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And you're listening to Radio Station WBAI in New York.
It's just about 7 o'clock, and that means it's time once again for Off the Hook.
My cell phone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
We couldn't get much worse, but if they could they would.
Bondedly bond for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
Bondedly bond!
And very good evening to everybody.
The program is Off the Hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you for the next hour or so.
And we have a studio filled with people, as usual.
And, well, you know, this is quite an eventful day, I guess, in the history of New York in a couple of ways.
It's the day that we officially didn't get the Olympics.
Yay!
Well, you know, I sort of knew this was going to happen.
I think everybody in the city kind of knew this was going to happen.
It's ill-conceived from the start.
You know, we might have had a chance.
We might have had a chance to get in the Olympics if that whole West Side Stadium fiasco hadn't happened.
But it did.
So we have Mayor Bloomberg to thank for that.
I plan to send him a letter of thanks personally.
If he had done it sensibly and proposed the Queen's site from the start, you know, we very well could be singing a different tune tonight.
So thank you, Mayor Bloomberg, for doing your best to keep the Olympics out of New York.
If I might insert a personal story about the amazing party I went to last night.
Oh, yes, the party.
We both went there.
We were driving along and we remembered that there was supposed to be a big party at Rockefeller Center.
A block party.
They were talking about how everybody was just spontaneously going out onto the streets and celebrating in a typical New York style.
So, yes, we were driving last night.
We stopped.
We went to Rockefeller Plaza.
And there was a big screen set up, you know, where they were showing the proceedings going on.
And there were maybe 15, 20 people.
I'd say closer to 15.
Okay.
Watching the screen.
More people showed up as it started to rain because they wanted to hide under the overhang.
That's not really fair.
Those were passersby.
Those were people that just wanted to duck into an overhang.
And the old RCA building has that overhang.
So they ran in there.
There were definitely more volunteers there than people, I'd say.
But what I found amusing was –
Wait, wait, wait.
Volunteers aren't people?
Well, we ended up waiting there for a while, maybe 20 minutes, because it was raining so badly.
It started pouring.
I took that as a sign.
As soon as we went there, the heavens opened up.
And I think at the time, people were watching the presentation of Moscow, I believe.
And there were about maybe three people watching that on the big screen.
But if you listen to it, we listened to the radio on the way out.
What did we hear on the news radio?
The radio was amazing.
We were driving away.
We just left.
There had been all these people just hiding from the rain, maybe 20 people, 15, 20 people.
And we're driving.
And they started talking about this party on the radio, on CBS.
And they went to a report from Rockefeller Center.
And I guess they'd made the report hours before, or they were just flat out lying.
Because you hear all this noise, and this guy's talking about how there's throngs of people
waiting anxiously, and that they'll be here all night long.
Yeah, sure.
There was nobody there.
Okay, 15 people.
I'm sorry.
That still counts as nobody.
I was not exactly enthusiastic.
Okay, it wasn't raining when we got there.
It started raining as soon as we got there.
So there weren't people there even before it started to rain.
And you know, when you say block party, I assume there's going to be food.
I assume I'm going to be taken care of in some way.
There was nothing there.
Nothing at all.
And they wouldn't even let you use the bathroom.
Yeah.
How do you like that?
Olympics.
I don't think so.
Okay, and also today is a momentous day because the reporter for the New York Times
has been officially sent to prison for not revealing her sources.
Judith Miller is now in prison.
I just think that's a very sad day for journalists all over the place when something like that
can happen.
It's happened before.
It happened, I think, in the 70s also to the New York Times.
But it's just – it's unbelievable to me that reporters face this kind of thing
of not revealing your source, thereby you go to prison.
It's a bizarre story and no doubt one we won't be hearing the last of.
I think it's impressive that she chose going to prison over actually revealing the source.
Well, what's amazing to me is that she didn't even print the story.
All she did was research the story.
She just researched it.
She found out that she researched it and said,
well, you must tell us what you learned.
Any reporter knows you don't do that.
I think the prosecutor is saying nobody is entitled to confidentiality in this country.
Nobody can make that promise that – I guess no doctors, no lawyers, nobody.
Everything must be open and scrutinized by the authorities.
I would like to see this prosecutor's notes please.
Yeah.
If you're going to feel like that, okay, let's see Bush's notes.
Let's see all the stuff leading up to the war, which I believe –
I don't think Bush takes notes.
Well, they have written for him.
You hear he fell down today.
How sad.
This really is a momentous day.
Yeah, Bush fell down.
He was, again, riding the bicycle.
Wait, whoa.
He was attacking a Scottish policeman.
What do you mean he was attacking a Scottish policeman?
He ran into a Scottish policeman.
Well, he sent him to the hospital from what I heard.
Oh, that's good.
Okay, so his aim is getting better.
But every time he's on a bicycle, something bad happens.
Well, only to the policeman.
There's another irony.
What's that, Bernie?
There's another irony in this whole case with the reporters being jailed.
The Time Warner or the reporter for Time Magazine, the magazine decided –
the editor-in-chief decided, okay, we'll turn over all the information to the prosecutor.
And the prosecutor still refused to let the reporter off the hook and said,
you still have to testify for the grand jury or we're going to lock you in jail.
Fortunately for the reporter, the source said, okay, I'll lift my request that you keep my name confidential.
And then the reporter was able to do that.
But still, it just shows how unreasonable this prosecutor seems to be.
And, yeah, he wants everyone to submit, obviously.
But the bigger question is what about Robert Novak, the guy who originally leaked the information,
the CIA agent's name, who is the wife of a U.S. ambassador.
It's widely believed the name was leaked by a Bush administration official
in retaliation for an op-ed piece that ambassador wrote that was critical of Bush.
According to Novak, it was a high-ranking White House staffer.
And Karl Rove's name has come up a number of times.
So I'm no fan of keeping him out of danger by any means.
But the journalistic integrity trumps all that.
And that's something you really have to take very seriously.
So big steps taken today as far as that kind of thing.
And, of course, it affects us on a lower scale in the things we do here on the radio, here on the magazine.
We're always protecting sources one way or another.
We're always being threatened to reveal who told us this.
And you better believe it's going to have a trickle-down effect.
You mentioned something really interesting last week which we didn't get into.
And that is with, for instance, 2600, which publishes a lot of information.
It gets confidentially in a lot of ways online and magazine and on the radio, that sort of thing, even in movies.
You mentioned it doesn't really affect 2600 as much.
But it's interesting in why it doesn't affect 2600 as much as it might for stories being covered by, say,
the New York Times or Time magazine or something like that.
And it's interesting because a lot of stuff that 2600 reports, or we report on the radio here,
is independently verifiable as factual.
Whereas if it's something like this case where it's really basically someone being quoted as to whether they said it or not,
that's not something that's necessarily as verifiable as a technical piece of information
that you could actually go out and try yourself and say, yep, this works.
So it's an interesting type of reporting that we do that differs from most mainstream reporting in that area.
That's true, that's true.
And they want to get the people behind the revelation as much as the people who make the quotes.
Because, you know, they lose that sense of control when we tell them...
Who was that?
Who made that sound?
Computer.
Was that you, Bernie?
Not me.
Well, that sound offends me.
It just came out of nowhere.
Was that computer there?
Must have been.
It's the only one patched into the board.
Are you guys playing some kind of joke?
You have a little Windows computer somewhere?
Okay.
God, no.
Well, all right, let's hope that doesn't happen again.
Yes, they want to, you know, reveal...
Well, when we reveal things, they want us to pay the penalty, obviously.
They want the person who told us to pay the penalty.
Some insider information.
You know, what is today's action going to do to the person who says,
Yes, I have a secret and I want to tell this reporter.
I want to tell this magazine.
I want to tell this radio station.
Knowing that we can be in prison for refusing to tell who that person is.
It's very scary.
Scary for us, too.
Because it means a lot of us will be going to prison.
Okay, so speaking of those little technical things where we show people what works and what doesn't work.
Do we have any this week?
Any interesting revelations?
No?
I've got something minor, but it's a little interesting.
Something you found yourself?
Well, no.
Actually, a newspaper beat us to it.
But I thought it was kind of ironic.
You found a newspaper, though.
All right.
I find newspapers.
Or I buy them.
Or people give them to me.
It depends.
They want to be honest.
Well, I've been one of your skills.
So tell us what the story is.
Well, we're interested in radios.
And among other radios that we're interested in are the police radios.
Okay.
We were talking about that last week, in fact.
It turns out that, ironically, Law & Order, the television series, had to pay a fine to the FCC for screwing up police radios in New York City.
They were using the same frequency to communicate on location as the NYPD.
So, like movie filming companies, they use the two-way radios all the time.
And they use police frequencies?
Exactly.
How did they manage that?
No one knows.
This is not a highly technical article.
But apparently, they did this sporadically for some time.
Maybe they forgot to replace the radios in the mock police car.
They just bought police cars or rented them.
How can something like that happen?
I mean, I would think they would go after the company that rented it to them, not the TV show itself.
Apparently, it was the production company for the TV show.
Yes, Bernie?
Typically, these production companies, they rent or lease these radios.
And they don't even know what frequency they're on.
It's just like channel 1, channel 2, channel 3.
And then they just talk to each other.
They don't really care.
But there are specific frequencies that are allocated by the FCC for specific services.
One of them is for movie set type commercial talking back and forth.
And then there's a whole different band set aside for public service frequencies.
There are several bands that are set aside for public service frequencies like police.
So somebody really screwed up.
And I would imagine that if there's some liability involved, it's in the part of the people who rented the radios to the production company.
Absolutely.
Universal ended up paying $10,000 fine to the FCC.
Well, that's because they're stupid.
They don't know how to fight these things.
And they just have money pouring out of them anyway.
So it's probably cheaper for them to do it that way.
I think real quick we should just clarify what we were talking about last week about the scanners in the car.
Right.
We looked it up after the show.
And portably, it doesn't seem that there are any laws affecting that except if you're mobile in a car.
If you don't have an amateur radio license, you're not permitted to listen to police frequencies.
If you don't have – if you're in a car.
If you're in a car.
If you're mobile in a car.
You could be sitting in a parked car, I think.
Well, probably.
Yeah.
But if you're driving around listening to police frequencies and you don't have a ham license.
And I'm not even sure that that will always get you out of it with every cop.
Well, the cops probably have to know the law and most of them most likely don't.
Well, let's listen to what this listener had to say.
Joe from Fargo, North Dakota.
In last week's show, you discussed that scanning police bands while being mobile is illegal.
Actually, we debated it.
This is in fact illegal by nearly every state law if you are in a vehicle.
But – and it's a big but – if you are an amateur radio licensee and operator and
your ham radio is capable of reaching these frequencies, you are protected by the FCC.
You can listen to but not transmit on these frequencies.
I presented my FCC license on two occasions when I've been pulled over and asked about
the police chatter blaring from my radio.
They invariably ask dispatch about the license and have allowed the radio to pass.
A great site that you may already know about but for the sake of the listeners is
www.cityfreak.com.
That's spelled C-I-T-Y-F-R-E-Q dot com, where several city operating frequencies are
archived along with other business band frequencies as well.
Thanks, Joe, for that letter.
It really doesn't matter though.
Just for the sake of full disclosure here, it really depends on the local municipality.
In many cases, these are not state laws.
These are municipal laws like Philadelphia, City of Philadelphia, City of New York.
They have their own statutes on this.
All right.
Hold on a second.
That came over the board.
Is it over here?
I'm going to turn this down.
I'm sorry.
Go ahead, Bernie.
So you really need to find out if there's an exception for licensed amateur ham radio
operators in the municipal statute because you're not off the hook.
Yes, we are.
No pun intended.
So you really have to look at the language.
There are exemptions for amateur radio operators in some municipal statutes.
But in most, there are not.
So it really depends on the municipality you're in.
And in many cases, these are not state laws.
They're local laws.
So you really have to research this to find out what the deal is.
Okay.
By the way, we tracked down the mysterious Windows Sound.
We had another studio up and somebody was playing with a computer in the other studio.
So fortunately, he didn't go to any objectionable websites with sound.
Yes, Joe, you had something.
I'm sorry.
No, you didn't?
Okay.
Sorry.
We have this letter, though.
In kind with the recent story of people getting in trouble for doing the right thing by telling
those in charge of obvious technological security breaches, while I was attending college in
my hometown, we had access to a campus-wide computer network via school-provided computer
labs.
As usual, with many people, I was curious and liked to check what resources are available
through the network.
With little more than two or three double clicks, I found what amounted to the data
and tools used to mass import the user logins for every student in the school.
The way they set up the user logins was that each user's login name was the first letter
of the first name and the first eight characters of the last name.
The default user password would be the student's birthdate.
None of this is classified as secret information, and students are encouraged to change their
password as soon as possible.
Normally, this would not be a problem, assuming that each student was computer savvy or, for
that matter, used the college computers.
With a list of names, student IDs, and birthdates, I would have been able to gain access and
control over every account that had not had its default password changed.
Although this would have been easy, I decided to do the right thing and tell the head of
the computer lab supervisors.
After instructing the individual of the problem, I was quickly told that I should not have
been looking around and that my user account will be deactivated as punishment.
Having been enrolled in a computer technical program, this would have been devastating
to my education, so this was equivalent to threatening my status as a student.
All this for doing the right thing.
It should be noted that this took place in Canada before 9-11 and can't really be blamed
on fear of terrorists, just fear of students.
Signed, Lucifer Sam.
It's unfortunate that things like this have to happen, but it's pretty common.
I just want to point out to Lucifer Sam that had he indeed been prohibited from using his
account, he could have always found another disused account with the username and
birthdate list.
Unless he had to email his work to his professor, that would not have become a problem.
It seems like, unfortunately, the best thing to do in these cases is just don't get involved.
If you want to report the problem, do it anonymously.
Otherwise, you're always at risk for people saying, okay, now we're going to suspend
your account because we don't trust you.
Blaming the messenger.
That's right.
And we also have a bit of controversy involving Wi-Fi.
Well, first of all, some news about Wi-Fi in Philadelphia.
City-run broadband networks like Philadelphia's Wi-Fi scheme would get the green light
under a bipartisan bill introduced in the U.S. Senate last Thursday.
The Community Broadband Act of 2005 would allow local governments the option of setting
up their own broadband networks, provided they did so without discrimination in favor
of itself or any advanced telecommunications services provider that it owns.
The measure counters a bill proposed last month by Representative Pete Sessions,
which proposed barring state and local governments from supplying Internet,
telecommunications, or cable hookups if a private company could offer a substantially
similar service.
Not substantially better, just similar.
Now, Bernie, the Philadelphia Wi-Fi project, is that still moving forward?
Very, very slowly.
I really think it's a pipe dream on our mayor's mind, John Street.
He's not really allocated much in the way of funding.
He said it's going to cost about $10 million, and it's not happening.
It's in a few areas, like Love Park, which we know and love, and a few of the other...
If you've been to Philadelphia, you notice it's broken up into quadrants,
and each quadrant has a park in it, and all four of those parks have Wi-Fi access
and are provided by the city.
But the ultimate goal of this, according to the mayor, is to eventually charge
for this service once enough people start using it.
So it's not necessarily going to be that great.
Frankly, there's other cities that are going to be doing a much better job,
in my opinion, and the only good thing about this thing,
if this legislation goes through for sure, is that it may trump state legislation
in many states that cable companies have...
The cable modem providers and the telecom, like DSL providers,
have pushed through, ram-routed through with some political donations,
to basically prevent municipalities from starting such networks
that are open to the public.
So I'm hoping this federal legislation goes through
and trumps any state legislation that would make this illegal to offer.
Philadelphia had an exemption because the mayor who was former...
Our former mayor, who's now the governor, cut a deal with Verizon.
It's like, okay, we'll let it happen in Philadelphia,
but nowhere else in the state will we let this happen.
But I hope this allows all municipalities to be able to do what they want
with the public's approval, rather than it just be limited
as a result of some crooked legislation pushed through by broadband providers.
Now, on the subject of Wi-Fi, of course, there's...
I guess that's one of the more positive things,
but of course there are also the negative things that go along with it.
There seems to be a rash of clampdowns on people who are simply surfing around
or war-dial... not war-dialing...
War-driving.
Yeah, war-driving.
I guess putting the word war in there probably doesn't help.
But, I mean, basically people are just simply seeing a signal,
an unencrypted signal that they can latch onto and connect to the Internet,
and oftentimes it happens from your own house.
In fact, we were at a gas station the other day,
and all of a sudden we were getting signal for no reason at all.
I don't know why a gas station had that.
I was actually thinking it would be nice on the MTA,
as I was getting a ride on the train home one time,
every couple of stops there'd be a nearby open wireless site,
which was nice because I was working on something
and I needed to get some images off the web,
and so every few stops...
It's a good thing to have,
but apparently people are getting in a lot of trouble for this now.
Yeah, there was this guy in St. Petersburg
who was sitting outside someone's house
on their open wireless network,
you know, unencrypted and all that,
and this guy saw him through the window and called the police.
And so the police arrested him
for, quote-unquote, hacking the guy's wireless network,
by which, I mean, he pulled up in a car and was connected to it.
Well, is it legal to pull up in a car
and sit outside somebody's house?
I don't know, maybe that's the law.
Well, I mean, he was in the street,
but the thing about it is that if the wireless network was open,
you're inviting people
and you're broadcasting it into the streets.
So I don't think...
It depends on what he was doing.
If he was using his position
to do something on their computer
and get their information off of their machines
and do something actually malicious,
I would say that, well,
maybe they should have come down on him.
But how is it different than dialing up something,
dialing up a computer or connecting?
Well, it's not.
I mean, and it's even less so
because they're, you know, you don't even have to...
I mean, you can drive around looking for these networks,
but you're not...
They're basically inviting you in.
How are they inviting you in?
Well, because they're broadcasting their names
into the streets and they're completely unencrypted.
So there's nothing preventing you from connecting to it.
I mean, if you were driving down the street with a laptop,
just, you know, running your laptop,
not even trying to connect the networks,
I'm sure that you would connect to several
just because they were there.
So they don't ask for a username or a password
or anything like that.
They just simply connect to your computer
and then you're on the Internet.
It's that easy.
Yeah.
If you look at who's behind a lot of these prosecutions,
who's really out-quoted in the article
we're referencing supporting these prosecutions,
it's the cable and the DSL companies
who think that you shouldn't be allowed
to share your wireless access, even if you want to,
because they feel it takes away a customer from them.
They're really...
They really want you to pay, pay them,
every time you access the Internet.
Yeah, I had a friend whose cousin lived next door to him.
So the two families, obviously,
rather than running a wire between their house,
they set up a wireless network and shared a mutual...
I think it was a DSL connection.
I don't see the problem with that.
I mean, they could have run a wire between their house.
Well, I mean, would the cable companies
actually come after them for doing this?
Or are they simply agreeing with people
who say they don't want their computers being used
by people parked outside their house?
You know?
It's difficult to say.
Yeah.
I mean, what are the terms of service?
What are the terms of service in the contract
that you agree to in exchange for this wireless service,
in exchange for your connectivity to the Internet?
What if you agree to not allow other people
to use the service?
Are you in breach of contract for doing that?
This is only a sensible question
if you actually get a chance to negotiate the contract.
Well, I agree it's not sensible, but it is what it is.
If you agree that you're not gonna do this,
then are you gonna keep your word or not?
I don't think people should be limited
to not being able to share their connection personally.
But that's not what the contract says that people agree to.
But the guy driving around in the car,
he didn't agree to anything,
because he didn't sign anything.
What if it's somebody just driving around
with a computer who's able to connect
to various signals that are popping out
and not have to enter any kind of password
or username or anything like that?
Do you think there's a case against that person?
There is, because, again,
I don't agree that there should be a case against him.
But the way the law is in virtually every state,
there are state statutes on the books
in virtually every state that are pushed through
by utilities and phone companies and that forth
called theft of services.
And if you get on the Internet
versus Internet connection,
even if they have a really careless Wi-Fi network set up,
you are accessing services that you're not paying for.
Now, I think it's ludicrous to prosecute someone for that,
but that's what the law says.
And these aren't new laws.
These laws have been on the books for decades.
Theft of services.
There really needs to be some thoughtful laws passed
in this area, and there aren't right now.
And it leaves all this vagaries out there
that any prosecutor can just steamroll anybody
in a case like this, and it's unfortunate,
because there's a lot of blame to go around
if somebody is so careless to provide
their Internet connection to anybody who drives by.
I think there should be some liability there
if someone else happens to stumble across it
and gets prosecuted, but there isn't.
So just the way it is, it doesn't matter how easy it is
to gain access to the Internet that you're not paying for.
It's still theft of services.
And again, I don't agree with that,
but that's what the law says.
Bernie, I have a question for you.
Aside from theft of services, with wireless networks,
it's possible to passively sniff the traffic that's going by
and see all sorts of interesting things,
like someone could be connecting to their email
not using SSL or something
to encrypt their user information.
If someone were sitting outside their house
and they saw this traffic go by,
that doesn't fall under theft of services.
Do you think that there would be a case against them?
That's a really good question.
You're not gaining a service
as a result of your actions without paying for it.
So it wouldn't be theft of services.
But you are eavesdropping, passively eavesdropping.
There may be some other law.
I don't know the answer to that.
It could be...
It really depends on the level of intrusion
or if it is completely passive.
I don't think so,
because those frequencies are wide open
and the FCC has even said that you have to...
This type of service, Part 15,
which is what Wi-Fi falls under,
2.4 gigahertz, typically, for the 802.11b,
the same frequency the microwave ovens use,
and they're freely open,
and anybody who operates such a network
has to accept any interference that someone causes.
But how is this different than listening on a radio?
You know, just turning on your radio
and hearing chatter, okay?
It's the same thing, I think.
It's because going over the airwaves,
it's unencrypted.
How is it different?
I agree.
It's not different.
I mean, it's like you're standing on a soapbox
and saying,
I want to connect to you.
This is my information, you know.
Redbird.
I agree.
What it seems like this all comes down to
is educating the consumers
as to what devices they're plugging into their networks, okay?
I mean, it seems like people are just buying things off the shelves
and thinking that,
okay, it's perfectly all right to just plug this in,
don't bother configuring it.
I mean, anyone who's used a computer
with a wireless card in a public area
knows how many times they see Linksys, Netgear,
all the default SSIDs showing up
because nobody bothers to configure anything.
And one of the silly things
is that a lot of the providers now
are giving these devices to people
and nowhere in the account setup or anything like that
is there an option to configure the wireless access point.
I just recently set up one of Verizon's devices
and it was just default, wide open,
anybody could connect.
And so it is beginning to become
partially the fault of the ISPs that this is possible.
Well, I mean, I just think it's completely ludicrous and silly
to actually be threatening people
who are just simply tapping in and connecting.
But something that I think is of a little bit more concern
are these evil twin attacks.
And it's made with these.
This is where someone, I guess, poses
as a Wi-Fi provider
that somebody thinks is Verizon
or a cable company or something like that.
And supposedly they get all kinds of information that way.
My question is, though,
if you're using encryption from your laptop
or whatever it is you're connecting wirelessly from,
are you not protected?
How much information can they get?
Well, you have to be careful as far as...
I mean, that's a classic man-in-the-middle attack
and this is just like a new way of implementing
the same sort of attack that's been used for ages.
But you have to be careful
as far as verifying the certificates and whatnot
because you can use encryption,
but if you're encrypting it to the third party
that's listening in between the two legitimate contacts,
you're not gaining any security by that.
Well, I mean, let's say I use SSH,
which is the way that many people log into computers.
I use SSH client on my laptop
and I connect to the system that I usually connect to
and it asks me for my password and I tell it the password
and I am logged into that system,
yet I'm using somebody else's Wi-Fi connection.
Am I at risk in any way?
As long as you have the fingerprint cached
and you verify that it's correct,
which you generally don't have to do
because SSH will give you a big warning
that says, okay, this fingerprint has changed,
you're generally secure.
It depends on how much attention you pay.
And I feel like...
I haven't heard much about the evil twin attack,
but it sounds like they just put up a page
that looks the same as the login page
for, like, a T-Mobile hotspot.
That's what I imagine.
I've never actually encountered it myself.
I don't even think they'd have to verify it.
They just say, oh, well, okay, you got through
and then provide the same service.
Well, there's all sorts of attacks
that can be used with that method.
You can use SSH man-in-the-middle attacks,
you can use all sorts of
man-in-the-middle attacks for that.
And most of the logins are still unencrypted, unfortunately.
But even then, I mean,
for the T-Mobile hotspots and whatnot,
what you do is you end up with...
if your MAC address isn't registered
with that hotspot,
you end up with a page that asks you to log in.
So right then, it would be like one of those emails
that, you know, says,
oh, well, we need your eBay information
and then redirects you to a fake page,
except a lot harder to figure out
because it would look exactly...
I mean, how do you know?
The SSID is T-Mobile,
and it's providing the same look.
It's...
It seems like it would be somewhat coordinated
for it to actually fool somebody.
And just simply...
What I think the media is doing
is making people afraid
of using someone else's Wi-Fi connection.
And, you know,
something that you ordinarily do
could be compromised
because you're not using Verizon's Wi-Fi.
You're using, you know,
Joe's Wi-Fi down the street or something.
No, I don't think it has to be very coordinated.
I mean, you just set up a hotspot
or set up an access point,
set SSID as T-Mobile,
and then make...
But that's the coordination right there.
You're setting it as T-Mobile.
Oh, right, right.
You know, you're pretending
to be something you're not,
and then you're getting people
to think that you're T-Mobile
and giving you the information.
But it's fairly simple to do.
Oh, it's simple.
No, I didn't say it wasn't simple.
It's just you would have to want to do that.
Simply connecting accidentally to somebody's...
If I run a hotspot, you know,
from my house
and people driving by connect to it...
No one drives by your house.
Well, yeah, they know better.
But the point is,
if they do that, all right,
I'm not getting information from them, am I?
Unless I'm...
Unless I try to fool them
by identifying myself as something I'm not.
No, you could.
You could sniff their traffic, but...
What can I sniff
if they're encrypted from their laptop?
Most people...
You could.
You could run a man-in-the-middle attack,
and most people would just click OK.
They wouldn't think twice about the key changes.
Oh, the key, oh, they must have changed it.
But again, I'd have to coordinate that
and, you know, pretend to be something I'm not.
I don't think this is something
that very many people need to be afraid of,
to be honest.
OK, yeah, that's pretty much the sentence
that I think can conclude all this.
It's a scare tactic,
and I think another, you know,
method of the cable companies
and the DSL companies
getting people to want to connect to them
and be afraid of connecting to anything else.
One thing about it, though,
with these...
When you offer your wireless network to someone...
So a lot of people say,
oh, well, I've got this router,
and it's got a firewall built in,
so it protects me from the Internet.
But if you're offering this network to people,
they're automatically inside your network.
They understand all that.
So if your machines aren't secured in some way,
however way,
what kind of machine you have,
then they are open and vulnerable,
and they're not offered
that kind of layer of protection
that one of these hardware firewalls does,
and that it's not public.
And you're putting yourself
at considerably more risk
by opening yourself up
than anybody connecting to you
is being put at,
unless they do something phenomenally stupid
and don't check things.
All right, well, I think that...
That opens up a whole kettle of worms there.
So if you have any thoughts on this,
you can either call us now,
212-209-2900,
or you can write to us.
And again, you know,
we like to hear from all the new people.
We understand that we were listed
on the podcasting directory for Apple
when they released the new iTunes,
and we've been getting mail from people.
If you're one of those people,
you can either call us or write to us,
or email address...
You can't call us if you're on the podcast.
Why not?
They could be listening live, couldn't they?
No, no, no.
But you can listen to a stream live.
All right.
So if you're a podcast listener,
next week you should listen live and call us.
Or maybe you're listening live now
because you listened last week on the podcast.
Or if you're listening to this show in the future
and it happens to be a Wednesday night,
New York City local time,
7 to 8 p.m.,
you can call us.
If we're still on Wednesday nights
and if there is still New York City, yeah.
Good point.
If you've mastered time travel,
come back here and just visit us.
You know, there's always that option.
But we have a couple of letters
from people who listened for the first time.
You know, I think we are getting a lot more people
as a result of this,
but I'd like to know for sure.
So write to us,
oth at 2600.com is our email address.
If you are so inclined
and you want to send us paper mail instead,
we accept that.
It's unusual, but we do accept it.
You can write to us,
off the hook, care of, WBAI,
120 Wall Street...
10th floor.
New York...
Hi, Walter.
How you doing?
I didn't know you were here.
New York.
New York.
1-0-0-0-5.
Such a big studio.
I don't even see everybody who's in here.
Yeah, let's read a letter or two
from people podcasting.
Podcastees, I guess is what you could...
You know...
Listener.
Mike, I know you don't like the phrase,
but do you know
it has absolutely nothing to do with Apple?
The etymology of the word podcasting
has nothing to do with iPods.
Really?
Is that so?
It's true.
It has to do with feet?
If you look it up on Wikipedia or something,
I'm sure they'll tell you
everything you need to know about it.
But my understanding is
that it had nothing to do with Apple.
They just started using it now
in their lexicon, so...
Well, no, but I think the terminology
came from the fact
that you would have a program
download some archive
and put it directly to your iPod,
which you'd then listen to later.
That's podcasting.
That's not where podcasting came in.
It had nothing to do with the iPod.
Invasion of the body snitches?
You know what?
I don't have the information.
I just heard that little snippet
shouted out to me by somebody,
and I retained it, all right?
And I'm spinning it back out.
I'm going to set up...
If it's not true,
I'll apologize for it,
but I think it is.
I'm going to set up
a rival group of listeners,
and we're going to download MP3 files
through RSS enclosures,
and we'll see...
Yeah.
...who wins.
Um...
With the addition of podcasting to iTunes
and all the attention
to that podcasting
is getting lately...
This is from a listener, by the way.
...I can't help but wonder
if it is doomed to ruin.
Podcasting and fan films slash fiction
have been a little-known outlet
for cyber-Bohemian types
and provided countless hours
of free advertise...
of advertisement-free entertainment.
The way I see it,
since no one is really making
much money off of it
and since the quality of fan films
and podcasts
are increasing exponentially,
like Star Wars Revelations
and things like that,
providing a free alternative
to big business...
There's another reference here
to a Star Trek fan show
known as Star Trek Excalibur.
At some point,
someone will step in
to squash this.
Do you all agree?
And if so,
is there something
we can do now,
beforehand,
to try to secure
our rights and freedoms
to use this mode
of free expression?
Signed, Erie.
Um...
Gosh.
You know,
it's, uh...
It's tough
when things get popular,
you know?
When things are only known
by a few people
you can get away
with a lot more,
obviously,
and when things
become mainstream...
Uh...
Yeah.
That's when
you can get away
with a lot more.
Any other questions?
No?
A lot of shoulders
shrugging around here.
I'm looking forward
to fan fiction
based on the radio show.
Mm-hmm.
That would be interesting.
I'm willing to give it up
to the public domain.
That would be something.
Yeah.
Well, we won't sue,
I guess.
I won't sue
unless it's truly defamatory.
Yeah.
All right.
Are you ready
to apologize?
Oh, you found something?
Yes.
Okay, go ahead.
This is from Wikipedia.
You obscured it a bit.
Podcasting is a portmanteau
of podcasting
with the name
of Apple's computer's
iPod audio player.
Although podcasting
was not invented by Apple
nor do podcasts
require a portable player
or Apple software.
I didn't say that.
I just said
that the name came from it.
All right.
I'm going to have
to find my source
and see if...
They're totally debunked then.
The pea farmers
of America
are upset.
Okay.
I thought
the term existed
before the iPod even,
but maybe not.
Okay,
what else do we have here?
I guess I'm one
of those hundreds
of listeners
you've gathered
through that wonderful medium
whose name
you seem to abhor
podcasting.
We like our listeners.
Yeah.
I don't want to...
I just don't like the term.
This is from Thomas
in the Netherlands.
What I was wondering about
is why you guys
seem so opposed
to a uniform ID card.
You mentioned those
in two separate
occasions recently.
Real ID,
whatever it's called
in the US
and the one
the government
in the UK
is pushing for.
Personally,
I don't see any real
downside to them
because not anyone
has the free choice
of either getting
a passport
or a European ID card,
both of which
are the only
100% valid IDs
in the whole of Europe.
These cards
are luckily
not that easy
to falsify
and in my opinion
they're actually
quite useful
given the fact
that they provide
free travel
within most of the EU.
I guess free
meaning unencumbered,
not free.
It doesn't cost money.
So,
why do you guys
object to using
such a method
to replace
a passport?
Well,
it has to do
with the idea
that any tool
that exists
tends to be used
sooner or later
and the idea
of walking
down the street
and being stopped
while doing nothing
by a policeman
who demands
your papers
is anathema
to the average American.
It brings
you forget
that the
vast majority
of us
and if not
the vast majority
are mental
gestalt
or
organic
memories
of this
culture.
Our grandparents
our great-grandparents
came from
oppressive
European countries
where
they were
either the peasants
or they were
the minorities
the religious
minorities
the ethnic
minorities
who would be
stopped
by the
national police
by the king's
soldiers.
But Jim,
with all due respect
I do think
the Dutch
have very
I think their
memories are
fading much
faster than ours.
I mean
I don't want
to be
stopped
just strolling
on the street
and asked for
my papers.
I'm going
to defend
our Dutch
listeners
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was
there.
So I
don't
want
to be
stopped
just
strolling
on the street
and asked
for
my papers
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was
there.
So I
don't
want
to be
stopped
just
strolling
on the street
and asked
for
my
papers
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there.
So I
don't
want
to be
stopped
strolling
on the street
and asked
for my
papers
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there.
So I
don't
want
to be
stopped
strolling
on the street
and asked
for my
papers
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there.
So I
don't
want to be
stopped
strolling
on the street
and asked
for my
papers
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
card
was there
although not
the Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchange
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
person
who came
to realize
why the
Dutch
state
because I
actually
exchanged
some further
emails
with this
uh... being uh...
civic databases or government databases are being offered commercial entities
and that
that information flowed out we don't know where it's going
i don't want to order texas
uh... connecticut are all examples of that but where that happen the last two
or three years right it's not a good thing but i don't think that uh...
substituting the federal government uh... or adding them on
would make that a good thing either
uh... i think
jim that you're really uh...
saying that because these corporations are inept they should be allowed to
trample over all our private on the road and i don't think and a couple of
corporations are apt and the government is inept
but we can't look at the corporation
and we can't get so because what the government is doing to a certain extent
because we can look at the corporations we should then
creates a frankenstein monster with the federal government
so we don't look at him
although no
monster already exists
i think uh... i think what the
i don't think the color supporting the national idea
idea proposal is simply saying
uh... rather sensibly that these
corporations are creating their own
system which is
as bad if not worse as the federal proposal because there's absolutely zero
accountability
uh... i think that the solution to this uh...
is stronger privacy regulations
which exist in some european countries they don't exist uh... in the united
states
because we have this grand tradition of letting corporations do whatever they
want
i agree there's a there's an example of singapore
where
uh... companies u s companies
have been prohibited from selling the technology and in this country
but i've been selling it to singapore and i think a couple of other a couple
other southeast asia countries
that have your entire life on the back of a magnetics on the magnet trip in
your car
and they're using this because they don't have
the privacy regulations that you're talking about what i'm saying is that
the cat out of the bag
privacy
is you were not going to get this back into that the g back into the bottle
so if we
can't fight for privacy laws
if we can keep an eye on this which is something that will never be able to do
with commercial entities
you know uh... we have we at least have to look at it right now
fighting over whether there's going to be a nationally i'd be card
ignores the fact that police still do stop people for no reason
and actually it for no reason
okay well unfortunately we're gonna have to have a good to bring to a close there
because we're we're running out of time but uh... thanks for bringing this up
and uh... offering that perspective on it
no doubt will have uh... plan to talk about in the weeks ahead as as this kind
of thing continues to become more and more of a reality
that there are just by the way certainly cases where governments have bought
commercial information uh... that they have been themselves peru
prohibited from collecting
the united states
yeah uh... and uh...
okay so that's gonna do for us here tonight uh...
will back again next week with another exciting addition of off the hook
we'll see you next week
oth at twenty six hundred dot com is our email address
we'd love to hear from you
did
he's
You know one knows what I did today There can be no other way
But I would just like to say
It would be so nice
It would be so nice
Everybody cares about the weather
And everybody should know better
What a waste of time
Everybody lives beneath the ceiling
Living out the dream that sends them feeling
To a distant place
But no one knows what I did today
There can be no other way
But I would just like to say
It would be so nice
It would be so nice
It would be so nice
It would be so nice