Look, down in the water.
It's a plant.
It's an animal.
It's a dinoflagellate.
Yes, it's dinoflagellates.
Strange microbes with powers and abilities far beyond those of normal microbes.
Dinoflagellates.
The subject of Ken Gale's next episode of Ecologic.
Tuesday, August 21st at 8 p.m. right here on WBAI New York, 99.5 FM and WBAI.org.
And this is WBAI New York at 99.5 FM.
And it's 7 o'clock, which means, once again, it's time for Off the Hook.
And a
very good evening to everybody.
The program is Off the Hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening, joined tonight by Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
Jim.
Hello.
And Bernie S. down in Pennsylvania, I believe.
Greetings from Pennsylvania.
Is it just me, or are we getting less and less people every week?
Boy, this hasn't been this empty in a while.
I like it.
I'm not complaining.
It's good to have some space.
If it'll help out, I can stretch out and take up two seats.
Look at me.
I'm stretching right now.
I'm not hitting anybody this time.
That's incredible.
Wow.
Well, it's part of the August purge, I guess, where we just basically thin our ranks a little
bit and see what we have in the fall.
Yeah.
We have an interesting show tonight.
There's a reason why some people aren't here.
And we have other things to discuss and talk about.
And, of course, we are still recuperating from HOPE, the Hackers on Planet Earth conference
that took place last month now, about a month ago.
Bernie, are you pretty much recovered?
You know, not completely.
It was a lot of work, but it was also very energizing.
But in a way, you just sort of have to get back to a normal way of life because, as you
know, it's months and years in the planning, and you just sort of get into this mode and
mindset.
And it takes a while to settle back in a normal mode of life.
I woke up in a cold sweat thinking that I had some planning to do.
And it was a good five minutes before I realized, no, it's over.
It's done.
It's like that French test I keep waking up thinking I have to take tomorrow from high
school.
Yeah.
But it's fun.
It's a lot more fun than that.
And, yeah, I'm really looking forward to 2014 because this one just went really smoothly,
and we've heard so many positive things about that.
And, yeah, it keeps coming in.
The reports keep coming in from various people as to just what they experienced at HOPE No.
9.
So what we're doing tonight, we're going to talk about some other hacker events on the
horizon.
Some of them are looming on the horizon, and there's two in particular that we're going
to be focusing on tonight.
First, though, I'd like to just take a very quick look at some of the things that have
been going on in the news.
Okay.
Well, according to the ACLU, well, actually, attorneys for Facebook and the American Civil
Liberties Union, they both want a federal appeals court to rule.
And this is about one of the silliest things I've said, but it probably is important anyway.
They want a federal appeals court, anyone will do, to rule that clicking like on the
social networking site is constitutionally protected free speech.
I don't know.
Yeah, well, I guess the case basically revolves around six employees who were fired by Hampton
Sheriff B.J. Roberts after they supported his re-election opponent in 2009.
Where is this sheriff?
I guess it's...
Do you have any idea?
They don't...
These stories, this is from Newsday.
They don't say what state, it's Hampton, Hampton is like in every state.
It's like Washington or Lincoln.
It's somewhere they still have sheriffs who go by things like B.J.
Yeah, yeah.
The workers sued saying they should not have been fired and that their First Amendment
rights were violated.
U.S. District Judge Raymond Jackson ruled against them.
The workers are appealing to the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond.
And in that ruling, there was no dislike button to hit.
And that's another problem, that there should have been a dislike button after that ruling.
In fact, I think that's a good idea.
Every time there's a Supreme Court ruling or an appeals court ruling, there should be
like buttons that people, you know, journalists, politicians, regular people, we can click
these buttons.
In fact, why not just make everything like or dislike, you know?
Stop all the dialogue.
Just yes or no, we can move on and do so many other things.
I think there's potential to this idea, but can we like arm the dislike buttons with something
like a jolt of electricity attached to the politician in question?
I like that idea.
Do you?
All right.
Excellent.
One of the workers liked the Facebook page of Robert's opponent.
Jackson wrote that clicking the like button isn't a substantive statement that warrants
First Amendment protection.
I got to agree with that sort of.
I see what he's saying because it really is silly, but no way should you get fired for
clicking a like button.
I don't care what you're liking.
You should be able to like whatever you want.
That's what, you know, liking is all about.
Or perhaps they just shouldn't have been messing around with Facebook at work.
Yeah, that's the real issue here.
Why were they clicking on Facebook at work?
I assume it was at work, but all right.
And then, of course, we had what happened today.
Of course, we know about that.
We've all experienced the traffic.
We know the city has been mired in gridlock and all kinds of alerts and things like that.
And why?
Because what was going on today in Times Square, there was the competition for the fastest
texter in America, and that was taking place today in Times Square this afternoon.
The winner got $50,000.
I heard the results on the radio.
They actually broke into a report on national security to tell us that the winner is the
same winner as last year.
In fact, what he's doing is he's collecting $50,000 every year to pay for school, where
hopefully he won't be texting all the time.
But right now he is texting, and apparently he's quite good.
The competition basically tested three skills, speed, accuracy, and dexterity.
Fortunately, there was no category for just wasting time, period, because they would have
lost that.
There are three rounds, texting while blindfolded, texting while driving.
No, I'm just kidding.
Texting with hands behind their backs, and text blitz.
Say that three times fast.
Their phrases are shown to the contestants for a length of time, and they have to copy
it as fast as they can before the next one.
The competition is sponsored by cell phone maker LG Electronics, and I wish I knew the
name.
Actually, last year's champion, his name is Austin Wierschke.
I couldn't text that if I saw the name, W-E-I-R-S-C-H-K-E.
He came back today to defend his title, and my understanding, if that bulletin was correct,
is that he succeeded in doing that, and he won another $50,000.
What's the winner's range in age from, I'm going to give you a guess here as to what
the range in age for the texting championship is.
12 to 13.
Very good, but no.
Bernie, you want to try?
Oh, I was going to guess a little wider range, from like 11 to 15.
That's not bad either, but no, it's wrong.
It's actually 16 to 24, and I just find it hard to believe that nobody over the age of
24 even was competing in this.
Maybe that's a sign of maturity, where you realize that some things are just too silly
to waste your time on.
Perhaps they were all busy having substantive conversations with people.
Yeah, yeah.
Yes, Bernie, go ahead.
Is it saying anything in the article there about, in the story about how long it took
them to send a text, assuming it was like a full 160 character text message, how long
it took them to type it out, tap it out?
I read the entire story.
For more information, go to Twitter, where you can read another 140 characters, which
I'm sure will give us all kinds of information.
Speaking of Twitter, there was a threatening tweet.
I don't know if you guys saw it go by, but it was a threatening tweet aimed at Mike Tyson's
Broadway show.
According to the NYPD, yesterday they said that Twitter had, this is kind of important
actually, Twitter has complied with a subpoena and identified the user who threatened to
attack a Broadway theater, and it was an attack based on the attack that happened last
month in Colorado.
Even people who threaten attacks don't have original ideas.
They have to base it on a theme that was already presented.
The Twitter user, whose name police did not release, threatened to open fire inside the
Longacre Theater on Broadway, where boxer Mike Tyson's one-man show, Undisputed Truth,
is playing.
There's a picture here in this story of a cop with a machine gun standing outside the
theater.
That's a welcome sight for theater-goers, don't you think, to walk, actually there was
one on either side of the entrance, two policemen with machine guns greeting you as you walk
into the theater.
Oh yes, the 21st century has arrived.
This ain't no joke, yo, I'm serious, people are going to die like Aurora, the unidentified
user tweeted last week, the post of course referring to the July 20th shooting in a movie
theater in Aurora, Colorado, left 12 people dead and 58 injured.
Questions from theater-goers on Thursday were mixed.
If someone makes a threat like that, I'd take it seriously, said J. Pierre, who was visiting
from Texas.
Joe Munley, though, of Scranton, Pennsylvania, who used to spar with Tyson, brought his family
to see the former heavyweight champion perform on Tuesday.
He said it's total nonsense, it's probably somebody who doesn't like Mike.
Check out the brains on this guy.
Yeah, you know, it's probably not one of his admirers, I agree with you there, never would
have thought of that.
But the one thing that you do have to remember is that when these threats are made, usually
when the lunatics strike, it's without warning, they don't say, I'm going to do this, and
then they do it.
That happens on TV, doesn't happen in real life, doesn't mean you shouldn't check it
out, but I don't know if putting machine gun-toting officers at the entrance to the theater is
really the way to go.
But on the other hand, putting machine gun-toting officers in front of the sort of people who
would go to see a Mike Tyson one-man show is maybe a better idea than most.
Well, it definitely tied into the one-man show idea.
I think they should have put them on stage, you know, laugh or else.
I assume there's a comedy, or that's, well, no, maybe it's not a comedy.
I laugh at the idea, but, oh, but now I'm in trouble with Mike Tyson.
Okay, well, here's my question, though.
The NYPD basically issued, or was behind a subpoena that Twitter identified this user.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't need to give your real information to Twitter.
So what information could they possibly have gotten?
That's correct.
Although, I guess another thing they could probably get is your IP address and where
you're connecting from.
That is true.
And any geographic data that was attached to your tweets, if you're tweeting devices,
GPS capabilities, and so on.
Assuming the person wasn't smart enough to use some kind of anonymizing technique and
mask where they were coming from.
Probably not.
Probably not.
The person picked a fight online with Mike Tyson, so they may be not very smart to begin
with.
It's smarter than picking a fight with him in the street.
This is true.
Yeah.
All right.
We have to make our first telephone call, and we're actually going to be going over
to Germany, and this dial tone is going to help get us there, I hope.
I haven't dialed this in a while.
We dial nine, right?
No, we don't have to dial nine.
I don't think we do anymore.
All right, so I'm just going to start dialing the number, and I'm going to turn down the
audio so people can't hear what I'm dialing, and we're actually calling overseas right
now, and let's see if that worked.
Sometimes because I can't hear the touch tone, sometimes it doesn't work.
So next thing you hear should be a phone ringing in Germany.
That's what that is.
We'll be speaking with someone named Fukami, I believe.
Hello?
Hello.
Hello, is this Fukami?
Yeah, it's Fukami.
Hi, how are you?
This is Emanuel from Off The Hook, and you're live on the radio in New York City.
Yeah, I'm in Hamburg, and it's like in the middle of the night.
I'm sorry for calling so late.
Unfortunately, that's just the way the planet works, and if we want to talk to you live,
we've got to call you in the middle of the night.
But we have an important reason for calling, and that's the announcement that you guys
made.
The Chaos Communication Congress people made an announcement a couple of days ago that
the annual Congress, which takes place on the 27th, 28th, 29th, and 30th of December
every year, instead of happening in Berlin this year, is moving to Hamburg.
Is that correct?
That's correct.
The main reason is we really like the BCC, which is a really, really great place, and
they're really great people.
The BCC being the Berlin Congress Center, right?
Yes.
But the last time we didn't have enough space for all the people who wanted to attend, and
it was really a nightmare to get a ticket, and it was not only like last year, and also
the year before, and we were really, really looking for a different spot in Berlin, but
we didn't find anything which was good enough for us, or which just had these opportunities
we need to have to reverse this kind of event.
I guess it's not really a bad problem to have, but you have more and more people who want
to go to the Chaos Congress, which is a huge hacker gathering.
You have more and more people every year wanting to do that, so you had to implement basically
advanced ticket sales that I think were sold out in a matter of seconds, and it just made
it extremely hard, particularly for people coming from other countries, to actually get
to the event.
And it got to the point where you guys were encouraging people to stay away.
Yeah, and that's really bad.
I mean, like, all of those, like all the hacker events are becoming bigger and bigger, and
it's the same problem, like for every kind of event, existing for a long time.
So we have the 30th anniversary next year, and the main idea was to have a big party,
and if you have so many people, it's really, really bad.
So it's bad for the community, it's bad for the event, and also, since we don't have much
space there, or don't have the possibilities to just move ahead and try new things, new
concepts on an event like the BCC, yeah, it was like, kind of like dead end.
Yeah.
Well, it's interesting because when we first started using that building, the BCC building
in Berlin, it seemed so big, I guess, because not as many people were going, but every year
more and more people.
How many people were you able to fit comfortably in there?
Around 4,000.
4,000?
Well, that's double what we get at the HOPE conferences, so that's a fair number of people,
but even that's not enough.
Yeah.
Wow, that's...
So it's a new spot, it's really, really cool.
I mean, you know the one before BCC, the HAKP?
Before BCC, it was held in the former Communist Youth Center, right?
Yeah, true.
And the new venue really reminds me on that.
It's like really, like a 70s style, it's like an old Congress Center, it's not like this
brand new spacious building, it's really, really nice.
Wow.
And we have space for like for everyone, so I don't think that we will get into trouble
like the next at least five years or 10 years or so.
Well by that point, I can't imagine how many people will be showing up then, but can you
give us an idea of what the capacity is, or have you not calculated that yet?
No, we are still like in some of the discussions with the owners of this venue, what places
we like really get, but altogether it's like a place for like 20,000 people or so.
Did you say 20,000 people?
Yeah.
Oh my God.
But since it's like a very nice building for like splitting it off into like different
parts, I think we'll have enough space, even if you like calculate it's like 5,000 or so,
that's what we think in the moment.
But if there are 10,000, it doesn't matter, you know, that's like a really, really big
benefit for planning, so it's okay.
It's also good, I think, to be mixing it up a little bit.
I know a bunch of people, myself included actually, we've been going to CCC year after
year and it sort of was starting to feel like a routine, we're going to the same place year
after year, and after a while, this is why we don't have hope every year, we don't want
to do the same thing year after year, we want to do different things, go to different places.
So I've heard from a number of people moving to Hamburg is actually a good thing in and
of itself, because it's a change of scenery, it's a different style, and this first Congress
taking place in Hamburg is definitely going to be historic.
Yeah, that's one thing, I mean like, we also don't know this place really, we've been there
a couple of times, not just to watch it, but we don't know how it works, if there are people,
we don't know how it works to do anything there, so it's really very, very interesting
just to explore possibilities on a new place, and we have like lots and lots of space, and
that's what makes it so interesting.
Wow.
Now, what kind of reaction have you gotten so far since making the announcement?
Most people are really glad that the ticket situation is like gone, that's the main thing,
so that everybody's able to attend.
And most people are really glad that there's a possibility to move forward, with the whole
idea of having such an event, where the whole German and European community comes together,
or American friends and stuff, and we have possibilities, and that's something we didn't
have for the last four years or so, where nothing really happened, and so the people
are really picking it up.
A couple of people are a little bit sad that we are going to leave Berlin, but Hamburg
is also really a nice town.
Just to put it in perspective for the American audience here, it's a major change in venue,
it's going from one city to another, but if you take a high-speed train from Berlin to
Hamburg, you get there in an hour and a half, I believe, is that correct?
Yes, that's it.
Long Island takes longer to get to New York, and we don't have high-speed trains here,
but wow.
So it's far away, but it's not that far away time-wise.
Yeah, but we make it a tiny country still.
But Hamburg is a big city, it has a big harbour, a little bit like Seattle, where it's raining
very often, but yeah, it's like a nice town.
It has lots of cultural things, like lots of nice quarters and stuff like that.
Now the conference will be running around the clock, I imagine, correct?
Yes, sure.
And actually, the conference started in Hamburg, because the CCC, or the Celtic Computer Club,
started in Hamburg.
So the first event was at a place called Aschler-Buger-Haus, and the whole event moved to Berlin at 15.33,
so it's like 14 minutes ago.
So the event is going back to its origin.
Do you have any idea how many people used to go to the Chaos Congress when it was back
in Hamburg?
200.
200.
Amazing.
Wow.
And is the place still standing, that it used to be held in?
Yeah.
Actually, every two years there is a new event called Easterhacks, which is like during Easter,
and every two years it's in Hamburg, or it was like the last, every two years, now that
the Congress comes to Hamburg, we don't do that event anymore in Hamburg, but it's how
it was still used for some of our events.
Now in the announcement, you guys basically described the new venue as sort of like a
campground except inside.
Is it really that big, and is it that flexible?
Actually, it is that big, and we are still thinking how to, you know, like waiting for
all six dates and stuff, and places we get, so that we can really start with the planning,
but it's like more a way to, like, thinking it for the next year, like for the 30th anniversary,
it's like everybody knows what's really possible there, so we can, like, have a good anniversary.
So this year is more like looking, testing, just get used to this place, but the basic
idea is to have a concept like we have in our camp, so it's very, like, more like,
more the concept of villages, more the idea of people having their own organization of,
like, talks and stuff like that, so that we only provide the grounds, but not the program,
we, like, it's a long run.
I see.
Bernie, I know you're on the phone, do you have any questions for Fukami in Germany?
Yes, Fukami, at the current rate of CCC attendance, how long will it take for CCC to completely
book Hannover Fair, which holds about, that's where Seabit is held, and I think its capacity
is 600,000.
I think the community can do that.
Where do they find space?
Where do you find these massive venues?
Wow.
Well, I've been to it several times, and I firmly believe that there are more than 600,000
hackers in the world that could book Hannover Fair completely.
And do you want them all in the same place at the same time?
I think it could be pretty interesting.
Oh boy.
So, Fukami, do you think it's going to get to that stage, half a million hackers?
I mean, it's possible.
Why not?
Oh boy.
I mean, in the next 10 years, maybe, but if you really want to have such a big event,
you have to do it in a completely different way.
In our terms, we do it like nobody gets paid, and stuff like that, and it's not possible
to have an event that size with so many people without having a completely different way
of organizing it, and it's not possible to do it with volunteers anymore.
Yeah, that's true.
With our event, we have like 4,000 people.
It's less than 10% of people who are volunteering, and the whole event lives from that.
So, the move is also an idea to get that back, so that we don't become some sort of event
service, but have an event which is kept organized, and people do their own stuff, and we don't
need to have, like, I think it's private and stuff like that.
Right.
One of the greatest things about conferences are the ones, HOPE is one of them, where so
many people volunteer, so many people help out, so you really feel like you built it
yourself, you helped to create a massive event, and that's something that the German conferences
have traditionally been pretty strong with at the Dutch conferences as well.
So, yeah, I'm hoping that there'll be a lot of self-organizing and new things that we
haven't even thought of yet that will spring up as a result of this.
All right.
Can you give us any contact info, people who want to submit talks or want to get involved
in some way?
How can they do so?
The easiest way to get to our website, which is like events.ccc.de, or follow us on Twitter
at CCC.
Yeah, the Twitter ID of CCC, you have that?
Yeah.
Oh, awesome.
Great.
So that's events.ccc.de.
There's a CFP, and there are all the details for submitting talks, and in the next few
days, we will open up the public Wiki, so it's like Roland already.
Yeah, we certainly have something to talk about now, which is pretty cool.
Best of luck on the change of venue and going back to Hamburg.
I think that'll definitely be interesting.
Will there be any future events ever in Berlin, do you think?
Yeah.
I think this event, which was in Hamburg, before every three years, maybe it's going
to move to Berlin, for example.
Okay.
Yeah, I think it will happen.
Yeah, I do like the BCC.
I do like that building.
It's very convenient.
It's gotten too small, and we have to keep moving on.
We sort of face the same problem at the hotel.
We haven't quite gotten there yet in New York, but people are talking about maybe we're outgrowing
the place.
Maybe we need to expand a bit.
Fortunately, there are some hidden catacombs in the hotel that we can still expand to,
but after that, yeah, it's going to be a problem.
Growth can definitely be an issue.
One of the main discussions we had in advance was if we are going to a bigger place, it's
not that private anymore.
I think it's the opposite.
Because you have more space, it's becoming more private.
If you are in, for example, the BCC, you don't have your own space anymore.
There are people everywhere, so a bigger place makes it more cozy and stuff.
Well, it's our hope that we'll get so big that we'll just take over Governor's Island,
and that's about as private as you can get because you can't even get there by boat after
dark.
Fukami, thank you so much for talking with us, and again, best of luck with everything,
and we'll be updating people as the event draws closer.
The Chaos Communication Congress is taking place this year, and I guess from now on in
Hamburg on the 27th, 28th, 29th, and 30th of December.
For more information, go to events.ccc.de.
Fukami, I think we'll be in touch in the future to get more updates.
Okay, thanks, and goodbye.
Thanks.
Have a good night, and sorry for calling so late.
Interesting, huh?
It sounds like the event is really going through an interesting time, and I think it'll be
doubly interesting for the people that have been going to sort of explore a different
part of Germany and find a new, you know, explore a new venue.
Yeah, and that makes it more interesting, too.
That makes it, when we actually change the venue and go to a different place, it's like
starting over again, and you know, the CCC was great.
The Congress was amazing.
Every year was cool, but it was basically the same scene every time, and this changes
it.
This makes it different, and it's kind of like starting a conference in a new country.
It's a new city in this particular case, but let's say somebody had a conference in, I
don't know, Croatia, Serbia, or someplace like that, and it happened the same time as
the Congress happened.
Well, I'd be kind of leaning towards going to the new place rather than the place I'd
been to over and over again, but this makes it more interesting, and I'm much more likely
to go because of that.
And I think that probably speaks to a lot of people as well.
It would be fascinating to see.
Okay, so why don't you guys banter for a moment while I try to reach some of our people.
Instead of going to the east now, we're going to go to the west, where there's another event
that's about to start much closer than CCC.
Yes, indeed.
Well, there was one thing I wanted to mention.
It was actually Jim that brought this to our attention.
Today is the fifth anniversary of the passing of Joy Bubbles, aka Joe and Grecia.
Now, Joy Bubbles was one of the original phone freaks back in the 1960s.
He was known for being a blind phone freak who had perfect pitch.
He could whistle the blue box tones in order to exploit the phone system and do all the
sorts of things that people were doing.
He passed away on today's date in 2007 at the age of 58, and he lived a very interesting
life, did Joy Bubbles.
He was just a heck of a guy.
He was featured in Secrets of a Little Blue Box, which is the Esquire article that sort
of blew up phone freaking into the public eye and caused a lot of people featured in
it, people like Captain Crunch and so on, to suddenly deal with fame and notoriety.
And Grecia was no exception.
And he basically did a lot of the phone freaking stuff in the 60s, got caught, got busted,
and dropped out of the freaking scene.
But he was always remembered and fondly remembered by people who spoke with him.
He was an interesting fellow.
I remember at the Last Hope in 2008, we had one of our speaker rooms named in Grecia to
memorialize him a little bit.
I had the chance to speak with him on a freak teleconference at least 10 years ago.
And he was still an interesting fellow.
Of course, by that time, he had changed his name from Joe and Grecia to Joy Bubbles for
reasons of his own.
But he remains a prominent figure in our history, and I think he's a nice fellow to remember.
There's actually being a documentary is being made about him as well.
You can find that at joybubblesthemovie.com.
Do you know who's making it?
I don't know who's making it, but yeah, apparently it's in production.
I was just directed toward this today.
How many years ago was it that he passed away?
It was five years.
Five years.
It was five years ago.
Yeah, 2007.
Boy, time flies.
That it does.
Feels like yesterday.
Okay, well, rest in peace, Joy Bubbles, and your legacy will certainly live on.
Joining us on the phone now actually are two of our correspondents.
Kyle, are you there?
Yes, I'm here.
Can you hear me?
I hear you just fine.
And Mike, I believe you're there as well.
I am.
How are you?
Okay, well, you have two different connections here, but actually the two of you are in the
same place.
You guys are on the way to tour camp, the second tour camp, an outdoor camp taking place
in Washington State.
I believe it starts tomorrow.
Are you guys there yet?
Are you on the way?
Where are you?
We're on the way.
One at a time, please.
Yeah, we're on the way.
Maybe another hour or two until we get there, driving through northwest Washington State.
Yeah, we're just on the last set of highways.
We made our turns.
We got to our ferry and made our way out to Bainbridge Island, and we're sort of near
Discovery Bay now.
You realize that means nothing to the people listening in New York, but basically, you
say Seattle.
People here seem to think Seattle is on the Pacific Ocean, which it's not.
No, it's actually got a huge sound of its own that is navigable by big ships, and there's
many islands within the center of it, and to get out to the coast, you have to get out
to the Olympic Mountain Range and then drive past that mountain range, and then you're
on the coast.
So how long is the trip heading west from Seattle to get to where you're going?
I think we have maybe like 100 more miles, maybe less.
I haven't really been keeping track.
I do know that the total trip, including the ferry from Seattle out to the venue for this
hacker camp, is about 176 miles, I think is what the maps thing calculated.
Wow.
That's amazing.
That's so much further than I thought was possible to go west from Seattle.
So tell us something about the camp.
What's planned?
What's it going to be like?
Either one of you.
Just not both of you.
Either one.
It's hard to say because it hasn't started yet, but there's a lot of workshops planned,
some of which I've been looking at.
There's going to be apparently someone who will be implanting RFID chips into people
who want that.
So that's a little bit frightening.
What kind of people want that?
Who wants that?
I don't know.
I guess we'll find out.
Yeah, really.
And we actually, on the ferry on the way here, we ran into Mitch Altman and Jimmy, and they're
going to be doing the hardware hacking thing that they just travel all around doing.
Mitch Altman just happened to be on the same ferry that you were on.
Yeah, yeah.
What are the odds of that?
Well, I guess the odds are pretty strong if that conference is starting tomorrow.
Yeah, there's, I guess, one ferry an hour.
So maybe one in 24 are the odds.
Uh-huh.
But Jimmy has something called Latitude.
I don't really know what that is, but apparently it lets you know where people are.
It lets you stalk people like en masse.
And he describes this sort of westward migration of all the latitude, latitudes, whatever they're
called.
I'm afraid you're going to have to explain that a little bit more.
He can see where people are with this?
Yeah, I don't really know how it works.
I probably don't want to know.
All people or just people that are embedded with something?
I believe it's people who have some Google product that, and then they let him see where
they are.
Ah, sheep.
It sounds like Foursquare or something where except everybody's moving and you can follow
their movement.
That sounds really neat.
One other thing I wanted to mention was there's going to be a cooking competition.
They're going to have a competition at Tour Camp where basically a bunch of people get
basic ingredients and they have to do some amazing stuff.
It's like a challenge, like a competition.
So they have to make a lemonade, so to speak, out of whatever kind of food they are chosen
to work with.
So that is going to be a lot of fun.
That's something I haven't seen before.
So it's kind of like what the French chef meets MacGyver or something like that.
Yeah.
Cool.
Are you partaking in that?
Because you're a pretty good cook.
You know, I was really conflicted.
I was trying to bring all kinds of kitchen stuff, but I think I'm going to be just barbecuing
and doing my own cooking thing.
But I definitely, I don't know.
I wouldn't sign up.
Maybe I'll have what it takes.
I did bring a little secret spice cabinet with me.
So we'll see.
Maybe if I get involved, I'll be a contender.
Are there any talks that piqued your curiosity?
Oh, wow.
I've barely had a chance to really look through all of them, but there's definitely some interesting
stuff with vehicle computing and that kind of hardware hacking.
And gosh, there's a couple of different ones that stand out.
There's one on IMI that I'm really interested in.
That's the Icelandic, the sort of journalism haven that they're creating in Iceland.
Yeah.
We've talked about this.
Yeah.
In recent episodes, we've been talking about the possibility of establishing that as a
journalistic haven.
I know, Mike, you've been interested in that as well.
Yeah.
I'll be really excited to learn more about it.
I know we had a representative from that at Hope, but I didn't have really much chance
to speak to him.
So we'll get to learn more here at TorCamp.
Cool.
Now, it runs from when to when?
You guys know the schedule?
The 8th through the 12th, I believe.
OK.
So it starts...
Well, today's the 8th, right?
So it started already.
Right.
Today's move-in, and I think they're having a bit of festivities tonight.
Just sort of everybody getting settled and maybe a bit of a meal.
Yeah.
We're camping and stuff for the first time.
Now, the first TorCamp took place in eastern Washington state, which, to the surprise of
many people, particularly Jason Scott, I'll never forget his surprise and perplexing expression
when he discovered that there was a desert environment in Washington state.
And that's where it took place, on the side of an old missile silo.
But this is in western Washington state, and it's completely different.
Kyle, can you explain what the environment is like over there?
Yeah.
It's a desert.
It's a desert.
It's a desert.
It's a desert.
It's a desert.
It's a desert.
Yeah.
I can, actually.
It's much different.
Eastern Washington is very desert-like, as you said.
In fact, that area where we were camping had a particular geologically significant past
where there just happened to be volcanic ash there based on an eruption, I believe.
It had something to do with St. Helens, but I'm not exactly sure.
So people looked into that after TorCamp, and I think the general idea is people wanted
is people wanted left stand and dot
storms and stuff like that so happened this time i think if they went out and
take out a really beautiful places along the coast that's on the pacific ocean
and it's in the north or western
tip of uh... it's like being most northwest
tip of the continental u s
right across the street of one if you go from canada
it's basically the uh...
lowland
uh... there's a little bit of a beach and then it sort of becomes for
and interfaces with
olympic mountain range which also have uh...
alpine
uh... forest and uh... rainforest
there's a fair amount of walking trail
so it's not
the typical kind of beach you would imagine down in way down in like uh...
california or something that
just bear and sandy you you may have a little bit of beach
and then immediately become sort of low for it
and uh... rain for it
uh... the olympic mountain range uh...
extend up and there's glaciers and all kinds of uh... interesting hiking up
there
we're gonna be down on that sort of uh... you level uh... right on the beach
uh...
near the pacific ocean
that that's it that's incredible and uh...
yeah it sounds like at the very northwestern tip in fact that you
probably close to canada right
absolutely yeah uh... in fact
some of the project had to get the like okay and then you know they had to get
sort of permitting and you know there's all kinds of logistics
to set up
on the project that they're gonna have out there
including a demonstration
you know cell phone network and then all that uh...
some lighting spectacles and and different
interesting stuff
so yeah canada's uh... very close by and
surely they'll be uh...
happy to see us uh... enjoying ourselves well they might complain about the noise
uh... and ask you to turn down after a certain time they they they they like to
do that up there
uh... but mike now is this your first time in this particular part of the
country and what what are your impressions so far
yeah well i i i had been to seattle once before but never uh...
to where wherever i am now
uh...
and i've only been here of course uh... for a little while mostly on the road
but it's uh...
it's very green and uh...
and very damp and uh... i'm looking forward
seeing more of this especially after the
you know the summer we've been having in new york
uh... very cool it's uh... good temperature although we
did see some blue skies and it was sunny yesterday and
stuff that sort of burns off towards the end of the day that the clouds and
we're gonna see more of that like dynamic sort of weather
where it's cloudy in the morning when when we get further to the coast but it's
it's definitely been like
uh... low seventies and not very humid a bit damp out like i think it rained a
bit but it's uh...
good cool weather so a good day for a drive
so this has been a heck of a journey um... like how long have you guys been
traveling all together
um... we left today
and uh... have any uh... particular hijinks ensued or uh... things that we
should know about uh... that happened on a road trip between mike and kyle
uh... you know we're still only halfway there so uh...
if one of us kills the other we'll let you know about it on the next uh...
okay so you've still got time for a madcap adventure or two
kyle's the one driving so uh... keep that in mind uh...
that's
we uh...
we did alright we got to the ferry
a little too late for the one that we wanted so we waited
uh... in seattle for a little bit
but it was nice it was low key getting a ferry i think we left around two o'clock
from seattle so we're we're not even barely uh...
yeah like halfway there as mike had said so
well you got you got the mitch ferry though so it worked out
definitely
and uh... will you be racing mitch on the highway now to uh... to the campsite
well we're delayed because we're talking to you so
oh well no no actually uh... i know kyle can catch up
and uh... this is what's called a handicap so that uh... actually you're
evening it out
you know when they get first on to the ferry so we we we're actually ahead of them when we stop
okay maybe if they pass us we'll be right behind them
now uh... kyle you mentioned a lighting uh... spectacle and i know that
there's something involving hackerbot labs the seattle hackerspace and lasers
and whenever that happens authorities are are you know go on high alert but
uh... these these guys and and you're part of it you're planning something
rather special aren't you
uh... yeah we're uh... doing an installation that
we actually got a grant
from tour camp
to do an art installation
and uh...
uh... as far as i know it's going forward and basically there's uh...
twenty four
thousand milliwatt
uh... laser array that we're mounting on top of a yurt
and it's going to be uh... four thousand
four thousand feet into space
can you tell us what a yurt is for the sake of listeners
uh... it's
sort of like a
i don't know, gur?
uh... it's like a mongolian tent
that kind of style uh... a movable
uh...
living space that's sort of round
i slept in one of those when i was in mongolia in fact yeah they're really cool
and uh... one of the members has one and we're basically
going to be using that as a safe zone for this uh... lighting installation
that
we got a
an art grant from tour camp for so it's it's really exciting that they supported
hbl and and the uh...
the laser is very interesting the way it's being cooled and and stuff it's not
using any sort of toxic gas
using some
different uh...
you know sort of cheap refrigeration technologies and
uh... it'll be a really beautiful display
and uh... everything will glow because it's uh... it's a four hundred and fifty
nanometer uh... blue laser light
now you told me this yesterday on off the wall actually that uh... you had to
get permission from the FAA the federal aviation administration
and uh... they gave you some some facts and figures and
the hacker space hackerbot labs
actually wound up correcting those figures is that is that accurate
yeah it was definitely the figures that were wrong and uh... basically they
corrected the formula that the FAA uses to calculate
uh... beam projections
uh... in instances like this
i don't know the exact story or the numbers i wasn't involved with uh...
with the filing of the paperwork
i know the FAA doesn't like being corrected so hopefully uh... they won't
be offended by by that
yeah well it was uh... it was a
calculation that they've been using the formula had been in use since nineteen
ninety four so
um... they were way off for quite some time hopefully nobody got hurt but we've
since uh...
been able to help them with their formula and i think
at first it was
you know they were alarmed and thought our calculations were wrong but our we
checked our math and apparently um...
it was their formula that was uh...
basically allowing for unsafe uh...
beam distance or it was making uh...
a safe beam
uh... sound much more uh...
dangerous than or like it would go much further than it than it would or
at a higher power than than is ideal always always check your math and i'm
going to be helping just on the ground by being a spotter and making sure no
planes or
uh... birds
get in the way or trees so you're like the kid when when you're playing street
hockey that says car when there's a car coming except you'll be saying plane
yeah and i'll get a big stop button
that i can turn it off and you know we're always looking up at space and
and uh...
with all this curiosity stuff so
definitely uh... i'm suited for the job and that's basically what i'm gonna do
and uh... i can't wait to see everybody i can't wait to see
all the excitement and
good fun that's probably going to be ahead of us here at tour camp
yeah i would just ask you to double check the numbers and make sure you're
not aiming that thing directly at mars because we've just left something
rather expensive there and i'd like you guys to not blow it up
although if you did blow up something on mars i would doubt it. I'll double check, I'll ask them
when they're getting the lenses out and stuff
we'll make sure not to disrupt any of that progress. Now, Bernie, you're on the
phone as well. Do you have any questions for our two travelers here?
Well, I was just looking at the uh... at the tourcamp.org website about all the
talks that are going on there. I wish I could go there. I'm just tied up here in
pennsylvania. How do you spell tourcamp.org, Bernie?
It's T-O-U-R-C-A-M-P
O-O-R-C-A-M-P
dot org
Not T-O-U-R-A. Some people might think it's T-O-U-R-C-A-M-P.
I haven't checked. I hope they registered that too, but in any case
uh... it looks like a really great outdoor
uh... hacker camp conference
and uh... they're doing... one of the things i was curious about is their
internet connectivity
uh... my guess is the only way they're going to be able to do that is by
by satellite. Is that right?
There have been a number of rumors, but no one in the position to confirm or deny
any of them. So we're as curious as anyone as to
if there'll be internet and if so, how.
Well, there'll always be some good human networking, I'm sure.
Well, I mean, every hacker conference ever has had internet, so I'm sure
there's a plan. Other stuff. So we're still... we're going to have to wait and see.
It's exciting, though. Yeah, it must be, but uh...
yeah, any other questions, Bernie?
I'm just looking at the HackerBotLabs photonic beam
art project. This is twenty-four
one to two watt
blue lasers. Two dozen
powerful lasers. A one watt laser, for our listeners,
is capable of lighting a cigarette.
Twenty-four of them, and they're going to combine them
into this massive column.
I really wish I could be there to see this. It should be awesome. You might not have to
go there to see it. You might be able to see it from where you are.
From what I'm hearing. There's still time, Bernie.
Yeah, there is still time. I guess, you know... Yeah, I'll fly tomorrow morning. You'll make it.
It lasts until Sunday, so sure, why not? Especially if you're in the
western part of the country to start with.
Go to tourcamp.org and all the details should be there.
Oh, and Kyle, make sure there are no bats that fly into the beam, okay?
Oh, yeah. I'll work on my bat calls, and I'll make sure that they steer clear.
That's part of my job as a spotter, and I think it'll work out.
You see, it sounds like he's kidding, but I think he really does know bat calls.
But, Bernie, it sounds like you're speaking from experience. Is there
something that happens if you aim a laser at a bat?
They probably... Well, if you aimed 24 one to two watt lasers at them, I'm sure they
would die rapidly.
They'd probably be cooked in midair. Now, bats are wonderful creatures. They eat lots of
insects, and
they're a declining species in North America, the various... some of the bat
population. So they're worth preserving, and my guess is they'll see the beam, even
though they're half blind. They'll probably steer away from the light. They
don't like the light, so that's a good thing.
All right, well, I'm glad we're concerned about the bats and all the other wildlife
out there. On that subject, I guess, Kyle, you'd know the answer to this. What kind
of wildlife are you guys going to experience out there? Are there bears, for instance?
Yeah, I mean, it is a... I mean, that's a good question. These are some of the things
you are... that you ought to worry about when you're packing, instead of, you know, which
album you want to listen to, or that kind of thing. So, yeah, I've looked into it a
little bit. There is various kinds of elk, and definitely bugs are
something to be concerned about. Bears, I don't think, are going to be as big a
problem, especially out on the coast there, near this resort, but I think people will
be taking precautions. Sasquatch, really? No. How do you prepare to meet an elk?
Well, you, you know, get your elk procedure manual out. I don't know. You very
carefully allow the elk to go about munching whatever he's, you know, munching,
and you do your thing, and don't be disruptive. I don't know. It's like
between a deer and a moose, right? As an elk, it's like somewhere in between. Okay,
we've discussed pretty much everything on this program. All right, well, listen, I
want to let you guys continue on the road. Any closing thoughts that you'd
like to leave our listeners with? Oh, well, we'll have to let you know. We're not going to have a
mobile phone service, but when we get online, we'll report back that we made a
safe trip, and we're just really pleased to have been able to stop off and give
you guys an update on our progress, and we're just really hopeful that people
check out these kinds of events and experience them themselves. They're
really cool, especially to see in the U.S., so we'll let you know how it goes.
Okay, please do, and great talking to both you and Mike. Mike, any final words from
you? No, just one thing. This is totally not in the spirit of final words, but
Kyle did remind me that there's supposed to be a custom-built GSM network at this
camp, so that will be exciting as well. Well, yeah, he mentioned that you're
not going to have mobile phone service, so as a GSM... I guess we'll have our own only. I don't know. We'll find out.
All right, well, it sounds like a lot of questions will be answered in the
days ahead, so best of luck to both of you, and we'll be hearing back. Okay, so
long, and I guess we have time to take some phone calls. Actually, very little
time. Let's take maybe one or two phone calls at 212-209-2900. If you
haven't already dialed the number, it's probably too late. We have a couple of
people calling in right now, so let's take a phone call. Good evening. You're on
off-the-hook, but speak up quickly. Rebel, so good to hear your voice again. That
was pleasant, wasn't it? Good evening. You're on off-the-hook. Oh, you too.
Wow, I haven't heard that sound in a while. Good evening. You're on off-the-hook.
Hey, what's up, Emanuel? How you doing? What's on your mind? This is Berndt Kidd, James Spahr. I'm a long time no talk. I met you a bunch of times at 2600Meets
back in the days, and also at Hope. I just wanted to tell you a little more
about what provides dial tone and what doesn't provide dial tone,
because there was a discussion about that last week, if you're interested. If
not, it's cool, too. Well, can you do it in 30 seconds? Yeah, sure. It's perfectly fine.
And turn on the radio, too. I don't have my radio on right now. Okay, then tell that person to
stop talking. It was in the background. And you have 25 seconds, so yeah,
please make it fast. All right. POTS, Plano Telephones. Yes.
Central Office provides dial tone. PRIs, CASTrunks, etc. VoIP. PBX basically
provides the dial tone, so it's a computer-emulated dial tone. Okay, well,
that's helpful information, and good hearing from you, and I hope
things have gone well in the years since you spoke to us last. Let's see
if we can fit one more call in. Good evening, you're on off the hook. Speak up,
or hold your peace. Okay, let's try this one. Good evening, you're on off the hook.
Hello. Yes, go ahead, very quickly. You are a true American patriot in every sense of
the word. Well, I hope you mean that in the good way. Yeah, you say you were at
the conference? Yes, I was at the Hope Conference, and I got to meet you,
Bernie S., a lot of other great people. One thing, I've been using Tor for years
now. I found out about it through your show, and I don't know if anybody else
has noticed this, but when I come out with an exit node from Canada, I can get
all kinds of information about what's going on in our government here that you
can't get if you just do Google through a regular connection. Interesting. I don't
know if anybody else has run into that. Well, people are nodding
their heads, so I imagine so. Unfortunately, we don't have time to go
into it right now, but please, if you have a chance, write to us with further
details, oth at 2600.com, and we'd love to talk about that some more. And we'd
still like to get your reports from Hope if you were there and you haven't
gotten in touch with us. Let us know what your experiences were like. If you posted
photos, blog posts, anything, send us a link. We'd love to take a look at that.
Yeah, if you want to send something directly to the Hope people, pictures or
anything like that, hope at hope.net is the address for that. Our address here at
the radio station, oth at 2600.com. I'm going to go out with, speaking of
patriots, these are true patriots as well. You might have heard about this in
international news, about this band in Russia called Pussy Riot. They basically
made a music video inside a church criticizing Vladimir Putin. They're in
prison. They're facing long prison terms just for expressing themselves. This is
what true courage sounds like. Good night.
The windows are breaking! Bitches! Bitches!
On the red walls!
Pussy Riot declares an abortion in the system!
I won't resist the attack at dawn!
For our freedom!
Punish with a whip!
St. Madonna will teach us to fight!
Feminist Magdalena went to the demonstration!
Putin, forgive!
Charisma, protest!
Putin, forgive!
Putin, forgive!
Putin, forgive!
We exist!
Putin, forgive!
Pussy Riot!
Get out on the street!
Hurry up on the red wall!
Show us freedom!
Civil violence!
Discontent, culture and manly hysteria!
Wild masters devour brains!
Orthodox religion of a tough penis!
Patients are ordered to accept conformity!
The regime is in a caesarean section!
It's time for an explosive clash!
A flock of bitches of the sexist regime
ask for forgiveness for the feminist wedge!
Putin, forgive!
Charisma, protest!
Putin, forgive!
Putin, forgive!
Putin, forgive!
We exist!
Putin, forgive!
Pussy Riot! Pussy Riot!
Get out on the street!
Hurry up on the red wall!
Show us freedom!
Civil violence!
WBAI New York 99.5 FM