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woman that was executed by electric chair in the state of Georgia for defending herself
against her white employer.
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That's Friday, March 29th, from 12 midnight to 2 a.m. on WBAI in New York, 99.5 FM, for
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Off The Hook.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call
We couldn't get much worse, but if they could they would
Von Diddley Bonk for the best, expect the worst
I hope that's understood, Von Diddley Bonk!
VON DIDDELY BONK
VON DIDDELY BONK
VON DIDDELY BONK
VON DIDDELY BONK
VON DIDDELY BONK
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VON DIDDELY BONK
Caposella
And he basically sent this to all employees
Hey everyone, it's that time of year when tech companies try to show their creativity with April Fool's Day stunts
Sometimes the outcomes are amusing and sometimes they're not
Either way, data tells us these stunts have limited positive impact and can actually result in unwanted news cycles
Considering the headwinds the tech industry is facing today, I'm asking all teams at Microsoft to not do any public-facing April Fool's Day stunts
I appreciate that people may have devoted time and resources to these activities
But I believe we have more to lose than gain by attempting to be funny on this one day
Please forward to your teams and internal partners to ensure people are aware of the ask to stand down on external April Fool's Day activities
Well Chris, I just have to say, well played
If you think a single person is going to fall for this, you guys must have something momentous planned
And I can hardly wait until Monday to see what Microsoft is saying to the public
Because whatever it is, I'm not going to believe it
How about you guys?
It's going to be hilarious whatever it is, whether or not they intend it to be that way
I'm sure
It's clear that they do because who else would put something like this out and assume that people are going to follow it?
Corporate killjoys
What was it, the chief marketing officer?
Is that what it is?
This is somebody who's so desperately afraid of bad press that would reflect negatively on his organization
And ultimately his budget that he's got to kill everybody's joy
No, you guys, you have it all wrong
This is a call, what I'm hearing, this is a call to be funny every day
Yeah, I like how they say don't be funny on this one day, so let's be funny on all the other days
Now to be fair though, this chief marketing officer, what was his name over there, Emmanuel?
Chris, Chris, are you looking for a joke inside the name?
Okay, Chris Caposella
So Mr. Caposella, excuse me
You think there might be a joke in that name if you take every other letter now?
Caposella has something to do with a head
Can we look him up, get a file on him?
No, I think Chris Caposella was actually the fraternity that my dad was in
Oh, okay
Oh, there's a good one, there's a good one
You're going to be here all week?
So you could say, did you pull a Chris Caposella on that person or something, if you want to be a killjoy
We could make a noun out of it, but he only is asking to regulate external facing
External, yeah, that means, can you imagine the fun that's going to happen inside?
That's the point. Maybe it's going to be just a barrel of laughs over there, internally
Well, Chris was looking to avoid bad press on April 1st
Instead, he got bad press four days earlier on the 27th of March
And, yeah, how's that playing?
Ironically, I would imagine
Have you anything planned for April Fools? Now, did you tell us if you did?
Well, we have that big thing that we're doing
Oh yeah, that thing, right, right, right
It's external, as well
It sure is
A lot of outdoor activity
All right, well, this, unfortunately, is not an April Fools joke
The dreaded Article 13 has been passed in the European Parliament
Alex, I'm going to ask you, what in God's name is Article 13, and why is it so evil, and why are we so angry that it was passed?
Well, there's a lot of reasons why I think we should be angry about it passing
In particular, this sort of foul-up where people had voted to amend it and potentially take it off the docket for voting
But they got the vote wrong because that was switched up, so there's one reason to be
Wait, they got the vote wrong?
Oh, yeah, there was this last-minute change, I believe, to the balloting regulations that the members of the European Parliament
Come on, Americans, we're the ones that get voting wrong
Exactly
Europeans are supposed to get it right
I know, tell me about it, but substantively, not procedurally, we should be very angry with this particular article
Because it has to deal with filtering online content for any platform that allows users to upload user-generated content
And we've talked about this before on the radio, but I think it deserves a rehash
Yeah, for people that don't know what you just said, what does that mean?
If you upload something that has, what?
Like a video file, something that has music in it, something that has images in it in particular
Anything that is copyrighted has to be filtered to determine whether or not it contains copyrightable material
Doesn't that already happen with YouTube?
It does indeed already happen with YouTube, and we all know how well that works
Is there a way of describing this as not original works or not original content that you'd be uploading?
Like, you are not the creator of it
Yeah, to an extent, yeah, but sometimes original content is going to contain copyrighted content as well
Now, when you say it doesn't work that well on YouTube, I think what you mean is it works too well
Because it blocks so many things, and it drives us crazy
Well, that's part of the issue here, is that all of these content filtering mechanisms always overblock
What they're not supposed to block and underblock that which they're supposed to block
I mean, we've been dealing with these issues as far back as the 90s with things like the Child Online Protection Act
Remember that debacle that we had to deal with?
But, you know, all of this would apply to platforms within the European Union
So platforms may be leaving the European Union because of the passage of Article 13
It makes it very, very difficult from a regulatory framework for them to continue to exist
Because there are very likely going to be fines
And the music industry may come down with a very heavy hammer on platforms that aren't necessarily enforcing copyrights of songs
But it creates this whole host of issues about regulating speech and content and fairness and competition
Does this give favoritism to the tech giants that can implement this particular technology in a manner that makes it economically feasible to do?
What about the smaller guys? How are they going to have to implement this content filtering?
When you say platforms, what kind of platforms are you talking about?
Anything that allows a user to upload content would arguably apply to this
I don't know if they have carved out significant exceptions to platforms that have a limited user base
But it would certainly apply to platforms like Facebook and Reddit and, you know, all kinds of forums
Fora, if you want to use the Latin plural for it
But it's a big problem because it has the potential to chill speech
To prevent people from communicating, to force people off of platforms
To place the burden on the user to demonstrate that this is not copyrighted material
Other issues that stem from this particular legislation are somewhat procedural and legal
In that these platforms are supposed to block content for which they do not have a negotiated license
Which implies that they are only allowed to display content for which they have a negotiated license
So that means from content providers, let's say CNN, Fox News, anybody that generates news, music, media
All of these individual platforms in the EU would have to negotiate licensing agreements for the copyrighted material
And then allow that material to be uploaded
So what about the situation where there's perhaps a mix?
Let's say there's somebody to put together an article or a video that is analyzing some news from Fox
Some news from CNN and providing commentary on it
And it might have some background music that was developed by Devo, I don't know, somebody else
How are you going to deal with this mix match of content for which you may have a license for one particular piece of it
But not have a license for another?
How are you going to deal with the issue of copyrights expiring?
Where is there going to be a centralized registry for all of this copyrighted material?
How do we deal with fair use?
So the default here is just going to be to block all of this content
What is more and I think is worth noting is this coupled with a lot of the other attitudes
Like the filtering technologies, when you're putting them in place
This can creep very quickly into having a mechanism that does one thing
That is protecting artists or copyright holders in one case
But very quickly could become a censorship tool for either companies or states or both
And basically squash any kind of speech that is disagreeable either in society or on these platforms
Now I'm not talking about hate speech and that is a totally different argument
Or at least it's a conversation in and of itself that I don't think we need to get into
But that coupled with net neutrality policies that deprioritize certain types of traffic
It basically all but creates sort of a pay for and highly commercialized internet
Instead of what we might refer to and historically consider a public internet
It feels less and less and less public
Yeah and there are so many possibilities for filters to go wrong
You know Google is probably the biggest operator of any kind of content filter right now for YouTube
And as anyone who posts anything to YouTube knows it works really badly
It's open to abuse in all sorts of ways
It's like a deliberate harassment tool
One thing trolls will do is send copyright takedown notices to stuff they don't own
But just to get it knocked off the net for a little while
And again an automatic filter will never understand fair use
An automatic filter will never understand if you actually have a license or ownership of something
I know of a band that put their own music video from the 80s on their own YouTube channel
And it got taken down and they got a takedown notice from their record label that they had at the time
Even though it was their property
Like all kinds of craziness
And yeah the robots will never I don't think be that smart where they can understand the subtleties of this
You need some accountability to the process
I think what Kyle said a little while ago about the Internet just becoming more and more commercialized
It really rings true because what you're saying about YouTube how it does such a bad job
We've had such an issue uploading videos from our conference
We got stuck on one during the Hackers Got Talent panel
Where somebody we had to figure out where this was coming from
Somebody played a snippet of a song in the background
And that made the whole video get flagged
And we had to go in and edit and then the editing didn't work on the YouTube platform
So basically we're wasting all of this time to make them happy
Do you think anybody is going to pirate music based on hearing two notes in the distance when somebody wasn't talking?
You know this is very different from the issue of piracy
From ripping people off
From the things that we should be concerned about
This is about all kinds of content control that did not exist before
I tried to access a story about this through Google News
But as soon as I clicked upon it I was told I had to pay to read the article
So I wasn't able to see the article to share with people on the air
Okay fine I went to a different place to print out a different article
And that's when my printer decided to tell me that it needed toner
Even though it didn't need toner
Apparently there was something in the printer that said okay time to buy toner
And I had to go through all these hoops to get it to say okay the toner works
And I'm going to print it anyway
But it took 25 minutes to print something
Because the machine was programmed to tell me I had to buy something new
Even though I didn't
All this hassle to print out a story about content control and absurdities like this
So anyway what I want to say echoes what Rob just said about Google
Because yeah YouTube could end up doing quite well out of this
Out of article 13
If all platforms need upload filters Google is ideally placed to sell them
Its parent company Alphabet has spent more than $100 million
Building a copyright detection system that's used by more than 9,000 broadcasters
Movie studios and record labels worldwide
And it's the bane of our existence because it keeps you from expressing yourself creatively
It's got nothing to do with piracy
It's got nothing to do with ripping people off
It has to do with occasionally having a snippet of something from a passing car
If you're making a film
Well those notes who's paying for those notes
Who's paying for the music that that person created many years ago
And you expect to just get away with hearing those two chords being played in a passing car
You know ridiculous ways of thinking like that
That is what we are looking forward to Alex
You know to play the devil's advocate here with regard to article 13
Which is somewhat difficult I have to say
What this is being billed as or by its proponents rather
Is that this is some level of equalization
That content providers are finally going to get paid for the work that they have created
But that's not necessarily the case if you think about the commercialization of the internet
For instance you know I've written a few articles for CNN Opinion
You know you get a small fee for publishing on CNN
It's nothing to write home about
It's more about the honor of being published by them
You see nothing for that being dispersed on other platforms
What these individual companies would have to do is negotiate a license agreement
Let's say with CNN or Apple or Yahoo or another news distributor
All those licenses cost money
And this is being billed as a win for competition
The competition officer in the European Parliament is saying
This is a great day for freedom and whatnot
I mean and competition
But at the same time it is so overtly anti-competitive
I mean I know I'm not doing a great job of being the devil's advocate here
But then also if you go back to the content control issue
That you had mentioned Emmanuel
If we are to have learned anything from abuses of content control in the United States
And in particular the DMCA the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Look at what the hell Rights Corp has been doing in this country for many many years
Abusing internet service providers
Abusing legal process
Sending hundreds of thousands of violation notices
To people for torrenting files that may or may not have copyrighted material in it
And abusing that safe harbor provision to the point where
There was a case that was decided a couple of years ago
That had to go all the way up to the Fourth Circuit
Cox v. BMG and Rights Corp
That is still causing reverberations through the ISP community
So I just feel as if Europe hasn't learned from the mistakes of the United States
When it comes to the abuses of enforcing copyright
And they're just going to make it easier to control content
And abuse this particular law
However what I will say though is because of this foul up with the votes
I think this passed by five votes
And there were I think I believe over ten members of the European Parliament
That accidentally voted to not amend this particular issue
And they can't renege on their votes
They can voice their error
But now this has to go to the state level
And the next issue here is
Because this is going to become a European directive
The states have to now transpose national legislation
What that means is that they now have an obligation
To pass a law that would implement Article 13 in all EU member states
What if they just refuse to do this
Because they know the vote was wrong from the outset
I'd love to see that
I'd love to see some countries that believe in digital rights
Perhaps like the Netherlands or others
I was going to say the UK
But they're in a bit of a pickle right now with Brexit and whatnot
But my point is countries can push back now
They can refuse to do this
They can exert some sovereignty
Perhaps force a re-vote on this
It might get in some trouble
It might cause some issues procedurally with the European Parliament
But I think it's damn worth doing
Because I don't think a lot of people are really in favour of this
And there were protests all around the EU
Tens of thousands of people in so many different cities
Over the past week came out and opposed this
You know this could be the best shot to convincing the UK to stay in the EU
If all these countries stood up for themselves
And said no we don't agree with this
Our people don't agree with this
We're not going to do it
And it was honoured
Then it would be clear that individual countries do have a voice
That they're not being run by Brussels
That they can actually stand up in opposition occasionally
And get their way
This is a great opportunity to do this
Especially with the error in voting
Apparently what they did was they changed the vote order
And that threw some people off
It was over 10
It was 13 MEPs who said they voted incorrectly
10 of them said they meant to vote for the amendments
And 2 of them said they wanted to vote against it
And 1 didn't want to vote at all apparently
I don't know how you make that mistake
But yeah that would have been enough
To sway the vote in a different direction
So there are many issues here that need to be addressed
But I really do think if you're an elected official
If you're a citizen and you don't agree with this
It's not too late to speak out and to say so
And we'll certainly follow what is happening
In this particular controversial issue
Also I'd like to thank the EU for buying off the
Debold voting machines that we were complaining about
On this program in like 2008
That are impossible to use correctly
So I was wondering where those ended up
Speaking of following things that seem doomed
Net neutrality is not dead yet
Last month Democrats introduced a simple 3-page bill
That would do one thing
Restore FCC net neutrality rules
And the agency's authority over ISPs
Both stripped away by a hugely controversial decision
By the FCC back in 2017
On Tuesday morning the Save the Internet Act passed
Through a key House committee vote and markup session
Despite some last minute efforts by big telecom
To weaken the bill
Inside the beltway this is really about maybe 5 companies
That's according to Representative Anne Eshoo
Across the country the American people really get this
National polling shows that Republicans, Democrats
Independents support net neutrality
We're still in the same old soup pot here
We need to take our lenses off
And look across the country
Survey after survey have shown
That the vast bipartisan majority of Americans
Supported the FCC's 2015 rules
And opposed the repeal
But Trump's FCC was quick to bow to pressure
To telecom giants like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast
Despite their long history of using their role
As natural monopolies to hamstring competitors
And nickel and dime subscribers
So I'm not sure where this goes from here
If it's something that is doomed to failure
But at least it's not completely dead
I mean it's been a bipartisan issue
And there has been I think continued
And from the outset of this issue
Bipartisan support for net neutrality
And that's really the big issue here
And the fact that there are 22 state attorneys generals
That have initiated a lawsuit
I think together with Mozilla
I believe Mozilla might be part of that lawsuit
Claiming that the FCC's implementation
Of this particular rollback of the net neutrality rules
Should be overruled
Because it's not in the public interest
That they ignored the public interest here
And I think that the bipartisan effort
That we should hopefully see from the Senate next
Would be victorious
I see no reason why it shouldn't frankly
Unless the telecom lobby is so powerful
That it gets the majority of the Republican senators
We've seen I think stalwart support
From Democrats on this
And I think I don't know if it's a majority support
From the Republicans
But I know there is significant support there
Hopefully that will carry
Well here's what we're facing
It should pass in the House
But it's going to be facing a much tougher
Uphill climb in the Senate
And after that it's also likely to
Get vetoed by Mayor Putin
Did I say that again?
I'm sorry
You know I'm going to continue saying that
Only because I know it annoys them so much
When you say that Trump is taking orders from Putin
Even if it's not true
I just like saying it if it annoys them
Because I know that's the right thing to do
And he's probably listening
Well at some point
We're right after Trump Lodge
That's true
Absolutely
Yeah
Yeah but one thing we can do is
Keep hammering away at our
Congress creatures and senators
And make clear our support for this
And the reasons they should be supporting it
And maybe get enough support together
To override a possible veto
And follow up with organizations
Like Battle for the Net
At battleforthenet.com
To see what's going on
In sort of the public sphere about this
I want to add the companies too
Because the customer is still always right
And I think you know
As consumers of this technology
The people carrying around these phones
And using these networks
They have a say
So if you get in touch with
Maybe the main switchboard
At one of these companies
God help you
I don't think that's possible anymore
But if you try
If you try to contact these people
If you try to contact
Whatever lobbyists they're using
You need to get the message across
And I guess us too
We collectively
We have a voice in this
And we can urge
The corporate entities involved
To also follow suit
Or to develop something
That is more fair minded
Just as important
As speaking with your representatives
I think
Let me ask you a question Kyle
Do you think this would be
A good use for robocalls?
Well
I don't think people have leveraged robocalls
In creative enough ways
That they're all pretty boring right now
So yeah sure
Sure I agree
We're going to get to robocalls
We've got a few things to say about those
But I just want to stick with
The net neutrality thing for a second
Because in a related development
You know the FCC
Has had to cough up $43,000
For refusing to turn over
The fake comment records
That we talked about here
They didn't admit to doing anything wrong
But the FCC has settled a lawsuit
For tens of thousands of dollars
After unlawfully withholding records
From a reporter
Under the Freedom of Information Act
They'll pay $43,000
In attorney's fees and costs
To New York journalist
Jason Prechtel
Over records he initially requested
Almost two years ago
Concerning its 2017
Net neutrality proceeding
Represented by Chicago law firm
Levy & Levy
Prechtel sued the FCC
In a Washington D.C. federal court
After it failed to respond
To his request
In the time frame provided
Under the statute
And that's what you can do
You can sue them
The data Prechtel
Ultimately obtained through the case
Formed the basis
Of a Gizmodo report
Last month
Which he co-authored
That revealed
How investigators
Had linked various entities
Including a prominent
Washington D.C. publication
To potentially millions
Of fraudulent comments
Submitted during the 2017
Net neutrality rollback
That same data
Was previously withheld
From law enforcement investigators
By the FCC's top lawyer
Citing jurisdictional
And privacy concerns
Prechtel eventually obtained it
Under FOIA
From a separate agency
It's just so corrupt
And so evil
That they would do this
That they would try
To hide this
And I'm upset
That they're only being
Fined $43,000
And that's our tax dollars
So, you know
What are they going to do
I mean they're just
Going to be refunded
$43,000 extra next year
I mean it's not really
An adequate remedy
At law
I think to fine
A federal agency like this
And especially
That small amount
Of $43,000
I think it would be
More appropriate
To sanction the individuals
At issue
You know this
This issue of transparency
Of government
And access to information
Is becoming extraordinarily
Critical in the time
That we live
And especially
In these opaque times
Where you know
Things like
Important memoranda
Are being shielded
From public view
That these minor battles
Really make a big difference
And I think we need
To begin to rethink
How we gauge
And measure damages
And what are the adequate
Remedies for the refusal
To hand over
This particular type
Of information
Because these inadequate
Remedies are just
Getting encouraged
As bad behavior
Well said
All right now
On to robocalls
Because yes
Robocalls are everywhere
We get them constantly
And they really do
Have an effect on people
You know the latest thing
Well there's a bunch
Of latest things
There's a Chinese scam
Going on that targets
Chinese citizens
With all kinds of threats
Of tax payments
And things like that
And telling people
If you ever get a call
That tells you
You have to go to the bank
And withdraw money
To give it to them
Odds are
That's not legit
Especially if it says
It's coming from
A governmental agency
Or the police department
Or anyone
So you know
I know it's easy
To say these things
But there are so many times
That people believe it
They believe these things
Are possible
And there are so many people
Out there
That are easily misled
They get an email
From a suspicious source
And they assume
Something is being intercepted
Or that all kinds of
Weird things
That we would say
Yeah that's impossible
To believe that
We underestimate
The effect that
These things have
And now there's
A new bill
That could make
Rubble calls
Illegal in New York
They'd be effectively
Banned in the state
Under legislation
Proposed by lawmakers
Who say the irritating
Relentless calls
Are a top complaint
From constituents
The measure
Which passed
The senate committee
Yesterday
Would prohibit telemarketers
From using automatic
Dialing technology
To contact a New Yorker
For commercial purposes
If they don't have
The person's prior consent
Yeah
So that's even
Legitimate calls
Companies that
Violate the rule
Would face fines
Of up to $2,000 per call
You know
But that money
Doesn't go to the person
You're calling
It just goes into the state
It would be nice if
You know
You got something
Out of being harassed
Mercilessly
Additionally
Telephone companies
Would be asking them
To pre-screen
And block robocalls
The bill would allow
The state's attorney general
To fine telemarketers
Who violate the restrictions
Again
Up to $2,000 per call
You know
I think there are
All kinds of technical solutions
That we can think of
To these problems
The biggest issue
Right now
Is that
Caller ID
Is able to be
Spoofed very easily
How many times
Has this happened to you
Where you see a call
Coming in
And it's coming in
From your local exchange
Your area code
Your exchange
And you can
You assume
It's a neighbor
Sometimes
This happened to me
It comes from somebody
You know
You know that person
It just so happens
That the
Randomization program
That they use
That changes the caller ID
Just happened to hit upon
That four digit combination
That was somebody
That I knew
So the caller ID
Said their name
And everything
It wasn't them
It was not them
It was completely fraudulent
And fake
Of course
I don't pick up any calls
But if I did
I would have heard
Who knows what
Some kind of threat
Some kind of
You know
Credit violation
That I had to answer
Right away
A court date
That I wasn't
Showing up for
All sorts of things
Like that
That people
Are easily fooled by
I mean
To go back
To your
Your comment
About the
Two thousand dollar fine
I think
It's unclear right now
Whether that would go
To the state
Or perhaps
If the law
Creates a private
Right of action
For people to sue
For those damages
That could be
Really significant
As well
Because then you're not
Contingent upon
A state agency
Taking action
Using their resources
Using our tax dollars
To fund this particular
Enforcement
If you go back
And think about
The spam issues
That we had
In the late 90s
Early 2000s
I mean
Even until today
That resulted
In the passage
Of the Cannes Spam Act
The federal law
That
That made spam
Subject to certain
Statutory fines
And there was
A private right of action
That was
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is our top consumer priority at the FCC.
That's why we need call authentication.
That's what Ajay Pai is calling it.
Call authentication to become a reality.
It's not nice, you could just say,
I want this to become a reality,
and if you don't, we're going to fine you.
It's the best way to ensure that consumers
can answer their phones with confidence.
By this time next year, I expect that consumers
will begin to see this on their phones.
I mean, this seems to be an issue of people
running their own software-based switching, right?
If you run your own telephone switch,
that's how you can spoof caller ID.
So this would require some kind of data
to go through the telephone line
that's not ordinarily passed through the telephone line
that would be sort of like some kind of certificate
to authenticate that this came from
a legitimate telephone switch, not a software-based switch.
How are you going to differentiate
between actual hardware-based switches
and software-based switches?
Is there going to be discrimination?
It's going to create a giant headache, as I understand it,
and I could be misunderstanding it.
So be interested to hear from listeners
about what they think from this as well.
Yeah, I heard a report.
I'm not sure if we've touched on it yet,
but in the vein of the authentication,
I think AT&T and Comcast had some kind of agreement
to establish a connection between their customers,
their phone customers on the AT&T,
and then also the broadband phone
or whatever kind of phone Comcast offers
in the realm of authenticated calls.
And this is, again, I think to E's point
about them establishing something that has improvements
and has built upon what we all know as caller ID,
which for years and years has been broken fundamentally
in that realm, kind of like what Alex was talking about
with being able to run your own switching system
that really democratizes the ability,
especially with the advent of broadband,
to leverage one of these campaigns very, very easily
and quickly, whether you're an actual business or not.
Well, the thing is, it's critique of Ajit Pai aside,
it is possible to do this.
It might involve some tweaking of the technology,
but when you consider, if you make a phone call,
you can spoof your caller ID,
you can make it seem like it's coming from someplace else.
But if you make a billable call, they know who to bill.
They're gonna get that right.
They usually do anyway.
If you call 911 and say something stupid,
they're gonna know where to go for the most part.
So they do have the ability to do this
and it needs to become a priority
and not an additional service,
not something they charge you for.
Yeah, I've talked about this a little bit
and I think that their business model
has a selects for call completion, right?
So it's not discriminating as to what type of calls,
but I almost wanna say that this has roots
in the languishing use of voice communication
or actually the migration of it to platforms
that people are already paying for a la voiceover IP.
That in other words, yeah, let's loosen these regulations.
We'll get more calls flowing through our networks
to substantiate their existence.
And meanwhile, we're gonna squeeze every single penny
out of those copper lines and whatever parts of the network
that we really can't justify.
And we wanna keep it loaded with call volume
to keep shareholders from jumping ship
or whatever it is, right?
And I really think that selection for call completion
is a real huge part of this particular issue.
I smell a FCC caller ID identification tax
coming soon to a phone bill near you.
That's exactly the kind of scam I'm afraid of
that they're gonna pull that.
Yeah, and they are rolling out different apps.
Again, AT&T's got some kind of app
that allows you to do call blocking.
But I know a couple of years prior to the app
and it only works on Apple and Android,
which I have my own misgivings about
because it just makes it difficult.
And I think that ease of use for blocking calls,
there should be numeric codes,
like you could send like star codes
or whatever SMS codes or GSM codes you would use.
You should be able to do that as soon as you get a call,
whether it's spoofed, whether you know it or not.
If you know it's not someone
that's actually displaying with a number
or it's maybe a familiar number, but you know it's spam,
you should be able to hit like four keys, star, pound,
whatever kind of GSM code you could,
and then have that be fed into a system
for the carrier that is learning
and using their knowledge and their technical backend
to identify the spammer through ANI,
which is the actual and less spoofable part of this system.
But I just want to make one more point about AT&T's app.
You know, they're okay.
So now they're not doing what I just said necessarily,
but they're just going to have an app
that does allow you to block.
But years ago, to ease point,
they had a service, I think it was called Smart Limits.
And it was really, I think, for parents,
but it was the only way to block any number.
And I think I paid like $6
because I was using this service
and I could only block like four calls or something.
It was ridiculous.
So they're making a business model out of this.
And for customers of these carriers,
you know, it should not be that hard.
Like I said, if you can do GSM codes
for all different kinds of forwarding and stuff like that,
why can't I just immediately,
after that call stops ringing, hit a couple buttons,
and my account has a cache of every single number
I've referred for blocking,
that should be legally a right as a consumer.
And I really, I really hope they get on board with that
and stop with this silly like, oh, get this other app.
And we'll just, you know,
have you add software to your phone.
It does not need to be that complicated.
No, not at all.
And we know, as hackers,
we know what's technically possible
and likely already in existence.
We'd like to hear from listeners too.
What's your wishlist?
What would you like to see implemented?
What features, what experiences have you had?
Our phone number, 212-209-2877.
But to speak to Kyle's point,
if you get a harassing phone call
or a call from a telemarketer,
it should be possible to hit a button on your landline
or on your cell phone and say,
never again allow a call from this number
to go to my phone, period.
And I maintain it can go beyond that too.
If a call is blocked to your number,
you can still identify it.
You can identify it yourself as the end user,
but you can tell the phone company,
don't allow anybody from the originating number
to ever call my number again.
You can also say anyone affiliated with that number.
For instance, if we have a line one, line two, line three,
it all gets billed to the same number.
You can say, don't let anybody calling
from that office complex
and any of the phone numbers they have
call my line ever again.
This is all possible.
It's not something they offer.
It's not something that they will admit to,
but it's certainly technically possible.
And the same thing with email.
If you get an email from somebody,
you should be able to hit a button and say,
don't ever allow email from this person again.
Don't ever allow email with this subject again.
Don't ever allow email with this content again.
And I know that some commercial organizations
have such features.
It should be available everywhere.
It should be easy to use.
And if it is, if it becomes easy to use,
these problems will start to go away.
Kyle, you have something on your phone.
What's this?
Hey, it's Leonard again, Leonard Skinner.
No relation to the musical group.
Listen, I was giving you a call back.
I've been trying to reach out to you.
We still have you approved for the business term loan.
It's over a five-year term with a monthly payment.
I've been trying to reach out to you.
It is expiring tomorrow.
Why are you calling me here?
The rate is still the same.
It's 4.9%.
I was just looking to hear back from you
as soon as possible.
My number here is 562-321-5966.
7-4.
Once again, this is Leonard.
Make sure you block that out.
We don't want that going on.
562-321-5974.
And I look forward to speaking with you.
Bye.
Okay, Leonard, you wanna tell us what that was, Kyle?
Just one of many voicemails.
I can just go through all of these.
Okay, this was a voicemail you got.
Yeah, it's one of them.
I've got a lot of loan stuff.
I've consistently got Google business listings spam,
which I think that is just fairly common.
I don't consider that part of this new wave
of spam phone calls that's coming in.
I've got Chinese-speaking individuals.
I don't know what they're saying.
I don't know what they're trying to sell or scare me about.
But yeah, I could go on.
I could play more and more and more of this all night.
I think I've got 15 that I haven't even listened to.
So I just stopped listening to them
for the entertainment value.
I know a lot of them are word for word the same thing.
It sounds like the guy is just leaving you a message,
but actually coming from many different phone numbers,
same exact script, same exact recording.
And the things that you mentioned as Google business,
I understand a lot of that is a scam as well.
Because what they do is they pretend to be
affiliated with Google somehow.
People believe it because they say it.
And they wind up getting ripped off as a result.
Hi, it's Kate.
Don't want to bug.
I know you're a busy business owner,
just trying to catch you at the right time.
I did send over a couple of emails
about that pending approval I have
regarding funding for your business.
Again, just a reminder, I do have some rates
as low as 3.9%.
Can fund up to a million dollars.
And we move pretty quickly.
Can get you funded in as little as one to two days
if you move at the same pace as I do.
Again, happy to go over some of the details.
If you give me a call back,
won't take up too much of your time.
Again, this is Kate.
Thanks so much, and have a great day.
Thanks, Kate.
I believe you're human.
Once, you were human.
But you're not human anymore.
Wow.
Okay, we can't go through your whole voice mailbox.
Cut the phone.
Your Google business listing
is at risk of displaying incorrectly.
We've tried numerous times to contact you by telephone
so we can check the status of your listing.
This will only take a few minutes of your time.
Press one so we can quickly check the status
of your Google listing to ensure it's active.
If your Google listing is suspended or deleted,
your business will not be shown,
causing customers to think
you're no longer open for business.
Wow.
Press one now to check the status of your Google listing.
If you're the business owner, press one now.
Okay, so I guess the number of times you say Google
will get people to take you seriously.
It instills fear in you.
It makes you think that your business
is gonna hurt as a result,
and people do react to this sort of thing.
And I know, Kyle, you get calls like this all the time.
Yeah, some of them are from my area code.
Some are from very strange area codes.
I have one from 623.
Let's see, 717.
There's some strange stuff going on.
And these aren't nearly as fun.
I thought I had a bit more interesting ones.
But yeah, I'm sure somebody's collecting them too.
There's gotta be like a nice montage
of every single kind of strange robocall
that people have been getting.
So if you have an interesting one,
send us an audio file of it,
or tell us the weird area codes
that you're getting spoofed.
Yeah, you know, and again, our phone number
is 212-209-2877 if you have a story
you wanna share with us or a question.
But this also extends to the internet.
In fact, I notice this a lot,
since we own a lot of domains on the website,
names and things like that.
We're constantly getting emails
from what look like legitimate renewal services.
In other words, you have to renew your domain name
or it'll expire,
but they're not talking about your domain name.
They're talking about a search engine that they run.
And if, just read two paragraphs in,
and it'll say if you do not accept,
if you do not respond within a certain time,
this offer may expire or something like that.
And you know, you'll go, who cares about the offer?
It's got nothing to do with the actual site itself,
the actual domain name,
but people are hoodwinked into paying for that
when they don't have to.
We get those very frequently,
and a lot of our clients get those as well.
And they're very much made to look like
those renewal notices.
And a lot of people don't know how to check
the renewal date of their particular domain names.
They don't know how to drop to a command line,
type who is, space the domain name,
and then look at the creation date and the expiration date.
So I feel a lot of people really fall prey
to that particular scam, and it's particularly pernicious.
And I think some of that's related to,
well, some of the information itself is public,
so people can kind of time it
based on publicly available expiry of that domain.
And what's going on there is they're exploiting that,
that anxiety that you might perk up
and behave or be shook by them.
Hey, we have a caller.
Go ahead, you're on the air.
Hi, I've got a couple questions,
and I'm calling about the pay phone a couple weeks ago
you asked me to call back about.
Okay.
There's a weird thing.
It seems like a scam, but it can't be a scam.
I get people calling back saying
that they're returning a phone call I made
when I hadn't made any phone call.
And these are just random people,
and I said I didn't make any call,
and they're surprised, confused.
I can tell you exactly what's happening there.
They got one of those phone calls.
They got one of those phone calls
that had your number in it.
It was spoofed at random,
and they're calling back to see why you called them
when you never called them.
Okay.
And you were talking about having this,
that there should be this thing
that tells you where the call is coming from
or that it's authentic or whatever.
I don't have a caller ID box,
so how would I get this authentication?
That's a very good point.
And years ago, we tackled the subject of caller ID
when it wasn't the norm.
It used to be that phones just rang.
You didn't know who was on the other end.
It's a different time now,
so it's really hard to speak to that.
Despite the fact that you don't have caller ID,
you don't subscribe to caller ID,
and I believe caller ID should be something
that's just included.
You don't have to pay extra for.
In that world, where caller ID is delivered to every phone,
you should be able to still indicate
never have somebody from this number call again,
even if you don't know what the number is.
But given that I don't have it,
and it's not universal,
if they were giving this free service,
but you have to have the box that you paid for,
and you have to subscribe to caller ID,
then it's not a free service.
No, that's true, and that's part of the problem right now
that we still have to fix.
Yeah, there's a lot of things being thrown around,
and one is a bit of an older system,
and the box itself, which we were describing
as something that can be spoofed,
and so you may rely on caller ID in the traditional sense,
but it isn't necessarily to be trusted,
and that's where these new schemes like authentication
could be helpful and may or may not involve
a box like that that displays the information,
but the crux of it is that you're getting calls
that are actual legitimate calls,
not part of a mechanized or an automated scheme
to prey on people,
and one other quick point about that familiarity
you're talking about where people are saying
that they're returning the call,
if those are not people you know
or not numbers like E described that could be used
because they're in your circle
and are just calling back because they're confused
at people using their number,
if it's an unfamiliar person that is saying
that they're calling you back,
I would suspect that is more a social engineering technique
to be exceedingly familiar, to warm you
to whatever it is they're doing, to be very casual,
kind of like the one I played earlier
where the woman was saying, oh, I know you're busy,
I just wanted blah, blah, blah,
they're being very conversational,
they're trying to win you over a bit
with how human they are.
But these are people that she talks to
and they don't know why,
they're calling her back.
Sure.
And they're not trying to sell her anything.
Yeah, I wasn't exactly clear what she meant by them.
None of them tried to sell me anything.
Okay, these are people you know.
It's like the equivalent of a star six nine,
why did you just call me?
That kind of a thing.
Oh, I see, okay.
Except they're getting caller ID
that has her number on it
and that is part of the scam because.
I haven't heard that, that's wild,
that it's so pervasive that now people
are getting erroneous calls from people
who had thought a scammer or some weird call
was actually from their number.
When my friend's number showed up
and it wasn't my friend calling me
but his caller ID showed up,
if I had called him back and said,
hey, why'd you just call me?
It would have started a fight.
That makes sense, yeah.
Yeah, I mean for those unfamiliar,
the standard procedure with these things now
is becoming they will spoof a number
when they're calling you
that seems like it's in your area.
So like here at BAI,
our listener call in line is 212-209-2877.
So if we were gonna get spammed by one of these people,
they might do 212-209 and then any other four numbers
to make it seem like it's someone in our area,
in our neighborhood, in our immediate sphere.
So we'd be more likely to pick up the call.
My phone number is from somewhere
I haven't lived for like 10 years.
So like it's a sign for me
that it's not anyone I wanna talk to.
But yeah, that's how that scam works.
We're not likely to pick up the call now
because we're out of time.
The caller, did you have anything else to say?
You wanted a payphone report.
Oh yes, go ahead.
A day or so after we talked,
I asked a guy who was standing in the phone booth
to check because he didn't wanna move.
And he said that it just beeped at him.
But after he did move, I tried it and I got a dial tone.
But yesterday I tried it again and it was dead.
I see, wow.
What company runs the payphone?
I have no idea.
I didn't think to note anything like that.
Well, if you get a dial tone again, dial zero
and see what company answers.
And that'll tell you at least who's installing payphones
or maintaining payphones
or not maintaining payphones in your neighborhood.
But if there is no dial tone,
is there going to be something pasted on the phone
that I can?
There might be, there should be.
There used to be a rule that said there had to be,
but these days no one seems to care.
It's harder and harder because sometimes they're unrelated
or it's a management company
or it's a competitive carrier using another carrier's
systems, but try your best.
Like that zero trick is probably a good indication.
All right, we're gonna have to leave it there.
Thank you for that call.
Thanks everybody else.
Sorry, we didn't get to other calls,
but we'll try in future weeks.
You can always write to us, othat2600.com.
You can tweet to us, Hacker Radio Show on Twitter
and all kinds of other social media things
that I think we'll be doing as well.
Stay tuned for that.
We'll see you next week here on WBAI
for another exciting edition of Off The Hook.
Good night.
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