He'll station a thousand extra cops in the subways, and he added Tuesday at a news conference that the city is testing new gun detection technology. 
If we don't get it now, we're definitely on the pathway of coming up with some new technology that's going to help us identify weapons as well as guns. 
Paul Durianzo, New York. 
The previous program was Economic Update with Richard Wolff, heard Wednesdays at 6.30 p.m. 
It's one minute past 7 p.m. 
Stay tuned for Off the Hook coming up here on WBAI, New York. 
The number you have dialed is not in use at the moment. 
Le numéro que vous avez composé n'est pas en service en ce moment. 
If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again. 
If you need help, stay on the line and a hacker will assist you shortly. 
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall. 
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call. 
We couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would. 
Bundiddley Bump are the best, it's fake, the worst. 
I hope that's understood. 
Bundiddley Bump! 
Okay, let's get started because we had a late start here. 
It's Off the Hook here on WBAI. 
Emmanuel Goldstein with you, joined tonight by Kyle. 
Yeah, right here. 
And that coffee heard in the background was Gila out in Skypeland. 
Hello! 
How you doing? 
And Rob, who so far has been silent, also out there in Skypeland. 
Good evening. 
Good evening. 
Robby Firefly, that is. 
And we're back after two weeks. 
We have all kinds of things to talk about. 
We have overtime coming up at 8 o'clock on YouTube. 
You can go to the 2600.com webpage and click on the link there at that time. 
But we have an important announcement to share with you now because this affects the future of this particular program. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
The theme should stop. 
Because we, as you know, are a volunteer station. 
We are completely 100% funded by listener support, listener donations. 
And we have a new requirement from us, for us, actually. 
If we are to continue doing this radio show as of June, we must raise a particular amount. 
And it's not very much. 
It's not very much at all. 
It's a monthly figure. 
And we could do it tonight. 
We could get this taken care of tonight for the month of March. 
We're talking a total of $350. 
That is the minimum requirement. 
It's the minimum. 
Granted, we like to do things to the max. 
But this is the minimum. 
And we'll assure that we do not get booted in favor of somebody who does get more support. 
So if you become a BAI buddy and you pledge $30 a month, we'll do the math. 
30 times 12, that is $360. 
That's $30 per month as a BAI buddy. 
And right there, in one phone call or one click on the website, our March fulfillment has been met. 
The website is give2wbai.org. 
The phone number is 212-209-2950. 
And I just want to emphasize the importance of us getting listener support because we don't have commercials. 
We don't have any other source of funding that will keep us going. 
And this is something that is very, very worthwhile. 
If you feel that you've gotten anything, not only out of this particular radio show, but this particular radio station, meaning WBAI, broadcasting 24 hours a day, seven days a week with all kinds of diverse alternative material that you just can't hear anywhere else. 
If you've gotten anything out of all of that, then certainly some show of support would be warranted. 
And again, you know, I gave one example of one person taking care of this with one phone call or one visit to the website and having a fairly painless monthly donation automatically taken out of however it is they choose to set it up. 
But this could also be met by a number of smaller pledges of people going to give to WBAI.org or calling 212-209-2950 on that website. 
And through the volunteer that answers the phone, you will be able to get all kinds of gifts in return for a particular pledge, particular amount. 
So feel free to peruse that and make your choice. 
But the most important thing is that we meet that goal. 
So we don't find ourselves, you know, putting everything in our boxes and leaving in June. 
This is a requirement that will continue for each month. 
And I don't think it's very much at all, you know, to ask in general, seeing the number of people who tune in and comment and basically stop us on the street on occasion to let us know that you enjoy the show. 
So please show your support. 
212-209-2950. 
Give to WBAI.org. 
And when you do, please email us as well to let us know so that we have some evidence that we are getting calls. 
OTH at 2600.com is our email address here at Off The Hook. 
You guys have anything else you want to add? 
Gila? 
As you are contemplating your gift to WBAI, a couple of things to think about. 
Your employer may have a match. 
If you donate to WBAI, check and see if your employer offers gift matching. 
You may be able to double your gift to WBAI without working too hard for it. 
Piece number two is that if you call or you go on the website or if you send in a check, whatever you do, please, please let the people know that you're calling for Off The Hook. 
If they don't know you're supporting us, it goes to the station, which is great. 
But if they don't know we're bringing in enough money, we could, as Emmanuel said, get booted off the airwaves. 
And no one wants to see that happen. 
Well, I mean, I'm sure some people do, but we don't. 
Oh, there are people that want to see that happen. 
There are some people who definitely want to see that happen. 
But let's not make them happy. 
Let's keep going. 
We've been doing this since 1988 in one form or another. 
And there's so much to talk about, you know, so much in the world of technology. 
We're going to try and get through as much as we can tonight. 
But every week there is something new. 
And the hacker perspective is what makes it interesting. 
And that goes for everything we get involved in. 
We try to add that little flair to it. 
So please show your support. 
Keep us going. 
It really is a shot in the arm for everybody. 
But as Gila said, definitely mention when you're making the pledge that you're doing this in the name of Off The Hook. 
That way we get the credit and it applies to that $350 minimum threshold for each month. 
It's the beginning of March. 
So this is our first show of the month. 
So we have a few more weeks to get there. 
But I really I would like to get there this week. 
I really would like to get there this week. 
So we don't have to worry about this. 
Fair enough. 
Yeah, go ahead, Rob. 
Absolutely. 
And whether you want to make a one time donation or be what we call a BAI buddy, which is when a small monthly amount gets donated directly from your accounts to ours, ours as in WBAI because we here are volunteers. 
But it is a small donation that you could set up for the amount of your choice and not think about it. 
And you can be still supporting us automatically with from on a month to month basis. 
And the BAI buddy program is very special to organizations like us because it gives us something that is so hard to get in the nonprofit world, which is a dependable income. 
We can look at our list of buddies and see here's an amount of money that we're getting next month. 
And we can, you know, maybe pay some bills, maybe, you know, stock the stock the supply cabinet, buy some more paper clips, do what we need to do to keep this radio station, this program, all the voices on WBAI and all the people in this community to you. 
And this is all we have ever done for that. 
We ask. 
We ask for help. 
We do not sell snazzy things. 
We do not go out and do bake sales. 
We do not accept paid commercials. 
This is what we do. 
This is how we have remained on the air for generations now at WBAI. 
And this is how this is the only way we'll continue to remain on the air is through the generosity of you, our listeners. 
So if you go to give to WBAI.org and show us some support, we are all grateful. 
And the wider community out there gets to keep having what we bring out there. 
I think we used to have bake sales. 
Did we? 
Do I have that wrong? 
Books. 
Okay, book sale. 
That's a book fair. 
We used to have a book fair. 
That's what it was. 
Every year we had a BAI book fair. 
Why did we stop doing that? 
That was a lot of fun. 
Well, there are a lot of different ways to raise money at the station. 
But this is the tried and true regular fundraising period. 
And because of this amount we're working towards for the show, we're going to be trying to update a little bit more regularly so people know where we're at. 
But it doesn't take very much from a handful of individuals, really, who can contribute right now, being in action quickly this hour, mentioning the Off the Hook radio show. 
So that small act will go so far as far as keeping the operating funds up and our program thriving here on the air. 
It's what keeps us independent. 
And I think that's the overarching theme. 
Absolutely. 
And this is not a fundraising edition of the show, by the way. 
We are not spending the hour doing this. 
In the past, we would have a fundraising edition. 
We'd make a couple of thousand dollars in an hour. 
And, you know, things were different then in all sorts of different ways. 
But we still have a devoted listenership. 
We still have a lot of people that believe in the place, believe in the show. 
So we're spending a few minutes of each show to get people to add to that number. 
And hopefully we make that number by the end of the month. 
It's not much. 
It really is not much. 
If we don't make that number, then, you know what? 
We maybe are wasting our time. 
And I don't think that's what anybody believes. 
But I've been proven wrong before. 
All right. 
We've said all we're going to say on that for now. 
212-209-2950 and give to WBAI.org. 
The gauntlet has been thrown. 
The challenge has been made. 
$350 by the end of the month. 
Can we do it? 
We'll see. 
That's seven people at the $50 level. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
All you mathematicians out there can figure this out. 
Hey, we have this story was sent to us about 50 times. 
And it was good each time we read it. 
It's a vending machine at the University of Waterloo up in Canada. 
That's right. 
There's a University of Waterloo up in Canada. 
Bet you didn't know that. 
They have a vending machine that, for some reason, has facial recognition in it. 
It's true. 
And the reason this was discovered was because of an error. 
You ever see, you know, when you're walking by a screen in an airport, you see there's like a boot up error, Windows error, Unix, something like that. 
And this one had a particular error that said, the exception unknown software, this is phrased badly, the exception unknown software exception occurred in the application. 
Okay. 
Well, you know what? 
The line above it is where it says facial recognition.app.exe application error. 
So that right away told SquidKid47, who happened to be walking by, that's what college kids are called now. 
They have handles. 
They were walking by and they took a picture of that. 
And, yeah, SquidKid47 pondered on some online forum someplace, hey, so why do the stupid M&M machines have facial recognition? 
And that has been the question of the month. 
Oh, it was posted on Reddit. 
That's where it was. 
Okay. 
The Reddit post sparked an investigation from a fourth-year student named River Stanley. 
And I'm told that's a name. 
That's not a handle. 
Okay. 
River Stanley is their actual name. 
And they were writing for a university publication. 
And that was called Math News. 
Really? 
Is a publication called Math News? 
It's a publication just for math. 
No, I love it. 
That's great. 
We need more things like that. 
Math News. 
Hey, I'll subscribe, especially if they print. 
That's amazing. 
Anyway, River Stanley sounded the alarm after consulting Inbenda sales brochures that promised the – how do you – how do you – okay, he read the brochures. 
Okay. 
Promised the machines are capable of sending estimated ages and genders of every person who used the machines without ever requesting their consent. 
Now, this frustrated Stanley, who discovered that Canada's privacy commissioner had years ago investigated a shopping mall operator called Cadillac Fairview after discovering some of the mall's informational kiosks were secretly using facial recognition software on unsuspecting patrons. 
And only because of that official investigation did Canadians. 
And only because of that official investigation did Canadians learn that over 5 million non-consenting Canadians were scanned into Cadillac Fairview's database. 
Now, where Cadillac Fairview was ultimately forced to delete the entire database, Stanley wrote that consequences for collecting similar sensitive facial recognition data without consent for Inbenda clients, like Mars, remain unclear. 
And Stanley's report ended with a call for students to demand that the university barred facial recognition vending machines from campus. 
You know, this is something incredible. 
This is an Ars Technica article, by the way. 
But I'm blown away. 
Why on earth does a vending machine need facial recognition? 
Why do they need to know the genders or the ages of people walking up to it to buy whatever junk they're peddling? 
Gilly, do you have a theory? 
I do, because I was just clicking around on the Inbenda website, and they are those really hideous vending machines that don't have a window. 
They just have a screen so they can show you ads while you're buying something else. 
And Inbenda claims that, you know, you can leverage the best of technology, reduce costs, and monetize advertising. 
So the whole thing is the idea is you've got the captive eyeballs of the person who's standing in front of you buying a pack of M&Ms, for example. 
And you can advertise to them. 
And I don't know if you use facial recognition and think, hey, this is a 20-year-old female. 
What else can we sell her? 
Ooh, tampons. 
Wow. 
Yeah, I used to spend a lot of time in front of vending machines, but not so much anymore. 
So I'm not even familiar with what you're describing here. 
So you don't even see the products you're buying? 
You just see advertisements? 
You see advertisements. 
You see pictures of what you're getting. 
There's actually, this has taken over in a lot of stores. 
I think like Walgreens and 7-Eleven, as an example, they put these screens in the doors of the refrigerated and frozen section. 
So you don't see the bottle of water or soda or pint of ice cream you're picking up. 
You see an image of them. 
So you don't know how much stock there is. 
You don't know if the freezer section is broken and there's ice all over the shelves. 
You don't know what you're picking up because it's just a picture of the platonic ideal of the product. 
So you don't get to see the product you're buying. 
You just press a button and something you select shows up, but it could be covered in blue paint. 
You'd have no idea. 
Exactly. 
Wow, what a time to be alive. 
It's sort of like an automat of sorts. 
Yeah, but automat, you could see. 
That was the whole point. 
You could see the food. 
Yeah, there's like a little window. 
Uh-huh. 
That was the fun of it. 
No window. 
I miss the automat. 
Anyway, a University of Waterloo spokesperson, Rebecca Elming, has responded after a time, confirming to CTV News up in Canada that the school had asked to disable the vending machine software until the machines could be removed. 
Wait, why not just ask for the machines to be removed? 
Unplug the damn things. 
Yeah, I feel like the guy on war games. 
Can't you just unplug it? 
Yeah, I think that's what every student should do is unplug machines that are spying on you. 
Students told CTV News that their confidence in the university's administration was shaken by the controversy. 
Some students claimed on Reddit that they attempted to cover the vending machine cameras while waiting for the school to respond using gum or post-it notes. 
I'm in favor of gum. 
Well done there. 
One student pondered whether there are other places this technology could be being used on campus. 
You think? 
Yeah, I think it's being used all over the place. 
So absolutely, get your gum out and start covering these camera holes. 
Now, the conversation continues on Reddit. 
Some students joked that SquidKid47's face is what crashed the machine. 
That's nasty. 
Others asked if any pre-law students want to start up a class action lawsuit. 
One commenter summed up students' frustration by typing in all caps, I hate these machines, I hate these machines, I hate these machines. 
You know, when you quote social media in news stories, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. 
I would shy away from it. 
I really would. 
Rob? 
The funny thing about just not going up and unplugging the damn things is they might not be allowed to do that. 
These vending companies arrange very lucrative and binding contracts with venues like the school to place their machines there and have it up and running and so on and so on. 
So if they were to just go up and unplug the thing, even when it's doing something terrible like this, they might have had, and I'm going to try and fill the role of our absent colleague Alex here, but I am not a lawyer, I'm just theorizing here, but I think they may have been in a situation where it might have been a breach of contract for them to walk up and unplug the thing. 
Well, wait a minute. 
I mean, if there's a breach of contract, that means the university had to have known what they were doing, that they were, in fact, surreptitiously judging people's faces and doing facial recognition. 
That's very interesting, because the fact that they were doing this may have been buried somewhere in legalese in the contract, or it may have been part of a sales brochure that they got and they knew from the beginning. 
So maybe the class action lawsuit is against the university, not the vending machines. 
Go ahead, Gila. 
I mean, if I were a student, I'd be mad at the university, because who wants a just M&M's vending machine? 
Let's start there. 
But, okay, I have fallen down the InVenda rabbit hole, and now I'm looking at the generic brochure for their signature product. 
Hang on, hang on. 
You're doing this on a computer? 
I am. 
Have you covered the little camera thing on your computer? 
I flipped it off. 
There's a switch. 
You've got to cover it. 
Use gum, use whatever you can. 
Even if there's, like, a physical switch that slides a cover over it? 
I don't trust anything anymore. 
All right. 
How about I just stick my thumb over it? 
Anyway. 
All right. 
So this brochure sounds like tech magnetic poetry that someone threw against the refrigerator and then printed what came out. 
If I may quote, powered by a proprietary operating system and based on IoT, AI, and cloud technology, our Internet of Retail platform connects all self-service points of sale, creating an unmatched consumer experience and skyrocketing revenue. 
Wow. 
Well, it's unmatched. 
I'll give them that. 
And they're like, yeah, and you have this app so you can sell things that aren't even in the vending machine and then someone can go and show an app at a store, but they already paid for it at the vending machine. 
This is, oh, what's the word I'm looking for? 
Can you say it on the radio? 
No, you can't say that word on the radio. 
I know the word she's trying to say, but no, you can't. 
Maybe on overtime. 
What's the opposite of utopia? 
Dystopia. 
It's dystopian. 
This is Black Mirror. 
This is, I wonder if Charlie Brooker consults for InVenda. 
That's my new theory. 
Do you know how many times in the past few months I have said or has been said to me, this is some Black Mirror, I'll leave out the next word, going on right here, because it's happening more and more and more, and it's unsettling. 
Also, that proprietary operating system they're so hot about advertising is evidently in this photograph taken by this Reddit user, Microsoft Windows. 
We all know what that error pop-up looks like. 
Wow. 
I hope you have permission from the operating system to take its picture, because you don't want to do that without their consent. 
Okay. 
So that's an interesting story, and thank you, everybody, who sent us that one. 
That definitely was interesting, something to discuss, something to be aware of. 
And I feel like going out and hunting vending machines now and learning a lot more about them. 
We'll see. 
Okay. 
This is a crazy story. 
Epic Games Hackers. 
This is from The Gamer, thegamer.com. 
Epic Games Hackers say they faked the whole thing. 
Yeah. 
Earlier last week, a group claimed to have successfully hacked Epic Games, making off with 189 gigs of data, including information on users. 
However, they're now walking back on those claims, saying that they faked the entire thing so that they could scam actual hackers. 
Okay. 
You know, I take great exception with the use of hackers in this particular context, but it's a funny story anyway. 
The group is known as Magalovich Online. 
I'm not sure if online is part of their name or if they're just known as that online. 
It says that it did this by telling would-be hackers, in their definition, it would sell them the tech used to get into Epic Games. 
Of course, if the hack didn't happen in the first place, then the tech and data they sent on would be useless, if they sent any at all. 
Magalovich says that it sold this material to eight buyers, all without providing proof that they could hack a company like Epic. 
This latest development is being reported by Cyber Daily, and comes just days after the hack was first reported. 
Magalovich claimed to have made off with emails, passwords, full names, payment information, and source code from its attack on Epic, and was seemingly trying to ransom the data back to the company. 
But now Magalovich has completely changed its story. 
It can't be verified if the group's version of events is true or not. 
As is very possible, they did pull off a hack, and this is all misdirection. 
However, it does line up with what Epic has said on the matter, as it previously told The Gamer, that there was zero evidence that a hack had taken place at all. 
So, lies being thrown around left and right here, but apparently some naive potential criminals got ripped off. 
I guess that's the crux of the story right here. 
Magalovich explains this process, saying that it faked the operation so it could gain new contacts to scam. 
Great business model there, guys. 
Really, really classy. 
The group says that in this regard, if all went according to plan, they say it did all go according to plan, as would-be hackers apparently sent over tens of thousands of dollars. 
We don't think of ourselves as hackers, but rather as criminal geniuses, if you can call us that. 
Well, that's half true, I think. 
The statement that goes on to say they admit their aim was to gain access to new victims to scam, although, yeah. 
You know, I don't know if any of this is true, and Epic has yet to comment on this, and I just wonder how people take these things so seriously and get so deeply entrenched, but that's the world of gaming, I guess. 
Thoughts, comments? 
I haven't thought of the term script kitty in decades, but it looks like that's exactly who they were trying to scam, if this is, in fact, what happened, because, you know, hackers aren't the ones out there buying tools to, you know, mess with people like this. 
I don't think, you know, those are criminals, cheaters, whatever you want to call them, but I can kind of respect the ridiculous hustle if this is, in fact, just all a big scam to scam scammers. 
Yeah, I have no problem scamming scammers, if that is what this is, in fact. 
But, wow, really, you just don't believe anything anymore. 
You just don't believe it. 
Well, I think the weird thing, like, are these hacking crews, they're, like, names and stuff? 
Like, the identity, the sort of, like, identifying with a handle? 
I don't know, it kind of reminds me of graffiti, but it's like, people are coming into it that have different definitions. 
Like, we talk about a lot of sort of altruistic or, like, innocent motivations, curiosity, and so on. 
That's our emphasis, but it doesn't, like, inoculate a world of hacking, especially in a more adversarial, like, militarized internet environment, and really kind of broken infrastructure and software all around us. 
But, like, there is this sort of fine line that people are crossing and may come off, like, like a similar or, like, sort of imitating a lot of what we would, like, talk about in an innocent context as playful, but is crossing that line. 
And then, like, when you're going after different groups and stuff, it sort of changes. 
I don't know, the motivations seem less like that. 
So, I mean, these aren't just people just taking on tools and stuff. 
And it's just sort of strange to me because I think we have to kind of abandon that after it becomes this, like, lawless sort of play. 
And, I don't know, we just, we can't really defend it. 
It isn't, but they might still identify as hackers or be hacking, especially if they have, like, handles and, like, crew names. 
How can you say that's, like, not, is that, like, a criminal gang? 
Or is that, like, I mean, if it's increasingly becoming technological crime, I don't know, I don't know that some of the older characterizations we might have, I don't know if they apply as much. 
Well, I mean, you know, we can't say simply having a handle is indicative of being a criminal. 
What we can do is we can point to our definition, our ideals of what hacking is and say this doesn't match that. 
They can still call themselves hackers and people can still believe in the media that that's what hacking is. 
There's little we can do about that, but I think we can hold on to what we believe to be the ideals that we've always stood by. 
And, you know, I guess time will tell if we're proven right or wrong on that. 
But, you know, as soon as you introduce ripping people off, as soon as you introduce financial elements to it, I think that's when you sort of start separating a little bit from what the hacker world is and you're moving into, I mean, even they said that we're criminal geniuses. 
Okay, you know what? 
Go in that world. 
That's a different world. 
Different values, different people. 
And you might use hacking skills. 
That's certainly possible. 
But there's many different interpretations. 
Maybe they're e-criminals. 
You know, there's so many different words. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
I'm just talking of handles and gangs and stuff. 
If anyone's curious about the name Mogilevich, apparently that's the family name of a big Russian crime family. 
Oh, see, it's great to just get involved in that as well. 
It's just, oh boy. 
All right, moving on, moving on. 
Let's go back to some good old American crime here. 
Here, the 41-year-old man out in Oklahoma put in bids for vehicles and thousands of dollars, but when it came time to pay, he altered the site to show a sale price of $1. 
And they're calling this hacking too. 
Deals on vehicles and jewelry through a U.S. 
government auction website were a steal in more ways than one. 
An Oklahoma man pleaded guilty to hacking a website to buy the items for $1 each, according to federal prosecutors last Wednesday. 
Evan James Coker bought vehicles and jewelry in 2019 through web auctions held by the General Service Administration. 
The sales were intended to help get rid of surplus materials or items seized by authorities. 
Well, I guess he helped with that, didn't he? 
He certainly helped get rid of surplus materials. 
His bids were not unusual amounts in the thousands of dollars, but when it came time to pay, Coker breached the pay.gov website and falsified the true auction price to $1, the U.S. 
attorney's office said. 
Coker was indicted on three counts of wire fraud in March 2023 and pleaded guilty to one count last Wednesday. 
He defrauded the government out of more than $150,000 between January 31st and March 21st, 2019, the indictment alleges, included in the $1 buys were a 2010 Ford Escape Hybrid for which Coker submitted a bid of $8,327, a Ford F-50 pickup with a bid of $9,000, and a Chevrolet C-4500 box truck bid $22,700. 
He tried to sell some of them later, and I don't think for a dollar. 
A sentencing date has not been set. 
19 items in all were bought through the auctions. 
According to prosecutors, Coker used eight accounts and prepaid debit cards with very little balances to make the purchases. 
Yeah, okay, you know, I have some mixed feelings about this. 
Clearly, yeah, it's stealing. 
There's no question about that. 
You're doing something wrong. 
But come on already. 
How hard was this? 
All he had to do was change the price on checkout, and you're charging him with a crime? 
I mean, whoever set up that website, that's the true criminal here because they don't know what they're doing and who knows how much money they've lost. 
Does anyone have any theories as to how easy this is and if that website still works? 
On a normal sort of public sector website that was selling things with these type of dollar amounts flying around, I would say this is very weird. 
But for a .gov site and whoever wins the lowest bidder contract for that sort of thing, it's actually not so surprising when things go this wrong. 
Well, I mean, it's 2024, Rob. 
I mean, I expected this kind of thing back in the 80s or 90s when we were still figuring out, you know, things like checkout carts and all that. 
But today, you know, just to be able to change the price to whatever you want to pay, unless that is an advertised feature of the site you're on, that really should not be possible. 
And I guess nobody disagrees with me on that. 
Well, I just want to know how he found out, right? 
If it was widely known that this was vulnerable or he found out on some forum, then perhaps their security team should have been, or other, you know, key actors that were responsible may have also been monitoring and been aware that so many people were figuring this out. 
Otherwise, was there some affordable way to, like, bribe somebody or get the information that he needed? 
Or was it just so glaringly obvious the way it was set up and this person had expertise? 
Just, I have so many questions. 
Yeah, he can't have been the mastermind. 
There had to have been other people involved in this. 
It's like a forum or something. 
And I want more details. 
I think these news stories should give us more details. 
I mean, I assume the website has been taken down. 
So tell us exactly how it worked because there's precious little in the way of information as to what was misconfigured because there really is no excuse for that, you know, in this particular time. 
And, you know, you're going to send the guy to prison for this? 
How about you just don't give him the items? 
Or did he already, oh, he already had the items. 
Well, make him give it back. 
It was an auction anyway. 
They were used. 
There was something wrong with them, right? 
So I don't know. 
It's just, we can learn from this. 
We can do better. 
All right. 
Here's a kind of a similar story, but kind of different. 
And it's got a bizarre headline. 
And it's from a Florida media outlet, which I don't know the name of because they don't put it on their web page here. 
Next Star Media. 
Okay. 
That's what this is. 
Florida official's husband indicted on charges connected to alleged Fox News hack. 
Now, I don't know why somebody has to be identified as Florida official's husband. 
You could just say Florida man. 
I mean, why not? 
But yeah, charges connected to alleged Fox News hack. 
Well, I'm interested in that. 
Tim Burke, a, oh, it came from WFLA. 
I see that now, the credit. 
That's obviously a media outlet. 
Tim Burke, a Florida journalist and husband of Tampa City Council member Lynn Hertak was arrested on Thursday in a case connected to alleged computer hacks at Fox News. 
We're not talking about people of Fox News. 
We're talking about actions against Fox News. 
He was indicted on several federal charges alleging he participated in a conspiracy to hack multiple computer systems and steal information. 
Now, Tim Burke owns the media company Burke Communications and an alleged unnamed co-conspirator along with him are accused of unlawfully accessing servers belonging to multiple companies and transferring their protected information. 
That's according to a federal indictment which was unsealed last week. 
Now, this comes after the FBI raided Burke and Lynn Hertak's home in Seminole Heights, Florida in May of 2023. 
Hertak said in a statement at the time that it was related to Burke's work as a journalist. 
She did not provide additional details. 
Now, an appeal filed by Burke's attorney in December said the case apparently originated with a complaint by Fox News after unaired footage of a Tucker Carlson interview with Kanye West leaked to multiple news sites. 
Now, the clips posted to Media Matters and Vice News included West making anti-Semitic statements and peddling various conspiracy theories. 
Vice also published a video of Tucker Carlson making a series of sexist and misogynistic remarks to members of his staff according to the appeal filed in the U.S. 
Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. 
Now, in May, the Department of Justice informed Media Matters and Fox News that it was opening an investigation into their broadcast but said they are not the targets of that investigation. 
The DOJ alleged that Burke obtained the raw footage of the interview being recorded as it was transmitted on the server and saved it to his devices according to court documents. 
Let me just step in here and say you know, if that's what you did you intercepted these racist remarks and things that were not aired bravo. 
I mean, we deserve to hear about these things. 
We need to know and the fact that what they're investigating is how you got access to it that's not really the important thing here. 
The important thing here is what a major network is allowing to go on. 
A major network that influences political outcomes in this country. 
We need to know more about that. 
And yeah, sometimes you've got to straddle regulations a little bit to get information but if this was a movie we'd be cheering this guy on. 
Right? 
We definitely would be. 
Anyway, the appeal stated that he merely found something newsworthy on a publicly accessible site. 
Now I'm interested. 
How did he get access to this? 
Burke is charged in federal court with one count of conspiracy, six counts of accessing a protected computer without authorization and seven counts of intercepting or disclosing wire, oral, or electronic communications. 
So, you know, that latter part and I wish Alex were here for this but that latter part could be something as simple as simply showing that Kanye West is anti-Semitic as hell with his own words without getting his permission to do so. 
You know, and Florida is a crazy enough state where I think you would need his permission before you could reveal that. 
According to the indictment, the affected companies include New York One which, it's funny, in this story they say it's a broadcast television station in New York City. 
Actually, they're only on cable so the one thing they don't do is broadcast. 
But whatever, I'll let that go. 
National Sports League, never heard of them. 
Such a generic name but I never heard of them. 
That's a New York-based professional sports league. 
Okay, but they apparently don't have a sport picked out. 
And Streamco, really generic names here, a U.S.-based online media, guess what, streaming company. 
Streamco, wow. 
Burke and the alleged co-conspirator, for some reason isn't named, are accused of accessing the networks of two companies that were using Streamco devices. 
Now, the conspiracy which began in February of 2022 and continued until the FBI raid was coordinated through Twitter, direct messages, and Google accounts. 
Oh, God. 
People, you've got to listen to the show. 
Do not trust these things. 
These are the tools of criminal masterminds. 
I want everyone to know these are hacking tools. 
This is how crimes go down. 
Federal prosecutors alleged the pair illegally acquired sign-in credentials and re-recorded the intercepted media onto another device and altered its metadata. 
The Fox News interview clips posted to Media Matters and Vice appeared to have been recorded off a monitor using a camera. 
Okay, well, that's not a crime, right? 
Re-recording something. 
Burke appeared at federal court in Tampa on Thursday, accompanied by council member Hertog and his attorney Michael Maddox. 
Hertog provided the following statement when reached for comment. 
I am confident in my husband's innocence and I support him completely. 
I will not be making additional statements regarding this matter. 
Speaking to NextStars WFLA, okay, they're related. 
Outside the courthouse, Maddox strongly denied the charges against Burke and maintained that the case is about journalism rather than computer hacking. 
If convicted on all charges, he faces up to 62 years in federal prison. 
I don't care what he did. 
That is not something that should even be hinted at. 
That is insane. 
The DOJ is also seeking a ruling that would require Burke to forfeit a website domain and 20 computer-related devices involved in the alleged hacking, as well as $1,500, which is equal to the profit that federal prosecutors claim Burke made through his offenses. 
Okay, you know, if we're talking about numbers that low, we're talking about having to give up a website and some computer-related devices, this doesn't sound like a very big criminal story here. 
It does sound like something that's very much of interest as far as finding out what these people are up to in Fox News, the kinds of things that are going on there. 
And, you know, if you have a whistleblower or a leaker of one sort or another, you pay close attention to what is revealed. 
And I think that's what the story is here. 
I'd like to know more about that. 
And I'd also like to know how it was done. 
Just like, we always want to know how things are done. 
Yeah, you were saying about like how would Kanye feel if these words of his got out there and maybe he wouldn't approve of that. 
But he, from his point of view, I think there shouldn't be any problem. 
He was sat in front of a news crew, you know, in front of a TV crew talking to a professional TV interviewer. 
Stuff he says should be fair game for public dissemination. 
I think what's really interesting about this is not what it says about Kanye West because he's intensely boring, but it's about what it says about Fox. 
They had this footage, they chose not to air it. 
They had this figure that they were interviewing and they had this information about him and they decided let's not show the viewers that bit of him. 
We don't want to, you know, we would hate to think that, you know, our viewers know that we're interviewing a huge anti-Semite nutcase. 
It's, you know, it's their editorial decisions that I think are the big embarrassment of this. 
What's crazy about this story is that we're talking about a guy being interviewed by an on-air personality with a camera, with a microphone, inside a room, with all the buttons pushed and all the power applied and the crime is that what was recorded was seen. 
Yeah, what was recorded and was embarrassing to them is something that we found out about. 
It's not like, you know, somebody was spying on somebody else, following them around, going into their car, into their house, whatever. 
They were filming this. 
They filmed this deliberately and they didn't like the way it turned out and we're all supposed to take part in the conspiracy to keep quiet. 
Uh-uh. 
It doesn't work that way. 
Yeah, I don't really have any sympathy for that. 
producers of these things own the material. 
They've entered into these interviews and otherwise seek out this publicity and intention deliberately and are assumed to have some kind of training to interact with these media practitioners. 
So it's not like they're unwilling participants and that there's an expectation, there's any expectation of privacy in many regards. 
I mean, legally, but just like from a, just a common understanding of what they're doing, it's publicity and something they trade in. 
I just don't, I don't see why the practitioners, the people that are doing the recording have to apologize or feel any way about the, the subject of the recording's feelings. 
It's just, it's so, um, backwards to me. 
You're describing an honest journalist, uh, but it was Tarka Kallson who was doing the recording and he's as bad as, as Kanye West. 
They both didn't want this to get out. 
Both the interviewer and the interviewee both wanted it to be, um, um, right, but I mean, the actual recordings are managed to other, well, I'm just saying that the production side of it isn't necessarily even the interviewer. 
Right. 
They're just, um, uh, uh, on-screen talent that is interacting with the interviewee. 
It's, it's the station, the TV station ultimately, I think. 
I don't know, as far as ownership and who should be, uh, uh, feeling any way about the material. 
Somebody within Fox could have leaked this. 
Sure, easily. 
apparently somebody was able to figure out how to gain access to it apparently through, uh, publicly accessible parts of, of the net. 
I'd like to know more about that. 
Hopefully we'll find out more. 
Well, a lot of them use cloud platforms and so on, so that's plausible. 
Only have time for one more story and, um, that's about the, uh, okay, uh, OpenAI is, uh, accusing the New York Times of hacking chat GPT. 
Yeah, this is true. 
OpenAI has asked a judge to dismiss parts of the New York Times as a lawsuit against it, alleging that the media company paid someone to hack OpenAI's products such as chat GPT to generate the 100 examples of copyright infringement for its case. 
This is a bizarre story. 
It comes from the New York Times. 
Uh, actually, no, I'm sorry, this comes from, uh, Bloomberg. 
Um, and a filing on Monday in Manhattan, federal court, uh, Manhattan federal court, OpenAI alleged it took the Times tens of thousands of attempts to generate the highly anomalous results and that the company did so using deceptive prompts that blatantly violate OpenAI's terms of use. 
Deceptive prompts. 
That means basically saying something to chat GPT over and over again in different ways to get a particular result. 
They're saying that's hacking. 
Isn't that how you use it? 
That is how you use it. 
Now, the hacking that OpenAI alleges in the filing could also be called prompt engineering or red teaming, which is a common way for artificial intelligence, trust and safety teams, ethicists, uh, academics and tech companies to stress test AI systems for vulnerabilities. 
It's a common practice in the AI industry and a popular way to alert companies to issues within their systems similar to how cybersecurity professionals stress test companies' websites for weaknesses. 
In this filing, OpenAI doesn't dispute nor can they that they copied millions of the Times' works to build and power its commercial products without our permission. 
That's according to Ian Crosby, who is lead counsel for the Times. 
He added, what OpenAI bizarrely mischaracterizes as hacking is simply using OpenAI's products to look for evidence that they stole and reproduced the Times' copyrighted works. 
And that is exactly what we found. 
In fact, the scale of OpenAI's copying is much larger than the 100-plus examples set forth in the complaint. 
Wow. 
This is getting really interesting. 
This is getting really good. 
So, the Times is suing OpenAI for basically using its material without permission. 
And what OpenAI is accusing the Times of is hacking them by trying over and over again to get the evidence from ChatGPT that it did precisely that. 
In my eyes, that is not hacking. 
That is using. 
They're using the technology. 
Sure, they're using it a lot. 
But it's designed for that. 
It's absolutely designed for that. 
Show me where the breaking in. 
Show me where something was violated. 
To say that they somehow violated a contract by saying the wrong words to artificial intelligence, that in itself is really bizarre. 
Rob, did you have a comment? 
Go ahead. 
It's great that we're in a legal environment where a journalist can blow up a story about an entity and that entity can then sue the journalist for getting the evidence that that entity is doing something shady. 
Yeah, we live in that work. 
Rob, did you have anything else for this story? 
Well, I just find it, I mean, the use of this, it's funny, it's because they're sort of interrogating this robot so it will reveal its transgressions against the benevolent journalists, which is, I don't know, I mean, that's discovery. 
Isn't that right, Robot Alex? 
He's nodding, yes. 
He's not here. 
And, yeah, it's like just silly, I think, grandstanding and there's certainly other ways they could compel OpenAI to garner insight into these decision-making algorithms and how it's been trained or when and, you know, what that timeline is. 
This is something that is very much both of concern to the times it's livelihood, it's business model, but in things, in what their expertise is, is looking into and understanding business models like this and technologies and asking questions. 
So I think they're taking it very, very seriously and there could be all this legal back and forth, but the real detail of it is actually going to be quite revealing and the more they clamp down and try to eliminate their ability to figure out how their properties were used, then the more they might actually trip themselves up. 
We are out of time. 
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Join us on Overtime at 8 o'clock. 
Go to the link at the 2600.com webpage and please don't forget to support WBAI by going to give to WBAI.org or calling 212-209-2950 and we will see you next week. 
Good night. 
   And welcome everybody to Off the Hook Overtime here on YouTube, which we will shortly verify that we are actually broadcasting on or transmitting on or whatever the right word is. 
Kyle, you seem to have made it successfully. 
You seem very confident. 
You just give me a chance to speak up. 
No, I'm pretty surprised, actually. 
I'm here. 
All right. 
Good. 
Good. 
We're all happier for that. 
And it looks like, Rob and Gila, it looks like you made it in Skypland. 
Everything okay out there? 
We did. 
And we're sounding good on YouTube. 
Okay, cool. 
Awesome. 
And greetings to the 19 people who are here hanging with us at the moment. 
We're glad you're here. 
And apparently we just lost five of them. 
That's not at all depressing. 
And it's back up. 
I don't know if you can count on those numbers. 
I just don't know if those numbers are accurate. 
Wow. 
And, of course, hello to all the people in the future listening to us because you don't have to listen to us live. 
You can listen to us anytime you want years from now, decades from now. 
Those hours just fly by, don't they? 
I feel like we just started on the air, and now here we are online. 
And I guess we can remind people here as well that we need people to support BAI so that we can stay on the air there if we don't raise $350 in a month, which is nothing compared to those fundraising shows. 
Remember those fundraising shows we used to do that were so intense? 
You know, we'd be at the station. 
There'd be a room full of volunteers down the hallway, and we'd have all kinds of, like, premiums we'd bring in. 
And it was just a lot of running back and forth. 
But, yeah, we brought in quite a bit. 
And there's no reason we can't do that again. 
But right now, all we're asking for is people pledge a certain amount, gets us to $350 a month, and we keep our show. 
That's what matters. 
So, 212-209-2950 to pledge anything. 
And give2wbai.org is the website where you can choose something to be rewarded with your generous pledge. 
You can also become a BAI buddy, pledge a certain amount per month, which adds up to a bigger amount per year, and get to the $350 that way. 
So, yeah, please spread the word. 
Go ahead. 
I would like to just point out that, yes, we are doing this now really on our own steam. 
But as a reminder, nights we're not on the radio station, we don't do overtime. 
If the radio show goes away, this does too. 
So, even if you don't live in the WBAI catchment area, even if you're not listening to us live over the airwaves, you might want to consider becoming a BAI buddy or supporting the radio station. 
Because if we go away, this does too. 
And also, again, the BAI buddy program is amazing. 
It's Ron Popeil-like. 
You can just set it and forget it and keep that support coming. 
Which is great. 
And we're not taking donations to the YouTube channel. 
But thanks for playing. 
Is that what people are doing? 
Donating to the YouTube channel? 
How would you do that? 
How would that work? 
I don't know. 
But Rebel suggested he'd like to donate $1,000 to the YouTube channel. 
Okay. 
Take him up on that. 
Rebel, you've committed. 
And that's $1,000 you now owe us. 
And Rebel, if you give that to the station, I think we're covered for three months. 
Yeah, yeah. 
You know what? 
If you do $350 a month for the next three months, that's a little more than $1,000. 
But we don't have to ask for money if you do that. 
And Rebel becomes a hero. 
And I think that's good for everybody. 
So thank you, Rebel. 
Rebel, don't make us chase you down. 
All right. 
So we had some other stories that we were interested in talking about. 
That OpenAI in New York Times, that is going to be interesting as that advances through the courts. 
You hear the story, though, about the – in Spokane. 
Did I say it right, Kyle? 
Spokane, right? 
Yeah. 
It's spelled Spokane, but you're not supposed to say it that way. 
You're supposed to say Spokane. 
Is that – okay. 
I just want to get it right. 
I hate pissing people off in different states. 
So, yeah, this comes from Spokane. 
Wednesday morning, people driving near Audubon Park were greeted by a sign that said, Angry Raccoons Ahead. 
According to the Spokane Public Works Public Information Officer – the Public Works Public Information Officer. 
That's two publics in the title. 
Kirsten Davis, the keyboard compartment of the construction sign was left unlocked. 
Okay. 
We just gave out the hack right there. 
We just – we just gave you a zero day – yeah. 
The construction – the keyboard compartment of the construction sign was left unlocked. 
And that is – that is how you take advantage of this vulnerability. 
This allowed someone to access it and change the sign. 
Davis tells KREM Channel 2 that they do not know who the person is. 
It ended up being a lighthearted way to remember how important it is to lock down the devices, Davis said. 
The construction sign has been fixed and changed back to its intended message. 
Now, this is a nice, calm hacking story where everything sort of went back to the way it was and nobody was in prison for 62 years. 
Somebody figured out how to open an unlocked door and change a message using a keyboard. 
And the people who run the thing noticed the message was changed and realized they should lock the door and even refer to it as a lighthearted way of reminding them to do this. 
And everybody went about their lives. 
And we may never know who the person was who did this. 
You know, it's – you might call it a boring story. 
But there's no lawyers involved. 
There's no prison cells involved. 
There's no permanent records or anything like that. 
Just, you know, good old-fashioned hack. 
Showing a vulnerability and learning from it and moving on. 
Even though we reported this exact same story 20 years ago and people don't seem to know how to lock doors anymore, but I learned something from it. 
Yeah, it's quite refreshing. 
It's a nice little – it's a feel-good story about somebody getting a nice, cute little prank across and the pranky learning from it and moving forward. 
I'm not sure I would have used raccoons. 
I might have done something a bit more dramatic, you know, like dinosaurs. 
I don't know, something a little different. 
But, yeah, whatever. 
Whatever works. 
Okay. 
What else we got here? 
This is one of our listeners named Troy who sent us this story about the Georgia Attorney General who claims that not having a phone makes you a criminal. 
Did you know this? 
Yeah. 
You learn something new every day by just reading the papers. 
The ubiquity of smartphones is causing some to pine for simpler times when we didn't have the entire history of humankind's knowledge at our fingertips on devices that tracked our every move. 
There's a growing trend, particularly among young people, to use non-smartphones or basic phones. 
The reasons range from aesthetic to financial to concern for mental health. 
But, according to Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, having a basic phone or a phone with no data on it or no phone at all in the year 2024 is evidence of criminal intent. 
The Attorney General's position poses grave dangers for all Georgians' constitutional rights. 
And this is an article by Samantha Hamilton of the Georgia Recorder who goes on to say last month Deputy Attorney General John Fowler argued in state court that mere possession of a basic cell phone indicates criminal intent to commit conspiracy under Georgia's racketeer-influenced-and-corrupt-organization statute, better known as RICO. 
His accusation was directed at 19-year-old Ayla King, one of 61 people indicted last summer, on the RICO charges linked to protests in the South River Forest where the $109 million Atlantic Public Safety Training Center, which is nicknamed Cop City by its opponents, is slated to be built. 
They're throwing everything they can at these people, including bullets. 
The RICO charges against King and the 60 other RICO defendants have been widely criticized as a political prosecution running contrary to the First Amendment, and King is the first of these defendants to stand trial. 
And it's just, these bizarre claims that they are making just speaks of desperation on their part. 
During the January 8th hearing in Fulton County Superior Court, Fowler argued that a cell phone in King's possession on the day of their arrest, which he characterized as a burner phone, should be admissible as evidence of wrongdoing, even though it contained no data. 
He went even further to suggest that not possessing a cell phone at all also indicates criminal intent. 
Yeah, Judge Kimberly Adams agreed to admit evidence of King's cell phone. 
Now, Civil Liberties groups, as you might expect, are decrying the Attorney General's argument and the court's action as violations of constitutional rights under the First Amendment and Fourth Amendment. 
In an open letter to Attorney General Carr, the groups wrote, it is alarming that prosecutors sworn to uphold the Constitution would even make such arguments, let alone that a sitting judge would seriously entertain them and allow a phone to be searched and potentially admitted into evidence without any indication that it was used for illegal purposes. 
So, yeah, wow. 
Not having a cell phone makes you a criminal in the eyes of some. 
Go ahead. 
Sorry. 
It's not only not having a cell phone, but, like, the very act of having a simple cell phone that is not smart. 
The phone itself is not a smartphone, not saying anything about the person. 
But the fact that having a featureless phone like that itself is an act of suspicion, that throws up and, I think, disproportionately affects people in, say, disadvantaged communities, lower-income individuals, the exact individuals who are already disproportionately harassed by the police, the courts, and our entire prison industrial complex. 
So, this is disturbing on many levels. 
Go ahead, Kyle. 
Well, I find this interesting, and it makes me think of the kinds of – the ways that people might try to work around policies like this in the future, because it really does – I mean, the idea is really nonsensical to us that, right, like, not having a phone. 
Like, maybe you have a phone, but you don't have it on you. 
Like, that's potentially a crime, I guess, is what these kinds of things might implicate. 
You forgot your phone. 
That's a crime. 
Sure. 
Right. 
Like, because you would want to have deniability and not produce evidence that would otherwise become scrutinized if you were taken into custody and it was found on you. 
So, even though you have a phone, you're out and you don't have one on you, and that's maybe an added charge is, I guess, what they're trying to do. 
Or that this is a part of a conspiracy and that many people sort of in this group didn't own these sorts of devices, which in the article it's pointed out as an overall trend, which is, I think, a great reaction, probably a healthy reaction as was listed. 
But in this group, for an action against a very large training facility, it's used as an indicator of, like, were they to all be wearing a certain color? 
Or, you know, some kind of unified characteristic that defines them as sorts of criminals in the eyes of the prosecutors here, which is really stupid because, right, like a tire iron or, you know, any kind of thing could be assembled and thrown at you like this. 
Whereas, you know, it's a preference. 
There are many people that don't understand these other phones. 
And the thing I wanted to get to really is that I think people would, like, try to counter this kind of thing if it was taken seriously, because I don't think it is, with things like emulating smartphones. 
In other words, having forms of communication that are not, but you could just as easily mimic the behavior of such a device. 
And I think there's lots of ways to mime, you know, kind of pantomime the activity of a smartphone user in a future that is so dystopian. 
I don't know if that was sort of where you were thinking, Rob. 
It just, like, imagine a group that's using business radios, like valet parking or, I don't know, a production company or something. 
They're communicating. 
Are they somehow criminals, right? 
They're not committing crimes. 
Maybe they're allowing vehicles to park in certain ways or something. 
But they're using communication protocols outside of smartphones. 
Maybe they don't have smartphones. 
So it just becomes this thing of associating behaviors and ways of using technology with certain types of people or behaviors. 
I mean, imagine if everyone's communicating by light and somehow light is detected and that makes them all criminals because photons were picked up. 
I think in this case, the authorities are frustrated by the fact that they didn't have devices that had evidence on them. 
And they're charging them with covering up evidence because the evidence wasn't there because they didn't have a phone. 
And damn it, they should have had a phone because that makes it easy for us. 
It's like, you know, OK, you're basically you're tracking down this criminal conspiracy. 
And for some reason, they have meetings and the secretary is supposed to take notes, you know, minutes of the meeting. 
And they didn't do that. 
And the fact that the secretary didn't take minutes means that there's a conspiracy and they committed a crime by not taking minutes. 
It's as absurd as that. 
You know, you don't have a cell phone. 
That means that you're up to something. 
I have a landline. 
What does that make me? 
You know, I think more people are becoming aware of just how harmful cell phones can be in various ways in certain circumstances. 
So, you know, it's and they're expensive as hell, too. 
A lot of people can't afford them. 
Can you be charged with not using fingerprints? 
I don't know. 
I'm sure if you if you try and disguise your fingerprints. 
Yeah, I'm sure there's something. 
No, I just don't want to use them. 
I'm not disguising them. 
Maybe you don't want to use them. 
I turn that feature off. 
OK, yeah. 
We'll talk later. 
It's not how. 
So, OK, go ahead, Rob. 
You go ahead. 
Yeah, I'm just, you know, taking this to the dystopian extreme. 
Like, how far is this from the law just out and out saying, you know, carrying around a tracking device with intimate connections to all your social and technological aspects of your life is compulsory? 
Yeah, yeah. 
That's pretty much what we're doing here. 
Totally. 
Yeah. 
Like, you must have a tracking device. 
I mean, it's funny. 
I mean, it's it might as well be strapped to your ankle. 
I mean, if with this logic, you know, like maybe a bit of of tape or something, you just strap that puppy right to your leg. 
But it's I mean, I just I just when you get to that point, it's going to become a situation where randomization and. 
Cloning and sort of emulation technologies. 
I just love the idea of people messing with this, just basically saying, oh, OK, that's what you want to do. 
Well, then here and just just tons of of like fake activity to to to give them exactly what they want. 
Like, OK, fine. 
You know, I find that like that may my incentive, like the back, I guess, backlash or backfiring sort of on the scheme. 
They want to they want to prove this in a in a legislative way or otherwise. 
I just I just I just behaviorally people will avoid these things and it's already a hellscape under legal terms because of the way a lot of that software and service providers treat their app users and their customers already. 
Right. 
Let alone the carriers. 
And now now you're you're saying that this overall is a way to characterize you as an individual just because you want to avoid stuff that's victimizing you as a customer. 
You don't even know that. 
You don't even know they're trying to avoid it. 
They just don't have a cell phone. 
So, you know, you can't make these assumptions and say because you don't have a cell phone, you're doing this or you're up to this or you want that. 
But it's it's ridiculous that people live their damn lives. 
I don't know. 
Yeah. 
And if you use it more and more to criminalize people, you're going to get more and more people avoiding it. 
So it's going to be self-fulfilling. 
It's like, oh, another nail, says the hammer. 
All right. 
We have a letter from another listener, initials H.A. 
Hi, guys. 
Not sure. 
This is from late February. 
Not sure if this is of interest to your show, but one of our big universities here in Canada was apparently hacked in some way a week ago, bringing down their site, email and other systems at Laurentian's site. 
I hope I'm pronouncing that right. 
It shows that even as of today, the majority of systems are still offline. 
I'm trying to avoid including direct links so this doesn't go to spam. 
Wow. 
Really? 
People are worried about sending links because then I guess Google does that. 
They send things to spam. 
They don't like the links that you include in your email. 
We've experienced that, but we don't use Gmail. 
So you can send whatever links you want to us and we'll decide as humans what what's good and what's not. 
Anyway, the story can be found at the CBC if you Google Laurentian cyber incident. 
And I'll spell that L-A-U-R-E-N-T-I-A-N. 
An interesting part of the story is that in 2017, a student tried to reveal vulnerabilities in their systems to warn them, and they were arrested and sentenced to 12 months probation for mischief. 
Typical. 
Typical. 
I've been an avid listener and reader for years. 
Enjoy the show. 
Other than Emmanuel rambling about vaccines. 
All right. 
Hold on a second. 
Just one second here. 
I don't ramble. 
I'm pretty direct. 
All right. 
I will say, get your damn vaccine. 
And up there in Canada, you should know you have a measles outbreak, which you're blaming on Florida, which is fine because they're probably responsible. 
But this anti-vax sentiment, which is spreading around, is unhealthy and literally unhealthy and will hurt a lot of people. 
So that's all I say. 
I say, get your vaccines because they work. 
Scientists know what they're doing and you don't blindly follow. 
But you also, you know, you have to use logic sometimes. 
And sometimes you wind up agreeing with people you don't want to agree with. 
It happens. 
Right? 
All right. 
You can alternate arms, too. 
How does that help? 
I'm just saying you have options. 
You think that's why people are refusing vaccines? 
Because they don't want one arm to be... 
Well, they don't get enough information. 
They think, like, they're going to get 50 shots in one place. 
Why is it always in your arm? 
Why can't they do it in your leg? 
Because it's near your... 
Yeah, but it'll get there eventually. 
You know? 
It's like taking the local instead of the express. 
I am not a pharmacist. 
No, you are not. 
You are not a pharmacist. 
Why are you asking me? 
Well, because you're sitting right here. 
That's why. 
See, we do question. 
We do ask questions. 
But if your arm is sore... 
This is not rambling. 
And you're going to get maybe two vaccines because you forgot to get your measles shot. 
I got three vaccines at once last year. 
Remember that? 
I got flu. 
I got COVID. 
And I got shingles. 
And then you get... 
I avoided my arm smart. 
That measles one in one arm. 
Then you could switch and maybe get your whooping cough. 
Oh, whooping cough. 
I forgot about that one. 
Yeah. 
Wow. 
Because you're, I don't know, around a lot of unsanitary things. 
This is a crazy thing. 
People are talking about diseases that have been eradicated and they're coming back now because people are refusing science. 
They're not mindful. 
Oh, my God. 
So be mindful of, you know, get one every now and then, you know? 
No, it's just, you feel like you're just shouting into the wind. 
Like, my God, people, we've learned these lessons already. 
Don't you see? 
It's like, you know, the equivalent would be, if I could just theorize for a second, let's say like a fascist regime was on the horizon, right? 
And I know, it's crazy. 
But if you were like there saying, you know, my God, people, we have to stop this. 
All we have to do is show up and not vote for it. 
You know, it's unbelievable. 
Yeah. 
But yeah, we don't ramble. 
We don't ramble. 
And take a damn vaccine. 
Anyway, continuing here reminds me, I saw a legit phone booth in the middle of nowhere here up in Canada, by the way, last summer. 
I forgot to submit a picture of that, though. 
I don't know if you still do that on your back covers. 
It's been a while since I grabbed an issue. 
Well, okay, just one more correction here, not to be nitpicky, but it's not the back cover. 
It's the inside back cover and the inside front cover. 
It was on the back cover at one point, like way decades ago, it was on the back cover. 
Then one day we realized, hey, you know what? 
We're paying for color on the back. 
We can also print color on the other side of that page and double the number of pages that have payphone photos. 
And ever since then, boy, those payphone photos have been pouring in and we have the back cover photos as well and the front cover. 
And that's the color pages in 2600 magazine that, yeah, we obsess over. 
Well, I would say there are a lot of really artistic stuff that are included in those pages. 
And when we do the other editions, we can make much larger full page versions. 
We really enjoy a lot of the kinds of things people are finding all over the world still. 
It's incredible. 
It's amazing. 
It's just funny to us, I think, to hear, oh, yeah, are you still doing that? 
Well, I mean, yeah. 
If you find the magazine somewhere or want to subscribe, you can find out for yourself and see, large or small, all the different ways they're featured and organized, which is usually pretty funny. 
There's different categories. 
I think we've done, like, artistic phones recently. 
Yeah, there's so many from a particular region of the world, particular style, particular position, or some other similarity. 
But the funny thing is, the really funny thing is that this is a technology that supposedly is dying or dead. 
And yet, it is by far the most popular part of the magazine as far as the number of submissions we get per quarter. 
It's payphones and payphone booths and broken payphones and working payphones and unusual payphones and all sorts of things like that. 
And, you know, it just makes me realize that all these things that we're told over and over again, oh, that's dead. 
It's going away. 
It's not coming back. 
You know, we're a printed magazine and we're broadcasting on the radio. 
Those are two things that supposedly are dead. 
But yet, we continue to do both and they continue to be hugely popular. 
You know, there are just so many instances like that. 
Vinyl, vinyl records. 
I just heard yesterday the demand for vinyl is up again for like the sixth year in a row or maybe even longer than that. 
That was supposedly dead. 
You know, bookstores are reopening all around the country because the chains went out of business after they drove the independent bookstores out of business and people decided, hey, we want bookstores back. 
So all over, you're seeing independent bookstores start opening. 
So don't believe when people tell you, oh, this is dead. 
This is a trend. 
This is right. 
This is wrong. 
It's never black and white like that. 
Rob, then Kyle. 
Just to go back to what this listener was writing to us about, for folks interested, the Laurentian University website, Laurentian.ca, the whole front page is just post after post after post every day since this information security incident started on February 18th up till today. 
And it's just here's all the stuff that's going wrong. 
Here's all the people affected. 
And it's really kind of a fascinating read for people interested in information security. 
The latest one is talking about these people who are affected and how the university is providing credit monitoring systems service for a couple of years because your identities might be stolen, things like that. 
It's quite a scroll. 
And then there's a little bar on top that links to if you just want information on how to enroll at the university. 
And what's the website again? 
It's Laurentian.ca. 
That's L-A-U-R-E-N as in Nancy, T-I-A-N as in Nancy, dot C-A. 
But this is amazing. 
We're facing technical challenges across multiple information technology services. 
Here are the FAQs. 
Hey, do you want to come to school here? 
You know, it's more fast. 
Where are they, by the way? 
What part of Canada? 
It would appear to be Quebec because the website is in English and French. 
You do know that the one bilingual province of Canada is where? 
No? 
It's not Quebec. 
It's not? 
It's New Brunswick. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
And they speak French in the West as well. 
And Quebec province is huge. 
So it could be Montreal. 
It could be Quebec. 
I'm sure it says somewhere on the website where they are. 
It's just about, it doesn't say. 
Really? 
So much of this is just about this incident. 
Wow. 
Oh, it's in Ontario. 
Oh, okay. 
There you go. 
You see? 
You never assume. 
But Ontario is still just a province, so we don't know what city. 
Our open house is offered on campus in Sudbury. 
Sudbury. 
Okay. 
There you go. 
I've been to Sudbury. 
Nice little town. 
Go ahead, Kyle. 
You were next. 
Well, I just wanted to point out the, what was I going to say? 
Only you know that. 
We changed subjects. 
That's right. 
Rob kind of steered us in a different direction. 
I was talking about pay phones. 
I was just going to say it's a great way to learn about different telephone companies. 
And I mean, even if some of the pay phones aren't as prevalent, you can really, like after a while, you gain this understanding of all the different types of phones. 
It's just sort of, I guess, off the top of your head, kind of like it just, it becomes kind of ubiquitous, the different types, and you can recognize them if you do travel around. 
And that's where a lot of the contributions come from is people traveling around and saying, hey, I'll send this in. 
But learning about the different phone companies that are active around the world, you really can kind of go on some trips with people. 
And our captions always really give it a little bit of context and stuff. 
But I just, I really like that unintended thing of like really learning about all the different phone companies around the world through the pay phone submissions. 
You know what else is unintended? 
We veered in two completely different directions based on that one letter alone, talking about pay phones and then talking about hacked universities and just going on about, you know what? 
We do ramble. 
We do ramble. 
And so, okay, you know what? 
Guilty. 
I guess we are. 
That's what we do sometimes. 
What we haven't done is give out our phone number, 802-321-4225. 
The phone is installed, right? 
Yeah, that's right. 
You too may ramble. 
No. 
No, actually don't ramble on the phone. 
You may not ramble. 
That is not an invitation to ramble. 
Especially rebel, you may not ramble. 
But the phone line is available? 
802-321-HACK is our phone number. 
Country code 1. 
If you've never called before, what's that number again? 
It's country code 1, area code 802, exchange 321, extension 4225. 
So 802-321-HACK is our phone number. 
So 321-HACK your way to us, and we will pick up your call. 
Looks like I have a regular caller on the line. 
I don't know what that means. 
I still don't know why I couldn't hear the bell. 
Do you have the bell turned off? 
I think you must, because that was very quiet. 
In here it is. 
Okay, as long as you can hear it, that's what matters. 
You're the switchboard operator. 
We have a call on the line, though. 
Try it. 
Maybe it's messed up. 
Do you want to hack your way to us? 
I hear us. 
Is there a person there? 
Oh, hi. 
Let me turn down my radio. 
He fooled you. 
This is not a regular call, Kyle. 
This is an irregular call. 
Okay. 
I'm talking about payphone. 
Remember, I was going to tell you about the payphone in the Rockefeller Center? 
Yes. 
The only payphone that I picked, it doesn't work anymore. 
No dial tone. 
And when I called the number that was on it, it says the number is disconnected. 
Okay. 
First of all, you haven't been able to call a payphone for incoming calls in New York City in decades. 
So I'm not surprised. 
Well, it wasn't one of those coca type. 
Even those, they would never really answer. 
You might get a computer that spits out the balance or something. 
If it worked, it would have answered. 
But it just gave your recording saying it doesn't work. 
So you found a payphone in New York City that doesn't work. 
Wow. 
That's something. 
I don't know about the one uptown on like the Upper West Side, the one that has like the Canadian phone booth, the one in like West End Avenue and like 66th Street or whatever it is. 
You say that like any of us would know what you mean. 
A Canadian phone booth. 
Oh, you don't know about that? 
It's a phone booth. 
It's like one of the only phone booths in New York City. 
It's a Canadian type phone booth. 
Why would there be a Canadian phone booth in New York City? 
I don't know. 
It's one of those Canadian types. 
I don't know. 
Not the regular Dell operating company types. 
So it's a Northern Telecom phone is what you're saying, because that's what that is. 
No, it's not a Northern Telecom phone. 
It's a regular 9X. 
Well, it was a 9X. 
So what makes it Canadian? 
What makes it Canadian then? 
No, the phone booth, the actual phone booth. 
It was an actual phone booth with a door and everything, but it's not the U.S. 
type. 
Well, what's different about a Canadian phone booth than an American phone booth? 
I don't know. 
You know what? 
Maybe I'll just take a picture of it. 
Maybe you should. 
Yes, take a picture so we can discuss this intelligently. 
I'd like to know if I have call waiting and to not get call waiting. 
I dial star 70 when I call someone. 
But if somebody calls me and I don't want to get another phone call, what do I do? 
Okay. 
So Rebel, you receive a phone call. 
All right. 
Let's say that happens. 
And you realize this is a phone call that I don't want to miss a second of. 
But you're going to have to miss a second of it because you're going to have to hit flash on your phone and get another dial tone so that you can dial star 70 at that point. 
But that only works if you subscribe to three-way calling from Verizon. 
If you don't and you hit that flash thing, you might hang up on the person that you don't want to miss a second of. 
Oh, really? 
Is that the way you do it? 
That's how I remember it being done. 
I haven't done that in a long time. 
But I believe that's how it works. 
Maybe somebody in another part of the country can verify that. 
Okay. 
Now, I've been getting... 
Actually, we could try it right now. 
Do we have three-way on this line, Kyle? 
We're going to try it right now. 
Just hit flash on the phone. 
Will that disconnect him? 
You seem hesitant. 
Let's see. 
It's a digital system. 
It's not going to work. 
Oh, because it's digital. 
You know what? 
I would take great joy in trying this very quickly. 
So, caller... 
Well, just pick up the phone. 
Pick up the phone. 
No, but see, I would have to do it on the device, the interface. 
Right. 
I know it's interface right now. 
But if you pick up the phone, you will be talking directly to Rebel, right? 
Why don't you just verify that right now? 
Okay. 
So, he's picked up the phone. 
And Rebel is no longer on the board. 
But he's on the phone, right? 
It's a great phone. 
Just hold on, Rebel. 
Okay. 
So, you're talking to Rebel directly. 
So, now just hit the switch hook just for a second. 
There's a flash button. 
Just really quickly. 
And then go back. 
Did you get a dial tone or a pulsating dial tone? 
Yeah, I got a dial tone. 
Was it a pulsating dial tone? 
A pulsating dial tone. 
A pulsating dial tone. 
Dial store 7-0 now. 
What do you get? 
Is Rebel back? 
Hello? 
Is Rebel back? 
Hello? 
I got another dial tone. 
You got another? 
Wait a minute. 
Isn't it the same dial tone? 
What's the difference? 
I don't know. 
Should I hit the flash again? 
Ah, sure. 
Why not? 
Hello? 
You got him back. 
How'd you get two dial tones? 
All right. 
So, hang that damn thing up so we'll get him back. 
Yeah, he's here. 
All right. 
Is he up on the board? 
Should be. 
Rebel, you there? 
He was. 
Oh, there you go. 
Hold on. 
I didn't hit the button. 
Go ahead, Rebel. 
Okay. 
So, that worked. 
You see that worked. 
No, but I heard music on hold, though. 
You heard? 
How do we have music on hold? 
How in the world do we have? 
I had music. 
When you did whatever you did, I heard music. 
Really? 
So, we can make music on hold? 
Wow, we're learning a lot. 
I guess. 
I don't know what kind of system you're using, but. 
Well, it's custom built. 
Well, we built it ourselves, we made it out of a hodgepodge. 
We didn't put music on it. 
I know that much. 
It's a phone. 
It's a phone that interfaces with our soundboard. 
That's all it is. 
How do you get music from that? 
What kind of music was it? 
Can you tell us what was playing? 
Do-ding, do-ding, do-ding, just some instrumental. 
Oh, do-ding, do-ding, do-ding, do-ding, just some instrumental. 
Oh, do-ding, do-ding, do-ding, do-ding, do-ding. 
Yeah, right, like Big Ben. 
Is it Elmo's song? 
It sounds like Elmo's song. 
You know, like music on hold type music. 
Wow. 
We've hit the big time. 
We have music on hold. 
My God. 
Rebel, are you sure you don't just, like, hear that music in your head at all times? 
Well, I don't hear that type of music in my head. 
Yeah, it's more of a house beat that's going on up there. 
Or a hip-hop beat. 
Hip-hop, Rebel. 
Let's see, do you have two lines? 
Do you have more than one line? 
Maybe you could take more than one phone call. 
Okay, you are getting really personal about the phone lines right now. 
I would really appreciate if you just would take a beat. 
Okay, but our phone lines aren't the phone system, and maybe you should differentiate? 
What's funny is we don't have call waiting on this line to start with, because we don't want call waiting on this line. 
So I'm not sure what exactly you did, but you did prove that you can go to three-way and get back to the person who called you. 
So, theoretically, the star-7-0 should work. 
Okay, but, all right. 
Let me demonstrate what happens when you call a certain 800 number. 
Every time you do this, every time it doesn't work for one reason or another. 
You realize that, right? 
So confident, though. 
Okay, Rebel, you get one chance to get this right. 
One chance. 
Hold on. 
All right. 
I hope it works this time. 
I hope this works for him. 
There's a lot of confidence in the way he... 
Well, you have to have that confidence, Kyle, in order to just wake up in the morning. 
Okay, what do we have going on here? 
This call may be recorded. 
This call is being recorded. 
I can guarantee that. 
This call may be on YouTube also. 
Okay, it's ringing, though. 
Yeah, I'm not going to speak, so I hope I'm not expected to. 
Well, you can speak if you want. 
I don't want to. 
Hello? 
Hello, what did I call? 
What is this? 
Yeah, who is this? 
Who is... 
What did I call? 
Emanuel? 
Emanuel? 
Bringing me into this. 
Who is the person you were talking to? 
I called an 800 number. 
I called an 800 number that called me. 
It's a scam. 
Okay, it's a scam. 
You're not expecting to say that, do you? 
You're not expecting to say, oh, you called the scam. 
But, yeah, so... 
Is he still there, or did you hang up? 
No, he hung up. 
I said, he hung up. 
Let me try it again. 
Why would you try it again? 
I don't know. 
It called me. 
Well, maybe... 
They're going to call you again. 
They're going to visit. 
All right, go ahead, Rebel. 
We'll just sit back and listen. 
But nobody say a word. 
Okay. 
Listing agent. 
Something about a listing agent? 
I don't know. 
She said listing agent. 
That sounds pretty official. 
That sounds like something... 
Hold on, let's see what else. 
Let's see if I don't press anything. 
It's watching the listeners drop off one by one. 
We still have 39 watching. 
Two by two now. 
We've got 41 watching now. 
Rebel, I have the feeling that this is going nowhere. 
Well, I don't know. 
Let's see something. 
Here's... 
Okay, Rebel, I'm going to do something rare here. 
I'm going to make a suggestion to you. 
The number you called before where you got the confused sounding person on the other end, if you can reach that number again, and this time when he answers, say, I'm calling you back. 
You called me earlier. 
I'm calling you back. 
Okay. 
See what he says then, all right? 
This is your last demonstration here. 
Okay. 
Good luck. 
Listing agent. 
This call may be recorded. 
The phone number, are you there? 
I'm going off mic. 
Hello, I'm calling you back. 
You called me? 
And I bid you an answer. 
Hold on. 
Okay. 
No, that's it, Rebel. 
We're done here with this. 
Fascinating as this is, we do have other calls we have to get to. 
But I wish you luck with this, with tracking down your scammer or whatever it is. 
Shall I give you the number? 
Please don't. 
No, that's so unnecessary. 
But again, thank you. 
Keep us updated. 
And of course, you can update us on the chat as well, as long as you work within the boundaries of whatever rules are in place there. 
No, I, you know, one of those calls me and then they don't, they don't answer. 
Yeah. 
They wait for the word hello. 
I burped. 
And it's, you know, connecting me with someone. 
Yeah. 
Gila, did you have something to contribute to this? 
Oh, wait. 
I'm sorry. 
I don't have you up. 
Go ahead. 
I'm sorry. 
I have an actual real question from a listener, which is a hope question. 
A question for us, not for Rebel. 
Yes. 
All right, Rebel, we're letting you go now. 
Goodbye. 
All right, Rebel's gone. 
Our phone number, 802-321-4225. 
Anybody else wants to call in? 
And please, what is the question? 
The question is about hotel deals for Hope. 
Are those being announced soon? 
God, you know, okay. 
I wasn't going to bring this up, but yeah, we have a hotel deal. 
It's a damn good hotel deal. 
We just have, it's not official. 
We don't have the link yet. 
And we have been trying literally for weeks to get the link from the right people. 
And we keep not connecting on the damn telephone. 
We've even had people visit, okay? 
We are working on it. 
And I, you know, we're closer than we've ever been before. 
So there's that. 
It is a good deal for the hotel during the conference. 
And please be patient. 
I would be very surprised if we don't have something to announce within the next week. 
In fact, I'll be very angry if we don't have something to announce in the next week. 
So thanks for the interest. 
Please spread the word. 
All kinds of info for the Hope conference can be found at hope.net. 
And what we really would like to see are more submissions for people who want to give talks or hold panels or all sorts of demonstrations. 
There's villages. 
There's workshops. 
We are seeing strong response as far as people interested in that. 
And all the instructions on how to do that are in the participate section of the website. 
Of course, we also want to see more people register to attend the conference so that we have more to work with and can reserve more rooms and can really make this a great conference. 
It's taking place July 12th through 14th at St. 
John's University. 
It's Hope XV, the 15th Hope Conference. 
And it's going to be really, really awesome. 
We have a lot going on. 
And we will have those hotel deals announced. 
We do have some existing ones right now, particularly the off-campus dorms. 
It's a really good deal. 
Now, when I say off-campus dorms, it's on the street that the university is on. 
It's down the road a little bit. 
It's maybe a 15-minute walk. 
Or you could just hop on a bus and be there in no time. 
But I believe the rate is under $100 a night. 
And, you know, to stay in New York City for that kind of price. 
Yeah, you won't have a TV set in your room. 
It's a dormitory. 
But that shouldn't be too important to you. 
It's really, it's kind of like camping in a way because you're going to a different place. 
You're staying in a different environment and you're focused on the event. 
And that's what it should be all about. 
So we hope people experience that to the max. 
You should have. 
I'm sorry. 
Go ahead. 
You should have internet access in those facilities. 
Absolutely. 
Through our event infrastructure. 
So you won't be totally disconnected. 
And most TV and streaming is online one way or another. 
It shouldn't be about TV. 
I don't think you need TV. 
But if you're trying to catch a talk and you're resting or taking a nap and you want to do it from one of these places. 
Oh, you can watch. 
We're offering. 
You will probably be, definitely be able to do that. 
And there's a call on the line. 
We have the best streaming of any conference, I think. 
So, yeah, if you're in a dorm, you know, you could experience a conference from the dorm. 
It will be ample. 
There are people working on the details of that at this very moment. 
And if you can't make it to the conference but still want to support the conference, we have our digital attendee version as well, which is if you go to the website, hope.net, you'll see how you can do that. 
And that helps us a lot. 
If people pay an admission fee for the digital version from wherever they are in the world, that also gives us funds that we can apply to the conference and do all kinds of cool things. 
Oh, yeah, please look into that, especially if you're hosting like a watch party or you're getting together at Hackerspace and you want to be able to have your household or your club participate in question and answer or be directed to some of the goings on virtually or just have, you know, all the information and reliable links. 
You'll be all set as far as sharing what access you have with other people and getting more involvement, especially if you're in a remote place that people just aren't traveling or you can't otherwise make it yourself. 
Please participate that way and get as many of those people that are in the same position connected that way, because we will offer unique access and just ways to interact in a virtual way. 
So we really want to make sure that people are aware of that option. 
All right. 
We have a caller on the line. 
Good evening. 
You're on Off The Covertime. 
Go ahead. 
Oh, it's me. 
It's you. 
Yes. 
Go ahead. 
Great. 
Well, first of all, I'd like to give you a technical tip. 
Why don't you give out the 833 number that I just called? 
When you call the other number, you get Google Mail that doesn't believe in busy signals, etc., etc., and you get the rigmarole, and you basically have to call back. 
Don't you get the same thing on this number? 
I mean, it goes to the same number, so you should get the same exact thing. 
It might, but I just always get through this number, and it's your choice. 
You do what you want. 
Well, I don't have that memorized, but since you just called it, why don't you tell the people the phone number, and then they'll have it. 
All right. 
So that number is 833-755-2600. 
Okay. 
All right. 
We're taking your word on that. 
Okay. 
Now, just for the record, Canada is bilingual. 
Just look at the money, and one side is printed in French, the other one is printed in English. 
Yeah, I think we all know that. 
It's just one province is officially bilingual, and that's New Brunswick. 
No, no, it's the whole country is officially bilingual. 
They use English in most of the country, and out of Quebec, you will not find, except other places that you mentioned, places where they speak French as a first language. 
But the whole country is technically bilingual, meaning officially. 
But, you know, I didn't call to have an argument about this. 
I would like to commend you, first of all, for a great show that started on the radio. 
And, you know, the radio, sadly, has probably as many listeners, if not less, than this show right now. 
And, you know, we can go into why and how is that happening, but I want to tell you a story. 
One year, I had made good money, let's say, and I used the New York Public Library a lot. 
When I go to the shelves, there is no sheet in between the books that tells me that they need money. 
But it's a good institution. 
It does good work. 
I had extra cash. 
I said, here's $200. 
And I gave it anonymously on one of those checks that don't have your address printed on, you know, when you start a new bank account. 
Purposely, I said, don't send me any promotional material. 
This is not going to happen again, most likely. 
What did they do? 
They tracked me down. 
They sent me lots of promotional material. 
I never gave them another penny. 
Now, I may be unusual in my giving trends, let's just say. 
But, you know, I believe that if something is worth supporting, all you need to say is once, if WBAI keeps telling you a thousand times a day that you need money, something is wrong there. 
And it's not with the listeners who are not giving money. 
Another thing I would like to broach, and I just had a brainwave while I was waiting for you to get my call. 
I am a visual artist, and I do interactive stuff, and I have been working on this show. 
I basically hacked consumerism by not buying almost anything except for food. 
I sourced my, you know, I furnished my home. 
I rest myself. 
Everything that you could possibly imagine, I find on the streets of New York and other public places for the last 20 years. 
And I have so much surplus that I want to do a show. 
It's called Scavengers Hunt Boutique. 
And I will just give it away as a way for people to reflect upon the fact that, you know, when you're in New York City, everybody, well, not everybody, but most people, you know, if you're a have, if you have a home, you don't think of picking up stuff. 
Because, oh, my God, the germs, the whatevers. 
And, you know, I observed homeless people, and I see that they still manage to live. 
This was 20 years ago. 
And I said, wow, I wonder what would happen if I pick up perfectly fine things that people just accidentally drop off. 
And that's my life. 
And I thought, wouldn't that be a nice thing to do at the Hope Conference? 
Okay. 
Would you be interested in doing something like that? 
Well, I mean, how would it work exactly? 
I would bring all my stuff in boxes, open it up, and people can take what they want. 
Okay, but we have no idea what's in those boxes. 
It's all prime stuff in excellent condition. 
You know, if it's not, if it wasn't brand new when I found it, I disinfected it and cleaned it on my own. 
And what kind of stuff are we talking about here? 
Mostly clothing, shoes, in good conditions. 
Not, you know, nothing worn. 
I'm not sure people are coming to hacker conventions to get clothing and shoes. 
You know, I think that's something that definitely, you know, a thrift shop would definitely jump on. 
Or there's a number of places in the city. 
You know, the idea is not to do a thrift shop or, you know, I could leave it on the street where I found it, but it would be completely defeating the purpose of doing a cultural event. 
And that's why, you know, I said, it doesn't have to. 
And if you want, you can, you know, if you change your mind or somehow it resonates, you can call me back because you have my number, the 833 numbers, all the toll numbers. 
Keep a record of all the numbers that are called for billing purposes as far as I know. 
And, yes, by the way, the Star 70 thing, I had exactly that set up on a landline, which I still have. 
This is technically a landline that I'm calling you on. 
And it's exactly like you described it the first time. 
If you have freeway calling, you go on the other line and you do the Star 70 and you exclude any call waiting. 
And I think I've taken enough of your time and thank you for the only interesting program left on BAI. 
I do listen to Democracy Now! 
headlines the first 10 minutes and then I switch it off. 
But that's about pretty much all I listen to. 
Listen to the golden age of radio on Sunday nights. 
That's always fun. 
I do listen late at night to the Gene Shepard's. 
See? 
Yes. 
But, you know, occasionally, you know, because sometimes he gets angry or, like, last night the sound was unbearable and I turned it off in spite of my liking. 
Who gets angry? 
Gene Shepard gets angry? 
Gene Shepard actually invented freeform radio. 
Yeah, he certainly did. 
He was on WLR for a while. 
But, okay, thanks for the compliment and hopefully there are more good shows on BAI. 
Hopefully there will be more in the future. 
But keep listening and we'll see you in the future. 
Okay, keep up the good work. 
Thank you. 
Take care. 
And our phone number, 802-321-4225. 
If anyone else is out there, we have time, I think, for one more call. 
Anything to report from the chat, Gila? 
Just a couple of quick things, which is that information about the dorms and the specificity of what is available there is available on the HOPE website. 
That's HOPE.net. 
Click on Lodging. 
All the information is there. 
And one of our listeners was saying they have Airbnb information. 
I don't know if, like, you operate Airbnbs in the area, which I don't know if that's completely legal in New York, or you just know about them. 
If you want to email the conference staff, that is an availability. 
That's actually a really good option. 
And a number of people took advantage of that two years ago. 
So just renting out an entire house for the weekend with a bunch of people was a lot of fun. 
It was very close by. 
And you can just, you know, make your own schedule. 
So there's all kinds of different options. 
There's, you know, dorms. 
There's hotels. 
There's Airbnb. 
I actually heard that was a pretty affordable way to come up with lodging for the three nights or four nights that a group of you might want to be nearby but not on campus. 
And, you know, read into that what you will. 
Maybe you want to have a private gathering. 
Maybe you want to just get away from the whole event or you have a family or a couple people, a couple different households that are going to make a big rental, a way they deal with that. 
So, yeah, I mean, that may have changed. 
I don't know. 
I don't know anything about renting through these apps. 
I don't really do that. 
But if that's something that you're pretty savvy with, I urge you to check that out because I do know that there were attendees and volunteers that really had a good time doing that. 
All right. 
Yes. 
Did we have another phone call? 
Yes. 
And was there anything else, Kayla? 
No, that pretty much covers it. 
Just as a reminder to everybody listening, all the information about Hope, everything that is known, probably some things that are not, is available at the website, which is at Hope.net. 
And, yes, there's a lot more information than you want. 
What I mean by that is, you know, we've basically figured out how to get to the conference from virtually any major train station or bus station or airport. 
And it looks like a whole lot of directions, but it's basically directions for every possibility. 
So you can see how straightforward it is to get there. 
And it's, you know, even if you're driving, we have free parking, which, you know, New York City, free parking. 
Think about that. 
So it's just an incredible amount of options. 
I heard there was going to be some kind of vehicle selling coffee, which I'm interested in. 
Okay. 
Well. 
I don't know if we're actually going to get to that. 
I don't know about that, but I'm sure we're going to have all kinds of options. 
Well, I guess the university has coffee if we need that. 
But there will be lots of caffeinated options and uncaffeinated options. 
Yes. 
Because people really wanted a lot of options for that close by because it is a big campus. 
There is some walking, whether you're going from a parking facility or bus stop, transit hubs. 
So wear good footwear and make sure you're hydrated. 
And we'll have all the accessible options listed as well. 
I think they're already listed on our website, but we're going to keep an eye out for that for people who can't get around as easily. 
We certainly have abilities to make sure they are able to be a part of the conference as much as anyone else. 
We have a phone call, right? 
Yes, they're there. 
Okay. 
Good evening. 
You're on Off The Govertime. 
Go ahead. 
Hello. 
I'm calling from the Bronx, and I have two points to cover. 
One is that I don't have a smartphone because I'm concerned about the privacy implications of what happens when you have a smartphone. 
Okay. 
Fair enough. 
The other point is if you're already a WBA buddy in the name of Off The Hook, does that count every month towards the amount that you have to make for Off The Hook? 
I think, I mean, I can speak for them, but I think the way it works is when you make the donation, the total amount for the year is what counts, and obviously they only do that once. 
They only do that once. 
So, if you're already a WBA buddy, it's part of it? 
If, yeah. 
Not because you have to have made the donation during the total, during the year? 
I think everything starts fresh as of the beginning of March. 
So, this month, we're at zero. 
We need to move that to $350,000 one way or another. 
If that's somebody pledging a monthly amount, we total up what they pledge in a year, or if somebody is pledging one amount, you know, in one, you know, one pledge, then we add that. 
But we just have to get to $350,000 by the end of the month. 
$350,000 more than you were already making, including buddies that already are there? 
You know, it's a good question. 
I don't know if, I think since they, since they count the total of the BAI buddy, I believe this is how they do it, for the year, they will have already counted that in the past. 
So, I don't think that would count from March going forward. 
I can ask about that. 
I might be wrong, but that's how I believe it works. 
Okay. 
Thank you. 
Sure. 
Anything else? 
Well, I could possibly think of something else to say, but right now I don't have anything. 
Okay, well, thanks for calling, and thanks for your support. 
Yes. 
All right. 
Take care. 
Thank you. 
So, you're telling me that if randomly there are BAI buddies, particularly listeners of Off the Hook, who are BAI buddies, say there's 12, the 12 months, of that 12 months, there are, like, there's a month there where the highest number of those buddies started their donation year for a year at whatever rate. 
There, you're saying a given month could have, like, whatever, n number of buddies with, like, their annual amount hit all at once. 
So, we have, like, a big spike in whatever that month is where, you know, all these buddies are tabulated, and there are other months where there's maybe less. 
I don't know how it works. 
I really don't. 
I'm just guessing. 
I'm just guessing. 
But I assume what they do is they count it when the pledge is made. 
So, they've counted it when the pledges that are made in the past already, and that's the past. 
What we're talking about is the future and the present, which has done, we don't have anything yet because we haven't started yet. 
All right. 
All right. 
I don't know how else to do it. 
Does that make sense? 
Yeah, I was just trying to, like, rephrase what the caller was asking because it's, like you said, it's a fair question. 
I think they pledged in the past. 
Right. 
Probably. 
Let's say they pledged in January. 
Okay. 
If we had the 350 plateau that we had to reach in January, then that would apply to that. 
But since this is March, we're starting at zero. 
Well, what if it was June? 
Well, June hasn't happened yet. 
No, no, no. 
It was June of last year. 
They signed up, they're a buddy, all year, $5 or whatever it is per month, and it was tabulated in June. 
We've gotten a $60 credit in June. 
They're still paying $5 this month. 
Does it count this month? 
No, it would have counted in June. 
It would have been $60 in June for the year. 
Again, I'm just theorizing that's how it works. 
I might be completely wrong. 
Maybe they do it every month. 
I guess we have to make a phone call to them and ask. 
Maybe this caller knows. 
I doubt it. 
All right. 
Forget it. 
Why would you put that on them? 
All right. 
Last call. 
Last call. 
Good evening here on Off Talk Overtime. 
Go ahead. 
Hello. 
I was called and dismembered. 
Okay. 
You know what? 
I'm going to refute what I said and say one more phone call. 
That's not Rebel. 
And Rebel, if we catch you doing that again, you will be barred from next week's phone calls. 
So keep that in mind before you start dialing again. 
802-321-4225. 
Did he sound like some kind of spirit that lived in like the base of a tree and like a mystical land? 
It's not so mystical. 
That's what that voice was. 
That's what it was for me. 
Yeah. 
You know, if you're going to change your voice. 
Magical world out there. 
We know. 
Be good at changing voices if you're going to do that, is my advice. 
802-321-HACK is our phone number. 
I hear the phone ringing. 
And let's see who it is. 
Good evening. 
Good evening. 
You're on Off Talk Overtime. 
Go ahead. 
Yeah, I just wanted to say something really quick to the gentleman who called earlier. 
He said he has this hobby where he picks up things and valuable things in New York City, stuff like that. 
Yep. 
Yeah. 
I think what he should do, I mean, that's not a good thing for, you know, for Hope. 
But I think that's a great idea for like a YouTube channel. 
I think what he should do, if I were him, he should start a YouTube channel where he finds valuable things in New York City and either donate some more to good use. 
I mean, there's a lot of good stuff to be found in the street or whatever. 
And I bet he's going to have loads of subscribers. 
That's what he ought to do. 
I thought that's what he was about to say when he started talking. 
But I think it'll make a good YouTube show where he just finds things in the street, finds valuable things in the street. 
And he just either donates them or puts them to use. 
There's a lot of valuable things thrown away in New York City. 
So if he's listening, I think he should consider doing that. 
Good idea. 
Yeah, good idea. 
Yeah, there's tons. 
Go ahead. 
No, I'm just going to say that's all I really have to say. 
I just wanted to call him and say that. 
Go ahead, Kyle. 
Oh, no, I'm reacting. 
Thanks for the call. 
And, yeah, there's things that this caller was doing that were specifically like anti-consumer or just sort of their angle was they were sort of hacking by not purchasing things that were not for sustenance. 
And that's a great concept. 
I'm sure there's tons of people that do this. 
I was even thinking, just as you were saying, like, accompanying the YouTube channel. 
We had a story earlier about government auctions. 
But they could be doing, like, an online auction in conjunction with that and then taking the proceeds and putting it towards a cause they're maybe passionate about or that would help, I don't know, people that are seeking housing or that don't have certain items that they need or other things to keep the streets clean. 
So, anyway, that's a great concept. 
And people sometimes need help with that. 
There's a lot of, like, effort and production that goes into that kind of thing. 
But you just got to be creative. 
He must really love doing it. 
Yeah, really, really. 
Maybe there's people that might be able to document it so that he can keep doing what he's passionate about and isn't feeling like they're stretched. 
But, yeah, it takes a little creativity, but it's right there. 
All right. 
Thanks. 
I enjoyed the show. 
Thank you. 
Thanks for calling. 
Take care. 
And that's going to do it for our calls tonight. 
That's going to do it for us tonight. 
Any final words from anybody? 
Just thanks for joining us. 
Thanks for continuing to invite us into your various media induction devices. 
And thanks for continuing to show your support at GiveToWBAI.org for what we do on this program, on this station, on this network, and just everything that keeps us going. 
And if you do want to participate in the HOPE conference in one way or another, just click on the Participate tab on HOPE.net. 
And that'll give you the appropriate email address to send your ideas to, and someone will get back to you. 
Keep sharing, keep discussing things. 
Please write us, O-T-H at 2600.com. 
You can also watch some of the other HOPE conference subjects here on Channel 2600 on YouTube, this fantastic place. 
All 14 HOPEs are here. 
All of the information that has been distributed from those events over the years and through time, through whatever light wave or data crystal you're using in the future, it all came from people discussing things, keeping their ear to the ground, observing what's around them, and sharing it. 
So thanks for doing that. 
Please be active. 
Be deliberate out there, too. 
This frivolousness, the sort of apathy, it's not worthwhile. 
It's not as worthwhile as all of you doing what you do best. 
We're going to keep doing what we do, and thanks for all of your listening and contributions. 
Keep them coming is what I'm saying. 
Be in action. 
It's so needed, and no matter what you're going through, other people are as well. 
So every little thing you can muster, it makes a difference, it matters, and we want you to know that you do, too. 
Aw, what a nice sentiment to end on. 
Thank you, everybody, for listening. 
Aguila, go ahead. 
Thank you to the 42 people who have hung with us throughout this evening. 
Thank you again for sharing. 
I love this community we have living in the live chat. 
Also, for everybody who's in New York City with us, stay warm and dry. 
This has been a sucky couple of days weather-wise, and we hope you're all doing okay. 
All right. 
We will see you back next week, 7 p.m. 
on WBAI, 8 o'clock here on YouTube. 
And have a great week. 
Good night.