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Time is 8 o'clock on a Wednesday evening.
That means it's time for Off The Hook.
by Windows fanboys that liked to run Windows 7 and it turned out like it was
them that were getting affected, not the Windows XP folk.
Okay, so what, there's gloating between Windows 7 and Windows XP people?
There's competition within Windows.
Exactly.
Wow, okay, well that's something.
But you know, it always boils down to the same basic advice.
Don't open attachments that you don't recognize.
Don't click on reset your password links that, you know, you don't know the origin of.
But also, you know, when you're in massive networks, it really just takes one person
being stupid to infect the entire place and that's what we saw a lot of in hospitals
and throughout the globe.
Voltaire?
Actually, there's a spread via SMB where it left, if you were running an older version
of it, it was left running, it was left open, so it propagated without user input.
So you didn't have to do anything, it was automatically propagated.
Well, it's nice that it's gotten easier.
But, you know, it's not funny, it's not funny to make screensavers that look exactly like this.
Yes, actually I came up with that idea, but I think a number of people came up with it too.
But basically, imagine that, you know, you're sitting there in your corporate office and
all of a sudden, bang, that screen shows up because the screensaver kicks in.
It's not really the ransomware, but it causes a bit of a commotion.
So, yeah, that happened and Hollywood was hacked a few times.
I believe Orange is the New Black was released inadvertently.
Netflix, I think, was a part of that, but there are other things as well where they
were basically, I guess, held hostage, told that this will be released unless they pay up.
And I don't think they did, and rightfully not, because there's no guarantee that it's
going to have any effect whatsoever and it's a very bad precedent.
It's better to simply protect your data and to make sure things like this aren't possible
through various means.
I know it sounds simple to say, but clearly when something like this happens, it means
we're doing something wrong, right?
Yeah, absolutely it does, and a lot of this stems from the fact that it becomes very,
very difficult to regulate third parties that have access to a particular organization's data.
And that's how a lot of these studios wind up getting compromised is that they allow
access to their network to one particular trusted partner.
This trusted partner is inaudited with respect to their information security posture or their
protocols, and then boom, they're popped and all of a sudden they're receiving demands
for ransom payments to not release the next series of whatever show it happens to be.
And I think you're right.
It's a very good idea not to engage in paying ransom for these particular incidents because
it just encourages the bad behavior.
You want to not negotiate with terrorists, so to speak.
Terrorists?
Well, not necessarily terrorists.
That's what the mass media calls them.
That's why I said so to speak, of course, because it's the same principle.
You don't want to encourage this kind of behavior and there's really no indication that you're
going to get what you're looking for anyhow.
The whole thing could have been a ruse.
That could all happen again next week.
It very well may.
Yes, Rob.
Well, it's simply the way things happen now.
Companies everywhere are finding their internal non-public data either held hostage or copied
to some third party who then decides to try and extort the company with it.
But in these cases, that internal information is a movie file of something that hasn't come
out yet.
And with everything being so decentralized now and whatever data you have, whether it's
a movie or a spreadsheet or whatever, it's decentralized.
People legitimately need access to it from all over the place.
And is there really any way to audit the security of not only your own systems, but everyone
you're working with and everyone they're working with?
It kind of boggles the mind.
Well, I mean, yeah, they need access to it, but do they need unencrypted access to it?
Or is it possible to simply have something this valuable accessible, but you have to
decode it in an isolated environment on your own machine in order to access it?
It might sound a little inconvenient.
It might sound like something you're not used to.
But having it there so that simply being able to be copied is enough for it to be completely
compromised.
Clearly, that's not working.
Yeah.
As anyone who knows anything about DRM can tell you, it's very hard to put something
out there and not have it copyable in any way, shape or form.
Once something is out there, if somebody wants to copy it, they will.
They can.
It's designed that way.
Yes.
It's designed to be copied.
Well, part of it, too, is there's this problem that encryption is still pretty difficult
for people to figure out and pretty difficult for people to use.
I'm sorry, but I fault a lot of the developers for this because, yeah, it's great the kinds
of things that have been created.
But my God, if you try to use PGP, all of the incredible choices and options that you
have, I mean, it's amazing for the people who get it.
But for the people who don't get it, it's like driving a Mack truck right into you.
You panic.
You'll never figure it out.
We need to have something that is across the board easy and might not be as 100% secure
as we want it to be, but it'll at least be a lot more secure than what we have now.
Absolutely.
And there are issues with PGP when it comes to encrypting really large files like movie
files.
Generally, that kind of thing, it's very difficult to do it through a GUI interface.
You'd have to drop down to the command line and you have to use the command line executable
to actually encrypt something that's, I think, over a gig or whatever it is at this particular
point.
But it's not incredibly simple.
And so when we're talking about encrypting data that's at rest, data that needs to be
accessed, let's say, by a post-production type of company working on a television show,
it makes it incredibly difficult to access that data if it's encrypted and your employees
don't necessarily know how to, let's say, re-encrypt something after it is unencrypted
and then there's a big difference between data in transit and data at rest when it comes
to encryption and that confuses a lot of people as well.
So, yeah, we've got a problem and the nomenclature doesn't necessarily help us with encryption
either.
There's a lot to this too.
There's, I think, two sides when I'm hearing the conversation is you have handling practices
within the companies that is essentially an enterprise network, a very large system that
has standards and has been built with a lot of things in mind that are in the company's
interest.
But the public side, the types of things that we're doing, I think this is what you were
saying, Emmanuel, all the wonderful things out there, I think what you're speaking to
is the silliness in innovation.
There's all these apps and all these silly things, but what we're not doing for each
other and for the public is tackling the hard stuff.
We've got Candy Crush and all these different stupid, stupid games and things that may be
great short-term for three people that make an app, but why not maybe channel those efforts
into bigger problems that benefit people who don't necessarily have the resources that
an enterprise does?
Yeah, I think you're completely right about that, Kyle, and it's a big problem.
It's a big problem.
If you think about the last major iOS update that Apple released, the biggest innovation
there was the ability to finger paint iMessages to each other, which is just totally ridiculous
and unneeded.
It would be much better if they implemented some sort of usable end-to-end email encryption
scheme that people could utilize.
Look, it's a tall order for sure, but if you think about encryption on a large scale,
if an organization like Google with Gmail were to implement some kind of certificate-based
encryption policy for between, let's say, amongst Gmail users, that would solve a lot
of the world's problems.
It's a big problem to solve, but somebody like Google could do that.
The problem with it is it would destroy their business model.
It would absolutely eradicate their ability to mine our emails and then use that data
that they've mined for advertising purposes.
Wow.
Alex, I have to say, you know your stuff.
You've been around the block as a hacker and as a lawyer.
In fact, this latest episode, you were on CBC, Canadian Broadcasting, talking about
this at length.
That's right.
Yeah, on the ransomware issue with WannaCry and WannaCrypt.
Yeah, it was amazing.
They actually let me go on and on and on, more than you let me talk.
Well, you know, we only have an hour.
Yeah.
Before that, you had this amazing editorial on CNN.
Yeah.
Also, they let you talk quite a bit there, too, about all sorts of hacker-related issues.
Absolutely.
Then the ransomware bit, I had a new op-ed on CNN on WannaCry and WannaCrypt, and that
came out, I think, the day after the attack happened.
The point I'm trying to make is that Alex is the real deal.
He knows of what he speaks, and he's got a real good legal mind as well.
That ties into part of what we are offering tonight as part of the WBAI Spring Fundraiser.
I have to say, I'm kind of surprised by this because usually lawyers aren't this generous
with their time, but what you have done is you have offered two packages.
Of course, we only have a couple of each of these, but they're basically legal consultations
with your law firm, Blackstone Law Group, you in particular, but whoever is, I guess,
most tied into whatever field we're talking about here, but basically at a fraction of
what it would normally cost, you are offering some legal consultation on a number of the
topics that we talk about.
Now, let me just give out the information first so that people who might be saying,
oh my God, this is exactly what I want, you can call in and get it before somebody else
does.
We're offering two different packages.
One is two and a half hours, and basically you can speak about all sorts of issues.
We'll get to that in a moment.
The other is five full hours, which is, if you've ever had a lawyer, that's a lot of
time, and a lot can be accomplished in five hours.
Normally, your law firm bills about $500 to $750 an hour, just to give you an idea of
what this is worth.
What we are offering here for a pledge of $250, two and a half hours of consultation
with the leading New York law firm, Blackstone, specializing in everything from assistance
with ransomware recovery, InfoSec best practices, cyberbullying, identity theft, possible data
breaches, privacy concerns, or other general legal questions.
That's for a pledge of $250.
Now, for a pledge of $500, you get five full hours.
Now, add it up, five times $750 is a lot more than $500.
So, if you are in need of some kind of legal advice, these are the packages for you.
And this is a one-time thing that we are offering here on Off the Hook that we've never
offered before.
So, I'm curious as to whether or not, and I think people will, grab this as something
truly valuable.
The phone number is 516-620-3602, and simply ask for the legal consultation with Blackstone
Law Group, either 2.5 hours or five full hours.
Now, Alex, maybe you have some ideas as to the kinds of things that people might be seeking
help with.
Well, yeah, you're absolutely right.
And you went through quite a few of these already.
But, you know, what I'll tell you is, maybe I'll start by waving a little bit of background
too, so people can sort of understand what they're getting to.
So, you know, I started out in this field when I was a teenager, starting out, you know,
taking the train, sneaking into the city.
I remember meeting you as a teenager.
You were always getting into trouble.
No question.
Absolutely.
In the library.
You got in trouble in the library because-
That is true.
What did you do exactly?
Or what were you alleged to have done?
I was alleged to have maliciously vandalized their computer system by dropping to a DOS
prompt and editing the autoexec bat.
Oh, my God.
You're a badass.
Wow.
That was it.
Yeah, exactly.
Drop to a DOS prompt.
That's true.
And that leads into another story, actually, is, you know, I wound up going to law school.
I actually started out as a hacker, went to law school, and because of this hybrid skill
set that I had, I wound up working in areas I wouldn't necessarily have expected when
I was a 15-year-old hacker.
I wound up spending some time with the Army, with the U.S. Army JAG Corps as a civilian,
mind you.
Then I did some cybersecurity counterterrorism work at Dartmouth, open-source intelligence
stuff.
Then I wound up in intelligence at CIA in their general counsel's office for a period.
I'm jealous.
You've been to all these places and firms and organizations.
I've just been sitting here doing radio.
Hardly.
Hardly.
Hardly.
You've been an inspiration to us all.
And then I wound up clerking at the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.
We were like the Supreme Court of the military.
I clerked for the chief judge there.
Went into private practice with a big law firm.
Then I left private practice and was specialized information security counsel at a huge luxury
conglomerate.
Then became the chief compliance officer and then opened up my own law firm after moving
back from London about a year and a half ago.
Oh, my God.
Wow.
We've got a lot of expertise.
You see, folks, we're not just saying Alex is a lawyer and he can solve all your problems.
This is a guy that has been through it and knows of what he speaks, has been in the hacking
world for decades himself, and is able to understand the technology which so many lawyers,
I don't want to point to anybody in particular, but anytime we talk to somebody who's in trouble,
their lawyer doesn't get it and has to be brought up to speed and it's very expensive
and time-consuming, you're already there.
So somebody out there with an issue of one sort or another, and we'll get into some example
issues as to what that could be, you're already at the stage where the person you talk to,
mainly Alex here, will know what you're talking about and will be able to advise you in a
really constructive, positive way.
You make a great point, and I'll tell you a short story.
A couple of weeks ago, actually it was about a month ago, we had a jury trial.
My law firm had a jury trial, actually against another lawyer in New York who was engaging
in what appeared to be some international scams.
Our client was an Irish entity, and we knew based on his deposition and based on his declaration
that he made to the court about one particular document that he had to lie somehow about
one particular document.
We just didn't know how.
And they made a very, very big mistake of subpoenaing Yahoo for a series of emails.
We got this production from Yahoo directly from the defendant himself after he had made
some misrepresentations about whether that information was legally privileged or subject
to attorney-client privilege and therefore shouldn't be disclosed to us.
And that was all hogwash, and the judge ordered them to give us the disk directly from Yahoo.
So to go back to your point here, he was just assuming that we were going to look at the
documents themselves that were part of that production.
He had no idea.
This is a guy who's an older lawyer, not being ageist, but I'm just stating a fact,
who didn't really understand that when we got the native documents from Yahoo, I was
going to mine the hell out of the metadata.
And through the metadata, we elicited testimony from him about whether or not his client's
signature was on this particular document.
And he was very emphatic that it was not on that document when he sent it.
And meanwhile, we led him into a trap, and he said, that would be forgery.
And we said, would that be a crime?
And he said, you're damn well right it would be a crime.
And then we called a rebuttal witness who was one of our colleagues who actually specializes
in malware analysis, and he provided expert testimony on the stand about the metadata
that indicated that he absolutely lied about this particular document.
It was the last thing the jury heard.
They went out for 45 minutes and found for us.
Checkmate.
Checkmate.
Wow.
So it's that kind of thing too that we can offer.
So if you have an existing case that's already ongoing, we could come on board and help you
with some technical issues.
If you want somebody to look at document metadata, something like that, that's something that
we could do.
516-620-3602.
We're offering a very unique premium tonight.
Five hours of consultation with Alex and his law firm, Blackstone.
Somebody who gets technology, who will be able to help you regardless of what side of
the law you happen to be on at the moment, what condition you find yourself in.
Imagine having a sharp legal mind that understands the technology.
516-620-3602, a five-hour consultation.
Spread over the course of however much time you want for a pledge of $500.
If you feel two and a half hours is enough, $250, a mere fraction of what you would pay.
Even for a shoddy law firm.
But for a good law firm, for the kind of quality you're getting from Alex and Blackstone, wow.
This is, you know, I'm almost wondering if one of us should take it ourselves or if all
of us should take this.
It's that good.
Well, a couple of points just to make, too.
If you want to look up our credentials and you want to see who I am and who my partners
are, our short URL to our law firm is blg.nyc.
That's BravoLimaGolf.NovemberYankeeCharlie.
People know NYC.
Yes, NYC.
The long URL is blackstone-law.com.
I'm ethically obligated to say on the air that anybody who takes this premium, obviously
we have to clear conflicts first to make sure that there isn't a conflict of interest with
an existing client.
I doubt that anybody who's listening to BAI would have an existing conflict with our clients.
So subject to that, you know, we can make it a go.
And I will not consider any of these premiums to expire.
If you want to hold onto them, if you're waiting for the proverbial poop to hit the fan one
day, let's say if you believe you may suffer a data breach and you need some incident response
coaching, some help with that, or if perhaps maybe you were the cause of a data breach
and you don't really know exactly what to do in the aftermath of it.
We know some of you out there are up to things and sometimes it gets out of control and you
lose touch and you need some help.
This is a good opportunity.
Absolutely.
How about this, Alex?
Let's say you're the parent of a hacker and while right now things are okay, you suspect
that maybe one day your kid might get into trouble.
Is this something they can hold onto for a couple years down the road?
It absolutely is.
I will consider this to never expire.
So it's an investment in your child's future, your hacker child's future perhaps.
That's absolutely true.
And the other thing too is we're unique in the sense that, you know, if you purchase
two and a half hours, you know, we're not going to bill you for another half an hour
because it takes us three hours to finish whatever your project is.
You know, for instance, one of the things that we like to do for clients is to give
them an indication, whether it's an individual or an organization, whether or not they're
facing any serious threats.
We assess risk for a lot of our clients based on their information security posture.
We can take a look at things like the domain namespace around your organization, see if
there's any mounted threats in terms of phishing, spear phishing, things on which ransomware
could piggyback if you're the victim of ransomware.
We can help you with that kind of thing.
We can help you out of a jam and in any sort of technological situation is really what
we are.
You know, we are very much a boutique law firm that focuses exclusively on technology
and even more particularly information security.
516-620-3602.
I strongly urge people to take advantage of this one-time offer, two and a half hours
of legal consultation for a pledge of $250, five hours for a pledge of $500.
It might sound like a lot, but when you compare what you would spend walking into a lawyer's
office and getting this kind of help, this kind of intelligence, it is a fraction.
This is something that I think really will go fast.
516-620-3602.
We should probably point out that I am not completely clear on how this works, but your
skills apply to New York.
That's right.
Because we do have listeners everywhere.
That's true.
That is absolutely true.
And that's a very good point.
I am admitted to practice law in New York and Washington, D.C. and the Third Circuit
Court of Appeals in Pennsylvania.
So most of these types of engagements, however, won't necessarily require me to go into court
somewhere.
So if you're in Pennsylvania and you want to retain me to give you some advice, that's
perfectly fine.
I just couldn't file documents for you in a court in Pennsylvania.
I mean, for instance, we retained a new client today that was in the U.K.
And so, yes.
Also, I should note that my partners are barred in New Jersey and New York and D.C. as well.
Barred is a good thing.
It doesn't mean banned.
Yes, that's right.
They're admitted to practice law.
That's right.
That's sort of a term of art.
Yeah, that's a very good one.
It's one of many legal phrases you'll become familiar with.
That's true.
That is very true.
Alex, can you come up with some more hypothetical situations where somebody might benefit from
the use of you or someone in your firm?
Well, absolutely.
And I think this could tie very well into us talking about some recent news as well.
When I was the chief compliance officer of a huge luxury conglomerate, we were a worldwide
luxury conglomerate, about 30,000 employees.
And I used to run the worldwide whistleblowing line.
And so, I'm also very familiar with issues that relate to whistleblowers and the rights
of whistleblowers and the repercussions that can face whistleblowers if anonymity is compromised,
methods to maintain anonymity during a whistleblowing situation.
And I think it's also very, very important that if you are going to be a whistleblower,
and I think we may have some putative or potential whistleblowers that are listening
to us right now, it's really important, I think, to seek legal advice, to take legal
advice before you make any sorts of overt actions because things can go very quickly
out of control.
And it's important to have somebody on your side that you can trust to give you the right
direction.
Our number is 516-620-3602.
We're really, really pleased to offer this as a gift.
Alex and his firm are donating this to the station and to Off The Hook for the fundraising.
But you get WBAI and this show in reality.
Those contributions keep the station going.
I'd also advise people, if you'd like to donate online, go to give to WBAI.org.
And also, you can donate via SMS if you text WBAI to 41444.
Yes.
Now, to get this particular premium, though, when you call up or go to give to WBAI.org,
ask for the legal consultation with Blackstone Law Group and select either two and a half
hours or five hours.
Again, I don't know if I emphasized this, we only have two of each package.
So once two people pledge for one of them, they're gone.
That's it.
This is an expensive legal consultation time.
And I'm amazed that we're able to offer it at all.
516-620-3602.
Please give a call now.
And as Kyle said, you are supporting the radio station.
That would be a couple of thousand dollars in WBAI's fundraising efforts, which will
go a very, very long way to keeping this place alive so we can talk about all the issues
we talk about week after week here.
So it's a win-win situation.
You will get some of the top legal minds to analyze whatever case you feel you have or
a case being made against you or just anything, really.
Maybe it's something that hasn't happened yet and you basically have this in reserve.
It's something that is a wise thing to do at this particular point.
516-620-3602.
Rob.
And if it happens that you're not at this point looking for the services of a lawyer,
we still would love your help keeping the station and the show going.
You can donate any amount you wish.
Just donate it in the name of your favorite show, which we would say is off the hook.
And if you call 516-620-3602 or go to give2wbai.org, you can donate any amount you want,
$5, $10, $1, any amount that you can spare to help us keep the lights on and keep doing
what we do.
Give2wbai.org or 516-620-3602.
And on that subject, for those of you that aren't in the market for legal advice or anything
like that, but you still want to donate to the radio station, as Rob said, you can donate
any amount.
But we have another package for a pledge of $55.
And this is kind of interesting.
We only have five of these.
It's called the Hacker Grab Bag.
So if you call 516-620-3602, ask for the Hacker Grab Bag, this is what you're going to get.
You're going to get a variety of hacker-related items.
You're going to get two separate Lego books.
Now, we can't tell you which ones you're going to get.
They're untouched by human hands.
Well, I guess we have to take them out of the package.
But that's it.
Nobody's read them.
They're Lego books.
They come from No Storage Press.
You'll get two of those.
You'll get a hacker t-shirt.
And what we will do is we will contact you and get your size.
And then we will send you a hacker t-shirt of one sort or another in the right size.
We'll be very careful about this.
You'll also get a signed Yes Men fake New York newspaper.
Now, this was a project they did a couple of years ago where they basically put out
fake newspapers, handed them out to commuters in New York City, and a lot of people fell
for it.
And it's a full newspaper.
These are signed by the Yes Men.
They are collector's items.
You will also get a spy device of one sort or another.
We cannot say more than that.
You will get a spy device with this package.
You'll also get a lockpicking tool.
Again, we are forbidden from saying more than that.
And there is at least one other surprise item in there.
So that's a great package.
That's a lot of things you're getting.
Once more, you'll get two Lego books, a hacker t-shirt in the size that you designate,
a signed Yes Men fake New York newspaper, a spy device of some sort, a lockpicking tool
of some sort, and at least one other surprise item.
That's all for a pledge of $55.
We only have five.
516-620-3602 is the number to call.
And we are offering that tonight here on Off the Hook.
We're only on for less than a half hour.
So we have the hacker grab bag, and we have the legal consultation packages.
I think we have some pretty good material tonight.
I think so.
I think another thing to add that we haven't discussed yet as well is that when we are engaged,
of course, you would technically be our client, and that carries with it a lot of privacy implications
in the sense of our communications would be considered legally privileged or attorney-client privileged.
And so that you can be assured that they will be entirely private,
and this is to increase the candor between the lawyer and the client.
And so this comes into play in various scenarios that involve technology
where people wouldn't ordinarily think a lawyer could be interjected,
and that involves things like penetration testing, red teaming, things like that,
where you may uncover certain things that could have legal repercussions.
And what we often do is when we deal with these situations, we are engaged as legal counsel,
and then a team of penetration testers is engaged as our agent.
So they will technically be working for our law firm.
Their findings then are legally privileged and don't necessarily have to be disclosed, let's say,
to a regulator, to a governmental entity if there is a subpoena, or let's say it has already hit the fan.
There's a data breach.
The forensics investigation is ongoing.
This happens in the context of a legally privileged engagement.
Then when you're sued inevitably in California for a class action for a data breach,
then you do not have to give out those documents to your adversary because they are legally privileged.
So it's very important to note that the context of our communications and everything that you would say to me
or my partners or my law firm would be entirely protected by the lawyer-client privilege.
And that gets to, I think, a separate topic, which also is privacy that's on everybody's mind.
This is something that we help individuals with.
If people are concerned with issues of personal privacy, issues with surveillance,
we can assist with that in a confidential setting.
And this also arises and actually arised a couple weeks ago, I think, when I was last on,
or maybe a month ago when I was last on.
But this also has direct relevance to employer-employee relationships.
And very often employees do not understand what their reasonable expectations of privacy are with respect to their employers.
Can they monitor me?
I have my own device and I have my company emails on it.
What can they do?
We can help you understand the contours of that particular situation if you have concerns.
A couple of weeks ago, somebody had called up and asked about surveillance cameras being installed,
and I think it was FedEx trucks.
This is a type of privacy situation that involves an employer and employee that we can help you understand and help you sort out.
Wow.
How about you mentioned cyberbullying?
Can you think of a case that you might theoretically be involved in where somebody could be helped out?
Well, cyberbullying and revenge porn, too, are very big topics these days.
I don't want to go into any specifics about clients, but these are very, very hot topics.
And when it comes to cyberbullying or revenge porn,
and also I should add that within the scope of, let's say, two and a half hours or five hours,
we probably could help you draft a petition for something like an order of protection,
either for your child, for yourself, or against somebody who may be disseminating harmful information about you.
This is also part of the reputation management practice that we have at our law firm as well.
If there's damaging or defamatory information, let's say, on a website like the Ripoff Report,
which is notorious for never taking things down, or false news stories about you,
I've heard that sometimes there's fake news out there these days.
Oh, boy.
You know, we help manage that.
I'm worried that Trump's going to contact you and take advantage of this offer.
He might.
I would have a conflict.
I would decline the representation.
All right.
A lawyer with scruples.
That's important.
516-620-3602.
My understanding is these are still available.
We still have at least one of each.
516-620-3602.
Ask for legal consultation with Blackstone Law Group, either two and a half hours or five hours,
and Alex will be your liaison or possibly your lawyer
and will guide you in the best things to do to avoid prosecution
or to engage in a lawsuit or to protect yourself.
There are just so many things that this could encompass.
It's really wide-ranging and general.
But technology is not limited to just technology, is it?
No, not at all.
Absolutely not.
No.
We handle a range of litigation as well, and I should mention we also have particular expertise
in appellate work or appeals.
We've been involved in some really, really interesting appellate work.
One case in particular had to deal with U.S. service members and civilians
that were captured by Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War
and then tortured by the Iraqi Intelligence Service,
and that was with my prior law firm,
and we took that case actually all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States.
And we were against, we were actually opposing the United States government.
We had a judgment close to a billion-dollar judgment against the Republic of Iraq,
and the United States intervened on behalf of the Republic of Iraq
to try to change the federal jurisdiction of the courts and kick out our claimants.
And it was a very interesting case.
Another case that we took on appeal, which is also something that now that I think about it,
and I didn't think about it before, but in today's world may be very relevant,
is that we've also handled some important appellate work with respect to immigration.
We had a particular client, and we took this case to one level below the Supreme Court,
to the Third Circuit in Philadelphia, and he was facing deportation back to Nigeria
where it was damn near certain he would have been tortured if he was deported.
And it took actually several years of litigation,
but we were able to win against the Department of Justice Convention Against Torture Protection
for this particular client.
And so immigration issues are very much on the forefront of people's mind these days
given the posture of the administration.
So it's something that we can talk about.
It's not something I would feel, I think, extremely competent in handling,
let's say a visa application, but we can talk.
We can also point you in the right direction.
And we have a lot of colleagues that handle those particular cases as well.
Just an update. I'm told we only have one left of the five-hour.
I'm going to be busy for the next couple of weeks.
You're going to be busy, but the people pledging will be happy and well-protected.
I'm very glad, and I'm honored that people are finding value in it.
But there is only one left of the five-hour package,
and even if it's not something that you use right away,
it's something that you will have in reserve.
It's a great investment, 516-620-3602.
And I think we still have the two-and-a-half hours for $250,
the legal consultation with Blackstone Law Group.
And if any of these are left at the end of the hour,
I think we might be grabbing them up here in the studio as well
because this is a real unique opportunity,
something I don't think I've ever heard on the airwaves before here,
and a smart thing to have, a really smart thing to have.
516-620-3602, pledge for the legal consultation with Blackstone Law Group.
And again, we also have the Hacker Grab Bag.
Ask for the Hacker Grab Bag if you want to pledge $55
and get all kinds of fun hacker things delivered to you.
It's well worth it. Rob?
It just cannot be overstated what a mythical creature you are, Alex,
what a unicorn you are, just because not only are you a lawyer with scruples,
but you're a lawyer with honest-to-goodness hacker chops.
I mean, I've known you for a long time,
forged in the fires of the local hacker community,
gone on to all these wonderful things and shown your expertise,
not only in your practice, but in your op-eds for CNN,
in your appearances on CNN News, CBC News,
in your presentations at Hope,
in your longtime contributions to this program.
It's really something amazing that you even exist,
but the fact that people can get hold of your services
for such a low comparative cost to what it normally would be
is an opportunity that I don't think can be missed.
And support the station at the same time.
Yeah, that's really the ultimate there,
that you're doing this, getting really good legal representation
and helping out the radio station incredibly.
And also, it makes us realize how valuable the hacker community is.
You're not the only hacker I know who has gone into the legal field.
It's incredible to talk to people years after speaking to them last
and realizing, wow, they've gone through law school
and they've opened up a practice, and they get it.
They've been through the ringer.
They understand the cluelessness of authorities and teachers
and even parents, and they're giving back.
They're helping to fix things.
Alex, what was it that inspired you to go into the law?
It was obviously a wrong turn I made in life,
going to law school, I think.
So I don't know if it was inspiration.
No, it really was.
And you guys, I should say, just step back for a minute.
You said very, very kind things there.
I'm blushing here.
But it is wonderful to be able to give back to the station.
Are you okay?
You beat red there.
I just want to make sure you're all right.
It was a sunburn.
Okay.
But to go back to this, there's a lot of different inspirations for me.
Part of it, like Rob said,
was to have been sort of forged in the fire of the hacker community in the 90s.
We saw a lot of our friends go to prison for stupid things.
You see a need coming up, and you see all these cases.
I mean, you think back to Fiber,
and you think back to Bernie in those days.
You know, we're putting out the next edition of the Hacker Digest this month,
and part of that, we're in the midst, I think it's 1998,
we're in the midst of the Free Kevin movement,
and you just see what has been going on
and how laws, which this is the Clinton administration,
laws were coming down the pike that were horrible,
that were victimizing people left and right, and hackers in particular.
And to see that happening was scary,
and I imagine that was a pivotal time for you to see all that going on.
Absolutely.
These are the days that we're talking about things like the Communications Decency Act.
Remember that.
Remember the Clipper chip.
And we were just arguing about math back then, essentially.
Now things are much more real, but there's still a big problem.
Originally, I wanted to be able to be somebody who could understand the law
and also talk the technical language as well
and be able to be that, essentially, a translator.
And there weren't a lot of people like that.
But like I said, now more people are realizing that the practice of law
is a multidisciplinary practice.
You're going to be more successful if you combine it with another area of expertise.
That's definitely for sure.
But even, I think it was yesterday or the day before,
piggybacking on this ransomware attack were really misguided efforts.
I believe it was in the House to introduce legislation
that would allow people who are victims of a breach to hack back.
And their rationale for this was that it would have stopped the WannaCry,
WannaCrypt attack, which was totally wrong and insane.
It just also didn't make any technical sense whatsoever
for the very reasons that Voltaire had explained earlier.
This was something that was self-propagated.
It's automated. It's a bot.
Or you're being infected by innocent victims.
So you're going to hack their machines. You're going to hack back.
And they're going to hack back to you.
Yeah, it's going to go on forever.
It's totally crazy.
It's completely unattended.
But this is what happens when you have people who have no conception of the technology
making the laws and trying to enforce these things.
You have complete chaos.
And also not actually fixing some of the technical things.
I think in the 80s, 90s, definitely that was it.
Now I think more of the technical things are getting in the way of
laws that actually protect people.
It's kind of flipped a little bit.
But it's still as bad.
Yes.
Again, 516-620-3602.
Please call in and pledge if they are still available
for one of the legal consultation with Blackstone Law Group
and Alex here,
who will defend you as well as I think you can be defended
or give you legal advice of one sort or another.
You don't have to be in trouble to take advantage of this.
Alex, what's a good example of someone who has no legal issues whatsoever
that would benefit from something like this?
Well, I guess you would need to have some kind of legal need, right?
Like you said, it's always good to have...
Well, just advice.
Sure.
Absolutely.
Let's say somebody is going to be leaving a company.
You're leaving your job.
And you don't know what to do with all that data that you have.
What can you do?
What can you keep?
Or let's say you're starting a company
and you want to understand the contours of,
let's say, trade secret protection law.
This is actually something Voltaire and I worked on
for a client of ours a couple of weeks ago
in talking specifically about the Defend Trade Secrets Act,
how that interacts with information security,
how that interacts with application security,
what are your requirements there,
and how does this federal law affect you as an employer or an employee
when it comes to confidential data.
What are the things you need to do to protect your data?
A lot of also what we do is just helping people assess the maturity
of their information security posture,
whether let's say you're a high net worth individual,
you're a family of reasonable means,
or you're a Fortune 500 company that needs serious help
and has 3,000 endpoints in the United States that need protecting.
516-620-3602 to get the legal consultation package
with Blackstone Law Group.
Again, $250 for 2 1⁄2 hours, $500 for 5 hours,
a mere fraction of what you would pay if you simply walked in
and asked for legal consultation.
And also the hacker grab bags are going as well.
A $55 pledge and you'll get all kinds of hacker-related items
including two Lego books, a hacker t-shirt in the size that you designate.
We will contact you and ask you what your size is.
You'll also get a signed Yes Men fake New York newspaper
designed to cause confusion and signed by the Yes Men too,
which is awesome.
You'll get a spy device, which we can't tell you any more about,
but it is good for spying.
You'll get a lockpicking tool, which will allow you to open doors
in one way or another,
and at least one other surprise item from the world of hackers.
That's for a pledge of $55, the hacker grab bag 516-620-3602.
I can't recall ever having such a strange variety of items,
but that's kind of what we're all about.
That's what the hacker world is about,
and that's what we here at Off The Hook and WBAI are about.
So please give a call now.
We only have a few minutes left, just over 10 minutes, 516-620-3602.
To go back to this issue of inspiration too,
for me this is particularly special to be able to give this back to WBAI.
Because it was being in this station back at 505 8th Avenue when I was a kid
that I learned a hell of a lot.
Let me tell you this.
A lot of the same people are in this room that were there,
and that was, my God, 23 years ago, 24 years ago.
But to give back to WBAI that helped nurture me
and essentially forge the set of principles that I have
and like to believe that I maintain in the practice of law,
it's great to be able to give back to WBAI right now.
I have a feeling the next couple of weeks are going to be busy
with some pro bono work, which we'll consider it as pro bono work.
But perhaps in doing this in 20-something years,
there's a 15-year-old who's listening tonight who will be doing the same thing.
I don't doubt it.
I'll bet there are lots of kids out there listening
that are considering their options, what path they want to go down.
And a success story like yours I think will be more inspirational
than anything we ever told you back then
because you've actually gone and done it.
And that to me is incredible.
And it's so important, I think, if we're going to keep this cycle going
to keep the station on the air.
And like you said earlier, now more than ever
is it important to have these independent voices.
Well, think of it.
If this radio station was not around back in those formative years for you,
you might be in a completely different place now.
That's true.
And so would we.
And a lot of people, their lives would be affected,
and dare I say, in a negative way, without WBAI.
So that's why more than anything I think it's important
to call 516-620-3602.
Pledge for the legal consultation if that's what you want,
or the hacker grab bag, or anything else,
or just make a contribution.
You can do the text thing.
You can give to WBAI.org.
The important thing is to show your support.
Show your support for Off the Hook.
Show your support for WBAI.
Keep us going so that we'll be around to have these conversations
and hopefully inspire people in the future.
But, Alex, I wanted to ask you, and, again,
516-620-3602 is the phone number in our remaining minutes here.
I know a number of people come to us,
and they have these problems where they believe somebody
is reading their mail, somebody is following them,
spying on them, bugging their apartment,
all kinds of things like that,
worries that basically the government is watching everything they do.
A lot of, dare I say, paranoia, but some of it well-founded.
Is that something that you can help with?
It is, in fact, and we help a lot of individuals
who have accounts that are compromised reclaim these particular accounts
and sort of begin to reclaim their lives.
And I think it's important to note that there's a real gap, I think,
when it comes to the information security assistance that is afforded to,
let's say, a company that can afford a cadre of consultants
and lawyers to help them firm up their information security posture
and an individual or a family that is the subject or, I should say,
the victim of, let's say, an identity theft breach or a system compromise
or somebody may compromise your home router and you may not even know it.
We help with these types of things as well.
These are not the types of engagements that would make us rich,
but it's definitely the type of engagement that could fit within the scope
of a five-hour or even two-and-a-half-hour consultation with us.
Another thing, too, that I should mention that is also quite simple for us to do
and fit within the scope of, let's say, a two-and-a-half to five-hour engagement
is to, let's say, you own a company, you own an organization,
or you work for a company in the IT space and you're not really quite sure
about whether or not there are cyber squatters out there
that are mounting an attack against you.
One of the things we can do quite easily is identify where these cyber squatters are
or help you acquire domain names that could be used to engage in phishing
or some kind of fraud-related offense against your company or organization
or your family.
So there is definitely a lot that can happen here,
and to go back to the paranoia issue,
there is a very fine line between being paranoid these days
and being really, really well-informed.
And the tinfoil hat-wearing guys don't look so crazy anymore.
And so if you want to talk to somebody, if you think you're being paranoid
and you want to talk to somebody who can talk you off the ledge, so to speak,
we're happy to do that.
Yeah, we're always loathe to condemn somebody as being out of their minds
or overly paranoid or anything like that because, as you say,
in this day and age, reality is not that distant
from what we used to think of as fantasy.
The concept of identity theft alone, the things that happen
to people's online accounts through their credit reports, things like that,
and I imagine that's something you come in contact with as well.
It is. It absolutely is.
And reclaiming those accounts can be quite difficult.
Sometimes you do need to engage the services of a lawyer.
And also, people don't realize this, but sometimes when your loved ones pass away,
it can become very, very difficult to access those accounts
without engaging a lawyer as well.
Let's say your relative passes away, your mother, your father,
and you need access to their online accounts.
Well, you don't want to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
in trying to access your mother's account.
Sometimes it's good to take some advice before you do such things.
516-620-3602, we're offering two legal consultation packages
with Alex and the Blackstone Law Group specializing in technology,
privacy issues, two and a half hours for a $250 pledge,
five full hours for a $500 pledge, 516-620-3602,
and we also have the Hacker Grab Bag for a pledge of $55.
I just want to point out that I think the distinction with that fine line
and the way I think about it is what is possible versus what is probable.
And what Alex is offering here is counsel that would probably go a long way
to help you strategize and come up with what is actual,
what is really going on through these technical means
as well as legal and otherwise.
And you're a very patient person too, so listeners don't have to fear Alex
throwing up his hands and saying, this is insane.
He'll listen to your story, he'll listen to whatever you're going through,
and he will help you.
And that can be a really helpful tool in interpreting all the things
that you're concerned about.
Having that third party, that objective listening is incredibly crucial,
and you can actually kind of get a grasp of sort of the real important stuff,
separating wheat from chaff, et cetera.
That's absolutely right.
It's a matter of understanding who your adversary is essentially.
You make a great point, Kyle, that it's the distinction between
what is probable to happen and what potentially could happen.
And if you're in a situation, let's say you may be a journalist
and you're about to publish an investigative news story about a particular corporation
and you're worried about the aftermath of that,
that's another thing that we actually often help media organizations deal with,
understanding their adversaries and operating in a secure manner to safeguard the data
with respect to the story beforehand
and safeguarding your data after a story like that breaks.
So it's really understanding, I hate this stupid phrase, but your threat model,
which is an indication as to whether or not something is probable or merely a potential.
All right.
We are out of time, but again, one more time, the phone number,
and we're not updated on how many of these are left,
so hopefully there's at least one left for you.
516-620-3602, five hours of legal consultation for a pledge of $500,
two and a half hours for a pledge of $250 with Alex and Blackstone Law Group.
And again, the Hacker Grab Bag, if there are any of those left for a pledge of $55,
write to us, oth at 2600.com,
and hopefully we'll be around next week for another edition of Off the Hook.
Alex, thank you so much for your donations here.
My pleasure.
All right. We'll see you next time
and Personal Computer Show with Hank Key, live in the studio, up next.
Good night.