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And you are listening to WBAI New York 99.5 FM.
You are listening to WBAI New York 99.5 FM, where the time is just about 7pm.
Imagine that. It's time for another exciting episode of Off The Hook.
Off The Hook
Off The Hook
Off The Hook
Off The Hook
And a very, very good evening to you.
The program is Off The Hook.
Rob T. Firefly here with you in the WBAI studios in beautiful downtown Brooklyn.
And we're joined in the studio by Mike.
Hi there.
And we should be joined on the phone by Emmanuel and Kyle.
Hello. Hi.
And we have some other folks we're bringing in on the phone
as soon as we get some technical difficulties worked out.
Oh, technical difficulties. How much f*** is that?
Well, we're in Seattle still.
Not a clue.
Having a blast, as always.
Bernie's not yet with us?
Bernie is not yet with us.
Okay, Bernie is in a surprising place.
So I look forward to introducing him when he does show up.
But we have all kinds of interesting things going on.
Is our special guest on the line yet?
Our guest is not on the line.
Emmanuel, by the way, if you have accurate instructions
for contacting our guest, that would be lovely
if you could send them to me some way.
You're saying you did not get my instructions?
I got your instructions, and they don't work.
They don't work?
Yeah.
Okay, well that's great to learn this on the radio.
Also, there's some kind of beeping coming from your line.
I'll make a phone call offline and see if the instructions are indeed valid.
Also, we're getting some kind of beeping on your line,
but we'll see what we can do about that.
I can assure you there's no beeping here.
I bet I know what it is, and I'm not going to tell our audience.
Let's see if they can guess.
Well, that'll be fun, too.
We're not intentionally beeping here.
Meanwhile, as this is live radio, and we love producing live radio,
we have a lot to talk about.
There's been a lot going on this week,
even apart from the special stuff we want to get working,
and we'll do our best to continue to get working.
But until then, Emmanuel and Kyle, you guys are still traveling out and about?
Yes, yes, we are.
Really exploring our local area here in the Northwest,
and I don't know, seeing all kinds of different technologies
and infrastructure projects, that kind of stuff.
Indeed, and there's a lot going on in the world this week.
One of the main ones is, of course, the Panama Papers.
Have you guys been keeping track of that?
Yes, we've been following along.
There's been, indeed, quite a bit of news
and basically a vast array of stories and, dare I say, but I will,
erupting as a result of this multi-terabyte data leak.
And the repercussions are reverberating around the world.
Guys, I can confirm, I just got off the phone with our special guest,
and the number I gave you is correct, and it works perfectly.
Okay, well, we're having trouble making it work from this end,
but we will continue to try and see what we can do with it.
Meanwhile, yes, the Panama Papers are a set of leaked documents
that came out, and they came out because of something
we've talked about a lot on this program, which is to say encryption.
The papers were leaked to journalists via a source
that used end-to-end encryption on both sides to protect themselves,
to be a whistleblower without having to suffer the penalties
that other whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning
have found themselves facing.
And it ties in a lot with what we've been talking about.
The stipulation this person had was basically just,
they wanted the public to know, and they wanted the public
to have someone interpret and go through this stuff
and make it widely understood.
And it's basically about these boutique lasses and firms
that help shelter money in large amounts
in places that are friendly towards that kind of protection.
And a lot of times these people are in places of great power,
which shows rapid inequity to the people they're ruling,
and there's a lot of hypocrisy and scandal as a result.
What I found interesting was that I saw this story breaking.
I saw all kinds of bulletins coming in,
and it was just one world leader after another,
from Vladimir Putin to the prime minister of Iceland,
no one seems to know his name, to Jackie Chan.
Everybody seemed to have been swept up in this somehow.
But the interesting thing is that the news media was reporting it as news
rather than as somebody broke into a computer system
and got all this information illegally.
They were interested in the actual news.
And I thought that was definitely a change.
Even Edward Snowden was impressed by this.
In fact, the leak was orders of magnitude greater than anything he had leaked.
So it just goes to show that people with the right amount of access
have a tremendous amount of power,
and it's something that I think people welcome hearing.
No one can be surprised at the level of corruption this is exposing,
but it is gratifying to actually see it in front of you.
And I think people are realizing, yes, this is a good thing.
This is not a bad thing.
This is something we deserve to know about.
And it's funny, talking of Edward Snowden, if you follow him on Twitter,
David Cameron, the prime minister of the U.K.,
his late father, Ian Cameron, is implicated in some shady dealings
in these leaked materials in the Panama Papers.
And this didn't please the living Mr. Cameron at all.
He decided to announce that his late father's tax affairs
are, quote, a private matter, to which Snowden responded on Twitter,
oh, now he's interested in privacy.
Of course, referring to Cameron's less than stellar record
when it comes to such things as privacy and private matters
in the country which he runs.
Yes, exactly.
It shows a level of hypocrisy that, again, we're all aware of,
but it's great to see it actually spelled out.
Edward Snowden had another interesting tweet, too.
He said, with scandals in Russia, China, U.K., Iceland, Ukraine, and more,
perhaps a new rule, if you're in charge of a country, keep your money in it.
And that actually makes a lot of sense.
It's really unbelievable to me how stupid some of these people are,
doing such blatantly corrupt things and acting all righteous
with indignation when the truth is revealed.
So it's something that I'm happy has happened.
Do we have our guest yet?
I don't know what it is.
Hello, yes, this is Bernie.
We have Bernie.
Live from a Bernie Sanders rally in Philadelphia.
Okay, that wasn't the guest I was thinking of, but it's good to hear from you, Bernie.
Oh, what a guest.
Emmanuel, if you could send directly to me.
We're all talking at the same time, aren't we?
Emmanuel, if you could send directly to me whatever instructions you think I have,
because the instructions I do have are not working.
Mike, I do not understand.
We gave you the phone number, the actual phone number,
and I just called the actual phone number.
What's difficult about this?
No one answers it.
I just called it, and I can't give you the phone number over the radio.
I will text it to you, and hopefully you can translate that into dialing.
All right.
But in the meanwhile, Bernie, how are you doing out there?
I'm freezing cold.
I've been standing outside in the cold wind for three hours,
more than three hours, actually,
waiting to see Bernie Sanders here in Philadelphia.
He had a strong win in Wisconsin yesterday,
and he's rallying his supporters here in Philly.
I've met an amazing number of wonderful people here in line
at the Sanders rally in Philadelphia.
It's great to be here.
So it's Bernie Sanders.
It's not actually a rally for Bernie S. for yourself.
No, it's not a rally for me,
although people are getting a kick out of the fact that my name is Bernie S.
Anyway, it's fun.
A lot of great people.
It is amazing.
This line is about a mile long,
and it's just really encouraging to see so many people involved in the political process here
in the city of this country's birthplace, Philadelphia.
And you're not in yet, are you, Bernie?
No, I'm outside, but I will definitely get in.
The venue, the Temple University Leah Chorus Center,
has seating for, or has room for 10,000 people,
and I've been told by security that from where I am in line,
we will definitely get in.
That sounds like fun.
How long have you been?
Probably about 10, 15 minutes I may be inside,
but it depends on the Secret Service,
how fast they are at screening people,
or how fast they kick me out.
Well, depending on how good they are at screening people,
you may or may not get in,
but to keep us updated.
So I hear we have a great guest lined up tonight,
Kurt Oswald from, well, maybe I'll go ahead and blow anything.
You blew everything, Bernie,
but we're still trying to get hold of him,
and we are working on that and more on that as it develops.
Okay, great.
Well, we can talk about other things?
We can.
We can.
There has been a lot going on this week.
The FBI, who unlocked their own dang piece of evidence
in the case of the San Bernardino telephone
that they wanted Apple to go ahead and unlock for them,
this is apparently leading to all kinds of other consequences now.
The FBI is saying they've just agreed to help Arkansas prosecutors
open an iPhone that they've got,
they are apparently receiving hundreds of requests
to unlock various phones from police organizations
all across the country
because now they're in the business of doing this, apparently.
So this should be interesting,
watching how all this falls out
now that they have to do this kind of work for everyone,
or they have to say no,
or what do you think this is going to lead to?
Well, I think the FBI is going to be inundated with requests now.
Indeed.
There's a story in today's USA Today
about all the requests they're getting now
because this is now their thing.
Let's see.
Last week, a separate survey
of more than a dozen state and local law enforcement agencies
based on data gathered by the Manhattan DA's office
found that investigators had been blocked from the contents
of more than 1,000 smartphones and other devices in recent months.
So that's a lot of phones
that those in authority would like to get into
that they don't have a magic switch
that Apple was convinced to install,
at least not openly,
and now they want the FBI to do this
because the FBI can do this.
So, Rob, I also read that the FBI
is not divulging what critical information
that they retrieved from this iPhone
that was used by the person
who allegedly shot a bunch of people
in a terrible event.
So it wouldn't surprise me if,
like a lot of experts said,
which including Steve Wozniak,
that there's probably nothing of value on that phone anyway.
They made a big deal about it,
and maybe to save face,
they're just not going to ever divulge
that there wasn't anything useful on it anyway.
Yeah, I'm sure we're not going to hear
about that particular phone again
because as was, I think, the prevailing theory
here and elsewhere,
there really was nothing they needed or wanted on it.
It was the principle of the thing
and the precedents that it would have set
that really interested them.
Emmanuel and Kyle, you guys still out there?
Yes, yes, and it's interesting.
You'll just basically hear about other phones
that they've been able to use this precedent
or ability to compromise them for.
And as you said,
the details here are sort of irrelevant.
It's, I think, what a lot of people predicted.
The premise, though, I think now,
as we've said, is this fight,
this sort of arms race.
So we'll see what kind of product, I guess,
Apple will come back with.
And if they maintain that position,
that steadfast sort of adherence
to a principle around privacy
and their customer security
and other, I guess, claims like that
may be a part of the new marketing strategy
going forward.
Right, and it's still echoing
throughout the public sphere.
Now, WhatsApp, a messaging app
that is very popular all over the world,
has just switched on end-to-end encryption
for all their users.
And this is an app that's used
a great deal in other countries.
It's gaining footholds, I think,
in this country.
And it wasn't always the case,
but now their messages
do go through encryption on both ends
and are unreadable,
even if authorities tell them
to divulge people's private messages.
The company WhatsApp apparently can't.
WhatsApp, of course, being acquired
by Facebook earlier this year.
It's going to be very interesting
because they're really sticking
to their guns on this,
the founders of WhatsApp
and the coders they're working with
and things like that.
So it's interesting watching
a large entity like Facebook
having to jump in on this
and basically represent something
that's working against
what the FBI wanted.
And I don't know,
what do you guys think
about WhatsApp's decision?
I mean, I think it's interesting, right,
that they've decided to make this
stand for their users' privacies.
I'm glad they did it.
It still doesn't, of course,
prevent them from knowing
who you are communicating with
and that sort of thing.
But, you know, it's certainly better
than not doing it,
which is what all their competitors
are doing.
Indeed.
Kyle Emanuel, what do you guys think?
It's definitely taking evolutions
of this stuff to see progress
instead of sort of it being default everywhere
and less of something
you have to adopt as a consumer.
And I just hope that people
don't become disillusioned
or attracted to platforms,
disillusioned from
or attracted to platforms
that boast some sort of security
and then lo and behold
maybe don't have it
or get in some sort of legal scuffle
and you end up having to bounce
back and forth.
And I think that's as bad
as other forms of planned obsolescence.
If people are sort of terrorized
and buying things out of fear
instead of just having an ally
through either the infrastructure,
the carriers themselves,
or some guarantee from a manufacturer
and some protection,
I guess people are starting
to definitely realize and appreciate
that it is impossible
and you actually ought to have the ability
to keep your information secure
and maintain some kind of privacy
if that is your choice.
And there are products, as we said,
apps and actual hardware
totally branded on main features
being security and the like.
And I guess we just have to keep in mind
that fundamentally this is expression
and that people are wanting
to protect their information
and they'll use technology
to do that at whatever cost
when you get into deep fundamental issues
of freedom and are you free
if you don't have privacy and so on.
I think people will find ways
regardless of where the government
comes down on it.
Hey Kyle, I hate to interrupt you
but we finally managed to connect
with our guest.
Oh good.
He called us.
He called us.
Apparently I don't know how to dial
a three digit extension or something.
I don't know how that's possible
but anyway we have Kurt Opsahl
from the EFF joining us.
Hello.
Thanks for having me.
We're extremely sorry about all this.
Kurt is the EFF Deputy Executive Director
and General Counsel
at Electronic Frontier Foundation
and I imagine you've seen some
telephone shenanigans in your day
but nothing to compare with this.
No worries.
No worries.
Thanks for giving me the number
so I could get on.
Okay.
Well the reason we have you on,
first of all we want to talk to you
about all the things
that we've been talking about
in the past few minutes
but we also want to let people know
about something that we're doing this month
involving the HOPE conference
taking place in July of this year.
For the entire month of April
every ticket that we sell
to the Hackers on Planet Earth conference
we will donate 10% of the ticket price
to the EFF
because we believe in what they are doing,
what they have accomplished so far
and how vital they are to the future
of electronic privacy,
freedom of speech,
anonymity,
all these concepts that we're always talking about
week after week.
These are the guys that are in the front lines.
These are the guys that go to the courtrooms
and file the suits
and show up and do all the dirty work
and get the results.
I shudder to think where we would be
were it not for EFF
at this particular stage in history.
If you're not convinced
of how vital they are
after all the things we've been talking about
I doubt you ever will be convinced.
We encourage people,
even if you're not coming to the conference
to support these guys,
EFF.org is their website.
But if you're coming to the conference
and you're going to buy a ticket anyway
it's a great way to do both,
to buy a ticket and to support EFF.
Ticket information can be found at Hope.net
and again EFF.org is the website
for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Kurt, I think that pretty much covers everything.
Thank you so much, actually.
We really appreciate the support
from the conference,
from all the attendees at the conference,
many of whom are members
and then getting some additional support
through the ticket sales.
It's really great.
We depend on the support of the community
to do our work
and really appreciate their generosity.
Absolutely.
EFF has always been a good friend
of the Hope Conference
and what we do and what we're all about.
We're very happy to help EFF all we can.
Likewise.
So what's in store for the future, Kurt?
Regarding things like
we've just been talking about
WhatsApp's announcement
that they're encrypting end-to-end
and other such things.
The basic general response
to the whole Apple iPhone encryption fiasco
does seem to indicate
that the encryption is something
that the people have decided they want.
And as we know,
big interests like WhatsApp
owned by Facebook and Apple and so forth,
basically they're bound to go
where the consumers are
and where the money is.
What do you think about the fallout here?
Well, I think it is wonderful
that WhatsApp is providing end-to-end encryption
through making that change.
A billion people who use this app
to communicate,
many of them on a daily basis,
are now going to have
more encrypted communications.
And this makes it more difficult
for unlawful surveillance,
whether conducted by bad actors
or governments or whomever,
and so you're getting a lot of people
who have more secure phone calls.
It also is putting a lot of pressure
or has led to a lot of pressure
from governments who are upset
that their easy access to communications
is not as easy as it once was.
A Facebook executive down in Brazil
was recently arrested
because they didn't provide
WhatsApp communications.
It was released pretty shortly thereafter,
but it gives a sign
of what kind of pressures are out there.
And then here in the States,
just yesterday,
the General Counsel of the FBI
was complaining about WhatsApp
and the advent of widespread encryption.
Why is encryption something
that the general public
should be concerned about
and should want?
What's the simple explanation
for anyone who may not be familiar?
Well, it allows for more security.
At that point,
more security is going to keep people safe,
not just from government surveillance
but from all sorts of potential threats
to their communications.
Sometimes it's extremely important
when you're dealing with
an authoritarian regime
that doesn't like dissent.
It can actually be life-saving.
But in all instances,
you want to make sure
that you have the ability
to have a private space
and have a private conversation
without a fear of it being overheard.
It allows for more frank discussions.
It allows for people
to be able to organize better.
But some people will say,
well, you know,
I'm not into those sort of things.
I don't care if the government
hears every word I say.
But even if you're one of those people,
think about how you benefit
from other people
having encrypted communications.
The source talking to a newspaper reporter,
being able to do so
in a private manner
so they can blow the whistle
on wrongdoing
and not be afraid
of instant retaliation.
So there's a lot of ways
that we as a society
benefit from having
more secure communications
even if individually
you don't care.
Kurt, I know you mentioned
that governments are frustrated.
They don't have access
to all the information
they used to have.
But don't you think
that they actually have access
to so much more
through things like Facebook
and LinkedIn
and Twitter
and all the social media
and advertising
we're constantly doing
about our private lives?
This is information
they've never had access to
before to this level.
Oh, absolutely.
I mean,
while the government complains
of what they call
quote, going dark,
they're actually
in the golden age
of surveillance.
The ability to conduct surveillance
is greater than it has ever been.
And if we look back
even before smartphones,
you know, 15, 20 years ago,
some of the information
they're now complaining
that they don't have access to
just simply didn't exist.
If you had somebody's cell phone
from the 90s,
you know, you're not getting
this whole trove of information
that now is available
because we're carrying
basically our entire lives
in our pockets.
So the government
has far more ability
to conduct surveillance
to get information
than it has ever had.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I totally see that.
Now, we've been touching
on the Panama Papers
and how that's been
dominating news lately.
What's your perspective on that?
Well, it is very interesting stuff.
I mean, I must say
that I'm not, you know,
super surprised
that some people
are having offshore bank accounts
to place money
in, you know,
out of reach
of their home jurisdictions.
Like, the fact of that,
I think we've sort of
known for a while.
But nevertheless,
we've seen a lot of repercussions
that have come from this
because it's tied
particular politicians
to some policies that,
you know,
they were promoting
transparency policies
while perhaps having
some of their money overseas.
So I think we'll have to wait
and see how all that
fallout goes.
The primary example of it
seems to be in Iceland
where it has been
a major effect
on their national government.
2.6 terabytes of data,
11.5 million documents,
is what was leaked so far
that we're aware of.
And I guess world leaders
and people all over the place
are probably really
a little bit worried
about what might come out.
Yeah, I think it's, you know,
it's an interesting thing
to many of these world leaders
are from governments
that would like to conduct
more extensive surveillance
of their citizens
and know the intimate details
of their citizens' lives.
But now I think
are feeling a little bit nervous
when the intimate details
about their own lives
are on the table.
I mean, you know,
as a whole,
I still, of course,
believe in privacy
and it would be best
if some of this came out
through transparency laws
and through a more orderly process.
But that wasn't happening.
Apparently someone decided
it was too much
and took it to a newspaper.
I've seen...
Go ahead, Barney.
I just wanted to say,
I wanted to echo
what Kurt said
and add to that
that I heard a radio interview
yesterday of a reporter
for the German newspaper.
I can't pronounce the name
of the newspaper,
but it's...
The abbreviation has a Z,
I think.
He said that this person
contacted him
through a medium,
electronic medium,
anonymous,
and secure mode of communication.
And it took more than a year
of back-and-forth
encrypted communications
and anonymous
encrypted communications
to develop this
relationship with this source
and get this information,
which is resulting in
some stunning details
about corruption
at the highest levels
of governments,
including the Prime Minister
of Iceland,
who just resigned
due to some apparently
corrupt financial canary.
And I'm sure the people
of Iceland are very happy
that secure encrypted
communications exists
for people,
because this source
said right up front
to the reporter
that he fears his life
is really in danger.
I have no doubt
that there are some
world leaders
who would like this guy
dead right now.
One thing I've seen...
This is a good reason
for secure
encrypted communications.
I've seen a lot less talk
about prosecution,
at least so far.
People seem to be
actually fixated on
what is contained
within the documents
this time.
I think that's
partially the difference
between state secrets
and corporate secrets,
which people care
a lot less about.
There's a distinction
between things
which are the national
security end of things,
in terms of how
governments react to it.
While some governments,
the leaders themselves,
may be very nervous
about the information
that might appear
about them in front
of these documents,
ostensibly through
the other aspects
of government,
the ones who are regulators
who are supposed
to be looking
for corruption,
these are the sort
of things
from which cases
could be made.
There may be
a little bit of a rift
between the individuals
who are part
of government
and are involved
in hiding money,
and those who are part
of government
involved in regulating
banking industry
and making sure
that people are paying
their fair share of taxes.
We're speaking with
Kurt Altshul
from the Electronic
Frontier Foundation,
and Kurt,
looking at EFF.org right now,
I see one of your slides
that says,
Save Netflix.
What's going on with that?
Indeed, I believe
that has to do
with our DMCA.
Basically, it's talking
about not just Netflix
in particular,
but how do we make sure
that there is innovation
moving forward.
And in this case,
it's having to do
with the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act,
and some of our team members
are working
with the W3C,
the World Wide Web Consortium,
to try and get better policies
that won't bake
digital rights management
into new standards.
Interesting.
Okay, so that's something
that could affect
lots of people
in the future.
We're very familiar
with the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act,
that's for sure.
Yeah, indeed.
A long history with that.
Absolutely.
Kurt,
this is obviously
another example
of the various things
that EFF is always working on
and trying to preserve.
How would you describe
the work of EFF
to someone unfamiliar with it?
Well, we describe it
in a variety of ways.
We can talk about
the specifics of the work,
working to promote privacy,
promote freedom of expression,
to allow for innovation
and a fair use
of intellectual property rights.
But one way I like to describe it
sort of in a shorthand
is building a future
that we would want to live in,
trying to think about
how to make our society
one that respects
some of our fundamental values
as new technologies
pose new opportunities
and new challenges.
I mean,
and one of the things,
one of the things
that's great about you guys
is you've been doing it
for I don't know how many years,
but before it was obvious
how much technology
was going to run our lives
and how important
it would become
for the liberties
we enjoy offline
to be maintained online.
Yeah, we're approaching
our 26th year this summer.
EFF was founded in 1990
when, well, certainly
the Internet
had been around for a while.
It was very different
from what people know it today,
no World Wide Web,
I think for more
bulletin board systems
and Usenet,
which some of those still exist,
but the Web is very different.
But that's the idea,
you know,
that it was founded
to try and help deal
with some of these challenges
when new technologies come out.
I think it's in both directions.
New technologies provide,
you know,
democratization of media.
You don't have to have
a giant printing press
and a whole distribution network
to get your word out.
If you want to write an op-ed,
you can just put it online
and get it out for next to no cost.
It's interesting
because we've been archiving
some of our older issues,
and we recently came out
with 1990
in the Hacker Digest,
and the launching of EFF
was definitely
one of the big stories then.
And it's just interesting
to read about that
and see what the issues were
in the Steve Jackson games case
and the Operation Sun Devil raids
and all the things
that were happening back then.
And it seemed like
maybe this wouldn't amount
to too much,
but obviously it amounted
to quite a bit,
and the things that you guys
did back then
certainly helped shape
the landscape.
And it's just gotten more
and more interesting
over the years.
But this,
the 26th year of your existence,
hard to believe it's been so long.
I understand you guys
are launching something called
the Electronic Frontier Alliance,
EFA.
It's being described
as bringing together
community and campus organizations
across the U.S.
It'll serve as
an increasingly vital hub
for activism and organizing,
addressing a spectrum
of civil liberties
and digital rights issues.
Can you tell us more about that?
Yeah, the Electronic Frontier Alliance,
this is a new program
that has recently launched.
And the notion is
to get groups
that are out there.
They may be student groups
at universities
or maybe local organizations
people where they have
a similar set of issues
and trying to increase
communication amongst them,
help them know
fellow travelers
who they might want to work with,
and try to unite people
around some basic principles,
get people to sign up
if they agree with those principles.
The principles are about
free expression,
technology, security, privacy,
promotion of creativity,
access to knowledge,
some core values
that we at the EFF believe in,
and find people
throughout the land
who agree with those values,
and then they can join the Alliance
and perhaps we become
a bigger movement as a result.
Excellent.
We're speaking with Kurt Opsahl
from the EFF.
And yeah, as we mentioned,
we're donating 10% of every
HOPE ticket,
10% of the price of every
HOPE ticket sold
to the EFF for the month of April.
HOPE being our Hacker Conference,
which happens every two years.
It's happening again this summer.
You can get the info on that
on hope.net,
as well as the info
to get your tickets.
It's happening at Hotel Pennsylvania
uptown,
and the dates are
July 22nd through 24th,
I believe,
this year.
Very much looking forward to it.
Yeah.
It's been my day and my night
now for the last six months,
and I'm sure it'll be even more
as it goes closer.
But we're going to be talking
about all kinds of things
at the conference.
You guys are going to be there
giving talks
and having a table
and all sorts of fun activities.
But to talk about one of the stories
that's coming out right now,
something involving NEST,
this service that allows you
to heat, air-condition your home,
keep track of the temperature
and things like that.
But something bad has happened.
I believe, Rob,
you've been following this story?
Yes, indeed.
There was an op-ed posted
to the site medium.com
by a person named Arlo Gilbert,
who describes this as
the time that Tony Fadell
sold me a container of hummus
because he...
That doesn't sound like
an insult, really.
I know it's intended as one,
but I would like
a container of hummus.
I think he'd rather have
the container of hummus
than what he bought
because he purchased a while back
a piece of equipment
put out by a home automation outfit
called Revolve.
That's R-E-V-O-L-V,
delightfully misspelled
in the ways of all startups.
And it was a small
home automation device,
a small circular device
about the size and shape
of a small container of hummus,
which used a variety
of home automation radios
to control things
around the house.
So for those unfamiliar
with home automation,
you can use your computer
or your device
to basically control the stuff
around your home.
Light switches, alarms,
air conditioning,
that sort of thing.
And it would work
through the Internet.
It would be something
you could control
with your smartphone,
and this person was enjoying his.
The device,
the manufacturer of the device,
Revolve,
was eventually acquired
by Google,
who makes their own
home automation system
called Nest.
And they basically decided
that the particular piece
of equipment
that this person bought
shouldn't really continue to work,
so they're shutting it down.
The device won't,
it's not that it's coming
to the end of its support
or the end of its,
you know,
the end of where the company
will help you with it,
but it's actually
going to stop working.
And they did this
without letting Mr. Gilbert know.
They did this
without contacting him
in any way,
although they had
his email address.
He found out by accident
when he went
on their website
for something else.
So he wrote this op-ed
on Medium about it,
and it's been getting
a little bit of traction,
and it's very interesting
because it raises the question
about things we buy.
You know,
we're in this age
of the Internet of Things,
quote unquote,
and everything's
interconnected and on the cloud
and your appliances
are on the damn net
and everything's supposed
to be working wonderfully,
but what happens
when the infrastructure
just is switched off
by those who are actually
controlling these devices
that you ostensibly own?
Yeah, this is something
that I think we've been
warning people about
for quite some time.
When you trust the cloud blindly,
when you just basically
give all your information
and all your devices
the ability to be controlled
by some unknown entity,
or even a known entity somewhere,
when they get bored,
when they move on
to something else,
when they decide that
it's just not worth
supporting anymore,
they can turn it off
and you have
absolutely no power.
You know,
if you had a regular
mechanical thermostat,
you could just always
rely on that,
but once you sign that over
to some other entity,
they have total control,
there is no backup,
and these cloud-dependent
services will basically
make everything stop working
that you've attached to it.
There is good in this.
In having these kinds
of advanced devices,
but it's incredibly short-sighted
to not think about
what will happen
if some company
buys the company
that's running this
and shuts it down.
Well, I have just a brick
on the side of my wall.
Absolutely.
It doesn't even have to be
some company buying the company.
It could just be,
what if whoever's controlling
decides to switch it off?
What if they'd rather
do something else
with their time?
Yes, Barron?
One solution
for these kinds of problems,
I mean, obviously
you have to be aware of this,
and it's a risk
that it's out there,
but if a company,
if they decide
to shut down these services,
they put their source code out there,
put it out on an open-source license,
open up the API,
and then there could be
community solutions for this,
where if somebody else
wants to run the server
or find a way
of operating it offline,
you can make that
information available
and allow people
to build upon
what you've abandoned.
I like that idea.
Right.
We've seen that happen
in other open-source contexts.
There's a 3D piece of software
called Blender,
which was once
a proprietary piece of software
by a company
that made such things.
When the company decided
to stop doing that,
the open-source community
basically acquired the software,
opened the source,
and the product
has continued to work
and continued to be developed
absent the people
who once controlled it.
And that's a really healthy
sort of ecosystem
that's going on there
and that's providing
a good piece of software.
Emmanuel?
Go ahead, Bernie.
I just want to say
that this is something
we on this show
and 2600
have been warning people about
ever since
the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
came out more than,
you know,
was made into law
more than 15 years ago,
which EFF has been
fighting very ardently against.
But we've been warning people
that this is exactly
the kind of scenario
that could happen
when companies can have,
corporations can have,
using encrypted...
Encryption can be good and bad.
In this case,
if there's a method of encryption
that's protecting a device
that has some copyrighted material in it,
and I'm sure there's,
in this device
that we've been talking about,
there is copyrighted material in there.
The company can control
your access to that
and can prevent you
from accessing it.
So I hope that
public pressure
causes Google
to stop this practice
or at least to,
as we were talking about,
release the source code
so other people
can continue to use their devices
because it could start
a really slippery slope,
a dangerous trend,
where other manufacturers say,
well, Google got away with this.
We're going to do this, too,
and cut off our customers
from some old product line
so their products can't work anymore
and they have to buy
a new thing from us.
Yeah, I think it's interesting to note
that these devices
are not being engineered
to run as standalone equipment
without this sort of connection
to a back end.
And I think,
which is sad.
From an engineering standpoint,
you should have an ability
to put something into a developer mode,
up to and including APIs
and sort of the software
that runs stuff.
But in addition,
I think a lot of these
small companies, sadly,
get bought
solely for the intellectual property,
for the patents
and knowledge
around the technology,
and the customers are left
sort of in the lurch
because the only interest
in acquiring it,
like in particular,
Nest was acquired by Google.
It was not originally
something that Google had designed.
And on and on that goes,
but to the detriment
of the users
who put the bill.
And an interesting question,
Kurt,
because I know you guys
have been dealing
with patent trolling
quite a bit over the years,
and this is a struggle
that you've been engaged in.
Perhaps you could update us
on if we're winning that fight?
Well, I think
we have an excellent team
of attorneys
who are working
on our patent trolling projects.
We do things like
point out stupid patent
of the month.
So every month,
we find some particularly
stupid patent
to highlight.
Though, unfortunately,
there's actually a lot
out there to choose from.
Do you know what
that stupid patent is?
I don't,
but I think that's available
on the website,
EFF.org.
I myself am actually
not a patent scholar,
but we do have
my colleague Daniel Naser,
who has a great title.
He's the Mark Cuban chair
for the elimination
of stupid patents.
And he does a lot of work on that.
And then sometimes
we get to work
a little bit more seriously
on a particular patent
where we'll go through
the review process
and basically
go to the patent office
and say,
this patent was
wrongly issued.
There was, in fact,
prior art.
There was, in fact,
it was obvious
to anyone in the profession,
for people who have
patented things
that have been
a part of
online businesses,
like there was
one that we worked on
fairly recently
on podcasting.
And it was, you know,
claiming to make sure
that anyone who was
engaged in podcasting
had to pay
a licensing fee.
And so we went to go
challenge that patent.
I've looked up
your stupid patent
of the month,
and it is
a patent on
mobile crew management systems
for distributing
work order assignments
to mobile field crew units,
which is a mumbo jumbo
way of saying,
you know, telling people
who are out and about
what to do.
And the alleged novelty here
is doing it with a computer,
which sounds silly,
but they're suing
the florists
and other people.
And so you highlighted that.
And one of the things
that I think is interesting
that you highlighted
is that the company
that holds the patent
is in Washington State.
The company that they're suing
is in Chicago,
but all the lawsuits
are in the eastern district
of Texas.
Yeah, that is a
recurring pattern
in patent cases.
You can file them
all across the land,
but people
on the plaintiff's side
tend to file them
in the eastern district
of Texas.
Why is that?
Well, it has gotten
a reputation of being
a friendly jurisdiction
to patent plaintiffs
and to patent trolls
that
it has sort of
become a,
I guess,
a side business
within that district
to do this.
So a lot of
non-producing entities
that have
a small office
in Marshall, Texas,
near where the court
is located,
and do a lot
of their litigation work,
which for some
of these entities
is pretty much
all of their work,
based out of there.
And they feel like
they get better results,
and it's also
sometimes
they will ask
for the case
to be sealed,
which, you know,
makes it difficult
for people
to get some sort
of transparency
in what's going on
in the case.
So I think
that this has actually
ended up to be
a bit of a challenge
for those
who are trying
to defend against
patent trolls.
Really fascinating.
So East Texas,
get your act together.
I had no idea
it was that easy
for them to do this,
simply to go to
a certain jurisdiction.
It's really a shame
that it's come to that.
But again,
EFF has been fighting
this kind of thing,
and need your support
to continue doing that.
So please,
donate whatever you can
to EFF,
EFF.org.
And if you're coming
to the HOPE Conference,
we're donating 10%
of all ticket sales
for the month of April
to the Electronic
Frontier Foundation.
So go to hope.net
for more information
on that.
Speaking of
the HOPE Conference
taking place this July
in New York City,
if you read
our webpage
on April 1st,
know Donald Trump
is not keynoting
at the HOPE Conference.
Sorry for all the people
that panicked about that,
but we just,
we had to do our bit.
In fact,
Cory Doctorow
is going to be speaking,
is going to be keynoting
at the HOPE Conference.
And I believe
Kurt Cory Doctorow
is with EFF again.
Yes, indeed.
He's had a long relationship
with EFF over the years,
was a staffer for a while,
then had gone off
to do some of his own things,
but always been
a good friend to EFF.
And now he is back
as a fellow
working on a project,
the Apollo 1201 project.
And this is
trying to end
the grip of DRM
in our lifetimes.
It's a big project.
It's a lot of work to be done.
But he's even come back
to put a coordinated effort
and trying to get
so that DRM isn't
getting in the way
of innovation
and keeping people
from doing awesome
and cool things.
Absolutely.
How's he looking
to accomplish this?
Sorry, again?
How's Doctorow
looking to accomplish
something like fighting DRM?
Well, it's quite a project.
I can imagine, yeah.
I mean, some of it
is coming from
working on things like
what we were talking about before,
to work with the W3C
to try and get,
make sure that DRM
doesn't get baked
into web standards.
There's also, you know,
looking across the U.S.
and the world,
for that matter,
to see if we can
repeal or modify
the laws that are
designed to protect DRM,
where we, you know,
look for good cases
where we can show somebody
is misusing DRM.
And we also work
within the system
when trying to get exemptions.
You know, there is a process
before the Library of Congress
every three years
to try and find exemptions
where you have to argue
why you should be able to,
you know, jailbreak your phone
or, you know,
able to make a copy
of something that you lawfully owned
into a modern format,
things like that.
And so we put together
these exemption requests.
It's still, of course,
a very challenging process
with the exemption requests
because even if you get it granted,
you still have to go back
for another one,
the same one again,
three years later.
So we're also trying
to reform that law
so that either we can
reduce the effect of DRM
or at least make it
a little bit more manageable
to get these sensible exemptions.
And these end up being
very important.
One of the ones
that came up
in the recent round of rulemaking
on the exemptions
was looking at automobile security.
And I think,
as people have been seeing
over the last couple of years,
you know,
there's a lot of software
in automobiles,
a lot of potential problems
with that software.
There's a famous video
of a reporter
whose car was controlled
by some security researchers
demonstrating some of the dangers.
But if security researchers
are deterred by DRM restrictions
from doing the reverse engineering
or doing the analysis
of the software
to find what these flaws are,
there's a real danger
to that ecosystem
that it won't have
the kind of independent checks
that have turned out
to be very useful
in all sorts of different fields.
Amazing.
And just another
of the many, many fronts
on which the EFF
is constantly fighting
for the interests of us all.
We're almost out of time,
but where can people go
for more info
on what you're up to?
Well, EFF.org
is our main website.
All sorts of information there.
You can read our blog.
You can catch up
on some of the activities.
Look at upcoming events.
And if people are more
action-oriented,
they want to say,
you know,
what can I do about this?
Not just get informed,
they can go to our Action Center,
which is act.eff.org.
And look at actions
that you can take.
So, you know,
sign a petition,
communicate with your representative,
you know,
tell your friends about things.
There are ways
that people can help
protect themselves
and protect their future
by taking action.
Excellent.
And again,
10% of every Hope ticket sale
goes to the EFF
for the month of April.
So pick up your tickets now
and get a ticket
to our conference.
And get a ticket
to our conference
and help out the EFF
at the same time.
Send us an email,
othat2600.com.
Check out hope.net
for the updates
on the Hope Conference,
all the info you need there.
And, yeah,
have a wonderful week.
Stay tuned
for the Personal Computer Show.
For Off the Hook,
this is Rob T. Firefly.
Have a very good night.
Thanks, everybody.
Thank you.
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