And you're listening to radio station WBA I New York the time is 701 time once again
I hope that's understood
And you're listening to radio station WBA
And
A very good evening to everybody's program is off the hook Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this
Tuesday no Wednesday evening. I'm sorry. I am all mixed up joined tonight by Mike. Hey there. Happy New Year
Happy New Year
Rob T firefly good evening. Happy New Year Kyle
Hi and Bernie s
Happy New Year from Philadelphia. Well in case you didn't get it New Year's is right on and
Right on the horizon and it will be hitting us pretty soon. In fact, we all have some predictions for the new year
I believe we'll be getting into in just a little bit. But
first a couple of a couple of things
2600 meetings I believe some of them are taking place this Friday
Some aren't because it's New Year's Day and some things are closed and some things are not
Rob, I believe the Citigroup is open. So we are having meetings this Friday
It does appear so the Citigroup meeting will still be happening on Friday
in your local if you're not in the New York area check your local meeting pages and things to see what's going on for your
meeting and you can go to
www.2600.com slash meetings to get a full listing of all the all the meetings
Well, that is you can go there if if if the powers that be allow us to tell you that we we have some
Enemies we have some people who do not like us and those of you who are trying to listen to the radio show over the
Last week or any radio show or really anything?
Involving us might have noticed some difficulty getting through to us
That's because we've been under relentless attack by somebody with lots of resources who apparently we really pissed off and good
I'm glad we pissed off the right people
but the problem with that is that
Much of our site was unavailable
For a good part of the week and it could happen again, we're making changes so that this doesn't affect us quite as much
But you know, it's it's one of the reasons why I have such
bad feelings about denial of service attacks
no matter what side they come from because it's it's
The last resort of people with no imagination. They they don't want to debate what you have to say
They don't want to actually have a dialogue
They just want to shut you down and lots of times they succeed in doing that
But I don't consider that to be a victory in this particular case
I just want to thank all the people who have come forward to help us out while we've been going through this
It's it's a bit of a torment, but it's one that I think we've been dealing with in various creative imaginative ways
We had to reroute our website someplace else so that people can get get news about what was going on
But also we're improving our infrastructure so that when this happens in the future and it will happen again
We have more backups that we can go to we have more bandwidth that we can rely upon and more of a presence throughout
The globe so that is an important thing and it also kind of speaks to what has happened to us over the decades
Whether it be law enforcement or corporations or misguided individuals whenever we get attacked
We get stronger we come back strong this is true of hackers in general when when they're there
when they attempt to intimidate hackers or control them or limit them in any way word gets out and
Things rapidly move in the other direction with even more force
so that I consider to be a
Positive development. Hopefully people will be able to hear the show on the website this week. We'll see we'll see if the
People person that we upset so much allows that but you know
I find it interesting that in this day and age such a thing still happens and is still possible
There's so much that needs to be done on that on the internet to to make
Make things more accessible. It's very easy for
Those of us with lots and lots of bandwidth and power to cut off access to those without as much
Even people who have a lot of bandwidth still can get cut off and when we're talking entire countries
and and and populations of people that
Are basically left without a source of news or the ability to go to the sites that they want to go to?
These are things we have to work upon in in the years ahead and hopefully make it a bit a bit more fair
So that's that's where where things stand. You can always write to us. Oth at 26 hundred comm our emails are working fine and
I know Kyle we've been going through a bunch of this having all sorts of debates and conversations with people
I've noticed a lot of people say you know what the solution to this is a solution is just move everything into the cloud and
Not have to deal with it anymore, you know not run your own machine have somebody else do it leave it to the experts
I think is the phrase you came up with that seems to be the theme lately of
So many things that we've noticed technology wise
People want us to
To simply not configure our own hardware or software. Let's somebody else. Let the expert take care of it
any kind of
technology that
That individuals might have been involved with in the past
Best to either let an expert take care of it or to automate it completely
Seeing that more and more as a theme and it's it's troubling
It's troubling because you see normally intelligent people that that buy into this. There is nothing that compares to the thrill of
Running your own machine and and how much you learn from doing that if you simply hand it over to some some cloud-based
System someplace where you're just a little spec and they're a massive
Array of hardware
You get nothing from that except. Yeah some service you get
Service under their rules they can control you they can cut you off they can do whatever
But you don't learn anything about how systems work. You don't learn how to design a better system
And you don't get that thrill of seeing something work that you put together yourself
Yeah, truly. There's a huge trend towards this
It's I kind of liken it to webmail a little bit. It's kind of a bad parallel, but
instead of
Writing being this sort of vast diverse medium
The trend is towards homogeneity to where we just use services
it's called infrastructure as a service is really what we're talking about and
What's going going on is it's become incredibly cheap to run these massive virtual
Server farms basically that a lot of different hosts provide and the options out
There are equally as vast
as far as different people that all want to host your stuff because basically they buy
bandwidth wholesale and
they're trying to
cover their costs recoup their their costs for that by
Creating a virtual host where you then
Are one of many on the actual physical infrastructure?
I don't mind so much
massive amounts of data being stored someplace
On a farm someplace
But I do mind when people aren't learning aren't learning how to set up a machine aren't learning how to run an operating system themselves
They just leave that to somebody else
You know it might it may sound like
Old school, but we're talking to 90s and and and post-2000 where where people kids would put together their own Linux boxes
And and and and figure things out and configure better, and it's still going on obviously it's still happening
But there is more pressure now more people saying that this kind of thing
Is is a waste of time and you just leave it to the experts. They'll do a better job. It'll be cheaper and
You wind up with a bunch of people that don't know how technology works
Go ahead Bernie, and then Mike I just want to say also another
Thing to consider about whether you want to host your own
Server or entrusted to a third party are some really serious privacy implications
Yes under under federal law under a court now
Supreme Court decisions when you when you turn over on
Your database to a third come third party company to manage
You no longer have any Fourth Amendment rights Fourth Amendment protections for that information
It is then considered third-party business records, which law enforcement no longer needs a warrant to
get a copy of and
I'm sure you are that's one of the one of the reasons you
Decide to have your own server with this information your 2600 information other information on it
Yeah, we're talking about the website in this particular case which you know it has customer public information
But it also has it also has logs which could be used to hurt somebody if they
Were from a place. We're going to a hacker site might might cause them
Some kind of penalty so yeah, we protect that and we want to be able to have control over that Mike
So I mean I agree with you Bernie, and I think we need to fix the laws here
They're they're horribly broken in this regard as we've discussed on the show many times, but I do think there's
value in
Having the freedom to you know when you don't want to deal with setting up your own server
Which takes time and effort and on an ongoing basis right maintenance?
To be able to focus on the parts of the technology that are the most interesting to you
I think is extremely valuable and extremely freeing and extremely empowering so
I think it's great
You know when people want to really dive into whatever level if they want to dive into the lower levels
And play with hardware, or if they don't want to do that
You know deal with only the uppermost levels the client facing stuff
I think that that can be immensely empowering as well, so I don't think it's fair to say you know that everyone must
You know you host their own stuff where they're doing it wrong who said that who said everyone must do anything
You you criticize the people who are moving away from it, which is implying that like I say
It's an unfortunate trend especially in the hacker community
I don't think that's a healthy thing if hackers people who take pride in building and modifying and exploiting things
Turn it over to the experts and let them deal with it while they do something else
You know hackers are still playing with telephones
We should know how these things work, and we should be encouraging people to experiment with them and build better things
It's very difficult to experiment simultaneously at all levels of the stack technology is getting more and more complex
And for a lot of good reasons
So you can experiment with some with level X of the stack a lot more
Freely a lot more easily a lot more quickly if someone else is taking care of the other levels of the stack
And I think that's incredibly valuable a lot of the time well. I speaking personally I enjoy
Running our own mail server well
Then I suppose to so many others who who like corporations peruse their mail and send them ads and things like that
It's great to be able to have some control, but it's not for everybody
I know it's it's it's easy to turn it over to somebody else and let them do it
But I just want people to be aware that there are options out there
and I think that's not being expressed enough people are told this is the way it's done and
Anything else is a big waste of time and old-fashioned, and I don't think that's right especially in the hacker world Rob
yeah, there's always been a certain amount of
Like the the big the big boom in the in the publicly in the publicly used web was when the average person got access and
when people didn't want to run their own sites or figure out how to code their own HTML or whatever and we had things like
Geocities and stuff like that where people could just put up a page and
Contribute what they had without without knowing the nuts and bolts of it, but but yeah
There there is always there was always the people who who were rolling their own and doing it for themselves, but nowadays
You could you could say that okay?
Nobody's building their own servers anymore or to a much lower degree
but in another way you have this whole internet of things trend where people are just
building all sorts of gadgets and trinkets and all of which have their own internet connections and interactivity and
So so maybe we're seeing a bit of that a bit of that hacker spirit in a different way now
Maybe but do they understand how their own gadgets work how they're put together
No
I mean no one does
Literally zero people on the entire planet can tell you how a computer works at all levels not at all levels, but
So people focus on the levels that they're most interested in and yeah
Maybe you think that the level that you know the best is the most important one
But like there's lots of levels are important to different people, and I think that's not only fine, but wonderful
See I'm so far away from a technical person you would not believe it
But I still have an appreciation for how certain things work. I know
When something is going wrong where to look these are not
Difficult concepts at all and I think it's important
Just like you know knowing first aid is something everyone should have a basic knowledge of knowing how your technology works
I think that's a good way to avoid
Being taken advantage of because there are certainly a lot of entities out there that want to take advantage of us
Another thing I think that could be said is that
You have a lot more flexibility in customizing things with
Creating your own systems like this, and I think that the other thing I
That so if you want to add something down the road if you want to like add a massive sort of
Processing capability or some other sort of new type of hardware or or capability
you can physically add that if you're if you're hosted somewhere on a virtual machine or
or another type of
sort of mass-produced
Array of processing power you don't get a real as much of a say in that I think and and
It's also it's it's it's it basically reduces the overall diversity
So I feel I have a lot of different feelings about all these different things. I'm kind of talking about but
That diversity is I think important
individually for people that want to customize stuff, but also
Overall it makes sameness sort of normal with yeah, everybody hosting in these spaces
The innovation is sort of as we said left to experts and so individually we don't have as much flexibility to
Customize and we're not exposed to a situation where that benefits us. We're not going to innovate because it's already sort of
Kept away from us in in any way, so I think overall like as a group we we
We lose out a little bit
By by deciding that it's too hard again. You know I'm not I'm not condemning it
I think it's it's it's a great accomplishment
and it's useful for many things, but just like old technology new technology if you dismiss one and just
Embrace the other you are you are losing something you are destroying something. Yeah, it's it's it's not that one or the other
I think is better. It's that they are absolutely not they are they are not the same
And and I think that that
The awareness that you can kind of do your own thing and that that some people still do that
I don't think that's there kind of like what Mike said that nobody knows entirely how
Computer works well these were some of the things that would expose you to how they work
By having to take on some of these things and and come up with you know what goes where and and what you need?
And they sort of parameters and budgets and things like that
It is time-consuming and so on but it's
as you said I think a bit gratifying for people that have kind of had a win or
Accomplishment in in implementing their own sort of setup absolutely it leads you to become good at other things as well
Yeah, there's always that sort of joy of a technical hobby and pursuing it and learning during the process and everything
It's you know hackers always love the car analogies
It's it's like the difference between somebody who just goes to the shop and buys a car and somebody
Who who builds a car from parts in their garage over the course of however long a time you know one of those people is?
driving around and something that they acquired and the other way like has has that experience and knowledge and and the joy of
Gaining you know use of their work
I guess what I'm trying to say is we all have relatives who who tell us at the holidays that
I don't know anything about technology. I just do what I'm told. I don't know you know
I'm I'm a complete moron when it comes to this and that's not true because a lot of people that
Assume they don't know anything about technology
Actually do know something and if they applied it a little bit
They would be able to say hey wait a minute this doesn't make sense
We can do it better by by having this particular command instead of that one or by arranging directories in this particular
fashion
and they might find out that they're not as
incompetent as they claim they are and that does that opens up all kinds of doors when when when people realize that and
I just shudder to think that hackers of all people in the future saying
I don't know anything about that gonna leave it to the expert. I just don't see that going to a good place
Right and like competing for how cheap and it seems almost that like well
I you know I have this obscure host here that you know I run my site from and it's it cost me nothing
And I get all this you know bandwidth and haha
I'm like so magical and and it's like a competition to to
like
reducing all
possible costs without any sort of
Well because they don't care about that or or have chosen to not really right
build any of that themselves, and I think that the focus on that I mean as a group we we then
Have less people that are capable and that discussion of how things work and and and so on
becomes like a niche thing and
I I just think that there's some danger there because as Mike and Bernie pointed out the laws
Are not in your favor if something happens and also if they're like all this okay?
So the sameness and lack of diversity and systems is one thing, but if there is all this sameness
You're all sort of susceptible maybe to similar failures
especially in like a system that's like running a hypervisor, so the actual equipment is is
Sort of blind to the virtual machines, and you're just simply one instance in like memory or something on that
Actual physical machine I'd be interested in what Bernie would would say about
subpoenas on the physical hardware
like if something is
Taken from our machine that we run. We would get notification the the host would say hey somebody wants to come in blah blah
Okay, but if you don't actually have any involvement with a physical machine. Do you get notified like I'm curious
That's not true
under certain circumstances
People that we know have had their machines that they own in data centers just disappear
The friends at May 1st people link
Okay, ran a server, and and they happen to just by coincidence have put a camera on their rack just a couple weeks before so
there's footage of
You know police officers in suits coming and taking their machine away
And and as it turned out the machine had no information at all on it
It was a big waste of everyone's time right, but yeah, the law is terrible
It is designed to favor the people with power that that's something we've discussed on this radio program many many times
I think the point though is that you see when your server goes away
You see when when you know either a log tells you or hey a USB device just got plugged in
There's something that you see whereas in a virtual environment
It's very likely you will know nothing about what's being copied or accessed or duplicated to another machine someplace else
But Bernie I believe there was a question for you your thoughts on this
Yeah, Kyle asked what I thought about
The privacy implications of your hardware might might just clarify that that did it
You know it doesn't matter about the hardware versus the information on it
If it's third-party third-party information government can get it without a warrant if you're interested your
Your server whether it's email server or web server to a third party in the cloud
You were hosted in the cloud
You can't you have no say about the privacy your Fourth Amendment rights to that information
Rights to for the protection of information or out the window and you won't necessarily even know
if as Kyle pointed out that
You you get a notification when government will go after that information not necessarily
we just had a guest on the other the other week where a
Client of
his
Government of sent that sent our guests a national security letter and the client wasn't even
Allowed to know that they were a target of a federal guest investigation and that information was going to be seized about them
So you really lose a lot when you host your information in the cloud to a third party?
And I agree with Emanuel that you should at least try if you care about these things at issue
That we've been talking about at least try and explore about how you can post it yourself
either on your own property or in the data center Emanuel you you I mean some of the
2600 servers are
Hosted else are hosted on machines that you own at another location as well as your own
So what have you I'm sure you research supply of privacy implications of that haven't you?
Absolutely, but and the thing is with with machines that we always have full access to the machines
They always are real machines and and and we're able to change things
To our hearts content where the location it could be all different sorts of places
But yeah, I think what you hit the nail on the head there learning how something works and then maybe letting it go and saying
Okay, I know how this works. This can be done better someplace else, but at least having that basic understanding
That's that's really all I'm trying to be about trying to say here
Yeah, yeah, certainly
I think what what we want to impart out of all of this is that you should educate yourself and know like the kinds of
Services and and the details of whatever you're doing as far as hosting some kind of site on the internet
and I think the other risks we talked about like a machine being taken and
Those kinds of realities, I mean that's something a you would notice and it's it's a risk
Absolutely of having a system in a in a location that isn't necessarily your house
I mean even in your house somebody could come and take your machine or or or other
Events like that could could hamper your your ability to do
what you want, so I don't know I I think that there's there's still the risk of
Like if you have an intrusion detection system on your computer
If someone plugs into that machine the physical machine will alert you through that system, right?
Or you you can create those kinds of systems
But if it's say hardware that you don't really have access to you're just in sort of an instance in this hypervisor
How would you be alerted? How would you run an intrusion detection system on hardware?
That isn't actually real hard and you don't even own it
It's not yours and that's that's the theme that we seem to be embracing more and more
You don't own a DVD you license it you you don't own
Electronic books you just have a license to read them for a certain period of time in the certain conditions
More and more we're being told we don't own or control things
That we always owned and controlled before and I think that's something we really need to resist
and that that's why it's important to right now as
Due to the way the internet works if you want to put up your own server and have it do whatever you want
You've got that option
you know whether you know how if you don't know how you can learn how and
You can put it up you have that option and while we have that option it's something valuable
the the biggest strength of the
Information environment we have is that the info is out there if you want to look for it
You can teach yourself how to do something or you can go
You know figure it out and and do it and right now
We can still do that if we want to you're saying right now
We can still do the you envision a town is this part of your prediction that it soon
We won't be able to do this anymore. It might be when we get to that. I'll maybe go into that
All right, well we did threaten to to give predictions for the new year
and we've each had a little bit of time to think about something and I think that
We'll have a good a good variety here
And I also want to open this up to listeners if you have predictions what's going to happen in the next year
technology wise hacker wise
Let's try to keep it in that ballpark our phone number seven one eight seven eight zero eight eight eight eight that I would not
Call that right now because if you do
You'll wind up taking a tour of the radio stations phone system because I think you get about ten rings
And it bounces someplace else, and we still don't know where that is
Well, we're trying to we're trying to figure it out. It'll be a pretty boring to tour to it'll just sound like ringing
Yeah, until it hits a voicemail somewhere, and then you have to hang up and try again
But the number when we say we're taking phone calls seven one eight seven eight zero
Eighty eight eighty eight is is the phone number give it about ten or twelve rings
And then hang up and try again if you want to wind up on our switchboard my prediction
I'll be first I guess since it was my idea
I think I think in the next year
Hackers will be blamed not necessarily implicated
But certainly blamed for some phenomenal thing that goes on with the 2016 presidential election whether it be
electronic voting that somehow
had some sort of snafu in it or or a
polling system that
That the numbers don't make any sense or nonsense candidates something involving hacking and something involving the
2016 presidential election they will collide and
It'll be all over the news. That's that's that's my feeling
Kyle do you want to go next? Yes, okay? I have two predictions
Assignment was for one, but go ahead go ahead. Oh, no. It's okay hackers. Don't follow things. I know okay. I think
Virtual reality will again be much hyped and go nowhere as far as people using it
Okay, you can't say something will continue to do what it's been doing. It's got to be a prediction of something different, okay?
All right, I think
Journalism will be respected again in 2016 wow that's pretty radical journalism be respected any any reason why you think that might happen I
Think that we're going to continue to find out things from leaks
And we're going to continue to cover things that hadn't been covered in the past because of
More and more independent journalism. I have I have high hopes for it all right. Well. I hope that works out Bernie. How about you I?
Hope Kyle's prediction comes true, but when they were student leaked a bunch of classified documents to journalists
I don't think journalism
Journalists, I don't think journalism got a a much greater opinion in the view of many people
I think a lot of journalists
Press outlets got blamed for informing the public a Bernie. Let's not tear down our
Happened everyone has their own predictions, and whether they come true or not will will reassemble in a year
I hope I hope it happens. I said, but in any case I
Think that just a week before last we didn't really have a chance to talk about in the show just a week before last the
The Senate and the Congress in the Senate passed
The big omnibus spending bill the federal budget and part part of that which
Was really snuck in at the last minute with this cybersecurity information secure security act
The information sharing act rather cybersecurity information sharing a clever way of saying that yeah, well CESA
I think a lot of people call it, but it's a clever way of
calling this bill on
About cybersecurity when it's really about the information sharing the cybersecurity information sharing act what the information sharing is is it allows?
Any third party like become one we've just been talking about on this show that host information
For themselves or others if they have any
Cybersecurity incidents whether it's a hack or something they thought didn't look right they are allowed to turn over all that information
Including the data itself to law enforcement and intelligence
agencies
Without there being any any warrant or anything for it
I predict and one at one about one of the hallmarks of this
CESA bill to pass this through the budget is that
Consumers mere people like you and us
Don't no longer have the right to sue
These companies for allowing their their systems to be made vulnerable to all kinds of unauthorized access
so in as long as they let the
government intelligence agencies know that
That
That that there was a there was a security problem
So I predict that in the coming year since this just passed a couple weeks ago. I predict in the coming year
We will see incidents where consumers have no recourse whatsoever no class action lawsuits
No individual lawsuits will be allowed against companies who have major hacks on their site on their on their data
And it's private data belonging to you or me or anybody I predict
It's gonna really hurt people and
We're not gonna have any idea of what information about ourselves is being shared
By companies when they are really poor about their security and they tell law enforcement. Hey, we had a hack
Here's all our information poke through it all you want
So we don't care any can't get sued your prediction for 2016. Is that a law?
That was just passed will will continue have already been passed
Well, no, but my prediction is the ramifications of that law that was just passed a week before last is that
Will be where I agree. It's not a big change
It will it will be a bigger change from a liability standpoint now companies don't have to worry about getting sued when they turn over
Our private information to third parties and they don't have to have now security
Letter thrown at them or anything now all I got to say is hey
Hey, we think there was a hack and now
They tell if they tell law enforcement about it, they can't be sued for for their poor security
Bernie I I'm I don't want to return
Your prediction to you. I that's not my my purpose here. But why just when I asked for some clarification
maybe maybe could you come up with a a
Hypothetical specific, you know as not not a real company, but to say
Something like this will happen
Involving a company and a person something like that. Sure. Suppose
suppose a
Big medical a pet insurance company insurance company that has a health insurance company
Here's a good example health insurance company that has a whole lot of really private information about your personal health
Like what other health diseases or or or medical treatments you're getting
You know very private stuff is protected under some federal law now by HIPAA now doesn't have that protection if
That company their big hospital chain or whatever it is
I'm sure sure insurance company if they get hacked through their own negligence and they tell law enforcement. Hey, we just got hacked
and
We've notified you and and fulfilled our obligation under under this new bill now law enforcement can paw through all your private health information
and
you have no say in that and
Despite HIPAA you have no say in that and you can't even sue the insurance company or the hospital president
You're in present tense Bernie. It needs to be in future tense
Well, you're saying how it is now. All right, you won't be able to sue
I can't just build a past a few days ago
you won't be able to sue the insurance company or our or health care providing corporation for
revealing all your private medical
Information to to law enforcement or intelligence agencies. Okay, that almost seems like a certainty though with this law
I was I'm trying to find out if you think something extraordinary might happen. I don't think it's extraordinary
I think I think it's an extraordinary thing that now we're really gonna be we're gonna I predict that it will that what will happen
Soon is there were those ramifications of it. It hasn't happened yet. But the bill just passed a few days ago
I'm predicting people are gonna predict people are gonna wake up and become very angry that this thing happened under their noses
Really quickly this this this information sharing bill was passed in the dark of night without any deliberation at all
By our legislators because it was tacked on today. Now you're in past tense. Okay, fine
We've got a prediction. The prediction is that people are gonna become very angry. I hope your prediction comes true. Oh boy
All right, you know what we need to move on but Rob it's your turn. You have a prediction for us
I do have a prediction. I I have a prediction about what we know is sort of the deep web or the dark web
That that little slightly shadier corner of the Internet shady as in you can't really see what's going on
There quite as much I think I think it's gonna become more of a mainstream thing because right now
It's still kind of populated with people that have the technical. I think chops to make it work. It's still a bit complex
I think it's only gonna get easier
I think maybe since we're dealing with the fallout of things like like season now and
And other things that sort of want to take the options away from us to do what we want to do with the net
I think it's gonna become more of a thing to more of a normalized thing rather than a thing. That's just
People know about because scary news reporters talk about it
I think it's gonna be a thing that more people use maybe on a day-to-day basis
It'll be like I'm just on my way to the dark web. I'll catch up with you later
Well, can you think of something that an average person might use a dark web for that doesn't involve blowing up a city?
Maybe an average person might use the dark web to arrange the sale or purchase of something. That's legal
Interesting. Okay. Well, I'd like to see if that comes true Mike. What do you have? I have a very short prediction
My prediction is that?
2016 will be the year of Linux on the desktop
Okay, all right, that's really what you came up with that's my prediction
He must been a real hit in school
Okay. Well now our phone number is 7 1 8 7 8 0 88 88
If you have a prediction for the new year a technology wise in the hacker world or anything else, please give us a call
We'd like to hear from you
again, 7 1 8 7 8 0 88 88 and that note about the phone if it rings more than a dozen times best off hanging up
And calling back until we get the the wandering phone line
Symptom fixed here at the radio station
Yes, my prediction was going to be that pearl six would be released, but apparently it actually happened. You know your predictions really
There I don't know. I don't have time to really go into it
Okay, waiting for the phone to actually light up
So I'm not sure if there's a phone working you guys were here last week and it works last week
Maybe people don't have any predictions that is that possible?
No, that would be sad. All right
I
Just figured we get blasted with phone calls. That's why I'm kind of
Don't have anything to say, you know, as soon as we start to talk about anything else people will call
Okay, we'll start talking about something else in you have a whole I have a whole bunch of stories here
well, apparently the
the company known as AVG was hacked and
And and all of their a lot of data that people trusted them with nine million people. In fact
their information now is out there because they
Thought this company was going to protect them
AVG confirmed the flaws that it created a quick fix as soon as we were highlighted to it
Our first and foremost policy was to get a fix to market
But the episode underscores the frustration many people feel about computer security
You think you're doing all the right stuff keeping all your software up-to-date
installing antivirus protection
AVG a computer security company offers this software
Software promising to help keep you safe while surfing the web
So you should be able to trust them according to this this article on CNET and it's it's a rude awakening
It's not the first time apparently if you install the AVG in addition to the alleged security software, you would also get
They would install an extension to your web browser that would reset your home page to go or not your home page
But reset your search engine and all this stuff so that AVG could make more money and they did it
Which is terrible enough and they did it in such a way that other websites could could then get access to your data because
You were now running an AVG extension that you didn't know about in your browser
The the security industry really has I think some answering to do. Okay, if people are afraid to call
Here, let me let me open up this a little bit more. It doesn't have to be a prediction. It can be a wish
How about that a wish for?
2016
You think that might be a little more palatable it might be I did just try calling the switchboard and it started blinking from
My phone so I hung up of course because I don't want to take up a phone line
But but it does seem to be working. So I have no listeners. That's basically what's happened
That's seven one eight seven eight zero eighty eight eighty eight. Yeah, we know that you can call us now
Now maybe we're off the air that could be too and off the internet
Maybe we're being denial of service attacked on all fronts. I can hear us. Yeah, we're in the same room, but
Seven one eight seven eight zero eighty eight eighty eight. Here's a call. Let's see who's out there. Good evening. You're on off the hook
All right, please turn down your radio
Hello, yes, do you have a prediction or wish yes, go ahead
yes, my my I I
believe that I
Believe that
The airlines are gonna see a serious problem
with
terrorists hacking in to all the new
Air air buses that are being created all the new planes that are being created. They are so sophisticated the
777 the
757s all these airlines and
Aircraft are being made that
Have sat links satellite up links
Because from what I heard I was watching an airplane documentary and they suspect that terrorists
Were actually bringing down airliners are using a sat link
You know connection with the Internet, but there is no proof of that
But oh, you know, I predict that that will be a serious issue
That's a good prediction and I gotta say, you know
If they are short-sighted enough to to stick navigational controls on something that's accessible from the Internet
It will happen at some point
there are ways of having me you can have technology, but have it be secure and isolated and I see a lot of times where
Shortcuts are taken and that doesn't happen
Yeah, but the thing is is that that Malaysian airway?
Airlines of like that that disappeared
Excuse me. They were saying that
Possibly that that was a terrorist act even though if it was a terrorist act, they will keep it a complete secrecy
To not cause mass hysteria and
if they did cause mass hysteria, it would actually bring
The everything would come crashing down the airline industry the airport TSA
Transportation, you know, okay. We'll be afraid to fly. Yes more so than than today
Hey, listen, we're gonna watch another call because we do have a bunch now. So thanks for that. That's that was a good prediction
Good evening. You're on off the hook
I'll get your phone. Hurry up
You there?
Okay, we don't have time for people to find their phones. Good evening. You're on off the hook
Go ahead. Yes. Do you have a prediction or a wish for us?
Yes, I do. I predict that enough computer savvy people have listened to this show and the next show
Will have what WBAI memberships through your show and they'll be able to vote in the Pacific election
online Wow and
They'll be able to depose the people who are sabotaging it by doing research at something like Pacifica in exile
So that's my prediction and my hope well, I'm we take it for what it is. Thank you for calling in with that
somewhat biased
Prediction good evening. You're on off the hook. Go ahead. Do you have a prediction or wish?
Yes, could I ask a question, please? All right. Yes, go ahead
I'm kind of new to the computers in terms of using it, you know
Mm-hmm very central to me because I'm in a industry now where I really need it. I tell you
It leaves me very frustrated, you know and angry
Well, I've been to the overcome that will that tone down this time born and I keep messing with it. Well, it can
What whether what do you find that that frustrates and angers you the most?
Just you know, like when they when I go to somewhere they tell me to go somewhere else and then it's just you know
I have a brother. He's very good at it. He told me to follow the links, you know
I don't know. I'm kind of new at it in and in the past. Yeah when I was working
I was working two jobs and it just always left me in a hurry. So if some didn't come right away
It kind of frustrated me, you know, so I haven't overcome that yet man. I'm not working
I think Rob might have something that's helpful. I predict that it does get easier. I've known many people in your position and
Generally a good thing to do is check your local library and your local high school
See if they have some classes that you can take for basic sort of computer literacy
That is a thing that that a lot of places have available and it can get you very comfortable very quickly with what you need
Okay. Okay. All right. Good luck with that and don't follow all the links. I don't go to nice places
Good evening. You're on off the hook. Do you have a way short prediction for us?
Yes, I I have actually some very sad predictions. Well, we're open to those. Okay. Yeah. Well the first one is that
Julian Assange will be kidnapped by the US government in
2016
I've been hearing that prediction every year now for the last well, okay fine
but but the thing is he's approaching his for his five years statute of limitations and and and the and the Swedes are gonna back
Off and he's gonna step out and then you'll be back here in the u.s
But won't that just legitimize everything he said and make the US government extremely bad government doesn't care
Okay, the second one is the is
Kim calm
He won't be kidnapped, but he will be extradited to the United States and it will be a great show
Yeah, you know, that's a good prediction. That is a good but that's it's a sad prediction
You're right. But if that were to happen, it would be the this show
Why I want to say of the century but of the year in New York's gonna be a very big show
It's gonna be a mega show
All right, the worst one though, and this is the horrible prediction you have more okay. There's one last prediction
Let's hear it is Donald Trump will be no. No, no, no. No, no
No, look we ask people to be realistic here. It gets worse
How could make it worse with Putin and then Snowden will be kidnapped Wow
That's how bad it's gonna be in 2016. You're pretty pretty dark, sir, but I'm gonna think about these
Wow, all right. Thanks for your call. Okay. I'm sorry about that. No, it's all right
It's all right. Pessimism is what we deal with a Trump Putin meeting that I can't go well for anybody
Nobody's mentioned life. I yet
Yeah, let's take another call first and we can maybe get into that good evening you're on off the hook you have a prediction or
wish
Yes. Oh, thank you so much
I want to see that love the creativity of your audience
But I think the most important thing is that we're gonna try to have another chat nougat. I'll lock a mr
Rove and it may happen on more than one side. It may be Republican and Democrat and I was listening to
Jill Stein the other day talking about the fact that
people who had excessive college debt could really tip the election with the green vote and I wouldn't be surprised if the
African-american community and women would back this at this time and if we could get the computer community into this
And doing a hell of a lot of poll watching. We might have a fair honest election
Well, that is a prediction that I don't think many people have come up with
Thanks for sharing it with us. Thank you. All right. Take care. All right, Kyle. What's this life? I you refer to?
Oh, no, we were talking about planes and there was a couple articles about
Life I being introduced on planes and I'm wondering if that'll happen next year and I'll have to predict that we all have to get
new phones so that we can use
Life I which if you don't know about it, you probably hear about it. It's basically
Data over light like LED lighting
so there's some interesting things going on there and
That came to mind when he was talking about things going on in planes. I think you'll see that on planes before
Anything. Okay, that's a good additional prediction from you
So I can pull out my old laptop from the 90s with the infrared port on it and it'll be useful again
Not exactly. Yeah, I wouldn't pull that out on a plane. Good evening. You're on off the hook
Well, hi, do you have a prediction or wish I have a hope or something?
I don't expect it to happen this year, but maybe it'll eventually happen just like it eventually happened that you could connect
Could you've got modems on computers without having to install them, you know, which took a long time, you know from 1979 till about 1995
Maybe they'll get voice control of these very small devices because they don't have keyboards
They don't have my there's no mouse. We're not normally a mouse. That's what even with your finger
You can't even use your finger. It's impossible to use. It's very difficult to use these kind of things
So you think that voice voice?
Technology and control is going to really take off. I'd be a lot better and I think it will take off
But I don't know when it's going to happen. God could happen
It could happen, you know anytime when somebody's doing something, but it's been delayed because the technology is already there
Yeah, yeah and
Speech technology. There's a lot of disciplines involved with that kind of stuff
Artificial intelligence and and on and on and on and on. So, okay. Well, we'll make that your prediction for 2016
Yes, you know about Putin and Trump
Trump claimed in one debate that he'd met Putin because they've been on the same show
Same episode of 60 minutes and they didn't even meet they were on the same. Yeah
Well, he wants to he wants to just make things
Confusing enough, right? He's conflating those things. He's mixing up. Yeah, he was on it. But yeah, it was
Exactly. Oh, yeah, exactly
Exactly. He's conflating being on a show with actually meeting someone. Can we not give this man?
I know what kind of veering off into a ditch
I just wanted to say because somebody else mentioned it. Okay, any other predictions, sir? No, I mean, well, yeah
I would like to get back to that PC board or something like that. You know something like that on the Internet
Get back what something like the way the BBS is used to work, you know, okay
Yeah, so some kind of like public forum where people post and yeah
Yeah, they can post they can direct messages to particular people that everybody sees them. Uh-huh. Okay. All right
But different than today's social networks, that's right. Okay, we're gonna move on. Thanks. Thanks for that call. Let's take this one
Good evening. You're on off the hook
Hello
No, it's not it's the hacker show
I'm sorry the hacker show. Yes. Did you have a prediction or a wish for us for 2016?
Can I have a question? Is that possible? Okay
Okay, I'm
What is the dark web and to?
What is this secondary layer of Internet that I hear about
There only a certain amount of select individuals are allowed to use it. Ah
You might be referring to Internet, too
Okay. Yeah, which is the sequel to the Internet? Well Rob, why don't you discuss the dark web?
The dark web just just to totally scratch the surface is it's basically it's basically
a part of the Internet that is behind certain types of encryption and obscuring technology that that basically
To a degree protects the identities of the people putting up the information or viewing the information
Rob how can one get started with the dark web?
One can get started by by doing a web search on the engine of your choice for for a dark web
Intro I think or things like that because there are a lot of great sites out there
I can't name any off the top of my head, but that will that will
That will get you started. Also tour browser is a thing to get hold of
That that is a browser that will basically it's basically the dark web in a box for you. Yeah, but I think when people
Assume that the tour and the dark web are analogous
It kind of does a disservice to what tour is really all about it does tour tour is a technology that's used in the dark
Web, but it's not itself the entire dark web sort of like wheels are a technology that it that's used on trains
But not all things with wheels are trains
but but yeah it that will that will get you started on protecting yourself a little more and
Getting getting your intro to what goes on on the dark way. I don't know much about Internet, too
I do know it's used at many educational institutions. It's got a tremendous amount of bandwidth and it's it's it's restricted use
But it's used for research and I'd like to use it someday
It's also tied in with Internet exchanges, that's basically how they use it for regional connectivity and then the universities connect to the exchanges
But it's a huge experimental project
The you dubs involved in other other institutions. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure to what degree it's still a thing
But it's it's not separate from the Internet. It's just allows
universities to communicate with each other
More quickly, but it's not like there's this great like secret thing going on on the Internet, too
That the rest of us can't get access to how do you get access to it?
It's just it's part of the Internet
How do you reach it? How do you reach what Internet to how do you reach it?
You walk on to a university campus
So you have to go to a university campus to get on to Internet, too
But you won't really notice anything different unless you're unless you're trying to exchange large amounts of data with other universe
Well, my question is can you can can I in my in my home connect to Internet to using my internet?
connection
And I think that's a question. Most people will I don't really know how to answer that
Definitely connect to more information about it. Uh-huh. See this is this is the kind of obscurity that we need. Yeah
Okay, then you're on off the hook. Go ahead
Great. I'll ask my question and then listen up there. Okay what prediction I
Unfortunately have a darker view of American public. So I think the Internet
Problems that you're making or making us aware of will be amplified and will be a greater crackdown on our Internet access
And then a question that you can address if you quickly I put on a VPN
One of my devices and I got a message from them saying you've reached your limit of bandwidth
So if someone could explore that briefly, I'd greatly appreciate it and he was good with
There could be a couple things there generally encryption like is used with VPNs
Takes a little bit more than regular sort of clear communications. I'm kind of simple oversimplifying it a lot but
So that is possible that bandwidth could have spiked a bit when you implemented this. It's also
it's also true with some hosting and
And even hardware type services that you get a certain amount of VPN connections and so on and so forth
Which could also be factored into whatever kind of billing they do but that's also a little bit general
Yeah, I mean, I think the the more likely situation is the second one that the VPN provider itself
Is only willing to give you a certain amount of data either for free or for whatever you're paying and used it all up
Yeah, it's fairly common. Yeah. Okay. That's it for us. We're pretty much out of time tonight again the reminders 2600 meetings
may be taking place this Friday in your location if the venue you go to is open on New Year's Day and
if that's not the case, they will take place the week afterwards and
we believe
Our meeting here in New York City is taking place this Friday, so maybe we'll see you there. Good night