at 6 30 p.m. stay tuned for off the hook coming up it is now 7 p.m. we're sorry
the number you have reached 99.5 WBA I is now off the hook
now I can't make a car
so
and a very good evening the program is off the hook Emmanuel Goldstein here
with you joined tonight by Kyle hello can you hear me I hear you I see you to
know what it's a little nice on TV because both you and Alex running back
to your chair I look crazy I look crazy Alex are you there as well you both
running back to your seats at the same time it was it was comical we have a
show to start yes I'm here why don't you just stay in the chair from the
beginning instead of making field trips fuck he's gone again nice nice NASA
shirt you got on there Wow oh that that's intentional why don't we have
that Kyle why don't we have a NASA shirt we have enough like we we we've
got our hands full here we have friends at NASA does off the hook have friends
at NASA I'd like to know that because you guys are cool you know you and JPL
and all those SpaceX people getting out into space I think it's the most
inspirational amazing thing that we have going for us right now it's not
saying a lot I know but it inspires me so if you're out there hats off to you
and maybe send us a hat as well or invite us to a launch that'd be cool
wouldn't that be called a broadcast from a launch I think there's an open invite
for that or for all space enthusiasts from orbit if you want to shoot us up
into space we would be open to that let's pump the brakes on that a little
yeah well you know we we have a special program tonight no overtime tonight
because we are in fundraising mode we haven't done this for like a year you
might have noticed that BAI has a new way of doing things where we do regular
radio which is what we want to do and then we're preempted every now and then
for fundraising that brings in more than then we could ever hope for but
tonight we're going to try and bring something in on our own and for that we
need your help listeners we need your help on that the number to call is five
one six six two zero three six zero two the website is give to WBA i.org that's
the number two and what we are offering tonight we have we have one very special
thing we're going to start with and that is attached to our conference our
conference is called hope hope stands for hackers on planet earth yeah it all
ties into NASA and space and that kind of thing but we are a radio show about
hacking about the hacker culture and this year was a special last year it was
especially challenging because it was supposed to be our most recent
conference but of course with the pandemic and all that it became a big
challenge and we we were faced with a number of questions as to what we were
going to do what we wound up doing I thought was awesome we we went online
and you know when we talked about going online I thought that was kind of a lame
way of doing things you know it just didn't seem right but the way we did it
I I really am amazed and I when I say we I mean hundreds of people that got
together and made this work we had a nine-day event instead of a three-day
event we tripled it we had nine days and we had more talks than we ever had
before I think the total number of talks was 129 we had workshops we had
concerts we had all kinds of social activities going on and it really was a
shot in the arm in the middle of the summer that I think we we all needed I
know I certainly did and what we're offering tonight is a double thumb
drive it basically means one for each thumb I guess filled with all of the
talks in full HD video all of the talks every single one of them mp4s you can
copy them you can do whatever you want with them and we also include audio files
in case you're driving and you want to listen to it you don't want to actually
see it you can do that too also includes all of the the concert presentations
that we had every night we had midnight concerts those are all in there as well
we have some workshops we have the the music that talented composer Cameron
Glass put together for us every day we had a different theme it is an amazing
package and it's yours for a pledge of $100 it's called the the thumb drive
collection oh you know what you get you get more than that too you get a tote
bag as well don't stop there I forgot Wow we're adding things into this well
tell us about the tote bag well to carry this enormous collection of information
we're going to include one of the government seal tote bags that we've
boasted about in the past and it is included with this offer so for that
pledge you will be able to hold both of these thumb drives in a container a
fabric container with a white screen print of the infamous why would you put
two tiny thumb drives in a big massive tote bag just look kind of silly I
thought that would make you laugh yeah well here's something out there's one
more item to that and this might fit in the tote bag a little better it's an
actual letter way to come up these ideas a letter from everybody it off the hook
a personalized thank you letter personalized thank-you letter with all
of our signatures so that you can steal our identities no no don't do that we're
gonna sign them however we feel like signing them might not be our official
signatures who might use my foot yeah but it's suitable for framing is what
I'm told yeah suitable for framing doesn't mean you have to frame it but
you could all right and that you can stick in your tote bag I don't mean that
to sound insulting and and also the two the two flash drives or thumb drives
whatever you want to call them that come with it and in the in the in the tote
bag so yeah that's amazing for a hundred bucks but you're supporting WBA I by by
pledging for this the the hope 2020 thumb drive collection with tote bag
call 516 620 3602 and demand that well don't demand it be nice the people there
know all about it now I'm not sure if it's on the website if it's if you're
not able to find it on the website and that is how you choose to pledge send us
an email OTH at 2600 comm and we'll help you get through the process but we have
a limited supply so it will run out it won't last forever this is so crucial to
the thank you and the sincerity therein with this letter and gifts we have for
you is to match the sincerity we hope is behind your contribution to WBA I it's
just a critical thing to increase our operating funds so that we can continue
to broadcast and and operate the station as well as bring you amazing
shows like off the hook and it's just the least we could do to to show our
appreciation to really drive home the point that every bit the smallest to
larger contributions whatever number fits your budget is so so appreciated
around here it's a little more than the least we can do because you know the
least we can do we feel we should do a little more than that so we're doing the
least plus a little more that's what I like to to view it as I'm not sure
exactly how you qualify that but Alex I think you have something to say along
the lines of the the signatures I'll tell you a short anecdote here about
signatures and sending things through the mail and look this will be no small
feat to send this around to all of the the co-hosts of off the hook yeah how
are you gonna do that you know our promotions manager I don't think thought
this through how are we gonna get everybody to sign and we haven't seen
each other in person in over a year well it may be just under a year but what are
we gonna mail it to every single person yeah I think we're gonna have to do it
through the mail and then you know and hope by the good grace of the United
States Postal Service it eventually ends up in the hands of the listener you know
how much of a profit the post office is gonna make from this one letter you know
because it's gonna be sent through at least four or five or six different
people and then to the person who pledged that's true so if once again if
you support the post office this is a good pledge for you please participate
we want to get as much business to them as well as pledges coming in so five one
six six two zero three six zero two all you have to ask for tonight to get this
premium is for the hope 2020 thumb drive collection with tote bag yes and
give to WBAI dot org and again if you don't see it there email us OTH at 2600
dot-com yes Alex you had more when it is my turn to put my signature in the
letter I do promise the listeners that I promised to make it interesting in some
respect and I'll tell you in 1994 I tracked down in Austin Texas the the
good old 512 Bruce Sterling one of my favorite authors it was also that you
did obviously the author of the hacker crackdown which was very interesting and
to read as a teenager and and actually I read boxed a call to Bruce Sterling on
Thanksgiving Day I remember I skateboarded up to my local shopping
center red box to call to Bruce Sterling and he picked up the phone
can I just ask Alex what got into your head that's you're in the middle of
Thanksgiving presumably with family and you're like I know I'm gonna get on
my bike go to a shopping center red box a call to Bruce Sterling who was also
going through Thanksgiving and and that's gonna be my day that that's
exactly right and and we wound up spending about two hours on the phone I
mean it was actually incredible I think he he really I wanted the respite from
from Thanksgiving and I think I gave him a perfect excuse to take a respite from
Thanksgiving and so we stayed on the phone for about two hours we've been
friends ever since then this was I think 1993 or 1994 however what I did
afterwards and this is what will inspire me with respect to this listener and
fundraiser exercises that I became friends with Bruce Sterling I sent him
all of my books that I had and he autographed them and sent them back but
when he sent them back he apparently has a strange rubber stamp collection right
and we know that ink stamp rubber stamp collections and so all the books that I
got back had these bizarre images along his signature one might be like a monkey
with a space suit or something so in that vein a couple of years ago I found a
massive collection of strange rubber ink stamps that was available at housing
works in New York City which is sort of a second-hand store they sell all these
things to help people that are that are living with AIDS and and whatnot as a
wonderful store to support and I bought so many of these these strange
represents that I promise to make this rather interesting with the rubber
stamps in the spirit of what Bruce Sterling did for me in 1994 so if that's
any incentive to pledge for WBI I hope it's some it's certainly it certainly
tells something about our culture I think it's a good lead-in to our first
excerpt from this package that we're offering tonight all the talks 129
talking but we had so many 129 talks from hope 2020 took place in July and
August of 2020 we had all sorts of presentations from around the world you
see the thing by going digital we were able to have presentations from
everywhere and we had a variety of recorded and live presentations we had
audience interaction but we actually were able to have more participation
than before and I thought that was just simply an incredible positive side
effect of all the negativity that was around but one of the talks had to do
with the cult of the dead cow which I believe has some some Austin connections
as well it was a talk by the author Joseph men who I believe you're familiar
with Alex he's Reuters investigative journalist and author of the book cult
of the dead cow how the original hacking supergroup might just save the world it
was named one of the 10 best nonfiction books of 2019 by Hudson booksellers he's
written on hacking for about 20 years and I've written previous books on
organized Russian cybercrime and that's a really interesting guy and he hosted a
panel about the the cult of the dead cow called hacktivism rides again we're
gonna play an excerpt from that but while we're playing the excerpt please
get those phone lines buzzing 5 1 6 6 2 0 3 6 0 2 as for yes the hope 2020 thumb
drive collection with tote bag at the $100 level operators are standing by
waiting for that call hundred and twenty nine full-length videos in HD
quality along with their counterparts in audio format you'll also get the
concerts you'll get the workshops you'll get a bunch of different things a lot of
great stuff let's hear an excerpt next is a very interesting panel session where
three star was of the popular cult of the dead cow group join us at for 2020
again the title of this panel is hacktivism rides again and our speakers
oxler Duffin Joseph men Omega and Java men are here with us today friends I let
you guys take the stage and let us know the new initiatives and strategies to
fight surveillance racism and disease I'd like to thank hope for having us and
everybody who's who's watching at home I had been looking forward to coming
with members of the of the CDC to hope in New York this year but this way hey
we get to get to reach more more people so I hope everybody's staying safe I'm
Joseph men I'm a longtime investigative tech reporter and I wrote a book about
the other gentleman you're seeing here called culture the dead cow how the
original hacking supergroup might just save the world and it's a if you don't
know the cult of the dead cow it is the the oldest surviving and most
influential hacking group in US history they originated in 1984 when they're a
bunch of teenagers running bulletin boards and they were interested in
finding people like them and being funny and writing text files some of them
interested in games or pirated software and it evolved multiple times through
the years became one of the the top security security groups in the world in
the mid 90s most famous then for introducing back orifice and then bo2k
a year later these are both tools for hacking Windows machines and they
distributed them to all comers which was controversial at the time but forced
Microsoft to take security much more seriously this panel is called activism
there and back again I'd say that CDC is probably most famous for having invented
at least the word activism answer crystallizing the concept though it had
multiple definitions over the years my favorite is it was hacking and security
work in service of human rights and this is something that has only gotten more
important as tech has become more central to everybody's life and security
has become more central to technology so we have with us three 20-year members at
least of the dead cow in their order of joining Omega giveaway of Omega real
name Michael Cabeca Misha joined well let him I'll let him say but he's here
today because he's still doing interesting things now but he's the man
that came up with the word activism next is Oxford Ruffin giveaway of Oxford if
you would there is real name Laird Brown Oxford is really the the bond father the
godfather of activism he was champion within the cult of the dead cow and
launched a spinoff called hack to be small which was devoted entirely to
activism efforts many years ago and then Java man the last that you'll hear
from today give away of Java man don't real name Adam O'Donnell he joined in
the in the early oh-oh's making him the youngest of this particular crowd in
terms of CDC tenure but he has been very active in electoral electoral politics
including fundraising for CDC member Beto O'Rourke who you may have heard
about that's it I'm going to let each of them give a little bit of an
introduction to their own career inside CDC and outside of it and then we'll go
around and talk about activism more more properly but would you start us off sure
and thanks for the invitation and hello to everybody at hope I started my career
well before the CDC working at the United Nations I was there working with
some NGOs and eventually went directly to the organization and was the co-editor
of a book on the General Assembly as a result of that I learned all of the
arcane features of the General Assembly and ended up doing some consulting there
afterwards I moved into advert worked in advertising in the early days of FinTech
and digital advertising these kinds of things joined the CDC in 1996 after a
lengthy correspondence with the death vegetable it was a lot of fun I had no
idea my emails being read by the rest of the crew but apparently that's what
sealed the deal actually a funny story I remember is that I was corresponding
with veggie for about a year it was a lot of fun and then at the end of that
period I got an email from Grandmaster rat who runs the CDC and said okay
you're in the CDC now and I thought it was a joke I wasn't sure and so I turned
to one of my work colleagues and I said you know I just got an invitation to
join the CDC and he goes no way you're a moron those guys would never have you in
but it turned out that in spite of being a moron I was actually invited to join
so I was always interested in I mean I thought the CDC was cool as hell and at
the same time I was also very interested in developing some kind of
online activism I didn't know what that was but I thought for some crazy reason
the CDC would be the perfect group to do that with so as a result I got
permission to get hacktivismo together started recruiting people
internationally the first few members were from Germany some American guys
joined and eventually we had about 40 people I would say who were very
actively involved in the group from literally all over the world some even
from China and Iran believe it or not but we developed circumvention tech and
talked about national firewalls at a time when this was really not sort of
public information in the sense that maybe academics and technical people and
policy people were aware of these things but it wasn't anything that was
showing up in the press and I'm actually proud that we used a lot of our style
and swagger to publicize a lot of things that eventually I think led to a much
broader public awareness so it wasn't just the tech in hacktivismo the
circumvention tech but also the the style the CDC style with which we did
things I thought was very important you want to talk about your your
professional life at all the things you've done since then sure I mean I've
been working in the startup scene for the past 20 years in Toronto I worked
with a company called open Cola we did peer-to-peer stuff and thereafter I
moved to well I did some more work in advertising interactive as it was called
then around FinTech and did some consulting and Barbados then I moved to
I got recruited by a PKI solution firm in in Munich which I kind of think
might have been one of the forerunners of blockchain it operated very much in
the same fashion went to India after that worked in mesh networking
technology up in the mountains in Dharamsala did a lot of work with the
Tibetan community there went to Bangalore for a couple of years worked
on a documentary film on cybersecurity in India and now I've moved back to
Germany I'm based in Berlin now is it one of the things that I really like
about the the CDC message I guess is that you can do really good work in any
in any venue whether you're working inside a big company small company you're
you know you're off hours volunteerism things contributing to open source
projects or even in government you can do you can do really good stuff and then
so I like that you sort of you have like a recognized like I think a lot of
people in tech could relate to your some of your day jobs maybe not all of us but
some of them you know you're kind of you know you wear a superhero cape sometimes
and then you're kind of like a regular tech guy the other time you know I think
I think that's interesting I still don't know what Misha does for a living
excuse me Omega he won't tell me but I know I know what he's done in his in his
his private time Omega can you okay I realize I'm just listening to this and I
could just listen to it all night long but you're not in that crew wait a minute
these are fascinating people listen to that those resumes and that's just one
person that the cult of the dead cow hacktivism rides again just one of the
hundred and twenty nine talks that will be coming your way in full HD video and
audio as well along with all kinds of other content if you pledge $100 and ask
for the hope 2020 thumb drive collection with tote bag yes you get a tote bag
with that as well 5 1 6 6 2 0 3 6 0 2 is the phone number limited number
available tonight give to WBA i.org give the number to WBA i.org and if you
have trouble finding it on the site right to us OTH at 2600.com interesting
stuff huh oh it's fascinating I was getting really
wrapped up in it in fact and then was surprised to hear you and and realize
yeah we have to remind people how they can get this incredible content what
we're running out of time and there's so much more that I want to show people
okay okay okay well listen up folks this is the spring 2020 fundraiser here
at WB spring 2021 it says spring 2020 on our website but that's wrong it's 20
20 yeah no somebody has to has to change the date and that's that's a lot of work
okay all right so and that implanted in my mind that it's the wrong year yeah it
is 2021 we're also here to remind you of that and we are fundraising for
community radio yes this very frequency is broadcasting to you by volunteers by
people like us who have unique perspectives and we love telling people
about our interests we we love this station for letting us tell you about
our interests and because it's here you very well could share your opinion or
you could help produce another show if you so desired that's what community
radio is about we stand for that we want to make sure that your contribution
counts counts for the show and and and counts for the type of media that you
appreciate in your community and one the best the most important way to do that
is at this time during these fundraising events 5 1 6 6 2 0 3 6 0 2 that's your
way to act if you want to use the internet give to WB AI org and ask for
at the $100 level our hope 2020 thumb drive collection with tote bag and
you'll hear more and more of this incredible storytelling and information
you know pulling off a conference like this even once is an impossibility doing
it during the pandemic was a super impossibility WB AI 99.5 FM in the
middle of New York City that is an impossibility as well and it's been
happening since 1960 thanks to listeners like you so please give a call to 5 1 6
6 2 0 3 6 0 2 go ahead Alex and and let's not forget that WB AI being here
is not a guarantee whatsoever shortly before the pandemic disrupted all of our
lives we should think back to what happened to this station in October of
2019 do you remember that happened that wasn't a dream that really happened it
really happened the locks were changed there was a lawsuit filed you know went
to the the appellate division I was there with a whole bunch of listeners
and and and I think speaking correctly now is still the new general counsel of
Pacifica Arthur Schwartz who also has a show on this station and spearheaded the
lawsuit to reclaim the station but I mean the station was under siege we were
shut off we were off the air so there is no guarantee that we will be here
without listener support and I think another incredibly important point here
is that we got back on here we fought tooth and nail in order to get the
station back into the hands of the persons whom deserve it and shortly
thereafter the whole world was changed our lives were disrupted everybody was
working from home nobody was going out on the streets but WB AI was on the air
and we were here we've been here over this past year for our listeners we've
had to endure countless technical difficulties that we are still enduring
almost on a weekly basis and we're really hoping that you're going to be
here for us tonight yeah what's that phone number again 5 1 6 6 2 0 3 6 0 2
that's country code 1 for those of you dialing from overseas and yes you can
dial from overseas again we're offering the hope 2020 flash drive package with
tote bag you'll get a tote bag and you also get a letter signed by everybody at
off the hook a special exclusive offer only being offered during this program
tonight 5 1 6 6 2 0 3 6 0 2 give to WB AI org and write to us OTH at 2600
comm if you have any questions or problems doing any of that I want to
play another excerpt from one of our keynotes Ilan Bobet was an incredible
speaker at our conference she's the founder of tech activist org it's a
grassroots organization that provides free technical training and political
education workshops to activists disruptors working-class youth you name
it she's a founding member of the popular education project serves in the
National Education Committee of the poor people's campaign a national call for
moral revival part of the people's forum an interesting person all around
and perfect for hope and I want to play you a part of her keynote address here
on off the hook again that phone number 5 1 6 6 2 0 3 6 0 2 a pledge of $100 gets
you every single talk that was presented at the hope conference in 2020 129 talks
in full HD quality along with concerts along with workshops along with music
and a special letter from us and a tote bag what more could you ask for let's
listen to this excerpt again my name is Edelene Bobet and I'm a black and
Puerto Rican movement technologist I started talking at seven years old I
went through a lots of trauma as a child and something happened to me that I
couldn't use my motor skills from the age of 8 to 18 I attended speech therapy
classes on a weekly basis and officially was labeled as a student with a
disability teachers and students barely understood me I was known as the quiet
girl I recall watching television and putting the captions on the TV screen so
that I can learn how to enunciate words as people were saying them after a while
my family couldn't afford speech classes so using the captions on the TV screen
was my hack that hack got me through college as it helped me increase my
vocabulary and my understanding of how to say things in all honesty I still
use the captions on my TV screen now I share this story to say this is just one
of many ways technology has helped me grow to who I am today and I believe we
all share a story on our first experience with technology and how we
fell in love with it and wanted to use it for social good which further takes
me on my journey I grew up in North Philadelphia in a neighborhood called
Badlands which is in the Kensington Fairfax area in Philadelphia today the
neighborhood battles with housing food insecurity rates of unemployment up to
50% over policing and high surveillance though this story is not new my
neighborhood can be seen in New York Detroit Chicago Oakland and in cities
all across the United States I went to a high school Thomas Edison that had a 75%
dropout rates what that looked like was in ninth grade my teacher told us as
they packed us on to the auditorium room look to your left look to your right one
day one of you won't be here we had more police officers and actual teachers
I like yes me who is the keynote speaker yesterday survived the school to prison
pipeline which I just want to point out how often your speakers or people in a
room for a person of color goes through trauma because they survived the school
to prison pipeline however I was still put in handcuffs several times for
activities like missing detention because I came in late after spending 30
minutes waiting in line to go through a matter detector before I got into school
graduating high school I barely knew how to read and write however thanks to a
community program of the Philadelphia partnership I was able to go into a
state college IUP I can talk about the details of that program another time but
I want to focus on the facts so when I started school freshman year I didn't
even know what a number line was I attended IUP and my first year of school
was very difficult I struggled with academic probation and if you could just
fast forward to my senior year of college I ended up actually graduating
the highest GPA as a person of color in my field which was a 3.86 and marketing
and applied statistics so how did I do that not knowing anything about math not
knowing what a number line was graduating with a 3.86 and apply
statistics I blame the internet no not the music band which if you haven't
heard them please go check them out but the internet I used online discussion
boards frequently as I asked people to help me with particular questions that I
was too embarrassed to ask in class or oftentimes when I did ask in class the
professor would say you know you should really quit school and go back to
middle school or if I attended after class programs where they had tutoring a
lot of the other folks would like make fun of me or wouldn't want me to go so
to me I felt safe online talking to people who were willing to help me out I
will look up and learn from YouTube videos ask people if they can help me
find additional information on certain topics again there were lots of self
study and online collaboration that really helps me propel in school I left
college feeling like a laptop with working internet was the winning
combination to all success and wanted to put a laptop in every person's hand that
was from a poor neighborhood I saw my own development as a testimony of how a
person can close their own achievement gap and felt the same could happen for
others I guess you know for so many years I thought it's bad to say but I
did think I was dumb but in actuality I was never given the opportunity to learn
and that passion to want to share education and the power of the internet
led me on a phenomenal path my first pivot away from corporate America where
I had my first job it was struggling to climb the corporate ladder was to
further my education I ended up attending Mills College which is located
in Oakland California it's a school for feminine non-binary students the school
was predominantly black and Latin next and I went to get my MBA and study
courses from the computer science program which is still where most of my
connections lie before starting the program I never even knew of computer
science never knew how to program and I ended up being the second top student in
the class while attending school I started community programs teaching
young people about computer programming and basic digital literacy skills I was
invited to go to southern India and Tamil Nadu to start a computer program
for women and youth to help with agriculture I partnered with Kimberly
Bryant who is the amazing founder of black girls code to educate over 2,000
young girls in computer science I connected with groups like yes we code
and Kino labs to create hackathons with ideas like what if an app could have
saved Trayvon Martin one of my proudest memories is seeing the shift of what
happened to Google search engine after a person typed black girls in 2011 so many
bad words would follow black girls often you would see angry bad fighting ugly
but today and as of early as 2013 black girls code became the first or the
second thing that pops up shifting the narrative completely of what a black
girl could be and who we are in the world and that's an excerpt from
healing movies keynote speech at the hope 2020 conference in July and August
of 2020 what an inspirational address that was I just hope many people heard
it and realized that they can they can succeed with the hacker spirit of
questioning persevering so many interesting things to learn from that
one talk that one talk one of 129 being offered tonight as part of our special
package for a pledge of $100 516 620 3602 every talk from the hope 2020
conference along with concerts audio music workshops you name it what do you
think I think of all of the possibility and inspiration and need the eagerness
to soak up all these interesting areas of interest and specialties and things
that people didn't even know they might be good at that is what sharing that
that learning process and and then maybe contributing something teaching what you
might be able to bring to the subject matter that's what sparks the kind of
innovation and the the cool projects and even products that we comes become so
familiar with especially in high technology and science and in computers
and telecommunications as well yeah that's how really embodied the spirit of
hacking I think in so many ways yes go ahead Alex oh no doubt the perseverance
yes hearing an echo oh there's just your voice now there's no echo X all right
well I'm hearing a bizarre echo okay nobody else is Alex so let's not dwell
upon it all right I'll try not but I think that the spirit of that talk
certainly embodied the whole conference but the more to the point I think it is
that conference itself this nine-day period and the end of that conference it
was very emotional it was a I think a memorialization of what everybody had
gone through that year it all culminated in the whole conference we all came
together we put this thing together and and it was an amazing experience lasting
three times longer than any other hope in the past which means that you're
getting three times as much content if you want to talk about this you know
from the perspective of a value-add here this is three times more content
and and three times more talks that you're getting in this and there were
some really other amazing talks too we had the chief information security
officer of the World Health Organization give a keynote speech Flavio Agio we had
Cindy Cohn look back on 30 years of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and I
emceed that talk and I gave a talk with some colleagues on manipulation of
information on the Internet and why manipulation is inherent to the
Internet's DNA which was a bit of a weird precursor to to what we saw
happen with the election and the insurrection on January 6 so all of
these things you're gonna get all of them in this package it's an incredible
piece of history that you have on two thumb drives and you'll be really really
helping out to support the station to support hope and make sure that we can
continue to do this kind of thing and organize that kind of activity in the
future and just to this to be clear though it's the conference lasted nine
days but we don't have three times as much content because we had one track
that went throughout the nine days it lasted three times longer we did have a
lot more talks and we usually had I'd say maybe about 33 percent more and we
also had had things recorded that we never recorded before like concerts and
and workshops and things like that so this is by far the most that we have
ever been able to offer for a hope conference and I found that incredibly
inspiring in the middle of a pandemic and I'll tell you I did a little
experiment when we came onto the show to a certain extent the hope conference is
still going on from the summer because the the matrix element chat system is
still up and running and people are still there there is a there is a
channel after hope 2020 I sent a little ping to it and and people have responded
I was so people are still gathering and organizing what is it eight months after
the fact yeah we couldn't get them to leave and you know eventually we sent in
a tank and that didn't go well so we just decided they could squat there and
you know do this sort of Christiania thing and it's it's it's working out you
know it's an experiment no actually we endorse it thoroughly it's it's great
there's so many I was thinking virtual spaces and this matrix communication
channel that we stood up and as as Alex indicated ongoing in in various forms as
well as so many other interest groups and people that are out in the world in
other parts of the world who we were just able to catch up with it felt like
and keep keep up with with what was going on and and break away from a bit
of the isolation that had been so ubiquitous last year so we're just really
thrilled with this exciting package the hope 2020 thumb drive collection with
tote bag 5 1 6 6 2 0 3 6 0 2 I've just been handed another premium that we can
offer tonight this has to do with bookstores remember those bookstores
used to go out and you know hang out in the bookstore wouldn't that be nice well
you might recall our friends over at the strand have been on the show before
particularly the owner of the strand as we were trying to help save the building
we have the strand package for another pledge of $100 you will get a copy of
Cory doctoral's book radicalized you'll get I can't another type of tote bag a
canvas tote bag with a zipper from the strand which is known as the
undisputed king of the city's independent bookstores less and less of
them every year it seems but this one is still around that quote by the way from
the New York Times you'll also get an assortment of strand memorabilia
including socks guaranteed you're guaranteed to get one pair of socks
you're gonna get socks buttons stickers and postcards and I'm told the most
recent edition of 2600 will be thrown in there as well oh wow that's a good issue
so if you call five one six six two zero three six zero two they're all good
issues cut and ask for the strand the strand package is what it's called you
will get that and you can you can also find that that one I know is on give to
wbi.org you will be able to to find the strand package there however the copy of
Cory doctoral's book is not autographed it says autographed copy it's not an
autographed copy so don't look at that my she has it it's redacted we've been
trying to get it redacted but yeah it's it's a long process at BAI to get a word
taken off the website but it's it's it's a copy of the book it's a it's a really
good book radicalized by Cory doctoral along with the canvas bag and this is a
really good canvas bag with a zipper you know they don't have zippers many of
them well it's a different style we have the government seal one which is an open
top bag this one closes yeah so if you have items that might escape try to
escape large quantity of small items that could spill like like a you know
20 pounds of marbles or something a small child that you want to absolutely
if you're concerned about articles of clothing and matchbox you know toys I
don't know whatever you carry around with you maybe it's kidney beans you
will not spill them with this tote bag it's a different style tote bag and
we're excited to offer this one as well also at the $100 level for this pack go
ahead Alex and in so far as tote bags go I I really feel not sliding 2600 here
but there are no more iconic tote bags in New York than the strand I mean you
can go anywhere in the world and find people carrying around strand bookstore
tote bags and and you immediately have something to talk with them about you
know the trend everybody loves the strand and what's amazing to me too is
that it was this is another piece of history right this is another piece of
what we all got together and fought for the strand bookstore can you believe
that it was two years ago almost to the day that you know we fought the
landmarks Preservation Commission to try to prevent them from rubber stamping the
bookstore they did in fact rubber stamp the bookstore as a landmark and in the
book it's a very cautionary tale too because the strand right before the
pandemic hit had opened up an Upper West Side location the first time that they've
had a second location in the city so extended themselves put themselves out
on the line and then boom a global pandemic hits nobody can go into the
store it's it's another massive blow to a bookstore that is 93 years old in this
city Wow older a bit older than WBI WBI and so far as New York goes is is pretty
damn old but the strand is older and I think having having this tote bag
supporting the station this way is a way to hold on to that piece of history
remember that struggle support the strand as well these are these things
that go hand-in-hand the strand package is yours for a pledge of $100 516 620
3602 or give to WBA I org or you can you can go for the the hope 2020 flash
drive collection just a reminder to everyone also any pledge level is
welcome and accepted wholeheartedly that's at the 5 10 15 $25 level you can
become a voting member of the Pacifica Foundation those are all critical levels
to small and large we accept it this is how community radio sustains and you're
hearing the music of Cameron glass underneath us he did the the themes for
the hope conference every day has a different theme it's all included in
that thumb drive collection if you call 516 620 3602 you get a different theme
for every day it's like reliving the conference all over again I do have one
last excerpt to play let's go out with this this is actually about ring cameras
I talked about about ring cameras which I thought was extremely interesting and
you'll learn quite a bit about about that technology about all the different
technologies that that are out today 129 talks let's let's hear an excerpt from
this one there are Facebook posts Instagram posts from cops that literally
say on the image that's being shared like by a ring camera today in terms of
the actual videos and according to ring policy police can request video recorded
from any device up to 60 days back either that video is stored on device or
it's stored on a server somewhere it's kind of hard to tell might change by the
camera type and if a camera owner refuses that request police can still
just subpoena the videos same time by its time span up to 60 days back if cops
have probable cause and there's no warning or notice into the owner at all
if it's subpoenaed from Amazon and this obviously isn't even to talk about the
people recorded by these devices who really clearly as the rollerblading
example shows never consented to their video being recorded in the first place
let alone shared on a public platform or with police sometimes those ring videos
are used for advertisements themselves again with no consent for the person
being recorded and it's worth noting here and stressing that this 60-day
policy is just that a policy there's no regulation on these devices no oversight
into how they're used or where they are and no transparency into how police are
using them in their everyday work
Amazon could just as easily switch their policy next week to have all this
video streamed directly into police fusion centers and we might not even know
about it so in 2019 to understand more about ring as a phenomenon and to
increase transparency and visibility into where these cameras are and where
we're being surveilled day-to-day I decided to try and download the app and
just as a first pass try and find all the cameras near me and it became really
clear really quickly from you know you can just think back to that video of me
scrolling through the ring app that I can't just poke around and find my
neighbor's cameras they have to post and when they do post the location isn't
really clear it's sort of this big circle around where the camera might be
there are three main things that basically stopped me from finding all
the cameras in my city just by using the app one there's space limits that ring
puts on your neighborhood or area of interest when you sign up in the app
it's limited to about five square miles and that doesn't really call it Boston
is small it doesn't really cover all of the area that I wanted to see and to you
don't really see where all the cameras are when you use the app unlike cops who
get an active camera map when they sign up to partner with ring like this one
with all these dots normal users just see an approximate location of where
alerts were posted and that's usually in the form of like a circle it's maybe a
hundred meters in diameter and three you only see cameras that have posted on the
app not all the cameras that are recording video out in the wild as I'll
show a little bit later there are plenty of people who use ring cameras that
never posted the app at all now I'm a computational social scientist by
training not a security researcher I don't have a lot of experience breaking
down apps or reverse engineering but I do know how apps work so I decided to
run a man-in-the-middle attack to see how rings app was communicating with the
servers thinking maybe if I'm lucky I'll be able to see all the alerts
posted in my area and map them out a little bit and right away I noticed that
when you interact with rings API most of your requests are associated with some
assigned area and this area is just like a number and it seems random at first
and so all the requests are doing things like pulling all the recent posts for a
specific area ID the API seems really simple and at first I thought this area
defined some kind of geohash for different areas around the United States
so one area here would be one number and then you increment one to go like over
maybe a mile or be right next to each other but the IDs didn't seem to
correlate spatially like at all here's a map of a random selection of consecutive
IDs and you can see that they're really all over the place I did a quick
statistical analysis and what I found is that the area IDs seems truly totally
random even if two IDs were right next to each other in space or clustered
around an area they could be really anywhere in that number space so my
first attempt at scraping was literally to iterate through every identifier
starting from one that I knew and just adding one every time then do API calls
on that ID and basically to pull down data from the API I just pretended that
I was a user scrolling through that infinite feed and the neighbors app
features that infinite scroll and apparently there's no rate limiting
because I did this on 16 cores on a server repeatedly for every area that I
could find and in the end I had data going back to 2016 for 236,000 areas and
that only took like maybe seven hours or something so at this time ring really
didn't have any security in their app at all that is an excerpt from one ring to
surveil them all by Dan Kalachi from hope 2020 it's one of 129 talks that you
will get if you pledge to 516 620 3602 a pledge of $100 gets you the full hope
2020 thumb drive package along with a tote bag you can also pledge $100 for
the strand package again 516 620 3602 give to WBA I org we are out of time but
you can write to us OTH at 2600 comm with your thoughts opinions and ideas
we'll be back next week with a regular program until then good night Alex
good night Kyle good night good night WPA
look up and live
Oh
it's the big turtle thing from
I got six now one went down faster than the last one I was on with that was
that ran over who I was with I think it was Callie
why it's a little red riding hood