And that wraps up today's program. This is Free Speech Radio News.
I'm Dorian Marina.
And you're listening to radio station WBAI,
off the hook.
And you're listening to WBAI, off the hook.
And you're listening to WBAI, off the hook.
And good evening to everybody. The program is off the hook. Emmanuel Wilson here with you on this Wednesday evening.
Joined tonight by Mike Redhack. Hello. Is that not Kevin over there? Hello. How you doing? Excellent.
Kyle. Hi. Dot Red. Hey. Gus. Good morning internet.
And Rob T. Firefly. Good evening. And Jim. Hello.
Greetings from Philadelphia.
Because of where I live, I have Time Warner Cable as my service provider.
And today they came by and the technician came by and gave us our TV box and what I thought was a cable modem,
and then also a router that is a cable modem. So I said to him, well, I don't really want a router.
And then I saw him plugging the cable into it. I said, oh, I guess I need that.
And he tells me this is your network thing. So I look at it a little bit. First of all, it's using WEP, which is laughably insecure.
And I was breaking WEP networks like five, six years ago really easily without any outside knowledge.
But second of all, what's really funny about this is that the network name is the last four letters of the MAC address of the router.
So that's a number. And then the password, which since they're using WEP and they're using the, quote, unquote,
more secure WEP, is 26 characters. Well, that's just the MAC address of the system plus 14 zeros at the end.
So basically what I realized was that, okay, well, if you know the vendor ID, which is the first six characters,
and then the network name is the last four characters, and then the rest is zeros,
there are two characters in the middle that are unknown of the password to get onto a network that you just see.
That's one of these four-digit Time Warner networks. And so I realized that basically if you were really dedicated,
there's only about 256 combinations that you'd have to type in for a password to connect to one of these networks floating around.
So I called them up. So the other thing was I was like, all right, well, this stinks.
But let me just go and I'll reconfigure it so that my network is secure, this router that they forced upon me.
So I tried to get to the router page and it's blocked.
And so I said, oh, well, maybe they configured it to be blocked.
So I reset it and it was accessible for a second and then it downloaded a configuration file from them and it was blocked again.
So now I angrily called them and said, hey, you know, I don't want this thing.
You know, I want to use my old router because I don't like the security, this blah, blah, blah.
Well, it turns out, in fact, that that thing that I thought was a cable modem that they left there was a cable modem.
But now in order to use that as a cable modem, they won't enable it until I take this thing that I didn't ask for and didn't want and return it to them at their store.
So that kind of annoyed me.
So for anyone using Time Warner Cable, if they gave you a nice little SMC router cable modem thing, you don't actually need that.
And the security is so terrible that if I was just walking by, I could probably get onto your network within a few minutes.
That's the point of my story.
That's the part I'm interested in.
So, OK.
Now you're walking around.
How would you get on someone's network with this information?
Well, so the network, like I said before, the network name is the last four characters of the MAC address of the router system.
OK.
And the – I mean, first of all, it uses WEP.
So you could just use any WEP cracking thing and probably get it in a few minutes anyway.
But if you really wanted to do it by typing it in, then the first six characters of the MAC address are the vendor ID.
So that's basically – I think SMC, which is the company that makes – has like seven different ones.
Mine started with 002 and then I can't remember the next three letters.
And then – so you have – so the MAC address itself is 12 characters long.
So you have six at the beginning that you can know or figure out by asking someone who has one of these Time Warner things.
You know the last four because that's the network name.
So 6 plus 4 is 10.
12 minus 10 is 2.
So there's two letters that you don't know.
But you do know that they have to be either 0 through 9 or A through F because these are hex characters.
Right.
The rest of the key is just zeros.
I can tell you that because the rest of my key is just zeros.
So that leaves you two things that have 16 possible values in the middle, two bytes that you don't know.
And that's – so that's 16 times 16 is 256.
So basically –
That's not that many.
It reduces the key space to about 256, yeah.
Are we going to be demonstrating this later on the streets of Manhattan?
Are we going to be trying?
We can try, sure.
I'd like to do that.
I'd like to – interesting.
The thing about it is, like I said, they're using WEP, which is a technology that's been broken for as far as I can remember at this point.
And so – and not WPA.
But even if they were using WPA, the fact that they've reduced the key space so significantly is absurd.
So there's multiple problems with this Time Warner system that they've foisted upon me that I don't want and that I'll be getting rid of.
Right.
Interesting that this is what happens when you move in.
You learn things about the phone company.
You learn things about the cable system, about the internet providers of all sorts.
Go ahead.
I'd just like to say if you're listening and if you have Time Warner cable and you have one of these SMC wireless gateway routers that they gave you with a four-digit network name and whatever stupid password, you should call them and complain because this is absurd.
As far as I can tell, they can actually – they can push up configuration updates to it, so they could make it more secure without you having to do anything.
So any Time Warner subscribers who have this listening, definitely call and complain because this is absurd.
I mean if you like other people just using your network, then fine.
But I can't –
What's wrong with other people using your network?
What's all this security paranoia?
Well, in this day and age, if somebody downloads something through you –
This day and age?
What's different about this day and age?
Sharing is caring, Red Hacked.
Well, I don't know about sharing is caring, but it's incredible how we seem to believe security means something because we're told that.
I mean I'm saying you're doing that, but like just for instance now getting into the building is insane.
We have to go through all these hoops and ladders, whatever it is people jump through.
And we're not any more secure.
It's like this in every single building in Manhattan and it's got nothing to do with security.
It's got to do with habits.
And then there's false security like this where they say, oh, well, here's a password.
So it's encrypted now.
So you think you're secure.
But in reality, when you break it down, you're not.
And one other thing I saw on the internet that was great, I was looking to order something online and this website had a secure order form.
But there's nothing secure about it.
It just sent them an email or something.
And they were like, here, type your credit card in.
It's secure.
So anyway, that's my story.
I'm done.
Anyway, moving on to some of the other things that have happened this week because a lot has happened this week.
This was the week of the final hearing.
You might have heard us talking about this.
Actually, did we talk about this or did we just tweet about it?
I don't think.
Did we know about it last week?
We talked about it.
We did talk about it.
Okay.
And it was the final hearing to decide the fate of the Hotel Pennsylvania.
And you may have heard about this in the news as actually the battle between the Empire State Building and the – apparently they pronounce it Vornado.
Did you know that?
We've been saying Vornado.
I don't know.
To rhyme with tornado, I guess.
I don't know who – yeah, probably.
Probably.
To call the whole thing off.
Yeah, I think so.
But basically, you know, we have fake corporate words.
It's really something.
How do you pronounce them?
But that's the least of it.
There was this hearing on Monday morning, bright and early, and a bunch of people showed up.
And the big media concern, though, was whether or not the Empire State Building was going to get their way and block this building from going up and potentially obscuring the view from places in the west.
And, well, a couple of us were there.
I was there.
Kyle was there.
Voltaire was there.
Voltaire is here now.
Welcome.
You're late.
Thank you.
All right.
Well, we all managed to testify.
We all managed to stand up or sit down, actually, in front of these people at a table and give our reasons.
But the thing is, most of the reasons people gave to oppose this project was because of the Empire State Building issue.
We were really the only ones who wanted to preserve the hotel.
And that was kind of sad because, well, it just seemed like that was a foregone conclusion that they were going to destroy the historic hotel that we have our conferences in and that so many other things have happened throughout the course of history.
We presented the petition of nearly 1,000 names that we got over the Hope Weekend.
I don't think it made any difference.
I don't think – in fact, while I was talking, the city council people were talking amongst themselves.
They were having a nice little cocktail party.
That is not –
I'm sorry.
What?
That is not a good sign.
No, that's not a good sign.
Definitely not.
Kyle, you had the last word in the proceedings.
Yeah, I did.
After you talked, they closed the doors and said, that's it.
We don't want to hear any more.
No, I didn't say that.
You didn't say that.
You could have said that.
I could have very well.
Yeah.
But the longer I sat there, the more clear it became that, I mean, we were the only – like just a small handful of us really brought up the hotel and defended it as a historical place and a cultural place.
And we realized slowly as we sat there that the people we represent are the wrong kinds of people they want in that area.
That's the thing.
And that's the point I was hoping to bring up.
We didn't really get a chance to.
They only gave us three minutes each to speak, and that's really not enough time to read some prepared remarks.
And they gave Empire State and they gave Vornado ample – plenty of time, all kinds of time.
Of course.
There were projectors and models and big pictures.
Yeah, there was PowerPoint presentations and things like that.
But the point that you alluded to that I really wanted to focus on was that they were discussing making the area more vibrant and more active.
And if you walk around that area, which is right across the street from Penn Station, it's pretty damn active right now.
They're talking about building an underground passageway so people don't have to walk on the sidewalk, so that people don't have to actually pass shops or anything like that, so that commuters can get where they're going quickly.
And all it was was about commuters and CEOs and what's right for them.
It wasn't about the residents.
It wasn't about the tourists.
It wasn't about the merchants.
It wasn't about all the wrong people that they didn't care about.
It was just about these rich money-spending people from Westchester and Connecticut that they simply are bending over backwards for.
And in the end, they're the ones who won because they voted today to approve the project.
So, it's kind of a sad day.
It's kind of –
It wasn't really about the commuters though.
That was like an afterthought or like a side effect of this huge building.
And the city basically was eyeing this huge building as a way they could slide in some sort of advanced commuter underground tunnel system.
And when you looked at what the builders were doing, it's like they're way more focused on this building.
Yeah, they'll move some boxes around, make it so people can walk around underground from Penn Station.
But if the city really cared about commuters and people and citizens, they would be putting their energy into finding someone that can clear out the transportation issue and forget about a building.
And this is a big city.
This is New York City and you guys can't get together and like come up with a way to address the commuter issue as the issue.
Who cares about another financial tower, real estate, barons, whatever?
Voltaire.
The worst part was that –
Go ahead.
It doesn't matter.
Yeah, use the one that's closest to you.
The worst part was that the people out there, they have a fund – I lost my train of thought.
Okay.
Gus, go ahead with your train.
You just watch.
We're going to end up like –
Your microphone is cutting in and out.
Okay.
Let's take this one instead.
All right.
Support the station, guys.
We need better mics.
We're going to end up like San Francisco and I don't know if you've been to San Francisco but it can be pretty freaking boring.
It's fabulous but it's – I mean like we're going to marginalize.
If we don't have cheap places for people to stay, you're not going to have people who really are vibrant.
We're not going to have artists coming through town and staying.
We're not going to have hackers coming through town and staying.
We need to like – so this is just another one of those like we're not going to care about anybody who can't pay top dollar to be in the cool place that everybody wants to be.
Now, we talk about the people with money having all the power but what really aggravates me most about all of this is Empire State Building, they rose their objections.
I don't think it was even a full week before the hearing and they were in all the papers and they were on the evening news.
If they had maybe caught wind of this and decided to say something last year when this was going up, when the original – when Vornado's original plan was in play, maybe they could have put a stop to this all in the beginning.
They sure took their time.
And everybody was saying and I think Kyle, you noticed this too that everybody supported the project.
They were all bending over backwards to say we're not against progress.
We're not against 67-story office buildings arising up out of history.
We all support that but we just don't want this particular building in this particular spot.
And it's just sad that so few people seem to care about the actual history.
I brought a publication that one of the HOPE attendees was kind enough to share with me from I believe architectural review from 1919 that talked about the history of the building, not the history so much because it had just been built but just the historic implications of it being the biggest hotel and all the nooks and crannies and things like that.
And it was just – it was kind of cool to read that and I gave that to them.
I entered that into public evidence hoping they would read it and appreciate it but I really doubt they did.
There are a lot of neat things about the hotel.
I actually went to a talk at HOPE about kind of different ways of getting into places and one of them mentioned these doors that – so if you noticed if you've been to HOPE or if you've been to the hotel, the doors are kind of fat in the middle.
And what that actually was was a system for – so say you gave – you had your suits being cleaned and you were staying in the hotel.
What the people who cleaned the suits could do, they could come by.
They could open the outside half of that.
So the center of the fat kind of sticking out part of the door was actually kind of a door system.
They could open that, put the suit, hang it in there, close it and then in the morning when you actually got up or later that morning, you could open the other side and there was your suit ready for you.
So I thought that was kind of neat and these are things that don't exist anymore and that was just a neat thing that you won't see again.
People make fun of the hotel for having these weird doors but they don't realize it's a bit of history.
Every part of it is a bit of history.
Now the thing is, yeah, they talk – even the New York Times I think referred to it as dingy as if it's a fact.
It's a dingy place and cramped and things like that.
Well, we didn't always have the SUV lifestyle.
Things weren't always as big as they are now.
But there's an interesting parallel.
There's another hotel that was attached to the Grand Central train station, the other side of town.
And that has since been completely refurbished.
It's nice and modern.
But which hotel is that?
Do you remember, Kyle, which hotel it was?
New York something or other.
In the past or was the name now?
No, currently.
Grand Central Hyatt.
The Hyatt.
That's what it turned into.
And so if you want to stay there, it's several hundred dollars a night.
That's the standard in New York.
And, of course, the place that we have our conferences at is a fraction of that and there just aren't many places like that left, if any.
Go ahead, Bernie.
I want to say that all the arguments saying, oh, we can have this commuter tunnel between Penn Station and across the street, there's already a commuter tunnel underneath the Hotel Pennsylvania.
I did some urban exploring and found this tunnel.
It's beautifully lined with the tile mosaic but boarded up.
It's been there for apparently as long as the hotel has been there or at least many, many decades.
And it could be reopened if people really want to go back and forth between Penn Station and across the street.
So I think that was kind of a red herring saying, oh, we need to build a tunnel.
It's already there.
And there's so many other wonderful things in that hotel like that that people don't appreciate.
And if they would just look, they'd see it.
Well, they're talking about expanding the old Gimbel's Tunnel, which I believe ran a few blocks.
And the tunnel as it existed before it was closed in 1986 due to crime and all kinds of other things.
The tunnel that is there now is kind of narrow and dark.
I guess they could light it up.
But they're looking to make it much more of a, say, a Rockefeller Center type of an underground city, which, you know, they could do all this.
But they're saying that because of financial issues, New York City can't afford to do it.
So private enterprise has to step in.
And this is the price of private enterprise stepping in, a little bit of history being destroyed.
And, you know, it seems like we fought this as much as we can.
Maybe the economy will step in and keep them from making this ill-advised move.
I know the mayor is not going to step in and stop it.
He's all for it.
So we can only hope for economic downturns, I guess.
Do people like the, like, maze of passageways underneath Rockefeller Center?
Like, whenever I go there, I try and get out as quickly as possible.
Those people love that kind of stuff.
They really do.
Underground cities where people don't have to.
Imagine this.
Commuters coming from Long Island and Connecticut and Westchester never having to actually emerge onto the ground and walk amongst the filth of the streets of New York.
I mean, I like that.
I don't have to interact with people who are commuting from out of town.
But I can't imagine that they like it.
I just get lost in those things.
I think they have something.
I mean, out on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, they've got the LIRR there.
And I just can never.
I always go the wrong way, and then I don't know where I am anymore.
It's very sad.
Yeah.
Well, we'll keep looking at the story.
But as it stands today with that vote, it looks like it's taken a big step in the wrong direction.
So we'll have to keep figuring out what to do next.
Altair, did your train come back into?
The next hope will still go on, right?
The next hope happened already.
You missed it.
Oops.
Last month.
But the hope that happens in 2012, yes, hopefully that one will occur.
And if the hotel is there, it will occur there.
Hopefully.
We'll see.
Okay.
Now, Gus, I know you were at something last week, which kept you from coming to the radio station.
You were actually playing with the new electronic voting machines, which we're all going to be forced to use this November.
Yes.
Maybe even before then.
Tell us what it was like.
Where was it?
What did you do?
Well, it was at the office of Senator Bill Perkins up in Harlem.
And it's apparently—this is a kind of meeting that they will do for you wherever you are in town.
One of the things they kept saying is if you know other people who want to learn how to use these voting machines,
tell the Board of Elections and you can have a voting machine demonstration where you are.
And it was sort of interesting.
I mean, like when they said voting machine demonstration,
I somehow assumed that it was going to kind of be along the same lines as Matt Blaze's talk at Hope, at the last Hope,
which is sort of a ridiculous thing to assume.
This was just to teach people to use the machines.
And there were a lot of people, especially older people, who were really, really frightened that they were not going to be able to understand how these machines work.
So I have in front of me here a ballot that they handed out.
They gave us all these demo ballots.
And it says demonstration ballot.
And you are voting in these demonstration ballots for things like best ice cream flavor and best pizza topping.
Oh, boy. That's lovely.
Yeah. And best pet.
That's sort of the kind of thing.
I think it was clearly engineered to make us all feel like this is going to be perfectly safe and great and happy.
It looks like two 8 1⁄2 by 11 pieces of paper together.
It's a little bit smaller than 8 1⁄2 by 11.
It's not quite legal size.
It's definitely a unique size.
And I'm seeing crop marks on it.
But one of the interesting things about the actual physical ballot was that you can insert it any way into the scanner and it will go ahead and scan it for you.
I bet you can't insert it sideways.
No, you can't insert it sideways.
That's probably a bad idea.
Well, let me just say I've been perfectly happy with the mechanical machines.
I know they're prone to some kind of malfunction, but not en masse, not in a way that is really going to – this just looks like it's going to be a nightmare.
In fact, I have a piece I'd like to read that sort of outlines that.
But basically you walk into the polling place and these things are, what, in a stack?
Did somebody hand it to you?
How does that work?
Somebody will hand it to you.
It will basically be a lot like the traditional thing.
You go up and you sign your name at the front.
There was a lot of concern.
Will I have to sign my name on this ballot?
No, you don't sign your name on the ballot as usual.
You sign your name at the little voting card at the front.
So what happens if I bring my own ballot and they're simply substituted?
What do they do to protect that?
Nobody said anything about that.
That's a very interesting possibility.
I went back and checked Matt Blaze's talk at The Last Hope before I did this, and I advise everybody to do it because it outlines all of the ways in which these things could be gamed.
One of the things they talk about in that is that they have special printing things on the ballots that appear to sort of be in a slightly blurry, different color with some of the ballots.
And those are ones that are printed in composite ink, which is like the cyan, magenta, yellow, and black cartridge on your machine.
And Matt and his team showed ways to actually fudge that in places where the ballot needs to have that kind of ink in order to read.
I'm not seeing anything on this ballot that is like that, but there's very distinctive markings on it that could make it pretty easy to copy it, I assume.
You go in there with a smartphone and simply take a nice picture of it.
I did not.
Yeah, that would be one interesting thing to do.
I'm sure all those hackers with their new devices will be able to figure out ways to completely bring the system to its knees.
And this is a scantron.
I mean, this is a scantron.
This is like your SAT test, or they mentioned something else.
There's some sort of social security form that also does scantron.
It's a bubble test, basically.
But I remember those tests as being rather simple.
They were small cards, and you simply fill in one of five.
This is easier to read.
This is easier to read than that because you actually have your answers written out by the bubbles, whereas on the scantron test, it was usually A, B, C, D, and you could do fancy patterns and stuff.
In this one, you could make a smiley face in the bubbles and totally fail your test.
That way, on this one, if you mark more boxes than they want you to, it will reject the ballot.
It won't give the ballot back to you, but it will consume the ballot and say, you messed up.
Either you need to get a new ballot or something.
You will get three tries.
This is what annoys me.
You get three tries in.
What?
You get kicked out?
And then apparently you get kicked out of voting.
So, I mean, one of the things that could mess you up is if you touch your pencil or your pen down on each of the bubbles as you're sort of counting along, it may read those marks, and that will invalidate your ballot.
So be very careful about doing anything like that.
It will also, unlike the SATs where really they insist that you fill in the entire bubble or apparently your IQ is zero and you're not allowed to go to Harvard, if you just mark an X in it, it will read that as a vote.
So that's slightly different.
But, I mean, the other things that were really concerning to me were other kinds of security that Matt Blaze talked about.
I mean, like one of the things that he and Maus, who's the other gal on his team, said about these ballots.
Sorry.
I need that.
I'm going to need my notes.
One of the things he said about these ballots is that it's not even – you don't even need to hack these machines, although they did find some ways in the code where you could, you know, apparently insert a recursive Trojan that would actually propagate all the way back to the countywide machine and could absolutely wipe everything, although obviously that would probably leave more of a trace.
Very simple things like keys.
The keys for all of the machines everywhere in the country for ES and S machines, and these are from ES and S, which is now – they merged with Diebold or what was Premier, which was what Diebold became.
All the locks were exactly the same all around the country.
Same key.
This one I asked them.
They said now the locks are different.
However, there's still wafer tumbler locks.
I know how to pick those with a broken barrette and a bobby pin.
So, like, those are not the most secure thing.
I'm still seeing wafer tumbler locks on all of them.
They also had – they were saying, oh, well, we've got these secure seals.
They're tamper-proof.
The ones that I saw in there had clearly been tampered with, so I'm not sure exactly what was going on there.
But there are these weird little plastic things with, like, a twisted wire in them.
So, like, presumably if you mess with the wire, it becomes untwisted and then you can see that.
But it still didn't look particularly, you know, untamperable.
And there was a barcode and a vendor number on it, so probably you could figure out where it came from.
Let me read you a couple of things from this New York Times piece that appeared a couple of days ago.
Tell me if any of this jibes with what you saw and experienced.
And this is written by someone named Ariel Kaminer.
And they say, if you need something to worry about, here's a good suggestion.
The new voting system is a mess, likely to cause all kinds of confusion in all directions during primary elections on September 14th.
The new system compounds the shortcomings of print media with those of electronic media
and makes matters worse with hard-to-read, hard-to-understand instructions and a lot of extraneous nonsense.
When you arrive at your polling station, you'll sign in and get a paper ballot.
The ballot is divided into a tight grid of boxes, each containing as many as four languages,
English, Spanish, Chinese, and Korean, and a clutter of letters packed closely together or close to the dividing lines.
Some text is centered. Some is aligned to the right.
Some is legible. Some is so tiny that unless you are looking really hard,
you will mistake the row of all capital letters for a solid bar of gray.
The very smallest type is less than one-sixteenth of an inch high.
I mean, to me, it doesn't look all that different from previous ballots, which are always kind of ridiculous looking.
But that's kind of lovely to have a printer's or an interface designer's take on what this looks like.
I mean, it's definitely crammed in there.
Well, magnifying sheets will be available. You will need them.
They're really strange.
They're these big plastic sheets of paper that are – I can't quite – they're like something you'd see in a school that kids would play with or something.
They're really weird.
And you bring that into the –
No, no. They have them. They have them at the machine.
Actually, wait a minute. Where do you vote? Are you behind curtains or are you just out in a big room?
I'm assuming you'll still be behind curtains.
You might be just – they may just have security panels on the side.
It's called a privacy screen.
Yeah, they should.
It's a piece of cardboard in English.
The other machines that were there were – for those who are disabled, they have another kind of a scanner where I think you just – it marks the ballot for you.
So you're entering things on the machine and it marks the ballot for you.
And that machine had some interesting ports on it.
It had an Ethernet port.
It had an SD card port in a very obvious place.
It had a couple of standard audio jacks.
And they assured me up and down, left, right and center that that was not a problem because no votes would actually be registered on the machine.
Instead, things would print on your ballot and then you could take it to the other machine to have it scanned.
If there are any ports or any little connections on any of these devices, I think we all have obligations to bring devices and attach them and see what happens.
If there is a USB slot on any of this, believe me –
Not USB but definitely Ethernet, yeah.
Okay, but I intend to plug things in.
I think that's our obligation to do that.
I was just thinking they have this tamper-proof thing, right?
So what if you mosey up to it and just kind of clip it?
Then what happens to all the votes in that machine?
Do they have to discount them?
That's – wow.
That is a simple brute force solution right there.
I hadn't thought about that.
A very quick brute force.
Based on what he just said, mayhem will now ensue.
Entire counties will be in shambles.
And you don't even need bolt cutters.
All you need is like a pair of needle nose pliers basically to break one of those things.
Okay, well, we have this tamper-proof thing to prevent people from tampering with it.
Okay, what happens if someone tampers with it?
It's not like you've made it difficult.
Exactly.
Can I say a thing or two also about how the votes get counted?
At first they told us there was no readout of the count of the votes so far
when they were doing the dog and pony show about it.
But then when I got up to the machine, there was clearly a readout saying,
here's how many people voted on this machine today.
Here are the total number of votes for this machine.
What happens once your thing gets scanned in is it falls into a bin, and the bin is locked.
And that's presumably where most of the security lies, very secure.
A lot more secure than the machine, the big mechanical ones?
I don't think so.
And then at the end of the day, the folks who are running your local election staff,
who, by the way, are being paid more than they used to, the poll workers,
they have to seal up the big seal-up bag that's inside,
and then they pick it up and they carry it to the place, to the counting center.
Very secure right there.
Let's just continue with this article here.
To some extent, the look of the ballot is constrained by the numerous requirements
of state election law, especially the requirement that it be full face,
with all the candidates for all the races on a single side of a page.
But why not use a bigger page?
And why not print four different ballots, one in each language,
instead of asking voters to ignore three-fourths of what they see?
At the end of each row is a box that says merely, write-in. Is that true?
Yes, there is a write-in box at the end.
With no other instruction in view, you might assume you were supposed to use that box
to spell out the name of the candidate whose oval you just filled in.
Oh, my God.
If you did that, you would have voted twice, and your vote would be disqualified.
Yeah, I'm looking at it here.
Basically, over in the far right column, there is a bubble to fill in,
and then there's a couple of blank things next to it,
and it's not clear where you're supposed to write it in.
That's pretty freaking confusing.
The scanner, which was designed by Election Systems and Software, ES&S,
is equally confusing and not very confidence-inspiring.
Whatever the technological shortfalls of the old machines,
the kachunk of that heavy lever conveyed a finality appropriate to the task.
Those machines, which looked like a portable shredder
perched atop an outdoor trash can, do not.
Welcome, the first screen tells you, please insert your ballot.
That's part of what it tells you anyway.
It also tells you the date, in case you were curious.
It tells you which polling place you are at, in case you don't know.
It tells you the time. It tells you the year, twice.
It tells you how many votes have been registered at that machine so far.
In the middle of the screen, a diagram shows how to insert your ballot,
and at the bottom of the screen are three spots to touch
if you'd like to read the instructions in another language.
Why distract voters with all that extraneous information,
and why pile multiple tasks onto a single screen?
Compare that with the simplicity of MetroCard vending machines.
I love MetroCard vending machines. Those machines work.
I have a friend who can actually, a friend who speaks Spanish,
who likes to show off by faking it, by doing it in Italian,
because it's just so easy for her to get through it.
Do it in Russian. That's always impressive.
Anyway, they tell you only what you need to know,
they ask you only what they need to know,
and they perform no more than one task per screen.
If you haven't paused to admire them, it may be because
it takes only a few effortless moments to use one and be on your way.
So anyway, going back to this.
You feed your document into the scanner as pictured.
If all goes well, the screen displays the folds of an American flag
and the words, thank you for voting, your vote has been counted.
If you filled in the oval next to too many candidates' names
or wrote in your candidate's name while also filling in her oval,
you get an error message with a yellow warning triangle.
Overvoted ballot.
The following contests on the ballot are overvoted.
Contest title status.
We're accustomed to such jargon in poorly designed computer applications,
but why not just say it plainly? Overvoted ballot.
How about you voted too many times in the contest?
I mean, this is just so perfect. That's exactly the point.
It's just, it's badly written software designed for people
that don't even speak the same way.
They're in computer talk all the time.
I love the implication that, like, New Yorkers are too interface sophisticated
for this ballot because of MetroCard machines. That's just fabulous.
Let me just finish up with this.
Voters then get a choice between a red button marked don't cast return ballot
and a green button that says cast ballot.
Touching the red button gives you a chance to correct your error and try again.
But how many people will think, yes, of course I want to cast my ballot
and then proceed without correcting their vote, thereby disqualifying it?
All these hazards could be avoided if the scanner just let people review
the way their vote was registered before officially casting it.
That apparently is not part of the program.
So, yeah, get ready, New York. The election is about to get interesting.
Go ahead, Redhack.
Part of the thing, obviously, that comes to mind is that if they were to review it
before casting it or it was overvoted, that...
Now I lost my train of thought.
What's with trains getting derailed? Mike.
I mean, I think you're...
So these seals that you're complaining about are the same seals they've used for decades.
If you don't like them, then now you could have complained decades ago.
Yeah, they're the things that they seal up the big machines
that you people are so enamored of.
I think that the system certainly has many flaws
and probably flaws we don't even know about.
But I think the creation of a paper trail is a huge advantage
over those big machines that make resounding clunks.
But other than that, I don't really know what they do.
Why couldn't they do a better job and not make something
that's going to be so obviously confusing to people
with all kinds of gibberish that people aren't going to understand what they mean?
I think these are fair criticisms, and I think the machines need to be improved.
But I don't think that comparing them to these allegedly wonderful hulking machines
is doing anyone any favors.
Well, those machines worked.
So you think.
I don't know what kind of conspiracy theory you're subscribing to,
but the machines...
It's not a conspiracy theory.
Those machines break all the time, and when they break,
they give you a paper ballot, and you fill in the paper ballot,
and no one ever complained about that.
Okay, but those machines are, by definition,
impossible to completely invalidate an entire election.
It's not that hard.
All you need is a big red pencil, and you can cross out the party you don't like.
Okay, show us that trick. I'd like to know it.
You get a grease pencil, and you draw a red line down the party you don't like,
and people think they can't vote for it.
I don't know how many times anyone's fallen for that, but go ahead, Gus.
Well, I think this is one of the things that's great about this moment in history
that we're living in right now.
Probably, and I'd like to see if anybody knows about this,
there were probably arguments like this about those big mechanical machines
when they came out.
When a new machine comes out that is supposed to give you evidence,
there is sort of a big societal argument, or at least among the people,
the scientists, whoever, who are talking about it,
that's saying, how do we know that this is appropriate evidence?
The great thing is we are in the middle of this argument now
of what is appropriate evidence, so I think it is our job to push on it
and make sure that we are demanding security in all the possible ways,
all the ways that Matt Blaze's team pointed out,
and any other ones that we can think of as well.
I love that the New York Times is doing that in terms of interface.
That was great.
In terms of the argument, this is what I wanted to mention before,
of reviewing it before you cast it, is that somehow helping?
The thing is, the whole point of this, though, is that it is leaving a paper trail.
So really, if you've made a mistake, you have to redo it regardless,
because once it goes into – I mean, what happens if you cancel it?
You said it doesn't come back to you?
Does it mark it somehow and then drop it in the box?
You know, I forget.
I'm not sure I went through that step.
I need to go back and check.
And the software here, have we reviewed the software?
Are we allowed to review the software?
That is a very interesting question.
One of the things that I was assured by this office was that the New York State Senate,
in particular, I'm not sure if any other state bodies,
have reviewed all the security flaws, they said, that are possible with voting machines.
They reviewed various models.
What do they know about security flaws?
Well, this is one thing.
Let people look at it.
The one good thing about New York being the very last state,
we're the very last state to adopt these electronic machines,
presumably there is a lot of evidence out there of what could have gone wrong.
Whether they actually reviewed it, I would like to know.
I'm not really sure.
Okay, but, I mean, what's the secret?
Not seeing the software, I don't understand.
No, I don't know that there necessarily is a secret.
I don't know whether, and I'm not sure who has seen the software,
and I'm not sure what kind of things.
They said, I mean, one of the initial problems with the review of the software
that the team at the University of Pennsylvania was talking about
was that all the so-called independent review boards
actually were run by the companies that made the machines,
so that was pretty ridiculous.
Oh, that's great.
Yeah, so that has been changed.
That was one of the things that the Senate has pointed out,
is that that's not the case anymore.
There were other independent reviews.
I don't know who they were either.
We should ask.
We need to know.
This kind of a closed system by default should not be allowed
if, in fact, it's as closed as it seems to be.
Yeah.
I mean, that right there is a deal breaker as far as I'm concerned.
Voltaire.
Who's responsible for counting these?
Is it the system where the private company itself has it encrypted
so that only they can read it?
I don't think so.
No, I'm pretty sure it's still the same state election board body
that has always counted the votes.
Bernie, you had a comment?
Yeah, Gus, I wanted to ask you.
Maybe you said it and I didn't catch it.
The manufacturer and the model of the machine that you looked at,
would it be possible for a group of interested parties
to purchase one of these machines and run it through various security tests?
Haven't we tried this before?
Haven't we asked them to give us that access?
Haven't we tried to get one of these things?
It's always impossible.
And somebody in India just did this.
One of Rob's peers in India.
You probably have the article there in front of you.
Yeah, just got arrested actually.
Just got arrested.
They said that he didn't return it.
And he said he did return it.
And it's very disturbing that they're going after people
who question them like this.
This was a team that was –
weren't they even tasked with doing reviews of the machines or something like that?
And he just didn't get it back on time.
And mind you, this was in India.
So I'm not sure what other jurisdictional ways of the land there are.
We're talking about Prasad, I believe, Natinda.
Actually, I can't find his name on here anywhere.
Harry.
Sorry, what's his name?
Harry is his first name, I believe.
Okay, yeah.
There it is.
Harry Prasad.
He's the co-author of a paper on the security aspects of the electronic voting machines
used in Indian elections in which he partnered two researchers
from the U.S. and Netherlands earlier this year.
He's also coordinator of a national level citizens forum
to promote verifiability, transparency, and accountability in Indian elections.
A police official, part of the investigating team,
said Prasad has told interrogators that he had returned the machine
back to the official who had given it to them after the conclusion of their research
somewhere earlier this year.
However, they're claiming that he is not helpful with the identity of the official,
and that has made it difficult for us to trace the EVM machine so far.
So that's the story of his arrest over there in India.
Very disturbing.
And there was a page, I think, set up to follow what they're doing.
There's an EVM India or something.
I forget what the URL is exactly,
but that was sort of a rallying place in India for finding out more information.
By the way, 212-209-2900 is our phone number
in case anybody wants to join the conversation, Mike.
We tried to rent some of these machines a couple of hopes ago,
and I think the stumbling block was that it cost a lot of money.
I don't think we ever got to the point of actually saying it.
I got a price quote, and it was five figures for one machine for three days.
But didn't it also come with a person that would not let you actually do anything?
Yeah, I don't remember all the details.
I'm pretty sure that's part of the deal.
I don't think they had to stand there the whole time, though.
I think we could make them go away.
See, here's the thing.
You could use those for your school election
and presumably mess with them
and figure out all kinds of interesting tricks and things like that.
Were you allowed to go in the back and reconfigure the machine?
I don't know. I think so.
I never actually did it myself,
but I never got the sense that they were so secretive
that you couldn't learn things about them.
And this, I get the feeling that if we go in there in November or September
and start plugging things in and trying to figure things out,
that we're going to be in a lot of trouble.
You can't mess with voting machines in the middle of an election.
You should mess with voting machines in the middle of the election
if they're insecure and potentially corruptible, yes.
When else are you going to be able to mess with them?
Right now, because this is the thing.
The Board of Elections wants to show people how these work,
so we have lots of access to them now.
Like I said, you can call the State Board of Elections.
You can call your local senator and say,
my group wants to do a demonstration of these.
Have it brought to your place.
They'll set it up for you,
and then you can plug in all the kinds of things that you need.
Okay, 2,600 meetings everywhere in the country,
certainly in New York, are groups,
and I think these groups should be allowed to go in there
and play with these things to the heart's content
and give the seal of satisfaction approval to these machines
and see if they pass muster.
Can we get this set up for this month of 2,600 meetings?
I'm looking at you, Rob.
Yeah, well, we're going to look into this.
Walter?
We should also do this for all the local hacker spaces in the world.
Yeah, anywhere where there's hackers, definitely.
212-209-2900, let's take some phone calls
because I'm sure this is a hot topic.
Good evening, you're on off the hook.
Okay, well, that's great. Let's try this one.
Good evening, you're on off the hook.
Go ahead.
How are you doing?
I'm on the Board of Elections out in Suffolk County,
and I called your show once before.
Uh-huh, I think I remember this.
That's okay. We'll move on.
Okay.
What they're saying is...
No, I do remember this is what I'm saying.
Good, yeah.
You get three chances, and then you can go to a judge.
So they're not saying get three chances and you're out.
There's a judge there?
No.
You can take yourself over to the centralized court,
or maybe those out east go to Riverhead, I don't know.
Well, usually when I vote, I don't go to a judge afterwards.
I just vote, and it's over. It's never complicated.
No, you vote, you vote, and it's over.
Yeah.
Sometimes if you dispute something,
or they say something's not correct,
you need to see a judge.
That's part of what can happen.
That's not the standard procedure.
I'm just concerned that's going to happen a lot more
with this kind of confusion.
Confusion, oh, my God.
Confusion will be my epitaph.
It's a great King Crimson line.
But anyway, we're very concerned
that there will be a lot of confusion with the voters
and with us elections inspectors
because we haven't done this before.
It's new.
So they're saying, well, you know,
what if people get miffed or upset or this or that,
or what if they leave their ballot on the floor?
You know what I find funny?
One thing they're telling us is don't take a ballot from somebody.
Don't let them hand you the ballot
because once they hand you the ballot,
you have to fill in a form saying you assisted a voter.
Now, if you have to assist a voter
and somebody's deaf, dumb, and blind, it's fine,
but then you fill it in, but it's more work
and it wouldn't be necessary for a normal voter.
So, you know, how bad is it?
Don't take a ballot from somebody?
I don't mean take it away from them.
I mean don't let them hand it to you.
Don't take possession of it.
That's what they're telling people.
That's what they're telling us.
Wow.
I just had the seminar two nights ago.
Uh-huh.
The second seminar, yeah.
Interesting.
Well, as a supervisor, what are your thoughts as to...
I'm not.
I'm an elections inspector.
Inspector.
And I'm the chairperson of that particular district,
which is really a whole lot of nothing.
Mm-hmm.
Do you think this is an improvement
over what we've been using in the past?
You know, I don't know because I don't trust D-Volt.
One, two, this is a D-Volt.
It's just got another name.
No?
Basically.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a merge, I believe.
Not Kevin.
Now, in your experience,
have you ever actually seen any tampering
with the old mechanical machines?
Any problems?
No.
No.
And I'm the one that opens it in the morning,
and I'm the one that closes it at night,
and I got one of my guys that works with me
is real in it, so he and I read the numbers.
You know, one reads and one writes it down,
our tally at the end of the night.
But that's over.
Mm-hmm.
But there is no paper trail
on those mechanical machines.
They don't have a paper trail
attached to them, correct?
Now, we know they're machines,
but they're saying,
we're not calling them machines,
we're calling them tabulators.
I just got a kick out of that,
and my first thought was you guys, but...
I'm sorry, what was your question?
About the old mechanical machines,
about whether or not they had
any kind of paper trail,
and, of course, they're old-fashioned,
and I suppose they did not have that.
No, they had a paper roll inside them
with the votes on it.
We would read that paper roll
at the end of the night.
And so that's where the hanging chads,
that's where the hanging chads
and things come from, right?
No, the hanging chads came from
a totally different type of system.
Different kind of machine?
Yeah, that's where you had to actually
punch or, yeah, fill in things.
So Mike, he's saying there is
a paper trail on those machines, so...
I've never seen it.
So you're saying there's a paper roll
on the back of all the mechanical machines?
Yeah, the old machines.
Now, this machine,
they're just handing you a piece of paper,
it's a little cardboard,
even though it's got a nice thickness to it.
That's your vote.
And you fill it out with a pen,
and you put it in.
It's either an ambiguous vote
or an overvote, I believe.
Yeah, we've heard that word.
Now, if you overvote,
let's say I vote for two judges
in a slot that says only pick one.
That doesn't mean over
where there's three guys running for sheriff
that my entire voting sheet is bad.
It just takes that one category
and nullifies it.
So it's got a little smart.
So your vote will count
except for the one thing
that you messed up in its eyes?
Yes.
Which I assume it tells you
which one that is.
I hope it does.
Yeah, well, they don't
necessarily feed it back to you.
They keep it really, you know,
it keeps it in the machine,
in the information.
Okay, Rob.
Collar, since this change is taking place,
what sort of responses have you seen
from your colleagues,
from the other election inspectors
that are being trained
in these new gadgets?
Well, your question is kind of,
I've got to dissect that a second.
What's happening,
a lot of people quit because of it.
Not because they know it could be hacked,
they just don't want to deal
with something they're unfamiliar with.
And that's human nature, you know.
Yeah, but I'm wondering,
is that going to be human nature
for the voters, too?
Are they going to quit?
Yeah, right.
Oh, boy.
Well, maybe voters with bad intent
will be all the more, you know,
if this is a bad thing.
I don't know if this is a bad thing.
I'm going to go in positive,
and I'm going to try and keep my district,
because I've got no control
over anything else,
as legit as I can.
What can I do?
Yeah, you see,
I'm not a voter with bad intent.
I'm a voter with curious intent.
I want to know what happens
if you do this,
and I'm not going to shy away
from doing something that I know
is wrong to see if it just makes
the whole thing crash,
because if it does,
we need to know that, right?
I don't think anybody can disagree with that.
Carla, I want to thank you very much
for your insight on this.
Hey, thanks.
I'm a 2600 associate.
I signed the petition for Hotel Penn,
and there I'll be.
Well, thanks.
Thanks for your support.
Of course, we gave that petition
to the city council,
and I believe they used it as wallpaper.
I don't think it had any effect on them.
Gus?
I know the caller said
that he wants to see, you know,
is just going to sort of, you know,
be positive about it,
and that's sort of the message
I was getting from
the state senator's office, too.
I mean, especially up in Harlem,
where people have, you know,
traditionally had a lot of concern
about being disenfranchised,
they're like,
we want people to be confident about this,
which is a little bit scary to me
as somebody who's been encouraged
to not think confidently about it,
but at the same time, you know,
it's better to have people vote
than to have people not vote, I guess.
No, based on what I just heard the caller say,
I have a question,
which I was hoping to ask him,
but I guess I'll have to direct it to you then,
instead, Gus,
is if there...
He said that on the voting paper,
that if there's an error,
it'll accept all the votes
except for the categories that were messed up.
Overvoted.
Overvoted.
So do you just get another sheet of paper?
How does it know that the next sheet
is from the person that messed up?
That's a really good question.
No, no, no.
I'm not sure.
You have a choice.
Either you can cast the votes
in which you voted validly,
or it returns the sheet to you.
It doesn't do both.
I see, okay.
You have two options.
Because based on what he said,
is that it'll accept all the other ones
except the one that failed.
If you choose to actually...
So it says,
do you want to cast it,
or do you want it returned?
But if it's returned...
So if you cast it,
then it nullifies that one.
Oh, so it just nullifies the vote entirely.
Okay, gotcha, right.
So it's basically hit me,
or you got 21 or whatever,
and then you...
Right.
Okay.
I wanted to...
Bernie asked about the make and number.
Just a reminder,
this is an ES&S machine,
and ES&S did absorb Premier,
which was part of Diebold.
And the specific machine mark is DS200,
it's also marked with something that says intellect,
spelled with one L,
you see what they did there.
Yeah, they spelled intellect wrong,
that tells a lot about them.
Oh, that's cute.
So yeah,
so that's what we know about what it is.
Knock him.
That's funny that they're promoting
this idea of confidence,
because man,
you remember a couple years ago,
we went up to Harlem
to play with these machines?
I sure do,
and that's where we made the challenge,
let us play with these things.
You know,
if you can give it to a bunch of hackers
at a conference,
and have them try and figure out ways
to defeat the system,
that would certainly be a seal of approval.
They never followed up on that.
I'm pretty sure
one of the machines
that we were playing around with
was this exact model
that we're talking about here.
I think so too,
I think so too.
It was the Scantron,
and I remember distinctly,
every time they put a valid in,
it would either jam,
break,
and not work.
You have all this mechanical things going on,
things can break,
not scan,
and slow down the whole system,
whereas before,
it was just a simple lever,
a chunk,
and analog,
you know?
It's also mechanical,
the old system was also mechanical.
But I mean,
not mechanical in a way
that requires...
Macro-mechanical,
not micro-mechanical.
Yeah, yeah.
It probably had more ways
that it could break mechanically
than these.
Yeah, but you know,
you knew when it was broken
for one thing,
and it could either break one way,
or not,
and that was pretty much it.
We're talking about scanning,
we're talking about
a mechanism that will feed the paper in,
we're talking about
whether or not
it's going to tabulate properly,
and give you errors
that you don't understand.
There's backup.
I mean, there will be two scanners
at every polling location,
at least,
and then there will be
paper ballots available
if those happen to break down.
So, you know,
I mean, like,
ultimately there's backup.
That is not something
I'm as concerned about.
The machine's breaking down.
I'm more concerned about
the stuff that UPenn folks
were talking about.
Let's take another phone call.
212-209-2900.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
Hi there, everyone.
I'm the Off the Hook show.
This is a side pocket.
I've been sick
for a couple of days.
I really wanted to go
to that community board
five protesting,
but I couldn't go,
and I found out today
about the hotel
that I was staying at
and I found out today
about the hotel
and it really saddened me
about we're going to lose
a big chunk of history
and availability
to New York City,
and I actually wrote
a whole thing
I wanted to say about it,
but I thought
I'd quickly bring up
one point from it,
which is that it's been,
this has been talked about
on my local news stations
where the new Renato building
is going to physically
overshadow
the Empire State Building
because apparently
it's really, really huge.
One of my major concerns
is that it also might
overshadow it financially
because besides
the tourism,
from what I understand,
the Empire State Building,
the Empire State Building
makes most of its money
by basically inviting
businesses to its offices.
I've had many families
work at the Empire State Building.
Most of the businesses
in there are leaving
and let's just say
the Renato building
or other buildings
in the area are successful.
I'm worried, you know,
that maybe the Empire State Building,
even though it is
as a landmark
for the city's free market logic,
why even have it
when all these other buildings
are doing better?
I don't think
it'll ever go better
because I think
it's kind of stupid
to build a big building
because it's not
that we need more space.
I see office space
all the time for sale.
It's that nobody's hiring.
I don't know how
this is going to solve
any of New York City's problems.
A lot of the talk
at the meeting
was about luring in tenants
and what they were referring to
were tenants downtown
that need new space.
And what I don't seem
to realize is,
okay, you get the tenant downtown
to move to your
new building uptown.
Now you have
a vacant space downtown.
It just seems like
you're robbing Peter to pay Paul
and it just doesn't work.
Right.
And the fact is
that with all the taxes,
high rates,
the competition
in our Federal Reserve
right now,
they won't be able
to stand much longer
kind of like how
the old businesses
on Wall Street
wouldn't stand much longer
these past couple of years.
So to me,
this is more of a
community center
trying to do a grab
at money
that will probably not come.
And that really saddens me
besides all the history.
And not to mention
that now I think
they're going to be
more target for
various pranks
and things like that.
All right.
Listen,
thanks for your call.
Thanks for your support.
The building's still there.
It'll be there for a while.
So hopefully
something will happen
to keep it there
for another century or so.
All right.
Go ahead.
You said that they were
you know,
talking about
how to attract tenants there.
So does that mean
that they don't have
an anchor tenant?
No, they don't.
They don't.
And if they don't get
an anchor tenant,
then obviously
it would be ridiculous
to build a building
that just is going to be empty.
But you know,
what they're going to do
which I thought was
simply incredible
and almost funny
as part of this building,
what they're going to do
is have a hallway
before the security barrier.
They're admitting
there's going to be
a massive security barrier
to prevent anybody
from actually getting
into this new building.
And in that hallway
will be a little museum
in honor of
the Hotel Pennsylvania
with all kinds
of relics and things
attesting to its
historical significance
and having a printed link
to a website.
And that is
how they're going
to remember
the Hotel Pennsylvania.
You know,
they're acknowledging
the history.
Why don't we just have
a hallway in the
Hotel Pennsylvania
devoted to stupid ideas
and we could have
a link to all the websites
in the world, you know?
Why not?
Voltaire, quickly.
Will they be selling
the doors of the Hotel Penn
like they did
with Yankee Stadium seats?
That would be nice, yeah.
Maybe we can remember
it that way.
Any, Gus,
any final word
on the election
because we have to,
on the voting machines,
we have to head out of here.
Well, I think that's
more or less it.
Like I said,
if you think
this is interesting
and you want to play
with these yourself,
try to set up an event
and have the State Senate
or the Board of Elections
bring one to your
community location
and invite a lot of people
and ask a lot of questions.
Rob.
I'd just like to
quickly thank everyone
who supported
the Save the Hotel movement,
everyone who signed
the petition,
Pyro from SaveTheHotel.org.
It's because of
everyone's help
that we've, you know,
we hadn't lost heart
through this whole thing.
And stay tuned
because, you know,
something still might happen.
Our email address
is oth at 2600.com
and, of course,
we'll have updates
on www.2600.com.
And we're back again next week
talking about all kinds
of other exciting things
as well.
I'd like to close
with a blast from the past
and advice to all you kids
out there
who still play with floppies.
Have a good night.
Look, I brought a disc
and we could copy this, okay,
and we could play it
on my brother's computer.
Okay, no problem.
All we gotta do is...
Whoa.
Are you sure you know
what you're doing?
♪
Did I hear you right?
Did I hear you saying
that you're gonna make
a copy of a game
without paying?
Come on, guys.
I thought you knew better.
Don't copy that floppy.
Uh, well...
Wait a minute.
Who the heck are you anyway?
Yeah.
And what are you doing
on our computer?
♪
I'm your MC,
double dab,
DP, that's the disc,
protector for you
and the posse,
that's the artist,
writers, designers,
and programmers
that worked up the images
for games and grammar
that let you learn
but also play
the games you came here
for today.
♪
Now I know you love the games
and that's all right to do
because the posse who makes them,
they love them too.
But if you start stealing
there's no more they can do.
But I just wanted
to make one copy.
You say,
I'll just make a copy
for me and a friend.
Then he'll make one
and she'll make one
and where will it end?
One leads to another,
then ten, then more.
And no one buys
any discs from the store
so no one gets paid
and they can't make more.
The posse breaks up
and that closes the store.
Don't copy,
don't copy that floppy.
So let me break this
down for you.
Don't, don't, don't,
don't, don't, don't,
don't, don't,
don't copy.
No common San Diego,
no more Oregon Trail.
Tetris and the others,
they're all going to fail.
Not because we want it
but because you're
just taking it.
Disrespecting all the folks
who are making it.
The more you take
the less there will be.
The disc becomes fewer,
the games fall away.
The stream starts to shrink
and then it will fade.
Programs fall through
a black hole in space.
The computer world
becomes bleak and stark.
Loses his life
and the stream goes to dust.
Don't copy.
Howie, welcome to the end of the computer age.
But I'm much too strong and you're much too smart to let that happen to your chances to
explore.
Parts of the new age just behind the doors of your minds.
You're the posse of the future and you hold in your brains things never thought of before.
And in time, you'll teach us so much more.
That's why I'm here and what I'm fighting for.
Don't copy.
Don't copy that floppy.
Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't copy.
Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't copy.
Don't copy that floppy.
To do the right thing, it's really simple for you.
The copyright law, it will tell you what to do.
Buy one for every computer you use.
Anything else is like going to the store.
Taking the disc and walking out the door.
It's called stealing, stealing, taking what's not yours.
Is that really where you want your life to go?
Think about it.
I don't think so.
Don't copy.
Don't copy that floppy.
Say you see a game you like and you really want to try it.
Don't copy that floppy.
Just go to the store and buy it.
Think of it this way.
Okay?
When you buy a disc, you're saying to the team,
We respect what you're doing, what you're working for.
We'll keep up our support so you can make us some more.
We'll do the right thing and the future will be clear.
There will be new programs year after year.
Don't copy.
Don't copy that floppy.
Now you know how the games and the programs are made
and what to do to make sure they're not going to fade.
The bottom line is it's all up to you.
There's nothing more that I can't do.
The ball's in your court.
Dribble, shoot, or pass.
I'm sure you'll make your decision with class.
Don't copy that floppy.
See ya.
I'm out of here.
Don't even think about it.
Look, I do have some money left over from my summer job.
Hey, you can buy your own game with Emanuel.
Very funny, Emanuel.
Don't be copying that floppy.
By the way, what's a floppy anyway?
Oh, man, I don't know.
Oh, I think I know what the floppy is.
You're not supposed to be using that kind of language, Emanuel.
Hey, you guys are not on the mic.
It's not time for you to officially be on the mic, but now you are on the mic.
But don't say anything.
You know why?
You don't know why.
Well, I'll tell you why.
Because it is now 8 o'clock exactly here at WBAI New York 99.5 FM.
And it is August the 25th, 2010.
Ha!