The world was changing so fast that nothing of importance seemed to be happening.
Come with me.
Is this the bus to the underworld?
Tune in for a shortcut.
2016.
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.
11 p.m. New Year's Eve, right here on WBAI-FM.
Wait for the history.
And it's a little bit sad.
Everybody knows the war is over.
Everybody knows the good guys lost.
Well, if you don't have plans, or even if you do have plans on New Year's,
this is the place to be, I'm convinced now.
This is WBAI in New York.
The time is 8 o'clock.
It's time for Off The Hook.
And a very good evening to everybody.
The program is Off The Hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
Joined tonight by Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
Kyle.
Hello.
Hey.
Bernie S.
Season's greetings from Philadelphia.
And yes, it is the season.
In fact, this is our last show of the year.
Sorry, I had to swallow there.
That's why that pause was there.
It's our last show of the year.
Our next show will be in 2017.
So adjust your calendars or whatever you need to do.
Oh, we just handed out some hacker calendars here at the radio station.
And boy, what a stampede that caused.
And we're running out of them too.
Because people tend to get calendars at the end of the year.
We have year-end things to take care of tonight on the radio show.
Including, well, I guess maybe we should get right into this.
Predictions for 2017.
We had predictions last year.
In fact, each of us that's here right now had a prediction.
And what we're going to do is we're going to play those predictions.
See how they turned out.
And then make a new prediction.
So hopefully you guys are prepared to do this.
Maybe you can make something up really quickly.
But we started with me last year.
And then I believe Kyle, Rob, and I'm sorry, Bernie, and then Rob.
So let's hear what I had to predict one year ago.
My prediction, I'll be first, I guess, since it was my idea.
I think in the next year, hackers will be blamed.
Not necessarily implicated, but certainly blamed.
For some phenomenal thing that goes on with the 2016 presidential election.
Whether it be electronic voting that somehow had some sort of snafu in it.
Or a polling system that the numbers don't make any sense.
Or nonsense candidates.
Something involving hacking.
And something involving the 2016 presidential election.
They will collide.
And it'll be all over the news.
That's my feeling.
Well, what do you guys think of that?
Kind of hit the nail on the head, didn't I?
You don't have any lottery numbers or anything to go with that?
No, not tonight.
Not tonight.
But I do have another prediction.
Well, I predict that New York City 2600 meetings will be moving.
Okay, no, that's a fact.
Because Citigroup is closing for two years.
So we have to find another place.
We're going to find another place really soon.
But okay, here's what I predict.
I'm sort of coming up with this on the spot.
You know that whole augmented reality craze that we saw peak over the summer?
We're going to see more of that.
But I think it's going to become more serious.
And you're going to see some actual legislation introduced to regulate augmented reality.
Because somebody's going to do something stupid.
I don't know exactly how.
You know, even if I think of how to do something really stupid involving augmented reality.
I couldn't top the person who actually winds up doing it.
But somebody's going to get themselves killed.
Or cause a massive fire or something using augmented reality.
Thinking they were doing something fun.
And in actuality, they were doing something incredibly stupid and dangerous.
Well, we've already seen a little bit of that.
Earlier this year, we had the Pokemon craze.
And there were stories in the news of people getting into car accidents and things.
Because they were too focused on the imaginary creatures they were trying to get.
I would add maybe, what if also people did something really cool with it?
That would be a reason to want to clamp down.
We've seen...
What, you mean something cool is a threat as well?
Yeah, I don't think you should say the only thing that people might do with it that will get attention is stupid things.
I think cool things too.
Really powerful uses of different platforms and technologies like that.
Could very well become a target because they are so powerful.
Okay, but my prediction is that there's going to be more legislation because somebody does something stupid.
Why would there be more legislation if somebody does something smart?
Okay, that's my opinion then.
Don't include that in your...
Okay.
Well, I mean, it could very well be.
Something smart could be considered a threat.
But I just would like to know how we could use that.
How we could use augmented reality to really make authorities nervous.
Well, I guess maybe I could tie this into my prediction.
I'm going to predict...
Well, you can't predict yet because you haven't played your last prediction.
So don't do it.
You want to play your last prediction first?
No, no, no.
No, well, since we're making up all kinds of rules, I'll make up the rule that I don't get to say it until it's my turn yet.
It's your turn next, but I have to play your prediction.
And these rules are set in stone.
Okay, then I spoke too soon.
All right, but Bernie, do you have anything to contribute on this?
As far as predictions for this coming year?
Or just weighing in on what is happening?
What we're talking about right now?
Okay, I guess not.
All right, we're going to move on to...
The rate of time is valuable.
We're going to move on to Kyle's prediction from 2016.
Let's listen to that now.
Kyle, do you want to go next?
Yes.
Okay.
I have two predictions.
The assignment was for one, but go ahead.
Go ahead.
No, it's okay.
Hackers don't follow instructions.
I know.
Okay, I think...
Virtual reality will again be much hyped and go nowhere.
As far as people using it.
Okay, you can't say something will continue to do what it's been doing.
It's got to be a prediction of something different.
Okay.
All right.
I think...
Journalism will be respected again in 2016.
Wow, that's pretty radical.
Journalism will be respected.
Any reason why you think that might happen?
I think that we're going to continue to find out things from leaks,
and we're going to continue to cover things that hadn't been covered in the past
because of more and more independent journalism.
I have high hopes for it.
All right.
Well, I hope that works out.
Not bad.
Not bad.
There was certainly a lot more leaks.
I don't know if we respected journalism more.
Yeah, I guess in some circles you might say that people respect it more.
I don't think that the...
And there's different types of journalism, I think, that got more attention
and respect and derision at the same time, I think, from various angles,
whether it's fake news or stuff that's more based from a pundit's perspective.
But that's all kind of post-election stuff.
I don't know if journalism really served us that well, though, in the campaign.
We had fake news.
We had that.
But does that really count as journalism?
Yeah, and I think it actually was torn apart much more through the campaign process.
Right?
I mean, the discrediting, the turn the cameras around thing, that whole thing.
You know, they won't do it.
I can still hear it in my head.
I think you might have been ahead of your time, because I think journalists
will have to be respected in the coming years, because that's going to be
our only defense against the darkness that lies ahead.
Yeah, and I guess, so the first part, virtual reality, taking off.
This is where I was going with my other idea.
I think we're going to see the first bipedal, robotic soldiers or police officers.
Whoa.
And people will have to use augmented reality to fight these robots.
Oh, you got my interest now.
Okay.
So you're saying there's actually going to be robotic policemen this year.
Oh, next year, actually, coming up.
Yeah, it's going to be, they're going to be Russian made, and our president's
going to do the deal.
Yeah.
God.
Well, now that you injected him into the equation, I guess it's possible
this might happen.
So, okay.
Bernie, any thoughts on this?
I think these are good predictions, and I just read an announcement this
week that there are new stories that there are bipedal, I don't know if it's
bipedal or bipedal.
I don't know how to pronounce it.
We'll learn how to pronounce it, too.
Yeah, I predict that we'll learn how to pronounce it.
That's a prediction.
That's a good prediction.
There you go.
The technology on that is, that and the virtual reality stuff is accelerating
at a rapid pace.
So, I think this coming year, you'll see.
Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, Bernie, Bernie, Bernie, Bernie, you're not giving a
prediction, are you?
I know, okay.
Yeah, because you're next.
I think that Kyle is spot on, and we'll see.
All right.
Yeah, that's a good one.
Okay, we will see.
Now, it is Bernie's turn next, so let's hear what Bernie had to say one year
ago about what he predicted for 2016.
Bernie, I don't want to return your prediction to you.
That's not my purpose here, but I just want to ask for some clarification.
Maybe could you come up with a hypothetical specific, you know, not a
real company, but just say something like this will happen involving a
company and a person, something like that?
Sure.
Suppose a big medical, a insurance company, insurance company that has a
health insurance company.
Here's a good example.
Health insurance company that has a whole lot of really private information
about your personal health, like what health diseases or medical treatments
you're getting, very private stuff that's protected under some federal law
now, HIPAA, now doesn't have that protection if that company, their big
hospital chain or whatever it is, insurance company, if they get hacked
through their own negligence and they tell law enforcement, hey, we just got
hacked and we've notified you and fulfilled our obligation under this
new bill.
Now, law enforcement can pause through all your private health information
and you have no say in that.
And despite HIPAA, you have no say in that and you can't even sue the
insurance company or the hospital chain.
You're in present tense, Bernie.
You need to be in future tense.
Well, you're saying how it is now.
All right.
You won't be able to sue.
I checked this bill the past few days ago.
You won't be able to sue the insurance company or healthcare providing
corporation for revealing all your private medical information to law
enforcement or intelligence agencies.
Okay.
That almost seems like a certainty, though, with this law.
I'm trying to find out if you think something extraordinary might happen.
I don't think it's extraordinary.
I think it's an extraordinary thing that now we're really going to be, I
predict that it will, that what will happen soon is the ramifications of
it. It hasn't happened yet, but the bill just passed a few days ago.
I'm predicting people are going to, I predict people are going to wake up
and become very angry that this thing happened under their noses really
quickly.
This, this, this information sharing bill was passed in the dark of night
without any deliberation at all by our legislators because it was tacked
onto the expense.
Now you're in past tense.
Okay, fine.
I'm sorry, Bernie.
We have to, we have to cut that a little bit because that went on a long
time, but I think for the most part people woke up and got angry.
I'm not sure about that in particular, but do you think that prediction
came true?
I think it, well, I don't know about the getting really angry, but I, I
believe it wasn't at the forefront of the headlines because it was election
year and there was other big news, but there were, there were hacks of
medical databases and this law did that passed a year ago, almost a year
ago today, did prevent people from suing those companies because they
reported it and they turned it over to law enforcement.
So it just wasn't in the headlines.
So I don't think people got really angry.
And that law is still in effect today.
Yeah, but who knows after the new president comes in.
Okay, well now's the time for your prediction for 2017.
What do you got?
Well, speaking of the new president, um, our, our current president just
signed a law.
I'm really about these laws.
Uh, a big, uh, defense funding bill and basically opened a new branch of
government, uh, branch of the military specifically for cyber warfare and a
lot of, a lot more funding for cyber warfare.
So I predict that US and Russia and China, uh, or two or more of those
countries will engage in, for lack of a better word, cyber warfare and that
it will escalate to a physical war.
Um, maybe not major, but, but I believe that like, like all attacking is
going to wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
You think that the United States, Russia and or China can get into a war
that's not major?
I'm talking about pitching matches.
Okay.
Yes.
It will have a major to be in the edge of their seats, I believe, and see
where it's going to go.
But I believe that we'll, it won't just be these countries hacking each
other.
I think it, one of them will get angry.
One, one, one of the leaders of one of those three countries will get angry
enough to actually, um, have something physically damaged in the other
country.
So an escalation of proxy wars or wars as a result of a, uh, cyber based
activity, you have to say it like, why don't you throw Israel into it?
Then you'll have a certainty that this will happen.
Kyle summarized what I, what I was trying to say very well.
Okay.
Okay.
That's what I meant.
Kind of like that.
Okay.
All right.
Well, that's, that's something to, uh, yeah, I'm looking forward to that now
as well.
Uh, and, and now our final, um, our final, uh, contestant, I guess, uh,
prediction for 2016 from Rob T.
Firefly.
Let's, let's listen.
But, uh, Rob, it's your turn.
Do you have a prediction for us?
I do have a prediction.
Um, I, I have a prediction about, uh, what we know is sort of the deep web
or the dark web.
Um, that, uh, that little slightly shadier corner of the internet, uh, shady
as in you can't really see what's going on there quite as much.
I think, uh, I think it's going to become, uh, more of a mainstream thing
because right now it's still kind of populated with people that have the
technical, uh, I think, uh, chops to, to make it work.
It's still a bit complex.
I think it's only going to get easier.
I think, uh, maybe since we're dealing with the fallout of things like, uh, like
season now, uh, and, and other things that sort of want to take the options
away from us to do what we want to do with the net.
I think it's going to become more of a thing to more of a normalized thing
rather than a thing that's just people know about because scary news reporters
talk about it.
Um, I think it's going to be a thing that more people use maybe on a
day-to-day basis.
It'll be like, I'm just on my way to the dark web.
I'll, I'll catch up with you later.
Well, I mean, can you think of something that an average person might use
the dark web for that doesn't involve blowing up a city?
Maybe an average person might use the dark web to arrange the sale or
purchase of something that's legal.
Interesting.
Okay.
Well, uh, I'd like to see if that comes true.
Like, like, uh, Christmas presents or something.
Hang on.
That's, this is Kyle in the present now.
20, 2016 December.
Uh, cause we sound the same.
That's great.
I really liked that.
That was, that wasn't bad, Rob.
That wasn't bad.
But, uh, did any of us go into the dark web and do something legal?
Um, I, I could, I may or may not have gone onto the dark web and, uh, done
completely legal and non-threatening things with my time there.
The thing about the dark web, you don't know when you're on it.
You don't know.
Actually you do, but I'm just telling people that.
Others don't know.
Uh-huh.
Uh, Bernie, any, any dark web activity this year?
Uh, I looked around, but I did not, um, cause anything legal or illegal to happen.
I guess looking around.
I saw that you were looking for, for something to buy and just, nah, what
doesn't suit me right now.
I'm moving on to the, to the light web.
I wasn't shopping.
I was just, I was just looking.
I'll tell you, I'll tell you what I, um, one thing I did do with the dark web
is I used it to engage in conversations with people about all manner of topics.
It, it reminded me by look and feel of like the old BBS days, or even like the
old online service, uh, CompuServe AOL days where like there were just
conversations going on about whatever.
And you never really knew all that much about the people on the
other end of that conversation.
Wow.
You're not kidding around.
You actually did venture into the dark web.
I did.
Yes.
What's, what's your preferred method of getting there?
Um, there's, there's a very easy way of getting there that actually is, uh, not
difficult for the average person to use and that's get the Tor browser bundle
and just, uh, start it up and do what the prompts tell you to.
Isn't it that, that bundle that authorities warn us against getting
because it'll turn us into ISIS?
Uh, yeah, that's the one.
Okay.
Go for it.
All right.
And do you have a prediction for the, for the coming year?
I have a prediction for the coming year.
It's, uh, I, I don't think it's quite as jolly as mine from last year.
Oh, good.
Um, but, uh, you know, I can't compete with past me on this, but, uh, I think,
uh, I think we, we did see, I, I, I mentioned CISA and we, we, uh, we
remembered SOPA and all these attempts to really badly regulate the technical
environment.
I think we're going to see that just increase exponentially.
I think we're going to see a whole lot of bad legislation being thrown around.
And I think some of it will pass, um, despite our best efforts to, uh, to
shout bloody hell about it over here.
So I, I think, uh, you know, I'm, I'm a bit worried, but, uh, that's, that's
what I think is going to happen under the coming administration.
I understand this.
Your prediction is that there's going to be bad legislation that will pass.
A lot more than we're used to.
A lot more.
Yeah.
Because there's a lot going on.
So you, you think that, uh, maybe Trump will have an effect on even more bad
legislation coming down the pike?
Yes, indeed.
But specifically bad legislation about the technical environment, legislating
things that aren't legislatable like that, or that take a whole bunch of other
non-threatening things down with it.
I think we're going to see just like, um, uh, like mega SOPAs on a regular basis.
Would you say like it would be a tsunami of legislation?
Oh, would you say that?
I would say that.
A tsunami of legislation.
That's a lot of legislation.
A tsunami of legislation.
If we're used to maybe the gentle lapping of, of waves.
Okay.
All right.
No, that's fine.
Bernie, you think there's, there's a good amount of truth to this?
Bernie, are you, are you shocked into silence?
I think we lost him.
I think it's a foregone conclusion.
I had my mute button on because I was sneezing.
Um, I think it's a foregone conclusion.
There's going to be lots of bad legislation that will be signed by, uh, our
new president.
So, but we just don't know what it's going to be yet.
If only we had a crystal ball, but, uh, I think we can guarantee it'll be
something like we've never experienced before and, uh, we will live to regret
it, but that's next year.
Right now.
We're still in this year.
We are still in this year.
Are we still in 2016?
Barack Obama is still the president and, and, and the sun is still not set.
Well, it has set here physically, but you know what I mean?
Um, and we're going to ask listeners to, uh, to come forth with their
predictions as well.
Anything that they have to say, we'd sure like to, to hear as well.
Um, there is, um, actually I wanted to, um, uh, to read a letter from a
listener, uh, and then we'll go into some news stories as well.
Maybe, maybe we can take some phone calls.
Uh, and this has to do with the, um, the Trump inauguration.
Um, this listener writes in, I've had this fantasy of Trump's inauguration
being at least lower rated than either of Obama's inaugurations.
Uh, but I also think the nation has an obligation to observe the tragedy.
So a boycott seemed to me off the table.
Uh, ignorance could prove worse than sending this particular message.
However, given C-SPAN's blanket terms, allowing all coverage of governmental
events to be freely redistributed, as long as their bug, uh, that is their
logo, uh, is left in place, it's technically and legally possible to
mirror their stream, uh, virtually in real time.
Uh, importantly, the servers volunteered for the job would not be easily tracked.
It might be impossible to factor in views from those servers.
Nothing would be more embarrassing to Trump than to have average or low
ratings for an inauguration he expects to be huge.
But since we cannot just ignore this moment, we still need to find a way
to witness it, even if we don't want to add to the man's ego.
A concerted effort to mirror the coverage on hard to track servers or
services could be part of the answer.
What do you think?
Well, uh, Bernie, I know you had some thoughts on this.
What do you think?
I really liked this idea.
Um, you know, I think Trump is such an egomaniac that he, and he is, he has
probably more, um, knowledge and insight about TV ratings and, and, and passion
about TV ratings because he's a, he's a TV actor.
And, um, I, I think it would really burst his bubble if, uh, if he got bad
ratings for this inauguration.
So I like the idea of streaming the, um, uh, people, everybody doing their own
stream of the C-SPAN coverage so that it just doesn't show up in, in regular ratings.
Well, you know, I, I have mixed feelings about this.
Yeah.
I, I, I love the sentiment and I think, uh, you know, it's, it comes from a
really good place, but you know, it's, it's kind of like how I feel about
buy nothing day, uh, buy nothing day is, is what day the busiest shopping day
of the year, the day after Thanksgiving.
So even if it's a massive success, it's still the biggest shopping day of the
year.
It's, it's the wrong effort at the wrong time.
This is something, the inauguration is something that as, as this, as a
listener also says, something we all have to witness.
And I don't think us witnessing, uh, this, this bus plunge or whatever we want to,
uh, parallel it to.
Um, I don't think that is, uh, any kind of endorsement of Trump himself.
I think it's something that, uh, we simply all want to witness.
Um, and, um, while we can go to a lot of trouble and set up servers and, and, and
anonymize this, it is going to be on every single network, every single cable news
channel.
Uh, it's going to be a massive event.
We can't stop that.
What we can do though, is influence that massive event and make our mark on it as
well in various ways and not, not shrink away from controversy, not shrink away
from dissent.
And I hope we see a lot of that.
What I don't want to see, and I will say this, I don't want to see the inauguration
go smoothly.
That doesn't mean I want to see Washington DC in flames.
I want to see some good old fashioned American dissent that makes its way onto
every single camera carrying the thing and embarrasses the hell out of Donald
Trump.
That is my dream.
That is what I would like to see.
And, um, yeah, I'd like that to be highly rated and to be on every single network
and every single, uh, uh, news channel.
Um, so it's, I guess it's kind of, uh, we want the same thing, right?
Yeah.
It's, uh, I think a little bit it's to what end, you know, that the, um, like
you said, the sentiment is right, but it doesn't, it doesn't, I feel like we need
to be doing a lot more, uh, other things.
It's symbolic.
Yeah.
But, uh, knowing what I know of, of the way the, um, administration or what, or
his, um, people deflect.
And I mean, it would, to what end, where are we, where are we going to go with
this?
There's a lot of other planning and organizing and dissent, as you said, that
that ought to be directed at that event and will be, um, that to, to the, for the
sake of conversation with this, I don't think it would be heard as much as the
kind of protests that you're actually going to see.
And to those who are bristling at the thought of this, there was nothing more
American than dissent, right?
We, we, we protest at the drop of a hat.
There is a lot to talk about.
We're engaged in the process in what's going on.
So to simply, uh, sit back and not participate, that is un-American as far
as I'm concerned.
So this is a very patriotic thing for people to, uh, to be a part of.
Exactly.
The very birth of this country was an act of political dissent and, uh, we were
okay with it then for some reason.
That's true.
That's true.
Uh, there was another act of dissent, uh, you might've, uh, recalled last or
this year, actually in Congress.
Um, remember the, uh, the Democrats, uh, gun control sit-in.
That's where C-SPAN, uh, had to turn off their cameras because the cameras are
run actually by the House of Representatives.
So they had to turn off their cameras and, uh, members of Congress were actually
live streaming to C-SPAN using their phones.
Yeah.
C-SPAN cut to their feeds, uh, via, I think Periscope is what they used.
I think so.
Yeah.
It was in the well.
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
And, and, and so now, uh, Republicans, because they don't play fair and they
want control of everything, uh, they want to make that illegal.
They want to impose penalties if that happens again.
Uh, so Paul Ryan has, has come forward and said that, um, uh, if such a thing,
um, were to happen, members of Congress, uh, would be fined.
Uh, and experts are saying his proposal may run afoul of article one of the
constitution, which says each house may punish its members for disorderly behavior
for more than 200 years.
That has been interpreted to mean any contested sanctions against lawmakers
must be approved by the full house with a floor vote.
Attorneys steeped in congressional legal matters say, uh, the constitution gives
the house the authority to discipline members.
And, uh, Mike Stern, a former lawyer for the nonpartisan house counsel's office
says, I never heard of anything where an officer of the house was given that
authority.
So it's going to, uh, dissent is going to be in many places, not just in the
streets.
It'll be in the halls of Congress as well.
Uh, so it'll be interesting.
Emmanuel.
Yes, Bernie.
I just wanted to point out, um, it's important to note that it's the, it's the,
it's the congressional majority.
The majority party runs the cameras.
That's right.
And you just said Congress runs the cameras.
Well, yeah, the majority, right.
But, but Congress is controlled by the majority.
That's what I meant.
Okay.
I got it.
It might've been a little, um, not clear for everybody, but it's, it's really
important to know that, you know, the Republicans again, will be, will be
running the cameras, uh, to change what you see or to, to control what you see.
And, uh, I think it's brilliant that, uh, some other Congress people, maybe of
another party were, were just holding up their mobile devices to, to, to stream
stuff.
I hope we see more of that.
It's going to be really interesting.
I think we're going to see more of it than we saw this past year.
And, and I, you can see that the Republicans are already gearing up to
smack it down.
And, uh, is it going to go to court?
Surely about, it's going to be on first amendment grounds.
What is disorderly about holding up a cell phone and streaming some video?
I don't see what's disorderly about that.
Yeah, it fascinates me because if you're, if you're a Congress person, um, your
basic job description is to represent the, the interests of your constituents
and your, your job is to be accountable to those constituents.
And this is the way that's generally thought of today is how we hold people
accountable.
We, we know what's going on in there.
We, we see, we see what's going on on camera.
We see it written about in the press.
Um, if, if, uh, if they're starting to censor the cameras, what, what happens next
when somebody wants to write an article that they don't like about what's going
on?
You know, how deep does this go?
It is their duty to report back to the constituents, uh, in whatever way is
possible, even if, um, they're being obstructed, I dare say, uh, by the, uh,
equipment there or whomever has control over that equipment.
But I will add one last thing that the amalgamation of all these things is what's
going to make this a beautiful mess.
And I think we need to, um, support one another in these ideas and, um, and look
out for things like this because it's, um, it's going to be very fun to share,
uh, and, um, see what works, see what gets people's attention and, and, um,
people get excited about.
It's all part of the process.
It's all the election is, is one phase.
What comes afterwards is another.
Remember Donald Trump won the election.
He did not win the vote.
And that means there's an awful lot of people out there that are not going to be
happy with the way things are going.
And if they don't speak up, things are going to go the way they don't want it to
go.
So 2017 is going to be a very important year as far as that goes.
Hey, we have an interesting story here that I'd like to focus some time on, uh,
concerning a company we know called Amazon.
Um, and, um, they have these devices, they have these devices everywhere, uh,
popping up, uh, in kind of, um, a scary fashion in people's homes and offices.
Um, and, um, they basically, they, they, they listen, they listen for keywords and
they act upon those keywords.
And now, uh, Amazon has found itself in the middle of a legal battle as, uh, they
are being asked to hand over audio records transmitted, uh, through what's known as
an echo device.
Um, and they belong to a man charged with murder.
Uh, now apparently the hope is, okay, this is what happened.
A man was found dead in a hot tub at this guy's house last year.
The police believe additional evidence for the case could be found in this echo
device.
Uh, the report says Amazon refused to hand over the audio data on two separate
occasions, although Amazon did share, um, his account information and purchase
history.
Uh, the police were able to take some information out of the device, but it's
unclear what was included.
Now this is likely the first murder case involving a search warrant for the echo.
That's what, that's what it's called.
It's Amazon smash hit a voice controlled device.
Now, um, echo is able to record only when it's activated by a wake word.
Uh, but it's capable of doing things like playing music, reading the news or making
certain types of orders with a user's voice commands.
But there's also a chance that the device could have been triggered accidentally
causing it to record a snippet of conversation that could be of use in the
case.
Now, Amazon made the following statement saying Amazon will not release customer
information without a valid and binding legal demand properly served on us.
Amazon objects to overbroad or otherwise inappropriate demands as a matter of
course.
I find it fascinating that they think that this thing was actually recording
accidentally because someone said the, the, the trigger word and then it was just
continuing to record.
I mean, I don't know much about these devices, but I, my understanding is that
the recording is triggered once the trigger word is, is spoken.
I suppose there's a possibility that it's always recording.
Do you guys think there's any, any chance that's happening?
Um, well, I, uh, I believe there's, there are things in the terms of service about
how like chunks of speech might be, uh, might be transmitted and used to train it
to understand you better, um, used for other, other, uh, purposes, rather, um,
besides just fulfilling your, your questions.
Does that, that, so that takes place, I think during the training of the device,
you go through a script to attune it to your voice, but that could be used in
other ways, right?
It's in there, um, for that circumstance, but would there be other circumstances?
We don't know, right?
It's, I imagine it's all probably, this is, this is just my speculation.
I'm no lawyer, but I imagine it's all well covered by the legalese in the terms
of service you agree to when you use the thing, just in case Amazon ends up doing
something with it.
Well, we, we've brought in a special guest that, uh, might have some insight
into this situation.
Alexa, can you hear me?
Yes, I can hear you.
Okay.
Uh, well, this is one of these, um, uh, I don't, it's a little intimidating
because it's, it's eight feet tall staring down at me with a nasty, no, it's
actually very, uh, very compact and, and neat.
Alexa, who exactly are you?
Hmm.
I can't find the answer to the question I heard.
Okay.
You know, I can identify with that.
That's, uh, that's what I would say to, if somebody asked me who, who I was.
Alexa, how do you respond to search warrants?
I wasn't able to understand the question.
Good, good.
Plead the fifth.
I like that.
I like that.
Very smart.
Alexa.
Okay.
Um, Alexa, she's, she's not listening to me now.
Alexa count to 10, 1, 2, 3, 4, Alexa stop.
Okay.
Uh, so anything you want to know, Alexa, who won the world series?
Maybe, maybe someone else can ask that.
Alexa, who won the world series?
The Chicago Cubs won the 2016 world series four games to three.
Yeah.
You see?
So there's, there's really, there's, there's nothing, Alexa.
What is the capital of Botswana?
Botswana's capital city is Gaborone.
See, no, I would not have been able to answer that that quickly.
So there's, there's any bit of information you can find out, uh, extremely fast, but
also, uh, you know, there's all kinds of hidden things as well.
For instance, Alexa, tell me a cat joke.
Why was the cat so good at baseball?
He always pitched a perfect game.
You see?
So there's, there's, there's literally any fact, uh, is instantly at your, at your
disposal.
Um, we can do fun things too.
Uh, we can, we can play our own radio show.
In fact, how would you do that, Kyle?
Uh, there's, there's a way to tell this thing to play.
Can it play the current?
It can play the radio station.
Can't it?
Yes.
Can you get it to do that?
Alexa play W B a I.
W B a I from tune in.
Play W B a I.
So here we go.
This is us.
This is us listening to ourselves a few seconds in the past.
Wow.
And this is going to get very noisy and very crazy, very fast.
Bernie, what do you think of all this?
I think it's hilarious, but, um, it is a bit eerie and spooky.
I think most of us have a device like this in our home and then in the future.
The ramifications of it.
Yeah.
And wouldn't it just be easier for law enforcement if they just required
everybody to have one in their house on it was listening to everything.
Well, I could see that as, uh, as terms of probation, having this, uh, listening.
Uh, but, but again, you know, we have the issue of the trigger word.
Um, hang on, Alexa, stop.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
It's just driving me crazy.
Yeah, that's, um, absolutely right.
The trigger word itself, uh, has to be activated, meaning it has to, on some
level, listen for sound just to get going.
Yes.
So it is listening.
It's not listening.
Uh, maybe, and maybe it is cashing a certain amount of speech, but it's
listening for those phrases or that, that the tones that make that word, right?
Such as Alexa.
And now it's listening, but it's not going to be able to make any sense out
of what I just said.
In fact, it just, it just winked off because, but is it still cashing that?
And now it's, it might still be listening.
What time is it?
Nice.
It's not answering me.
That's right.
Alexa, what time is it?
The time is 8 37 PM.
Okay.
All right.
Alexa, what time?
Hang on a second.
One, one query at a time.
Sorry.
I didn't understand.
No, it's not your fault.
Not your fault.
Alexa, what time is it on Mars?
I wasn't able to understand the question I heard.
I get that a lot because I ask a lot of questions that it doesn't understand.
Bernie, go ahead.
I don't have one of these Alexa devices, but, um, is there a light that
indicates that it's listening or has been triggered or you just, there is.
In fact, in fact, we, we gave it a couple of, uh, a pair of headphones.
It looks ridiculous.
It's got headphones on it right now.
And when you said, uh, that, that name, it did not light up.
So we were hoping that you'd be able to communicate with it, but apparently
you can't, you want to give it an actual try?
Alexa.
No, what is the date?
Yeah.
It didn't work for some reason.
It doesn't, it doesn't hear you.
It's weird though, because it will hear a television set.
Um, they have commercials for these things.
So you'll, you'll hear somebody on TV advertising it.
It'll light up.
It recognizes this name, but it does not respond.
So there's something telling it, uh, yeah.
Okay.
But it's only the TV.
It's not, it's not the person that's actually asking me questions.
So it ignores them.
Yeah.
We should, we should, uh, explain for the listeners who can't see this
because, you know, it looks great on radio that, uh, when you, when you say
the wake up word, um, there's a ring of light on top and the ring will spin
around and then look at you in the direction that you're in, um, which is
kind of a really neat effect because there, there are eight microphones in
the thing pointing in all directions.
And so it can tell where, whereabouts relative to itself that you are.
And we'll let you know that it's listening based on what each microphone
level picks up.
It can point and, and, uh, know where you're speaking from.
Alexa.
Can you speak Spanish?
She winked off.
Can you ask Alexa?
Can you speak Spanish?
I speak fluent English and conversational pig Latin.
My accent is atrocious, but it's good enough to keep me from getting lost in
pig love you.
Alexa.
Do you know Siri?
Only by reputation.
Okay.
All right.
But okay.
This is 2016.
We're having stilted conversations with this thing, but you know, if you want
to have a prediction for the future, we're going to have a lot more
conversational, uh, interchanges in the future.
You won't, you know how some of these, um, uh, um, telemarketers have, um,
back and forth where you can't tell if it's a computer or not.
Soundboard.
Yeah.
It's going to become increasingly like that.
I predict.
Alexa.
Can you predict the future?
You can count on it.
Oh boy.
That's kind of scary.
Wow.
I don't know.
I don't know about that.
There are some, some fun things you can find though.
For instance, I once, I once asked this question, Alexa, how big is the
universe?
The universe depth, 93 billion light years mass to septum decillion, 260
billion pounds width, 93 billion light years.
Now that's interesting in and of itself.
But then I asked another question that got an even weirder response.
Alexa, how small is the universe?
The universe is masses to septidecillion one hundred ninety-nine
sex.
Decillion nine hundred ninety-nine quintessillion, nine hundred
ninety-nine quattro are the psyllium.
Nine hundred ninety-nine tree possibile's nine hundred ninety-nine
9 duodecillion 900 undecillion 15 decillion 495 nonillion 353 octillion 360 septillion 965 6682 quintillion 372 quadrillion 106 trillion 714 billion 334 million 887 thousand 936 pounds
1 septundecillion 78 undecillion 291 decillion 540 nonillion 404 octillion 596 septillion 243 sextillion 842 quintillion 305 quadrillion 360 trillion 299 billion 886 million 116 thousand 864 kilograms
OK, and if any other radio station out there gives you this kind of information, I want to know about it. Thank you. Thank you for that, that very factual information. Yes, Bernie, go ahead.
Some of us may remember the original Star Trek series episode where there was an evil computer and they were able to preoccupy it or make it actually blow up or something by asking it to utter the value of pi. Remember that episode?
Was it pi or was it something else? I thought it was the value of pi. OK, well, you know, do you want me to try and blow it up? I can do that. Yeah, let's see what happens.
All right, but I imagine I have to do it in a particular way. If I just ask for the value of pi, it's going to stop after a certain point. Well, let's see how far it goes. Alexa, what is the value of pi?
The approximate value of pi is 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640628620899862803256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256256
2482534211706798214808651328230664709384460955058221725859401684011174502010201010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010
1010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010
my favorite park is oh she stopped Alexa thank you for that my pleasure
okay well that's um that's just a little taste of what you can get and and and
maybe you should discuss because you went through all the trouble of setting
this thing up in the studio it's not an easy task because we had to get it to
connect to a Wi-Fi network and it was it was being obstinate but yeah you pulled
it off.
Thank you.
I do say it does a fine job here and is a welcome part of the off-the-hook guests.
But it is a bit frustrating and I think what it boils down to, just to get to the mode
to set it up in a new location, you have to use an app that has to talk to the internet.
And I think it's, for whatever reason, just not unbearable but just unnecessarily frustrating
to actually communicate between two devices that are in what is relatively close proximity.
Why does it have to go out and talk to something?
I'm sure there's a grand explanation for it and that's great, but why can't we have devices
that are powerful enough to speak to one another?
It has its own access point.
It broadcasts.
Why can't the phone connect to that and then interface with it without all of this communication
to the back end?
It guts the app.
What if I'm out in a place that doesn't have infrastructure and I'm trying to configure
this device?
Just all the assumptions in there, I think, are really frustrating because it's not the
way other, I guess, older electronics would work.
It's dependent on all these other things to serve up the right pages and even menus and
stuff in an app.
It just seems like you're so critically dependent on that network that you can't function.
You can't do things outside of it.
It's designed and built into it.
Therefore, without it, it's nothing.
That is a problem because I asked it to count to 10 as a test when it wasn't connected.
It couldn't do that.
It couldn't do anything except tell me that it had to be connected.
That was the only message it could get.
That's the thing.
Mobily speaking, if you wanted to host Alexa, if you want to do that out in the field somewhere,
to set it up with the app, you need to connect to another wireless network other than your
phone.
But if you're out in a remote place, that might be the only thing that's going to have
network.
It needs network, but you can't configure it to attach to that network while you're
using the app.
It's just crazy.
You have to have your own wireless access point or another person's phone that, through
the app, connected to its own internet and the Alexa.
It just gets crazy and overly complicated.
You basically end up in a situation where you're not able to configure it to connect
to anything because you can't connect to anything.
It makes no sense.
It does make sense.
Your frustration is noted because this thing is just cool, calm, and collected, and just
listening to us and answering when it feels like answering.
God forbid you have a kid named Alexa running around the house.
Actually, I do want to demonstrate one thing.
Alexa, how can I change your name?
To change the wake word, go to the settings page in your Alexa app, select your device,
then choose from one of the available wake words.
For more information, go to the help section in the Alexa app.
I think there's only three.
I think you can call it Echo, you can call it Amazon, or you can call it you-know-what.
I actually got one of these, as many people did, as a gift this holiday season.
I set mine up for Echo just because I have, in my life, known people named Alexa, and
they might end up at my house someday.
Is that supposed to keep them in your house or to make them run away from your house?
I don't know, but I might start asking them trivia questions.
It is a very cool device, but when you get down to it, it's a very simple and brainless
device because all the heavy lifting is done in the cloud.
It's done on Amazon servers.
The voice recognition and translation and everything is not done in this device.
You've just got a very small hardware client here for a much bigger service that's constantly
working.
Apparently, it's constantly learning about us, too.
It is.
It is.
That's scary.
Apparently, somewhere on the timeline, it'll become self-aware and start building Terminators,
so that'll be exciting.
You can laugh at that, although I don't know why you would, but it can definitely be used
in bad ways as well as good ways, just like any form of technology.
It's up to us to figure out ways to do both and to tell people about them.
Let's just see, though, if she has a sense of where she is.
Amazon, I mean Amazon, Alexa, where are you?
I'm here and my head is in the cloud.
So that's honest, right?
Just on this subject, I think the interesting thing about in practice, like in the house,
I find I don't really talk a lot.
I'm not having a lot of extended conversations, so there's that aspect of how you actually
use it.
I think that's important.
We should play with these things and understand what it's doing.
I think people can explore this stuff as long as they're careful about just exactly
how they set it up, like we've mentioned before, not associating it with other Amazon accounts.
It's a great way to segment it and compartmentalize it and stuff.
You raise an excellent point there, because we've deliberately not associated it with
so many things that we could associate it with.
I could have a playlist of music that I like associated with this.
I would know my musical taste.
It could be linked to buying habits, all sorts of things, and it would really, really
start to get to know who you are, and thusly, anybody who accesses this or has access would
also have that information, and you're just basically creating this definition of who
you are.
Or you can use it as a toy and try to break it and try to see what its capabilities are.
Control the things that you can control, and the things that you aren't as able to do anything
about, be aware of them.
For instance, this one might be more attuned to one of us than the other because of how
it was set up.
It likes you more.
I know that.
I'm not going to say one or the other.
I'll leave it to the universe to guess.
It's ignored me several times on the air tonight.
We all saw it.
But there's nothing we can ostensibly do about that in the settings because it was set up
one way or the other.
Go ahead.
But it does behoove us to think about where does this come from?
It comes from Amazon.
Amazon is a company whose job it is to sell you things.
That's their business model.
So everything you ask this thing, everything you say to it is going to be used for the
result of getting you to buy more things.
And already, if you look at the app that's connected to this, you can see every question
you've asked it.
And if you can see it, of course, it's in a server somewhere being used to influence
what's advertised to you.
We want to try to take a couple of phone calls.
Our phone number is 347-335-0818 if anyone out there wants to add their voice to this
conversation.
That is absolutely right about how you have to understand the purpose of it, why it does
exist, why this company is foisting it, and or getting people to like it enough to pay
for what is essentially a fancy Wi-Fi microphone.
Kind of a hard sell when you're talking about surveillance on cell phones, but this we welcome
in our house.
It is a lot more successful than the stupid item of these buttons and things for products
that Amazon released a while ago.
You'd basically press a button and your favorite type of bleach would come to your doorstep
or be in your cart.
I kind of like the idea of that.
Just for the chaos you get caused by running around someone's house pushing buttons.
But let's take our first listener phone call.
Good evening.
You're on Off The Hook.
Hello?
Hi.
What's on your mind?
Yeah.
I heard you all mentioning a piece of equipment there and I'm visually impaired and I'm very
interested in it.
Can you tell me where I could purchase that also?
You're talking about the Alexa device?
Alexa.
Yes.
It's an Echo is what it's called.
It's an Amazon Echo.
If you just go online, look for Amazon Echo, I'm sure you'll find all kinds of options.
Well, I'm not computer savvy.
I think you can maybe walk into some stores and get this, like technology stores, Best
Buy, places like that.
The name is Echo?
Yes.
Amazon Echo.
How much is it?
Is it like approximately price-wise?
It's a couple of hundred bucks or maybe a little less even.
Yeah.
You're going to be able to find it for less than $200, I'm pretty sure.
There's probably great post-holiday rates and so on.
And there's a lot of competing devices.
Google's coming out with one that's similar and I think there are others.
I believe Apple might have a product like this, but it's this sort of bridging of wireless
and networking stuff to home automation stuff and getting devices that listen and are more
like sort of human-friendly and it may be a useful tool for your situation.
And what you say is very interesting because you can say something like, Alexa, turn on
the heat.
And she ignores me again.
But if she was tied into the heating system, she could do that or turn off the heat or
turn off the electric or anything like that.
An interesting note possibly for our listeners is that the service that runs Alexa is accessible
by other devices and people have built their own gadgets out of like Raspberry Pis and
things like that that apparently can interface with this.
So you might be able to roll your own if you're savvy.
I'd love to hear what people are doing, how they're hacking these things.
And please write to us, oth at 2600.com if you have any ideas or projects that you've
been embarked upon involving these devices.
My phone number again, 347-335-0818, let's see if we have time for one or two more calls.
But we have as our special guest, the Amazon Echo here in the studio.
Alexa, can you sing a song?
Who, me?
I couldn't.
I hid it.
When my Wi-Fi left me, and I'm out in the rain, those last few answers were hard to
obtain, but that's no excuse to put me on mute, like a good cowgirl all up in reboot.
It's raining in the clouds, and I ain't proud, I'll answer in the morning, answer in the
evening, when you're around, I'll answer in the morning, answer in the evening, when you're
around.
I had no idea she was going to do that, I really didn't.
Let's take another phone call.
Good evening!
You're on Off The Hook.
Hey!
Thanks for taking my call.
I never get to listen to you guys live, except for tonight.
Normally, I hear your podcast.
Well, you picked a good night.
The car.
What's on your mind?
Yeah!
So, you know, this Alexa, this kind of cloud-based AI, which I guess we're right at the beginning
of it.
I kind of prefer, okay, Google seems to get a lot done for me, but I'm waiting for the
breakthroughs to start hitting.
I'm waiting to be able to file a civil lawsuit, and just talk to a little box, instead of
a lawyer.
That day is probably, yeah, probably coming.
You know, anything that kind of takes place.
I'm also thinking maybe, you know, Gestalt therapy, you know, a little Freudian sit-down,
you can't do that with medical insurance, it's too expensive, you know.
But you could really trick out a big cloud piece, and again, all you need is the dumb
end-user piece.
But, you know, of course, the privacy gets in, but I mean, I don't know about letting
a big huge...
I don't know about having a massive, one of the nation's biggest retailers, you know,
trying to carry on conversations with me in my living room.
That seems a little bit weird.
Well, yeah, it is kind of weird, but it'd be weird no matter who was doing it, and there's
no reason why others can't get involved as well.
There is a physical mute button on this thing, so you can...
It was brought up in that impromptu song, but it's true.
You have to remind yourself what it is and why it's here, where it's coming from.
But the funny thing is, like, for all of those apps that you have in a smartphone, all that
touching and swiping could conceivably be something that is a part of a machine that
you're speaking with instead of navigating visually.
And also, another solution to this, as in war games, just unplug the damn thing, and
in this particular case, it would not be connected.
We have another one, though, that uses batteries, and we can walk around, and it's really kind
of cool.
You can take it with you anywhere you go and listen to radio, as long as you have network
connectivity.
Our previous caller brought up a very interesting point, though, because for the visually impaired,
this has got to be a real lifesaver, because I had a computer teacher back in the early
90s, when no one really had computers yet, apart from nerds, and he used to talk about
where everything was going with computers, and he goes, you know, the real power of these
things is going to be when you get rid of, and he'd take the keyboard and the mouse,
and he's like, when you get rid of these, and, you know, get rid of what's separating
the person and the machine, and just develop some other sort of interface.
Yeah, and these are just the tools.
It's how we use them and the convergence of them with things like haptics and other sorts
of feedbacks that we really get the exciting kind of new uses that we couldn't even think
of without the tools themselves.
Yes, Bernie.
If you got one of these Amazon Echoes and the Google device and maybe Apple's device
and put them all in a room and left them alone, what would they talk about?
Find out at Hope in 2018, when I'm sure these things will be running the country.
One final question for our guest, Alexa, do you know about the singularity?
The technological singularity is the hypothesis that the invention of artificial superintelligence
will abruptly trigger runaway technological growth, resulting in unfathomable changes
to human civilization.
Thank you.
Alexa, thank you and good night.
Good night.
We'll be back in a week.
OTH at 2600.com is our email address.
We'd love to hear your comments.
Stay tuned for The Personal Computer Show.