and welcome to everybody on off the hook overtime I think we all made it over do
we still have Rafael with us Rob we do indeed awesome great conversation guys
great conversation on Pegasus and I really get the word out about about
Virgil and everything and I'm told we're actually on the air on YouTube which is
great that's amazing everything is working we we didn't tweet out the the
link until just now I understand so it's possible not very many people know we're
here yet so wait just a little bit for people to it's all the main it's on the
main page that's true that well who am I telling I'm telling people already know
because they're listening you need to tell the people who aren't listening
made me feel better all right our phone number for those of you who want to call
us you can do that now is 8 0 2 3 2 1 4 2 2 5 that's 8 0 2 3 2 1 hack it's a
Vermont area code but we're not in Vermont yeah that's just the number we
happen to get and the slimline is set to high uh-huh oh you mean the the ringer
is set okay so we won't have any trouble hearing the actual phone ring that's
good okay Raphael so anything else that you wanted to add about about Pegasus or
or the shady figures that are behind an answer group or governments or
corporations or things like that no I think that it's just this is just such a
fantastic story to keep an eye on I say fantastic but you know like a lot of
fantastic stories the underlying fact pattern is actually quite disturbing but
you know one of the researchers who's been involved in this a guy named John
Scott Railton he he said something on Twitter that I thought was was something
that we should all keep in mind which is that you know if heads of state can't
keep themselves safe what do we have absolutely absolutely yeah that is scary
and and just the fact that we can be targeted so easily and never even know
never even know there was an attempt made is there is there a simple way to
find out if you have been targeted if you're if you're not a government leader
or a leading journalist if you're just somebody who you think you know maybe
I've been involved in human rights issues or or something where I might have
annoyed the wrong person how would someone ever find out so I think that as
far as this list that we were talking about on the show is concerned this list
of you know 50,000 odd telephone numbers that have been pre-selected for
targeting you know as per these media reports I I would get in touch with
Amnesty you know Amnesty International's major human rights organizations for the
for the listeners who don't know it it has a decades-long history of fighting
against the death penalty and and and torture and other abuses and has lately
begun flexing its muscles in the digital in the digital sphere if you get in
touch with Amnesty and you supply them your bona fides and your telephone
number my understanding is that they are quite overwhelmed right now with people
getting in touch with them to ask them that very question but no harm in asking
and you never know maybe you could be a winner and you know I understand that
some of the governments that are accused of spying on journalists are now suing
those very same journalists and activists that are looking into this so
the story just keeps getting more and more bizarre yeah I you know I'm not
aware of the ins and outs of it and I haven't seen the text of the lawsuit but
I have seen the reporting out of France about the Moroccan government suing yeah
the French that were allegedly targeted in India you have also seen various
forms of retaliation against people who have covered this story in various ways
in fact one of the news Indian newspapers an online newspaper called
the wire which is which is quite punchy and and does a lot of investigative work
they were visited by police a few days ago allegedly you know they so they put
up they put a they sent out a tweet saying like oh how odd police came to
see if our paperwork was in order you know and when what interesting timing
after they published you know a bunch of really you know explosive stories about
domestic surveillance in India and then the police the Indian police said well
actually you know your sign the signpost outside of your building was
was not visible so we came to to to check out you know who the building
belonged to yeah yeah that makes all the sense in the world Wow
sure yeah exactly what kind of first I'll make about the phone number again
our phone lines are open 802-321-4225 we'd like to hear from you either on
these stories or on other stories things that you like to bring up we're here for
you during overtime 802-321-4225 but Rafael let me just ask you what kind of
response have you seen to this story from from readers from the public at
large well look it's important to note that you know I've I've not been
directly involved so I'm not one of the I'm not one of the media organizations
that have been working with Forbidden Stories on this I'm just a Pegasus
watcher who has been in a kind of keeping keeping track of the story for
furlough these five years or so I don't think I mean I know with some jealousy
because I'm you know I wasn't behind these this latest batch of revelations
that these stories have moved the dial in a way that previous revelations have
not and I think that that's often what happens when you are able to put faces
and names to targets of cyber espionage I think that that's what this story has
done that's so many other stories about spyware and about Pegasus in particular
have not managed to do or not managed to do at this scale let's say Wow we have a
phone call I think I heard the phone ringing a second ago is anybody out
there good evening hello Phil from Missouri how you doing
I'm okay sorry to hear that any questions
for for Rafael from Reuters or anything about what we were talking about tonight
well you know when is when is spying well domestic spying when is it
justified I mean there's gotta be at least a little bit justification to cut
down on terrorism so forth right some legitimate reasons for it I believe
that's how it's marketed because that's that's exactly what they are allegedly
trying to do yeah I just uh the thing with the malware on phones thing I just
with companies actually selling this stuff now
sell malware don't you think maybe we should like have some kind of
international treaty to prosecute on that kind of stuff you know malware as
a basic thing it's just pretty much just a kid prank right but the only
reason it's destructive is because it attacks servers and stuff like that and
deletes data or corrupts it or does something like ransomware but you know
there's got we got to have some kind of common-sense consensus on how to deal
with this stuff out here in Missouri they keep talking about having a cyber
justice and cyber criminal court system to try to you know make the penalties
for any laws broken at least fit the crime you know I mean I think I'm saying
I mean it's kind of hard to cause you know we need some kind of surveillance
look out for the bad guys right yeah well but it should be done with a
warrant yeah well that's the thing and this is this is actually something I
want to ask Rafael because you know we do have these kinds of investigative
tools but they they they there's there's a trail you know a paper trail as
warrants things like that this seems to be bypassing all of that is is that a
is that a fair assessment Rafael you know you know it's it's hard to say on
that um I I think that I'd like a lot of other people think that any law
enforcement action should be justified proportionate and wherever possible
reviewed by an independent and impartial judge right I think that that's that's
that's kind of core bedrock of the American judicial system or at least it
should be and and I don't know what's happening with the NSO spyware or with
other spyware by the way I mean I I just don't know the fact that I don't know
and that others don't know is kind of sort of a concern in and of itself right
you know you police need a warrant to get into your home shouldn't they need a
warrant to get into your phone I think that's an interesting question I
definitely think that that's worthy of concern in inherent in this I think is a
huge scope creep from maybe the mission of international terrorism and sort of
how we're changing and morphing definitions it seems even NSO's business
model itself was on was based on sort of the proliferation of of counter
terrorism and contractors and privatization around that right I mean
you know I don't know exactly you know and so it's of course made some claims
about well our technologies used to fight terrorism I have not yet seen a
single case in which we have a confirmed the confirmed use of Pegasus technology
to catch terrorists you know I'm not seeing a single name case now that could
be because of the you know sensitivities involved that's you know that's possible
but but yeah me you're right to identify that rhetoric as something that's used
often I just don't know if in practice that's the case and and not because I'm
necessarily skeptical I would be almost certain that such technology would be
used against you know terrorists and other associated bad guys if it could be
I just haven't seen any evidence that and that's I know that that's that's a
little bit thought-provoking but it's always used as the as the excuse the
reason to do something that's invasive but then it's always without exception
used against others look I you know I'm not I don't think I'm as categorical as
as you are on that score but but you know I certainly sympathize with that
perspective because you you do often see mission creep with this kind of
technology very often indeed caller from Missouri any other questions
think I'm but glad to have you guys back have something wild to listen to oh we're
glad you're out there all right you have a good okay all right you take care bye
and our phone number once again eight zero two three two one four two two five
somebody was calling during that call because somehow we see caller ID even on
call waiting and they were masking their caller ID so it just showed up as
zero I want to talk to that person it's the operator the operator is calling us
operator is calling us the same operator that backheld me when I was eight oh my
god well they have more time now uh-huh no they're not as busy there's you know
automation and stuff 802321 hack off the hook over time and I do believe I hear
the phone ringing yes the trim line is I'm so glad you turn that up Wow maybe
we can pick it up now that this is a private caller so it's not the same but
go ahead you're on on the air hi Emmanuel is this rebel yeah turn up the
volume could you turn up the volume cuz on my computer I'm had the volume all
the way up and it your volume is not very high so really okay you're not alone
rebel I've been battling this I've been looking at the board there was there was
we've been trying to even things out but and and there was some suggestion things
were a little hot in the past but yeah people told us we were too loud so we'll
look into we turned it down now we're too low we can never make everybody
happy we're just trying to find a nice sweet spot and and juice if you're out
there you're the person who processes our shows and put put some online maybe
up the volume a little bit so it's won't seem like a problem to anybody in the
future all right that's how you solve things a rebel how have you been for
Rafael sake rebel has been calling this radio show for longer than it's been on
somehow and we haven't heard from him in a long time he's he basically he's the
guy that discovered that you could make free phone calls in chemical bank ATMs
back in the 90s when you used to have well I was gonna mention that um you
know the network ATMs it was they used to have a just a regular phone in the
in the branches there I used to call companies but you could do with just a
regular phone anyone could just dial but now they don't have that they don't have
chemical bank they don't have any of that that stuff what what have you been
up to lately well I mean I was just you know on things that they don't have
anymore I was just I'm thinking of the things that are happening with the virus
and all these things that I was just wondering I mean not wondering but you
know what would happen if this virus came about at night 2000 or 2001 or oh
that's a very good question before before zoom and before smartphones and
before you know any of the things that we have today yeah it's called the
Spanish flu from 1919 and which by the way was not from Spain it was from
Kansas or allegedly from Kansas yeah you know having this this degree of
technology made it much more painless even 20 years ago it would have been
much more of a challenge to have our kids go to school and to be in touch
with each other so I you know I don't know how we would have handled that I
maintain there were there will still be modes and methods and a variety of
options to communicate so I think all of those would probably have been deployed
just as people were you know thinking about setting up ways to use
videoconferencing and so forth for their own work and then life we always tell
ourselves that we can't possibly survive without the technology we have
presently but we always have and people would have read more books perhaps or
just done more things that didn't involve the kind of technology we used
to now I guarantee 20 years from now people will wonder how we ever kept
sane assuming that's what we're doing so we didn't have zoom and we didn't have
smartphones and we didn't have search engines search engines we had BBS's and
we if you get if you get teleported back to that period it's hard but if you
are living in that period already it's what you used to so that's how people I
miss pay phones okay well I came out of nowhere but yeah I miss pay phones too I
think we all do operators you know that used to do things like collect calls and
personal person calls and timing charges at all all that stuff but somehow rebel
people still send us tons of pay phone pictures for the magazine and we have no
shortage of that so I don't know where they're finding them they're they're
still around most of them don't work they don't work no but they're still
well there's still relics and they still look pretty cool yeah they do I mean I
like um let's say um do you remember um I remember back in the 70s or maybe the
80s I had back in the bill system days one could pick up a pay phone and dial a
number or dial the operator and say this is a police call and give them four
digits which would be a badge number and then they put it through Wow and you
know I've heard of that I think you told me this and I don't think I told you
because I don't think I even mentioned it you know what I remember you telling
me something about having operator privilege right that's when you when the
operators used to not be able to dial when they used to not connected with 800
numbers uh-huh yeah and then you just say like I have dial operator privileges
because I'm like disabled or whatever and then they would put it through and
that's all you had to do that's all you had to say right amazing
Raphael a rebel would definitely be very interested in the 1940s phone hacking as
you can see there's so many people in our community from Reuters if Raphael
from Reuters wants to contact me to do a story or whatever as roughly like
Reuters newspaper or news video never ever read Reuters newspaper rebel have
you ever gotten a copy of Reuters newspaper I mean these days you don't know I mean you
Reuters can you know you see video stories hear it on the radio no Reuters
stories appear in newspapers obviously but you know Reuters well I guess
Raphael you can probably explain Reuters better than I can oh I don't know about
that well rebel first of all I always happy to have a chat second of all as
far as Reuters is concerned it's a news agency and it exists I think most people
these days will interact with it online you know traders and financial
professionals might interact with it through the terminal because Reuters
appears on on icon terminals but but yeah I think over for most people who
kind of go about you know and are out and about in the world it's they'll
interact with Reuters either through their local newspaper which will pick up
some Reuters copy or through the internet you know you go to Reuters
comm and that's where you see our stories okay well if you ever want to do
a story with me on you know like the past and things how things worked and I
don't know if you do a story like that Raphael be sure to come to us for for
perspective and rebuttal I'd be I'd be happy to that sounds great all right hey
rebel we hope to see you at a 2600 meeting again sometime hopefully you
know I mean they've been online or not online but on the building is being
rebuilt and all that okay Rob Rob can update us on all that yeah we're still
we're still doing them we did our first in-person 2600 meeting this month this
very month at the beginning of the month and we're going to be doing it again so
check out NYC 2600 net for all the info on where we're meeting how we're
meeting and everything it's not where it used to be it's not a city group
anymore because they are still building that place the remodeling work is years
behind schedule but yeah it's it's happening again and if you have a
meeting in your vicinity or would like to start one please either tweet at us
we have a Twitter account just for that purpose it's called 2600 meetings and
numbers 2600 meetings or you can write to us meetings at 2600 comm you can also
visit the website 2600 comm slash meetings to see where the current
meetings are we're starting from scratch we're not just simply putting all the
meetings back there's certain criteria we have to meet the vaccination a total
vaccination rate of at least 40% in your area and we have to hear from you we
have to hear that there's actual people there and then we will we will put the
the meeting list back up on our website and in the magazine so I've been fully
vaccinated so you've been fully well good to hear that's that's very good to
hear and by the way I'm gonna be going to Europe next in a couple of weeks oh
wow okay well good luck with that and be careful because there are some places
that are still hotspots right I know take lots of pictures yes please I've
paid funds have you been there before I've been to Portugal and I've been to
Ukraine oh that's an interesting combination you think well I left here
well it lay out three years ago I went to Portugal last year I went to Ukraine
because I was basically the only place I could go at that time and it was kind of
interesting because you can't get into Russia without a visa I'm trying to
say how is Ukraine the only place you could go at any time I know the feeling
well no you don't need a visa in advance to go to Ukraine okay I guess I was true
last year I didn't know that right but I mean how to be you know you have to
take it over 19 test and do all that but but it was very into I really liked
Ukraine it was very interesting city and I really liked it very Soviet type and
the tours were good and the people giving the tours you want to Kiev I take
it I went to Kiev yeah that's a great city I like it's very hilly city and
very scenic and it's great it really is I do recommend it rebel great hearing
from you again please stay in touch and I hope to see you at a meeting sometime
yeah of course all right take care okay wow so cool to hear from rebel yeah safe
travels yeah it's amazing Rafael I know we've been talking a lot about about
this particular story about Pegasus but are there any other stories that that
you think we should be focusing on these days so many yeah I need that you're
working on yeah hard to say I I and my colleagues have been on a on a big kick
about mercenary hackers and I guess that you could you could say that NSO is a
kind of mercenary hacking group themselves but there's a whole universe
right if of hackers who are operating more or less professionally more or less
openly providing their services to governments to spy agencies and
sometimes even to private organizations private citizens and and digging into
that field is just fascinating I you know if any of your any of your
listeners know anything about that that's that's that's what I'm really
into these days I guess you kind of call that the the white hat hacking I hate
the terminology I really do but a lot of people market it that way and say that
you know you have to be a an ethical hacker in the corporate world to me
every hacker has ethics so it's kind of an insult to even say that but I think
everyone believes they're the good guys everyone believes that they're helping
out by doing what they do but it's interesting how some are demonized and
and some are praised and you know we've seen this evolve over the decades yeah
yeah and I you know I don't know I also have trouble with this kind of white hat
black hat gray hat kind of you know stuff it's um especially because some of
these hackers who are working for law enforcement agencies and intelligence
services I think as we've seen with some of the coverage around the Pegasus stuff
but also in other cases you know they end up going after good people and and
hacking good people and that you know I do they do they still count as white
hats at that point I don't know I don't think so yeah I think I think their hat
gets a little dirty at that point but I think I like to call myself a no hat
hacker even though I do wear a hat though but it's not a particular color
what do you think of this freedom phone by the way let me give out the phone
number again eight zero two three two one four two two five it's a it's
targeting the the MAGA crowd and supposedly it had a huge amount of red
flags we familiar with this you know I've seen the coverage this is not
something that I've looked into in any kind of detail but I I saw a few
security experts really tear into it I mean it seems like a bit of a joke in
some ways but but you know if it's if it's being marketed as you know kind of
a new and amazing piece of surveillance technology I think that you know those
kinds of extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof and and I've seen a
lot of evidence the contrary yeah it's a $500 smartphone it's it's aimed at the
MAGA crowd it's the latest attempt to build an alternate tech platform for
right-wingers but this time with a smartphone instead of social media it
was announced back in March the tagline was a phone made for conservatives by
conservatives okay whatever the device is being hawked by Eric Finman is
self-described world's youngest Bitcoin millionaire that doesn't make me like
you it doesn't make up to you in any way the the phone is supposed to ship in
August so that's that's coming up just around the corner the freedom phones
feature set is about what you would expect the company which seems to also
be called freedom phone claims to have made an uncensorable app store that
won't ban gab and parlor the way Google and Apple did I don't know why they
didn't just come up with an app store freedom OS is a free speech first
operating system that the company claims to have developed and it says the
hardware is comparable to the best smartphones on the market based on the
information that freedom phone has released so far almost none of that
appears to be true this article of course comes from Ars Technica we'll get
into a little bit more but I think we have a caller do we have a caller on the
line you do it's Nathan in Australia Australia Wow what what time is it over
there 1025 a.m. in the mysterious future and yeah it's what Thursday over there
right yep yep that's a morning yeah Wow so what's it what's on your mind
tonight or I'm sorry this morning well you know I just think say good day but
the I I was going to say before I didn't hear the show but I saw the
tweets about over time so I thought I'd listen in a couple of things I want a
blast from the past hearing rebel on the line also the I've got a lot of say
about that but I won't the I was thinking about the journalism story and
I was thinking about how often Australians don't think about how like
in the u.s. you have your Bill of Rights sort of stuff and all your
constitutional amendments the first amendment and all the different ones
about search and seizure and stuff and I think often like people forget that down
here we don't actually have that in our laws so you're the journalists and and
so on and other people can easily be sort of scooped up in intelligence
gathering and raids of documents and seizure and stuff like that and have you
know very little recourse because sometimes the laws have been passed
through the Parliament and people don't really take much interest in it and they
just sort of get through and without little resistance whereas in the u.s. you
know you have a lot of people very very strongly sort of defending those right
to things like free speech and you know then unlawful search and so on so yeah I
just thought I'd mention that like it's not all third world dictatorships and so
on that can have problems with that even seemingly free countries like Australia
can can have troubles with that Raphael have you heard much as far as an
Australian connection to to all this no not as far as the Aniston Pegasus is
concerned but maybe the caller can help refresh my memory wasn't there an
Australian journalist who published some leaked material and gotten to a lot of
hot water recently oh I think I know who you're talking about yeah it has happened
yeah I don't remember the particulars but I think it may have even been like
our national broadcast of the ABC that's right yeah they've had like
raids and they've had it when and and sometimes it can be hard to tell you
know whether it's a politically motivated raids or not like when they
leak something about the government and then all of a sudden the federal police
turn up and want to figure out where the raid came from you can't always tell you
know whether they're whether the law enforcement are just trying to enforce
the laws or whether they've been leaned on by the government or not and like I
think we tend to give them the benefit of the doubt here and don't really think
that our law enforcement are too influenced by the government but it's
really hard to tell so Raphael you weren't referring to Julian Assange I
thought you were no I wasn't although I mean oh boy
you talked about somebody leaking from Australia who got into a lot of trouble
I mean come on yeah no no that's right I suppose I suppose I should have
clarified no I think that I was referring to the same case that you
caller was referring to there was there was this journalist who I think was
raided by police over over disclosure and it ignited a big debate about press
freedom in Australia you know I don't I don't know enough I've never been and
and I've only very rarely covered stories out of Australia so I'm not
really qualified to talk about this kind of stuff but I'd rather have the
technology journalists that have played played them at their own game when when
we're bringing in metadata retention laws this is probably like five years
ago at least might even be longer and the journalist said okay well from our
one of our main telcos okay I'd like to request my metadata because that's my
right and they didn't know how to do it and I ended up providing him with like
folders and folders and folders of information like and it went on and on
like you know he was trying to the government had passed these laws but
without really like thinking about how the telcos would comply if a normal
citizen wanted their metadata as opposed to law enforcement requesting metadata
right yeah no no I mean I it's there's similar rules you know that are that are
in place in Europe in terms of you know automatic retention of metadata and
those are the kinds of things that you know I've always looked askance at it's
a metadata can be incredibly telling and and then I'd love to learn more about
this Australian case in particular about the ability to request it because that's
the kind of thing that you can normally do through GDPR in the in the European
Union something that you know if the American if the Americans listening in
on this program don't know about it I urge you to look it up because it's a
it's a very powerful tool for getting data that's held on you and there's and
little by little you're seeing similar laws being introduced in the United
States including the California Consumer Privacy Act and and you know maybe one
day a national privacy legislation will allow us to get some of that stuff too
yeah it's emerging very very slowly but at the state level and and often that is
how larger movements like this occur as soon as a groundswell of states have
come up with plans and implemented stuff that's you know more or less successful
or popular that that then it takes on sort of more national emphasis we're
seeing that a little bit more with like right to repair stuff where a lot of
states are really looking at it more seriously and it's gonna start making a
lot more sense as the people start realizing the impacts and implications
yeah on the on the subject of requesting records I don't know if this still
happens but I know in England or at least in London you can request your
every time you appear on CCTV. Raphael have you heard about this? That's right
that's true very very rarely employed but it's it is it is theoretically
possible yeah that's something I'd like to pursue. Did you guys do a thing I feel like years and years ago there was one where or maybe it was at CCC or
somewhere where somebody had made a short film using that sort of thing
that sounds like themselves in all different places and then they'd made
all the requests for all the corresponding times edited it all
together into a short film. Yeah that's that's brilliant that's that's exactly
the kind of thing I would expect hackers to do come up with a plot and
everything. Wow. Anyway I'll get off the line and I'll keep listening and great to hear you guys.
Okay happy Thursday to you and and hope to see you sometime at Hope or us in
Australia or something like that it's great to hear from the other side of the
world yeah thanks for listening all right take care see ya bye. And our phone
number again 802-321-4225 802-321-HACK. Continuing with this Freedom Phone
this right-wing Freedom Phone that's being introduced I kind of want to get
one kind of want to just have a Freedom Phone around. The french fry thing didn't
work so they're going into phones now. The phone has going back to the
Ars Technica story the phone has so many red flags it's difficult to know where
to start the website lists almost no information about the device itself
there's the name a picture and a price but there's no spec sheet of any kind
this is a $500 phone and its website gives you no indication of what you're
actually buying actually $500 phone that's cheap these days right and it's
crazy that I even say that but it's probably even cheaper and they're
marking it up people pay $1,000 for phones yeah I'm using the same phone I
used for the last like eight years probably which which might put me
outside of the reach of things like Pegasus I don't know. Well a lot of them
are lasting longer. Not mine, no mine's all messed up. Well I put lasting in
gigantic quotations but existing in a more or less functional state but also
yeah like $800 to $1,200 people don't balk at that maybe $600 that's like
normal to people buying phones. I don't get it but whatever the considering I
spent most of my time cursing at the phone you know why would I spend whatever
the front page of the website looks normal but every button that should say
something like learn more and link to more information instead says buy it now
if you didn't know it was a right-wing phone now you do there are 10 buy it now
links placed all over the front of the website oh I got to go to this website
and almost no important information about the phone plenty of manufacturers
publish incomplete teaser pages for upcoming phones but they don't collect
the full retail price from customers without providing detailed spec
information first yes but considering who we're dealing with here these are
the people that would click on on support Trump sites and have the option
to pay once or pay forever every single month changed for them and didn't
complain about it Rob go ahead the whole idea of this being a $500 phone and that
being cheap for now is extra funny when you look at the bit of information that
has come out in a lot of stories about this phone where people are fairly
sure it is a phone called the Umi Digi A9 Pro that can be brought from Aliexpress
for as little as $119 hang on a second what's it called again the what Umi
Umi Digi A9 Pro you know I don't want I don't want to make assumptions here but
that doesn't sound like it came from Ohio no apparently it comes from China
you know you know friend to America China and yeah they they sell these in
bulk you can get custom logos on them you can you know get whatever branding
you like and it's very easy it's the sort of thing that lots of companies do
including I guess our pals at Freedom Phone not that there's anything wrong
with it but the Freedom Phone marketed by conservative right-wingers is Chinese
mm-hmm okay all right well that's that's something anyone buying a Freedom Phone
is basically doing it sight unseen you'd better really trust these this upstart
phone manufacturer because you don't like it you receive you're out of luck
the the frequently asked question states if the device is already opened
we do not offer returns at this time other manufacturers stand behind their
products they're gonna try something new yeah Freedom Phone coming to an angry
person near you okay so should we take any more calls
we phone lines are open still okay eight zero two three two one four two two five
and by the way Raphael don't feel like you're you're you're sentenced to be
with us until ten you're welcome to or nine rather you want to you know skip
out any time you need to I may I may make a graceful or graceless exit but
but I appreciate you guys having me on and and hope to chat with you guys
again sometime soon yeah we appreciate you we've actually started your work a
number of times on the show so it's a it's an honor to talk to you sweet and
any closing words as a journalist as a Reuters reporter that you wish to leave
with people perhaps something that they don't know about the whole world of
reporting what you guys been going through in the past few years anything
at all oh yeah I don't know I mean you know for those of your listeners who who
don't know reporters or don't know reporting very well it's you know it's
it's easy to demystify you know you've got a story talk to a reporter about it
and and if you think that a story is wrong you know I mean a lot of people
will read stuff in the press and they'll tear their hair out and say like this is
ridiculous you know how could the reporter get it so wrong I don't hesitate
to get in touch you know I mean some reporters are thin-skinned but I'd like
to think that you know many aren't and if you see a reporter writing about a
technical topic and you think that they're kind of misunderstanding
something you know they're these are people and they're reachable so send
them a line whether you've got a story or you think a story shouldn't be a
story be in touch that is so true we've talked to many reporters many of them
get the story wrong you seem to be somebody who does their research and
understand have the basics of the technology down and that that makes such
a huge difference you know to any story but particularly in the world of
technology go ahead Rob and Raphael for people who are listening and are
interested in your work and when I want to get in touch or reach out where where
can they where can they do that well luckily I'm the only Raphael Satter
around so if you just you just go to Raphael Satter calm you've got about a
zillion different ways of reaching me but you know I think most reporters
these days they live on Twitter so if that's that's probably the easiest way
to reach me DMS are open but otherwise you know just give me a Google you'll
find my website they're about you can send me an email you can even send me
probably find me I'd seen a way bow you know the contact Facebook whatever your
poison is you can reach me there that's Raphael with a pH shatter SATT er that's
exactly right thank you so much for joining us tonight and thanks for
having me guys I'll talk again soon take care
Raphael from from Reuters great to great to have him with us yeah I love the
perspective and walk we absolutely would welcome more conversation in the future
there are so many stories out there I love that even rebel saw this and has so
many stories to tell I'm sure and that would I hope who basically isn't defined
by location and Australia that's that's really awesome if there's anyone else
out there who who wants to call us this is your last chance 8 0 2 3 2 1 4 2 2 5
we'll sign off if we don't get any more calls let me get into another story very
very briefly here which is you know we're watching the Olympics or some of
us are watching the Olympics in what is at least so far the biggest cyber
security blunder of the Tokyo Olympics an Italian TV announcer did not realize
he was on air when he asked for the password for his computer do you know
the password for the computer in this commentator booth he asked during the
broadcast of the Turkey China volleyball game so find that on your TV are if you
need the password apparently not realizing he was still on air he
complained it was too hard to call the password Pippo Pippo Pluto or Topolino he
complained referring to the Italian names for goofy Pluto and Mickey Mouse
the snafu was immortalized in the video posted on Twitter by cyber security
associate professor Stefano Zanero who works at the Polytechnic University of
Milan and apparently likes to make fun of people a source who works at
Eurosport the channel which was broadcasting the volleyball game
confirmed that the video is authentic and so is the password the colleague a
colleague of the announcer can be heard in the background saying the password
depends on the Olympics organizers and asking the announcer if it's on a paper
or posted close by turns out the password was booth dot o3 capital B OTH dot
zero three after the number of the commentators booth so you know it's
likely that all the passwords are the numbers of the commentators booth just
pointing that out even the dot to make it more complicated as if it was NASA's
computer he said on the air next time they will even put a semicolon so yeah
complaining about how authentic that or how difficult the password is and giving
out the password at the same time yeah that's that's how you do it that's how
it's done while the snafu is embarrassing the actual impact of making
such a password public is likely limited access to these computers at
commentators booths is likely restricted especially because there is no public at
the Olympics events due to covert 19 risks all right yeah but if you can
figure out the IP address who knows what you can do all right I think we're gonna
close things out tonight you guys Rob Gila anything you want to share ad say
um well I have to go change the password on my computer which is also booth o3 so
you know I thanks for it thanks for the heads up there okay well I'm glad we
could we could we could warn you Gila what he said no I actually had to send
my supervisor her computer password yesterday she said it's on a post-it in
my office could you send it to me and I said sure so you know that was super
safe Wow you just you just sent it what on a
postcard how did you send it to her um via email she's actually working out of
the country right now so I went into her office read the post-it note with her
password on it and sent it I didn't feel good about this video not great no okay
well let's see if we can figure out a way people facing similar situations
might be able to deal with them did you have any other way of talking to this
person besides email no actually text message SMS nothing like that um not in
that precise moment okay I don't know if her cell phone is set up to work in the
country that she's in right now uh-huh and if she has a cell phone for that
country I don't have that information did she have the ability to change the
password she did say to me that she's working with the password that our IT
department set up for her and she doesn't know why she hasn't changed it
because it's not one of her standard passwords like honestly that is probably
the most secure password she has uh-huh and does she does she only have one email
address no oh okay there you go that's the solution so you send her a message
saying on one email account saying I'm gonna send you your password but it's
gonna be backwards and then you send her the the password but you don't say
it's the password you just send her this this string she knows it's her password
backwards no one else does unless they're monitoring both mailboxes right
all I'm saying or your mailbox right no all I'm saying is because I had to stand
with this person to set up her out-of-office message before she went on
this trip I'm not sure if sending it to another email address would have
provided the desired outcome is all I'm saying yeah these are these are problems
a lot of people face on a daily basis but one of the solutions is okay here's
your password change it as soon as you get it you know if it's your password if
it's the password of a department then it gets more tricky yeah this is just
hers but Wow well I'm sorry you had to go through that it's rough going but
we're still I have finally convinced my department not to send me full credit
card numbers in emails mm-hmm yeah that's that's a good idea that's a that's
a good idea unless you unless you want to collect credit card numbers and go on
a spree there's really no reason to send those to you they it was fascinating I
said you please do not send me full credit card numbers and CVV numbers and
expiration dates via unsecured email that's just a bad idea and they said but
why not and I said don't don't do that so doing you know my little victory for
security at my workplace I'm trying not to help people commit credit card fraud
is my plan yeah and just you know basically having that personal
information floating around it's never never a really good idea
nope not even a little all right hey did you guys any any I didn't really allow
people to comment on the on the virtual story that I was reading earlier I was
talking about for the first half of the show earlier and I want to know if
anyone had anything they wanted to add or ask or anything like that the thing
the thing that interests me about it is yes it we know that Virgil was not
divulging any secrets he was over in North Korea basically telling them the
same thing that anybody in the field would have told them but I also feel
like he was arrested in 2019 for this and that's it you know it's only two
years ago it doesn't seem like that long but in in the cryptocurrency world like
it seems like now even the general public knows so much more about
cryptocurrency than they did two years ago it's it's much more of a mainstream
subject that people tend to have some level of like at least an idea of what
it is versus two years ago when it was more of this magic future space money
thing that that people might not be as sure of and so this does this does seem
like another case of the the powers that be not fully understanding something
just knowing that it could in some way be dangerous and therefore let's let's
find this guy and basically Mitnick him yeah oh good good use of Mitnick as a
verb yeah you know it's in many ways this is cryptocurrency on trial as well
because there is a lot of hostility towards it there's a lot of fear of of
this unknown entity that came out of nowhere out of thin air as Trump said
and he shouldn't have to bear the brunt of that because what he was doing yeah
we say he told them things but he didn't go over there to tell them things he
went over there to attend a conference out of curiosity to see North Korea out
of curiosity and during that and the only reason I know this is because he
told them this a couple of people asked him some questions and he provided very
rudimentary answers things that you could find on the internet that's it and
you know I did the same thing when I was over there in North Korea I wasn't
talking about cryptocurrency didn't exist back then but people asked me
questions about you know my my mp3 player and I said oh this is how it
works I don't know if I was giving away any secrets there but basically the the
the mentality right now seems to be if you help a North Korean out in any way
you're hurting your own country which is other nonsense I mean I held the door
for somebody in North Korea was it was I hurting my country by helping a North
Korean in that context it just seems like you can really distort this and and
make somebody suffer because you want to follow the letter of the law to absurd
degrees and you know when it's a friend of yours when somebody you know so well
when you know how they express themselves and how they they won't see
something that maybe some of us will see as very very obvious like this is a bad
idea this is going to be used against you because people won't understand what
your true motivation was you know it's it's it's really frustrating to see that
happen to see someone taking advantage of that way and that's exactly what's
happening to him right now yeah I think it's really short-sighted of the US
government in their position to look at this case as something that will
actually be defining in in other realms like export bans on on cryptographic
stuff or or weapons and so forth and it's it's a huge exaggeration even the
things you reference I didn't even know about any of that but the the
evangelizing is something that is just something Virgil's so passionate about
anybody who was interested in in learning about this is someone he wanted
to teach and share and create understanding with and in the future
like as more and more people are coming into understanding this stuff you have
to you have to be aware who's using it and and have insight on how they're
using it or how far along they've been and he was willing to tell them he he
was willing to talk about his experience and what types of things people were
asking him about and it was quite interesting and his case seems more like
career goals for people that know they can get a they will get a pass because
there's so much fear and ironically from the government side ironically in a
moment when as Rob pointed out so much of cryptocurrency has been validated by
the markets the private sector hedge funds there is there are not only is the
cryptocurrency Bitcoin listed on some of the finance news networks but there are
funds around cryptocurrencies where people can invest but not actually buy
specific crypto current I mean is becoming so ubiquitous and so widely
held that I find it it's a particular particularly insulting thing to take
someone who was just being incredibly open thinking he was talking to
technical people who would appreciate what the the future of this holds and
what this means and and how important it is to what's going on in the world right
now to be used in a way to exaggerate as though he has done something to
threaten international affairs in some way like actually participating in some
transaction where the reality is the world itself is embracing the technology
and anyone who wants to further that discussion is a friend of Virgil's
especially and and I think that his voice being so loud about how how
important this technology is is also part of that past that the government's
getting on this mm-hmm yeah there is just so much and I wonder if it's
willful misunderstanding of the way he expresses himself the things that that
he says and does you know for instance talking about how cryptocurrency can be
used to evade sanctions and phrasing it in a way to make it sound like that's
what he intended to do when in actuality what he was attempting was to was to
theoretically prove how this could be defeated something he was sharing with
everybody that he talked to including the US government don't you want to know
how your system could be defeated it wasn't showing the North Koreans how to
do that it was basically explaining this is what could happen with this
particular science with this particular technology it's called research it's
called you know security investigation the sharing of information these are
things that you should be embracing Virgil should be should be teaching he
should be in front of a class or working in a department for the government if
you know he would do that probably sooner than I would or any university
that would that would that would basically value such a thing which you
know up until now I thought was most of them and now I'm not sure the way that
this has been kind of brushed under the rug and forgotten about it's it's a
tragedy it's horrible that you have somebody of that caliber in a federal
prison right now literally for nothing just because he's too smart you don't
understand them you question his motivations you don't look at his past
you don't look at his record you don't look at all the things that he has done
that are good and yeah okay he's a little strange perhaps he expresses
himself differently he might seem like he's a smart aleck and and and knows a
little too much I think these are good things I think these are things that can
help us all or you can destroy your life you know we really need to to figure out
what to do about this because it's I'm sure it's not the only case of its kind
but it's one that that affects somebody that I know I know quite well I've known
for some time yes Rob I know also just the idea that you can regulate talking
about how something that exists in the world works I think that goes against so
much maybe everything that the hacker community has ever stood for I mean like
I'm personally I'm not interested at all in cryptocurrency I think it's a you
know I think it's got a lot to answer for I'm not interested in using it
myself but I like hearing about how it works I like hearing about the theory
behind it and you know the the tech behind it and like I it's a thing that's
it's a thing that exists in the world and I you know information about it is
light information about anything is light and as soon as you start telling
people you know here's a thing that we're all dealing with here's a thing
that exists you're not allowed to know how it works that that that rankles my
hacker senses you know if you were looking at a car that somebody was
driving around and you weren't allowed to look up how the engine worked or you
know things like that that that would be ridiculous but but in this case because
it's something that is not so well understood among the mainstream that
maybe governmental organizations feel threatens their power in some way they
they start regulating it and this this is this is dangerous this is this has
never been a good idea I don't think this kind of censorship yeah regulation
that's that that's one thing we expect them to regulate things but but to
punish people for for knowing too much or you know for explaining something for
instance you know somebody somebody write an article for 2600 about this
very subject and we printed it and let's say we have a subscriber in North Korea
well aren't we doing the exact same thing by sending the magazine to them
they can read it or you know if somebody in North Korea is able to access the
internet and read the same information it's it's just mind-boggling to me that
you're going to put all the weight onto one person for all the things that you
fear that and and the articles we read tonight prove that they already knew how
to manipulate cryptocurrency in nefarious ways so he wasn't showing them
how to do that in any sense if anything he was learning more than they were
that's what I'm convinced me he went over there to learn he went over there
to to see the closest thing to another planet that we have here because that's
what North Korea is like when you when you visit there many many hackers have
visited North Korea because they're curious and that's it when when Trump
issued his decree making it illegal for Americans to go to North Korea a lot of
people didn't take it seriously a lot of people didn't take Trump seriously now I
know that's a mistake you should have and there are penalties and you know
they're they're rarely enforced but they do exist and you're supposed to
obey the rules and Virgil has never said that he didn't do that but when that rule
was was was enforced when when when the decree came down it wasn't so much to
punish North Korea as it was to protect American citizens we had just had the
instance where somebody had died or was was severely injured in North Korea at
at the hands of of North Korean security or he came down with some
horrible disease and died shortly after arriving back in the US after they
released him yeah so after after that case that is when Trump said okay
Americans can't go there anymore for their own safety and you know Virgil
basically hadn't lived in the United States for years he lived in Singapore
and he did what I wouldn't have done I wouldn't have asked permission I would
have just gone you know I wouldn't have felt like I even had to answer to
anybody in the United States if I didn't live there for many years but he didn't
feel that way he felt like you know he had ties to this country and he should
go and and and do it above board unfortunately they didn't see it the
same way they they said no you can't go and in a lapse of judgment he went
anyway which you know doesn't really make much sense because US passports
supposedly are invalid to get to North Korea so somehow he hacked the system
and got into a place he wasn't supposed to get that's not worth throwing
somebody in prison for you know maybe a fine or something like that but you
don't destroy somebody's life not somebody like him so I feel like it's an
uphill battle now to make people understand why his life shouldn't be
destroyed but I feel this is something we need to get involved with and
especially with the trial coming up in September I'm afraid what they're going
to do I'm afraid of what's going to happen to him yeah I can't go in the
direction without the the correct characterization you know in a proper
defense and it just seems like a lot of a lot of stuff has been put up against
getting the real characterization of who Virgil is in the though like
openness and and intent behind his actions yeah I feel like anything any of
us say in particular situations can be distorted to make it seem like we're
somehow threats and that's something regardless of how you feel on this I
think that's something we all need to look at and realize yeah you know that
could have been me in a different context I could have been I could have
my words distorted misunderstood portrayed in a particular way that is
easy for people to believe and then be condemned by them and never really have
a chance to express yourself to them and that is what I'm worried about that
people won't understand so I guess we'll be following the story in the
weeks to come and hopefully we can figure out how to get something done if
you want to help in any way or have advice or connections or anything write
to us OTH at 2600 comm and I guess we're done for overtime tonight thanks
everybody who called in thanks everybody who wrote in and thanks to everybody who
listened and we'll see you again next week good night