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The time is just about 7 o'clock. Time once again for Off The Hook.
Oh, the time is good. I'm in the mood.
I'm in the mood.
And a very good evening to everybody. The program is Off The Hook. Emanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
I'm joined tonight by Kyle.
Yes, I'm here.
Hang on. I pressed... Oh, I didn't press the button.
No, I'm over here.
I pulled the lever. I didn't press the button.
I was under that, but yeah.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry again.
So many different things to push.
Okay, let's try that again. Emanuel here. Kyle over there.
Yes, I'm here. I'm right here.
And now we're going to complicate matters even further by bringing in Rob on Skype.
You see, when I press that button, my voice changes even though I'm bringing...
See how that happens?
That's not my imagination, is it? No, that's really happening.
Okay, Rob, are you there?
Good evening. I'm going to complicate things.
And we don't have a super satellite type delay tonight, so that's nice as well.
We've had a lot of connectivity issues on all levels, in the city, on Long Island, on the moon, everywhere.
Gila is also here in Queens.
I am also here. That is true.
And Alex is joining us. Alex, where in the world are you?
I'm in Pennsylvania, although this morning, yesterday morning, I was in New York.
So I'm back in New York, splitting my time between Manhattan and Pennsylvania.
Okay, well, I guess we're pretty much spread out throughout the Northeast, so that's a good thing.
This is Off the Hook, The Hacker Show.
We talk about technology. We talk about changes in things going on in the world and society.
And boy, we have so many instances of that.
But I'd like to just start off with a simple question first, if that's okay.
The question is, why do hackers hack?
Why? Why do we do this? Why do hackers hack?
No one's ever asked that before.
Rob, it looks like you have an answer.
I think it's the natural response to the world around them from someone who thinks with a hacker mindset.
Okay, all right.
Sounds like kind of a political answer there, but I guess that kind of works. Alex?
I mean, I think to build on what my esteemed colleague from Queens had mentioned,
I think we need to further define what hack is, if we're going to answer that particular question here.
Because I take myself a rather expansive definition of the word hack,
in that I believe it's possible to be a hacker based on your own mentality.
I don't think that you need to have a computer in order to be a hacker.
In fact, I feel like I was a hacker before I ever even had a computer,
just because of the way in which I lived my life and looked at the world.
I feel like it's more a philosophy or rather a methodology of questioning the answers,
questioning the way systems work, not being afraid to disassemble them,
even if you may not be able to put everything back together in exactly the right fashion again.
But to go back, I realize I didn't answer exactly the question.
I just provided a definition. To go back to why people hack,
again, I think it's part of their mentality.
As Robin mentioned, it's part of who they are to think about things in a different way,
to question things, to take them apart, to go places where you're not supposed to be.
I mean, would you consider somebody, Emanuel, who liked to, let's say,
venture to the roofs of hotel buildings or get to unauthorized places, physical places,
would you consider them?
Against my specific instructions, I'm not sure.
It's a quandary for sure. But yeah, I take your point. Gila, you had an answer too.
Yes. I think you can take it away from technology.
I think that hackers hack because they want to understand how and why things work
and how to make them work better or smarter or stronger.
And then that mindset can be applied to everything, technological or no.
All right. Well, Kyle, do you have any ideas on this?
Wow. There are so many great answers there.
It's a deep question.
I would add to what Gila just said, just also passionate about making things work in unintended ways,
especially being industrious with the things around you and using them to their fullest
or in creative ways that can empower you and can let you learn more.
And the more you discover, the more I think you have these insatiable curiosities.
I think curiosity is a big, big part of all kinds of hacks.
Like us turning this 1980s VCR into a broadcasting board so that we could have the radios show over it.
Yeah. Like will it work?
It's genius.
If it does, it'd be cool, that kind of thing.
Like, okay, can I subvert something or can I take it apart?
Don't hit the eject button though. That's all I ask.
I'm glad it works as well as it does.
Okay. The reason I ask this, I was perusing my issue of itonline.co.za from South Africa,
and they had this question asked, and it was a survey by a company called finbold.com,
and they came to the conclusion that 68% of hackers initiate attacks
because that's how they apparently define hacking is initiating attacks.
And the reason they do this is in order to be challenged.
The survey featured about 3,000 respondents from at least 120 countries and territories.
Now, the second highest reason, I think this is where we might have some issues,
the second highest reason for hacking is making money, 53%,
while learning tips and techniques accounts for 51%,
and about 49%, this is my group, of hackers launch attacks just to have fun.
What do you guys think of that breakdown? Do you think there's a disconnect there?
Well, I will tell you, and I will be completely honest with you,
that I still sometimes struggle to see myself as a hacker to apply that title to myself.
And part of the reason that I gave the answer I did about why hackers hack
is because that's a way that I can understand myself in that definition.
So I think that that was people applying a very narrow definition of what hacking is.
I didn't like those responses. The money thing made me really sad.
And I think that that also is part of the issue with hacking and attacking
and all of those things giving the entire, not industry, but the entire,
man, word is gone, but that whole idea a bad name.
Because if it's just you want to get into it to wreak havoc in a bad way,
maybe that was people being honest in an anonymous forum, but I don't love it.
I think those are the words for people who do things like that.
But Gail, I have to say that if you are thinking creatively
and shaping things to work out the way you want to and you're relentless,
that makes you a hacker, and I definitely think you meet that qualification.
But it's far better to be reluctant to call yourself a hacker
than to be too eager to call yourself a hacker.
Because then you get all these hordes of script kitties
that really don't know anything about the hacking itself,
about the actual technology, about the actual experimentation.
They basically learn how to run a script and that does all the work.
And somebody else somewhere far away a long time ago maybe even did all the work.
And you don't really understand what's going on.
It makes you an end user.
That's the ultimate insult.
But let me reveal a couple of other things about this survey.
I just found it interesting to read from a different part of the world
and a different culture because this is more corporate.
Because they view hacking as attacking.
They view these discoveries as not necessarily good.
And the very fact that making money is up there tells me
they're talking to the wrong people.
They're talking to a set of criminals that uses technology to defeat systems.
That's not hard to do and you don't need hacking skills to do that.
Look at the security around us in technology.
Anybody can break through that.
It's not difficult.
Machines themselves are doing it.
It's not something that takes ingenuity.
Ingenuity is designing something, designing the next system that is better,
that gives us services that we actually can use.
So 44% of hackers want to advance their careers.
That's the fifth reason for hacking.
But get this.
Showing off accounts for one of the least reasons for hacking at about 8%.
That right there tells me they're not talking to real hackers
because I happen to know hackers do like to show off.
It's not the most admirable trait, but it is kind of like the rite of passage.
People love to, hey, look, I've got your credit report here.
This is where your grandmother lives.
Just harmless pranks, things like that.
But showing off is a big part of it.
It's not necessarily a bad thing.
It depends on what you do with the information just like with anything else.
Now the research also reviewed some of the popular hacking platforms.
Websites account for the majority.
71% of hacking takes place on websites.
That has not gone away.
That's kind of heartening to know.
APIs account for about 7% followed by Android Mobile at 4%.
Technologies, well, it basically goes on into some more breakdowns
that really aren't that important.
But the final point I'll make here is 30% of respondents say
they've been hacking for between one and two years.
On the other hand, 20% of hackers have been hacking for three to five years.
But get this.
Only 5% of hackers have been hacking for more than 15 years.
So, yeah, Alex, you and I, we're the very slim minority here.
Rob, you too.
So, well, I guess that's good, right?
It makes us more elite, which is the favorite word of all hackers everywhere,
by the way.
It's true.
Those statistics, however, remind me of another statistic that 71% of all
How many percentage of statistics?
We've all heard this a million times, Alex.
This shows for new material.
But it goes right to the heart of this.
I think this is all completely bogus.
I mean, these stats are just complete nonsense.
It's kind of fodder for middling or mid-level IT managers in the southern
hemisphere is what it sounds like to me.
Now, if there's anything wrong with the southern hemisphere.
Well, okay.
I thought it was interesting.
All right, we have another fairly big story.
Well, of course, I guess we all saw that spectacle last night known as the
first presidential debate.
I don't want to spend too much time on it, but you can't really avoid the
drunken elephant in the room.
So any initial responses or observations or things that might not have been
covered in mass media or technological hacking-type views?
I just think the moderator dude, I hope he was getting hazard pay.
What moderator?
There was a moderator there?
Because I didn't see him.
I was looking for one.
I did not see one.
Any one of us could have done a better job moderating that thing.
Although, you know, a lot of people are saying they should have microphone
switches so that when somebody says something that you don't want to hear,
that wasn't funny.
Why would you do that?
That wasn't funny.
That's not funny at all.
I'm going to write you up.
When someone says something you don't want to hear,
then you can cut off the mic.
And imagine that happening in last night's debate where President Trump was
interrupting constantly, interrupting everybody.
He even interrupted himself once.
Actually, no, that's Joe Biden's forte.
But how about if instead of having a kill switch on the microphone where you
don't get to hear all the idiocy that's coming out of his mouth,
you just separate it by channel.
So you have Trump on the left, just to piss him off,
and you have Biden on the right.
And it's up to you, the viewer,
to do your own DJing and mix it the way you're comfortable.
Some people will just turn him down completely and hear a lot of sighing from
Biden and what he's actually trying to say.
And others will hear this just unleashed barrage of craziness.
But that way at least you have the evidence.
It's all right there.
And I think that might be one of the solutions.
Of course, they'll never listen to me, but it's just one idea.
Alex.
Yeah.
Another idea that I was thinking of last night, too,
is if you think about how far we've come in terms of the technological
measurement of time.
And if every time that Donald Trump had interrupted Biden or just started
running his mouth at the moderator, whatever he was doing,
if we began to time that and then take that away from his overall time for the
rest of his answers,
I feel like that would be a very good incentive for him to shut up, man.
Wait.
As Biden would say.
On your planet, what color is the sky, Alex?
I'm curious because you think that telling Trump that he has violated
something, he's going to, Alex, you completely froze.
Are you still there?
Maybe he is on another planet.
You look like it now.
His face got all blurred and he's frozen.
Well, I'm going to keep asking the question.
So if you tell him that he has violated the rules and he's being penalized,
how are you going to enforce that?
How are you ever going to enforce that against him?
He doesn't obey any rules.
He doesn't think the rules apply to him.
Sorry.
I totally lost connectivity there and missed a bit of what you were saying,
but I think it was about how to apply the rules.
Yes.
I don't know.
Maybe you have to go to another channel thing and cut him off at the end.
Or if he goes over, let's say he goes over two minutes,
then he loses the right to answer a question.
That's it.
But he's going to do it anyway.
That's been the modus operandi of this entire administration for their
whole period in power.
Just the other day,
Wilbur Ross just announced that the census is going to end on October 5th
after being told by a federal court it has to end on October 31st.
He overruled a federal court and he's getting away with it,
just like they're getting away with every abuse that is technically somehow
legal, even though it's not, and nobody can seem to do anything about it.
So I'm just curious how, if you have a way to start controlling these people,
I'd like to know what it is.
Yeah, that I couldn't answer.
But I mean, I think when we talk, we're talking about these people, right?
You know,
if we countenance this kind of egregious rule breaking and we allow it to
become the norm,
then we're just going to encourage that kind of bad behavior.
It is the norm now.
So that horse has left the barn,
but it doesn't have to be the norm because I think a lot of people,
both on the right and the left,
were outraged by the outrageous conduct of Donald Trump last night in that he
kept interrupting.
He acted like a petulant child over and over and over again.
And I don't see how that can, can cater to anybody's base.
You know, if your base is, you know, adults with,
let's say a high school education,
I would think that that would be sort of repulsive behavior.
And if it's not,
then I think maybe we all need to go back and have some manners trainings and,
and perhaps that's how.
With, with, with O'Reilly and doublespeak, Alex,
you can accomplish anything.
And then all you have to do is turn to Fox news,
which I did last night and saw how they were reporting the story as being both
candidates talking over each other, not listening, interrupting. Yeah,
there was criticism of Trump, but it was,
it was equaled by criticism of Biden,
making them both seem like they were doing the same thing when clearly that
was not what was happening,
but that is how they are writing history to their viewers.
And certainly Trump goes many steps further than that,
saying that he did a great job and that all these people are singing his
praises. Kyle, I thought you were waving. Sorry, Rob.
The thing is, and I,
I really like your your idea to put them both on complete different sides of
the audio, because, you know, as an audio engineer, I know hard panning is fun.
It's, it's like, you know, when the Beatles went stereo,
but the problem with that is being able to just turn down the bit you don't
like kind of spoils the whole point of the thing. Ostensibly,
the debate is supposed to be about, you know, each side knows that,
that I mean each,
each candidate knows that both sides of the political spectrum out there and
everyone in between and everyone undecided are supposed to be watching.
So you can speak to the other person's people,
even if they're in their bubbles the rest of the time. And, you know,
I like my social media bubble. I like my news bubble, but you know,
you have to venture out of your bubble if you're going to get anything done.
But the way they handled it last night meant that nothing got done and just
everyone left angry except like the racists.
Yeah, we'll get to that, Kyle.
Well, I, I would just add that it, it was itself
something easily done, but they, they, they may implement it.
They may not, but I think it was rest mostly with the moderator himself.
A lot of the time, the strategy,
what I heard him do a lot with president Trump was try to admonish him,
like say, Oh, you'll be excited, Mr. President.
Like, like he's got a surprise coming up for him.
Like he's a three-year-old.
He's trying to appeal to him knowing that he likes, you know,
to be that flattery and stuff.
And he used it repeatedly with him to try to get out of those really tense
moments. And Trump was not having any of it.
He was going to act the way he was going to act.
So I think that style really proved not to be able to control the dynamic of
it, especially in such a short period and for how consistently the president
was just interrupting and going on and on.
So, but I think the next moderator will have a lot more skill with people
saying outrageous things because that's one of the main features of the
program that he works on.
Well, it's a guy from C-SPAN.
Yeah.
But he's called the most patient guy in the world.
And I don't know if patience is what we need more of.
Well, I've seen him.
Maybe a little impatience.
I've seen him, whether it's just some pretty outrageous,
like really insulting things.
And I think he, he's, he's tough.
And I think he'll, it's just the dynamic of it.
I don't think he has the same relationship with Trump either,
and would really even try to appeal to any of that.
He's going to probably try to be as fair.
And he's heard probably really a lot of the craziness that's been on that
program.
So I don't know.
We'll see.
But I think that style didn't work well.
Yeah.
I doubt Trump has ever watched C-SPAN in his life, even knows it exists,
but we'll see.
We'll see what happens.
Gail, go ahead.
Yes.
I think probably that's going to help because I think part of the issue may
have been in a greater sense that Trump has a lot of animosity towards Chris
Wallace to begin with.
He was not inclined to listen to any rules that Chris Wallace set out.
Now with that said, and I am speaking as a former middle school teacher.
I didn't know that.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I taught middle school for three years.
Yeah.
Wow.
That kind of project just requires,
I'm very interested to see the commission on debate said they're going to be
rolling out new rules before the next one.
And I'm curious to see what they're planning to do.
I don't, they were not clear about what it's going to be,
but I think the idea, like, look,
I had a kid in my class who thought the rules did not apply to him and tried
to be the ringleader and trying to get everybody to misbehave constantly.
And finally I pulled him aside after class and I said, Sam,
that was his name.
I said, Sam, the kids look up to you.
I need you to set an example and help me because it's not going to work if
you don't help me.
It worked a little bit,
but I mean obviously trying to trying to appeal to Trump's better angels would
never work because I don't think he has any.
Have you checked up on Sam lately?
Is he in the Trump administration?
He is not in the Trump administration.
Okay.
Unfortunately,
I think he's a Trump voter,
strangely enough,
but yeah,
I mean,
all I know is if I had let my classroom be like that,
I would've gotten fired multiple times.
Well,
you know,
I do remember in past years,
a long time ago when things were civil but boring,
I was complaining about the debates then and how they weren't really debates
where in Canada they had good debates where a candidate would interrupt
another candidate and get in his face or her face.
And it was a discussion.
It was,
it was a back and forth.
It was a challenge.
Whereas the ones who are having in our country were so controlled and
formulaic that nobody could really address a point.
Somebody had just made,
you had a limited amount of time.
It was just,
it was overstructured.
I don't want to return to that,
but I sure don't want to see more of what we,
what we had last night.
So I don't know.
Maybe,
maybe a hacker mindsets can come up with a system that works because I,
I'd never in,
in all of the talks and forums that I've been part of and witnessed over the
years in the hacker community,
I've never seen anything that was so out of control,
rolling down a mountain on a freight train as,
as what happened in front of the whole world last night.
Not even close.
Alex.
Yeah.
One thing to,
to think about it and watching that is that if this is how Donald Trump has
treated Chris Wallace,
you know,
an esteemed member of,
of the media.
And this is how he treats Biden,
vice president,
right?
This is how he treats people who don't,
who disagree with him.
This is very likely the same attitude that he brings to the table when he's
in the oval office.
This is the same way that he treats people that would disagree with him on
the science with respect to the Corona virus,
when it comes to climate change policy,
when it comes to technology policy,
anything.
I mean,
That kind of mentality is exactly wrong for the presidency of the United
States.
You need to have somebody who was more teachable than,
than Donald Trump,
somebody who's more susceptible,
somebody who's like a sponge,
somebody who reads and listens to others,
listens to the direction follows directions,
you know,
and can actually absorb and assimilate and perhaps even feel the energy of
a room,
which was entirely missing yesterday.
Yeah.
And maybe that's because,
you know,
the room wasn't filled with people and he didn't have a supporters and there
weren't,
there wasn't applause at the end of,
you know,
every zinger statement,
but,
you know,
look,
I think,
you know,
I think Trump did what he set out to accomplish last night,
which was to steamroller over Biden.
And he did it.
He did it.
He did it very well.
I don't know if he steamrolled over Biden.
Biden had some pretty good comebacks and,
and really put him in his place.
He told the president to shut up.
I don't think anyone has ever told Trump to his face and I'm going all the
way back to his toddler years to shut up.
And I think that's the problem.
He needs to hear that more often.
I mean,
that's also something that's,
you know,
look,
it's,
I can understand why Biden was getting angry,
but to say,
shut up,
man,
to the president of the United States,
I think is out of order too.
Yeah.
But you have to look at who is occupying the position.
That is what is out of order.
I mean,
let's,
let's not fall on,
on,
on ceremony here and say,
because he occupies particular office,
he is worthy of respect.
No,
he still has to earn the respect.
And just because he's in an office that commands respect doesn't mean he
gets the respect.
So I think he should be told to shut up a lot more.
I don't think so.
I don't think that we should stoop to their level.
I mean,
well,
you're a Michelle Obama fan,
aren't you?
Well,
didn't she come up with that famous aphorism?
Now,
when they go low,
we go high.
That is high.
That's me.
When I go low,
telling him to shut up is,
is me being restrained.
So,
yeah,
I think she would have something to say about bullies too.
So,
yeah,
she's what to say to them.
But look,
my point here is I think Biden got off to a very slow start.
He,
he definitely did make some,
some comebacks.
He had some zingers.
They shut up,
man might've energized some people on the left and catered to the base
perhaps.
But I think that,
you know,
those singers,
those comebacks that were sort of in the middle of the debate when people
probably tuned out already and Trump started off very strong.
He knew what he was doing and Biden had really floundered.
I don't know what debate you were looking at.
Trump started out strong.
He was out of control the whole time.
And,
and,
and if Biden didn't,
didn't say something clearly is because he was being talked over all the
time.
I mean,
I'm a fan of most of his policies,
but I do know when somebody is sincere and is trying to express themselves
and just being,
being talked over and,
and ridiculed and,
and it's,
well,
I mean,
yeah,
you could say attempted to shut down,
but he kept,
he kept coming right back.
I don't know.
I,
I,
I don't see how you could see Trump as,
as doing anything effectively last night other than just being Trump ish.
I think he was really effective at,
at the,
at deflecting responsibility for the Corona virus at deflecting responsibility
for the racial tension and the violence here.
I think he was,
he did a great job of changing the subject when Beau Biden came up,
which is somebody,
you know,
Biden's deceased son,
who was an exemplar of public service.
And he shifted that right over to Hunter Biden.
You thought that was good.
That was,
that was disgusting.
What he did.
Disgusting.
Of course it was disgusting,
but it was a great move by Trump.
That,
that that's psychological.
If you live under a rock and,
and a cold blooded,
sure.
But I think people cringed when they saw that.
And as far as for deflecting the issue of,
of racial tension,
was this before or after the shout out to the proud boys?
I mean,
that's what everybody's talking about today.
Yeah.
Yeah,
no doubt.
But look,
I,
I,
and I agree and I have something to say on that too,
but the,
the way in which he was able to do that definitely catered to his base.
It prevented him from being vulnerable when it came to those swing voters
too.
And as Rob said,
I mean,
look,
it's a small subset of a small subset of people that are at issue.
You know,
the swing voters that matter are the swing voters in states like
Pennsylvania,
Ohio,
Florida,
Wisconsin,
those undecided swing voters who haven't made up their decisions,
who haven't made up their minds,
who haven't voted yet.
You know,
those are the ones that you're going after.
And it's a really small subset of people that are potentially watching the
debate.
The others that are watching the debate are the guys that want to see the
slug test.
Those are the people that are already,
you know,
they're already set in their ways.
And what Trump is trying to do is make sure that they go to the polls.
And what he did with the Corona virus last night was so despicable when it
came to the vaccine,
basically dangling a vaccine in front of people so that they will vote by
mail for him when it's too late.
And when it's too late to retract their vote because of vaccine will not
come out around November 3rd or around that time,
you know,
or whatever,
whatever happens will,
you know,
some obstacles will come up,
but he is really trying to get people to vote by mail for him by dangling
this Corona virus vaccine out there in the air,
going against all science,
all of his top advisors.
And of course,
and I think he did a definitely deflecting responsibility for the Corona
virus,
200,000 deaths that we've had in this country.
I'm pointing the finger back to Biden and his,
what was it?
The H1N1 SARS comment that he made.
It was incredible.
Yeah.
Well,
it was incredible,
but I think we have different definitions of the word.
Incredible.
Kayla,
go ahead.
I just,
something occurred to me while Alex was talking,
because one of the things that I noticed immediately last night after it was
over was,
you know,
there was a fundraising appeal for the Biden campaign that said,
you can get a t-shirt that says,
will you please shut up,
man,
that was really quick.
And that happened,
but also the proud boys on all their social media used,
stand back and stand by.
They adopted that into their crest immediately after the debate.
So I had a thought,
which didn't necessarily have anything to do with the meat of the debate
itself,
but do people think that Antifa is the left wing equivalent of the proud
boys?
And it's like actually an organization and it's got chapters.
I was,
I was really surprised that Biden got that right.
That he said,
it's an idea,
not an organization.
I expected him to buy into it.
I was pleasantly surprised that he actually understands that Antifa is not an
actual organization of,
of people that have meetings and dues and things like that.
So,
yeah,
a lot of people do believe that.
And,
and Trump pushes that constant boys assume that that's the same sort of
structure.
Now on,
on,
on the proud boy front,
we want to mention this as well because some people gave us a bit of
information and we were asking questions about this pretty much all day on
Twitter.
And it turns out that the proud boys have a commerce site.
And if you look at the source code for their site,
you see that there's all kinds of links to an organization called,
or a company called WooCommerce,
W O O commerce.
And the question we were asking throughout the day was,
is WooCommerce hosting the proud boys?
Is this something they really want to do?
Because it's possible that you could be hosting somebody that you don't know
you're hosting if you're running a commerce company.
So certainly that information needs to get out there.
And we,
we got a ton of feedback from this,
including from the people at WooCommerce as well.
And it turns out that WooCommerce is actually,
well,
I mean,
they,
they do host e-commerce stores.
They're,
they're owned by the same people that own,
what's what's the company with all the blogs and things.
WordPress.
WordPress.
I'm sorry,
my mind blank there owned by the same people.
It's called automatic,
which is of course spelled wrong.
It turns out that this is open source software.
It's,
it's,
I guess like a plugin and you can't control who downloads it,
who uses it.
So that's,
what's happening here is that the proud boys are using this open source
software to run their store and WooCommerce really there.
They're appalled by it.
I can,
I can say they are,
they were shocked to,
to hear this and they were very adamant in denying that they would support
anything like this.
And I,
I,
I do believe them.
And I guess this is one of the shortfalls when you have open source software
out there and the ability for people to do all kinds of amazing things.
Like somebody said,
somebody could run a fascist site on a Linux machine.
There's nothing you can do about it.
You can't stop them from using Linux.
And I don't really want to stop them from,
from using tools.
I just want people to be aware of what tools are being used and what support
they are getting.
Now,
if they are not being supported by a particular e-commerce company,
well,
certainly they're being hosted somewhere.
And I believe Google is hosting them.
So these are just questions,
things that should be,
should be answered.
It's not,
it's not censorship.
It's not shutting down somebody's freedom of speech.
Well,
there's no neutrality anymore.
So,
I mean,
I don't want to say that,
but it's just letting companies know these are your customers.
These are the people that you are,
are helping.
Do you want to do that?
And do you want to be known as,
as an entity that does that?
And again,
WooCommerce was not doing that and they are not doing that.
And it was a learning experience for a lot of people.
So I'm glad we were able to have that out.
But there are all kinds of,
of other things that can be done to fight these people because they do
deserve to be fought for the,
for the terrible things that they do,
the violence that they instigate,
the hate speech that they,
they spread around.
It's,
we have to be careful though.
We have to be careful not to buy into kicking somebody off a platform,
being the same thing as,
as,
as locking somebody up or,
or censoring them.
It's not the case at all because you're always free to be a racist and to be
ignorant and to say things,
but your words do have consequences and no company is required to accept you as
a customer.
And if you're,
if your true values and beliefs,
actions are made known to them,
you can expect that you'll have quite a challenge finding a home.
Go ahead,
Alex.
Yeah,
I think that's exactly right,
Emmanuel.
And the,
you know,
the distinction here is these are private companies.
The first amendment does not necessarily apply to private companies.
They can choose to kick you off their platform if they want,
you know,
in,
unless and until all web hosting is,
is run by the state,
which is a scary thought indeed,
then the first amendment wouldn't apply.
Now,
an issue that I wanted to bring up too,
along very similar lines,
we started collecting data last night about all domain names that have the
word stand in them,
stand and stand,
like stand,
stand back,
stand by.
Wow.
That's going to be a lot of domains.
Oh,
it was a lot of domains.
It was a huge amount of domain names.
And the idea being that when we then recollected all of that information,
the following day,
ran a differential analysis between yesterday and today,
we would come up with some domain names that were responsible or run by,
let's say the proud boys are people seeking to commercialize this type of
hatred and intolerance.
And in fact,
we did find some,
and we found a stand back,
stand by dot shop and stand back,
stand by dot store,
both of which were hosted by dream host,
which is known to actually be quite a progressive host.
And what I found actually was quite interesting to me is that a stand back,
stand by dot store,
which had a normal,
you know,
Hey,
this page is parked image showing up of,
you know,
the ordinary dream host cat sort of falling asleep,
can cute animated gif there.
But then halfway through the day,
when I went to check back again,
we now have a site not found.
So I think my hypothesis is that dream hosts saw this where somebody might
have reported it to them.
I did not.
And they voluntarily took this off their platform.
I posted something on Twitter about this earlier today and tag dream host,
hoping that they would chime in about this,
but they did not.
But those are two domains that are directly seeking to profit off of the
president's crazy ology last night,
that intolerance and hatred.
And given the time at which the debate took place,
I think there are going to be a slew of new domains that we are going to
identify tomorrow because there probably were,
or the zone file updates happened.
I think after the debate,
I'm sorry,
the domains that were registered probably during the debate will probably not
included in today's zone files.
They'll probably be in tomorrow's.
That's awesome.
It'd be,
it's going to be very interesting to track and trace this down as well.
Well,
you know,
a bit of that disturbs me because if you're saying that simply registering a
phrase or a name or a particular word that's in the news is enough to get you
kicked off hosting,
you know,
if you're,
if you're peddling all kinds of horrible things,
that's,
that's one thing that's actionable,
but simply having a name,
I hope that's,
that's not all it took for them to get kicked off.
Probably not.
I would imagine that there's something else.
Generally a web host is not going to kick somebody off unless there's some
form of direct evidence of malicious activity or something that violates their
acceptable use policies or their terms of service,
you know,
and promoting hate speech would,
would generally fall under a violation of an,
of an acceptable use policy.
That's,
that's generally,
you know,
one of the terms that's,
that's in almost every web host's contract.
So if there was some indication of some kind of overt action taken to put hate,
hateful content up there,
then I think DreamHost was well within their rights as a private company to take it
down.
Would their logo or their name on a shirt,
is that enough to,
to meet that criterion that that's promoting hate speech?
Well,
if it was up to me,
probably yes,
because then you're seeking,
then,
then you are going beyond the realm of free speech and you're venturing into,
let's say commercial speech,
which is even less protected by the law.
If you're seeking to,
to make a profit off of this kind of thing.
If you're,
you're pumping out t-shirts with,
with,
you know,
stand back,
standby,
proud boys,
regalia on them.
You know,
I,
I could see that as,
as crossing the line.
The,
the site that we're talking about,
as far as the store that we were looking at is proud of your store.com.
I see,
looking at their name servers now,
it's AWS DNS,
which I believe is Amazon,
correct?
So that's,
that's who's hosting them right now.
And that,
that's their store.
We're all kinds of proud boy.
Merchandise is flying off the shelves.
I would imagine.
And also the other,
the other issue is if you're buying this stuff,
somebody has to process the credit cards and there you go.
Visa mask.
Remember the,
the trouble WikiLeaks had having,
having their payments processed because banks,
credit card companies would start canceling based on pressure from governments.
Well,
you know,
we're people we can exert pressure to,
to the things that we find to be horrible and disgusting.
So why not?
Why not look into these things and at least have the facts,
Rob?
Yeah,
there,
there's a very fuzzy line there and it's,
it's kind of painful to,
to really examine it closely because,
you know,
you talk about the payment processor and how we can punish a payment processor
who's providing services to a racist organization,
but then paper payment processors have also been weaponized against marginalized
groups,
against women,
against sex workers,
against people who want to,
you know,
do honest business.
That is not harmful,
but you know,
aren't,
aren't allowed to because,
because those in power are puritanical about what they happen to do for a
living.
But then there's the other side of this,
which you were talking about the,
the WooCommerce plugin,
which is open source software.
Right.
And of course,
open source software,
you know,
I can use it,
you can use it.
Somebody that I think is a jerk can use it,
but that's the power of open sources because,
you know,
anybody can use it and it's free.
But there,
there have also been cases where like a,
a comparatively high profile social network tried to use a fork of the
Mastodon software.
This was a social network for racists tried to use a fork of the open
source Mastodon software,
which is like a Twitter clone basically that we like very much.
And basically the rest of the open source community around that,
around that software unified against them to like block their instance
from federating block their apps from being able to connect to their
network.
And so they're on,
they're in their own little bubble again and not federating with anybody.
So like there are ways around around doing things,
but like at the end of the day,
you can't say like,
you know,
control who can buy a hammer because one person uses it irresponsibly.
I want to read something directly from WooCommerce,
a piece they have up on their site.
It's a really good piece,
abusive content on a store built with WooCommerce.
It can't be more specific than that.
WooCommerce is a free open source product that is available for anyone to
download and use with their self hosted WordPress site.
While this means a lot of wonderful products are sold through our software,
the open source and distributed nature of WooCommerce means that there may
also be stores using the platform for purposes that are malicious or that
otherwise do not align with our values.
Our options for addressing these situations are limited.
In effect,
WooCommerce is similar to software such as Microsoft word and that people
download it and use it independently.
And it's impossible for Microsoft to restrict that usage based on the
contents of a document.
Now there's a section what can be done before opening a report with us.
Please note that our ability to take action will depend on where the site is
hosted.
If the site is hosted on automatic servers,
automatic with two T's,
that's their parent company.
We will be able to take a closer look.
We will review the report provided and take the necessary measures.
These sites often are,
are wordpress.com business plan members using WooCommerce or e-commerce plan
members and are recognized by the powered by wordpress.com message in the
footer of the page,
uh,
to report these kinds of sites,
go to the wordpress.com abuse report page.
This form only accepts wordpress.com sites and is an easy way to confirm
whether or not we are hosting the site.
If the site is self hosted,
as we have found this one is,
uh,
WooCommerce.com does not have access to the site in question.
These sites typically download our plugin and upload to a third party hosting
environment.
Please note,
this means that we do not have the capability to remove the malicious content
or remove the store from the site.
I,
you know,
they really did a good job addressing that issue.
Uh,
and,
um,
that's something that I think many people learn today.
Yeah.
I mean,
I perfectly,
you know,
describes the situation.
I think the analogy to Microsoft word was really good too.
Yeah.
And look,
their,
their hands are tied as,
as Rob had noted,
people use open source software.
I think,
you know,
they,
they certainly made that quite clear.
Um,
but,
but good on them for coming up with this and,
and releasing it so quickly.
Now,
you know,
in addition to all the crap that we got last week for the new cover of 2600,
which caused all kinds of controversies,
basically,
uh,
somebody with an anonymous mask on and another mask over that kneeling on a
beach and,
uh,
uh,
ostensibly,
uh,
black lives matter movement,
uh,
and all kinds of people canceled their subscriptions and said,
this is outrageous.
And how dare you become political?
I have a little story to read for,
for the people that were outraged then.
And the people that are outraged today at 2600 off the hook,
uh,
hope everybody,
uh,
taking an interest in how the proud boys are being promoted.
Uh,
here's an article from 2600 Nazi BBS,
a challenge to hackers.
One of our correspondents made an interesting discovery last month.
She found the telephone number for one of the computer bulletin board systems
operated by American Nazis.
With this number,
she was able to log on and get the information that the media has lately been
all bug eyed about.
Now we are prepared to talk intelligently on the matter.
It's a whole article about this dated March,
1985.
So don't tell us that why are we becoming political now?
This is volume two,
number three of the magazine.
That's currently almost 40 years old.
So we have always taken an interest in this kind of material.
We have always pursued information about,
uh,
um,
communication methods used by hate groups and,
um,
uh,
ways that we can outsmart them,
ways that we can,
we can learn and,
um,
and,
and make our communications safer and better.
So,
uh,
yeah,
it was interesting to find that.
I just happened to come across that today,
1985.
Well,
I,
I imagined you,
uh,
you got your first,
uh,
you know,
the magazine's not as good as it used to be letter around the time of the
second issue.
Yes.
Yes.
Second issue.
Exactly.
Um,
I want to talk about something else and,
and,
and also,
um,
I want to ask,
um,
uh,
you guys for your opinion on this because I saw this story and it,
it,
it kind of got disappeared,
uh,
with all the commotion that was going on,
but our,
um,
one of our senators,
Chuck Schumer,
uh,
a couple of days ago,
September 29th,
Tuesday,
yesterday,
uh,
in an extremely rare move,
Chuck Schumer took control of the Senate floor and forced a procedural vote on
a bill,
a step that is typically done only by the Senate majority leader.
And I'll read you this,
this,
a summation here.
The top Democrats action now sets up a vote later this week related to a
bill that would protect people with preexisting conditions.
If the Supreme court sides with the Trump administration's department of
justice and strikes down the affordable care act,
after arguments are heard in November Schumer's surprise steps were
extraordinary because such motions are typically offered by majority leader,
Mitch McConnell,
who controls the Senate and dictates what gets considered on the floor.
Schumer has never before tried to force such a,
a culture vote in this,
in his time,
as the top minority leader AIDS said,
the rules say any Senator can do what Schumer did Tuesday.
But Senators typically don't take these extreme steps because doing so regularly
would shut down the Senate.
Let me read that sentence again.
The rules say any Senator can do what Schumer did Tuesday,
but senators typically don't take these extreme steps because doing so regularly
would shut down the Senate.
Let me read that sentence one market.
Okay, let's read the last part of the sentence.
Doing so regularly would shut down the Senate.
Isn't this the golden bullet we've been looking for?
A way to shut down the Senate short of falling in bomb threats and doing all kinds of horrible things?
This is apparently a method that can be used.
Why are people not talking about this?
I don't expect anyone here to have the answer, but I am puzzled by why this isn't being seen,
because you know if the shoe was on the other foot, Republicans would be using this somehow.
I'm slightly puzzled as well as to why that would shut down the Senate, though.
Why would some senator who's not the Senate majority leader introducing something shut down the Senate?
Well, they said it was an extremely rare move.
I don't pretend to understand it.
This article comes from CNN.com, and it came out yesterday.
A rare move takes control of floor to force health care vote.
So someone more knowledgeable about government affairs maybe could look into this
and provide a little guidance to a number of senators who I think also probably don't understand how this works.
This might be something.
Just reading that sentence, if they did this, anyone can do it, but if they did this, it would shut down the Senate.
That is exactly what needs to be done to stop this horrible scenario from playing out.
Yeah, perhaps.
Look, that's a good reason to read the rules.
It applies when you're a lawyer, when you're in civil litigation.
You have the federal rules of criminal procedure, and these rules you can use to tactically skirmish with your opponent.
That's what's happening on the Senate floor and the House floor, and they have very detailed procedural rules.
Some of these rules may have arcane exceptions, which may have arcane exceptions,
which perhaps to yield back the floor you might have to go through some bizarre ritual from the 18th century
in order for Mitch McConnell to get standing again to speak.
Who the hell knows?
But look, this is why we have that expression in the technology world, RTFL.
Sorry, this is not related to the Senate at all, but we just got a communication from a listener saying that the Commission on Presidential Debates
plans to issue strict new rules in coming days that include cutting off a candidate's microphone if they violate the rules.
Okay, well, I guess that's the way we have to go.
We already got our carnival show, so let's have an actual conversation.
Why not?
Sorry to break in.
Just wanted to share that.
Rob, you had something?
Thank you to the listener.
Yeah, back to this cloture business and what we were talking about.
I mean, I'm sure there are all these obscure rules and stuff that people can legally do in the Senate or in Congress or whatever,
but just don't because it's just not traditionally the done thing.
Maybe it's not quite polite to do it, but it's about time that the left side started doing some things that were not normally done
because this is not an administration that does things the normal way, and we really need to pull every tool out of the arsenal.
Yeah, including stacking the Supreme Court, which I'm not in favor of using that phrase.
I'm not in favor of candidates going around boasting that they're going to do that, which is why they shouldn't answer that question right now.
But if they do get elected and they have the power and they don't do it, they're basically digging their own graves for the future.
That's the extent of it, unfortunately.
One final story, actually one of two final stories.
Apparently WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange looks like if he is sent to the United States,
extradited to the United States, would likely be sent to the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado if convicted,
and I'm sure they would make sure he was convicted.
This is disgusting to read this.
Basically everything he said was going to happen to him is happening to him.
Everything that people thought he was being paranoid over turns out to be true.
Now this doesn't excuse some of the things he did, but it certainly doesn't make this justified in any sense.
And by things he did, I'm not even talking about things that violate any kind of intelligence.
We can debate this for hours.
I'm talking about just being selective as far as what was released, what was not released,
and kind of rejoicing in how the election turned out in 2016.
That's how I interpreted it.
This is not good for anybody.
This is something that should scare the hell out of us, because he's not an American citizen.
He is not in the United States, and for us to be able to simply pull him over,
basically lie about, well no, we're not going to arrest you, you're fine, face the charges in Sweden, all that.
He was right the whole time, and I just think that's something that needs to be acknowledged.
Alex, very quickly.
Yeah, I actually think that he's not going to be extradited.
I think that on the basis of the first indictment that we had discussed on this program over a year ago
that was very narrowly tailored and had to do with his assistance to Chelsea Manning
in trying to crack a password hash with a rainbow table.
That, I think, he was in great danger, grave danger.
Sorry about that.
Who's the wise guy?
That's me.
I think he was in grave danger of being extradited to the United States on that basis,
but the superseding indictment that added all these charges and made them political, overtly political,
seemed to me deliberately designed to really to quash the extradition,
to allow a British court to quash the extradition to the United States,
because the President of the United States certainly would not want to have a trial in an election year
when Julian Assange could bring up issues of the First Amendment, whether it was a journalist,
and collusion with the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.
So I think that a lot of what we are seeing happening in London right now is highly politically charged
because the President of the United States does not want Julian Assange here.
Well, I certainly hope you're right.
I certainly hope that that is what happens.
We are out of time, but I do want to close off with the possibility,
according to some news reports, that there will be a sequel to the movie Hackers.
The movie's director Ian Sofley recently participated in an extensive interview
and mentioned there was a strong possibility the movie would be getting some sort of sequel
or possibly even a reboot or remake.
And since the Internet has obviously changed drastically since 1995,
it's unknown what a new Hackers movie would look like.
Things have definitely changed in those years.
But maybe Hackers can contribute.
Hackers like the kind who listen to us to plot ideas or what kinds of things would be featured.
Well, one thing that certainly has not changed is the Hackers spirit.
That's certainly true, and that lives on.
Hey, we'll be back again next week.
Extended show with Corey Doctorow.
That's going to be fun.
We will see you then.
Write to us, othat2600.com.
Keep listening to WBAI.
And please contribute to WBAI, 516-620-3602.
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