positions please find the 2021 bylaws voter guide at elections.pacifica.org
the previous program was economic update with richard wolf heard wednesdays at 6 30 p.m right
after the wbai evening news stay tuned for off the hook it is now 7 p.m and this is radio station
wbai new york located in the middle of the fm dial 99.5 fm it's seven o'clock it's wednesday
it's time for off the hook
but if they could they would
so
And a very good intro to the program is off the hook, Emmanuel Goldstein here with you,
joined tonight by Kyle.
Hello.
Alex, where'd you go?
There he is.
Okay.
I'm looking at an empty chair.
Alex, welcome back to your chair.
Good evening.
Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
And Gila.
Good evening.
Well, I'm glad we're all here.
You know what a week from the day after tomorrow is?
Anybody care to guess?
Gila, it looks like you know.
No?
Yeah, no.
A week from the day after tomorrow is July 1st.
Well, no, actually it's July 2nd.
But that's okay.
Oh, right.
Yeah.
Sorry.
Because June doesn't count.
No, it doesn't.
No, it doesn't.
No, it doesn't.
No, it doesn't.
No, it doesn't.
No, it doesn't.
No, it doesn't.
No, it doesn't.
No, it doesn't.
But no, it's a week from the day after tomorrow is a week from Friday, and that would be the
first Friday of July, the first Friday of the month being traditionally the day that
2,600 meetings happen but have not happened for the past 15 months or so because of this
damn pandemic.
But we are starting tentatively to have meetings again beginning with July 2nd.
We have heard from a few meetings that we'll be starting up.
I think we're going to have maybe half a dozen, far cry from what we have had in the past,
obviously.
But what we're doing is we're having meetings in places where the vaccination rate, where
people are completely vaccinated at a level of 40% or above.
So while the United States qualifies, we're at like 45%, New York qualifies, a bunch of
places don't, however, and it's for everyone's safety that we have to have some line that
we don't cross.
So if you've reached out to us, we will get back to you.
You can go to 2600.com and go to the meeting section.
I think, yeah, 2600.com slash meetings will get you there.
You can email meetings at 2600.com.
You can tweet to 2600 meetings.
But basically we will begin phasing them in starting next, a week from this coming Friday.
And we're only going to be adding the meetings that we have contact with.
We won't be automatically re-adding your meeting if nobody says anything to us.
So we're starting from scratch.
So it's going to look like we have only a handful because we only will have a handful,
but it will build from there.
And again, if you're in a place where it's below 40% of fully vaccinated people in the
population, don't fret.
You'll get there eventually, but we can't have meetings safely until we reach that particular
plateau, that level.
Any questions from our in-studio audience?
Rob?
Just a point of clarification for those of us in the New York City area who would like
to go to the New York City meeting.
And that is that we have still not completely nailed down the location.
We are going right up to the line with this, but it's a matter of just confirming that
a place that is available for us to get to will be open and functioning as a public space.
So we've got some more phone calls and people to pester and get some answers, but keep an
eye on NYC2600.net or NYC2600 on Twitter for updates on that.
Just to give an example as to how even-handed we are applying this policy, the New York
City meeting will not be listed if we don't hear back from them as far as where this is
going to be in a certain amount of time before that Friday comes.
What I suggest, Rob, though, is I know that we're dealing with, well, the Citigroup Center
is where we originally were.
They're renovating.
We moved over to the atrium half a block away.
Now apparently they're renovating.
Has it been verified that they are renovating?
In fact, because I went to their website, I didn't see any mention of it.
It's been verified in person that they're still renovating.
It's not known if they're going to be open in any capacity by the time we need them.
Well, here's what I suggest.
If they're renovating, you all can meet outside in that little courtyard area.
It's safer, actually, to be outside than inside for those people that are concerned about
lingering viruses.
That's just a good starting point anyway.
If that's the information that we have to go on, we're happy to spread that information
around, too.
That goes for any meeting, too.
It does not have to be in the place that it was at before.
It can be outdoors.
We encourage that.
It can be someplace else, perhaps more spacious.
It can be in a whole different place.
It can be a whole different meeting, too.
If you're starting a new meeting, you're welcome to contact us as well with that information,
and we'll treat you as if you had a meeting for 20 years.
It's not a big deal.
On the issue of vaccinations, we obviously prefer people who are vaccinated come to the
meetings, but we are not going to be asking for any kind of proof of that, and neither
will anybody else at the meetings.
The reason for that is nobody runs the meetings.
The meetings run themselves.
Nobody is in charge.
Nobody is going to come up to you and demand to see your ID or any kind of information
that proves that you're vaccinated.
We ask that you do the responsible thing and only come to a gathering of people while the
pandemic is still raging across the planet if you're vaccinated.
If you're not, wait until it completely goes away or until you decide to get vaccinated.
I don't think we can be any fairer than that.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
I think that's completely fair.
Also, it's a fact of the meetings that they take place in a publicly accessible space
where you don't need permission to be as such.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a good point, Rob, because some meetings do take place in hacker spaces which can have
their own rules.
We kind of turn a blind eye to that.
We prefer that they be in public places because of exactly this kind of thing where there
is nobody in charge.
If you put it in a hacker space, well, then people are in charge because there are people
in charge of the hacker space.
It's kind of an uneasy balance, but it's worked up until now.
I'm worried that there might be some issues.
Let's try and focus on public places as much as possible so people feel comfortable and
so that we are introduced to more new people, hopefully, too.
Again, 2600.com slash meetings, 2600 meetings on Twitter, email meetings at 2600.com.
We'll talk about it more next week.
The whole point is to be able to meet and come back and meet regularly.
We don't want to have anyone feel unwell or uncomfortable.
If you are unsure or want to take precautions, do that, too, just as you would ordinarily
in a public space right now, depending, of course, on your region and area.
If you want to wear a mask, that's fine.
That's perfectly okay.
I know many places now are saying you don't have to wear a mask, but whatever you're comfortable
with, that's the important thing.
We're only having meetings in places where it's been deemed safe to meet with people
without a mask on.
That's perfectly acceptable as well, but again, that's 40%.
We have to maintain that, and we'll keep an eye on what's happening, and hopefully this
is a step back towards normalcy, and we'll see what happens in the months ahead as we
prepare for Hope next year and all kinds of other things, but I'm encouraged.
I'm encouraged where we are.
The country won't hit 70% of at least one shot by July 4th, apparently, which is a shame.
We should be able to do that.
It's not that difficult, and I think especially young people, if you're out there and you're
hesitating, you really ought to make the move and do what's right because while you might
be able to get through this easier than older people, you still could infect older people
who are not vaccinated for one reason or another or even people who are vaccinated because
it is only about, what, 90%, 94%?
That means there is a percentage where it's not effective.
If we all do the responsible thing, we will get through this a lot quicker.
Yes, Alex.
On that note, I don't know if you guys saw this because you're not in the city all the
time and certainly haven't been out that regularly.
You don't know where we are.
You do not know where we are.
Oh, I do know where you are.
Yeah, turn around.
Yeah.
Turn around?
Yeah, turn around.
That's what you just said.
Hi there.
Okay.
There we are.
But you don't know where we are.
I mean, you really don't.
But go ahead.
I guess.
That could just be a background, a familiar background, one of these pseudo-Zoom backgrounds
or something.
Take nothing for granted.
We've learned a few things in the last— We've gotten really good at some things.
Yeah.
The last couple of weeks, couple of months.
Well, that's good.
You strive to be a lifelong learner.
I'm glad for both of you on that front.
In any event, what I wanted to say was I got an interesting text message today from the
City of New York about vaccines.
Apparently, I signed up for this COVID email— not email, text messaging list last year when
things were going crazy.
But now, apparently, anybody, any resident of the City of New York can request an at-home
vaccination appointment.
You can just call up and somebody comes to your house and vaccinates you.
What's more is you get to choose whatever vaccine you want.
Oh, neat.
Wow.
Pfizer, Moderna, or Johnson & Johnson.
You can specify.
It's just pretty awesome.
Is this only in New York City or is this throughout New York or throughout the country?
I think it's only the City of New York, unfortunately.
Well, this is great for people who are shut-ins or people who can't get away for one reason
or another.
Kiela?
But now, if you can order your shot, will they bring you a sandwich too?
No.
That didn't take long, did it?
I feel like this is an ice cream truck sort of territory.
I just hope that we don't see a prevalence of vaxxing.
You know what I mean?
Where it looks like swatting, where you send a vax team out to somebody who doesn't want
it and they have to deal— no, why do I think about this immediately?
But I just hope they have some security precautions that prove that you are, in fact, the person
requesting this.
Otherwise, it could get very unpleasant very quickly.
Well, it could.
There is supposed to be a confirmation phone call that is given to the person who is going
to be potentially vaxxed in order to confirm dates.
And it does seem like they're anticipating some kind of backlog for this because they
said it may take a couple of weeks after you fill out the form online in order for somebody
to call you back.
But I guess the way around this from a security perspective, though, would be if you were
going to vax somebody like you were swatting somebody, you would probably provide a bogus
Google number that belonged to you and not to the other person that you were vaxxing,
so to speak.
Yeah.
So that really wouldn't do much good, would it?
Because they verify the number that you give them and, of course, that's going to work
out.
You should really—
That's right.
I would focus on doing this for people that are just basically having trouble with the
process itself and actually do want help with it.
It just seems like a lot of work.
I guess if somebody visits a house with a vaccine, it's not the worst thing in the world.
It's just a waste.
But please, people, don't do that.
They're perishable, I think.
They're perishable.
Well, yeah.
But I mean, it's better than having a team of armed men kick down your door because it's
harder to back out of that gracefully and get on with your lives.
So yeah, this is a good thing, and hopefully it spreads throughout the country and people
are able to get vaccines delivered to them if they're not able to go out and get them
themselves.
It's a pretty good idea, I think.
Yes, go ahead, Gila.
I was going to say that the whole thing is fantastic.
I was just looking at the sign-up form, which says we're going to forward this information
to all the various city organizations, the departments that are going to coordinate on
this.
So it may take a few weeks for you to get a phone call.
So if you tried to set this up for someone else, besides all the fail-safes, I think
it would just be a very sort of delayed prank.
Well, you'd have to play the long game on this.
You really do.
You really, really do.
Okay, I'll stop thinking the worst of people and just assume that everyone is going to
be responsible.
Why?
Why am I doing this again?
I always get disappointed whenever I do this.
Fingers crossed.
I hope it works out.
I hope more people get vaccinated.
I hope we reach that 70% and we get on with this already.
That's my hope.
Alex, did you have something?
Yeah, this gives me, I think, a great hope, especially walking around the city and walking
around Manhattan over this past week has been really incredible, too, because there are
just so many people out on the streets again.
And a lot of people outside, I would say most of them aren't wearing masks right now.
We've got a lot of people that are vaccinated still going inside stores and whatnot.
People should be wearing masks.
But the city on the whole, I think, feels like an entirely different place than it did
six months ago.
And it's in large part because of the vaccination efforts that have been happening.
But it's exclusively.
What else could it be?
Obviously, that's the reason why it's now safe to walk around.
And it is safe to go in places without masks, depending on what their policy is, depending
on where you are in the country, because I've seen a number of places that are allowing
that now.
So it's you know, I was in the supermarket the other day and it's only a couple of people
wearing masks.
And I think if you if you're not vaccinated, the responsible thing to do is continue wearing
a mask.
And if you're not.
Well, it seems like it might be OK inside and it is certainly OK outside.
In terms of progress, though, I mean, again, this is just incredibly great hope, because
remember, just a few short months ago on this very program, we were talking about some of
the domains that I had identified that were promoting at home vaccination for a fee that
were entirely 100 percent scams.
Now here we are dealing with at home vaccinations for residents of the city of New York.
And that's that's the reality of all of this.
We've come a huge way in a very few short number of months.
And I think this is a this is a pretty amazing feat for the for the city of New York to have
accomplished.
Well, what are the domains that were scams?
What are they doing now?
Because it's no longer a scam.
So I feel bad for them.
What are they what do they have on their websites?
Well, we'll have to take a look at those again.
I don't remember them off the top of my head, but if I can find some of them during the
show, well, we'll maybe we'll revisit those during overtime.
How did you know they were scams before they actually did anything?
Can you tell by the name somehow you could tell by the names you could tell by the domains,
the registration information, the setup of the page, as well as the 800 numbers that
were associated with these particular services?
How how does any of that indicate that they're scam artists?
Well, you could see this replicated across other domains that also were used as part
of either disinformation fraudulent or the domains are registered by a network of
squatters or threat actors that were looking to capitalize on vaccination efforts.
We can group those types of registrations together and find clusters of domains that
obviously belong to the same network or same group of bad actors.
So there's lots of different ways.
And also just looking at the at the content, you know, the content itself, even though
I think the copy was pretty well written, the content itself was pretty janky and and
looked a lot like a scam.
And you can you can see these things materialize if you track them over time.
And when you say they're bad actors, obviously something has to tell you that they're bad
actors. Is it because of something they've done in the past?
Is it simply because of the way they're phrasing things?
What is it that that tips you off on that?
Well, it looks like they're trying to exploit people.
Right. They're trying to steal money.
You know, they were they were asking, I think it was something like a hundred dollars or
five hundred dollars for a home visit for a vaccination at the time when that just did
not exist. They were looking to either steal credit card numbers or steal actual funds
at that particular time.
So that's why I'm talking about they're bad actors because they're fraudsters.
Interesting. Well, there might be a whole bunch of new domains that are being taken
over now since this has become reality.
But hey, let's move on to to some of the better news, because there is a little bit of
good news. Sometimes we do have good news.
We try not to give too much of it, but occasionally it just overflows.
Connecticut has become the first state to make all prison phone calls free.
Yeah, imagine that free, not an incredible amount of money, not even what a regular
phone call costs, but free.
This address is one of the biggest emotional and financial burdens faced by
incarcerated people and, of course, their families as they merely try to stay in touch.
The bill was signed into law by Governor Ned Lamont on Wednesday, last Wednesday, I
believe, and could go into effect as early as July.
That's according to supporters.
It allows anyone who's incarcerated a minimum of 90 minutes a day of free calls.
Democratic Representative Josh Elliott, one of the supporters of the legislation, says
we're on the right side of history.
Corporations can no longer be allowed to exploit the love between incarcerated people and
their families, not in our state, not on our watch.
And I think that is an important thing to point out.
If you are going to get arrested, make it Connecticut, because that way you're assured
that you'll be able to make a free phone call.
Because this isn't true in New York.
It's not true in other states.
And you have to ask yourself, who would be against this?
I mean, I know who will be against this.
Same people are against everything that makes sense.
But simply talking to people, why would we want to forbid that?
Yeah, punishment.
I get it.
But their families and everybody that is connected to them in some way.
Communication is important.
And when you make that and this is something that I know well, because I've talked to many
people who are behind bars, the whole Kevin Mitnick saga, Bernie S.
saga, all kinds of people that needed to reach out and convey important messages or just
find out certain things for themselves and stay sane cost a fortune, cost a hell of a
lot of money just to make contact, just to say a few things.
And you are always caught off, cut off, which is still going to be the case.
Obviously, you are listened in on, still going to be the case.
But to make it so prohibitively expensive for people that probably are the least able
to be able to afford something like that.
And I'm talking about the families of people of the incarcerated.
We're talking five dollars a minute in some cases.
It's just it was highway robbery.
That was the crime as far as I was concerned, seeing how these companies just swooped in
and took advantage of these people.
So it's great to see us doing the right thing.
Now, Connecticut is joining several jurisdictions nationwide that have taken steps to make
prison and jail phone calls free.
That includes New York City, San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles.
So New York City at least is is taking steps, but not not New York State.
This historic legislation will change lives, said Bianca Tylek, who's the executive
director of Worth Rises, which has been working with local advocates, many of whom were
directly impacted to slash prison phone costs.
It will keep food on the table for struggling families, children in contact with their
parents and our communities safer.
I see no bad in this.
Rob, you.
Yeah, I mean, people have, you know, people who haven't had direct interactions with the
prison system or had a friend or a family member or someone they care about in prison
and wanting to communicate with them might not be aware at just how predatory the entire
business model around prison phone calls has built up over the decades.
That is the one place I mean, we live in a modern era now where phone calls in general,
even long distance ones, even international ones, are basically cheap as free.
Prison phone calls were, you know, are the last the last remaining bastion of really
getting exploited, really getting, you know, charged unreasonable amounts for phone
calls. And, you know, if you've got someone you communicate regularly with who who has
been incarcerated, that is a major pull on your budget.
And that is also disproportionately affecting people who are poor, who don't have the
means to to to pay for calls like this.
So it's really it's really a major injustice that's being addressed here.
And it's way overdue.
Yeah. And I know people are concerned with planning crimes from from prison and things
like that. Keep in mind, all these phone calls are still listened in on.
So actually, if if crimes are being planned, if that scenario actually plays out, kind
of doing a favor to law enforcement, aren't they, by by giving out information.
So I don't think that is a valid concern.
I think keeping people in touch is always a good thing.
And as you know, a phone freak, somebody who back in the 80s was just trying to get
free phone calls everywhere when it cost a fortune to call New York City from Long
Island, let alone to call overseas.
Now you can call everybody.
You can talk to anybody around the world for nothing.
You know, we won that battle and it's it's incredible.
And somehow the very companies that were screaming bloody murder whenever people used a
red box or a blue box or something to get around the system, those same companies are
doing better than ever.
So when when the corporations say that stealing their services is going to put them out
of business, not necessarily true.
They will find a way.
They always do.
And I think that's true of every communications company.
And the corporations themselves are much better able to absorb the costs than individuals
who may have other debt obligations.
And as we said, maybe disproportionately burdened by other social and socioeconomic
factors. So it's absolutely really cruel.
Hey, I want to ask you guys, because you're in the city and we're somewhere else.
We still don't know where we are, but we're somewhere else.
But you're in. Well, actually, Alex, I know you're not in the city right now, but I know
you came from the city.
You guys vote in the in the first election that used the multiple what we call.
Yeah, it's not multiple choice.
It's a ranked choice, ranked choice where you get to choose five candidates in order.
And if your candidate doesn't win, well, then your second vote gets counted.
And it's really a very democratic system.
In fact, here at Pacifica, we've been using that system for a while and it's come in very
handy. It's very effective and it reflects the mood of the people.
But did you guys take part in this?
I did. I went and I voted last night at the high school, which is our polling place, and
I texted Rob because our precinct was the only one that had a line.
And I found out why.
Because one of our precinct captains was explaining the ballot to everyone.
She said to me, do you know how to do this?
And I said, yes, and she explained it to me anyway.
Wow. So one one precinct captain can cause a line.
Uh-huh. It was absolutely it was fascinating.
It was people were more participatory than I'd ever seen them before.
People were excited to be there.
Everybody was wearing a mask except for the school safety officer, which I just thought was
interesting. Wow. Yeah.
I got my sticker and I've never gotten a sticker.
They've never offered me a sticker.
I've never gotten one. I got one when I traded back my privacy cover.
The guy at the door said, I'll take your folder and here's a sticker.
It was overwhelming.
And then I've got mine, too.
And the thing that was very, very interesting was this morning on the New York Times
website, they were able to really break down by precinct how the votes came out, which
I thought was absolutely incredible.
But they still are able to tell who won.
They cannot tell who the winner is because nobody got the plurality that they needed.
But to say here's how the votes broke, here's how the first choice votes broke was
fascinating. And this little map was so great.
And there were precincts where people tied and there were precincts where one person
voted. Wow.
Yeah. Yeah.
I want to know more about those precincts.
I mean, nobody participated except one person.
Well, it's also possible that people were not eligible to vote in the primary, like
maybe that was an area. This was only the Democratic primary results that we're showing.
Yeah, I would think there's more than one person registered in the Democratic Party in
any precinct. I would think.
But who knows?
And then, you know, there's a little blank spot in Central Park.
Very interesting. So what I you know, I'm naive as far as all this goes, but I'm
curious if they're able to tell how the votes came out, how come they can't continue
the calculation and say, OK, we cut off the last person.
This is how it works. They cut off number five and and then we reallocate the votes
based on the second choice and the third person, the fourth and the fifth and
recalculate. How come that doesn't take a few seconds?
Why? Why? Why are we talking about not knowing results until July?
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to ask you that, and I'm not saying, you know, the answer.
I'm just a general question.
I do. Do you know the answer, Alex?
Yeah, I voted yesterday as well in the West Village.
It was great. There was barely a line to get in, you know, but there were lots of
people, you know, what is it, 100 yards away or whatever it is, you know, at the end of
the block handing out flyers for all the different candidates.
It felt very festive, I guess, is one way of putting it.
But one of the things in terms of this ranked choice voting, you know what I'm
curious about is people that get the complexity of it wrong because the ballots
themselves were a little bit confusing in terms of ranking.
It was very easy, I think, to fill out the same column twice or have, you know, your
third choice, perhaps, you know, overlap with your fourth choice because of the way
in which the columns were set up.
What do you mean overlap?
How would that work? Well, let's say, you know, especially for
Mayer, right, there are a whole bunch of different candidates and you're looking
farther down the page.
And let's say you're your third choice candidate.
You want to be, I don't know, Mr.
Smith or somebody who is a candidate, Mr.
Smith. Yes. But you went to Washington, you actually put that in your in the fourth
column and then you tick the fourth column for somebody else for for Mr.
for, you know, Mr.
Jane or whomever or Mr.
Doe that was farther up in the alphabet.
So he was listed earlier.
So what if you have two two candidates listed for the same position?
What I want to know is what happens to the ballot.
The ballots. Well, it doesn't get accepted.
If you have two filled in for the same rank, you get it back and they say, do it
right this time. That's what should happen, right?
It doesn't get accepted at the point of the scanning when you put it in a little fax
machine thing. Yeah, it's supposed to kick it back if it's filled out wrong.
Is that right? That's what I was told.
Oh, because that would be very interesting.
I wish I knew that because I would have tried it.
I'm sure you would have. But hopefully you just voted.
That's that's all I'm hoping for.
But I would I would have definitely tried that because people are undoubtedly going
to get confused. And if there's that kind of error correction, I think that would be
that's absolutely great.
Well, I think this is one of the reasons why Gila's precinct captain was actually
doing a service, because people are going to get confused.
They're going to do things wrong, even if you think you understand it, especially if
it's the first time. But guaranteed, the more people do this, the more used to it
they'll get. And the more they realize this is this is the way to do it.
This is the way to make your vote count more than just yes or no.
It's basically, OK, I didn't get my first choice.
My second choice now means something.
And at least I have a say in that.
So I think it's a really, really good step.
Yeah, I agree.
You know, the other thing I think we should all be mindful of, too, is that during this
time period where there's so much focus on the primary when it comes to the mayor, there
is this assumption that it's automatically going to be a Democrat who wins the actual
election. OK, seven to one Democrat versus Republican registration in New York City.
It's just, I guess, an assumption.
And plus, look at the candidates.
You know, OK, I don't want to get insulting here, but fine.
Let's assume that, yeah, there's a chance that a Republican could win.
We've had Republican mayors in the past.
We have. And we've learned we're never going to make that mistake again, hopefully.
And the reason why there wasn't ranked choice for the Republican side was because there
are only two candidates and it doesn't work.
It's weird. You would think there would be 50 candidates, but no, only two.
And yes, go ahead, Rob.
I just I empathize with Gila's poll worker because I was I worked as a poll worker where
I used to live on Long Island many, many years ago when electronic voting was still
pretty new. And so you had to explain the whole thing to people who walked in expecting
the old analog light blue lever based machines.
And as anyone who's worked in like infosec can tell you, you cannot over explain things
to people when it comes to using, you know, doing something new, something that, you know,
is outside the routine that they've been doing for years and years and years.
So I'm sure that it was just automatic to explain it to everybody.
I feel left out this time around, though, because I didn't get to vote in this primary
because I am not a member of a party.
So I have nothing to do with it.
But and I think that's very unfair that people who aren't members of parties don't get a
say in any of these elections.
Some states, that's not the case, but it's I'm in the same boat as you.
I don't believe in registering with the party, but that locks me out of having any say
before actual election day comes around.
Yeah, it's saddening. And also, apparently you have to be a member of the Democrat or
Republican Party to be a poll worker in this city for for this election.
So I looked into that because I'd done it before.
I was I was thinking, do I want to do it again?
But no, I'm apparently ineligible now.
Wow. I don't get that at all.
Like, why would you be less eligible because you're not a member of the party?
That's it doesn't make any sense.
Well, if you can't vote in it, what they think you would be more likely to cause
mischief or I have no idea.
It's very it's an interesting because you think for yourself.
They don't want that. OK, moving on.
This this headline, North Carolina, 12 year old's PlayStation account hacked, held
for ransom. It's kind of story you just have to find out more about.
Right. Why is this a headline at all?
I just want to know. Twelve year old's PlayStation account hacked.
Really, this is what we care about.
OK, authorities and authorities.
Yeah, authorities are wasting time on this in North Carolina are investigating a case
of extortion and blackmail after someone hacked into a 12 year old boy's PlayStation
account, stealing his password and locking him out.
The boy's mom asked the TV station that's covering this story not to use his full
name, but to use his nickname of Jayman.
OK, that won't be hard to figure out, will it?
Jayman said he was playing on his PS4 a few days ago when he was suddenly kicked out
of his online account.
You know, this happened to be an IRC about 20 years ago.
I didn't call the cops.
I got locked out and yeah, and people sent me nasty messages and said some very
hurtful things, but I didn't call the damn cops and I wasn't on the news.
But I will get even.
I'm still planning my revenge.
Anyway, he says the alleged hacker.
And what does this have to do with hacking?
You know, it's oh, my God, that's that's a whole other issue.
He says the alleged hacker then started making demands through Instagram that have
gone on for days because that's how Instagram works.
Jayman said he changed his password or the the hacker changed Jayman's password and
the email so that he wouldn't receive anything about him changing it.
OK, so he changed he changed the the password and the email so that he wouldn't get
email about him changing the password.
Well, good on you, Jayman, for figuring that out without the password or the email.
But anyway, just like that, the almost 13 year old wait, why are they calling an
almost 13 year old when he's 12?
Just call him a 12 year old.
He's 12.
I mean, that's the whole point.
That's the selling point of the story here.
You're losing it by changing his age.
He lost access to everything on his PS4 online profile.
Guys, you know.
I have nothing against gamers.
I respect them.
I am not one of them.
I've never been one.
I don't understand a lot of what goes on in the gaming world.
But if you lose access to your PS4 online profile, is that really a cop calling
offense? Is that something that destroys your life?
Is it just, you know, an inconvenience, a pain, something you you might utter a
profanity about? But, you know, can you get on with your life or how big a deal is
it? Does anybody here know?
I'm imagining there's maybe an aspect to it where if you lose access to your
PlayStation stuff, can you still start up your machine at home, put a game in it
and play your own game on your own device?
Or are you somehow locked out of this thing that exists in your house as an
appliance? It's like, you know, if you get locked out of using your Wi-Fi
enabled clothes washing machine or something, if you physically have access
to it, how could you be locked out of it?
A lot of the games are sent over the Internet connection.
Or however, it's connected to the Internet.
And in that way, the profile is required or is managing all the different games.
Whereas if you have a physical game, you could use it in the sort of offline way
you described. But you still have the physical device.
Can you not tell the Internet connection that, hey, I need to reset because I'm
who I am and nobody else is.
So trust me and not them.
I mean, it just seems a very basic thing that should be able to be done.
I know there's issues with save games and things like that and all the work you've
done, but, you know, it's a game and that's what happens sometimes.
And the whole thing is a big game.
Also, well, and on a related note, there's some financial aspect of this because I
think they exchange money for some internal credit.
Bad idea that those sort of games as a service are paid for.
Yeah. If they had asked me, I would say never, never have money involved in
something that is a game, whether it's Farmville or a PS4 or anything.
It's a game. It's a different reality.
It should not carry the same price as our reality because it's a game.
Price as our reality, because then you'll start mixing it up with our reality.
And that's exactly what we're seeing.
Yeah. That's to say nothing of like in game purchasing, which is very common on
smartphone games.
But yeah, it really could have been devastating in the moment, but it should
not be the this sort of earth shattering, life changing moment.
I'm reading a news story at Nationwide News.
TV stations are covering this.
The police are involved.
It's a 12 year old lost access to his PlayStation account.
There's something seriously wrong here.
And it's not the fact that he got hacked and that he didn't even get hacked.
He basically just got got his account taken over.
It's there's no real hacking involved here.
Yeah, I guess the question is, how did he how does password credentials get
compromised? What was going on in this life or how they were?
You'll have to ask Jayman that I think Jayman has some work to do or Jayman's
mom. She might know.
Anyway, so, yeah, he lost his his PS4 online profile.
I spent money. Yeah, you're right.
I spent money on certain things on the games like data stuff.
Oh, you bought data stuff, Jayman.
That's your big mistake right there.
Don't buy data stuff with money.
No. He said, I've gotten really far into the game, he explained.
And right away, the alleged hacker started messaging alleged hacker.
Now, you called him a hacker.
So is he OK?
Well, somebody is messaging him.
So he messaged him on Instagram through a profile with no photo and no post, just
the name Kevin in the bio section.
Really? Kevin again.
You got to be Kevin.
I haven't spent enough time trying to trying to rehabilitate that name from from
the evils of hacking with our free Kevin stickers and all that.
So now there's another Kevin out there that everybody's going to hate.
Jayman said the hacker told him, I want a 50 dollar PS4 gift card.
I'm going to use a lot of money on your account and I'm going to sell it to
somebody. Yeah, wow, this is dark, it's just really dark.
Gila, it's it's really dark.
And just to kind of piggyback on what Kyle said there, in-game purchases, I'm
sure there's some sort of subscription account situation.
There's probably a lot of money sunk into this.
And the kid is 12, almost 13, which is a very important distinction when you're
that age. I used to teach middle school.
Take it from me. But also I think there's a really important like the kid is 12,
almost 13. If his bike had gotten stolen 25 years ago, the cops would have gotten
involved. And I think that's also a piece of it.
Like this is there's so much identity probably that he has staked on this.
This I mean, I know it sounds odd to hear it, but also and especially now hearing
what Faceless Kevin was saying on Instagram.
Thank God it was just his account stuff like this could have gotten really, really,
really bad. Yeah, but why?
Why could have gotten really bad?
It's because we tie things, we tie our identities to these these virtual worlds.
It's a big mistake to do that.
Now, I had my bike stolen when I was a kid and didn't get it back, but it was a
tangible item. I understood this is now gone.
This is not tangible.
This doesn't have to happen with the right kind of security.
You can keep this from from taking place and basically stake your claim and maintain
ownership of the things that you actually bought in the real world with real money.
Rob, this also it should lead people to start questioning the media environment as it
is right now, because this is something that was lost when everything went over to just
soft purchases, just like buy software over the Internet, because, you know, I could
start up the Nintendo console I had 30 years ago, put a cartridge in it and it works
fine. It has nothing to do with like other servers being on somewhere.
It has nothing to do with like social media and people trying to hack at my profile and
whatever. And, you know, that's something that exists now in this, you know, child's
toy box, basically in a virtual sense where where, you know, he can't play with the
things that that he's been given because of some, you know, social media junk or
because of some bot or because of some security failure.
That's something sad. I mean, if somebody could hack something that like took books
off your shelf or videos off your shelf that you that you enjoyed, you'd be angry as
well. Yeah, absolutely.
But I would never have a system like that.
And I resent being forced into using those kinds of systems.
And we see it all the time with software where instead of actually having something
tangible in your possession, you subscribe to it.
Now, you never actually own it yourself.
And that opens up the door for all kinds of of compromising to take place because you
don't have full access.
Your your information is out there.
This is the wrong path to go down, Gila.
I agree. And then also I think things are beginning to go down that path that aren't
necessarily completely virtual experiences like what is it, the Peloton treadmill?
Oh, my God. Yeah, that's a great example.
It's going to lock you out unless you subscribe.
You can't even use it like this is what we're talking about.
You can't start it up and this big, massive device, this big, massive physical device
that you have dragged into your home, capable of killing a small child.
Now you're saying we can't even use it's going to be bricked if you don't pay a
monthly fee. You just have this useless device in your house.
That is a crime that I mean, if you buy something, you should be able to use it.
And that goes for cars.
That goes for computers.
That goes for phones.
And we just we seem to be plunging headlong into this world where no matter what we
buy, we never actually own it.
And somebody else is controlling it.
And and you have stories like this.
You have the J-Man story.
You have that happening.
It's really it's really sad.
There's an update, too. There's another threat from the alleged hacker.
If you don't give it to me by this time, I'm going to take it up to one hundred
dollars and a lot of people want your account.
It's very rare and stuff.
He's just trying to get a lot of money out of me for my own.
Wait a minute. That's J-Man saying that I'm sorry they had they had two quotes in
the same paragraph. J-Man said he's just trying to get a lot of money out of me
for my own account.
Yeah, the Charlotte Mecklenburg police report, you got two municipalities in that
police department and you're wasting them both on June 50 list the crimes under
extortion, blackmail, as well as hacking slash computer invasion.
Wow. So a lot of a lot of slashes going on here.
Charlotte Mecklenburg, extortion, blackmail and hacking, computer invasion.
You know, I don't often stand up for extortionists and blackmailers, but there's
a long history of extortion and blackmail in our country.
And this it pales in comparison.
It really does.
It's it's one kid taking something from another kid virtually because it was
probably extremely easy to do so.
And it's being treated like Al Capone.
And and you have all of this street cred being given to somebody with no actual
skills, turning them into a master criminal.
And if they are ever caught, that's going to follow them around.
And it just it's a whole other level of wrong that the story now will will will
create. Anyway, this good news, we're due for some good news on this story.
The good news is that Jayman's mom.
I feel silly reading the story.
Jayman's mom said they were able to pause the credit card attached to his PS4
account so no one can access that money.
OK, Mrs. Jayman, I any credit card, you can stop payment on something.
This is not some kind of a feat that that you figured out.
This is what they're supposed to do.
And this credit card should not have been accessed by somebody else in the first
place. And the moment it was, you call them and you say, hey, this is unauthorized.
Stop it. And they will.
And you're not liable. That's how it works.
Jayman's mom gives advice to other parents.
If you want to listen to Jayman's mom's words of wisdom here.
Consider skipping the online gaming accounts and just stick to buying games in
the store. Jayman has made it clear he's not paying up.
Well, good for him. Good for your mom.
Nice that you crossed the finish line in the end.
But yeah, that is basically the advice I think any of us would give from the
outset. Jayman says, if I if I give them the gift card, what gift card is a gift
card now? The ransom gift card.
I didn't know it was a gift card.
There was just money. It was 50 bucks on a like a virtual.
It was. Yeah. Yeah. You're really paying attention to this.
It's riveting. How much do you know?
I know a lot. If I give them the gift card, they're not going to give me back my
account. They're still going to sell it.
Yeah, that's right, Jayman. They're going to sell it.
It's just like all these ransomware clowns that think if they if they give bitcoins
to people, all of a sudden they're going to get everything back.
You might you might not.
What are you going to do about it?
It's you know, this is part of that history of crime that you can't trust people
that commit crimes. It's why it's not to do that.
Jayman is just hoping to have the account shut down temporarily, effectively sending
the hackers back into cyberspace for good.
What does that even mean back into cyberspace?
But you want to follow them into cyberspace and get your ass kicked again.
The family has been in contact with Sony for help getting Jayman's account shut down
temporarily. So far, they haven't had any success.
What what number you got for Sony?
I wonder calling Sony.
This should be something that's simple.
If you have physical access to something that you bought, you should be able to do
that. Extremely easily, you should not have to call Sony.
They're probably calling Japan or something, thinking that you have to talk to the
president of the company to get this done.
And that is the story of the 12 year old who lost his PlayStation account.
Sympathy for him and for others who might be going through something like that.
But we need to rethink the way we do things to avoid this.
I can only imagine what it's going to be like in 10 years.
This explains where Jayman's been for all the other gamers who missed playing with
him. Speaking of ransomware, we talked about the Colonial Pipeline ransomware
incident many, many times.
But do you know that the so-called hackers who gained entry into the networks of
Colonial Pipeline on April 29th did so through a virtual private network account?
And what they did was they they used a single compromised password that was floating
around on the Internet or if you want to be technical on the dark net.
Basically, it was out there.
It was many people had access to this.
And that is how they got in, because this password wasn't changed.
It was a password for an account that wasn't even being used.
But the account still had access and was still able to do the things they needed to
do. It's bad security.
It's always bad security.
And if you if you basically deactivate accounts that are no longer used, if you
change passwords frequently, you'll tend to avoid this type of thing.
And you have something else on Colonial Pipeline that I didn't know about.
Oh, sure. This is a WSCO TV story from Huntersville, North Carolina.
Did you know that back in North Carolina?
That's right. Two teens writing ATVs in Huntersville last summer in August, one of
them could be Jayman. Well, he's not a teen yet.
He's 12. Yeah.
Maybe friends with OK are credited with finding a massive Colonial Pipeline fuel
spill, which was last estimated at one point two million gallons.
Walker Sell and Owen Fair were riding through Oler Oler Nature Preserve when they
smelled an overwhelming odor of gasoline.
It was just bubbling up out of the ground like a fire hydrant would.
Fair told Channel nine.
And basically this is one of the largest fire fuel spills in U.S.
history. I'd never heard of this.
When did this happen? August, about a year ago.
Last August 2020.
Yeah, this is before the ransomware.
These this company was what was was leaking fuel all over the place.
And I guess because they weren't in the news for for not having good security on
their computer network, the media just skipped over that story.
But wow. And you say they they didn't even they weren't able to figure this out
themselves. They needed a couple of kids riding bikes to tell them that their fuel
was leaking all over the place.
That's right. There was a giant crack, I guess, in the actual line itself.
And there was no detection system in in in any way that the company was aware when
when it's dry and crack in a pipeline.
And there's no way to detect that when you're the company running the pipeline.
You think like even like telemetrics on like the flow rates and stuff or pressures,
you know, because if you have a fire hydrant size leak, I guess I guess the flow of
oil to your customers is like that.
I would think that before giving them permission to do that, that's the first
question you ask. How do you know if you're if your fuel is leaking?
What's your what's your system to prevent that, to detect that they don't seem to
have one? That's incredible.
Yeah. So once they did realize it, it eventually took time to to shut off.
But this stuff happens all the time in this country.
We have a lot of infrastructure that is old.
We have a lot of pipeline systems and it's generally not covered at all.
You get a story that's unusual like this and it makes local TV.
But it's often covered in really sparse ways.
So this is why we should look at other pipeline plans like line three and other stuff
that is detrimental to ecosystems.
That security is everywhere.
Oh, my God. We're out of time.
Boy, time goes so fast.
But we have another hour or so that we spend on YouTube.
You can join us there.
YouTube dot com slash channel twenty six hundred or just click on the link on the top
of twenty six hundred dot com.
And you can call us.
Yeah, you can call us.
The phone number is eight zero two.
Was three to one. Is that what it is?
I don't have it in front of me. Someone took my paper.
Three to one hack. Three to one hack.
Eight zero two.
Three to one. Four to two five.
So we'll see you over there or write to us.
O.T.H. at twenty six hundred dot com.
We'll see you next week on WBAI.
Stay tuned to ninety nine point five FM.
Good night.
I say we answer.
Look at our time.
I say no one like a trickster.
I say we answer the telephone.
When you get inside the telephone,
when you get inside the telephone,
when you get a phone call,
I'll be gone.
Stop a phone call.
I'll be gone.
Stop. She won more money.
She got shot in the mouth.
One more morning.
She got shot in the mouth.
When she gave me the money,
I'm going to make me do what I do.
They could say what I do.
She said I'm going to be the bank.
I'm going to be the bank.
I'm going to be the bank.
I'm going to be the bank.
I'm.
I'll never see.
What I carry on?
What I know.
Did you say we?
I said, who are you?
I agree.
So bring to your.
Hello, I'm Jesse Lent, a BAI buddy is a listener who doesn't just give to this station, but
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