And welcome to everybody over on YouTube as
We begin another edition of off the hook over time
Emmanuel over here Kyle. Did you make it? Of course. All right, and Alex over in skype land. Did you make it?
I did indeed. Okay, since we don't have Robin Gila this week
We have no way of actually knowing we're on YouTube, but I think it's gonna work. I have faith
It's worked all the past few weeks. And if for whatever reason we don't make it onto YouTube
I'm sure somebody will tell us our phone number is 8 0 2 3 2 1 4 2 2 5 8 0 2 3 2 1 hack
Yeah, I gave the phone number out well before somebody actually called. So how about that operators are standing by?
Are they oh, you're the operator. You're the one on the phone. All right, kind of lounging
All right, is it ringing yet or not?
Sometimes it rings before we even get on the air or start this particular segment
Did anyone have anything additional to add to the whole NPR conversation or anything else we were talking about the previous hour
No, not necessarily I think
You know stuff. She will come up just naturally, but I think
It does bear mentioning that we are in fact on YouTube. I just checked it. Oh, thank you very much. That's that's good to know
yeah, you know the NPR thing is is upsetting because it just feels like
Like there's somebody with an agenda labeling things that he doesn't like in a particular way and just trying to
To push an agenda. Yeah, it's really petty and I don't know that's big moves then
okay, you can have that but it's wrong like it puts it and it puts them in a category of
organizations that are
Wholly distinct from there is a difference between you know state-controlled media
that you know changes its tune based on what they are ordered to do by a dictator or by a totalitarian regime and
Something like NPR or Pacifica. It's completely different and if you're gonna categorize things get it, right
I understand I've heard their critique, but it's technically kind of it's misinformed. It's not really based
There's no basis. Really. I mean it's
Indirectly been associated it's been accused of that a lot in in popular culture and I think that's more what this is
Is is latching on to that and showing that you have some kind of I don't know
influence and explain to me why
Fox News simply can't be categorized right-wing media because that's what it is. Can anybody argue that point?
It's absolutely right-wing media or group. Yeah. Well, okay
You see that's where you get into into some, you know, rather turbulent territory. You're listing different things
You could label they're gonna say they're not, you know
They're not promoting hate speech and we'll argue that they are but they can't say they're not right-wing
They can't say that who can say that Fox News is not right-wing media. Well, they would they would enjoy that
Yeah, who cares if they enjoy it or not?
The point is this is an accurate label, but it's not being applied to them. Why is that?
they're just getting the the blanket moniker of
Media, you know something like that, but you're not willing to give that to NPR
You have to you have to put some kind of asterisk next to them and say oh look the government is controlling them when the government
Is absolutely not controlling them
Could you even say that NPR is left-wing media then if that scenario played out you can say that but it's a it's a lot
Harder to prove it than it is to prove that Fox News is right-wing
Well, the reason for that is because you know left-wing has as particular
Particular meaning the particular points that NPR does not blindly follow
They they report things and oftentimes you hear people with a left-wing
Philosophy being being heard or represented but it doesn't mean the network itself is
It has it has those particular values
It can become
unbearable from administration to administration, especially the
press
core White House press corps
Following around George W Bush for you know, all of all of that invasion or whatnot
I mean it was pretty nauseating after a while
And so that's where I would say like is it really that left-wing like?
It I don't know it's more left. They have different personalities. It's more left-wing than Fox. Okay, but that's not hard to do again
You're not yeah, you're not qualifying very maybe Pacifica. You could say there
I mean Pacifica is most certainly more left-wing than anything else
Although there are some ultra left people on Pacifica who you can see coming around the corner and with the right ring because that's what
Happens what what is in the the label anyway?
And like those terms themselves are in different circles become taking on different meanings even to this day
You know at the moment to moment there are dog whistles and when when you say certain things it implies something else
And that's what Elon Musk is doing. So
He's he basically enjoys the attention. We have a phone call. Okay. Yes in the Babel for so long funny. Oh, no
No, I didn't want to interrupt. Okay
Okay, it appears they're already speaking before I even introduced them but let me try again
Good evening, you're on off-the-hook overtime
Hi, Emmanuel calling from maker fair or no a maker space a hacker space
Okay, cuz if you're calling from maker fair, you'd be calling from the past because there are no
It's a maker space hacker space. I don't know what you call, but we have some we have some guests here
We have Leo say hello. You remember Leo. Oh, hello, Leo. Yeah, and we have logic X. Hello logic
How's it going? How you doing?
X
3 8 9 2 1 4. Oh, you can't expect us to remember that a ham radio signal
Anyway, we are here and we're I'd really like I've never been to this. I make it. I met these guys at the 2600 meeting
Oh, I know Leo already, but I met the other guys at the 2600 meeting. Wait, there is no 2600
Oh, you met them at the 2600?
Okay, how was the meeting?
The meeting was good
Good to hear
Meeting was great. I like it. Well, that's awesome. I I do hope to make it to one of them
Yeah, sounds like you're connected with a good crew there. Yeah, definitely. So what's going on? Yeah, what are you guys up to?
What are you doing? Are you are you revealing?
Leaked documents or anything like that
Yeah, have you seen any crumpled papers sound awfully busy
Yeah, don't let me interfere with whatever you're doing
What the cold
Our time is your time
Never mind. So anyway, we're here at these hacker fair or hacker space. Yeah, get it, right
Yeah, the hackers face make it face. Is it a maker space or a hacker space? You got to make up your mind
They'll tell you
It's back at fab labs. It's the one in Manhattan. It's a maker space. We call it a hacker space because we're old school
Okay, all right, all right you can do that that's clear
Did you know this? Did you know?
What was the name of it again?
Anyone I know I asked you what's the name of it?
It's back at fab lab. Okay. Yeah, I've heard of it. Oh, yeah
Okay, yeah, we used to park our van next to a maker fair I remind you of a lack of many hope conference
Okay, no, that's that's a that's a good thing and
I'm just doing people doing Linux. I don't you know what I like about Linux. I'm hearing about Linux
It's like the terminal like an old terminal like, you know the text terminal
Tell me you've used Linux before now I
Never knew
Okay, I'm a bit envious because there's so much ahead of you now
Well, I mean I went to the 2600 meeting and people with running Linux and it looked like I reminded me of terminals from like
90s like the text terminal. Yes, you've been asking about those lately, too. Yeah now here they are
You know now here they are, but I can't I mean it could do it put it on my computer
But I'd have to choose I mean it'd be kind of a pain because I'd have to partition the hard drive and do this
And you also wait a minute. You could do it in newer versions. What operating system?
I mean, there's lots of ask around there
Yeah
I don't want to get into the particulars, but there's there's a all kinds of ways to to have fun with it
Okay. No
Getting to what I want to talk about. I am in Bayside Queens in the 718 area code
There's a couple of exchanges and all of them that used to do
9901 used to say the central office from the 5d. So now they all go to this
With we the number you've reached cannot be if not in service
But we can help you find another list all the exchanges in Bayside Queens do that
Okay
Remember when I told you that I remember you're telling us this every week
When I'm also some of the 2 1 2 2 7 9 exchange the old WBA
I say now it just lists the area codes that it served
We serve area code 2 1 2 9 2 9 and 3 4 7 or something like that
That's how they don't say the exchanges that it lists and all that just says the area codes it list
What a disappointment
Yeah, it's being really well
Yeah, there's all sorts of 3d printers and laser cutters here and
No, that's awesome
Yeah, they're gonna come here every week. I'll bet y'all never leave
Well, actually I can't cuz I'm not a member. Ah
You should become a member support them
Yeah, but um, that's true. I should that's true
I'm a big I'll bring my portable CB radio and you know tinker with that and you know
The one with the little rubber antenna and anything that you want to fix or you know explore by all means. That's that's the place
Yeah, that's what it's for. That's what we're trying to find out somebody who stole an electric bicycle
We have their phone number, but we're trying to find out where what their last name is
But we we're here at the hackerspace. We found out if it's an AT&T stole phone
Okay, those are very exotic. They they they are everywhere
Rebel I know you mentioned you had an electric bicycle. This wouldn't be your electric bicycle. They got stolen with it
Actually, it would be oh dear. I'm so sorry
Then actually I let this person I known this person for a couple years
Wait, you know who it is. You know who it is
I know I actually don't I mean I kind of have the first name but it's a friend of a friend
So it's kind of a long story and and you know, it's like, you know
Kind of you know, you thought you trusted the person and you know, and then now you know, I know the first name
I know
Let me tell you about people rebel people will always let you down
You gotta you gotta keep a wary eye out whenever you have the person in your life. That's all I gotta say
Alex Alex has some advice for you. I believe Alex. Go ahead. Yes
Question one one bit of advice
What is this number relate to this AT&T number that this is not the number of the person stole
Yeah
It is it's an AT&T phone because we looked it up here at the hackerspace. So I know the first time
What is that what does it have to do with with any of the circumstances
Well trying trying to find out where the person is and where he lives and things like that
But I call if I turn I don't know social engineering
come to into possession of this phone number and associate it with
Electrifying what you could
But I I so I could find out what's going on and where the person lives and what his last name is
What Alex is asking is how did you get the phone number in the first place?
Where is it coming from from my friend from my friend? Is he the friend of a friend? So my friend gave me his number?
Okay, so here's a little trick with numbers. I don't know if you've tried this or not, but very often
People with cell phones will have things like whatsapp profiles that will have their actual name on them. So if you add
The natural
Let me finish. Let me finish trouble finish here
Yeah, let me finish if you add him as a contact in your phone
If you just add put it, you know
Whatever random name you want to call it call it a manual Goldstein on your phone
Hey, and then you go into whatsapp and you look for that contact
You may see a photograph of that person
You might see his name associated with or perhaps in telegram or perhaps in you know signal
But you you know, I would take a look on what's up first that is a valuable tip Alex
Yeah, that might be the most helpful thing. Maybe I'll try that I could try that and he has Twitter or Instagram or
Well
Go for what's up first to basically try to do a reverse lookup on that telephone number because he might be on a mobile device
That's registered on whatsapp with that number now Alex
What you just told rebel is very handy in tracking somebody down possibly tracking somebody down
What would you say to people who don't want to be tracked down to avoid falling into that trap?
Obviously, this is something they overlooked. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, this is a very
Rudimentary but effective technique that people very often overlook, right?
You want to connect a phone number to a name? That's a very good way of doing it. But
If you don't want that to happen, don't use your real name associated with that telephone number
what's that profile or
Just don't associate your phone number with a whatsapp profile because it's I think I don't think there's a setting where you can't be
Looked up. I could be wrong, but I'm not sure if you have the ability to to change those types of privacy settings interesting
Why don't you guys have what's up so that we can see each other like I could put it on my website when you call
I think you just explained it. I think I was just explain why we don't
Yeah
All kinds of things that happen with cell phones
Kyle you were having it an episode with your phone where it was blocking you and then it wasn't blocking you
Yeah, we're trying to access your voicemail. Yeah, I had a phone number
forwarding and it was disrupting a lot of the functionality that I was expecting with my voice and
Message system. Yes, that happens all the time. They may have called from different phone numbers and get the same thing really
But then you get something different
No, you don't get something different. You get the same kind of recording saying good only the part of your record is not
Why not?
Well, you know one one trick that I like to do is
It's basically I can tell you to do this but figure out how to forge your caller ID
which is pretty simple and then you call from that number itself and
Sometimes that gets a different response. Sometimes you wind up writing their voicemail too because some people
Don't really think it through and they say yeah be convenient for me not to have to enter my password from my phone
So if I'm calling from my phone just log me into my voicemail without asking for a password. However, if somebody
basically
Emulates your phone number on caller ID and then calls that they're gonna get into your voicemail
Right, I see what you're saying
That's kind of tricky and now I just want to ask Alex a question
They said that because I lent the guy my bike I said, oh, yes
You want to go up to this but on the block in there?
Yep, you can use it and then he just never came back
They said that's a simple thing because you let him use your bike and it's not a wait. Wait, hold on a second
You lent him your bike. He rode down the street. He just got smaller and smaller and didn't come back
And that's what this is about
Right. Okay. I don't think I don't think lending someone your bike means that they can keep it forever
I thought but I'll share the lawyer. Tell me if that's true. Yeah
I mean, it's theft right is when you have the the intention to keep it
All right, so, you know if he has the intention of let's say bringing it back an hour or something like that
you know arguably wouldn't wouldn't be theft but if he had the
Intention to keep it and you didn't authorize him to do it. It's not technically a civil thing just because you gave him
Authorization to ride the bike doesn't mean you gave him authorization to keep the bike. It's
Is
Is that what the police told you rebel that this is a civil thing
that's what they
But the people who I need to complain to the precinct, you know, they're wrong about that they just don't feel like helping
I'm sorry. What if you charged him like 25 cents around the block, you know, and then they didn't return it. That's a
Transaction right? Yeah, but that's still be tough, right? I mean, yeah
Well, that's what I'm saying is I would escalate it to theft instead of this civil nonsense
You're talking about but don't ever let go of the handlebars rebels. Do you have proof of ownership of that bike?
Yes. Okay. That's a simple thing. If you locate where the bike is and you say hey, that's my bike
I can prove it and this person stole it
Right. So even though I did let him use it and I was assuming that he was going to come back
I'm trusting him. He's never came back
Now rebel does that friend that you know this person through do they have anything to say about this? I mean, what's there?
He said well, you know, he doesn't know and
You know
He was there I mean he was there when I lent cuz I let him ride it you know
I let this person ride this bike before a couple of years ago and you know, of course
He brought it back, you know
You know, so I feel like on something that I just somebody that I just met and my friend introduced me to hey
This is Kevin. I mean and
We don't want to know who he is. Don't tell us his name. Well, I don't know his last name
Okay, and neither do we we don't want to but here's the thing if your friend was there, okay and
Witnessed all this. He's a witness. Is he gonna help you?
All right, he did try and help me by giving me a phone number, okay, which you assume is his phone number
But you know if he's if he's still the friend of this guy and he still sees him and he's not doing anything about this
I question if he's really your friend
Well, he says he's not gonna hang out with him because of what he did. I don't know. That's what he says
Okay. Well, that's something I guess I
Don't know. That's what I'm gonna try the social media thing. Maybe I could traffic your social media
Yeah, but you know just finding him no won't necessarily get him to give you a bike back, but right that's true
Is there anything that we could do here at this hacker fair that you said is that social media entering that phone number in Mike
You gotta go to what's up? Well finding out the guy's name is a good start. I can't believe your friend doesn't know his full name
I don't know. I mean I
Well, that would be a good start because you could you could learn a lot very quickly and create some pretty funny scenarios where all
of a sudden
It's compelling to give the bike back. Do you know your friends full name?
Yeah, okay. So go on to Facebook or Twitter or whatever place I did. I did that Facebook. He doesn't have a Facebook
I don't think really sure
Well, if he did
Go on your friends and look for any any
You said Kevin? Okay, look for anybody with that name or anybody with that face. I look I look
Okay, well, you know at some point he might have mentioned him somewhere there's always more information to be found
if you keep looking try to think of what else, you know about them and
What direction they went and where you where you are, you know all that? Yeah, but just try to piece some of that stuff together
Terrible, you know, they may you know, what happens the bicycle thieves
What I make bicycle thief pie. Wow, where'd you get that one? Kyle? That's very dark. Yeah
rules are rules I
Suggest I read this for two years. I've had this for two years. It's like I mean
I suggest watching the film bicycle thief from Italy in the 1930s was it it was an excellent film 40s 50s
It's it's just it's about a bicycle thief, but it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's
It's kind of you know, who is the bicycle thing? I'm not gonna give it away. It's good movie. It'll make you feel better
So sorry that happened. It's not an electric bicycle though. So don't get your hopes up on that
Right, but don't give up and just keep looking for more details. There's always more details out there someplace
There's always something there's a clue
No, he couldn't fold the bike. He could have just sold it. He could have sold it. That's true. That's true at his own peril
You're gonna get to the bottom of this rebel just don't lose lose faith keep asking around sounds like you have a good a good
Team there that they could help you sort some of the details out
Don't let people ride your bike
Yeah, I mean
Checking pawn shops
I mean you have to do all that kind of stuff if you really want it back and
Try to compare the serial number and stuff like that. Yeah, I mean
I think it's like a well, I don't know if he would tell it to a pawn shop or a bike shop
You think you would just buy but then if he rides it around and you you know
Catch up with them could lead to a tense situation and and or it could be a really positive situation if you're like, hey
That's not fair and you got you know some support and listen
Don't let your friend off the hook either your friend introduced you your friend was there when it happened
He bears some responsibility for this and certainly it's possible that he still is in contact with this person
So I don't want to say that he was in on it
But he definitely is not uninvolved
Now I wish this was off the hook on the radio so I could mention this what's going on
So let you know all of New York City time. Well, we're not going to mention on off the hook on the radio
Especially since you can't call in
But we do help you get it back and we'll offer any advice we can get I'm sure you're your new hacker friends at the
Hacker space will help you
Maybe you have some ideas for a bicycle lojack or something
I'm gonna put the tile on it if I get it back or I'm gonna put I have a regular bike
Yeah, you know you'll be better in better shape you'll be stronger and you'll be able to catch up to the yeah
Year, so mm-hmm
Well, I'm sorry to hear this happen, but it does happen and maybe that's a warning to other people out there
Not to lend your stuff out to people
Let's say goodbye from here
By Leo have fun great talking
Hack the planet indeed. Yes, I'm said from a hacker space that that matters and oh, yeah. All right
We'll see you next time rebel good luck with all that. Thanks. All right. Thanks. You know when I was a kid, I remember this
There was this kid that I would always let ride my bike, you know
Because he didn't have a bike and I did and I'd always I'd always let him ride it
Then one day he got a bike. He got a brand new bike
And I asked to ride it and what do you think he said said no his parents said nobody can ride his new bike. I
Told my mother about that and then he let me ride it
That's the kind of involvement you want parents to get into you know instances of justice like that
But you know what we've fallen out of touch. I I don't even remember his name
Wow, I was sick. So I don't remember anybody's name back then
Okay
802-321-4225
802-321-HACK is our telephone number if anybody out there would like to talk to us about any other issue
Please feel free to dial those numbers and we'll be happy to put you on the air and
Let us know maybe somebody out there has seen 2600 the hacker quarterly the
documentary motion picture that grossed a million dollars and
Got positive reviews from the New York Times the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times
Among others. I'm sure I could ask Google bar to make up some more crap about I'm thinking it's going to actually produce
The film with the next installment or whatever of the the
GTP set up there. Maybe it will actually produce the full-length. Well, I mean, it's using it's using our name
They made a million bucks off of it. You know, I think we should get a taste of that
This is a this is a lot here that is keeping me up at night. You know, it's yeah
Yeah, there's some some loose ends stuff. We got to deal with production side. Yeah
Chachi GPS has no idea what I'm talking about, by the way
Never heard of the film, but but Google barred. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I said chachi they're competing, right? They don't they don't share
a brainstem
Whatever it is
Hmm yet yet. Yeah, what happens when they like
become one like
My osmosis sort of like in my brain
My osmosis sort of like meld into one another with modules and so forth. Is that a third?
Ai or machine learning in
In and of itself like is it wholly new or is it it's just the evolution
There will be a name for it alex, are you there yeah, it looks like you're doing something else
Yeah, i'm here. Okay
Looks like you're soldering something. I don't know. It looks like you're busy
Yeah
soldering, yes
Yeah, no, not not soldering. Yeah, do we have any if anyone calls we can go we can go home early
Well, um, the line is open now
we're gonna give it a couple more minutes 802-321-4225 because
you know eventually we run out of things to say to ourselves and um
um
Not that we don't think so
You know, we've been talking for a while, right?
So, you know, we've been blathering on for quite some time, but not as long as we usually do
So we have the opportunity. We have a lot more room for uh for discussion with with callers
Maybe alex if you ask for a call somebody will will take it seriously. Sure
802-321-4225 call us the phone lines are open
And our operators are standing by
Remember when uh commercials were like that, right and everything for some reason, you know
You had to it always took like six to eight weeks for delivery
And everything you had to always mail some kind of self-addressed stamped envelope to wherever in omaha, nebraska
Send a postcard. I always wondered what people send postcards saying greetings from the statue of liberty
I never did that. I never requested something using a postcard, but the six to eight weeks, uh
Waiting for something to arrive and no cods. I remember that as well
uh, that was um
That was a special time quaint. Yeah, very quaint. Yeah, but why was it always what was going on in omaha, nebraska?
I don't know. I don't know, uh, pueblo, colorado. That's where all the government printing took place
It was a process
Totally different. Mm-hmm, but it wasn't just there. It was other places as well that
Had various things
Yeah, I do. I hear the phone kyle
Do you not hear the phone? Okay
So we have a phone call. All right. Good evening. You're on all talk overtime
Hey, how's it going? How are you doing? Where are you calling from?
Uh call from new jersey, new jersey great state. That's right
Thanks
Um, i'm not a first-time caller. I have called before. I love your show listen to guys all the time. I think um
Two things i'll try to just have one uh about like naming. Um categorizing media
Um, you know, I only learned this myself when I was going to these fact-checking websites like one of them is media bias fact check
Dot I don't know order com or whatever and uh stuff like that how they categorize one of the ways they categorize one criteria
They use is is it commercially funded government funded or listener?
Funded I guess that's like the other category
But I mean that right there to me kind of closes the whole confusion
Which it seems to me like a lot of people maybe just aren't aware of that
Like you're calling it bbc wanted bbc is funded by their government their government funded deutsche
Well in germany is government funded. Um, you know, fox news is commercially funded wbi listener
Like in that at least gives you three different
uh ways to know and it's a good thing to know too because
a commercial media is going to be
Uh, they're going to be pro business
They're not going to run anti-union stuff as much. Let's just say for example, uh, a government funded site
Yeah, isn't gonna maybe talk as much trash about the president or if the government's not doing something
So, uh, and then listener sponsored is
You know supposed to be in a way neither of those but then you know, whatever has its own drawbacks. Um,
That's just something I wanted to put out there. I guess for listeners
Yeah, I feel like I hear a lot of people talk about it and friends of mine and even myself
I mean, I didn't I didn't know it until I was looking this stuff up in the past couple years
Yeah, it's not a binary. It's not the binary people want it to be like it's either this or that right?
Right, you know, I agree for the most part. I'm a little uncertain about bbc
I hear what you're saying about them being government funded, but it does come from the listeners and the viewers
However, it's mandated that they pay a licensing fee where that money goes to them
But it's not controlled by the government. In other words, they don't say you can't cover this story or things like that
However, it's probably more in that direction than we're used to here
Um, so I don't know that's a it's a tricky one because that's kind of a combination
Yeah, that is tricky I get maybe come comes down to the government that it's that's funding it and if it's a
Government, let's say whatever russia. China. Myanmar or something that's funding it then
Kind of obvious that it's going to be government controlled and funded but in more democratic places
Um, the government technically is supposed to be run by people to begin with it. Yeah, it quickly becomes philosophical, right?
About where your information is coming from and of course, you know
they're broadcasting in the public interest for the public good presumably and they have a a mandate, uh,
and
serve in that function and of course for a breaking news or emergencies and and and the like they're um,
um an important emergency resource, which is very very similar to all the broadcast types, um tv radio
the the sort of traditional
older types in the u.s. So you could argue there's a public interest and there's a
A certain loyalty to the audience which may be from that country, right?
Respectively so you get into philosophical good. Like what is the purpose of this?
Broadcast, I remember when trump was in power
People were calling fox news state media and I always had a problem with that because for the same reason
Um when trump was out of power fox is still fox. It's not like they suddenly changed to to biden propaganda
They're still right wing. That's why I think right wing media fits them because whether their person is in power or not
They're going to have the same philosophy
Okay, that was another criteria on the media bias fact check this is one site i'm not trying to say it's the best one
There's other ones
Other ones out there, but that was another thing that they say is does it lean left or does it lean right?
Right and they have their own metrics and each site has their own kind of metrics and that's how you can kind of
Think to yourself whether you're going to believe them or not. But yeah, that was another criteria. They had what's how much like
Now go ahead. How many times has the story been retracted?
Or proven false or something like that, right? That's another criteria that they had so they had a bunch of rights against them
Yeah, yeah
What was the name of the site that you were referencing
This was media bias fact check. I'm pretty sure that's it
It could be a little bit off with that and I don't even know if it was a dot org
Okay, or not and and then when I went to I went and looked at that
Site and then I looked at some other sites and what I found was they all use different criteria
And even the sites themselves are run by different types of groups of people
Some of them are like related to universities
Some of them are just like I don't know a couple friends that came up with this thing
They used to be journalists or something like that
so
Even those things i'm just not saying like, you know
Not for people to kind of swallow whole what they say when they're like saying that
uh a media outlet is good or bad, but just that
Like we should at least be starting to all speak the same language when we go to ask
What is the media that we're listening to?
It's going to be more complicated like like you just said it's not going to be black and white i'm sorry
That's how things are not going to be black. All right
yeah, yeah, no, I like that you said that you pointed that out that uh, even the uh, the fact checkers themselves may
They you know may be taken with a grain of salt, uh, or it may have a certain weight of validity, uh,
because of their reputation
Well, I think we can all agree that we can all agree elon musk is not the arbiter
He's not the one that has all the answers. That's a takeaway
I'd like to categorize
I'll jump off after this is what I find interesting you guys talk about chat and gpt
You know, we we try to ask it stuff that um, we want to be fact-based and then it lies or it gives us
You know answers that aren't actually based in fact or whatever
And i'm just kind of thinking to myself like the real purpose I feel like of this is to be creative this thing
It's to it's to not make facts but to like make crazy stuff up that sounds funny or cool
and I mean and you know, I could be wrong about that, but I feel like that's what it's doing and that to me I
thought was
uh, what what we thought would be the final uh
Um hurdle for ai to get over
Was that there's no way it'll be able to be creative
It can't be and now it's like it's coming up with stuff. That's just as creative
Well, it's not telling us. I think it's funny that it's not telling us as being creative
It's pretending to tell the truth and actually making up fiction
Um, but you know, we had we had some success with chat gpt when we asked it to write a david lynch film about hackers
It wasn't bad. Oh, that's right. That's right. Yeah, that's what I mean. That was kind of creative a dark room
He's throwing some adjectives
Uh-huh, envisioning what it might be like exactly. Yeah that connective, uh linguistic
um
uh
Transitional verbiage all of the work the assembly of it based on those cues
but it's as good as as how how you
Um, how much information you and the criteria you feed it?
Here's the thing that with with the film that that uh, google bard made up it attached a real life person to it
And said they were the director. How does that person feel?
You know, they didn't have anything to do with this
That's when it gets they have to put that little statement at the beginning that says if this film has any relation to real life
Like it's not on purpose or something. Well, they should say that before they say anything on google bard
I guess every single thing that comes out. Yeah should have that little watermark on it
Yeah, it's probably it's probably there somewhere in the page like
Do not trust
Anything else I appreciate you guys taking my call. I appreciate you guys taking my call
I'm gonna jump off so somebody else will get on a lot. Okay, great show. Thanks. Thanks for listening. Take care
Have a good night. Bye
New jersey, there you go
Great conversation. Those are good questions and so so very true
802-321-4225 remains our phone number
Um, we have a toll-free number too, don't we but I always forget that does anybody have that in their head?
No
Alex is doing something else 70. What's the vermont 321 hack? Hey alex. It's us. Yeah, i'm here
I'm, just uh, you're doing another radio show for somebody else doing a little coding at the same time here
I got uh, some some things I gotta sort out but the uh, but i'm listening i'm i'm here
Well, do you know what the toll-free number is because I don't
It's uh, one eight hundred
Something
Okay, first of all, it's not one eight hundred. It's one eight something else. I'll tell you who would know
was uh, eleanor
Eleanor whose name
She always wanted us to speak. Okay. Well now that you've spoken her name
Maybe you could give her a call and find out what the phone number is
I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know her number but uh, we haven't heard from her ever since
You refuse to say her name. I said her name
Not in full as she because we don't say full names
That's that's that's long been our policy because of privacy issues because we're hackers and we know that we know about privacy
You know, it's not a good idea to give someone's full name out and say where they're from
um, if if you want to do that on your own go ahead, but
We're not gonna we're not gonna help not with that even even though somebody is generous to us and and and would like that
um
Wouldn't be able to sleep at night. Your call is is in uh in our good care here and we take it very seriously
And do we have a call?
We have an open phone line for the next caller. So the phone number remains country code one for those of you overseas
eight zero two
three two one four two two five
Hack. Yeah hack is what that spells in case you have
Letters on your phone. Does anybody still have letters on their on their keypads?
I don't know if people still do well
I have to put it on a t-shirt. So people remember. All right, we'll give it a couple minutes
Uh, and then uh, we can we can retire early. That'd be kind of nice
Alex any adventures this week?
uh
Jeez, I had um
I went to this this boulder park out in the poconos. I don't know if you ever heard of that. What is a boulder park climbing?
It's yeah, it's it's a it's a park full of giant rocks that have been there for about 20 000 years
and um
Yes, I was over there. It's in hickory run state park in the poconos
And it's just it's this fascinating park. I've been there a couple of times now
You basically have to drive into the middle of this massive state park and you're driving for
A while and then it turns into this dirt road
It's very narrow and it's it seems like it's a it should be a one lane road
But it's you know, it's got two-way traffic on it feels
You know like you could be driving in italy or something like that
It feels very european in a sense because of how narrow the roads are
And then you go in for miles on these these one lane roads
And then all of a sudden you come to this area that's kind of cleared a little bit
And that's it's kind of like a makeshift parking lot
And you walk over to the this edge and then out of nowhere
Is just as far as you can see these massive white kind of orangey boulders in the middle of this forest
With no trees who put them there
Well, obviously aliens. I mean, come on. Okay
Well, okay
So what are you supposed to do when you get you drive all this way and you see all these boulders is it's just you
Take a picture and go home
No, you can climb on the boulders and you can walk
Amongst them and you can you know, you can go
You know just kind of have fun on the boulders. It's a form of recreation have fun on the boulders
Yeah, I mean it's it's this bizarre scene because all around you
is uh, you know, very very heavily wooded areas and
Out of nowhere is just this massive boulder field, right?
So it feels very incongruous with the surroundings feels like you could be on another planet or something. It's um, it's definitely odd
It's very very strange. And are there boulder people there that are sharing the experience?
Yeah, there's a lot of people. I wouldn't say a lot of people over there, but i've never been there by myself
There's always others that are that are there
um, and what was really interesting when I was there this, uh, this past weekend
Is um, because it was it was actually easter sunday when I went over there
so most people I guess are um,
Aren't doing easter, right, you know, unless you're a jewish but the the uh,
The majority of people that I was seeing out at the state park
Were all orthodox jews
You know most most of them from brooklyn, you know, just kind of out in pennsylvania and out in the poconos and
um, and one of them
uh came up to me I as I had uh,
Passed by as I was going into the parking lot
And I see a couple of the orthodox jews over there
So I I rolled down the window and I said, you know, happy pesach and happy passover. How's the man?
And then they showed up at my car
Like three of these guys big guys, too
And they just said to me
Do you have a jack?
I said what what do you mean? Do you do I have a jack like what what is this?
Sounds like I had a flat tire and they know that
Yeah, it's not hard to interpret. I got I got my jack out for him
so of course, you know, so I get the jack then it turns out I had the jack but
I didn't know this I was missing the metal piece that you use to crank the jack over. Oh my goodness
So they didn't have a jack nor that they have a metal piece, right? So, um
You know where they're trying to figure out, you know what we can use to crank this thing up screwdriver
What's that screwdriver?
Well, we didn't have a screwdriver either not one not one that would fit
You can't go into the boulders unprepared like this. So what'd you use? How'd you figure this out?
Well one thing that wound up working
For a little while was if you took the back like your seat post off like the headrest of your seat
That's smart, right? It's got this iron bars underneath it
You could use that to turn it until it starts to get you know, too heavy right for it
Then this guy came in a big pickup truck
uh with a us marine corps t-shirt on
And uh, no way he doesn't have a screwdriver
Well, he didn't have a screwdriver or a jack oh my god, I know this is crazy, right?
so, um
Uh, so then another guy shows up
uh in in this van and um
and so he he
Comes out and they're asking me, you know, do you have a jack or do you even you know?
I just have like the metal piece over there for the jack
and uh
And he said, you know, I think I do but then he couldn't figure out how to get the jack
Out of the back of his car
so
It was uh, like the jack was extended and he couldn't figure out how to retract the jack so that it was
Become smaller and he was able to pull it out of the side pocket in the back of you know
Hold on a second and all these people not one of them has a jack
Well, this is the thing. Yeah, and the the interesting thing though about this this guy too
Eventually I showed him how to to retract the jack we were able to do it manually with our hand
he got the jack out and then he comes over and he hands over the um,
The uh the metal bar so that we could turn my jack over that's already underneath the car
And I looked over at this guy and he was you know, another guy with a really long beard
He wasn't wearing just a white shirt. He had kind of like a parka or something over him
I looked at him and I said, you know
I think this is another orthodox jew that just showed up in the parking lot, right?
So I said to him I said, you know, did you guys come together?
And he said no we didn't he said we just happened to be here at the same time
So, you know, we're part of the same tribe
I was right
I was driving around for half an hour until I could find the entrance to this place
And then I showed up and there's another you know
Guy who's orthodox, you know with a flat tire
So i'm like, oh well, this is you know, kind of weird, right?
So then um at the end of it, we got the tire done. Everybody was happy
We got the new we got this donut on
And uh, and then we made the joke
How many jews does it take to change a tire?
wow, you know, it was actually very funny because there were a whole bunch of us there and
You know, really it took like seven or eight people to change one tire because nobody had a jack
That was quite a story and much longer than I was hoping for because I just wanted to fill the time
We had a caller on almost the entire story, but I didn't want to say you told me that well
I couldn't interrupt the story like that. That's too good
Yeah, so so many elements and also just one little fact to uh in jack you said that um, it's easter last
Sunday, which you were correct on partially but uh orthodox easter is next sunday. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah
I know christos and that's it was palm sunday for the orthodox community the other orthodox community
That's right. We have a phone call and this person is very patient. Thank you for waiting. Good evening. You're on off the cover time
Hi, everyone. This is johnny fusion this week. Hey, johnny fusion. How you doing?
I'm doing well. I'm out of the hospital a week. Awesome
Doing okay, you know, I celebrated my birthday last week. Oh great. Happy birthday
Thank you very much. I'm getting up there. You know, the old hat is getting older
Well, you can always get another hat
I
Wanted I wanted to talk about you know, this uh large language model and their propensity for
Hallucinations and a little bit about why this happened
Go right ahead
So, um
The thing about these large language models is they don't actually have
knowledge
they're about
Putting together
Conversation
Right, you know putting one word in front of the other
in a way that makes
grammatical and syntax in syntax
sense
right
And facts don't really
Come into play
Like i've heard large language models described as spicy autocomplete
Yeah, I was thinking that we were talking earlier audio autocomplete is like sort of something you use you don't necessarily trust it you
You use it more in an editing way
Much in the way that people started using word processors to edit in real time and so forth
Yeah, I mean so I so i've been saying i've had this little witticism for a long time that
Google knows everything but sometimes it lies. Yeah, that seems to be true
You know and uh for for this last article I wrote, you know, I used um
this service called character ai
And they actually do have a disclaimer that says everything our ai says is made up
Right because every because everything's fictional
Like everything is a fantasy
to these things
you know, it's it's not based in reality and they're very
straightforward for that and I think this is just kind of
You know a bit of the hype machine that these corporations are doing
With the ai and they're not being completely honest about the limitations
I of ai because they're selling the height
Of what they're doing and they're overselling
yes, right because
You know and this in the hype and the anxiety
Like we've talked in past weeks and what I wrote the article about about the fear of ai
replacing human creative endeavor
And and it's just not there yet
you know because
Um
What ai does
Like what it generates
Humans have to fix
Because uh, there was a story
of one of the papers
They wrote a health article and at the end, you know, they did the big reveal
That oh, by the way, this article was completely written by ai
And the thing is so everything in the article was wrong
And it was supposedly health information
And it was misinformation. Oh, wow, like it got through editorial and they just trusted
whatever the ai said
And people are you know, and you see this in
Like on reddit and facebook and stuff like this where people are using
These large language models as a substitute for search engines
And it's a complete misuse of the technology because
These large language models are living in a fantasy world
You know, they're just making shit up and it's not reliable
as fact
Yeah, I think we're starting to see that I think that people's eyes are opening to this
Yeah, and like code wise
like
Large language models are not programmers
Right
So what they're going by is any code examples that are in their database?
Yeah, right or in their in their training set I should say not database because of how
Neural nets are made and applying syntactic rules based on whatever language you're talking about presumably, right?
right, right, but they're going but
They don't understand the logic of the language and
So they're going by code examples without actual cognition
Or understanding of how the computer language functions. That's why I was
Because they're seeing it as grammar
Not as logic. That's why I was suggesting recipes might be interesting to play with because oh boy
Because oh boy
Just trying to follow the directions if it's trained on all of that or like you're saying if it just puts
Something together based on ingredients you say you have in different proportions the first person poisoned
The lawsuits who's responsible I can just see it all playing out now
well, what would it even taste like any kind of approximation that a human would be able to
As a cook be able to interpret. Okay. I have an idea
Artificial intelligence cookbook read it at your own risk and i'll just come up with all kinds of weird dishes
Uh, and um, you can you can try it
But we're not responsible
I'm certain there's been tiktoks in youtube that have already done this experiment. Okay. Okay. Damn it. It's over
You know, I like i've seen i've seen people do uh crochet patterns, okay, and they've turned out awful
Yeah, yeah, that's that's
again, I think it's just more evidence of of the kind of point we're
We're making here that it's fantasy. Like you said in a fantasy world
Well, you know, I think it's up to us as hackers to try and break this as much as possible and try to make it
do things
That's embarrassing and obviously wrong just so we can make it clear that this doesn't replace us
This doesn't replace human beings. It doesn't replace individuals writing
And uh, if you do depend on that and and think that that's the answer
You're going to ruin the day you will
Yeah, and
You know and the and the premise that's I mean
That's the whole premise of what you're going to publish of me in an upcoming issue
Is that humans aren't replaceable like we're not interchangeable
Like what you write and what I write
Are not interchangeable because we're unique individuals
I have a unique voice you have a unique voice
and even if
we got
Artificial general intelligence like I really do think it's going to happen eventually
Right. We're not there yet
But I really do think we're going to have real machine intelligence someday
And but even when we do it's not going to replace us. It's going to be beside us
It's going to be
our little digital siblings
You know who's going to work hand in hand with us or maybe automate menial things
but of course, we gotta break away from capitalism and
Have our basic needs met
You know either through universal basic income or universal
needs
Just met, you know housing and clothing and food and education
and enrichment
And all that stuff get away from the grind
You know, but you know, so
Automation could be a good thing. But I mean they're doing it ass backwards
They're saying here let let ai create art and have everyone work in their cubicles
which is which is
Wrong, it should be the other way around
Yeah, I just felt like um the the
usefulness in in the real world as you're saying is is
Where the direction that where I think they want the usefulness the usefulness to be eventually like you said and it may
um
emerge
but the product like now in this moment, like you're talking about earlier the hype
itself is
um
you know the types of examples we were thinking that people have shown to be wrong and just
Don't work like oh you can make you know, come up with have it make recipes and do all this stuff custom
You know, that was the sort of selling point. And again, I don't even know if there's
an actual product now, I think
really what it is is to get people to use it and
Revise it in real time based on public
Yeah inquiries and I mean that's a lot of how
Google search engine emerged, right? I mean people were using it. We were all using it
Yeah, oh right now I mean
again, it's it's uh
It's being used by surveillance capitalism. We are the product we're feeding it with our queries
With because these are conversational we're having conversations with it and it's learning from us everything
We type into chat gbt or into bard
Goes into its deficit. Yeah, that's so that's kind of where i'm going. Is it like
There may be there may be sets of information that you don't even want to go
You don't want entered into it you don't want
In there at all. Otherwise, you're you're all of a sudden being credited for having produced a documentary that you didn't produce
you know and stuff like that and I mean there's
serious interest in not
um supplying it with with information because I think that's really what is going on now why it looks like a lot of hype and
doesn't
really fit with the way it's being described and and it's uh
Basically to get a lot of people to use it in different ways so that
I mean, even if it's training itself on all the activity, there's going to be aspects of it
I think that
from a management perspective
They're gonna just look at and say like let's do more of that and like let's get good at this
We can we can then we can build that into this product. We already have and just make more dog food or whatever
Yeah, and the thing is though, you know
Like you talked about on the radio show about the leak of the top secret document
Right. Yes
you know, these ai models
have
secret information in them because of someone brainstorming with
either propriety company information or government information
and open ai or google or whoever's
Doing these models
Has been fed
proprietary or secret information
That's a really interesting
Part of it too is like how compartmentalized is it if it's being trained on everything or actively
Modified and so forth. I mean there's probably strict rules about how this is being used in different government and
private enterprises
and for those specific reasons, but you're right, there's probably
a lot of really
Public information that it could put together but again in a in a creative way
but
um if it's
Verifiable and so forth. Yeah, it could be like kind of more too much information
Like in real life
Yeah, but you know because you know, there was somebody who was being lazy
Right, right
you know who just decided to use it like
like
Supposedly these top secret documents were leaked on discord to win an argument
Right because it was an online beef
Right, right, right like a flame war or something
and you know when this guy had clearance and
He needed to be right on the internet
and so he
so he uh
I presume he but you know, it was a leaning right ring discord and women do not fare
Well, so in those spaces, so I presume a guy
Yeah, it sounds to me that if you want to get more leaked documents out there
Just get into a lot of arguments with a lot of people and eventually somebody's gonna
Gonna crack and say here's the proof and show you something. They're really not supposed to share
Yeah, like like that tank game. I mean like every week there's
Some military secret on their forums. Oh, really?
But but tell us tell us more about this. Oh, we know nothing about this
Okay, so there's there's this uh tank simulator game
Well, it started off as tanks, but now they got jets and ships and other stuff like that
and
the selling point
of
this uh this game this this tank sim
Is its accuracy to real world hardware?
And so and it's and real life soldiers like playing this game from the real military
and
on and when
A simulated tank or piece of military hardware is a little bit off in the simulation
They get on the forums they complain
And lots of times to back up
Um how the simulation is wrong they'll upload to the forums
military classified documents about these weapon system capabilities
through this tank game forum
You know and just leak it to the world
To say hey get your game, right
Right
That it's
That is a special kind of like, uh, uh first world problem, you know
That like guys getting but but it's yeah, but it's american military chinese military russian military
like all different militaries and
Yeah, it's like
I'm, oh i'm exaggerating by saying every week
But no i've heard about anecdotes six or seven times a year
There's a leak on this forum of some weapon system capability
And they have proximity to a lot of the equipment their interests and of course playing the game
and they they are using the platforms and the forums in
in
Public, you know with people they can't really verify who they are or anything
and uh, they
Their point their personal pride is sort of outweighing their judgment
Yeah, especially when they lose because they think they're right online simulated
tank or fighter jet
Should should have been able to win the skirmish or whatever
And they get mad and they say no see this has this capability
And um
Well, bless you, yes, um, are we done for the night you think
I
Think we are. Yeah, we could be done. All right
Yeah, we just uh passed top of the hour. So I just saw the clock up there. Is there any other story or uh,
Um, I just wanted to talk about you know, the large language models, you know, they have real no they have no knowledge about
the world
right
They're just they're just making conversation and they're making shit up
Yep as as you found out about the 2600 movie
Which I still want to see
Maybe somebody that'd be great. Wouldn't it? Would it be great? Yeah, I'd come up with a better title than that though
it's a pretty lousy unimaginative title, but
I guess they're busy doing other things
26
Yeah, I mean I watched that movie. Yeah. Well, let's let's let's see if maybe the people named will make it now
Now that uh bard has said they did
And well it was good talking to everyone yes good hearing from you i'm glad you're out of the hospital and uh
Hope you stay healthy
I'm trying. All right
Okay, take care
And I think that's going to do it for us tonight, um, yeah, let's let's call it any um final words from you guys
No, I think it was uh
a lot of great conversation tonight and some really interesting topics, so
Let's see how this whole bellingcat thing goes over the next couple of weeks. I'm i'm really curious about that
I'm sure we're going to continue to talk about that one the witch now
The bell i'm sorry the uh the discord
Uh leaks that that we that bellingcat had covered. Oh, yeah, right
I don't think has an official name yet, but I think it's the 2023 pentagon documents leak
Look, I think we should something we should make some predictions. So I predict by next week. They'll know who it was
Come on guys come up with a prediction like that
Uh
I I don't know. I think it's going to be longer than that. I think I think that there very well may be
Some kind of foreign intelligence angle here, and I don't think we're going to learn
Who the who's actually behind this for a while because because it's a foreign
foreign source
Yeah
yeah, I think it might might take a little while it's online or
It might be of such a nature that um
Criminal charges can't be brought
I'll say friday then
Yeah this friday. Yeah this friday. Okay. I said it
All right. I don't know you want to make it interesting. I'll say midnight. How about that? Yeah step on it
So you just did like the one dollar over on the prices, right? I probably did i'm just
I got impressed. That's what you want. I do think they will they will find
Somebody involved with this if there's already somebody out there saying they know who it is, right? So
If that's the case then someone else is going to talk for sure
Yeah, I mean there there haven't been official, um
official warrants or any kind of uh persons of interest and uh, of course that always can come with some sort of
reward they're gonna put pressure on because this is not a good situation for the uh, the uh,
international world stage and um
the state department itself and their interests and
Um, it's good for somebody it's good for us. You have to ask yourself. Who is this good for and that might lead you somewhere
That's a good yeah those lines of inquiry that's
Exactly the kind of thinking or is imaginative is a particular injustice a la snowden being revealed here
uh that um, you know might benefit us knowing so these are the questions that have to be asked but
Uh considering there are documents out there considering there are pictures of documents out there
There might be something that uh gives a hint as to where they're from or what they've been through to get there
So, uh, we'll know more we'll learn more this all happened within a week or so where people found out about it
Yeah, I didn't really I wasn't following it at all. I didn't know that the the story had evolved as much
I was just catching up a little bit. I didn't even know what was in it
I just heard people talking about it happening. So everyone's
Uh still trying to get the facts right of what exactly it was about
All right
I'll predict this too though
If this is somebody that you know is identified
Accurately within the next couple of days or a week or something like that
then I think that uh, the story behind it is going to be a story or just you know, absolute stupidity or
or idiocy and
You know somebody
Taking these documents i'm getting drunk and uploading things to accidentally to a discord server
It might be some kind of accidental
type of situation where
The stuff is out there and then you know, once you send something presumably to a discord server
Whether it's intentionally or by accident, you can't reel it back. I I don't think so
Maybe it was this
I still think it could be uh, you know some kid's dad who had uh documents in the briefcase and a kid took pictures of them
And uploaded them to discord while he was playing minecraft and got into an argument with some I don't know
It says it's as sane an argument as anything, but why are they folded up?
Wait, why are they folded up? Why does anyone fold anything up?
Oh, if they're in the briefcase they're gonna be in like folders. Maybe there's a lot in the briefcase
maybe dad like stuffing his pockets and I don't know just
Maybe they got folded by accident
I don't know. Maybe maybe his dad is the spy
and the kids trying to
You know do the right thing
But doesn't want to get in trouble himself or herself
Yeah, or or the person on the discord server didn't really know what it was
I just thought it was part of one of many different sources
They get these things and or somewhere else and then that's itself. Uh, these documents have not been been
Certified as authentic yet. Have they alex?
Well, I don't think that they have I I don't think I think
So maybe maybe some new form of artificial intelligence generated these at someone's behest
And they're just confusing the hell out of everybody
That would be that would be a funny story
Or maybe the whole beef was artificial intelligence. Well, I just had a conversation with chat gpt about uh,
About sensitive documents and it wanted no part of it
Uh receiving them or generating them wanted no part so you'd be hard-pressed to find
Artificial intelligence that's more willing
Hmm. Yeah
All right. Well, you're having a lot of conversations lately with chat gpt. I feel like
There's an intimate relationship evolving here. I don't even need a keyboard anymore. I hear it all the time
So much. Okay
All right with that we're gonna we're gonna leave you until next week write to us oth at 2600 dot com
And we'll see you next wednesday at 7 p.m. On wbai 8 p.m on overtime