All right here we are in off-the-hook overtime land on YouTube and Kyle you
made it over. Sure yeah I'm here. Let's go back to the Skype people. Alex, Rob, Gila
you're all here. And our listeners will be joining us soon as well at 802-321-4225.
I know we were talking about the the water situation. I just wanted to mention
one thing in in one of the summations which of course I lost in the in the
break. Hang on where was it? Basically it was a situation where somebody saw what
was was actually happening. Yeah the the intruders timing and visibility seemed
almost comical to cybersecurity experts. A supervisor monitoring a plant console
about 1 30 p.m. saw a cursor move across the screen and change settings and was
able to immediately reverse it. The intruder was in and out in five minutes.
I'm wondering if it was just an employee that made a mistake and was accessing
something hit the wrong key. You know I just suspect there's this more to this
story or less to this story than what we're being led to believe. Alex? Yeah I
think I think that's absolutely right. What's fascinating me about the story is
that first of all the only reason we know about it is because of this press
conference that was held for for every one of these things that we know about.
Right. God knows how many there are that we don't know about because not every time
this happens there's a press conference held by what was essentially the police.
So you know it's kind of strange in and of itself to have that and at first
there see they seem to be very forthcoming with the details of this
incident. But since then we don't know very much else. There hasn't been a lot
of other information. We have another another I guess here okay.
Yeah well you know there have been scant details since that that initial
conference about this and it shouldn't be too difficult to have additional
details about this because whoever connected to this particular machine
their IP address is going to be logged somewhere in TeamViewer. Exactly.
Pardon me? Exactly I agree. I smell some kind of a rat here because you know I'm
reading other stories that say this hack exposed vulnerability of cash strapped
US water plants. I don't know why water plants are cash strapped. If you sell
water to people they pay for it should pay for the plant but whatever. It seems
like this is a good opportunity to get word out that hey we need help. We need
we need funding. We need attention. And yeah you should but I don't know this
something about this it just seems a little too easy and convenient with as
you say a lack of real details. Well that and you know seeing the cursor move
across the screen what if this person hadn't seen that? What was going to
happen? I mean there were these physical safeguards that were in place. So then
why have this massive press conference for this minor incursion? I don't know.
There is definitely something off with the story. There's going to be
something more forthcoming and and maybe there is something more nefarious
coming which would explain that the scant detail since the initial press
conference. We'll keep watching it. We have a call. Good evening caller you're on
on the on the show. It's Bobson from Bulgaria. I assume you're in Bulgaria.
Yeah I am. Last week you talked about the green letterbox picture. Yeah the thing
that's that's on the actual YouTube channel right now the podcast that green
mailbox has been has been verified as being from Republic of Ireland. Yes have
you gotten any replies to that because I did some research last week about the
result about a hundred years ago in 1921 or 1922 when Ireland became
independent all the post boxes and it's not a mailbox because it has the word
post engraved on it the green thing on the picture so all the red post boxes
were painted green for the Irish mail in 1922 or 21 I think. Wow I'm impressed you
found that out. And this box is in front of a arched doorway with some
lettering which suggests that it says Dublin Castle. Well you're kind of
scaring me here you're figuring out exactly where this mailbox is. Soon
you'll know when when the picture was taken. The mailbox in front of Dublin
Castle was the first mailbox to be painted green as opposed to the red
boxes for the Royal Mail of Great Britain or what have you. Well if I ever
want to hide the facts about a mailbox I know I know you're not the person to try
that with. Well if you search Dublin Castle and mailbox things come up in a
search engine. Okay well anything else you want to tell us? No don't search for
mailbox search for post box. Post box yeah there's definitely a difference.
Bobson good as always to hear from you I know it's very late over there where
you are what time is it? Well we're about 7 hours in the future here which means I
have to do the work okay so that makes it 3.06 in the morning. The noontime
trial conferences at the Senate over there are shown in the early evening for
however long they decide to meet. 16 hours they said earlier today. You know
Bobson one day we have to do a radio show in in our morning or afternoon so
that you don't always sound so tired because I you know we've hung out with
you and you're very energetic and you don't talk like you're about to fall
asleep usually so we have to do an earlier show so we can hear the
energetic Bobson. I don't think it's worth the bother. Well we'll we'll we'll
decide that. I'm always up to doing a show live at the conference as we've
done in the past. All right well listen we're gonna move on to another phone
call but you get some sleep and we'll hopefully talk to you again soon.
All right take care. 802-321-4225 is our phone number. 802-321-HAC. 802 of
course is the area code for Vermont which we are not in but we just happened
to get that cool sounding phone number. We had a bunch of stories we weren't
able to to get to. That's always the case with every single program that we do.
This is the one I really wanted to to read though. Just because you consider
someone to be in your family even if it's not necessarily by blood doesn't
mean that they can't turn around and betray you or do things that work
against you. I know it sounds kind of dark but this story leads over to India
where a man was who was being extorted by what he thought was a group of
hackers found out that in fact it was his 11 year old son. Oh is this gonna be
one of these feel-good stories. The man claimed he was initially threatened by
the group to pay a large amount of money to them unless he wanted them to leak
his alleged obscene photos and family details. His email was hacked where the
password was changed along with the mobile number associated with it. The
hackers in quotes appropriately enough even claimed that they were watching him
and his family and continue to harass them. However when the man eventually
reached out to the police for help they discovered that the IP address of the
so-called hackers came from the man's own house meaning that the threats were
made from within the house. The police started to question the man's son who
later confessed that he was behind it probably pretty quickly being 11 years
old. He told the police that he learned what he needed to know from watching
videos on YouTube such as how to avoid getting caught. As you can see those
videos didn't work that well. The police say they are continuing to investigate
the matter. I don't know why. They pretty much have the whole thing solved. It's
unclear as to what might happen to the kid and if he could eventually face
charges. I don't know how that would go in court with dad there on the witness
stand and and the kid in shackles. Why would you try to do that to your own dad
inside the same house? I could see if maybe he lives somewhere else but you're
right there with it you're having dinner with him right after you threaten him.
It doesn't make sense. I mean can you really pull that off at 11? I mean I want
to see what this kid does in the future. All right let's take this phone call. Good
evening. You're on off the wall overtime. Off the hook overtime. Sorry wrong show.
Go ahead. Hello? I think they hung up. Nope sorry. Oh there you are. I'm on mute. Oh you are on mute.
That happens on the phone too. How about that? It's the times we live in. Hey I was calling to
see if any of your listeners could help me out with something. I've talked to
Alex about this. This is hack 5190 out in Wyoming and our legislature is
planning to propose a road usage tax. My understanding is that a few of the
states further west of us, California, Washington and some of them have them
and my concern obviously being a hacker is privacy information. I don't want
anybody sticking a device in my car that's going to know where it is 24 by
7 or how fast it's going or anything like that and I'm just curious since
these things are obviously in use in other states what your listeners or you
guys know about these things to kind of help fight against it so we don't
get one here. Kyle is from Washington. I gotta admit though I like kind of missed
this just by a little bit. In fact the last time I got to take one of those
roads was specifically the new tunnel that has replaced the viaduct on the
waterfront in Seattle. At the time it was still free. It has now since become a
toll use road and that requires that you have I think what's called good to go
and that is their scheme. The most exposure I've had to this type of road
use scheme is actually in New York with the E-ZPass system. I believe that's the
type of technology you're referring to right? No it's actually different.
E-ZPass is voluntary this sounds like it's not voluntary. But you're
talking about a device that has some kind of location based fare system that
sounds like a lot of what the road toll is it or it's a road toll or road use?
It's a road use so what it would actually do is it would have a GPS device
in it and it's going to track your usage of the roadway right whether you've
driven three miles or whether you've driven a hundred miles it's going to
know that it's going to know where you were when you drove those miles what
time of the day and how fast you went. Wow it's like a black box really. Yes sir
that's exactly what their plan and I know Alex and I spoke about this he put
me in touch with the EFF and the gentleman who he put me in contact with
is out on maternity leave. Now thankfully the state legislator
has not scheduled this for a hearing yet so it hasn't gotten out of the committee
but again I'm just trying to understand other states that have these because all
of the states outsources to some third-party company and and just like
Verizon you know I don't really want my data in a third party's hands and I
certainly don't want them to be selling it out of the back door. So are you for
sure you're saying Washington does in fact use this because I'm not aware of
it being in in use are you saying it is being proposed as sort of a next step in
in taxation for roads? Now from what I can tell it was it was looked at and it
was approved in Washington it was approved in California and I think that
Colorado actually looked at it as well I don't know if Colorado has approved it
Okay is it not implemented is it statewide or is it just different
counties that are implementing it in the state? I'd have to learn a lot more about
this I'm not aware I am a driver in Washington State and I am really
interested I've not heard of this and been notified by the the state licensing
about eligibility and I have about the the passes and I know that's a big deal
in like specific projects like I mentioned in in Seattle there and of
course the same goes out here with toll roads. Yeah so so from what I can tell
and you're right passes are slightly different as you guys have alluded to
you know that that's typically a voluntary system so I create an account
with some agency and on the East Coast where you guys are at it would be an
easy pass agency right they send me a transponder I put that on my vehicle and
then when I use a roadway as you enter or exit one of those gantries at a
plaza there's an antenna that's above your vehicle and what it does is it
activates it the device the transponder sends the information the various
agencies along the East Coast exchange information and whoever you have an
account and a credit card on file they charge you for the usage of that roadway
if you don't have a transponder then typically they take images of your
license plate OCR those images and then contact the appropriate state agency
where that vehicle is registered and we'll send you depending on what what
state or Commonwealth you drove through and what roadway it is you'll either get
a invoice or you'll get a fine yeah well the way it's it's it's happened now in
New York where toll booths have been eliminated not everybody has an easy
pass so I don't know if there's a penalty involved I think it's a higher
rate it will take a picture of your license plate and and mail you a bill do
you have any indication what would happen to somebody if they didn't have
this device on their car in Wyoming after this is put into place well
according to the legislation so far they realize that there are some people who
either don't have an OTP to port on their vehicle or do not want to have
this on their vehicle maybe they have something else in there like one of
those progressive safe driver discount dongles I was just going to mention
that that's exactly what this sounds like if it is OBD to it is OBD to so
their plan is to have some alternate method although that's certainly not
documented or described how that would work and I my guess would be that would
put the onus on me as the vehicle owner to report to the state how many miles I
drove and then I obviously owe the state so much money per mile for my usage of
the roadway now the reason they want to track it through a GPS is as you may be
aware Wyoming has a lot of territory but we do not have a lot of roads so there
are a lot lots of driving that occurs on BLM territory on private lands on farms
you know ranches those types of things they should they would not be taxable so
they need to know where your vehicle is 24 by 7 when it's moving what is BLM
territory Bureau of Land Management oh okay I totally misread that yeah I
thought Wyoming was a lot more advanced in that's what surprises me how are they
how are they implementing things like this with all this you know
individuality and and you know government is bad and all that kind of
thing and yet this this seems super Orwellian to me well I would agree with
it it is but the interesting thing is this state and and I keep wanting to say
commonwealth because I obviously moved here from Pennsylvania but we have no
regulations against PII right we have no protections for my PII so once the state
gets it they could give it to anyway anybody now back east and I presume New
York is the same as the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania where when you register
your vehicle it's registered with the state you obviously get a state license
plate and in Pennsylvania you pay a different fee whether it's a passenger
vehicle a station wagon a truck and based on weights here in Wyoming it's
very similar to California where your vehicle plates are based on the MSRP of
the vehicle when it was new regardless of what you've paid for it and not only
that the vehicles are registered by the county even though you get a state plate
rather than the vehicle being registered with the state that's weird it's a
different system because the county makes the bulk of that money that's how
the county operates sure they don't tax you yeah I had no idea the Californians
was so different I also want you to weigh in here go ahead yeah and hey
5190 I was thinking about this too and and it is unfortunate that my good
friend over at the EFF is on materially hopefully he will get back to us he's
very good guy but the other thing I was thinking about here and I may be able to
help you out as well is since this appears to be at the bill level it's
gonna certainly be a local issue and privacy activists civil rights activists
probably want to lobby the legislature to to kill this thing before does in
fact become a law because it does seem rather intrusive at least from the way
that you're describing it and so in my opinion I think this would probably be
an issue better suited for your local ACLU chapter the ACLU of Wyoming the and
I may be able to help you there because one of my law partners lives in Montana
and his wife is the executive director of the ACLU in Montana so I imagine she
probably knows who the ACLU director is in Wyoming and and and we can connect
you you know Montana and Wyoming are very very different well yes yeah they
are sure what they're very similar as well well that's a surprise okay that's
uh that's very revealing you know what what you're sharing with us and I'd
certainly like to know more about it as as a car driver myself yeah it's so
curious it makes me really have more questions like what is what is the
advantage why is why do I want this as a consumer what what is the the payoff for
giving this stuff up and I think it also kind of relates to some of the other
stuff we were talking about with privacy and we were talking about section 230
stuff where that might not even be the best route there's so many bigger more
philosophical privacy related things that have not been addressed and I think
modeling and and revisiting ideas and schemes like the GDPR in Europe which
was instituted not too long ago those ways of future-proofing a lot of these
kinds of laws and technologies and strategies would go a really really long
way to head this stuff off instead of us being reactive and saying oh let's go
and beg and plead with social media to try harder and you know maybe we'll fix
it after it's totally blown up in our faces I just think that's it's nice but
it's not effective well that's why we're having this conversation and hopefully
we learn a lot more about this I think there's a good article in this for sure
because I want to know more about that technology no Rob you have something to
say about this Rob you're muted Rob yeah you're definitely I just wanted to
invite any of our listeners who have direct experience of this if you're if
you're in a state where this happens or if you've had access to one of these
pieces of equipment anything you want to tell us we're interested in hearing so
either call us here or send us an email OTH at 2600 comm yeah I will email you
some links to PDFs for documents from the various states that have looked into
this and this isn't necessarily brand new technology this has existed on
commercial over-the-road vehicles for years right fleet operators like to know
where their vehicles are and and they want to know you know if somebody's
stopped along the roadway idling for two hours wasting time etc so this
technology has been around for quite some time it's just now that they want
to bring it down into the regular passenger vehicle and your consumers
level for lack of a better way to describe that but it is interesting
because as a resident they would know where I am and and this is supposedly
going to help pay for the fuel you know from the in the fuel taxes that the
out-of-state people drive when they come in they won't have these so they're
gonna they're gonna pay for their usage of Wyoming roadways through fuel taxes
but I buy my fuel at the exact same gas station and don't get a discount when I
go in as a consumer so I can say in Pennsylvania when I owned boats I used
to track how many gallons of fuel that I bought and used in my boats because the
Fish and Game Commission would get that tax money back from the Department of
Transportation here I'm gonna have to somehow track my fuel usage as well and
then my fuel usage on the public roads so that I can try to get that waived
against what they're charging me for the miles I've driven it's it's it's a
logistics nightmare for me as a vehicle owner and user of the roadway but more
to one of the points that Kyle had brought up I mean the only protections
we have here is a breach notification beyond that there is no PII protection
in this state yeah and I could see it easily be implemented as in the form of
an app I mean now that you brought it up and and like okay so you know drivers
that don't have smartphones okay you can sign up for $49.99 whatever you know
make it up and then then you get some device that is a part of this system as
you said like for the same style as trucking and has been implemented before
but it really is interesting that this is this is the solution perhaps to
sidestepping increases in gas taxation specifically on the table as well for
this year oh great yeah and like and and some and we're supposed to welcome this
and turn a blind eye at the same time because maybe we'll have nicer roads in
Wyoming I mean I don't know you would know better as a driver there but that's
always held out as as that's the carrot in front of somebody oh golly well let
me just sign right up yeah it's just it's a little cynical all right thanks
thanks for your call and for all that information all right take care Wow
Jun's writes into us saying Washington State website has multiple reporting
options including prepaying for blocks of miles and self-reporting of odometer
readings yeah I don't like where this is going I don't want to have a black box
in my car I don't want to be given you know tickets for doing slightly wrong
things at any time it just feels like utter surveillance and yeah it might
work for fleet operators and on massive 18 wheelers and things like that we are
working for somebody but as individuals no I'm kind of surprised Wyoming of all
places is pushing something like this but it seems like you know he had he had
a potential solution just by registering a car outside the state and
then you wouldn't have to do honestly that's really common in Washington
there's tons of people they get they get organ plates they they go wherever else
and then the car ends up being there constantly and you know that there's all
kinds of and that's big just from tabs on license plate registration people
don't want to pay whatever it is because it's rated based on the type of vehicle
and emissions I believe was part of it and so if it's a more environmentally
costly car you might have higher tabs so if you want the sporty car you have to
pay and if you don't want a tab Kyle like registration for the year okay we
don't use that word it's like a sticker uh-huh yeah so there's there's it's a
cat-and-mouse thing so it's really interesting eight zero two three two one
four two two five is our phone number line is open and when I say line I mean
it we only have one line if you aren't the person talking to us you get
voicemail and we can't turn it off we're sorry and that's that's just the way the
system is set up Alex looks like you have something to say you've got your I
always have something to say I probably forgot what it was at this point but I
you know I do think this is an interesting caller and and I think again
the local chapter of the ACLU may be best suited to deal with this but I'm
really surprised at this notion of individual taxation that you know it's a
very specific thing based on usage and maybe in a large trucking companies are
going to be paying more of their fair share but it just seems like a major
privacy invasion for a minor benefit yes you're gonna be paying a little bit less
in taxes perhaps but you have to give up all the privacy Alex it's not it's
not a minor benefit for the consumer it's it's a major benefit for the
government because they get to track everybody and people willingly go along
with this because of the promise of you know saving a few pennies then the issue
too is that if the government is tracking that how are they storing that
particular data with whom are they badly that's how it's gonna get leaked people
gonna find it it's got it's a nightmare we've learned this so many times but
more than people finding it sure it can be leaked but also if that data is
available on almost every citizen in the state and I say this every time we talk
about data repositories is that it's going to be subpoenaed people are going
to ask the government for it if they know that that data is there you're
gonna see subpoenas for that information and it will be shared because at that
point you're going to have to respond to legal process like the government is so
it's it'll be interesting to see how this shakes out I'd like to learn more
about other states that have implemented some kind of measure like this well if I
can as long as they're spewing out acronyms EFF and ACLU I think one more
might be helpful and that's triple-a they might take a very keen interest in
this in the state of Wyoming and maybe they're good at leading lobbying efforts
I'm just not sure exactly what direction they'll go in on this but I think with
enough consumer input they might make the right choice our phone number eight
zero two three two one four two two five we're gonna give it a couple of
minutes see if any more calls come in if not we'll sign off for the night
anything else happening in our lives we didn't get a chance to talk to on the on
the show talk about on the show no well I'm I'm here in Pennsylvania we've had
literally now within the last week and a half about four feet of snow in the
Poconos we've got snow here in New York we've got snow too we've had like three
this this is crazy this felt like I was living in another planet where it just
snows all the time I mean it was three days without the snow stopping I hope
you're not complaining I hope this isn't complaining I hope this is just you
expressing your your wonderment at the whole thing well it is wonderment and I
and it is absolutely gorgeous but you know there are there are some
inconveniences that go along with having you know to shovel out snow and
balcony and all these kinds of things it's you know it's really it's been
crazy and having lived in the 802 for three years myself I mean I'm no
stranger to to snow but I feel like this was really something extraordinary over
the last week and a half to see this and if we're not going to have a caller I
can tell a really interesting story about snow in the 802 and if you are a
caller you can interrupt Alex's story midway through so take of the fun go
ahead so my first year of law school in Vermont my girlfriend at the time has a
pitbull the pitbulls name was never don't there's another story you know
naming a dog in adverb but never any vet never yeah wait it's never an adverb
actually she was rescued from Brentwood she fell into the dive tank at the
Brentwood public pool and my girlfriend was a lifeguard there and she she saved
this dog and adopted her but in any event so never had never actually seen
snow this high when we came back from the Christmas break there was about
three feet of snow where I lived in in Vermont up this dirt road on a mountain
and it was she had a lot of difficulty Wow never is an adverb I'm sorry I just
looked that up yeah I learned something today okay I'm sorry continue well
because yeah look it's modifying a verb right you never do something you know
most adverbs end in L why but I'm not going to belabor the point sure yeah
well they they modify verbs right so you know this is a minor digression you
don't never ending wait never ending is not an adverb I don't I don't think now
so in any event never is unable to do her business she's unable to go to the
bathroom outside because the snow is so deep this poor pitbull is just sinking
into the snow she can't go so she's she's holding in the the this is poop
for for three days right and he hasn't gone good grocery shopping in New
Hampshire in West Lebanon I'm sorry I just had to break in because dogs for
some reason why is it that there's undue attention on how they relieve
themselves that's all they seem to be about you never have this with cats any
other animal in the animal kingdom they do their business you don't know about
it it just happens somewhere off-camera but with dogs front and center you know
I drive down the street there's a dog in the middle of a lawn you know doing
things and I'm getting triggered I grew up on the dog farm I just don't what is
it about these animals that that's what they're all about or is it us are we
doing it to them it might just be you fixating on it I don't know uh-huh yeah
dogs out walking why is the dog out walking because he has to defecate or
urinate or something like that you know why is the cat out the cats out because
it wants to be out they've been living with us for 10,000 years you think by
now they've learned to use a toilet I get it yeah so in any event never she
can't go to the bathroom she's she's holding it in for three days come back
from the grocery store and I lived in a barn actually was a barn that was
converted into a living space and who went upstairs you wait you lived in the
barn I lived in a bar that explains a lot I you were brought up in a barn then I
wish I was actually better but the in any event there was a that telltale
smell that she had gone to the bathroom finally after three days and so I go
into the little study area that I had with all my first-year law books and she
had done her business entirely and squarely without touching the carpet or
anything off the mark on one of my law textbooks and it was a textbook for my
tort class you know towards our non-civil wrongs so like a personal
injury claim would be a tort claim and the name of the book on which she
defecated I'm not kidding was accidental justice I hope Alex I hope because you
will never get this opportunity again I hope you took a picture of this every
legal seminar into into the the void of history in the future will will have a
picture of this if you took a picture you know I don't know actually I don't
remember if I had a picture this is way back in 2002 I would go out and buy a
camera to take a picture of that come on it's such commentary all right I
think we're we're out of listeners and out of time so I want to thank people
for for calling and for writing and for listening and for just being there and
we of course will be back next week for both off the hook and off the hook over
time see you guys
okay bye