At WBAI, the WBAI University of the Air and the Commons will present an open mic and forum
where people can come and listen and talk about the debate as it is happening.
That will be on the night of September 26th at 7 o'clock at 388 Atlantic Avenue between
WBAI and WBAI New York.
And how much fun does that sound like?
The time is just about 7pm.
You are listening to 99.5 FM WBAI New York where it's time for an edition of Off The Hook.
Yes, indeed.
It is time for off the hook
Our theme song was briefly interrupted by young Frankenstein, I don't know how that happened, but I'm not sorry
Who's in the studio today, I'm enjoined this is Rob T Firefly by the way
I should mention that and I'm joined in the studio by Jim and
I'm joined on the skype line by Bernie s
Greetings from Philadelphia
Yes, our compatriots Emanuel and Kyle or they've been fired off into space or something. They won't be joining us tonight
so we're gonna what is the what's the difference Rob between a
comrade a
compatriot and a patriot
Well first of all the spelling
Okay, I mean Jim really liked that question. I heard him explain in the background
Yes, it was compatriot is sort of a cross between a comrade and a patriot. I don't know
I don't I don't know if isn't isn't that a type of missile or I
don't know, but
We do have a lot going on. This is a
Special episode of the show in that it's our final episode in this time slot 7 p.m. Wednesday nights
Because there are all sorts of changes and shufflings and stuff going on
from next week
from September you will be
If you wish to find off the hook, you will find it on the WBA. I dial Wednesdays at 8 p.m
1 hour into the future
And they'll be a political comedy show in this slot, I understand. Yeah, I think I think our our colleague compatriot
Co-radio person Kitty Halper. I think I think she's gonna be on at 7
There's gonna be all sorts of political comedy things happening here 7 at 7 p.m. On weekday nights
But we have another announcement regarding the shuffling schedule here at WBA
I we had previously reported that our friends at the personal computer show who are
Have up until today been on Wednesday nights at 8 p.m
Where they will also be today after after this program
We had reported on their cancellation
I'm very happy to announce that that has been rescinded the personal computer show will now be following us Wednesday nights at 9 p.m
Yay
Yes, our friends Hank and Joe and and the crew from the PC show will keep doing what they do and you know
voices voices have spoken loudly on the PC show is loved and I think I think that message got to the
The right individuals here at WBA. I so they have been uncancelled. They'll be on an hour later
Just as we are so we will be we will be on next week at 8 p.m
Eastern Time America and they will be on Wednesday night at 9 p.m
Exploration hosted by Michio Kaku has been moved as a result of all the shuffling around to Thursday at 3 a.m
3 a.m. Thursday morning. So that's that's the latest word. That's what we've got to report about
schedules and and shufflings and and goings-on and
And
Yeah, so all sorts of things are happening here at WBA I all sorts of things are always happening here at WBA I and
it's it's kind of a ride being part of it and
Sometimes we have happy news to report as a result. So yes our friends at the PC show
Will continue to follow us here on the BAI schedule. It'll just all be happening an hour later
Which you know, although it means I'm going to have to stay up late
For another hour on Wednesdays, I think I think I'm going to be able to make the transition. What do you think Bernie?
Yeah, we're just gonna have to be
Later out night owls than we already are
I'm guess you're already like up till after midnight after the show from 7 to 8. Does that mean we'll be up past 1 a.m
Now they're gonna be moved an hour ahead
I don't know and is this like a daylight savings thing or we're all gonna be tired
But but we'll figure it out in the meantime a whole lot going on in the world
Bernie I'm hearing that that you were here speaking of shuffling around at the station. You were shuffling around here at the station
Very recently, weren't you?
Well, I was there last week. I was live in the studio for the first time at 388 Atlantic Avenue. I wanted to see it before
Before we moved to a new slot
The studio
Disappeared
God forbid, but yeah. Oh, are you talking about? Yeah, you're talking about Monday when I was there
What happened on Monday? What was that all about on Monday?
I was meeting with Pacifica's national technical director, John Alma and
a couple of gentlemen from the technical staff at
WPG's
I'm really losing it the Pacific affiliate because the Pacifica station in DC and
we met and talked about station issues and the telephone line situation and found out why our
We don't have a telephone line. It's because it's like twenty some thousand dollars and in
Phone bills that weren't paid and I found out why they were so high and I'm working on that now to get them reduced dramatically
so, um
Hey, do you never never ever get a phone line?
And you just never specified a long-distance or international provider and Verizon just assigned to their
their own rates to you
That's what happened at WBA. Yeah, and that that doesn't sound like a situation that can be good for anyone except perhaps Verizon
Well, right. Yeah, Verizon will charge you the highest possible rate allowed by law
which means like a call to
Africa or South America like a one-hour call could be hundreds of dollars and
That's what happened multiply that by I don't know how many months and years and that added up to a lot of money on
WPA is a
Payables
so I'm working with our
general manager and John Alma the national tech director technical director to
Choose a lower-cost long-distance provider week, you know, we've been happy to assist with this years ago, but we're never consulted in
Apparently this was an oversight that cost a lot of money
but the good news is we I'm hoping that bill can be paid and the calls the bills moving forward will be
Much more affordable to WBA. I so we can get our phone lines back soon. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed
We're working on we can but hope I mean if it's almost like being back in the 90s when long-distance calls cost
Something and it was worth trying to find clever ways around it
Like you you might know of if you if you were listening to this particular program back then
But yes now now as then if there's one thing we know it's it's getting cheaper phone calls
And so hopefully we can be of assistance through the rest of this and thank you Bernie for for coming up and and throwing in
on all this
on your time, I
also got to tour the
transmitter room
Atop the entire Empire State Building, which was really fascinating. I'd seen pictures of it, but I
got to actually
fondled WBA is transmitter on Monday night and
Beautiful rack mounted equipment. It's very hot. It's a hot piece of equipment
I'm telling you it's so hot that the failing air conditioner in that small room
Has been supplemented by a big box fan blowing on the equipment just to keep it cool
Our very able and ingenious engineer Jake plans has set up fans to
Keep keep it. So so and you know, WBI has more fans than we know about
And they're right there in the in the transmitter room and there's amazing copper plumbing up there
not carrying water, but big copper pipes that are several inches in diameter running all around and
Water is not running through them
Radio frequency energy is running through these big fat copper pipes thousands and thousands of watts of radio frequency energy running through them and up into a
combiner
Which is another massive
plumbing RF plumbing thing into the master FM antenna, which a lot of radio stations share and
It was really cool. Look at all
There's even an old rotary dial phone a working rotary dial phone on the wall in the transmitter working rotary dial phone
Yeah, so who do you call I can't get I can't give out the number over the phone because
It's this special emergency number that WPI uses
And somebody needs to read somebody at the transmitter room, but there is such a there is such a phone on the wall
There it exists. And I mean, there's just amazing and there's there's some actually Western or electric
Modems there from like decades old. There's some cool stuff in that room from back in the 60s
This is amazing. It was like a time. It was like a museum
Anyhow, it was it was very cool and I felt very honored to be in that room
Yeah, you got to you got to go go up there Monday night and fondle the transmitters
So, you know
We apologize to any listeners who were listening to WBA I at that time and and felt something brushing up against their ear
that was you know that blame blame Bernie s but
but yeah, so
how does it how does it all look up there for the for the
for the health and and
well-being of our equipment
Well the air conditioner up there needs to be or it's I've been told that the air conditioning
It's not just like a wall air conditioner. We need about
$10,000 just to have an air conditioning system to keep the transmitting equipment cool
I'm not begging for money on the air right now, but these are realities because this stuff gets really hot
and
It's it's it's been and you know with global warming and so forth this gets hotter and hotter up there
So it can cause the transmitter to fail and this is not hyperbole. This is real real stuff
There's an amazing, you know, it looks like a hackers. It looks like a hackers project
It's in WBA transmitter. There's all this equipment and racks just sort of strung together
It looks like you know, it looks like a knock at the network operation center at hope and there's wire strung everywhere
Only this has been going on up there. I mean periscape buildings since the 1960s
You can imagine it it accumulates the hacker ish
exploits of keeping this radio station together with the
Band-Aids and duct tape and so forth, but it was an impressive because it's on the air
We are now emanating, you know, we're emanating our our signal. It's a
50,000
Effective radiated power watts. It's really four point three thousand watts from the antenna, but it's so high and so big
Then
Effectively the same as a 50,000 watt signal and it goes about it reaches about 80 miles in all directions
so it is really an engineering masterpiece looking at looking at that up there and
seeing it was sort of a combination of an engineering master's piece and and a
Hacker ish project that's like all these wires strung all over the place and sure it's impressive. So it's a it's a good thing
It was really amazing to see how on how this radio station stays on the air
From a from a physical and electronic standpoint and
I was blessed to to witness this and all the more reason why folks if we're not pledging
We're not doing fundraising tonight. But if you just really want to support the station go to
the website
Give to WBAI
Give to WBAI.org
Right give to WBAI, you know, you need to use the numeral two now
Thanks to you give to WBAI.org and just pledge whatever you can to keep this thing on the air because the station's really in dire
straits
one of the treasurer just resigned from from the west coast and
Is it going to be pursuing a an academic venture out there in Berkeley?
um, so, you know, there's
There's a lot going on in Pacifica
We want to keep this on the air because if it's if it's sold or licensed to another station
We're gonna lose a lot of valuable content. So now I don't want to pitch anymore for this
It's uh, it's it's worth keeping on the air. That's all I'd like to say
Yeah, it's just it's just I think very very obvious more so than ever that it's it's nuts that we can even do this at all
That we have this this sort of ragtag operation that manages to pipe a signal to that facility in the Empire State Building
you know the historic Empire State Building and
blow it 80 miles in all directions and
Just keep doing what we do and making radio and that's that's something that all of us here believe in and that's why we keep showing
up, so
Yeah, a lot a lot of other stuff going on
We're not you know, not all the news this week has has been at has been at WBAI or Pacifica. There's a
There's a there's an article in the Washington Examiner
How the Homeland Security Department is eyeing a special declaration to take charge of elections
We've talked a lot on this program and and I'd hope and elsewhere about the the
vulnerabilities in in election systems and the things needed to
kind of
Tighten up security or what they can do what they're trying to do whether any of its at all possible
But according to the Washington Examiner even before the FBI identified new cyber attacks on two separate state election boards
which happened recently the Department of Homeland Security began considering declaring the election a quote critical infrastructure and
Giving the the feds the same control over security. It has over Wall Street and the electric power grid
Homeland Security Jay Johnson says we should carefully consider whether our election system our election process is critical infrastructure like the financial sector like the power
Grid, there's a vital national interest in our election process
So I think we need to consider whether it should be considered by my department meaning the FBI meeting the Homeland Security Department
And others critical infrastructure. So I don't know. What do you what do you think elections?
we're all we're all kind of experiencing the blowback and the chaos and the headaches and the
Crying and the whimpering that comes with election season. But what do you think? Is it is it something that's critical infrastructure on the on the level of like
electricity and plumbing
Well, it's not really a public utility, but I can see that I can see the parallel
I mean the election system really only gets used during you know
Primary and you know during you know when there's elections, which don't happen 24 7, but it's it's it's
critical to our our
Former government are are you know, a lot of people say it's our democracy, but we really live in a republic
Some some, you know, more local elections are decided democratically. Our presidents are decided
As a republic with
Delegates and so forth, but still, you know, should this system be compromised and we've been talking about the promptive
vulnerabilities of
electronic voting systems years for
15 20 years and
since electronic voting systems have been
been used and
All kinds of people have showed and we've been spoken at the hope conference
You go to hope.net in the search for election and find find some of these
vulnerabilities on this but now
we're hearing from the Department of Justice from the FBI that that
State actors that is foreign governments have penetrated various state
election systems
as well as the computers of the Democratic National Committee and
That should be worrisome. Although I don't think we should be any more worried about foreign state actors than we would about
Anyone else wanted to be malicious and flip an election one way it doesn't take much to flip an election along
We shouldn't be very close
Yeah
No, a lot of countries are pretty close to 50-50
and all it would take is
you know flip things a little bit here or there and
Leave no paper trail because there's no paper trail on a lot of these systems and you know
Yeah, I mean part of the
Party part of the chaotic aspect of all this is that elections are something that that's currently run state-by-state in this country
So every state has their own their own
Attempt at infrastructure and standards and and ways of doing things and
for the federal government to be looking this over and wanting to sort of corral it all together it it compares I think to
The the way that different states have different like driver's licensing schemes and ID cards and things like that
So so trying to take this over from the states in any level
I think I think they're kind of facing an uphill battle just bureaucracy wise. Oh
Sure, I mean each state has a huge
Vote election
Bureaucracy a lot of a lot of vested interest in people having keeping their jobs and that sort of thing. It's a power thing, too
So I don't think states are ever going to give up
to national control of elections in this country and I'm not sure if they should I mean, but
perhaps I
Don't really know whether having 50 different state election systems
Means that things are more secure or less secure. I mean there could be
security through diversity
But if things are centrally controlled by folks that really knew what they were doing, which is a tall
Expecting a lot from our federal government. I think
Versus a state election systems where there's 50 different systems for people that don't know what you're doing
I don't know. It's a I think we're screwed either way, but this is going to be an interesting election and I predict
I'm going to say it right here on the air
I predict there will be claims that
There will be hacking of the elections in November
I'm just gonna say that I I think I don't think that's too much of a leap
I I think I think there's a very good chance that whoever whoever loses in this election will
Sort of cry sour grapes and want to blame it on something other than them not being
Yeah savvy enough to win
Yeah, they're gonna play the hackers and whether they're a state actor hackers or you know, or or hackers from the other opposing
side of the of the election or or just other or ne'er-do-wells or
Primarily a lot of hackers that have no malicious intent to blame for things that have nothing to do with them
But you know, I really
Even using the term hackers when it comes to this sort of thing, it's it's it's criminal if you're interfering with an election
But I just don't I don't I don't trust our government to have enough people to know what they're doing to really
Try to prevent this from happening. So it's this is a I think it's gonna be a bellwether year to see. Yeah, how
this confluence of electronic networks and
servers and
elections electronic election systems
coincide with
more and more vulnerabilities and
state actors and others
Trying to manipulate the system it's just going to be fascinating
But it's gonna give us plenty to talk about in the next few months. That's for sure
this is true and and again, I think that's an I don't think that's such a huge leap of
Logic to think that maybe the government isn't gonna have enough people who know what they're doing to make make head or tail out
But we'll see what happens and we'll keep an eye on it and we'll tell you listeners what we know about it as soon as
We know anything
It's it's it's just a it's just a heck of a sight
I mean, you know you as it's like driving past a road accident and you want to rubberneck and look at it and marvel at
the
explosions and go from there
Yeah, but it has real-life consequences to you know, you see a road accident
it's like somebody's character that we got hurt or killed on the road, but
There's a country we're talking about this or these are you know, depending on who gets elected you could have a huge impact
Both in the local state and federal levels and president the White House. I mean this could affect our lives for generations
who wins the next election and
you know
We have frankly, I think this whole delegate system
Delegates and superdecks. I think that's election hacking. It's in another way. It's just hacking our democracy
One of the classic examples of election hacking has been going on for many many generations it's known as gerrymandering and
That's when that's when interests
Rezone the election districts to favor themselves over over others and it's a it's a bit
It's a bit outside the scope of this particular program
But I encourage you if you're at all curious about such things look up gerrymandering online and take a look at some of the diagrams
And things it's it's quite quite fascinating
Yeah, it's spelled with a G. So it was actually a name of a creature
historical reference
gerrymander, but I look up J G R R Y M A and D R and search for pictures or images of the
gerrymander
And you'll see some amazing state
election boundaries voting voting district boundaries that are just you know that that are calculated
using geographical information systems to
To disenfranchise certain voting groups, and this is technology
This is being used to to map out a technologist technology has been used in various forms going back
You know probably hundred years or so, but it's uh, but it's being used with more and more sophisticated technology to
to map out and the way it works in every state the
party in control of each state gets to define the boundaries of various election districts and
you can see some just incredibly crazily shaped voting districts that are designed to
Disenfranchise certain groups, and it's it's fascinating. We're really getting off at I don't know if we're getting really enough topic of hacking
but it's a this is an election year and
Everybody's talking about what's going on and the elections moving forward not just the White House election
but uh
we should all be aware of all the forms of hacking and
The ways it can be used to affect our lives in major ways
So um yeah, I don't think it's I don't think it's a bad idea for us to be talking it
I don't think it's too early for us to be talking about it
It's basically the end result of the of the system being successfully hacked by those those in power
To favor themselves and and their successors so so I think I think it is kind of it is kind of in our in our
Wheelhouse as they say sure sure, but they're they're actually getting more savvy and using technology. Just like a
Like a those an actor computer you're aware of um so but but this is a show where we can describe
what's going on and
again, I I can I predict we're gonna hear more and more about election hacking in
coming months up until
the general election in November
about elections being hacked and
How do about it? There's gonna be a lot of finger pointing going on
It's it's gonna be the convenient scapegoat, and it could actually happen whether whether it's really happening or not
It's gonna be scapegoat. It's gonna be an excuse so we'll see what happens
Yeah a lot a lot going on
there is there's another story that's been going around this week about Facebook and
Something that they have done which which had sort of unexpected results
There a few months ago the discovery was made
That Facebook's trending news module was was being curated and and nudged in one direction or the other by human beings by Facebook staff members
Based on what they wanted to favor
now according to a story in in the Guardian the
Facebook basically decided to remove the humans from the equation put it totally at the mercy of an algorithm let the algorithm do the job of
Deciding what's trending and what's not and
The results among the results has had
it it pushed out a false story about Fox News host Macon Kelly a
controversial piece about a comedian's four-letter word attack on and
Coulter and links to an article about a video of a man doing something unmentionable in a family audience with a McDonald's chicken sandwich
Oh
So with extra with extra mayonnaise probably
You had to you had to go there Bernie. I was I was avoiding going there
You know in in my in my position as is as host of the show in the interim while Emanuel's gone
I just I tried not to go there, and you and you brought us there Bernie you put us there
Well, I'm not gonna judge your life man, but
But
But in it so Facebook Facebook made a blog post
Explaining themselves and saying the decision to drop people from the news module would allow it to operate at a greater scale
which I think is working wonderfully if you're pushing out stories about violating McDonald's chicken sandwiches and and
You know false stories about public figures
So a source familiar with the matter told the Guardian that the trending team was fired without notice in a meeting with a security guard
And the employees received four-week severance at which point it was turned over to the artificial intelligence and
Skynet wasn't quite born, but but something something special
So the machine the machine idiot took over yeah pretty much
So so we we now we we don't need we don't need idiot humans to you know control things that an idiot computer can do
just as successfully
but
But yeah, the the the full story was was on the story meant to be Fox News is exposed Fox News exposes traitor
Megan Kelly kicks her out for backing Hillary Megan Kelly of course being a right-wing pundit did not back Hillary in reality, but
that the the sort of thing the sort of folks who follow such things would have
Found that quite a piece of news if it were true, and it was not the thing with the chicken sandwich
I think that happened, but but I wasn't there. I don't know for sure
And still is that is that something that Facebook wants to
Say is is trending. You know and put that on the front page about somebody who's doing something on unspeakable with a
McDonald's
chicken sandwich
I mean, you know clearly we need some human people betting whatever it would start me most from the story
Well, I don't know if you caught this, but the story in the Guardian is that the Facebook
I think they find on the story here Facebook is
It's the largest the world's largest distributor of news and that just blew my mind
Facebook is the world's largest distributor of news you mean it's not us, and that's not a matter of opinion apparently
that's that's back at this point and
And now they're leaving it up to an algorithm
to just to distribute this news and
What an a great incredible amount of power you know you to be newspaper moguls like you know?
Like
Like hearse and so forth that would decide the news that people would read and now
It's Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, and it's fascinating to see what's going on
Yeah, I mean Rupert Murdoch of Fox News a while. You know many many years ago
he he bought my space which was the Facebook of its time sort of and
and he happened to buy it at just the wrong time when everyone was leaving it and ended up with a
chunk of worthless virtual property, but
If someone like that got control of Facebook. You know we'd be at the mercy of whatever
They wanted us to see and you know who who's to who's to trust who's to trust an entity like that with
So much, but it's interesting that Facebook is the largest producer or the largest source of news now because it seems to me
And this is just anecdotal evidence
but it seems to me that people are starting to leave Facebook like younger younger people now don't tend to
focus so much on Facebook as
Say the 30 year olds who were there when it started so
You know I I always I've you know having having been a social network user since the early days of such things
You've seen you know we've all seen
single entities sort of rise and become a dominant thing and then fall away and then something else comes to take its place and
that becomes the cool thing that everyone's using and then Google Plus comes out and nobody uses it, but
there it seems it seems like such a position of power to be in if you can be there at the right time to
Grab something while it's actually got
Some some pull to it, and you know bend it to your will and that's that's what we do in the media in this country
Because not everyone else not everyone can be sort of community sponsored
nonprofit sources of information
Such as let's say WBAI
Yeah back to our previous
meme that you know you can you can rely on Facebook for your news and have Mark Zuckerberg and and
On an unknown computer algorithm decide what news is fit to print
Or you can rely on a lot of really independent
News and other radio producers at WPAI who I gotta say
You can say whatever you want about WBAI, but you really can't say that the management of WBAI has ever tried to influence
Content of what producers say on the air. We've never experienced it to my knowledge on WBAI off the hook
Many years of being on the air and that is really refreshing there
There there really aren't many I've talked to plenty of people who've been on commercial radio who?
everything they say is is a
very closely watched and analyzed and and and
Curated and down to the point where if you just like you can't say anything you just have to play these particular songs
I mean, it's ridiculous
So WBAI is it's kind of an interesting contrast to Facebook and as far as how it's a 70s news
And yeah, we're all going to be biased, but you're like how would you like to be biased?
There you go, yeah, I
Personally am biased against chicken sandwiches from McDonald's, but I just think they're not very good
But moving on
It's another story going around. There's there's a very a very big article on Vanity Fair
Dot-com about how the Clinton campaign is foiling the Kremlin. That's the title of it
I didn't make that up, but but you know there are some interesting things in here like how
the Clinton campaign has
basically switched to using
What they call Snowden approved?
Apps for communication such as signal the the SMS text message replacement service that encrypts end-to-end
And they're talking about journalists and people in these organizations and political campaigns
Basically wising up and
doing things to ensure their own data security because you know it's it's high time that they started doing such things and
You know there's mentioned made of platforms like wicker w-i-c-k-r
Which which is an app that ostensibly you send a message on it, and it it displays for the recipient and then self-destructs
Sort of like the snapchat theory of temporary
temporary communication
They talk about using things like burner phones and this and that but but Snowden approved is the descriptor. That's used
I mean, oh the irony is this the irony is so amazingly thick isn't it yes?
You know Hillary Clinton herself is it's a it's really
Highly criticized that Edward Snowden in his
Alleged releasing of classified document classified NSA documents to a news media outlets
But now you know
Is your own campaign is following?
Edge news and advice on which applications used for secure communications. I just I think the irony is just wonderful
Yeah, the the irony is is tangy, but it's it speaks to I think
The issues that we talked about on this program
Issues like you know we've we've been talking about trying to improve your own data security and being aware of how these things should be
You know how you can best protect yourself against how things can go wrong all the ways things can go wrong
that's that's been the focus of this program since it went on the air in 1988 and
It's it's always funny to see sort of
Mainstream entities and mainstream political figures and stuff like that like come around and start start kind of singing a similar tune
Because it finally it suits them, but I I just I'm just
Really entertained by the citation of Edward Snowden in a story about how the Clinton campaign is is improving their own data security
But what's great is it that the own internal secure in all internal campaign security staff of
Hillary Clinton is is is saying that this is Snowden Snowden the quote Snowden approved is that isn't that right?
Yeah, that's that's the quote. That's the quote. That's just that's just like mind-blowing
I mean that that guy that she wants to make this stuff up. Yeah that guy who if she were president
She would want to make disappear
Oh, yeah, sure and and where did we learn about this? We learned we got these documents from from where I?
Don't even we got them from well. This is this is going back to like the the the leaked cables
Things like that and and yeah, this weren't weren't the documents where we're learning this didn't they come through
WikiLeaks or through another leaker source yeah
Yes, Snowden released released his things through WikiLeaks and then identified himself as the source
because he was ready he was ready to he chose to take a stand and declare himself the the source when
Ostensibly if if you if you are secure about leaking things to WikiLeaks if you want to be a whistleblower
You don't have to do that. You don't have to
Make yourself the the sort of scapegoat that people like Snowden people like Chelsea Manning
Find themselves find themselves being in the in the grander scheme of things
What I find particularly is the tools that that the Clinton campaign are using are exactly the kind of its first secure communications
Yeah
Are exactly the kind of tools that FBI director James Comey is vilifying and saying we?
We should not be allowed because you know our we're going dark
We cannot we cannot read everything you cannot even read everybody's communications and mail
Listen to what everybody's saying and here you know
Candidates for president are using these same tools
So it'll be interesting to see what their pop what these presidential candidates policies that they're really not really talking about this
But I wish I could I wish the public could could
Be in the audience for the upcoming presidential dates and actually ask their own questions instead of having them. Yeah from some
curator who did or some
moderator who really isn't going to respect isn't going to really represent our views in the hacker community, but
You know I would love to ask Hillary Clinton like your campaign is is recommending a quote Snowden friendly tools to
prevent anyone from eavesdropping on
Communications, and this isn't direct violation to the FBI director James Comey's a
Strong assertions that these should be outlawed so how do you?
How do you
What do you say to that
I
Don't know it's it's a it's a fun sort of double think it's a nice mental exercise
But after all that stretching I end up just very very tired
Yeah
So yeah, that's that's that's something to keep an eye on and that's something that we always encourage on this program and on this network
On this station that you do like watch watch the presidential debates
Don't get your news from one source don't get your news from a source
That's you know obviously got its own agenda, and what they want you to think about it
Don't get it solely from that source like
try and look at these things with an open mind discuss them with your with your friends and colleagues and peers and
Just anyone you know someone on the subway, whatever yeah, but but you know
Come to come to your own opinions by yourself
Don't just get them handed to you by by some entity who who wants you to share theirs
Yeah, you'd multiple sources. I mean there's nothing wrong with looking at news on Facebook, but yeah, I get I consider the source
You know try to diversify your sources of information
I learned that back and back in the 70s and 80s when I was listening to international shortwave radio and listening to
News coverage from sorry there's fireworks going out here in Philadelphia. It's not gunshots. Don't worry. I hope it's good shots
You know just getting information about news stories from you know both the voice of America and radio Moscow
both the BBC and Radio Argentina
During the the war over the islands. I mean this is fascinating hearing
Listening in governments actually spin news
But if you listen to enough different sources you begin to to whether they're state media or independent media
Whether it's people's writing magazine articles, which can be great great or blog articles
online articles or
There's so many sources of information, please try to diversify your your your your new sources
Don't look at all in one place. Don't just look at Google News. There's so many sources of information not just WBAI
Diversify and and really you know you can form your own better educated opinion when you
When you get it from a lot of different sources things start to coalesce and you begin to like see the bigger picture like
Okay, now I see what's going on here
Yeah
I mean the real the real strength and the real beauty of the media environment we have now with with internet access being so widespread
is that there is so much out there and we have access to just about all of it and
So that means we can we can follow up on things we can explore for ourselves. We can we can
Find what we want to know we can find it, you know from multiple sources. We can average them out
We can get our citations together and we can we can really just more than I think at any point in in our history
We can come to our own honest balanced opinions about things
At such a at such an amazing rate and so it's you know
We see we see new monopolies pop up and it's just I think kind of sad and against what we're what we're trying to do
with this whole damn internet thing
This is about the time Rob where we would take listener phone calls it is because
Kyle's not here with us tonight and he hasn't brought his amazing contraption using a cell phone. Yeah, but
through Google Voice phone calls
To the WBI studio which has no no active phone lines at this time to the studio
We're not gonna be able to take listener calls. I don't know
Do you have access to email there in the studio right now?
I actually I actually thought instead of listener phone calls. We can catch up on some of our listener emails that
that we have
The first one it comes from our friend bicycle mark. He's always been a friend of the show for a very long time and
It's it's it's rather sad news
he talks of a
Fellow called Matthew Don's known as Cara Moon who is a British hacker based in Tokyo
friend to many many in the hacker community
His name is screen name are very very familiar to very very many folks
I spoke at this hope number six about Alan Turing gave a very interesting talk
He is unfortunately
Have has been given the news that he has terminal cancer
He he it doesn't it doesn't appear that he's got very long, but he's starting aggressive chemo and he's pursuing
Immune therapy which if it works could give him at least a year
but
The of course such things are very expensive and so so Cara Moon has a fundraiser
Going so if anyone if if that rings a bell for any of you listeners
And I'm sure it does for very many or you just want to learn more about this
This person who means a lot to so many in our community
Go to Matthew Don's org. That's Matthew
M-a-t-t-h-e-w-d-o-n-s dot org and
The fundraiser is there and all the pertinent information so giving what signal boost we can
We we definitely like I I remember I remember Matthew's talk at Hope number six. It was very very good
I think it's on it's on our YouTube
Let's talk about Alan Turing, but also just
You know sir go to Matthew Don's org search Cara Moon on your social networks of choice
he he is on a few and
You know send him send him what support you can well wishes and things of that sort
And Cara Moon is spelled with a K K A R A M O O N and
He organized the Tokyo Bar Camp and other cool stuff there. He's 36 years old yes
Diagnosed with terminal cancer. This is a plea to extend his life not to not to cure the cancer probably right
but to extend his life because he's got a wife and a young kid and
You know that's when you really realize that each day is each hour each minute is precious
Yeah, and
What what we would all give to if we knew that our day or days hours and minutes were numbered
What would we give to stay on stay alive much longer to spend time with people that we love and and care about?
So um so that's what this that's why we mentioned this on the air tonight
Yeah, one of our own bicycle around this community. Yeah bicycle mark has a podcast on which
Caramoon was was a guest discussing. What's going on you can find that at realities podcast calm
R-e-a-l-i-t-i-e-s podcast
Calm that's bicycle marks podcast and you can find the recent episode with Matthew Dunn's Cara Moon on there
So um yeah
Obviously all the all the best wishes from us here at off the hook
You know on behalf of all of us even those who aren't here today. You know get well soon, or you know feel better and
Moving on to more listener email a listener writes. Hey, I was wondering
What is the means by which radio listeners are counted is it that you have to send more signal out to accommodate more listeners?
And then does this account for volume somehow?
Bernie what can you tell us about that?
it's really interesting um you know it's sort of a
Knowledge gap between
old media
Not bad media, but radio is a media where you can't measure unlike online media
How many people are actually listen there are companies
Like Arbitron that actually call people on the phone and ask them what radio stations listen to what programs they do
but that's the only way radio was a passive medium and from the standpoint of
you can't tell what devices are are are
Receiving the the on-air radio stream. It's not a digital stream
It's an analog signal modulated like we talked earlier from the top the Empire State Building
It's a many thousands of watts of RF energy beaming 80 miles in all directions plus online as well
But you can't really measure that other than by just doing listener surveys
Which is an expensive proposition at WBI can't afford and frankly
shouldn't have to because you know most companies that do that do it for advertising purposes so they can charge more for advertising and radio and
WBA I specifically to have no
Advertisers
We rely on our listeners support the station so the listener
Ruben says hey, I was wondering what it what does it mean by which radio listeners are candidates it that you have to send?
More single ads of comedy more listeners, and then this is a counter volume somehow otherwise
What you prefer message to be listened to live podcast through the iTunes?
We don't really care Ruben
We would like you to listen to this radio show any way you'd like
Whether if you're within 80 miles of Manhattan you can you can listen to it on
99.5 megahertz if not you can listen to the podcast if you listen to it
Through you know
2600 comm slash off the hook
There's a lot of ways you can listen to it wbi.org. So listen. Yeah, WB
Wba.org streams us live so if you want exactly and it's also archived on WB
Yeah, I've done BA on WB
Wba.org it's podcast on
2600 comm and it's also rebroadcast by many generous folks at other stations around the world and
We are we are all about that and we are all about
Folks listening to us by whichever means is best for them is easiest for them is most comfortable for them
Because mainly that's that's why we do this show
We would like people to listen to it and trying to dictate how they do so would be a fool's errand
So yeah, but thank you. Thank you very much for for that
Moving out we have we have quite a lot of email
I mean we we spoke about things that are going on at the station and stuff and we got just so many really kind emails
showing their support and
You know and fellowship with what's going on here
Julio writes hey off the hook. Sorry about the station. I like WBA. I I listen to them from Tallahassee, Florida
That's that's nicely outside our broadcast area
Anyways, I'm glad to hear that the videos are done referring to the videos at hope
that we put on on our
That we put on our drives and our YouTube and such
I won one of the interviews with Corey as part of the young journalist competition and set our nation's flag on fire. It was nice
like
Yeah, I didn't see that but I heard about that. Thank you for sharing what you wanted to share
Julio goes on to say I was hoping that y'all good people would post and announce that I won on your website as per the
Competition guidelines. Yep. We have not gotten around to that yet
But in our in our flurry of trying to wrap up all the loose ends from hope we are working on that and that will happen
Just
Letting you know that the premiums aren't the only loose ends as Julio
I wish I could have attended this year, but I'm a working man would be nice to see my name in lights, though
well Julio will will certainly do what we can for you there and
You can you can see your name in electrons at some point in the future. You can hear your name in radio waves right now
Thank you. Thank you very much Julio for that email
Someone must have said it before me
I love that
Yeah, we got another listener rights. Hopefully all all well continues with the station
I did not want to seem too much a downer. So I tried to verbalize station over time for listeners
I think this must be someone who who called us
last time
I had a time within the last 12 months where I had to make three plus calls referring to the donation issue
Yeah, where someone was trying to call our call center and not getting through and trying to make a pledge and support this station and
Not getting through and this is obviously a very bad situation for a listener supported venue such as WPAI
so
It's it's another in the in the line of technical hitches and glitches and humps that we are trying our best to surmount over here
Sometimes sometimes we can do them quickly. Sometimes it takes a bit more time
But thank you so much for trying to support us and hopefully eventually succeeding in showing your support to this station
Ryan also said he radios really hard to fully implement
He says I have rabbit ears on the local TV plus a digital alarm clock with digital radio
Rotate over button frequency binds unless digital reach range highly tuned ramble out in other words
It's hard to pick up a radio say don't actually have a good antenna
That's just one of the beautiful things about radio
You gotta try a little bit harder, but on the premium thing
I just want to mention that Monday when I was at WPAI
From Philadelphia. I went up there and I talked with our general manager Bertolt Reimers and
Explained to him. We've gotten a lot of emails from our listeners. Yes, who have not gotten their premiums yet
He he said please send them to me. So we're working on that
We're going to get them directly to the general manager who is now express a personal interest in getting all
outstanding off-the-hook premiums fulfilled and
We're gonna keep working on that it's it's something we have not forgotten and we will not forget our most supportive
Absolutely, not. Um, it is something that that we are working on and thank you so much to those who are bearing with us
And I know it's not by choice, but thank you. Anyway, it's it's appreciated
Jay writes us greetings
I respect that you'd like to make your investment back by selling high-quality DVDs of talks from the most recent hope etc
It means it means a lot to me that I can get audio only for free from hope.net as mentioned on this week's OTH
It's even more meaningful that I am listening to when video is not standard output
Indeed and to explain this for those unfamiliar when video is not standard output is the talk that was given on
Accessibility issues for the vision impaired that was done by our friend neo Amsterdam who was on this program before hope talking about it
Very good talk. I recommend
Finding it yourself. You can you can find audio of all the talks on hope.net
there is a little audio icon next to each talk on the on the list and
Yeah going going from there so
Thank you very much. Yeah, check out our check out our audio. Check out our video and and
Jay also goes on to say PS. I enjoyed the social engineering panel this year
I feel that having a lawyer on the panel offered a new perspective on the issue because by ethics rules
They cannot be deceptive about who they are which made it a very entertaining talk
The lawyer of course, and that was a different Alex. Yeah, our friend Alex
Who is
an occasional guest on this program and who was the guy with his beyond hope badge still on display at at hope at
Hope 11 and just it was it was it was I like the social engineering panel, too
I watched it and I thought it was a lot of fun. And yeah, check it out
Go to hope net to check out the archives of the talks
Um, yeah, just just a couple of just a couple other things to mention as as we head out for our last time in
This slot. Remember we're on at 9 at 8 p.m
next week and
This week is the 2600 meeting the 2600 meetings are happening all over the world go to 2600 comm
meetings for more info on that and
With that we say a fond goodbye to this slot that has been our home for many many years and
Look forward to the amazing things. We will do in the future in our new slot
Stay tuned for the personal computer show not their last episode
Not their last episode at all
Send us email OTH at 2600 comm
For off the hook, this is Rob T firefly. Have a very good night
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