WBAI.org. There's a great selection of plays, events, discussions, concerts, movies. I'll definitely find something. All I have to do is click on the header that says tickets. I'm saved! Happy birthday, sweetie!
That's give to the numeral 2 WBAI.org and click on the header that says tickets.
How majestic. And the time is just about 7 o'clock p.m. You are listening to WBAI 99.5 FM. And it's time for another exciting edition of Off The Hook.
WBAI.org.
WBAI.org.
And a very good evening to you. The program is Off The Hook, Rob T. Firefly here with you in the WBAI studio. And I'm joined on the telephone by Bernie S.
Greetings from Philadelphia.
Our roving reporters, Emmanuel and Kyle, are still on assignment. And they'll be back as soon as their grounding is over. And we'll hear all about their adventures on a future edition of this program.
But we are joined in the studio today by a very special guest. I'd like to introduce Neo.
And a special good evening to you.
Neo is one of the speakers at our upcoming conference. Bernie, you've heard of this conference.
This is the HOPE Conference, stands for Hackers on Planet Earth. And it happens every two years. And as it happens, it's happening this year, July 22nd to 24th. And Neo is one of our honored and honorable speakers this year.
Aw, you're making me blush.
Neo is also a regular face at the HOPE conferences, has been for quite some time. He's been one of our invaluable volunteers and just slaving away with the rest of us to try and make this action happen.
And make it better than ever, always.
Always, always. So this HOPE, you've submitted a talk. Would you like to give us a little capsule of what your talk will be about?
The talk is about when VGA is not standard out, or for those in the plain English speakers, what happens when you try to use a computer with the monitor disconnected.
Many of our less represented users are those who are visually impaired, blind, unable to look at a monitor for long periods.
And we explore the basics of how to code for them, what kind of user interfaces are appropriate, and also the vulnerabilities that they are going to succumb to.
Just a case example. Take out your cell phone, close your eyes, try to make a phone call.
Well, most people can't. It's a flat screen. How do you know what you're pressing? How do you know what you're not pressing?
These sorts of topics come up regularly.
They do, and they're not very well addressed in the mainstream, are they?
Well, they're addressed up to a certain point. It falls under the great umbrella of accessibility, and accessibility I can explain in under 60 seconds.
Please do.
If you insist, I will.
Rule number one, it is not about dumbing down your content.
It is not about spoon-feeding information.
It's not about any of the sacrifices of security for the convenience of the individual.
It is about self-reliance, self-sufficiency, and maximizing the independence of the user.
Do we have a clock? I think that was a 45-second speech, so I'll give you 15 seconds.
But that's the gist of it.
And for the blind user, especially today where everything has a gizmo, everything has an operating system to it, it's a little bit more difficult.
Indeed.
And so what are some of the specific solutions you're going to be addressing in your talk?
Well, we're going to talk about, essentially, case studies.
For example, when you want to program, let's say you want to design a website, you want it to be accessible, one of the big do's and don'ts is, well, gee, if a webpage is going to be read to you, try to design it like a radio program.
Try to design it like, here's my header, here's what I'm going to talk about, here are the links, so on and so forth.
A lot of plugins, for example, Java is notorious with screen readers.
Not everything has to be in a text form.
I've seen a lot of webpages, most recently the MTA.
I just took a look at it earlier this morning because I was preparing these slides and hoping that you will all come and watch, right?
But they have, for example, an accessibility link, which only talks about their accessibility.
Their other version, which is their text-only version, believe it or not, does not reside within the MTA.
It's handed off to a third-party server.
Really?
Which dumbs down the page.
And it dumbs down the page in exactly the same order, which means if you wanted to find out, for example, gee, I'm going to take a wild guess, for a train running, you have to go through the entire page just to find out where the link is to find out whether trains are running normally or not.
That's terrible.
It's more of a pain in the rear, more than anything else.
But, for example, also Google, they also have an accessible version of their page.
Anybody who's sighted can go onto the Gmail, see their emails, and navigate very quickly.
When it comes to the blind version, well, one, they do address it at the very beginning of the page, so it's like the second thing you hear.
But when you go into the page, again, you have to go through your inbox, your outbox, your spam, your archives, any other folders you've made.
Then you have to get through the search buttons, then the settings buttons.
Then it reads maybe a snippet of your email, by which time you've fallen asleep.
Hey, Neo, I have a question for you.
Go right ahead.
Well, first of all, is it more proper to say blind or visually impaired?
Blind is okay.
I think blind is okay.
Okay.
I personally believe in being blunt.
Okay, so do I, frankly.
But I don't want to offend anyone.
Of course, but exactly.
Because blind can have other connotations.
Right.
But do blind people, who can't see, are they used as consultants by the MTA or there are contractors who roll this stuff out?
Or do they just rely on fateless people who like say, well, if I was blind, I would do it this way.
Well, it's a little bit of a combination of A and B.
Some places I do know where they are employing blind people and visually impaired people to act as advisors or as ombudsmen.
There are other places where they just outsource it.
And there are some places, and quite a few places are happening, excuse me, let me start from the beginning, where most places that are being most directly and most adversely affected by failing to provide this ability is actually in the community colleges.
A lot of community colleges have been taken to court for failing to be accessible.
And at that point, it becomes very difficult because programmers want things a certain way.
The user experience and user interface people want it another way.
The marketing department wants it another way.
And in all of that, the functionality of the page tends to get overlooked and how people will be able to access this information.
Now, does the ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act, does that play any role?
I mean, that was written into law before there were web pages, I believe, or maybe the very early days of web pages.
Does the ADA extend its accessibility requirements to online media?
Well, I think the way I would describe it is this.
Even if the ADA does not explicitly state all publications must be accessible, one, there is an exception.
Two, copyright law called the Chafee Amendment, which allows, under certain circumstances, to make accessible versions.
So, for example, if you have a textbook that's used in a class, the publisher is allowed to provide a brailled version.
So that's addressed by the ADA.
But with the web pages, mostly it is until somebody says something is wrong or is dysfunctional, there's no emphasis or no obligation to do so.
There's a sort of good faith approach to the problem.
Right. We've seen parallels like in television with the addition of closed captions and that becoming more and more of an expected thing versus just something optional that they had.
There was also a very funny, well, not funny, funny, but an interesting case with Netflix.
A curious incident?
A curious incident with the Netflix series Daredevil, which, if you're not familiar with it, is about a blind superhero.
And as there are closed captions for people who are hearing impaired to read what's going on, there are also audio descriptions made for some programs that describe the action for those who can't see it.
And it's a very pricey process in both cases.
And in the case of Daredevil, the show about a blind superhero, they didn't have the vocal descriptions up until people started asking, hey, you know, some of us are blind.
We'd like to enjoy this show about a blind superhero.
And Netflix ended up adding the descriptions a bit of the way into the season, I think.
But I think the way to describe at least web accessibility is sort of the equivalent of the fans will jump in and fill that void and then get flack for it.
That's kind of what I'm seeing happening in general in the community.
There are other places that take it very seriously.
I know there are certain companies, I don't know whether I can mention them on the air, but I'll just say that there are some very well-known companies that are doubling down on accessibility as we speak.
I mean, even if it's not just the right thing to do, which obviously it is, it's a big market, isn't it?
Well, not only is it a big market, many people think of it as a niche market.
But if you consider the number of people who are blind and visually impaired, everybody is aging.
You have a larger community of baby boomers going into retirement.
Your vision fades as you get to that age.
You are preparing for it.
Spoiler alert.
Spoiler alert, folks.
It ain't pretty at the end, but there's my existentialism for you.
But nonetheless, the market is there.
And also, it's extremely expensive to be a blind computer user.
There is one case scenario where I had a client, and she needed a new computer.
Her old computer had broken, wasn't talking to her, the hard drive was failing.
We got her a new computer, and believe it or not, out of the $5,000 price tag, about $3,000 was just setting it up so that it was accessible.
And this was on your standard laptop.
It was not top of the line, but it was definitely new.
And most of that cost went into just the licenses and the setup so that the computer could become accessible.
I've looked at some of the prices on some of this stuff, and it's really expensive stuff.
It is extremely expensive.
Probably because we're not renting out in huge mass marketing quantities.
I knew an attorney back in the 90s named John who was a blind.
He worked his way through law school blind, and he was an excellent courtroom lawyer.
But I was in his office one day talking to him, and he showed me all the hardware and software he had to have to be an effective attorney.
And it was really expensive, complicated stuff.
Absolutely.
It was really – I was blown away.
I'm still blown away that there's one piece of hardware that was handed down from someone which is very legacy.
It's not anywhere near up to date.
It doesn't even have USB.
It works off of a weird serial connector port, and put it on the market, and it's worth $300.
And yet it is a Braille note taker, 40 column, something very simple, something that we would go around with like a piece of paper and a pen.
And yet this equipment is so expensive.
So one of the great things about the Hope Conference is you can go up on stage, explain the problem, and say, okay, makers in the audience, here is your challenge.
Absolutely.
There is money here.
Cha-ching.
You can pay your rent with this.
And you can do it better because you have a finer understanding of what you need to accomplish, how to accomplish it.
You're probably working with maybe nanomaterials or microfluids or something that I can't even imagine nowadays.
Oh, God, I'm getting old.
But we are on the cusp.
We are on the verge.
This is what the Hope Conference attracts.
It attracts people who are on the very edge and on the limb trying out new things.
And you never know.
Maybe somebody has a great idea but just needs that spark to get it going.
Absolutely.
One of the hugest wonderful things about the maker community is that it offers the chance for people with these needs to connect with people who can serve them, maybe with open source materials, maybe with just their own ingenuity, maybe with an idea they had while washing their dishes one day that they never thought would be useful or go anywhere.
But it brings it all together where people realize, yes, this is worth doing.
This is worth providing for.
This is something worth accomplishing.
And it's at events like Hope that I think the community has brought together in a really wonderful way, and a lot of great projects have started at Hope, at events like Hope, at just in the maker scene to serve some of these needs.
Now, you've been coming to Hope for how long now?
Oh, good God.
How long has it been?
Ooh, I want to say about 10 years now.
10 years.
Yeah, so I've survived five of Hopes, and I keep coming back.
Why is that?
I must be mad.
Mad, I tell you.
We all find ourselves wondering this.
I think now it's about a month until the conference.
I think a little less than a month, actually.
Just a little less now.
And this time next month, we will be at the conference, or it will be going on, won't it?
I mean, a month from today will be the first day of the 11th Hope.
The first day of the 11th Hope in one month.
And it's been a ride, and it's still a ride.
And come to the conference.
You'll see us on staff and our colleagues there just looking very sort of dazed and confused and also doing what we do there.
But it's all for the best of ends, I think.
One of the things that left me awestruck, and I do mean awestruck, was at our previous Hope.
On the third day, suddenly I realized there were a lot of children around.
Yes.
And that was something I'd never seen before.
I'm looking forward to seeing how many people bring their kids and how many eyes just bug open in amazement.
That makes it worthwhile.
Yeah, and it's great.
I've been to every single Hope since – I've been involved with organizing every Hope since 1994, the first Hope.
And all of us in the hacker community who've been around that long, myself accepted, have – well, maybe not all of us, but many of us have had bread and have had children.
And where this is going, there's going to be – I am interested in seeing Hope grandchildren this year.
It's very possible.
Oh, the challenges have grown.
It is being the 22nd year of Hope.
It is entirely possible.
Mathematically speaking, it is.
That there could be Hope grandchildren at the 11th Hope.
Fibonacci lives.
We're breeding a new generation of hacker, but it's going to be interesting for them especially because for them, all of these gizmos, all these tchotchkes, all these blinking lights that we take for granted or we had to fight for, it's theirs.
They're going to take it to the next level.
Who knows in which direction?
Hopefully for the good because after all, power requires responsibility.
I'd love to see this.
This would be – I would plot.
Exactly.
All of us have lived through amazing developments over the past recent decades, technological developments that we talk about at Hope at these 100-some speakers.
The young folks coming in today – I sound like an old person.
Well, I am an old person.
But anyway, the young folks – this is their new baseline.
All these amazing developments have come up.
That's the baseline for them.
It's like, oh, we need to do way better.
Our experimental is now the new normal.
Exactly.
Shocking.
That's what is so amazing at the Hope conference.
You can learn about where we've been, where we are now, and where we're going from 100 really – 100 or so really fascinating speakers.
And frankly, one of the reasons Emanuel is not on the air tonight running the show is that he's been really working day and night, incredible hours, with Rob and myself and others on the speaker selection committee trying to get together the final talk approvals to get the schedule in place, which is a massive –
imagine a huge multivariable equation with 100 people who all have different availabilities and what times and days are available and the topics and which of three rooms they're going to be in.
It is amazing.
And the sheer volume and range of submissions we've got.
I've been working at Hope for a long while now, but this has been my first time on the speaker committee involved with that end of the process.
And just finally seeing – of course, I always suspected – but finally seeing the sheer quality of the things that come in and the great stuff that people will be speaking about, the stuff that unfortunately we won't be able to fit in but people can still do in the spare track that we have where you can just walk in, claim a block of time, and do whatever it is you like.
But just the stuff, the stuff that will be discussed at Hope and the things that will be shared, it really – it's a cliché thing to say, but it gets better every time I go, and it's heading that way now.
There's workshops as well.
Some talks that were better suited as workshops were a hands-on event in a room with all people getting hands-on.
There's a lot of workshops.
Sometimes there's talks that break out into workshops afterwards.
Sometimes talks that were submitted end up just being workshops by themselves because they're just better suited to that.
And as Rob mentioned, there's a fourth track with three tracks simultaneously, but there's a fourth speaker track where anybody can sign up.
Yeah, three scheduled tracks.
Unscheduled track.
You can sign up in the morning for a one-hour slot in this room right off the mainstream rooms and give your own talk right off the cuff.
I do want to mention something that's very similar, but along the same lines of what Neo is talking about at the 11th Hope.
We have another visually accessible type – visual accessibility type talk coming from a different angle.
Oh.
From the folks at – this is kind of unofficial news, but I'm going to leak it.
The folks at a company called Beeline Reader, Nick Lum and Andy Cancino, have worked very hard to come up with a means of displaying text that is much more readable for some people.
And I'm one of those people.
When I first saw an example of this text, it's a certain way of shading the font with colors and gradations in just a certain way that people's brains that are kind of miswired, like my own, who find reading fatiguing because we lose our place to the next line sometimes.
This effortlessly moves it to the next – when I first read a paragraph that was coded with Beeline Reader, I'm like, oh my god, this is so easy.
This is how other people read?
So there's going to be a demonstration of this and a talk about how this was developed.
And there's different – this is building on other technology, which is all about hacking and technology, about building on other people's work.
But this is another similar thing that some of our – I expect when this is demonstrated at the 11th Hope, this Beeline Reader thing, that there will be audible gasps from the audience when people see it.
Like, oh my god.
I think there's a higher incidence of people with attention deficit disorder in the hacker community than in some other population.
That's just my theory.
I would also wager that the hacker community, which basically lives nose to screen all the time, would definitely benefit from something because it is taxing on the eyes.
It's always taxing on the eyes.
Sure.
But also one of the things I'll point out and I'll just throw out there is accessibility is not just for people with disabilities.
I've seen – I was just coming out of – I think it was Path Station or maybe it was Herald Square.
I don't remember what station I was coming out of.
But I saw a gentleman with his cell phone way out in the – off in the distance.
But I noticed that in the right hand, he was sort of gesticulating.
And I realized, oh, he's having a phone conversation and he doesn't have to carry a teletype anymore.
This is a shock.
Front-facing camera we always thought was like terrible because, oh, selfies.
No, no.
So he was using sign language.
He was using sign language and expressing himself.
He did not have to use that intermediary anymore.
Wait.
So he was – so are you saying he was doing a video conversation with his cell phone but signing over it?
Exactly.
Wow.
That is so awesome.
See, that's the reaction I was expecting.
I mean that was – I sort of said, what is he – oh, my.
Ooh.
Wow.
Now, Bernie, you remember the relay phone operators that we've been dealing with for many, many decades.
Yeah.
In fact, at the very first HOPE conference back in 1994, I gave a talk about TTYs and TDDs.
Right.
And there's –
What's that?
There's an example of a technology that basically if you're using it today, it's not really improved from how you were using it 20 years ago.
Go ahead.
Go ahead.
That's right.
So, yeah, these relay services exist where you – if you were a sighted – if you're a sighted and hearing – or if you're a hearing person,
but you want to talk to somebody who cannot hear, there are these – the federal government, the FCC has, I think,
has been involved with mandating these relay services in each state where you call a toll-free number,
and then there is a person who will basically transcribe your words over a keyboard to someone that you're trying to reach
who then has a device that will display their text in a way that they can interpret it and vice versa.
And it's – you know, it works.
I've tried it in a lot of – in fact, you'll find that in a lot of public places they're required to have a TDD phone,
and it's like a pay phone with a special tray on the bottom of it.
With a keyboard, yeah.
If you want, you can play with it by calling 800-855 – man, I forgot the number.
Well, email us at – if you email us at oth2600.com, we will send you a phone number.
I think I had actually a 711, an N11 phone number if I'm not mistaken, but I probably am.
That's another thing, but there's a toll-free number, too, to reach.
I remember that now.
AT&T Relay Operator.
When I said 1-800, suddenly my brain got into gear and said, what was it, what was it, what was it, what was it?
800-855-1155.
There you go.
I just brought it out of the depths of my brain.
Deep storage, deep storage.
From 1994.
But the funny thing is, in 94, you know, I remember 9X ads of that era offering high SDN,
and you can have, you know, video telephony.
But no one ever said anything about, hey, you can use this for sign language, too.
Or, you know, here's a picture stream, or here's your own home television station.
And yet now here we are at the new normal, and we're seeing how accessibility is coming into play.
Just ask anybody who's too lazy to, you know, pull their cell phone out of their pocket.
They just say, okay, Google, hello, Siri, excuse me, Cortana, you know, and they ask the question.
Accessibility is for everyone.
That is a top notch, and, you know, try it out.
Some people find it easier.
When I was doing a major transcription job of Star Raiders, it was very helpful
because I could keep one eye on the keyboard, one eye on the original text,
and I would have the computer read back as I was typing it in,
and I would find typos just as I was going along.
So accessibility is not just for disabled people.
It's for everyone, and it's not, you know, it's not a crutch.
It's maximizing your potential.
And we're going to see a lot of potential at The Hope,
and we're going to see a lot of people look at things a new way.
And there should probably be a new phrase or something like,
today's accessibility is yesterday's impossible.
In other words, what we take for granted today, you know, like Siri or something,
was, you know, yesterday's science fiction,
and now we rely on it as making technology more accessible to us.
But different people have different needs when it comes to accessing technology,
and I find that really fascinating because everybody's different,
whether it's their vision or how their brain is wired
or all kinds or how they're physically designed or injured or whatever they have,
all different needs and ways of accessing technology that we all need to access.
And it's not just the technology.
The root of it is to get to the information or to get to the source,
and the technology is just an intermediary,
and the barriers of intermediaries have been going down year after year after year after year.
I mean, who would know what a TTY or a TDD is nowadays?
You know, these are these legacy signs you have up where phone booths used to be.
Nowadays, it's, you know, it's all in your pocket.
Right, and it's a very human urge to, when you think about the subject of accessibility,
to think about, okay, can I use this, can I access this, is this useful for me?
And the hacker community, for as long as I've been involved in it,
which is a very, very long time,
it's always been a very, I think, a particularly diverse community
in terms of outlooks, in terms of abilities, in terms of where everyone's coming from,
in terms of what everyone has to contribute and everyone's, you know,
what ideas everyone's sharing, but it's always been about, to a great degree,
it's been about collaboration, it's been about helping each other out,
it's been about sharing the information you have
so maybe somebody else can do something cool with it that you wouldn't have thought of.
Inclusivity.
Inclusivity, yes.
That really is the hallmark of the hacker community.
Very rarely you're going to find a group that is as open, as welcoming, as warm, cuddly maybe even,
but we welcome the different.
We take it on as not just a personal challenge,
but a source of pride that we've never turned anyone away right from the door.
And it's also, I know we have a lot of listeners.
I know some of our listeners maybe won't be able to make it to Hope this year,
which is sad, but it's not just about this one event.
It is about the hacker community in general, and it is a very open community.
If there isn't one available, anybody can start a new 2600 meeting in their area.
Anybody can start meetups.
Anybody can put the feelers out there and see who else is out there, not only on the Internet,
but in real life, in spitting distance, in your local community, and you can get something going.
This is how things start.
This is how any of this started.
That's where Hope came from, isn't it, Bernie?
It absolutely did.
Even before the first Hope in 94, back in, I think it was 1990,
I started the 2600 meeting here in Philadelphia,
and a couple of blind kids showed up at the meeting.
And I was blown away.
How did they find out about it?
How did they get here?
Once they were there, they were just like one of us.
We were just all talking, and it didn't matter that they couldn't see.
But that made an impact on me.
They were so really fascinated with the whole world of hacking.
First of all, that they managed to even know about it when 2600 was just a print publication,
and they managed to get there using public transit.
I mean, I was blown away, and that just really had an impact on me.
These kids showed up, and they were welcomed, and warmly welcomed,
and were really part of the community right away as soon as they showed up.
I was like, wow, this is great.
Bernie, a few Hopes ago, two or three Hopes ago, you and I had done a panel
basically talking about 2600 meetings and how they got started and how to start your own
and a bit of the history behind all of it.
That's worth punching up on YouTube or Hope.net or what have you, I think.
I don't remember offhand which Hope it was.
I think it was two Hopes ago.
No, it was longer than that.
Really?
I think so.
The years really fly by, don't they, Robert?
They really do.
They do.
I was talking to Hank Key, our friend Hank Key from the PC show,
which broadcasts after us here on the station.
We were talking about, as we were mentioning earlier on this program,
the whole generational shift where the kids who grow up today with the Internet,
with smartphones, with all this stuff going on around them that we've watched develop and grow,
they've got it from the start, and they know how to use it.
I remember being the smart kid whose parents, teachers, neighbors, elders were like,
can you come fix my computer?
I can't figure it out.
That was something running DOS or Windows 3 or Windows 95.
Nowadays, it's smartphones.
Everyone's grandkid knows how to use the smartphone that they don't.
It's just the new norm.
It really is the new norm.
But still, you have a whole generation that still has sort of a DOS mentality
because they're accustomed to it.
They're comfortable with it.
One of the things that I've discovered just servicing the blind community is once you have a tool,
you want to use it forever, and you will go to great lengths to maintain that tool.
Sorry about that.
Did you just take off, Bernie?
It's a police helicopter flying over.
I'm sorry about that.
Are you in danger, Bernie?
What have you done?
No, I'm not.
I'm here in Philadelphia, which is kind of a police state.
They're gearing up for the DNC next year, maybe doing practice next month,
maybe doing practice runs.
They're just flying over my house here.
It's pretty strange.
Sorry about that.
I'm sorry if this goes over your head.
What I would like to do, Bernie, we've got a lot of other things to talk about.
We should.
We've got a big news story.
Oh, yeah.
How about you bring that up?
We didn't really have time to discuss it last week because we had that live remote broadcast
from the Telephone Museum up in Maine.
About ten days ago, I think it was, a U.S. court upheld that the FCC does have the authority
to enforce net neutrality.
This is something that some of the biggest companies in the United States have been fighting
and pushing back against, and yet the FCC prevailed in the public interest.
I think this is a really significant case.
I wish Alex Trebellos, who was on last week, could join us because he's an attorney.
This is a really amazing development that will surely be appealed to a yet higher court.
What do you think about this, Rob?
I think it's huge.
It's something that we on this program have been talking about for many years.
It's something that many people have been fighting very hard for for a long time.
It's also something that seems like an especially fragile thing.
If we're not very, very careful right now when everything's critical, we could very quickly lose this.
Could you explain a bit about why this is something important?
It really comes down to what I call greed and extortion.
The big Internet service providers, big telcos like Verizon and Comcast and Time Warner,
big Internet service providers, have realized that they are the gateway between the world of information and their customers.
When their customers subscribe to the Internet, which is really, to use a hackneyed phrase,
the information superhighway, these companies realize, hey, we can monetize.
We can be like the new gatekeepers.
We can be like the old turnpike operators and charge an extra fee for this data from different companies
to get to our subscribers.
Even though our subscribers are paying for ostensibly unlimited data to access everything on the Internet,
we're going to strong arm these other companies that provide, whether they're a big company like Netflix
or a small monopoly company that has a website that didn't want to pay extra to get this information to the consumer,
which I think is just grossly unfair.
We're already paying for the Internet access, yet these big Internet service providers want to take a piece of the action
and extort the providers of information for even more money.
And guess what?
If these other information providers don't pay, the Internet service providers can throttle that data,
like slow it down a lot.
Or just make it disappear.
Make it disappear or just prioritize it so their customers can't get it on a timely basis
or it won't be as usable.
Or won't get it at all, which is a lot.
Generally, these Internet service providers have been caught doing this.
People, when they said they're not doing it, they've been caught doing it time and time again.
And the FCC, surprisingly in our public interest, Tom Wheeler, President Obama's choice of chairperson of the FCC,
who used to work for the cell phone and cable companies, has really been surprisingly pro-consumer
in pushing this along and fighting to force, basically make it illegal for these Internet service providers
to be the gatekeeper and prevent and to charge extra for data providers to get the data to the consumers
who are already paying for Internet access.
And this is going to affect all of us, folks.
This is like the crux of the thing.
Nobody can just start their own Internet service provider and get access to the Internet directly.
You've got to go through an Internet service provider to get to it.
And what if they just said the Internet service provider, whether it's Verizon, Comcast, or Charles Morris,
says, ah, we're not going to let you see this webpage.
Or we're going to charge extra money to this provider of information so that they may not want to be able to afford to pay us
and you don't get to see that data.
There's so many ramifications involved with this.
It's really important.
It's basically, I think, a key part of a free society, that net neutrality be a matter of law, civil rights.
It's also interesting to note that, especially among younger users, let's say, within 20-year-olds, teens, up to 30,
they look at the Internet and they see it as a sort of universal utility, the same way we used to look at telephony as a utility.
You can't operate without it.
I know a lot of people who say, well, I don't want to go online.
It's going to cost me.
Because they're older, they have that sort of long-distance telephony mentality.
But I think you're going to see a huge shift towards not just democratization in terms of speed or access to the information tollbooth.
It's going to become a universal issue, not just as a communications medium, but also as a programming medium, as the share of knowledge, the share of wisdom, theoretically.
And also the archives that we build up and how we essentially rebuild a sort of library of Alexandria over the years.
We're going to be able to look back and say, this was the moment or these were the processes that made it possible for our current society to exist.
Whether it's streaming, web pages, video, the whole dynamics of the communications field has radically changed.
And I think this is the time when all the ISPs and all the telcos are starting to wake up and say, hey, maybe we should have a common infrastructure.
Maybe we should cooperate.
Maybe there is good money to be made down the road if we open up.
And that's kind of the hope that – I hope that will be the convincing argument, if not the compelling argument.
What I find interesting, though, is that there's a conflict of interest here.
The internet service providers are typically all publicly held companies whose shares are traded publicly.
And their shareholders, they are legally required to maximize value to their shareholders.
That's their responsibility.
And the shareholders are saying, hey, we want you to squeeze more money out of these information providers.
To hell with the internet neutrality.
If there's money to be made by extorting these information providers, go get it.
And this is where the government really needs to step in, in my opinion.
Yet there are other arguments.
Some people think they're valid arguments from the internet service providers saying that, wow, this is going to impede investment and technological development.
We've heard that argument a million times.
What do you think of those arguments?
I'm just imagining what it's like to be one of these shareholders of one of these companies who are pressuring the company of which they're a shareholder to make things worse for them personally.
Because that's what this whole argument is.
It's like, please, make the internet, make the media environment, make the technological world I'm living in worse for me because I might get an extra few bucks out of it.
Imagine the senator or the congressman who suddenly can't get that one email on the bill that's up for a vote.
If they ever do anything, I know.
But imagine that they get slowed down and suddenly, oh, it's affecting me.
Well, I have to do something about it.
That whole dynamic is going to play out over the next five, ten years as it always does.
Speaking of Congress, wasn't there a really interesting story today that came out, Rob, about something that went down in Congress?
Which one was that?
Oh, well, that's right.
Anyway, yeah, this is a fascinating story that actually our colleague, Jens, who runs the audio streaming part of Off the Hook, sent us.
Let me find it here.
Basically, it had to do with the gun control bill, didn't it?
This would be something to the effect of a sit-in, if I'm not mistaken?
That might.
Yes, we're getting an emphatic nod from the Off the Hook studio audience here.
There we go.
Yeah, there was a sit-in by Democrats in the Republican-controlled Congress today.
And over a vote about some gun control bill to make it slightly harder for people to get so-called assault weapons, like AR-15s and so forth, like were used in Orlando to kill about 50 people.
So here's what happened.
C-SPAN, which is a non-profit organization with an amazing history, I encourage all of our listeners to research the history of C-SPAN.
It's really a fascinating story.
But they've set up cameras in Congress to stream on a cable TV channel.
C-SPAN, C-meaning cable, I think.
It was the cable operator's obligation to act in the public interest.
Right, right.
And then it's streamed online as well, on the Internet.
All the congressional hearings and proceedings and so forth.
But House rules allow the controlling party, in this case Republicans, to suspend things so that C-SPAN can't show the public what's going on.
Basically what they did is they made a motion to turn off the cameras.
Yeah.
And then what happened, a Democratic congressman, I can't find his name, I can't find it, but it's not that relevant, pulled out his cell phone and started streaming it over Periscope and Facebook.
That was Representative Scott Peters from California.
Right, and then C-SPAN started picking that up and putting that on instead of the censored TV stream that the Republicans are trying to say, we don't want anybody to see this protest going on.
And this is fascinating.
So it seems like this is going to be dead pretty soon.
This throttling, this gatekeeping role where the controlling party in Congress can say, we don't want the public to see this, we're just going to turn off the cameras for C-SPAN.
And now it looks like, what do you think is going to happen next?
Do you think Congress people are going to be banned from doing this or will they not be allowed to bring their cell phones in?
What's going to happen?
Well, I was just thinking more actually on the topic of guns because it wasn't that long ago that some computer companies insisted that they had a computer that was a super cyber weapon.
The combination of bad policy being made in the heat of a panic, that is always paramount.
Patriot Act, Patriot Act, Patriot Act.
Never make policy in the heat of a moment.
Allow some cooling off time.
The second thing is just the question of transparency.
This is a radical notion that here is a bunch of cable operators who are operating in the best interests of the public in order that they can maintain their monopoly or oligarchy or whatever the appropriate word is, but basically their social license to operate.
You have just shut them down.
That puts a question mark on Congress's social license.
If anything, it has heated up the tempers, the vitriol to a certain extent, and just the sheer shock value that here you are, you're watching a discussion, and suddenly you cannot anymore.
You have suddenly been cut off from a source that gives you the source of your democracy.
That's a little disturbing.
Yeah.
I mean the C-SPAN is basically the source if you want to see what's going on in Congress Live.
It has been for many, many years, and if Congress, which we are ostensibly founded on a principle of open government, on a principle of accountable government.
In practice, we know that that's not always the case.
But in a situation such as this where it's being so blatantly subverted by the people who – it's basically like if you're working at a job and you're being observed by your management or your superiors, and you decide you don't want to be watched by them anymore.
You just want to be allowed to do whatever you like.
I don't want to single out the Republicans either.
When the Democrats were in power, they sometimes abused this power as well.
Abusing corruption is a universal human quality.
Exactly.
It goes evenly.
We've seen terrible policy passed in the heat of the moment by people of either side of the equation.
All strides, all spectrums.
It's a human quality.
Wow.
Hey, Rob, do we have any time tonight to take listeners' calls?
I don't know if we have time to take listeners' calls.
We could give this a shot, see how this goes.
Let's see if the old thing works.
We could give out the phone number, which is 1718-780-8888.
We can see how many calls we can get in, in between whatever else we feature on the rest of this program.
We were expecting another guest in the studio tonight, but she wasn't able to get there in time.
Is it possible she may still show up, or don't we know?
We hold hope.
It is possible.
We hold out hope.
She was stuck in traffic earlier.
Oh, I have word that she is approaching.
Oh, this is good.
Oh, this is great.
Excellent.
In the meantime, as our colleague comes in.
Live breaking news.
Okay, we are joined by a new guest, who I'm very excited to introduce to our listeners.
I introduced to you Nina, who is presenting at Hope, the 11th Hope, coming up in about a month.
She is talking on a very exciting subject, and we have a little bit of time to talk about it.
Nina, how are you?
I'm so good. How are you?
Very, very good.
Let me see if we can get a bit more sound out of you.
Yeah, I talk really low.
Okay, if you move in a bit closer to the appliance there.
We can ask about, Nina, what are you presenting on at Hope?
Hacking your own DNA.
Hacking your own DNA.
Hacking your own DNA?
Yeah.
Or at least knowing enough about it so that you can do something about your health care if you have to.
Okay, could you explain a little bit about how that works?
Sure.
So, I did my own DNA.
I'm not going to go too much into it because it's part of the talk that I'm going to give.
So, I ended up finding out that I was going to die of reproductive issues, of some kind of reproductive cancer,
which is kind of great and awesome in itself.
And I ended up going to my doctor, finding out that the levels of some of my blood hormones were a little high,
and he ended up doing some tests and I may have saved my own life kind of thing.
Excellent.
Yeah.
So, that's kind of what I'm sending out to people.
And so, is this an issue that you think has been sufficiently addressed?
Oh, absolutely not.
No, not in any way.
And so, how do you propose to, I guess, get the word out about what's available?
So, healthcare right now is using precision medicine, which is essentially the same thing as doing your own DNA,
but they're doing it so that if you do have cancer of some sort, they can treat you accordingly.
So, for instance, I don't respond to morphine, and there are other things that my cells don't have the receptor for.
So, this way, they can go around that and treat me with things that I will accept, and this way it gets done faster.
So, right now, it's just pretty much for cancer treatment.
But I think it needs to be more spread out across the spectrum so that if there are any issues that you may not even know you have
or might have a higher propensity for, you can treat yourself now or get treated for it now.
Excellent.
Hi, Dina.
Hi.
This is Bernie S. in Philadelphia.
Hi.
I'm on the show every week from here.
Hi.
I'm really happy that you're coming to the HOPE Conference.
Me too.
Your talk was so well received.
So, looking forward to that.
I've got two questions for you.
Sure.
Did you find out in your own DNA analysis if you have Neanderthal ancestry?
I do.
You do?
I do.
You're part Neanderthal.
I'm not in the studio, but Rob and Neo, can you see some resemblance there?
Oh, wow, Dina.
No, I can't say that I do.
I don't know.
Maybe I'm a biased observer.
I really don't know.
I think Neanderthal babes are hot, honestly.
That's my impression.
I don't know.
All you humans look the same to me.
I'm going to say thank you, question mark.
So, Nina, biohacking, actually, Bernie, you're aware of this too.
Biohacking is something that we're seeing an unprecedented presence, I think, in this
HOPE without giving away any details that haven't been released yet of things that are
going to be happening.
But, Nina, this is, I think, a really exciting field right now, particularly.
How did you get into it in general?
Did you do it on your own, or was it just purely by getting your own work done?
So, no.
I was actually listening to your station in the car, and I knew you were going to ask
that.
You sound great, by the way.
Oh, thank you.
So, how did I get into this?
So, there is a female hacker.
Her name is Karen Elazari.
I hope I did not destroy that too much.
But I watched her on YouTube, and she said, hackers are the immune system of the internet.
And I was like, that's genius.
She's right.
So, I've actually worked in medical informatics for 10 years.
And I had a lot of projects that I wanted to work on.
I just didn't have a way to do that.
And when she brought it up, that was great.
I had inspiration.
And then last year was the inaugural year of the Biohacking Village at DEF CON.
And I was like, these are all signs.
I have to do this.
So, I ended up going, met with that crew, found a bunch of people that had similar interests.
And I was like, that's great.
And then I went to Body Hacks in Texas.
And I met one of the most influential people in my life at this point.
And he and I are working on the project that I had started 10 years ago.
No, six years ago.
I got my master's four years ago.
And so, he and I are working on that now.
And I just feel so inspired every single day when I wake up now.
It's not, oh, I'm going to work.
It's like, yeah, I'm going to work.
We should envy you.
That's an enviable attitude.
That's the attitude to have, I think.
Meena, my other question was, I've heard some mixed results from people that submit their DNA.
I just assumed it's just like you would go into a lab.
You would, it's just one of these things where you can just take your own DNA sample and send it out to some company, like 23andMe or something.
And they mail you back results.
I've read that some tests were done, like consumer reports kind of tests were done, where the same person sent maybe under a different name.
For like a quality control?
Yeah, sent the same DNA sample, sent different DNA from the same person to the same company or different companies.
You got dramatically different results sometimes.
Is that still a problem or is that been solved?
I don't know if that's still a problem.
I can totally see it still being a problem because results can get mixed up.
I don't know how 23andMe works, so I'm not going to bash them.
But I did my own DNA at Genspace and I knew it was mine because I was doing it on myself.
And I got the same results as when I sent it to 23andMe.
That's good.
You should double check then is what you're saying.
For those unfamiliar, Genspace being a local hacker space that specializes in biohacking.
It's the largest in New York, I think, right now.
It's in Brooklyn.
It's based in Brooklyn.
So one of the guys over there actually is at Cooper Union.
So he and I exchange ideas every once in a while.
Excellent.
Wow.
This is amazing stuff.
And you can hear more about it one month from now at the 11th HOPE Conference.
Hackers on Planet Earth, July 22nd, 23rd, 24th, right there in New York City.
Set your clocks now.
T-minus.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And anybody who wants more information about it can go to hope.net, H-O-P-E.net.
And I think probably in the next few days, all the different talks that will be,
a hundred some speakers that will be at HOPE this year and workshop presenters
and projects and so much is going on will be on hope.net.
There's a lot of general information right now,
but the nitty-gritty, all the information that's going to be presented
is going to be described probably within a week on hope.net.
Yeah.
It will be on hope.net.
It will be on Hope Conf on Twitter.
You could also stay tuned to 2600.com, our more general site of what we're up to.
And, yeah, there is just so much going on right now,
and it's just amazing to be a part of all this.
And I highly recommend that you, dear listener, also become a part of this if you're not already,
whether it means going to HOPE or whether it means seeing what's available in your own areas
or whether it means starting what's available in your own areas,
because that's, when you get down to it, what we're all about here in the hacker community.
There's no reason not to start.
Actually, so can I tangent off something you said way earlier, like 40 minutes ago?
If you can do so very quickly, because we've got about a minute left.
So I love what you said earlier that nobody ever gets turned away within the hacker community
because that's exactly how I feel every time I walk into a room.
It's like, oh, it's an embrace, and it's love, and that's awesome.
Indeed it is, and I don't think...
I'm speechless. High five.
We all...
I don't think we could think of any better note to end this program on.
I want to say that when you walk into the HOPE conference,
the 11th HOPE conference just like the previous 10 HOPE conferences,
you will feel the same way.
You will feel welcomed by thousands of people from around the world
who are really kindred spirits and just passionate curiosity for these things
that you can share with them and dialogue with them and network with them
and work on projects together with them.
It is a unique experience, so come check it out.
Absolutely.
And on that note, send us email, oth at 2600.com.
And stay tuned to this station, WBAI, for The Personal Computer Show.
For Off The Hook, this is Rob T. Firefly.
Thank you very much to our guests, Neo and Nina.
Have an excellent week.
The Personal Computer Show