The area code for the number you have dialed has been changed to 610. 
Please hang up and redial using area code 610-215-4T. 
We're sorry. 
The number you have reached, 99.5 WBAI, is now off the hook. 
Thank you for that. 
It is my privilege and my pleasure, certainly an honor to be here in all of those capacities. 
You all don't know how much of a thread we're hanging by and how easy it is to. 
I'm going to go finish that other thing. 
Yeah, finish that other thing because I have another thing for you, a surprise, which you'll find delightful. 
I want to talk about artificial intelligence a little bit. 
We have a bunch of things to get through tonight, and hopefully we can do it in the hour that we have here. 
We have another hour coming up on YouTube afterwards on Channel 2600, so you can join us for overtime there where we're able to take calls and things like that. 
But here we're going to talk about some news items. 
This is something I found to be quite incredible. 
Rob, I believe you found this story about this AI named Daisy that is run by the phone company O2 over in the U.K. 
Now, O2 has created the human-like AI granny to answer calls in real time from fraudsters. 
You know, it's people who call you up and try to waste your time or get information from you. 
Yeah, granny will answer and keep them on the phone and away from customers for as long as possible. 
Daisy is trained using cutting-edge technology and real scam-baiter content. 
She is indistinguishable from a real person, fooling scammers into thinking they found the perfect target when really she's beating them at their own horrible game. 
Now, the name of the woman doing this is Amy Hart. 
She's a former Love Islander. 
I have no idea what that means. 
It's probably some kind of reality show over in the U.K., and also a scam victim. 
She is working with Daisy. 
She's made a shocking new video on that. 
It's shocking. 
I'm reading a PR piece here, obviously. 
But basically, it exposes fraudsters' crooked tactics and helps customers of O2 swerve the scammers. 
Yeah, it's interesting. 
I want to play an excerpt from the demo here that they have, and hopefully this will come up smoothly. 
To have a little chat. 
It's nearly been an hour! 
For the love of... 
Gosh, how time flies. 
It's showing me a picture of my cat, Fluffy. 
It's showing you the picture of your cat, Fluffy. 
Stop calling me dear, you stupid... 
Got it, dear. 
Because while they're busy talking to me, they can't be scamming you. 
And let's face it, dear, I've got all the time in the world. 
So whilst you're out enjoying life, Daisy and O2 are here fighting scammers. 
Taking calls and wasting hundreds and hundreds of hours of scammers' time. 
If you want to help Daisy and O2 ruin a scammer's day, you can report scam numbers to 7726. 
Because you can't do it all on your own, can you, Daisy? 
Who says I am, love? 
Speak soon, scammers. 
Oh, wow. 
I love that. 
That is amazing. 
I'm not quite sure how it works, though. 
Because the number they give out spells spam, 7726. 
So, Gila, do you understand what happens when you get one of these calls? 
How are you supposed to handle it? 
Well, unfortunately, this is only working in the UK right now, which is kind of heartbreaking, because I would be all over this. 
So basically what they're suggesting is when you get a spam text or a spam call, that you then forward the text or forward the number that you got the call from to 772656 to the spam number. 
And then Daisy will call them, basically. 
Wait, Daisy's going to call them? 
Yeah. 
Okay. 
Well, all right. 
I thought it was calling Daisy or somebody. 
You hit a button and then Daisy takes over and starts talking to them. 
Because why would they pick up the phone? 
Who calls scammers? 
You know, I mean, I don't think I've ever done that. 
No, this is really fascinating. 
I was doing a lot of – I was reading the whole swerving the scammers campaign that O2 and Virgin Media are doing. 
And, yes, I recognize that this is all press release-y, self-serving kind of stuff. 
But it's also very cool. 
And on the swerve the scammers page, they have a whole list of things that they're like, if you're getting this phone call and you're not 100% sure what's going on, the best thing to do is hang up and call back. 
And all these – so they've got this chick from Love Island who, you know, as crazy as reality TV culture is here, it is all the more so in the UK. 
So this woman who was a contestant on Love Island who got scammed and scammed hard is now, like, the human face of this campaign to say you think it's only going to happen to somebody else, but it can, in fact, happen to you. 
So, you know, she's working with Daisy and listeners can't see my air quotes, but I'm totally doing them. 
And so this whole idea that it happens to everybody, even the semi-famous, and we're trying to do this thing that, you know, now we're just going to waste the time of scammers. 
And the thing I really – 7726, that's it. 
The thing I really enjoyed is listening to these people getting angry on the recordings that were in that video. 
I am only sorry that we are here and cannot contact Daisy ourselves. 
Well, for now, for now, anyway. 
Yeah. 
And you are right about the reality shows over in the UK. 
When I was there once, they had a channel, you know, the show Big Brother. 
I've never watched it, but I'm aware of it. 
They had a channel, just a live feed, that showed people sleeping, and that's all it did for about eight hours. 
So they're a lot more into it than I think we are here, which doesn't seem possible, but it is. 
Now, I know, Alex, you've had some past dealings where you kind of acted like a daisy and wasted a lot of scammers' time. 
Do you feel threatened by AI taking over that position? 
No, I think it's a wonderful innovation because my hours are very limited in the day, but apparently Daisy can just keep going and going and going. 
But I've done some of this disruption really, I guess, mostly for fun. 
And one of my favorite things to do is when they call me, I try to make them think that they may have some kind of whale on the hook. 
A lot of times these scams focus on some form of remote access where they may want you to navigate to a particular web page, install something like TeamViewer or LogMeIn, something like that, where they give you an actual URL, type it in there, and then essentially you're granting this person on the other end remote access to your machine. 
And so I love to stymie them by telling them that, look, you know, if I really do have a virus on my machine or there's malware or whatever the hell it is that the scam is telling me it needs to be done in order to make myself clean and safe from a cybersecurity perspective, tell them, oh, look, this is really important that I get this done quickly because this is where we keep all of our companies' Bitcoin on this machine. 
And so then, you know, that's very, very interesting to them, of course. 
And then I will go over to the LogMeIn page. 
Okay, that's great. 
I've navigated over there. 
I've navigated. 
But it's telling me that, you know, it doesn't have the right client. 
I'm not using the right saying something like it doesn't support this particular operating system or something. 
Well, what are you using? 
Are you on a Mac? 
Are you on Windows? 
No. 
Oh, you must be on Linux so we can give you a different URL. 
We'll give you a different URL for Linux. 
No, no. 
I'm not on Linux either. 
Well, what are you using? 
And then I tell them that I'm using OS2, you know, this old kind of ancient operator. 
And most of the time the scammers have no idea what OS2 is. 
So OS2. 
So then they look it up. 
And then they're scrambling to try to do research to try to find a browser that would be compatible with OS2 that they could then use for remote access. 
And it gets them really spun up and gets them thinking to do that. 
So that's been fun. 
I would love to play around with Daisy and see how she works. 
But I also want to address one other quick thing because very oftentimes you do have to call the scammer sometimes, Emmanuel, as well. 
Because sometimes these scams come in the form of emails or they come in the form of some kind of pop-up from let's say you've landed on the wrong domain name by accident. 
Like last week we were talking about the sponsored links. 
You may have clicked on some kind of malicious sponsored link that lands you on a page that throws up a pop-up telling you you have malware and you need to call this number to disinfect your computer. 
So in that sense, you might actually be calling the scammer instead of the scammer calling you. 
But my understanding from reading the articles about Daisy was that you report these numbers to her and then she goes and actively calls them and then will also answer calls from known scam numbers preemptively on behalf of O2 customers, which is really kind of interesting. 
But Alex, that begs a question. 
So if she is calling numbers that have been reported, what's to stop somebody from reporting my phone number to her and having Daisy call me and harass the hell out of me? 
Well, that's what I was just going to suggest because I think that would be so much fun. 
You are the first suspect if that happens, Alex. 
All right. 
So, yeah. 
Write that grin off your face. 
Rob, go ahead. 
What I love about this, it's ingenious and it reminds me of, I want to say, 20, 25 years ago, I was in with a crowd who played with a lot of things, including prank phone calls. 
And, you know, shout out to my phone losers out there. 
And we had this talker program going around that was a voice synthesis program. 
And you could do a bunch of weird voices on it, robot voices, old lady voices. 
And this wasn't AI generated. 
You had to type what you wanted it to say and then it would say it to whoever you were on the phone with. 
But the old lady voices were always the ones that were great for pranking with because, you know, people on the other end of a phone call are, you know, trying to stay calm because it's a little old lady somewhere. 
They're more likely to listen because it's a little old lady. 
They're more likely to try and be patient because it's a little old lady somewhere. 
And that character is just so great for something like this, because both because it's kind of the target of scammers where they think they're going to get somewhere with that sort of person. 
But also it's believable that somebody like that would be so flummoxed by trying to get, you know, you know, your your your software to work or anything like that. 
So it is a great way to massively waste these people's time, which is, I think, the best response to any kind of phone scammer. 
It is funny to hear a company, a phone company, saying that this this product will waste hundreds of hours of someone's time. 
And that's a selling point. 
But I guess in this particular case, it's a good selling point. 
One thing that confused me, though, it's a video. 
You see the woman. 
In fact, you can see her with her cat as she's speaking. 
Why do we need to see her if she's calling on the phone? 
I don't understand why they went to the trouble of or is this just a demo of a real human? 
It looked really realistic. 
So it's a little confusing what O2 is up to here. 
I think I think that's more of a marketing thing for the company doing this just to give the character a face. 
But, you know, it works. 
It's cute. 
OK, Alex, go ahead. 
You know, one one flip side of this that we and others may not have thought of is that very often when it comes to these types of scams that involve cryptocurrencies, digital assets and in particular pig butchering scams, you know, this could have a bit of a dark side. 
Hang on a second. 
Pig butchering scams. 
Fresh moment around that again. 
Pig butchering scams. 
Sure. 
I can describe what that is for our listeners if they're not familiar. 
So, Emanuel, Kyle, any of you, I'm sure you guys have gotten text messages from people that are extraordinarily polite but have the wrong telephone number, right? 
Like, hey, I need to cancel my yoga session tomorrow or, you know, whatever it is. 
And this is, oh, is this is this Devin? 
Oh, I'm so sorry. 
I have the wrong number. 
I might. 
I'm sorry. 
I bothered you. 
Have you received text messages like that where somebody is trying to open up a line of communication with you? 
Yeah. 
How does it involve pig butchering? 
OK. 
So, what's happening there is they're establishing a relationship with you. 
This is the precursor to a long-term social engineering scam that often involves romance, some aspect of romance or in friendship. 
And you get to know this person. 
You know, they'll text you. 
They might even call you. 
You develop a relationship with them. 
You never really meet them. 
Why would anybody do that? 
You just say you have the wrong number. 
Goodbye. 
Why would anybody pursue that? 
Because people are lonely and there's somebody really friendly on the other side and they might send you a picture that, you know, wasn't actually for you, but it's of this attractive person or somebody or they might have done some research on you. 
They know what buttons to push. 
But in any event, these things will go on for months. 
They eventually will get you to invest money in something and then they bleed you out over time, essentially fattening the pig before it's totally butchered, right? 
So, these are what's known as pig butchering scams. 
But on the other side of these scams, I mean, this has been a really, really big problem that started during the pandemic because people were so lonely. 
And it's a massive problem in the United States. 
There's tens and probably hundreds of millions of dollars that is lost every year. 
And a lot of it goes unreported because people are so embarrassed to have been taken by many of these scams. 
But let's say you spin up one of these fraudsters who's involved in a pig butchering scam. 
Well, you think, oh, that's great because now it's sapping the resources of this particular scammer. 
It can't scam other people. 
But very often, the fraudsters and the scammers are also victims themselves in these types of schemes. 
Many times, they come from places, very, very poor countries in Southeast Asia like Cambodia or Vietnam looking for some kind of work. 
And then they wind up in captivity and being human trafficked into these compounds where they're forced to scam for 16, 20 hours a day. 
And if they don't meet their quotas, they can actually be physically beaten for this type of thing. 
So, I think there is this dark side to the notion of, well, let's just spin up these scammers and prevent them from having any victims. 
And, you know, I think, you know, we're treating a symptom of the problem here with Daisy and not necessarily the cause. 
And this could have really major ramifications on people's physical safety in some places. 
It's really, you know, it's really, it's rare that I take this position, but it's really hard for me to feel sympathy for somebody who is actively trying to rip me off, regardless of the situation they're in, which you have no way of knowing what that situation is, unless you have some kind of camera and can see what, who's actually talking to you at that moment. 
It could be anybody, it could be somebody down the block, you don't know this. 
So, I don't know, that's kind of falling on deaf ears here. 
Usually I'd be very sympathetic with something like that, but without actual evidence of a specific instance, it's very hard to feel sympathy. 
Well, it is, it's hard. 
It's hard to identify who's in any of these situations whatsoever, but it's very well documented that this is happening more and more and more. 
It's a terrible thing. 
It often involves kind of states that are on the brink perhaps of failure or known to be extraordinarily corrupt. 
And local police will just let these compounds full of scamper scammers coexist amongst society with, with zero repercussions whatsoever. 
Very often mafia and criminal enterprise controlled scam operations that are, that are massive. 
Go ahead, Kyle. 
Okay. 
I just want to kind of also put out some suggestions in contrast to the hellscape we're painting here. 
Cause it is bad. 
I would, I would get a constant stream of solicitations. 
So, I mean, mixed in with stuff that, okay, maybe, you know, it's a fundraiser for something that I've already participated in. 
That's expected. 
They're going to come at back for, for a repeat business, especially if you didn't opt out or, you know, those I sort of expect, but a lot of the unsolicited ones I was having a lot of problems with. 
And I'm just saying, this is all the more reason to avail yourself of any kind of software that can help you block stuff and reduce the amount of stuff that's coming in. 
Even if I, and this depends on who you are. 
I'm not saying this is the best way or that, um, that I'm bragging here, but I had a really huge, just a volume of crazy, crazy amounts of it. 
I mean, I would play them back for you, Emmanuel, like just the, the hilarity of, and I still get voicemails occasionally, but as far as texting, um, there's pretty good tools for that. 
And if your carrier provides any of them, even if you have like a weird handset or something like that, um, try to play with some of that to make it work for you. 
There was a ridiculous situation where with a carrier, I think even the same carrier I'm with, but it's embarrassing to say I, I, they would like give you a certain amount of numbers you could block, but they really wanted to charge you at a certain point. 
But I think it's become so bad and they're compelled to buy a lot of the hard work that's being done by advocates and people that are trying to, you know, make, make sure the carriers and the, the, the, and the consumers, uh, plight is, is in consideration in the business model. 
And to my point that I think there's a little bit better, um, support. 
And I found using some of that in my particular situation has substantially reduced it. 
I don't really get that stuff. 
If I get like alerts that something has been blocked and I can look at it within my phone's software, but really like, um, avail yourself of whatever tools you can find. 
That's all I'm saying. 
And don't forget, it's not a crime to ignore things. 
If you don't know somebody is calling you, you don't have to talk to them. 
You don't have to answer. 
You don't have to acknowledge. 
You don't have to do any of that. 
And, you know, I just, I just realized how many problems of mine have been solved by simply ignoring, uh, frantic emails, urgent, uh, notices of various sorts. 
Sometimes even when they're legitimate, it's better to just say, you know what, I'll deal with that when, when I have a second, not when you expect me to. 
Don't be, don't be hustled. 
Yeah, exactly. 
On many levels. 
Um, okay. 
Uh, moving on to some, uh, listener mail also on the subject of AI. 
This is interesting. 
Uh, I thought I'd, um, I'd email to, uh, give you my current experience trying to collect a package from FedEx. 
As it's a tale of annoyance of the current state of customer service with the adoption of AI systems to, quote, better direct your call, unquote, or the shipification, which is a radio edit for your convenience. 
Thank you very much for that. 
Of another system, uh, that could easily be done by a human being. 
Uh, long story short, my local FedEx delivery driver could not be bothered to post a card telling me he tried to deliver. 
And the first I saw of this was a message from eBay asking why I was not happy with the package as it was being returned to the sender. 
I immediately went to retrieve the tracking number from the eBay app and tried to select an option on the FedEx website. 
Uh, but it being complete garbage, it would not even show any options for how I want them to deliver my package, like attempt again, leave with neighbor, collect from the depot, et cetera. 
Uh, so, um, cue the first AI assistant who had me in a tracking loop until I finally started deliberately misspelling and typing nonsense to trick it into putting me on a chat with a quote, unquote, live person. 
Um, this sort of the first problem where I could collect the package, but I needed to call the depot to confirm a collection time within their working hours, uh, on calling the number listed in the depths of their website, uh, which is purposefully hard to find, but legally it has to be there somewhere. 
Uh, and then being directed to quote, there, a new number, unquote, upon calling it, I was then connected to AI pretending to be human with all kinds of inflections and fake laughs. 
Um, again, it was, uh, sitting me in a loop saying that it could not connect me as I wasn't the sender or I would not sign up to an account. 
Um, then I remember one of your social engineering panels, uh, from 2006, maybe 2008, uh, when I first started listening to off the hook and off the wall, uh, where you, Emmanuel, were trying to get someone on the phone from AT&T shouting representative down the phone, cutting off the rebel voice. 
Each time it tried to, um, uh, enter a number, uh, upon saying representative, it unlocked, finally put me in touch with a human, but unfortunately I'd been so long stuck in the AI loop that the depot had closed. 
Anyway, uh, a site like, uh, get human, and I'm not sure what this means. 
Say no to 0870, uh, that, that does work sometimes, um, and they are a help, but, uh, it, it misses more than they hit as big corporations try and save costs by making it harder for us. 
That's the consumer to hold them accountable for the terrible services they now offer. 
Um, yeah, uh, anyway, I keep up the great work, uh, with the radio show. 
It makes my drives on a Thursday morning to work much more pleasant in the perpetual roadworks that are the UK motorways. 
Thank you very much, Dom, for that, um, amazing, uh, letter and story. 
And, uh, Dom also gives us a phone number, uh, to try, and I'd like to try it, Kyle. 
This is the surprise I had for you. 
Um, so, uh, this number actually is in the UK. 
So, uh, what I'd like... 
Wait, is the number for air, or do you want me to dial it first? 
Well, this is what I'd like you to do, and, you know, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm just gonna air it all here over the radio. 
Uh, I'd like you to dial it first and, and just basically judge if it's suitable to put on the air. 
And if it is, we'll dial it a second time. 
But when I hand you this piece of paper, I need to note that, uh, you see where it says plus 44 there at the bottom? 
Yes. 
Uh, you put an 011 in front of that, and the zero that follows the 44, just don't dial that. 
That's for domestic use only. 
So only dial 01144 and then the number after the zero. 
You couldn't have written it the way I would have, but it's more fun to explain it live over the air. 
So you're setting me up for such failure here. 
Okay. 
We could be connecting right now, but you're going to connect. 
It's not going to go over the air. 
Oh, I'm wasting time. 
Yeah, you're going to, you're going to connect, and then you'll tell us if it's worth calling. 
While we have a chat, um, yes, 01144 and then no zero, just the rest of the number. 
And it should connect to something. 
And it, it, it might be AI, so, uh, you could be fooled. 
Uh, yes, Alex, go ahead. 
With regard to that zero that Kyle is about to omit from the number, those, that's used in the United Kingdom for dialing city codes, if I recall correctly. 
You put a zero in front of the city code. 
It's kind of like our one. 
We put a one in front of the area code, uh, which you don't do if you're dialing, except you do because our country code happens to be one, but it's a different one. 
If you're calling overseas from overseas, you generally dial zero, zero from overseas, then one for the United States and the area code number. 
Uh, I don't know why we have to dial ones anymore for area codes. 
So Kyle, you have a, um, a report here. 
Uh, you're going to dial it a second time. 
I'm not going to put this on. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
I think we can go with this. 
Okay. 
All right. 
So Kyle's going to redial the number and we're going to put this on the air. 
Uh, and yes, folks, we do have a phone line hooked into our board. 
So, uh, look for, is there anything specifically I was supposed to look for? 
No, just not waking up some poor old lady in the middle of the night in the UK. 
Hey, you know, I was worried that might be what they did. 
They seemed attentive. 
Okay. 
I'm like ready to discuss things. 
Okay. 
Let's, let's, let's, let's do it then. 
And, um, this supposedly is AI. 
It's not a human, but I guess we'll find out. 
Uh, no, it's not, let's not say anything too offensive. 
Um, but we will try to get some kind of a, um, a response. 
And this is the kind of thing that we have to get used to. 
It's going to happen all the time. 
All right. 
I think we're, we're getting connected. 
Please hold while we connect your call. 
Hello. 
Thanks for calling FedEx. 
Please type in your account number or pin, followed by hash. 
If you don't have an account or pin, please press zero, followed by hash. 
Uh, I don't have a touchtone phone. 
What do I do? 
Well, this isn't very good. 
This is not, this is not AI, I don't think. 
This is just a recording. 
Sorry. 
Please type in your account number or pin again. 
You know what? 
Followed by hash. 
Can you just type? 
If you don't have an account or pin, please press zero, followed by hash. 
Zero pound sign. 
They call it hash. 
Okay. 
This call may be recorded for training and quality purposes. 
Visit our privacy notice at FedEx.com for information on how we process your personal data and on the exercise of your rights. 
I never thought of FedEx being in the UK, but I guess... 
Hi, thanks for calling FedEx. 
How can I help? 
Yes, hi. 
I was trying to find my package. 
Sure. 
I just need to collect some details. 
What's your item's shipment number? 
Oh gosh, I don't have that information. 
I was hoping you might be able to tell me. 
How can I help? 
Well, I just said, uh, can you tell me the shipping number for my package? 
Sure. 
I just need to collect some details. 
Yeah, sure. 
What's your item's shipment number? 
Well, that's what I'm asking you. 
Can you tell me what the shipping number is? 
The shipment number is a 12-digit number. 
You should find it in your confirmation email. 
What's your item's shipment number? 
Yeah, you see, um, anyone else want to give us a stab? 
Because I don't think I'm getting anywhere. 
Alex? 
Um, yeah. 
Mm-hmm. 
Take your time. 
Sure, thank you. 
Can you hear me all right, operator? 
In that case, you should contact the account holder about getting your shipment number. 
Is there anything else I can help you with today? 
Uh, can you tell me what time it is over there? 
The delivery time depends on the type of service you ordered with us for your shipment. 
Wow, this is bad. 
Do you know your shipment number? 
Okay, look, we're doing this again. 
Uh, I just need to know what time it is where you are physically located right now as a human being. 
Can you tell me that? 
The delivery time depends on the type of service you ordered with us for your shipment. 
Do you know your shipment number? 
Yes, I do. 
But can you tell me, are you a robot? 
What's your item's shipment number? 
Five. 
Are you a robot? 
You messed it up, Alex. 
If you go to our website, FedEx.com, you can reach us through the online chat. 
Or you can contact the account holder. 
I'm only able to transfer account holders to our customer service agents, I'm afraid. 
Why? 
Is there anything else I can help you with today? 
Uh, yes. 
How can I help? 
What's the phone number for UPS? 
The quickest way to find a delivery station is to use the FedEx location section on our website. 
Go to FedEx.com and scroll all the way down. 
You'll see it under More About FedEx. 
Goodbye. 
Is there anything else I can help you with today? 
Goodbye. 
Please. 
Goodbye. 
Have a lovely day. 
Goodbye. 
Yeah. 
Okay. 
Yeah. 
I don't know, guys. 
I don't... 
I wasn't impressed. 
I wasn't that impressed. 
I mean, it's AI, but you could tell it was AI. 
Her responses were awful. 
She didn't really engage in conversation. 
It just... 
It felt artificial. 
What out of 10? 
Um... 
I'm going to give it a 3. 
We're going 3? 
Yeah, because, you know, um... 
Uh, it was clear. 
You could understand what she was saying, but she wasn't really addressing the... 
The, um... 
Uh, the questions. 
And I didn't really get the sense that she was trying to fool me at all. 
Uh, it was so clear that this was, uh, AI. 
And, um, not a very good one at that. 
But, you know, it scares me because I know it's going to get so much better. 
And there will come a day where I can't tell the difference. 
Yep. 
There are phone AI systems that will, like, do a fake laugh and assure you that they're not a robot, um, when obviously they are. 
And, uh, I was expecting something like that from this. 
So it is a little disappointing. 
I would say maybe, uh, maybe a 4 out of 10. 
And, uh, Alex, I think maybe a 6 out of 10. 
All right. 
If you have AI numbers for us to try, please email OTH at 2600.com off the hook. 
The, uh, program about technology, hacking, privacy, and all sorts of other scary things in our future right here on WBAI, which, by the way, you should be supporting. 
Uh, please keep this voice on the air. 
Keep these many voices on the air. 
Uh, go to WBAI.org or go to buddy.wbai.org to become a BAI buddy where you pay a monthly amount and that adds up to a yearly amount, which really helps us out. 
And, uh, unlike the, um, the PBS calls that Kyle was getting because he made the mistake of donating to them once, uh, we will not harass you. 
We will not, um, uh, hound you with phone calls or spam of any sort. 
Uh, but we will invest your money into the radio station and keep 99.5 FM broadcasting, uh, to the greater New York area, as well as to the world in a time where we really, really need alternative voices. 
You have no idea what we're facing coming up. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
Yeah, I mean, the, uh, the Tuesday after, uh, Thanksgiving, which is right before we're on the air next week, is Giving Tuesday, I believe. 
And, uh, that, that has become a day of, uh, sort of traditionally giving to causes and, uh, organizations in which you believe, um, charitably speaking. 
And, uh, yes, we at, uh, WBAI would very much appreciate being part of your Giving Tuesday if indeed you celebrate. 
And, honestly, even if you don't, um, there may be, there are lots of options, especially as we come toward the end of the calendar year. 
The Pacifica Foundation is a registered 501c3 nonprofit. 
So any gifts you make to WBAI or the Greater Pacifica Foundation are, in fact, tax deductible, um, amazingly enough, so you may be able, if you are a listener who has an IRA and you are subject to required minimum distributions by the end of the year, you can make tax-free RMDs to the Pacifica Foundation directly. 
It's, it can be tax advantageous for you. 
Um, you can see if your employer has a matching gift program. 
There are all kinds of ways to donate to the radio station that are not necessarily going to affect your monthly bottom line in any way that is problematic for you. 
And, like I said, yes, we are WBAI.org. 
If you visit WBAI.org slash about.html, you can find out about our 501c3 status. 
So if you are a DAF holder, if you are an IRA enrollee and you want or need to make donations, you can always look us up by our EIN number, which I cannot find at the moment. 
But please believe me, if you look up WBAI or the Pacifica Foundation, you will be able to find it in any place. 
You'll be able to find us in any. 
Direction of nonprofits. 
That will enable you to give directly to the radio station. 
You can always, always, always visit give to WBAI.com. 
Org. 
Org. 
Darn it. 
Nick, you can give that way. 
But if you're also looking at other modalities, those are options as well. 
We appreciate everything. 
And don't forget that if you give an aggregate of $25 or more over the course of the year, you become a voting member of WBAI, which is a very good thing to be. 
So, again, that can be a BAI buddy. 
If you give $2.50 monthly, congratulations. 
By the beginning of next year, you'll be a member of WBAI. 
We hope you give more. 
But even $2.50 a month will do it. 
Yes. 
Thanks for all that info. 
Now, tomorrow's Thanksgiving. 
In fact, it's the latest that Thanksgiving can ever be, November 28th. 
It can never be the 29th. 
So that's something. 
But, you know, a lot of us are facing some difficult times ahead, some questioning of where we're headed as a country, where we're headed as individuals, what we're facing, the challenges ahead. 
It might be a tough time to say what you're grateful for, but I'm going to give it a stab here. 
First of all, I'm grateful for all you guys, because you really are one of the highlights of the week, just hanging out, talking, and having this incredible facility to be able to do that. 
So I'm very thankful for WBAI and all the people who make WBAI possible. 
And I just hope that in the challenging times ahead, we get to meet more of them, and we get to come together and join forces, despite differences, which we inevitably will have, to fight what I can only describe as darkness and evil and hatred, prejudice, a lot of bad things. 
But this is where we have to stand up and be counted. 
And I really hope that that's something that we see, not only with WBAI and Pacifica, but throughout society, because we really, really need that more than I think we've ever needed that before. 
Alex, I wanted to ask you something, a little bit off topic here, but kind of still along the vein of what we talk about. 
Um, we're seeing the, um, um, various members of Trump's cabinet being announced. 
And, you know, it's, it's usually a light point of the day where we all have a good laugh as to just how incompetent this person is. 
Um, but something that really concerns me is the, um, what, what, what seems to be, um, um, I guess a policy of bypassing FBI background checks. 
What Trump is saying is that they're just going to use private security or some kind of private investigation, uh, to vet people. 
And he's extremely hostile towards, uh, various law enforcement agencies, including the FBI. 
It seems like he wants to just not use them at all, uh, not acknowledge them at all. 
And we could wind up with a bunch of super unqualified and possibly dangerous people in very powerful positions. 
And I was just wondering what, what, um, your view on that is. 
Is there any kind of, um, uh, legal response to this that still exists after the Supreme Court has been compromised along with so many other federal courts in the, in the country? 
Uh, can the FBI background checks of some of the most important positions on the planet, can that legally be bypassed? 
Yeah, this is a, I think a really terrifying prospect that the Trump administration is proposing here, having gone through the background check for a top secret clearance with access to sensitive compartmented information. 
When I used to work within the intelligence community, I mean, it's no joke. 
It is a very serious, very rigorous background check. 
I also had to be subject to a polygraph with respect to my lifestyle. 
So a lifestyle polygraph, one of the topics, by the way, was the misuse of information technology. 
So that was a fun one to deal with during a, uh, a polygraph as somebody who's a hacker. 
But look, I told the truth, I got through it and I wound up getting the, uh, security clearance at the time. 
It seemed improbable that they would grant it to me, but, uh, but you know, there, there you have it. 
But I think it was extraordinarily important vetting process because they're looking for vulnerabilities in people. 
And I think Trump wants to bypass this very obviously because the people that he's proposing have vulnerabilities. 
They have weaknesses. 
They would be considered unfit most likely for any kind of security clearance, let alone a top secret clearance that they're probably going to have if they're working within intelligence or law enforcement. 
Uh, and not to mention access to sensitive compartmented, highly controlled information. 
These are our nation's secrets being put into the hands of people that are eminently unqualified. 
Uh, he's looking for some kind of private investigation firm, some kind of private sector entity that he can essentially just pay to rubber stamp on some nonsense investigation and then grant these people a security clearance by virtue of his executive fiat. 
Uh, legally, I don't think there is a, a lot that can be done because he is the president of the United States and he has extraordinarily wide latitude with respect to who gets access to certain intelligence documents and who does not. 
He can classify and declassify documents at will as well. 
So it would be very, very difficult, I think, for somebody to do this. 
I would say though that, you know, maybe there is an avenue by which you may be able to seek something like a writ of mandamus from a federal court that would compel an agency not to use these types of private investigation firms as opposed to official government channels for these types of investigations because of the grave national security consequences here. 
And, and I really want to emphasis the word grave here because people can be going to their graves if certain information is compromised. 
We're talking about sources and methods of intelligence, of intelligence collection. 
And those sources are people who are putting their necks and lives and their families' lives on the line for the benefit of the United States, often in hostile territories where to, to work with the United States and the intelligence community, let's just say, wouldn't be the best way to win friends and influence people. 
So I think this is really dangerous. 
There aren't a lot of remedies that I can think of off top of my head to, to fix it. 
But also just while, while I'm here talking, I want to say, you know, I'm, I'm also very thankful for WBAI this Thanksgiving, this special Thanksgiving show and this, this sense of belonging or the, you know, as the, the Welsh would say, this sense of kind of Kenevan or this habitat, the sense of belonging that tends to, tends to, to shape us and mold us into who we are because this place definitely has done that for me over the last 30 something years. 
Yeah. 
I have to echo that. 
I can't, uh, emphasize enough how much, um, uh, this show, let alone the station has, uh, helped all of us individually, but also so many other people, uh, who have listened to the show or have been featured on the show in one way or another. 
Um, it's so important to be able to, um, to reach out to all of you. 
And, uh, we are definitely grateful for that. 
Uh, but you know, your words kind of terrify me because it seems like there's, there's, there's precious little that can be done. 
And I wonder if this is some kind of fatal security flaw in our constitution where we just put too much credit on one person. 
And if that one person happens to be a maniac, there's nothing you can do. 
And if he works with other people that are dedicated to making this maniac as powerful as possible, and they, they, they play the long game and stack the courts and get rulings and precedent, um, it just seems like you've got a situation that's not easy to get out of anytime soon. 
I mean, you know, we have, um, uh, the, uh, the house of representatives, which is more concerned with keeping a trans member of Congress out of the women's bathroom than anything else, you know, I, I mean, I, I cannot think of an institution, high schools, universities, uh, commercial buildings that haven't treated situations like that far better than elected officials have done. 
It's, and this is what we have to look forward to and, and, and shout out to Sarah McBride for being the adult in the room there, maybe the only adult in the room saying she's not going to have this ridiculous fight with them. 
She'll obey whatever rules they come up with, but it's obviously, it's obviously completely insane and, and such a, a big deal out of something that should not be a big deal at all. 
And, you know, it's, it's, it's really, it's not something you're, you're, you're motivated to, um, uh, to fight because, you know, if you win the fight, what do you get? 
You get to share a bathroom with Marjorie Taylor Greene. 
That's not much of a prize. 
Come on. 
It's awful. 
The whole thing is, is ridiculous, stupid, and a waste of our time and an embarrassment in front of the rest of the world. 
But maybe we need this. 
Maybe we need to go through all this, uh, in order to, um, to, um, I don't know, build up stronger, but again, tough times ahead. 
We'll just have to be, uh, alert and, and, and stay on top of things and, um, make sure people have a voice. 
Yeah. 
And, uh, we can do that on, we can do that here on WBAI only with the help of you, the listeners and, uh, you know, talking of things for which we're thankful. 
Well, I am so thankful for each and every one of you out there who have, um, been so gracious as to continue to allow us into your homes, into your cars, into your earbuds, headphones, speakers, various audio induction devices, and, uh, you know, take interest in what we're doing here on this program, on this station, um, on this network. 
And, uh, you know, it's just you that keeps us going. 
It's just you. 
That's the reason we do every single bit of what we do here. 
And, uh, it's, it's really, it's really an amazing thing that this, uh, station was even able to happen at all in the first place. 
Nothing like this could ever just fall into place again. 
Like it did look at the history of the station. 
If you'd like a really interesting read and, uh, yeah, just keep us going, uh, give to WBAI.org. 
Hey, we have another letter. 
Um, again, you can write your letter to OTH at 2600.com. 
And this comes from Gapster. 
Uh, just got done listening to Off the Hook from, um, the 20th last week. 
It's either the, uh, Overtime or the show on WBAI. 
Uh, you were talking about bad URLs. 
Uh, you probably already know this, but, um, you didn't bring it up during the broadcast. 
Actually, I didn't know this, but a decent site for checking URLs and files is VirusTotal. 
That's www.VirusTotal.com. 
As a ham radio person, I have to look for old drivers all the time, especially for Chinese radios. 
And that site comes in handy often. 
So, um, yeah, uh, actually it confirms this was the radio show last week, not over time. 
Uh, please keep doing what you're doing. 
I will be listening. 
Thank you, Gapster, for that, for that letter. 
And again, uh, if you want to write us a letter, O-T-H at 2600.com. 
Go ahead, Alex. 
You are muted once again, Alex. 
You're still muted. 
I don't know why you have such trouble with this. 
It's a button. 
Now I'm back. 
Now I'm back, right? 
Okay, yeah. 
Yeah, it's annoying, because using an X-Tar, but anyhow, the, uh, I think it's a great point that Gapster brought up there, you know, and we totally did omit that. 
Another great resource to check URLs is urlscan.io. 
Uh, and that will also check it for kind of known IOCs or indicators of compromise, malware, other reports. 
You'll be able to see if other people scan that particular site, maybe get a screenshot of it before you visit it. 
So urlscan.io as an input output or Indian Ocean is, uh, it's also a great resource. 
And, uh, to close off, uh, tonight, um, an online course founded by the far-right influencer Andrew Tate was breached by hackers, revealing the email addresses of roughly 325,000 users. 
The, uh, self-described online university known as The Real World offers users advanced training and mentoring for around $50 a month, formerly known as Hustlers University. 
They have no shame, do they? 
The, uh, platform focuses on topics such as health and fitness, financial investment, and e-commerce businesses. 
Money-making is a skill. 
The website states, we will teach you how to master it. 
On Thursday, the hackers made their actions known by flooding the course's primary chat room with emojis they uploaded while Tate was streaming an episode of his show, Emergency Meeting on Rumble. 
The emojis included a transgender flag, a feminist fist, an AI-generated image of Tate draped in a rainbow flag, uh, another where his buttocks are enlarged, and, um, the cat character used in the boy kisser meme. 
So, I don't know, is that enough? 
Does more need to be said? 
Um, you know, this doesn't make me feel bad at all. 
It really doesn't. 
Uh, it's a horrible person, uh, that attracts more horrible people, and any embarrassment that goes their way makes me smile. 
Uh, the Daily Dot was provided with approximately 794,000 usernames for what are believed to be the site's current and former members, as well as the contents of the platform's 221 public and 395 private chat servers. 
A list of 324,382 unique email addresses that appear to belong to users who were removed for failure to pay, was also handed over, uh, in a statement on the breach. 
The hackers claimed that after accessing the data, they were able to leverage a vulnerability to upload emojis, delete attachments, crash everybody's clients, and temporarily ban people from the platform. 
So, uh, yeah, um, analyst of the chat logs by the Daily Dot shows everything from inspirational quotes and progress updates to complaints over the LGBTQ agenda, which these people are obsessed with, maybe it's just the MSM, one of them says, but I am starting to fear for my own safety and the future of the USA. 
Shootings every day, LGBTQ agenda, the matrix, I live in a very good area with a very good home life, but I am sick of all the garbage happening here. 
Wow. 
Uh, the fear and imagination these people have, it's just, uh, it's, it's, it's unbelievable. 
Um, so yeah, all of that is, uh, now exposed to, um, to everybody, I suppose. 
Um, the email addresses from the dump were provided by the hackers to have I been pwned a service that alerts users when their credentials are leaked and those email addresses, as well as the chat data were also handed over to the journalism collective DDoS secrets who have been on this show many times, which, uh, host hacked and leaked data to in the public interest. 
And this certainly is in the public interest. 
Any thoughts in the one minute we have? 
The cat from the boy kisser meme is very cute. 
Good to know. 
Good to know. 
Alex, quickly. 
Alex, please. 
Can you just leave the button off? 
Yeah, there we are. 
Is this, is this better? 
Oh yeah. 
Yeah. 
Anyhow, uh, happy Thanksgiving, everybody. 
We've got some real time questions coming in, but you can join us on YouTube for overtime in a few minutes. 
That's right. 
Uh, I will just say happy and I'm thankful for all of your hacks. 
All right. 
Good, good, good, good, good not to end on again, right to us. 
oth at 2600.com support WBAI wBAI.org and join us at eight o'clock Eastern time on YouTube channel 2600 for overtime, where we can take your calls and comments on the chat. 
But have a good holiday. 
Don't be too scared of what's coming up. 
It's going to be nuts. 
It's going to be crazy, but, um, it's also going to be funny and we're all going to get through it together. 
Good night. 
  And welcome everybody to Overtime. 
Yes, sorry for the late start. 
Kyle and I were brining a turkey, so you have to take a few minutes to do that, and it was touch and go for a second there, but we did it. 
Yeah, I mean, the clock's ticking. 
It's the only break we had all day. 
We're running out of time. 
It's not going to be a full 24-hour brine. 
No, it's not, but it's going to happen. 
But it was pre-brine, so we're cutting ourselves slack. 
Anyway, what are we talking about? 
I don't know. 
We haven't started yet. 
Rob, Gila, did you make it too well? 
We did. 
We are here. 
Alex, you there? 
Unmuted, I hope? 
I am indeed. 
I'm here. 
Good, okay. 
And I hope our listeners are there as well. 
And yeah. 
Can you confirm we're actually on YouTube? 
We are indeed. 
We are on YouTube. 
We have 27 folks currently in the chat. 
So I did not get to say on air, because waiting for now, to say, I am grateful for this opportunity. 
I am grateful for this clever and loyal band of listeners that we have who join us here on Overtime every week. 
I am grateful for the opportunity to get to flex my mod muscles once a week. 
And a couple of notes that have come in over the break. 
We do have some questions about what the song was that we closed with. 
One of the people who would like to know is me. 
That was the Fun Boy 3, made up of members of the specials after they broke up. 
And it's called The Lunatics Have Taken Over the Asylum, from their first album, I believe. 
And yeah, it's fitting now. 
It really is fitting. 
That was super—I was jamming out to it. 
That was great. 
Also, just— It slizzats. 
It's a good tune. 
Yeah. 
So just in quick response to something that just came in, yes, Gila is getting soppy. 
Gila could quite easily be boiled down for syrup at any given time. 
But it is true. 
I do appreciate this opportunity to get to interact with all of you folks around the world, actually, during this hour each week. 
And also, someone suggested that they would pay real money to listen to Rebel converse with the British anti-fraud bot. 
Yeah, well, you know what? 
You can do that on your own channel, because I don't think I want to do that here. 
In fact, you know, I think we should be paid money just to hear Rebel talk to us. 
That's just my personal opinion. 
And is that him who's calling right now, Kyle? 
I mean, has somebody already called before we even gave out the phone number? 
It might as well be. 
Yeah, sure. 
All right. 
Good evening. 
You're on Off the Hook Overtime. 
Go ahead. 
Yeah, hi. 
Oh, it's not. 
I appreciated the discussion. 
Yeah, I'm not Rebel. 
That's my call name, not Rebel. 
Okay, you're not Rebel from now on. 
Right. 
That's good. 
I appreciated the talk about AI. 
I just wanted to suggest three sub-stack newsletters that you and your listeners might be interested in. 
One is called AI Snake Oil. 
It's www.aisnakeoil.com. 
It's based on a book by the same name, by these two scientists. 
There's another one that's called Marcus on AI. 
That's by Gary Marcus, who's a cognitive scientist at NYU. 
And you could just Google Gary Marcus AI, and that should come up. 
And the last one is called understandingai.org. 
Okay. 
And they're all good. 
All good newsletters. 
All right. 
I hope our listeners are taking note. 
Yeah. 
And I had a question, actually, for you and people on the chat. 
Whenever I come across a sub-stack newsletter, I always go to the profile page to learn about whatever I can about the author. 
And I'd like to look at their reading list to see what other sub-stack newsletters they read. 
And the other day, I came across one by this woman. 
She's a tech person. 
And her reading list had 495 sub-stack newsletters on it. 
And that's the biggest reading list I've ever seen on a sub-stack newsletter. 
And I was wondering if any of you guys have ever come across a sub-stack newsletter that had a reading list with more than 495 sub-stack newsletters. 
Considering that this is the conversation where I've heard the word sub-stack more than any other, no. 
I'm not overly immersed in that world. 
I don't know if you guys are. 
I haven't explored it that much. 
I'm not familiar how exactly all that works. 
And I'm just – that's all sort of a new world to me. 
Well, you should definitely check it out. 
Yeah, it's like any – It's like a pay-for – It's like a blog that you subscribe to. 
Sorry. 
Well, it varies from newsletter to newsletter. 
Some people are very generous. 
And they will give you a good percentage of content for totally free. 
And other people are more restrictive. 
So it's just based on the individual preference of the creator of the newsletter. 
Like I said, some of the stuff is a lot. 
Some people are very generous by nature, and they'll give you access to a large percentage of it for free. 
And almost everyone that I've come across will at least give you like a one-free-week trial subscription. 
And you can browse it free and get access to everything. 
And at the end of the week, they'll ask you if you want to join. 
Interesting. 
So there's really no downside to it. 
And like I said, that's almost any topic you could think of. 
Obviously, it's geared toward technology. 
But there's a lot of other topics as well, politics, art, music, literature, stuff like that. 
So I just wanted to put that out there for the listeners. 
Okay, well, you know, I'd like to hear other perspectives on it, and I'd like to have us experiment with it as well and learn more about this. 
There's so much out there, so, you know, we're not on top of everything, unfortunately. 
No, I understand. 
But I just thought since you're kind of on the fence, I could tell about AI, you know, as far as you're not necessarily a proponent or a skeptic. 
You see the positives and negatives, so I just wanted to put that out there that these three, for people that want to get in, you know, different perspectives on it, I definitely think they'd find some good information there. 
Yeah, AI, you know, we find AI to be really good for technical answers to things. 
Kyle, you were looking something up the other day, just how to get a particular type of bolt or something. 
I was curious about the right types of fasteners to do bonding to a ground plate, like when you're trying to earth electronic equipment, and I wanted to, like, want to figure out if I should use aluminum lugs or copper or what kind of fasteners to use to complete that. 
And you might be able to get into a good conversation with somebody down at the hardware store, but not at three in the morning, and not if you can't find a hardware store anymore. 
But AI had an answer within a second, so yeah, it's good for that kind of thing. 
But again, if you ask it factual information about almost anything, it's going to get some facts wrong, because it's relying on how it was programmed. 
So yeah, you know, it's fun to play with. 
I didn't even think of using that, too. 
Like, I've been sort of just listening to the discussion and what people are using it for. 
I hadn't really, like, started using it for that kind of stuff myself, and you kind of coaxed me into just playing with it or trying some stuff like that for what I was talking about. 
Well, I didn't know the answer, so that's why I coaxed it. 
Yes, for what I was going on about. 
No, I'm not thinking for you necessarily, but yes, I was going on about some stuff, and you had a great suggestion. 
I hadn't thought of it, and I just think that that's the kind of stuff I should be thinking of. 
It's much like what you would say to someone like Google it, right, in the past. 
It's that useful for certain things, and integrating it to your sort of human way of problem solving, which is talking to other people or reading up on stories or posts about how people have dealt with similar things or watching YouTube videos. 
I think it's really accelerated getting answers to those kinds of things, sort of an expert, simulated expert that you can have an ongoing discussion with is kind of intriguing to me and would be useful for the kinds of things I'm working on constantly. 
Any other questions, caller? 
Yeah, I just want to recommend one other thing. 
Since you mentioned YouTube, I'd say go on YouTube and type in Gary Marcus and Jeffrey Hinton because there's a lot of good videos of the two of them discussing the perils and promises of AI, and I think they're two of the more responsible people on it because they can see the pluses and minuses of it. 
So I'd definitely say check those guys out, both of them on YouTube. 
Gary Marcus and Jeffrey Hinton have given many interviews and lectures on the topic. 
And thanks again for a great show, and happy Thanksgiving. 
And same to you. 
Thanks for calling. 
And our phone number, which we have not given out, is 802-321-4225. 
Did I get it right? 
802-321-HACK. 
Yes, go ahead, Rob. 
And talking of videos on YouTube, we haven't mentioned that we're finished putting up the Hope videos from last conference. 
You're absolutely right. 
We didn't mention that. 
On this very channel. 
We are so bad at self-promotion, yes. 
On this very channel, channel 2600, which you're on right now if you're listening to us live on YouTube, if you wander away, you'll find the Hope section where every video from every Hope conference exists. 
And within the last week, we put up Hope XV, the conference we had last summer. 
And they're all there. 
And not only are they all there, they have four different languages captioned. 
That's one of the reasons why it took so damn long to get them up there, because YouTube made that very difficult to upload. 
But we did it. 
It's all there. 
And you can now see captions in English, of course, French, German, and Spanish. 
And I know there are more languages, but that's all we got right now. 
I think you can auto-generate more. 
I'm not sure how accurate that would be. 
But this is – it's an advantage or, you know, a step forward for us. 
I'd just say it is incredibly pleasant to see the videos and go through them, picking things that I had meant to see during the event. 
And it's something that, for me, my availability to actually visit and do those things has been very hard. 
And I'm actually maybe several conferences behind on what people are actually talking about, which is sort of, for me personally, like hard to grapple with. 
I feel alienated and get it like I'm not as fortified with what hackers are discussing as I should be because of increasing responsibility and just a lot of hardship. 
It's been difficult to eke out time. 
People are very busy, and especially when we're putting on the events and planning them. 
And it's just really convenient to be able to see what everyone was working so hard to capture and that it was captured and then to actually be able to spend some time listening to what people are talking about. 
It's so rewarding if you've had a – just a difficult time kind of making a space to actually soak it up. 
I've just – I've got to work on that personally because I'm so – in a frenzy, and I think everybody can relate, especially people volunteering and helping out, working on things, staff, friends, everybody that was involved in the event. 
And to know that it's there, it's captured, and that we can actually see it, and then it will be out in multiple languages the way it is, I'm just thrilled. 
Are we still talking about that? 
Yeah. 
Okay. 
We have a phone call. 
Oh, we do. 
Okay. 
Good evening. 
You're on Off the Hook Overtime. 
Go ahead. 
Yes, Emmanuel. 
You're number two this week, Rebel. 
You're slipping. 
You know, you were talking about AI or listening to the radio about, you know, on Off the Hook on your – on, you know, the show on the radio. 
AI has called me. 
They always – you know, I always get calls from, you know, automated, like, recordings. 
But I don't know if it's AI or just a recorder. 
I guess it's voice recognition. 
I guess we could call AI voice recognition because voice recognition uses AI or – AI uses voice recognition. 
By the way, please turn my volume up because I can't hear it. 
Are you a robot? 
No. 
Oh, my God. 
That's exactly how they respond. 
That's exactly how they respond when you ask them if they're a robot. 
They laugh. 
If you would like to hear a robot. 
Wow. 
What do you do with – what's the real Rebel? 
If you'd like to hear the robot that called me, would you like to please hold and I'll – Are we going to do this again? 
Every time you do this, it just winds up with a long period of silence, and we wind up with nothing in the end. 
Oh, the game's Rebel. 
This works. 
I know this works because I've tried it, so hold on for a minute. 
We'll give you one chance. 
One chance. 
Hold on. 
All right. 
While we're on hold, let me again give out the phone number, 802-321-4225. 
Did I say 801-802-321-4225? 
You know, I can't keep track of what I'm saying. 
802-321-4225, and here is Rebel. 
Hey, it's Bill. 
Call me back at this number, please. 
Who the hell is Bill? 
Okay, hold on. 
Let me try that again. 
Wait, why would you – why did we hear that? 
Hold on. 
What are you calling? 
I said I'd give him one chance. 
Are you today? 
I don't know. 
Who is this? 
It's Bill Pickard over at National Gold and Silver. 
Oh, hey, Bill. 
Yeah, what's up, Bill? 
I was just reaching back out to you. 
I called back in early March about some physical silver at the time. 
How have you been holding up since then? 
Well, you know, March is a long time, Bill, and it's been rough. 
It's been really rough. 
I was hoping to hear from you sooner. 
I hear you, and I'm glad we're reconnecting now. 
Listen, I'm calling you today because our firm just acquired 12 original treasury rolls of the solid silver Ben Franklin half dollars. 
You're familiar with the Ben Franklins, right? 
Bill, I feel like you're not hearing my concerns. 
You let me down. 
I wanted to talk to you this summer. 
The whole summer was ruined because I didn't hear from you. 
I didn't know if you were alive or dead. 
You know how that made me feel? 
And what about – I get it, and I'm sorry if I let you down. 
That's on me, and I'm here now to make it right. 
Let me show you why I'm calling. 
Do you have the Kennedy half dollars? 
Right now, we're focusing on the Ben Franklin half dollars, which are even more unique and valuable because they're still in their original mint wrappers, untouched for about 60 years. 
These are a rare find. 
Let me tell you why this is worth your time. 
Would you like to hear artificial intelligence talking to – That was kind of fun, actually. 
I was wondering how long I could string him along. 
What's he connecting to us? 
Okay, all right. 
Well, that was a good one. 
That was probably his best call. 
What the hell are you talking about? 
I didn't even start talking yet. 
I want that guy's name. 
How many of them are there? 
Are they reproducing as we speak? 
Yeah, are you stacking them up or something? 
Okay, the person doing this is Rebel. 
You know where to find him. 
All right. 
It seems like you're not taking this call. 
I appreciate your time. 
All right. 
Have a good day. 
All right. 
Take care. 
Payments as usual. 
If you have any questions or need a – All right, Rebel. 
That was fun. 
That was a bit fun. 
I'm going to give you a minute to say anything else that's on your mind. 
Okay, let's see. 
All right. 
That's pretty much what I expected. 
He's still there. 
It seems like you're not – Look, robots, hang up now. 
Have a nice day. 
Bye-bye. 
You too. 
Have a nice day. 
Take care. 
Bye. 
How many of them were there? 
I don't know. 
You know, I just counted. 
I think there were three. 
Wow. 
That was a little scary. 
But at least they listen when you tell them to hang up. 
Yeah, that's what called you, artificial intelligence. 
Not three at the same time. 
That's a little much. 
Well, that's what I like to do. 
You know, use three-way and four-way and, you know, have them talk to each other. 
Anything else that you want to share with us, Rebel? 
Let's see. 
Hold on. 
No more phone calls. 
Let's see. 
One more minute, ma'am. 
I'll look that up. 
All right. 
Well, it's been pleasant. 
You guys in Skyline, you can say anything, anytime, you know? 
We did have someone suggest that Rebel's Fork of Skynet is glitching. 
Yeah. 
No, that seems accurate. 
That seems like something I could definitely see happening. 
I think we should have that hearing. 
You know, that thing is in the United Kingdom. 
Yeah. 
You mean Daisy? 
Yeah, we should have Daisy here. 
And I'm sure Daisy will come here at some point. 
I'm not sure what she'll sound like. 
Yes, Gila? 
I will say one thing that I found fun is that part of the reason that they named the tool Daisy is because AI is right there in the name. 
It just took me a second. 
I need to see it written out. 
But lowercase D, capital A, capital I, S, Y. 
It's AI. 
I guess. 
I thought of the song Daisy from 2001, but that's, you know, that's just me. 
That works, too. 
Oh, see, and I was thinking of Daisy Daisy with the bicycle built for two. 
Yeah. 
But, again, maybe that's just me. 
Hip and happening chat this evening. 
Not hip, but the chat is hopping this evening. 
I am going to make an official request to keep it pleasant, civil, and apolitical. 
Um, and if it, again, mod muscles, um, I have no problem with that. 
And, um, I think that's all I had for now. 
Okay. 
Yeah. 
Common sense. 
What, what is, uh, happening there isn't really what we're talking about. 
I have no idea what it is. 
I'm sure it's lovely, but we'll talk about all kinds of things. 
Yeah. 
So, stay mad. 
Gila's the only one who's legally required to look at the chat. 
Um, we don't look at the chat here. 
I don't know if Alex does, but I have no idea what's going on, and that's just the norm. 
I, I watch it. 
Uh, sometimes I chime in and respond to things, um, mostly when Rebel's talking. 
And on that note, we're going to say goodbye, Rebel. 
When I tried calling Delta Airlines, I said it had artificial intelligence. 
I was trying to ask a question. 
It said, please enter your flight number, or please enter your Delta Sky Mars, or whatever. 
I don't have a, uh, membership number, or whatever. 
You know, it just, and I couldn't get to a person. 
And that's Rebel's way of saying goodnight. 
So, thank you, Rebel, for calling. 
Have a happy Thanksgiving. 
We will talk to you next time. 
Our phone number remains 802-321-4225. 
802-321-4225. 
Uh, please, uh, call us if you have anything to say. 
And boy, the phone lines are, uh, busy tonight. 
Um, let's see who is out there. 
And good evening. 
You're on off-the-hook over time. 
Hi. 
I was wondering if you could help me. 
Uh, my long-distance carrier apparently has packed up. 
So, I found out. 
I tried dialing long-distance. 
They've packed up? 
What, you mean they've left town? 
Well, they're no longer a going concern. 
Okay. 
Do you mind telling us the name of the company? 
Um, no, I don't. 
What is the name of that company? 
What if you don't know the name of your own phone company? 
It's Crado. 
What? 
Crado. 
How do you spell that? 
Like Crado in unum deum. 
C-R-E-D-O. 
Okay. 
Never heard of them. 
And apparently others didn't either. 
Uh, Alex, you have some information on this? 
I believe they are now, uh, they have been owned by MCI, I believe, for some time. 
Well, MCI hasn't existed either for some time. 
They're owned by Verizon, I believe, right? 
I'm pretty sure that's what happened. 
But Alex, do you have something to say? 
Or are you muted or what? 
Okay. 
Alex is muted. 
So, yeah, continue. 
So, I was just wondering, any advice on who I should switch to now? 
Well, any phone company. 
I mean, what are you looking for? 
Uh, long-distance service. 
Uh, that, uh, if I, if I don't make any long-distance calls in a particular month, I don't get charged a whole bunch of monthly fees. 
These would be nice. 
Uh, yeah. 
Of course, uh, well, the one thing I don't want is to have a package with internet so that my internet and my phone both go out at the same time. 
Yeah, no, that, that, that kind of makes sense. 
Although, uh, I should point out that, uh, many, um, companies use the same wiring so that if something goes out down the road, uh, even if you are different companies, they might still go out at the same time if they're using the same infrastructure. 
But, uh, you know, it's not something I, I think you really have to worry about. 
Basically, you want to find a company that doesn't charge you if you don't use them, and a lot of them do things like that. 
Um, I don't know. 
I haven't shopped for long-distance in forever. 
Does anyone have any, any suggestions? 
And apparently nobody does. 
Not me. 
So, I guess none of us have, um, have a shop for long-distance. 
Have you tried, you know, the big ones like AT&T and Verizon and all that? 
It's for a landline, I take it. 
Yes. 
Yeah. 
Oh, no, they took my copper away. 
It's still a landline, though. 
You know, whatever they- Yes, it is still a landline. 
Uh, Gila, do you have something? 
I, I do, actually. 
Call her. 
If you visit the website Wirefly.com, that's W-I-R-E-F-L-Y.com, there are tools that will help you compare long-distance service providers, which are not that kind of, kind of thin on the ground these days. 
Um, and, yeah, there's information about, uh, long-distance providers for analog, long-distance providers for VOIP plans, um, that may be something to check out. 
Um, I don't know how many standalone long-distance providers really exist anymore, but if you check out Wirefly.com, uh, you'll be able to find information about long-distance phone carriers. 
And, Alex, you have something as well? 
Well, I, I was just so impressed by our caller's reference to the Nicene Creed, the, uh, the Latin version of, uh, the Nicene Creed with the reference to Credo and Unum Deum, and I'm wondering if she can recite the entirety of it in Latin. 
Are you- Wow, homework assignment from Alex here. 
This is what happens when you show the slightest bit of intelligence. 
I'm afraid I memorized it a long time ago. 
I know, I've sung it from Cain times, but I'm not a believer, so. 
Patrum, epipotentum, factorum celia, teri visibilium onium et invisibilium et in unum dominum. 
Alex, it's hard not to see you showing off at this moment. 
Filium deum agentium et ex patri natum anti omnia sequela, deum dee deo lumen de lumenum deum verum dee deo vero. 
So, either that or you're having another episode. 
I'm not exactly sure which. 
That's right. 
Yeah. 
No, but it's a good one. 
That's a, it's, it's a good thing to, I mean, because I studied Latin for many years, so memorizing the Nicene Creed was a way for me to memorize certain grammatical forms and things as well. 
Ah. 
Yeah. 
And you use Latin every day. 
I do, actually. 
Yeah, I mean, I do. 
Actually, you do, because you're a lawyer and they, they say things in Latin for some reason. 
I do. 
Yeah, that's right. 
You know, they're usually de minimis, though, when they do say it. 
Mm-hmm. 
Mm-hmm. 
Uh, did, did, did we help address your long-distance concerns before this unfortunate, uh, detour into Latin? 
Ad nauseum. 
That's right. 
We digress. 
Well, I, I, I have this address to check out. 
I, I don't know until I check it out and see whether I am overwhelmed or not. 
All right. 
Well, get back to us. 
Let us know how you do with, with that information. 
Okay. 
I, apparently in the chat, they want to know, am I the woman, not lady, I'm not a lady, uh, the woman who phoned in before, who mentioned, uh, WBAI voting? 
Yes. 
Eleanor Elizabeth Foreman at your service. 
And the vote has concluded. 
Okay. 
Well, we appreciate everything you do. 
Thanks for calling and, uh, hope we were helpful. 
Thank you. 
All right. 
Take care. 
I just got it, um, uh, Kyle, ad nauseum. 
That's Latin. 
Yeah. 
Wow. 
That was clever. 
I think that went over everyone's heads. 
Once you get your, that wasn't funny though. 
Once you get your SIP server set up, you need the, the D ID, a direct inbound dial. 
And then, oh, we have a phone call. 
Wait, are you talking Latin or are you talking tech? 
Uh, uh, uh, Gila, go ahead. 
Uh, so Alex's little, um, Latin episode did sort of activate the chat. 
But someone asked, is this an exorcism, uh, that sounded like cornholio without the sugar high? 
Um, and Alex sounds either demonic or angelic. 
Is this biblically accurate, Alex? 
I hope you're happy, Alex. 
I hope you're proud of yourself. 
Oh, and one more, one more. 
Um, I just farted or a demon was vacated my body due to Alex's exorcism. 
See what happens when you bring Latin into the mix? 
That conversation just devolves immediately. 
Yeah. 
Yeah, absolutely. 
Reductio ad absurdum. 
Yeah. 
Oh my God. 
But I will say one experience I have that I'm assuming none of the rest of you do is that because I sang alto in choirs when I was younger and, um, there were, we were singing something in Latin. 
So I got the experience of singing the same note in a lot of really like, look. 
Do go on. 
Sounds like it. 
I'm sorry. 
Okay. 
Hold on. 
This is, this is why off the, this is why overtime is so much fun. 
Last time you laughed like that, it went on for a half hour. 
I know, I know, I know, I know, it's, Rob has taped it before. 
It's, and that was, um, I had to learn that to audition for all, all state fire. 
What does cheapio mean? 
That was the, uh, droid from star Wars. 
Yeah. 
I think, I think, I think the noun was in principio, right? 
Where something is like probably in the highest or something like that. 
Wow. 
Yeah. 
It was some sort of, uh, himmy thing that they, it was weird for me to be singing that, but yes. 
Secret in principio, et cetera. 
Listener, send us your remix of what she just did. 
Well, apparently Latin is of more interest than anything else we talk about because, uh, people are really, uh, getting involved here. 
We have another phone call, Kyle. 
Let's, uh, see where this one takes us. 
Good evening. 
You're on off the cover time. 
Go ahead. 
Speak up, please. 
Hello. 
Am I on? 
You're on the air. 
Or, or net. 
Yes. 
So I'm calling from Canada, but I did a lot of work in telecom up until 20 years ago, uh, New York city, Chicago. 
I was always an independent and now I'm here and I've hung out my shingle and I'd like to get some input of what, of something to ask you guys. 
Sure. 
Don't know what you know about our market up here, but we have two, essentially two internet providers. 
They have spent the last 15 years building a monopoly and this would be, uh, for Bell and Rogers, I believe Rogers. 
Exactly. 
Yeah. 
Um, um, I have a, I run a VoIP business and I also, uh, I have a whole bunch of mostly seniors, computer service customers that I support about a hundred of them. 
And they are just Bell and Rogers have teamed up together and they're just killing everybody. 
There are no more contracts anymore. 
No guaranteed rates. 
They raise the rates anytime they want. 
But I have customers here who are paying for their TV, internet, and either a home phone or a cell phone upwards of $450 a month. 
Wow. 
My God. 
And that was Canadian dollars, but still that's a lot of money. 
But still it's a lot. 
And, and, and, and they, and Bell has contracted all of their customer service out to some company in the Philippines and while the Filipino people are very nice and very polite in general, they don't know anything. 
They're only reading from a screen. 
They have to have all, a certain number of chat box checked before they can then click next and go to the next screen. 
And that's all they know. 
And they, and they call, and they don't know anything. 
There's no supervisors available. 
There's no managers available to resolve anything. 
It's, it's, and what they've done, and I'm, I'm looking away to, to fight back at this or come some way. 
They've got it so that all, all internet, all services now, all telecom services, if you read the SLA, it says best effort available at the time. 
That's all it says. 
And that means if your internet goes down, if something goes wrong, if any services go wrong, you know, they'll fix it when they feel like it. 
Wow. 
And there's no recourse and there's no, there's no refund if you're out of service for five to seven or 10 or even 20 days. 
They don't need to care. 
Rogers has announces that all of their, proudly all of their people are serving you from inside Canada, but they're from other parts of the world where they brought their attitudes practices and accents with them. 
And I don't care where they're from. 
I don't care. 
I don't care what race they're, I don't care. 
I just care that when you talk to a lot and we talk to a live human being, they have some understanding of what you want and can talk to you. 
But I have customers that have problems with Rogers call and, and we go to one of their flagship stores that's at the, at the corporate headquarters in that building. 
And what do they tell you when you walk in? 
Oh, you have to call in, talk to people, customer service. 
We can't do anything here. 
So what are they for then? 
If you walk into their office, it's a Potemkin village, you know, they, they've, they've spent a million dollars putting up 51 inch flat panel TVs and all this gorgeous equipment and all this gorgeous stuff and nobody can do anything. 
And they'll tell you that. 
They'll tell you, Oh, we don't do that here. 
It's for sure. 
And, and when you call in after you wait the obligatory 90 minute wait period, uh, you know, we're, you know, we're, we're, we're receiving a higher normal volume cost. 
Your estimated wait time is in excess of 90 minutes. 
Wow. 
And then you get people on the phone who they, they don't know anything. 
They don't care. 
And the, the, the execs at Bell and Rogers, um, we, you've heard of the CRTC, I'm guessing. 
Yes, of course. 
Okay. 
So the CRTC is, is staffed by ex Rogers and Bell execs. 
This is the equivalent of the FCC in Canada. 
That's right. 
And telecom in Canada is the, is the, uh, domain of the federal government. 
And the way I found that out is I was living in a building several years ago that was, it was a small apartment building. 
And one Saturday morning I heard this terrible racket and I went out into the back of the building and, and the people from Rogers had a ditch digging, table digging machine running. 
And essentially there wasn't anything good. 
Local government has no say in what they do. 
They can go right across your front yard and lay copper or fiber or whatever they're doing and put all this stuff down. 
And there's not a thing that you or the local government or anybody can do about it. 
And you cannot file claims. 
You cannot file complaints directly with the CRTC. 
They hire a, they, they have a, um, uh, what I want to say, a public relations company they've hired and you submit the claims to them and then they may or may not review them. 
And yes, and people, and it's like they, they, they've, they've literally created a monopoly. 
There's no recourse. 
There's nowhere to go. 
There's those two. 
Part of the problem is, and I'm in downtown Toronto, but part of the problem is the last mile issue that, you know, 90% of the country's population is in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. 
That's it. 
And so it's so expensive to put stuff out there that they either don't get it or they use us in the city to subsidize their stuff. 
And I understand that has to work, but Rogers and Bell are making record profits, record profits, just like the insurance companies in the U S not income profits. 
And, and now Rogers just, they just announced, Oh, unfortunately we're, we're about to undergo a massive layoff. 
I'm like, so what's going to happen when, when, when King Donald's 25% tariffs go into effect. 
And now all of a sudden they affect everything because everything here terminates. 
There's a big data center downtown. 
It's a completely locked down building. 
You can't get in the place without a card. 
And it is Canada's gateway to the internet. 
So what are they going to, what's he going to do? 
Is he going to tax all the travel, the internet traffic. 
So my big, my big question to all of you guys, because I'm guessing you've been in telecom for a while because I listened to your program occasionally, yes, you know, what can be done. 
I got a lot of, or maybe we're just screwed. 
I don't know. 
Well, yeah, there, there's a degree of that, but Kyle, what do you have? 
Okay. 
So it is a complex problem. 
There are a lot of angles to look at it. 
It is spherical, right? 
It is a, a, there's a lot of interests. 
There's overlap. 
You're correct. 
There's this feeling of that you're working with something that is like the house, you know, in a casino or something. 
It's just the quality of service is just enough to bill their captive customers, right? 
So they can pay online or call in to bill, but that's just about as good as it needs to work. 
As far as the business is concerned, I've thought about this a lot of ways. 
I think we're, um, as, as hackers and, uh, people that play with these systems, like we don't necessarily, um, think of the rules that they want you to play by in how it actually, um, is vulnerable or works. 
And I think that partially the last 30 years to me have been typified by, um, criminalizing and going after anyone that questions the way these casinos are set up. 
That is in the trades, uh, with, uh, intellectual property, you could argue, or with, um, the, the kinds of, um, let's say, uh, controlled access stuff. 
Um, you, you might, uh, site like, uh, DMCA. 
I don't want to go on and go off on a tangent on any of that really, but my point is we've been sort of, um, I don't want to say neutered, but like we've, we've been disarmed and we sit here and we talk about how everything under the sun is hacking and, uh, the actual work that needs to be done ends up being rare. 
While these legal machinations and muddied interests, boards, shareholders, all of it do the ugliest, uh, and most dehumanizing things they can get away with in the marketplace. 
And I, I've thought about it like we can like deconstruct their system. 
We can, um, try to go through the political process and play nice and wait for courts and wait and wait and wait. 
And so we're all dead and gone, but I think what really this boils down to, and we need to get really wise to, and I'm saying if you have any kind of organizations as independent contractors, any kind of power, any kind of, um, uh, other groups that are interested, specifically consumer rights groups. 
But what I'm saying is straight up the only language these entities speak, these firms only understand money. 
You need to go for their money. 
They will only cooperate when they're cut off from the gravy train of abuse of their customers. 
I could go on and on and on, but I'm really like, I'm, I think we've been playing way too nice with firms that are victimizing us. 
And, you know, in, in Canada, things operate a little differently. 
If the CRTC has, has been compromised and is, is controlled by the very companies you're trying to restrict, it's going to be all the harder. 
But one thing that, that strikes me about your story, um, it should be something that everybody in Canada is feeling to some degree. 
Uh, you may realize that there are only two ways of getting connected, you know, either Bell or, or, um, uh, or, uh, Rogers. 
And, um, you know, right away you have that in common with almost everybody else. 
So if you can't get through via the CRTC or through your local government, you can at least get people, uh, ordinary people to realize what's going on, what the problem is. 
And I think maybe the best way is to reach out to media. 
Now, when I say that, of course, um, I think what CTV, they're owned by Bell and, um, uh, uh, city TV, they're owned by, by Rogers. 
I might, I might have that backwards, but, but you're right. 
That's, that's the story. 
I think global is owned by somebody else. 
So there's a third entity. 
I don't think they're owned by either. 
And of course, there's always CBC and they do a great job, uh, you know, talking about things you might even talk to as it happens, uh, which is a great program on the radio. 
Uh, but I think reaching out via alternative media or even mainstream media that is not owned by these companies, that's one avenue. 
That's one way to go reaching out to other people, just making sure, uh, there's mass awareness of this common understanding and tell the story, retell it so that it is that anybody you talk to at Timmy's or wherever in Canada, you know, you basically are talking to someone who already knows every bit of how bad it is for people because the common, uh, nature of this, those common feelings that it's not working, that it is, um, that there, that itself can be the basis, the foundation of the kinds of pressure that, that, um, you would need if there was a moment in a political sense or other realms where you do like a mass boycott or you do other kinds of campaigns once you have people's ear. 
Right. 
And, you know, stickers, get stickers up, get, you know, a movement, a website, all kinds of things. 
Just, you know, this will, uh, be a snowball effect if it is, you know, as you say, if people are, are really that trapped. 
And again, you know, the, the people in the Philippines, they're not the problem. 
They're a symptom, you know, they're victimized as well, uh, you know, by, by working for pennies doing this, uh, amounts to slave labor. 
So, you know, I would, I would save the utter hostility to the corporations that make that happen in the first place because they're the ones making a decision. 
Whereas people, uh, who, who man those call centers almost always don't have a choice. 
Yeah. 
It's just insulating them from answering. 
We need to hack some phone calls of the, of the CEOs of both of these companies and publicly, because we, for example, we had a, Rogers had a, Rogers had a massive outage about, I think it was about two and a half years ago, maybe three. 
And, and, and it literally was on a Friday morning and it was at the end of August. 
It all happened at, it, this had all the earmarks of, of, of ransomware. 
They could say whatever they want, but that's what it was. 
They did this, they, everything went down, everything, the phone went down and they have the contract for the E911 center for the center for the city, Toronto that went down. 
And if you're a bell customer, you still had dial tone, you could call other bell customers, but as much as they could have flipped the switch and put all that stuff over there, they refused to do it. 
Some goofball came out and made a video appearance at about 10 30 in the morning wearing a Rogers badge that says, well, we're still seeking to find the cause, the root cause of the problem. 
What does that mean? 
That's nothing. 
And, and, and I, I can tell you what happened and I've told a couple of people the scenario and they said, well, we can neither confirm nor do I, I said, here's what happened. 
They hit it. 
They got hit with ransomware at seven o'clock at 7 a.m. 
Cause I watched my phone, my internet, everything go down all at the same time. 
And, and they wouldn't allow anybody else to roam over under the bell network or bell wouldn't allow it or, or nobody would allow it. 
So what they, what we sat here with was nothing. 
And what happened, I'm going to tell you what happened. 
All the, it's a Friday, all the Rogers execs are all at their cottages up in cottage country up in, it's called Muskoka. 
They're up there and some poor schmoo had to drive up five and a half hours from downtown Toronto because of course nobody has any service. 
And they go up there and he has to hunt down all these directors who might be on their boats. 
That's my, and finally, by the time they got them all either in a room together because there's no virtual service to do, it's three o'clock in the afternoon. 
And by the time they give them the order to give the ransomware people, there are a hundred million dollars that they're asking for, which I'm sure is going up every 30 minutes. 
Everything magically came back up at seven o'clock, everything at the same time. 
So this is ransomware and they don't care. 
And I was actually at a business dinner with a bunch of people a few weeks ago and somebody told me something that while I didn't know it, didn't surprise me when I heard it, that Rogers operates their own data centers. 
They are now outsourcing them out because they don't want the liability. 
So when there's a problem, they're not going to take responsibility. 
They're going to blame somebody else. 
So with all this and prices going up, people are getting up in arms. 
And so what, so a spokesperson from the CRTC came out and said, well, we're considering inviting the CEO from Rogers to come answer some questions we might have. 
How nice. 
I'm like, yeah, that's what I thought. 
Now they, you know, this, what's happening is they're, okay. 
So I worked in New York city for a small foreign airline from 92 to 2004. 
So what I saw with it in New York was the, what the operating normal operating procedure for everybody was whatever you can get away with, whatever you can get away with. 
Sounds right. 
And version two and version 2.0 of that was woe beyond to those of you who challenge us on this. 
Yeah. 
They go after their own, their own people if you challenge the operations, right? 
Like that's, you know, they, I I'm, I'm hearing this through the lens of the, uh, the recent attack, uh, uh, vulnerabilities with the, uh, American telephone network. 
I think it was, uh, somewhat politically related, but it basically showed that there was a whole lot of back doors and, and, uh, basically the antiquated telephone network that we're dealing with was hanging us all out to dry and we're not going to get anything out of that except the consequences, the people like you're talking about, they're not, they, they, they're down there in Texas. 
They're down there, wherever the hell, you know, uh, they're having a good time. 
They're insulated from it. 
Yeah, they're having a good time. 
They, yeah, exactly. 
And like, do you think that the, like the trickle of information from the government, like, oh, we found out this and all that's, that's a little bit of information there. 
They consider it a cost of money. 
And if they get fined for, see, I remember the days, I remember the days when you had a problem, you called up the public utilities commission for the state you were operating in. 
Yeah. 
And you call them up and say, this is what's going on. 
And what would happen would be you would get a phone call in about 10 minutes from whoever the, you know, offending company was. 
I remember when just saying you were going to go to the public service commission was enough to get them to get off their asses. 
Exactly. 
Exactly. 
So what, what, what would happen would be, you know, you call me, well, now what's happened, they built this and somebody who used to work for Verizon, who's now retired, who was part of the team that made it possible for Verizon to legally start selling long distance service in the late nineties because they were prohibited because of the, of the, uh, divestiture act. 
Yeah. 
And I remember, I'm old enough to remember the divestiture act. 
I remember when it happened. 
I remember reading the book called death, disconnecting parties and how this is all supposed to going to be better service, more competition. 
Well, it kind of sort of was for a little while. 
Yeah. 
But they reformed. 
Yeah. 
They reformed it and they're even worse than they used to be. 
Yeah. 
It's worse. 
And, and the thing is, if they, if they think that like the government, the bureaucracy is mad about this or the businesses are upset about this, I know they don't give a shit, but they should be absolutely much more afraid of the consumers because they've been getting it through like, like paying through the teeth for all of this. 
Oh yeah. 
And now, now you're hanging out all of our information or whatever you have to do so that you can keep billing us after you get past your, your ransomware episodes. 
Like these are, these are institutions that would not hire me. 
You know, they won't, they wouldn't let me through. 
They barely let me into their cell phone stores or whatever, their retail outlets. 
Yeah. 
Like they treat people horribly. 
And I think that the, their lack of fear is itself foolish because they've, you can piss people off for only so long before they're like, wow, this is really, really not right. 
And like, if, if you think a government's mad about it or you think, you know, uh, average consumer or businesses are pissed off about it, just imagine how pissed off I am, how pissed off other hackers are, how pissed off, you know, people in industry trades, people is it's insane. 
It's insane to, to, to try to reason with it anymore. 
It's, it's not built for that. 
So do you, do you know who Bertie Evers was? 
I'm unfamiliar. 
No, I don't know. 
Okay. 
He, okay. 
Bertie Evers started and built a company called WorldCom. 
WorldCom was nothing more than a sales agency. 
They didn't own one. 
They didn't own one foot of networking anything, but they built up enough money that they came in and they bought MCI, bought them out probably in the late nineties, 97, 98, bought them out. 
And they, and, and the company I was working for was a customer of theirs by my, by my recommendation. 
I said, these people are good. 
They gave us, you know, they've given us a great contract offer. 
And then they downed the facility over a holiday weekend, a cargo operation. 
And they were completely down. 
I'm trying to report, I'm trying to report this thing. 
And they won't take the report because in their records, it shows that it's, the services, it was a T1 back then. 
The service is never released for use. 
It's still in testing. 
So they wouldn't even take a trouble report. 
So this was a big, big problem. 
So on Tuesday, I, I, I had dealt with the public utilities commission a couple of weeks prior to something else. 
And then this thing came up and I went, all right. 
So I called the wall street journal. 
I said, how'd you like an article? 
So I got interviewed and they were, they, that was in September one year, almost to the day before nine 11, they ran the article in January. 
And the woman who was the, uh, journalist from the wall street journal shows up at some press conference that Ebers is holding. 
And, and he asked, he said, ask if she's in the audience. 
And after he said, I'd like to talk to you. 
And afterwards proceeds to tell her that everything in the article is a lie. 
To which she replied, Mr. 
Ebers, we're the wall street journal, we're the largest legal fact-checking department of any publication in the entire world. 
We've fact-checked this backward and forward. 
It's all true. 
Now, fast forward, what, two years later, MCI had the largest bankruptcy in the history of the United States, bigger than Enron. 
And Bernie Ebers ended up, um, well, he died in prison. 
He was, he went, he at 62 years old, he was sentenced to something like 50 years in federal prison for everything that he did. 
They were lying to, they couldn't make enough profit off the operation of their business. 
And what they were doing is they were showing all these deals that were happening so that they could get investment bankers to continue to fund them. 
And what happened, it finally came out that, you know, that, that the only reason there was, there was no money changing hand. 
There was no real, you know, nothing was really happening. 
It was all on paper. 
And when, when they found it out and it was fraud, he got arrested and put away and he died in prison. 
Now he's dead. 
I went up against him. 
He's dead. 
And I'm still out here trying to kind of advocate for just the average person. 
Well, I think that's something you will have success with because the average person has to be as pissed off as you are when they hear the facts. 
I hope you keep in touch with us and let us know how, how this is going, because it's something I want to hear from other Canadians too, who can either call or write to us to see if, if, if they want to join forces or if they have additional information to share. 
But I do want to thank you for calling us and for, for sharing this information because it really is interesting. 
And it, it matters both here in the States and in Canada and many other places as well where monopolies take over and they, they make things worse. 
Anything? 
I, go ahead. 
I would be happy to share my, my, my contact information, but not, but, but offline. 
Right. 
Of course. 
If that's, if that's something we can do. 
Yeah. 
OTH at 2600.com is our email address. 
And yeah, we'd be happy to hear from you on that. 
And, uh, uh, please call us again in the future. 
Let us know, uh, how this is progressing or if you have any additional stories to tell, but it is something that I think is of great interest to us and our listeners as well. 
Well, thank you for giving me a bit of an audience and thank you very much for listening to my call and, and your ideas. 
I mean, this is, this is, this is, this is where it might need to start. 
So thank you very much. 
And thank you for caring. 
Take care. 
Okay. 
Have a good evening. 
You too. 
All right. 
We have time, I think for one more call, if it's quick, 802-321-4225. 
Um, guys over in Skype planned? 
So, um, sorry, we got on a massive tangent over in the chat. 
You see, this is why I don't look at the chat because you guys, you go off on a side road somewhere. 
Did you hear our phone call? 
Yes. 
No, absolutely. 
It was a good phone call. 
But people started talking about, um, Lily Tomlin's character, Ernestine. 
Oh boy. 
Yeah. 
I'm familiar with Ernestine. 
Of course. 
Yes. 
So, yes, that's, so people were talking about the phone company and then. 
Yes. 
And particularly that sketch where it was basically just a phone company commercial where she's like, we don't care. 
We don't have to. 
We're the phone company. 
And she, she like pulls a cable and goes, we just lost Peoria. 
We don't care. 
But interestingly enough, I did discover one where she called General Motors and was busy having a discussion with them about, like, she called the CEO of General Motors and was talking about cars and phone service and, um, a fascinatingly subversive character. 
And so, yes, thank you, everybody. 
Now, okay. 
Um, you know, it brings to mind, there's a, there's another sketch, uh, that I know came out on, on, on vinyl many years ago. 
Um, it's, it's two people. 
Everyone thinks it's Lily Tomlin, but it's not. 
It's a guy trying to make a phone call and he's trying to get through to the operator to get his, his, uh, nickel back because, and this is one of the lines from the sketch, uh, operator, I, it's not going to come back when I hang up the phone. 
It hit all those other nickels. 
I've heard that sound all my life. 
I know what it means. 
And you would swear it was Lily Tomlin, but it's not. 
And I can't remember who they are. 
So if anyone has that information, maybe post it to the chat and, uh, you know, we'll find out that way. 
But I, I, I wish I could just remember it, but it's a very famous sketch. 
It's worth listening to. 
And, uh, I will try my best to remember in the minutes ahead. 
And we have a phone call. 
Good evening. 
You're on off the cover time. 
I am so overjoyed to have heard the call before. 
It makes real sense and he knows what he's talking about. 
And we need more people like him on the air. 
And by the way, let me just make a note. 
It would be great if you could manage to be on the air on the air, meaning on BAI as well as here, because, you know, as, as much as it's a very restricted audience, in spite of what they want you to believe, it would still be better to actually be irradiating to the New York metropolitan area rather than talking to the 50 persons who know what they're talking about mostly and are just, you know, the same audience week after week. 
And, and then they talk about Lily Tomlin and, you know, rebel and all that. 
Now I want to, I want to just toggle on what he said concerning the divestor. 
Probably a lot of the audience doesn't know that up until 40 years ago, there was one phone company in the entire continent, and it was called Mabel. 
So then it was broken up by the antitrust division and there were seven or so different phone companies. 
One was Neur Telephone, which then became 9x, which then became Verizon. 
And this is a question mostly for Alex. 
I don't know if I brought it up before, but if you still have a Verizon bill, there is a charge, FCC charge every month, $6.50 the last time I checked. 
I may be the only person who manages to get over Verizon because I don't even look at my bill anymore. 
They send it pro forma and they credit me every month, but it's a longer conversation. 
I want to stick to the point, which is that FCC charge doesn't go to the FCC. 
It's compensation for Verizon for the business that they lost by not being able to do long distance calls. 
As the caller said, somehow this Aaron Scasball managed to find a loophole. 
But why do they keep getting this charge? 
And Alex, can we start a class action suit and recover billions of dollars for the people who've been paying, you know, since this has been going on? 
Yeah, Alex. 
Come on. 
Sure. 
I'm happy to answer this. 
Use yourself, Alex. 
I know you're a lawyer, but here. 
Yeah. 
He's a good lawyer, too. 
He can do anything. 
He really is amazing. 
Well, I'll tell you, I'm not really a class action lawyer, but I do think there's a there there, especially if the answer to your first question is, why are they receiving this particular sum of money that is actually ultimately coming from the taxpayer? 
And thus, it's some kind of mandatory payment that would ultimately be going to Verizon. 
If that's totally invalid, then there's there's a big problem there. 
Then I think there would be a massive basis for a class action suit. 
But I'm not entirely sure about the history of how that information and money. 
I'm sorry, how that money had would be going over to Verizon or any no idea about that. 
But that's certainly I'm sure there's an interesting story behind it. 
But with regard to the class action, if this was invalid, I mean, this is exactly the way. 
And I think I've said this a few times on the show before. 
This is exactly how companies steal millions and millions and millions and if not billions of dollars from people. 
You don't steal 100 million or 200 million dollars from one or two entities or people or whatever it is, because you're going to get caught. 
People are going to sue over it, going to make a fuss over it. 
But if you have 50 million customers and you can steal five or six dollars from each one of them per month, then you're making a ton of money. 
And you also, as the prior calls during this show have indicated, I think really clearly all of the outbound calls to company telephone systems, it's impossible to get anybody on the line to complain about any kind of charge. 
And so to spend 90 minutes on hold dealing with various nonsense and morons to try to get a six dollars back is just not worth anybody's time. 
So nobody deals with it. 
And so in that situation, a class action would certainly be ripe to address that. 
That's how you would do it. 
Well, Alex, even if it's not your field of expertise, I would be willing to put in some serious time and effort. 
And, you know, if I need to send you copies of the bill, which details this charge in different, different fashions, because at first it was just FCC charge, then it's FCC, no, it's charge mandated by the FCC, which is not true. 
Of course, they are, you know, they requested this. 
And either way, it goes to them. 
I did the investigation back in the in the 90s when I first noticed this. 
And I said, what is this? 
And it's they're still getting this from every landline that there is. 
And, you know, there is still at least a couple of millions in New York state and probably some more elsewhere. 
And, you know, they're still making money with long distance and all kinds of other calls. 
So I think there is ground. 
And I think there is money in this, too. 
You may want to invest, you know, an hour or so finding out. 
And as I said, you know, I'm here and I will contact whatever you tell me to do. 
You know, 2600.com. 
I'll send you an email, whatever you want to do. 
I've been wanting to pursue this for many years. 
I thought I could do it on my own. 
I've been looking for a lawyer. 
But, you know, there is not a lawyer like you at every at every storefront. 
Well, that's why he's in such demand. 
And it's very hard to get him to take on every case. 
But there are people out there that I think will be helpful. 
And it's probably organizations we can steer you to. 
Isn't that right, Alex? 
Yeah, there would certainly be some organizations. 
What I would say is, you know, I think you certainly wouldn't want me as your lawyer. 
You would want somebody very experienced in filing petitions for certification of a class action. 
And they're a special breed of plaintiff's lawyers. 
But what I will tell you is, if you reach out to us at OTH at 2600.com, I'll respond. 
And I can put you in touch with some firms that I know specialize in this and that have brought telecom-based class actions in the past. 
Because I've helped them on the periphery of some of these cases. 
So I would have a – I'd probably have a good referral for you. 
A lot of specialized class action lawyers, but not many are specialized in class action and telecom. 
And, you know, it's vital to understand the core of this question, which not everybody can grasp. 
I mean, you got it right away because this is your daily bread. 
But not everybody in the legal profession would. 
The other thing I wanted to say was concerning Daisy. 
This is my – you know, I take the opposite tackle. 
Whenever I get a call from a number that I do not know, I just answer and say nothing. 
And after a while, I get a busy signal because I'm sure you know, you know, these mills, they're very well organized. 
They work in different ways. 
But one of the ways they work, they will spoof a number. 
You think they spoof a number. 
You know, 2-1-2, 9-1-7, whatever. 
And what they actually do is they pay the person whose number it is to do a sort of a third-party calling. 
And after that call is through, I have tried to call back the numbers. 
But, you know, I just do the redial. 
And with the redial, it's not possible. 
But I never actually dialed a number. 
But so, you know, before they hand it over to the actual scam mill, there is the real number that – and I've had evidence of this. 
You know, I have been switched over from one person to another. 
As I said, without saying anything, after a few seconds, it goes away. 
Because, you know, Daisy is great, but if it's a chatbot, it's one thing. 
If it's yourself, you're wasting your own time. 
So, this takes me about 10 seconds, say 15, per call. 
And ever since I started doing that, the number of calls that I get has dramatically decreased. 
All right. 
Well, that's a method that we're going to lay out there as well and see how people do with that. 
We're going to pack it in for tonight, though. 
Thank you very much for your call. 
Thank you. 
All the best to you. 
Thanks. 
Have a great holiday. 
And all our listeners have a great holiday. 
Hey, I just did a little bit of Google research and discovered that sketch I was talking about. 
Yeah, it does exist. 
I didn't make it up. 
It was done by Mike Nichols and Elaine May. 
Nichols and May. 
Yeah. 
Anybody ever hear of them before? 
Oh, yes. 
They're a legendary comedy team. 
They're a legendary comedy team. 
And also, I realized part of the reason you couldn't find it is because it was a dime, not a nickel. 
Oh, that's right. 
It was a dime. 
You know what? 
Because I found it like 10 minutes ago. 
Well, we're going to play it. 
We don't usually do outros on Overtime, but we're going to have an outro tonight. 
And this sketch was from, I believe, the 1960s. 
You know, Elaine May is still alive. 
She was born in 1932. 
So, yeah. 
I don't know if she's doing any more comedy. 
But this is pretty damn funny. 
And it's a sketch that probably inspired Lily Tomlin to do Ernestine. 
Any last words from any of you guys before we pack it in for the night? 
Go ahead, Rob. 
All right. 
You know, this has gotten out of hand. 
You see what you did, Alex? 
You see what you did? 
Yes. 
Doom spirito spero. 
Yes. 
Absolutely. 
Yeah. 
And, you know, just a happy Thanksgiving to everybody. 
And, you know, very, very grateful for everyone and the show. 
You know, so it's a great community of people, I think, that have come together starting during that ridiculous pandemic we had a few years ago. 
It's true. 
Yeah. 
I just want to share one final message from the chat from a good friend of the show, Lex Pendragon, and thank you for teaching me how to say that, who said, even Rebel had a good call. 
This is one of the best overtime episodes yet. 
I absolutely agree. 
It's been a great, great evening. 
Thanks to the 53 people who have hung with us in the chat, even for folks who are in other countries where it's late at night, go to bed. 
Happy Thanksgiving, y'all. 
And thanks for being here. 
We'll see you next week. 
Yes, we will. 
And now we go back to July 9th, 1965, for the telephone company sketch from Nichols and May. 
And we will see you next week. 
Good night. 
Information. 
Operator, will you give me the number, please, of George Kaplan, K-A-P-L-A-N, at 4411 Huguenot Walloon Drive? 
That is George Kaplan. 
Yes, that's right. 
That is Kaplan. 
Yes. 
That is K as in knife, A as in artwork, P as in pneumonia, L as in luscious, A as in artwork. 
Once again, N as in Newell Post, Kaplan. 
I think so, yeah. 
Just one moment, sir. 
I will look that number up for you. 
Thank you very much. 
Operator, if you could try to hurry. 
I am looking the number up for you. 
It's just that I'm terribly late here, and I'm hoping... 
That number is listed in your directory. 
Operator, there is no directory here, I swear to God. 
Will you please take a pencil and write the number down? 
I promise, I definitely will, yes. 
The number is... 
Hello, hello, hello, operator? 
Hello? 
Information. 
Operator? 
Information. 
Operator, you just collected my dime. 
Information is a free service, sir. 
Yes, I... 
When you hang up your dime, we'll be returned to you. 
Miss, listen, I know it's usually a free service. 
See, the thing is, in this case, I heard the dime, you know, hit all those other dimes. 
I know it's in there, and I wouldn't bother you about a dime. 
The thing is, it's my last dime. 
I have no change, and my car has just broken down. 
I'm already over an hour late for an extremely important appointment, so you can see that it met... 
Hello? 
Information. 
Information. 
Operator, please return my dime. 
I cannot return your dime to you, sir, until you hang up. 
When you hang up, your dime will be returned to you. 
No, it won't, operator. 
Listen to me. 
I know that sound. 
I've heard it all my life. 
That dime is in there. 
Information cannot argue with a closed mind. 
Why don't you try hanging up? 
Because I can't take the chance. 
I lose the dime. 
I lose you. 
Look, miss, look. 
Can I go over your head? 
Is there someone else I can speak to? 
A human being? 
You wish to speak to a human being? 
Please. 
Is this about your alleged dime? 
It's a real dime. 
Oh, then. 
Just one moment, sir. 
And I will connect you with the information supervisor. 
Thank you very much. 
Listen, operator, hello? 
Information. 
Listen, there's no chance that you would say, accidentally jostle something with your elbow and cut me off completely. 
We do not work with our elbows, sir. 
Oh, come on, come on. 
Oh, this is terrible. 
Oh. 
Information supervisor. 
Can I help you? 
I sincerely hope so. 
Yes, sir. 
Just a minute ago, operator. 
Supervisor. 
What? 
This is the information supervisor. 
I'm sorry. 
Oh, that's all right. 
Supervisor. 
Yes? 
Just a minute ago, one of your girls inadvertently collected my last dime. 
And as I was explaining to her, my car... 
Yes. 
Bill Kelly Boone doesn't charge a dime. 
Yes, I know. 
When you hang up, your dime will be returned to you. 
I just went through this... 
Information is completely free service. 
Not tonight. 
Now, miss, please try to understand what I'm saying to you. 
I'm speaking as one human being to another. 
Forget that you're an operator. 
I'm a supervisor. 
I'm a information supervisor. 
All right. 
Well, supervisor, Bell Telephone has stolen my dime. 
That's what it comes down to. 
And I'm simply going to have to... 
Just a minute. 
Well, that's what happened. 
You stole it. 
Just a minute. 
I trusted you. 
Bell Telephone didn't steal your dime. 
That is exactly what they did. 
Well, Bell Telephone doesn't need your dime. 
But Bell Telephone Company gets millions of dimes every day. 
They didn't pick out your dime. 
Yes, they did. 
They picked it out and they stole it. 
And if you don't like the way we do things, why don't you deal with some other company? 
You know there's nowhere I can turn. 
You've got to do something. 
Well, I'm not going to argue with you. 
What do you mean you're not going to argue with me? 
You mean to sit there and tell me that you think the Bell Telephone Company has stolen your dime? 
Exactly what I'm saying. 
I'd just be very happy to return your dime to you. 
You will? 
Yes. 
Oh, bless you. 
Thank you very much. 
Not at all. 
What is your name and address? 
Miss. 
Yes? 
You're going to send me a whole lot of stamps, aren't you? 
Yes, we are. 
That's right. 
I knew it. 
Look, I've received stamps from you people in the past and it's a wonderful surprise. 
I need the dime now. 
Look, can I go over your head? 
Is there someone else I can speak to? 
Well, I can connect you with the managing supervisor, Miss Jones. 
Please. 
He isn't going to be able to help you either. 
I'm going to give it a whirl. 
Miss Jones, please. 
And look, please hurry. 
Please. 
Hold the line. 
Come on, come on, come on, come on. 
Managing supervisor, Miss Jones, can I help you? 
Oh, Miss Jones. 
I'm so glad I finally got a hold of you. 
What is it, sir? 
Miss Jones, this is my story. 
Yes, yes, I'm here. 
Oh. 
Miss Jones. 
Yes? 
A long time ago, one of your operators inadvertently collected my last dime. 
Oh, my God. 
Yes. 
And, you see, Miss Jones, as I explained to her, my car has... 
I'm sorry. 
I don't usually do this. 
Please, you go ahead and cry. 
Bell Telephone understands. 
Thank you. 
You've lost your dime. 
No, she took it away. 
Sir, if Bell Telephone has taken your dime, they will be very happy to give you a free call for that dime. 
Oh, Miss Jones, if that's true, I'll never forget you as long as I live. 
Well, that's true, sir. 
Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, Miss Jones. 
No, no, no, no, no, no. 
It's our pleasure to serve you. 
Thank you. 
You just give me the name of the party you're calling and the number. 
Miss Jones. 
Yes, sir. 
You're dealing here with a broken man. 
She took the dime before I ever heard the number. 
Look, forget it. 
I don't care anymore. 
Something has snapped in me. 
Listen to me, sir. 
Sir, if you will give me the name of the party you're calling, you do know that? 
Yes. 
Then I'll look the number up for you right here. 
Bless you. 
The name is George Kaplan, K-A-P-L-A-N, as in Newell Post? 
Right. 
Hold on, sir. 
Yes, thank you. 
Hello, sir. 
Yes, yes, ma'am. 
I have that number for you. 
Thank you, yes. 
That number is order been 1954. 
Thank you, Miss Jones. 
Now, tell me what to do. 
Hold on to your receiver. 
Hold on to the receiver. 
Until you hear the dial tone. 
Wait for the dial tone. 
Then dial your number, sir. 
You have a free call. 
Thank you, Miss Jones. 
I'll never forget you. 
Thank you. 
Thank you. 
Thank you. 
Thank you. 
This is a recording. 
You have dialed a wrong exchange. 
Thank you.