Also, two lucky people will be able to perform with us, and it's only $10.
What can be better?
$10 for a live taping of a show, some stand-up, some storytelling, and karaoke.
And you are listening to radio station WBAI in New York.
The time is just about 8 o'clock.
Time once again for Off the Hook.
It's good fun, didn't it?
No!
And a very good evening to everybody.
The program is Off the Hook, Emanuel Goldstein here with you, joined tonight by Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
Kyle.
No lie, I'm here.
You are.
Alex.
Hello again.
And Voltaire.
Hey.
Well, this is our final night of the Spring WBAI Fundraiser, and I want to thank everybody
who called in last week.
You know, we raised over $2,000 in one hour last week.
I mean, that's great.
That's amazing.
Thank you to our listeners.
Thank you, Alex, for donating that amazing premium of legal time.
Only a pleasure.
And I've already been contacted by several people, and it sounds like we have some interesting
work ahead of us.
Wow.
Okay.
Of course, you can't tell us because you're legally bound not to do that.
But it's just an example of some of the imaginative premiums that we have access to sometimes
here on this radio station.
Everything we were offering last week is gone.
We weren't kidding, folks.
We said, you know, you got to pledge now or it's going to be gone, the hacker grab bag,
that's gone, the legal consultations, those are gone, but we do have something else tonight
that we'll be offering.
We'll be getting to that in just a moment.
I wanted to go over some news items because, you know, when we're not asking for money,
we do occasionally do that.
And well, first of all, are you guys all packed, ready to go?
Because we've got a journey ahead of us.
We're apparently separating from the rest of the planet and going into deep space.
I didn't really get a chance to listen to the radio this morning, but what I heard was
that Trump is basically going to do something that distances us from the rest of the world.
Right.
And we will be separating from Europe, from Asia, from, and I guess that can only mean
a voyage into deep space, right?
Is this Convefe related?
It might be.
It might be Convefe related.
Absolutely.
That's the word that Donald Trump sent us as kind of like a wake up call for the sleeper
agents out there.
What you're cruelly joking about is the United States not participating in the Paris Accord,
which is the climate agreement that the rest of the world decided would be a good idea.
And actually the United States was helping sort of spearhead, but now we're not going
to participate.
Well, yeah.
You just kind of took all the fun out of it.
Yeah.
I was cruelly joking about this.
Well, get used to that.
All right.
Fine.
We'll be doom and gloom then.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I need to be cheery today, huh?
No climate change can be fun.
It can be, or no to climate change accords.
You know, we don't know this is going to happen yet.
It's, it's widely speculated that it will.
But what I find interesting is that, that corporate America is actually for combating
climate change.
You know, Wall Street is separating from Donald Trump on this.
If you read some news stories about this, that is something that I think might strike
some people by surprise.
It's surprising me.
And it could actually hurt the Trump regime more than, than he was expecting.
Yeah.
Major multinational oil companies are actually encouraging the United States to participate
in this and not step away from it.
I want you to say that again.
Major multinational oil companies are encouraging the U.S. to participate in this.
I should have prefaced that with, if you're driving, don't swerve because yes, it's true.
It's true.
Major oil corporations are more progressive than our president.
Probably begrudgingly, you know, behind closed doors, it's probably begrudging participation,
but they know that they, there would be a major incongruence with the ideas and beliefs
of the rest of the world if, if they were to follow this leadership in that way.
And yet the leadership is not interested.
I think the motive behind the oil companies is, it's not some wonderful progressive cause.
It's more real politic thing where they know that the Paris Climate Accord is actually
non-binding and they would want to keep it.
Fine, but I'll take that.
You know, it doesn't have to be, they don't have to be a bunch of environmentalists as
long as they, they get the job done, even if it's for their own self-interest.
Of course it's for that.
But you know, Trump is so ignorant that he doesn't even realize that this is going to
hurt his bottom line in the end.
Yeah, that's what I said.
Yeah, definitely.
You know, I think part of it too is that with respect to the major oil companies, these
companies like consistency and predictability, and if the United States is out on a limb
doing something crazy, they lose that sense of predictability and consistency and it becomes
very difficult for them to plan accordingly.
Whereas for many years they have been in compliance with this particular accord.
But I think this also gets to the heart of the issue with respect to Trump, which is
that we don't really know what the hell he's going to do and everything is in a state of
flux.
Isn't that fun though?
I mean, you have no idea what he's going to do next.
No idea at all.
It's exhausting.
It's terrible.
I mean, it really, really is.
We have no clue.
Everything I feel like he does is to throw us off balance.
Even perhaps this Confefe issue from early this morning.
Well, you know, that was a trending word for a long time on Twitter and I'm sure there's
more words like that coming down the pike as well.
Something else though that people have been talking about recently and that's the potential
laptop ban on airplanes.
Now there was talk about this from certain Muslim countries where we didn't trust their
security methods or something.
And now there has been talk about it being extended to European airlines and then to
American airlines heading to Europe.
And I understand, Rob, recently in the last day or so they have said more or less that
they're not going to go ahead with this, at least for now, but it's kind of still up in
the air, literally.
Yeah, not yet.
According to the latest update on the site Politico, a European Commission official said
no ban after a conference call between the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly
and two of his European counterparts.
Both sides have agreed to intensify technical talks and try to find a common solution.
So you know, technical talk intensifies.
But in a statement, the DHS said that Kelly and the Europeans agreed on the need to raise
the bar for aviation security.
Secretary Kelly will implement any and all measures necessary to secure commercial aircraft,
including prohibiting large electronics from the passenger's cabin if the intelligence
and threat level warrant it.
So everything is still...
Large electronics.
Large electronics meaning anything bigger than a cell phone.
I would guess that's a fair assumption.
To me, large electronics is a washing machine.
That's something that really could cause problems.
But a laptop, a Kindle, these are the things that we're supposedly going to be banning
now.
I have to wonder, what is it that they're reading?
What is it they think is going on?
If you have a device, right, you have to take it out of your damn bag anyway when you go
through TSA, and they swab it, they look at it, are you telling me that I can carry on
a bomb and they're not going to be able to tell after doing that that it's a bomb?
They're looking it over directly and examining it.
There's still a chance this thing could blow up.
This is the security that we're facing here?
I think maybe this has more to do with concern over hacking going on, thinking that maybe
somebody is going to access something on the airplane.
Is that what they might be talking about?
It's just we're not getting any information about this.
So we have to have all kinds of wild speculation as to what is really going on.
I do know this, if you have flights, overseas flights or domestic flights where people can't
do work, where they can't use their laptops, they can't watch a film on their own machine,
they can't read, you know, and the cell phone you have to put in non-cell phone mode in
the first place, so that limits a lot of things you can do on that.
It's going to be even more of a nightmare than it is already.
And I really think you're going to see some uprisings.
Walter?
Today we saw a wonderful example of why this idea is so stupid, where a JetBlue flight
had to make an emergency landing because a laptop that was checked in the checked baggage
caught on fire.
A laptop caught on fire in a JetBlue flight?
Yeah, in checked baggage.
Oh, okay, because it was in checked baggage and nobody could deal with it.
Exactly.
Yeah, the thing is, if you have to check something, won't it blow up there anyway?
And, you know, I don't travel with checked baggage normally, so what am I going to do?
I'm going to have to check one laptop and they expect me to pay for that?
That's not going to happen.
A lot of lithium batteries of the type used in laptops, if you store them in a depressurized
area like the cargo hold, there's a chance the batteries can swell and basically ignite,
whereas if they're in the passenger cabin with you, they're perfectly safe.
Yes, Kyle?
I'm not entirely sure.
I think the baggage area under the plane is pressurized like the rest of the plane.
That's the way animals can survive.
I think there are sections that are and sections that aren't.
Yeah, but this is details.
One other secondary thing, though, is that people would have to let their electronics
out of their sight, which bothers me, but it's a secondary impact of this problem, so
it's kind of frustrating in that regard.
That comes back to the point of when you're passing over a border, should you be able
to keep control of your electronic devices or should you surrender that to authorities
who ask for your passwords and want to go and rummage through your files?
I say under no circumstances is that acceptable, but I fear that more and more people are saying,
yeah, you know what?
If it makes things easier and more secure, I'll give up that privacy.
The TSA employees already have keys and stuff to the TSA-approved locks and all that, so
they're already going through your luggage.
What's to stop them from taking your machine if, say, they decide you don't need it anymore
or doing something more nefarious, technically?
It's all good reason to start Fun with TSA again.
Oh, our old website, Fun with TSA.
I remember that.
We might have let it expire.
I think we need to revive it.
Okay.
There are all kinds of drawings of fun things people can do without access to anything that
they normally have access to, but it's like they're trying to come up with ways to drive
us crazy.
This is something that's going to spark another insurrection if people, A, aren't allowed to
have access to their devices on planes and, B, they're expected to give up their fundamental
privacy and have people rummage through their private data.
I'm wondering if there are any clever ideas out there for, say, login screens on your
laptop that basically give warnings to TSA people or Homeland Security people who might
be trying to access your info without your permission.
I say if they're going to be trying to hack into our machines, they should be subjected
to all the abuse that we can muster in whatever form we decide is appropriate.
I'm curious about self-destruct sequences, whether they're real or not, and just anything
that will cause a panic in their eyes as they are trying to violate your privacy.
When somebody does that, I'm sorry, you have the right to defend yourself.
We should not take this without strong opposition.
Alex?
Wasn't this part of the conversation that Trump supposedly had with Kislyak in the Oval
Office as well, identifying the potential source or at least the geographical location
from which this particular intelligence about laptop explosives was derived?
I think it's a really dangerous situation.
Nobody wants to be in an airliner that is under attack by a laptop.
We get it.
Really the whole thing is ridiculous.
To go back to what Rob said, which was that they're thinking about technical means about
how to identify what's happening here, I'd love to know a little bit more about what
the actual threat is because I feel like they may not be, for God's sakes, the best brains
to be thinking about this.
I feel like our community would probably think about this in a completely different manner
than let's say Department of Homeland Security or the European Commission, for God's sakes.
It's just a bunch of bureaucrats sitting in Brussels thinking about explosives on planes.
It doesn't really seem like they've got the brightest bulbs over there.
Another point that I think is really important is when you relinquish control of these particular
devices, let's say on an international flight, you're doing so for an extended period of
time.
If there was some sort of nefarious purpose to encourage people to do this, that would
be a very sufficient amount of time, let's say even if you're just flying from New York
to London, for somebody to completely image your laptop, to take a complete forensic image
of it.
If you're flying to Hong Kong, they could do it 10 separate times.
This is an issue that's not just inherent to airports.
Think about what happens if you go into federal court as a civilian, as a non-attorney.
You have to surrender your phone to the federal marshals whenever you go into court.
You don't have the right to go into federal court, and it's been this way for a really
long time.
Yeah, that's true.
You have to go and give it away to the federal marshals, and they put it in a little cubby
hole.
It's not blocked.
They ask you to shut your phone off.
But if you're, let's say, a criminal defendant, and you're out on bail, and you go into federal
court, and then you have to hand your phone in to federal marshals when you go inside
that courtroom, that would give me some significant pause.
If my client had to do that, it would give me significant pause too.
I'd encourage him not to bring his phone to court.
We see this in the federal arena in more than one instance.
It's not just planes.
I think it's anything that has to do with the federal government to an extent.
They're extremely cautious about our devices and what we can do with them.
What are the rules about laptops in federal court?
You cannot bring them in unless you are an attorney, and not all attorneys can bring
them in.
You need to have, for instance, when it comes to the SDNY or the Southern District of New
York, the U.S. Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York in downtown
Manhattan on Pearl Street, you need to have your special SDNY ID card.
And to get your SDNY ID card, you need your attorney ID card, your state ID card, and
then you can go get a free ID card from the Southern District, at which point you would
be allowed to bring in electronic devices.
What's the concern here?
The concern is recording?
Or the concern is security?
I think the concern is recording to a large extent, but also annoyance.
I don't think the judges want to deal with people's phones going off in courtrooms.
And that's a big issue.
But another rather interesting thing about the attorney ID card, by the way, and we're
talking about security, if you have an attorney ID card, you don't have to go through the
metal detector when you're going into state courts.
Really?
You could just walk right through.
Wow.
There's some sort of ridiculous implicit trust, by virtue of the fact that you're a member
of the bar, that you're not going to do anything crazy.
So an attorney can open fire in a courtroom, is what you're saying?
Yes.
Yes.
Well, that's a fact I didn't know.
Okay.
Yes.
Absolutely.
Wow.
Something else to worry about.
You can just walk straight through.
No offense.
I've been worried about lawyers before that, and now you gave me something else to worry
about.
I don't know.
There's definitely somebody to worry about.
Okay.
Listen, we have to get into some business.
We have to do some fundraising for the show, because while we raised $2,000 last week,
this week is a clean slate.
And we have a couple of leftover items from previous weeks.
We have the Hope Conference Keynote Series.
That's a flash drive of all the keynote addresses that have been given at the various Hope Conferences,
11 of them, since 1994, plus a bunch of other extra bonus talks.
We also have the 11th Hope Conference DVDs or flash drives.
Call 516-620-3602.
Ask for either of those, and I think a pledge of $75 will get you that.
But what we are offering tonight is a couple of things.
It's a book premium that I think is really of interest to hackers.
It's called The Car Hacker's Handbook, and Kyle, hold that up to the microphone.
There you go.
Yeah, that's what it sounds like when you smack it into a microphone.
It's a guide for the penetration tester.
It's written by a guy named Craig Smith, who knows his stuff.
And there's all kinds of information there.
You'll get an understanding of computer systems, embedded software in modern vehicles.
You'll learn about vulnerabilities and communications over the CAN bus, and between devices and
systems, as well as how to intercept data and perform specific hacks to track vehicles.
This is a real education on how to hack cars, what it's all about.
And it's one part of a $25 donation that we are offering at 516-620-3602.
Can I just add, this is a pretty in-depth book.
It's nearly 300 pages of really interesting detail describing systems, modern sensors,
and the networks that exist in vehicles these days.
It has a lot of information about different software and different hardware tools you
can use to interact with these computer systems on vehicles.
So it starts out with an obligatory chapter, of course, on threat modeling, but every other
chapter is a specific part of the computer systems and vehicles.
This is a fantastic book.
It's new.
It came out last year.
I believe we did have a show where we spoke with the author.
And it's a great premium from our friends at No Starch Press, who really have been big
supporters of us and the station over the years.
But wait, there's more.
Because in addition to this book, which by the way, retails for more than double what
we're offering for tonight, which is pretty unbelievable, we are offering a second collection.
And Alex, can you tell us something about what this is all about?
Sure.
A couple of months ago, if our listeners remember, I published an op-ed on CNN that had to deal
with 1984 and Donald Trump.
And the article was about how you can decode Trump's actions through 1984, through the
principles of 1984.
And it was a shockingly popular article.
And I was contacted by this really innovative publisher here in New York called Riverdale
Avenue Publishing.
And they wanted to publish this particular book, I'm sorry, this particular essay as
part of an anthology of essays.
And they did in fact publish this book with my essay inside of it.
It's called 1984 in the 21st Century, an Anthology of Essays, not surprisingly.
And it's a collection of really interesting thought pieces on 1984.
It includes, well, myself, of course, as an author.
It includes people like David Brin, who is a renowned science fiction author, somebody
who won the Hugo Award, somebody who has a PhD from UCSD, I believe in physics, and writes
a lot really humorously about technology and science and what it means to our life.
There's plays about 1984 in this book.
I think there's something close to possibly 20 essays.
I'm looking through it right now, but maybe even more than that.
But I would say it's 170 pages of really interesting, well thought out, extremely relevant to today's
world thoughts about 1984.
And if you like this show, and if you like 2600, you will undoubtedly understand that
1984 plays a really large role in our culture and its significance.
So if I understand correctly, we are offering the Car Hackers Handbook in addition to this
Orwellian premium that, what's the official name there?
It's called 1984 in the 21st Century, an Anthology of Essays.
And it's a really nice looking book.
It has a scary looking face on the front of it.
Like I said, there's essays in here from David Brin, Matt Bayh, Melissa Phoebus, Jay
Strongman, Mike Siegel, Mark Polite, and many, many others, including my own essay, which
you can find on page 28.
Wow.
So you're getting two really good books for a pledge of $25, 516-620-3602.
We should point out, since we're doing all our own shipping, that's part of the new way
around here, and we've caught up with our premiums, and our listeners are happy again.
Because of that, we threw this in at the last minute.
The people in the pledge room have no idea what 1984 in the 20th Century.
Don't ask about that, because they won't know about it.
They know about the Car Hackers Handbook.
That is how it's listed, and we guarantee we will include the 1984 in the 20th Century
in addition for everybody who calls 516-620-3602 and pledges only $25.
That's a pretty amazing deal.
I think we figured since we made $2,000 last week that we could offer things for as low
a price as possible.
Really any amount is certainly allowed.
We'll accept any payment.
You can really contribute to this place.
The methods are varied, one of which would be the SMS route.
You can text WBAI to 41444.
You could also go online, give2wbai.org.
Yes, you can actually get the Car Hackers Handbook premium package there as well.
Again, it doesn't make any reference to the 1984 in the 20th Century, because that's something
we just added on ourselves, but you will get that guaranteed.
But 516-620-3602 is the phone number.
Now we have one other thing, actually, to throw into the mix here.
This is something that not everybody will get.
Two people will get this.
Actually, two people will get this if they want it, because this is something that actually
is time-sensitive and location-sensitive.
That's a ticket to a hacker conference known as SummerCon, which is coming up really, really
soon.
What we're going to do is, for the people who call, and we can only offer this for people
who call during this hour.
We can't offer it for people who call after the show, who listen on the podcast.
We're sorry about that.
Logistically, it just is no way for us to keep track of all the people that way.
But if you call any time between now and, say, 5 minutes of 9 o'clock, we will see the
information come in to our screen, and we'll be able to contact you later on, ask you if
you are, in fact, interested in going to SummerCon, and the first two people who say yes will
get the tickets.
Simple as that.
516-620-3602.
Actually, you'll have to call the phone number if you want those tickets, because that's
the only way we get the email that tells us that you pledged.
So it's a little confusing, but also pretty simple.
A pledge of $25, you'll definitely get the two books, and you have a chance, if you're
interested, of getting a ticket to one of America's oldest hacker conferences.
In fact, we have joining us on the phone someone involved in SummerCon.
Mark from SummerCon joins us.
Mark, are you with us?
Yes, I am.
Good evening, guys.
How are you all doing?
Pretty good.
We got to ask, SummerCon, I mean, I went to SummerCon back when it was out in Missouri,
and it was the inspiration for so much.
Tell us what form it's in right now.
Okay.
So I joined the organizing of SummerCon back in 97, so I've been involved in this conference
for 20 years, and we've definitely moved it around quite a bit in that time period.
We've been in Atlanta, Amsterdam, Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., New York, Brooklyn, have
been very popular as well in that time period.
And I have to say, organizing a conference in New York can be a logistical nightmare.
You think?
Yes.
Certainly not as bad as trying to organize a conference from the United States.
It's going to happen in Amsterdam.
But I have to say, the venue that we've worked with the past few years is in Brooklyn.
They're called Littlefield.
They've been just a dream to work with.
Julie and Scott there have been just amazing.
They've moved mountains to make SummerCon come off without a hitch.
And so, yeah, we've had other events in New York, other SummerCons in New York that have
not been quite as easy, but Littlefield has always made it super easy for us.
We're very excited to be there again this year.
So tell us, when is SummerCon?
June 23rd and 24th, so it's a Friday and a Saturday.
We have traditionally left the Sunday slate blank, because SummerCon has a reputation
as a bit of a drinking conference, and usually there's a pretty intense party on Saturday
night and people are a little broken by Sunday morning.
So we try to keep that day open for people to enjoy a hearty brunch and to solidify the
connections they made at SummerCon and to sort of gently ease themselves out of town
after the conference.
It's a unique experience, and I think you guys have held true to your core beliefs,
values, structure over the years.
That's why I think people would benefit from experiencing this part of the hacker culture.
How many people generally show up to these things?
So we purposely keep it small.
We anticipate it will be somewhere between 250 and 300 people all in, including the volunteer
staff and the people that make the conference happen on the speakers and so on and so forth,
which is tiny by comparison to other events that happen in New York that you may be aware of.
But I think that's a really important part of the identity of SummerCon.
SummerCon, to me, in the 20 years of organizing it, really the presentations are an important
part of the DNA of the conference, but they're sort of a pretense to spur conversations and
make it possible for people who generally only interact through the medium of their
computer terminal face-to-face.
It gives them an opportunity to have something to talk about and then to build relationships
with people they would otherwise not have the ability to do that with.
So to me, it's very important that we have those types of presentations, but SummerCon
is a social conference above all else, and it's important that it's a small enough group
that you can actually meet the people who are at it.
If you want the big event, those are great, too, because there's lots of opportunities
to see a smorgasbord of different things and information security hacking, but SummerCon
is really about making those connections and establishing yourself as a part of a community.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
As somebody who went to some of the SummerCons in the 1980s, when I think there were only
about 75 people, it really built something.
It built the community.
It's largely responsible for much of what we take for granted today, and I dare say
having it remain small and intimate and actually traveling around the world, I think that's
a great idea.
You're kind of bringing that spirit to today's culture and giving people the chance to grow
from that.
Yeah.
I think that certainly there's the enthusiasm there for this thing to be a much bigger conference,
but it's also a little bit antithetical to what we want to be.
We on the planning side have ideas about how we should run this type of event, and there's
different format choices that have been made throughout the years, and I think that when
a SummerCon is too polished, it doesn't feel very authentic, it has to be a little rough
around the edges.
It has to be things need to sort of have a bit of an edge to them to really be a SummerCon.
There's a very good history of SummerCon that was in Frac five years ago for the 25th anniversary
of SummerCon.
It's actually the 30th anniversary of SummerCon, or as we're calling it, SummerCon XXX, and
so that's an exciting landmark, and I think there's only one hacker conference in the
world that is older, which is Chaos Computer Club's annual conference.
That's right.
They started in 1984, I believe.
Right.
And SummerCon in 87, making it the oldest American.
I don't know if Chaos was in 84 or 85, but I know that SummerCon's official first one
was in 87.
Wow.
Quite a history there.
Are most people who attend aware of SummerCon's history?
We make an effort to tell people about it.
There's sort of a quick opening presentation to thank people who have come in and to let
people know this is really, this is the granddaddy, this is like if you've been to conferences
like Hope or DEF CON that are in this specific format and vein, they really owe a spiritual
debt to SummerCon as the foundation of how this type of thing comes together.
We take that very seriously.
I think it's important that we carry through on sort of the vision as it was then to be
social and to be about creating those connections for the people that are in it.
Again, we may have already given away these tickets.
It's quite possible.
The phone number is 516-620-3602, a number of calls have come in already.
We're offering for any pledge, by the way, it doesn't have to be for the Carhackers Handbook,
any pledge that comes in between now and, say, 5 minutes of 9 o'clock, you will have
a chance to get a ticket to SummerCon, one of the most historic conferences that we're
lucky is in New York this year.
The phone number, 516-620-3602, we're also offering for a $25 pledge, the Carhackers
Handbook, and 1984 in the 20th century, a really good package there.
Alex, I believe you had a question?
I did actually, because my understanding is that SummerCon is otherwise sold out as well,
so this is a way that you can attend by pledging right now, and you otherwise wouldn't be able
to get a ticket.
Is my understanding correct?
That is 100% correct.
It is an impossible ticket to get at this point.
In fact, we're not even taking sponsorship money anymore at this point due to capacity.
So these are the last two tickets that will ever be available for SummerCon.
Wow.
Well, it sounds very dramatic when you put it that way.
That's not bad.
I don't have a ticket.
Maybe I should pledge.
Well, you might be too late.
I might be too late.
But we can try, you know?
Yeah.
Nothing's stopping you.
I know.
That's true.
Just give me your credit card number now, and we'll be happy to...
Sure.
Do you want me to give it to you now?
Please, just read it out loud.
Four, three, five...
It's a Visa card.
Wow, look at that.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Can you tell us something more?
Can you tell us a little bit more about SummerCon?
Sure.
We have eight speaking slots that are open this year.
We have a general overview of the state of security, which is being presented by Sarah
Zatko, who is the chief scientist at the Cyber Independent Testing Lab.
They're not affiliated with UL, but their initial formation was to be something like
a consumer's union or a UL that would like to give you information about consumer products
and help consumers understand the risk in the software products they're buying.
So when you buy a router and there's two routers on the shelf, which one actually has a company
behind it that actually cares about patching their firmware on a regular basis and addressing
software issues up front.
So she'll be presenting sort of an overview in that vein.
I think a very interesting presentation that I'm looking forward to is Mikhail Davidoff,
who's going to talk about reverse engineering, LinearDX, wireless security.
LinearDX is a very old physical security protocol that's used in like passive infrared
sensors, door lock strikes, things like that.
And it might get everywhere.
And he's going to show how you can reverse engineer it and do some interesting things
with it.
Kyle, I see your face is lighting up at this.
What's...
Oh, no.
I know that this individual's a very skilled and interesting person and very capable.
So probably that talk will be quite interesting.
Wow.
Yeah.
Dr. Anqui and Rick Housley have a presentation about how to defeat secure boot using electromagnetic
pulses.
So, yeah, they'll be using an EMP generator, their custom EMP generator to get around secure
boot in a Cisco 8861 IP phone.
So that should be a pretty interesting one.
These are some pretty advanced talks here.
And some of them have always been that way.
Yeah.
We think that there's plenty of conference space that is dealing with sort of the softer
topics around information security, be they social or political or dealing with the person-to-person
side of it.
Our talks tend to be highly technical, geared towards a very technical audience.
And again, bearing in mind that these are designed to spur the conversation, to sort
of get people to talk and to open up about the types of things that they're working on
and to sort of get new ideas and to fuel the research pipeline.
Mark, I get the sense that SummerCon could grow exponentially and become huge and massively
corporate, but you guys don't seem to want to go that route.
Is that correct?
That's true.
I mean, I would say that the hardest thing that we had to do in the past few years is
actually start to accept money from corporate sponsors in order to run the event, because
it's just too expensive to do based entirely on ticket sales.
And so we have taken money from corporate sponsors, modest amounts of money.
But I would also say that the one difference between us and pretty much any other conference
I know of that takes corporate sponsorship is that on day one, when we kick off the conference,
the very first thing that we present, the organizers of the conference are on stage
and we walk through a brief financial presentation to actually show what money came in, how it
came in, whether it was sponsorship or whether it was ticket sales or horrible things we
had to do at Port Authority bus terminal.
And then we then go through what all the outflows of money were as well.
So you can see, we spend this money on the event, and when more money comes in, it goes
directly into the event, because we are essentially all volunteers and we're all dedicated to
creating the best possible party for the community.
Wow.
That's awesome.
That's a really interesting way of handling it.
I know we've done very, very limited sponsorship opportunities for Hope, and it's worked out,
but it is something we were very reluctant to dive into because it can get out of hand,
as I'm sure you can imagine.
Yeah.
Not done properly.
Yeah.
It can ruin things, but it sounds like you guys know what you're doing.
Yeah.
The transparency part, I think, is the key.
People are realistic about the need for money to make things happen, but you need to really
open the books and just say, okay, look, here's the money that came in.
We don't let our sponsors really dictate the direction of what we're going to present.
We don't have a pay to play mechanism in place.
We basically are like, thank you for your money.
We hope you enjoy the party.
And we hope that your products are secure and good, because if they're not, people are
going to make fun of you openly.
Yeah, definitely that arm's length ability to say, okay, you're done, you got what we
agreed to, and transparency too.
I know it's a lot smaller for us, but pretty much it's only gone to either bandwidth or
segues.
Sure.
I will say, though, for the record, our sponsors are really great at respecting that type of
arm's length approach.
And also, their goods and services are vastly superior to their competitors.
Talking of the very important subject of money to make things happen, that's one reason we're
here tonight, is to remind you to call 516-620-3602 or go to give2wbai.org.
Yes, keep us on the air.
Keep us on the air.
Pledge anything you can.
If you'd like to donate $25, you can get the package with the Car Hackers Handbook, as
well as 1984 and the 21st Century.
For a pledge of $75-
Did I get the century wrong?
I was saying 20th century.
No, 21st.
21st.
21st century.
I'm sorry.
I'm in the wrong.
Okay.
Yeah.
I was going to correct you.
If I get the century wrong, Alex, correct me, please.
It's important.
It's not the first time.
It's not the last.
Next century, we'll make sure to straighten that out.
But yeah, and any pledge you make tonight for the next, I want to say, 15 minutes or
so also gives you a chance to get one of these free remaining SummerCon tickets.
I should point out, we are going to run out of these books.
It looks like we're going to run out pretty soon.
So if you're going to call, give a call now, 516-620-3602.
Odds are that of the people who have called in so far, two of them want tickets to SummerCon.
I see that there are some local people here, but it's still possible that they don't.
So you could get one of the tickets if you call and pledge any amount, 516-620-3602.
What we'll do is in the next day or so, we will contact people in the order that they
called.
And if somebody says, yes, I would like one ticket, they will get one ticket.
And if they don't, then we move on to the next person until two tickets are gone.
And you can only get one ticket.
You can't get two.
So that's part of how it works.
$25 pledge.
That's not bad.
516-620-3602.
Yes, Alex.
Mark, I have a question for you.
How much would a ticket ordinarily cost for SummerCon?
So if you were to have purchased a ticket two months ago and they were still available,
they were $75.
Oh, wow.
So you can get a great deal tonight.
This is not bad.
But now you can't get them for any price.
Now, for a lot of money, you can't get a ticket.
So this is the way, this is the one true way to get the last two tickets to SummerCon.
That's right.
The chance may already be gone, but you'll never know unless you call 516-620-3602.
In any event, even if you don't get the tickets, you do get the two amazing books, The Car
Hacker's Handbook and 1994 in the 21st Century.
And Off the Hook and WBAI.
That's right.
We continue to come your way every week.
We will persist.
Yes.
We don't know how to stop.
Mark, any other words you want to share with our listeners about SummerCon in general?
We're just super excited.
Everything has come together for this conference.
It's actually astounding how easy the planning this year has been.
And I anticipate eating those words 20 minutes into the actual conference on the 23rd.
It's super exciting to be back in Brooklyn.
And I look forward to seeing everybody at SummerCon.
Where were you last year?
We were also in Brooklyn.
We were also at Littlefield.
Although, interestingly, Littlefield has moved.
So they will not be on the same street they were in in Brooklyn.
They're in the middle of moving the venue this very evening.
So you're going to be at the same venue, but the venue itself has moved.
Wow.
Correct.
Yes.
That is a hacker thing for sure.
Very exciting.
But you've been...
Where was the last place you were before you were in New York?
I think Pittsburgh was the previous city.
And then before that was Atlanta.
Do the audiences change based on where you are?
That absolutely happens.
Although, there are some people that show up year after year, no matter where it is.
You should really challenge those people and go to Antarctica or something and see if they
follow you there.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I really thought that some people would have shaken out when we went
to Amsterdam in 2001.
But they were stalwart.
They made it.
Is that the only time it's been outside the United States?
That is the only time it has been outside of the United States, yes.
And I got to tell you, as the person who was doing the heavy lifting on that to fill out
customs forms and to get product from the United States to the Netherlands and to just
deal with everything from power being different to...
And bear in mind, back then, you negotiated bandwidth in a hotel.
It was delivered as a basic rate ISDN connection.
So, you know, like just dealing with telecommunications differences and stuff like that requires a
whole different kind of logistical planning that I'm glad I don't have to do when we move
it around in the United States.
Yeah.
But still, I love the idea of a roaming hacker conference.
It's just...
Yeah.
Because you have to develop all these abilities and you learn so much about different cultures.
I'm also very curious...
Absolutely.
People who have been...
There must be like an award for the person who's been to the most summer cons, regardless
of where it happened to be.
Yeah.
You know, a few years ago, we started a tradition of giving out medals for different...
For recognizing different people for different things.
Like the first person to buy a ticket to SummerCon would get a medal for actually being a planner.
And we, back then, warned people that eventually there would be no way to get a ticket on day
of and it would be a big...
This would actually be an important award to strive for.
But that's a good one, too.
I like the idea of us tracing down who has been to the most SummerCons, you know, a lifetime
award, a trophy that we could hand out.
Yeah.
If we could find somebody who's been to the first one, that would be amazing.
Yeah.
That would be terrific.
I do feel like a few years ago, there was an attendee from the first one who breezed
through.
I don't know if it was by design, though.
It was being held in a bar on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
So, you know, maybe it was just, you know, dumb luck.
Well, they could just breeze through anyway without even having a conference.
You never know.
Exactly.
It's entirely possible.
Voltaire, go ahead.
Will there be Club Mate?
You know, we are working on a beverage sponsor, but I cannot reveal who, but I can say it
is not Club Mate.
Okay.
Well, you know...
It's also not Covfefe, which, you know, I'm not entirely sure how we get that sponsor
online, but we're working on it.
Well, if you guys want a case, let us know.
We'll send one over just as a show of respect there.
Mark, thank you so much just for what you do and for offering the tickets.
And best of luck with SummerCon this year and all the years ahead.
Thank you very much.
And thank you for staying off the hook.
Thanks again.
Take care.
Good night.
Yes.
We do try to stay off the hook, but we don't always succeed.
Okay.
We want to thank the people who are calling in.
We're getting a good number of calls.
We still have a couple of books left.
1-866-620-3602, pledge of $25, gets you the Car Hackers Handbook.
And also, a bonus book that is not listed anywhere, but you will definitely get it,
is 1984 in the 21st Century.
And you have an opportunity, a chance, if you call in the next five minutes, to get
one of the two tickets to SummerCon later this...
Well, actually, later next month.
Tomorrow is June 1st, so later in June for two days.
One of the most historic conferences in the hacker community, 516-620-3602.
Alex?
To go back to these books, I'm looking at both of them right now.
And they're...
Actually, you can't get it over the radio, but these are actually really handsome looking
books as well.
Even if you don't want to read them, or if you don't think you would actually read them,
I think just having them on your coffee table would say a lot about you as a human being.
Well, it wouldn't say much about you if you didn't read them.
Basically, you know how to put a book on a coffee table.
It would send a message.
These are the types of things that I'm interested in.
Look, if I see a book on your coffee table, I'm going to ask you what it's about.
And if you say, oh, I just put it there to show off, that's going to tell me something
about you.
Then that's going to tell you something about me too.
Absolutely.
Read the damn book, people.
It's a good book.
You know what I'm talking about.
Yeah, I know.
But it just bothers me when people don't read.
And this is a great book.
They're both great books.
They're both great books.
But realistically, to read something cover to cover like that would be tricky.
I think there's a lot in a car hacker's handbook here.
Kyle's gotten through half of it in the last half hour alone.
He probably has.
It's actually really interesting.
This book, the jacket is designed to lie flat so that while you're working on a vehicle,
you can maybe flip pages.
Oh, is that right?
And refer to things.
Yeah, it's got a special binding.
And before we go, I do want to give a big thanks to the folks at No Starch Press for
providing the finest in geek entertainment.
Absolutely.
That's trademarked.
And we're definitely thanking them from the future as they contributed this last year.
So really, really special that they're still supporting us and they may not know it.
Yes, absolutely.
And we support them as well.
Our phone number, if you want to support us, 516-620-3602, we're getting some more calls
coming in, which is great to see.
But we have room for a few more.
And again, there are other Off the Hook related premiums that we haven't talked about tonight.
All you have to do is ask the people who answer the phone, 516-620-3602.
If you're calling in the future, you can always pledge or support via give2wbai.org and mention
Off the Hook as your favorite show.
And that will help as well.
You might be able to find some premiums that we still have some of.
But if you want a shot at the SummerCon tickets and you definitely want the two books, we
suggest calling very quickly now.
We only have a couple left, 516-620-3602.
And if you happen to call and find out that there are none left, don't despair because
there are other things that you can get.
And you will also be safe in the knowledge that you're supporting WBAI, you're supporting
Off the Hook, and you're doing something that will make you feel good.
Right?
516-620-3602.
Absolutely.
And to go back to the 1984 book, just looking through the table of contents, I can say unequivocally
that the essays are, as we like to say in the media world, fair and balanced.
Don't.
Don't.
Don't say that.
That phrase has been ruined.
You can't say that anymore.
I was just trying to get a rise out of you, and it worked.
It's so easy these days.
Yeah, it's pretty easy these days.
Pretty easy.
I just want to read you some of the titles, though, because these essays do come from
both the right and the left.
So we've got George Orwell and the Self-Preventing Prophecy.
1984 was the catalyst of our conversation.
How 1984 can decode Trump's first 100 days, which was mine.
And Trump is not Orwellian.
He is the distractor-in-chief.
Why Orwell's sudden bestseller 1984 is more applicable to Obama than Trump.
1984, the facts on the ground are emotions.
Goodbye my safety blanket.
1984 and Walden, a time and a place in two volumes.
So there's a lot.
There's actually 25 essays.
I said earlier, around 20, there's 25 essays in this book.
And it's a wonderful book.
I think the writing is fantastic.
We were all at the book launch party, which coincidentally happened at the KGB bar a couple
of months ago.
And I think that says something really wonderful about Riverdale Avenue books, that they've
got a great sense of humor and had the launch party at the KGB bar in the East Village.
So it's just, I think you're getting two really, really great books whose value far
exceeds what the amount of a required pledge is.
And that's saying something too about what people will do to support this station.
And we give our time.
We give our products.
We give our services.
And it's all in the spirit of keeping WBAI on the air.
So please call 516-620-3602 and help us out.
Yeah, we at Long on this program espouse the virtues of 1984 as a work of literature and
just how it can spark so much thought and so much conversation.
And in one book here, you've got the thoughts and conversations and ruminations of such
a group of luminaries, including Alex here.
And it's really a great way to not only use the piece of art as a jump-off point to discuss
everything else that's going on in the world, but provide a deeper understanding of the
art itself.
And if you call 516-620-3602 or go to give to WBAI.org, we might still have a couple
of these left.
Of course, you have to get them with...
Actually, stop.
Uh-oh.
Stop.
Just stop.
The presses have stopped.
They're all gone.
All gone.
Don't say we didn't warn you.
We said that this was going to happen and it's happened.
They're all gone.
Are you joking?
Are you serious?
I'm very serious.
I've been keeping track and they're all gone.
So no more books?
No more books.
Thank you, everyone who pledged and got one of those.
You're going to be really, really pleased with it, I'm going to promise you.
So if you call now, while you can't get the books, you can get other items that are there.
Just ask for any off-the-hook items, any hacker items.
Most importantly, though, you will get the assurance of knowing that you're supporting
WBAI.
And that's what it's all about.
620-3602.
Give a call to that number.
Well, I'm amazed.
I mean, I think this is great.
This is a real moment, I think, for us.
We're being listened to.
We're being supported.
And we have to thank everybody who pledged.
It's a really wonderful feeling.
A special thanks to the person who just donated $25 and got no premium because it got to the
point where the premium wasn't available, but they still donated the $25.
So thank you to Eric down there in Maryland.
We appreciate that a lot.
And thank you to everybody else still calling in.
Thanks to everyone who has called in over the past few weeks.
This has been a great fundraiser for us.
And we hope that we see many of you listeners in future shows and future events that we
have.
Yeah, it's always been nothing more than the listenership that's kept us going here at
off the hook and here at WBAI.
This is the only thing we do to keep the lights on around here, is ask for your help.
And the fact that we've continued to get it for decades and decades, and this station
still exists, it's bizarre and it's wonderful.
And it's all thanks to listeners like you.
Yes.
Thanks to Ryan from Philadelphia for a very generous pledge that just came in, which kind
of doubled everything that we got up to now already.
So we're getting some really nice phone calls.
We want to thank everybody for their support, for saying that off the hook means something
to them.
It means something to us that you're out there.
And that's why we come back every week with more news about what's going on in this crazy
world of technology and hacking.
Right after the alternative facts gambit that Kellyanne Conway made in the first week of
the Trump presidency, that's when sales of 1984 just completely surged.
And I think that we should look at the place of WBAI in New York and in the world, quite
frankly, as being similar to that.
It's so important these days to support community radio like this, support independent voices,
and you're doing it.
And I think that's wonderful.
So thank you everybody who pledged this week and last.
And with luck, we'll be back next week with a regular show.
Write to us, OTH at 2600.com.
We'd love to hear from you, hear your thoughts and ideas.
And Voltaire, you have something to add?
Yes, follow us at Hacker Radio Show on Twitter.
Hacker Radio Show on Twitter.
Rob, you have something else to add.
And check out your local 2600 meeting all over the world this Friday.
And Thursday in Israel.
Yes, indeed.
2600.com slash meetings.
That's right.
Don't forget IRC.2600.net.
Yes.
And don't forget our Facebook page, which is out there somewhere.
Or OTH at 2600.com.
Follow us on Twitter, 2600.
Yeah, that too.
Had to pull strings to get that one.
Wow.
Yeah.
All right.
That's it for us now.
We'll be back next week.
Have a good night.
Bye-bye.