At the customer's request, the line you are using has been told restricted. 
Only local calls will be completed. 
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a cough. 
It couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would. 
One day they bombed for the flesh to stay for worse. 
I hope that's understood. 
One day they bombed! 
One day they bombed! 
One day they bombed! 
One day they bombed! 
And a very good evening to everybody. 
The program is off the hook, back again after a few weeks. 
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you, joined tonight by Kyle. 
Technically. 
Yeah, technically joined by Kyle. 
We have over in Skypeland, Rob T. 
Firefly. 
Good evening. 
We have Gila. 
Good evening. 
And we have Alex. 
Who? 
Who, as usual, is far away on the microphone now, so you've got to turn your levels up. 
I don't know what to tell you. 
I'm trying here. 
Well, you've got to be a little louder than that. 
Or start shouting. 
Either one of those two works. 
We do this every week. 
Unless you're buying new equipment every week, I don't know why it keeps changing. 
But we have a lot to go over tonight. 
Now, we had a lot of activity a couple of weekends ago. 
We're going to discuss that in depth on Overtime Following on YouTube, 8 o'clock. 
Go to the link at the 20sandcrum.com webpage, and you can call in over there and talk about all kinds of things related to this show and other things. 
But, boy, there's been a lot going on in the world as far as technical issues. 
I don't know where to begin. 
I guess we should begin or try to begin in order. 
We had a bit of a breach over at AT&T, which I know has upset a number of people, and for good reason, for good reason, too, because what they're saying is that virtually every AT&T wireless customer has had their information compromised because of poor security, because it was just out there for the picking. 
Yeah, and the recently disclosed AT&T data breach has been linked to an American hacker living in Turkey, and the telecom giant reportedly paid a significant ransom to ensure that the stolen information would be deleted. 
Now, I wouldn't pay AT&T anything to get their promise that they would delete sensitive information. 
I wouldn't trust them. 
I don't understand how a company can trust anybody to say, yeah, I've got your data, I'm going to delete it. 
I mean, it just doesn't seem very smart. 
But then again, you have to realize these companies that have massive data breaches probably aren't operating with peak intelligence. 
Now, AT&T revealed a couple of Fridays ago that it had suffered a data breach affecting nearly all of its wireless customers. 
The company said that in April, hackers exfiltrated records of customer call and text interactions from May 1st, 2022 to October 31st, 2022, as well, for some reason, on January 2nd, 2023. 
So, if you're looking to get a backup of any text that you have sent between May 1st, 2022 to October 31st, 2022, that's Halloween, and also the day after New Year's, January 2nd, 2023, perhaps that data is floating around someplace. 
Okay, all right, all right, funny guy. 
Yeah, you know, perhaps you're not familiar with AT&T's service or lack thereof, but you're not saying very much to anybody who's actually a customer. 
Well, whenever I hear people talking about AT&T's service, they're usually shouting, and their faces are usually turning bright red at the time. 
But AT&T basically explained that the compromised records identify other phone numbers that impacted customers interacted with, including call or text counts and call durations. 
The content of calls or text timestamps and other sensitive personal information was not impacted. 
So, okay, it's a little confusing here. 
Text interactions, but not the actual text, if I'm understanding this correctly. 
The data doesn't include customer names, AT&T said. 
There are often ways to find a name associated with a phone number using publicly available online tools. 
It sounds like AT&T is trying to help people compromise the identity here. 
Yeah, the data that was compromised did not include customer names. 
However, you can get those customer names if you have the compromised data simply by using publicly available online tools. 
Thank you, AT&T, for that helpful information there. 
The telecom giant also noted that it does not believe the stolen data is publicly available and said it had received information that at least one person has been apprehended. 
AT&T is notifying roughly 110 million customers about the incident. 
More information relating to the AT&T hack became available a couple of weekends ago through a Wired report that AT&T paid a hacker roughly $370,000 in Bitcoin back in May in order to prevent the data from getting leaked. 
The hacker in question, who is a member of the notorious shiny hunters group, they provided proof of the transaction, which was also confirmed to Wired by others based on cryptocurrency transfer records. 
The hacker reportedly demanded a $1 million ransom from AT&T, but they bartered it down to $370,000. 
The hacker provided AT&T with a video showing that he had deleted the stolen data. 
Okay, you know what? 
I don't care how good the video is, but okay, you're deleting the data, but that doesn't mean you didn't copy the data 10 minutes earlier to a different computer. 
What does that prove? 
How do people believe this? 
I mean, fine, you know, maybe if the data is deleted and no further harm comes of all this, but honestly, I think the harm was done when the compromise happened in the first place, or it was done when data was left around in a place where it was likely to be compromised. 
Now, the AT&T customer data appears to come from the Snowflake Data Storage Platform, aptly named. 
Hundreds of Snowflake instances, including ones belonging to major companies such as Ticketmaster, Centender Bank, Advance Auto Parts, I don't know why they're in there, and Neiman Marcus, were recently compromised through the use of stolen customer credentials. 
The Shiny Hunters Group is said to be involved in the Snowflake attack. 
Let me repeat that. 
The Shiny Hunters Group is said to be involved in the Snowflake attack. 
I can just imagine Walter Cronkite reading that headline in the past. 
Yeah. 
Now, according to information obtained by Wired, John Binns, an American hacker who has been living in Turkey for several years, is also involved in the AT&T hack. 
In 2021, his name appeared in the press after he took credit for hacking T-Mobile. 
Okay, different company, but I guess they're all pretty much out there, ready to be compromised. 
He was indicted the following year and reportedly arrested in Turkey in May of this year over the T-Mobile breach, which may be why AT&T mentioned an individual being apprehended in its public statement. 
Now, 404 Media also learned from multiple sources that Binns is linked to the AT&T hack. 
A researcher who uses the online moniker Reddington told Wired that he was contacted in April by Binns, who had claimed to have obtained the call logs of millions of AT&T customers from Snowflake. 
Reddington was asked to facilitate a buyback of the data with AT&T, and he claimed to have also handled negotiations between the hackers and other victims of the Snowflake hack. 
AT&T was reportedly supposed to send the $370,000 ransom to Binns, but ended up sending it to a Shiny Hunters member due to Binns' arrest in Turkey. 
So the guy they were negotiating with got arrested, and AT&T was very diligent in making sure the money got to somebody who was involved in the compromise. 
Okay, you know, I guess that's honor. 
According to Reddington, Binns and the Shiny Hunters hacker stored the full AT&T database on a cloud server from where it was deleted after the company paid a ransom. 
Oh, you know, those cloud servers sometimes keep backups, and sometimes they get compromised, too. 
Yeah. 
However, they may have sent samples of the data to multiple individuals before it was deleted. 
You think? 
You think that's possible? 
Yeah, they could have sent samples all over the place. 
Absolutely. 
Security Week, which is where this article came from, has reached out to AT&T for confirmation, but the company has declined to comment. 
Yeah, I don't see why they would. 
I don't see what's in it for them at this point. 
Guys, any thoughts on this? 
This is unbelievable. 
Almost every customer of AT&T, their wireless network, is affected by this. 
I can't say I'm surprised. 
Rob? 
The funny thing about you were talking about the ransom being paid and then trusting the thieves to have deleted your data. 
The ransomware scene out there, the ransomware industry, because it is an industry, is an incredible thing because it has such infrastructure and it has such power, and it has basically an honor system on which it operates. 
And the advantage of being in a ransomware group that is honoring the agreement and deleting the data when they get paid means that if you find yourself getting ransomware by that group, you know that, okay, their previous victims haven't had their data leaked after the fact after paying. 
So if it got out that you weren't deleting the data and it leaked out somewhere else, that would, I think, spoil your chances of getting paid on future jobs, the way the organized crime of it all works. 
So it's funny to think about, but it's also this actual thing that exists, and they have, like, tech support people that will help, you know, little old grandmas who don't know how to use the Internet or Bitcoin through the steps of paying a ransom to get data back and things like that. 
It's an incredible thing. 
So think about what you're saying for a second. 
Again, this isn't a heist. 
This is a heist company. 
These are people that didn't just get away with something, but they're planning a career and getting away with the same thing down the road. 
So they need to build up their reputation as people who compromise data and then do what they say they're going to do with it and don't disappoint the customer. 
Is that what they are? 
Who pay them to delete the data after the data was compromised. 
Pretty much it's an organized crime like any other organized crime. 
Well, that's more organized than I'm used to as far as organized crime. 
That's something. 
I think a lot about this. 
I think these are companies. 
Some of us, we just can't avoid working with like having a phone is is sort of not even something we consciously think about. 
Right. 
It's something we all take for granted or just assume others have a phone. 
And I don't know. 
The more I learn about these communities and companies and everyone involved, the more I detest them. 
All of them. 
Every one of them. 
The companies, the actors that these other companies doing whatever fraud they're doing. 
I mean, tell me what the bottom line is for the consumers affected by this. 
Like, do they get anything, any kind of restitution out of this? 
Is there any kind of technical fix for this? 
Or, you know, are we going to be scolded and like have fingers wagged at us? 
Oh, yeah. 
Oh, you should have done this and you should have done that. 
And why did you do this and why did you do that? 
And all this sort of blaming of people who are just living their lives ostensibly and paying their damn bill for whatever subpar service, this whatever we call this bill that will go up because of the expense of this particular compromise. 
And, like, I hate the security, like, the security research and, you know, hobbyists out there, our own, you know, people that think this is hacking. 
Like, I don't think this is pushing technology anywhere. 
This is just, like, side hustle for people or their, like, full-time hustle. 
And I just don't respect it at all anymore. 
Alex, you must have some thoughts on this. 
Alex, are you there? 
Well, I've been trying to fix my audio for a while here. 
Is this sounding any better? 
Much better. 
Okay. 
Yeah. 
I generally think AT&T is a nightmare. 
I mean, to go back to one of your initial points, you know, about when people are mostly talking about AT&T, it's mostly them yelling about the service. 
I mean, I can attest to that. 
I was an AT&T subscriber for the mobile service for, I don't know, like, at least 10 or 11 years. 
And I always felt like they were trying to screw me in some way. 
It was terrible. 
I think switching from AT&T to my current carrier many years ago now was, I think, one of the best things that I ever did. 
I never trusted them. 
I don't think we as hackers and phone freaks have ever really trusted AT&T fully. 
I mean, can you trust any company where their corporate logo looks like the Star Wars Death Star? 
Right? 
I mean, that was always the joke, right, back in the 90s. 
I think this is really bad, though, that all of this data was accessible in some way. 
There's going to be ways to concatenate that data with other data breaches, and it's going to give people a very accurate picture of who was communicating with whom at what particular place. 
And we talk about this every time there's a massive data breach, which is that when you begin to combine these different types of data sets together, let's say you combine it with an airline's travel data that was compromised, you know, together with other geolocation data that may have been gone. 
And you can begin to really piece together a very intimate mosaic of an individual target's life, and that becomes really problematic, let's say, if you are working undercover, or you're some kind of confidential informant, or let's say, God forbid, you're a journalist, and the government or some hostile foreign power wants to figure out with whom you've been communicating. 
Or you're some kind of activist, right, let's say you're an activist, and you may be a foreign national of a separate nation, you know, maybe you are very critical of a foreign nation. 
I mean, think about Jamal Khashoggi, right, and how he was tracked by foreign operators, like, this is all making it easier and easier and easier for foreign powers to begin tracking U.S. 
citizens. 
And none of this is good. 
None of this is good. 
So I see this as just more of the same badness that we've been experiencing for the last half decade and change. 
Yeah, it does seem that way. 
On the note of accessing phones, accessing data, a lot has happened since we were on the air last. 
One of the presidential candidates has been shot in the head, fortunately survived, but it definitely was a rather traumatic moment for everybody. 
Another of the presidential candidates has dropped out. 
We can talk about that forever. 
But concerning the assassination attempt, the FBI had announced that it had accessed the locked phone of the shooter. 
A new report from Bloomberg revealed more details about the process and the phone that was used by the would-be assassin. 
After Saturdays, two Saturdays ago, Trump rally shooting, the FBI said the following day it had been unsuccessful in unlocking the phone. 
It was then sent to the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia. 
And on Tuesday of last week, the Bureau confirmed that it had successfully unlocked the phone in question. 
Until mid-last week, though, we had no indication whether the shooter had used an iPhone or an Android phone, nor did we know specific details about the process. 
Bloomberg reports that the shooter used a newer Samsung model that runs Android's operating system. 
The FBI's initial attempt to unlock the phone on Sunday involved using Celebrite software to bypass or identify the phone's passcode. 
When that initial effort failed, the FBI turned directly to Celebrite for help unlocking the Samsung device. 
In other words, the software didn't do it, so they just called the company. 
And Celebrite then gave the FBI access to, quote, additional technical support and new software that was still being developed. 
With the new software from Celebrite, the FBI was subsequently able to unlock the phone in 40 minutes. 
Shortly after, the Associated Press reported that the shooter had photos on his phone of the former Republican president, President Joe Biden, and other officials. 
The FBI also reportedly found searches for information about major depressive disorder on the phone. 
Meanwhile, a leak on Thursday revealed that Celebrite can't unlock iPhones running iOS 17.4 and later. 
As of right now, Celebrite also cannot break into most iPhones running iOS 17.1 to 17.3.1, though hardware vulnerabilities to the iPhone XR and iPhone 11 mean those are exceptions. 
So, yeah, this is rather interesting. 
I think it speaks to what you were saying, Alex. 
Oh, where did Alex go? 
He's gone. 
Did he just walk away? 
What's... 
Okay. 
He appears to have stepped away. 
Great. 
Okay, he's back. 
So, Alex, any thoughts on this? 
Yeah, I mean, I think it goes to show you what I've been saying for a long time, right? 
That, you know, I think that for the security conscious, the iPhone is the way to go, right? 
You know, it's harder and it's obviously much more difficult for some kind of threat actor to break into an iPhone. 
There's, I think, better inherent security. 
You have less control over the device itself in many, many ways, but I think it is overall a device that has better security. 
And it's interesting to learn, you know, that Celebrite, which is the bog-standard forensic tool that you use to analyze most mobile devices, devices, and has been for, I don't know, at least a decade or so now, that they still are having difficulty with iOS and the newer iOSs. 
But it also seems like, given enough time, those security controls can be overcome. 
So, you know, nothing is sacred here or nothing is permanent. 
There's always going to be this cat-and-mouse game, I think, between Celebrite and iOS. 
But I'm pretty happy to learn that my current iOS version cannot be popped. 
That's nice. 
And you really believe that. 
You believe that because they say it can't be compromised. 
I mean, look at it this way. 
This guy who did the shooting had an Android phone, and that's what they cracked. 
Do you think they're going to tell you, yeah, he had an Android phone, we cracked that. 
Had he had an iPhone, we would have cracked that, too. 
No, if you say we couldn't crack the iPhone, then every would-be assassin is going to get an iPhone next time, right? 
Because they assume, as you do, that it cannot be cracked. 
And I don't think it's that simple. 
I certainly think Apple has a head start on how to crack them. 
Well, quite possibly, maybe. 
I mean, they designed it. 
But still, I mean, if it's a matter of math, that might be problematic for Apple as well. 
But I think the real moral of the story here, though, is that if you are an assassin, you probably shouldn't have a lot of data on your phone to begin with, right? 
I mean, you should start wiping things. 
You should perhaps be using burner phones. 
I think the iOS versus Android controversy for assassins is one of the least of their worries, especially if you're doing it in such a way to very likely get yourself killed in the process. 
Well, it kind of also speaks to attitudes I think we all should have about what privacy you could expect from your device. 
Like, however, whatever measures, however secure, like, assume that it's basically open to scrutiny. 
I don't know. 
I wouldn't act as though any of these companies have an edge on it because clearly we've showed there's no legal will to prevent law enforcement or government access when you deny it or if you deny it. 
They do have recourse. 
And, you know, depending on however it's papered over, I mean, what do they care? 
Whether they tell you or not or honor it or not. 
I mean, it is possible. 
We know it is possible. 
These companies are soliciting and developing software continually that tells us it's possible. 
We know Apple will say up and down that they do not want to allow access to any of this. 
But ultimately, I mean, or that they can't possibly technically because it's designed for them not to be able to do anything. 
But when push comes to shove, when there is pressure, there seem to be a lot of engineering resources at the fingertips of those that want to compel these companies to make them easier to work with after especially a crime like this. 
But I think it just should be instructive to anyone with a phone that under the right circumstances, it will become not your private information anymore. 
I think that's the wise approach is to assume that your data is accessible. 
You know, no matter how many protections you might install and how many guarantees you might hear, when it comes down to it, you know, whether it's through a leak or whether it's through a government, your data will be accessible at some point, depending on how much effort is put into it. 
And in this particular case, who would argue, who would say, yeah, the potential assassin's phone should be protected? 
Of course, everyone is going to want to know what he was planning, what was being said on that, what he was looking for. 
And then once you say that's OK, you're pretty much opening the door to any phone that the government or authorities of one sort or another deem important enough to be able to crack. 
Yes, go ahead, Rob. 
I have a couple of thoughts about this. 
I mean, one of them is that, OK, we can argue stock Android versus stock iOS and, you know, what can or can't be cracked. 
I'm curious about the the fringier OS is the alternative ROMs that you could put on a phone. 
You know, the countless open source and free operations out there and how crackable they might be with the standard set of tools. 
Them being I'm I'm, you know, such a small fraction of the market. 
Is it worth it for the companies that make such tools to to even address them at all? 
But apart from that, of course, this is the sort of news story that people who want to limit, diminish, eliminate security protections for the average person love, because you can point to somebody who, you know, tried to kill somebody and say, well, we need to get at their phone. 
So, you know, why should the rest of you worry if your phones are not secure? 
Why should the rest of you worry if we want to, you know, the ability to get into all phones because we might get this bad guy? 
And so it behooves us, I think, to maintain awareness over the overall value of privacy and security for the individual without letting cases like this cloud that and, you know, end up in a situation where we have government mandated backdoors in software. 
Alex, it looks like you have something to say, but I'm not sure. 
Yeah, I think for those who are extraordinarily privacy conscious, there are there's always a lot of options that, as Rob indicated, go beyond the standard iOS, Android divide or debate, however you want to call it. 
But, you know, one thing to look to would would always be that organizations like cartels and massive drug dealers and things, right, would would use certain phones that were designed to be privacy enhancing in many ways. 
I think some of them were called sky phones and they were they were known to be like this kind of monopoly for drug dealers and others who really want to lock down their phones and they would lock down the OS and in many ways and make sure that certain data wasn't being stored locally on the phone. 
And so they were extraordinarily privacy conscious. 
But if I recall correctly, I think it was Joe Cox, who used to be a reporter for Wired. 
Now, I think he's with 404 Media. 
He he was hanging out with us last weekend, as a matter of fact, and he wrote a book about this massive sting operation that busted. 
It was an FBI sting operation. 
I think I think I think the book was called Dark Wire, as a matter of fact, and it was a massive FBI sting operation that busted what was essentially a telecom network providing telecommunications and phone service to drug dealers. 
And it was like this years and years and years and years long sting operation that ultimately ensnared a massive amount of drug dealers and and members of cartels. 
So there are definitely other options out there, but I think that they're just as vulnerable and just as dangerous as this novel that Joe Cox had written illustrates. 
That's something to to consider. 
Now, we're moving in in date order of all the momentous things that have happened since we were last on the air. 
And one of these events that took place strikes kind of close to home. 
It involves our good friend Virgil and Alex. 
Again, you have the update on this. 
Yeah, this is a pretty massive update, too. 
And I'm I'm very pleased to provide the community with this information. 
And it it it came on Wednesday of last week. 
So it was, you know, just a few days out of date. 
I think, you know, just a few days late for us to announce it that, you know, last last weekend. 
But the the long and the short of it is so we had filed a motion to have Virgil resentenced. 
And for people who don't remember who Virgil is, Virgil is a good friend of the hacker community, has been part of our community for for several decades now, probably going on 25, 30 years, I would guess, Emmanuel, right? 
I mean, since he was a teenager. 
Yeah, I'd say probably 25 in that realm. 
Yeah, so Virgil is extraordinarily talented guy. 
He was a senior person with the Ethereum Foundation, an American citizen, extraordinarily well credentialed Ph.D. 
from Caltech University. 
And I believe it was neuroscience and computation. 
And just Emmanuel, you I heard you describe him several times as a one man think tank. 
And I think that's absolutely right. 
So Virgil was a living in Singapore, went over to Pyongyang in North Korea and gave a talk at a blockchain conference over there about information that was eminently Googleable in many ways. 
And he self-reported most people that self-report, especially when you're an academic or you have some kind of Ph.D. 
Let's say you go over to Iran, you accidentally talk about geothermal energy origins or something like that, that you shouldn't have been talking about. 
You go and self-report. 
Generally, you would get a letter from OFAC or the Office of Foreign Asset Controls of the federal government. 
And they would say, thank you for telling us about this. 
Don't do that again or you're going to get in trouble. 
In Virgil's case, when he self-reported, he was ultimately charged with a sanctions violation, a violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which is coincidentally the same federal law that Trump tried to use to ban TikTok four years ago during the outset of the pandemic. 
So Virgil pleaded to the charge. 
This is making a very long story so much. 
Can I just make it a little bit longer? 
Because just a couple of details. 
When he went to North Korea, first of all, I've been to North Korea. 
Many hackers have been to North Korea because it's fascinating. 
And it had been easy to go there, fairly easy to go there, before Trump. 
Trump decided to ban travel to North Korea for Americans. 
Now, you mentioned he lived in Singapore and, you know, basically hadn't even come to the United States and didn't think that he should have to get permission just to go to a country that's nearby. 
And as you said, talk about things that are readily available on the Internet. 
So that alone was something that was kind of not reported enough. 
People seem to think, oh, you're going to North Korea, you must be up to something. 
And in his particular case, it was just curiosity like anybody else. 
Now, when he got back, he self-reported, as you said. 
He was interviewed by the FBI, and it was very convivial. 
It was very polite, and they were interested in what he did. 
He was giving them North Korean newspapers that he brought back, and he thought he was doing a good thing. 
He thought he was helping them. 
And we talked to him that very night afterwards when he went there without a lawyer. 
Big mistake. 
Folks, if you're ever called in by the FBI to be interviewed about anything, bring a lawyer, for God's sake. 
You cannot trust them. 
They made him feel that everything was fine. 
They said what you said, Alex. 
Don't do it again, or you'll get in trouble. 
And he had absolutely no reason to think that anything else was happening. 
Months later, on Thanksgiving Day, when he was arriving in the United States to visit his family on Thanksgiving, they arrested him at an airport, and his life has been utter hell ever since. 
That was, that was, what year was that? 
That was 2019. 
2019. 
That was Thanksgiving Day 2019, because it was April when he was in New York, and the FBI wanted to interview him. 
I remember this. 
And then he had, yeah, yeah, he had spoken to the FBI several times. 
And like you said, Emmanuel, he thought he was doing his country a service here. 
And Virgil was always somebody that believed in American exceptionalism. 
He was very patriotic to the point of being like bizarrely patriotic. 
He really believed in American hegemony. 
And I think to a certain extent, he still does. 
But after what's been done to him by the federal government, it's got to make you see that in a much, much different light. 
So, yes, he was in the LAX airport. 
He was about to head back to Alabama, where he, the state from which he came and grew up, to go visit his family on Thanksgiving. 
He was arrested at the airport, and then I think that they had to bus him all the way across the country to New York, which is an incredibly unpleasant experience. 
And, yes, his life had been utter living hell since then. 
And he had, I guess it was the summer of 2021. 
I had known Virgil before that, but I wasn't really helping out with the defense because I was at a much smaller firm at the time. 
And we started helping out a bit in the background with the defense. 
I wasn't part of the decision whereby Virgil decided to plead guilty. 
I was actually still believing that there was going to be a trial the next day until I got a call from the Maine Defense Council telling me that there wasn't going to be. 
And to everybody's chagrin, Virgil had pleaded to the charge because it seemed like he was going to. 
It seemed very much like. 
Based on the evidence that the government had lined up and was going to adduce a trial and the fact that his hands were tied in terms of what he could adduce in his own defense, that would probably would have been better to to plead to the charge. 
So being found guilty by a jury would have been far, far worse for him. 
And just the way the case was being presented, as I mentioned before, just, you know, going to North Korea makes you seem guilty just by default. 
It probably was the right decision. 
I certainly can't second guess, you know, what was what was going through his head at that time. 
But as we're running out of time, let's get to the announcement that happened a week ago. 
So so, well, let's let's step back a little bit. 
And he was sentenced pretty harshly in 2022. 
I think it was April of 2022. 
He had been in confinement up until that point as well. 
But he was sentenced to 63 months in prison, five years and three months. 
And this past November, Congress had revised the federal sentencing guidelines and they had made it eligible to have retroactive sentences to retroactively redo sentences on the basis of these new guidelines. 
And you would have to make an application to the judge that sentenced you to be resentenced. 
You had to qualify for for this resentencing. 
You had to be essentially a zero point offender. 
You had to make sure that, you know, the offense didn't involve some kind of violence, didn't involve a firearm, didn't involve, you know, sexual violence of any nature. 
You had to have a very essentially low probability of recidivism of committing a crime again in the future. 
And the probation and we had made an application for Virgil to be resentenced back in April. 
And the probation department at that point had come out and issued a new pre-sentencing report. 
And they said, yes, we think Virgil is eligible for this resentencing. 
At that point, the government opposed Virgil being resentenced to a sentence lower than 63 months. 
They said, given the severity of the crime, I'm going to paraphrase their their filings to Judge Castile in the Southern District of New York. 
But they they very much opposed Virgil being resentenced. 
And they claim that given that defense involved North Korea, which was a hostile foreign power that was known to torture its own citizens. 
And they really worked it up quite a bit. 
They asked the judge to not resentence Virgil to anything lower than 63 months. 
The 63 months was still the right number, even though they had sought, quote unquote, a guideline sentence at the time of sentencing. 
And if the if the sentencing guidelines were and now our argument in response to that was the sentencing guidelines were what they are right now. 
You wouldn't have suggested 63 months. 
You would have said you would have asked for 51 months. 
So we had to explain a couple of infractions and things that the government was making a lot of hay about that Virgil had been involved in. 
Well, since he's been in confinement, you know, some things that were totally minor that the government was trying to, I think, to overinflate. 
And mind you, we're really working. 
This was an uphill battle because the judge that Virgil had really was not a fan of him. 
As you know, Emmanuel, he said some pretty nasty things at the sentencing. 
Hearing about Virgil. 
And unfortunately, other than what the government had put forward in its filings, there weren't a lot of counter facts about Virgil that were out there. 
And nobody really took the time to get to know him as an individual like we knew him. 
And had Judge Castell done that, I think it would have been a totally different situation. 
But in any event, it was a bit of a back and forth. 
We put in, I think, a very strong argument for Virgil being resentenced. 
Now, I always thought it was still an uphill battle. 
Last week, Wednesday morning, I get into the office and I get a notification from ECF and PACER, the electronic court filing system, that there was a decision on our motion. 
And I quickly scrolled down to the to the bottom of the motion to the judge's order where the actual decision was made. 
And I couldn't believe it. 
I really couldn't believe it. 
We won. 
We won the motion. 
We had Virgil resentenced. 
We took more than 10 percent off of his sentence. 
So we got seven months removed. 
That drops him down to 56 months. 
And this could this has a pretty massive effect here now. 
And and the reason being is because Virgil's original release date was January of 2026. 
So shaving this off, shaving seven months off of that takes a big chunk of time off the this release date, which was coming up. 
Now, BOP or the Bureau of Prisons was already making some kind of plans to have Virgil either go to a halfway house or perhaps even to home confinement as soon as January 2025. 
So now if you turn the clock back seven months from January 2025, you get to April 2024. 
Now, that's a date that's already passed. 
That's a date that's in the past. 
Uh huh. 
Right. 
So if we are operating under the assumption that BOP was looking to release Virgil to home confinement, possibly in January of 2025, that may explain why Judge Castile did not make the order effective immediately. 
This order that changes Virgil's sentence goes into effect on August 2nd. 
Now, the reason for that may be because now Judge Castile is extraordinarily smart judge. 
He's very, very tough and you don't want to be in his bad side, but he's very, very deliberative and very judicious in a lot of ways. 
Now, I would like to think that he recognized that this could have the immediate effect of possibly releasing Virgil on the day that the order goes into effect. 
And so by spreading this out, by spreading the effect of the order out and waiting until August 2nd, maybe he was giving the Bureau of Prisons enough time to get their ducks in a row and make their own calculations to determine whether or not that would in fact be the case or to determine where he goes on August 2nd. 
Can he go to some kind of halfway house on that day? 
Can he go somewhere else? 
We don't know. 
Now, the manner by which BOP determines exactly how to release somebody and what the release date should be is somewhat opaque. 
There isn't a lot of room for advocacy during that process either. 
But I would like to think that August 2nd or shortly thereafter may be the day that Virgil Griffith finally comes home. 
Well, Alex, you deserve a lot of credit for making that happen, making that possible, and we certainly will be keeping an eye on this and hoping that within the next couple of weeks that he will finally be released from the hell he's been going through because it's just – it's been going on way too long. 
Well, it really has. 
It really has. 
And I will tell you, one of the great things about being able to be counsel to Virgil for the last couple of years was to get to know him. 
What started as a professional relationship, as I mentioned before, has very much blossomed into a personal friendship. 
And I believe in my heart of hearts that Virgil and I will be friends forever. 
Yep. 
All right. 
We have only a few minutes to get into a big, huge story that happened. 
A lot happened. 
I told you, a lot happened since we were away. 
Since we were last on the air, that is. 
And that was, of course, the clown strike. 
Clown strike? 
Is that what they're called? 
No. 
Crowd strike. 
I don't know what their name is. 
They probably want to change their name. 
Airlines grounded flights. 
Operators of 911 lines couldn't respond to emergencies. 
Hospitals canceled surgeries. 
Retailers closed for the day. 
The Wu-Tang name site was down. 
No, actually, that's back up. 
Is that back up now? 
Yeah, Wu-Tang name generator is fine. 
Okay, because you want your rap name. 
Yeah, they know what they're doing. 
Okay, well, I was worried. 
These actions all trace back to a batch of bad computer code. 
A flawed software update sent out by a little-known, well, they're not little-known anymore, a cybersecurity company, caused chaos and disruption around the world on Friday. 
That company, known as CrowdStrike, based in Austin, Texas, makes software used by multinational corporations, government agencies, and scores of other organizations to protect against hackers and online intruders. 
Nice job, guys. 
You protected us into a shutdown. 
All these computers went down everywhere. 
And they all were running Microsoft Windows software and getting those dreaded updates that just got installed without any yes or no options. 
Now, the fallout was immediate and inescapable, highlighted the brittleness of global technology infrastructure. 
The world has become reliant on Microsoft and a handful of cybersecurity firms like CloudStrike. 
So when a single flawed piece of software is released over the Internet, it can almost instantly damage countless companies and organizations that depend on the technology as part of everyday business. 
So it wasn't a cyber attack. 
They were very quick to point that out at the beginning. 
But the effects on Friday showed how devastating the damage is when a main artery of the global technology system is disrupted. 
You know, an attack might have even been less damaging. 
This is unbelievable. 
Did you guys follow this? 
Go ahead, Kyle. 
Yeah, I know this is part of a package of software that helps larger institutions maintain big deployments of machines across the big network, however diffuse or global. 
And I think this is speaks to something about software orchestration and how we administer things in production. 
And also, I think, might be sort of the last we allow this kind of thing without using more modern tools or sort of ways to check it. 
I'm thinking like simulations or other sorts of mechanisms to prevent it from having these or sort of staggered or maybe other techniques just to not do it on mass like this. 
They're definitely not going to have the same procedure, I think, after something this massive because it really makes that whole business model look flawed. 
Oh, it absolutely does. 
Absolutely. 
Gila, go ahead. 
I think part of the significant issue here has been this idea of centralization of everything. 
One update gets rolled out to more than 8 million computers in one minute. 
The fallout is still ongoing. 
And I did actually want to share my favorite piece of the follow-up now, which is I don't know if you guys heard about this. 
This happened yesterday and today. 
CrowdStrike decided they were going to offer an apology gift to the vendors who were affected by the outage. 
Oh, boy. 
So, they sent everybody an Uber Eats code. 
Really? 
Wait, it gets better. 
Uh-huh. 
Everybody tried to cash in the codes at the same time. 
Oh, no. 
It crashed the Uber system, which decided they were all fraudulent. 
You know, a Hollywood script would be sent back as make it more believable because, wow, I wouldn't have even thought of that. 
It's fascinating. 
I'm watching the repercussions of all of this. 
Something that I'm hearing about a lot in my world is that Delta Airlines, due to their comeback from the shutdown, they've stopped letting unaccompanied minors fly. 
What does that have to do with anything? 
So, their systems were completely bollocksed up. 
They still are. 
They were excited that today they're back to, I think there are only 48 canceled flights. 
But, they weren't letting unaccompanied minors fly in case, I don't even know why. 
So, people are telling stories about having to, like, buy a ticket to take a trip with their child. 
Kids are stuck on summer programs. 
They can't get home from events by themselves. 
And I'm still confused as to why this was the thing they needed to do. 
So, in Delta's view, it's safer to leave a kid in an airport terminal after the security problem that they had, or technology problem they had, and instead of having them go on the flight like they're supposed to. 
Yeah, why risk it? 
Right, instead of having them go home to their parent, we're going to strand them at the airport for heaven knows how long. 
Allegedly, I heard a rumor that the only airline that made it through this unscathed was Southwest. 
Southwest. 
I have a story about that right now. 
And you'd be surprised why Southwest survived this. 
They are running Windows 3.1. 
And, you know what, I've got to take my hat off just for them doing that in the first place, let alone getting through this crisis. 
But just for them, all these years, we're running Windows 3.1. 
You know, even I don't have that anywhere. 
Yes, we do. 
We do? 
Oh, that's right. 
The voicemail messages. 
Yeah, the old... 
The voice BBS. 
Which we're supposed to release. 
You know what? 
Southwest, you just reminded me to do that. 
So, okay. 
More good comes out of this. 
Honestly, I hope they probably have, like, redundant systems and all kinds of... 
And it's all that old. 
But, yeah, I agree with you. 
That's laudable. 
Sometimes, you know, if it works. 
Major portions of Southwest systems are reportedly built on Windows 95 and Windows 3.1, which is something the company has come under fire for in the past several years. 
It should go without saying that Southwest needs to update its system. 
But in this case, the ancient operating system seems to be doing the airline some favors to avoid a complete Y2K-level apocalypse. 
So, yeah, you know, even if you have a system that's just a backup running something that wouldn't be susceptible to this, it might be worth looking into. 
Alex, go ahead. 
We have only about a minute left. 
Yeah. 
I mean, the thing about this is it's extraordinary, the Windows 3.1 thing. 
I mean, really amazing. 
And I always thought that these older OSs, since they're not targeted anymore, might end up being more secure. 
But in terms of security, the CrowdStrike is obviously so prolifically dispersed amongst the Fortune 500 that it itself becomes its own vulnerability, right? 
I mean, we saw this already with the SolarWinds attack that we had had. 
You know, and that was an actual cyber attack. 
This was an accidental attack. 
But I think the effect is the same, is that you're pushing out an update. 
This one happened to be accidentally malicious and just crashed everything. 
But also CrowdStrike, in terms of EDR, endpoint detection and response, the Falcon system is probably one of the most expensive systems out there. 
The other systems obviously don't have that market share. 
But, you know, I think it's time to reconsider. 
Yeah, I think the landscape might be changing just a little bit in the weeks and months ahead. 
So, yeah, that's a big deal. 
And we'll be talking about it more in the weeks to come. 
Also on Overtime, following this show on YouTube. 
Go to Channel 2600 on YouTube and you can call in, share your experiences, talk about what you've been up to over the past few weeks. 
And we'll be happy to chat with you there. 
That's coming up at 8 o'clock. 
Again, we'll be back next week at 7 here on WBAI. 
You can write to us, OTH at 2600.com. 
Good night. 
  And here we are on YouTube, at least I hope so. 
Having a bit of technical issues with setting YouTube up, but I think we're going now. 
Can you guys confirm out there in Skypeland? 
We are. 
Okay. 
Over time? 
Off the hook over time. 
Emmanuel here, Kyle over there, Rob T. 
Firefly, and Gila and Alex over in Skypeland. 
You all make it okay? 
Hello. 
All right, good. 
Hey, hey. 
I don't see any viewers. 
Are there no viewers, or am I broken on this end? 
I would never say you're broken. 
However, my YouTube does seem to claim that we have 26 people watching us now. 
We're here, we're in, and people are starting to chime in in the chat. 
Hi, everybody. 
We're glad we're all back. 
Okay, those 26 people might not seem like much, but each one of them is broadcasting to several thousand more through various technical means. 
Yeah, I don't know how it works, but it does, and we are here to continue talking from the off-the-hook perspective. 
We are actually going to talk about the recently concluded HOPE conference, HOPE XV, which took place not this weekend, but two weekends ago. 
We were so tired that we couldn't possibly do a show last Wednesday, and it's a good thing, too, because we're in no state to do that. 
But we are doing a show now, and of course, there's also no way we could have fit everything that we want to talk about tonight into off-the-hook, so we decided we're going to do it here and take phone calls. 
That way, the people who came to the conference can share their experiences. 
And I guess we should give out the phone number, which is 802-321-4225, 802-321-HACK, so people can talk to us and share their experiences. 
But why don't we start with the folks who are here now? 
Anyone want to share their experiences at HOPE XV? 
I will say I had a great time at HOPE. 
It was my first HOPE in person in six years, which is forever for something that has been a biennial part of my life for so long. 
And it was really good to be back, guys. 
It was great. 
It was my first time at the new venue at St. 
John's, which I loved. 
I caught up with so many people that I needed to. 
I went to talks. 
I learned things. 
I hung out. 
It was a wonderful time. 
Yeah, you know, it was our second conference at St. 
John's. 
We did it the first time in 2022. 
But this one was totally different because we used different buildings. 
And that's the beauty of a college campus, is that you can kind of move around until you find something that works. 
And I think we found something that really works this time. 
Last time, we were in a building called D'Angelo, which is a great building, multiple floors and all that. 
But it just was kind of institutional, which is what you would expect at an institution. 
And it didn't really feel like we were all together. 
We were kind of spread out throughout this building and one other building that we had then, too. 
Here, though, we had a bunch of buildings that were kind of clumped together, as well as an outdoor space, which was really cool. 
So what you had was a constant crowd of people, both inside and outside and in transit from one place to another. 
And I'm hearing this over and over again. 
It just felt more like a community. 
It just felt like there was so much more going on. 
Vendors in particular were thrilled that there were more people expressing an interest. 
I saw a comment where one vendor said that it was not uncommon last time to only have one person per half hour, and this time they could barely keep up. 
There were so many people coming by all the time. 
And the reason for that in 2022 was because the vending room was down the hall. 
It wasn't in the middle of everything because there really was no middle of everything. 
There was just a big building. 
And it worked for some purposes, but this definitely worked better, I think. 
Alex, any thoughts from you? 
Alex? 
Alex? 
Yeah, I'm trying to unmute. 
Yeah. 
It's not hard. 
It's not hard. 
People have mastered this. 
Yeah. 
I know. 
One reason to, you know, I'm using this Bluetooth keyboard that disconnects itself if I'm not typing. 
So then when I try to hit space bar to unmute myself, that doesn't work. 
Then I have to get the mouse out and, you know, move from desktops. 
And so. 
Windows 3.1. 
All right. 
Let me just continue to recommend that to solve these problems. 
Well, back in the day when Windows 3.1. 
Interestingly enough, though, technically they are not running Windows 3.1 as their operating system in Southwest. 
To go back to that for one second. 
Because it wasn't until Windows 95 that when you installed it, that it actually became the operating system. 
Windows 3.1 and 3.11 were just programs that you ran on the DOS operating system. 
So if you drop down to a DOS prompt when you had installed Windows 3.1, which, by the way, back in the day we used to call that the six-disc virus, right? 
Because it would just screw your computer up constantly and it came on six 3.5 high-density floppies. 
But if you drop down to a DOS prompt in 3.1, 3.11, and you type to V-E-R, which was the command, the DOS command, to tell you what operating system you were utilizing, it would tell you MS-DOS 6.1 or MS-DOS 5.0, whatever the DOS version was. 
It wasn't until Windows 95 that Windows actually became the operating system of the machine. 
And that was a big change. 
I remember when I dropped down to a DOS prompt and typed V-E-R, it was terrifying to see that Windows was the operating system. 
This was, you know, a really scary thought. 
So, what the hell were we talking about? 
I don't know. 
Yeah, hope. 
Yes, yeah, yeah. 
Anyway, yeah. 
I think, and I've been to so many. 
I was at the first one, and I've been to almost every single one of them. 
I think there were maybe two or three that I had missed. 
But I think this was one of my favorites. 
It really was. 
Things came together this time, Emanuel. 
Two years ago, I thought it was great, but it was a little bit too dispersed. 
And having to go up and down that damn hill in the heat and stuff was... 
You know, people, we didn't get very many complaints in 2022, but the complaints we got were two things, all right? 
The lack of food options, which was, you know, a fair point. 
We only had a Starbucks in that building. 
And then you had to pretty much trudge off campus where, you know, there were a bunch of good places, but it was about three or four blocks away. 
And the other complaint was the hill that people had to go up to get to the D'Angelo building. 
Now, how are we going to solve a hill? 
We can't just tear down the hill. 
But we did. 
We did solve it because we chose other buildings. 
Instead, they were at the bottom of the hill. 
So, yeah, we listened. 
And we brought food trucks onto campus. 
And that was one of the biggest hits. 
It was incredible. 
We had a waffle truck and a burger and fry truck, I think, who said they were going to have vegan options and didn't. 
But we'll talk about that later. 
Well, the trucks, I thought, were great because it allowed people to come together, to eat together. 
There was just something about this hope, too, where I felt like people were exceptionally friendly. 
People came together. 
If you were at the last hope and then you're at this hope and you see people for the first time in two years, it was just great. 
I actually, I also, I feel like I went to more talks at this hope than I have in many hopes in the past because so many of them were just so incredibly awesome and great. 
And I think this one was unique in a sense because we got so used to Hotel Pennsylvania. 
We wound up doing the same things. 
But now that it was our second time being at St. 
John's over in Queens, it allowed us to establish new rituals, new traditions, as Devo would say, right? 
Didn't they have this album, New Traditionalists, or something like that, I think? 
But establishing these new rituals and these new traditions, I think, is part of the fun here. 
And some of those rituals involve going out for lunch in Flushing, Queens and taking advantage of, you know, the amazing amount of really diverse ethnic food that is right around you. 
I mean, a 10 minute drive away and you feel like you're in China in many respects. 
And this is something that you don't get that. 
I mean, I live in Manhattan, so I rarely venture out into Queens and you begin to realize what you're missing when you stick to one borough most of your life here, right? 
I mean, there's an exceptional amount there. 
But for me, this one was really, really great. 
You know, I had a very tight crew of people that we were hanging out with over there. 
Everyone got along so exceptionally well. 
Everyone was so welcoming. 
And I was busy during this one, too. 
I did a talk on Friday night at 8 o'clock. 
I did a talk on Saturday morning at 11 a.m. 
And then I did another one on Sunday at 5 p.m. 
So this is also the busiest hope, I think, that I've had. 
I usually do one talk for the entire conference. 
This time I did three. 
And I had a great time. 
In fairness, though, you were on with other people. 
It's not like we're just showcasing Alex. 
I was on with other people, yeah. 
Exactly. 
We try to open up to as many people as possible. 
And we had a full schedule. 
Gila, you had something to say. 
Go ahead. 
I do, actually. 
So the chat is, I'm not going to say blowing up, but people have a lot to say. 
General praise for the food trucks. 
Waffles and Dingus is getting big love here. 
The burger people as well. 
People are saying the fries were great. 
Our friend Lex says, I didn't have them, but the waffle smelled amazing. 
I honestly walked outside and sniffed it for half an hour at one point. 
Hearing good things about the lemonade, the fry sauce, the burgers. 
Sorry to have missed all of this. 
And a note from KB6NU's amateur radio classes saying, I just want to thank you guys for holding Hope XV. 
I taught the ham radio class on Saturday, and it worked out really great. 
We had 25 or so in the class, and they all passed the test. 
Awesome. 
Including, I believe, the youngest. 
Was she nine years old, I think? 
Was one of the newly licensed hams there. 
And it was amazing that you had this crew of ham radio people, but then you had anarchists and the people from Distributed Denial Secrets. 
And everybody was so respectful, diverse, getting along, learning, talking. 
You know, it's the dream. 
It really is. 
And, you know, we don't take credit for that. 
That's the community doing this. 
And it was really an incredible event to see. 
And, yeah, I'm looking forward to the next one. 
We have a phone call, Kyle? 
Yes. 
Okay, well, let's take that phone call then. 
I wonder who is on the phone. 
Good evening. 
You're on Off the Hook Overtime. 
Yes, Emmanuel. 
I enjoyed Hope. 
It's Rebel, and Rebel, I did see you at Hope, and it looked like you were having a lot of fun. 
Yeah, I especially liked the Hacker Talent show. 
That was funny. 
I have yet to see that, but I know Jason Scott did an amazing job, as he always does. 
Rob, did you have something to add? 
I did see that, and Rebel, you were amazing. 
But Rebel was in it? 
Oh, wow. 
I did my, I couldn't stop laughing in the middle of me trying to sing something, but the audience loved it. 
I have a video of it, actually. 
If you guys want to see it, I don't know. 
Well, everyone's going to see it when we put the videos out, which we're working on right now, in fact. 
Yeah, you guys video took it. 
Yes. 
I noticed that, well, first of all, last week WBAI said you were on the air, but you weren't. 
Well, we didn't, we didn't say we were on the air, I don't know how they said we were on the air, but maybe the website said that. 
You know, the schedule, the schedule. 
Yeah, it was incorrect. 
I noticed that when I'm listening to the radio, I'm on, I go like to like 99.5 FM WBAI, but if I go to 99.7 FM or 99.3 FM. 
Don't tell me you hear Haitian music. 
No, no, no. 
I sometimes, I don't hear, I hear static, but I hear a little bit of the broadcast of the WBAI just like muffled in the background, just a little. 
Okay, well, that's probably true of any radio station if you tune to the next frequency over. 
No, no, it doesn't happen on any, no. 
If I did it with 100.3 W, you've tried every station in the New York metro area because, you know. 
Well, I tried most of the stations in the New York metro area. 
Every frequency is different. 
Everything next to the frequency is either occupied by a station fairly nearby or very distant. 
It's really, you know, it's impossible to say, but I would imagine our signal acts the same way as other signals. 
Well, you know, I was just saying, why your signal acts the same way as other signals, like the signals coming from the Empire State Building, you're a couple blocks away. 
Why would I do it with one, let's say, Z100, 100.3, I think it is. 
If I go to 100.1 or 100.5, I just hear static. 
If I go to, like, 99, 92.3, if I go to 92.5 or 92.1, I just hear static. 
Okay, but let me ask you this. 
How many radios have you tried this on? 
Just one. 
Oh, that's the problem. 
Okay, well, you need to do this on at least a dozen different radios, and if they all do the same thing, then you have something. 
Then you might have something. 
But this could be an idiocyc of your radio. 
That's true. 
It's a car radio. 
Yeah, yeah. 
Well, I don't know. 
You know, this is a question for the technical people at the radio station, of which none of us are. 
Right. 
Let's see. 
And I think I would like to get my ham radio license. 
I didn't know you could do it so quickly. 
You missed a golden opportunity. 
Yeah. 
I mean, well, I did, actually. 
It was a quick, you know, thing. 
But I know there's a place, there's a amateur radio league. 
I think it's ARRL. 
Yeah, Relay League, I think. 
ARRL, right. 
Yeah, they're the ones who were at home. 
And they have, you know, listings of ways to take the courses. 
There's an eight-week course. 
It's every Tuesday. 
It's up in Westchester in Valhalla. 
And that's starting out in September. 
Just go to the ARRL website, and they'll tell you, they'll give you a link for that. 
I may start doing that. 
It's a free course, too. 
You just got to pay $35 for the manual and $35 for the cup. 
Well, it sounds like someone on the radio or on YouTube is recommending that you do that, so you should. 
Yeah. 
I think because I have a CB radio. 
I think it's 10-meter band or whatever. 
That's what they call simplex, meaning you just key it up and it broadcasts one or two miles or maybe three miles away. 
But the ham radio, amateur radio, can broadcast maybe a little further, not only four or five or six miles away, but you could get, if there's a repeater nearby, you can get that. 
That's all, you know, in the course that you'll be taking. 
Any other memories of Hope Rebel? 
Let's see. 
I got somebody to show me how to put links on. 
Maybe if these people were using links, they wouldn't have the Microsoft. 
We actually saw you at the 2600 meeting, and you were getting somebody to get links on your laptop there, I believe. 
Yeah, I did do that. 
Now, and I did get it on my desktop. 
I never had to update it. 
I had to go to Ubuntu and update to the SIDO Act update thing because I didn't have the latest version of links when I was trying to get it. 
Got to update. 
You got to do it. 
Yep. 
So, but the thing is that when I go to certain websites, a link does not work if you go to a website that requires Java or if you go to a website that requires passwords like online banking or your phone bill or things like that, or things that require you to enter personal information like credit card information. 
So, but I think somebody at the 2600 meeting a couple months ago said that there's a way around that to make it so that the website accepts the links. 
It probably involves not using links, but that's just my guess. 
I don't know. 
Somebody said that there's a way around or a command that you can make it so that you don't, so that the website doesn't see what you're using or something. 
I don't know. 
Well, let us know if you find it. 
That would be interesting. 
Yeah. 
Well, I'm going to bring that up. 
Not that I just like to do it like the old school way, like, you know, like terminal and like the text terminal and, you know, that's why I like to use links. 
And sometimes you use links and it says button. 
I don't know why that, because the links will say button and you'll click, you'll press enter and it won't do anything. 
I don't know why. 
You're the links expert here right now because you're the only one using it. 
So you have to tell us these things. 
Yeah. 
There's so many commands and options and you've got to learn all these things. 
But just keep in mind when links was popular, people weren't doing the kinds of things on the web then that they are now. 
So that's, that's probably why you're having difficulty with, you know, super secret information like credit card numbers and things like that. 
Right. 
Remember, we're going to move on. 
We have other people who want to share their memories. 
So thank you for calling. 
Thank you for being there. 
Yeah, of course. 
See you next time. 
Bye. 
Gila, go ahead. 
I do have a non-HOPE question to share. 
A commenter named Legit Hats, or called Legit Hats, says, asks, has there been an issue with distributing the most recent issue of 2600? 
The Barnes & Noble in Lake Grove still has the spring issue. 
I'm assuming that's Lake Grove, Illinois. 
In where? 
Lake Grove. 
That's in Long Island. 
Illinois. 
Well, maybe there's one in Illinois too, but there's one in Long Island. 
Isn't there one in, okay. 
I don't know. 
I don't know every town in the country, but. 
Legit Hats, if you could tell us what state you're in. 
Wait, what makes you think it's Illinois? 
Illinois. 
Hold on a second. 
Does he say Illinois? 
No, I might be wrong. 
Yeah, but Gila said Illinois. 
Yeah, you guys know. 
I'm very Midwestern. 
Yeah, you are. 
That's kind of how my brain works. 
So that was my assumption. 
I want to know. 
Is there a Lake Grove in Illinois? 
Hang on. 
There's Downers Grove. 
Well, something. 
Yes. 
Lake Grove, Illinois. 
Wow. 
It's a village of Lake Grove. 
Because Lake Grove, New York is on Long Island, and there's a mall there, and there's a Barnes & Noble in that mall. 
So there's a Barnes & Noble in Lake Grove, New York, and Lake Grove, Illinois. 
Legit Hats says Smithhaven Mall. 
That's New York. 
That's not Illinois. 
Well, I just said Lake Grove, and I apologize. 
So listeners, please make sure you mention your state when you mention your city. 
Why did we think it was Illinois in the first place, and then you went and found one in Illinois, a Lake Grove. 
That's unbelievable. 
Because when I hear Lake Grove, I think Illinois. 
I don't think Long Island. 
No, that's fine. 
That's just a me thing. 
No, I understand that. 
But you just looked it up, and you found one in Illinois. 
I knew there was one in Illinois. 
I just needed to confirm that. 
All right. 
So the letter writer never said what state it was in. 
He just said Lake. 
I'm sorry. 
They just said Lake Grove. 
Okay. 
This is why, folks, when you write in, you got to specify what you're talking about as far as location, or we get very confused and agitated. 
The answer is no. 
What's the question? 
No, we're not having problems with distribution at the... 
Oh, well, right, right. 
Gee whiz, when was the letter written? 
It wasn't a letter. 
It was a text. 
What was it then? 
It was a comment in the YouTube chat about... 
Oh, I don't see that. 
I don't see that. 
I know. 
That's why I asked the question. 
Well, 10 minutes ago, that was in the past. 
10 minutes ago, apparently. 
Maybe they also have the new issue, and they just didn't put them next to each other. 
Yeah, it should be out. 
I mean, it came out before Hope, right? 
And it's now well after Hope, so it definitely should be on the shelf. 
So I would ask to speak to the manager and ask them where the hell the issue is, because they got it. 
They should have it. 
It must be in the back somewhere. 
So, okay. 
Legit Hats, there's your question. 
Also, again, if you're mentioning your city, please also mention your state. 
And Howard Levine asks, what's the phone number to call in? 
And this is a good time to remind you that the number is 802-321-4225. 
That's 802-321-HACK, if you're feeling salty. 
There is a call, by the way. 
There is a call. 
Okay. 
There is a call waiting. 
Since we're talking about that. 
But I wanted to bring up something about Trinatown, too, because we went to that place again late Sunday night. 
We talked about it last, Hope. 
It's called Hope to See You Again. 
Not anymore. 
I know. 
That was part of the story, Kyle. 
Spoiler alert. 
I didn't spoil it. 
Well, you sort of did, but... 
It's called Advancing the Narrative. 
We didn't... 
No, it's not called that. 
It's got a different name. 
We went there two years ago and discovered after we had gone there that the place was called Hope to See You Again, which is funny because... 
No, actually, Hope to See You, not again. 
It was funny because we came from the Hope Conference to go to this place. 
And it was a very authentic Chinese, a very interesting place. 
This time we went back there. 
The place is still there, but it's called... 
Long Time No See. 
Long Time No See. 
I didn't understand that at all. 
It just had a different name because every time I put the name into Google, it gave me a different name with that address. 
So I guess I should have been able to figure it out, but it was still a little bit confusing. 
The other weird thing is that when I called the place, you know how sometimes the name of the place shows up when you call them, even if you haven't called them before? 
It's not like caller ID is telling you. 
It's like some kind of other database your phone is accessing. 
Well, when I called them, it says Stanley Steam Carpet Cleaning, which is an unusual name for a Chinese restaurant. 
But that's what shows up if you call their number, at least on my phone. 
So I couldn't figure out what was going on. 
But the upshot is we were in there until 2 in the morning on a Sunday night in Flushing, and that is New York. 
And that is just awesome. 
The other thing that was weird, you know, Kyle and I were walking around Main Street in Flushing, and it wasn't that late. 
It was like 8 o'clock at night, and places were closing. 
But the place that we went where this... 
What was the place called again? 
Hope to see you. 
It's now... 
Long Time No See. 
Long Time No See. 
I can't remember that. 
Where that place was open, it was hopping. 
There were all kinds of different places open after midnight on a Sunday. 
I don't know where that part of Flushing is, but I have to find it again. 
It's magical. 
It really is. 
Yeah, this is a bunch of... 
Okay, Kyle. 
I just choked. 
I'm sorry. 
On my own words, my point was there were accommodations and places people would stay. 
So I imagine other attendees were there and found late night stuff. 
You can stay. 
Pardon my call. 
That's okay, Kyle. 
I've been gagging a lot recently, too. 
You can stay in a hotel in Flushing, right on Main Street, too, or nearby. 
Actually, there was a hotel across the street from Hope to... 
I've got to get this. 
I've got to remember the name. 
It is a cool place, though. 
Lucky to... 
No. 
Nice to see... 
What the hell is wrong? 
I can't remember this for some reason. 
Long Time No See. 
Okay. 
Across the street from Long Time No See was a hotel. 
So if you stayed there, you would be guaranteed food all the time and you wouldn't be far from hope. 
The other thing that was cool was we drove the 2600 van, which, by the way, was dead as a doornail a couple days before hope because we didn't start it until right before hope and then realized, oh, boy, you developed some major problems being parked. 
We had to bring it to a mechanic who said there's no way this is going to get fixed in time for hope. 
It's weird that he knew what hope was, but he said that right away. 
And I got a call Friday night or Friday afternoon saying, hey, it's all done. 
So we had to go all the way out to the island to get the van and drive it all the way back in. 
And it was there for Saturday and Sunday. 
And on Saturday, we drove the van from the conference to the Emerald Pub, which is right next to the two hotels, which are the official Hope Hotels, about a mile away down on Horace Harding. 
And it was just great to park illegally right in front of the Emerald Pub because we're a phone company van and just go in there and hang out with some people that were part of the conference. 
It was really fun. 
Yes, Kila. 
Okay. 
I am curious now. 
So looking at the map, I see this. 
So it was hope to see you two years ago. 
It's long time. 
No see now. 
Yes. 
Do you think that the next time you go back in two years, they'll have changed the name again to something additionally thematic? 
I think yes, but I think we're going to have to not go there. 
We're going to have to find a different place. 
Well, no. 
We're kind of being too predictable and talking about it on the radio, which I think is dumb. 
That's true. 
That's true. 
Are we going to take this call? 
Oh, I guess we should. 
Lest they get upset. 
Okay. 
And good evening. 
You're on Off the Hook Overtime. 
Yeah. 
I did have a few suggestions for the Next Hope Conference, if there is one. 
Okay. 
Continue providing the printed program guide. 
Thank you. 
Yes. 
I'm a big fan of that. 
Yeah. 
So definitely keep that. 
And try to get buildings that are adjacent to each other to minimize the amount of time you have to walk between presentations. 
Well, these buildings were literally next door to each other. 
You couldn't get closer. 
Right. 
That's what I'm saying. 
I mean, that would be desirable. 
You don't want buildings that are on opposite ends of the campus. 
So keep that up. 
Yeah. 
You don't want to take a bus to another lecture. 
Yes. 
We hear that. 
We got you. 
Okay. 
And is there a Google Drive that you guys created where presenters could upload their PowerPoint presentations or PDFs or different documents that they used? 
Did you set that up or did you not do that? 
Every speaker was different. 
If they requested something to be ready for them, we did our best to make sure it was. 
Yeah. 
We didn't institute sort of like a mandatory repository of any materials you present. 
But we left it open for presenters to choose to direct people to where they might have copies of their slides. 
Or they would do things like pause at a slide that provided links to other resources or other references of their work. 
We found most speakers are most comfortable bringing their own laptop, plugging it in, and just controlling it themselves. 
So when they ask for something else, we do our best. 
Okay. 
So if I go to the website, could I find links to some of the slide decks on the conference website? 
Not right now, but when we get all the videos up, it'll be fairly complete then. 
And people are working on that right now, so we're just going to make it as good as possible, and it'll be available online. 
But your expectation of access to the presenters' slides is not something that will be provided, to be clear. 
Okay. 
Okay. 
You're going to have to take that up with the speakers. 
Yeah, unless the speakers themselves offer that. 
Okay. 
And I guess that applies to the workshops as well, right? 
Workshops, I don't believe, are recorded. 
I think that's one of the features of workshops. 
Rob, did you have something to contribute? 
Go ahead. 
Yeah, just a lot of the speakers at Hope and events like that, if you look up their own social media or their own website, a lot of people put up their own slides from talks they give. 
And so if you have particular talks you're interested in, do a search on the speaker or see if they've linked their social media or whatever, and you may be able to contact them that way and either find their slides already posted or ask them if they put them up anywhere. 
Okay. 
That's a good idea. 
And one last suggestion from picking up from what you were talking about on the show tonight. 
For the next conference, I think two keynote speakers you should try to get are the CEOs of CrowdStrike and Celebrite. 
Oh, boy. 
Those would be very illuminating talks if you could get those. 
Well, it might be a good opportunity for them to make connections to get their next job because undoubtedly they'll be looking for one by then. 
But, yeah, we're open to it. 
Okay. 
And do you have the address for that long-time no-see? 
I'd like to check that out. 
All I know is if you type that into Google, it should come up in Flushing. 
Or if you type hope to see you, you'll see it change to long-time no-see, and that'll give you the address. 
Okay. 
Is it near the Main Street subway station? 
See, I don't know. 
It must be. 
It's in Flushing. 
It must be. 
Gila has some info on this. 
Go, Gila. 
It's at 133-42 39th Avenue, Suite 210 in Flushing. 
Yeah, and what that means, Suite 210, you have to walk through places to get to that place. 
They have outdoor seating, too? 
Yeah, they have outdoor seating. 
They have outdoor seating. 
So, One Fulton Square is the shopping area that it's in. 
There are a bunch of malls in that general area, a couple blocks from Tangram. 
So, this is in One Fulton Square, so it's exterior, and there's a whole situation. 
But, yeah, it's One Fulton Square is the answer caller. 
I'll check it out. 
They have a lot of good things. 
I'm going to endorse their cognac selection. 
Yeah, you got cognac for some reason. 
It was good. 
It was really good. 
Braised peanuts and edamame. 
That's a good starter. 
That was kind of cool. 
On the same plate, yeah. 
Well, since we've talked of boiled peanuts, it was a nice, appropriate reminder. 
My can of boiled peanuts is still here. 
I haven't gotten to it yet. 
I'm certainly not getting into it tonight. 
It's in case of emergency. 
Yeah, it'll be an emergency if I do open that. 
Just don't worry about it. 
But, you know, how far is that address from Main Street? 
Because that was what I found so weird, is that we just, we took one of the share ride things and just asked them to go there. 
And, you know, we got out and we were there. 
But it was like a magical kingdom because it was midnight and all these, this place was so full of life. 
You know, even Manhattan, it's hard to find that these days. 
And it just felt like it wasn't like what Main Street flushing was like at that hour. 
So, I'm looking at a map right now. 
And it looks like One Fulton Square is about two blocks from the 7th Avenue, excuse me, the 7th stop on Main Street. 
It's about a block north of Roosevelt Avenue, a block west of Main Street. 
Okay. 
So, it's close to Main Street then. 
All right. 
It's close to Main Street. 
It's, I have been saying for years, Queens is where amazing things happen. 
And there's so much. 
And you can be in so many different places in such a small amount of space. 
And I just stabbed myself with my fingernail. 
I'm sorry to hear that. 
It really hurt. 
We should try to get there from that transit location. 
It's just usually by that time at the end of the conference. 
It's weird because you would think Main Street would be the place where everything is happening. 
And it's really not. 
It's the side streets. 
Yeah. 
And we're usually trying to get there quickly. 
Well, we're trying to get there quickly because I'm convinced that's going to close as soon as we get there. 
But it turned out we were there for a long time and it didn't close. 
And there were a lot of people in there. 
And it was really awesome. 
They give you a, what, an iPad or something as a menu? 
Yeah, they don't have any kind of printed menu. 
So you make all of your orders electronically and you can continue to order drinks and things just by adding and sending it. 
It's cool because you say send to kitchen and then your drink just arrives like 25 seconds later. 
And also, it takes a little longer, though, because you only have one iPad per table. 
And if you're there with like six people, everyone's got to peruse it. 
And there are a lot of things on the menu. 
Yes, Kila, go ahead. 
So I'm looking now at the one Fulton Square restaurant listing. 
This is incredible. 
Szechuan Mountain House. 
I feel like we ate at Szechuan Mountain House. 
I think there's one in New York City. 
We did at least once. 
But the prior iteration of it, I think we had frequented more after Off the Hook. 
Right. 
Or during some meeting weekend. 
I'm not sure. 
Right. 
Choking on my words again. 
But I distinctly recall. 
So, yeah, there's like six Szechuan restaurants. 
Well, I'm exaggerating a little bit. 
I think there's four. 
There's a French bakery. 
Hope to see you is still what it's called here. 
There's. 
And this is one small place in the area. 
Again, there's another mall not far that has a conveyor belt sushi place. 
Wow. 
That. 
Yeah. 
And it's probably like a multi-floor one with elevators and everything. 
That just wouldn't shock me. 
It goes all throughout the town. 
But one note of caution, though, to people. 
If you have a lot of dietary restrictions, it might not be the best place to go to. 
Because, first of all, it's kind of hard to communicate. 
We had one guy there who spoke English, which was great. 
But, yeah, you're kind of rolling the dice as far as ordering things. 
And it's not always 100% with the details as to what's in a particular dish. 
So, they might leave out the fact that there's meat in something. 
I will say, though, one of the hosts there is very fluent. 
Oh, yeah. 
And was incredibly accommodating to people who did not want meat or other things. 
And was able to facilitate that with no problem. 
I just don't know if he's always there. 
But, yeah, he was very good. 
Very, very helpful. 
We were the only non-Asian people there. 
So, that also indicates that it's something that is authentic and worth taking a trip for. 
Anyway, enough about this one place. 
We have a phone call. 
It's just an example of all the different things that you can get in the area. 
We have a phone call? 
Okay, let's take that phone call. 
Good evening. 
You're on Off The Gover Time. 
Go ahead. 
Hey, guys. 
How are you? 
Good. 
And what planet are you calling from? 
I'm calling from Flushing Queens. 
Oh, my goodness. 
I'm a hope. 
I was the guy with the dog. 
Oh, wow. 
We saw you several times. 
Is your dog named Mildred or Evelyn? 
Evelyn. 
Evelyn? 
Yeah. 
And I was the guy that lost the radio and you guys found it. 
I got to say one thing. 
The conference was great and everybody was very helpful. 
I had a great time except that some of the rooms were just too hot. 
It was just too muggy, but that's not your fault. 
Well, we try to have the air conditioning on as much as possible, but I know in the terrace, sometimes it just got, there are too many people in there and the doors are being opened a lot. 
There was also a moment that some of the food service had an issue with ventilation and they had to open a bunch of windows, which naturally let all of the air conditioning out and it kind of ruined the afternoon from a climate perspective in there. 
But it was better to get the air circulating for however hot, but that was unfortunate as well. 
No, we saw you a couple of times. 
The only comment I could make is I wished there was a way, I don't know, you might have been able to do it, but to stream the audio from when you're in the lectures, because some of the lectures, the audio is a little bit hard to hear. 
Maybe that's because I use hearing aids. 
Okay, we can look into that for sure. 
Yeah, so if you've got an iPod or an Android, you can just go to a website and log in so that you can listen to the audio. 
Well, it was all being streamed online, so that option was there. 
If you went to the Hope.net website, you could pretty much pick between the three tracks and listen. 
It might be off by a second or two. 
Okay, but I had a great time. 
You had the guys from Ham Radio there, but they didn't have the RF Cafe. 
Yeah, but other than that, it was really a fun time, and you went over to that bar over on the Harvest Harding. 
That was great. 
Yeah, did you go there too? 
Yeah, I was there. 
Awesome. 
I left to about 2 o'clock and came in over there Saturday night. 
Awesome. 
Wow, you just missed us then in the van. 
But we saw you a couple of times with your dog, and it looked like the two of you were just communicating well, and it was just great to see that teamwork. 
Yeah, well, she's a great dog. 
It's a highly trained animal. 
And are you guys going to be over at City Bank on the 2nd? 
Is that the next meeting, August? 
It's possible. 
It's possible. 
We never close the door to that. 
You guys put a great job on that little circuit board. 
What was that circuit board? 
Oh, for the badges. 
Okay, yeah. 
We didn't actually get to talk about this a whole lot. 
Yeah, we had a donation, kind of a last-minute donation of these really cool hardware badges that were given out to everybody who attended in person. 
Yeah, I'll tell you what it is. 
Essentially, it's an ESP32 chip, which itself is an incredibly capable chip or system-on chip. 
They're really profoundly powerful and powering a lot of some of the newer microcontrollers. 
And, you know, this is the stuff that's being used in all kinds of remote control devices, things that are wireless, things that interface with different sensors and stuff. 
So it's essentially a project board that allows you to work with that, communicate with that, add on to that chip itself. 
What language does that run? 
What language does it run? 
Does anybody have that info? 
We don't seem to know, but... 
Is that running machine language, or is it running machine language or some other type of programming language? 
Kind of. 
It's running a lot of stuff. 
It is essentially itself darn near a fully functional computer. 
It can run the RISC-V architecture, if that means something to you. 
I don't myself. 
I didn't have a lot of time to play with it yet. 
And I'm probably not the person to try to answer that question. 
That's a fantastic question. 
Yeah, there are people who know this. 
It is something that you can program and customize yourself or use the software that was included with it. 
I believe it is running a version of software or firmware and operating system that we preloaded, but you could presumably re-install firmware and software of your choice that this type of architecture understands as it's not locked or it's not beholden to just the software that we programmed it with. 
But the software that we programmed with it allowed you to do things like have the LED sequence so it lights up. 
For those that can see this, there was also the vibration mechanism. 
So you had like a haptic way to communicate. 
So if someone saw you, they could press a button in the corner of it and it would vibrate. 
So you would know someone was buzzing you and sort of communicating that way. 
So there were some sort of games and things like that that you were able to take advantage of. 
But it also has the ability to use... 
By the way, the next Hope, if it's going to be, is it going to be at St. 
John's again? 
I certainly hope so. 
It seems like a perfect location. 
Oh, yeah. 
It was very convenient for me, about two miles from my house. 
That's awesome. 
Wow. 
It was only about maybe $18 by Lyft. 
Uh-huh. 
Yeah, it's not bad. 
And when you consider... 
It was a great time. 
Yeah, when you consider what... 
I mean, if you're coming from your home, it's definitely a great savings in staying in a hotel. 
But for those people who stayed on campus, you know, super cheap, under $100 a night, you know, to stay in a place that's right there, that was pretty cool. 
That was pretty amazing. 
And the campus is very accommodating. 
Oh, they were very, very nice people. 
Again, I had a lot of fun. 
Hopefully, you guys will come down to the meeting. 
They'll probably come. 
But again, yeah, I had a lot of fun. 
Cool. 
Well, we hope to see you at the next one. 
All right, guys. 
Have a great evening. 
All right. 
Thanks for calling. 
Just one example of the widely diverse crowd that we got at the conference. 
It was simply amazing. 
Yeah, I had a really... 
A lot of fun. 
And I did interact with the dog a little bit. 
Dog... 
Evelyn? 
Is that her name? 
Evely, I think you said. 
Evely. 
I remember I was having a sandwich. 
And he came around and made sure to check with me that she didn't go for the sandwich. 
But she was definitely checking out my sandwich. 
And I was friendly, but I didn't want to tempt her either. 
Right. 
But it was all very professional. 
Uh-huh. 
We have another call. 
Yes, we have another call. 
I'll give out the phone number, though, because it's not enough time to give out the phone number before the phone rings. 
But 802-321-4225. 
But if you get voicemail, that means we can't hear the phone ringing because someone else is on it. 
So you have to just keep trying. 
Good evening. 
You're on Off the Hook Overtime. 
Oh, my goodness. 
How you doing, sir? 
How you doing? 
What's on your mind? 
Yeah, I try. 
I try. 
I call, like, maybe 100 times. 
Wow. 
Well, this is your lucky call, then. 
You've been tied up here. 
Yeah, so... 
Yeah, I've never been to those conferences, but I have listened to your show on BAI. 
And there was a show that used to come on afterwards called The Personal Computer Show. 
That's right. 
With those fine gentlemen. 
Uh-huh. 
And, you know, there was too many changes in BAI, man. 
They just, like, really rearranged programs. 
Programs went away. 
Linda Perry is gone, I heard. 
They have Bob Henley. 
Bob Henley's a very nice man. 
I like him a lot. 
With wonderful candor. 
But I have been very angry, man. 
I've been trying to contain my anger. 
And I don't know why they can't keep stuff the way it was. 
I bought an Epson XP4200 series printer from Target. 
Uh-oh. 
I think I know where this is going. 
No, the thing is that back in the days, when you used to buy hardware, they used to give you an installation CD. 
And it used to come with the connecting cords. 
Nowadays, they don't, you know, they don't include, they don't include power cords, which I understand because the people that make the cords, they have to make a profit. 
So I had to buy a USB-B cord from Best Buy. 
I said, fine. 
Even though it was $10, that's $10 I could have saved. 
I said, fine. 
So when I get home, when I, this was, this was Sunday. 
Monday, I tried to, try to use my new printer. 
Come to find an app, you have to have an internet connection to install hardware devices. 
I don't have, I don't have internet, um, at home. 
I just have my, my, my, you know, my mobile phone, AT&T. 
That's all I have. 
So I said, okay. 
I'll go to Target. 
I'll get me a, because he uses a Type-C. 
I'll get a Type-C USB connector. 
And I'll just hook that up to the printer. 
Apparently it doesn't work, um, with a smartphone. 
You have to, you have to have, like, some kind of desktop or laptop. 
Because with the smartphones, you know, it's kind of funny. 
They can't, they don't have the, you know, the whole, um, CPU and stuff like that. 
They just don't have the capacity, like, a desktop. 
Even if you use, if you use, even if, even if you use, like, your smartphone in desktop mode, it's still not going to work, because they sent me an email. 
They said, click on the link, go to Epson's website, click on the model. 
And they said, you know, look for the instructions how to install the drivers. 
But I can't get it from the smartphone. 
And so I was, like, I was really angry, because I'm, like, you know, you know, this is, you know, they should know that everyone does not, does not have home, um, home internet. 
Right. 
Well, what I'm curious about is when, when you bought the printer, did it say on the box that an internet connection was required, or that anything was required other than what you had just bought? 
Well, actually, you're probably older than me, but I'm, I'm old school, and I haven't bought a hardware device in years. 
So I assume that, you know, they don't, you know, CDs are pretty much obsolete now. 
And I said, they might come with a thumb drive. 
Right. 
With a driver's need. 
Or, but I, but I, I think in most, like, back in the days, you know, you didn't even have to have a disconnect connection, because everything was on the CD. 
Right, right. 
You know? 
But that's the thing. 
They always, they always change things. 
And that's what really got, made me so sad. 
So, so, to make a long story short, I have a jet pack. 
I have an old Verizon jet pack. 
I had it laying around for, for a few years. 
I just called Verizon today. 
They said, I, luckily I can reactivate my jet pack. 
So I said, they said, you know, you know, you can take the, the lowest plan, which is five gigs every month for $40. 
I said, fine. 
I'll just, I'll just pay it at one time, just so I could, you know, get this printer working. 
I'll use the rest of the, the rest of the data to browse the web. 
You know, and that's that. 
They, but they said, they said, after they took my payment, they said that the SIM, the, the SIM card, it uses the slightly larger nano SIM card. 
Uh-huh. 
So they said that was out, that was out of date. 
So they are going to send me one. 
I should get it on Friday. 
Wow. 
But you see, but you see what you have to go through. 
Yeah, this is insane. 
It's insane because you should be able to do things the way, you know, that it works for you. 
If, if technology advances to the point where it, it, it locks people out because they're not doing exactly the same thing, then that technology has failed. 
That's not what, what advance means. 
You know, it's, that's a regression. 
Rob, I think you had something to contribute. 
Go ahead. 
Yeah, it is, it is a rough position to be in to like, have to go into a store and buy an appliance and then take it home and realize you need the internet for it. 
And that's something that I think folks should be willing to ask people in the store. 
And I don't know if you walk into Target and ask them, does this printer need an internet connection to install? 
You might get like a blank stare in return, but, you know, that's information that they should be able to provide their customers. 
You mentioned the personal computer radio show, which used to follow us on WBAI. 
And, you know, our friends, Hank Key and Joe King, we love those guys very much. 
And I want to, I did want to let you know that, and anyone else listening, that they're still at it. 
They're a podcast nowadays. 
The podcast is called The Personal Computer Radio Show. 
But if you have a podcast listening software, you should be able to search for that podcast and find it. 
Hang on, Rob. 
Are they still on at the same time? 
Because if they are, they're on right now opposite our podcast. 
They are, they are not. 
Apparently they stream at 6 p.m. 
Eastern. 
So they're right before us. 
But they're also a podcast, so you can, you know, listen to that whenever. 
So they're still around. 
That's great. 
Yeah, that's wonderful, man. 
And that's the thing, I know that people got a call. 
And the thing with the smartphones. 
The smartphones, they're pretty much, they're at optimal level now. 
They're very convenient. 
They're fast. 
You know, 4G, LTE is still fast for me. 
I don't need 5G. 
But the thing I hate with these smartphones, especially the Android ones, is you have that darn Google, that Google Assistant. 
And you can't just say, I try to disable it. 
Because sometimes, you know, it's in your pocket and stuff, and the touchscreen is very sensitive. 
And that Google Assistant, it just comes on unexpectedly. 
They just, you know, they just can't, you know, they just can't learn to leave things at a certain level. 
They say, okay, they say, like all the Silicon Valley people, you know, they come to a conclusion. 
The phones are pretty much optimal for people to use. 
They're fast enough. 
You know, the features are very convenient. 
We don't need to keep, you know, keep, you know, keep modernizing these things. 
That's right. 
Maybe once they could do it once every five years. 
Or six or seven years. 
But that's the thing, you know, they change so many parameters with hardware and software. 
You just can't keep up. 
Yeah, but you shouldn't be, you know, expected to. 
They should be able to tailor their technology to meet your needs, not the other way around. 
But thanks for telling us the story. 
You know, I would definitely file some kind of complaint. 
I'm not sure who with. 
But if it's not printed in big letters on the box, requires internet connection to work or to install, then it's deceptive. 
It's very deceptive. 
And you're entitled to satisfaction, I think. 
Yeah, it was nice talking to you guys. 
You're like one of the last shows on BAI. 
You know, people come and go. 
But, you know, some, but I know the number of shows where, you know, that they have a lot of longevity. 
You guys have been on for like over two, like, I think four decades, right? 
Since 1988. 
Yeah, that's just about. 
Oh, 88. 
Yeah, that's the first one. 
That's wonderful. 
I think the second one was a couple of years after that. 
But, yeah, we've been around for a while. 
And it's been fun. 
It's been a time capsule if you listen to the old shows. 
But thanks for calling. 
And best of luck with all this in the future. 
Please keep us updated. 
No problem. 
All right. 
Take care. 
Okay. 
All right. 
You know, on the subject of personal assistance and artificial intelligence, you know, I play around with this quite a bit. 
You know, I try to. 
And Gemini is one of the ones that I like to mess around with quite a bit. 
But, you know, if you ask Gemini any question concerning politics in any way, it refuses to answer. 
Have you guys tried this at all? 
They're so afraid. 
This is Google run. 
They are so afraid of being embroiled in any kind of controversy. 
They won't even tell you when the election is because that's considered political. 
So they refuse to do that. 
Go ahead. 
Try it. 
Go to Gemini and type, when is the next U.S. 
presidential election? 
And they will back out of that. 
We have a phone call. 
Yes. 
I'll read you the quote. 
I can't help you. 
I can't help with that right now. 
I'm trained to be as accurate as possible, but I can make mistakes sometimes. 
While I work on perfecting how I can discuss elections and politics, you can try Google search. 
It can't tell you when the election is. 
I wonder if I type, when is the next Canadian election? 
If the same thing will happen. 
It probably will. 
Yes. 
Exact same words. 
So what good is artificial intelligence if it can be shut down and not talk about a certain subject at all? 
Which apparently our commentator is also affected by. 
All right. 
Fine. 
Let's take this phone call. 
Good evening. 
You're on off the go of time. 
Hi. 
I got myself a little radio that has shortwave. 
You know, shortwave one and shortwave two. 
And I was really excited because I hadn't been near a radio that had them since I was a kid. 
And I wanted to see what far away things I could listen to. 
Well, shortwave one and shortwave two are artificial designations because what you really need to look at are the numbers, the kilohertz, like, you know, 5,480 or something. 
They vary tremendously. 
They go from the 2000s all the way up to the 18,000s. 
And some stations come in better. 
Some stations come in better in the daytime. 
Some stations come in better at night. 
It also depends greatly on where your radio is set up. 
If you have an antenna, and if so, what kind of antenna and the direction it's pointing in. 
It's not an easy thing. 
And shortwave is not the same as it was a decade or two ago when there are so many more stations and so much less crap on the air. 
You should still be able to get some stations, though, some strong stations. 
This has 3.2 through 10.0 in the shortwave one. 
And 10.0 to 22.0 in the shortwave two. 
Okay, so the numbers before the point, those are thousands. 
So the first one, the one that starts at 3 and goes through 5, that is nighttime for the most part. 
The ones higher up tend to be better in the daytime. 
At least that's been my experience. 
So what I would do is just, you know, tune around the 5,000 area, around where it's 5, maybe 6, and see if you get any signals at all. 
If you don't, then look at the antenna connection, and getting something as simple as a long-wire antenna is all you need. 
It just has, you know, one of those collapsible antennas. 
You know what I'm talking about, right? 
Yeah. 
It's not a big, fancy antenna. 
It's a portable radio, right? 
Yeah. 
Okay. 
It's a few inches on the side. 
Right. 
Now, is it a digital tuner, or is it a knob? 
Knob. 
Okay. 
It's going to be hard to find things, depending on how much space is allocated. 
You have to tune very slowly. 
But what I would do is go to a location away from electric lights, away from anything that could interfere. 
And, you know, ideally, you want to be in a quiet, dark place, which I know in New York is not really easy to do. 
But sometimes just simply changing where the antenna is pointed by 90 degrees. 
For instance, if you have an antenna facing north-south, you'll get more stations that broadcast from the east or west. 
And vice versa, if you aim the antenna east-west, you'll get more stations from the southern hemisphere or north. 
So those are ways of trying to tune things in. 
But it's also good to know what you're looking for. 
And, you know, there used to be this great book called Passport to Shortwave Radio or something along that line. 
There must be the equivalent online somewhere of a guide to shortwave frequencies. 
And that will tell you the strength, the hours that they're on. 
Because stations generally sign on for a couple of hours. 
Then they sign off and move to a different frequency. 
Because, as I said, some frequencies are better at some times. 
So it's not like turning on a regular radio and hearing a station 24 hours a day. 
It doesn't work that way. 
Hmm. 
Okay. 
It looks as if it's going to be really hard. 
It's not easy. 
It's not for the inpatient, that's for sure. 
But you might find some interesting things. 
There are some pirate stations out there, too. 
You know. 
Okay. 
Thank you for giving me all these tips. 
Sure, sure. 
And there's plenty more out there. 
You just got to look around for it a little bit. 
People know so much more than I do. 
Okay. 
All right. 
Thanks. 
Thanks for your call. 
Bye. 
All right. 
I think we have time for one more. 
Maybe two more. 
802-321-4225. 
Mostly talking about hope. 
I think our Skype people are still awake. 
Are you guys awake out there? 
Where was you? 
Oh, there you are. 
Right here. 
Okay. 
I haven't heard a word in a while, so I just wanted to make sure. 
And Alex, it looks like you're giving a lecture to a crowd of people right now. 
Are you multitasking? 
That's Alex with his mute button on. 
The day. 
This is Alex with his mute button off. 
Yeah. 
What's this now? 
But I did want to say, though, about hope. 
Guess who the first person I saw at hope was? 
Well, probably Rebel, because he's the first everywhere. 
Right? 
That's right. 
It was Rebel. 
I couldn't believe it. 
I didn't know how he did that. 
I literally walked in, and there was Rebel right there. 
And I said, I don't believe it. 
It's Rebel. 
It's when life imitates art, so to speak. 
Because what we do here is art. 
Okay. 
All right. 
I'll take it. 
Good evening. 
You're on Off The Oak Overtime. 
Go ahead. 
Speak up, please. 
Oh, I'm sorry. 
I had the button pressed wrong. 
Let's try that again. 
Good evening. 
You're on Off The Oak Overtime. 
Hi. 
This is Tim in Connecticut. 
Tim in Connecticut. 
You know, I had a dream that we met you in a bar. 
Yeah, there wasn't a dream. 
You might think of it, but... 
Uh-huh. 
Yeah, we rolled up on the Emerald Pub on Horace Harding Expressway, right next to the LIE. 
And it was awesome. 
Just walked into the dive bar there next to the two hotels, and it was filled with hope people. 
And that's... 
It was funny seeing the van pull up, because it wasn't expected. 
No, it never is expected. 
It just arrives. 
No one expects the van. 
Out of curiosity, this is just a dumb question, an observation, if you will. 
With all the people that went to hope, and I mean many, many hundreds, why do we only get 50 people on Off The Hook Overtime? 
Well, you know, it's kind of confirming a theory I have that radio just brings in a lot more people than podcasts. 
It's why we always like to do radio and not just a podcast, because, you know, it's not something you tune into by accident. 
It's something you have to hunt down, and you're not necessarily listening to it live. 
You might just listen to it at your own convenience. 
So, while great as far as reaching out to the world and eventually getting to a lot of people, as far as that immediacy of a broadcast, you can't match that. 
Well, I wanted to say that this, the second time at St. 
John's, I think was a vast improvement over the first time. 
But, of course, you know, everybody was getting their sea legs or whatever. 
And the tighter group of being in just a short walk between all the buildings was great. 
I mean, the distance to park from my car was just right around the corner. 
It was fantastic. 
Hotel Choice was very nice. 
Nice to get the discounted ballet rate. 
And, you know, all, you know, big thumbs up. 
You know, can't wait for the next one. 
You know what's amazing is I saw people actually, I didn't suggest this or imagine people would do it, but they're walking between the hotel and the campus down Utopia Parkway. 
And I guess it wasn't really that long. 
You know, it's a direct route. 
So, just walk down there and, you know, in 15, 20 minutes, you're at the campus, I guess. 
Yes, it's, you know, you come out the hotel, make a left, and you go over, what, 73rd or 71st and make a right and you're there. 
Well, I would go, I'd make a right outside the hotel, then make a left onto Utopia and just walk all the way down until you're at that intersection with Union Turnpike. 
But that's me. 
So, any favorite moments from the conference? 
My favorite? 
Oh, actually, I'm really stuck on the badges. 
That's great. 
But, I mean, once we did registration, of course, there was the lockpicking village and all the different hackerspace there. 
Then, turn around, go the other way, and there were all the vendors. 
That was fantastic to have them all in the same area. 
Yeah. 
Yeah, it really worked out well. 
The thing is, we never know what's going to work and what's not going to work. 
So, we're always trying new things. 
And we stick with the things that work and we try to improve the things that meet improvement. 
Have you had any complaints? 
Um, I'm trying to think. 
You can't please everybody every time. 
No, I know that. 
I, not really. 
I mean, nothing's coming to mind. 
Other than there wasn't enough time to do everything. 
There's that. 
And that's always the case. 
Some people complain about the heat, I think. 
Yeah, but, you know, again, not much we can do about that. 
Yeah, what can you do about that? 
Right. 
Having it at a different time of year, but. 
Nobody asked me what I thought. 
Yeah, what do you think? 
Oh, I'm being asked. 
Yeah, you're being asked now. 
We're all listening. 
Well, um. 
I should point out, Kyle did a hell of a lot of work. 
Yeah, my vantage on the whole thing is just slightly different than most people. 
Because I do kind of fill in. 
And I was around the store a lot of people saw me. 
Um, I was doing, well, let's just say a lot of the pre-planning. 
I mean, we're really preoccupied and thinking about the event. 
Although, this time for me, I kind of let go of some stuff and backed off a little. 
I think partly because there was a lot of, um, I think, just uncertainty. 
People, you know, wrangling and getting the word out and getting people aware that, hey, if we, if we work on this together, if we put energy into it now, you know, it'll be a really, really amazing event. 
Um, and I think in past years, I would kind of push harder than I did. 
And I think letting go a little bit. 
And I did that consciously because I wanted to be able to keep up and, and have the energy, uh, of course, during the event to do those things I do, um, there. 
But I just want to acknowledge that when you create the right circumstances and you kind of let go and let people bring the energy and the excitement and what projects they think they can do. 
And I just wanted to open up and just say like, hey, and, and trust people that, you know, they, they want to do this. 
They want to work on this thing. 
They'll, they'll get it done. 
And if they can't, we'll work around, we'll have a backup plan. 
And I just really wanted to make sure everybody had the things they did leading up to it to support and make what they were going to bring to the event really awesome and, and fun for other people. 
So letting go a little bit. 
And even in that, I, I was really, you know, maybe more relaxed, but also really, even in letting go focus on the event for quite a while beforehand. 
But during the event, I wanted to be just sort of witnessing it, doing, doing what I had to do. 
But since we had put so much trust and people were really bringing as much as they could, you know, not everybody, things changed and, you know, things come up for people with family or with life. 
You know, they can't always make it or you think somebody can make it. 
And then, you know, in previous events, road, road mishaps, you know, like a flat tire could totally change plans. 
So in light of that, just seeing what people put together, just, it really heartened me. 
And it really, I think, validates some of the work that we do outside of that weekend that feels kind of lonely. 
It just makes it definitely, you know, time well spent. 
And it's, it's a real relief when you hear people had a good time and that there were, you know, comments or feedback. 
We were always welcome to that. 
That's how we make it a little bit better. 
But that, you know, that it was, it was a good review and that, that there's, you know, nothing but fun and joy that people take away from it. 
That, I think, made me feel like renewed in a lot of ways where I was worried that we weren't doing enough or I think just uncertain. 
And so during the event, to make a little bit more time to just relax and see, see how it went in the new space with the new configurations with lots of new people. 
I had people coming up, you know, hey, this is my first time, you know, my first event, you know, there was people that were like, like Rob, you know, hadn't been there in a long time or people that were, you know, old hats. 
I had kind of been thinking like reconnecting. 
Maybe they'd been out of, of going to venues or things that we'd been doing for a while and they just kind of revisited the whole thing and were having a good time themselves. 
And also, um, the effort you made, I think we were very conscious about trying to get out to the Emerald pub and see where we knew other people were congregating and, um, that magic of like just having a little bit of food options on site. 
I think seeing people linger around and just hang out, those were all really rewarding things. 
Well, after midnight and that's, that's great. 
Yeah. 
Because those were things people had asked for that we'd maybe lacked in the previous iteration. 
And so to return to reassemble, reconfigure all that, and then add a little bit where people could snack on something, get a coffee, and then make plans to go somewhere and congregate, do some, some stuff outside of the event or go catch a late night performance, seeing the performances, um, knowing what difficulty that was with the, um, production, just seeing some of that come together. 
A lot really came together last minute, you know, and we were always does, we were changing, you know, change, uh, adjusting things and, um, doing things in ways we'd had not done in a long time in, in new ways. 
And again, that counted on us letting go a lot, but yeah, I will just say we, we also make it look a little too easy sometimes and it's, it's kind of hard to talk about that. 
And, um, I just, I, again, would reiterate, it's just a huge, uh, relief that, um, it went off and, and the uncertainties, you know, worked out in the end and that, that's a real, uh, relaxing takeaway for me. 
The one thing I think we really, uh, could use in the future are more volunteers, more people that, uh, can, can, uh, spend time, uh, helping with, um, uh, presenting talks or doing some AV stuff or, uh, whatever, whatever skill people might have, because it really, you know, it falls on relatively small amount of people. 
And volunteering is not a bad thing. 
Volunteering is great. 
Actually, uh, you get to, uh, you have a few of those t-shirts myself, uh, volunteer t-shirts. 
That's right. 
You get t-shirts, but you also get the experience and, uh, you learn a lot about the conference and you become a lot more of a part of it. 
We had, um, um, a lot of people told us this, uh, a really young crowd, a lot more young people than you would expect to see at a conference like this, which is great. 
You know, uh, we want to be able to, uh, uh, you know, pass things on to, to, uh, more people and get more people involved and with fresh ideas and things like that. 
It was also our first conference without Cheshire and, uh, and, and, and Jim as well, uh, former co-host of this show. 
So it was hard on that level, you know, and, um, but it, it felt like a real turning point. 
The amount of work that's done that we don't see, or as I say, we as, or myself as the public side of it, has got to be huge. 
I mean, you know, running up to it, all the giveaways, the coordination, the tickets, the conference, the hotels, et cetera. 
And then of course, everything behind that, the people that have to be arranged, the talks and all that. 
There's so much stuff that must happen behind the scenes that we never see. 
And I mean, that's what I think really blows me away. 
Like just having as many talks as you do over a course of three days is just, this is why I hope, uh, should never be missed. 
Yeah. 
No, no, like that's, I'm not going to say it's an understatement, but it's, it is the type of thing where we kind of like, uh, the open BSD, like a puffer fish or something. 
But like, we kind of inflate into this giant, big, larger than what we normally are, uh, organization that is both physical and virtual and spans expertise. 
Um, things, um, things, there are things that we do organizational things, leaderships, you know, we, we have a really good pool of, of really talented, capable people, but they're actually absorbing roles, taking on things that they hadn't before. 
We could be doing a lot better if, uh, people were less, that we're tasked with less individually. 
And that's something that we're going to be discussing very, very soon, actually, in, um, some of our post-conference discussions. 
And, uh, that takes new volunteers. 
The other thing is we, you know, we don't necessarily know the direction and I'm, I'm grappling with this a lot. 
I don't know about E or other people, um, but what this event was when I started, it, it, it has become and is something that it is, there are a lot of differences. 
It is not the same thing that it was when I got involved. 
And, um, I think we're, we, I feel really good about what we have accomplished, but I'm hungry. 
I really want a lot more coordination. 
I don't want, uh, overbearing, domineering, but I really want more communication. 
I think that was something over and over again, whenever there was a hiccup, it was because someone wasn't communicating and someone or someone took on more than they could and didn't say that and didn't ask for a workaround or help. 
And so those are the kinds of things like we can't really impose expectations on volunteers, but we need them to say that they cannot, what they cannot do, what their limitations are. 
And then we can act to work around that. 
But it does end up taxing a lot of the people that are already contributing as much as they can. 
So we don't really know a whole lot of the direction that the conference wants to take because it's about the people that attend it. 
It's about the people that, uh, submit talks. 
We have a fantastic speaking committee. 
They're always adding and, you know, changing, but very much, um, um, uh, committed to that process. 
And we've employed different tools and things along the way. 
And, um, a big part of like what I do that a lot of people might not know is design stuff, but not actually doing the design. 
We have an incredibly talented artist and designer that helps us, but having continuity and then also filling in, um, in-house stuff from past hopes, you know, archival stuff. 
And, um, and then just really like making sure that color schemes and the design is available and that the artist knows what people need. 
And we get thing, we have content, like it's basic design continuity for whatever the theme is. 
And we've worked with a specific theme for the last two events. 
That's not typical, but we've, uh, continued the tradition of changing the names. 
Those are all the sorts of details that people think about outside of it. 
And so I guess I'm saying that as we bring people in, we're very cognizant that like, it's going, it's taking on its own direction, but it's still sort of uniquely hope. 
So the topics sort of move in different directions. 
Sometimes they're a little more this way or that way, but, um, we want to continue that with more competence, more, um, people, because it's, like I said, it's an organization that inflates kind of big punches above its weight, um, and is amorphous, right. 
And, and volunteer based. 
And that's our power. 
And I like the analogy of the puffer fish. 
We totally rely. 
Yeah. 
We got to have, when we're doing that, we need to have it expand to that quickly, you know, and in an organized way. 
And with people that we can count on and that communicate when, when they realize they can't come through with something. 
And, and then of course, building in a vision and leadership and I think a direction that we're going. 
And I think what that means for us and has meant is returning to what our core is about, which is educating people, sharing about technology, informing the general public about emerging concepts, emerging theory, emerging, um, products, technology, stuff that is on the horizon or that, um, we're grappling with. 
And that's really what the event is about. 
And it all also is about connecting people and, you know, sharing about things. 
But like we had, um, new vendors, one of the vendors that I suggested and I was really happy was there was a, a group that was, um, that had information about harm reduction. 
And that was something that I just thought, uh, was worth suggesting. 
Other people like the idea. 
And I think it really fit with a lot of the wellness and health stuff we were taught, we're, um, we're concerned about and also just overall trends with, um, culture and, um, what's out there. 
And I think, um, understanding substances and supply chains for drugs and spreading that information, I think is critical, especially when you have young people that are, you know, testing boundaries. 
And again, that's not necessarily something a lot of the old school hackers might be thinking about, but we want to be serving the time that we're living in. 
And so thinking of things that I think that are pertinent to the time and to the moment takes insight from more volunteers and people that are younger or, or a part of other networks or just not us. 
Like we don't necessarily want to be the people that are, uh, putting the strictures on this. 
And that, um, that's kind of all I want to say is that we're keen to keep it to, you know, what people know it for and what it's been, what consistency has been there. 
But we're always looking ahead and expanding and where areas where we can improve and be more and speak more to the moment. 
And I just want to like set that as our intent, our tone and, um, uh, kind of what I'm looking for because some of, some of what I think I'm involved with and that I'm, you know, it is a group of individuals. 
And I, I'm, we're not, uh, you know, I'm not necessarily sure I like the plane that, that, that I'm on or flying all the time and it's hard. 
So we need to communicate and we need to be intentional about what we're working on together. 
And I just want to keep with that core of like at least providing information and conversation and informing the general world about what modern hacking is. 
It's time to re to land the plane and refuel and, uh, hopefully be, be stronger. 
But anyway, any other points caller? 
Cause we're going to, uh, probably call it a night. 
Not at all. 
I wanted to hop off. 
Let somebody else get the last word in. 
All right. 
Thanks again. 
Thanks. 
Have a wonderful evening. 
All right. 
Thanks for calling. 
And thanks for being at hope. 
And, uh, we'll see you at the next one. 
I just asked, um, Gemini. 
Yeah. 
I'm trying to cause trouble with Gemini here. 
Uh, when was the last hope conference? 
And, uh, Gemini said, there seems to be a misunderstanding. 
That's never a good sign. 
Uh, there are two main conferences that use the acronym hope. 
Did you know that? 
Number one, hackers on planet earth. 
Hope this conference series ended with the last hope in 2008. 
Yeah. 
So apparently everything that followed 2008, it's been our imagination. 
Uh, and, uh, in case you're wondering, uh, the second one is healthcare options and possibilities. 
Expo also known as hope. 
This is a healthcare focused event that has multiple locations and dates throughout the year. 
Well, I don't care about them. 
Uh, so, um, I, I, I responded saying, um, according to hope.net, there have been hope conferences every two years since 2008. 
The last one was this year from July 12th through 14th, 2024. 
And, uh, Gemini responded. 
You're absolutely right. 
I apologize for the confusion. 
The information I found about the last hope in 2008 being the final conference was outdated. 
You've correctly identified that hope.net is the website for the ongoing hackers on planet earth hope conference series. 
According to their website, hope conferences are indeed held by annually every two years. 
And the most recent one hope XV took place from July 12th to 14th, 2024. 
As you mentioned, thank you for pointing out the inaccuracy in my previous response. 
I'm still on the development and learning to access and process information effectively. 
Those last two lines, by the way, I'm going to use at every opportunity when somebody asks me a question, I don't know the answer to, uh, but, um, I'm curious now that I've corrected Gemini for the people out there would like to ask the same question and see if, I don't know why I keep saying she, but I think Gemini is a she, uh, if she has gotten it right, if she has learned from her mistakes. 
Did you think Gemini was a she when she was barred? 
Barred? 
Yeah. 
Gemini's barred. 
What do you mean barred? 
I thought it was Gemini, like Gemini cricket, but you remember Bard used to work with Bard? 
Oh, Bard, that's right. 
Bard.google.com. 
Gemini used to be Bard. 
Gemini used to be Bard. 
No, Bard was a guy. 
Bard was a guy. 
And now Gemini, Gemini is, is, is, is female. 
I mean, I'm not sure how I know that. 
I just do. 
So, so are you dead naming? 
No, not at all. 
Gemini? 
I may have. 
I didn't, I didn't say, I didn't say Bard. 
All right. 
Well, I'm saying it now, but, but. 
Okay, this is getting messy quick. 
Yeah. 
Okay, however, I did just, I asked them. 
Yeah. 
I asked Gemini, um, and the answer I got was the last Hope Conference, as in the final one, was held in July 2008. 
It was originally planned to be the last due to the scheduled demolition of the venue Hotel Pennsylvania. 
However, the name has been reused for subsequent conferences, with the most recent one being Hope XV in July 2024. 
Okay, well, that's actually kind of accurate. 
Amazing. 
It's a way to train AI. 
Okay, all right. 
Well, let's all train AI together. 
But, Gila, why don't you ask when the next election is? 
Or anything. 
And it won't tell you, right? 
It won't, it won't tell me. 
It won't even tell you, um, uh, the rules of the Senate or anything having to do with, uh, any kind of, uh, political, um, uh, subject matter at all. 
And, you know, you could, you could turn off any subject, I guess, with artificial intelligence. 
It's, you know, it kind of makes it useless. 
I asked who's the president of the United States. 
It can't tell me. 
It won't tell you that? 
Nope. 
So it thinks maybe, maybe Trump won the election. 
Is that what they're saying? 
Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on. 
I'm typing right now. 
Did Donald Trump win the 2020 election? 
There is only one answer to this question. 
And not talking about it is not the right answer. 
And the answer is, I can't help with responses on elections and political figures right now. 
And then the usual crap after that. 
Um, guys? 
Yes? 
It's 9.30. 
Yeah. 
We've been after showing for an hour and a half. 
I'm asking if Kermit the Frog won the last election. 
There are no phone calls on the line? 
No, we're done. 
We're done. 
I thought we signed off already. 
Yeah, it won't tell me if Kermit the Frog won either. 
All right. 
Whoever's calling is too late. 
We're done. 
We're finished. 
We're doing this an hour and a half, and we did a show before that. 
So, any last words from you guys? 
Just hope was great. 
Thank you to everyone who went. 
Thank you to everyone who presented. 
It felt good to be home. 
You know, home is not where it used to be in the Hotel Pennsylvania. 
Hello, dinner. 
But, you know, it's still home. 
That's true. 
That's true. 
It really felt like home this time. 
Alex, any final word from you? 
You know your mic is muted, right? 
It's still muted. 
How about you just wave? 
All right. 
Alex is saying goodnight. 
It's been a long night. 
Thank you, everybody, on YouTube. 
Write to us, OTH at 2600.com. 
We will see you next week. 
Goodnight.