"...music playing..."
All right, and you're listening to WBAI New York, where we have flashing green lights
now that tell us that we're on the air.
Yeah, it's nothing to freak out over.
And we're about a minute early, and I've tried to play announcements, but they're not working.
I'm sorry.
I think it's a different button.
It's a different button.
I pressed all the buttons.
They're not working.
I'm sorry.
But we do have one more minute of Off The Hook.
The telephone 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.
I hope that's understood.
Bundledly bound for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
Bundledly bound.
And getting right by the program is off the hook, Emmanuel Goldstein here with you back
in New York and starting to get adjusted to life in the US all over again.
Joined tonight by Mike.
Hi.
Dotret.
Hey.
Jim.
Hi.
Red Hat.
Hello.
Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
Bernie S down there in Philadelphia.
Greetings from Philadelphia.
And our special guest tonight, our old friend Mitch Altman.
Hello.
And Brie Pettis.
Hello.
You're from NYC Resistor.
Yes.
What is NYC Resistor?
Tell us.
NYC Resistor is a hacker space over in Brooklyn, just over the water, and we learn, share,
and make things.
We get together and hack.
I've been there.
Yeah.
It's amazing.
And RedHack, I believe you're a member of that now.
Yeah.
Wow.
So what kinds of things, what kind of skullduggery are you guys up to on a regular basis?
What?
You're looking at Brie to ask.
I've been gone for a month.
I've been gone for a month and a half.
We can talk about it.
It's not secret, huh?
No.
I mean, people just hang out there and have their own projects and, you know, collaborate
on stuff.
And, I mean, the great thing that I've found with this space is just kind of being able
to tap different people's knowledge.
You know, if I'm working on something and I don't know how to do something, chances
are there's somebody else there who does who I can ask and vice versa.
You know, everyone has different skill sets and it's a great place to share.
Do you have to be a good programmer to be a part of this?
You don't have to be a good anything.
I mean, you know, people have different skills.
Some people are really good at hardware.
Some people are really good at software.
Some people are really artsy.
Some, you know, it's...
What are you really bad at?
What am I bad at?
Yeah.
Me, personally, probably...
You thought I was going to ask what you're really good at.
Well, I'm not very artsy.
We don't care about that.
I'm not very artsy and I'm not that great with electronics, although I find my way around.
But, you know, things that I want to do, I can, you know, there are people who know stuff.
Are there any experts in disabling bright blinking green lights?
All right.
You know, stop with the bright blinking green lights.
It's really distracting.
Well, you know, cover it with a paper bag.
Do you have a paper bag?
If I did, it'd be over your head.
I don't see what purpose it serves.
I mean, we're aware that we're on here.
I'm sorry.
I'm just very hostile after coming back from Europe and just dealing with all the pettiness
of the US life.
I want to know what the other colors are for, though.
Am I right, Bree?
Am I right, Mitch?
It's like coming back here.
It's like going into the sewer system.
It really is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
In Europe, people take responsibility for their own actions.
It's kind of cool.
Uh-huh.
Okay.
Now...
Oh, it's over the light.
So now we don't know if we're on the air or not.
Oh.
Nice going.
I can still see it, but not as distracting.
Now, you guys, not to spend too much time on this, but coming back into the States,
any issues or problems or stories you'd like to share?
You know, I was expecting to really have it be unpleasant, and it did take about three
times as long to get on the plane in Berlin, because they just went through everything.
But they were much more friendly than usual, it seems like.
I don't know.
Maybe they're getting overtime or something.
I don't know what it was, but I got on in Frankfurt, and security was quicker than ever,
and no additional security checks.
And they even got some dangerous things onto the plane.
Not intentionally, but things that I realized could be used in a dangerous way, but nobody
seemed to really...
I mean, they shouldn't care, because there are all kinds of dangerous things you can
use on airplanes every day, that it would be ridiculous to try and control everything
like that.
Better off just looking out for each other and, you know, keeping...
Just being intelligent about it, rather than being paranoid and crazy.
Mitch, how about you?
Did you have any adventures?
Yeah, no.
I was expecting, you know, more craziness, more inconveniences, but it was just, you
know, same as always.
They asked me some...
Well, you carry more electronic equipment than a spy organization, so I'm surprised
you don't get searched.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm surprised, too, you know, after suspicious electronics has been stopped in various airports
in Scotland.
But, yeah, I've never been hassled at all for carrying all the things that I carry.
I was asked some strange questions in Berlin before getting on the plane.
I don't remember them.
And they all had the same answer, me, you know, who packed your luggage and things like
that.
So...
Technically, it should be, I did.
Me, I don't think, is grammatically correct.
And the Germans do notice this.
They did let me through.
Yeah, probably.
And they kept an eye on you afterwards.
They just knew I was American, so they made allowances.
I mean, you always check it, though, right?
You have, like, a big suitcase that you check with all your...
Yeah, I had a big suitcase full of the extra parts, although there weren't all that many
left over after all the workshops.
Yeah.
Want to tell us something about your experiences at CCC?
Oh, it was great.
Compared to other ones?
Any different?
Well, every year they get more popular.
This year it sold out before the first day even started.
The hacker movement and hackerspace movement, it's just, it's crazy where geeks are coming
together in community in all these different ways.
It's really cool to be a part of.
The hardware hacking area has also been getting way more popular.
It was way more than twice as big than ever before, and there were many times when people
couldn't come into the room because there was no room for them.
So next year we're probably going to have to get a bigger space, and I don't know if
that's really a possibility.
I like that space so much.
It's right in the middle of Alexanderplatz.
It's perfectly situated.
I would hope we just take over more space somehow, maybe add a floor or something.
Yeah, if we could build a floor.
Maybe take over the next building, because it is a wonderful space.
It really is.
Although I said that about the last space that we moved out of to get to this space,
and I guess we could never fit in there now.
The building next door is a shopping mall.
I don't want it.
Everything there is a shopping mall.
A lot of target practice for TV be gone.
I know, but when you're not target practicing your TV be gone, you're in a shopping mall.
Yeah.
Mitch, let's talk about your latest invention.
The latest thing you're able to turn off with your device, or is that just part of
the TV be gone that can do that?
The latest TV be gone that I made, the variation is a new version of TV be gone pro, which
is it looks very much like a certain MP3 player, and I actually use a real fake case for this
particular MP3 player.
It turns out with the battery I use, a rechargeable battery similar to ones used in cell phones,
but it's way more powerful than even the last TV be gone pro, which could turn off TVs at
100 meters.
This one can bounce around the signal in a room with 150 meters worth of bounces to get
to the offending device to turn it off.
But I did add an extra code at the end, the very last code, by popular request.
I wouldn't have thought of this on my own because it's just, I don't know, it doesn't
quite fit, but I couldn't resist.
It's the sleep code for any Apple notebook computer.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
I discovered that last couple of shows when you kept turning my computer off while I was
trying to do the show.
As if we're trying not to laugh.
Yeah.
Everybody in the room was laughing at the same time.
It was a real big joke.
Mitch, I have a question.
Yeah.
How do you even notice that a television 150 meters away is on?
Well, you need binoculars for that, but the thing is, as you're walking down the street
and there's a huge one facing the sidewalk, you can just turn it off.
Or if there's one in the room with a weird angle, you can bounce it off the wall a few
times.
So just having that extra little oomph is kind of nice.
Let me ask, what is the point of turning off somebody's laptop?
I don't know.
You know, the only time I've ever done it myself is when I did it to you, and I do apologize
for that.
But earlier today in the cafe, Mark...
See, the thing is, not only were you turning my laptop off, you kept turning the TV on
in the room, and everybody's laughing at the same time, and I'm trying to do a radio show
telling everybody to shut up.
And my laptop is, for some reason, going to sleep, and I'm trying to figure out what's
wrong with that.
I'm backing up all my files as I'm speaking.
So two weeks ago, if I sounded a little bit desperate in the last half hour of the show,
that's why.
But...
Yeah, yeah.
That was totally my fault, so I'm sorry for all the callers who were interrupted with
giggling in the background.
I don't understand why you'd want to turn a TV off.
I just don't understand why laptops of innocent people working quietly in the corner...
You can.
I mean, you could disable it so that only it works with a specific remote, so that it's
really...
Well, you can cover it up.
You left the vulnerability open in your laptop that it wasn't...
I just didn't expect to be tested at that particular moment.
We were actually...
Yeah, we were playing with this earlier, or Mitch was showing it to me in the cafe, and
I was trying to do it on mine, and I don't know...
I think mine is just broken.
It didn't work.
All right.
Well, let's...
Do me a favor.
But I got somebody else in the room.
Good for you.
But do me a favor.
When we go out later on, I'll probably wind up in a place with lots of laptops.
Let's not make a whole lot of new enemies.
We have enough as it is, okay?
And it's really...
What if somebody loses a file?
It could happen.
It goes into sleep mode.
Maybe...
I don't know.
I have an answer to your question.
Go ahead.
What if somebody's watching a TV show on their laptop?
Okay, then it's justified, I suppose.
Well, actually, I don't want to make life difficult for people.
I only want to turn...
Oh, no.
You guys do that.
No, actually, that's really not my thing.
There are people who use TVGone in a very mischievous way, and I must admit, I do it
occasionally, too.
But that's not my intent.
Who uses TVGone in a not mischievous way?
That's what I'd like to know.
Oh, you know, if I'm in a bar like I was...
I use TVGone every day in my business.
I mean, that's...
Well, I do.
Well, you do, yes.
But, like, last night, I was in a bar.
It's a very small space, and they had two TVs on, and no one was watching it.
Is that why you got the black eye?
No black eye.
Oh, no.
But, you know, two TVs were on.
No one was watching it, and I turned them off, but the person working there decided
that they needed it on.
And so...
Of course, it's a companion to get them through the night.
Well, I don't think so, because they were busy enough just serving all of us customers.
I was kind of hopping there.
So I turned it off, they turned it on, I turned it off, they turned it on, you know, et cetera.
And eventually, they gave up, and everyone in the bar could, you know, do whatever they're
doing in peace, including talk to one another.
So that wasn't being mischievous.
That was just making the space a nicer place for all of us.
Uh-huh.
And this guy thinks that he now has to tell the boss that the TV set's broken.
We'll then blame him for it.
Well, I don't think anyone will get blamed.
Well, we don't know.
People usually blame the technology, which is always kind of fun.
Yeah, yeah.
Anything's possible, I suppose.
Any other memories from CCC or Germany or airplanes or anything like that?
You know, I went to this really cool hackerspace in Berlin called...
I'm going to butcher the name, but it's Raum's Agentur.
It means space agency, and it's about two miles away from where CCC happens.
And they're working on e-bikes.
That's one of the obsessions of this hackerspace.
E-bikes.
Yeah.
So what it is, it's a motor inside of the hub of your bicycle, usually the front one,
which you power with a little grip.
And it makes it...
It turns your bicycle into something a little bit more than a bicycle, but not a moped or
anything like that.
It powers it up, and they've been hacking on that and making motor controllers and stuff
like that.
So what can a bicycle do with this?
It can go a lot faster?
It can go about, yeah, 18 kilometers without pedaling, or more if you pedal along with
it.
Uh-huh.
Wow.
It makes having a bicycle a little bit more like having a moped without all the noise.
So this is in Berlin?
Yeah.
Also, Berlin now has six hackerspaces?
That sounds right, yeah.
Six hackers...
Germany has had hackerspaces of one sort or another for many years now.
Since 81, I think.
Yeah.
So they've really been the pioneers as far as getting this whole thing off the ground.
But here in New York, we have NYC Resistor.
Are there others in New York?
Yes.
What is the other one?
There's Alpha One Labs.
That's the one.
In Brooklyn.
Alpha One Labs.
What's the one called in Chicago?
Pumping Station.
Pumping Station.
Okay.
And then, of course, Noisebridge, you're affiliated with.
Yeah.
In San Francisco, I'm one of the co-founders.
Uh-huh.
And the HackerBot Labs over in Seattle, they do some amazing things.
I think, Bernie, you're trying to chime in with something about Philadelphia.
Yeah, sure.
We have...
Philadelphia has twice as many hackerspaces as New York.
We have...
Well, wait a minute.
That sounds like a challenge.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
It is a challenge, actually.
You have the population advantage, but we have the hacktory, and we have Hive 76, so
there.
Well, okay.
I hope you teach arithmetic there, because you've already named two in New York, so we're
tied.
Well, actually, it would be really cool to have a bunch of hackerspaces in all these
big cities around the country.
We've been talking about doing Hackers on a Train, and like...
Where would Hackers on a Train go?
Yeah, this is a horrible idea.
But we would go, like...
In this country, it is a horrible idea.
We would go down to, like, D.C. or something like that.
Uh-huh.
And in particular, Hack D.C.?
Yeah.
I guess that hackerspace there.
That's not right.
There's been some other talk on the Hope Forums about that, having hackers on a train coming
from Toronto down to Hope.
Oh, that's good.
The Hope Forums.
Yeah.
So I guess it's a good time to mention that.
We have another Hope Conference coming up in July, July 16th, 17th, and 18th, I believe.
The Next Hope and the Hope Forums.
How do people get there?
Talk.hope.net.
Yeah.
Talk.hope.net.
And you can ask questions and learn things about the Next Hope.
Yeah.
So while I'm in the East Coast, I'm giving workshops like I did at 2063 at various hackerspaces
in the area.
2063 being the CCC Conference we just came from.
Right.
The one we were talking about earlier.
Mm-hmm.
26th edition of the CCC.
That's why they call it that.
Yeah.
Pretty amazing.
One over a quarter century of these things going on.
It really is.
They started in 1984, the same year 2600 started, and it's still going.
And growing.
Yeah.
So I'm going to be doing one at Hive 76 on the 20th, and I just scheduled one earlier
today in Baltimore.
Their new hackerspace, been around six months, Baltimore Node, and hopefully one in Hack
DC as well.
Now, let's say people-
So what are you doing-
Go ahead, Barney.
I'm sorry.
So Mitch, what exactly are you doing?
in Philadelphia and in Baltimore?
Well, I have a whole bunch of parts that can be put together for a bunch of simple but
hopefully fun and intriguing projects that can be completed by absolutely anyone, whether
they've made anything ever before in their life.
So I like giving people incentive to get the hardware bug.
Anyone can make things, and I can teach anyone to solder.
So by these workshops, I can show how fun and easy it is.
Sounds like a challenge.
If we find someone who you can't teach to solder, do we get a prize?
Sure.
Sure.
Find someone who I can't teach.
I would love that.
Oh, I think I could find people you can't teach.
Like I know a two-year-old.
The minimum age is intelligent five-year-olds.
Eight on up is the thing.
I've taught kids with learning disabilities, people who are paralyzed, autistic kids.
You can teach two-year-olds electronics.
I know this for a fact.
It's a little dangerous, but yes.
Well, I didn't say it wasn't dangerous, but you can do it.
As long as they keep the soldering iron out of their mouth.
I know full-grown adults who will refuse to learn.
So I'll send them your way.
Sure.
Sure.
It's funny.
Now, I learned in third grade myself from a book that I took out of our school library
and then didn't return until the end of the year.
One thing, you stick two forks into either end of a hot dog and then plug it into the
wall and it cooks the hot dog, and it worked.
But what they didn't tell me is that you're supposed to plug it in after you put the forks
in either end of the hot dog.
Yeah.
That's a valuable lesson right there.
It's a way to learn respect for electricity.
Now, Bri, let me ask you.
Somebody out there listening wants to start their own hackerspace.
What's the best way to go about doing it?
So there's a great site called hackerspaces.org, and just go on it.
Check and see if there's one in your neighborhood.
Go visit.
And you should definitely download the hackerspace design patterns, which are there.
This is something that Jens and Lars put together.
We visited them on the Hackers on a Plane tour in 2007, and they put this together to
basically say, here's all the ways we've done it wrong.
Maybe you can avoid doing it as wrong in the ways that we did it and find your own ways.
And yeah, basically they put it together, and there's things like don't let people live
in your hackerspace, which you can learn through trial and error.
They've done it, and they know that it definitely doesn't work.
I wonder if there are hackerspaces nightmares yet, of various things that have gone horribly
wrong.
Oh, yeah.
Every place has disasters, actually, whether it's rats, floods, storms.
Do you want to share any of your disasters, or are they too embarrassing?
We've had leaks.
We've left things on, left things open.
Yeah.
Now, I believe you guys have a public night.
Is that right?
Yeah.
At NYC Resistor, people can stop by on Thursday nights.
It's craft night.
So it's a mix of people knitting, soldering, programming, and hanging out.
Knitting.
People knit.
Oh, yeah.
So you could join a hackerspace to knit.
Well, and that's one of the cool things, is that I think a lot of people, when they think
about hacking, they just think about programming, and it's opened up to a lot of different things.
There's craft hackers now, if you want to call them that.
Interesting.
And of course, you guys have the biggest supply of Club Mate in the area, too.
I mean, I think outside of your warehouse, we may have the biggest supply of Club Mate
in the United States.
So Thursday night, people can come over and sample it.
Yeah.
Four bucks pop.
I think we're just down to about 1,400 bottles now.
That's 1,400.
That's going to go in one evening, I'll bet.
Well, in Germany, what did they consume, 11,000 in the four days of the conference?
Oh, my gosh.
It was...
Oh, and I don't know if you heard last week, we went to a pilgrimage.
We sort of had a pilgrimage to the Club Mate headquarters.
I need to know more about this.
Most incredible...
Yeah.
I got this T-shirt there.
Incredible group of people and small town in Germany.
Really very peaceful and wonderful.
Did you get to see where the mother's milk comes from?
Oh, yes.
Yes.
I even touched it.
Yeah.
It was like Mecca.
It really was.
That's cool.
Yeah.
But we must move on.
We must move on to other things, including the major story of the day, which is, of course,
the horrible earthquake in Haiti and ways people can donate.
And sort of wondering how the most effective way to donate is.
If you go to the website, www.redcross.org, that's probably the best way to make donations
to the relief effort down there.
But I've also heard on the radio today that there are a number of ways to text something
and donate through your phone.
And I'm wondering, I mean, the Red Cross is also promoting this.
Basically, is this as good a way of donating?
Does the phone company get a cut of this?
These are the things I'm wondering about.
Does anybody have any insight?
Bernie?
Emanuel, that may be an effective way, but it's very difficult to know unless you do
your own investigation whether you're contributing to a really worthy cause.
The FBI had a press release today reminding Internet users who receive appeals to donate
money via email or by text to apply a critical eye and do their due diligence before responding
to those requests.
Unfortunately, after major tragedies like this, scammers and fraudsters will jump on
this opportunity to prey on people who want to help.
And we'll send them spam, sometimes with alleged photos of the disaster, which the photos are
infected with malware that could infect your computer, or then soliciting contributions
that aren't going to the proper source.
So just do your due diligence and go to the actual websites of organizations you respect
and trust and donate that way.
Don't ever really respond to an email you get with money.
It's just a really bad idea and you're less likely to be a scam.
Right.
The ones that don't appear to be scams, these are being reported widely by the Associated
Press and also promoted on the Red Cross website.
If you text the word Haiti, that's H-A-I-T-I, to 90999, that right away gets a $10 donation
to the Red Cross and it shows up on your phone bill.
Another one is run by Wycliffe Jean's Yalie Haiti Foundation, I hope I'm pronouncing that
right.
If you text 501501 with Y-E-L-E, you'll donate $5 to that organization, both of which are
involved in the relief efforts.
And of course, www.redcross.org is probably the most direct way, or you can call 1-800-RED-CROSS
in addition to all that.
So between all of this, there's definitely ways for people to donate and make a difference
and every bit, of course, does make a difference in a situation like that.
Now on what you were just reading, did they mention that if people maybe want to make
a larger donation, would they be able to send multiple text messages?
Well, if you're going to make a larger donation, it's probably best for you to go to the website
or call them rather than texting over and over again.
I can't imagine anything more of a waste of time than that.
Yeah, I mean, like we said before, you don't really know how much of the donation actually
makes it through.
One way, but the Red Cross is promoting it, then either it's some charitable system or
I don't know.
Definitely, like Bernie said, don't respond to any kind of email or thing that, you know,
if you want to donate-
Even if it appears to be legitimate, if it seems to be coming from the Red Cross, odds
are if you click on a link, it's not going to the Red Cross or somewhere else.
It could be from the Red Cross.
If you want to donate-
I don't think they're doing that though.
I don't think they're sending out massive solicitations.
I think they're getting people to go to their website.
If you do want to donate to help, find whatever organization you wish to donate to and do
it directly that way or use one of the services mentioned.
I think it's interesting though that we're starting to use mobile phones for payment
like that.
You know, you don't really see that or haven't seen that in widespread use before.
I remember when I was in Finland, if you needed a bus ticket, you could text a phone number
and get a bus ticket on your phone.
Same thing in Prague.
You can do that there now.
And we don't generally see that kind of transactional stuff here.
Oh, also Coke machines in Finland.
You could text a number and it would tell that Coke machine that you were standing in
front of to give you a Coke.
Well, better yet, if you text in the wrong information on another Coke machine in a different
part of the country, it would suddenly spew out.
That is the risk.
But yeah, so we don't generally see, you know, transactional payments happen with cell phones
and it's interesting to see this as the point of entry.
I mean, it's like calling a 900 number, I suppose.
You simply, it shows up on your phone bill.
But as with anything you do on your phone bill, there are transactional charges and
all kinds of other things, middlemen that have to get paid along the way.
So it's best to just go directly to the source.
Now, Bernie, let me ask you, any information, theoretical or otherwise, on possible ways
of communicating with people inside Haiti who right now are not able to reach anybody?
Certainly there's no power, if any power, and Internet connectivity is probably non-existent.
Anything about ham radio people, perhaps?
Yeah, this is a pretty severe earthquake, Eurystheus 7 on the Richter scale, reportedly.
And it knocked out virtually the entire infrastructure there, power, water, electricity, and telephone
lines and Internet.
There were some people with satellite phones getting out, and there are some areas in the
country that have connectivity, but not in the heavily affected areas.
As always, whenever there's a natural or man-made disaster, ham radio operators jump in and
provide communications to nearby areas, like to U.S., mainland Florida, that sort of thing.
So ham radio operators are providing an alternative communications service, and for people that
aren't aware, ham radio is a communications infrastructure that exists around the world
with millions of operators.
It's not really an infrastructure, per se, because there's nothing between the two people
communicating, but just thin air.
There's no corporate or government infrastructure that can be blocked or taken down by disaster
or intentionally by government.
So I encourage people to investigate ham radio, and if you just do a search online for Haiti
and amateur radio and help, you can find some frequencies and listen to some of this work
going on on your shortwave receiver.
Okay, hopefully make a difference and help out.
And again, I'm hearing that what they need most down there is money.
Sending cans of food really isn't going to help because there's no way of processing
it right now, because everything is completely in a state of chaos, I guess.
They say the city of Port-au-Prince has been destroyed, and that's something.
I remember when we were talking about New Orleans a few years ago, how serious that
seemed.
This is New Orleans squared, it appears.
Well, seven on the Richter scale, that's enormous.
I wouldn't be surprised to see a city decimated by something like that.
Absolutely.
Rob?
It's worth noting that for those not familiar with the geography of the place, Haiti is
half of a small island out in the Gulf, so there isn't the infrastructure to get people
in, out, anything like that.
Interesting fact there, that it is half the island.
It shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic.
Wow, you know your stuff.
Right, so having an earthquake...
The name of the island and everything, yeah, it's two countries, Dominican Republic and
Haiti.
Right, and having an earthquake on such a small area, it literally will affect the entire
country.
Absolutely.
All right, let's hope the world comes together and helps this horrible tragedy be somewhat
bearable.
Speaking of global issues, it appears that Google is declaring war on China.
That segue sucked.
I liked it.
What else can you go into after a story like this?
I'm just saying.
No graceful way out of that.
It was a valiant effort, but come on.
Well, I'm on the other side of the world now, and yeah, Google's declaring war on China,
and I gotta say, I'm not at all sympathetic to Google at this point, because they're the
ones that decided they wanted to get in bed with China and launch Google.cn, have all
kinds of filtered results, keep people from learning about Tiananmen Square and democracy
movements and Falun Gong and all kinds of things like that, and they had a lot of criticism,
so now that they finally have woken up and smelled the coffee, it's okay.
We're glad you finally got it, Google, but let's not be at all surprised at what you
found out.
I mean, how does the saying go?
You play with fire, you're going to get bit, right?
Or you lie down with dogs and you get fleas.
What was that again?
Or you lie down with dogs and you get fleas.
Is that what you get?
That's right.
Huh.
Depends on the dog.
Maybe your dog didn't have flies.
My roommate got poison ivy.
Flies.
Yeah, okay.
So if they've reversed their policy in terms of filtering, what are the implications?
Is China trying to filter?
Well, right now-
Do they have offices there?
What happens?
Right now, supposedly Google.cn isn't filtering or isn't filtering as much, so people actually
can...
It seems to me that's just putting people at risk for all of a sudden getting access
to something they're not supposed to have access to in the eyes of the government, and
who knows how the crackdown on that's going to go.
I don't know exactly what happened here.
We were told there was an attack on Google people, or somebody was trying to get into
Gmail accounts that belong to human rights activists.
What I'm curious about is how did they find this out?
Were they monitoring the accounts themselves and saying, hey, somebody's trying to break
into these particular accounts, and these accounts belong to these particular human
rights activists?
What's interesting is that the people who broke in, which are apparently part of the
Chinese government, what they broke into was the system that Google itself set up in
order to answer subpoena requests from the U.S. government.
The system is a system designed for surveillance, but designed for Western surveillance and
not Chinese surveillance, so apparently they were able to notice some unauthorized access
to this system and able to track down exactly what the unauthorized surveyors were looking
at.
It's good that they're watching this.
It's good that they're being open about it.
It's good that they're taking some kind of action, don't get me wrong, but, I mean, are
you surprised?
Is anybody surprised that this kind of thing would be going on in any sense?
Bernie?
I'm not in the least surprised, because as you mentioned earlier, we knew that the Chinese
government's stance on free speech and political activism is really severe, so this shouldn't
surprise anybody.
I'm sure it didn't surprise some people at Google, but they rolled the dice and wanted
to go for the big money with the Chinese market opportunity and look where it got them, but
I do have to give Google some credit for at least going public with this.
They didn't have to.
Right.
They didn't have to go public with this.
They went public and they took a stand, so they're not entirely evil, but we're just
going to see how this works out.
Another thing to point out is Google only has a small portion of the search market in
China, which is a Chinese search engine provider called Baidu, which has by far the largest
market share there.
So perhaps Google really wasn't doing it well anyway, and then this was just sort of the
final straw that said, hey, just push them into saying, you know, this isn't worth it
anymore.
We can't do it unfiltered.
So it's going to be really interesting to see what happens.
Just today, the U.S. State Department made an announcement they're going to unveil a
new global Internet policy.
That's kind of scary.
We don't know what it is yet, but apparently this is made in conjunction with what just
happened with Google, which really happened a month ago, but they're just announcing it
now.
Just last week, Hillary Clinton sat down with Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, and had lunch.
So I'm sure they were talking about this.
And also by coincidence, I don't think so necessarily, Google is now making their Gmail
service HTTPS, secure HTTP, by default.
It was not by default before.
So all these things are happening at once, and it's very, as the Chinese say, we live
in interesting times.
And as Google said on their press release, we launched Google.cn in January 2006, and
the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China
and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results.
At the time, we made clear that, quote, we will carefully monitor conditions in China,
including new laws and other restrictions on our services.
If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined, we will not hesitate
to reconsider our approach to China, unquote.
So it appears that's where we stand right now.
Rob?
I'm really interested in, you can say, okay, what's going to happen in China?
I'll tell you what's going to happen in China.
Google will get kicked out of China.
I don't think that's too much of a leap of faith to think that's what's going to happen.
But what's going to happen within the business atmosphere in this country now, now that Google
looks like a superhero, basically, for taking this stand, what's that going to do to other
American companies who wish to do business in China?
Yeah.
Could this be a business move to simply gain an advantage, a competitive edge?
A big PR thing.
Yeah, maybe.
Well, Rob already mentioned it.
The big question everybody's wondering is that since they don't have a very large market
share in China, or not as if it might matter anyway, is are they going to be kicked out?
Is the Chinese government going to try to censor them or say, you know what, you're
not following the rules.
Bye bye.
Yeah.
I think it'll be interesting to see Google's policies towards the censorship lists that
exist in Australia and some Western European countries.
I mean, it's relatively, requires relatively little courage, and it still took them two
years to oppose censorship in China.
It will be interesting to see if they can now bring the same courage to the markets
where they make a lot of money.
Interesting story that I also noticed a few days ago.
A software company in China has, in California, rather, has sued two Chinese technology firms
charging that they stole its computer code to make an internet monitoring program that
China's government sought to install on every computer in the country last year before backing
down.
This is the Green Dragon?
Yeah.
It's the Green Dam, actually.
Green Dam.
The lawsuit by CyberSitter also names its defendants seven computer makers, including
Sony, Lenovo, and Acer, accusing them of willingly joining a Chinese government plan to spread
the software known as Green Dam Youth Escort throughout the country.
And of course, the Chinese government was also named in the suit.
CyberSitter said the two Chinese software companies had pirated 3,000 lines of its code
to create Green Dam, which was ostensibly designed to block websites that featured pornography
and violent content.
But critics and computer experts said the Chinese version was tailored to enable Chinese
government censors to block some political and religious speeches and other content,
like references to Tiananmen Square.
Now, I'm wondering, this story came out only a few days ago as well.
These two things related.
I have so little sympathy for this company.
Well, I have no sympathy for any of them, but I'm wondering if...
They make a product that censors.
The purpose of the product is to censor what websites users can visit, and now they're
all shock, shock, shock that it's being used to censor what websites people can visit.
My question stands.
Is there a relation between all these stories coming out at the same time?
Rob?
They're not shocked that it's being used to censor, Mike.
They're shocked because they didn't get paid for it.
Oh.
Is anybody hearing my question?
No.
I'm hearing it.
All right, Barney, why don't you answer?
Actually, the companies that are suing, or at least some of the companies that are up
in arms about this, have known about this for a while.
This is a story...
I was researching this while I was in China with Mitch and some other people from Noisebridge
a couple months ago.
And it was actually fairly big, bigger news in China that the Chinese government, the
Chinese state was being accused of stealing this software.
I just love the irony that China, Chinese state security, is stealing American censorship
technology to use against Chinese citizens.
I mean, you couldn't write this stuff.
It's brilliant.
Yeah.
Also, Barney, you wrote something today that was rather interesting, a story that happened
to you while you were in China.
Is this something you want to talk about?
Oh.
Yeah, I guess.
We were in a hotel in a manufacturing city called Jianing, and we were doubling up on
rooms, and I was in the same room with Mitch, and one of us plugged in a power strip and
ended up blowing a circuit breaker in the room.
You just have to do that everywhere you go, don't you?
Well, just stuff happens, you know.
And down in the lobby, I noticed there was this special little sign behind the front
desk that said something about Chinese state security.
It said, oh, Foreign Related Security Hotel, Department of Exit Entry Administration in
Jianing Public Security Bureau.
And that, to me, was code words for, like, if you're a foreign businessman, business
person in this hotel, you're probably being bugged.
So anyhow, we called the front desk, and about a half an hour, some guy shows up with a tool
belt and a ladder, and he climbs up into our ceiling and opens this locked, trapped door.
And up there was all this equipment that was far more necessary and far more—it was like
a whole rack up there full of circuit boards and LEDs.
And I'm looking up there, and the guy is trying to, like, block my view as I'm looking up
there.
I firmly believe this was some part of their surveillance infrastructure in the hotel.
This is designed for—this hotel is specifically for foreign business visitors.
But there was way more stuff up in that equipment rack right above the ceiling of our hotel
room than would be necessary to provide internet for the whole floor and telephone service
and power.
So it was just kind of spooky.
And I didn't want to take a picture, because I thought then I'd probably end up, like,
interrogated or something.
And I'd have my pictures taken away.
Well, yeah, but it would have been so worth it, though, to see the pictures.
But now, you say it was above your ceiling.
Does that—did it—it was a rack size?
Wouldn't that take up the next floor, then?
Well, it wasn't a 19-inch rack.
It was like a mini rack mounted on the wall.
There had been at least a dozen circuit boards plugged into this thing with a bunch of LEDs
on it.
And I couldn't get a good look at it, because the guy was trying to block my view.
But I just thought it was really intriguing.
This guy comes up and unlocks this panel to get up, climb up into our ceiling.
It's right above our hotel room, all this electronic equipment.
It's like, hmm.
I have a question.
After the guy left, why didn't you just open it again and take the picture?
Well, you know, there's some things you just don't want to do in China.
I was asking—
Yeah, but you're not one of the people that ever takes that advice.
You always try and figure things out.
Well, I don't—well, I do somewhat understand the U.S. Constitution, but I know all bets
are off in China.
True.
I was asking Mitch when we were walking around Tiananmen Square, what would happen if I walked
around with a Dalai Lama t-shirt, and he said it would be really bad.
So, you know, there are just some things you just don't do when you're there.
No, that's true.
That is very true.
And you saw it in your own room when the guy is gone, at least a picture of the door, maybe.
I don't know.
Mitch, your experiences?
Yeah, it was just kind of creepy.
You saw the same thing?
Yeah.
There was a lot of—it was like a mini rack full of stuff, and it was—certainly there
were circuit breakers for the room, where there were a lot of outlets, each with their
own circuit breaker, and he had to come back because he didn't really do it correct.
This guy really didn't understand the stuff that was up there himself.
So I don't know, but, you know, are they watching us as well?
I don't know.
I don't know.
It's just—
I hope you had some interesting conversations, at least.
Oh, yeah.
Well, they have recordings of all sorts of things that will be very boring for them later.
So but, you know, in China, it's just very strange because the government tries to be
a central—it's trying to be a centralized government in control of absolutely everything,
but they know that they can't have control over everything.
So they choose their battles.
And I think it must be like any other bureaucracy, at the whims of the people within the bureaucracy,
it's always good to be below the radar of people like this.
So—
Go ahead.
While you were there, did you try different ways to get around the filtering?
I mean, are all the different ports that you would want to access—
Oh, yeah.
You know, did you try to use like a VPN to connect to something in the States?
Yeah, that was no problem.
We could do VPN.
We could also SSH in to a server outside of China and get HTTP over it.
So it's really a matter of just blocking people who don't know the tech ways to get around
it.
Yeah.
And the thing is, if a handful of geeks coming from outside of China are doing this, they
don't care at all.
Yeah.
However, if a handful of geeks from outside of China set something up in China that—or
set something up that people within China could en masse take advantage of, it'll get
shut down.
So, you know, they have a lot of resources at their disposal, but they don't have enough
to control absolutely everything.
So like I said, they choose their battles.
Interesting.
Well, it's good to know that we're noticing things no matter where we go.
Bri, have you ever been spied upon that you know of in your travels?
You travel all over the place, don't you?
Hmm.
Have I ever been spied upon?
Can't—you know, if I have, I was completely unaware and clueless of it.
Well, I think we're all interesting enough to be spied upon.
So who knows?
One can hope.
Okay.
Sorry?
One can hope.
Yeah.
One can only hope.
If you've made an international phone call from within the U.S., probably the NSA has
a copy.
Whether they listen to it or not is another question.
Mm-hmm.
All right.
I'll be taking phone calls, 212-209-2900.
This important announcement for people who have pledged to us—if you pledged to us
over the summer, that was the episodes that took place in August while we were all over
in the Netherlands at HAR.
We have all your information.
We're still waiting to get premiums from various people, including people at HAR and people
at the British publication Hacker Voice Digest.
We've been waiting for this material for a long time, and we're at the end of our patience
for sure, and we're sorry to our listeners for having to put up with that.
We also have DVDs, which we're working on right now to send you of the talks.
That we have, but the other material we're still trying to get, the HAR t-shirts and
the copies of Hacker Voice Digest.
Anybody out there who might know people who we can't seem to reach, please email us, oth at 2600.com,
or email them and ask them to get a hold of us because it's really not a good situation
when our listeners have to wait so long to get the premiums they deserve.
Now, for those of you who pledged during the autumn fundraiser, you have really almost no
time at all to make your payment if you haven't done so already, if you expect to get premium.
If you have not paid your pledge yet, we suggest you do so immediately by credit card
within the next couple of weeks.
In two weeks, that's pretty much the cutoff, and we'll be sending out premiums starting
then, and those ones we already have, so I think we're in pretty good shape.
Okay, 212-209-2900, here's a letter that was sent to us at our email address, oth at 2600.com.
I just listened to your show from December 23rd where you were talking about Facebook
privacy and mentioned that it is possible to hide your friends list, or your friends
list, that is.
While this was true for a few days after the privacy upgrades, they changed it shortly
after without telling anyone.
Many people are still unaware of this issue, and I wasn't aware of it until you mentioned
this to us.
John, thanks for writing in and telling, yeah, all the people that were hiding their friends
list from me, well, they're not hiding it anymore.
I can see everything, and basically, Facebook is battling its users yet again.
This listener says, Facebook is suffering from a serious case of Twitter envy.
It's neither good for the users or why we first came to Facebook.
This appeared on Gawker a couple of days ago, I believe, a really interesting piece entitled,
Why You Shouldn't Trust Facebook With Your Data and Employees' Revelations.
The abuse of private data by Facebook employees was pretty much inevitable.
The simple act of amassing data tends to lead to corruption.
What's sad is how lightly the social network reportedly controls its employees.
There's a great interview on therumpus.net with an anonymous Facebook employee.
Here are some of the things she divulges.
As of a few months ago, Facebook records and archives information on whose profile you
view.
Apparently, this was already publicly known, so if you look at somebody's profile, there's
a record of that someplace.
Facebook has 200 to 220 million active users and more than 300 million total accounts,
including disabled accounts and potential fakes.
At one point, Facebook staff widely used a master password that unlocked access to
anyone's account.
Use of this password has been deprecated, i.e. discouraged, implying the password might
still exist and work.
What was the password?
With upper and lowercase symbols, numbers, all of the above, it spelled out Chuck Norris,
more or less.
It was pretty fantastic.
The Facebook employee is aware of at least two coworkers being fired for abusing their
access to profiles.
The employee herself also inappropriately accessed profiles.
Facebook employees can, quote-unquote, just query the database to find your Facebook messages.
Redhack, you have something to add?
Well, first of all, none of this is surprising if you think about it.
If you have a big database as an employee or at least as a developer, I would be really
annoyed if I couldn't query the data and do things against it.
In terms of that password, I did read that interview and she did note that that was only
worked from within the Facebook offices, supposedly.
That master password can only be used if you were in the office.
Or if you tunneled to the office.
Sure.
It's entirely possible.
It was restricted to at least, I guess, an IP range.
If you give them your data, they have it.
As part of being a developer, you need to be able to do things with people's data.
That's just how it is.
I don't think there's anything surprising or wrong with the fact that Facebook employees
have access to your data.
It's obvious.
Right.
But it's what they're doing with the access when that's revealed.
Obviously, this wasn't to do anything technical.
It was simply to be nosy.
And it happens with celebrities.
People are always prying in.
The only thing I find surprising is that people are surprised by this.
If you put your private information on Facebook, it's not going to stay private no matter how
many settings you might set to do this.
It doesn't work that way.
Well, someone's going to have access to it.
The same is true of everything.
I mean, you have your email stored on a service, and whoever the administrator of that service
is has access to it, not to mention every server that the message travels through between
point A and point B.
If it's unencrypted, yes.
It's not surprising.
Mike?
Well, just because the developers have the occasional need to do some kind of low-level
thing, it doesn't necessarily mean that every Facebook employee should have the access to
do unlogged queries in particular over the entire data set.
Facebook, if it desired, could set up some kind of at least logging system so that they
would know if some random customer support employee was looking at celebrities' profiles.
And according to this interview, at least, I have no inside information, that is unpatrolled.
But again, then you have to have people monitoring it, and those people have to be trustworthy.
It's kind of a ... I mean, how do you figure out what ... I mean, if you restrict it to
a certain number of people who need access to it, then ...
You catch three people, and the rest of them stop.
I mean ...
True.
Well, you might have the issue of who watches the watchers.
You do need a security system of some sort, and this kind of password, at least, shouldn't
be handed out to so many employees.
One master password.
That's insane.
Yeah, but also in that interview, she said that that was only really used by ... I mean,
the people who knew about it were people who were kind of like founders and stuff.
I assume that when whoever, Mark Zuckerberg, whoever was coding it up at Harvard, they
needed a master password.
So they're using the same one, Chuck Norris, all that time?
Well, no, they got rid of it.
They took it out.
Well, I don't know if they took it out.
That implied that they might still be using it.
In the interview, she said they don't ... it doesn't work anymore.
Okay.
Well, they just probably changed it to Chuck Bronson or something instead.
Or you took it out.
I mean, you changed the code.
All right, we're going to take phone calls in a second.
Mitch, go ahead.
Okay, well, just philosophically, corporations make it very convenient and or fun to give
up as much of your personal property as possible, and it's up to you to choose what information
to give to friends, to people you don't know, and corporations and government.
So just think about it.
Be conscious.
It's not illegal to lie.
It's definitely not.
And it's sometimes fun.
Well, it is illegal to lie to a federal officer of the court.
Fraud is illegal.
Let's say your kid is flying away in a balloon or something like that, you're not supposed
to say that to ... but you can lie to other people.
Just don't lie to feds, apparently.
Facebook is not a fed.
Sorry.
Not yet.
Facebook is what?
Facebook is not a fed.
Not yet.
Not yet.
Not yet.
You don't have to become part of the feds.
If you're a fed and you want something Facebook has, you can get it.
So I guess the conclusion here is that if you want to keep things private, don't put
them on the internet.
Yeah.
Whether or not you think you've marked them as private.
Thank you.
Somebody has access to them.
It's amazing how long it's taken us to reach that stage where people are finally convinced
of this.
But nobody cares because people don't think that things need to be private.
And personally, a lot of the stuff that people put on the internet is not ... if you really
want to put pictures of your vacation for everyone to see and you don't care, then great.
Put pictures of your vacation up.
Right.
But if you have things that you consider sensitive, like your phone number or your whatever, I
guess your email, you have to give to everybody to sign up for stuff these days.
You or who you're on vacation with.
Okay.
Let's take some phone calls.
212-209-2900.
Good evening.
You're on Off The Hook.
Hi.
I have a question and comments for Mitch and an answer for you.
Okay.
So, Mitch, I got my trip glasses as a premium and then a few days after, they started being
solid red without blinking.
Is there an easy way for me to fix that at home?
Yes.
That means your batteries are going weak, so just replace the battery.
But it was brand new.
Oh, it was brand new?
Yeah.
Oh, I'm sorry.
You got one with a bad battery.
Well, the thing is that it first, in the middle, it broke down gradually.
In the middle of the sequence, and I would joggle it and it would go back again.
Or it wouldn't be 14 minutes and gradually...
Yeah.
Yeah.
The thing, when the battery's weak, it'll reset itself.
But replace the battery.
If you email OTH with your information, I'll send you a new battery.
Okay.
I had a comment for you that a couple of great uses for these.
People can use them when they're being put on hold by an agency.
I find that's a very frustrating situation and the trip glasses are really helpful then.
Yeah, you can make something useful out of just waiting time.
Yeah.
And also, donating blood or platelets.
I tried it.
To my surprise, the injection site didn't hurt during the process when usually it hurts
all through the whole thing.
They let you donate blood with a flashing gizmo on your head?
I brought it in.
I hadn't used it before.
And they saw the may cause, the warning thing on stickers, and they were very uneasy about
it.
I don't have epilepsy.
They might have.
They were very unhappy about it.
But I insisted, this is the safest place for me to try it the first time with loads of
nurses around.
Interesting.
Okay.
And of course, I tried it and I didn't die.
Surprise.
Apparently, yeah.
That's an added benefit, isn't it?
I'm glad you're still here to tell the story.
You had an answer for us on something as well?
Yeah.
But I was just going to say, if you wanted to donate trip glasses to these blood donation
places, you might be able to generate some customers too.
Interesting thought that I think Mitch has never even thought about.
No, I never thought about it.
But if you know anyone in these organizations and they're interested, send that to OTH.
All right.
Thanks for your call.
Let me tell you an answer to your question.
Oh, yes.
Very quickly.
I asked if people knew about the ozone holes some weeks ago.
All right.
We're not getting back into global warming.
We just can't do it.
It wasn't about global warming.
Well, it kind of veered over into the ozone, I know.
All right.
What's the quick answer?
Really quickly, which we're not going to debate.
After they banned chloroforbins, the holes started to close up, but the ozone layers
all over the world won't be as thick as they should be for a long, long time.
It was laws being passed that helped to cure the situation, but it's not as good as new.
It's not as if, oh, we didn't need to worry about it.
Okay.
Thanks.
Thanks for that.
And that's going to be the last word on that subject.
212-209-2900.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Hi.
Hi.
What's on your mind?
Hi.
I have a question.
Go ahead.
Turn on your radio.
Hi.
Go ahead.
Ask your question.
Go ahead.
Ask your question.
Yeah.
If I have a Facebook account, and I opened a Facebook account with my email address,
and let's say my email address got hacked into it, and I happened to delete ...
Okay.
You've got to turn your radio down.
We're hearing your voice twice.
Okay.
If I happen to delete this email account due to the fact that it got hacked into, how will
I be able to get into this Facebook account again?
Well, okay.
First of all, have you also forgotten your Facebook password?
You don't have that anymore?
No.
I have the Facebook password.
Okay.
If you can get into your Facebook account, simply reassign the email address to something
else so you don't have this to worry about.
What a lot of people do for fun is simply wade through various Facebook and Twitter
accounts and look for abandoned Hotmail accounts, and they re-register the Hotmail account,
and then tell Twitter or Facebook, hey, I've forgotten my password.
Email me the new password.
Then all of a sudden, the person has lost access to their Facebook or Twitter account,
and they have no idea why.
Of course, if you used the password that you used for the email account for something else
like Facebook or whatever, then you should change that password on all the other services
as quickly as you can.
Well, you should never use the same password for more than one system, but I imagine everybody
does that anyway.
Anyway, we're going to move on to another call.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
Long live the People's Republic of China.
All right.
That's wonderful.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
Hey.
Hi.
What's on your mind?
I have a question for you guys.
Yeah.
I'm in Rochester, New York.
Okay.
Our police scanner's here.
460 megahertz UHF.
Uh-huh.
I went to digital here at P25.
Oh.
It's happening all around the New York State area.
Everything's gone digital as of January 10th.
What my question is for you guys is what I want to ask on the air is, is it worth going
out and buying a police scanner for 500 bucks when, for all I know, they might go ahead
and start encryption?
Well, Barney, what would you say to this poor soul?
Well, it depends on how important ... I mean, a lot of municipalities are going ... Philadelphia
went digital several years ago.
You can find APCO 25 compliant scanners for as low as $350.
A company called GRE makes them, Unigine makes them, and RadioShack sells them too, but they're
just rebranded GRE models.
Okay.
If it's worth $350 to you to listen to your local police, then go for it.
I think everybody should have a right to listen to their law enforcement officers.
They're making it very expensive to do that now, but in most cases, all the talk channels
are not encrypted.
Okay.
In Philadelphia, just the surveillance and the drug enforcement stuff and surveillance
is encrypted.
All the others are open.
I mean, is there any receivers, though, out there that offer the encryption?
I know there's government receivers that offer encryption on it, and you have to have-
You will not be able to purchase anything that will decrypt it.
They change the keys.
They do a lot of key management, so you're not going to be able to listen to the encrypted
stuff, period.
Well, the easiest way to do that is to take the test, become a cop, and then listen.
Okay.
All right.
Listen, we're out of time, but I want to thank everybody for calling in, and write
to us, please, oth at 2600.com.
Bree, Mitch, any final words from you guys?
Anything planned that you want to share?
Well, you know, I've just been cranking out all year working on MakerBot, but I brought
a bunch of stuff, but you can't really show stuff on the radio.
Tell people how they can get involved with the MakerBot.
Yeah.
Go check out MakerBot.com.
One thing I do have a throwdown for, though, is somebody's made a whistle that you can
print out, and nobody's done a 2600 whistle.
I would love to see a printable 2600 whistle.
I'd like that, too.
All right.
We have a challenge.
Thanks, guys, for coming in, and we'll see everybody next week with another action-packed
edition of Off the Hook.
Welcome to Next Level Tech Support.
Please press 01 to be connected to our help desk.
All these end users calling, filling up the queues with issues and problem issues.
It says that his computer's crawling, the internet's slow, and he can't do his blogging.
Another one says their password's forgotten, account locked out, and now they can't log
in.
Did I say blogging?
I meant headshotting.
Every single server I try keeps dropping.
Cannot win with my ping so bad.
Other players pointing fingers, blaming me for lag.
It was you so slow.
It's a next-gen brag.
Messing up my stats.
Every map, I'm getting fragged.
If you will, what's your name, Bill?
Can you type your password in a username field?
I just need to know to somewhere on your laptop that you didn't inadvertently press caps lock.
Sir, no need to disrespect me.
I want to make sure you're typing it correctly.
Oh, my gosh.
Can we move along quickly?
Reports need finish, or my boss is going to hit me.
Hopefully the problem isn't with me.
I can troubleshoot the breeze, solving problems with ease.
Trust me, I only use my shift key.
That was it.
That fixed me.
Man, this guy's an idiot.
What?
Nothing, sir.
Man, I got help, there's wolves.
From HR to CEOs.
Sometimes I think this job blows.
Come on now, you know how it goes.
Now back to the show.
Finally, now I can check emails.
There's a guy claiming he can't send emails.
Says that he needs help and he's feeling helpless.
He can't send.
How do you email the help desk?
Here's what happened.
My spam filter died.
I'm replying to these mails where it says unsubscribe.
But it must be a lie, but so I get the feeling.
Windows popping up and I can't seem to kill them.
It's not that the client won't send or receive it, but the interface is covered and I just can't see it.
Sir, try this.
Sounds like a virus.
Disconnect your box from the network appliance.
Move your computer.
Hit F8.
So Windows can then start to boot up a safe mode.
There, run out of scare.
Cause apparently this row code has infected your registry.
I hope this can fix it.
Seems like bad luck.
I hope this guy has been running daily backups.
Daily back what?
Are my files recovered?
Is that some kind of program?
I've never heard of it.
If you don't get my files back now, then there's trouble.
I need to spell it out cause I'm not being subtle.
Oh, no worries.
Hang on the line.
Let me run this antivirus.
2009.
Man, I got help that's woes.
From HR to CEOs.
Sometimes I think this job blows.
Come on now, you know how it goes.
Now back to the show.
I was helping out the mother of a friend of a friend of my ex room.
Forget it, let me begin.
She was in need of help.
That much was clear.
See, and this so-called friend of mine volunteered.
So I called her on the phone.
She didn't seem to understand one single thing I was talking about.
I said, close all your windows.
She came back and said, okay, I'll close all the windows in the house.
No, ma'am, not those windows.
No, your computers aren't going to get cold.
No, that's not how they get viruses.
Ma'am, I don't think I can help you.
Man, I got help that's woes.
From HR to CEOs.
Sometimes I think this job blows.
Come on now, you know how it goes.
Now back to the show.
Woes.
Woes.
Okay, sir, now I want you to press any key to continue.
Woes.
Woes.
Okay, did you find it?
Now click your right mouse button.
I only have one mouse.
Woes.
Okay, sir, is your computer plugged in?
I don't know.
What do you mean you don't know?
I can't tell.
You can't tell?
I mean, it's dark. The power's out.
The power's out?
Yeah.
Oh, man.
Am I online now?
Oh, man.