Up today's program. This is free speech radio news. Thanks for listening in New York. I'm Dorian marina
And you're listening to radio station WBAI New York the time is 701 time for off the hook
Now I can't make a car
I
I
Am
And getting hurt by the program is off the hook Emanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening
With another exciting action-packed edition of off the hook joined tonight by Mike. Hi Jim
Oh red hack blue Rob T firefly good evening dot-ret. Hello RNA. Hey and down Philadelphia Bernie s
Greetings from Philadelphia
Well as as the fundraiser draws to a close tonight is in fact the last night for us
and I have some sad news we're not going to be here next week because next week is Bloomsday and
That's when you get to hear Ulysses right over the radio waves every June 16th. Just really it is thrilling
No, it's a BAI tradition, and I'm honored to be preempted by it, but unfortunately it always seems to happen on a Wednesday
That can't be well, I don't know look it up
It seems to happen all the time wouldn't be once every seven years or so point is this is the fifth straight week of
fundraising and the first week where we weren't gonna be fundraising we
We're not gonna be on but I have good news to make up for the bad news
And that is that on on July 7th, which is one week and two days before a hope
We have a two-hour show. Thanks to the generosity of the personal computer people. They've yielded their hour to us
We will have a special two-hour
Event on off the hook on July 7th from 8 to 10
7 to 9. I'm sorry if you told me a few years ago. Yes, so there's that and
yes, as we mentioned tonight is a
Fundraising night once once more one last time and we have something really really really special
This time to give well actually you know what why don't we just plunge right into it?
I think we should do that because we have all kinds of other things to talk about tonight
And we might get involved in a discussion. I'll just get impassioned and go on for a long time. So I'd like to
introduce people to something that is being released very very shortly and
It's something brand new. It's something we have never talked about before
Does anybody have any inkling as to what I'm talking about? No, Bernie. No, it better not be the
Fourth-generation iPhone because I don't want one. Well, no, and if it was I don't think we'd be able to get much of a response
From our listeners to that but no, it's it's it's the the new 2600 book. Yes, you heard, right?
There is a brand new 2600 book has not yet come out, but it's going to come out very very soon
And what we're offering people tonight for a pledge of $75
It's an autographed copy of that book. The book is called dear hacker
Yes, dear hacker and what that is. It's a compilation of the best
2600 letters ever to appear now 2600 magazine the hacker quarterly has a tradition of
printing letters to the editor in abundance because we get so many letters to the editor and some of them are really kind of funny
and crazy and wacky and
What we did for the past few months was basically go through all of them
Actually, this this was almost a year's worth of work
Voltaire was involved in this and all kinds of people read through letters and came up with
With great ideas for what would work and what wouldn't we divided it into
Several sections you guys you have some some drafts of some chapters there. What are some of the sections that you have?
It's it's set in big type at the front that's over the title of the chest
tails from the retail front is
That's a chapter all about
stores people write in saying
interaction with stores
Today is what happened at Radio Shack when I annoyed the clerk, you know
Basically technical things that people people reveal about the the retail world Rob. What do you have? I have our biggest fans
I'll be oh, that's my favorite section. Well, I'll explain what that's all about in a little bit dot red
What do you have chapter one question upon question? Okay, don't give away the chapter numbers just the names fine
It's chapter one spoilers. Yeah, you can't tell people where they are question upon question
That is basically people asking us all manner of questions and RNA you have one too
Culture of rebels, okay, that's not what it sounds like I
Want people to panic here? It's rebel in with the capital that the small lowercase are capital R on this
Well, that's because it's a title but it's yeah, that's that's why it's capital there. No, it's not it's not rebel the caller
You mean he didn't write enough letters in I'm sure there's a letter
If you ever wrote a letter 2600 there's a good chance that there that it's contained here
Well, if it was a good letter, yeah
Yeah
and a lot of them are a lot of them are we're gonna read some excerpts to Ulysses has nothing on us because what we're
gonna read this Wednesday is
Trying to make history and what we're offering. We're offering two things tonight
Actually three things we want to count the shirt for pledges of 35 and above you getting off the hook t-shirt
I think we should count that. Okay. Yeah, and then for a pledge of $75 you get the t-shirt plus the brand-new dear hacker book
And I think it's about 600 pages or so it's and hardcover. It's really really pretty cool
and for a pledge of 125 you get all of that you get the t-shirt the dear hacker book and a
Full archive of off-the-hook episodes from 1988 to the end of 2009. We've been playing some excerpts
Maybe we'll have time to play an excerpt later on of that huge DVD set
So that's a really good deal and it's it would do us well to to get some calls on this our very last night of
Fundraising and I think we've more we fundraised more on this marathon than ever before. We've never done five weeks in a row. So
make us look good folks by by calling 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 and
Pledging whatever you can afford pledging for those those premiums and and and getting some really cool stuff
So you this is your second book. You wrote a book before it was a collection of the articles
I compiled the book. I mean I wrote the
Intros and and the summaries and things like that. And of course the letter responses
So I guess in this particular case
I did write a lot of it
But do credit has to go to all the people in the in the two books who wrote articles and wrote letters and things like
That that's important point. But the point I was making is that this is brand new
So you have the other book. This is not the same book. This is not the same book
No, we would not put out the same book twice
But this this is something that people have long asked for and if you have the best of 2600
Which is the the book we put out a couple of years ago
You don't have a single letter in that in that entire
800 and change page book not one letter made it in there. Those are just articles
there's a whole other section of the magazine just devoted to letters to the editor and
It's the favorite section of most people who read the magazine. They love reading the letters because well, we're gonna show why Rob
Why don't you start you've got okay. You've got my favorite section, which is our biggest fans
and and the reason I call it our favorite section is because
these are people that are angry with us for one reason or another and
They're they're spouting forth with venom and lots of times. It gets very engaging as far as how hostile they are
Sometimes we have fun with that. Sometimes we try and explain things
Sometimes they're completely correct and being angry at us. We might have done something horrible to them at some point
A selection from our our biggest fans. Okay, here's a here's a neat one a nice little sign of the times from 1987
Here goes a dear 2600
I am convinced that as a result of your mailing 2600 without envelopes many innocent people will be arrested and charged with crimes that they
Have not committed your statement that 2600 is not illegal etc is only true on the part of 2600 publishers
But you want to imply that no envelopes will not harm your subscribers. This is not true
Let me remind you how the criminal justice system works
You are innocent until proven guilty
But even if you are innocent if some creeps if some creeps suspects that you are not innocent
it could cost you $100,000 to prove in court that you are indeed innocent and that's from Newark, New Jersey and
The response is we respect your opinion
But why did you have to send us those comments on a postcard so that the whole post office could read it?
Yes
That's typical of the kind of thing that would happen
That right. What do you have? You have a question? I believe question upon question from that chapter
You all this one. Yeah. Yes
Here we go
How's possible, well, I'm sorry, let me back up a second. This is from 1989. Okay. Yeah. All right now
9 2 9 5 0 call up and get this book which you'll read a lot faster than then dot-right is reading
Dear 2600. How's it possible to publish hacking and freaking information without those authorities changing those systems that you expose?
Yeah, so people were concerned about us exposing systems and yeah, that's a valid concern. Did we answer that?
yes, yes, we did the answer the answer was a
Good question. Sometimes the systems are changed. Sometimes systems are
Are not you know, but uh
But we uh, sorry, but we get out
Did you forget how to read
I forgot how to read for a second. I am sorry, but we get out of it
I'm sorry
And it's invaluable tool which leads us to figuring out more about them in other words knowledge for information
Are always advantageous and should never be styled as you can see this book has tremendous effect on people and makes them totally
Forget their senses sometimes I imagine it's beautifully typeset. You can read it. No problem
Yeah, usually usually now a redhack. What do you have? I actually have a letter from
1995 what section do you oh, I'm sorry. I have the the tales from the retail tales from retail
Oh, yeah, this is a good section too. And I have a letter from 1995 which is basically talking about
Well, I'll just read it. I guess we have two calls on the line
By the way, join us to call us 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 get a copy of this book
$75 pledge or 125 for the audio archive as well
Says I was in Radio Shack the other day and bought a 4 3 1 4 1 modem pocket tone dialer
It was the last one they had and had it on sale for 7 bucks the next day
I came in and tried to buy a 6.5 5 3 6 megahertz crystal
The guy looked on my account on the computer and saw that I'd purchased a pocket dialer
He asked what I needed the crystal for and I told him that my dad needed it for a scanner
Then I saw a sign on the service desk
They had a picture of the Radio Shack president and it said that they only wanted your phone number and address
For sending out catalogs. I asked the guy about it and he said that he couldn't sell me the crystal
So the sign is just crap I said and he said that they also keep records to monitor possible illegal activities
aha, so
I was basically I was wondering if I might possibly have a case of false advertising or something if I get the guy's voice on
tape telling me that
When the sign says they want your info, oh, sorry telling me that when the sign says that they just want your info for the catalog
Okay, and now this harkens back to the old red box days
Yeah
So basically he was trying to build, you know
Take the pocket dollar and the crystal and combine them to you're assuming you're making the same
I'm sorry
I really like employee was making but it's interesting because he's pointing out that Radio Shack even though they say they just want to send
You the catalog they're actually tracking your purchases like most chains do nowadays
I mean when you go and use that little, you know
Rewards card at any chain, of course. Yeah, they're tracking your purchases and people don't seem to mind anymore
They're not just giving you discounts back back then. What year is this again?
1995 people were kind of shocked by that but the the crystal was used
You basically inserted it into the Radio Shack dialer and you had a device that
Made the five little beeps and those five little beeps
Told a payphone that you would put a quarter in it was so simple and that is how the entire phone system of this country
was crippled for many many years where a payphone system that is and
Radio Shack, of course, we revealed the information in 2600 magazine
In fact, it might have been in a letter or no
actually, it was an article someone wrote an article about it, but we talked about it many times in letters and
Yeah that that resulted in quite a few
Changes in in the entire system to go back to that other letter that asked our systems changed when things are revealed
I have to be like a hardware change right because they have to mute the handset
Yeah, they had to do all that they had to install this new software called Mars
I believe and now payphones don't don't use those tones anymore
But it was that it was that easy
All you had to do was beep five times and that told the system for a long time
Because I remember in the early 2000s. I was able to use that every page
Course not every single payphone had to be replaced
So people were using Hallmark greeting cards and and recording red box tones on to them and holding them up to pay phones
It was that easy to fool them. So yeah, it's it's just funny to go back into
Even the 90s and see how how different things were then now
We only are reading letters from from the first
10 or so years because I only printed out the first 10 pages of various chapters
But this goes from from 1984 our first year all the way up to to last year, I believe
And it's all part of this book at what I mean you issued the first issue of 2600
Did that have letters in it already? How would that have let right? I'm just asking. So so when did when did they start?
I got a few issues after that. I think maybe three issues after that. We got our first letter
right, we printed our first letter anyway, and
Just it just got bigger and bigger and the reason it got bigger and bigger is because in the hacker world people love to go
Back and forth. They love to have dialogue and exchanges and trade information and get feedback to the information
They just traded and so the the 2600 letter section became the the forum for this
It was actually I think the first real hacker forum and certainly in in print
Might be the only one in print and it just became extremely popular and and to this day
we get hundreds of letters for every single issue we put out and we have to we have to pick and choose because
There are so many and and I guess we could put out a book of all the ones that didn't make it
But these are the ones that did that we think are the best and it's all yours
It's this brand new book, which is about to come out
autograph copy 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 pledge of $75 gets you that and the off-the-hook t-shirt if you want the
the off-the-hook audio archive on top of that which is about 20 DVDs filled with audio from our first show back in 1988 to our
last one at the end of
2009
Pledge 125 you'll get that you'll get the book you'll get the t-shirt 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 and the radio station
And the radio station. Yes, that's really the premium. That's right. All right RNA you have you have one
Culture of rebels
Yeah
The writer starts out by saying the following is a true story. And oh, yeah, it's Oh 401 85
So 1985, okay, the phone rang I got up and looked at the desk clock. It was 608 a.m
An hour before I go to school. I picked the receiver up. Is this John McKee asked the caller urgently?
Yes, I replied half-asleep. You better get rid of your printouts and your stuff on discs
You're gonna get a visit within the next 20 minutes. The kid said he hung up
I got nervous the phone rang again John
This is Jim Greg just got busted and his brother's been calling all of his friends on a sheet that Greg had
Did he call you?
Yes, he did
I said you better believe it cuz you're gonna get nailed with the rest of us get rid of everything burn it
I thought to myself. What did I do to make them want me codes?
No time have to burn everything pertaining to illegal wrongdoings. I was panic-stricken
I put it I got it all together and went outside and burned it discs printouts
Everything as I was returning to my house. I wondered if they had a tap on my line the phone rang again
Oh, no, who is it? Now? I went in and answered it only to be told April Fool's click. Yeah
Wow, the thing is back then
that kind of thing happened all the time people were always getting raided the Feds were coming to people's homes kicking in doors and
Taking floppies and printouts and things like that computers and phones
Everybody every teenage kid who was involved with computers lived in fear of that happening to them
So this is not something that was was that surprising to get a phone call like that?
Yeah, but that's that's part of the memories that that you'll get to read about if you if you pledge for this book
We have no calls on the line burning that do you magic get some calls coming in?
Well that brings back lots of memories Emanuel and a question for you about how many pages is this new book?
It's about 600. I believe 600 and change
600 some pages of letters to 2600 Meg that you know
It's really great material reading back these letters because well first of all the the responses
Well letters themselves and often the responses are pretty humorous, but it's it's a like a it's like a time
time-machine going back and and giving the perspective of the decades of
What's been going on in the hacker community kind of like this radio show does too?
Which is why we're providing the archives tonight of the of all the 26 all the episodes about the whole going back to 19
What 88 that's right? Yes, that's amazing so I encourage our listeners to get their
Get their historical perspective by calling 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0
For a mere $35 you get the newly designed off-the-hook t-shirt by Rob T
Firefly which is a very cool telephonic design
But for $75 pledge you get that shirt and this book we've been talking about
600 some pages of stimulating letters and responses for 125 you get both the book and the shirt and
All the 20 all the off-the-hook episodes going back to 1988
It's really an amazing package, but the biggest package is WBAI
Which is probably only radio station in the country or the world that would provide you with a radio show about this kind of stuff
So please call 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 and support this kind of
Broadcast which you're not going to hear anywhere else now. We know that you're worn out. We're worn out as well
We've been doing this now as our fifth week fundraising. It's our last week fundraising and
I think we were on for five weeks because we've done well in the past and we need to keep that tradition up
The important thing is that that the radio station be here for future generations to to converse and trade information
Just like the 2,600 letters have done over the last few decades 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0
We're still looking for our first call in this in this particular batch and so far
It has not come in 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 I should point out
This book is only being offered for this for this hour
We have not offered it before and as this is the last fundraising day that we're going to be doing
We're not going to offer it again
so this is your chance to get an autographed copy of dear hacker the brand new book about 2,600 letters and
Dialogue of the hacker community if you want to see what the hackers were saying
This is the next best thing to logging on to a BBS
Which you can't do anymore. They're not around
Except maybe Jason Scott has some in his in his collection. But other than that
It's it's very hard to access this and this is this is making it
Accessible to to everybody. Yeah, and it's worth noting that it may seem strange to some people today
But for those of us who are around back then on the letters page of a magazine is how that is
How that community converse back and forth and really slow conversations going from issue to issue
yeah, and you know, this was before the widespread use of the Internet not even all the computer geeks had computers yet and
This was this was sometimes the only way that you could get these sort of
ideas and questions answered and it was
It's it's really something and strangely enough it's somehow still going on today in in the letters page of the magazine it is
It's a tradition and we have four calls on the line
That's great to see because that tells me that people care and it does matter to them
And you know, I get the same feeling every time I read the the letters
It tells me that people are out there. They care. They have something to say and
We're there to listen to respond to to be part of the dialogue
that's what's the amazing thing about both the magazine and the radio station have always been is is just the
The ability for people to go back and forth and be heard
so many people have
Have had their first letter ever that they've written to anything published in 2600 and that's a I don't know if everyone here has had something
Published someplace. It's an amazing feeling to actually see your words in print
And I know we've we've made a lot of people very happy just by by printing what they say
And and of course if we if we have a particularly witty retort to them that makes me even happier
Maybe even angrier who knows but the important thing is it's it's history. It's there. It's there forever
As part of this book 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 again a pledge of $75 gets you the book
Autographed copy of dear hacker the the collection of 2600 letters along with the off-the-hook t-shirt in the size of your choice
Pledge of 125 gets you all of that plus a full archive of off the hook from 1988 to the end of 2009. That's
Mike is a thousands of hours. Is it it's it's so many hours that you don't even need to know how many it's a lot
Of hours it really is
2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 that joined the four callers on the line
I saw a fifth caller just came in but it's possible the phone wasn't picked up in time
And if that's the case just call right back because it will be there's people there that definitely want to pick up the phone
2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 that is our phone number
I'll say if we get one more call
We'll go to our big story of the night and it's a pretty big story
We want to devote some time to it since we won't be here next week. All right
Who's the most famous letter author in the book most famous letter author in the book
There must be someone who went on to become famous. I know Cory Doctorow wrote. I think he wrote an article
You know what? I'm not sure what issue that's in and I'm not sure if that even was in the best of 2600
But I'm sure there are other famous people that have written in without revealing who they are because if you're famous
You're not gonna say oh, by the way, this is Brad Pitt
People sign letters. Yeah, but did they sign letters to 2600 other than with a handle or something?
They might I guess not. I mean, you might have been you know, Snow Monster of the North or something
That could have been his handle
It's just out Brad Pitt. Oh, well, no, I'm not knowingly anyway
As far as I know Angelina didn't write us any letters. I don't think
Yes, go ahead Bernie. We have six calls on the line. So that's great to see 2 1 2 2 0 9
No, make that 7 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0
This book is gonna fly off the shelves when it does come out and you'll be one of the first people to actually have your
Own autographed copy of it. It's really gonna be pretty cool. Go ahead Bernie
I just wanted to say it's I always find it amusing when people write in they use just interesting nicknames or handles
Like you just mentioned because they're really afraid that just just the publication of their name
Along with their question could get them in hot water. That's the type of questions that are answered in this book
Back over the decades. So it's really I just find it fascinating, you know people writing in about they're afraid that just the magazine getting mailed
To their home we get them on some government hit list or or God forbid if their name was seen in print along with a
Forbidden a question to a you know for asking forbidden information
It's really interesting. It's just the kind of questions that people ask and the answers they get make this really a worthwhile
Thing to get so I encourage our listeners to call 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 and read all the questions
If people are really afraid to ask that they wouldn't even put their name to them 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0
for $75 you get this book of 600 pages of forbidden questions and
The off-the-hook t-shirt freshly designed by Rob T
Firefly and if you want to hear all the off-the-hook episodes going back to 1988 a pledge of 125 will get you the book and
the shirt and
20 DVDs full of mp3s with high quality audio of all the shows
Amazing 1 2 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 for a huge amount of information
But like I said, the biggest premium is WBA. I the only radio station
I know of would broadcast this kind of information 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 and I just reminded me to
We're talking about famous people writing in actually Bernie. You wrote a few letters before
We we actually knew who you were. You wrote a bunch of letters to 2600. I
Guess I did. I think the first time I wrote in was probably back in
8586 or something. It might have been something about cellular phone. Yes. In fact, it was I think that's one of the letters
I've made it into the book. I'm pretty sure in fact several of your letters are in the book
Yeah, I think I think I had a great that several pages of the magazine were filled with the of all the cellular telephone
Frequencies and I thought well, hey, I can't believe you remember that. Yes
Remember what got you upset back in the 80s?
You made a good point that the first time your your your letter is published in 2600
Impression I see
Decades ago, but I you know, I just put together a quick formula for
That you know, I think was a little programming basic
you can reach like a three-line program that would allow you to either enter the the the
The frequency or the channel there or the cellular telephone channel
It would give you the give you the other the frequency of Shannon you get listen to phone calls on your on your scanner
As I remember it our witty retort to you was that okay if you do that if you have that particular formula
You got to print out the list so we basically save people a step by printing the list in the first place
Like mad magazine used to used to have a great section
Snappy answers to stupid questions and they were a big inspiration to us along with my other publications as well Rob you have swing
I I've actually got that letter in question right here. We have it. I Bernie s
As we we say it was yeah pretty much much, okay
Well, it's a fresher on my memory
I'm very impressed that Bernie remembers it because he hasn't been editing the book for the last few months
But yeah
that's that's that's just part of the magic that you'll get if you call 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0 pledge 75 for the
book autographed copy of the book dear hacker and
125 get the book and the archive of off the hook 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 5 0
Okay, let's move on to a story that has been all over the place in in recent days
This comes off of wired
federal officials have arrested an army intelligence analyst who boasted of giving classified u.s. Combat video and
hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records to whistleblower site wiki leaks
SPC Bradley Manning of Potomac, Maryland was stationed at forward operating base hammer
40 miles east of Baghdad when he was arrested nearly two weeks ago by the army's criminal investigation
Division a family member says he's being held in custody in Kuwait and has not been formally charged
He was turned in late last month by a former computer hacker with whom he spoke online
In the course of their chats Manning took credit for leaking a headline making video of a helicopter attack
That wiki leaks posted online in April that video showed a deadly
2007 u.s. Helicopter airstrike in Baghdad that claimed the lives of several innocent civilians and if you recall we had the
The founder of wiki leaks Julian Assange on our radio station on our show a day or two after this came out
And in fact, he's also going to be one of our keynote speakers at the next hope this July
So wow, this this is hitting pretty close to home already. Now this guy this this this army guy
Said that he also leaked three other items to wiki leaks a separate video showing the notorious
2009 Garani airstrike in Afghanistan that wiki leaks has previously acknowledged is in its possession a
Classified army document evaluating wiki leaks as a security threat
Which the site posted in March and a previously unreported breach consisting of 260,000 classified u.s.
Diplomatic cables that Manning described as exposing almost criminal political back dealings
This is what he said Hillary Clinton and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack
When they wake up one morning and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available
In searchable format to the public now wired could not confirm whether wiki leaks received the supposed
260,000 classified embassy dispatches to date a single classified diplomatic cable has appeared on the site
Released last February describes a US Embassy meeting with the government of Iceland
now
Manning's arrest comes as wiki leaks has ratcheted up pressure
Against various governments over the years with embarrassing documents acquired through a global whistleblower network that is seemingly impervious to threats from adversaries
Yeah, its operations are hosted on servers in several countries. It uses high-level encryption for its document submission process
providing secure anonymity for its sources and a safe haven from legal repercussions for itself and
Since its launch in 2006, it has never outed a source through its own actions either voluntarily or
Involuntarily now Manning came to the attention of the FBI and army investigators after he contacted former hacker Adrian Lamo
late last month over instant messenger and email
Lamo had just been the subject of another wired article and very quickly in his in his exchange
With Lamo Manning claimed to be the wiki leaks video leaker now from the chat logs that were provided by Lamo and
Examined by wired it appears Manning sensed a kindred spirit in the ex-hacker. He discussed personal issues
I got him into trouble with his superiors and left him socially isolated and
Said he had been demoted and was headed for an early discharge from the army
Now when Manning told Lamo that he leaked a quarter of a million classified embassy cables
Lamo contacted the army and then met with army CID investigators and the FBI at a Starbucks near his house in Carmichael, California
Where he passed the agents a copy of the chat logs at their second meeting
FBI agents from the Oakland field office told the hacker that Manning had been arrested the day before
Lamo has contributed funds to wiki leaks in the past and says he agonized over the decision to expose Manning
He says he's frequently contacted by hackers who want to talk about their adventures
And he has never considered reporting anyone before the supposed diplomatic cable leak
However made him believe Manning's actions were genuinely dangerous to US national security
now
Interesting quote here from from Manning. He said that the networks that he had access to
Contained quote incredible things awful things that belonged in the public domain and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington, DC
he has an interesting way of
Speaking sometimes I'll read a couple more quotes
But basically the the video the thing that everybody was was talking about a couple of months ago
Was released by wiki leaks under the title collateral murder. It shows a 2007 army helicopter attack on a group of men
Some of them were armed that the soldiers believe were insurgents
the attack killed two Reuters employees and an unarmed Baghdad man who stumbled on the scene afterward and tried to rescue one of the
Wounded by pulling him into his van
The man's two children were in the van and suffered serious injuries in the hail of gunfire
One of the the friends of Manning Tyler Watkins
From Boston said he wanted to do the right thing. That was something I think he was struggling with
He would message me or people talking about it or the media saying anything
That was one of his major concerns that once he had done this once he had released the videos
Was it really going to make a difference? He didn't want to do this just to cause a stir
He wanted people held accountable and wanted to see that this didn't happen again
Now the second video he claimed to have leaked shows a May
2009 strike near Gharani village in Afghanistan that the local government says killed nearly 100 civilians most of them children
The Pentagon released a report about the incident but back down on a plan to show the video
Manning had access to two classified networks from two separate secured laptops
Supernet the secret level network used by the Department of Defense and the State Department and the joint worldwide intelligence
Communication system which serves both agencies at the top secret slash SCI level
Manning told Lamo that the Gharani video was left accessible in a directory on a u.s. Central Command server
Sent com dot s mil dot mil by officers who investigated the incident the video. He said was an encrypted AES
256 zip file
Everywhere, there's a u.s. Post Manning said there's a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed
It's open diplomacy worldwide anarchy in CSV format. It's climate gate with a global scope and breathtaking depth
It's beautiful and horrifying
Well, this guy has a way with the sound bites. I'll say that but boy, this is something that
That really has has hit the fan big-time
for one thing Adrian Lamo is
Associated with 2600 on a number of levels has been on this show and has an account on our machine
and
runs the Facebook site for
2600 Facebook group
and
that's I think that might be one of the reasons why we were
Flooded yesterday with attacks on our on our site, even though we had no knowledge of any of this
and of course
Julian Assange is our keynote speaker or one of our keynote speakers at the next hope in July
So we're seeing it from both both ends here. The question is
Did Adrian Lamo do the right thing by by turning in this guy Jim? You're shaking your head
No, okay. What do you say Mike? Well, I think first of all, we need to use the word allegedly in almost every sentence
Yes, we have no evidence. This is basically a single sourced article. We have no evidence that
Anyone told Adrian Lamo this that my question was about Adrian Lamo
Yeah, he did the right. Well, so it's just assuming for argument's sake that the story is reported accurately
and that
Adrian at least honestly believed that that this guy was the WikiLeaks
Leaker whether or not even that is true. I
Think that whoever sent these
Documents to WikiLeaks really ought to be commended
I think that as the people who funded the production of these killings and funded the the production of these documents
We have the right to know about it. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I totally agree with that. I don't think that was the reason
That he felt compelled to turn him in. I think when he heard that there were 260,000
What is it diplomatic
Yeah, well, this is one of the reasons I want to use the word allegedly a lot because WikiLeaks says they have no such
thing in their possession
And there has been quite a Twitter war going on between WikiLeaks and and wired as far as this
Accusing both Adrian Lamo and Kevin Paulson who wrote the article of being convicted felons that you can't trust and
Wired is writing back with all kinds of other
Responses to that it's and of course, you know, we're getting pink flood off off the pink floated off the net in the process
So it's all kinds of open warfare going on on the internet right now concerning this but I think reading reading some of the commentary
Almost universally. It seems a lot of people are condemning what Adrian Lamo did and I'm just wondering if that's if that's completely fair
All right, you also have to take into account that
You know, WikiLeaks doesn't just take things in and then publish them immediately
There is an amount of editorial discretion that goes into it
So, you know
I think that if they I mean generally it seems that their concern is to kind of shake things up and and and and
You know people who wouldn't otherwise be held accountable for things to be held accountable
But I don't think that they would go so far
You know as to as to do things that would maybe put other people's lives in danger. So I think you know
allegedly Adrian Lamo's
Concern was that you know people would be
Endangered by this kind of information being out there, but WikiLeaks at the same time, you know
I think in a way they're trying to help and they're trying to get things out there that should be out there
But they probably have some amount of discretion
Okay
I mean people's lives are endangered by the suppression of u.s. Government information people's lives are put in danger because
Americans by and large don't know that their government kills journalists in Iraq, but they do now they know
No now and hopefully this will you know, it's a long process
Can you say the same thing about 260,000 classified documents that they're not going to put people's lives in danger if they're released
I mean if these documents even exist, then I don't know what's in them
That's an interesting thing too, because this guy said he had 260,000 documents
I don't know if that was just posturing in the hacker world
Believe it or not. There is a lot of posturing read the letters book. You'll see that and in this particular case
I don't know for sure if if he was just making that up. There's no real evidence
We don't even know for sure that he said that was again. It's a single-source article again
There are chat logs allegedly unless that's I haven't seen them. Well, no, you haven't seen them, but
But okay. Well, I mean, I don't know how big you would think of conspiracy. I know I
Requires it doesn't require conspiracy at all
It requires Adrian to be not telling the truth and I don't know that he isn't but but you know
It's if he received if he received a chat from somebody in the army saying that he just released
260,000 confidential messages to a WikiLeaks site
Would that be something that you would be concerned with if you saw that if you if you saw if you got a message like
That from somebody would you would you trust that all those messages weren't going to cause any kind of damage by being released?
I think I think it was an impossible situation
He was put in if all the facts are what they what we're being led to believe
They are what's being reported in this story
Rob first and then Bernie then dot-rit. I would like to say that, you know, I of course
I don't know Adrian Lambo on any kind of personal level
But I'm familiar with some of the things he's done and some of the things he's written and so on and his case and what?
Have you but I am pretty sure that he's not a stupid person
Going into this and making the decision that he did
he knew what the consequences would be not only among the hacker community or among the
You know government or what or what have you?
I think he he was pretty much able to see what would happen once he once he did this and then he did it
So whatever whatever caused him to take this as his as his um, you know to make this decision to act in this way
I think he knew what was coming. And so he had to be really sure and you know
I don't know what was going on in his head or what was going on in anyone else's head and I don't know the situation
Anymore than was written on that page
but I think that I think that it's worth considering that he really he really believed he was doing the right thing and you know,
Hopefully we'll hear more from
Anyone, you know on this on that side of the story and we can get some just ask yourself the question
What would you do in that situation and give yourself five seconds to answer it?
And if you're able to do that ask yourself
why you're so sure that you went one way or the other because I know I'm not it'll take me a while to figure I
Also, I also know that if I were the person who leaked such material, I would not be bragging about it to anybody
That's the thing this guy. I mean the intellect on him
It's it's
Yeah, this is what people do. They they brag about things
WikiLeaks exists so people can do this without you know, it becoming known who they were
and it's one thing to find a video that that
Exposes the military as as liars and killers and things like that that I think is commendable and that's something that you know
We owe him a great debt for getting the truth out as far as that goes
But if you're going to just release everything without even knowing what it is
That's irresponsible if you're gonna say that he did something that you didn't do that's irresponsible as well
And I think that's what he's paying the price for mostly now. There's one thing that's interesting. It strikes me as interesting here
Maybe somebody can answer this but when the video file is is referred to here
They say it was an encrypted AES-256 zip file that he found in in somebody's directory
What I want to know is how did he know what it was then if it was encrypted?
Does anybody know the answer to that? It's probably named
Soldiers killing civilians, I don't know it might have had it might have had you know, it might have had the location and the date
Okay, maybe you would you could put two and two together and say well this event happened on that date at that location
I guess if they log everything in that I mean
We know that we know that with the other video that was that was released by WikiLeaks
They did have to do a fair amount of work to actually get the video. They had to the zip file, right?
So there was it was encrypted. So I'm sure the same situation held, you know that they knew
He knew what was in that probably for the same he didn't decrypt it the people at WikiLeaks decrypted it
So he didn't know for sure what it was. He was giving them
Think about it. If you're a government organization, you probably want to know what every file
I mean you assume you're assuming the security of the file is the fact that nobody has access to it, right?
And it's encrypted but but also the fact that it's on this, you know secure network
and so
You know what? They're
They're probably but they you still want to keep track of it. You want to know where this file is
So I'm sure they named it in a way that said, okay
Well, this is so-and-so event that we were investigating just one of many questions that I have about all this
I hope that the truth comes out Bernie. Go ahead. Oh to answer your question
of
Brad Bradley Manning the
military
Official who who allegedly leaked this video
was allegedly reportedly told
Adrian Lamo that in addition to the file name that the
location of the file
Raised red flags for him. It was in the it was in the folder of a judge advocate general. It's like a military attorneys
Folder so on that in and of itself would indicate that
The contents of this video file was of concern to the military. This is a TV show
You he actually went into that judges directory and he's able to see all the sensitive cases because what it's in a folder called sensitive
cases
Wow, I don't I don't know but this is this is our military. This is how they run things
So but back to your other question, um, you know, would you do this if you were in?
Adrian Lamo shoes, I believe Adrian Lamo is an honorable and honest person
However, his motivations may be different from other people if I were in his shoes knowing what I know now
I would not have contacted the army and said hey this guy just told me he released 260,000 classified
Diplomatic cables to Wikileaks
However on it. It's insightful to know that
There is a federal it's a federal crime to
To not have done
What Adrian Lamo did in other words?
There's a there's a federal felony under title 18 called misprision of a felony and what that means is I'll just read the statute here
It says whoever having knowledge
Of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States
Concealed and does not as soon as possible make known at the same to some judge or other person in civil or military
Authority under the United States shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years or both
So Adrian Lamo was probably
still under
Government surveillance because he spent some time in federal prison not too long ago a few years ago
It would not be surprising if he's still under surveillance and with the way this
This military guy was shooting his mouth off and bragging to more than one person reportedly. He'd released these files
To Wikileaks, it's not inconceivable to think that Adrian Lamo would have thought well, this kid's gonna get himself busted and
It's gonna show up in this kids
Files that he was communicating this information to me and then I'm gonna go to prison as well
So I'm not justifying what Adrian Lamo did but it's useful to know that Adrian probably
Knew that he was likely to go to prison for not revealing this information not justifying it
I'm just saying that's information. We should know
Okay, well one thing that's that's interesting is that both of these guys might be coming to the same conference in July here in New York
We're not we're not exactly sure yet if that's actually going to happen
And in fact, I know that there's a lot of question now as to whether or not Julian would be safe coming to this country
In light of all the heat that's coming down as a result of Wikileaks being in the news
and the last thing we want to do, of course is put somebody in harm's way as far as as far as
Being exposed to hostile governments that really wouldn't be very happy with the things that he's exposed through Wikileaks. So
One way or another that we do promise he will be speaking to the conference
hopefully in person and if not in some way we will get we will make this happen, but
Safety is is paramount above all else and especially if you think I'm kidding about this
This is a story that showed up in the Sunday Times in London
NATO is considering the use of military force against enemies who launch cyber attacks on its member states
yes, the move follows a series of Russian linked hacking against NATO members and warnings from intelligence services of the growing threat from
China a team of NATO experts led by none other than Madeleine Albright
the former US Secretary of State has warned that the next attack on a NATO country may well come down a fiber-optic cable a
Report by Albright's group said that a cyber attack on the critical infrastructure of a NATO country could equate to an armed attack
Justifying retaliation. So, you know the next time some kid hacks into the power grid a missile could be launched at his home
Somewhere in the world and it's it's a it's a stretch
and of course this case here doesn't have to do with with hacking into a system, but it does have to do with pissing off a
powerful government and
Pissed off governments tend to do irrational things. All right, go ahead
Well, yeah, that's a that's extremely disturbing but just coming back to a Manning and
supposedly leaking
260,000 somewhat classified documents. How does somebody have access to that?
2600 is in that
How exactly does have access to that like like like you pointed out
It's almost like a TV thing just goes to a JAG folder and and she's like, oh this this must be interesting
You know the whole thing about classified documents. Is it supposed to be need-to-know happy is even possible for him to have had access
Well, apparently I got it. What was that about Lady Gaga discs?
Reportedly
Bradley Manning told Adrian Lambo that he would go in with a CD RW disc, you know a blank CD
With the music files like like Lady Gaga music files on it and then
Erase them and then fill it with you know, tens of thousands of classified
Diplomatic cables from the US government and and then take them out
He said that that he would not be searched. They would just look at the disc on the way out and say, okay
Bye, he said their security was ridiculous in there
I don't have the quote in front of him, but he but he had made some comments allegedly about how
Ridiculously poor US security was in this respect
So he would he would just hide them in a different directory on the disc and leave the music files there
I'm not sure exactly how he did it. I'm not clear on that
But but apparently they're on a CD that said Lady Gaga among other things
Well, you know, I gotta say we have a lot of people here that seem to be doing what they thought was the best thing
We have of course Julian Assange who continues to to work with WikiLeaks and put out information that he feels should be released and and
Known to the world and I can't say I disagree with that
you have Adrian Lambo who who was hit with a
Incredibly conflicting situation and made a decision based on the information he had and I think his his his motives
Weren't evil, but whether or not he he
Unintentionally committed evil by doing so that remains to be seen and of course
You have this this this poor guy in the army who was going around releasing things that he felt should be should be seen
No doubt in the interest of justice in the interest of full disclosure
About the only people that I think really
Need a good slap here are the people in charge of security of the computer systems there because they certainly were not doing their job
the the army is not doing a very
convincing job of keeping
Information on a need-to-know basis to the people who quote-unquote need to know and I disagree about who needs to know this
I'm glad people know the classified things because I think way too much is classified
But in this particular case in the confines of what they're supposed to be doing they certainly were not doing their job
So I just you know
I hope there's a way that people can just kind of learn from this and nobody winds up having their lives ruined
But of course, I'm naive and idealistic and I know that's probably not gonna happen Mike
I mean unless of course the people were doing their job and Manning watched too many television shows and made the whole thing up in
Which case okay, he lied to a lot of people which is foolish. Yeah, but it shouldn't go to prison for lying
I mean, I just want to reiterate that that Manning says he sent these documents to WikiLeaks and WikiLeaks says they have no such documents
So one of them is wrong. All right, so somebody's lying on the Internet
Yeah, so I don't I don't know who but but these are like they can't both be right. Yeah, that's that's true
That'll be hard to resolve because I'm sure WikiLeaks is gonna say hey us government send somebody over and look at all the files
We have on our servers to show that we don't have yeah
Might go to jail for might not wait for an invitation. That's that's something that
Obviously, we're all worried about well, but this is in another country
So but the thing is if if the right people are doing their jobs in the first place
Then we shouldn't be worried about all these classified documents falling into the wrong hands because we know that they're secure
This proves beyond anything else apart from what's in the documents that they are not secure. They're anything but secure
There could be a thousand people like this who had access to it and who knows what their intentions might be Rob
I'm gonna disagree with you on one point. I think assuming that Manning did what he says he did
I think he needs a slap as well for opening his mouth
Because I love whistleblowers. I love what they do in general, but you know, if you do it and you're successful about it
Shut your damn mouth. Yeah. Yeah. Well, especially when you're talking to somebody you don't know very well
yeah, and I don't know how well the two of them knew each other, but
Yeah, you know plus you don't an internet chat log who's listening to that, you know, I'm sure it wasn't very secure
I'm sure there's all kinds of ways of eavesdropping. All right now also if he did in fact do this
the security thing, you know as far as the military is followed go would probably go into the all-too-common thing of
Segregating computers away from everything else. I'm sure in
physical real life
they wouldn't allow some guy to walk into some JAG office and start pulling out files out of you know file drawers and
The same kind of security really
JAG office is a real term in the army. All right, that's just that's what they call it. What does it stand for?
Judge Advocate General, okay. Yeah, so mixing terms. Yeah
well, this is certainly a
Controversial topic no doubt. We'll be talking about this for many weeks to come and I'm sure it'll be
Something that's addressed at the conference quite a bit. And by the way for more information on the conference go to
www.hope.net I believe Mike we're opening vendor tables now for people to register
Yes
if you are a vendor or would like to be a vendor go to hope.net and scroll down a couple posts you'll see the
info and by vendor means somebody who
Either wants to get some some doctrine out to the hacker world or sell something to the hacker world and will be thousands of people
They're looking at what it is that you're offering. So it's a very good deal
It's a good way of reaching lots and lots of people
We have many people come back year after year
Okay. Well, we're pretty much out of time
I really wish we could go on for a couple more hours about this. And of course, we're not on next week
but I hope that the
The subject is still interesting when we're back next and of course you can write to us
Oth at 2600 comm with your thoughts and feelings or perhaps there'll be more information in two weeks. I'm sure there will be
I'm sure there will be I'm sure we'll hear from all the parties concerned one way or another
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