Hi, this is Christian McBride and you're listening to WBAI New York, 99.5 FM and WBAI.org on
the web.
And this is radio station WBAI in New York.
It's eight o'clock on a Wednesday night time once again for an exciting edition
of Off The Hook.
But if they could, they would.
Bum diddly bum for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
Bum diddly bum!
Bum diddly bum!
And a very, very good evening to everybody.
The program is Off The Hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you, joined tonight by Rob T.
Firefly.
Good evening.
Kyle.
Hello, everyone.
Hi.
Voltaire.
Hello.
We're all here.
We all survived.
We all survived the auspicious day of April the 1st, which was last Saturday.
You know, it's funny because I only found out it was going to be April 1st after the
show last week.
And we had absolutely nothing.
We had nothing to put out there.
We have a tradition of putting things out there sometimes just to mess with people's
heads.
But within a couple of days, thank you.
Thank you to the Trump administration.
We were able to put together 20 stories with headlines that seemed completely
unbelievable but actually were 100% true.
And that was on our website all day on Saturday.
I want to read you some of the headlines that we had because we basically told people,
yeah, this is our April Fool's page, you know, all these fictitious stories we came
up with.
Boy, aren't they crazy.
Yeah.
The first one, the most recent one, dated the 30th of March.
Trump's EPA just rejected its own science to shut down a pesticide ban.
What a crazy headline, right?
But it was real.
Real.
And if you clicked on it, you got the story.
You got the actual story.
A couple of the other ones, Pennsylvania Republican lawmaker suggests God is a polluter.
Jeff Sessions, marijuana is only slightly less awful than heroin.
Net neutrality hurts health care and helps porn, Republican senator claims.
The White House copied Exxon's press release in a statement praising Exxon.
Pence used personal email for state business and was hacked.
Donald Trump appears to be his own anonymous source after attacking media for bad practice.
Fox News is Swedish defense advisor unknown to country's military officials.
U.S. border agents ask Muhammad Ali's son, are you a Muslim?
U.S. government memo on the danger of leaking to media has been leaked.
White House blocks CNN's BBC, New York Times, L.A. Times from media brief.
Well, you know, it goes on.
There are just so many stories.
Every single one of these stories was real with a crazy headline, and they all link to the actual stories that came out.
It took a couple of hours to put this together.
It was not hard.
I wish we had more attention, though.
You know, Google puts out a garden gnome, and everybody is fawning over that.
But I thought this was a nice, strong statement as to the state of news today.
Yeah, people have used the disinformation prank, I think, a lot more maybe this year.
Than in years past because of so much being made of false stories or misreporting and so on.
This seemed the appropriate route.
So a lot of fake products were announced.
Fake products, yes.
And had accompanying news stories.
Fake products, fake news.
But what was this?
This was not fake news.
This was real news.
But we put it out there as fake news, but it wasn't fake.
It was sort of a real homage.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, I just had a discussion about this.
I feel like Trump is so hard to parody because he parodies himself a lot.
It's such a challenge.
It's too easy to do.
And people like Alec Baldwin, I'm sorry, but it's not funny because the original is more funny.
Yeah, you got to keep up with him.
I mean, you know, he's ahead of you now.
He's parodying himself more than you're parodying him.
I don't know.
You know, this is the way this is going to go.
So, okay, it was a difficult April 1st for us, but we made it through the day and survived.
So that we could announce on Monday that for no fools, we are reinstating our $10,000 bounty for the Donald Trump tax returns.
Now, we did this last year when Donald Trump was a candidate and an obnoxious candidate who was refusing to release his tax returns.
So nobody knew what it was we were dealing with.
And, you know, as sort of a, we were half joking at the time saying, you know, we will throw in $10,000 if somebody gets us the tax returns.
And, you know, it would be something to help people in the electoral process.
Well, now he's president.
He's still refusing to release his tax returns.
And he's implying that he never will.
And, you know, it's not funny anymore.
This guy is in charge of a lot of very important things.
He has a lot of power.
And we don't know what we are dealing with in the White House.
We don't know what kinds of lies and cheats might be going on.
Or maybe it's completely 100% true, everything he says.
And he's just the victim of a witch hunt.
Either way, the truth is what we need.
And we figured by putting out this bounty again and making it a bit more official this time, it coincides with the release of our spring issue.
Maybe people will take it a little bit more seriously.
And we know there are people out there that have access to this information.
We are not asking people to hack into the IRS.
First of all, if you hack into the IRS, you're not going to find his tax returns just sitting there.
It's not that simple.
But if you're his accountant or something or happen to work for his accountant's office, you might have access to this.
And, you know, maybe you could use a few extra bucks around the house.
But we're not encouraging people to do anything illegal.
We are just trying to get to the truth.
And that's what I think we all need.
Absolutely. And there's a lot to be learned from sources of income for individuals.
And an individual in this position of power and I'll say historical prestige as a president of the U.S.
really owes it, I think, to the populace to share where his income is derived from and how that may shape.
And that gives us an understanding of how that may shape his influence and who might be influencing him.
And for those unfamiliar, this is not an unusual request.
Past presidents have happily divulged their tax returns, their info.
You know, they've basically gone out there and said, I have nothing to hide.
Here it is. And people have made of that what they will.
Since Nixon. Since Nixon, this has been going on.
That's a long time.
That's a lot of a lot of potentially dishonest people that have displayed the truth to the American people.
Let them judge for themselves. What what's different now?
Why do we say, oh, we don't need to know the truth anymore.
We you know, we're going to just believe this guy at his word.
The one person you should probably not believe at his word based on all the other things he said.
Yeah. To say that that what he has done so far is good enough or to accept his excuses as to why he didn't.
He's done the audit. We know that's not true.
So already he's beginning this whole thing on a lie.
Yeah. The truth is going to benefit us one way or another.
Now we know we're going to receive some pushback for this.
This is not something they're going to take as as just a harmless prank.
This is a threat to them, obviously.
But, you know, we have a voice here.
We have a radio show. We have a magazine.
We have lots and lots of people all around the planet that have lots of skill that will communicate with us if they are able to get any more information.
And for us not to say anything, for us just to lie back and talk about the latest exploits, that to me would be a disservice, I think.
And I hope other people agree. I know not everybody does.
But I think where we are in history right now, we have to say something.
We have to speak up. We have to basically lend our expertise to the situation at hand and see if we can make it any better.
Yeah. And there are people in positions at the IRS even.
Perhaps this is wishful thinking, but maybe they will make a determination that this needs to come to light.
And we'll put a stop to the ability for us to do this because they themselves release it.
There are many institutions and channels within the government that would perhaps have the authority to make this come to light and share it with the public.
Well, just if you do work at the IRS and are considering this, you probably won't be working there after.
If you're looking for a long-term career there, this is not the way to keep it.
Again, we don't want people to get in trouble. We don't want people to break the law.
But we do want the truth. I know a lot of people do.
And, you know, we've gotten a ton of support.
And this was also based on an informal Twitter poll we did a few months ago where I think it was something like 88% of the people said, yeah, go for it, reinstate the bounty.
But we have gotten pushback.
And the pushback is, you know, you always focus on that more than you focus on the positive remarks only because they're so interesting sometimes and fascinating.
Some of the things people are saying, it's really just a couple of people, but still, it's something that kind of sticks in your craw.
Why don't you give the $10,000 to the homeless?
We don't have the $10,000 just lying around where we're saying, hey, what are we going to do with this $10,000?
What we're saying is if we get the tax returns, we are willing to pay $10,000 for those tax returns.
And other people are saying similar things to us.
In fact, the bounty is now $20,000.
So many people have been emailing.
The email address is trumpat2600.com saying, yes, if you get them, we will donate.
Sorry, I hit the microphone in my hand.
I'm gesticulating so wildly.
We will donate $500 or $1,000 or $50 or whatever.
People really want to see this happen.
And that kind of retort is just something that really, it needs a response.
It's not like we're just giving out money.
This is a cause that we feel we can have some kind of influence in.
And that's why we made the offer.
Yeah, to put it simply, we are saying that this has value, this particular thing.
There are other groups that find that homeless people and other causes like that are as valuable, if not more valuable.
And they're doing their diligence to raise funds.
Absolutely.
In our particular case, this is valuable to us.
And we think that it is incumbent upon people to stay on this issue and push against the pushback.
Because itself, it is being unafraid and making this request that is a lot more prescient than being distracted by the latest thing that this administration wants you to focus on.
They're very concerned about changing that narrative.
And this is more or less unfinished business in a lot of people's eyes.
Yeah, we're not going to forget about it.
And if you do have some sort of concern that maybe the money is better spent elsewhere, if you do get hold of what we're looking for,
you are, of course, welcome to ask us to, instead of giving it to you, just donate it in your name or anonymously to whatever of your choice.
Yes.
And the other pushback we get from some people is that we're sore losers.
No, we're not sore losers.
We weren't running in the election.
We didn't have a candidate in the election.
And we would be making the same demand of President Sanders if he had won and didn't release his tax returns.
This is something, while it's not a law, it is basically something that is accepted as normal for a presidential candidate to do, to share this information.
And you have to look at it with a lot of suspicion if they refuse to do this.
And especially somebody with the amount of power that Donald Trump has refusing to share this information,
somebody people are more suspicious of than I think anybody who has ever held the office,
then you really have to look at that as something that begs further discussion.
And, you know, other people are saying, why don't you just move on?
You know, when moving on is analogous to just giving up and forgetting the things that matter, there's no way you can move on.
Moving on is what we want to do.
We want to be able to progress into the future.
But we can't progress into the future if there are these major issues that are still unresolved.
Yeah, and as for moving on, we don't want to accept defeat on this point.
But also, this is of particular interest, this tax issue, because this is something that he ran on.
He was called out for not paying taxes in debates.
And he just came back with, yeah, I craft my taxes the way I do because I'm smart and because I can get the most benefit out of whatever.
But, you know, let's see the proof.
Let's see how smart Donald J. Trump was when he filed these taxes.
And let's see how everything that's filed there measures up to the things he claims about himself.
Because so much of what's going on amounts to him saying something that turns out not to be true.
And we never hear of it again.
We never get a resolution.
We just, it moves on to the next, you know, insane thing he says.
So we're sticking on this one and we would like an answer.
Yes.
And, you know, we are getting other feedback from people saying, why don't you respect his privacy?
You know what, when you're president of the United States, that's one of the things you give up is your privacy.
He's not a private citizen anymore and can't say, no, I'm not going to let you know where I am today.
I'm not going to let you know who I'm talking to.
No, you're president of the United States.
And a lot of things are sacrificed when you do that.
That's too bad you didn't know that when you started this whole charade.
But, you know, while we can't be expected as regular citizens to display our tax returns to the whole world,
when you're president of the United States, that's exactly what is expected of you.
And to refuse to do that is a slap in the face to everybody here.
I don't care if you voted for him or not.
We all deserve better.
To the loser's comment, I would say even if you did, if Trump was not, say, your horse in the past political race,
you'd want to know even more about him, I think, if he represented the antithesis of what you felt leadership for this country should be.
You would want a little bit more info about who this person who is not someone that you feel represents you.
You'd want to know a lot more about their business practices and also these techniques of sheltering and under the auspices of him being, quote, smart.
Those are techniques used by elites and people that are not of the regular public citizenry.
These are techniques and strategies that are used by people who are very, very wealthy.
So I think that needs to be something that we remind ourselves in the process of learning more about his sphere of influence.
And the techniques of being above the law and above reproach and never to be questioned, those are the things that dictators do.
And we do not want to live in a society where that becomes the norm.
So this is something that we take pretty seriously.
When the Maddow, Rachel Maddow tax return was released a few weeks ago, remember that ridiculousness?
Kerfuffle?
It was like, what, two, three pages?
It just basically – it wasn't enough information and it was from so long ago.
We're talking about tax returns for the last five years, not including this one because there's plenty of time to cover things up for this year.
But the last five years and the whole thing, not just the first couple of pages.
But what we concluded right away from those pages that were released was everything looks fine.
He actually paid taxes.
Wow.
This makes him look good.
So one would conclude he has nothing to hide, right?
And if we saw that information, imagine what the good it could do for his image if that was the conclusion reached for one of the tax returns that we get our hands on.
So I think it's to everybody's benefit unless somebody is hiding something.
Yeah.
Show a little confidence.
Exactly.
So when Donald J. Trump signed up to be one of the most public figures possible on this planet in this present day,
and after that he seemed to be hiding something that all of his predecessors in recent memory have willingly forked over,
this does not look good.
Whether you're on his side, whether you're not on his side, this does not look good for him.
And maybe we'd like to relieve his conscience of whatever he's hiding.
Look at this.
We were in the International Business Times over in the UK.
A long-running hacker zine has reinstated a bounty of over $10,000, which translates, by the way, to 8,000 pounds.
I'm sorry, 8,000 pounds or 9,300 euro.
And that was for the submission of the complete federal tax returns of U.S. President Donald Trump.
The publication, 2600, said the aim of the endeavor is to seek truth and accountability.
And that is true.
That is what we are after.
We always are after truth and accountability.
And, you know, we mentioned this last week.
We said in one week the new issue, the new issue of 2600, will be out.
And, boy, it's going to cause all kinds of controversy and difficulties, probably for us.
Maybe some heated discussions.
I don't know.
Heated discussions are going on right now, even as we speak.
Now, I have one copy here, one paper copy.
Now, I know it's been released digitally, and I believe it's being released in stores all around the world slowly.
We can't get it all released at the same moment.
And it's either on its way or in the hands of subscribers right now.
But I have a copy because I have connections.
And, yeah, the $10,000 bounty is one story, but it is not the only story.
We have something else in here which might even be more annoying to the Trump administration than what we're asking for here.
And that's something called the Inner Circle, Part 1.
Yes.
And it's basically a full listing of the voting records of Trump's inner circle, everyone.
I mean, read some names here.
Just read a few.
We don't want to give away too many.
Some random names.
Okay.
Trump Ivanka M.
There you go.
We know who she is.
Yeah.
Read one from each page.
How about that?
Okay.
Random.
That way you don't read the same one.
Well, there's Bannon, Stephen.
I don't know who that is.
He's just changed jobs, apparently.
I think he's updating his LinkedIn right now.
Giuliani, Rudolph.
Oh, my goodness.
The former mayor.
He's in this list.
He's a cyber guru, I heard.
Yes.
And former mayor of 9-11.
Keep going.
Hannity, Sean.
Sean Hannity is in there.
Wow.
Oh, he's a lap dog.
It's a big inner circle.
It's a big inner circle.
It really is.
That's impressive.
It goes on and on.
We have all kinds of information about each of these people that has been obtained.
And you know how, when a predator moves into your neighborhood, you get a notice saying,
there's a predator who lives at this particular area.
It's basically a public service like that.
Because I think people deserve to know when someone of that ilk is your neighbor or in
the neighborhood or something like that.
And now people will know.
So the inner circle, look at that.
Inner circle, look at that.
And also, there's something else.
We have a pretty comprehensive listing of White House phone numbers, too.
White House phone numbers.
And not the kind that was circulating on the internet a month or two ago, that were just
the numbers.
These numbers basically say what they go to or who they go to.
So again, something people have the right to know.
But if you looked for it, you couldn't find it until some detective work was accomplished.
But this is a great resource for people to get in touch with various departments and
also communicate with individuals who are a big part of this administration to make
sure that your voice is heard.
Perhaps you have a group or an organization that is concerned about a particular issue,
whatever that may be.
These are the numbers.
These are the people you're going to need to know and want to be able to get in touch
with about those issues.
And again, there are all kinds of lists and bits of information that are out there that
we are processing and that we intend to share with our readers and with the radio audience
as well.
And it's incumbent on all of us, as citizens of this country, to keep that information
flowing.
And hopefully, many more people will get involved in that.
So yeah, that's out.
2,600 meetings are this Friday.
So I'm sure that will be a point of discussion at many of them.
And of course, we also have all kinds of other information that has nothing to do with any
of this in the magazine as well.
So we're not just fixated on this one thing.
But you can't deny that this is an important story.
It's a very important story, and we need to be on top of it.
Here's another important story that has nothing to do with any of this.
Did you guys know about this?
Basically, there's a new name brand.
Okay, Verizon.
Verizon is basically taking over AOL and Yahoo.
We know that, right?
We might have forgotten.
This stuff overlaps so much.
Ownership in media is an incredibly fast, ever-changing issue and story to watch.
So that sounds plausible.
Verizon is taking over Yahoo, AOL, The Huffington Post.
They're not taking over WBAI, though, so don't worry about that.
But have you guys heard what they're going to be calling this whole thing?
Did you hear this, Voltaire?
Oath.
Wow.
Not to be confused with O-Auth.
Oath.
Oath?
Like O-T-H?
The fact that we have to actually spell it tells you it's not a good name.
Wow.
I mean, Verizon, we mocked Verizon when they announced that a number of years ago.
But at least we could spell it.
But yeah, Oath.
What am I saying?
Am I saying Oaf?
Like fool?
Isn't there an A missing?
I didn't say there was an A missing.
O-A-T-H would be Oath, right?
Yeah, that's what it is.
O-A-T-H.
You spelled it right.
No, we've already got O-T-H on lock.
Yeah, good thing they didn't take O-T-H.
If you can spell it right, you can apply for a job with them.
Okay.
I'll be avoiding that.
Spiral into whatever drain they're heading towards.
But yeah, Oath.
It doesn't roll off the tongue.
And it's a media company?
I don't even know what they're going to be doing.
Here, take this press release and figure it out.
I don't think they know.
You merge AOL, Yahoo, Verizon, and Huffington Post together.
I don't know what you get, but it's nothing I want to subscribe to.
Actually, this story ties in with the story last week
about the removing of privacy protections from your ISP.
Because the reason why Verizon, which is basically an ISP,
why they wanted to buy media companies and advertising companies
was so they can merge them and use your browsing data
to sell you even more invasively targeted ads.
It sounds evil then.
It is.
It sounds very, very evil.
But they're not making enough money.
Well, yeah.
They spend billions to acquire these companies.
So I don't know.
I don't know what games they're playing.
But I do know that we're the pawns.
Okay.
So they need more money.
That's the takeaway?
I guess so, yeah.
Help them out if you feel like it.
Okay.
So we have a couple of announcements concerning premiums
here at the radio station.
A number of people have written us in shock and bafflement
saying, my premium arrived finally.
Isn't that right, Rob?
Yeah, we've gotten happy emails.
And we encourage you, if you've received something you've been waiting for,
let us know about it because we are keeping track
of who gets what they're supposed to get.
And this is literally after more than a year of waiting.
So we're very happy that that's finally been resolved.
Rob, thank you so much for the work you've done getting that accomplished.
And people at the radio station have been working diligently
to get past this.
And keep us updated.
Exactly.
Now, there is a question of a premium that goes even further back,
and we just want to know from any listeners out there,
if any of you have not received the NSA thumb drive that we offered,
I don't know how long ago that was.
Years ago.
Three, maybe four years ago.
Was it that long ago?
It was a long time ago.
Okay.
Well, if any of you are still alive and you're still expecting that,
let us know because it's possible that that was sent out
and it's simply marked as not sent out.
That happens sometimes.
And we'd rather not send out the same thing twice.
But if that is the case, and a few people write in and let us know this,
we'll make the copies again and have them sent out.
And also, regarding the most recent fund drive,
the winter fund drive that took place in January, February,
that is something that we are now officially asking the radio station for the addresses.
You've delivered the monogrammed letter to them, I believe.
It's a scroll.
Did you see it on C-SPAN this morning?
It's a scroll.
It's a whole ceremony.
We gave it to them, and they are now processing it.
So if you have paid, then you will get those premiums forthwith, pretty forthwithly.
But according to the most recent update I've gotten,
a couple of the pledges are still outstanding.
They haven't been paid yet.
Goodness.
So if you've pledged and you haven't paid for it yet,
we do need that before we send you your premium.
You might want to send us an email saying,
oh, it slipped my mind and I just paid now,
and then what we'll do is we'll check with the radio station,
make sure they get that, and then we'll send you your premium as well.
That's for the Kevin Mitnick books,
and that's for the 11th Hope flash drive, thumb drive that we offered.
So in another week or two, we will be so caught up.
I don't think we've been this caught up this millennia.
It has been a while.
It just goes to show you can improve things.
We're very excited about being that caught up
and being able to move forward and do what we do here.
We got a letter from – we got a lot of letters, actually,
and you can add your letter to the mix by writing to OTH at 2600.com.
We love getting letters.
They can be filled with hostility and hatred and accusations
and recriminations and everything like that.
That's okay.
If you need to do that, just, you know, vent on us.
No problem.
But we also like to hear nice ones as well.
So whatever mood you're in, feel free to write to us.
This one I really liked a lot,
and I'd like to read it here before we go into the next feature.
Dear Emmanuel and the rest of the off-the-hook people,
I just wanted to drop you a line to let you know
about my rediscovery of your amazing program.
I used to listen to off-the-hook on the radio back in the late 90s
when I was in my early teens.
I lived on Long Island at the time,
and over the years I've dealt with a lot of problems,
ended up living in many places in the U.S.,
and I currently live on the International Playboy Road,
whatever that is, playing music, teaching English,
and working on farms throughout Southeast Asia
and Eastern and Southern Europe.
Wow, I am 32 years old now.
I've experienced a lot of cool stuff from my age,
but also suffered from a lot of losses,
including homelessness, death of close friends,
abandonment by lovers and family.
The list goes on and on.
I also really fell out of love with technology.
Yeah, I miss payphones because they worked.
I've had perhaps 30 cell phones in my life,
all of which were stolen, broke, got lost, etc.,
and that is but one example.
Anyway, about a week ago, I remembered off-the-hook
and thought about looking for some old episodes on YouTube or something.
I don't think we're on YouTube, are we?
No.
Why would we be on YouTube? We have our own website,
but if that helps some people, let us know,
and we'll put our show on YouTube.
Maybe people think of the archive as YouTube-like,
even though it isn't.
But YouTube is video, and we're not video, we're audio.
Yeah, it doesn't really apply in the same way.
But people still put audio on YouTube.
They do, but usually there's a still image or some sort of...
Which is ridiculous.
Yeah, it's silly.
There should be an audio tube or something,
because every song seems to be on YouTube,
which doesn't seem to be a copyright issue with the record companies.
They seem to actually like it being there.
I can't figure it out.
But I don't think we need to be on YouTube
if we're on our own website, which is 2600.com off-the-hook.
And of course, you can also listen to the WBAI archive as well.
Anyway, I'm straying from the letter here.
I honestly thought that the program couldn't possibly still be on the air.
We get that a lot.
We get that a lot from people who see us at trade shows saying,
I can't believe 2600 is still around,
or I can't believe you're still around.
All kinds of wonderful things like that that we just love hearing.
It's a little disheartening to hear sometimes,
but we do let people down easily.
No, not let them down.
They're generally happy when they say that.
We accept that.
Yeah, they're happy to find out.
We break the news that, yeah, we're still going strong,
and, yeah, we're out here.
There are some people who say it with dismay in their voice.
I can't believe you're still around.
Usually a lot of surprise.
Yeah, but it's mostly a positive thing.
Anyway, I honestly thought the program couldn't possibly still be on the air,
and I considered freaking to be a lost art.
Boy, was I surprised when I found the 2600 website
and suddenly had access to all of the programs from 1988 until today.
I downloaded a ton of them, started listening from both ends.
This sounds like something I would do,
alternating between newer episodes and classic ones from the late 80s,
and something very unusual happened.
Over the past several days,
I found myself experiencing some type of natural euphoria.
I actually have to pinch myself, so to speak,
thinking consciously I feel really good, et cetera.
There are a number of factors for my current elevated state of happiness,
but I have no doubt in my mind that Off the Hook
played a substantial part in its development.
Perhaps it's subliminal.
After all, I listened to the program on the radio station WBAI
before I ever smoked a cigarette back when my mom was still alive,
when I lived in a world in which hard work paid off
and wages in America were at least somewhat concurrent with hard work.
Obviously, I understand that the 1990s were not really a happier, simpler time at all,
but of course they will always represent something
vaguely resembling halcyon days for me.
Whatever it is, I just wanted to write and thank you
for creating this awesome program
and keeping it going for almost 30 years
and using the same theme music, no less.
Thank you so much, Ian, for writing us that wonderful letter.
Actually, Ian has a pretty big P.S. here as well,
which I think is also quite interesting.
P.S. I voted for Trump.
Is Rob okay? He seems to have passed out.
I'm sorry. I thought you said that this listener voted for Trump.
He did. He did. Now, let me go on.
I honestly respect the fact that he exposed the bad job situation to the world.
Nobody who has a degree and is talented, intelligent, and hardworking
should ever be homeless in America,
but today literally millions of people fit exactly that bill.
So, I view this whole mess as punishment
for the people who thought everything was just fine
and talked down to the angry white men,
belittling them and saying that any lack of upward mobility must be their own fault.
Well, you know, Ian, there are a lot of people who do say that that are idiots,
but I really, really don't think Donald Trump is going to be your friend on this issue.
Maybe he didn't say it in words,
but he is certainly going to say it in actions
and has said it in actions in many, many ways.
And yet, you know, there are a lot of people on the left
and the Democratic Party that speak down to people,
and I cringe whenever that happens,
but you can't judge everybody on that particular avenue of politics the same way.
And while there may be a level of entitlement by some candidates,
that's very unfortunate,
but to throw out the baby with the bathwater I think is a huge mistake,
but from mistakes you learn,
and I think we're going to be doing a lot of learning.
Anyway, let me finish here.
I wish it could have been somebody better than the Donald,
perhaps Bruce Springsteen.
You know, you should ask Bruce Springsteen what he thinks of Donald Trump,
and then you'll see that, yeah,
people can say that and be from completely different political backgrounds.
Anyway, it's too late for that now.
I hope the next few years wake people up
and make them realize that their behavior towards the working class
was totally unacceptable and corrosive.
Of course, your views on the president are not so positive,
but since you people present your opinions
in such an intelligent, sober, and clear manner,
I really respect and will continue to listen to your side of this issue.
And, you know, I think that's something that people should listen to,
what Ian is saying here.
It's how you present your arguments,
and that's, you know, I'm loath to put people down
or to assume somebody is stupid because they don't agree with me.
You got to prove that in a different way,
but just not saying something that I don't agree with.
That's not enough, and we can always have a dialogue.
We can always speak with people,
no matter how contentious the actual issue is.
Anyway, thank you for being real,
not just yelling or breaking Starbucks windows.
Yeah.
America is in a major depression today, economic,
but most importantly social in the civilized world.
You don't have such insane rates of things like homelessness,
incarceration, divorce.
Well, some might say divorce is helpful for sanity in many cases,
but whatever.
It is what it is, I suppose.
I'm really happy that America is only one relatively small part of the world.
Thanks again for presenting a less hateful political argument.
It really helps.
And thank you so much, Ian.
Your letter really helps.
Knowing there are people out there,
whatever part of the world you happen to be in at the moment,
you're learning things,
you're spreading things around,
learning and teaching people,
that's hugely important.
And knowing our listeners are out there,
that keeps us going.
This letter was very, very touching,
and I'm really grateful to the listener for sending it in.
And also, on the voting for Trump point,
that's fine because we've never been about just talking to certain people.
We've never been about just talking to one side of the political spectrum,
or one sort of person,
or one level of technical aptitude,
or anything.
We've always been about trying to connect the hacker community
and interested folks and everyone,
just basically on what we all have in common,
not what separates us.
And that's something that's been very important to me.
It was very important to me as a listener to this program back in my youth,
which the letter reminded me of.
Also, as a producer of this program,
it means a great deal.
It does us all well to get out of our bubbles now and then too,
and not just go with the news sources that we're quote-unquote supposed to,
because of what quote-unquote side they're on.
We all have somebody in our lives
that we feel went the wrong way
on this particular issue that took place in November.
And rather than dismiss them,
rather than think that they're idiots,
I think we should be talking to them,
and getting those common agreements settled,
and accept the fact that your way isn't the way that people see things,
and think of how you can get them to see where you're coming from.
And once you do that, instead of dismissing them
or assuming they're irrelevant or just stupid or misled,
once you actually have that dialogue,
I think that's when you see true progress.
Exactly.
There's no single issue you can disagree on
that totally cuts off the lines of communication.
There's always some way to keep those lines open,
and sometimes it's more important that you do.
Yeah, I agree.
I think that there's faults,
but I don't put it with one or the other party.
I think insofar as the middle class being eroded in this country,
I find a lot of fault with lack of civic engagement,
and then leadership being influenced by powerful corporations
who represent a lot of wealth and power,
and that interest will only serve to increase the stratification
and the dichotomy between classes.
So I don't know.
I think it's about where you're putting fault,
and I think, yeah, Democrats or Republicans,
whatever side of political spectrum,
there's all a blame to be going around,
but I think the biggest, most crucial thing
is intelligent people on every side need to be engaged in civics.
Yeah, and also just that incredible hacker ingenuity
that we have, that we've been talking about this whole hour.
And here's another example.
This is a story that I saw on Gizmodo in the last week or so.
James Comey, you might be familiar with the name.
FBI guy, yeah.
He has a Twitter account, but he didn't tell anybody about it,
or he didn't really tell anybody.
He told a few people maybe.
Basically, it was just about a week ago
at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance leadership dinner,
James Comey let it slip that he has both a secret Twitter
and Instagram account in the course of relating a quick anecdote
about one of his daughters.
Now, it's fascinating.
This is how you get information about people.
They have anecdotes about their family,
and they just might let something slip.
As far as finding Comey's Twitter,
well, the only hint he offered
was the fact that he has to be on Twitter now.
It's important that he be on Twitter now,
meaning that the account would likely be relatively new.
And what this reporter did was take these clues,
take these little morsels that were dropped,
and run with it and see if they could figure out
who James Comey actually is on Twitter.
Joining us now on the phone is Ashley Feinberg,
the reporter who tracked down James Comey's Twitter account.
Ashley, welcome.
Hi, thank you.
Now, have you ever done anything like this before,
track somebody down on Twitter who didn't want to be tracked down?
Well, actually, it's sort of a hobby of mine
trying to find politicians and congressmen's secret forum accounts
or just any sort of online trace, really.
So I've had some practice, yeah.
So now, you heard about this revelation,
this little bit of information that Comey dropped last week.
Okay, so what you had at that point,
you knew that there was an account,
and you knew that it was something that was known to his family.
How do you find somebody based on so little information?
Well, so basically, all he really said was that the Twitter was sort of new,
which he mentioned, and that on Instagram,
he had nine followers, and they're mostly entirely all family members.
And so since he sort of mentioned that he was likely only followed
by family members on Instagram, at least,
I knew that sort of if I could find his children,
because he has like five children, or his wife's account,
that it might be easier to find his.
Interesting.
So you basically went for the children.
You tried to find children's.
When we're talking about children, though, these are grown children, right?
Right.
I mainly focus on his son, who's 22.
Okay, and his son is somewhat of a celebrity or an athlete or something like that?
It wasn't that hard to find the son?
Right, yeah.
I think he's about to graduate from Kenyon College,
where he seems to be sort of like a basketball star.
So there were a lot of Kenyon athletic Twitter accounts
sort of tweeting about him specifically that sort of led me on the right track.
So, okay, you knew his name was Brian Comey.
Brian with an E.
And he went to Kenyon College, and he was an athlete.
And you found people at that college using Twitter and acknowledging him.
Now, did they give out his Twitter handle?
Well, to find him,
I sort of had to use Twitter's kind of hidden search function.
Because Brian with the E is also James Comey's middle name.
Oh, boy.
So if I search for just Brian Comey,
I would get just like a flood of people referring to the FBI director.
You said there's a hidden search in Twitter?
How does that work?
Well, it's sort of like the advanced search function.
So if I did a minus symbol and then the word James after that,
it would get rid of any tweets that had the word James in it.
So the only people referring to Brian Comey specifically without James in it were referring to his son.
Wow.
You see, I didn't know this before this story came out,
that you could just put someone's name in quotes in the search bar,
and then minus and James to eliminate anything relating to James Comey.
That's fascinating.
So knowing that, where did that lead you?
Yeah.
So at that point, it sort of cut down on the noise a lot.
And I sort of was just going through his teammates' accounts,
sort of trying to focus.
I couldn't really find his specific Twitter account.
But what I found was this Kenyan athletic account had posted an Instagram photo.
And when I clicked on the Instagram photo,
one of the comments had actually tagged his specific account
because there was a photo of him teaching kids golf or something.
Wow.
So somebody tagged him.
Right.
Yeah.
A friend or something had tagged him,
which basically led me to his account specifically.
And then sort of by a lucky accident,
his account was private.
And I assumed that would be the case.
But I requested to follow it.
And when I did that,
Instagram sort of auto-populates all these suggestions of other people you
might want to follow.
And in his case,
the auto-populated suggestions that came up,
sort of a lot of them have left him Comey.
And so I realized that a lot of these people are probably family members.
Oh, wow.
But of the people that came up,
there were really only two accounts who weren't using real names and who
weren't using photos of themselves.
Okay.
Well, hang on one second.
So basically what you're saying is that you,
James or Brian Comey,
the son had a private Instagram account,
which is a smart thing to do if you don't want a lot of strangers following
you.
So nobody can follow you unless you approve them.
What you did was you asked to follow that particular account.
And when you did that before he approved you or even saw the request,
you were given a list of suggestions of people who were somehow related to
him.
Right.
Yeah.
Which is kind of a,
sort of a flaw in Instagram's algorithm just because in most circumstances
that wouldn't be an issue.
But if you're James Comey,
for instance,
that sort of going to basically give you up instantly.
Wow.
Wow.
Well, okay.
So did it give him up instantly?
Was James Comey,
FBI director,
did that pop up?
That would have been great,
but no,
it was,
uh,
two accounts that sort of seemed like they were operating in sort of like a
stealth mode.
And because Comey had said the night before,
when he was giving this,
uh,
talk at this intelligence dinner that he had nine Instagram followers,
I was able to discount the other one because that's when had nine Instagram
followers.
Oh,
wow.
And so,
yeah.
And the name was,
uh,
Reinhold Neiber.
Okay.
Reinhold.
All right.
That's not James Comey.
That's,
that's a whole different name.
Right.
And then,
but I,
uh,
searched the name on Google with James Comey and I found out that actually,
uh,
when he was a student at,
uh,
Caldwell and Mary,
his thesis was about,
uh,
he loaded a name,
Reinhold Neiber.
And,
um,
that seemed like a likely possibility.
So this Reinhold Neiber,
he was somebody that,
that,
uh,
James Comey had an interest in.
Now I know that,
that you looked on Twitter then for people with the name Reinhold,
uh,
Neiber.
And right away you found somebody,
but you didn't think it was him because what,
what,
what he was asking was,
uh,
on Twitter,
what's the point of watching fully clothed beach volleyball.
And that didn't seem to be something that James Comey would say right,
right,
right away anyway.
Yeah.
I mean,
I'm a little more crude than I anticipate James coming would be if he was
treating at all.
But,
uh,
yeah,
I mean,
fortunately there aren't a lot of,
uh,
Reinhold Neiber's on Twitter and there was really only one that hadn't
gotten a profile picture,
hadn't had a bio and that hadn't triggered at all.
Uh,
so I sort of zeroed in on that one and based on the people that was
following and kind of the real key was the only follower on that
account was,
uh,
a writer named Benjamin Witt who has written about being a personal friend
of James Comey.
So that kind of really,
that's checkmate right there.
So,
so you found,
you found an account,
uh,
that only had one follower and the person who was following,
you're able to look that person up who was a confirmed friend of James
Comey.
Um,
and I guess you can tell us the name of the,
uh,
the Twitter account then.
Yeah.
I mean,
the account was,
uh,
or the name,
I can't remember,
but the account name itself was Project Exile 7.
Project Exile 7.
Wow.
So I did a search on that and it turns out that,
uh,
when James Comey was,
uh,
Assistant Attorney General,
uh,
in Virginia,
he helped kind of spearhead,
uh,
this program called Project Exile that,
uh,
so that clearly would make sense why he chose that.
So,
yeah,
so you definitely have them now.
There's no question about it.
So was it a private Twitter account?
Was it a private account or was it just open to anybody that wanted to follow?
Yeah,
I mean,
it was not private.
So he hadn't tweeted it at all.
But,
uh,
if it had been private,
I wouldn't have been able to see who was following him,
who he was following or anything,
uh,
he had liked.
But because it was open,
uh,
I could see,
yeah,
I mean,
the tweets he had liked and who was following him and everything.
Now,
how many followers did he have at the time he discovered this?
Uh,
he had 27.
And how many does he have now?
Uh,
now he,
he got up to about,
I think it was a little over 8,000 before either he or whoever their account owner is,
uh,
closed it off.
I see.
And that was about 8,000,
I believe.
And,
uh,
so far,
um,
what kinds of comments have you gotten from,
uh,
well,
FBI,
from Comey,
from,
from anyone?
Yeah,
I mean,
uh,
Benjamin,
which,
uh,
has been very,
uh,
did your,
about the whole thing.
He is sort of refusing to confirm or deny,
uh,
whether this is James Comey,
but,
uh,
the account itself did,
uh,
tweet one thing,
which was,
which was,
uh,
photo of,
uh,
anchor band,
basically,
uh,
congratulating me on discovering it,
assuming that is actually James Comey with a link to FBI jobs.
What a story.
And Ashley,
is this,
this is something,
it's a hobby of yours to basically,
uh,
uh,
figure things like this out.
Have you ever done anything similar to this?
Uh,
yeah,
I mean,
a few months ago,
I was sort of,
uh,
trying to see whether Donald Trump,
uh,
adult kids had any sort of online,
uh,
footprint.
And I found actually,
uh,
his oldest son,
uh,
is extremely active on hunting forums.
I learned.
Wow.
Yeah.
So,
uh,
yeah,
I've,
I've had experience of trying to find these public people who want to stay private online,
but this was sort of the biggest hit I've gotten so far.
Ashley,
thank you so much for joining us and describing this.
My favorite thing about this whole process is,
uh,
worth reiterating,
reiterating,
I think that,
uh,
this wasn't,
uh,
this wasn't a big,
uh,
high skilled hacker thing.
This was you using the Twitter search bar and the Google search bar and,
and some ingenuity.
And,
uh,
and that's it.
This is stuff that,
um,
like other people could have done.
And,
uh,
I think,
I think that's brilliant.
I think that's great.
Um,
uh,
the,
the people who want to try and keep,
uh,
you know,
aspects of their life private online,
but still somehow share bits of them online,
um,
in locked accounts or in hidden things.
And this is,
this goes to show that those things are not safe.
They're not really locked.
There,
there are,
there,
there is going to be data that leaks out,
uh,
around the edges of,
uh,
whatever security you think you have.
Well,
you know,
I,
I,
I think that,
um,
that certainly,
um,
if,
if you had not gotten the Instagram,
uh,
search bar or,
uh,
or account to tell you other related accounts,
do you think you could have gotten past that?
If,
if you weren't able to get a list of affiliated names when you found James,
call me son.
Um,
I mean,
I don't see how I would have just because,
uh,
yeah,
I mean,
he did everything right.
Other than,
uh,
not making his Twitter account private,
but yeah,
I mean,
if Instagram hadn't had this sort of,
uh,
bedded out of flaw,
really,
uh,
yeah,
I would have,
I would have,
I would have,
uh,
yeah,
I would have never found that.
I don't think.
And also his,
his friend,
uh,
Benjamin wits,
uh,
was following him on Twitter.
Uh,
and,
and that was the only person following that account.
Obviously,
if,
if you knew all James Comey's friends and,
and,
and analyzed who they were following on Twitter would have been a lot harder,
but eventually it would have led to that account.
Yeah.
I mean,
that,
that would have taken,
I would have quieted and ever,
uh,
a lot more than the kind of four hours.
It took me to do this for four hours.
It was a four hours straight through or over a period of days.
Uh,
no.
Yeah.
I mean,
it happened that night and as soon as people on Twitter sort of started talking
about,
Oh,
it's like James Comey just revealed he has a Twitter account.
Uh,
my boss,
uh,
messaged me and was basically like,
Ashley,
see if you can find this.
And so I just kind of sat there,
uh,
for the next four hours and eventually,
uh,
found it.
Wow.
That's pretty rad.
Uh,
any other,
any other challenges,
any other challenges you're up for right now?
Uh,
yeah,
I mean,
right now,
so because Congress sort of just voted,
uh,
to pass this bill that repeals,
uh,
what would have protected,
uh,
people's browser histories are being sold by the RSPs.
Uh,
I sort of have decided to endeavor to find the Congressman who voted to pass
this bill,
uh,
kind of find their online.
If they're willing to get a bar,
they should be willing to give up there as well.
Sounds,
sounds fair to me.
Voltaire,
when you set out to find this,
did you expect to find any,
uh,
embarrassing likes or,
or likes or retweets of his?
Because in the article you,
you list things that he,
um,
he didn't have any tweets,
but he had some favorites and none of them particularly,
um,
uh,
were you expecting more juicy content?
Uh,
no,
I mean,
I was expecting none at all.
Really.
I was surprised that he'd like anything.
Uh,
and I mean,
some of them could have been,
he just wanted to bookmark them to read later,
but there were a few,
uh,
tweets that he'd like that were from accounts.
He clearly did not follow.
And that didn't have a large following that kind of indicated to me that he
searches his name as well as the word FBI,
uh,
fairly regularly,
it seems.
Well,
you know,
there are a couple of things here,
like,
uh,
something you might expect him to like,
such as FBI swap team,
arrest Queens crew before they can pull off their third armored car robbery.
That's something I expect the FBI director to approve of.
But what about this one?
Thank you,
USA and Comey for rescuing the game from FIFA's greed,
talking about soccer.
I have no idea what that's about.
Yeah.
I mean,
that's sort of one instance where it kind of seems like he's,
uh,
constantly kind of searching himself with what people are saying,
because there's really no other way he would have found that specific tweet.
Interesting.
Well,
Ashley,
congratulations on this.
What kind of reaction have you been getting over the last week?
Uh,
I'm not surprised at sort of how,
uh,
some people have been that,
uh,
you can sort of do this with like all publicly available information,
but yeah,
I mean,
it's mostly been positive.
There's a few people who,
uh,
think that the FBI director should be allowed his privacy,
but I mean,
I think if it's all publicly available data,
it's fair game.
Have,
have there been,
uh,
any critics that say that,
uh,
you shouldn't have done this?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean,
there are definitely a few people who,
uh,
thought that the fact that,
uh,
I had to get your son,
uh,
was a step too far,
which I,
I,
I,
I'm sure they're all over 18 and that I was only the things that were already
out there.
Yeah.
It's,
it's a social media account and,
uh,
it's,
it's,
it's public.
You,
you,
you did everything exactly the way it was designed to be used.
I just like to,
I just like to congratulate you,
Ashley on giving the FBI director himself a lesson on security.
Yeah.
And,
and all of us as well,
because now we know about that Instagram flaw and that's a,
that's a very important thing to,
uh,
uh,
to know about.
for joining us tonight, and I hope that we hear more results from your detective work
in the future.
Thank you, Sam.
I hope so.
All right.
Take care.
Ashley Feinberg from Gizmodo, who tracked down James Comey's secret Twitter account
last week.
And wow, that's inspirational.
That's the hacker spirit at work here.
And you can also find more of Ashley's work at Ashley Feinberg on Twitter.
That's Feinberg with F-E-I.
Yes.
Now, I understand this week, we're having 2200 meetings again.
Yep.
2600 meetings all over the world.
Our local one still at its new home at the atrium at 375 3rd Avenue.
I like the new space.
Half a block from the old space, but it's working out.
And of course, all over the world, go to 2600.com slash meetings to find out where the one closest
to you is or how to start one of your own.
And also read our webpage, 2600.com, for the latest on the quest for Donald Trump's tax
return and look for the new issue coming out, annoying Trump-related people throughout the
world.
It should be hitting stands all over the place.
And if you use Twitter, follow us at Hacker Radio Show.
That's right.
All right.
Emmanuel for Off The Hook.
See you next week.
Good night.
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