Solead O'Brien and Bill Moyers will present and Riverside Church Minister Emeritus
Reverend Dr. James Forbes Jr. will host. Tickets are free and for more
information go to Juneteenth-ny.com. That's Wednesday June 19th at 7 p.m. at
Carnegie Hall and broadcast from 9 p.m. to midnight on listener-sponsored WPAI
New York. And this is radio station WBAI in New York. The time is 7 o'clock.
That means it's time for Off the Hook.
♪♪
And a very good evening to everybody. The program is Off the Hook. Emanuel Goldstein
here with you on this Wednesday evening joined tonight by Alex. Good evening. And
Kyle. Yes I'm here. Good driving Kyle. Thank you. You know 10 minutes ago we were on
the BQE. I don't know how we even did it but I hope nobody got in our way. I just
know we're here now and you know ways you have to sometimes override ways
because it directs you onto roads that you know are gonna be crowded and yeah
remember when you used intuition to drive? Intuition. Yeah it's a good thing. It's a
throwback. You might want to explain what the BQE stands for for a non New
York listener. Okay if anybody doesn't know what the BQE stands for call in and tell us
that no way how could they okay anyone could say that I guess. If a listener
wants to tell someone what it is call in. It's basically hell. I mean yeah really I
guess there are people that probably don't know what it is but I mean like
the LIE. You think there are people don't know what the LIE is? I would imagine so. I
hope so. I really hope that not everybody in the world has experienced the Long
Island Expressway. It's basically a highway with a confluence of many other
roads and those on and off ramps those those junctions can be well very active
especially this time of day. Yeah there's a very high density of idiots as well.
Yeah yeah I think that the the over 80 degree weather is definitely that might
be starting to get people especially if you get slowed down you're kind of
sitting there. I think people for the most part on the BQE drive very well it's
just they don't have much to work with you know and I didn't hear much honking.
I know if you were driving on a freeway in LA that's when the word idiot I think
would come up a lot. I'm just saying it from personal experience. This is what
happens. Yeah I didn't know I mean if we're gonna bring California into it
it's a different conversation. For those who are dying to know it stands for
Brooklyn Queens Expressway. I don't know who the wise guy was to put Expressway
in there but it certainly isn't fast at least not now. Well there are a lot of
improvements that's all I'm gonna say and they are promising but it not a
moment too soon really. The New Kosciuszko Bridge. It's it's coming along
really nicely and it's it's I think going to help with some of the
bottlenecks and and hang-ups but. I have a question Governor Cuomo. Now you built
this great bridge or got this bridge built. It's got five lanes going one way
four lanes going another when it opens up in September. Four years ahead of
schedule congrats on that but what happens when those five lanes merge back
into two or three lanes? Isn't that gonna cause a bottleneck? That's that's what
I'm worried about. Well yeah exactly and something that crosses a body of water I
think becomes the first thing to address because you know what was there was a
pretty immense engineering feat in and of itself but a lot of the connected
parts of that particular road well I would assume be widened in some way or
improved along with this but but were you not to have addressed the bridge it
would then itself languish and become the bottleneck so I guess it's it's part
of a grander vision and and something is connected but as as it's being
prioritized and and implemented this is the first sort of part of that and the
other the other bottlenecks you noted of yet to get the attention they need. So we
have some listener mail speaking of improvements I think this is from Jerry
didn't sign the name and we don't have the headers here so thanks for writing
in case you didn't know on May 31st at noon the MTA launched a pilot program of
its new tap-to-pay system you know about this Alex? Yes I've heard of it. It's
called Omni spelled wrong O-M-N-Y and I guess that means One Metro New York
that's that's what it stands for. Okay it will replace the MetroCard so the
MetroCard that we we talked about on this show when it was new is going to be
extinct soon. The Transit Authority is starting with 16 subway stations on the
four five and six lines in Manhattan and Brooklyn between Grand Central 42nd
Street and Atlantic Avenue Barclay Center right near us. Riders can also try
out Omni on all Staten Island buses downside is you got to go to Staten
Island. I'm kidding Staten Island listeners take things too seriously. I'm
kidding about that too. Yeah so we'll we'll be joining all kinds of other
modern cities in having this this contactless system. Kyle I know we've
been to a number of those cities. Yeah indeed and the integration of the with
handsets is something beyond I think what we've tried in some places but it's
it's a little bit further because you can't buy a separate card or paper
ticket that has a chip of some sort or otherwise you're able to run it across
as though it's like a mag stripe setup. This new system requires software
requires you associating your accounts and we've played around with this a
little bit on some of the other railways in in particular the LIRR and and that
stuff so as they rely more on this because it's kind of like the boarding
passes at an airport or like a flatbed scanner you basically hold a device to
it and it scans it and if you've been to any of those 16 or 14 stations you would
see basically one turn style that instead of having a mag stripe reader
that we're used to with the MetroCard it has this sort of it looks like a grocery
checkout as I said or like a boarding pass thing and it basically scans
whatever you put over the glass part and that that account is then linked to your
your trip. The thing that that's somewhat unique about New York is that I
believe it's only gonna be used going in not going out. In London you you tap
going in and going out and it calculates your fare based on that but here in New
York we have a passionate tradition of only having one fare not raising it
during rush hour not raising it because of distance and I hope that this isn't
going to lead to sneaking that change in in any way. I don't think that it will
and it's been a hallmark of the New York City subway station is that it is sort
of designed to be what's known as egalitarian or this great great
equalizer and that you know for the same fare as you know if you were taking a
train from 14th Street to 18th Street you know like the on the one trains one
of the only lines that still has an 18th Street station it's the same fare as if
you were taking it all the way up to you know the end of the 456. You got to
respect somebody who does that who goes one stop and pays full fare. Absolutely
you do so I don't think it will change that if it does change that I think
there should be a you know riots in the street. But you can go from Washington
Heights all the way to Rockaway for the same fare as your friend going from 14th
Street to 18th Street but it wasn't always that that way actually if you
look at the really old subway maps you'll see that South Abroad Channel it
says extra fare applies beyond this point. I don't know how that worked I
wasn't around then but maybe one of our listeners can can help us with a memory
of how they collected the extra fare on the New York City subway system back
then. Well I have a question about this new Omni system as well and you know you
mentioned London. Sounds so cool the Omni system wow we're so cyber. Well it weirdly
enough the Omni is what I named our DNS intelligence platform that I had designed
over the last. Well you can expect a letter from their legal team then
because I think this is going to take priority over your Omni. Well no and the
mine is actually spelled correctly so there's no chance of confusing
similarity. Okay and the Omni magazine is no longer around. Remember them?
They were great. Yeah I do actually yeah I haven't thought about that in a while
mine actually stands for open source multidisciplinary network intelligence
it's totally different different acronym. In any event to go back to my original
question though you brought up London I used to live in London obviously and
and whenever I go back I use the same oyster card that I've been using for
around about six years now and I think that that it's absolutely amazing it's
one of the things that really annoys me about New York is that the Metro cards
here expire after a while. Yes. It's so annoying it's so wasteful you go to try
to re-up your your Metro card and then it it says oh it's expired it can't be
you know you can't add value to it it's idiotic. Now I wonder if these Omni
cards are going to have an expiration date does anybody know that? I don't
think it's a card necessarily because it's it's using a handset yeah or like
not NFC. If you don't have a phone you have to have cards of some sort. That's that's exactly right I
think maybe the the machines themselves will print some kind of ticket with a QR
perhaps or some kind of optical code but the the oysters going back to what
you said about London those do expire but you have to use them you have to
continually load onto them I know because we've we've tried to reuse them
before and you basically you aren't able to re-up the oyster. Actually what happened
there was we had two oyster cards because we we got our deposit back for
one trip and for some reason it let us keep the oyster card I thought the
deposit was for the actual physical card but we wound up keeping it and then
another time we wound up giving it back and getting the same what five pounds
back as a deposit so when I tried to re-up that the one that I got back after
getting the deposit back it wouldn't work so I think that's when it expires
but it seems like a real waste they should just take it back and reuse the
actual physical card. I see yeah that's that's what I was referring to exactly
that if you do the deposit process it becomes inactive. Now speaking of London
our president is over there right now actually I don't know if he's in London
right now but he was in London. He's your president he's not mine. Well how is he
my president and not yours? You just said he's our president. Well technically legally
you know I'm not gonna get into this right now we don't have enough time but
he was over there and he got really flustered and angry first of all he was
flustered and angry while he was on the plane he was tweeting on the plane which
I guess you can do if you have Wi-Fi on the plane and you're the president but
literally you could see him coming into London in the sky on TV and he's
tweeting as that's happening criticizing the mayor of London criticizing the
mayor of New York City whatever but by the time he he was on the ground and had
gotten somewhat familiar with the area he got himself into a big tizzy because
he he was upset at what was being said over CNN so he advised everybody to
boycott AT&T which now owns CNN and he was against that and you know in a way
I can't really defend that I can't say that having AT&T owning CNN or owning
Time Warner or however it works I mean I'm still upset over time merging with
Warner so I'm not really into these big corporate mergers but he's saying that
because CNN is critical of him that everybody should boycott AT&T so that's
that's really interesting I believe that people stopped using or subscribing AT&T
there be forced to make big changes at CNN which is dying in the ratings anyway
it is so unfair with such bad fake news why wouldn't they act when the world
watches CNN it gets a false picture of USA sad all negative so much fake news
very bad for us why doesn't owner AT&T do something etc etc what happened was
he found out that he couldn't watch Fox News in England because I didn't know
this as of 2017 Fox News is no longer in the UK they only had a small list of
viewership I think a couple of thousand people which is tiny in the broadcast
world so they they discontinued having that be available anywhere now the thing
this tells me is that nobody is is showing him how to use a VPN I mean when
when we travel we can see anything we want to see because we use VPNs how does
the president of the United States not know how to do that has nobody in his
entourage telling him that yeah you know all you have to do is go on the Internet
and they are Fox News it tells me they're not they're not sharing this
information with him just to kind of see how much of a tantrum he'll throw I heard
that his VPN that he uses actually only allows him to view Russia today that's
it that was a joke very funny kidding very funny we need humor in days like
yeah we really do but technically it's you know it may I remember when there
was a presidential campaign I think it was Al Gore that was doing this he was
watching all the local TV channels from DirecTV which you're not allowed to do
but you know what when you're running for president there are exceptions that
are made and I imagine when you are president there are also exceptions that
are made he should be able to watch whatever network he wants just like we
all should well so are you arguing that the president should violate the rules
here that he should should breach but there are no what are the rules are
there what rules prevent us from going to London getting on a VPN and watching
u.s. television these are very clear rules about what you can watch and what
you can't watch and all dependent upon where you are and I think that the law
should apply to everybody equally these are corporate rules you're quoting here
we're not even quoting but it's it's VPNs have existed they're legal we pay
for a VPN and it allows us to if we need to be in Canada for instance all
of a sudden we can do that if we need to be in England we can do that I mean I
you've played with this too oh of course I have I'm just trying to reconcile the
argument that you know you criticize the president for breaking the rules and
breaking the law and now you're advocating for the president well no I'm
criticizing for not knowing how to do this I know I'm only kidding yeah
obviously but yeah I mean it should be really really simple fix for him to be
able to do something like this I don't think it's that serious I think it's
more I don't think it's that deep I think it's more about him just not being
able to like flip like channel surf with a remote you know you'd have to sit with
a browser or use some kind of computer or have some more substantial setup
engineered such that you could just sit there and flip with a remote control but
given the service that he has on you know government accounts and all that
it's probably just you know one set of satellite channels that's there and you
know or or actually yeah at whatever venue the the government deems is okay
for his visit or whatever the the British hosts are providing him but all
I'm saying is if I was somehow in charge of Trump I had to you know keep him
happy and entertained and and you know within reach of whatever he demands at a
moment's notice I would set it up so that he can just press a button and
watch Fox News at any time it's not hard to do that the fact is people in his
administration are not doing that for him and I think that's hilarious it's
probably a good thing frankly we'd have just constant fluctuations in our foreign
and domestic policy if he was able to access Fox News at the flip of a switch
let's keep him away from it as much as possible especially when he's overseas
no that's what we're saying but but people in his own administration are
doing this maybe they're doing that deliberately that's what I'm getting at
it just seems very bizarre knowing technically what's possible that that
he's unable to do this what thing you mentioned that Fox News wasn't available
in the UK coincidentally I was on a plane coming back from Florida on Monday
evening and I was forced to watch Fox News for a little bit on the on the way
back on a jet blue flight wait wait how many forced to watch fog what they made
everybody sit and pay attention well you know there wasn't really much else on it
was that or reruns of the office and you know we've got kids trying to sleep and
anyway I was flipping between news stations and I was bored with Rachel
Maddow flipped over to Fox News because they had Nigel Farage on and they were
speaking at it was equivalent of probably about three o'clock in the
morning London time and they were making a big stink about the fact that Fox News
was not available in the UK and Nigel Farage was saying oh there's such a
travesty we need to make sure that this you know it gets corrected we need Fox
News more than ever now in the UK and what was very interesting to me too is
that he was listed as a Fox News contributor which means that he's on
their payroll that that's why he needs it over there exactly yeah people in the
UK really don't care about domestic news in the US and that's pretty much all
that Fox News is concerned with whereas CNN has different divisions they have
international they have domestic as well it's smart to do that it is moving on
though there are other things going on obviously in the technical world and
things having to do with privacy and New York apparently is is on its way to
introducing or passing the New York Privacy Act it was introduced last month
by State Senator Kevin Thomas and it would give residents in this state more
control over their data than in any other state it would also require
businesses to put their customers privacy before their own profits the
bill is still seeking a co-sponsor in the State Assembly but Thomas says he is
confident that he has majority support in the Senate and hopes to pass the bill
this summer you know we know some people in this in the State Assembly so maybe
we can just get them to coast what does it take to co-sponsor a bill you just
basically say you co-sponsor it I think that's pretty much it and you sign your
name somewhere and you're a co-sponsor don't to pay anything there may be some
kind of some fee associated introducing a bill no I have no idea I wouldn't be
surprised I think you have to stand and say it yes that's right I think so well
the Committee on Consumer Protection which Thomas happens to chair is
scheduled to hold a hearing on the bill this week and with it New York is poised
to become the next battleground in the fight for state privacy laws California
became the first state to pass such a law last year with the California
Consumer Protection Act industry groups and consumer advocates have been sparring
over its language ever since and of course businesses argue that CCPA is
overly broad and that complying with different laws in every state is
unworkable preferring instead a lighter touch regulation at the federal level
how about this how about a heavier touch at the federal level that way you all
know what the rules are and consumers are happy and and don't you want happy
consumers well certainly I mean and you mentioned CCPA I mean that's supposed to
come into effect in January of 2020 and it has caused such an uproar because it
applies to two businesses I believe that make over 25 million dollars a year
annually and you know similar to the New York bill gives consumers access to
information about what data is being collected about them what data is being
shared about them my problem with the CCPA the California Consumer Privacy Act
however is that the data that is given back to you about where your information
has gone is not very specific they the the companies that are sharing your data
only have to give you categories of companies to which they have provided
your information and what those categories are is very unclear this New
York laws is arguably going much further than the California law and most notably
in my opinion and I think this is a real innovation and it's why the tech
companies are very much up in arms against this particular bill is that it
gives consumers what's known as a private right of action that means that
consumers can sue tech companies or any company that misuses its data that they
have the right to go into court in New York State Court and bring a lawsuit for
violation of their privacy the that that's a really really big change and
I'm sure that the plaintiffs bar meaning you know plaintiffs lawyers are very
much in favor of this they're a very powerful lobby so we're going to see the
plaintiffs bar pitting off against the technology lobby it's going to be very
interesting legislative session the other innovation with this bill and it's
something that's been kicking around in academic circles for a few years is this
concept of data fiduciaries so companies that are holding your private data well
under this law have to act as a fiduciary fiduciary of course meaning
coming from the Latin word fitness or faith right so they have to they have an
obligation to safeguard that particular data and that fiduciary obligation under
the law under under the text of the bill itself right now trumps the fiduciary
obligation that companies have to shareholders that means that safeguarding
your data under this New York State law is more important than price within
profit that is really interesting can anybody oppose that statement well it
creates a conundrum for companies because they're going to have
conflicting obligations a lot of these companies are registered in Delaware or
elsewhere which means that their fiduciary obligation to their
shareholders and their fiduciary obligations to their customers could
arguably come into conflict how the conflict is going to be resolved is is
going to be rather interesting probably in the courts but if you're violating
the privacy of your customers doesn't that take priority over anything else
how can you say that profits mean more than that that makes you guilty right
there well liable I think maybe might be the right word right now guilty where
it's a guilty in my eyes perhaps but I mean look I think you're right about
that and that you know if you're violating privacy for customers or
you're using their data in a way for which and or rather in a way that you
for which you haven't been given consent to use it that could be considered a
privacy violation under this particular bill that could give right to a private
right about give give rise to a private right of action and and then allow you
to sue in New York State court so this is going to play out I think in rather
interesting ways and I think like we saw in California there's going to be a lot
of horse trading with the technology companies coming into the New York State
legislature trying to lobby trying to remove the teeth from this particular
bill the other thing I think that's that's really interesting here is that
the tech companies they're all making the argument now that you know
complying with these laws you know they got the California law which is
different from the New York law if the New York law passes it's gonna have more
teeth in California we saw the same arguments about this this conundrum of
compliance when it came to state data breach notification laws of which you
know there really isn't a gigantic amount of harmony but you know for the
most part what companies have done is they they regulate themselves to the
most restrictive common denominator right so for a long time Massachusetts
had the most rigorous data breach notification laws so what we would
advise companies to do is to comply with Massachusetts its laws and this could
have a spillover effect as New York law could require these tech companies if
unless they want to have separate compliance programs to across the board
regulate themselves or rather conduct themselves in a manner that would comply
with New York state law that's really quite interesting but the technology
companies are now using this as an argument with Congress so that Congress
will have to step in and and and save them from this this dreaded mess of
compliance that they are now faced with by passing federal legislation that is
as you noted earlier manual a lighter touch than what we would have under New
York state law and federal law that touches the same subjects as state law
generally preempt state law so it would essentially make the state law null and
void if Congress decides to preempt that legislation and if they do so explicitly
the New York state law would would essentially can be completely void well
just to outline how this proposed law differs from California as you already
pointed out some of the changes some of the differences California law leaves
enforcement to the state's Attorney General New York Privacy Act would give
New Yorkers the right to sue companies directly over privacy violations
possibly setting up a barrage of individual lawsuits industry groups of
course vehemently opposed a similar provision also known as a private right
of action in California and they succeeded in driving it out of the bill
when it was finally signed into law last year and California's law as you
mentioned applies only to businesses that make more than 25 million dollars
annual gross revenue New York bill would apply to companies of any size and you
know what I own a company and if I violated somebody's privacy doesn't
matter that you know we only make you know a few hundred bucks a year I should
be sued for that well sure I mean I I think any privacy violation should give
a plaintiff the right to sue for that particular violation whether it makes
sense to sue depends on what the damages are right I mean if it's $50 worth of
damages nobody's going to go to court over that but if this is causes you an
enormous headache you know and thousands and thousands of dollars worth of your
time or expenses then yeah sure you should be able to recoup that I
completely agree now that the other bit I think that the big difference here
between the California law and the New York law is the concept of the data
fiduciary and and some of the literature that I was reading about this particular
bill you know mentioned that well there are there are plenty of other
professions that hold a lot of information about people and already
have to act as data fiduciaries and those professions are most notably
doctors and lawyers I mean if I were to take the client information that people
give me lots of their personal information and monetize it somehow I
could be I could be disbarred for that so I mean I I applaud Senator Thomas for
coming forward with such a comprehensive bill here and and making these broad
rules that have already applied to certain professions where it's
obviously important to safeguard the privacy of client information to to
apply more generally across the board to every single company this is going to be
a really really interesting battle to watch I think come this summer and over
the fall and as you mentioned it's already facing some staunch opposition
from the tech industry here's a quote the New York Privacy Act in its current
form is unworkable for businesses that want to comply and fails which is
grammatically incorrect and fails to provide New York residents meaningful
control over how their data is collected used and protected well you know if you
want to comply and you failed and yeah I guess you are liable that's that's you
got a problem with that well apparently John Olson a director for the Internet
Association represents the likes of Facebook Google Amazon Microsoft you
name it that's his take on the Internet Association who are these guys it's not
the Internet Society right those are those are the good guys oh no no those
are the good guys yeah Internet Association well again it's it's an
industry trade group that represents the interests of big technology companies
and and fights legislation like this it tries to remove the teeth from any
legislation that would require these particular companies to spend enormous
amounts of money on compliance programs that would vary from state to state and
look on the other hand I understand their plight I was a chief compliance
officer of a very large multinational corporation for a while and compliance
is is a very tricky issue and it gets extraordinarily expensive and you have
to budget more and more for it every single year and it's a giant pain in the
butt but if you're making money hand over fist by monetizing user data client
data whatever kind of personal information it is that you're collecting
you are going to have to be responsible for that information I mean there's no
wiggling out of this right now I think what most of the tech companies are
hoping for is that New York passes this law California passes another law
Missouri might pass a different law Massachusetts could pass something that
goes even farther beyond this and then we'll have this real morass of
compliance they'll go and cry to Congress that we need federal legislation
and then at some point in 2021 or 2022 they'll have preemptive federal
legislation that relies on the FTC to enforce users as rights or the Attorney
General of the United States to bring private to bring civil enforcement
actually something like that that essentially removes the teeth and
removes the potential for gigantic legal liability here now speaking of people
having their data intercepted pilfered leaked whatever this really blew me away
this story the companies that sell car license plate readers used by US
authorities to track drivers within its borders collect far more information
than than any of us even imagined and of course they fail to adequately protect
that personal data as a recent investigation well maybe a recent hack
showed and that's why you need hackers because they reveal things like this now
these license plate readers collect and store information including people's
locations zip codes even mp3 files presumably from individuals computers
invasive technologies and the surveillance state they reveal are a
major privacy concern on Thursday last Thursday a hacker using the name Boris
bullet dodger contacted technology news website to register providing internal
data belonging to a company known as perceptix they're in the USA designed
vehicle identification and license plate recognition products to serve
border control commercial vehicle enforcement electronic toll collection
and security industries that's according to its website these license plate
readers they're terrifying according to Chris Garafa a technologist who spoke
with radio Sputnik they exist when you go through a toll if you don't have to
stop they have them on their cops have license plate readers on their cars truck
companies have these license plate readers they all have to connect back to
DMV the Department of Motor Vehicle databases so these license plate
generator readers are constantly taking data from your car when you're going
down the street or when law enforcement drives down your street and you're
parked at home it's it's it's simply incredible so what the unidentified
hackers found online is hundreds of thousands of files relating to zip codes
locations even images from these license plate readers it's an unbelievable cache
of files and it shows exactly what these devices are tracking and keeping on us
let's say they go and see my license plate they're storing that information
they could correlate that with when they see my license plate later on you do
that enough you can figure out that so-and-so works here he lives there so
many different things that you can figure out by by spying on people in
this particular way and this company according to this security expert has
been so derelict in its responsibility to protect that data that they left it
online open for folks to see so yeah they get sued don't you think Alex
they're liable they're guilty come on I think that that might give rise to a
some some sort of class action is what my my best guess would be here and and
certainly this is the type of action you know where a company doesn't even
reasonably secure its data you know that this is why private private rights of
action exist in these types of legislation is to enforce us and to
discourage this kind of negligent behavior but we didn't even know they
were storing that kind of data you know why don't we know this why don't we know
this they're storing our mp3 files they know things like that things that are on
our internal machines attached to cars well did anybody bother asking them do
you have to ask exactly what it is that they might be doing you never know yeah
they might just tell you this is what we're doing you didn't have to hack us
we would have just told you well I'm glad they were hacked I really am and
they weren't even hacked they left they left data lying around so that's not
really being hacked that's being discovered I agree with that I mean this
is this is beyond the pale negligence when it comes to personally identifying
information and license plate data like this is extraordinarily valuable where
this data or rather if the the hackers or the Explorers whatever we want to
call them found this I mean I'm really curious to know whether the company has
been able to identify whether others have seen this in the past as well
because if if someone like this was able to find it who knows whether a foreign
intelligence agency or some other malicious actor or threat actor was able
to identify this information why is always the foreign intelligence agencies
that we're afraid of I think we should be afraid of people a lot closer to us
you know like what we're talking about Chinese phones I don't care if the
Chinese government is spying on me I care if my government is spying on me
well that that too I mean for overseas listeners a foreign intelligence agency
might be our own intelligence agencies but certainly you know local law
enforcement you know any governmental power that has access to that information
I think it could be you know used for malicious purposes but you know they
could get this information anyhow using legal process if just because this
third-party company is storing it all right well get this the US government
will now require most visa applicants to provide details of their social media
accounts before they're allowed into the country this controversial policy came
into force on Friday and this comes from the register another amazing piece from
them as far as we can tell it will require people to provide the URLs or
handles of social media accounts from Twitter and Tumblr to LinkedIn
Instagram and Facebook no passwords were requested that would be kind of
weird but the information must be declared on the DS 160 application form
which needs to be completed to apply to for non-permanent visas to stay and work
in the United States those are the forums on which you normally fill out
your personal information such as your passport details so these new online
forums asking for email addresses and social media handles are something that
has just come into effect but what's weird about this is a startling lack of
detail over how exactly the policy will be enforced how any data gathered from
social media profiles will be used despite more than a year of debate
including public comment periods and lawsuits seeking more detail the policy
covers visa applicants which should mean that tourists from the 38 countries the
u.s. allows foreigners to visit for 90 days via the electronic system for
travel authorization as the scheme are not impacted by this latest change since
December at least some as to applicants have been asked to provide online
handles so it's not mandatory apparently to comply it gets really kind of
confusing there but it's it's disturbing to think that you will be judged and
analyzed based on what is in your social media accounts and I also wonder how do
they know if you're not telling them that tells me they already know
everything about your social media well I mean I that's a perfectly legitimate
question and I think it just it really raises the issue of what what the point
of all of this is anyhow I mean it's certainly not all that difficult to
discover any person's social media profile if you know what their name is
right I mean it's very very simple open source intelligence gathering techniques
that could discover this I mean why the the government requires you to disclose
it on one hand is somewhat silly but why do you have to use your name on social
media why can't you just become somebody else well you can absolutely and they
want to know that if you know if you're coming here and you haven't some kind of
alter ego but you know it raises the issue too is I mean our bad actors who
are coming into the country really you know that have been posting on social
media on Twitter you know whatever kind of nationalist jingoistic terrorist
related media dialogue that they've been engaging in doesn't matter what it
is are they really gonna put that down on the form is there any way to ensure
that this is going to be accurate I mean I have a theory about this particular
obligation here and and I think you know maybe we're giving the administration
or rather maybe I'm giving administration a little bit too much
credit here but I think that there's a long game here I think that this will
become a mandatory requirement for people entering the country that this is
the test pilot program that we're dealing with right now and that non
compliance with this requirement or an incomplete disclosure or an inaccurate
disclosure of your social media profiles handles etc if you're entering this
country and let's say you are here on a visa work visa you know spousal visa
whatever it is that requires you to be here whatever non-compliance or
incomplete disclosure is will ultimately become grounds or perhaps one factor in
determining whether or not to deport you and I think what they're trying to
do is make it more burdensome and and more costly and and and more
administrative for for people to stay in this country and the corollary to that
is it gives the administration more ammunition to try to deport individuals
later on what I think we need to also look at with this is the the tools that
we're talking about here are part of a larger system of surveillance and
they're being used in different ways than say officer would would use a
speedometer or I'm sorry radar detector or some sort of speed measurement device
that is sort of a disparate and disconnected tool that they would use as
an investigative thing you know to say I suspect this person was speeding I've
now verified it the tools in these different ways the automatic license
plate reader their network they're creating data and databases that are
used in a much bigger form of surveillance like in that case I would
say that's likely just you know if someone's being tracked and surveilled
for an investigation that's likely just going to verify yeah and we've had them
picked up on this license plate reader in conjunction with a lot of other forms
of surveillance but I think what's being lost here is the human dignity and the
right to a presumption of innocence because the amount of data that this
connected stuff collects and paint like what it actually paints would be the
product of like maybe months weeks I don't know what it is but would be the
product of an investigation where there was a suspicion of a crime being done
this treats all of us as though we have done something just by default there's
no trigger there's no judgment there's nothing that is is brought to bear that
would warrant it it's just warranted by default and I think that really gets at
socially this right that I think we should have well we're not presumed to
be criminal we have that right but this is for people getting visas well if it's
and do they have the same right presumption of innocence before guilt
I'm not sure that it's the same I mean this would be maybe something Alex could
speak to but I think if it was being tested as something they would roll out
to everyone as though he as he was hypothesizing or you know putting
forward as a potential route that this could go and this is just being used on
people that are there are non-citizens applying for visas because as you said
they don't have exactly the same rights and they can they can be turned away
from the country they can't turn us away from the country they can investigate us
but they can do that without even asking us they can simply if we use our real
names on social media they can be looking into us right now well
certainly and I you know I think Kyle is really on to something here because it
this is just another data point and this panoply of data points that may be used
for predictive analytics about what somebody may or may not do and let's say
their social media profile indicates that they you know we're engaging in
dialogue and subjects X Y & Z those subjects you know relate to naturally to
something else and the you know they may be rabble rousers they may be
troublemakers and therefore they may not be led into the country on the basis
of speech that they made God knows when so many years ago and that that to me is
really scary not only because of the implications that Kyle had identified
but because this could encourage some kind of tit-for-tat type system where
countries are going to say well if America is requiring that of our
citizens we're gonna require that of Americans and then you have a foreign
government asking for the same same information and then you know how are we
going to feel about that it's not gonna make anybody feel comfortable that's
exactly where I'm going is that this then becomes a diplomatic and a you know
a new normal for normalized relations and I think anybody that's traveled
maybe to Canada or traveled to the UK or in these other places would maybe say
yeah the border seems a little different or you know people are less inclined and
and to be accommodating or they're going to be you know as vigilant as we are and
and doing all the things that they have to do and treat us in kind the way we're
treating other people and I'm just I'm critical of this as a as a way to vet
people who are applying for visas I think that's not the country we've we
are or should be well the way I see it it's yet another reason not to use
social media so much not to take it so seriously and maybe we can go back to
living lies or we're not judged based on someone's online detective work hey
we're gonna open up our phone lines 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 8 7 7 we haven't heard from my
listeners in a while because we've been in fundraising mode and now we're not so
it'd be great to hear from you you can also write to us OTH at 2600 calm that's
our email address a couple other interesting stories Ryan Morales a
Democratic candidate who's running for a Florida House seat that covers much of
Lake County has claimed in a Facebook post on Friday that his campaign website
had been accessed by Russian hackers that's right Morales who's challenging
Republican incumbent state Senate state representatives that is Anthony
Sabatini said his website had what was was visited by an intruder he learned
soon after that the hacker had registered as an administrator on the
site to which is impossible said Morales my security doesn't allow for that you
know what I think it does because otherwise we wouldn't be reading the
story the hacker changed some coding in the website's back end which blocked
Morales couldn't even get into his own site he says another website he manages
was also tampered with no personal information was accessed which he
somehow seems to know he says the hackers email address Tony sunshine sorry
these stories are just so funny at Yandex dot are you an IP address were
traced back to Russia by both him and his host platform WP engine of course
you do realize that can be faked as well Yandex per their website is a Russia
based company that specializes in internet related products and services
including search and information searches navigation online advertising
influencing elections among others now they don't say that but yeah I don't
know what if they were just trying to shut me down or whatever they were
trying to do but they were messing with me and I guess you don't want to mess
with this guy yeah so it's it's basically the question being asked is
why would the Russians care about this they don't care about this basically if
a machine is out there it's going to get touched by somebody somebody's gonna try
to get in doesn't matter who you are so don't think that they're debating in the
Kremlin how they're going to flip the house in Florida they don't care they
don't really care people all over the place machines all over the place are
constantly trying security holes and if there are any they will find them yeah
and this raises a an interesting issue too with regard to the attribution of
these particular types of activities when it comes to Russia everybody is so
up in arms right now and so concerned about Russian interference in election
activities that anything untoward that happens on anybody's side that that
could potentially point back to Russia's blamed on the Russians either look there
was some very serious election interference going on in 2016 as the
Mueller report documented we believe this is still going on but one thing I
know for sure is that if the GRU is interfering in election related
activities they're not going to register for a WordPress website with a yandex.ru
address that's that goes back to Tony sunshine I mean unless of course the
Russians would be so smart as to think that nobody would think that we would
ever be so stupid as to do that that they actually do put in a yandex.ru
email address you know one of the other things I should mention is part of what
we do in my law firm is we do some threat hunting we track a lot of APT
or advanced persistent events persistent threat activity we've seen a lot of
interesting things happening lately where we know Russia certainly is not
involved in certain activities but people are using yandex.ru addresses
after a company or an organization is compromised to raise a false flag that
you know that untrained eyes might believe that Russia is involved it I
I would go so far as to bet you know I don't know 10 or 20 bucks that this was
certainly not the Russians well when I email people from my yandex.ru account I
noticed that there are a lot more suspicious and not as friendly as they
usually are yes yeah I would imagine that's that's true actually but it's
probably a good thing for you you can't judge somebody by their email address
totally agree 212-209-2877 is our phone number open opening up the phones to our
listeners who have not heard from in a while I'd like to hear from you again
the Twitter accounts of several Kraft Heinz owned brands were hacked Friday
as the handles for planters Kool-Aid and Capri Sun all began churning out
nonsensical and even obscene tweets the planters Twitter account mr. peanuts
followed by 36,000 gets these stories 36,200 people and named after planters
monocled mascot rattled off a series of nonsensical tweets and a thread that
included language that ranged for inappropriate to obscene for a legume
brand I didn't know that was a qualification there but obscene for a
legume brand there yeah I'm not going to read the tweets I'm not going to read
what words they use but there were nasty words and they did gather more attention
than they usually get one of the tweets seemed to out the hacker claiming this
is why max speaking and that Twitter account was suspended late Friday and
basically they Kraft Heinz spokesperson said we are aware that several of our
brand Twitter accounts were hacked by an external source we apologize for
inappropriate content that was posted through our accounts that may have
offended our fans we've taken swift action to remove these posts and are
investigating the situation with Twitter to ensure it doesn't happen again you
know actually that is a very smart statement you're investigating it with
Twitter you didn't call in the FBI to investigate why mr. peanuts Twitter
account was hacked who cares in fact why in God's name is anybody following
mr. peanut on Twitter anyway the mr. peanut account by the way it's
typically embraced a casual voice in in the past it has made it a target of some
followers on Thursday the account published a tweet that read to be or not
to be that is the Thursday thought and that prompted 78 comments including a
few making smutty references to the brand's namesake okay fine that's that's
on the users but mr. peanut that's what I expect I expect something a little
informal well what I also expect from these brands is that they are smart
enough now to establish two-factor authentication for these social media
accounts it's amazing to me that mr. peanut does not have to FA established
on Twitter it's not very difficult to set up whatsoever I mean when they're
investigating this with Twitter I'm sure Twitter is going to come back to them
and say well had you had established two-factor authentication this probably
would not have happened unless somebody was going to Sim Jack whoever the social
media representative is that's running the mr. peanut account and I don't think
people are gonna really take that much effort to do something like that just to
have mr. peanut make some lascivious comments and that is all we are gonna
say about the mr. peanut Twitter account hey do we have any listeners left they
know nobody's calling I mean you remember when we used to get a full
switchboard just just in a second 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 8 7 7 don't make us check to see
if the phone's plugged in again okay here's another story this is titled my
Instagram was hacked and it changed my lazy online habits for good yeah we have
an infinite number of stories like this I just taken a cute picture of my dachshund
to Merlin so like any owner with a social media addiction I decided to pop
it onto my Instagram no Kylie Jenner but Instagram full of dogs and interiors
frocks and skincare was my happy place I clicked on the app and instead of diving
into the site as usual I hit a page asking for my email and password I
entered both rejected tried again no luck time I thought to send a forgotten
password request at this point Instagram informed me that my email address was
not linked to any account I googled my account and found it my grid was as I'd
left it with pictures of my family my home me and my work but she couldn't get
in well first of all how you know it's a she I just assumed I don't know when she
talked about frogs yeah that's something we'll discuss that later point
but second of all you're both sitting on the edge of your seats you want to hear
more don't you not really but I'll humor you well you're gonna have to pay if you
want to hear more because this is this is what my biggest complaints about
Google News is that it keeps forwarding you to sites that want money for reading
all the damn stories and I don't am I supposed to pay for this comes from the
Telegraph in the UK muscles to pay every single newspaper in the world to read
their stories you know what I don't care we won't know how this turns out
and how about Google how about you only direct people to the stories that they
can actually read instead of just paywalls constantly it's useless and if
anyone has a substitute for them I'd like to know what it is because I miss
the days where you had a news aggregator that actually directed you to news and
not to all kinds of ads and and demands for money all right we have a listener
good evening you're on off the hook go ahead something's definitely up with our
hold on a second so it's definitely up this board speak up a little bit more go
ahead that is better yes really and then finally I just get on now welcome to
telecommunications in the 21st century here at be wow that is something and you
are calling that number 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 8 7 7 well folks call that number you want
to hear some weird sounds I guess and where are you calling from well that's
kind of far away I think our phone only works in Brooklyn and an old what copper
Wow yeah well why do you sound I don't know offense you sound terrible I keep
calling from a car they're playing hardball aren't they you hang on to that
that copper line like grim death because well we admire your spirit and
your tenacity and we hope it works out let's take another phone call good
evening you're on off the hook speak up oh this must be one of those new fiber
lines so clean you can't hear anything we had all these lines ringing and they
all disappeared that's what optical communication gets you I think all those
lines got transferred to our general manager because they still haven't fixed
the phone where it doesn't do that so if you just called up well you have to call
immediately back because we only have a minute left well at least we got to talk
to a guy in a copper mine that's what it sounded like good evening you're on off
the hook that's what I thought he said yes Verizon called me up and said they're
gonna disconnect the phone if I don't switch the prios Wow
and we had to do it around the corner from somebody they got in switch and
they cut off his number only 911 was working yeah it sounds like the mob the
way that they're they're calling people up and and and giving them dark threats
over the phone and then enforcing those threats nothing could be done I call the
Public Service Commission that Verizon fans I'm really sorry about that and the
only thing I can suggest then is you know me I can't believe I'm saying this
but maybe go over the cable company and it's not copper but it's also not
wireless and you're not giving into Verizon that way as cheaper yeah we've
suggested looking into smaller carriers you might be able to transfer your phone
number and maybe those smaller carriers are able to keep the connections up
given their large customer base the other thing is maybe you could go out
and with some tree pruners and help them cut we have one more listener good
evening you're on off the hook yeah hi it's Tom from the Bronx hey Tom I like
to say that with the subways are concerned I wish they they wouldn't put
in this new system I think it's I think it's another wacky wacky logic that
they've come up with they there's a lot of people not paying fares they're mad
at people they keep raising the fares to go up is there's there's a lot of
people that are just desperate and then they're going to blame they said well we
just got to put in this new system make things go right and the more thing they
put in these items the more chaos evolves here that's all I can see all
right well thanks thanks for the insight we're going to reflect on those
words and check back in a few years and see if that is in fact what happened but
technology marches on sometimes into the fire sometimes into a better place we'll
see that's going to do it for us here tonight you can write to us OTH at 2600
comm and remember there are 2600 meetings this Friday everywhere and it's
D-Day tomorrow so here's a special tribute to that good night
I was a reserve DJ
The sound detectors were coming on down the beach
And the councilors wanna pounce on us
Our very first dubbing of peace
And the corner sign on it just begun
To sink into the western sea
So they keep it low so the cops don't know
I spun my Garibella 40
On a techno D-Day
A techno D-Day
Out on Omar Beach
Where the troops believe in
A life of freedom
And this is all about free speech
The day became night while I kept my light
The crowd began testifying
Using my headphones for a mic
For a tenor source to light a sang
And then a new sound is dying
On a techno D-Day
A techno D-Day
Out on Omar Beach
On a techno D-Day
A techno D-Day
We waited on Omar Beach
We waited
We waited
Behind me in the booth was the techno crew
Ready with the crucial beats
They said keep it low, spin your glue
It's all over waiting for Babylon to retreat
The crowd was ready to ride, baby
Secretly and quiet
Just waiting for the signal to go
Then the walkie-talkie, yeah
Spot off the old kid
Let the boys hit the decks in full flow
Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go
It was a techno D-Day
A techno D-Day
Way out on Omar Beach
Where the troops believe in a life of freedom
This is all about free speech
A techno D-Day
A techno D-Day
Way out on Omar Beach
Where the troops believe in a life of freedom
This is all about free speech
A techno D-Day
A techno D-Day
Sometimes you have to get out of reach
It was a techno D-Day
A techno D-Day
This is all about free speech
Yeah!