And friend and contributor to the Electronic Intifada, we are very, very grateful for all the work that you have done over the decades and continue to do. 
Thank you so much for joining us today. 
All right. 
And the time now is 7 p.m., which means it's time for Off the Hook here on WBAI New York 99.5 FM and WBAI.org online. 
Stay tuned. 
Thank you for listening to Off the Hook. 
Off the Hook. 
Off the Hook. 
Off the Hook. 
Good evening for everybody. 
The program is Off the Hook. 
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening. 
Joined tonight by Kyle. 
Hi. 
Out in Skypeland, we have Rob T. 
Firefly. 
Good evening. 
We have Gila. 
Good evening. 
And we have Alex. 
Yes, you do. 
Yes, you do. 
Good evening. 
What part of space are you in this week, Alex? 
Well, I'm currently in a cab crossing London at the moment. 
So, hello to everybody. 
Wow. 
Okay. 
I don't think we've ever done that before. 
So, you're in one of those big black cabs, right? 
That are huge inside and they're everywhere in London. 
Something like that. 
Yes. 
Okay. 
Yeah. 
All right. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
Exactly. 
Yeah. 
I am heading from the west to the east. 
And, yeah. 
So, it'll be a journey. 
You know, it's a long way to cross London these days. 
I guess in any day. 
It's such a big city from west to east. 
I think it's always been the same size, I'm pretty sure. 
But, yeah, these days especially. 
I think it's expanded over the years, quite possibly. 
But, it is, you know, from east to west, a lot bigger than New York. 
New York is a north-south city. 
London is east-west. 
Well, many is the time I've walked from east to west in Manhattan. 
But, we're not going to quibble over that. 
But, you're going from west to east right now. 
From the west end, I believe? 
Yes. 
I'm actually coming from kind of the Chelsea, Belgravia area. 
And, heading over to Shoreditch, east London. 
Ah, shortage. 
I don't know it at all. 
East London, it's where a whole bunch of things are going on. 
Let me tell you, it's been a very, very long day. 
Well, it's been pretty long here as well. 
And, we have the spring equinox to thank for that. 
Sure, why not? 
But, since you're in London, Alex, maybe this story will be particularly relevant. 
It has to do with Julian Assange, who is currently being held in prison somewhere in the United Kingdom. 
According to this Wall Street Journal article, which came out today, the Justice Department is considering whether to allow WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, to plead guilty to a reduced charge of mishandling classified information. 
The Wall Street Journal cites people familiar with the matter. 
It says that DOJ officials and Assange's legal team have already had preliminary talks on what a plea deal might look like. 
However, Barry Pollack, a lawyer for Assange, said he has been given no indication that the department will take a deal. 
It's inappropriate for Mr. 
Assange's lawyers to comment while his case is before the UK High Court, other than to say we have been given no indication that the Department of Justice intends to resolve the case, and the United States is continuing, with as much determination as ever, to seek his extradition on all 18 charges, exposing him to 175 years in prison, said Pollack. 
Now, yeah, if Assange is convicted, obviously it would set a dangerous precedent for press freedom, since publishing information obtained by a source is a standard journalistic practice, whether classified or not. 
But it would be interesting. 
If he were to plead guilty, if there was some kind of a plea deal, it's possible that he could be actually freed. 
And that's something that many people have wondered. 
Is that ever going to happen? 
Have you heard anything about this, Alex? 
I haven't heard anything specifically about this, but it sounds like people might have been listening to our show last week. 
This is exactly what we were talking about. 
I was arguing, I can't remember if it was the actual off-the-hook show or if it was overtime, but I was arguing that the United States government should have dropped all of these additional 17 charges that were part of the secondary indictment and stuck to their guns with respect to the first charge, which was about, it was actually more of a hacking, quote-unquote. 
I use that in air quotes because obvious reasons here with the word, and the term hacking, but it was a Computer Fraud and Abuse Act charge that had to deal with Julian Assange crossing the line and helping a journalist and being a journalist and helping Chelsea Manning crack a hashed password of a Department of Defense computer. 
And that was the only charge that seemed to me to be reasonable to stick. 
It's what I argued in my first article on CNN in their opinion section that this was a legitimate charge against Assange. 
And it seems like they're coming to the same conclusion. 
And now they're coming to an actually even more lenient conclusion, which is that in pleading to this, that should be it, that he's suffered enough. 
This is, I think this is great. 
I think this is really wonderful progress and I can appreciate Pollock, Assange's attorney, not counting his chickens before they hatch, so to speak, because you really never know where these negotiations are going to go. 
And this actually probably seems a bit too good to be true, but let's hold out hope. 
Yeah, you see, Alex, too good to be true, that's not really something that I see because of what he has been through. 
You know, we were just going over some records today as far as health speakers and we realized it was 2010 when Julian Assange was supposed to give the keynote address at the Hackers on Planet Earth conference, 2010. 
And, of course, he wasn't able to do that because of Chelsea Manning being arrested for the leaking of information at that time and it became, you know, a bit hot to be in the United States if your name was Julian Assange. 
Obviously, he wasn't able to be at the conference. 
But think about it. 
Since then, since that point in time, we're talking 14 years, he has been avoiding being extradited to the United States or being imprisoned in one way or another and obviously not successfully since 2019 when he was thrown into Belmarsh Prison, which I believe is not too far from where you are over there in London. 
Is that right, Alex? 
In fact, maybe you could pass by and shout something out the window. 
Yeah. 
I'll tell you, well, I would prefer not to pass by that location but given that the Ecuadorian embassy where Julian Assange was holed up for many years was in Knightsbridge next to Harrods, I did work in luxury for quite a while so I did pass by the Ecuadorian embassy while he was there for a number of times and I always looked up. 
I always wanted to see if he was there in the window and I would give him a wave or something. 
I don't think it ever worked out but look, Emmanuel, I'm not arguing with you that the last 14 years during which time he has spent trying to evade extradition to the United States has been horrible but you yourself had mentioned he was facing a hundred something years in prison here and for the Department of the Justice and the United States government to change its tune in terms of what they plan on doing with Assange and there's a possible deal here this is a massive change this is great this is good news I think we have to build such. 
If it's true and yeah, you know, you would have to really be in my opinion extremely callous to think that this guy has to suffer any more than he has already suffered. 
You know, if you think he's guilty of everything you could possibly imagine he certainly has suffered quite a bit and it's time that people start at least pretending to be human but in this particular case if from what I'm told if this were to take place he would be charged with mishandling classified information it's a much lesser charge and that's a misdemeanor after all this a misdemeanor and he could potentially enter that plea without ever having to go to the United States and the time that he has spent in Belmarsh prison could count towards a sentence and he could be freed and this nightmare could end and you know who wants this nightmare to continue? 
Who wants this to keep hanging over so many people's heads and especially to be torturing him like this? 
No matter what you think and believe me I have some harsh criticism for some of the decisions he made but in no way does it justify treating somebody like this so yeah I guess fingers crossed you know we'll see if something actually happens but it is I think incumbent upon the Biden administration to you know to be a bit merciful here and to you know to put an end to this already they have the power to do that go ahead Rob One thing I find interesting and you know I don't consider myself any great fan of Assange either but as as a case this is fascinating and there's one part of this Wall Street Journal article that I find kind of kind of entertaining to read which is an extradition would throw a political hot potato into the lap of the Biden administration the Justice Department has long struggled with how to proceed against Assange because there are some parallels between his work and that of the press whose right to publish is generally protected by the First Amendment now the calling you know WikiLeaks for those unfamiliar a long time ago they used to leak classified documents and things to journalists and things and I think what they were doing qualifies as being you know an active force in journalism and to watch the Wall Street Journal you know respected newspaper kind of start to begrudgingly accept that the work of whistleblowing and such in the way that WikiLeaks used to does share some sort of some sort of thread with what they do for a living and what and the rights that are really important to preserve of the freedom of the press it's you know of all things this case has to be where that particular battle is fought agreed all right well we'll keep an eye on that story a couple of programming notes we are not on next week we are preempted next week so we'll be back again in two weeks also this is the final week that we will be on the air in March right I think that's true and that means that we have to reach that $350 plateau that we have been handed basically the challenge has been handed to us where in order for the show to stay on the air we have to raise $350 a month that is not much at all that is relatively simple to do and all it takes is listeners like you calling in or going to the website the website is give to wbai.org and on that website you can do a number of things you can you can pick out some gifts from WBAI that we will send you in exchange for your generous support and be sure to say that you're pledging in the name of Off the Hook so that it gets credited towards that $350 level that we are trying to achieve maybe we've already achieved it I don't know I haven't heard anything from management and it's possible we may be over that certainly in the past we were able to raise I mean I would have raised $350 by the time I finish this particular spiel right now so it's possible we're at that but it's also possible we're not and that's why we need people to call and pledge on that website you can also become a BAI buddy which means you pledge a particular amount every month it can be something like $5 $10 $20 and that amount adds up to a much bigger amount if you times it by 12 i.e. 
in one year you can also call 212-209-2950 and speak to somebody directly there and do the same thing yeah so it's really important WBAI is a non-commercial radio station we do not have commercials yeah that's what that means we do not have any commercials and if we did have commercials we probably couldn't talk about Julian Assange we probably couldn't talk about how terrible a company Verizon is we probably couldn't criticize Elon Musk we probably couldn't do all kinds of things that we do but we're not commercial we're non-commercial and that means that you are the sponsors you the listeners are the sponsors of this radio station not just this radio show the entire radio station and we are on the air 24 hours a day 7 days a week bringing you all kinds of alternative news information music arts you name it some material you'll find amazing some material will make you run screaming out of the room it's just the nature of discourse so we need you our listeners to stand up and show your support again give to WBAI dot ORG is the website where you can pledge and 212-209-2950 is the phone number you can call to pledge and in both cases please mention off the hook say you are pledging in the name of off the hook that way we make it to the $350 level and we continue to have a show next month wouldn't that be nice go ahead Gila I just wanted to throw something out there a reminder that giving to WBAI is completely tax deductible it only does good things for both your karma your radio listening time and your tax returns for next year also if you visit the website WBAI.org slash matching dot PHP you might be eligible for an employer match to your gift to WBAI thus doubling your impact for about 30 seconds of search so if you want to give $175 to WBAI in the name of off the hook and your employer will match it congratulations you've done what we need to do for the month so take a second see if your employer will match your gifts WBAI.org slash matching dot PHP find out about that and please give what you can to keep us in your ear holes do we really make people type the PHP part of that wow it's so unnecessary you know but okay we're not the webmasters no we're not we're not no criticism intended but I'm just you know it sort of jumps out at me but yeah that's the URL and please please visit that Alex I was wondering maybe you have something to say from overseas to encourage people to pledge well I think that they know the value of what we bring to the airwaves here in New York and we always bring I think a unique perspective something that they're not going to hear anywhere else anywhere on the airwaves anywhere else I think quite possibly in the world I think WBII is a really unique animal we have a great following we need your support we need you to be there for us the station needs us we've been on the air how many years now Emmanuel it's got to be 34 35 years oh more than that oh off the hook yeah we started in 1988 with a special but the station's been on the air since 1960 and that's quite a long time but where else were you here somebody riding in a taxi cab from West London to East London basically taking time out of your late night to be a part of this it is a late night but again it is still not yet March 30th where the United Kingdom pushes their clocks forward so we're only four hours ahead that's right it's not that late at all I just realized thank you for reminding me of that it's not that bad yes go ahead Rob and then Kyle yeah I mean talking of matching funds I heard from a friend of mine who listens to the show and I don't have permission to say their name on the air but they became a buddy which is great and thank you very much you know who you are and they also sent me a screenshot of their employers approving a matching donation so now we get double that buddy amount every month and that is fantastic and you know Off the Hook is their favorite show and that's great it's my favorite too but you know you can do this you can whether your employee whether your employer matches funds and that's searchable on the BAI site if not maybe you could ask somebody who handles such things if you have an employer who is into that action yeah matching funds are great being a BAI buddy is super great because it gives us something that is really hard to come by in the non-profit sphere which is a dependable income and it's really a game changer it's been a game changer in the time I've been involved with this station I've seen how much of a change that makes go ahead Kyle well just a reminder it's give to wbai.org and we're all volunteers here our contribution is our time and our various perspectives and gifts that we have as a part of the thank you gifts from the membership with Pacifica and becoming a buddy those are all just a small part of it but as much as we can contribute we just ask just this little bit any amount it really goes a long way and it's the only time we really ask anything from listeners so please contribute what you can and that'll ensure we can stay on are you being pulled over by the police Alex I see all these flashing lights behind you in the cab there what what's going on I don't know what the hell is going on here I think those are construction I think this is just normal London traffic yeah yeah there's no we we haven't been moving but we're certainly not pulled over stick your head out the window and just yell what's going on and maybe we'll get an update first of all I was what's going on over there keep so the first thing Alex is that I am shocked how much better your signal is in the back of a cab than it is in the rooms where you've been staying that's right last week was a nightmare you were in a hotel room we could barely hear you now you're in a London cab and it's like you're in the studio so I think the trick is you should be in cab every week but the other thing I was going to say going back to fundraising for a second is that if you give at a minimum $25 level or you become a B.A.I. 
buddy you become a voting member of W.B.A.I. 
then you get to have a say in the direction of the station somewhat you get to help elect the leadership and you can maybe help avoid a situation like we had a few years ago you mean Pacifica both Pacifica B.A.I. 
is a part of the Pacifica network and that 25 threshold it allows you voting position as a community member so absolutely that is a great idea and you can do that from anywhere you don't have to be in New York yeah and it can be a one time thing or it can be an annual thing as well if you want to pace out your payments in the buddy program exactly if you become a B.A.I. 
buddy at the $2.50 level congratulations that's more than $25 a year after the 10 months goes by once you've cumulatively hit that $25 mark then you become the voting member exactly $25 or more gives you a voting member and also if your employer is not a match but you have a donor advised fund you can give us money that way if you are over the age of 70 and a half and need to make a required minimum distribution from your individual retirement account this is also a great option wow I never thought of that okay hey you know we got options well okay and please write to us too if you want to share your donation share word of your donation with us OTH at 2600 dot com OTH and let us know that you pledged in the name of Off the Hook and that will make us feel really good okay getting back to some news here Alex this is the longest cab ride I think I've ever seen you're really just going from west to east you're sure you're not going to Bristol or something no I'm telling you this is a you know this is a very wide city and I mean you can see it from space it's massive and there isn't even a lot of traffic on the road right now but this is just how long it takes to get from one end to the other in a cab if you had taken the underground I'll bet you'd be going a faster well I tube and all of the stairs and the escalators and things are really not my style at the moment so I am having to cross London using cars I wouldn't ordinarily be doing this but here we am it's making for somewhat interesting radio I hope well that's up to the listener to decide we'll find out so okay we have some interesting news in the world of YouTube which we're going to be moseying on over to YouTube at 8 o'clock if people want to join us in overtime you can even call us through YouTube believe it or not and be a part of off the hook in that way but we're familiar with AI generated videos and how they're starting to pop up all over the place well there's a policy a new policy that Google is going to start implementing was compliance tools are now being launched because Google just loves making the rest of us comply with its arbitrary rules and it will continue to roll out over the next few weeks they say we're introducing a new tool in creator studio that's what you use to make videos on YouTube requiring creators to disclose to viewers run realistic content content a viewer could easily mistake for a real person place or event is made with altered or synthetic media including generative AI so YouTube is requiring that creators mark certain AI video content so the platform can affix an altered or synthetic content label on it however there are exceptions not all AI video content will need to be labeled cartoons children's cartoons do not have to be labeled I guess because it's pretty obvious that that's not real according to YouTube animated content is clearly unrealistic so it does not need to be labeled the policy is meant to curb misinformation or potential legal issues which could arise from generated versions of real people it is not meant to be quality control warning users when low effort AI generated junk starts playing on their screen however according to the magazine Wired YouTube is arguably dropping the ball here because the policy leaves out the bulk of kids content which is animated video disturbing kids videos on YouTube have made headlines over the years and the company has made moves to deal with the problem often these appear to be pumped out as quickly as possible without any educational intent or even steps to ensure age appropriateness kid oriented content on YouTube will be affected by this policy if creators push misinformation so if Bugs Bunny says that the election was a lie then there has to be something posted there I guess that would fall under the realistic portion of these new rules however bulk generated AI animated junk usually aimed at the youngest demographics will not and it seems YouTube is missing out on opportunity to have this type content labeled so parents can easily filter it out so interesting steps ahead I just wonder how are they going to know whether something has been altered or not you know you're supposed to label something as being altered or synthetic or whatever and if you don't how does Google know that you were supposed to do that and didn't any theories I mean most of YouTube's quote unquote moderation system is just anybody can upload what they like and no one's paying any attention to it unless someone complains so you would have to see AI generated content out in the wild probably reported to them and then wait for their moderation queue to reach you and by that point your kids are grown and it doesn't matter what they're watching anymore anyone else yeah I'll chime in here I think Rob is right about that I also think that the point of this policy has nothing to do with animated shorts and children and whatnot it's it's to give them the right to say that somebody who posts generative content like this content that is false misinformation misleading whatever is AI generated in some way or another is and they haven't tagged it as such is violating their terms of service and when you're violating their terms of service that allows them to immediately remove whatever the content is it's essentially granting to them the right to remove that particular content because if you have the intention of posting some kind of disinformation whether it's about an election or about you know a celebrity or a member of the royal family it doesn't matter so long as it's not flagged in that way they're going to have the right to remove this that's what that legal change does well interesting there's another story that came out pretty much the same time with the lighthearted headline you can expect even more AI generated YouTubers in the future and what that means is the Google research team has officially introduced its new AI power generative model capable of creating controllable videos of variable length from a single human photo yeah the project is called Vlogger does not require training for each person does not rely on face detection and cropping it's capable of generating the complete image showing a target human talking and moving including head and gestures our framework is a two stage pipeline based on stochastic diffusion models to model the one to many mapping from speech to video the first network takes as input an audio wave form to generate intermediate body motion controls which are responsible for gaze facial expressions and pose over the target video length the second network is a temporal image to image translation model that extends large image diffusion models taking the predicted body controls to generate the corresponding frames to condition the process to a particular identity the network also takes a reference image of a person so yeah so that means that you're going to be watching YouTube videos being lectured by various entities and they won't be human they'll be completely artificial and the thing that gets me about this the story I just read before this requiring all of us all of us poor creators out there to label anything that is created by AI anything that is synthetic in nature here they are pretty much doing the exact same thing but no they don't have to label that you will be fooled you will be able to watch people who are not people talking to you on YouTube about various things don't you think you should have the right to know this is a fake person this is not real many times I'm watching a YouTube video and I'm listening to somebody and I realize this person is not human nobody talks like that nobody pronounces words in that particular way and you feel kind of betrayed you feel kind of like wow someone couldn't take the time to actually read something themselves or inject their own personality into it sure would be nice to know that yeah this is fake too but apparently when Google does it Google's rules don't apply am I being too harsh here yeah I know I am but go ahead Rob I don't think you are being too harsh I mean first of all just pointing out the word stochastic that you used for those unfamiliar this is your vocabulary word for the day it is it comes from the ancient Greek word which means guess and all you know it's a fancy buzzword that people use a lot nowadays in relation to AI stuff because it just means the computer is guessing so when you stochastically generate a video it's because the computer is guessing what a video of that scene might look like it sounds like sarcastic stochastic you know I could use that more than once I think but in terms of like the actual value of the content one of the best arguments I've seen regarding generative AI based content whether it be video images whatever is you know if nobody bothered creating the thing why should I bother consuming it it's a good question one thing one thing I think that this is going to affect is the sort of traceability or the provenance of historic media and it's going to become I think increasingly important to have things authenticated in ways that are increasingly sort of a second thought or not front of mind and having uniform ways of describing the authenticity of a particular form of media especially if it's jumped from maybe film into some sort of streaming file and then put into a segment of a radio show and then that snippet of audio is used over a meme a graphic and then that's integrated into something else like the way people are sort of wanting to reimagine history it just it makes me wonder if stuff that is not real but based on a historical photo is amplified as a historic reality like like videos like we've seen in movies or in an archival thing or even things that were like current events in the last couple years that we haven't really watched if they're repackaged in this way and then thought of only in the new way they're packaged you forget the actual origin or the truth a great example of this I think or a way to think about is sampling this happens all the time you and I are talking about music I'll talk about this one song that that samples from and you'll be like no no no no that's from like two other songs before that and I've I realize Roberta Flack did Killing Me So I just want to point that out to everybody who thinks it was somebody else no it wasn't and even people that are aware that it's not the original use it was sampled and maybe sampled to death but those types of things I think are occurring with less attribution you know it's interesting too it makes me worry about how things will be labeled in the future and who will be in charge of labeling what is truth and what is not you know that's an awful lot of responsibility and trust and an entity that surely does not deserve either imagine the nightmare of putting out a video and having some algorithm or some large corporation or government say that was manipulated that was fake that did not really happen and I see that coming you know there was not too long ago there was this commercial out that basically it was a funny commercial had to do with cars or something had a kid in it and everybody on reddit was saying that kid is AI that kid is not real and of course it wasn't true the kid is real but can you imagine that kid looking at those comments I mean you know talk about cyberbullying but to have the internet declare that you don't exist that you're not a human and you know you're a human at least you think you are and just to basically have all these people that supposedly know better and have authority make that declaration I think we're going to be seeing more things like that in the future and it's really kind of creepy and scary yeah I love where you're going with that too because people that are themselves new maybe especially younger voice actors or younger talent in ad campaigns they're not really known right so they don't have a resume that people might point to immediately so then the accusation of like well your computer generated when they may have been scanned or otherwise had their likeness rendered and or touched up or however you want to call it modified in a computer as a part of the effects layers or animation package in the ad like that could be devastating that like your first job you're not even thought of as a human being no for people who are already going through identity crises you know or might not be the most confident people in the world you know that kind of you know a takedown is it's devastating it also makes me feel as bad with spending your time on YouTube thinking you're listening to the author of a channel that isn't actually there right like you're having a non a non connection I mean for some maybe that's sort of expected and even that to me is sad maybe that's my that's totally my opinion but but the the idea that you're like kind of you're you're kind of betrayed or deceived a little like you had pointed out like oh wait this isn't actually the narrator is a computer's voice you are kind of like how much time are you spending on on that particular medium listening to computer generated content that was generated in like a second and how much of your life I mean depending on your interest level of the topic I don't know there's there's something a little dark there I think just in time spent with artificiality clearly this is a challenge and this is something that we're going to be faced with on a recurring basis particularly with the campaign that's ahead of us this year we're going to see all kinds of accusations of well that was not real that person didn't actually say that of course in the world of Trump you know it's artificial intelligence couldn't possibly keep up with the things that he comes up with on his own but we are going to see all sorts of manipulations on a variety of campaigns you know local national international and this is only the beginning and how we deal with that determines just how much of an effect this has on us in the future I don't know what the solution is I honestly don't I do know the solution is not to hand over trust to any one entity I think the solution is probably on a technical level something that we can all analyze and take apart if necessary and see if it's actually accurately defining what is real and what is not but we are going to be facing some rather interesting times ahead Alex either there's a bed in that taxi or you have moved to a room yes I finally made it way back over to Shoreditch and all the way up to the sixth floor of the hotel in which I'm staying and I'm back into the hotel room so we made it across London in this show and it didn't take that long right we still got we still got a ways to go well yeah I guess we have about 10 minutes but that was a pretty long cab ride I hope it wasn't too expensive no it wasn't too bad to be to be honest and thankfully I think I can expense most of it so thoughts on labeling reality versus fiction yeah I think you know this very much is dumped or rather don't tell the story that we were just talking about and I think that the idea that platforms are going to request people to label the certain content as artificially generated is solely for the purpose so that they can take it down when it doesn't comply with their terms of service or their abuse policies and I think that the manner by which we detect certain types of generative AI is going to evolve over time but it's going to evolve in lockstep with the generative AI's abilities to frustrate our ability to identify generative AI content as well this goes back to I don't know if many of our listeners remember steganography or steganographic encryption techniques whereby and this was you know something that was like the hypothetical use case of somebody like Al Qaeda right so they were going to use steganographic encryption which is embedding some kind of hidden message or hidden data into an image and modifying the data within an image so that you can post an image let's say on Craigslist or anywhere else you tell somebody you know what the image is it's a couch for sale for $725 located in Cincinnati Ohio whatever they download that image and hidden within that image would be some kind of secret message well it's the shifting and the movements of certain bits and data that would allow people to detect steganographic encryption at work or in practice and people that have been researching this in particular one professor Hani Farid I think he's still over at UC Berkeley he and I worked together many years ago at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire he's really been pioneering the detection of the use of of AI for image manipulation and video manipulation and I think that he's really built on the process of detecting steganographic encryption techniques and it's going to get more and more and more difficult because if you look at how his research has evolved you see that AI systems and all the telltale signs that have been there about how to detect them they're changing so it's going to be harder and harder and harder to detect these things I can't imagine what this cat and mouse game is going to look like in five or six years let alone 20 well you know just brainstorming here absent something that's unique in our own human voices or images that can be pulled out and identified kind of like a fingerprint if there isn't something in our audio or in our video that can be identified and is not something that can easily be transferred over to an artificial intelligence expression if that doesn't exist then I envision a world where it will be required for anybody creating any kind of artificial construct to have some sort of identifier in there I don't know how that's even possible I don't know how that would be enforced but I see at least the desire for a world where all digital communications have to have some kind of identity code that labels whether or not they are real or fake I don't think this is a good world I don't think this is something that freedom is going to prosper in but I don't really see any other way that people who want to maintain control are going to have any hope of doing so go ahead Alex I think you bring up such a great and interesting problem here Emmanuel but I do also think that there's potentially a way to solve this if we what we have to establish essentially is that a message came from us right a message or a video or a message whatever it is is coming from a particular sender and we can do this using standard encryption techniques we can use this by using essentially a private key to sign a message right just like PGP works right so we can use that but this brings up the struggle I think that we have right now we've been viewing over the last really 20 years now about who owns our identity on the internet do we own our own identity you know how are we going to sign these particular messages if we're going to upload a video to you know let's say X Twitter whatever the hell we're calling it now or Mastodon whatever and we need to prove that this is an original video that came from a particular device or came from a person and we are signing it in a way that can't be repudiated we need to do so with a key that would only belong to us and I think that's where this notion of owning your identity in the next generation of the web the next generation of the internet the web 3 world as opposed to the web 2 in the web 1 world is going to come into play if you think about the first generation of the web it was just about reading content the second generation of the web was about reading content and writing content interacting with websites social media putting content out there pasting images and videos and now that's just not enough because web 2 doesn't have the ability to sign that content cryptographically in a way that can be non repudiated web 3 does though this whole idea of having your identity stored somewhere also in a fashion with your public and your private key on a blockchain is going to be I think that's where this is going to come into play because the next generation of the internet is not just reading and writing but it's also about owning that data and proving that you own that data proving that the data came from you in particular that's how I think we defeat this I'm glad you said blockchain before I did go ahead Kyle oh I just want to speak a little bit about sort of the opposite end of that the because this kind of gets into tracking where like we're talking about attribution I raised the idea of attribution and it's the perils of not having that from a journalistic perspective but another thing I think we also are thinking about and we've talked about this in the past from like the idea from the perspective of people creating things and I have a bunch of photos I've been looking at personally and going through and a lot of why I've withheld it from let's say the internet not posting it as because of like unintended ways it could be used and of course if you go to the effort to create something you know you want to make sure that it finds its way to the best use you don't want it everywhere but that's the kind of slippery slope when you're trying to promote a little bit so people who are putting content out there are rightly worried about this stuff getting scraped up and becoming a part of these new big software giants and a program we talked about that was I think emerging I don't know if it was out at the time is it's called Nightshade and I think it's nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu it's a project there and it's under review right now but I think you can download and play with it and I've been wanting to play with this myself to see how you can as Alex described inject other information into imagery so that you can use the visual medium to convey to humans but also rightfully confuse simultaneously some of these machines that are learning go ahead Rob I think what I what I have to say about this is pretty lengthy and we might have to save it for over time okay fair enough that gives me time to close with one more story about AI and yeah Apple is in discussions with Google about using the search science generative artificial intelligence model called Gemini for its next iPhone as the company races to embrace the technology that has upended the tech industry imagine that Apple and Google working together to create artificial intelligence the talks are preliminary and the exact scope of a potential deal hasn't been defined three people with knowledge of the discussions told the New York Times Apple has also held discussions with other AI companies one of these people said as it looks to tap into the power of a large language model capable of analyzing vast amounts of data and generating text on its own Tim Cook Apple's chief executive has promised investors that the company will introduce new generative AI capabilities this year the company's smartphone rivals Samsung and Google have already added Gemini to their newest devices to edit videos and summarize audio recordings and of course Apple and Google have declined to comment and this story came from from Bloomberg so yeah an Apple Google deal on generative AI would extend one of technology's most long-standing partnerships since Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007 Google has been a critical contributor to the device's success it initially provided Google Maps for navigation and later struck a deal to become the default search engine on the iPhone Safari browser which was a lucrative agreement for which Google pays Apple more than 18 billion dollars a year Google's discussions to provide generative AI capabilities for the iPhone would be the latest example of its filling a gap in Apple's products Apple's effort to develop its own large language model of the technology behind chatbots like chat GPT and Gemini has been running behind kind of like their electric cars running behind don't worry Apple will catch up any any thoughts in the minute that we have I think it's a trend towards converging and monopolies and that's a bad thing in our system so we gotta watch out for that we need to support smaller companies smaller projects and and to find sort of equitable marketplaces for them to be available and not be scaled up in in grotesque grotesque ways alternative large language models I like the sound of that you know who knows yeah I don't know what it what the prescription is but we definitely I mean that's that's sort of a partnership or collaboration but what what when does that go right I mean it just it's going to put a lot of limitations and inherently friction between the two and it can't all be Google it'll end in you know some horrible competitive mess that we all lose we definitely suffer so yeah there will be a fair amount of suffering I can almost guarantee that buyer beware yeah all right well I guess we're going to end it there but we're going to continue the conversation over on overtime channel 2600 on YouTube or just click on the link that's on the 2600.com web page please keep those phone calls coming in 212-209-2950 or go to the website give to wbai.org and pledge whatever you can afford in the name of off the hook so that we make a grand total of $350 for the month of March and can come back fresh in two weeks with our heads held high and our future assured write to us OTH at 2600.com and please continue to keep updated on our hope conference which we're still organizing a lot of speakers are submitting talks panel ideas workshop ideas villages all kinds of things hope.net is the place to go to get all the information on that it's a gathering of hackers from all around the planet it's a lot of fun and please keep listening to WBAI for all sorts of alternative programming and keep this radio station going again 212-209-2950 give to wbai.org for off the hook this is manual see you on the air in two weeks see you on YouTube in six minutes good night   And welcome everybody on YouTube to Off the Hook Overtime. 
And Kyle, you make it okay in YouTube land? 
Yeah, I did. 
You did? 
Did you? 
I think so, I think so. 
Rob T. 
Firefly, why are you there? 
I appear to be, yes. 
And Gila? 
Made it too. 
And Alex. 
Alex. 
Hey Alex, where are you? 
He's signed on, I see him. 
Can't hear him, is he muted again? 
Maybe he's listening to us on YouTube where we just started talking and we sound good. 
Well, he just disappeared too, so let's work on getting him back. 
Yeah, I know he's way out there in the wilds of London. 
It's really hard to keep an internet connection up. 
All right, so Rob, you had... 
Well, not that he's out of the cab. 
Yeah, he's in a hotel room now, so God help us. 
Now the internet's terrible. 
So, do you connect to him or do we connect to him on this end? 
Whoever is connecting to him needs to reconnect to him, because I doubt he'll connect to us. 
Yes, I am attempting such a thing. 
Because you also have to tell us your long diatribe on what you didn't have time to say on the show. 
Yeah, I mean, basically the whole idea of, and I'm sad Alex isn't here because this has to do with, he was saying, with using the blockchain and such things to embed some sort of provenance in artwork to show that it's human made. 
And I don't think that would solve anything. 
Especially for artists like me. 
For me, I am an artist. 
I have been putting art out there for a long time. 
And my primary focus when putting my work online is the free content communities, the Creative Commons community, and things like that. 
Where people put art out there precisely because they want other people to not only be able to access it for free, but also to remix it, to warp it into something else, to do whatever remixing and reshaping strikes them as a further creative act. 
And I love when things I make are fodder for that, but I want people to remix my crap and not robots and not computers. 
And trying to, in any way, restrict what makes the piece of art a piece of art goes against that. 
And so that would be difficult for me and folks like me. 
And so I don't think that's the solution. 
And it looks like Alex is back. 
Well, did he hear anything of what you just said? 
I don't think so, somehow. 
Not related to what Rob said. 
Well, kind of a little bit. 
Something I was thinking of that we started talking about during the generative AI discussion is a news piece. 
There was a lawsuit in New Hampshire. 
The League of Women Voters is suing a campaign consultant and some telecom companies over an AI call. 
The campaign manager for Dean Phillips, who was trying to primary Biden, hired a guy for $150 to do a Biden impression into AI software. 
And then they generated a phone call and had it robocalled out to Democrats in New Hampshire saying, listen, don't vote in the primary. 
Save your vote for November. 
Yeah, you only get one vote. 
And if you use it on the primary, you can't vote in November. 
Everybody knows that. 
So they are suing, the League of Women Voters of New Hampshire is suing over these robocalls, saying that this is malicious and now people aren't going to vote in November either. 
Apparently, according to the Washington Post, the January robocall incident is one of the first known major uses of AI to interfere with the U.S. 
presidential election and showcases the disruptive, sweeping powers of AI. 
Nearly anyone can use it to sow chaos and confusion. 
Also, they paid the dude $150. 
You know, I'm wondering, though, if chaos and confusion is really the only way out of this, because when you make everything just so completely impossible to verify one way or another, I don't know, does that sort of equalize it all? 
Does it make it so that we have to go back to simpler times and only believe people when they're standing in front of us? 
But, you know, with robots, I guess that'll be hard, too. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
I don't know. 
But going back to the going back to the artwork issue, one thing that I've seen some artists do now is go on video streaming sites or at least record their own video of themselves making a piece of art, painting or sculpting or, you know, building something or what have you. 
Just so when they go and put that thing online as look at this thing I made, they can also link to this video of and if you don't believe me, here's four or five hours of me making it. 
And, you know, that's kind of interesting, but kind of changes the creative process. 
Not everyone would be comfortable having the time they spend sitting in front of a desk or whatever put out there. 
But if we're going to have to do that kind of provenance until AI is sophisticated enough to fake that five-hour video as well. 
Yeah, well, I think that day is probably coming within a year, so I don't think that's really going to be much of a security net. 
Also, a process could be as unique as the style you're trying to protect. 
That's true. 
That's true. 
Yeah. 
Alex, any insight from you? 
We haven't heard from you. 
Yeah, I'm back. 
I don't know what the hell was going on with Skype before, but I couldn't connect in. 
I had some phone calls and things. 
But anyhow, I'm back. 
And if we're talking about provenance, I think this is an interesting issue, but also can be solved with cryptography. 
Why can't we use a private key to sign, whether it's an image, a video, or even a work of art in some respects? 
And so long as that private key belongs to us and it's private, then we can establish in a way that cannot be repudiated that it belonged to us at some particular point. 
Kind of like how you are able to easily explain to your relatives how to make a Bitcoin transaction and make sure that it's them and not somebody else and don't fall for fast-talking people that might rip you off. 
You know, I'm sure now just making a video will be equally as secure and easily as that. 
And I look forward to the day when that's how we do things. 
Well, user experience is definitely an issue, right? 
And that's a challenge, right? 
And I think that's a challenge that we're all facing. 
I think that the technologies exist right now that would allow us to do the things that we're talking about doing. 
They're just really inaccessible in a lot of ways, and they're difficult to use. 
To shift gears for a second, though, and to go back to what Gila was saying with respect to the League of Women Voters and the lawsuit at issue there, I also think that's a fascinating issue because who's suing whom at that particular moment? 
It was Biden that was the subject or rather the victim of the impersonation attempt. 
So is it President Biden that's acting as the plaintiff in this particular lawsuit, or is it going to get thrown out for standing? 
How is the League of Women Voters asserting rights to something here? 
That's a mystery to me. 
But what seems to be very clearly implicated here is the right of publicity and the right of somebody to control their image and their name. 
And I think, again, these are pre-existing rights and tools and things that we have within our arsenal already. 
These are legal precedents that have existed for quite literally hundreds of years when it comes to the right of publicity and the right of an individual to control one's image and one's likeness. 
And I think that would extend to one's voice here. 
I think that's really the issue. 
Does the right of publicity extend to your voice and the generation of one's voice? 
Would that apply to a celebrity where people can imitate that celebrity? 
You know, what about the right to imitate and to mock? 
I think it would. 
I think it would. 
And I don't think it would necessarily collide with the doctrine of fair use in a sense, right? 
If you are impersonating somebody else for the purpose of humor, parody, criticism, critique, that kind of thing in a non-commercial way, I think that would be a very reasonable use of somebody else's likeness and image. 
That wouldn't be offensive. 
But if you are impersonating them in a way that's malicious or in a way that would lead others to think that you were the genuine person making those particular statements, I think that's a clear violation of the right of that person to control their publicity. 
So you're looking at intent as a key part of all this. 
Yeah, intent, but also, yeah, and the content of what comes out. 
All right, go ahead, Gila. 
The output. 
So apparently, after this happened, after this call went out in New Hampshire, the FCC adopted a ruling that says that generating a voice with AI for a robocall is illegal. 
So if they had just gotten the dude who they paid $150 to, which I, again, still can't get over, to do this impression, if they had just recorded him instead of making the AI say it, then apparently that would have been okay. 
And, I mean, we know that people have been using destructive, suggestive robocalls around elections forever. 
You know, like, calling in heavily Democratic neighborhoods of color and saying, don't forget to vote on Wednesday. 
Yeah. 
Exactly. 
So, yeah, someone just wrote in and said, what about an Impressionist? 
This was an Impressionist, and it's... 
You know, when somebody calls you on the phone, you know, a robocall, do you for one minute think it's that person actually calling? 
No, they're all Impressionists. 
Even if somebody actually said that, they're still not calling you. 
And I never believe what a recording is telling me when a recording calls me. 
But wait a second, can we go back for a sec? 
Because you remember a few weeks, months ago, what is time? 
I don't know. 
But something about City Hall here in New York was using generative AI to make it sound like Eric Adams could speak other languages. 
That's right. 
Is that now illegal, according to the FCC? 
We can't make it sound like Eric Adams can speak Chinese? 
Well, I imagine Eric Adams can probably okay it, and that makes it all right, I would think, you know, in the world of logic. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
Just as somebody who has made a little bit of money doing voice acting in the past as well, I hate to hear of a voice actor coming in and recording a bit just so AI could screw him out of a bunch of money that he probably should have gotten paid for the gig. 
But I think there must still be some sort of deception in place in a legal sense if they used an Impressionist to just say the words and have people naturally think they're being called. 
By at least a recording of the real Biden. 
Well, I'm just not that impressed when I get calls like that. 
It just seems tacky, sleazy, and misleading. 
I'm just downloading that tool for poisoning art. 
Oh, no. 
There's a newer version that uses less of, I think there's some big Python library you have to get, and that's for one version. 
But the Apple version is much smaller, it doesn't rely on that. 
So maybe other people have those systems, they can play around with it. 
But there's also a software that is in the same vein that you can use combined with Nightshade. 
So you can shade something, and then there's a program called Glaze. 
So I'm learning about all this for people that are creating stuff that they don't want to contribute to machines that are learning. 
Wow. 
So you will not fund the education of a small machine somewhere? 
I don't know. 
I think I'm going to request, like, I'll submit a payphone that is shaded or glazed or whatever the heck this is. 
And I want to, maybe it'll run in 2600 The Hacker Quarterly. 
I don't know. 
All right. 
Or I'll submit, I don't know, somewhere else. 
I'll just, I'm going to make a point to use photos that are messed with in this way. 
I do like the idea of using payphone photos. 
I think that's a nice symmetry to the whole thing. 
Yes, go ahead, Keila. 
On a different note entirely, there has been a lively discussion going on in the chat, prompted by the fact that apparently we are not talking enough about phones. 
We just talked about payphones, not 10 seconds ago. 
I believe on air was the issue, that we weren't talking enough about phones during the show. 
We gave out phone numbers. 
We were giving out phone numbers. 
Wait, no. 
Yeah, we did. 
We did. 
Where I'm telling you the question we were asked was, or that was asked was, where are the freaks? 
So people are talking about phones, about copper wire. 
I'm entertained. 
And I just wanted to share a comment from our friend Johnny Fusion, because he said, most people have free long distance as a default. 
Payphones are gone for the most part. 
What is left to freak? 
Oh, that's not true. 
There's always something left to freak. 
And there's plenty of payphones. 
You know, look at our magazine. 
It's still the most popular segment of our magazine. 
People find, I mean, a lot of them don't work, yes. 
But, you know, they're there if you want to play with them. 
Landlines are there if you want to play with them. 
All kinds of new devices. 
But, you know, we can't abandon them. 
We can't throw them away. 
Who is echoing? 
Alex, is that you? 
I hear myself echoing whenever I say something. 
All right. 
That's better. 
So, yeah. 
It might have been. 
Yeah. 
Alex, tell us something about phones in England. 
And I'm sure you noticed something in this latest trip. 
I mean, I find it interesting, too, that at least there is a fascination with older phones, right? 
You know, I usually I stay at the Chelsea Arts Club when I'm in London. 
That's my home away from home in a lot of respects. 
And I love the place dearly. 
And they have in all of the rooms these very old-looking phones. 
And they are, in fact, old phones, actually. 
They're not just old-looking. 
They're actually old rotary phones that are wired into the club's telephone system that actually work. 
But they really only work when the internal phone system. 
It's still kind of cool. 
And now I'm in this trendy hotel in Hoxton. 
And look what's beside my bed. 
I don't know if you can see that. 
Look at that. 
It looks like an old phone, right? 
Looks like a gin and tonic. 
No, it's not a gin and tonic. 
Well, I can't. 
It's bad light. 
What is next to your bed? 
I'm just trying to think logically here. 
What is it? 
It's just not coming into focus. 
Anyhow, it's a new phone. 
Oh, it's a phone. 
But it's made to look like an old phone. 
And so I think there's this fascination with, you know, old, old telephony, old telephone technology in a lot of respects. 
And I don't know. 
I think it's saying something about the culture. 
I think the fascination is with the look, not with the technology. 
I wish it were with the technology because it's a pretty solid technology, one that we can use. 
Yeah. 
And I hear my damn voice again every time I say something. 
Yeah. 
Well, you might be right about that because, yeah, maybe it is all about the aesthetics. 
Maybe it's very much more form over function. 
But at least at the Chelsea Arts Club, it's still the function and the form coexist together because you are actually using an older, genuine article there. 
But also, you're not allowed to use a cell phone at the Chelsea Arts Club, right? 
That's right. 
Well, in your room, you're allowed to use a cell phone. 
In the reception area, you can use a cell phone. 
Those are the only places in the entire facility in which you are allowed to use a cell phone. 
In fact, if you take your phone out when you're in the bar, in the billiards room, in the dining room, in the garden, people are going to give you really, really nasty glances. 
And somebody's going to tell you to put that goddamn thing back. 
I'm really intrigued by this conversation and the line of questioning. 
And I have a lot of different ways of thinking about it myself. 
So the critique, I think, it is valid. 
Like, you know, we're not talking about phones, but it's a subjective critique because you've got to remember what that person's idea of freaking or using telephones is has changed. 
A lot of it has moved. 
And I think we are, like, kind of, we're facing this in a way that, like, there are things that sound ever more like nostalgia and are not current in some ways. 
But, now, I have to defend what is often spoken about. 
And the way I've been thinking about it, and I think this is the theme for hope in some ways. 
But in a lot of what we're seeing as far as the appreciation for some things that almost amounts to, like, industrial design, as, like, Alex was talking about there with a desk phone and how people like it. 
And he was saying it wasn't really about the network behind it, even though, in the same breath, like, all people are – people's lives are centered around these newer, modern, smart operating systems that are essentially computer phones. 
So, there's a paradoxical thing going on, and I think that for the most part, we're talking about two big companies when you're talking about the computer phones. 
That's Google and Apple, they dominate that as far as the operating systems go. 
So, that's why the conversation has evolved more into what do those software providers – because they have app stores as well – what do they – what do they mean for people who use telephones? 
And the other thing is, when you talk about, like, hey, why aren't you talking about the phones or talking on phones, people aren't using phones or even computer phones the same way. 
Like, who actually is talking on the phone? 
I think more of us – like, people try to communicate more, and that is a tool and a resource, and there are lots of ways of having voice communication. 
But there's a behavioral change, I think, in the way people – because they have other options, because data is also ubiquitous. 
There are many modes of communicating with others over data. 
So, the actual talking is – is itself nostalgic in – could – arguably. 
Actually, there are people who are trying to talk to us by phone right now. 
I heard that. 
Yeah, I'm sorry for being – I have more to say. 
No, we're not picking up the phone until we give out the phone number, because otherwise you're jumping the line, you know, and that's not fair. 
So, when we give the phone number out, that's when you should call the phone number, not before – it could be a telemarketer. 
We don't know. 
So – but also, you know, on the subject of phones, and pay phones in particular, as we mentioned, we still print – did I just not say – did I not call us? 
Wow. 
Okay. 
Yeah, that's funny. 
Real funny. 
We print pay phones. 
Just take it off the hook. 
Oh, that's where it got its name from. 
I just got that. 
Okay. 
Wait a second. 
The telephone keeps ringing, so you ripped it off the wall. 
Off the wall. 
That's the other show. 
Oh, my God. 
What's going on here? 
Listen. 
All right. 
I'm going to get smelling salts in a minute. 
I'm trying to say something. 
Please, let me just say this. 
Okay. 
So, yeah, we print pay phones in the magazine. 
We've been doing that for a long, long time, and they still come pouring in, all right? 
I'm sorry if I'm taking up your time by setting up the stage here. 
But recently, we printed an entire page of Taiwanese phones, and only a little while ago we found a Taiwanese restaurant, and we brought the issue in and showed it to them. 
And boy, were they thrilled. 
You know, there aren't many Taiwanese places around, but here's a whole page of pay phones from your country. 
And, you know, having been to that country, they were thrilled and reminiscent. 
And, yeah, so don't underestimate the amount of power that something like that can have on someone. 
That's all. 
Also, the other aspect, I think, that has lessened the experimenting, aside and apart from the points Johnny Fusion raised, which are all – that they are all something I would echo. 
So, it's the cost. 
And I was going to talk about this a little bit as far as attention. 
We were talking about people watching computer-generated people and losing – and thinking, you know, sort of replacing what would have been a human creator with this – you know, someone, a live person, all their, you know, flaws included with this, like, rendering and stuff. 
And I think that that's, you know, a cheapening of our attention span. 
And that's created that environment that we're giving up all this time to things that are not actually other people that – and it's taking a bit from us. 
And I think increasing the cost of our attention is important. 
I will rip that phone out of the wall myself. 
I'm sorry. 
Go ahead. 
And so another cost that has been raised is the legal cost. 
Like, the things that freaks were doing is – they have very real legislation around them. 
And I will rant for hours about this because this is really aggravating me, especially now. 
But, like, how many decades of watching hackers be put in jail do we have to witness to realize and then change our own behavior? 
So I think the adventurousness, the willingness to take risks in exploration with the pace that I would say legislation has maintained has kept people, I think, from innovating, from testing boundaries. 
And we've done a lot to mainstream ideas around curiousness or hacking and fascination with different systems and technology. 
But I think in a large regard, we've killed an instinct or we've legislated away something that we think is still ongoing but people are actually quite averse to. 
And I would just cite even just the trend in, like, whistleblowing itself as something I've witnessed in what we've covered and what we've talked about. 
I mean, it would be very high-level, very high-value things that would come out at all unless it was just sort of nuisance-level stuff. 
And even that has been discouraged and quelled in many regards. 
So I'm always – like, we're always wondering, like, where – yes, where is the hacking that's going on? 
And I think a lot of people who value their lives don't want to get involved in that. 
And I think it's, you know, only elements that have much less to lose that are involved anymore. 
And the good time is had. 
But at the end of the day, a lot of what people are yearning for just – there are way too many ways to catch it. 
But there's so much sensitivity to it because we're so reliant on all this stuff. 
And it's just too high a cost. 
And we're still not building stuff that's that secure. 
I just – I would argue I don't think there's enough people actually willing to stick their neck out and look for it. 
Would you hand me that phone, please? 
Because I want to throw it across the room. 
I don't understand. 
Yeah. 
I don't understand why. 
We make something clear. 
We ask people not to call, and they call anyway. 
And who's playing my voice? 
That's you again, Alex, isn't it? 
Everyone's trying to annoy me tonight. 
Well, guess what? 
It's working. 
No. 
It's not me. 
Yeah. 
All right. 
Well, when are we going to pick up Rebel's phone call? 
Okay. 
I've picked up the phone, and nobody can call in right now. 
I don't know if it's Rebel. 
We don't know who it is because we don't know how to read caller ID. 
All right. 
The phone is off the hook now, and it's going to stay off the hook until we give out the phone number. 
Who would like to do that? 
802-321-4225. 
Hack. 
The area code for Vermont, 321-4225. 
Okay. 
So, area code for Vermont. 
The whole state, right? 
It's only one area code still. 
That's correct. 
Yeah. 
That's amazing. 
There's only 600-something. 
Good for them. 
Yeah, but that doesn't stop people from wasting phone numbers. 
There's no reason in the world there should be as many area codes as there are. 
No reason. 
At all. 
I agree. 
And they should have expanded to eight digits instead of seven. 
Don't get me started on this. 
But Vermont, 802, one area code, as far as I know. 
And the zero in the middle tells you that that's the way it used to be, one area code in the state. 
If you have a one in the middle, that meant different area codes in the state, like New York. 
516, 718, 212, 914, 716, et cetera. 
But yes, 802 is the area code for Vermont. 
And 321 is a cool exchange to have. 
We have that too. 
And 4225 spells the word hack if you have one of those phones that has letters on it. 
So yeah, 802-321-HACK. 
But you can't call because I still have the phone off the hook. 
So I'm going to hang up now and may the best person win. 
And they might not be the best person. 
Well, we don't know. 
And I haven't hung up yet. 
So if you're calling now, I don't know where you're winding up. 
But if as many people as possible call at the same time, then maybe the person who always calls first and gets on the air first won't make it first this time. 
So let's see how good you are out there. 
As soon as I finish saying the number this time, I will hang up the phone. 
802-321-4225. 
There. 
Here you go, Kyle. 
Here's your phone back. 
That didn't take long. 
Let's see who's out there. 
Is this supposed to be funny? 
Someone called us and hung up? 
It said error. 
It is an error. 
It was their error. 
And they will live to regret that error. 
I mean, that seemed like an error. 
That hurt my feelings. 
That hurt my feelings. 
I thought somebody was actually calling. 
All right. 
Yes, Gila, you have something to say. 
Well, actually, there's a phone call coming in. 
But go ahead and say what you're going to say. 
We're going to pick it up. 
So our friend Tim in Connecticut has an interesting point. 
Going to pick it up, right? 
Vermont is among the 11 states with only one area code. 
And 802 has become a source of pride in the state. 
Kyle, will you pick up the damn phone? 
Hey, thank you. 
Sorry. 
Yeah? 
Prior to October 2021, area code 802 had telephone numbers assigned for the central office. 
I don't entirely know what that means. 
But that's okay. 
And 11 states with only one area code. 
Okay, so can we guess the other ones? 
Let's see if we can do that. 
I'll bet Hawaii is one with 808. 
I'll bet Alaska is another with 907. 
I will bet, oh gosh, I don't know what South Dakota is or North Dakota. 
I think North Dakota might have more than one, but I'm not sure about that. 
I'm sure 207, Idaho probably is only one. 
No, no, no. 
207 is Maine. 
I'm sorry. 
I didn't mean 207. 
But Maine is probably another one, 207. 
Idaho is what, 208? 
209? 
Oh my God. 
I'm an idiot. 
I don't know area codes anymore. 
I used to know them all. 
Rhode Island. 
What about Rhode Island? 
One area code. 
Are you kidding me? 
With Providence, they only have one area code? 
401. 
Yeah, I know. 
People are jumping in in the chat with this information. 
Because that's what people want to talk about. 
People want to talk about area codes. 
Do you know our show used to be just about area codes? 
For like years, all we would talk about was area codes. 
And then we got a directive from station management saying, you need to talk about more than just area codes. 
That's not true. 
And we were against it. 
But then we started talking about exchanges. 
But that didn't go over well either. 
And eventually we had to talk about other things like computers. 
Tim came through in the clutch for us and gave us the list of 11. 
Are you ready? 
We've even got them in alphabetical order. 
Go ahead. 
Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming. 
Those would be the 11. 
And I was always told that part of what it had to do with was rotary dialing. 
And if you're going to be dialing something quickly, like high. 
Yeah. 
Oh, God. 
No, you're right. 
You're absolutely right. 
Because places like New York City. 
In a rotary phone. 
New York City, 2-1-2. 
It's quick. 
You dial that quickly. 
Los Angeles, 2-1-3. 
Same thing. 
Chicago, 3-1-2. 
Detroit, 3-1-3. 
Detroit used to be a city. 
And then the faraway ones, you know, like Hawaii, 808. 
Alaska, 907. 
North Carolina, 919. 
They took longer because fewer people were dialing those numbers. 
And they could take their time. 
Whereas people trying to reach New York City, well, they're in a hurry. 
You've got to let them go quickly. 
Philadelphia, too. 
So the high population areas had lower numbers with ones in them. 
Whereas no one wanted to call Eastern Nebraska. 
So we were 402. 
And also the zero in the middle meant that was the only area code in that state. 
There are two zero center area codes in Nebraska. 
Okay. 
But what's the other one? 
308. 
Okay. 
One of them predated the other. 
And eventually you guys expanded to the second one. 
But they did not exist at the same time way back in the day. 
That's true. 
308 split off in 1954. 
There you go. 
See? 
Yes. 
Alex, we have a phone call we're going to get to. 
But go ahead, Alex. 
One little additional bit of context with regard to the use of area codes and the rotary dialing and the efficiency, which I didn't know about and I never thought about before, but I think it's such a great point, Gila, is that some of our younger listeners may not know that there was a time when you didn't actually have to dial the area code to make a phone call. 
I mean, most of us are just so used to dialing all 10 digits of a telephone number, but you would only dial, let's say, 808 for Hawaii or 907 for Alaska when you were calling Alaska from another state. 
You didn't have to dial them when you were in your own state. 
So they were very infrequently used, those area codes. 
They were only used for long-distance calling, not local calling. 
Like, we have to use area codes every time we make a call today. 
And that was true throughout the country. 
In fact, it's still true in Europe. 
You don't have to call the entire city code and number format every single time. 
But it went beyond that. 
Some of the phone companies out in the sticks, you would only have to dial the extension. 
You'd only have to dial four digits to reach somebody because everybody was in the same exchange. 
So you didn't have to dial the exchange. 
That's a waste of time. 
So you dial, you know, 4225. 
You would just have to dial hack if you were already in the 802-321 exchange. 
Hey, we have a call that's been waiting patiently. 
Or actually, I don't know they've been waiting patiently, but they've been waiting. 
Yeah, that sounds generous. 
Yeah. 
Good evening. 
You're on off the hook over time. 
Go ahead. 
See, this, folks, represents a failure of all of us because, you know, I think I was fair. 
I think I gave everybody the same amount of time, you know, to make the phone call. 
And yet, the same thing happened yet again. 
You know, it's something I'm familiar with, the way this country works. 
Just, you know, no matter how hard you try to change things, it just always winds up becoming the same, the same people in charge, the same debates. 
And no matter how hard you try, no matter how many petitions you sign, no matter how many doors you knock on, you never seem to get change. 
You're preaching to the same choir. 
I am preaching to the same choir and talking to the same caller. 
How are you, Rebel? 
Yes, okay, good. 
Now, to answer Gila's question about area codes and exchanges for central offices, yes, area codes, I mean, area exchanges used to be identified by central office, like, in Bayside Queens, the only exchange was 229, which spelled out B-A-Y. 
So, it would be Bayside 1234, you would call, you know, back in the old days. 
But then they needed more exchanges as the population grew, so they got the 224 exchange, 225, so it would be B-A-4, B-A-5. 
But you still say Bayside 5, Bayside 4, and, you know. 
But now with, you know, exchanges, now, not only do we run out of phone numbers, but area codes and phone numbers, but things are being taken, like, I think they should not have, like, portability. 
Because I think phone numbers should belong to a certain thing, like the 917-321, oh, that belongs to Sprint or that belongs to T-Mobile or whatever, you know, so that you'll know. 
So, you know, it's basically for accountability, like, you know, so you can know where somebody is, it's easier to track that scam call or whatever, you know what I mean? 
Yeah, you know, it's an interesting parallel, what you're mentioning here, because, yeah, exchanges, being able to figure out what belongs to what phone company based on the exchange, but also way back in the old days, being able to spell out the first two or even three numbers into a name. 
So you could say Bayside 3 or Pennsylvania 6, 5000, you would know where that was in a city or in a state, and, yeah, it was identity that we've lost. 
And here's a good challenge for people that have older phone numbers. 
You can't do that with new exchanges, but with the old exchange, see if you can go back in history and find out if your exchange means something. 
If it, back in the 50s, spelled out something, you can do that by going to a library, getting an old phone book from the 50s. 
Believe it or not, a lot of libraries keep them. 
I'm sorry? 
My parents and my friends' parents, they still have the same phone number. 
Yeah, some people do. 
But they're known as telephone exchange names. 
I think that's the phrase. 
So see if you have a telephone exchange name on your phone number. 
Now, if you have a phone number that has a, the exchange, rather, has a one or a zero as the first two digits, you're not going to be able to spell anything. 
Unless you have one of those old phones. 
No, the old zeros had Zs in them. 
But, yeah, nobody had that exchange. 
And people are getting lazy. 
Nobody even wants to talk anymore. 
When you watch a video, they don't even record a video anymore. 
Like, you'll have AI, like, pictures on the video, and AI will be narrating the video. 
Yeah, we complained about this already on the show. 
Yeah, I know. 
You were talking about that. 
So what's the point of complaining about it again? 
We already complained about this. 
Well, I'm just saying that AI is... 
Let's complain about something new. 
But also, people are getting lazy. 
They don't even want their own computer. 
They have, like, you know, the cloud. 
You know, they don't even have mainframes anymore. 
I mean, they do have mainframes in some places. 
But a lot of places, they won't have their own computer. 
They'll have, you know, their computing, you know, out somewhere else. 
They'll outsource their computing services instead of having, like, a main computer or a minicomputer or a mainframe or whatever. 
And also, companies are getting lazy. 
The movie theaters, they don't even own the movie theater anymore. 
They have a franchise. 
They're independently owned and operated now. 
Hang on. 
Hang on. 
Hold on a second. 
You think that the lack of community theaters is because people are lazy? 
I think it's because they've been bought out by the big companies, and they don't have any opportunity. 
Yeah, but the big companies are becoming lazy because they don't even want to own the theaters or own the establishment. 
They franchise them. 
Like, you know, you go to the local, oh, you see, you're all company-owned. 
But now it's independently owned and operated, you know. 
Well, what, are you saying that the big change, they should have all the control? 
They shouldn't have any independence whatsoever with the owners and operators? 
No, like, you know, the movie, they used to have, you know, all the, you know, they used to own all the, they were all company-owned. 
But now, you know, they don't want to own, deal with, you know, employees and, you know, things are getting too expensive, you know. 
Let the independently-owned and operated franchise do that. 
I don't understand why you're complaining about that. 
I mean, it doesn't really sound like something that... 
No, I mean, like, it's been, I mean, franchising has been around, you know, for a long time. 
Yeah, I'm not a fan of that, but I'm certainly not a fan of one company controlling everything. 
Okay, so you want all the theaters and the eyeglass shops that are owned by, let's say, Cohen Fashion Obstacle. 
You want them all to be owned by, you know, independent people? 
Sure, what's wrong with that? 
Why is that bad? 
Well, I thought that just meant that, you know, the company just doesn't want to deal with, you know... 
I don't care what the company wants to do. 
You know, having people in charge of the stores that they're running, rather than having to answer to some faceless entity a thousand miles away... 
Well, they still do. 
I mean, they kind of have to do franchising. 
Well, the more power they can get, the better, I say, the people, that is. 
And, you know, companies are now being taken over by private equity firms. 
Like, oh, no, the Mises is now going to be owned by a private equity firm. 
It's like being on CNBC, but you're just on top of all the trends. 
Yeah, okay. 
It doesn't really affect me in any way. 
And anyone else out there have any thoughts on this? 
Apparently not. 
You guys are quiet as mice out there. 
What's going on? 
Like, Alex, you're literally in bed, so this is insane. 
I can't be the only person conversing here. 
Oh, and by the way, I have a YouTube channel that I have five subscribers. 
It's just called Richard... 
Let me just think. 
Let me just think. 
You don't know your own name. 
It's called Richard Pasquanucci. 
What? 
Yeah, okay, we got that. 
We can all spell that. 
No problem. 
View your channel. 
Yeah. 
Richard. 
Just put Richard. 
Why, you're the only Richard on YouTube? 
Well, no. 
Richard Pasquanucci. 
You know what? 
Let me say something. 
Rebel, you know, the time has come for us to move on to that next call. 
Because there is another call coming. 
I hope I do. 
I hope people bring computer terminals. 
It's possible they might. 
It's possible they just might do that. 
Thank you for your call. 
And please, won't you call back again some other day? 
802-321-4225. 
802-321-HACK is our telephone number. 
That was exciting. 
Guys, help me out here. 
Come on. 
You're hanging me out to dry. 
Like, you know, old clothes. 
I'm still thinking of movie theaters and how people don't own them anymore. 
And I do miss old movie theaters. 
But, you know, everything in every field, there are the huge players who have bought out all the former little independent places for the most part. 
Unless you're in a fun city like New York, where you can still find the odd independent cinema. 
That's true. 
That's true. 
And, you know, something that's been opening recently are bookstores. 
I'm seeing bookstores opening in communities again. 
So that's a good thing. 
And if you see one of those opening near you, don't be afraid. 
Go inside and read books and talk to people. 
Alex, you have something? 
You've literally had your hand up. 
So I think I was just gesticulating for some other reason. 
But you're like a really overzealous auctioneer sometimes over there. 
Yeah, well, I'm not selling anything. 
So, Gila, you had something. 
I do. 
I actually have a question. 
Is that rebel calling again? 
Is that why you're not picking up, Kyle? 
Uh-oh. 
A listener. 
It's just instinct. 
It's instinct not to pick up the phone. 
Okay. 
Correct. 
Kyle, question. 
I think this might best be directed at you. 
Has the logo on the van been changed since last week? 
No. 
It said vote last week, too? 
Correct. 
All right. 
Try to pipe down a little bit here, Kyle. 
Oh, I'm animated. 
What I was thinking of is that there are still people out there doing things. 
Do you hear that? 
That's so annoying. 
Whoever's doing that, stop it. 
I can't not hear it. 
What is the problem? 
Have we forgotten how to do radio? 
We don't need to be reverbing back our voice. 
Okay. 
All right, Kyle. 
Sorry. 
Why? 
But particularly, like, you're talking about records, like old telephones. 
The large phone companies do still have museums. 
We saw one over the summer, places like the Tesla Museum. 
There's a lot of interest. 
And I think some of the places that maybe didn't have a lot of interest before are gaining programming. 
They're gaining newer members, people that are already involved and interested. 
And there's some really cool projects. 
A place I was involved with, the Connections Museum in Seattle, has acquired an old switch, one that I grew up with. 
So projects like that, people picking up old equipment because a lot of the technology is marching on. 
And so that stuff's available. 
And I just want to emphasize how cool that is to just contribute, learn about stuff, help restore stuff. 
It teaches you about the systems that came before. 
And in many parts of the world, if you travel around, older stuff is still in use. 
And that is where you find broken systems or stuff that's relied on older protections and older functional models. 
That can be beneficial. 
That can be useful if you're trying to make a call or you want to understand how calls coming from those places are moving through the network worldwide. 
And I just find that gaining as much support as those places have not had is pretty crucial. 
And in many regards, I guess what I was talking about earlier as far as theme, and I was talking about themes, my hopes, and emerging themes with all the kind of revival our event is getting, is that old school is always cool. 
Oh, wow. 
We see that. 
You could chant that. 
So many ways. 
It's there. 
And sometimes it's not. 
Sometimes people don't want to talk about the old stuff. 
And then we get the obligatory letter saying, stop talking about outdated this. 
Or why do you keep talking about nostalgic, vintage that? 
And it's not about being what you expect us to be talking about. 
We're talking about things that interest us, that we're passionate about. 
Or interest you as well, because readers are the ones who contribute. 
Or that are connected, however indirectly, to, like I was saying, the large companies and stuff. 
So I just, hopefully, I want to emphasize that, that like, no matter how you cut it, maybe you're not interested in what we're saying in this moment, or what topic is, maybe seems old school. 
But like, just imagine how that might be useful to you, just in understanding how the system has evolved. 
It's always cool to learn that stuff. 
And I just hope people take that to heart. 
So what kind of switch was it? 
You said the switch was brought into the connection. 
Oh, no, it's all over. 
They've been doing really, really fantastic social media stuff. 
I wish, I hope they submit something. 
But it's a DMS 100. 
A DMS 100? 
Yeah. 
Wow. 
We might actually be talking about that. 
I'm super impressed. 
They still use DMS 100. 
I don't think they ever changed it. 
They cut over to it in the 90s, I believe. 
And it's been working ever since. 
A lot of us grew up. 
That and 5ESSs. 
A lot of us grew up on those systems, 5ESS, absolutely. 
And to actually be able to walk around them. 
And that's, those are the kind of places, you know. 
And there's, I'm just really impressed that the generations of people that are just fascinated by this stuff, they're putting in the work, and they're using a lot of the technology, like streaming technologies, ways to communicate the work they're doing. 
And that's really cool because it gets people, like, who aren't around it, who aren't physically there excited about it. 
And that's the stuff that we want to hear about. 
Like, definitely write in OTH at 2600. 
Tell us what you're doing. 
Look out for stuff like that. 
Turn other people onto it because it's all around you. 
There's people really passionate about phones. 
The network is all around. 
It's not going anywhere. 
The people, the faces, the personalities that work on it change over time. 
But the system itself, it is sustained. 
It is being maintained by those people. 
If you've ever walked inside a central office with a number five crossbar in operation, that is something that I don't think anybody can do anymore. 
Anywhere. 
Not on this planet. 
I mean, there are demos, sure. 
But, you know, one that's serving an entire city? 
No, you can't do that. 
And if you ever did it, boy, you're one of the lucky ones. 
And the crazy thing is you meet people that are, the crazy thing is the people that worked on those systems could tell just by the sound of it if it's functioning or not. 
And a lot of that's silent now. 
Like, yeah, if something's overheating and smells, maybe. 
They could tell from the sound of you on the phone where the call was routed through. 
Sure, sure. 
They could buy a certain hisses and whines and things like that. 
And, of course, they'd know what kind of switch you had just by your ring. 
Now all the rings sound the same. 
It's boring. 
Hey, we have a phone call. 
It's been waiting very patiently. 
At least I think they are. 
Get anything. 
You aren't off to a cover time. 
Go ahead. 
Hey, fellas and Gila. 
It's Johnny Fusion. 
I'm sorry. 
Somebody coughed in the middle of you saying your name. 
Say your name again. 
It's Johnny Fusion. 
Johnny Fusion. 
I thought that's who it was, but I want to assume. 
What's on your mind? 
I got a story this week. 
So, back in May, I went to, you know, change my address. 
You know, I was looking to receive mail where I was at when I was still in medical facilities and stuff. 
And so, I Googled USPS change address. 
And a link comes up in Google, USPS change address. 
And I click it. 
And I got fooled. 
It was a fake USPS site. 
Wait, you went to a fake USPS site to change your address? 
Yeah. 
How did you do that exactly? 
Because I just Googled USPS change address. 
And the first link that returned said that USPS change address. 
So, you're saying Google sent you to a fake USPS address? 
Yeah. 
I'm typing it right now. 
USPS change address. 
Is that what you typed? 
Something like that. 
I mean, it was like nine months ago. 
Uh-huh. 
So, definitely, you want to search for the homepage you're looking for. 
And then, you find that correct homepage. 
You want to navigate to the tool that that homepage is offering. 
It's supposed to be in Nigeria, right? 
That's where they handle things. 
Yeah? 
Because they can rank or otherwise optimize this result or this string to prioritize your... 
Yeah. 
I could see it being... 
It may have been an ad, but it may have been an ad even. 
Yeah, like sponsored, but you didn't see the gray part. 
Totally. 
So, yeah. 
You've got to be very, very careful about impulsively clicking, especially as they change the way those search engine results pages appear or they redesign. 
Yeah, this is just the setup. 
This isn't the story, right? 
So, like, the legit USPS, you have to, like, put in a card because they charge you a dollar just for verification so you're not doing malicious address changes. 
Well, they charged me, like, $80 and my bank caught it right away. 
Hey, this is fraud. 
Wow. 
We're not going to process it. 
But the thing is, though, I gave them my bank card number. 
Oh, dear. 
So, I call my bank and I said, hey, this happened. 
I need a new card. 
And they're like, no problem. 
We'll cancel that card. 
We'll send you out a new one. 
I got the new card. 
Fine. 
Then, about then on Sunday morning, it's past Sunday, like at 2 in the morning because I'm an insomniac. 
I was up. 
I get an alert on my phone, a text message, fraud alert. 
I'm like, oh, shit. 
Where did I, you know, like, where did I get my card number stolen again? 
Because I've been, like, really careful since that happened. 
Like, the only place I used it was BART to put fare on my card. 
And there's no way there was a skimmer on that because of how they're set up. 
There's no place to put a skimmer. 
So, I didn't think it was that. 
And so, I know this. 
I didn't make this charge on my bank and there were, like, two or three other charges from websites that I didn't make. 
And so, I called the fraud number. 
Long story short, when we got to the bottom of where these came from, it was the old card. 
They never canceled it. 
Wow. 
So, I had a compromised card connected to my bank account working because in the past, when I've had my cards replaced, my wallets get updated. 
So, I didn't think I'd have to do that. 
But, like, it's been charging my Audible subscription on that card every month. 
And one time, DoorDash got charged on it. 
But it was my DoorDash. 
So, it wasn't someone else maliciously using it. 
But my bank basically dropped the ball, said they canceled the card. 
And they didn't. 
And I could have been open for fraud these past nine months. 
And I'm just lucky that it got caught. 
And I got the charges reversed. 
But my bank really dropped the ball. 
And it's just, like, I'm fine. 
But I'm concerned, like, how many other so-called canceled cards that are for sale are still open? 
How many more people does this affect? 
Yeah. 
Of course, you know, at least for credit cards, you're not liable if something like this happens. 
But you've got to keep your eyes open because if you don't catch it, you're going to get billed for it. 
Indeed. 
So, yeah. 
So, they said they were going to escalate it and have someone call me about it. 
But, I mean, I've had companies say that before when the fuck-up is on their end royally. 
And I never hear back as to what really went wrong. 
But they say they're going to tell me what went wrong. 
Mm-hmm. 
And if I find out, maybe I'll call in again and let you know. 
Well, it's important to take names whenever these kinds of things happen. 
See exactly how it happened because you'll be helping somebody else. 
Indeed. 
Indeed. 
Any thoughts from out there in Skype land, people, if you're awake? 
Yeah, the last time I got hit with credit card fraud, I think it was debit card fraud at the time. 
Yeah, it was maybe seven or eight years ago. 
And they canceled the old card so fast that I got kind of screwed because it took them a couple of days to get me the new card. 
But in the meantime, I had no card. 
And none of my bills could get paid. 
I couldn't go out and buy stuff. 
It was a bit rough. 
But, you know, they were quick on the draw there. 
It was eight years ago. 
Yeah. 
Imagine that. 
Yeah, you remember when I was. 
Anything else, Johnny? 
Because we're looking to wrap it up tonight. 
No, I'm good. 
I like to talk about, you know, the old school is always cool because I'm an old hat hacker. 
You know, I was doing this shit as a kid in the 80s and 90s, which unbelievably is 30 years ago now. 
Yeah, like I find that you'll get people like there's a generational sort of divide there where you'll get people that are like, yeah, we used to X, Y, Z, you know, break this and that law or that they would be breaking a law now. 
And, oh, that was so crazy. 
And a lot, there's the other side of the divide or that conversation. 
I myself would be in that that are like, why? 
Like, why were you breaking laws? 
Like, you can't relate at all with why you would do that because the consequence today would ruin your life. 
In fact, a lot of older hackers and the places, especially like hackerspaces, a lot of people began, I think, actively discouraging. 
Like, don't do that. 
I had people say that to me. 
Don't do that. 
Don't, especially around the whistleblowing and a lot of that stuff. 
The impulse to do like others that are talking about their epic exploits, like it's not necessarily a healthy thing in a community. 
It all depended on where you were coming from, what your motivation was. 
If you were, you know, exploring, you broke into a Unix system because, hey, you didn't have one of your own. 
You didn't have access to anything you wanted to learn and this one's just lying around. 
No one's really using it. 
That's very different than having a motive to take down a company or read somebody else's mail or something like that. 
Same thing with phone switches. 
You know, people broke in there to learn all kinds of things. 
And also, it wasn't as easy to get caught. 
You'd be caught instantly, you know, today. 
There's so many tripwires now. 
And I think that that's the thing that we find young people maybe like, we hear about this sometimes, like they're getting involved with some notorious gang all of a sudden or whatever. 
They're doing stuff online that is like a little bit like above their weight, but they don't realize it because no one told them like, yo, you got a real, like this is a wild space. 
It is, you can be very quickly connected to exploitative networks, people that are fully out there doing criminal things. 
And the adulation and like, oh yeah, the high-fiving and like the back-slapping and the prioritization of these, you know, exploits that you get involved in. 
And making that laudatory, I think is in part a perilous area for being, I think, a good influence. 
And I just, I think that, you know, being able to guide people and say like, yeah, you know, this had a context, like phone calls and these systems were wide open. 
You know, we have to shape a lot of how we're talking about the past. 
There's more of a profit motive today than there was in the past. 
And that's unfortunate because, you know, it seems that people only get involved if they can get a payout. 
Whereas in the past, you know, there was that element, but for the most part, it was about figuring something out because you weren't allowed to have this information and you weren't allowed to have this kind of access to anything. 
I mean, you know, something as simple as phone calls. 
It was impossible to make phone calls because they were expensive, you know, really expensive. 
It was long distance, you know, to call to New York City from Long Island, let alone to call overseas. 
So doing that was a way of exploring, of reaching out to other people. 
And yeah, the phone company didn't like it, but that's just how the technology worked and how people figured it out. 
But these days, you know, it's all free these days. 
You can call anywhere you want. 
So that battle has been won. 
There's no real reason to, you know, to break into systems to make free phone calls because that's the norm, you know? 
Yeah. 
I mean, like thinking back in the day, like 30 years ago, 94, 95, I did was breaking into, actually what I broke into were VMS systems. 
I don't know if you remember the VACs and their operating systems. 
Of course. 
Yeah, VACs VMS. 
I would break into those, but I did it because they were, because I can get it through a phone, like through my modem in a terminal program. 
And then from there, I can get out to the internet because the internet wasn't as accessible back then. 
Right. 
It's true. 
That's true. 
And, you know, it's just like I would break into a VACs. 
And, but the reason why I want to use a VACs is because it has Telnet. 
And Telnet, you can go practically anywhere. 
Mm-hmm. 
And when I had my account on Access for All, it was just a shell account. 
I came back to the States. 
I needed these VMS shells just to connect to Access for All to get my email and stuff. 
Mm-hmm. 
Yep, those were the good old days. 
Those were. 
We are, we're going to pack it in. 
Alex, you're literally in bed. 
So we're going to say good night. 
I am. 
I'm going to bed. 
Yeah. 
Good night, everybody. 
Johnny, it's good hearing from you. 
Thank you. 
It's good. 
It's good talking to you when I do. 
All right. 
Everybody else, thanks for listening. 
Thanks for being part of the show. 
So, again, write to us, O-T-H at 2600.com. 
And we will see you in a couple of weeks. 
Good night, everyone.