And welcome everybody on YouTube to off the hook over time here we are
In YouTube land, this is manual Kyle. Did you make it? I made it and Rob Gila
Hello. Okay, and hello broadcasting on YouTube, which is nice
Is that correct Rob, yes, okay nodding your head doesn't work on the radio
And I believe Alex had to leave us for for some family issues, which we completely understand and
We we're gonna try and make this a quick one because it's been so stressful the last
last few days a few weeks actually and today was not a picnic and we kind of have to
Get to work and try and fix things. Yeah, we have
we have done a lot for
all of you out there and
And
Really want to make an opportunity to hear from you. So I think
Hearing that feedback would be really cathartic because we shouldn't just be doing
If we're not doing the right things in that regard. Yeah. Yeah
Well, let's go out the phone number eight zero two, three, two, one four two, two five eight. Oh two three two one hack
I didn't mean for the the hope issue to take up just about all the show
but boy, there's a lot to say and a lot to share and
Yeah, we we we all have something to say
So and we also want to hear what what our listeners?
attendees what not readers have to say as well because it's a whole big community out there and
We're always working to keep that community
as as as
Together as possible
It's rebel, isn't it? Of course it's rebel. We know it's rebels. Let's just pick up the damn phone and we'll get it over with
Hey, what's up?
Yeah, I'm calling from California as promised. Yes. You're in California. Now. Did you rent the car?
Yes, I rented a Chevy Volta. I'm using my Bluetooth. I'm calling from my regular cell phone using the Bluetooth
Charging pad which you put your phone to place your smartphone on the pad and it's supposed to charge it
so
And many of us have seen that
Yeah
Now what I'm going to do is go on
See this one I rented a car when I was in Arizona last week
I went to the car and it was good and the charging pad was like right on the console
But in the middle but a little bit more efficient and better than this one here in this car
Can I ask why didn't you just take that rental car to California?
No, no, no, I well, I
Fluted from New York City to Arizona. I flew from Arizona to California. That's the part. I'm questioning
Why didn't you just take the rental car from Arizona and drive that to California?
instead of renting a second car
I'm taking an airplane. I
Mean, I like taking airplanes. So I have you heard what's happening airplanes lately. They're falling apart in the air
They're like, yeah
Moving the doors. Yeah, you don't want that that doesn't happen in a car usually
No
Get back on the freeway wait, why are we getting on the freeway with you right?
Well, can't you just stop and talk to us? Where are you going? I am stopping it
Well, the thing about Bluetooth is that that has the quality of this Bluetooth
What you literally said you're getting on the freeway. So that's not stopping and talking to us. Is it he's got his hands on
The wheel I mean does he it's how do you know that? It's Bluetooth. He just told us
It doesn't mean he has his hands on the wheel
All right. I think
Yeah, that was the thing he was looking for as to how to try I believe you're actually driving
Are you moving and right now is your vehicle moving?
No, I didn't want it to move
I was curious if you are going 60 miles an hour while you're looking for something and talking to us if he feels
I trust him. I don't care if he feels calm. I'm worried about the people in front of him
No, no, that was I was gonna speak to that. I was gonna say that like he
Seems like he's doing all the right things as far as
Seems that way
Seem to write you the way they're not I don't feel he's endangering anyone
We were gonna get to that but okay, that's that's good good for you being green, where are you going?
Well, my friend
That sounds lovely
Anything relevant this week rebel. Well, I'm sorry to hear what happened to hope. I mean, I hope that the whole conference, you know
Yes, well, let's hope it's a hiccup or a speed bump or whatever you want to call it and that we figure out how to
Get past it
But acknowledging is the first step I think
Right. Um, let's see
Yeah, you should have written it down I mean people been doing that for ages write things down that way you don't say that while
He's driving. He's just
He's driving obviously. Yes. I was I went to the Phoenix 2600 meeting like last week
Well, tell us all about it. I it was very interesting. It was like it was very formal
They had a PowerPoint presentation. They were talking about
Software defined radios some meetings do that some meetings have presentations
In fact, I heard from Rob T. Firefly that New York City had a presentation. Is that right?
Yes, indeed. One of our attendees was
Conducting a workshop on channel insist on talking the same time. You are a rebel. Why don't you listen to Rob for a second?
Say what you're trying to say
Hi rebel. Um, yeah, one of our attendees very graciously led
Demonstration on making chain mail and brought some supplies for folks to use and I I was I was looking it over and it looked
Very cool. I still question why that's being done at a hacker meeting, but whatever, you know, it's teach their own
Knife crimes. All right back to you rebel
Okay. So yeah, so it was very interesting. I could define radio. It's it was kind of
Complicated could I mean they only had like an hour to talk
So it wasn't like a 2600 meeting that you just five o'clock you just gather around and then
You know that eight o'clock or seven o'clock thing, you know, you leave when they when the with the place
This is an actual room in a community center
So they you know, they actually, you know have people that you know talked and that I could define radio
Which what is that? Is that like they said it but you attended the lecture. You should tell us what it is
Yeah
but it's something they had a device hooked up their blood to their laptop with an antenna and
They were able to tune in to different frequencies as if the computer and the device was a scanner of frequency scanner
Yeah, this is a really I guess
well
followed well
I don't know I want to say like
Grown-up thing now it started off with people modifying and building custom equipment and
we had several of the
Hope installations where we had ham radio
licensing tests and
People bringing gear we began to see some of this stuff going from just older style radios
That we're doing one
Frequency at a time to something that can bring in all of it and allow you to
Navigate it and see visualizations and use computer
Software in ways that some of the older hardware based
Receivers and transmitters worked. I'm not at all expert in the field, but it has blown up
You showed me something Kyle. It's called web SDR, which is people putting these online. It's amazing
It's like a radio dial and you can tune it live and listen to different frequencies as if you had a radio in that place
And not only that multiple people can do the same thing. It's like science fiction, but it works
Yeah, there's a one in Holland that I really like. It's the University of twint. I
believe and they
Wmte I think electrical engineering department has they built one a long time ago, and then they repaired it and
Put a better one in there that it's basically the size of like a Raspberry Pi or similar
Hold on a sec you were talking on a CB radio while you're talking to us
We're talking to you
We were talking to you for God's sake and and and you respond to that by talking to somebody else on a different radio Wow
I mean, I thought I knew what Gaul was but this this is the pinnacle is this case in point?
I mean, this is the society we're living in now. This is it. This is it right here
This is everything that you want to hear what's gone wrong communications. It's right in front of you
Yeah, you know what? Yeah, ask Bard what SDR is. I'm sure Bart will tell you
Different frequencies and frequency bands like a radio, but you do it with a computer now
Yeah, that's the short answer sure, but who cares anyway, right
Right
Okay, so I remember you're the one who told me that they put die in front of the freeway numbers in
California, you know, I'm on the 15 now
Right, we're doing it in Canada, too
Yeah in Canada, too
I
Nobody's on the radio
No, they're all just being quiet because they hear you're in range. So
It's called self-preservation
There's nobody even on the weather channel
What you know
It's
Very complicated, you know
You know AM radio CB is an AM radio band. That's also FM
But it's very the frequency that CB is on
it's very finicky at that special antennas and they have to be grounded properly and and
Tuned a certain way and mounted a certain way, you know
Yes
Like ham radio, I guess ham radio is the same way
Ham radio is very complicated. I wouldn't probably wouldn't pass the ham radio license
Okay
Rebel I think I think we've all had our fill so
careful driving and
Give my regards to whoever you talk to on the CB radio and we will talk to you again in the future
She had the quality that
Blowing into the microphone. Yeah
Yeah, the quality I'm blown away by the quality
While you're driving to cut this an electric car so there's no like motor noise
No, that's true. It's very quiet. I'll give you that. No, no engine noise from rebel at all
But do enjoy yourself out there in California, we're gonna open up the phone lines for somebody else and that is of course our
Our regular call a rebel from the roads of California right now probably read about that in the paper somewhere
802-321-4225 is our telephone number. Rob dealer any any comments from you have been rather quiet
Well, just wanted to say hello to the 42 people who are currently joined with us on the live stream
We did have
Our friend Lex tell us he says, you know careful rebel. That's how you get banned
So I'm just putting that out there
Although I did say to Rob when rebel called that the fact that he wasn't
Commenting in the YouTube chat while driving was definitely
You know a positive choice on his part. So I don't know if that was a choice. I think that was a limitation
I think you just couldn't do that on top of everything else while driving
Well, I'm just saying so
And
Yes, so
Yes, it is indeed 42 is the answer to life the universe and everything and now why are you saying that now?
Because we had 42 people in the chat. Oh, that's one commented. Okay, our friend
Commented you didn't you didn't say that like the universe and everything. Well, I was about to okay
And then all of a sudden we had gone down to 40, but now we're back to 42. It's just you know, I'm
It's when people suddenly respond to somebody who is online as opposed to the person
They're talking to on the radio gets a little confusing
And I think that's sort of part of what we're talking about people all different communication channels
Yes, everything's and now I'm just watching the number now. We're at 44. See how distracted you are just by a number
We have a call. Oh, we have a call. You see the caller has been waiting patiently
They've been patient. They have to be patient. I don't know. All right, we'll find out. Good evening. You're on off the cover time. Go ahead
Hey, man, you'll it's Del shy. Hey, that's right. How you doing? Hey your article got printed in this latest issue
Yes, we had a minor celebration over here. Oh, wow
Well, congratulations, it was it was really good about the the bone box I believe yes the bone box
And I haven't heard a lot a couple people have actually hit me up asking me how to build one and
I'm trying to get my hands on another craft access terminal so I can do a better, you know, step-by-step picture video
This is how you do it
Well, um, we have one and it's kind of just sitting around. So if you want one
You can have it
That'd be great. But you just gave away our craft access terminal. I don't want it. Do you want it?
Well, it's a it's it's like a trophy. It's something you hold on to
Especially if you have like a
Boy museum like I have well, I mean if you're if you're building it for someone and and they're gonna buy it
then yeah, maybe it shouldn't be just but if you're gonna use it as an instruction piece or some you needed another one to
to share
The the project but I don't know I'm just saying we have one it's not doing anything
nobody seems to the only time anyone ever does anything with it is when when we're
When we're like showing off old phones and stuff someone who may have worked in the industry
They'll like pick it up and say hey, I know what this is. It's not like it can do anything right now. Can it I mean
No, it's a it's um, it's a
Curiosity work with have been long-sense decommissioned exactly exactly. Yeah, that's why I mean
It doesn't operate on its own as as a as a butt set like you you would think it would but it doesn't because of
The way it's rigged up. Yeah
We have butt sets, too
You know
Plenty of those. I actually made one. I don't know if you've seen it
Yeah, I made a hello kitty butt set
Well, someone had to
Well, it was a gift and you know, it's one of those things and somebody
You know is a big hello kitty fan and they have everything hello kitty and you're like, oh, no, you don't watch this
hold my beer and
Now they have a hello kitty alignment set
Wow meow
Anything else
That
Is fantastic and I know we're an audio medium
But that doesn't mean you can't send us a picture of the hello kitty butt set at OTH at 2600 calm
Oh, yeah, it was on Gizmodo and a bunch of other places. You just google it. You'll see it
fantastic
Keep up the great work to sound like awesome
Found object I guess
Modifications
Lately I built I just did an article for and for the adafruit site about building a patch bay out of
old
Keystone parts. Oh
Yeah, okay. So like the kind of thing that would be for like a network or telecommunications rack
Well, it's kind of that but I expanded on it because people were complaining about having to always
Pull out the TV and pull out the racks in order to plug things in
And like we have read a retro gaming console or something. Now, you just have this panel that you could plug into
Literally in the front of the rack that just says, you know, okay take this signal put it into here
That's HDMI one on this TV and you're done. You don't have to rewire anything
You don't have to pull anything apart and you can switch things around. It's a very like
Analog poor man solution does a lot of newer equipment has
Switches built into it, but when you're dealing with older equipment, you know
That doesn't have that built-in or isn't made for it. You can still get RCA
Keystone plugs
So it's like being able to add things to your stereo or to
You know somebody comes over with a console or you're having a LAN party or something
You can plug into this rack instead of having to go digging around throwing wires everywhere
Wow, that's great keeps it organized keeps it simple you can get right to what you're doing instead of figuring out how you're gonna
Make it all work and and and even get to that point
also, it's great if you have an audio mixer because you don't have to keep pulling the audio mixer out and
Undoing the rack screws and pulling everything out to to plug new things in
Very cool. Hey, I don't try what wins when's the next article you're gonna write for us
well
You know, I could get I'm trying to come up with something. It's you know good enough
But I mean, I've got something I'm writing on home automation right now. Okay
I'm doing this project here at home
Cloudless home automation, no Google. No Siri. No nothing just cutting them all out of the loop
Oh, I'm interested in that
But still having fully functional home automation. I
Think a lot of people will be interested in that for sure
It's all based around a project called home assistant
Which is the only system I found that supports doing this without the cloud now, they have options
To be in the cloud, but you have to specifically purposefully turn them on
But right now I've got a series of Raspberry Pis with like 7-inch touchscreens all over my apartment
And I got an L cars
Interface for it, which looks so badass. It's so beautiful and
I can do things like control lights control audio
I've got this thing called ambient audio an ambient audio system
Where I have a separate set of speakers and a separate amp that just plays like low-key background sound
so like a thunderstorm or a
You know wind storm or water flowing over a bridge and then I got the brilliant idea
I went out and I got a sample of the engineering sound from the original Star Trek
Like when you go out into the engineering department, you know
Well, well, well, well, well, so now my entire apartment sounds like you're in the engineering deck of the Enterprise
Wow, yeah, that's what we all know that sound
and I've also got it rigged up where you can like hit a button and play samples to a specific place and
I'd use I use another Raspberry Pi for that to act as an audio server
So like if I can see my cat doing something she's not supposed to be doing I can hit a button and over on my
Bed the speaker will play. Hey, stop that now has the cat learned how to press the button and talk to you
Not yet
Though that that does exist
But those are buttons that you put on the floor and it takes a lot of training to get them to use it correctly
That's easier with dogs
I've seen it. I've seen it done with dogs
So yeah, that might be the next thing I write for you
That sounds great. And and and please go into detail because this is the kind of thing that deserves to be really
Spelled out in great detail. I think yeah, I remember earlier in
The dawn of PCs and home computers. This was something people were really interested in
making the
early operating systems work with things around the home and
This is still of interest to everybody everybody has a space and integrating these things themselves to suit their need is
A skill it takes design and stuff like that and it's still desirable and there's so much to update it with
So there's a lot there that you could get into
Here's something you might find interesting. Do you know when one of the very first?
articles written about home automation was written
It was in a magazine in a magazine I'm gonna say sometime in the 1930s
Mmm that I haven't seen I'm talking about fully working home automation. Okay
1940s
I'm sorry. I'm betting on early rather than
1979 okay would have gotten there eventually
Popular science did an article about a guy who had built a home automation system. He called Breslin
And all of the fun he had had with that because it didn't we worked right
But then it would freak out on him one time. He was like painting the house and the garage door would open and
But it was all very basic stuff. It almost predated x10
And the x10 was the the original
Presenter of home automation, even though it wasn't really automation, but it was a centralized
place where you could push buttons and make things happen and
It wasn't completely it wasn't wireless at first of all until later on later on
They made a wireless remote that looked like an old walkie-talkie that had like the four foot long extendable antenna on it
But it worked over the electrical wiring in your house
And you had a command center and it would piggyback a signal on to the regular wall voltage and
It would go through and it would the receiver would receive it and your light would come on or your blender would turn on
So plain and cumbersome
At the same
Because you couldn't always be assured that there was a circuit path
From where you were to your source to your destination device
Like somebody turns off a switch somewhere and it closes it
an interference alone
The one because it was it was on the internal house where he didn't have much interference
Okay
The wireless stuff. Yeah, I had interference. I had interference like mad
But this I mean, this is way before anybody had even thought of IOT
Yeah, and I don't he comes with its own nightmares
so many things if you're ever curious about
IOT devices and
And people who are using them just use showdown
Mm-hmm. Yes, so many IOT devices people don't realize what they get
They're like
Oh
I have this nifty device and I can turn my lights on and do this and do that and it punches a hole in
the inherent firewall in your home system and
Allows people from the outside to control your house
Especially if you don't change the default passwords
Same thing goes with a lot of these white box security camera systems
you can go in there and put in a port number and see cameras all over the world and
People just have never changed the default passwords or they didn't know
That you could that when you set the thing up it punches a hole in your firewall
You know
Nobody's written a really good article on shut-in
For the magazine either, you know, they've mentioned it I've alluded to it
but I'd like to see a
Comprehensive guide or just something with with specific examples because boy there is there's a whole world in there
There is I mean easily very easily get lost in it. Mm-hmm
back in the early days of
External hard drives USB external hard drives. They had the same problem
Where you know, they said yeah, you can share pictures with grandma in, you know, Ohio
Just plug this thing in and again, it would either use you PNP you or would use some other
form of bypassing that
to
Hey, here you go. Here's your IP address go to this port and you're in and
I there you can people were having their music collections rated and all their photos rated
There's the good the bad and the ugly some people went out there and they just saw it and
Use it as a proof of concept to teach people, you know
Hey, be careful of this and the bad with people who would go out there and you know
Oh, it's nice music collection for now
It's mine and the ugly when people go out there and go watch me delete everything this guy has and you know
You go out there. Oh look here your tax records for the last 10 years. Boom gone
Yeah, but right access doesn't make any sense sharing sounds like a good thing and I don't really see a problem with that
once again, if you don't know what to do again and
You just leave the defaults there right a lot of times the defaults will let you have read write access. That's true
That's very true, or you'll have an admin account with no password
Yeah, this is why I think basic basic home networking needs
Like instructions around the need to separate and segment different parts of your network use different
domain and
Overall like IP structure so that things are not
Necessarily on the same subnets and they're not connected in the ways that they are when everything's default as you're saying and that is
Also an area that people don't talk about enough like what's your hacker network?
Like how do you how do you set up your your enterprise?
You realize that we live in a world where you know people shoot 12 packs of beer because they're politically angry
These aren't rocket scientists. They wouldn't know an IP subnet. That's not news to me
Yeah
You know, it's like the thing. Yeah, I mean you're not wrong
You're completely 110% right but expecting the average person to be able to do that kind of no
Yeah, and not not only that though. I mean I would say even at hacker conferences and stuff like that. There's this
this tendency to guard and people want to guard what they know because it gives them status and and won't share and other and
People end up not knowing how to do basic stuff. That's true in the world
It's like a lot of
That's been a problem since the days when I owned a TRSA exactly
So here we are like only thing you can do about that is directly fight it yourself, right?
And then I should not be that gatekeeper not be that person
That's the only thing you can do and it's still gonna be out there
Yeah
And beating a dead horse about other people and how bad their networks are set up or how they're not gonna listen. I mean
We've been doing that for a very very long time
They don't have to do they're not even aware
They're not even aware of what they're doing half the time
This is not a matter until until it's beating the dead horse of people are computer illiterate
This is like there are literally people out there who will go out and buy a gizmo that they see on TV
Without even thinking without even putting any thought whatsoever into what it does to their network
And you say I don't need a home network. I just plug into that box
The cable company gave me and it's all done, right?
Okay, and that's why there's something out there. You might want to check out called NB TV
What's that?
Naomi Brockwell is
a privacy advocate
Who does this?
amazing set of videos on how to protect your privacy how to
configure things how to
Google your phone and
They're done with a really light-hearted
But intelligent manners so that people can follow it
Okay, sounds good. And it's made for the average user who is you may you know
may have just stumbled upon the word cyber by accident and
there's an entire channel on YouTube, but there's also she does talks and
Lectures and how-tos and they're all very down-to-earth and some of them are kind of funny
but they're all relatable and
It's a great outreach to people who need to be reached out to and you know, you need to be told, you know
Hey, listen
Before you do that. I had a
knockdown drag out
Verbal with a friend of mine who didn't you thought I was being a paranoid schizophrenic
Because I didn't want to use cell
It's a money money exchanging system similar to PayPal and I said look I don't want my phone sucks dry for data
I don't want my my my phone book in my phone
Three sold for profit and he's like no that doesn't happen. That doesn't happen
You're just nuts and I sat him down and I took him to the web page
And I showed him their privacy policy and I showed them the chart that said exactly what they do
That said exactly what they do, you know, we will sell this data to third-party channel partners and
They install anti-malware software on your phone
They do all kinds of things to all the data you give them and it's all wrapped up there
Oh for your security or your privacy, but then you see oh, yeah
Well, we have channel partners who we sell this information to. Yeah, and
You know, that's the sort of thing people will actually actively fight
Against you and tell you you're just being a paranoid until you put the proof down in front of them
we're so used to that was so incredibly used to that because it's like this this added this this gap gap in knowledge and
It is a critical that people are approach you
Presented in an approachable way so they understand that this is actually a very like fundamental part of the way
Consumer electronics and the internet has evolved and that
They're inviting a lot more and without realizing it. They're they're they're actually much more vulnerable
So it's great to share that and that's exactly our mission here on the radio
And in a lot of the things that we try to spread is like how can we simplify this?
we need more articles about stuff like that like show Dan and as you said and and
Some of the other stuff just so people have an idea of how powerful some of these things are when they're not used as intended
Yeah, I mean we bought a gizmo and you know
I plug the gizmo in and I'm not sure if that gizmo is is
Treating our network. I actually I haven't checked on the gizmo. I don't know where the gizmo is. I got a gala. Go ahead
We have gotten a request
Right, that's right. Go ahead. It's all right. We have gotten a request from a listener
Saying they would love to see this IOT stuff. It was like a talk or a workshop at hope XB. So if you're considering
Submitting Wow, that's a new come from that came from somebody else
from a listener in the chat
Likely, I'll be able to make hope but I will I'll try I don't I can't get around much anymore
I have a really gnarly spine injury. That's left me unable to walk
And I can't travel that well. I'm on the other coast now. Well, don't I know I will definitely look into that
Yeah, because one thing that came out of the pandemic was the virtual part of hope and we we still have that
We still have some virtual talks and we might even have a virtual track
So we'll figure out how to do that, but we definitely want to include you. Oh
Yeah, definitely, you know, my very first talk at a large con was it I hope many many many years ago
I was just gonna bring up Wow the spider box. Okay spider box. Yes, and that's online
That's on this very channel channel 2600 if you go to which I thought that was about grabbing
card information
And I had built a hidden card reader that I put in a flower pot and read people's badges as they walked past it
Going into a building in New York. Wow, was that going all the way back to like h2k2 or something?
Yeah, it was he was h2k2. So that's 2002. I
Think it what he was 2002
Yeah, because I think it was the same year that did you have jello as a keynote speaker that year?
Yeah, well jello is a keynote for a few years, but I think I think that was one of them
there was one year when he was a keynote speaker and
Somebody was supposed to go pick him up at the airport or whatever and they flaked and
You asked me to take care of it and I went out there
No, I asked you to take care of the person who flaked. That's what I asked you to do. Take care of them
Well, there you go. Yeah, I got a New York City rental limo and I went out to pick him up and it totally blew his
mind
Because I showed up at the airport with a cardboard sign made out of a pizza box
That said jello Emanuel sent me to get you and all I got was this lousy t-shirt
And he thought that was funny and then he didn't he didn't even take me seriously when we got outside
And there's a big limo sitting there and I'm like, come on. He's like, yeah. Yeah. Good. Joke. Good. Joke
Yeah, Jell-O
the offer learned a lot about the hacker community through hope and
I'm proud of that and he really he really became he became a fan of the hope conferences. That's why he kept coming back
I
was it was great to meet him too and like, you know just have the chance to talk with him because
There's so much that he knows about and things that he's experienced
that are parallel in the music world that have parallels in the hacker world and you know bringing them together and then
The the ability to see what's happened in the past and how it's reoccurring to the hacker community
Really a powerful thing the cyclical nature of things totally. Yep
When you were talking about Google suppressing your emails, right
And you know, you didn't know if it was people were getting bored
People were getting tired or if something bad was happening. It reminds me of this photo
I have hanging here next to my stereo at home of Abby Hoffman at WBA
Doing his radio show Wow
And the first thing that came to my mind was yeah, but that's a sign where you don't that that says don't give up
You know, you don't you don't even if people aren't as interested in anymore
You don't have to have the world's biggest con. No, you can have ten people sitting under a tree
Well, I don't know about that. But yeah, we don't have the biggest convention. Absolutely
But we do have to cover our costs and you know
Do something that people will want to come back to Gila you had something to say
Yes, I just wanted to let you know that we have a commenter in the chat who wanted to make sure you know
They said they remember your talk at one of the hope conferences that they made it to and you were great
So just wanted to pass that along to you
Hope conference can last forever
Somebody in this chat saw your talk 20 years ago 22 years ago
Yes
Thing is what what's happening?
Now is this maybe either growing pains or societal pains?
But the thing is the base service that 2600 provides to the known
World is always going to be necessary
Popular will it always be famous who knows but it's always going to be necessary
Yeah, because as any technology evolves
There are going to be people on the cutting edge of it. They're gonna be people kind of in the middle of the road
they're gonna get the people who are left behind and
Everybody needs a place to go
in a rational and you know, reasonably friendly manner
To say hey, what the hell is this computer?
To say hey, what the hell is this computer thing? Yeah, and I think I'm sticking in the wall and we just don't have that
Outside of what you've been doing. Yeah, and and especially in
Unusual ways and ways the things weren't intended
There are a lot more and I think this is something we can be happy about there are more off-ramps in
the actual
Curriculums and science the emphasis that we've seen on
Building things and
Using
Applied knowledge in academia in in early education. That's stuff that we think is is
Vastly more supported. There's more kits. There's more
stuff with with advanced
circuits like microcontrollers a lot of those things are finding their ways into science and
Other educational and academic environments
so the sense of knowledge being as loose being
Elusive in some ways has changed and there and what I was getting at is there are more off-ramps
Early on before people for people to pursue very specific things and that is fantastic
That's great. We want to be a part of that and and
Support it and in as many ways as we have going forward
On the other side, I don't know when people are being de-educated, but the the the
good part about I think just appreciating that is that
There has been wider acceptance when you say hacking I think people know
More about what's going on than they did when hope just started
I guess account for that a little bit or adjust for that a little bit in in how we're feeling about things and
Just be on the lookout for new opportunities for us to be effective in advancing that spirit
Yeah, because someone has to do it because it's not being done
I think that's a big part of it. I think that's a big part of what we're trying to do
I think that's a big part of what we're trying to do
Yeah, because someone has to do it because it's not being done
When I was first getting started, okay
Back in the day when I got my hands on my first computer
Okay, if you even said the word computer inside of the school, they would roll their eyes and say oh, yeah
The billion-dollar thing they have in the hole and watching DC or the kids next to you would be like shut up
We're gonna play Star Wars and knock you down
or
You know
They would point and laugh or you know
You got that one kid in school and when the teacher blew up the computer they went and grabbed that kid out of whatever class
You know those days are gone
they have kids now who are like five six seven years old who are building things with microcontrollers and
You know the stuff they have available to them now
I mean anybody remember having to save money for weeks to get a box of ten floppy disks. So they were like 50 bucks. I
Don't remember floppy disk costs, but yeah, they were expensive
I know that and you you bought them out of the me in the back of a magazine
You remember when computer shopper used to be the size of the phone book. That was something. Yes, so it's huge
And you would spend hours going through it trying to find the right prices now you can go down to Walmart
And get more RAM that fits in a micro SD card inside of your phone
Then most of us had before we were 30 except you don't have to go there
You just do it online and shows up in your house
Yeah, that that too
There there's good and bad in there. There's good and bad in all of this
You know what? I'd like to see though is I'd like to see this information and this unity go back to where
It was in the mid 80s
Where it was let's bring people together
Instead of where it is now where it is. Let's bring people together and make them hate each other
Yeah, yeah
We need to go back and I don't know if you remember this. Do you remember a poster I made called?
This is not the future. I signed up for I know the phrase. I don't remember the poster. I
Know I made a poster. It was a rant that I wrote many many many many years ago. I was back in 2000
because I saw some of the things that were happening and
It's like this is not what it was supposed to be
You know
I remember the days of jumping on IRC and talking to my friend in Finland or a guy in Ireland or asking somebody
In Costa Rica, you know, hey, what's this, you know?
DOS 2.0 thing, you know and now
Even though it's faster and easier
we're doing things like saying well, you know, you're an idiot because you eat this cereal and you don't drink this soda and I
Hate you because you didn't tip me and here's a fake video and it's like people stop
You know, this is meant to be a tool for unity not separation and isolation
Well tools always get misused at one point or another
I think you know, we have to think back about the days you're talking about but also just that way of thinking I think it
It was fresh then because the technology was fresh. So we were thinking hey, this is an opportunity to do something different
We'll have that same opportunity again in a different way. We just need to recognize it when it comes back and
and not go down the same path yet again of ignorance and
Suspicion and hatred that we seem to always fall
We're almost at the point now where I suggest going backwards into the future
Okay, and using the existing internet to bring back BBS's
Well, a lot of people want to bring back BBS's
I'll tell you that they were so magical
But if you're gonna bring back BBS's you have to you have to limit the speed to 1200 and only one caller per line
Well, we might want to do better than that, but
The thing is forward into the past which is actually funny. It's a slogan of the SCA
but it makes good sense because
Everything that's out there right now is just meant to suction your dick suck up all your data
Get all your info take your money
Brainwash you into thinking coke is better than Pepsi
you know, whatever and instead of you know, hey
I don't know how to put a resistor with this capacitor or you know
Hey, how much baking soda do I put into a piece of crust, you know?
I mean that stuff is still out there, but there's so much militant stuff
It's been misused to the point where we need to start over again
And we need to go high, you know, my handle is X. No. Hi. My handle is wine
Okay, let's trade some stuff or you know
I just wrote this really cool Python program and you know, just get back to the roots
so that we can stop hating each other and you know, maybe
Come together and you know, make them make things better than worse
I really I've been thinking and just as you're talking about scale and I think that a lot so much has been about
Let's build and grow and make this network bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and these companies
Rose and rode that wave they were right there to
Get in on the rush and get bigger and bigger and bigger and more dominant and now they're just continuing to do like M&A and
consolidation and and seeing their extent become whatever as big and as
Indelible as possible and
the
The funny part is a lot of the computing and a lot of the storage is getting and even now
algorithmic stuff or I guess
Machine learning these things can exist
Outside of a cloud so I'm thinking of doing more of the things that are more decentralized
That's had been have been kind of loaded in the past, but it's it's worked always in the past. It's been disruptive
it's shut down industries and
Maybe that I'm hoping the same thing and I see it in things like the the federated social media, you know running
Machines and on a smaller scale more locally. There's also
Fog computing instead of cloud computing this is industry jargon on the enterprise level
But you can look at that and say like well if industry's able to do less with these
Decentralized models and they're that big and they're saying that well
maybe like the answer is just like improving the mesh network in our backyard and like
Automating our house a little better helping your neighbor do automate theirs
so they have more ability and whatever it is like
There is an answer to this and it certainly isn't just like
Being finding disillusion in it. We should share even if it's hard and and get past all of it
It's gonna be hard because we've got a lot of things to undo
There there are a lot of things that need to be undone and fixed
There's been a lot of gatekeeping
there's been a lot of
You know, are you this or are you that or are you a member of this or are you doing that?
Do you know this person? Do you know that person and you know, these people didn't even know themselves
Yeah
we we could easily get into to like we really try to avoid that because that itself feeds more
personal drama and stuff like and like it's just that it can become a
self-fulfilling like fountain of drama as I believe Johannes has referred to American society before and
It's true what you're noticing but dwelling on it. We we don't want to
It's not more of it
It's not about dwelling on it. It's learning from it and not replicating it
Well, I agree with you like but that's what I mean when I say like trade show. I think there's like definitely circuits
there is a circuit of of
speaking and engaging in some of this stuff and and people that just live for
Moving from one thing to the next whether it's a campaign or something that is tearing things down and we want to be with
Those building it up
Yeah, and a lot of times that means building something new
Yeah, I can it can also mean making something old better and remember that great quote, you know
How do you feel about Western civilization? Well, you know, it'd be a great idea
Yeah, let's try something new hey Delta, it's been great talking to you again
We're gonna open up the phone lines to somebody else
But you got it, please keep on writing and let us know what you're up to sounds fascinating
Yes, I will do keep publishing. All right, be well
in you as well a
good friend don't try and
Catch his article in the current 2600 the winter issue. By the way, the winter issue is now out
We've caught up finally since kovat issues have been
Delayed by as much as three months and we've been gradually making up that time and with the winter issue
It's finally at the stage where we can print the season on the cover again
Because if you if you print the season and your your magazine is on a store shelf and that season is no longer there
Then they take it off the store shelf. So you can't have the winter issue out in the spring
Even if it's a couple of weeks, they they they tend to throw them out and that's not good for us
So we had to wait we shaved about a week or so off every issue since I believe summer 2020
But we finally made it we finally made it
Yeah, and that has led to a compressed schedule and it was really a tall order for
Everyone behind the scenes. So we're really thankful for all the efforts to
Meet that challenge and
adjust I mean this was
Basically dealing with the realities of retail and that's something we don't we don't really get to talk about we don't it's not a part
of what we share about but operationally like
those things they are
they're a big deal and we have we we work very hard to to stay on top of it and make sure that
We aren't falling into pitfalls and getting getting tangled up
And we we publish from like the best position we can as a publisher
Yeah, you say the realities of retail in those realities never are good realities and and you know
2600 does quite well actually in the retail market
We have a great reputation
With distributors our online store is one of the highest rated ones
With all that it still is a constant challenge just to stay alive
I can imagine what it's like for people that or organizations that are
Much more in a shoestring
so yeah, it's
It's not something to take lightly. It's not for the faint of heart for sure, but
We're determined to keep keep plugging away and keep trying and we have one more phone call
Let's take that now. Why don't we take that now? Are they on? Okay, and good evening. You're on a look over time. Go ahead
Hi, yes, we try to make this brief as again side pocket. I'm calling from the lovely hackerspace known as hack Manhattan
Here's my apostolate because I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine that is kind of absurd
But it also might have some like real ramifications. So I thought you'd maybe play along with be here that conversation
basically broke down to
all the power play moves that Apple has been doing recently with such as
blocking certain storefronts out and
Battling for their lightning cables and such and what they proposed because they were a giant business Apple fan that
Somehow in the near future wouldn't be out of the realm of past possibility to them that Apple would and I quote
Created its own internet meaning it has its own direct protocols and everything and everything would route to Apple rather than the general internet
at large so my postulate is
How dumb is this idea if it is and if they actually did this
What would be all the ramifications you could think of that would come from this?
Well, that's a fascinating idea and you know to answer it
I would say just look at people who buy into Apple in general
Look how you know, if someone has an iPhone ask them how many times they bought an iPhone usually it's about it's about at least five
they
Constantly and it's not you know to put them down
It's just it's a fact that you'll find it in any large company with a following
They will keep buying the latest revision and upgrading when when told it's time to upgrade so I could see
This working for them. It's not a it's not a good development. I don't think because it certainly doesn't
Go towards any kind of connection of people goes towards
Basically isolating Apple users from everybody else
But I can see I can see Apple users may be embracing that if it means
What they consider to be a better experience
I think they need a bunch of gateways to get outside of their own sphere if that's even desirable
I don't I don't know you should ask
Someone you love that has an Apple product if they would enjoy having access outside their Apple sphere
Because there's some of my quick arguments and their counter arguments was that I feel that you know
They were trying to use the example of like the Xbox Live Store of an ecosystem
But the thing is is that most of our modern ecosystems still run through all the basic components of the internet
So to me, it would be kind of redundant that yeah, my reaction already have a chunk here
Yeah, my reactions sounds a little bit like what BlackBerry was doing with their own data like running
A different set of
Service services on top of for their encrypted and other
Push email services and stuff, but this idea sounds totally different. I wouldn't be surprised
I don't know if it is good or bad. I mean I it probably is bad for for
the ret everyone else because as far as protocols and standardization and interoperability because
They're pulling a huge amount of users off of
Networks that would ordinarily interact with that traffic and and
be able to manage it and
so to that end, I think it would just
It would be similar to the kind of you would have
Issues similar to the things we talk about when we're talking about like gmail users not being reachable and so forth
Yeah, well the big the big thing I can compare this to is the old days of like prodigy and compu serve and america online
and
genie and things like that where you had this
walled garden siloed service and
You know those sort of things kind of fell by the wayside because people realized as as the internet boom of the 90s happened
Hey, wouldn't it be great if we could just all talk to each other?
And even the advertisers who were putting up the money for the whole thing were like, oh, yeah, we're gonna do this
And even the advertisers who were putting up the money for the whole thing were like wouldn't it be great if we could show our
Crap to everybody instead of just this little exclusive club of paying customers on this one thing
and if apple wants to reinvent america online, I I think
I think that's going to be a long road for them
I would like to quickly add that one problem. I could see because this could go on forever and I don't mean it to
But is that uh, one of the arguments you should drive me crazy back in the day
Uh was people claiming that uh macintosh computers had no viruses compared to windows or even linux
And my argument was simply because macs weren't popular and that apple came up with a product that was popular
They would be hammered if not even more than their competitors
And then they made the iphone and we've seen how much apple continues to struggle with that
I can imagine that like other examples in the past if apple decided to create
Their own internet and brag about how secure and private it is
Uh every person out there
Uh, who is a maniac like myself would go challenge accepted and there'd be very interesting results
uh, my second uh thing about that real quick is also
uh, what would we imagine because
Like the united states likes a lot of deregulations, unfortunately
But places like potentially the eu and other places like I don't know of any i'm really bad with laws
I don't any know any existing laws, but I can imagine that a lot of
Countries and organizations would be basically giving birth to a cow
Freaking out about this and being angry with possible even
I don't even know if there's any legal retaliation, but I imagine that would attempt to happen. So that's another thing I could see happening
Yeah sounds sounds plausible. I wish alex were here to address that point, but uh
But uh something to think about and um, thanks for sharing it
Yep. Thank you. Happy new year hack the planet. Yes all that stuff. Thank you. Thanks for listening
And that's gonna do it for us
Full hour has gone by and we're tired and cranky
um
If you want to write to us, uh, please do so oth at 2600.com. We'd love to hear from you
And um, if you um do plan on going to hope please register it would definitely help us
Uh plan for the the conference ahead the hope.net. You'll see all the links there
And uh spread the word too because apparently we can't do it efficiently. It's we haven't figured out exactly how to uh,
Get through all the um, um dead ends and speed bumps that have been put in our way and we booked such a huge tree
Yeah, yeah, thank you any final words
Um, just that i'm looking uh a small duck duck go search led to an article on mac world about
The complete list of mac viruses malware intrusions and it's pretty extensive actually
Okay
Uh
Whitelist as many hope and 2600 related email addresses as you possibly can if you're a gmail user
and
Talk to your friends
Talk to your enemies talk to people, you know
About signing up getting tickets going to hope
Submitting for talks and stuff
Talk to people. This is what i'm saying talk to people
I think it's time to bring back stealthily living leaving leaflets and stickers and things places to get info out there
Oh, we need a street team. I don't want to be annoying
Okay, i'm too late for that. But okay fine. I don't want to you know, be annoying in new ways. How about that?
um, yeah
Spreading the word is good. And uh, you know
If if if you're on our mailing list and you want to get off our mailing list
Let us know and we'll take you off the mailing list if the automated commands don't work
Uh, that's just in case we are annoying anybody, but I don't think we are
um, it's just it's annoying to me when I see
The hard work of volunteers
Be labeled in a certain way by a computer
That's not even human and and won't even answer questions as to why?
It's um, and i've just triggered the personal assistant in the other room whose name is computer
In fact, so this is a good time to sign off
um any final word kyle
well, um just certainly, uh
we we want to
Hear what people uh have to say, please write oth at 2600 dot com
and uh, yeah, it's it's
that
Entity that company no doubt has a few hackers that have helped build it and we would like at least
The credit enough to talk about hacker stuff and gather hackers
Uh as a thank you, so those companies in my view owe us dearly
And those of you by the way who uh might have tuned in not having any idea what hope is all about
uh
stay on this channel channel 2600 and look in the
sections for all the previous conferences every video recorded can be found on this channel and
If you click on a video of your choice, whether it's 1994
Or 2022 or all the years in between?
You'll get a taste of what hope was all about and if that's something that
You want to preserve consider coming to the next one hope.net. All right. We will see you again next week. Good night