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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. Hi. How you doing? And out there in Skypland we have Rob and Gila. Good evening. Good evening. And Alex. Alex, where are you? Yes, you do have me. Can you guys hear me all right? We hear you fine. Okay, very good. All right. Um, I am I'm actually on the rooftop.
The highest rooftop of the hotel in Austin, Texas at the moment. Do we need to talk to you out of something or what's going on there? Maybe, maybe talk me into a few things. Uh-huh. We'd be better. I'm not on any of that or anything like that. Okay, good. Yeah, but it's hot here and it's my first time actually in Austin. It's your first, well hold on, it's your first time in Austin, really? It is. Oh my goodness. Yeah, I've never been to Austin. Wow. If you can believe that. Well, you've got, you've got some fun ahead of you. Okay, right
down. I know. Right down the word Guadalupe. Okay, right down Sixth Street. I'm right next to Sixth Street. Okay, well then you'll, you'll have quite a night of, of wandering from bar to bar and hearing all kinds of live music and things like that. But yeah, it's, it's an incredible town. It really is. Kyle and I were just out there for the eclipse, you know, not that long ago. That's right. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've, I've always wanted to visit the 512 ever since Slacker came out in the 90s.
And, and this is where Bruce Sterling lived when he was writing things like the Hacker Crackdown and Holy Fire and collaborating with William Gibson on a bunch of really great science fiction back in the 90s.
And so yeah, it's, it's long overdue. I can't believe I've never been to Austin either. But here I am for work for NamesCon, a domain name conference that happens once a year.
I used to be in Las Vegas, now it's in Austin, and I'm here representing the Ethereum name service. So, very cool stuff.
Wow. Okay, well, we're, we're suitably jealous, I guess. But things are just fine here in New York as well, and we're just as happy to be here.
As long as we're not on Ticketmaster, that's the important thing. Boy, you know, they, they were reamed in front of Congress, was it a couple of weeks ago?
Or basically, the Justice Department came after them. I'm not sure if they actually appeared in front of Congress. I'm pretty sure they did at some point.
Where Live Nation, Ticketmaster's owner, were basically seen as being anti-competitive, evil, gouging, all that kind of nice stuff.
And now they've been hacked. It's funny how these things always seem to follow. But yeah, they have confirmed unauthorized activity on their database,
after a group of hackers said they had stolen the personal details of 560 million customers. That's more than half a billion customers.
That's a lot of customers. My goodness. The group claiming responsibility is known as Shiny Hunters. Shiny Hunters.
Yeah, they say the stolen data includes names, addresses, phone numbers, and partial credit card details from Ticketmaster users.
I'm not sure why only partial. I guess they only store a certain number of digits. Maybe they only, well, if they only have the last four digits, it's kind of useless, isn't it?
I mean, what can they do with that? Names, addresses, though, phone numbers, that's not generally a good thing to have there.
But they've made a deal. They've tried to make a deal. They're demanding, or requesting, I think might be a better way to get what you want, asking politely for $500,000.
Not that I'm giving advice or anything like that, but if you go and you steal details for 560 million customers, ask for $560,000.
It makes sense. There's a symmetry. And also, there's no mix-up. It's easy to keep track of. Or only steal 500,000 customers. Your choice.
So they're demanding that ransom payment to prevent the data from being sold to other parties.
You know, in your traditional kidnappings, where there's ransom demands, and you pay the ransom, you get the kid back, right?
And that's it. There's not an infinite number of kids out there. There's one, and you get it back. Okay. And that little adventure is over.
But in the case of hacking, in the case of data, paying somebody to not do something with data doesn't work, because the data could still be in their hands, and most likely is.
And it's almost infinite. That's why it's so important to keep things secure, and to not let this happen.
So in addition to all the price gouging, and monopolization of the market, and just making a ton of money off of everybody, because they had no choice but to go through Ticketmaster slash Live Nation,
in addition to all of that, they apparently weren't spending it on security, because they allowed 560 million of their customers to be compromised.
And yeah, you know, we can say Ticketmaster was compromised, but it's really those individuals that were compromised.
It's their data that's out there. It's their privacy that's being invaded. They're getting phone calls, or all kinds of things sent to their homes, or whatnot,
or just knowing that information is out there, because they made the mistake of using Ticketmaster and giving them information that they couldn't be trusted to keep safe.
Now, the Ticketmaster breach was first revealed by Ticketmaster. No, I'm kidding. They tried to keep it secret.
The hackers who did it revealed it first. They posted an advert for the data on Wednesday evening, last Wednesday evening.
The Ticketmaster refused to confirm it to reporters or customers, and instead notified shareholders late on Friday.
Yeah, that's where you go first, is the shareholders. I don't know. Alex, what do you think about this? It kind of stinks, this case, doesn't it?
Yeah, I think it does, but it's also pretty par for the course in terms of how these types of threat actors operate.
It's always on the basis of some kind of extortion, and you pay a certain amount of money, and then you hope that the problem goes away.
There is this great deal of trust that you have to have in these bad actors.
I'm sorry, are you talking about the hackers or Ticketmaster? I wasn't paying attention for a second.
I guess so. I guess you may technically have bad actors on both sides of this transaction, depending upon how you look at it, quite frankly.
However, I think with respect to the threat actors that are responsible for the breach that stole the data, the media would call them the hackers.
We're not going to make that mistake on our show. We'll call them what they are, the threat actors, the criminals that stole this particular type of data.
Well, you need to have one word if you want to replace the word hackers with something else.
Let's just say attackers. We have to agree on the word. That's the problem. We can't seem to do that.
We can vary it up a little bit. So long as the connotation is negative, that's all that matters, I think.
Intruders.
Intruders, the intruders. That's a good one. You don't see that one or hear that one very often.
But for these intruders, their business model is very much based on their reputation.
The other thing that's interesting is I'm not familiar with this group of intruders or threat actors, whatever we want to call them, that's responsible for this particular breach.
So that's a bit of a red flag to me because most of the time these groups really trade on their reputation so that if you pay them to get rid of the data that they stole, that they exfiltrated, it usually doesn't show up anywhere else.
Because that means that any other third party that they breach into which they intrude on their systems as intruders later on is not going to trust them and is not going to pay a ransom.
And the other thing that's interesting about this case too is $500,000.
That's nothing when it comes to the types of ransom that are being demanded for ordinary ransomware attacks from other groups of intruders or threat actors.
Well, this isn't ransomware so much because they haven't locked up the terminals at Ticketmaster.
This is just the data and it's kind of questionable as to how valuable the data actually is.
Names, addresses, you can get that from voting polls pretty easily.
And when you say Shiny Hunters are new and you're not familiar with them, how do you think a group like this gets its reputation?
They have to start someplace so give them a chance.
Well, that's the other thing.
I'm not sure if they're new or not.
I just haven't heard of them.
I haven't dealt with them.
I haven't been in battle with the Shiny Hunters in any incidents yet.
Maybe that will change in the future.
Pray that you don't.
Pray that you don't.
Well, who knows.
But to go back to your point though about ransomware, very often ransomware nowadays has some kind of extortion component to it.
So not only is the data being held for ransom but they're also trying to extort companies in the sense of saying that they're going to release the data or publish the data.
That is, they being the intruders would publish the data if the ransom isn't paid.
Because very often companies will now have live off-site backups that the threat actors, the intruders can't reach that they can then use to recover from some kind of ransomware event.
So as an extra layer of protection of their investment in breaching and stealing this data, very often the ransomware groups will engage in this exact type of extortion.
Whereby they say to the company, we're going to publish this data, put it out there or sell it to the highest bidder if you don't pay us X amount of dollars.
That's why I think this is a pretty low amount given how much data we have at issue.
I think, Emmanuel, to your point, the data may not be extraordinarily valuable because it relates to things like just names and addresses.
But if you tie that together with the last four digits of credit card numbers and the full measure of those credit cards would probably not be stored in an unencrypted manner because of the PCI DSS requirements, the payment card industry, data security standards with which Ticketmaster would have needed to comply.
But if you connect these names and addresses with the last four digits of a credit card, that can be pretty powerful too because validating through the last four digits of credit cards is what happens all the time.
I forgot what hotel I was staying in Austin last night when I arrived on the plane.
I had that kind of a night.
I had that kind of a night, exactly.
So I had to call the hotel and they validated that it was me on the phone confirming my reservation by the last four digits of my credit card.
Who did you call to find out where you were staying?
I called the hotel in which I thought I had a reservation.
But you said you didn't know which hotel it was.
How did you call the hotel that you were staying in if you didn't know which one it was?
Well, I had an idea of which hotel I thought I booked but I wasn't entirely sure because I was using a Marriott.
Okay.
Well, you had an idea.
Somebody who didn't know that would have to call every hotel and figure.
Well, the point is I think a better example is you have phone numbers of somebody.
You can easily spoof call their ID to call a credit card company.
You get the last four digits.
They ask for that for confirmation perhaps.
Hopefully, they have a better system than that.
But there are phone companies, cable companies.
I'm not really sure what the end game is, maybe identity theft or something like that.
But certainly, you can piece things together.
And it's really just the uncertainty of not knowing what's going to happen to the data that's out there.
And probably other information, personal information such as what tickets did you buy from Ticketmaster.
They probably have that as well.
And by the way, Shiny Hunters does have a reputation, I'm told.
They've been linked to a string of high-profile data breaches resulting in millions of dollars losses to the companies involved.
Back in 2021, they sold a genuine database of stolen information from 70 million customers of U.S. telecom firm AT&T.
In September of last year, almost 200,000 Pizza Hut customers in Australia had their data breached.
I don't know why I would give my information to Pizza Hut, but whatever.
The FBI cracked down on their domain in March of 2023, arresting its administrator.
Shiny Hunters has an administrator.
That's interesting.
Named Connor Brian Fitzpatrick.
But the site has somehow reappeared.
And yeah, that's where it stands right now.
Now, if the data is as large as it's being claimed by Shiny Hunters, experts say it could be the most significant breach ever in terms of numbers and the extent of the data stolen.
So this still could be a pretty significant incident.
You know, it could, but I think Ticketmaster has an opportunity here to head this off at the pass, because if, as you say, Shiny Hunters has a reputation to protect, they will very likely delete this data and you will not see it popping up elsewhere if they pay this ransom.
And I'll tell you, I mean, the legal fees alone should easily amount to $500K.
The forensics costs associated with investigating this particular breach are probably over that amount already.
Well, the real question is, has Ticketmaster learned their lesson or any of the lessons they're supposed to be learning?
Do they somehow now have security or are they going to start behaving in a more ethical manner for their customers?
I guess it's a lot that remains to be seen.
Rob Gila, any thoughts on this?
I mean, my first thought, of course, is that with an organization like Ticketmaster who has effectively elbowed out all of their competition, you can't go to a live performance anymore without engaging with Ticketmaster.
Is anyone not caught in this data breach?
Well, people don't use real names.
I mean, you know, we have to figure out as people how to get around using pseudonyms.
I really believe that is something that we have every right to do and that protects our privacy.
I don't disagree.
But if you have a credit card, right, with the whole system they have now with name, address, credit card, you have to have a credit card in the name of your pseudonym.
And then, you know, maybe it's just because I'm a very honest, truth-telling kind of person.
But again, who, 500 and how many million people?
60, 560.
Who in the world is not caught up in this data breach?
And that's the other problem with the fact that companies have been buying up their competition and elbowing out their competition and to a point where now if you want to see a play, a concert, a sporting event, a dog show, whatever it may be, you're going to wind up having to deal with this one particular company, which obviously has not learned its lessons.
And I'm also a little weirded out that they haven't said anything because I definitely have the Ticketmaster app on my phone because we went to see a show a couple of months ago and it was easier that way.
Kyle, then Rob.
Well, I would agree.
There's a really, there's sort of a crescendo of these types of things happening where you're beginning to have to operate as though much of the information that you would expect to be guarded in some way is actually in some of these breaches.
And the way they handle it often is to negotiate, as Alex alluded to.
And my suspicion is that they're going to operate as they have, specifically because of the monopolistic edge they have.
So they're going to treat it like a crisis management thing, like make it go away and then return to the practices that are allowing them to afford that ability to make stuff just sort of be a cost of doing business.
And the consumers get really, really the rawest part of this because of the victimization in each of the breaches over and over and over again.
And then the things being combined and used in novel ways, it makes it just that much more dangerous in how contradictory your expectations might be.
And as was indicated, there are many more companies that you just cannot avoid doing business with that are huge targets that can write this off either with the ransom providers or even some customers if there are established protection mechanisms for collective litigation and class action.
Go ahead, Rob.
What I find interesting about this is, as Alex had mentioned, the unusually low ransom they've set on this.
And it interests me because if – what are they called?
Shiny happy people, the shining time station group.
If they're looking to charge an amount that a company like Ticketmaster could surely have the margins for, probably has insurance for or whatever, and it doesn't actually significantly hurt them to pay it off.
I mean, we hear more and more about ransomware groups and things like that demanding huge sums of money.
And if they're trying to corner, I guess, the budget conscious data breach victim in this way, they might have a little niche for themselves.
Yeah, entirely possible.
And by the way, there are ways we can think differently as far as how we conduct transactions with such monolithic corporations.
I mean, for instance, let's say you are someone who's plus one.
Well, then your name is not in there at all.
If somebody buys a ticket and just includes you, maybe there should be some kind of a legitimate business set up where tickets are bought en masse and not scalped.
And then this information is not gathered on the order of Ticketmaster.
There has to be competition.
When you have competition, you have more options for doing business in a way that is comfortable for you.
Because right now, giving all this information to companies like this, knowing that at some point it's going to be breached, it's not acceptable.
It's not acceptable for individuals.
We shouldn't have to deal with this.
I think it should be, as long as the bills get paid, you should be able to have a credit card under any name you want.
You should be able to use P.O. boxes as your home address.
All sorts of ways of just keeping things as private as you possibly can.
Shouldn't be frowned upon.
That shouldn't be looked upon with suspicion or as a possible criminal act.
Go ahead, Alex.
I mean, it sounds a lot to me like you may be advocating for some crazy idea like a national federal privacy law that could govern how companies access and retain and process data.
I mean, wouldn't that be something to have in the United States?
I mean, the other thing that comes to mind is why does this data have to be stored?
And for how long has this data been stored by Ticketmaster?
560 million records is a lot of records.
Does this go back 10 years?
Does this go back 15 years?
What are they doing with it?
To whom have they sold this data in the past?
I mean, these are all questions that I think…
Well, you know, Alex, you can get answers to those questions if you outbid them and say 600,000 and give it to me instead.
But, I mean, don't you think there is some, to use your terminology, actor someplace overseas perhaps that would love to get their hands on this data and can certainly afford more than 500 grand?
Oh, absolutely.
There's no doubt in my mind.
And I think that the power of these types of breaches becomes apparent when you combine these data sets together.
Let's say begin tracking certain individuals, perhaps government officials, figuring out what they like, where they've been, with whom they've been consorting and traveling.
You know, there's so many breaches for so long now that it's really kind of scary the type of picture you can begin to put together.
It's like a mosaic from these types of data breaches.
Yeah.
Go ahead, Kyle.
Yeah, I really, I think the thing we have to, we operate, or must remind ourselves is that these, the product of these breaches is infinitely copyable.
Like, it is portable.
The data is portable.
It can be used.
The third party aspect of it is always sort of the unknown or gets, can get, can escalate the sort of fear level of how all of that stuff, like you said, is combined and used.
I think for what he was saying, like, yeah, absolutely.
Flexibility on data entry should be like front and center.
Like, we should be able to do things that are, that align with our personal security comfort level.
And that is a sort of a variable thing, as Gila pointed out, across people's different tastes and comfort levels.
I also think that we should not all have to operate like we're in the, oh man, I want to use some expletives.
Overtime.
That's what overtime's for.
I think we should have to live as though we're in witness protection because you're like, a lot of what we're throwing around is like, we should all be in hiding from, from ourselves, from our own sort of shedding of, of digital DNA, like everywhere.
And I thirdly wanted to point out like the, the answer specifically for like, and in itself, like that is a, an awareness level and a comfort level that people, that varies with people, like their, their idea of what information is, you know, their life circumstance.
Maybe they've had violence or other kinds of trespassing that, that has affected their lives.
They have an increased level of, of sensitivity to what kinds of information and who is, who's sharing it.
So to me, it's like for the ticket thing in general, like that, that whole conversation aside, there are plenty of tools and technology itself has advanced beyond what Ticketmaster was.
And I think other than what their, their, their cartel itself is, there's not much in there that I'm thinking, like their network of venues is really it.
And I think the, the venues themselves really, their only way out of this is to organize in the opposite way.
Like instead of all being on board with them, they need to either locally or regionally have their own network of venues and roll or otherwise develop their own kinds of software that doesn't necessarily entrap them.
And I know there, and there's, and you can run software like this yourself.
There's plenty of services online, but essentially like Ticketmaster doesn't actually print tickets anymore.
It's again, an infinitely copyable digital asset that they create for customers, but it's all, it's all using the network itself.
So like, if you think about it, their whole business model could be replicated by every single venue individually without as much as what it would have taken in the past, I think.
Now, just a trivia question, a prize to whoever gets it right.
What was the name of another massive ticket seller in the past in the New York area?
I think when I guess, go ahead, Rob.
Ticketron.
Very good.
Wow.
You got that right away.
And they used to be really the only one around, but yeah, so things haven't really changed in the decades.
But, you know, just to swing back to the privacy issue, just ask yourself, you know, what I'm advocating is not really that unusual.
You give your name to all kinds of people.
You go to Starbucks, you order coffee.
Why do you give them your real name?
Why?
You know, you could give them any name you want.
Sure, if you go in there every day and give a different name, they're going to look at you funny.
But, you know, maybe you use the same fake name every time.
Maybe you use a different name in different places.
Why is that a bad thing?
And why do we feel compelled that we have to give this information, our information, to anybody who asks?
And let's extend that to credit cards.
I mean, you know, as long as the bill gets paid, then why do they need to know your name?
Why do they need to know who you are?
Why does Ticketmaster need to know your real name?
You know, we just assume they do, but do they really?
Yeah, we're too helpful.
I think we're just too gullible, really.
Go ahead, Gaila.
Well, you know, I'm just seizing on what you said about giving your name at Starbucks.
And this is an issue that I run into that I'm assuming that most of you do not, which is the idea of the Starbucks name,
which is when you have a name that is not one that a lot of people are familiar with,
you will often pick another name to give to the people at Starbucks.
My brother's name is also atypical, and he worked at a grocery store when he was in high school
and had a name tag that said Pete because people could pronounce it.
And then my best friend's mother went through his checkout line and said,
your name's not Pete, and he was busted.
It's weird.
Now that I order with the Starbucks app, they'll get my name right every time,
and a lot of the fun has gone out of it because trying to figure out, I would say Gaila,
and then what would show up on the cup was always an open question.
You know, what we trust, the information that we trust people with,
it's identity and it's self-identification, and it's also, yeah, do I give away too much personal information?
Probably, but why not, man?
Well, I think we're showing why not because then your information gets compromised
when somebody doesn't protect it, and that's happening all the time.
True, but, and this is the other question I have, is when, again,
we're being forced to deal with an ever-dwindling number of corporations in general,
and the question about data breaches has now become when and how bad and not if,
and, you know, what do we compromise to live in this world in which we now exist
and not become an episode of Black Mirror?
Yeah, it is chaotic, right?
And the frenzy, I think, it can, like, to be resistant to sort of offering information,
to be open instead of withholding and resisting it is the temptation,
but resistance itself takes, like, a lot of work and can be exhausting itself.
But I think what E's getting at is this sort of healthy, sort of innocent poisoning
of the persistent ask of being honest about every single thing
because so many even, you know, extending into, like, they all want feedbacks and surveys,
and they all want, like, there's just countless ways you're asked information,
and the things like, I think in your case, like, it might be more of a,
to eliminate awkwardness with the mispronunciations, you know,
and that is itself, I think, an interesting cultural thing there,
and I've noticed that too, and I think a lot of people appreciate that as its own phenomena.
But also just doing it for the sake, for no reason at all,
and that playfulness is itself empowering, right?
It's a little innocent poison to the pile of data they're trying to amass.
But I wouldn't use the word honesty because I don't consider it being dishonest
to tell somebody your name is something.
You know what? I'll confess. My real name is not Emmanuel.
And yeah, I've been doing this for decades, and it's not an issue.
It's, you know, I've had this name on credit cards, on billing records, and things like that.
There are ways of doing this, and completely above board.
It's not illegal. It's not something that you have to be afraid of.
It's a choice. It's an identity, you know?
You can choose what your identity is at any time, even if it's just for one encounter.
It's, you know, it's your life. It's your data.
And you should take control of it, not give control of it.
Go ahead, Rob.
Rob, you had your hand up.
Okay, never mind.
This was, the other thing this made me think of is just questioning the,
I think this needs to be another thing that's considered when we decide
whether or not it's okay to allow a monopoly of this scale.
Because if, you know, a small business somewhere gets a data breach,
they have a small, you know, roster of customers on their books, that's bad.
But would one company be allowed to be the custodian of the information of half a billion people?
And as we're seeing, you know, it's the same, just one breach.
And that's so many people affected.
So more than I think any entity should be tasked with a responsibility for.
Absolutely.
Yeah, even if you could certify it.
It reminds me of that cargo ship that got stuck.
Like, yeah, we can make a really big boat.
Like, we could certify that it can hold all of this.
But like, is it usable? Is it functional?
Does it, you know, will there not be casualties?
Yeah, what are the downsides to this?
Hey, just moving on so we can talk about a second story tonight, maybe.
It's similar, though.
Believe it or not, I don't know how many of you have TikTok on your phones,
but apparently you should avoid opening any direct messages you receive
because somehow TikTok has made it possible to have malware transmitted through DMs on their app.
The malware does not require the victim to download any software.
They've really improved malware.
It's so easy.
You don't have to click on anything.
All you have to do is open a direct message with the malware present.
Now, yeah, this is seemingly connected to a separate report from Semaphore,
which noted on Sunday that a, there's that word again, a hacker.
What do you want to say?
Intruder? An attacker? Mischief maker? Bad person?
All right.
Yeah, bad guy. How about that?
Well, it could be a woman.
You don't know that.
You don't know that, Alex.
Oh, I'm using guy in a gender neutral sense.
Yeah.
Unless you do know something about this.
Do you know something about this?
I might know more about it than I'm willing to let on.
Oh, okay. All right. We'll talk later.
Anyway, a person broke into CNN's TikTok account last week,
prompting the news organization to take the account down.
While some CNN staffers told Semaphore that the team had been lax
with its digital safety practices, that's a good admission there,
one network source added that the breach came from outside of the company.
It's entirely possible.
A staffer opened one of the malicious DMs.
Of course, you may have heard that one certain former president
has just joined TikTok, and I'm sure they're target number one.
That'll be something when the malware arrives on that particular phone.
Paris Hilton was targeted as well.
Apparently, it's mostly celebrities who are being targeted right now.
So if you're not a celebrity, maybe you don't have to worry,
but yeah, you probably should.
Yeah, malware through DMs.
What a time to be alive.
Yeah, on the other hand, they could be DMing you TikTok links,
which can be just as bad for you.
I've never used TikTok.
It's not because I'm against them.
It's just I don't have time.
But have you guys used TikTok ever?
I have used TikTok.
I have posted things on TikTok.
I follow some people I know on TikTok,
but it's all really just high-key chaotic for my social media tastes.
Well, could you let people there know about our radio show maybe?
That would be nice.
And you know what else?
Let people know about WBAI because WBAI is this incredible radio station.
You might have heard of it.
You might be listening to it right now, in fact.
And what we do is we broadcast without commercials.
We've been doing it since 1960.
Can't get a sponsor.
We've been trying so hard.
No, no.
We have never tried to get a sponsor,
and we don't want sponsors because the only people who invest in this radio
station are its listeners,
and that is more than enough if the listeners stand up and support the place.
And you can do just that by calling 212-209-2950.
It's not about what kind of thank you gift you might receive.
It's about supporting the radio station.
It's about keeping the station going.
It's about pledging whatever you can afford.
And we have the BAI Buddy,
which allows you to be billed every month at an amount that you feel is right,
and that adds up to a bigger amount after 12 months, you know,
each month, a little bit of something.
And then when you add it all up, it's like you pledged that amount in a year,
the combined total.
So there's that option.
There are all kinds of other things.
We have the $150 level, I believe,
and you will get a thank you gift of the Off the Hook.
What's the word I keep forgetting?
Anthology.
Anthology, yes.
I don't know why I keep forgetting it.
I was going to say compendium.
Off the Hook Anthology on a flash drive,
which has every single one of our shows from the beginning until the end of 2023,
with the exception of one or two that were stolen out of my car.
Yeah, unfortunate night.
But the important thing is supporting the radio station
and keeping WBAI on the air.
You can also go to the website, give2wbai.org,
give2wbai.org, and you can pledge there.
You can see what other thank you gifts exist.
But, again, the important thing is to show support for WBAI,
keep this radio station going.
Well, we can talk about things like this with unabashed honesty
and expressing our opinions without fear of what certain powerful entities might think
because the only powerful entity that we care about are our listeners.
That's the honest truth.
Gila, then Alex.
So just to piggyback on what you're saying, Emmanuel,
is that we appreciate our listeners a lot.
And even if you maybe are listening to WBAI
and not enjoying what we're saying all that much, hang in there.
There is something on BAI for everyone.
And it is so important that we retain this place on the airwaves.
We cannot do that without your help.
Also, don't forget, because of the kind of organization that BAI
and the Pacific Health Foundation is and are, there are lots of ways that you can give.
There may be matching gifts from your employer.
There may be, if you have a donor-advised fund or an IRA fund that you need to make contributions from,
you could make a planned gift to us.
There are lots of things that you can do.
But one really, really, really important thing to do,
if you are a BAI buddy or you're just calling on the air or whatever it may be,
is to please indicate that you are calling because of Off The Hook.
That's right.
The more money we raise, the better it is for all of us.
And the best thing you can do is give money
because the more money we get, the less we have to ask you for it.
So if you want to hear us talk about technology and security and privacy and pay phones uninterrupted,
without having to stop and beg you for money,
the best thing you can do is give as much as you can as soon as you can
because then we can stop asking.
That's right.
So, again, number 212-209-2950, website give2wbai.org.
Go ahead, Alex.
Yeah, there's the connective tissue here back to the story that we were discussing before we digressed.
I think it's also important to note that, unlike TikTok, WBAI does not harvest the data of its listeners.
You turn into WBAI, nobody's tracking what you're listening to or how long or what you tuned into
or what you didn't like.
Nobody's feeding that information into some kind of algorithm.
You're listening to the radio.
It's totally asynchronous in that way, right?
You don't have to log in.
There's no logs.
I think that is so incredibly important to keep banging on about here because it is so unique.
The technology basically is contingent on the natural physical phenomenon of the world.
It has nothing to do with servers.
It has nothing to do with log files and usernames.
That is so incredibly important.
I think we need to cherish it.
It is such a stark contrast as to what is happening on all these social media platforms, TikTok included.
To go back to that TikTok vulnerability that people are utilizing against what appear to be celebrities
and possibly some politicians, I'm just amazed that that vulnerability, as powerful as it is,
is being weaponized against such trivial people like celebrities.
I guess it would be interesting to get into their messages and see what's going on,
but are they really going to be doing all that much on their TikTok profiles?
This seems to me like it could have been weaponized against very, very high-profile people.
However, it remains to be seen what else is out there with regard to this TikTok application
and these inherent vulnerabilities that may be later exploited.
If this type of zero-click vulnerability is being burned out in the wild now,
that would make me think that there are even more sophisticated vulnerabilities
that we will be seeing later on.
That's complete speculation and conjecture on my part.
I have no idea about whether or not that's going to be the case,
but I would think that these bad guys and girls, these threat actors, these intruders
would not have necessarily used that vulnerability in such a trivial manner
if they didn't have something else already up their sleeve.
Interesting. That's something to think about.
Once again, the phone number is 202-209-2950 to pledge your support to WBAI
and the website GiveToWBAI.org.
We can make a whole host of selections as to how you want to pledge.
I wanted to read a letter that we got from one of our listeners.
Again, you can write to us, othat2600.com. That's our email address.
Good day to you all. I just wanted to say that I thought the latest show last week was great.
I also wanted to try and offer support about the TV issue.
Now, please know that what I'm about to suggest is not the easiest thing,
but it is said with love.
Remember our roots. We are hackers.
We're talking about, I think, my problem with Netflix that I was upset about last week
where my TV suddenly was declared to no longer be supported by the Netflix app.
I was able to get around it, but regardless, I was still a little peeved.
Ours is the way of the bypass. To us belongs the workaround.
Whatever the big guys toss at us, we work to make it better and to work the way we want it to.
I have a smart TV, but I do not use it as anything but a display.
I do not use a Roku. I do not use Netflix.
What I do use is a small B-Link computer with Debian Linux on it,
and it is connected to a NAS, which has my movies and such on it.
I am not saying that you should do this. I simply wanted to remind you of who you are.
You are a hacker, and you can make this work the way that you want it to.
To quote Firefly, you can't stop the signal, Mal.
And you'd have to watch the show to know what that means.
Name withheld by request. Thank you for that letter.
And yeah, you know, I agree with everything you say there.
The point is, and the point we're trying to make, is that not everybody is a hacker,
and not everybody is able to do these things easily.
And I'm fed up with people being forced to constantly be buying new things
only because they're told their old things are no longer supported
or are too old and have to be updated.
You know, when I grew up with technology, that lasted my entire childhood,
and I had no complaints about that.
So I just think we need to stop being so disposable.
We need to start appreciating the technology we have and making it better
rather than simply throwing it out and replacing it.
Yeah, the wastefulness that plant obsolescence presents itself is a huge problem.
And the realization that, like, we know why these things are going on,
and that it's sort of a disingenuous business practice.
All right, that said, I don't know if you guys caught this story.
We only have a couple of minutes to deal with it,
but it's a washing machine chime scandal and YouTube.
You know, we've had our share of complaints about YouTube this year.
Their content ID system automatically detects content
registered by quote-unquote rights holders.
One YouTuber named Albino said that it's completely effing broken.
He declared that on a rant.
You know, you didn't need to go there to hear that.
You could have heard it from us months ago or years ago even.
But this is a popular Twitch streamer, so their words carry more weight obviously.
This person complained that his YouTube video was demonetized
because a Samsung washing machine randomly chimed to signal a laundry cycle
had finished while he was streaming.
Okay, first of all, we don't do any of this stuff for monetizing.
That's an alien concept to me,
but there are people who make their living through YouTube videos.
And it's kind of sad to see how they have to jump through hoops
to avoid the ultimate of being demonetized or, worst case, losing their account.
I always wonder, you know, you lose your account.
It's just like on the old BBSs. You just make a new one.
You start over again.
But, you know, when you spend years building an account
and you have all these followers, yeah, that can be easier said than done.
So I just wanted to play what was being described here.
Basically, YouTube automatically scanned his video
and they detected a washing machine in the background.
And it was, I believe, a Samsung washing machine.
And if you have a Samsung washing machine,
then the following will be quite familiar to you.
Really?
Does that happen every time your laundry is done?
My God, how annoying.
Okay, but this was picked up in the background, I guess, of this guy's video.
And his entire video got demonetized because of it.
Because somebody claimed that song, which is basically called Done.
The song is called Done.
Yeah, by somebody named Odego.
They claimed that was theirs, even though it's not theirs.
Because the music actually comes from the song Die Farelle,
known as The Trout, from Austrian composer Franz Schubert.
You might have heard of him.
So Franz has the rights to this.
And it's actually public.
He's been quiet about it.
I'm sorry?
It's actually public by now, the actual tune.
Even if it wasn't, I mean, this is nonsense.
This is exactly what we're talking about with this over-regulation.
You should be able to have a washing machine in the background,
playing a Bruce Springsteen song.
I don't care.
It's got nothing to do with your video.
It's part of life.
And we just live in fear of stepping on somebody's toes.
Can you imagine if someone did that with a horn honking on YouTube?
Somebody owns the right to a horn.
The sound of a car horn.
We can stretch it beyond that.
Somebody is going to claim blue.
And if you show the sky, you've got to pay somebody for that.
We have 45 seconds.
Alex, I'm going to give it to you.
Go ahead.
I was going to say, it sounded to me,
I was half expecting numbers to be read out after that stop.
Didn't that remind you of the shortwave number station?
Oh, you're right.
That intelligence agencies use?
It sounded like the Lincolnshire Poacher or something.
I was about to hear numbers coming over in Russian or German right after that.
There's no reason we can't start a shortwave station and do precisely that.
I'm sure many people begin reciting numbers at their washing machine
when it's done in much the same way.
I would not be surprised.
Well, maybe that's a great idea for another thank you gift.
A one-time keypad.
Rob, you have 15 seconds.
Go ahead.
Check out your local 2600 meeting.
Find one or start one near you.
It's coming up this Friday.
Oh, yes.
That's right.
And, again, write to us, OTH at 2600.com.
Give to WBAI, 212-209-2950 or give to WBAI.org.
Join us at 8 o'clock on YouTube, channel 2600, and we will do overtime there.
See you then, and we'll be back next week.
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