trying to do. But
I changed operating systems or like kept going back to just saying a web browsing name,
like a name of an application for web browsing or some diversion from what he was trying to lead me
to. And it got him really frustrated when I was starting to say Apple. And I kept repeating that
and finally I said Linux, and then he started swearing at me.
Yeah, he really got upset because he expected Kyle to have a Windows machine. And when you told him
you had a Mac, he got really upset because he actually was indignant. He said, why are you
wasting my time like this? He was on the phone with us for about 10 minutes. But the scam,
as far as I know, and please correct me if anyone out there knows more about this.
Apparently, if you type that command into your machine, you'll see a whole list of errors,
which are completely normal, but will cause the inexperienced person to panic.
Give these people access to their machine. They will then somehow lock you out of your machine.
And then you have to pay them money to unlock that machine. Keep in mind,
Microsoft will never call you to ask you to do anything like this. And if you call them,
they're not going to try and help you either. So if anyone calls you trying to help you with
your computer, it's probably a scam. I mean, Emmanuel, since you're in Seattle
right now, if Microsoft were calling you, they're just right across the river or whatever body of
water it is. You'd expect the call quality to be excellent. You should have known right away
it was a scam. Oh, we knew right away it was a scam. Absolutely. But it's just, how far are
these people going to take this? And what exactly were they asking us to do? It just seemed
incredible to me. It sounded, as Kyle said, it sounded like the guy was standing in a street
or a marketplace or something. There were a hundred voices of people doing the same thing.
They even gave us a phone number, which went down to San Antonio, Texas, at least the area code did.
And if you call them back, you can get these people and they'll continue to scam. You can
call them and be scammed. It just was really funny because in all my days of having landlines or
cell phones or whatever, nobody has ever called me. Of course, I don't pick up the phone most of
the time, but I've never heard that before. I've heard of it. And it was just really entertaining
to see this happen. Yeah. Microsoft, if you ever tried to call them, and a lot of these big
companies, software or otherwise, getting a hold of anyone is impossible. And it's, they are
using call centers, I'm sure, and stuff like that. But it just, you would never get a call
and solicited. And it just seems so far-fetched because when you're legitimately trying to get
a hold of a company like this, it's hard to even get anyone. I mean, you would not get anyone
local at all. It would be someone in Canada or in Asia somewhere or God knows where, I don't know.
But it would be very difficult. And the one thing I think that screwed him up, he kept having
hearing trouble. And now that I think about it, I realized it's because there were so many people
in the room, he couldn't hear me on his device over everyone else in the room. And I just kept
pretending I couldn't hear him. And we could just go back and forth and back and forth. Yeah, anyway.
It's a lot of fun. This sort of thing is going on. It's increasingly common,
and it is a common attack vector for what's known as ransomware, which we've talked about
on this program many times. And yeah, they do do this to get you to install something or set
something up, which can give them access to lock you out of your computer. But the best thing about
these calls, and there are a couple of different type of scam telephone calls that you might get,
and they come out of call centers somewhere or internet cafes where people are set up to do this
sort of thing. But the great thing is they're like telemarketers, they won't hang up. You can keep
them on the phone with just whatever randomness you can come up with for as long as you want,
and it completely wastes their time and have whatever fun you like to have with people on
the phone. I've totally gotten scammers to hang up on me. It's usually not very hard. Just ask
them like, hello, are you a scam? They'll hang right up 99% of the time. Well, that's doing it
on easy mode. But if you make them think that you're in any way or shape or form falling for
what they've got, they'll just keep talking to you and saying whatever things they come up with
to keep you going. I enjoy this. It's a pastime of mine. I like it.
Yeah, this guy managed to figure out how to hang up after we told him we were using a Mac.
But what Rob says is correct. This is another form of ransomware. We talked about this in the past.
If you open up an attachment to an email, it's a very bad idea, especially if you don't know
where it came from. It could be something really bad that affects your computer. It's also possible
to go to websites and click on links there. That's probably the most dangerous way because
everybody goes to websites. If you're redirected to something you're not familiar with, you could
wind up installing something on your computer that you really don't want. But this way is the most
down-to-earth manner that I can think of where they actually call you and get you to type in
the commands necessary for them to install things on your machine. I guess they just call
numbers at random and assume that there are people with Windows machines just sitting by the phone.
I'm just, you know, if you'd gone through with it and followed all their instructions,
you could have gotten us some ransomware to play with.
Yeah, I was tempted. I really was tempted just to see where it went. And maybe we can do this
sometime with a computer we don't care about, just to have them guide us through their particular
scan. It really is fascinating. Our friend Pyro sent us an email just before the show about some
craziness that happened on CNBC or the CNBC website. They basically, this is almost
unbelievable, they had an exercise in password security. And basically what that exercise
entailed was a little box that said, how strong is your password? Enter your password into this
particular box and they will tell you if it's a good password or not. Well, they inadvertently,
at least we assume it's inadvertent, they inadvertently exposed people's passwords after
it ran that article. And basically they didn't use SSL, which meant that the passwords were
transmitted in the clear to anybody who might have been eavesdropping on them. And it was also
privy to all kinds of advertising networks and other parties with trackers on CNBC's page being
able to see people's passwords as well. I just wonder, who is dimwitted enough to see something
on a screen that says, let's see how strong your password is, why don't you enter it here right
now? I mean, nevermind that they don't know your username or what system you're using the password
on. Why would you do that? Why would you enter your password onto a site to see if it's strong?
I mean, the moment you do that, I would say, no, it's not strong and neither are you.
I'm wondering, I'm really wondering if CNBC got punked on this by someone suggesting,
hey, this would be a really good idea. They may have been punked to do this.
Maybe, but the average user, it's not always a matter of being dumb enough to fall for something.
The average user would be looking at this, seeing it on a site, CNBC, kind of a large
organization not known for doing shady things with your information openly. But, you know,
they might find this news organization trustworthy enough to use some tool that
they purport is going to test out your security for you. And so, it is a danger. And it does
reinforce the idea that, no, you should not put your password into anything but the thing that
password is for, no matter how friendly it looks. The information, there was actually a caption on
this tool of theirs that said your password is not stored, but traffic analysis revealed that
it was indeed stored. It was shared with DoubleClick. It was shared with advertising partners.
It was, according to Kane York from the Let's Encrypt project, it was stored in a Google Docs
spreadsheet. So, fortunately, the spreadsheet was marked as private, so it wouldn't have been
accessible to the general public. But, yeah, it did end up stored. It did end up sent every which
way. And it's kind of funny looking back at it, but, you know, this sort of thing. Yes, Mike?
I mean, so, Rob, you said earlier that CNBC is not known to the average person for doing shady
things, but they have all these sketchy advertising networks, like the vast majority of websites do.
They're certainly not unique in this regard. But in a lot of cases, most cases, CNBC doesn't know
the content of the JavaScripts provided by these advertisers. There should be no assumption of any
sort of privacy when you're browsing the website of a large or even small commercial
organization like CNBC. That's fair. That's very fair.
Yeah. You know, what Mike mentioned reminds me of something. Almost every website seems to use
sleazy advertisers of one sort or another. The latest thing I've been running into
are websites that try to guilt you out of using your own ad blocker. They say,
oh, you're using an ad blocker. That means that we're being ripped off. And please take your ad
blocker off so you can read content. And I believe it was Forbes, because they really need advertising
content, advertising funds, that is. They completely blocked access to their material
if you did not uninstall your ad blocker going to their website. I thought that was the most
incredible thing, that if you try not to be bombarded by their advertising, you somehow
become the problem. Yeah. Wired was doing it as well. So you can add to your ad blocker
an additional set of filters that blocks ad blocker blockers if you're so inclined.
It's great. It's an arms race. It's an actual arms race. And Forbes was always known for being kind
of annoying to look at, because they would take you to an ad before letting you forward onto the
article or whatever that you clicked over to. There's a whole website. It's called Tab Closed.
It didn't read. And it's at tabcloseddidntread.com. And it just collects screen captures of sites like
this being really crappy to their audiences and blocking the actual content with all sorts of
nonsense. And it's kind of this compendium of these things. And yeah, it is going on all over
the net. And the list of things that will make me close my tab, it seems to be growing every day.
Any kind of a pop-up, if I'm reading something, I don't want to have a pop-up interrupt that and
tell me various little things that benefit them. I don't want to have audio or video play without
me giving permission. And yeah, I do have apps that tell you I have to click a button for anything to
start playing. But sometimes I figure out ways around that. And you wind up blasting audio when
you don't mean to. It's just a very annoying and intrusive way to present content. I don't know
why it can't be something fairly simple and unobtrusive, why people, organizations feel they
have to be loud and offensive. But it's really, I think it's going to hurt them in the end.
And it's gotten to this point.
It also forces you to remind yourself that the internet is a little bit wild. You know,
you can't get too cavalier around simple things because a lot of these services and
sites are doing things and are not as authoritative as you might think just because
perhaps they have nice graphics or an appeal in some way for whatever need you're looking for.
Yeah, and it's gotten to this point because it's still worth it to the
people that run these things. It still pulls in enough money somehow.
What's fascinating is that there were a couple of stories about this going around two, three weeks
ago about how the average web page now, especially now that people are using their mobile devices
more and more, the ad content and the tracker content and stuff will use so much more data
than the actual thing you're trying to read. And of course, on many plans you get billed for each
bit of data you use and you're paying for the vast majority of what you're paying in this case
would be to advertise to yourself rather than get the thing you wanted to get.
Wow, that's really something. I had something else happen to me today,
a little bit unrelated but sort of in the same vein. I have an old Mac laptop, had it for years,
works fine, but you know that symptom that I think we've all experienced where you're pressured to
upgrade constantly and upgrade both your software and your hardware. That all kind of came to a
culmination earlier today when I was trying to read a story, a simple news story on a website
in Chrome and Chrome said that I had to upgrade Chrome before I could proceed to that site.
So then I tried to upgrade Chrome and it said, well, this OS is too old to upgrade Chrome.
You have to upgrade your OS before you can upgrade this version of Chrome. And then I
tried to upgrade my OS and this particular machine doesn't support any OSes past a certain point.
That's ridiculous. I'm just trying to read a damn website and I'm being told I have to buy a new
computer. This is not right. And we really need to be a little bit more backwards compatible.
Not that I have a backwards machine. It works fine. It does everything I want to do.
I just find myself being tormented by these entities that are constantly trying to get me to
buy more. Yeah, I would look into Firefox. They're usually a little bit less aggressive
about forcing you to upgrade your operating system. Yeah, Firefox makes that little spinning
rainbow appear a lot. What do you have against rainbows, Emanuel? I'm sorry? What do you have
against rainbows? No, I have nothing against rainbows, but when there's spinning round
rainbows on my screen that don't go away, it's a bit annoying. I have a Mac, too. I have a nice
old Mac. I like to think I paid good money for a Mac. You have a Mac, too, or a Mac also? A Mac,
too, is ancient, isn't it? Oh, I had a Mac, too, but I don't have a Mac, too. I had a Mac, too.
I had a Mac 2FX. Oh, wow. Yeah, I think I learned to type on an Apple, too. I have a Mac Plus.
That helps. All right, anyway, we are nostalgic about our Apple computers, right? We like them,
but what is with not getting a nice sort of ending point of support that does, especially with apps,
as you said, like third-party applications that are fully supported and have a lot of
developers. I wonder, it's often peculiar when you're encouraged by them and, of course,
the OS upgrades as well, but that tends to reallocate how the resources it was designed with
are used and then can lead to other sort of performance difficulties, so it should be
better supported. See, good technology, like good infrastructure, should last. That should be
something that you can use for many, many years. Kyle, you're talking on, when was that phone
built, the one you're talking on right now? In the 50s or something? 1957. 1957. Rotary phone,
it works. You can talk on it. You can be heard, you know, just like any communications device
should. It lasts, and computers are the same way. Computers do last. I've had machines
for over 10 years that do just fine. Other machines for other purposes. Cars,
if you know what you're doing, you can hang onto a car or a bicycle or any kind of apparatus. You
don't have to constantly be replacing things, but we are in this spiral of constantly buying
the newest version of our smart devices, our phones, our computers, et cetera, et cetera,
and it just is so incredibly wasteful, and I think it's built in, it's not even obsolescence,
because the devices aren't necessarily obsolete. It's just instilling in us the desire to always
want something more, and it just winds up being incredibly wasteful. I don't know, even like 20
years ago when a webpage would tell you this site is best viewed in Netscape or best viewed in
Internet Explorer or whatever, you could still read the site without a problem with the other
browser in general. Yeah, there should be a way to do that. I'm not saying don't try and design
new things that work better on particular platforms, but don't leave everybody else
behind just because they're not jumping on the bandwagon at the moment. If it's good enough,
they will at some point. Of course, not everywhere all over the world has our infrastructure. There
are people whose access to the Internet does amount to a lot less than what we accept as
normal and do not have access to the newest, flashiest things and would still maybe like to
read a webpage now and then. Yeah, and they're doing other things. They're not concerning
themselves with just some sort of life cycle of a particular architecture. Yeah. I think of
infrastructure, though. I'm sure you heard about this case of these Iranian-based hackers that
were charged with trying to hack a New York dam. A dam, I think, in Westchester County.
Bernie, I think you found a picture of this dam. It's about as big as someone's living room.
It's really a small dam. We can say that on the radio, can't we?
I didn't know they had dams this small, but apparently these hackers that are associated
with the Iranian government, I don't know how they made that connection.
Wait, wait. I'm sorry. I'm just looking at this photograph now. There doesn't appear to be any
water on either side of the dam. That's because it got hacked, Mike. All the water's gone.
Iranians diverted it someplace. I'm no expert in damnation, but I thought the point was to
control water. That was actually the old dam and they replaced it with a new one,
but it's the same physical size as... That's the broken dam that was replaced by just like a gate.
There's like a floodgate there in place that goes up and down. And it's probably about as much
water as your average small stream has in it. What if it rains? Is this dam cloud compatible?
That's a good question. The point is, what they're trying to tell us, why we should be panicking,
is that this could have been a big dam, could have been a great big dam, could have been the
Hoover Dam. Who knows? And these people could have gotten in and hacked it and done all sorts
of things. And we've had this discussion on the radio before about why it's a dam on the internet
in the first place. And I think there's got to be a way to run something, even with high technology,
without it being accessible to the entire world. It's called security. It's called firewalls.
It's called having a completely different network if you need to have it on a network at all.
In this particular case, it looks like they failed to do that. But these guys, they used a method,
and I'm wondering if people might want to talk about this a little bit. They used a method
called Google dorking. It's basically extra fancy Google searches where you type certain
parameters, and let's say you're able to get all the PDFs on a particular site, or you're able to
get usernames and passwords from a particular domain. If you know the right strings to type
into Google, it's one of the better features of the whole Google network that you're able to do that.
But these guys apparently were able to use that to figure out a way to hack this particular dam.
And the thing about Google dorking, as it's called, is Google as a search engine, and yeah,
I kind of don't want to believe it's called that, but I'll go with it for now. But the thing about
Google as a search engine is it indexes stuff that's posted to the open internet. It might not
be stuff that's posted in any obvious manner or that's linked to from much else, but it is in some
way, shape, or form posted publicly. And Google finds it and adds it to their index as they do
with everything they see. And then the enterprising individuals searching for certain things can find
them this way. So it's the operator of the system who had this configured in some way to post
non-public stuff publicly, and somebody basically Googled for it and is now being indicted with all
sorts of cyber terrorism. This is the case where they're indicting people in Iran who plan to stay
in Iran, which does not have an extradition agreement with the United States. Seven people
in Iran who probably won't have much to do with whatever gets thrown at them, whatever indictments.
You know that they're using tax dollars to pay the salaries of the people writing up this paperwork
that will never accomplish anything at all. I mean, in general, I am skeptical of people who
are offended that anything gets paid for with tax dollars. Taxes are a useful thing. They allow us
to provide for the common good that no one person could do individually, and any organization of any
size is going to have some level of wastage, and that has to be okay. But this just seems
completely unnecessary. There's a late-breaking story that the U.S. government discharged
today, put them on the FBI's Cyber Most Wanted list. Not the Iranian hackers, but three members
of the Syrian Electronic Army were charged in absentia after attacks on the White House
and the U.S. Marines website, and that just happened more recently. So apparently,
this is our new attorney general. I forget her name. Loretta Lynch. Yes, thank you, Loretta Lynch.
She's fond of criminally charging hackers in other countries who are
not ever going to be coming to the U.S. anyway, like Iranian people and people in Iran and in
Syria, or they're not likely to get here anyway. So what is she really accomplishing here? I think
it's just political, isn't it? Let's turn this around. Any of us, I think, in this conversation
break several laws of other countries a day, just going about our daily lives. But because there are
things that are harmless and okay to do where we are, we don't think much of it. But if any of us
got an indictment from some country overseas for doing something that is not seen as that
sort of harmful here, and there's no extradition treaties between us and wherever this hypothetical
country is, I think any one of us would kind of laugh it off. For those of you in countries that
do not have extradition treaties to us, this particular Google dorking example I'm about to
give might be useful. If you type, go to Google, google.com or google.whatever you have,
and type nuclear launch codes in quotes, follow that by a space file type, one word, file type
colon pdf, then another space, then the word site followed by a colon whitehouse.gov. Now what that
will do is that will search the site whitehouse.gov for any pdf that has within it the string,
nuclear, what did I say, nuclear launch codes? Yeah, nuclear launch codes, or any string that
you desire. I just happen to think that's an interesting one. Okay, so if I do this from the
studio's computer right now. No, no, no. You're in the United States as far as I know. I think
you can be extradited. Are you sure? I mean, I could hit enter. Well, I'm curious if anything's
found. I'm sure not going to type it from here. I mean, I'm sure you get presidential speeches
referencing the very concept of nuclear launch codes. Doesn't seem unsurprising. Okay, well,
yeah, you have to weave through something, Mike, you know, you're not gonna get the answers right
away. Yeah, I don't want to spoil what happens for our listeners. Anyway, I like to keep a bit
of mystery going around. But I also think I should maybe stay at liberty for the moment,
since you guys are traveling, and I might have to come here and do the show again.
But so Google dorking is is the word of the day, I think. It's great fun. It really is.
Yeah, also known as, you know, using a search engine.
You know, what else is great fun? Walking across the street and looking at your telephone
or texting while you while you cross and seeing what happens. I'm always, always curious if I make
it to the other side of the street. But now, apparently, there are people that want to put
an end to that, including some some legislators in in California, who are introducing legislation
to fine you if you are caught walking across the street. $50, I believe, is the amount they're
going to fine you if you're found guilty of using a handheld phone or texting while crossing the
street. This legislation was proposed by Assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt, a Democrat of Camden,
California. No, I'm sorry. It's New Jersey. Is it New Jersey? It's New Jersey, California.
I don't know, but I don't know why I thought this is a lot closer to home than I'm sorry.
Our listeners could be affected by this. This person's from Camden,
and this is the biggest danger she can find. Well, if there are bigger dangers,
you won't find them either because you're looking at your phone. That's the problem.
I could be using my phone to find the dangers and avoid them.
Wow. So this is happening in New Jersey. Well, OK. Anyway, she cited a national increase in
collisions between cars and pedestrians who were using phones while walking as the reason for the
bill. She said distracted pedestrians, like distracted drivers, present a potential danger
to themselves and drivers on the road. As people's behaviors change, so must our policy.
Well, you know, there are a lot of people not paying attention to what they're doing because
they're looking at their damn phones. I don't know if every single problem requires a law and a fine,
but you do have to instill some common sense. And we were driving around before,
and we saw a kid on the side of the road. He was running with somebody else, and he had fallen down,
and he was on his damn phone when he was lying on the ground on the shoulder of a highway.
I don't know if he was calling the police to report that the other kid who tripped him,
or if he tripped because he was on the phone. But people just don't let go of these things,
and it does affect them. Maybe he was tweeting,
I've just tripped, hashtag ouch. Maybe. Maybe he caught the whole
thing on Instagram. Who knows? The point is, you have to, at times, not have these.
We went to a Bernie Sanders rally a few days ago here in Seattle, and most people in the stadium
had their phones up rather than just looking at what was happening in front of them.
And you miss out on life when you're holding a phone in front of your face the whole time.
Yeah, I agree with you here. I go to a lot of shows and performances and things,
and if you're in the crowd now, instead of holding up cigarette lighters or things of
that sort, everyone's holding up a phone. Everyone's recording what they're watching,
and these glowing phone screens are making the show less visible for everyone behind them.
I'm going to get behind you on this and yell at that cloud with you, because I think we are
missing too much by just experiencing everything through our small phone screens.
Well, for a photograph of Rob making that complaint, check my Twitter later this evening.
But also, speaking of photographs, photographs of people doing that en masse, those are really
cool. So if you see a lot of people with phones taking pictures of something, take a picture of
those people with all the phones, and that will be a cool picture. But then who's going to take
your picture while you're taking all their pictures? Oh, nobody better take my picture.
We definitely need to understand that these features and these devices are powerful,
especially in large quantities in one place. Some of the new 5G phone standards are going to
accommodate for many thousands of devices per certain square meter of space, and it is getting
really, really, really ubiquitous. So I think with great power, we have to understand the
responsibility personally, in our communities, and at large, and just slow down a little and
be considerate of yourself and those around you. And just like drugs, consider what it's doing to
your mind. Or maybe just listen to stuff on headphones across the street. Yes, Bernie?
You didn't get to what I thought was a couple of the best lines in this, the buried leads in this
story about the New Jersey pending legislation. Yeah, I've got a spinning rainbow again,
so I couldn't. Dr. John D'Angelo, he's the head of emergency medicine at the Trinitas
Regional Medical Center in Elizabeth, New Jersey, said, this is an intoxicant, if he held up a cell
phone. He said, it's worse than alcohol or drugs for drivers and pedestrians. They're less aware
of what's going on around them. And then it turns out that the North Jersey Transportation Planning
Authority now has a new slogan they're advertising called, heads up, phones down.
So it's kind of like Nancy Reagan just saying no. Yeah, you're going to see this. And that,
I think, is important. If you have young people around you, especially, teach them,
teach them, and then teach them more. I think the slogan should be, just hang up.
There you go. I like that. Just hang up. But hang up, that alone, people forget what
is hanging up mean now is, you're not really hanging up a cell phone. You're not hanging it
on a, they're okay. Kyle actually can hang up a phone, because he's got an actual phone with a
hook switch on it. But when's the last time we actually hung up a phone? Or dialed a phone.
Exactly. So you're saying the word dial doesn't mean literally smear your finger around on a
touchscreen? Well, it's just, it's just, Rob, we never came up with a good word for entering
numbers. It just doesn't sound right. Whether you punch to or press, you know, dial has some
kind of meaning to it that we can understand. And those words just never caught on.
You know, things that used to be an accepted fact of everyday life just appearing in the
background are very different these days. I've actually been asked by someone who listened to
this program, and this might hurt Emmanuel, I apologize in advance, but I've been asked what
that noise at the beginning of the theme song is, that we use.
The noise at the beginning of the, I mean, the music?
Oh, wow. Oh, the noise, the off-the-hook tone, you mean?
The off-the-hook tone. The screamer.
Oh, for God's sake, really? All you have to do is leave, if you can find a phone,
leave it off the hook, you will hear that, that sound off the hook. Get it?
I got it. I got it listening to this program in the past, and I still get it, but...
Next week's edition of the program will be transmitted entirely in Morse code.
Well, that's Bernie's job. He knows Morse code.
I expected to translate for us.
I found the story that confused me, because two stories apparently merged together,
and this is about a California lawmaker who is, in fact, pushing more legislation.
This would crack down on prepaid burner phones,
which she says are used by terrorists and other serious criminals.
This is from Representative Jackie Speer, Democrat of California,
who represents the San Francisco and Bay Area District.
She introduced legislation requiring prepaid phone retailers to collect information on the buyer
at the time of purchase, such as their name, address, and date of birth,
and that information be verified by a credit card or a social security number or a driving
license number, which is basically the same thing that is required when you sign up for
a long-term phone contract. However, in that case, it's so that the phone companies get their money.
In this case, it's for interest, national security interest,
and it's very similar to things that we see in other countries, which has not been the case here.
What do you guys think of this kind of requirement for getting temporary telephones?
It will deter only the dumbest of criminals, which might be valuable,
but it will not deter any serious person.
Germany, for instance, has such a rule.
Just for convenience, many times I've been in Germany and needed to buy a new SIM card,
and if you go to certain shops, usually the ones with the best opening hours anyway,
then they will just have a pile of them that they've already activated and typed in some
arbitrary address and hand you one of those so you don't have to do it yourself and waste
everyone's time. Similar things will happen in this country. It will just be an inconvenience
to people who either don't value privacy, or who don't know how to get around it,
or who are honest. It will inconvenience honest people who are tourists or whatever,
need a cell phone for a short period of time, young people who need a new cell phone for the
first times in their lives, old people who need a new cell phone for the first times in their lives.
These are who will be inconvenienced by this, not any actual terrorist or whatever that word means.
It's yet another way of demonizing anonymity. I just wonder how many times
has this been an issue in this country where somebody with a burner phone
caused mayhem and was not able to be tracked in one way or another?
Absolutely. Anonymity is something that I do think is still important, and it's something
that's increasingly difficult to get. There used to be a payphone on every street corner in some
places. Payphones are now an endangered species, quickly going extinct. You can't just pick up a
phone somewhere and use it if you need one. You have to have one. In order to have one,
traditionally, you would need some kind of contract, or you would need to set up some
kind of service. This is all stuff that takes a while to do, that's traceable to you, that
is various levels of insecure. If somebody had a legitimate reason for wanting a phone,
for wanting it anonymously, for needing access to the communication network that is
our media environment, what's it worth to ensure they still have that?
Not to mention, there's a whole class of people that don't have access to these things that are
now going to be required, such as a driver's license or a credit card or any number of things
that are required to prove that you're a quote-unquote legitimate.
So many people just won't have access anymore. But here's the thing, Emmanuel,
precisely because of this is why the bill won't work. There will be such demand for people without
access to driver's licenses for cell phones. Cell phones are way more useful than driver's licenses.
That industries will pop up to provide people. It may involve charging extra money to people who
can least afford to pay extra money. That would be unjust. But it's almost certain that it will
not be effective in actually stopping people from getting cell phones. This was a law that
will only apply to people who are already good at paperwork. Emmanuel?
Yes, Bernie.
I just want to give a quick cell phone anonymity tip to our listeners.
Every once in a while, I happen to live in a crime-ridden neighborhood here in Philadelphia,
and occasionally I have to report things that are really a danger to people. But I don't like
the police to have my cell phone number, because whenever you call 911, they have your cell phone
number. So I have found that when I go to Home Depot, there's this big bin where people can
recycle their old cell phones, and they just throw them in the bin. And you can just reach into the
bin and pull out these used, thrown-out cell phones. And most of them just use a standard
USB charger, and they make great 911 burner phones. I have called 911 a few times on these
disposed-of phones, because you can still call 911 on an inactive phone. And there is some
pending federal legislation to release a requirement for cell phone carriers to carry
911 calls on unactivated phones. I hope that doesn't go through. But for the meantime,
if you want to make an anonymous call to 911, just find a used cell phone that you buy at a
garage sale or in a recycling bin at Home Depot and go to town. So we're taught that burner
phones are used by criminals for drug deals and things like that, but you use burner phones
just to call the police. Exactly. And not to abuse them at all, to make legitimate calls
about some serious issues. Like if there's an accident or something, I just don't want to get
involved in the whole thing, but I'll call and report it. And then I'm done with it. They're
never going to call me back. My real phone number doesn't get logged. And I don't think I'm doing
anything illegal. I'm just preserving my anonymity. Yeah, public infrastructure, that was an
important advantage on anonymity and the ability to call out that way. And if they're so concerned
with access to 911 services, it should also be part of the solution and something that they
emphasize without just a single-minded idea of how people will be able to alert someone.
And as we see, like less pay phones, these new solutions that are coming up and support for
larger connectivity and overall access in all kinds of cities and communities should be
something that everyone is working on actively and concerned about. I know, for instance, here in
Puget Sound and the Northwest, there's basically, as is the case in a lot of other cities,
basically two main providers, a couple main providers, although there are a couple smaller
ones. In Seattle, there was one that people liked but got bought by another company that's even
smaller than the main telecommunications providers. And they're starting to roll out things like fiber
infrastructure and all of that kind of stuff, but it's lacking some of the skill and attention that
it needs. And really, what has come to light is that the leadership here in Seattle has decided
to completely abandon any kind of plans to use, frankly, some of their own infrastructure like
fiber optics to support a large public infrastructure project. So more disruption
around this like private, cheapest, kind of lowest bidder access solutions that are all the
same. They're homogenous. Absolutely. Well, we're going to have to stop it there, Kyle. We're just
about out of time. Send us an email. Tell us what you think. OTH at 2600.com. Hope.net, stay tuned
to what's going on with the HOPE Conference. 2600 meetings everywhere this Friday, April 1st. Don't
believe everything you read on the internet that day. For Off The Hook, this is Rob T. Firefly.
Have a very good night.
my only friend she's a young girl talking about herself you don't want a boyfriend
no what you want is mr spot it's all right so tell me what you think about me i won't try to argue
oh
apple
days go by
cause i won't hesitate no more no more this cannot wait
i'm yours
it's less dangerous
here we are now entertain us
it's been one week since you looked at me
don't stop believing it's the end of the world as we know it it's the end of the world as we know
i'm more than a bird
i'm more than a plane
i'm a bird plane
i will go down with this ship
and i will pull my hands up
and turn this
i'll stop the world and i'll begin
i know who i want to take me home
i know who i want
you and me baby ain't nothing but normal
no one's gonna stop us
no one's gonna stop us
no one's gonna stop us
no one's gonna stop us
no one's gonna stop
this is how i feel
i will survive
i will survive
i will survive
don't don't don't let's start
this is the worst part
i could believe for all the world
that you were my precious little girl
i'll tell you what i want what i really really want
tell me what you want what you really really want
i'll tell you what i want what i really really want
what i really really really want
I never thought I'd see the day, with a big boat coming my way
Seems like the real thing that I need to find
Mucho mas tras las campeanas, the perfect sky is torn
You're a little late, I'm already torn
Video killed the radio, star is running out
And our time is running out
Save tonight
The world has turned and left me here
Just where I was before you appeared
I'm so into you, but I'm way too smart for you
And that's a swish in my pants, swish in my pants
Make your own kind of music, I'm selling it away
Ask me for sex and candy, ask me for sex and candy
Set an open course for the virgin sea
I'm taking my knees
Nothing's right
But I'm torn, you're a little late, I'm already torn
And same in the membrane
Tires in the hood are always hard
Come sneak past my trash and I'll pull you far
Sugar pie honey bunch, you know that I love you
Just to let me down, I can't help myself
I love you and nobody else
Cause I'm a creep
And I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here
As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I take a look at my life and realize there's nothing left
Mario, I'll help you save the princess
I just wanna fly
Put your arms around me baby, put your arms around me baby
So let me go on, like a blister in the sun
Let me go on, big hands, I know you're the one
In the garage, I feel safe
You have Japanese girls, do it to me every time
Oh the redhead said you shred the jello
And I'm jello baby