So, it's with great pleasure that the award-winning Midnight Ravers proudly present Bob Marley
Rasta Revolution, a five-hour WBAI Music Marathon special, airing Friday, February 7, 2014,
from 12 midnight to 5 a.m.
So, tell your loved ones, tune in, and show your support, only on WBAI in New York, 99.5
FM.
This is Midnight Ravers, where every show is a special.
And you're listening to WBAI in New York.
The time is 7 o'clock on a Wednesday night.
Time once again for Off the Hook.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
We couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
Bum-diddly-bum for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
Bum-diddly-bum!
Bum-diddly-bum!
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 Mike.
Hello.
And Bernie S.
Greetings from Philadelphia.
And a special guest, the new program director, fairly new program director of WBAI, Bob Hennelly.
Interim, please. We only make them interim so they don't get illusions of permanence.
Yeah, they've always been interim.
That's right. We like to keep insecurity throughout the work for us.
Well, hopefully the interim lasts a while so you can actually...
Maybe to the pledge drive, but maybe not.
Well, this is a pledge drive.
Yes, it is. That is it.
That's the secret that we're sharing tonight.
That's the secret to us, yes.
But it's a different kind of pledge drive this time.
Yes, that's right, because the programming is the premium.
If you're listening now, against all odds, yes, Arbitron is defined as 335,000 discrete listeners.
So I guess if that's the case...
Discrete?
Discrete. Well, no.
That's the problem.
Separate and independent, exactly.
All right.
If I would imagine, if you're listening now, you've probably done what I have always done,
which is tune in because these guys are a great company.
You learn stuff, it passes time.
You find that if you listen here, I usually think it's the off-the-hook six-month track
where I've heard it here and then it's in the New York Times.
I feel so smart.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
There it is again.
Uh-huh.
And consistently over the years, I've noticed that you've identified the things that society gets all like,
I can't believe this is true.
I'm like, well, it's been around for a while.
And so you're probably one of those kinds of people that is ahead of the curve.
Well, in order to keep this ahead of the curve collectively and communally, we have to pay for it.
There's no magical thinking.
We are fresh out of special tchotchkes.
What we have are the individuals that for 54 years have been coming voluntarily to bring you programming they believe in.
We haven't been doing this show for 54 years, but we feel like we have sometimes because so much has changed over the years.
That's right.
That's right.
We need you to call 212-209-2950.
We have thank you gifts.
We have all kinds of thank you gifts.
There's all kinds of updated 2014 WBAI swag.
But the bottom line here is it has to be the programming.
That is the premium.
Also, we've been, and you'll get a kick out of this, we've been doing something revolutionary,
opening up the phones and letting hundreds of people who live in the area call in and interact spontaneously with crazy things like Mayor de Blasio saying it's a hazardous day to travel and then keeping the schools open.
Like, someone should connect those things.
Like, what should I do?
Or observing that the same storm comes into the tri-state region, Governor Christie declares a state of emergency and tells nonessential workers to stay home.
And here in New York City, it was business as usual.
Now, we saw this, Groundhog Day, when Mayor Bloomberg told people in a similar storm, same thing happened.
Governor Christie told people to stay home, avoid difficulties, and Mayor Bloomberg told people to go to Broadway shows.
Well, Christie is very cautious.
Doesn't want to step on anybody's feet.
So, he's going to tell everybody just to stay home and leave it alone.
That's right, in general.
Anyway, listen, I want you guys to have a great show.
I'm going to come back a little bit later.
212-209-2950.
It does matter.
If you listen, you call in during this time.
There is an association between the number of people that call in and the prowess of the program.
I mean, I like to say it doesn't matter, but it does.
Uh-huh.
And also, people can go to the website, too.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And you have that, I guess, it's give2wbai.org.
And 2 is the number 2.
Exactly.
Yes.
I'm going to let you have a great program.
I'll be back a little later.
Okay.
We'll see you then.
I'm the new program director, fairly new program director of WBAI, and we're seeing some changes.
I think some positive changes as far as the tone because we're not offering you magical solutions.
We're not offering you anything that might seem a little too good to be true.
What we are offering you is a program on a radio station where, actually, as Bob was saying,
if you listen, in six months, you might actually hear it in the mainstream.
So, you are getting something that is magical in that sense.
You're getting knowledge.
You're getting education.
You're getting information well ahead of its time.
And I think that's something worth supporting because without this place, without WBAI being here, we'd have the Internet.
Yeah, we'd be able to get the word out there, and you'd have to find us through all the noise.
Whereas here, every Wednesday, 7 o'clock, you can tune in to 99.5 FM in New York City and listen to this program about technology,
about hackers, about activism, about all kinds of interesting things.
We've been doing it since 1988, and we'd like to continue with this radio station that happens to be here that allows programming like this.
So, show your support for that, 212-209-2950.
If the program, the program off the hook, matters to you, that is the best premium we can offer.
It's a premium we've offered over the years.
Sometimes we throw in extra gifts for different amounts, but this time, WBAI is kind of rebooting,
and we're going back to the basics because if it's not about the programming, what is it about?
It can't be about all kinds of products and things like that.
It's got to be about what we broadcast over the radio, and I think off the hook listeners get that.
Yes, Bernie, were you trying to say something?
No, I'm sorry. It was someone standing near me was talking, but I walked into a quieter room.
Well, did they have something to say as far as getting people to call?
Well, it was in Vietnamese, but probably that's exactly what they were saying, to call 212-209-2950.
In any language?
In any language, because we have, I think there's some multilingual people at the phone bank,
and this content is just not available anywhere else.
If you want to keep this kind of free and open free speech radio where listeners can call in
and talk about the topics that are really only discussed on this show compared to any other radio station that I know of,
you should call 212-209-2950.
I should point out that we are doing this.
We're doing this kind of a fundraiser, a totally different style here at WBAI,
in response to what listeners have asked for.
They've asked for less hawking of items, less, I guess, promotional-sounding fundraising,
and more getting back to what it's all about in the first place,
which is what we're broadcasting over the radio.
So, yeah, this is the time to make that count.
And if people call in, 212-209-2950, and say,
yes, I want to pledge however much for Off the Hook to keep that show on the air,
then we know that that is what matters to people.
It's the radio show, and that really is what it should be about in the first place when you call to support a radio station.
It shouldn't be about getting a tote bag or a hat or something like that.
It should be about keeping the show that you're listening to on the air.
And the more people who do that, the more we can do these kinds of fundraisers where it's not so in-your-face.
It's more like you're investing in what you're listening to, and you're a part of the community.
212-209-2950, we have the BAI Buddy, which basically allows you to have an amount deducted from your bank account every month.
I think it's as low as $5 a month, all different amounts.
And that is an amazing way to pledge support because it's painless.
It just basically is something that happens automatically for a year, and it helps us tremendously.
And it's basically the price of a cup of coffee a month or all kinds of things that cost $5 or however much you choose to support us with.
212-209-2950, every call counts.
And the better we do this hour, this hour, and we're not preempted once, this whole fundraiser.
That's another thing.
The better we do this hour, the more it means as far as keeping off the hook going and knowing that we have a strong listener base.
I don't want to spend too much time telling you how little time we're taking, but I will just say that this pledge format is a bit of an experiment for us.
Our pledge now, 212-209-2950, is not only a vote in favor of keeping off the hook on the air, keeping WBAA on the air, but keeping us on the air throughout the pledge period,
and keeping our content on the air throughout the pledge period instead of spending, as sometimes we do, the whole hour on pledging.
If that sounds good to you, give us a call.
I could tell the brief moments we had Bob on the air.
I think he understands that you keep an audience by being on every week.
There are things that you talk about on every single radio program, and I don't envy the job he has having to deal with every single radio program on this station.
It's dozens, right? It must be.
I never counted, but if you look at our schedule, just go to WBAI.org and you'll see how many programs there are, how many people there are.
Every time that we are preempted because of the fund drive, it takes a while to get the audience back because people tune in on Wednesday.
If they tune in on Wednesday and we're not on, they might not tune in the next Wednesday.
The more that you disrupt the schedule, the harder it is for people to keep track of the schedule.
By having us on every week, fund drive or no fund drive, I think it's this consistency there that is particularly important to radio audiences.
You can help preserve that by investing in the radio station and saying to us that, yes, this is what you want.
This is the kind of thing that you want.
A year ago, I would not have believed this was possible, that we'd be doing a fund drive like this.
I thought we would have to keep coming up with more and more spectacular premiums, and it was turning into a home shopping network and really depressing a lot of people because it was very, very stressful.
This is more laid back.
We've cut our expenses tremendously, and this is the kind of fund drive that really matters to a radio station when people call in to support the radio.
212-209-2950.
We have operators standing by.
You can pledge for the WBAI Buddy or you can pledge any amount.
You can use credit cards.
You can go online and pledge that way as well.
What was the website again?
I keep forgetting the-
It's give2wbai.org, and if you like digits, you're in luck because you should use the number two for the two in give2wbai.org.
Give2wbai.org, and there's a link there to that site as well.
If you like links, that's the way to do it.
That's so good.
Okay, so we're told not to spend too much time on this too, which is another good thing.
We're not going to spend the whole hour, but that's only a good thing if people call.
If we find out later that nobody called or very, very few people called, well, guess what?
We'll probably be back to something more aggressive, and we'd be preempted more because the emphasis would be on raising the money because this wouldn't work.
This kind of fundraising we're doing right now would not work, and we'd have to go to something else.
So this is an experiment, and you can help this experiment succeed by calling 212-209-2950.
Yes, Bernie?
I didn't say anything, but I-
I know you want to.
I just want to reemphasize that clearly if you're listening to this show right now, and I think a bunch of people are, and you want to keep listening to it,
the only way to keep doing that is to support WBAI, which is, believe it or not, not wallowing in money and not wasting money at this point.
They're very pared down to their bone pretty much now, and they have modest little offices in Brooklyn, and we're sharing studios at a community college,
and this station, none of us on this show get paid a dime.
We invest our own money to be on this show, that sort of thing.
If you want to support this type of free speech radio programming, talking about the topics that you really want to hear about,
obviously if you're listening to us, you'd like to hear us talk about things in the hacker community and what's going on with digital rights, that sort of thing,
please call 212-209-2950.
Keep this kind of radio alive, because BAI is kind of on the ropes.
If it doesn't stay on much longer, if it doesn't keep getting support from listeners, this kind of programming won't exist in New York City.
That's right.
We're one step away from being outside.
While we still have a roof over our heads, we will continue to broadcast, and you can help determine what the future will be.
A lot of people predicted our demise well before now.
A lot of people did think we would survive, but a lot of people thought that we would not make it to the end of last year
because of all the dire predictions and doomsayers and things like that, but BAI has this spirit.
It's hard to quantify, but it's something that is able to survive all kinds of disasters and mismanagement and everything you could throw at us.
The only reason we survive is because of our listeners.
If the listeners were not there, obviously we wouldn't be there either.
All we're asking is that you show that you're there and give a call, 212-209-2950.
If you're listening on the Internet later, i.e. downloading the show and listening another day or overnight, you can still call.
You can still call.
You can still go to the website.
Just say that Off the Hook is the show that you are pledging for, and somebody somewhere will take note of that,
and we will be somewhat secure in knowing that we have listeners out there.
Bernie, why are you hitting touchtones?
Oh, I'm sorry.
I didn't know you should.
It must have been my cheek pressed against the phone.
People used to do it on teleconferences to get attention.
Which touchtone digit was it you heard?
Oh, this is a test.
It sounded like a six to me, all right?
Close.
You know what touchtone your face hit.
How do you know that?
It shows up on the display of my phone.
I think it was a one, but anyway.
Then it shouldn't be hard for you to tell if you look at your phone.
I was just testing you.
Some of our listeners, I'll tell you some of our mislisteners are sharp enough to pick that up.
Yeah, and I'm sure we'll get mail about that,
tells you something about what the priorities are in this particular community.
Okay, and of course you can write to us, oth at 2600.com,
with any comments, any thoughts that you might have as well about the show,
about the station, about life in general.
We're going to get into the actual program now,
where we talk about what's been going on in the world,
a lot has been going on.
But one more time, we must implore, we are serious.
This is important.
This is vital.
This is crucial.
Without you, we are nothing.
Give a call, 212-209-2950,
and either pledge one lump sum,
or support the radio station through the WBAI Buddy System.
There are people there who can help you in all sorts of ways,
answer all sorts of questions that you might have.
And you can also go to the website, give to, number two, wbai.org,
and pledge that way.
We implore you to please do that now.
All right, so we have the Olympics coming up this week,
and boy, what a lot of fun that's going to be.
There was a story posted.
I saw this in the Weekly Standard,
but I think it's making the rounds throughout all kinds of news agencies.
This story emanated from NBC, and this is an example, folks.
This is an example of the media saying absolutely nothing
and taking a lot of time to say it,
something that we're not that good at here.
We usually inadvertently say something.
Richard Engel reported last night on NBC
that all visitors to the Sochi Olympics are getting hacked
as soon as their electronic devices connect to any Russian network.
That's right, folks.
You heard it here, or you probably heard it there, too,
if you were watching NBC.
All visitors are getting hacked as soon as their electronic devices
connect to any Russian network.
As tourists and families of athletes arrive in Sochi,
if they haven't been warned,
and if they fire up their phones at baggage claim,
it's probably too late to save the integrity of their electronics
and everything inside them.
Visitors to Russia can expect to be hacked,
and as Richard Engel found out upon his arrival there,
it's not a matter of if but when.
That was Brian Williams saying that in dramatic tones,
and then the report went...
I'm just reenacting the whole thing here.
They haven't even said anything yet.
They've already contradicted themselves.
They've said it's not a matter of if but when,
but just before that they gave you the one they said instantly.
It can't be both instantly and a question as to when it will happen.
Well, no, they said...
As soon as you turn on your device.
It's not a question of if. There is no if anymore, right?
Right, but then they said it's a question of when.
It's a question of when, but before, a few paragraphs ago,
they gave you the answer to when.
There's only two paragraphs so far.
All right, well, we can critique the rest of that later,
but let's let Richard Engel give his report now.
Richard Engel says...
I can't do his voice. I don't know what his voice sounds like.
The State Department warns that travelers should have no expectation of privacy.
Well, that makes it easy, doesn't it?
If you have no expectation of privacy, then you won't be disappointed.
Even in their hotel rooms.
That's an actual sentence.
For shame, Richard Engel.
That's not a sentence. Even in their hotel rooms.
Maybe when he said it aloud, there was an em-dash or something instead of a period.
Well, there's no em-dash here, and it disappoints me.
It could be the transcriber's fault.
All right, let's try to get through this.
And as we found out, starting a sentence with and...
I'm just going to turn off my grammatical critique here.
This is a lot of prescriptivism.
As we found out, you are especially exposed
as soon as you try and communicate with anything.
One of the first things visitors to Russia will do is log on.
Hackers here are counting on it.
Oh, boy.
They test the system in the report.
Now we're back to the actual news report here.
They test the system in the report and are, as one might expect,
immediately hacked the moment the test computer connects with the Russian network.
I'm not exactly sure how you know you're immediately hacked,
but they claim that that's what happens.
Malicious software hijacked our phone before we even finished our coffee,
stealing my information,
and giving hackers the option to tap and record my phone calls.
Wow.
Bernie, have you ever heard of such a thing?
It's pretty amazing.
I don't think this reporter really knew what they were talking about
when he wrote this story.
In the time that you said that, my phone has been hacked twice by hackers.
Apparently, yes, they have the capability now to video record me
and to record my phone calls and my thoughts.
Wow.
Because they have to announce how they've hacked you.
That's how you know.
It's probably true that there are some security concerns,
some electronic security questions for visitors to Russia.
There are also many electronic security concerns for visitors to countries
like the United States that are known to spy on their residents.
But this story seems awfully poorly reported.
I don't think it's reported at all.
They don't give any information as to what exactly it is they're learning.
What is it that tells them your phone has just been hacked?
You're seeing some ads maybe?
That could be a service that you're already subscribed to.
Haven't you ever seen the movies?
There's like a giant flashing dialogue that says you've been hacked.
I've seen those movies, and I thought that was fiction.
And this apparently is the reality that these people are living.
I almost feel like going to Sochi now just to see what they're talking about,
to turn on my phone and see what happens.
Now, there's nothing in there that says this is what you can do to prevent this.
This is the basic security you can have to keep your phone data secure.
It's just basically, no, there's no defense.
Hackers are going to get you no matter what.
And that kind of attitude, that kind of negativity
and basically demonizing hackers all over the planet,
that really is very destructive in so many ways.
I mean, I will say it does seem very reasonable to believe that the Russian state
is able to listen in on your phone calls made in Russia
just the same way that the United States government listens to your phone calls
made in the United States.
But that doesn't require anything to do with your actual device.
So it's not clear what additional capabilities they're claiming.
At least when the Americans do it, they don't announce it.
They do it secretly.
It takes someone like Edward Snowden to come and say,
hey, look what they're doing.
But when Americans hack your phone, it's quietly and surreptitiously,
and you find out about it years later.
We don't have the giant flashing dialogue technology, I guess.
Apparently not. Wow.
Okay, so then there's this other story about GCHQ,
which is the British intelligence organization.
They disrupted hacktivist communications
by using the techniques of the hacktivists against them.
That's according to more Edward Snowden leaks.
Documents from The Whistleblower, again published by NBC,
someone's been reading NBC lately,
indicates UK cyber spies used a denial-of-service attack in 2011
to force a chatroom used by the Anonymous Collective offline.
These are the tactics they used.
A simple denial-of-service attack.
I don't know.
Bernie, you've been talking about this on our list.
What do you think of this whole thing?
Glenn Greenwald actually contributed to the story for NBC.
He's one of the people that has been reading the documents
that Ed Snowden gave him about this.
It looks like GCHQ, which is Britain's equivalent to the NSA,
part of the UK-USA alliance, also known as the Five Eyes Alliance,
has apparently been committing felonies against Americans
who actually many of whom weren't even committing any crimes.
They were just discussing things in an IRC chatroom,
and GCHQ decided to do the childish thing
of launching a denial-of-service attack, a thin flood attack.
That technique's been around for, what, 20 years now?
Almost.
To stop that communication.
I just think that if federal prosecutors in the U.S.
wanted to prosecute this sort of thing,
they would charge those people with conspiracy
to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Because these GCHQ guys were part of the Good Old Boys Network,
they're going to do this with impunity.
These weren't foreign.
These were people, these were teenagers, most of them,
it seems like, according to the story,
who were discussing things that were not illegal,
and yet their communications were disrupted
by a foreign entity in league with the United States.
Every time I've been on IRC,
somebody disrupts the conversation somehow,
whether it be nick flooding, sin flooding, you name it.
You're saying that kind of behavior is a felony?
It certainly is.
It's considered interfering with a protected computer.
All computers are protected computers under U.S. federal statutes.
All computers are protected computers?
There are no unprotected computers?
If you look at the verbiage of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,
Title 18, Section 1030,
you will see that this was a felony.
Of course, they did it in Britain,
but they did it against conservers that were ostensibly in the U.S.,
against people who were apparently not breaking any laws in the U.S.
I'm just saying that if the feds in the U.S.,
the federal prosecutors, the Department of Justice,
wanted to go after Americans doing this,
they would charge them with multiple felonies.
Right, but these are members of an intelligence organization overseas.
You don't really think that anybody in the government here
is going to want to charge somebody on our side,
in an intelligence organization, with a crime?
Of course not.
You can't really believe that this was done without the,
at least, passive approval of U.S. government as well.
Because U.K. and the USA,
this whole U.K.-USA alliance has been around for decades,
and they've been doing each other's dirty work in communication circles
to scratch each other's back and do things that would be illegal
within the borders of the individual country.
So there's another thing about this that I don't understand,
and generally I don't understand how the intelligence agencies work,
so it's maybe not surprising,
but if the intelligence agencies believe, rightly or wrongly,
that there are people here communicating,
and that the communications are going to further some sort of crime
or threat to the national security,
or whatever these nutcases in power believe,
wouldn't they want to know where that communication was taking place
and continue so that they could continue to watch it
rather than disrupt it?
The strategy doesn't even make sense from a purely tactical standpoint.
Yeah, it seems kind of defeatist if they are spying on these people
to disrupt the communication so they can't plan anything
and get themselves trapped.
According to this story, in addition to Anonymous,
the documents list LulzSec, the A-Team, and the Syrian Cyber Army
as hacktivist groups that GCHQ was concerned about.
In one case, it appears simply warning activists
that carrying out their own denial of service attacks was illegal
had the desired effect.
So apparently just issuing that warning was enough
to dissuade them from going further.
NBC reports that the notice was posted via Facebook, Twitter,
email, instant messenger, and Skype.
I didn't get that notice.
How do you post via Skype?
I don't know.
Well, this is NBC again.
They have a delta perspective on how these things work.
I thought Greenwald worked on this story, though.
I don't know if he worked on this particular story.
But yeah, there's only so much he can do.
One alleged GCHQ document states that one month later,
80% of those contacted had stopped using a hacktivist chat room.
Was it some kind of a survey?
Hey, we're calling you one month after we warned you
to see if you're still using a hacktivist chat room.
I just wonder how they get this information.
But basically, the documents indicate that GCHQ
was willing to use denial of service attacks itself
as part of an operation codenamed Rolling Thunder,
which prevented hacktivists from using a chat room
for 30 hours in September of 2011.
Now, this is what I don't understand.
It doesn't make sense to me.
If you're prevented from using a chat room,
you'd use another chat room.
You're not dependent on one particular computer,
location, connection, anything.
If you have a group of people in this day and age,
you have alternate ways of reaching them.
Or am I being too idealistic here?
I mean, you can maybe interrupt the particular conversation.
Newcomers might not know where the regulars go after hours.
But yeah, it seems very poorly thought out.
And of course, the irony has been pointed out
that some of the people whose communications were disrupted
have been charged with doing things
like committing denial of service attacks.
So it's okay for one side to do it but not the other.
But I just don't get it, as I said,
from a just purely tactical standpoint.
I always just take the position
that denial of service attacks is stupid,
no matter who's conducting them,
because it just basically shuts out the opposition,
doesn't allow them to speak.
It's bad when the good guys do it.
It's bad when the bad guys do it.
It's bad when the good guys do it
because you want the bad guys to be able to speak.
You want them to hang themselves with their own words.
And it's certainly bad when the bad guys do it
because then, obviously, the good guys can't communicate.
Although I really doubt
that there's no other way for them to communicate.
It seems way too simple, way too Hollywood.
There's more that we need to find out
about this story, obviously.
But it's rolling thunder.
It is rolling thunder, yeah.
You know, why don't we come up with codenames for things?
We meaning everybody else.
But I think, well, I mean, Anonymous did do that.
They came up with,
what was the Scientology codename they had?
I haven't heard so many.
I think it was after the big guy.
Start with a Z.
You see, if we had names like Rolling Thunder,
it would be a lot easier.
There was the Chenology.
That was the one I was thinking of.
Yeah.
Yeah, that was Scientology, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
That was Chen, I guess, opposing Scientology.
Yeah, but that's just a website.
That's a group of people.
That's not the operation name.
The other amazing thing about all these news articles
is that they pretend like Anonymous
has some worldwide headquarters
that they can go invade,
which, of course, is totally untrue.
Yeah, I know.
You know what might make sense?
You know how they have a listing
of all the hurricane names coming up for every year?
It's basically the side on in advance.
What if we come up with a list of names
of operations that groups like Anonymous,
LulzSec, whatever, are going to come up with?
And as that happens,
the next name is assigned to that particular operation.
That way, there's no confusion.
So you want a centralized naming authority?
I think that...
You know, why not?
That's one thing I think could be centralized.
I can come up with some reasons why not,
but I don't want to waste our listeners' precious time.
Well, okay.
That's another list you can come up with then,
but it's just a suggestion,
and this is the place where we air suggestions.
Another suggestion is that Edward Snowden
get the Nobel Peace Prize.
Two Norwegian politicians have suggested this.
By nominating him,
socialists Bård Vegard Solsjøl and Snor Valen
said they do not condone all Snowden's disclosures.
They acknowledge he may have damaged
the national security of several countries,
but they said they are convinced
that his whistleblowing sparked a public debate
and changes in policy.
They say those changes have contributed
to a more stable and peaceful world order.
The United States, of course,
wants to put Snowden on trial
for alleged espionage and stealing secret documents.
Russian President Vladimir Putin
has granted Snowden a year's asylum,
although I understand that's now been extended.
So I've heard, yeah.
All right. I heard it from Snowden.
I didn't hear it from Putin.
Well, Putin's very busy running an Olympics.
Yeah.
Do you think Snowden's going to go to the Olympics?
Will he be a guest of honor?
I think he's going to stay far away.
Yeah, he's smart.
I mean, it's important to note
that lots of people get nominated
for the Nobel Peace Prize,
and I don't think, you know,
in recent years the prize committee
has really had the chutzpah
to award it to someone like Snowden.
But maybe I'm wrong,
and he'll get it this year.
Who knows?
All right.
On to our stupid section.
Well, some of this has been stupid already,
but here's really stupid.
Footage has been released
of editors at the Guardian newspaper
destroying computers
that were used to store top-secret documents
leaked by Edward Snowden.
Under the watchful gaze
of two technicians from, yes, GCHQ,
the journalists took angle grinders
and drills to the internal components,
rendering them useless
and the information on them obliterated.
The bizarre episode
in the basement of the Guardian's
London headquarters was the climax
of Downing Street's fraught interactions
with the Guardian
in the wake of Snowden's leak,
the biggest in the history
of Western intelligence.
And, yes, you can go online
and actually see a video
of them destroying the hardware.
I don't know if the people
destroying the hardware
knew how stupid that was.
Well, the people destroying it
were Guardian employees
who almost certainly knew.
Okay.
And there is some evidence
to suggest that even the GCHQ
knew how stupid it was,
but they did it anyway.
Well, what I don't understand
is why did they tape it?
If they knew how stupid
they were going to wind up
looking in the end,
why show the entire world
just how precisely stupid
that really was?
And the reason we say it's stupid,
it's not very hard to figure out,
but when you have computer data
that has been leaked
onto a computer,
destroying the computer
isn't the way to get rid of the data
because data can be...
What, Bernie?
Copied.
Copied. Very good. Yes.
And it was in other...
We already knew,
GCHQ already knew
that this information
and the British Prime Minister
and the government there
already knew the copies of these files
already existed elsewhere in the world.
But, you know,
this was a symbolic thing,
but it's really silly watching...
It's funny watching this silly video,
which I think was actually
done by the Guardian.
But it's...
What is it symbolic of
other than stupidity?
And it's not really symbolic,
it's pretty direct
as to what that...
Who were they trying to convince
by showing these computers
being destroyed
that they've done anything?
I think it's...
I think it just amounted to,
I don't know if I can say this
in the air,
just a pissing match
between the GCHQ
and the owners of the Guardian
saying,
Oh, we'll show you guys
and embarrass you.
But I think the only ones
that got embarrassed
were the folks at GCHQ
that prompted this silly exercise
to destroy the computers.
There's a lot I don't understand
that's going on with this story,
with the Snowden releases,
the way governments are reacting,
the way it's being addressed.
This is one of the dumbest things
I think I have ever seen.
And literally,
by watching that video,
I just cannot believe
what I'm watching.
Actual hard drives
being destroyed.
For what purpose?
Yeah.
All right.
Meanwhile,
our friends over at
the Chaos Computer Club
have filed a criminal complaint
against the German government.
Another example of how
Germans get things done.
Why aren't we doing this?
They haven't won yet.
They've just filed the complaint.
Okay.
Have we filed the complaint?
I don't think...
Can private people
file criminal complaints
in the United States?
That's what I mean.
They can do things like that
over there.
Off the hook and march down
to Federal Plaza or whatever
and file a lawsuit.
I'm willing to do that.
All right.
Yeah.
If we have any
freelance prosecutors
amongst our audience,
write us an email,
oth at 2600.com.
Yeah,
and not one of these
long legal battles
with thousands of pages
that actually go nowhere.
No,
it's something that actually
makes a lot of sense.
You know?
Okay.
This is what they're doing.
On Monday,
this Monday,
the Chaos Computer Club
and the International League
filed a criminal complaint
with the Federal Prosecutor
General's Office.
The complaint is directed
against the German
federal government,
the presidents of the
German secret services,
namely Bundesnachricht...
You know what?
It keeps going.
I'm sorry, what?
BND.
Bundesnachrichtendienst,
maybe,
but the Federal...
Federal Intelligence Service.
You missed two syllables,
but it's close enough.
Yeah,
and a bunch of other
German entities there.
Wow,
there's a lot of them.
We accuse U.S.,
British,
and German secret agents,
their supervisors,
the German minister
of the interior,
as well as the
German chancellor
of illegal and prohibited
covert intelligence activities
of aiding and abetting
of those activities,
a violation of the
right to privacy
and obstruction of justice
in the office,
by bearing and cooperating
with the electronic surveillance
of German citizens
by NSA and GCHQ.
And I'm told
with that reference,
we have now said GCHQ
more than we have ever said
it before on a show.
It's good to keep count.
Yeah,
this is the GCHQ show, folks.
But this is about
the German government's
cooperation with the
English-speaking
intelligence agencies,
and so...
It's interesting that
they're charging the chancellor
because the chancellor
is also a target of the NSA.
Isn't that interesting?
Yeah,
well,
I mean,
she had a phone call
with Obama,
and he promised
not to spy on her anymore,
and maybe he won't.
But,
you know,
the German government
has certainly been
a beneficiary of many
of the Anglophone
spying programs,
so I don't think
it's unfair
to accuse them of this.
It is the understanding
of the CCC
that these crimes
are felonies pursuant
to German federal law,
specifically...
Okay,
well,
the law basically says
illegal activity
as a foreign spy,
violation of privacy,
and obstruction of justice.
The quote reads,
every citizen is affected
by the massive surveillance
of their private communications.
Our laws protect us
and threatens those
responsible for each
surveillance with punishment.
Therefore,
an investigation
by the Federal Prosecutor General
is necessary
and mandatory by law,
and a matter of course,
it is unfortunate
that those responsible
in the circumstances
of their crimes
have not been investigated.
That's according to
the attorney,
Julius Mettenswey,
and also a long-time
member of the CCC.
So,
yeah,
well,
good for them.
Good for them doing this.
We're going to be
seeing more entities
to be
taking this matter up.
Bernie,
do you think
they have any chance?
No,
but I think
it's good publicity.
I get people talking
about these issues,
and,
you know,
I'm a believer
in this kind of entertainment,
that the more
you try...
the more efforts
people take
to hold
governments accountable,
the more...
the less likely
this stuff is to
go under the rug
and under the radar.
People need to know
what's going on,
and this is another way
to keep people
aware
of what's going on.
Absolutely,
and we,
of course,
do encourage
that kind of thing
wherever possible.
Even if they
don't have much
of a chance
of succeeding,
it does inspire people
to fight back
in one way
or another.
Okay,
Rob T. Firefly
is not here tonight,
but he did discover
something interesting
from Canada.
This is something
off of
a governmental agency,
the Communications
Security Establishment
Commissioner.
The Commissioner's
mandate includes
undertaking any
investigation deemed
to be necessary
in response
to a complaint
in order to determine
whether Communications
Security Establishment
Canada has engaged
or is engaging
in unlawful activity.
Blah, blah, blah.
They go on.
But basically,
the interesting thing
about this
is that the address
to write to
in Ottawa
for the Communications
Security Establishment
Commissioner
is PO Box 1984.
This is part of CSEC?
This is part of what?
CSEC?
Communication Security
Establishment Commissioner.
I don't know if that's
the same CSEC
or a different one.
It spells CSEC,
so whatever CSEC is.
All right.
Yeah.
It's the Canadian
Intelligence Service.
Actually, okay.
Replace Commissioner
with Canada,
and then you have
another CSEC.
Communication Security
Establishment Canada.
Is this the Commissioner?
I don't want to
understand these acronyms.
Apparently,
the Commissioner's
PO Box is 1984,
and then it's Station B
on top of that,
whatever that means.
But yeah,
it's just a humorous
thing,
but the question is,
did they do this intentionally?
Well, if it's
42 PO Boxes,
they had a one
in 10,000 chance
of it being 1984,
that Orwellian number.
I think somebody there
at CSEC,
the Canadian equivalent
of the NSA,
has an ironic
sense of humor.
Or somebody
in the post office
has a wicked
sense of humor.
Why do you think
the Canadian Postal Service
is being defunded?
Oh, you're right.
They're not going
to be delivering mail
to people's homes
anymore in Canada.
Right.
Wow.
Well, thank you
for giving this PO Box.
Well, I don't think
they really want to do that.
That might be
a good way
to save
a lot of stress.
But yeah,
that's kind of crazy
that they're not
going to be
delivering to homes
anymore,
just to communal
post office boxes.
Oh, here's another story
out of Norway,
which is kind
of strange.
I'm wondering
what the big
revelation here is.
Every student
has their own
access card
to make use
of everything
from their
school's
library
to the toilets.
This is at
Bergen University.
When the students
swipe their card,
person,
time,
place,
it all gets
registered
and saved
for 90 days.
This is all
according to
the Bergen's
Tideen,
the newspaper
up there.
With this system,
the university
can track
all the students'
movements.
The tracking
was first used
to prevent
drug addicts'
movement.
How do you know
if they're entering
if they don't
have cards?
The school
themselves say
that students
are informed
about the
registration
of movements,
but several
students feel
that they
have been
deceived.
Now they
demand an
apology
from the
university
administration.
I don't get
what the story
is here.
They're upset
that their
movements
are being
tracked.
They're
surprised
and realizing
that,
wow,
they're
keeping
track of
this information.
What am I
missing here?
I don't
know where
the surprise
is,
but I
think it's
good that
people are
trying to
fight back
against this.
Well,
the way to
fight back
is not
to accept
it.
When you
hand out
location
tracking cards
to people,
that's the
time to
object,
not after
you use
it and
then realize,
oh my
god,
they're
tracing
my
movements.
What do
you think
those cards
are doing?
I think
that there
are many
university
students
throughout
the world
who are
using
location
tracking
to
track
their
movements.
I
don't
know what
took so
long
and what
the big
surprise
is here.
Follow the
Norwegian
example.
Maybe get
ahead of
the Norwegian
example by
realizing it
a few
years in
advance.
This is
obviously where
we are
heading and
I think it
might be
a good
thing.
Radio Beacon
will continually
transmit a
vehicle's
position,
heading,
speed,
all kinds
of other
information.
All kinds
of cars
will be
receiving the
same
information
back from
all kinds
of other
vehicles.
A
few
years
later,
there is
also talk
of giving
these kinds
of tracking
signals to
bicyclists,
pedestrians,
all kinds
of other
maybe even
dogs on
the street.
So what
we're going
to wind up
with are
basically
people that
are being
monitored at
all times
where they
are in
relation to
other people
and
being
monitored by
others.
So
if we
have a
traffic
light,
we
have a
traffic
light,
we
have a
pedestrian
light,
we
have a
car
light,
we
have
a
pedestrian
light,
we
have a
Nobody believes them anymore, and cars are just falling.
But if the car is auto-stopping when it sees the beacon,
as is possible according to this news article,
it doesn't matter.
But you realize the car would never move again
because it's waiting for the beacon to cross,
and it's not crossing if it's attached to the street.
A car that is sitting in one place
is totally not a threat to my safety.
Yeah, but it's...
Well, you know what?
I'm not going to have this silly discussion,
but basically they are talking about pedestrians,
bicyclists, motorcyclists.
Drivers will be alerted to a possible collision
with a pedestrian carrying a smartphone.
Yes, it's all you need is your smartphone.
That continually sends out information to cars
in the vicinity,
even if it's too dark to see the person
or if the pedestrian darts suddenly into traffic.
So I see this moving in the direction of,
well, yeah, you got run over
because you weren't carrying a smartphone.
You didn't have the software installed.
It's your own damn fault.
I don't know.
It's basically, yeah, it's using the threat
of a violent death to get you to buy
into a particular program.
And it might do some...
It certainly will do some good if it prevents accidents,
but we are also giving up something else.
What do you think, Bernie?
I like Mike's idea.
I think that's great.
He's set up little safe zones
where we don't want vehicles
to be running over pedestrians
by having these beacon transmitters.
I'm looking forward to reverse engineering
one of these beacons.
I actually obtained a LoJack device once
for that same purpose.
It was pretty interesting.
But this is worth checking out.
Good idea, Mike.
Okay.
We have some mail from our listeners,
and you can write to us, oth at 2600.com.
Dear OffTheHook,
just throwing in a little info
about employers being able
to access smartphone data
and delete slash reset the phone,
as we discussed last week.
My employer, a nonprofit arts organization,
uses Microsoft Exchange for email.
When I tried to set up my Android device
to access my work email,
I got a permission request
to allow the mail app
to reset my device to factory settings.
That request was enough for me
to decide that I really didn't need
to access my work email from my phone,
but I can see how easy it would be
for most people to just hit OK
without really checking
what they were agreeing to.
My employer gives a lot of trust
and respect to myself and my colleagues,
and I don't believe
that they would actually use this option,
and yet it's still required
for me to access my work email
from my personal device.
It's interesting also
that there is no additional software
required for them to gain this control.
The mail app that ships on the phone
has this capability.
Thank you, Illuminata, for writing in.
It also says, incidentally,
per the David Kennedy interview,
I'm also a transplant to Louisville.
Haven't been to DerbyCon yet,
but I'll definitely be there this fall.
Hopefully, some of us will be there,
so there's a possibility of that, definitely.
And also, this letter from John.
I was listening to last night's show
on the train this morning.
People listen to us
in all kinds of interesting places.
We got mail from somebody
listening to us on a crowded train in London,
and people, as they're waiting
for their planes to take off.
This is the magic of the Internet.
Write to us.
Let us know what interesting places
you're listening to Off The Hook at,
what days, what locations.
We want to know.
Anyway, I have one more to say to Emmanuel.
Waze, W-A-Z-E.
Google bought it recently.
What didn't they buy recently?
It handles traffic very well
and automatically reroutes you
if there's a backup in front of you.
All users can also social report accidents,
cops running speed traps, etc.
It's really designed for commuting.
For long distance driving,
I use regular Google,
but for anything in a city, I use Waze.
Thanks, John, for that.
You know what?
I actually installed this
and used Waze to get here tonight,
and it worked.
It worked pretty well.
I mean, there wasn't really any traffic
because everybody was scared
to go out in the ice,
but it was interesting.
Of course, it did route me in a weird way
when I was initially starting.
It made me go around the street
I would normally go down,
which just added time.
I don't know what that was all about,
but it did warn me that,
hey, there's cops up ahead,
and there were cops up ahead
because somebody else,
another Waze user,
had weighed in and said,
yes, there's a cop up here.
Be careful.
I actually use the system to warn people
that the Bruckner Expressway
is a disaster zone in the Bronx
because there are craters
in the middle of the road.
The thing is, though,
to do this requires you
to take your mind off what you're doing
to issue these warnings
and things like that.
I still have issues with my Bluetooth
where I can't get the thing
to actually speak.
If the Bluetooth is enabled in my car,
then the speaker on the phone doesn't work
and the Bluetooth doesn't work,
so I have to keep looking at the screen,
which is silly
against the whole purpose
of having a GPS unit in the first place.
So, yeah, it's good.
It's better than what I used last week.
It's nice.
If you turn off Bluetooth in your car,
then it'll actually speak through the speaker,
but it's hard to hear
because it's going through your phone
and you're driving at the same time.
I'm going to try and activate it right now.
I have a question.
Yeah.
So this sounds like doubly dangerous to me
because...
It is.
Well, I mean,
in addition to the danger you just described,
the people are speeding,
so they're going faster
than the road engineers think is safe,
and then on top of that,
they're not looking at the road
because they're telling their phone
that they might get in trouble
for breaking the law.
In all fairness,
I think it might be possible
to speak commands to this
rather than have to type it like I'm doing,
which is not the way
you're supposed to use a system like this.
But they're still distracted.
They're still thinking about something
other than where they're going.
You don't think people should think about anything
other than where they're going when they drive?
I think it's very hard for humans
to focus on interacting with a computer
and driving at the same time.
Emmanuel?
Wow.
Yes, Bernie?
Do we want to start talking to people
about supporting WBAI
before we end the show?
Yes, we do.
But we also want to talk about
how to get to the NSA,
which I just basically gave...
I asked my phone now.
It's calculating a route to the NSA right now,
and it's not finding one.
I bet if you call 212-209-2950,
the NSA will listen to your call.
Wow, see how long this is taking.
If this was an emergency,
I would have to set out on my own
and not depend on routing server timeout.
Okay.
We continue our tradition of technology
not working properly.
You know, Waze is a good system.
I'd like to play with this some more.
I'd like to get my Bluetooth working
because it doesn't work the way I like it to.
But that's my problem, not yours.
Well, yes, as Bernie said,
we do want people to call in.
This is a fundraising edition of the program,
and we hope that our listeners have called so far
to support the radio show
so we can continue doing radio programs like this.
Our program director has returned.
Interim, please.
Interim program director has returned.
That's right.
I cannot but to wonder if self-service,
we do find here in Harlem Heights,
it's a problem,
and maybe it has to do with where we are in CUNY
because of the structure subsurface
surrounded by cinder block.
But we are doing our best to mark
as we find anecdotally places
where we are connected to the great beyond,
putting little yellow tapes
so that we'll have our own little set of hot spots
that'll be informally shared with our colleagues.
Oh, that would be nice.
Yes, absolutely.
212-209-2950.
212-209-2950.
What can people expect when they call that number?
Well, it was funny today, you should say,
because people had trouble getting to work
because there was at one point
like a minute and a half delay
because when mass transit takes a hit like it did today,
people have trouble getting to work
and the relief doesn't show up as we know.
But you know that these guys show up
and they've been doing it for how many years now?
Well, we started in 1988,
or at least I started in 1988,
and we've had all kinds of different people
coming through the doors since then.
Right, that's incredible.
That is a commitment to bringing you news and information,
particularly as it involves technology.
And one of the things that's happened
is that the media is so entirely in bed
with technology manufacturers, planners, slicers,
dicers, and manufacturers,
that you really can't figure out,
well, where is the truth-telling?
Where is the journalism?
Where is the user ability to say,
hey, you know what, this doesn't work so well,
or this works really well, it scares me.
There's really, it's so much bought and paid for
at this point.
I mean, I think, what was the show
that talked about the delivery of goods by drone?
You guys, that was that ridiculous non-story
that, which manufacturer?
Amazon.
Amazon.
Like, totally created this gadget thing.
Mike doesn't believe it's going to happen.
Well, whether it's not going to happen,
but they co-opted the entire news cycle with it.
It was the missed opportunity of,
like, the 40 out of 120 nations,
the ILL tracks where there are so many unemployed
young men from 16 to 24.
The countries are about to implode.
You know, updates like that.
News you could use.
Like, let's figure out which countries
aren't Americans able to go to anymore
since the war on terrorism has proliferated terror.
You know, I just like handy things like that
as opposed to looking for the drones
that are going to bring me my packages.
Really?
Well, there is actually another story
that came out this week about ice fishermen
in Minnesota that have been told
they cannot use drones to get beer delivered to them.
They apparently were using drones
to have beer delivered to them out there on the lake.
On the ice.
And the FAA stepped in and said,
no, you can't do that.
You've got to use your regular SUVs
to get the beer to you.
Which, you know, to me that says,
yeah, this is coming.
This kind of thing is coming
where all kinds of things are going to be in the air.
And I don't know.
I'm going to pizza by drones.
Don't laugh.
It's going to happen.
I know.
I think, though, that you do want to have
the ability to critically engage technology.
And this 50,000-watt transmitter
gives us the ability to do that.
212-209-2950.
212-209-2950.
There's really no hidden agenda here.
It's about volunteer community programmers
committed to following subject matter for years
and holding corporations accountable
in a way that no one else does.
Not the paid media.
Not the sponsored media.
212-209-2950.
And support Off the Hook by calling that number.
You can sign up for the WBAI Buddy System
and have the amount you choose
taken out of your bank account once a month,
which is, I think, the most painless way to do this
and the most beneficial way for us as well.
You can go to the website,
give2wbai.org, 2 being the number 2,
and pledge that way.
And you will feel good.
You will feel great after supporting this place.
212-209-2950.
212-209-2950.
Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
And hang in there.
I know it's a tough job.
I cannot imagine what you have to deal with
on a day-to-day basis,
but it's always good to see people who have that spirit.
And I just accidentally reported a cop
on the road right outside the radio station.
This is what this program can do.
You hit a button,
and all of a sudden you've said that, yeah,
there's a police presence.
And I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to do that.
So if anyone thinks that...
Well, actually, there probably is police presence anyway.
There usually is.
There's a police helicopter over on top of me
right now, actually.
That might have been me that did that
because I had your address,
and I reported...
You know, we'll talk after the show.
We are out of time.
You can, again, write to us at
oth at 2600.com.
That is our email address.
We will be back next week
with another fundraising edition
because February is the month of fundraising
here at WBAI.
The Personal Computer Show is up next,
and they have all kinds of fun things planned.
Until next week, Manuel for Off The Hook.
Have a good night.
Hi, I'm Bob Henley,
Interim Program Director at WBAI.
I'm pleased to announce the returner
of our classic fund drive number,
212-209-2950.
That's 212-209-2950.
Over the years, WBAI has offered you,
the listeners, memberships to WBAI.
You are our primary sponsors.
You provide the bulk of the funding
to keep the signal on the air.
By calling 212-209-2950,
you may ask the WBAI pledge representative
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Again, that number is 212-209-2950.
Donate today and help keep this
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