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And a very good evening to everybody. The program is Off the Hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you, joined tonight by Kyle.
Yes, hello, hi.
And out in, calm down a little bit there.
Out in Skype land, we have Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
We have Gila.
Hello.
And we have Alex.
Good evening, everyone.
Those intros are getting more and more complicated every week, aren't they?
We're going to have to have a meeting about that.
Welcome, everybody, to the program about hacking, about technology, privacy, issues like that.
We'll be talking about all that this week.
You can write to us at OTH at 2600.com.
That is our email address.
You can also stay tuned at 8 o'clock for Off the Hook Overtime on YouTube.
You can find the link on the 2600.com webpage.
It's right there at the top.
And you can join us there with such fun activities as calling us by phone
or even participating in the online chat, all sorts of amazing new technological gizmos that we have.
But speaking of new technological gizmos, the MTA, those wonderful people who get us around the city and the region,
they are experimenting with, guess what, artificial intelligence.
And don't make the joke that I know you're going to make about the people that work for the MTA.
No, that's not nice.
Don't say that.
No.
They're great people.
They really are.
But they're experimenting with artificial intelligence to combat fare beaters on the New York City subway system.
Yes.
The humans haven't worked, so they're going to AI now to try and solve that problem.
Now, the MTA first disclosed these plans in a report issued back in May.
It was all about the agency's fare evasion problem, which they say cost it $690 million last year,
including $24 million lost on the LIRR loan.
The report noted that the MTA already had begun to experiment with the use of computer technology
across seven subway stations to extrapolate the number of fare beaters across the subway system,
which is about 16% of all riders.
Wait a minute.
16% of all riders are beating the fare?
Is that true?
Wow.
I didn't know fare beaters were such a big number.
They should get a vote, then, with that many of them.
I mean, 16%.
That's a lot.
Wow.
The MTA said it had plans to expand the use of the technology to about two dozen more stations by the end of this year.
The report did not explain how the technology works, because they never do.
The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, known as STOP,
they're a New York-based privacy and civil rights group,
they released the MTA's contract with Spanish technology firm Awight Artificial Intelligence.
It explained how the video analytics fare evasion software combined streamed video
and actual fare swipe data made available by the MTA to zero in on fare beaters.
The software even keeps tabs on the fare beater's preferred methods,
whether it's jumping over turnstiles, passing underneath turnstiles,
swinging the turnstile tripod arms back and forth.
You've got to get it just right.
You know, you push it back about a third and then kind of slip it.
Okay.
Well, we can get into the details later.
Reverse entering at the emergency gates, which is what so many people do.
People just hold open the gates and people pile in.
We've all seen that.
The amount paid by the MTA for the technology is redacted in the documents obtained by STOP.
MTA officials would not disclose the cost of the contract.
So they haven't told us how much it's going to cost, how it works,
or anything other than the fact that a huge number of people are apparently not paying fares,
16% of all riders.
And what do you think?
Artificial intelligence.
I mean, it just seems very vague to me that they're saying artificial intelligence is at work here.
It seems like they're analyzing video, they're analyzing tactics,
they're learning how fare beaters are able to jump over turnstiles,
which they've been doing for decades.
Where is the artificial intelligence in all this?
Rob, do you have an idea?
Yeah, I have the same question.
I'm wondering what exactly they want the artificial intelligence's help in figuring out here.
They know people are jumping the turnstiles.
They know people are passing under the turnstiles.
Is this going to go any way toward trying to stop these people from doing so
or trying to discourage them or pass along their info to the authorities or something terrible like that?
Just what exactly is it that they want to achieve with this?
Because I don't see how letting a computer watch someone jump over the turnstile gets the MTA another fare.
Yes, Alex.
Although, if you combine it with other technologies like facial recognition,
then you can begin to perhaps piece together the identity of a fare beater that an AI system has detected based on,
say, past fare beater activities.
It's not too difficult to figure out what fare beating looks like.
You go under a turnstile, you go over the turnstile, you go through the gate.
Maybe it will allow you to better track the individual through the subway systems and then identify them.
God, who knows?
What if you combine that tracking system with the Link NYC kiosks that are all around the city?
You might be able to track this guy back to his home and then send him a bill.
Or her.
Or her.
Of course, or her.
I remember just as an anecdote a long time ago, probably 1995 or so,
when one of our dear friends, after a 2600 meeting, had hopped a turnstile in a subway station and got himself arrested in New York.
This was a dear friend of ours from Long Island, I remember.
So fare beating has a long and storied history in our community, I guess.
Alex is not talking about me, by the way.
No, I'm not talking about you.
Clear that up right away.
Kyle, go ahead.
I feel like it really will lower the costs overall to do thorough investigations.
To look for instances like this, it would take a lot of manpower, a lot of hours.
I think it speeds it up, all of the organization.
And instead of someone getting caught once or something, when they do get approached, maybe there's 10 other instances that have been catalogued already.
It sort of is like the threat of like, hey, we're going to throw the machines at you and make something that you think will cost us a lot very inexpensive.
And then do other things in combination, like, okay, this is the type of behavior.
This is the instance when we notice it, maybe after or maybe not entirely going after individuals, we'll set up different levels of staffing and so forth at peak hours where this kind of behavior at certain locations is taking place.
But if you imagine how much surveillance video they have to go through that with like six people would probably be quite difficult.
But when you think about it in terms of data analysis and with all of these kinds of tools, the prospect of it, I think, is less daunting and, as I said, less costly.
Go ahead, Gila.
What if the reason there's not a cost mentioned is because they're not actually going to do it?
What if they're suggesting it so that we think they're going to do it?
And, you know, it's like one big PSYOP and it's going to happen.
So we're watching you.
But at the same time, what have we been talking about this whole year?
Cops in every station.
Cameras on every train car.
Like, where does the MTA get to the point where the surveillance has reached a tipping point?
Because has, you know, has police in every station cut down on fair beating?
No.
I'm kind of at a loss as to what they think this is going to accomplish other than to suggest this in an attempt to scare law abiding New Yorkers.
And that's what I think the police don't pay the fare either, by the way.
They're allowed not to pay the fare, but they don't.
So I've seen them go through the same door.
But Tim Minton, Tim Minton is a fun name to say.
Tim Minton says he's the MTA communications director.
He says the MTA is using the technology as a counting tool, is not using it to identify users.
Do we believe Tim Minton?
I don't know.
Rob, go ahead.
Yeah.
I mean, you mentioned facial recognition.
And would a system like this, if put into place, basically be an excuse to have facial recognition equipped cameras at every station, which are then used for all sorts of other reasons?
Who gets access to that data?
You know, do do the authorities need a warrant for it?
Or can they just hook up whenever they want and see where anyone in the city is who's using transit?
Well, the group we mentioned, stop, their executive director, Albert Fox Khan, said he believes at a time when every surveillance camera is just one software upgrade from being turned into a facial recognition tool.
And with more and more cameras across the Long Island Railroad, there's a good risk that the pilot will extend out there as well.
And I imagine Metro North Territory and probably everywhere.
We know that Surveillance Creek tends to start in New York City, but it definitely doesn't stop there.
So it sounds like they're writing New York City off, but being careful about the suburbs.
But, yeah, I guess this kind of thing is going to become more and more prevalent, you know, as far as seeing cameras and, you know, basically trying to stop people from getting away with something and using that as the excuse.
That and crime, of course.
So will people support this?
Will people say, yeah, it's a good idea?
I think, you know, based on what we've seen in the past, yeah, they probably will.
Alex?
My thought on this is that this is just such a buzzword.
Everybody's doing something AI focused.
The MTA is jumping on this buzzword bandwagon.
And some contractor for the MTA that's designing the system that will take three or four years and cost $500 million and then ultimately have very limited utility will make out like a bandit and we won't hear anything about it again.
That's sort of my guess.
You think we won't hear about this again?
I just don't see it having great utility in terms of combating fair beating, something that's completely physical in nature.
Using AI to stop it, unless you have some kind of enforcement protocol that goes along with it, it's going to be I see this being somewhat futile.
I mean, maybe I'd love to hear our listeners call in and disagree with me on overtime because maybe I'm just thinking about it the wrong way.
But I think it sounds like a really expensive project with very limited return on investment.
Well, you know, the physical barriers also are something that it's incredibly easy to just hop over a New York City subway train stop.
Very easy.
I've seen other cities where it's a much more enclosed space and you'd have to really work to fit two people in there and you certainly can't hop over it.
So we might see something like that.
We might see more, I guess, evolution of the way that fares are collected.
But we might also see movements like we've seen in other cities, such as Berlin, where transit becomes free in certain areas.
It's certainly possible.
You certainly can do that.
It's something that our tax dollars are already paying for.
Imagine that.
It would be something, wouldn't it?
Instead of dumping all of this money into these strict policies or ever escalating sort of technological warfare against your passengers and making it that much more uncomfortable and unbearable to use your system, funding it and adequately making the numbers work in such a way that people aren't actually needing to buy tickets and so forth.
Did you ever ask yourself how it's possible you can take an airplane from New York to Los Angeles for maybe $200 or even less sometimes?
It's certainly way less than what it costs to transport somebody using that technology.
And the subsidies that the airline industry get from the federal government, from our tax dollars, that is something that really makes a big difference insofar as how they're able to operate.
If the same thing were applied to mass transit and to rail, you'd see a huge difference in what's possible and in what the problems actually are.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think if 16% of people in the transit system beat their fare in some way, I think the question to ask isn't how can we point robots at this to make more money?
I think the question is what is the state of public support in the city like where 16% of people can't afford the $2.75 to get on the train?
Yeah, and maybe it's okay if something like this is just publicly supported and free to use.
What if there was a turnstile that was just free?
A free turnstile?
Yeah.
How would that work?
Well, people that can't afford the fare or just need to go on, that one's paid for.
Oh, it's like public shaming, is that it?
They're going to ring a big gong or something when somebody walks through that and say, hey, look, this guy can't afford it.
Yeah, you're right.
That doesn't really work.
You're making it like a spectacle.
Yeah.
No.
I think the free model, because what is the economic benefit?
Well, the select buses.
16% don't want to pay.
What about the other percent?
We should ask them.
Do they feel like paying?
Nobody wants to pay.
Will they still respect the system, I guess, if it's free?
That was the idea with the select buses, the kind of bus where you get on and you already have your ticket and maybe you're challenged, but probably not, and will most people pay?
I think most people did.
That's very similar to a lot of European systems, but maybe that's not working out to the MTA's liking as much.
But we'll also see other ideas, I'm sure, in the future.
We have seen some incredible strides with technology.
Kyle and I were just using the MTA recently, and basically a lot of the things we've been complaining about over the last decade or two have now been implemented here, things like knowing when the next bus is going to come, knowing when the next train is going to come, having the ability to transfer between systems.
You can now buy a train ticket from Montauk to Poughkeepsie.
One train ticket.
You can do that because you can take the LIRR, go to Grand Central Station and transfer to Metro North and take the train up to Poughkeepsie, and you can have that all on your phone or even a piece of paper, I guess.
And that's something that was unheard of before, but now with the addition of Grand Central Madison, as they call it, the extra level of Grand Central Station way down below, it's now possible to do these things.
But there are still issues, such as the fact that you can't take a train out to Long Island after 10.30 at night, which is insane.
They're getting there.
They're getting there slowly.
It all takes investment, and it's cool to see that some changes, the consolidation of scheduling and the improvements made with and to some of their technology, it is so beneficial to people that rely on that.
And if you can figure out a way where it is more affordable or just more accessible in all ways, I think society itself is in agreement that this is a good thing.
This is for humanity.
Yeah.
And I think listening to what people say and what people who have been to other parts of the world have observed, that is key.
That is important in developing a mass transit system and developing any kind of a system within any city.
So hopefully MTA listens to people, takes more suggestions and improves the system, makes it more of a world class type of a thing, which it's in dire need of.
Alex, do you have one more point?
Well, I had a question, and I don't want to get us on too much of a digression here, but I'm sure some of our listeners are wondering, too.
What do you mean by you can't take a train out to Long Island after 10.30?
Are there no trains anymore?
No, from Grand Central, the new Grand Central Madison.
They're touting this new station as the second coming, and it's supposed to be an alternative to Penn Station.
But how can it be an alternative if they close down at around 10 o'clock at night?
That's crazy.
Look, for instance, you have Yankee Stadium.
They have a Metro North stop.
You can take a train directly from Long Island and switch in Grand Central, go up to Yankee Stadium, see the game, come back down, and then find out when you get to Grand Central Madison that the last train has already left.
It's not the case in Penn Station.
That kind of thing shouldn't be happening.
And there's many other improvements that MTA can make, obviously.
Fair beating is just one thing, but there are many.
I'm sure our listeners have lots of suggestions.
But we must move on because there's many other things to discuss, including the fact that I can't say it.
I can't call Twitter X.
Are you guys able to do that at all?
I mean, I can't even call Facebook Meta.
Why do they all want to change their names?
What are they up to?
Why all these companies that are household words, they don't want to be household words anymore.
They want to start over again.
Gail, you have an idea?
Yeah, because it's not that.
The Meta Facebook thing, we've discussed that.
That was, you know, the corporate umbrella is Meta and Facebook is whatever.
Elon Musk has a thing about the letter X.
Like, initially, PayPal was X.com.
I didn't know that.
That's true.
Yeah.
Really?
And people are like, that's a really stupid name.
Call it something else.
Wow.
SpaceX.
Oh, my God.
You're right.
And one of his kids is called like X something unpronounceable, and they call the kid X for short.
Elon Musk has a thing about the letter X and all the stupid things you can do with the letter X in the same way that he has a thing about the number 420 and the number 69.
He thinks it's funny.
Wow.
So this is Elon Musk wanting X to be the thing.
Am I hysterical that they had to take the blinking sign off the roof?
Yes.
Am I hysterical that the police came when they took down the Twitter sign with no permits?
Yes.
Am I fascinated that Elon Musk is not thinking anywhere past his own toes?
Yes.
Why does this man have $44 billion to work with?
Why?
Does he still have that?
Has he blown through a lot of it?
Probably not.
I think a lot of it's gone now.
The letter X is, and I have to say that the social media moment of this entire discourse definitely goes to the people who are running the Sesame Street Twitter account because they did a thing about the letter X having a press conference.
Oh, yeah.
I saw that.
Sesame Street wins this entire discourse.
Sesame Street always wins.
Don't get into it with Sesame Street.
You will not.
Never.
It doesn't end well.
You say Elon, not Elon like everyone else does.
Is that just to annoy him?
I would say that, but it's also because I actually know a lot of people named Elon, so that's just how I say it.
There are more of them?
I thought he was a…
Oh, boy.
Okay.
I didn't know there were more people with that name.
Wow.
It means tree.
It means tree.
Okay, fine.
Anyway, the story I'm trying to get through here, what should I call it?
Should I call it X Corp?
Should I call it Twitter?
Call it Twitter to anger him.
Make him mad.
Call it Twitter.
He's going to be mad no matter what.
Okay, fine.
Also true.
Twitter, which is the parent company of Twitter.
That didn't work out because the story listed both.
Anyway, they sent a letter on July 20th to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which is a nonprofit that conducts research on social media.
Basically, Elon accused the organization of making a series of troubling and baseless claims that appear calculated to harm Twitter generally and its digital advertising business specifically and threatened to sue them.
Yeah, threatened to sue them.
The letter cited research published by the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
When they're your enemies, yeah, you got to take stock in what you're doing.
When you're threatening the Center for Countering Digital Hate with a lawsuit, maybe you're on the wrong side.
Basically, they published research examining hate speech on Twitter.
The research consisted of eight papers, including one that found that Twitter had taken no action against 99% of the 100 Twitter blue accounts the Center reported for tweeting hate.
The letter called the research false, misleading, or both and said the organization had used improper methodology.
The letter added that the Center was funded by Twitter's competitors or foreign governments in support of an ulterior agenda.
This sounds like Trump.
It sounds like the kind of thing he would say about anybody that criticized him.
It's really kind of nuts here.
Imran Ahmed is the chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
He said Elon Musk's actions represent a brazen attempt to silence honest criticism and independent research.
He added that Mr. Musk wanted to stem the tide of negative stories and rebuild his relationship with advertisers.
The Center also said it did not accept any funding from tech companies, governments, or their affiliates.
It's ridiculous they have to even address that.
In a blog post Monday evening, Twitter announced it had filed a lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate for actively working to prevent free expression.
The suit was filed in federal court in the Northern District of California.
Twitter has also sued Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, and Katz, which is a leading corporate law firm, over what it said were unjust payments related to Mr. Musk's $44 billion acquisition of Twitter.
Apparently that's still a contentious issue.
Wow. It's kind of crashing and burning, isn't it?
It really is.
I'd like to get back to the whole Facebook meta Twitter X thing for a moment because this has had another very insidious effect, which people are noticing.
On other social media, it is very easy to filter out terms that you don't want to see.
If you decide you've had it up to here with all this Elon Musk crap, you could filter out the hashtag Twitter and you wouldn't see any posts about Twitter on your Mastodon feed.
You can't really do that with the letter X.
You can't really do that with meta, which is a common term that people use for so many things besides the company that was formerly known as Facebook.
People are having to make the effort to, if they're going to mention X now, they have to still hashtag it Twitter so that people who want to hear about it can still find it.
People who don't want to hear about it can still filter it out because filtering is done by hashtags.
This is having the effect that changing your company's name to just a common letter or a common word makes it all that much more insidious because people will have less ability to control the flow of information and chatter about it.
I'd like to know, is it possible to filter out Elon or Musk?
I notice on my Twitter app, sometimes when I look at something and I look at things less and less, I see this bar across the top that's meant to get my attention and it literally says, Elon Musk is speaking.
I'm supposed to care about this, but how do I turn that off?
I don't think I can.
I think that's something that is just pushed to everybody.
It's kind of disgusting and a little scary.
Absolutely, but I think if we continue to be stubborn and still call it Twitter, just like there are still some baseball fans who call where the Mets play Shea Stadium, I think we can stem the tide, fight back a little.
Speaking of Twitter, it leads us to Mastodon and this statement by the EFF concerning the FBI seizure of a Mastodon server.
They say we're in an exciting time for users who want to take back control from major platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
However, this new environment comes with challenges and risks for user privacy, so we need to get it right and make sure networks like the Fediverse and Blue Sky are mindful of past lessons.
Last May, Mastodon server Collectiva.social was compromised when one of the server's admins had their home raided by the FBI for unrelated charges.
All of their electronics, including a backup of the instance database, were seized.
It's a chillingly familiar story, which should serve as a reminder for the hosts, users, and developers of decentralized platforms.
If you care about privacy, you have to do the work to protect it.
We have a chance to do better from the start in the Fediverse, so let's take it.
The story where all their electronics were seized echoes many digital rights stories.
After all, EFF's founding case over 30 years ago was Steve Jackson Games versus Secret Service.
And there was a story about the overbroad seizures of equipment in the offices of Steve Jackson Games in Texas based upon unfounded claims about illegal behavior in a 1990s version of a chat room.
That seizure nearly drove the small games company out of business, but it also spurred the newly formed EFF into action.
And they won that case, but law enforcement's blunderbuss, never used that word in my life before, blunderbuss approach continues through today.
This overbroad police seize-it-all approach must change.
EFF has long argued that seizing equipment like servers should only be done when it is relevant to an investigation.
Any seized digital items that are not directly related to the search should be quickly returned,
and copies of information should be deleted as soon as police know that it is unrelated, as they also should for non-digital items that they seize.
EFF will continue to advocate for this in the courts and in Congress, and all of us should continue to demand it.
But there's a section here about what is a decentralized server host to do?
Well, basically EFF has a section called Who Has Your Back, and they have recommendations for protecting your users when the government comes knocking,
and not just for large centralized platforms.
Hosts of decentralized networks must include possibilities like government seizure in their threat model,
and be ready to respond in ways that stand with their users.
First of all, basic security practices that apply to any server exposed to the Internet must also apply to Mastodon.
Use firewalls and limit user access to the server as well as the database.
If you must keep access logs, keep them only for a reasonable amount of time, and review them periodically to make sure you're only collecting what you need.
This is true more broadly.
To the extent possible, limit the data your server collects and stores, and only store data for as long as it is necessary.
Also, stay informed about possible security threats in the Mastodon code, and update your server when new versions are released.
Second, make sure that you've adopted policies and practices to protect your users,
including clear and regular transparency reports about law enforcement attempts to access user information,
and policies about what you will do if the cops show up, things like requiring a warrant for content and fighting gag orders.
Critically, that should include a promise to notify your users as soon as possible about any law enforcement action
where law enforcement gained access to their information and communications.
In the Colativa case, the hosts were fairly slow in giving notice.
The raid occurred in mid-May, and the notice didn't come until June 30th, about six weeks later.
That's quite a long delay, even if it took Colativa a while to realize the full impact of the raid.
As a host of other people's communications, it is vital to give notice as soon as you are able,
as you generally have no way of knowing how much risk this information poses to your users and must assume the worst.
The extra notice to users is vital for them to take any necessary steps to protect themselves.
And as far as users who are joining the Fediverse,
you should evaluate the About page for a given server to see what precautions, if any, they outline.
And once you've joined, you can take advantage of the smaller-scale community on the platform
and raise these issues directly with the admins and other users on your instance.
Insist that the obligations, including notify you and resisting law enforcement demands,
where possible, be included in the instance information and terms of service.
Making these commitments binding in the terms of service is not only a good idea,
it can help the host fight back against overbroad law enforcement requests
and can support later motions by defendants to exclude the evidence.
Another benefit of the Fediverse, unlike the major lock-in platforms,
is that if you don't like their answer, you can just go somewhere else.
So, what do you folks think about that? Kyle?
Well, I'm a big fan of that, and maybe it's not as clear in what you read because there's a lot of good points and advice,
but not including everything and retaining just out of hand.
The idea that you can create your own policy frees you, in many ways, to make it up.
Make up whatever it is, if you're hosting one of these things, you want, but stick to it.
Commit to something that advantages your users, ideally, and protects them in the event that something does go wrong.
There are a myriad of ways to do it, but this extends beyond just hosting one of these Fediverse servers
with all things digital and in many other parallel and like circumstances,
keeping all kinds of extra information, especially related to customer stuff,
it's only going to increase the surface of vulnerability of things that could get out,
that could be mistakenly leaked or breached in some way and scattered about.
For instance, there's some things we do sometimes, third parties and services we use for merchandise,
and some of them take pride in telling us that they get rid of certain transaction information.
We like that kind of policy.
I think when people are coming up with a service or they're hosting something like this,
be proud of what you're committing to and share that because people like us,
people that use different vendors, when they know those policies,
they may choose you instead of other competing service providers because of your stance.
Because you're running it on whatever scale you are, you're in control.
By definition, you should feel free to be creative with how long and what kinds of retention,
all of those different nuances of the policy, they're yours.
We do the same thing when we run conference networks at Hope.
We make up what we keep, what we don't, how we handle the traffic and other details
when we're handling attendees' information.
That's important to us.
You can do the very same thing on these networks if you're building them yourselves.
It's easy to do and it's something that you can advertise and be vocal about.
Go ahead, Alex.
A couple of points on this.
I think fundamentally, this just goes back down to a very basic principle
that we've been espousing on the show for decades, which is if you're hosting somebody else's data,
if you have somebody else's data, you have to protect it and secure it.
That's just kind of a basic thing.
I think we're dealing with a fundamental problem here.
What I thought was fascinating, though, and I don't think that we addressed this detail.
I apologize if we did.
As I understand it, the collectiva.social instance of the Fediverse was actually encrypted at rest.
However, the FBI seized the server when it was in an unencrypted state because it was during some kind of upgrade session.
Did we address that?
I don't believe we did.
Because I didn't hear it, so I thought maybe I missed it.
But I think that's really interesting.
If you think about that wrinkle, the data was actually secured.
It was secured.
It was encrypted.
At rest, if you stole the hard drive or you seized it, you wouldn't be able to read the data.
But the FBI seems to have been either lucky enough or smart enough to seize it during an upgrade.
Maybe collectiva.social had put out a notice to its users that it was going to be performing some kind of routine maintenance,
and the FBI was smart enough to realize that, well, if you're performing routine maintenance,
that means the data on the drive is going to be unencrypted.
I didn't know that's what a routine upgrade meant.
Well, not necessarily.
You open up everything to the world, and I don't think it does.
It shouldn't.
Right.
It shouldn't, right?
But they somehow managed to seize it in a state where they were able to access the data.
That's interesting to me.
That's number one.
Number two is with respect to the notice, that collectiva.social didn't provide notice about this,
and they're somehow being dinged for that.
Well, they might not have actually legally been allowed to provide notice.
You know, this could have been subject to some kind of gag order when the Fed seized it.
Oftentimes when the Fed seized equipment or a service subpoena, it comes with a request not to talk about it
because it could compromise the investigation if information about the seizure or the subpoena gets out.
So I don't think we should ding them too much on that front.
Well, you're assuming that's the case.
You don't know for sure that's the case.
Right.
I'm operating under the assumption that that's the case.
You also called it a request by the FBI, and if it's a request, you can turn down a request.
You can, but you could be messing with an ongoing law enforcement investigation,
and that's not a good place to be.
But the third thing is I think this is really important for our discussion here,
which is why did the FBI have to seize the entire server?
What was it about this server that required it to take everything with the data of 8,000 other users on it?
I mean, that's the real problem here, right?
The Fed has all this data on all these other people.
It's decentralized.
I don't understand the reasoning behind not doing this in the same targeted manner
that you would collect information from any other source.
Why couldn't they send a subpoena?
Why couldn't they ask for the information via subpoena
and have them copy the specific data about the specific user
and validate that this is the information that they have?
I don't understand why they had to take the whole thing.
Well, I think it was explained by the EFF.
This is how the FBI operates.
They did it with Steve Jackson Games.
They've done it in the past.
They take everything.
I've had friends who have been raided, and they took their telephones, rotary dial telephones.
They take everything.
I understand that, but I think this was just part—
this was, as I understand it, not an investigation of Colectiva like it was with Steve Jackson Games.
This was an investigation that targeted somebody that was using Colectiva, right?
Is that right?
That's totally different.
So the idea that they had to take the entire server, which has everybody's data on it,
rather than sending a subpoena or a request or using something called the MLAB process,
if it was overseas, the mutual legal assistance treaties that we have in place,
whereby the local law enforcement can go and get that information.
I don't even know if it had anything to do with a user on their system.
It might have had something to do with somebody in the home where that machine happened to reside,
and the FBI wasn't even looking for anything on the Colectiva.social instance.
They just happened to take that as part of everything they took out of the house.
That makes more sense then.
They probably shouldn't have, but they could have taken that server
if it was an investigation of an individual that resided in that place.
But whatever it was, it's a wake-up call, and that's why we're talking about it now.
Rob, go ahead.
Just to add that relevant information, according to the statement that Colectiva put out,
the home of one of their admins was raided, not to do with Colectiva itself,
but to do with their alleged participation in a protest.
They were raiding this person for being a protester.
We know when they raid someone's house,
they will take everything from a massive server down to the tamagotchis in the pocket or whatever.
The data happened to be in an unencrypted state because this admin was troubleshooting an issue
and working with an unencrypted copy of the database, so that's what they got.
Of course, that puts the server at risk.
The FBI now has this information, but it's not apparently to do with the case they were chasing.
As you said, they were not looking for this data.
They were not looking to get Colectiva, ostensibly, according to what we know.
That's where things are.
It does drive home the point that part of the strength of the Fediverse was that
anybody with the wherewithal and the know-how and access to the equipment can spin up an instance.
But when you do that, the instant you start involving other people's data,
you have to take the responsibility for it.
You have to deal with it safely.
I want to engage in some synthesis here of what happened in this particular case.
Then I'm going to bring up our dear friend, Virgil Griffith.
You all remember Virgil.
I don't think we need to go into exactly who he is.
Everybody pretty much knows Virgil.
If you don't know Virgil Griffith, you can look him up.
He's unfortunately in federal prison in Allenwood.
But remember what happened in his case before he was sentenced.
There was this real issue that had arisen whereby the Department of Justice sent a letter
to the judge in Virgil's case saying,
oops, we had a misconfiguration in our document management system,
whereby all of the information and evidence from Virgil's case was left in a state
that allowed all these other agents from the FBI to look at that evidence that was subpoenaed.
That was a really, really big problem from a Palantir system.
Palantir later claimed that DOJ and FBI had misconfigured.
It wasn't erroneously set up.
But nobody's ever really followed up on that.
As I understand it, the DOJ was supposed to report back to the judge about its investigation
into what happened and how many files and things were affected.
I don't know if they did, but I don't recall ever seeing anything.
That's somewhat of a problem and an open issue.
But separately to that, if that happened in Virgil's case and these things are happening,
then all of this data that's seized as part of that raid and put on these document management systems
might accidentally be accessed by another FBI agent or another law enforcement agent,
perhaps from a different agency,
if we don't have oversight as to how the government is handling and retaining this particular type of data.
So that's something that the EFF brought up.
But I think it can't be underscored enough here,
and especially in the context of what we know happened to Virgil.
I think in cases like this where we're dealing with something fairly small,
we have a much better chance of getting the truth than if you're dealing with something big.
Do you remember, was it a couple of years ago,
I got that notice from Facebook saying that my account had been accessed by the FBI?
And they couldn't tell me any more than that,
just that the FBI had accessed my account and I should contact them.
And I tried to contact them and got completely stonewalled.
Alex, in fact, you were helping me with this, and they gave us nothing.
All we found out was that this happened.
Maybe Facebook wasn't supposed to say anything, but they did.
And they couldn't tell us any more, and we just couldn't get any more information.
Why was the FBI looking at that?
First of all, I barely use Facebook, but why are they probing into my personal accounts?
And if this were a mastodon server run by somebody that you could actually email and get a response from,
I just think I would get more honest responses.
I think I would actually know something about what that was about.
To this day, it's a mystery.
Yeah, there isn't a lot of oversight or information that goes back to the public from these types of things.
And there could be a good reason for that, perhaps.
There are investigations and things.
But, look, I do think that this is a big issue,
and I think it's being compounded by the fact that you have these misconfigurations and these seizures of massive data.
And, I mean, if you think about it, we don't leave the house anymore without at least 100 gigs of data on us at all times.
That's a crazy thing to think about relative to how we lived our lives in, let's say, 1996,
where you would walk out of the house with zero kilobytes on you, not even a kilobyte.
So it's an incredible way we're living our lives and we don't even realize it.
We only have five minutes left.
I wanted to quickly touch upon this story here.
Apparently, in New York City, in six Brooklyn police precincts,
they are testing a new encryption system for their radio traffic.
And because of that change, which is apparently part of a testing plan, according to police commissioner Edward Cabin,
the public is now left in the dark regarding breaking news in the Brooklyn North area.
You should be able to just turn on the police radio and hear what's going on.
In fact, there are many apps out there now.
The Citizen app is certainly one of them.
All kinds of people are always listening to find out what's going on.
Journalists.
Well, insiders say that it may soon be coming to an end.
All of that, as NYPD has its sights set on encrypting all of its communications by the fall of 2024.
NYPD maintains this effort is being done for public safety purposes.
Others charge it is their way of controlling the narrative
and infringing upon the public's right to know and report.
Do you trust the NYPD to completely control the narrative?
Because that is what will be happening if they can control who hears what they're doing.
All of the investigations, all the corruption, all the scandals of the past,
where we've listened to what cops are saying to each other as they mistreat suspects or kick down people's doors,
or just basically exchange their thoughts in racist terms,
all of that will be protected.
All of that will be hidden from us.
Now, the Citizen app has been operating on a quarter, I didn't know this,
a quarter of New Yorkers' phones since 2016.
You guys have the Citizens app?
Yes?
They used to.
Okay, I guess that's true then.
I had the Citizens app.
I deleted the Citizens app because when I drove somewhere,
somebody was able to tell me, hey, you're in this part of New York.
And that freaked me out so much because I was never given any warning that that would happen,
that people could monitor my movements.
So I didn't like that.
But a lot of people use it.
Anyway, the Citizens app has been breaking news 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
It allows residents to know what is going on in their communities,
including me being in them, apparently.
And it's relied on by some community groups to get information about breaking news.
It comes from unencrypted radio communications,
which is something that we in this country are used to.
And having that turned off is a big deal.
And I hope people raise a ruckus about this because I don't think it's acceptable.
I think this is going to really increase.
I mean, it's almost a challenge.
I mean, it is a challenge now.
I mean, if you make it unattainable, you take it off the table,
you basically close people's ears to how the public airwaves are being used
and public safety information.
Like you said, what is going on?
What might be newsworthy?
What might affect other citizens?
So, yeah, it'll be impossible to hear until it isn't.
The value of the ability to do that will increase.
People will try to break it.
Radios might go missing or something.
That's the kind of scenario you're setting up for.
Pastor Gil Monroe of the God Squad, an amalgamation of more than 100 clergy,
work on the streets to quell and mediate squabbles that turn violent.
Sometimes they respond to incidents, including shootings,
where they talk to the community and try to remove the urge to take revenge,
a common issue when gang violence flares.
They say we use it for informational purposes,
so when we see it on Citizen, we try to confirm it with the police
and people who live there, or a church close by,
and ask them to step outside to see what's happening.
It's one of the tools that we use.
There are all kinds of Freedom News TVs, another one.
They provide video to nearly every television news station in the tri-state area.
They say we can do our job now, but if encrypted radios come,
we can only do our job when police notify us.
Then it is police controlling the press.
This should never be the case.
We'll be talking more about this in the future for sure.
If you have more information, or would like to ask us questions,
or provide commentary of any sort, write to us, oth at 2600.com.
We will be back next week.
We will be on at 8 o'clock on youtube.com.
Go to the link that is on the 2600.com web page,
and we'll see you there at 8 o'clock. Good night.
Shoo-doo
What's that, yo?
Shoo-doo-doo-doo-doo
That's the move!
There is no time to sit around and wait
For those who know the world is of love and okay
Now is the time to be strong
Can't go wrong
Cause the time has come
Time has come
You've been free so you see
Shoo-doo
Time has come, I got to tell you this
Shoo-doo-doo-doo
Shoo-doo
Time has come, you got to believe me now I tell you this
Shoo-doo-doo-doo-doo
Got to live good
Don't you know that cheating
Killing but biting
Cannot help
Can't you see the problems
We face every day
They've got to solve themselves
Oh yeah
Now is the time
You've got to be strong
We can't go wrong
Cause the time has come
Time has come
Time has come
You've been free so you see
Shoo-doo
Shoo-doo-doo-doo
Shoo-doo
He lived the life he loved
And he lost the life he lived
But my special person
I've got to let him out
He's taking some nice off the line
There is no time
To sit around
And wait
Oh no
Don't you know the world
Is a love
And it's okay
War is ugly but love is lovely
Now is the time
To be strong
We can't go wrong
Cause the time has come
Time has come
Time has come
You've been free so you see
Shoo-doo
Oh yeah
Rock the bar right there in the tune
Shoo-doo-doo-doo
Shoo-doo
Got to live a good life
All full and strong
Shoo-doo-doo-doo
Got to hear the words of my legal son
Time has come
Time has come
Time has come
Time has come
Cause the time has come
Time has come
Cause the time has come
Time has come
Though I walk through the valley
I just feel no weakness
Time has come
Hear the words of the people say
Got to understand each and every single day
Time has come
Cause the time has come
Time has come
Time has come
Time has come
Time has come
This movement is such that at any moment in history
there are too few that understand possibilities of existence
that would benefit all who inhabit this planet
and are willing to act on this understanding
This program will feature that few
What are your views on these issues that impact your life today?
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