Yeah, I had a couple of responses though, but you know what I'm saying, it wasn't the
responses I wanted to hear though, but at least somebody did call me back though.
They did call me back.
We just heard from Florida residents Reginald Wesley, Cheryl O'Connell, Jamarquise Smith,
Sean Williams, Tanya Hill, Jazz Travis, and Carlos Perez, who were seeking job assistance
at Tampa Bay Workforce Alliance.
Reporter Emily Reddy recorded and produced that segment.
Today is the 63rd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1994.
And with that little bit of information, we're going to leave the news and move on to Off
the Hook, which is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Wednesday nights here on WBAI New York.
Now I can't make a call, we couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
Bum-diddly-bum for the best, expect the worst, I hope that's understood.
Bum-diddly-bum!
Bum-diddly-bum!
Bum-diddly-bum!
And good evening to everybody, the program is Off the Hook, Emanuel Goldstein here with
you on this Wednesday evening, sorry, technical glitches here, machines not working nearly
fast enough, but they're working now.
This is the first program, actually yes, this is the first program in August of this year,
and we have all sorts of fun things scheduled for this hour, including a very exciting announcement
that we're prepared to make almost any moment now.
Let's introduce who is here.
We have, that's Rob T. Firefly over there.
Good evening.
And I see not Kevin.
Hello.
Looks like Mark S.
Hi.
And Redhack, you're joining us.
Hey.
And also joining us from the past, well I don't know, how have we used to introduce
you?
We called you Alex.
We called you Alex?
Yeah, Alex is fine.
Didn't you have a handle?
Way back in the day, I used to be called Neon Samurai.
Neon Samurai.
That's right, remember?
The Neon Samurai.
The Neon Samurai, yeah.
How about that?
I'm almost afraid to admit it these days.
And you're back.
I'm back, after six years.
Can you believe that?
Six years.
Amazing.
You know, I remember, for those of you who might wonder just who in God's name this guy
is, go back to the radio show that we did when the police stormed the station, and none
of you guys were here for that, but that was a lot of fun.
It was amazing, that was really good radio.
We don't have days like that anymore, at least not yet.
I was thinking about that as I was waiting for you outside the station today, how cool
that night was.
That was amazing.
That was something else.
Now, we look back on that fondly because, well, things turned out for the better about
a year or so later, but that was during the infamous coup.
Basically, hostile forces took over the radio station, and were steering it in a direction
that most of us weren't very happy with, and one by one people were getting kicked off
the air and banned, and horrible things were happening.
And what happened that night, I think it was in January of 2001.
I think it was, yes.
It was that the listener advisory board was trying to have a meeting in the station, and
the station management at the time did not want them in the station, and they barred
them.
And they actually called the cops, and the cops came into the station and started arresting
people who dared to come into the station.
Of course, things are different.
We still have our problems, we always will, but that was certainly a historic night.
And we were on the air when this was happening.
That's right, because I had your cell phone, you gave me your cell phone, and I was standing
in the hall.
And I was talking it to various people who weren't leaving, and when the cops came up,
they had no idea that that cell phone was connected to the radio.
And I stood right in front of the cops.
Well, the cops didn't care.
I don't think they cared.
I think you're right.
It was station management that cared more.
That's true.
And unbeknownst to them, they were busy directing the cops to arrest people in our own lobby,
and you were sort of just milling about, and the whole thing was going out over the air.
It was amazing.
And people were listening, and then people started flocking to the station.
Hundreds of people.
Just to take part in this, and to, I guess, demonstrate against it, and things like that,
and boy, did I get chewed out after the show for doing that.
But you know, I made a promise then, and I keep that promise now.
If something is happening right in front of my eyes, I'm going to talk about it.
That's right.
Like we did with the WTO, when Amy Goodman was in Seattle in 1999, it happened during
our show.
Things always happen during our show.
I don't know why that is.
And I think...
Wednesday at 7 is a good time, I suppose.
That's right.
And I think during that show, didn't we have one of the dissident board members on at the
same time?
We did.
I think it was Leslie Kagan.
Yeah, that's right.
Good memory.
We had some interviews going on, and the cell phone back then wasn't as common as it is
now, so people didn't realize what we were doing.
So yeah.
It was a memorable night.
It really was.
Yeah, it was good radio.
Very much so.
Oh, and that's who Neon Samurai is.
Keep that door closed, will you?
Thank you.
We have all kinds of people wandering in now.
We have the open door policy, but not that open.
All right.
And also joining us tonight from, well, from somewhere in Pennsylvania is Bernie S.
Yes.
Greetings.
I'm calling from a rural landline.
If you hear any ticks on the line, it's the electric fences from nearby farms that are
arcing with the weeds, shorting out the lines into the ground.
So if you hear a ticking sound, it sounds like it's not a bomb, it's just a...
I don't hear any ticking sounds.
If we turned off all the other audio sources and just whispered, maybe you'd hear it.
Anyway.
Well, I look forward to it.
You sound crystal clear right now, Bernie.
Good.
You know, that Wednesday at 7 o'clock is a good time, because I remember a few years
ago there was a Secret Service coordination meeting for all the law enforcement agencies
that were planning to round up people at the RNC conference in Philadelphia.
And that happened also at 7 o'clock on Wednesday night, I believe.
Yeah.
It always happens.
And whenever I'm invited to things, they always happen on Wednesday at 7 p.m., so I can't
go.
I think they know that intentionally.
And also joining us on the phone from, I believe, Washington, D.C., is our good friend, Nick
Farr.
Nick, are you there?
Hi, Emmanuel.
How are you doing?
Pretty good.
Pretty good.
Nick, of course, is...
If one person had to be blamed for all of the hacker spaces that are popping up all
around this country, that person would be Nick Farr.
And of course, Nick played a very important role in the Hacker Space Village at the Last
Hope conference and has been traveling around the world, basically getting inspiration and
all sorts of other things to help people build their own hacker space.
Is that a fair assessment?
I think that's a fair assessment.
I'm not sure if you want to pin the whole hacker space movement on me.
I think I do want to pin it on you, yes.
Oh, no.
Okay.
Well, I will accept responsibility for 10% of it.
How about that?
Fair enough.
Actually, I'm speaking to you from the hacker space here in Washington, D.C., Hack D.C.
right now.
And I trust that the Club Mate has arrived safely down there.
Yes.
Although the Club Mate is in a secret, undisclosed location for safekeeping and my own personal
consumption.
You are sharing, I hope.
It would help me very strategically where it would help create hacker spaces elsewhere
in the country.
Because I think there are some people who say, well, you know, I don't know if I want
to start a hacker space in L.A., but maybe if I had a case of Club Mate, I would do that.
So it's held there for strategic purposes.
It is the United States strategic reserve of Club Mate for the purpose of securing hacker
spaces throughout the country.
Well, of course, Club Mate, for those of you who might not know what we're talking about,
this is a drink that we introduced at the last HOPE conference.
And it came from Germany, very highly addictive, and has now been introduced to the American
hacker scene.
And I guess a lot of people got addicted.
I guess so.
I think a lot of people have created a very productive dependence upon it.
I'm not sure if I want to be throwing around the A word, given that we still have to import
more of it into the United States.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, I don't really have a taste for it myself, but a lot of people do.
And apparently it keeps you awake and does all sorts of other cool things.
The great thing about it is that it's based on mate tea, which is much more common in
Latin America than it is here, of course.
But one of its unique properties is that, you know, combined with caffeine and the other
components of mate tea, it tends to keep you awake and alert without making you feel jumpy
or paranoid.
And that one of the great things about it is that you don't feel alert but tired at
the same time as you would if you were, say, drinking a lot of coffee to try to stay awake
or taking caffeine pills or just depending solely on caffeine.
What if you're paranoid to begin with?
Not sure.
You know, I don't think that we need to do a study on that to see if it will actually
reduce paranoia or increase it.
But I think most of the people who are drinking Club Mate pretty regularly in Germany, perhaps
this is my own bias, but I think they actually get a little less paranoid when they're drinking
it.
I'll volunteer for that test because I'm kind of paranoid and I'll volunteer to drink Club
Mate to see if it makes me less paranoid.
Now, I can attest to the Club Mate keeping me awake.
It more or less kept me up for 96 hours or so during the conference.
I think that was your own insanity that did that more than anything else.
I don't think you want to pin that on the Club Mate.
No, it was all Club Mate's fault.
We had to tie you down to get you to sleep finally because it was ridiculous.
You just stayed up for the entire conference.
I don't think that was even humanly possible.
Well, it is apparently, thanks to Club Mate.
Wow.
So, yes, that was just one part of the conference.
Obviously there are many more.
And are we going to be able to do this Red Act?
We have this exciting announcement that we want to pass along to people and we want to
do that tonight.
And basically, Mark S., you're here from Texas, right?
Just use one microphone, please.
Don't take two microphones.
Thank you.
And Mark actually came all the way up here just to take part in the Last Hope Conference.
And while he was here, he decided to, while he was at it, go to NYU at the same time.
But the real reason for you to come up here was for the conference.
Thanks for dropping my docs, basically.
Oh, yeah, I can give your class schedule and everything else.
But yeah, so I guess since this is your last week here, you should be the person, and also
since you did a lot of the work, you should be the person to press the button, as it were.
We have it.
Yes, we do have a button.
I'm about to press the button.
Okay.
Well, now, before you press the button, don't press the button yet.
I'm so excited.
Yeah, because we don't want to jump the gun here.
What we have been doing, we haven't been sitting back and relaxing after the conference.
We've been working very hard, and Redhack, you've been working extremely hard as well.
We have all the talks have been recorded, and what we've been doing is extracting the
audio and making that available so that people can now listen to all the talks in two different
sound qualities, I believe, 16 kbps and 64.
And we will have DVDs in the future.
That's the next step of this whole thing.
We'll put that on the store and all that.
But right now, what we're about to do, we're about to make the audio, all the audio from
all of the talks.
How many talks were there?
I think 99.
99 talks.
And some of them were long.
Some of them, like Steve Rambam, were over three hours long, and Robert Steele was something
like three or four hours.
So when you press that button, when you press that button on the website, what website is
it that this will be available at?
www.hope.net.
Okay.
Hope.net.
You'll be able to go there.
Is it on the main page or on the speaker page?
If you click on talks in about five minutes, it'll go to the audio page.
Five minutes?
Well, I guess a minute.
Uh-huh.
Okay.
30 seconds now.
Well, as soon as you press the button.
So okay.
So what we've done is we've set up this very impressive webpage just for the purpose of
Mark S. hitting the button.
You know, I don't know why we spend so much time designing that because no one else is
ever going to see it.
Can I please press the button?
Okay.
Well, I just want to make sure that you do it right because it's actually, for some reason,
there's also two buttons.
So press the right button.
Don't press the wrong button.
It's going to be funny if my connection drops and we can't press the button.
Okay.
You see?
Now you pressed the wrong button.
That's not what we wanted you to do.
Press the right, no, the green button.
You shouldn't have pressed the red button.
I don't know why you pressed that in the first place.
It's never the red button.
It's never the red button.
That's right.
All right.
Has the page been destroyed?
We don't want that to happen either.
Okay.
So basically what you want to do is press the green button.
Is that right?
Okay.
All right.
Press the green button.
There we go.
All right.
Now, so is it on?
Is it actually transferred over?
This is pretty exciting.
I'm going to find out right now.
Yeah.
All right.
So all the work these people put into this web page with the sound effects and all sorts
of graphics is like a little, it looks like elves jumping through forest and things, a
graphical thing meaning that we've succeeded and they're up.
They're up now.
Wow.
Okay.
So the Hope audio files have officially been released at 7.16 PM Eastern time on August
the 6th, year of our Lord, 2008.
Wow.
A little bit of history.
A little bit of history was made here tonight.
So now our website's going to go down because everybody is going to be accessing this at
once.
That's what happened last time.
You have about five minutes to get through and then...
That actual smoke coming from the keyboard?
Unbelievable.
So, okay.
So every talk, if you missed Hope, and we've been getting a lot of complaints from people
who missed Hope and I don't know what they expect us to do about it, but we can't have
it again.
I can't have that one again anyway.
And now you can go and experience it.
You can hear the audio in two different sound quality.
And please people, if you have bad connectivity, try not to download the big ones, the 64K
ones, download the 16K ones because it'll be easier on everybody.
And don't be greedy.
Take as much as you can handle for now.
It'll be there later.
And it'll be there in all sorts of different forms as well.
All right.
Bernie, pretty exciting news, isn't it?
That is really exciting.
And I'm clicking refresh in my browser over and over again to watch this happen.
So any minute now.
You have internet connectivity down there in...
It's rural.
Actually, it's sort of pseudo DSL, it was just installed here.
It works, but it's about half the speed of what you would expect normal DSL to be.
But it does work.
Except when it doesn't.
It's kind of like Brooklyn, I hear.
It's like that too, sometimes.
Okay.
Well, that's cool.
Now, we have another exciting announcement as well, as if this wasn't enough.
Wait, should we stop here?
Because I don't want to overload people with too many exciting things.
Well, now I'm all excited.
Yeah.
Okay.
So this is something that I think we should defer to Nick for, because he has, I think,
more information on this.
But I should point out, this is something that's not going to be happening right now.
This is something that's going to be happening in about a year, but it is going to be historic
in nature.
Nick, what do you got?
Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm busy downloading all my talks.
Oh, no.
That's the thing.
Everyone's going to be all distracted from now on.
It seems to be working great for me.
I've got three streams going.
I don't know what's going on for Bernie over there in rural Pennsylvania.
That's right.
Take all the streams.
You know, I figure if I'm actually on the show that it's being announced at, I think
I have first dibs at everything on the website.
That's just how I see it.
Am I wrong?
That's sort of not how the net really works, but if that makes you happy, go for it.
Okay.
Awesome.
I'm told we have unlimited bandwidth.
Is that right, Redhacked?
Unlimited or limited?
Which was it?
It was one of those words.
I can't really remember.
We'll find out soon enough, but all the talks are now available, so have at them and see
what happens.
But, Nick, you know something about what's going to be happening next year?
Yes.
I'm proud to announce on the radio the latest Dutch conference in ... If I can give a little
back story before I announce this one.
Yes, please.
In 1989, a great tradition started with the Galactic Hacker Party.
Then four years later-
Wait a minute.
I was there.
I was there.
1989.
I was in Europe, and it changed my life.
It was incredible.
Yes.
Four years later, we had Hacking at the End of the Universe.
I was there, too.
Four years after that, we had Hacking in Progress.
I missed that one.
You know why?
Because it happened the exact same time as Beyond Hope in 1997, so I had to go to that
one.
Oh, bad.
Yeah.
I didn't think that was a good idea at the time, but I went with it.
Oh, there you go.
Were you at Hacking at Large in 2001?
I was, indeed.
Were you at What the Hack in 2005?
I certainly was.
In fact, we broadcast from there on the radio.
Excellent.
I guess in 2009, four years after What the Hack, they finally announced-
There have been so many of them.
I can't believe how many there have been.
Wow.
We've been on a long time.
The Europeans are good at throwing outdoor hacker events, and in 2009, they have officially
announced Hacking at Random.
Going back to the Hacking in Progress, Hacking at Large naming scheme, they've announced
Hacking at Random.
They don't have dates yet, but they're officially organized.
They're getting together.
They're finding a suitable outdoor location to have, again, an incredible outdoor hacker
party.
For those of you who don't know, traditionally in Europe, they have an outdoor hacking event
every two years.
Every four years, like we said, the Dutch do it, and next summer, it's the Dutch hacker's
turn, as they're known, for lack of a better name.
Every four years, the Chaos Communication Club, or the Chaos Computer Club, does a camp.
Last year, they had a camp in 2007, and that was awesome.
I'm sure some of you might remember a little thing that I was 90% responsible for, hackers
on a plane.
Emmanuel, you were there.
You were at the CCC 2000.
I was there, but I didn't come by the plane.
I came a different way.
Well, I came by a different plane, but there weren't any hackers on my plane, so I just
was a hacker on a plane, I suppose.
That is a lie.
What do you mean?
I was on the plane.
Okay, you were on the plane, too, but you were sleeping.
You weren't hacking.
Most of the time.
I was hacking sleep.
I see.
But I wasn't on the official hackers on a plane thing that Nick organized, but I did see them
there at the camp, and later on in Berlin.
I'm really, really excited that ... It was rumored for a while that it wasn't going to
happen, but they have officially gotten everything together in Europe, and launched and announced
Hacking at Random 2009, and the best thing about it is a lot of the connections that
we made last year, last year, we had a very big North American presence at the camp, and
thanks to that, they're actually reaching out to people on this side of the Atlantic
to help plan Hacking at Random 2009 to make it probably a, definitely a truly global hacker
camp.
It might be the first, what you could call truly global hacker camp, because they're
not only reaching out to people in North America, they're reaching out to people in
South America, they're reaching out to people in Asia, and they're trying to bring as many
people as possible from throughout the world to throw a really global hacker party.
Here at DEF CON, which is going to be going on shortly, we have maybe the world's largest
hacker party here in the United States, but a camp is something truly, truly special.
You can do a lot more stuff outdoors, in the middle of a field somewhere in Western
Europe than you can in a hotel in Las Vegas.
I mean, DEF CON's great and everything, but the camp is a mind-blowing experience, and
I'm really happy to announce Hacking at Random 2009, which will probably be taking place
late summer 2009, sometime in August, either in the Netherlands or just across the border
from the Netherlands and Germany.
Nick?
Yes.
Is there a website or any place where people can keep checking for more information about
Hacking at Random?
There actually is a website.
It is HAR2009.org, and they have a wiki and they have a mailing list that you can sign
up for.
Yeah.
To jump in, what you were saying before, really, the camps, I was lucky enough to go to What
the Hack, what, three years ago now, and it's just with all that space, you get all these
amazing projects and just cool things that people are showing off.
I remember there was a guy, he built a geodesic dome tent and set up a projector and done
software to morph his videos so that when he aimed the projector at a bowl, it made
all the videos into a 3D thing on the top of the dome.
With a hotel, it's nice.
You still have a lot of projects and a lot of cool things going on, but it's just with
the whole field at your disposal and all these different tents and just so many people
there.
It's just amazing.
It's an amazing thing to be at and to witness.
From somewhere over on the West Coast, our friend Mike joins us, who is usually here
in the studio.
Mike, are you there?
I'm here.
Okay.
Well, we have three people on the phone at once, which is pretty taxing.
I don't know if you've heard any of the show so far, but what we've done is we've officially
released the Hope Audio, and our website is now straining under the load, and we've
officially announced another hacking camp, Hacking at Random.
Nick, are we supposed to call this HAR?
I don't think that's been decided yet.
I would say that was probably part of the thinking into it, considering that Hacking
in Progress was HIP and Hacking at Large was HAL, and they made a big deal about it.
And also, there's a whole pirate thing going on there, so if you look at the old hacktics,
the Dutch Hacker Magazine, they used to have this guy who looked like a pirate on all the
front covers, so he could even come back and say HAR a few times, and everything would
make sense.
I'm pretty sure that there's going to be a lot of ... I don't really want to say piracy,
but piratry.
How about that?
There'll be a lot of piratry.
Is that a word?
Piratry?
I know what it means, so yeah, that makes sense.
So Mike, that's what you've missed so far.
It's been pretty eventful.
That's pretty eventful.
Indeed it is.
Am I echoing on the radio, or just in my own ear?
Well, you're both, actually.
I'm not sure which has more listeners right now.
But where are you right now, Mike?
I'm in San Francisco, California, near the Mission District.
I've been, as you know, traveling around the West Coast.
I'll be back in the studio next week, and it's been quite a nice trip.
I just got back from Yosemite National Park, which is very lovely.
Everyone should go there.
And now I'm hearing about a hacker camp in Holland.
You didn't say Holland, but it's in Holland.
Well, we think it's in Holland.
I believe Nick said that it could be across the border in Germany.
I know last time we talked to Rob, who was organizing the previous conferences, he expressed
a desire to have it in Germany because there's less regulations.
But you know, I kind of think that if you can have these things in as many countries
as possible, all the better.
And if it's possible to keep it in Holland, in the Netherlands, that would be great as
far as I'm concerned.
But whatever works for them, whatever they decide, of course.
I hope they continue to have nice hats.
I got a very nice hat at What The Hack, which was the last conference in Holland, and I've
been wearing it actually all on this trip because it's been raining in a lot of places.
And so I hope I can get a new hat at Haar.
Okay.
Well, the way you said that, now I realize that's what we're going to be calling it.
A new hat at Haar.
Well, I'll see you at Haar.
We'll all be going to Haar together.
You know, there was all these jokes, what the hat, what the this, what the that.
So you need to have some sort of joke, apparently, in Holland.
They're very funny people.
Yes.
Yes.
And I'm led to believe that for those who may be unfamiliar, these events are called
camps, but they are actually camps where you're pitching tents and being outdoors.
Absolutely.
And all that other sort of stuff that some of us might not be too familiar with.
And I hope a lot of Americans, a lot more Americans go this time.
We seem to get more Americans each time.
Nick, you certainly got a lot of Americans to go to the German camp last year.
And any ideas on how we can get some more Americans to take the trip overseas?
Well, one thing that is actually in the works is called the Village of Hope, which we hope
to have at Hacking at Random 2009, just like we had American Village.
This time, we're hoping to have a village that encompasses a lot of the sorts of things
that go on and bring in a lot of the culture and the people who are familiar with the Hope
conferences to sort of make them feel, you know, drawn over to Europe to experience the
incredible hacker culture that they have over there.
Another interesting thing, HackDC actually got a request from the ambassador of Soviet
Interdator Store, the Honorable Nikita Khrushchev, I think is his name.
And he has requested that we build him an ambassadorial residence, which we are currently
experimenting with, hopefully to incorporate technologies that are erecting a semi-permanent
shelter on a campground with fully working shower, composting toilets, and other things
like that. Because he said that the ambassador will not show up unless there's a specific
permanent residence there.
As well, we're also planning on building a very, very large geodesic dome.
Oh, good. Yeah, I was going to ask about that.
Yeah, we're trying to get, I mean, there are many, many designs, and actually a lot of
what's been going on with DIY geodesic domes has been happening, other with the burners.
We're about, you know, gearing up for heading out to the playa and people over in Europe
who like to throw events and camps like this, like that.
I think that it would be a great way to sort of bring together all these communities that
are coming together in hackerspace and helping build them here in the United States and
getting them going over there to do exciting things with hacking at random in 2009.
Well, I definitely like the idea of keeping the people that help put HOPE together as
a cohesive unit and traveling the world and sort of, I guess, sharing what we've learned
with other people and taking part in their events as well.
I know we're planning on going to a couple of other conferences.
Hopefully, as many of us can make it as possible.
I think TourCon is on the list, right?
TourCon is on the list, and speaking of TourCon, another event, I don't know if it's actually
officially announced, but I guess between you, me, and the listenership, we can say
that TourCamp will be happening at the beginning of the summer in 2009, most likely in Seattle
towards the end of the raining season.
What's the date for TourCon this year?
Well, TourCon is happening September 28th, or 27th, 28th, and 29th, but TourCamp, the
dates haven't been specifically worked out yet, but that will probably be happening in
May or June of 2009.
Okay, and TourCon, I believe, is happening in San Diego?
TourCon, again, is happening in San Diego.
Okay.
So, yeah, a lot of activity on the Hacker radar, and of course, is the CCC Congress
in December, which we always try to make it to as well.
So a lot going on, a lot happening.
And-
Dr. Emanuel?
Yes, go ahead, Mike.
Rob did mention that this event, the HAR, involves camping, but we should clarify for
the audience that it's a very easy sort of camping.
Even if you don't normally go outside, you can handle this, so it's pretty fun.
Well, now, as someone, I believe your tent was last seen floating down a river, was there
any tips that you could lend to people as to what to do, what not to do, to make the
camping experience most enjoyable?
Well, if you want, you could not buy the absolute cheapest possible tent, that might be a good
tip.
I'm still working on figuring out how to get a completely rain-proof tent, maybe I'll manage
it this time around, but it really doesn't matter.
Okay.
Yeah, some good memories, good memories we all seem to have from the last camp.
It really is fun.
I mean, it sounds, it always rains at least one point in the week or weekend or however
much time it takes, but you remember it for the rest of your life, and it definitely is
a positive experience, right, Kevin?
Yeah, it's very positive.
I remember when it first started raining, I would happen to be hanging out with the
Austrians, and we all just started playing soccer in the mud, just running around and
having a blast with the rain.
Yeah, and of course, Johannes came here, one of the Austrians from Vienna, and did a terrific
panel and closing ceremonies, and basically, you meet people that you stay in touch with
and do other things with in the future, so it's an incredible investment of your time,
and we're telling you this far in advance so that you can plan for it and start saving
up for the airfare, which undoubtedly will go up.
Now, Nick, is there an official website?
An official website for Hacking at Random?
Yes.
It is HAR, H-A-R 2009 dot O-R-G.
Okay, and I guess...
And there's a wiki and a mailing list.
I strongly encourage you to sign up for both their announce list and their discussion list
since things are already happening and planning is in the works.
Yes, I mean, it may start off a little bit slow, it might seem to be a little bit slow,
but believe me, it's going to start kicking into full gear very, very soon, and I definitely
want to be a part of this one.
And I think we will be.
A lot of what we're talking about and planning right now is set to go live on the wiki probably
by next week.
Great.
All right, so that's what's going on with us, with the various things, projects we've
been involved with.
I also wanted to mention we had a 2600 meeting last Friday, which was really pretty incredible.
It was our first post-hope 2600 meeting, so a lot of people came together who were at
the conference.
And what was especially amazing, and Bernie, I have to give you full credit for making
this happen, was that Jim was able to show up, our co-host who suffered a stroke last
year, has been making incredible progress.
He wasn't at the meeting, but at dinner afterwards where we basically take over an entire restaurant,
he made an appearance, the entire place erupted into applause, and that was really incredible.
It was an incredible situation to witness.
And he held up a pretty, he hosted a pretty impressive poker game later that evening too,
so it was, he's recovering quite well, I might say.
Absolutely.
Okay, so that was a bit of history.
I'm sorry, I'm a little distracted because somebody in the radio station who's coming
through my ear, yeah, maybe one of you could wander through the station and find out who's
talking on a microphone that somehow is winding up in my ear.
It's very distracting.
I don't know how it's happening.
I don't know where it's coming from.
Maybe it's this button here.
Okay, I pressed the button and I'm a lot louder now.
I just had somebody saying, testing, one, two, three, four in my head.
I can't tell you how distracting that is.
Does this happen to you often?
Not often enough, I guess.
I'm sorry.
Are you sure you're not just hearing voices, Emmanuel?
Well, I'm not hearing them anymore because I hit this button.
The monitor button, apparently if you hit that red monitor button, you get to monitor
somebody else in the studio, in the station someplace.
I can't even see them.
I don't know where they are.
It might be a voice from the past.
Okay, news.
Any news items that people wish to focus on this week?
What about this major security breach?
Alex, go ahead.
What about something about 40 million people's information?
Yeah, you know, I saw that.
That was all over the news in the last couple of days.
I believe the headline basically was that hackers were responsible for this.
And they said they were war driving.
Hackers steal 40 million credit card numbers.
Now, yeah, I know a bunch of hackers, but I don't know anybody who did this.
11 people were indicted yesterday for allegedly stealing more than 40 million credit and debit
card numbers.
The indictments alleged that at least nine major US retailers were hacked.
And that was unsealed on Tuesday in Boston and San Diego.
It's believed to be the largest hacking case that the Justice Department has ever tried
to prosecute.
Three of the defendants are from the United States, three from Estonia, three from Ukraine,
two are from China, and one is from Belarus.
The remaining individual is known only by an alias and authorities do not know where
that person is.
And I'm going to try to find out if we even know what the alias is.
But I got to say, you know, looking at this, where is the hacking here?
Again, we've asked this question so many times.
Every time something happens with credit card numbers, they say hackers are the only people
who could possibly do this.
It's not that difficult.
Does anybody know what actually happened here?
I heard that they were using some kind of war driving technique going around these various
places.
And it seems really, really silly, I think, to broadcast out customer information like
that over a wireless network.
That seems criminally negligent to me, to be honest with you.
Absolutely.
And somehow they connected this with war driving.
This is the technical term that it was being thrown about this morning on, I think, the
local Fox station here in New York.
And it was interesting, actually, just two days ago, somebody started to use my debit
card when I was in Europe.
I wonder if I was one of the unlucky 40 million.
They started to just use your debit card.
It's very interesting, actually.
I was, this, you know, because I was in Europe for the last year.
I was living over in England, going back to school.
And I was trying to leave London, took me about three days to leave London.
It was another story.
We don't have to get into that now.
Anyhow, so I'm checking my bank account.
It took you three days to leave London?
It took me three days, yeah.
Are they under siege or something?
Yeah, you'd be surprised.
A blockade, maybe?
Yeah, basically two and a half full days at Heathrow, trying to get on a stand by.
Oh, Heathrow, okay.
Well, that makes sense.
You just have to say Heathrow, and that, you don't have to explain anymore.
Eventually, I had to fly to Edinburgh, drank till five in the morning, then got on an eleven
o'clock flight, got back to New York yesterday.
That's how the pilots do it.
So you might as well do it too.
Exactly.
Yeah, at least in BA.
Okay, we'll be hearing from them later.
Anyhow, so I checked my bank account from southeast London at a buddy of mine's place,
and I'm thinking to myself, what the hell have I been spending my money on?
Have I really been drinking that much?
It was about $1,200 missing.
I start checking the account, and there's $150 missing from Texaco in South Carolina,
$150 from another Texaco in North Carolina.
Someone's got an SUV.
Somebody's got an SUV.
Exactly.
I know.
It's probably one of these navigators or something.
Well, here's my question.
Don't they need a PIN in order to be able to use a debit card?
No.
You can use a debit card like a credit card, and it still comes out of your checking account,
which was kind of scary.
And the bizarre thing was it was only at Texaco's.
Really?
Only at Texaco's.
$150 at each Texaco.
Brand loyalty.
Yeah, brand loyalty.
Or there's something about Texaco's that allows them to do this very easily.
Dot Red is here.
You were late, but welcome to the studio.
Yes, but I'm here now.
What's up?
I just wanted to say, that actually sounds very familiar.
Something that happened to me about two months ago.
Were you visiting Texaco's?
No, no, no.
Something you did or something happened to you?
No, no, no.
Something happened to me.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Okay.
Now, this was in New York, but the same thing happened where about $1,200, $1,400 started
missing from my bank account, and I saw the charges were all coming from shell stations.
Shell stations?
Yes.
The plot thickens.
Fascinating.
Yes.
The plot thickens immediately.
The plot's pretty damn thick already.
Bernie, have any insight onto what's going on here?
Maybe it was one of their shell accounts.
Ah, there you go.
Very funny.
But it's really odd.
I'm really unsure as to why, other than brand loyalty of these criminals, why the bogus
charges would consistently appear at just one brand of gas station.
There's no technical reason why that would be necessary.
I'm wondering, was your card ever used?
The person whose card number was just filled, so debit card number.
Alex.
Did you ever use Alex at a Texaco station?
No, I haven't even been in the country for the last year.
Like over a year ago, did you ever use it at Texaco?
I don't think so, actually.
I haven't even been driving.
Once I moved into D.C., I got rid of my car, so I haven't filled up at all.
Well, Bernie, like Emanuel said, it could be that there might be ... Some stations nowadays,
they have you put the zip code, your billing zip code, or something like that in, and it
could be maybe Texaco doesn't have that restriction, so that would be why they were going to Texaco?
Probably.
Well, they figure it works once at Texaco, let's play it safe and keep using Texaco.
That might be how a criminal mind might work.
But how do you think your card number was obtained?
I have no idea.
It could have been any number of ways, I imagine.
I'm pretty careful about maintaining the privacy of that for obvious reasons, but who knows?
Maybe I was one of these unlucky 40 million.
It also could happen sometimes in restaurants, if you give them your card and they go away
and come back, there's really quick card skimmers.
They just record as many numbers as they can.
Yeah, it's not that difficult to do.
I know in Europe, they come to you with a machine, and they never actually leave.
That's true.
At first, I found that really rude.
Because they're standing there, right?
They're standing there at the table, and you're paying, and then they watch you put the tip
down, and they hand the tip in, and I thought, oh my God, this is such a vulgar practice.
Just go away, take my money away.
But I don't know, the only thing I could think of was that I did wire some money to the former
deposed king of Nigeria a few weeks ago.
Oh, that might be it, yeah.
But he assured me everything was on the level.
Well, he spoke in all caps, I'll bet.
He did.
Yeah.
I mean, if this teaches us anything, it's that the rise in gas prices caused a rise
in identity theft.
I mean, we've got two people in the studio right here.
Yeah, gas stating.
Yeah, exactly.
You notice they both went to gas stations.
Nice job.
I mean, Alex, you said it was $150 each time.
Was it really on the nose, $150 each time?
No, there was a variation.
Okay, so then it probably-
$126.
It was approximately-
It probably was a gas tank being filled up.
Yeah, that's what I think.
It must have been.
All right.
And .red, you?
Mine was actually rising, but at a variable rate.
Sort of like $20, then $40, then $120.
Thing is, you have to keep your eye on your credit card statements.
You guys are not liable for this, because you didn't do anything wrong, certainly.
But if you don't catch it, then you wind up paying for it.
That's true, actually.
And I'm actually a lawyer now these days.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop, stop, stop.
Dun, dun, dun, dun.
You're a lawyer?
You turned into a lawyer?
I did.
When did that happen?
I turned into a lawyer in 2005.
Wow.
That's why I was gone for so long.
How did that happen?
People leave the studio and then become a lawyer.
I know.
That's why I was gone.
In 2002, I went to law school.
I graduated in 2005.
Then I've been working for the government for a while, sold out with a private practice.
And then I just finished a postgraduate law degree at Oxford last month.
And so now I'm back in the States, back in private practice.
So you-
Oh, yeah.
So about the bank accounts, actually.
I did study this, actually, in law school.
But you're only liable if you were negligent in reporting it.
Essentially, that means that if you knew about it and you didn't report it for an extended
period of time, then you may not be able to get your money back.
But that's pretty much it.
Otherwise, especially with credit cards, it's a very consumer-oriented payment system.
Well, I mean, there's no way you could tell somebody knows your credit card number.
You might know if somebody took your credit card.
You might know that.
But the numbers, they're not hard to get.
They're in so many places.
And I know, Bernie, you have a particular issue with this being referred to as hacking,
right?
Yeah.
I mean, as you mentioned earlier, it doesn't require any hacking at all if these companies,
these large companies like TJ Maxx, I believe, was one of them, Home Depot, were broadcasting
customers' credit and debit card information, broadcasting it over the air, in the clear.
I mean, that's just...it's so egregiously negligent that I think they should be prosecuted
for mishandling consumers' private information.
I mean, that's why this happened in the first place.
It's sort of, you know, going after people who picked this stuff out of thin air, which
was just broadcast in the clear, is...yeah, I mean, that's one way the investigation can
go.
But why don't we address why it's happening in the first place, which is careless handling
of people's information and credit card numbers?
That's not happening.
I don't know why it's not happening, but the Justice Department is barking up the wrong
tree.
Absolutely.
And I think what's interesting also is that, I mean, a lot of this stems from the fact that
we have really antiquated ways of dealing with these transactions.
I mean, using mag stripes, just numbers on mag stripes, numbers you can use anywhere.
It's totally...when I was in Finland, I had...my debit card had a smart chip on it, so that
you couldn't just copy that.
You really needed specialized hardware to do that.
You can't just go in a backroom and swipe it.
It's got its own circuitry in it.
And also, anytime I transacted something online, I actually had a list of one-time-use pins.
And so if that ran out, the bank would send me a new list, or when it was close to running
out.
But there was...
I mean, if you get someone's...a look at someone's credit card, you could go and start making
online purchases.
Now, okay, and that obviously is a more secure method of dealing with credit cards.
My question is, here in the United States, the same companies, Visa, MasterCard, is it
possible for us to get a card that has a chip on it instead of the mag stripe?
I think it is possible.
I'm not 100% sure, but the thing is that it's not common practice.
Well, the thing is, when I was in England, and Alex, you can probably verify this, there
are places that won't take my credit card because it has a mag stripe and doesn't have
a chip on it.
And, you know, you have a Visa card, but the place that takes Visa doesn't take your Visa.
That's really frustrating.
That's true, yeah.
They really rely on the chip-and-pin practice over there to verify somebody's identity.
And I thought the interesting thing was they would actually really examine your signature
on the back of the card.
And if your signature was smudged or just rubbed off or whatever, was it legible, they
wouldn't allow you to make the purchase.
You'd have to use another card that had a signature on it.
And that was their way of verifying.
I mean, it's very easy, I think, to replicate a signature, but the chip-and-pin is really
what they rely upon.
But, you know, what I really don't understand is if it's – we have the technology, and
I'm sure it can't be that expensive to roll out, so if these banks and these credit
card companies are suffering from all this identity theft, why don't they just go ahead
and do it?
Because they're not really the ones that are suffering.
They just simply raise rates and they enroll you in these, quote-unquote, free credit report
programs.
That's true.
I think they're doing quite well with all this, and fear-mongering as well.
I guess there's not enough demand in the U.S. to push for these kinds of things, or
it's just not known.
No.
Well, if I can interject.
Go ahead, Nick.
The United States is an incredibly large, incredibly diversified credit market.
I mean, it's – in Europe and other places, you've got things controlled by much more
central banks and clearinghouses and things like that.
Here in the U.S., if one person's unhappy or if a bank tries to roll out one sort of
security method, they have to replace all of the machines and all of the hardware and
all of the equipment.
And they've done – studied many, many studies of this.
They've seen is what we're losing to credit card fraud more or less than what it would
take for us to replace the entire card infrastructure, reissue cards to all of the people who have
them.
Remember, Europe's people have one debit card and maybe one credit card.
The average consumer in the United States has anywhere between 2.5 and 3 credit cards
on top of maybe one or two debit cards.
That the total infrastructure investment to be able to roll that out nationwide – I
mean, as a country, the United States has many, many more of these devices as the common
EU market as a whole, probably by – maybe even by a multiple of two, because most of
the transactions that we – I mean, we use credit much, much, much more frequently here
in the United States.
We use credit on many more – many other different systems, whereas in other countries
you see a much greater use of debit, you see a much greater use of credit, you see a much
– I mean, a much greater use of not credit, but specific store credit.
Right.
For people – it's much more common for people to have an account with a vendor, which
is starting to get less common here.
You know, you see that in some major, major big chain stores, but most people don't
use those.
They either use a regular credit card or they have a store credit that's tied to
a credit account that they can use anywhere they see MasterCard, Visa, et cetera, et cetera.
It might be a good opportunity for some other company or a branch of an existing company
to step forward and introduce this new technology, new for us, and have it become more and more
popular and when people see that if I use this particular card, I'm not subjected
to the identity theft and fraud that the other cards seem to be prone to, and then all of
a sudden you have a demand for it.
I mean, they've tried to do that in several – they've tried to do that several ways.
It's one common thing that comes to mind is SpeedPass.
It's not incredibly more secure than a credit card system, but it failed to catch
on and a lot of it was largely killed because valet drivers would just see the, you know,
the little SpeedPass thing was basically a stick that was at the end of your keychain
that you would wave in front of the SpeedPass thing and move on and purchase it.
The credit card drivers were actually taking those, cloning them, and then using them,
and since they get cleared against a credit card, there was a lot of fraud there, and
a lot of these new technologies get hit in the press by new reports of fraud.
Every single secure system they try to roll out instantly gets hacked.
The press says, oh, this new system has gotten, you know, compromised, and therefore people
don't see any need to go ahead and use those systems, and banks don't see any need to
roll out a lot of brand new systems in light of all this bad press.
The other thing about the United States as a whole is that consumers here are incredibly
resistant to change.
They're incredibly bad first adopters when you look across the developed world.
If you try to roll something out in Germany, it will largely gain acceptance.
If you try to roll something out here, they'll try to roll it out in big markets.
All it has to do is fail in one of the three markets, and then whatever institution tries
to roll it out will just pull the plug on it.
Yeah, it's one of the problems of being such a huge nation.
If we did things maybe on a smaller scale, we might see more flexibility.
We're slow-moving.
We are slow-moving.
That's what big giants tend to be.
Now, Bernie, I know, moving along, you also had an interesting story about, we were talking
about war driving, but something about war walking?
A new catchphrase has been added to the lexicon, with apologies to lexicon, called text walking.
Let me explain some of the problems that text walking has created.
Text walking is basically walking across the street while you are texting on your cell
phone or PDA.
In San Francisco, a woman was killed by a pickup truck this year when she stepped off
a curb while texting.
In Bakersfield, a man was killed by a car while crossing the street and texting.
A 15-year-old girl fell off her horse while texting, suffering head and back injuries.
A 13-year-old girl suffered belly, leg, and arm burns after texting her boyfriend while
cooking noodles.
Then, there was a 30-year-old advertising employee who walked straight into a stop sign
while texting and bumping his head.
Wait a minute.
Hold on a second.
Okay.
All those stories you just told sounded pretty compelling, but who was it that actually reported
that somebody walked into a stop sign while texting?
Do you file a police report for that?
How does that even get known?
Well, it's actually a 30-year-old advertising employee.
He actually admitted this himself, that he walked straight into a stop sign while texting
and bumping his head.
Maybe it knocked some sense into him, but there's a solution for this.
All right.
What's the solution?
Well, the Illinois General Assembly has introduced a House Bill 4520.
Representative Ken Duncan, a Democrat in Chicago, he insisted that this is becoming
more and more of a common problem, with people haplessly crossing an intersection and almost
killing themselves, end quote.
The penalty for text walking under this proposed legislation is that Illinois residents would
be slapped with a misdemeanor offense and a $25 fine if caught using a cell phone or
other wireless device while traversing streets.
Now, wait a minute.
First of all, I had the phrase right.
It's not war walking.
It's text walking.
Okay.
I don't know.
I think I prefer war walking, actually.
But you're saying that they're going to hand down fines to people that are just seen walking
down the street texting, as if being hit by cars isn't enough of a penalty.
Now they're going to actually fine people on the spot just because they're doing something
that could potentially, maybe, if they're very careless, get them into some kind of
hot water.
Is that what this is?
Well, not walking along the street.
According to the statutory language, it's while traversing the street.
So if you're crossing the street while texting and you're spotted by a police officer, they
can charge you with text walking, which is a misdemeanor, and you could be fined $25.
What if you're talking on the phone?
Is that considered hazardous, too?
Well, the way the statutory language is, is that residents would be slapped with a misdemeanor
and $25 fine if caught using a cell phone or other wireless device while traversing
streets.
That could be texting or actually using the phone.
Now, Bernie S., I don't want to...
Well, I guess I can admit it, because it's not a crime yet, but I have done just that
while on this very radio show.
I've crossed some streets while talking to people.
I'd be worried if I were in Chicago, I could get in trouble for that.
Well, if this House Bill 4520 is enacted, then yes, you should look both ways before
you text or use a cell phone while traversing a street in Chicago.
Well, wait a minute.
I think you should look for the cops, not look both ways, necessarily, is what the lesson
here is.
Well, look both ways for both reasons.
Okay.
I see no feasible way of absolutely enforcing this, because you can be slapped with this
fine for just having your cell phone out.
There's no way to prove that you weren't texting or not.
Yeah, what if you're playing a game?
What if you're dialing a number?
What if you're on speakerphone and it looks like you're texting?
What if you hit end really quickly and then just hold it up and say, look, I was just
looking at my screen?
What if you're just admiring your phone?
You know, Mark, you've got an iPhone there, and many times I've caught you just simply
looking at it with admiration.
And many people do that.
Many people do that.
They have iPhones and it's really kind of cool to just glance at.
Are you saying crossing the street, admiring your iPhone, you're going to get slapped with
a fine?
Is that what you're telling me, Bernie?
It could happen.
I ran into this problem last week myself in Philadelphia.
I was at the Philadelphia Parking Authority on Filbert Street paying a parking ticket
and I was standing in line and there were all these signs saying, it's absolutely prohibited
to use your cell phone while on its premises.
So after I paid my fine, I walked up to the security guard who had yelled at two people
who were in line using their cell phone and I said, well, can I use my cell phone to send
a text message?
He said, well, they don't want people using cell phones at all.
I said, well, how about if it receives a text message and I have no control over that, if
it just comes through?
What about that?
He said, well, the reason they have this rule is because it shuts down all the computers
there behind the counter.
I said, are you serious that using a cell phone shuts down all the computers?
He said, yeah, it's happened before, they go down for 10 or 15 minutes when people use
their cell phones.
I'm like, boy, your IT people really need to get their act together.
That sounds like a problem that's not necessarily for all the cell phones, it's just really
bad infrastructure design back there.
But he was just-
It really depends on how they decide to award those laws because it could be something as
simple as licking your phone while touching the keypad or texting.
And that could make it either really, really fascist or extremely impossible to enforce.
Now, Bernie, this is Alex.
I think this is just absolutely amazing.
You actually said that this would be a misdemeanor offense?
Yes, a misdemeanor-
So you'll get a criminal record.
A criminal record.
Wow.
A criminal record for texting.
For texting.
This is amazing.
I mean, this is a completely disproportionate punishment to what's being, to texting.
I gotta let my friend Lurid in Ohio know about this because he's the master of getting in
trouble for the most minor things and having it follow him for the rest of his life.
So texting while walking down the street, that definitely is something he would be interested
in.
So then they'd have to really qualify what it means to use a phone.
Is looking at the time using it, is scratching an itch on my nose with the end of it using
it.
Okay.
Well, we're going to have to pretty much end on that.
But we do have another exciting announcement.
And Marques, you handed this to me.
Now, I believe in addition to all the audio going up on our website, and if you got www.hope.net,
all the audio for the HOPE Conference, recently concluded HOPE Conference, is now up and being
downloaded by thousands of people around the world.
We also have put up the, on the 2600 store, we have the official HOPE t-shirts.
Is that correct?
Yep.
All right.
And that's got some amazing artwork by our French-Canadian artist Fred up there in Montreal
put together some really amazing shirts.
That and also the brand new telephone security t-shirts.
They're both available at store.2600.com.
So yeah, you can start experiencing the HOPE experience, I guess, if you weren't there
or even if you were there.
All right.
That's going to pretty much do it for us here this week.
Closing out with another song about telephones.
If you have a song about telephones you'd like us to play at the end of the program
or if you just have something to say to us, oth at 2600.com is our email address.
And the song this week is by Blondie.
So we'll see you next week.
Good night.
It's good to hear your voice, you know it's been so long.
If I don't get your calls then everything goes wrong.
I want to tell you something you've known all along.
We've been hanging on the telephone.
I had to interrupt and start this conversation.
Your voice across the line gives me a strange sensation.
I like to talk when I can show you my affection.
Oh, I can't control myself.
Oh, I can't control myself.
Oh, I can't control myself.
We've been hanging on the telephone.
Hang up and run to me.
Oh, hang up and run to me.
Oh, hang up and run to me.
Oh, hang up and run to me.
Oh, run to me.
Yeah, Blondie, Blondie.
Debra Harry, hanging on the telephone.
Yeah, man, these guys are off the hook.