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The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall. 
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call. 
We couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would. 
BUNDERLIP BOMB, but the best, expect the worst. 
I hope that's understood. 
BUNDERLIP BOMB! 
Bye-bye. 
And a very good evening for everybody. 
The program is Off the Hook. 
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening. 
Joined tonight by Kyle. 
Hey. 
Out there in Skypeland, we have Rob T. Firefly. 
Good evening. 
We have Gila. 
Good evening. 
And we have Alex. 
You do. 
Good evening. 
Well, you know, we also have an exciting announcement because next week, for the first time in a long time, we are going to be opening up the phone lines to listeners here on this very radio program. 
So mark your calendars. 
It'll be a special listener call-in edition of Off the Hook a week from today, from 7 to 8. 
And there will be no overtime next week as a result of that. 
So overtime follows this particular program on our YouTube channel, Channel 2600 at 8 o'clock, where you can call in on the Internet. 
But next week, you'll be able to call in on the radio. 
So we have some interesting developments. 
You guys are looking to the skies lately? 
There's this whole hullabaloo about unknown drones flying around, especially New Jersey, Staten Island, those kind of places. 
I didn't mean that in a derogatory way, but just, you know, those places. 
Yeah. 
Big ones. 
Big drones, yes. 
Big drones. 
Big, big drones. 
Apparently, nobody seems to know who they belong to. 
I want to read a story that came out by the Associated Press today, entitled Homeland Security Shares New Details of Mysterious Drone Flights Over New Jersey, Lawmaker Says. 
The large, mysterious drones reported flying over parts of New Jersey in recent weeks appear to avoid detection by traditional methods like helicopters and radio. 
That's according to a state lawmaker briefed Wednesday by the Department of Homeland Security. 
He had to be briefed to be told that they're evading detection. 
That's kind of why we're talking about it, because they evade detection. 
Yeah. 
Some of the reports have been that they disable their navigation lights when they're approached by other drones that some municipalities do have the authority to use to investigate things and get aerial views. 
They've tried to do this, and then when approaching them, they've, like, gone dark. 
They turn off their lights. 
That's sophisticated. 
Yeah, but that's anecdotal. 
I'm not sure if I don't know. 
I don't have a story. 
I heard the same report. 
In fact, I even saw a video piece where I saw the light turn off. 
I was like, wow, what kind of mastermind could do this? 
I think they're scanning things, but that's my opinion. 
I think it's Google. 
I'm going to say that right now. 
I think Google is doing some kind of mapping or God knows what, because you mentioned, Kyle, when we were looking at this, it seemed very methodical. 
Well, that was a lot of the case, and if you were going to do, like, a LIDAR terrain map or something or, like, try to get accurate coordinates of certain spaces, you would do that. 
You would, like, do sort of, like, comb the area in, like, a methodic way to get a full, larger picture to look at. 
Well, in a post on the social media platform, X, which we continue to call Twitter, Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia, Fantasia? 
That can be a name? 
That's amazing. 
That was one of my favorite films growing up. 
Wow. 
What a great childhood they must have had. 
Dawn Fantasia. 
I'm sorry. 
She described the drones as up to six feet in diameter, sometimes traveling with their lights switched off. 
The Morris County Republican, and that's pertinent for some reason, I guess we'll find out, was among several state and local lawmakers who met with police and Homeland Security officials to discuss the spate of sightings that range from the New York City area through New Jersey, westward into parts of Pennsylvania now, including over Philadelphia. 
Now, the reason I think it's relevant, the fact they keep mentioning political parties, Republicans are trying to blame Democrats for this, too, somehow. 
In fact, the governor, Governor Murphy of New Jersey is a Democrat, and he's basically saying, you know, we don't have any information. 
And Republican lawmakers are saying, you're in charge, you should have information. 
All these people are coming to me saying I should have information because I'm a mayor of my local city and I don't have any information, and basically saying the exact same thing and passing it up a step to them. 
And as long as there's a Democrat in the way, it's going to be their fault somehow. 
You know, eventually, this is going to be Biden's fault, or Harris, I don't know which, but do you guys have any theories as to what this is? 
Because it seems like anybody's guess at this point as to what these drones are is a valid one. 
Kyle, you first. 
Go ahead. 
I was just going to add that those political representatives are only as good as the independent bodies and investigators and citizens' advocates, you know, the individual people out there in the world that want to get a message out or draw attention to an issue that is, you know, maybe not getting enough or we're not as active, proactive enough and these individuals know about it. 
So I think that's taken time. 
They're always, you know, going to voice something after someone has had an experience that compelled them to use their political power, right? 
Go ahead, Alex. 
I mean, this story reminds me a bit of, I think it was last year, was it the year before? 
I can't even remember anymore when we were last talking about Chinese spy balloons flying over the United States. 
Yeah, they keep bringing that up, the spy balloon. 
Let's not make this another spy balloon like that was some major scandal when, in fact, they did the right thing by shooting it down over an ocean, not over a city. 
You know, it's common sense, but still, that's something that, you know, Democrats fault and they're not going to defend themselves. 
For novel phenomena, though, like, we maybe haven't all established how we would handle that and there was a lot of different opinions on what to do and I think because it was a new thing, maybe everyone didn't quite evaluate it. 
I mean, what boggles my mind about this, though, is that nobody's been able to figure out who's behind this and I think you do have to start thinking that maybe this is some sort of malicious activity. 
The reports that I've read about this particular matter indicated that these drones were also flying over critical infrastructure, things like reservoirs, electronic transmission lines, rail stations, police departments, military... 
Hang on, Alex, hold on. 
What you just listed here, it's impossible to avoid. 
You know, it's all those things are everywhere. 
Sure. 
Yeah, there's cops everywhere. 
That's right. 
Police departments, you know, the military bases, not necessarily everywhere, but yeah, sure. 
I mean, they're critical infrastructure because they're infrastructure and infrastructure means it's kind of all around, right? 
But I think you cannot rule out at the moment that this might be some kind of foreign power performing some kind of reconnaissance or at least just deciding to put people on edge. 
Why would choose the population of New Jersey to terrorize with these particular types of drones by just flying them over? 
That remains to be seen. 
Well, the other thing too is like, why not follow them? 
I mean, if we're willing to go and figure out where murder hornets nest, you know, like, shouldn't we be worried a little bit about like six foot objects that seem to disappear? 
Well, the other thing too is, I mean, somebody's got to be controlling these drones. 
They're not entirely on autopilot all of the time, so they must have some kind of electronic transmission that goes back to presumably a controller somewhere. 
So I'm wondering if maybe, perhaps even some of our listeners have seen or heard any of these things and maybe they've had a, they've whipped out like a frequency counter and determined whether or not there were certain curious frequencies abounding in the area at that moment. 
You know, the odds aren't tiny that it could be one of our listeners doing this. 
We have very smart people and very, shall I say, mischievous people that listen to us. 
Actually, have you seen the drone? 
Our drones? 
I didn't mean to pluralize that. 
No, we only have one small drone that's currently... 
You know what? 
I think I know where it is. 
No, no, but here's the thing. 
You know, a drone can be controlled but doesn't always have to be controlled by somebody with a remote control unit standing underneath it. 
It can be controlled through other radio signals and somebody could be in a completely different part of the world. 
I'm not pointing the finger and saying, oh yeah, it's definitely China or it's some country that we want to blame for everything that's going on. 
It could literally be anybody. 
Hey, maybe it's even not of this planet just to get another conspiracy started. 
Yeah, and I think the size, that like form factor, if you want to, if you will, it may have a, it relies on a certain amount of power, right, and it could be incredibly light and carrying a lot of whatever kind of energy source. 
So, I mean, it's not on the scale of like something people would just use in their backyard or something. 
So maybe it could go for a like much longer range depending on what kind of fuel. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
And the interesting thing about these drones is they're apparently larger than the ones typically used by hobbyists and I don't have experience playing with these sort of things but I'm very curious as to whether maybe they would be large enough to not need constant radio communication with something on the ground. 
Could they be, you know, independent for at least a little bit of their flight? 
Well, I mean, they seem to go over the same flight path, if you will. 
It's like a patrol. 
Yeah, almost like it's just making its rounds every day. 
And if you know that much, I've heard people say, yeah, it's appearing in the same place. 
Well, then if you know where it's going to appear, can't there be a network that can get a good look at it and maybe follow it, see where it lands or where it goes? 
It just seems like, you know, this has been going on for what, a month now? 
Yeah, we're better than that. 
We can figure out where, you know, we can find a guy in a random McDonald's in Altoona. 
We can do this, I think. 
Yeah, go ahead, Alex. 
Yeah, I think this is a bit of a mystery here. 
I think there's got to be some sort of reasonable explanation of all of this. 
It might be some kind of hobbyist group or something. 
I don't know. 
Hang on, hang on. 
Name one reasonable answer to this. 
What hobby is this? 
This is in the news everywhere, so no hobbyist is going to continue doing it. 
So what possible reasonable explanation can there be? 
I honestly can't think of, I mean, is it our military doing this and not telling us and pretending they don't know? 
Well, it wouldn't be the first time that one hand didn't know what the other was doing, but I think despite all the media reports, if the military continued to do this, that would be totally ridiculous. 
I think, though, there's got to be very easy ways to capture these things as well. 
I mean, one thing that makes me think somebody's doing this is either like a prank or there perhaps could be a malicious purpose behind it would be that a lot of these are flying at night or they're almost exclusively night flights. 
So that makes it more difficult for them to be detected. 
They turn off their lights, they're trying to evade some kind of detection. 
But I think that a reasonable helicopter pilot with a net or the ability to shoot one of these things down and then take it apart shouldn't be too difficult. 
If they're all over the place and they're being spotted, why can't we get up there and take it out? 
There's a lot of different reasons. 
It's more complex than it looks. 
Think about it. 
If they're over a whole bunch of people, the whole Part 107 and whatever recreational drone pilot thing, it's all about okay, we're going to let you fly this over people but you've got to be really careful and you've got to be in range. 
There's all these rules for drone pilots. 
Alex said the helicopter would have a net. 
Yeah, I mean, at night, throwing nets at night, again, the complexity of all this, I think your idea of a hobbyist group going after them probably gamifying it in that way actually might yield more results if people were just as curious. 
I think obliterating it mid-flight, also you could run the risk over certain areas of creating debris and you might not get recoverable pieces that could tell you much more that you would want to know or that kind of thing. 
There's all sorts of layers. 
Also, there's been discussion about who actually has permission to, quote, engage and then they're also employing certain countermeasures. 
So, assuming some municipality gets permission to do something other than fly their own drone, which itself has been avoided in some cases, trying to shoot at it, it might try to avoid that. 
so then you've got random fire in the air over wherever it is. 
It just seems like there's a lot of aspects of it because it's in the air and it's lower in observability potentially because it's not of the size that typical radar would track things. 
So, there's a lot of complexity. 
I'm not in favor of shooting it down. 
I'm in favor of learning and following it and just getting as much information with the technology that we have. 
But, Kyle, I wanted to ask you because you know a thing or two about this. 
Drones are required to have an ID or a signal being transmitted. 
How does that work? 
What are the requirements? 
Well, there's a lot about it. 
I think it's called remote ID. 
But basically, instead of announcing a flight in an area that might otherwise have traffic that's not like a designated recreational area for flying, you have to identify yourself electronically and a lot of the drones come with those identifiers and you would maybe link it to your Part 107 drone pilot's license and that way your particular vehicle and whatever class it is and for whatever purpose you're using it, maybe you're doing commercial videography or something or real estate stuff, something like that. 
So you use this in your everyday life, that equipment would be identifiable and a lot of the newer ones, I guess, can transmit it on their own. 
If you have older equipment or you're a hobbyist and you build your own, you have to supplement that and there are different vendors that are selling small little modules that can transmit and I got a couple of those and I was playing around with them and it's really interesting if you work with some of the other microcontrollers and stuff, you can kind of build on to things in ways that a lot of people have been doing for years. 
So I just had to do it to be, I guess, in compliance. 
And what is the distance these things transmit their IDs? 
I think it's three kilometers, I'm not sure. 
Three kilometers. 
Okay, so I haven't heard it said. 
Obviously, if it was transmitting some kind of ID, people would know what it was, but is anybody getting close enough to get that information? 
But I'm going to assume it's not there, which makes it illegal right away. 
Rob, go ahead. 
Yeah, I'm going to agree with you and say the smartest and probably most practical move is to somehow follow these things. 
And, you know, there might be something fascinating at the end of it. 
You know, it might follow them and there's a big drone nest with some little baby drones that they're bringing food back to. 
I mean, who knows? 
And I'm going to turn it over to Alex now. 
Go ahead, Alex. 
I'm looking at some video online of these drones that people have posted. 
And I have to say, I would invite our listeners to research this and look it up. 
it's fairly terrifying to see this. 
It really is. 
I mean, there are veritable constellations of these drones if you look at some of the time-lapse footage of the skies. 
And it seems very much like these are not at all the kind of hobbyist drones that you would have. 
They look like they're about the size of an SUV just flying around. 
You aren't terrifying, Alex. 
Have them start firing on you. 
That's terrifying. 
We don't know that. 
We don't know that yet. 
But that's what's in the back of people's minds here is that they've been watching the war unfold in Ukraine. 
They know how deadly these Russian drone attacks have been and all of a sudden they start flying over New Jersey. 
They are slightly terrifying. 
Having seen this now, it looks like it's very clear to me that whoever's doing this is trying to scare the people over which you're flying. 
You're doing this at night with no notice and no warning to local government officials, municipalities, the federal government. 
Whoever's doing this I think is doing it for some kind of nefarious purpose and very much seems that way. 
Well, assuming it isn't some agency that's not telling other agencies what it's up to, yeah, I think you're probably right about that. 
And also, it speaks to resources because these drones are not cheap. 
Drones that size cannot be, and they can fly for a pretty long time, but there are a lot of them. 
There's like a fleet of them. 
And that's why I find it so hard to believe that nobody has been able to follow where they go or predict where they're going to be. 
So, you know, I really, it's a puzzle up there in the sky, but it doesn't seem like that much of a puzzle that can't be solved with a little technology. 
Yes, Alex? 
Yeah, I tend to agree. 
And I also want to say, I think Rob is right in his comment before that these things probably operate through some kind of way more sophisticated means than an ordinary drone would. 
So, looking out and trying to detect what radio frequencies would be in the area, I think would be, would probably be futile. 
I've also seen maps of where they've flown over now as well. 
And it's 10 counties in New Jersey. 
But what's weird is it's all New Jersey. 
No, it's not. 
We just said Philadelphia and Staten Island before that. 
Yeah. 
Sorry, I missed that. 
Yeah, so it did get into that. 
Okay, so, but at least 10 counties in New Jersey itself and New Jersey counties are not small counties. 
This is a pretty much like the entire north from east to west across New Jersey has been flown over by these drones. 
So, this is some kind of massive reconnaissance type of activity. 
So, the question to ask is what is so interesting in New Jersey? 
Well, there's Trump golf courses over there. 
That's something. 
Okay, first of all, he only has one golf course there as far as I know. 
And, you know, he doesn't hit the ball out of range that much that they have to explore our surrounding counties. 
Not with drones, yes. 
But maybe it is messing with him. 
I mean, you know, that's a positive spin on it, I think. 
Yeah, maybe. 
Yeah, possibly. 
It's him. 
There's some military bases over there, but there's really not much going on, I think, in this part of the state. 
The other thing is, if the intention was to terrify a population, wouldn't it have been so much scarier to do this over Manhattan, to do this over New York? 
I mean, it's right around the corner if you really want to scare the hell out of people, have a constellation of untrackable drones flying over Manhattan. 
That'll really... 
Alex, you live in Manhattan. 
I do. 
You know that the people of Manhattan tend to be unfazed by many things. 
In New Jersey and other places, they're kind of looking for things to fall out of the sky, but New York, it's like, I got to get to a meeting, you know? 
Yeah, I agree. 
Unless it really, you know, hits the fan, the proverbial, you know what. 
Now, there's another explanation of this, too, is if you think about why didn't they choose a target that would have been more interesting to terrorize with this constellation of drones? 
The intention of flying these over New Jersey and not New York may actually have been to gauge the response of the local authorities and determine what they would do to try to track and trace and detect and deter these types of drones so that perhaps when they use it for an actual attack at some point six months or longer or shorter down the road, they know what to expect. 
So you think it could just be a big drill? 
I think it could be a big drill designed to draw out a response. 
Or we'll get a response. 
It's an interesting hypothetical. 
I think that we could step back a little bit, though, and just think maybe that, well, I think the way that it's presenting is perhaps terrorizing some. 
It's a curiosity to others. 
The reaction to it, like, what is occurring? 
I don't know if they're menacing, right? 
It's curious and people's reaction like mystery payloads and stuff. 
We're already getting that with satellite stories about satellites. 
But the busyness of them, that whole, like, nature of being on a patrol and, as Rob pointed out, potentially them not relaying any kind of information or, I don't know if it was talked about, but, like, no kind of transmissions, meaning it's on sort of an automated flight plan, means that whatever, if it's collecting something versus just being sort of a menace in the sky or something that's curious, would have to get back somewhere if it's not actually something that's being sent in real time. 
So it depends. 
I think it's, you know, how you respond is dependent on what information you have and filtering, like, what our response to the thing, the curiosity is, versus just the occurring, like, what are the facts of it, and deducting how to interpret learning more in light of just that without being terrorized. 
Because it is scary, but it also, you know, we can't overblow it either. 
No, it's New Jersey, not Kentucky, so I wonder, you know, what are the odds of somebody taking matters into their own hands and just shooting it out of the sky? 
Is it too high to be reached by conventional weaponry that civilians might have? 
I don't think so. 
It's really funny you mentioned that, Emmanuel. 
I was going to make that same exact comment. 
And New Jersey is a state that I believe in certain counties has, you know, pretty liberal gun laws. 
And by liberal, I mean that you can have a gun pretty freely. 
It's certainly nowhere near as restrictive as New York and I don't think it's as open as Pennsylvania, but I'm really surprised that nobody has taken out a rifle and taken one of these things down. 
I mean, I think they do seem to be flying low enough for people to get some decent photographs of them at night. 
I hear that it's effective. 
Yeah, I think it's hard to shoot a moving target like that in the air that's so far away with a rifle. 
You're not talking about this is way out of the reach of a shotgun. 
Yeah, we're not talking about trap or skeet or something like that here. 
You would have to use a rifle, a very high-powered rifle to hit these things. 
Okay, I want to move on to... 
Go ahead. 
I don't have anything. 
Did you have something, Rob? 
We should probably point out that we're not advocating shooting rifles or shooting guns into the sky randomly in hopes of trapping yourself a drone. 
Absolutely. 
All right, if you know where the drones are coming from, you can write to us oth at 2600.com. 
Next week, you can call us on the radio or this week, you can call us on the internet at 8 o'clock on YouTube. 
But let's move on to some other stories. 
You guys heard about Google's breakthrough Willow quantum processor. 
Yeah, it's straight out of science fiction here. 
Basically, it's reignited debates about crypto security. 
Some observers are suggesting that quantum computers could break Bitcoin's encryption. 
The tech giant claims its new quantum computing chip can complete certain calculations in five minutes, which would take traditional supercomputers an impractical amount of time to process. 
Actually, I have that impractical amount of time to process on a different piece of paper here. 
Yeah, it's 10 septillion years. 
That's 10 to the 25th. 
I think if you have comma, zero, zero, zero, you have eight of those before you have the 10. 
That's how many years it would take. 
And that number, by the way, vastly exceeds the age of the universe. 
Google claims that they were able to solve a problem that would have taken 10 septillion years in five minutes. 
Yeah, you have a dubious look on your face, Kyle, and I have to say I kind of agree with that because that doesn't seem possible. 
But they're claiming they did it. 
Now, you know, there are still many, many factors that need to be worked out. 
They use quantum computing. 
It's a new type of computing. 
It uses the properties of quantum physics where small particles can exist in multiple states at once and affect each other instantly across distances to solve certain problems way faster than regular computers. 
And unlike traditional computers that work with bits that are either zero or one, quantum computers use quantum bits or known as qubits that can be both zero and one at the same time, allowing them to process huge amounts of possibilities simultaneously. 
The only problem that I've heard several times is that it's not necessarily accurate. 
And that's a big deal. 
It might be able to solve the problem, but is it really solving the problem or just finishing the problem? 
Still, it's a breakthrough. 
And, you know, thinking that it could potentially crack Bitcoin along with all kinds of other things, as this article in Discover Scene concludes, still technically years away, a quantum computer powerful enough to hack the Bitcoin network would be the least of anyone's worries if the most powerful computing network in the world could be compromised. 
Just about any system on the planet could face the same threat. 
So, you know, we're looking at a potential future here where there is no real security encryption-wise. 
Thanks, Google. 
Well, yeah, thanks a lot. 
I'm sure they'll have something to sell to us, though, that will protect us against them. 
Any thoughts on this, guys, Rob? 
Yeah, exactly. 
Something that could break the encryption in Bitcoin and things on that level would also mean that pretty much any encryption that we're using at all in any aspect of our lives is also broken. 
And that would be terrible, but it still kind of warms my heart to know that cryptocurrency might be broken. 
Alex, I'm sure you have something to say to that. 
Well, yeah. 
I think people have been thinking and planning around how to live in a post-quantum computing world for some time. 
What I just don't understand, though, is if we're just if we're talking about math here, right, and asymmetric cryptography is generally based off of mathematical principles that make it very difficult to factor extraordinarily large prime numbers. 
And here, we're talking about doing math in parallel as opposed to in serial when it comes to different equations because that's what quantum computing in qubits do. 
We have that zero and one in different states. 
So with the numbers that we're using right now that need to be factored, it becomes trivial for quantum computing to do that. 
So why can't we just use larger numbers, numbers that are so, so, so, so, so much bigger because the last I heard there was an infinite amount of numbers. 
We're not going to run out of them. 
So why can't we just use bigger numbers that... 
Because there's not enough addressing space. 
That's probably true, too. 
Right. 
There's no addressing space in memory for it. 
Right? 
So it becomes actually, I guess, a programming and a hardware issue in some respects. 
So that makes sense to me. 
But I always thought that, I mean, maybe a cryptographer who knows more about this than me could explain that to me. 
But I wonder about that. 
There's, I think, any kind of asymmetric encryption though, like RSA, is going to be really threatened by these types of advancements. 
What's also kind of fascinating to think about in terms of data breaches and companies that have been subject to ransomware vulnerabilities, a lot of the times when a company is breached, data is harvested. 
Data is stolen. 
It's exfiltrated. 
It's taken back. 
And you would ordinarily think that that data that was stolen, well, the only stuff that matters, the only stuff you had to report based on the laws as they're written right now are data that wasn't encrypted. 
That's what the subject of data breaches generally is, right? 
It's data that isn't encrypted. 
It goes out into the public domain and you don't have to report data that isn't encrypted because you're operating under the assumption that the encryption is going to be uncrackable. 
But now, all of that data that was stolen from so many years here, let's say if this quantum computing technology becomes available, all of that data will become viewable. 
That encryption will become trivial to crack in a post-quantum computing world because it's probably encrypted with asymmetric encryption just like RSA. 
I also think that bad guys, threat actors will have to be thinking about this now and taking not just unencrypted data but encrypted data and that can become more and more interesting to see this unfold. 
So is that the first task of the quantum computing era is quantum cryptography to make everything safe when that ability to compute is achieved? 
Yeah, I mean, I think that that's what everybody is hoping, right? 
That there will be some way to ensure that cryptography remains secure but I don't know the means by which that would be done at the moment. 
I'd be really interesting I'd be really interested to learn more. 
Well, if we're all using devices that are capable of that, then I guess we're all able to use a level of cryptography that matches the state of innovation that can break traditional cryptography but therein you'd have to restore everything onto this new level of security that quantum computers would enable and we're still very far away from commercial application where everybody can do that. 
I do remember seeing some research too. 
I know that NIST was also looking into algorithms and systems that could be certified to work in a post-quantum computing world. 
I don't remember exactly where they got to on this but I know that the National Institute of Science and Technology was taking an active interest in this as well. 
Okay, moving on. 
That's quite a story to think about for a while though. 
Good story. 
Yeah, it is. 
It's scary. 
So we have all these breaches including one that involved the pick for FBI director Kash Patel. 
Yeah, and apparently this has got Republicans up in a tizzy as well. 
Senator Tom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, he is looking for answers from the FBI after Trump's pick to lead the Bureau was reportedly targeted by Iranian hackers. 
He says for an Iranian-backed group to have targeted the potential next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is extremely alarming. 
And also alarming is a speed at which sensitive and potentially classified information about this attack spread to the news media. 
So, yeah, he's kind of bent out of shape because people found out that Kash Patel was vulnerable and that he was able to be hacked and that his data was not secure. 
Yeah, basically, I guess the solution in his eyes is that this be hushed up and that we don't actually talk about at all. 
As you know, it's imperative that the FBI and other intelligence agencies maintain confidentiality to ensure the American people are safe from enemies at home and abroad. 
The release of this information raises major national security and personal safety concerns. 
I maintain that the compromising of data is what raises concerns and that you don't alleviate those concerns by not talking about it, by not revealing it, by not confronting it. 
And what's going on here is that Republicans are trying to blame the FBI for the information getting out and pretty much putting them on the same level as the people who got the information in the first place, which kind of tracks with what they're trying to do by overhauling and demolishing the agency by putting somebody like Kash Patel in charge in the first place. 
And of course this is leading to more support for him, regardless of the fact that his data was compromised and basically a lot of suspicion and hostility towards those people that Trump has been telling us to be suspicious of. 
And it just makes you wonder how many other things should we not be told about that we already know about? 
You know, how many other data compromises that go on every single day will be hushed up with this kind of mentality? 
Alex? 
I mean, I think far from this reporting deserving to be hushed up or somehow brushed aside here, I want to go back to what we were arguing about last week, which is that you know, we think that this should be further reported on, that not only did the media have an obligation to report on us, but I think the federal officials themselves have an obligation to be transparent with the public about the nature of this particular type of attack. 
This is a guy who's going to run the FBI and be in charge of the nation's counterintelligence efforts, and he gets phished, essentially. 
I want to know how this happened. 
I want to know the details of vulnerability, and I think the American people and Congress in particular should be able to assess whether this is somebody who's fit to guard the nation's secrets. 
Yeah, and secrets seem to be what these guys are trying to push more than anything. 
You know, you're not going to get Gates's record of the crimes he committed. 
That's being hushed up. 
They want to hush up what's going on with Patel, with his insecurity as far as compromising information. 
Who knows how many other things pressure will be put on to not reveal to the people when we have every single right to know. 
Here's another story that I guess we're not supposed to know about. 
The People's Republic of China has been relentless in its cyber attacks, trade manipulation, and war threats against the U.S., yet many Americans still hesitate to recognize China as the enemy it truly is. 
While the majority of Americans hold a negative opinion of China, only 40% identify it as an enemy. 
this perspective needs to change. 
What I'm reading here is, actually, you know what, I don't have the credit, I'm sorry. 
Our toner is running low, so I can't even read where this is from, but I'm sorry. 
But basically, this is an opinion piece that is trying to outline that the Chinese are the actual threat here. 
But if you, regardless of whether or not that's right or wrong, if you don't talk about it, if you don't reveal that, hey, they got into the phone companies a few weeks ago, worst hack in American history, then, you know, you won't be aware of the threats, you won't be aware of how to protect yourself. 
And more misinformation will be spread around so that you'll just assume everybody is up to something with absolutely no evidence whatsoever. 
So, yeah, I don't know, it's something that we really have to do better on. 
Any thoughts on that? 
No? 
Nothing? 
Okay, we're all completely silent. 
Is it the Chinese regime we're afraid of? 
Guys, seriously, they can't hurt you from here. 
Yeah, I'm sorry, I was having a little issue with the audio there, too. 
No, but I did agree with you on this. 
I think this is just a particularly, I don't think there's anything contentious about what you're saying there. 
I think it's, yeah, the whole thing is crazy. 
Okay, I guess that's the extent of the analysis we'll have here tonight. 
Here's a letter from one of our listeners, from Charles, just an observation. 
Seems like you do a lot of victim blaming. 
When individuals or organizations that don't align with your political beliefs get hacked. 
However, shame on the hackers if they attack the Internet Archive. 
Interesting perspective. 
You think we do that? 
I guess, you know, okay, if people are stupid as far as the security precautions they take, or if they don't take security precautions at all, or if they try to blame the media, or, you know, the FBI or anybody else but themselves for their security problems, yeah, you know, we'll have some fun with that. 
I don't know if that's victim blaming or just blaming stupid people that are in charge of a lot more than they obviously have the ability to be in charge of. 
I think we also, we try to look at the kinds of hacks that send a message to see if those messages are positive or negative. 
And when you take down something like the Internet Archive, it's hard to see the positive in that. 
And, you know, there's no political slant to the Internet Archive. 
They're an archive. 
They archive what the Internet is. 
That's not political. 
So, regardless of where they are coming from, we would see that as a bad thing because, you know, just like if you take down a fire department or, you know, you take down an electrical grid, there's really no humor in that. 
There's nothing to make fun of. 
But if somebody says, you know, if a governor goes on TV and says that he wants to arrest a reporter because he reveals some source code from a web page, yeah, we're going to have fun with that. 
We're going to make fun of that person because they're an idiot and they deserve to be made fun of. 
You know, I'm sorry if it just somehow aligns that those are the people that don't share our political beliefs. 
It's hard to imagine sharing political beliefs or beliefs of any sort with people who can't comprehend the basics of security and how to not give everything away to anybody with the most modest of technical skills. 
But I think we're pretty consistent. 
I don't know. 
Rob, what do you think? 
Yeah, I agree with you there. 
And I think in the case of the Internet Archive, the person who was attacking the Internet Archive was not doing it to send a message, was not doing it to be clever. 
I think that person just came out and said, yeah, I did this because I want to. 
And, you know, that's not creative. 
There's no heart and soul behind that as there is behind the best hacks I think that we report on and talk about, the most meaningful ones. 
There was just no meaning to it. 
And, yeah, the Internet Archive is not like a big corporate news site or, you know, store or something that really isn't hurt by, you know, a couple of days offline or whatever. 
The Internet Archive is a public resource. 
It is a creation of the hacker community. 
I think it would be safe to say. 
Tons of hackers work there. 
Tons of hackers contribute to it, use stuff from it, and depend on it for many things. 
And so I think for, you know, a hacker reaction to those particular takedowns, I don't think we were being very hypocritical or anything like that about it. 
Go ahead, Alex. 
Alex, please. 
I think we do. 
I think I tend to agree with the caller, the caller, the writer here, the e-mailer, in that I think he's right. 
I think we do blame the victim. 
I think I've called us out for this a bit as well in the past, but having been the CISO of the NFL and a current CISO, I do have to tell you, cybersecurity is really hard. 
It's tough. 
It's complicated, and I think has as much import as something like a Byzantine mosaic. 
it's really hard to defend against a large attack surface area of any kind of large company, especially something that has multiple footprints around the world, and cybersecurity is, again, like a Byzantine mosaic, very much a patchwork of systems, of people, of policies. 
Everything has to be going right all the time in order for you to be secure. 
I think he's right to call us out on doing a little bit too much of blaming the victim sometimes. 
When did we ever blame the NFL? 
Not the NFL. 
We weren't talking about them. 
Who have we blamed just for having a security breach? 
Like I said, it's when people double down or try to, you know, they say something incredibly stupid or racist, and then they say their Twitter account got hacked when it's obvious that it didn't, or, you know, basically trying to, you know, claim that a hack didn't happen when it did. 
A company doesn't let its customers know that their data has been breached, and they're the ones that wind up paying the price, and maybe they get free credit reporting for a year. 
You know, that's the kind of thing we make fun of, and I don't apologize for that at all. 
Well, I think, you know, don't forget, we were just lampooning Cash Patel for being phitched. 
Yeah, he's an idiot. 
I'm sorry, the guy wants to dismantle the FBI, and they're putting him in charge of the FBI. 
He's, you know, I could go on for the rest of the hour about this. 
I don't think you need me to. 
Tune to MSNBC or any other news outlet and you'll find out for yourself. 
But yeah, you know, it makes sense that he was the weak link here. 
Okay, I know. 
All right, quite perhaps, yeah, but I mean, I think that's a little bit of a victim blaming. 
We're all going to be the victim if he gets nominated. 
Or confirmed, I swear to God. 
But no, I don't think we should hold back on that kind of a thing. 
If somebody, you know, obviously, there was a breach here based on somebody with no knowledge of security. 
And you're going to put that person in charge of the FBI. 
it really bothers a lot of people. 
Well, look, I tend to agree. 
I think there's a distinction. 
I think most of the time we focus on companies that I would say would have been grossly negligent as opposed to just negligent. 
Negligence, let's just say that's like the universal standard, but for those that are grossly negligent, those are the ones that we tend to focus on. 
But even still, I see the emailer's point, the writer's point here. 
I'm not denying he doesn't have a point, but I don't know, I think we try to be fair about this. 
And if somebody we like does something stupid, we'll call them out for that as well. 
We have in the past. 
I'll come up with some examples, I'll track it down, because I know I've gotten people mad that are friends, because we call it as we see it. 
And unfortunately, the people we don't like tend to make more mistakes than the people we do like. 
Think about what happened 24 years ago with your lawsuit with the Motion Picture Association of America. 
That was basically calling out stupidity. 
And yeah, so that's been a long time. 
Except we lost. 
Yeah. 
Or are they calling us out and we're the stupid ones? 
I'm not really sure. 
Well, it was really to make a point, I think. 
I think we can talk further about this, I hope, on overtime. 
Yeah, we can if we really want to. 
Anyway, I guess now's a good time to give out the email address as we're pretty much out of time here. 
OTH at 2600.com. 
That is how you can send letters of your own to us or if you know anything about the drones flying over New Jersey, maybe they're flying over New Jersey right now. 
In fact, they probably should be, even in the heavy wind and rain. 
That'll be interesting to see. 
Let's try and get information that the mass media is not reporting because we as hackers can figure out things and learn about the technical abilities and uniqueness. 
things like this and share them and figure things out. 
Again, next week, we will be taking phone calls on this radio show for the first time in a number of years. 
We have the technology to do that now. 
and we will be taking phone calls tonight on overtime and you can find overtime by going to YouTube and going to channel 2600 and you'll find us there. 
Overtime starts at around 8 o'clock. 
Actually, pretty much exactly at 8 o'clock. 
Any closing thoughts? 
No. 
Okay, no closing thoughts from Kyle, Alex, Rob, I'm good. 
I look forward to seeing everybody join us on YouTube. 
All right. 
We will see you there. 
We'll see you back here next week. 
Please stay tuned to WBAI. 
Please support WBAI. 
Buddy.wbai.org is the website. 
You can pledge a monthly amount which adds up to a bigger amount for us over an entire year and that's what keeps us on the air and keeps lively discussions like this going on many, many fronts. 
Just listen for several days if you've never heard this radio station before. 
It really is one of the crown jewels of New York City. 
All right. 
We will see you next week. 
Have a good night. 
  And welcome everybody to Overtime here on YouTube. 
Hopefully we all made it into the realm of the internet. 
Kyle, you're here? 
Yes. 
And Rob T. Firefly? 
Yes, indeed. 
And Gila? 
Hello. 
And Alex? 
Yeah, it wasn't even too rough a transition today. 
And we can confirm that we're actually on YouTube? 
Yes, indeed. 
We've just popped onto YouTube, and we're sounding good. 
Okay. 
All right. 
Well, welcome, everybody. 
Did we want to talk any further about the things we were talking about, or do we just want to open up the phones? 
Alex, I wanted to ask you about something, if we have a minute. 
I saw the thread you were posting yesterday about the DNS stuff involving the infamous Luigi. 
And I wondered if you wanted to talk about that a bit. 
Oh, yeah, that's true. 
Yeah, we could have brought that up during the regular show, too. 
Yeah. 
It's interesting. 
So I started monitoring in the domain name system in the DNS for the terms Luigi and Mangione. 
That obviously became very well-known terms in the media when they identified the assassin about whom we spoke last week. 
I know he would love to call him just a murderer, but, you know, I still maintain he was an assassin. 
But so when I watched it, it was actually really quite interesting. 
It was kind of funny, you know, that there was this massive influx of domains that were registered. 
And what was fascinating to see about the pattern of these registrations is that they were all they all were so in favor of Luigi Mangione, that none of them were critical of him. 
None of them called him a murderer or anything. 
A lot of them had to deal with pardoning Mangione or glorifying him or saying, you know, we are Luigi. 
We are Mangione, free Mangione. 
So there was this really interesting mix of domains. 
And then today I was going to I was going to post a few of the others. 
There's actually even more domains registered today than there were yesterday, including some that were deliberately malicious, that were trying to promote some kind of false Solana based token, which is, you know, which would have connected into your wallet and then connected you with a smart contract, a malicious smart contract, one of the blockchains that was a wallet drainer as well. 
So you were already even seeing this being weaponized in the DNS. 
But watching this, what I was arguing about was, you know, can you put your finger on public sentiment by just looking at DNS data? 
And I really think you can. 
You think that's public sentiment? 
Just ripping people off and glorifying murders? 
No, no, no. 
That there was no there was nothing negative said about Mangione and any of these domains that were registered. 
They were all pro Mangione. 
Well, who is going to go out and register a domain to criticize somebody who is being booked for murder? 
It just doesn't, you know, what attention are you going to get during that? 
This is a really controversial figure. 
You would think you would you would have people on both sides of the issue. 
Yeah, but you got to pay money to register a domain. 
Why would somebody do that just to say, yeah, he's guilty? 
You know, I could see, you know, to get get somebody riled like, you know, he's getting you riled, obviously, by by, you know, people doing this are, you know, offending people by saying, yeah, he deserves a pardon. 
I think it's it's looking for a reaction and you won't get much of a reaction if you just go with the status quo of, yeah, murder is bad. 
You should see some of the domains that are out there. 
You'd be you'd be really surprised. 
But even I don't think I would be I doubt I would be is it statistically representative of the populace? 
I don't think it's representative of the populace at all. 
I think it's representative of a few loudmouth domains. 
Yeah. 
I mean, who does that exactly? 
You know, to say a viewpoint. 
Well, a lot of people will. 
I mean, it's a massively popular thing to do. 
And people will snatch up these domains because they think others might want to make that message as well. 
So there's speculation. 
They're doing their opportunists wanting to get attention. 
That's what they are doing. 
But if you go out and you ask 100 people on the street, I don't think you're going to get anything near that kind of proportion of people that glorify what he did. 
Yeah. 
And for inferring that meaning from that, this isn't necessarily like a measure of the broader sentiment. 
Yeah. 
Go ahead. 
Gila. 
No, that's what I was going to say, is that I'm assuming that this is a lot of speculative. 
You know, there's like Trump pardon. 
Luigi dot com is one of them. 
And it's not like anything is going to happen with that for the next while. 
But I always wanted I also wanted to ask a question which is completely unrelated, but is from the chat. 
Another way that the chat hijacks a conversation completely unrelated. 
OK, no problem. 
Well, yeah, let's drive off to the shoulder of the road now and answer this question. 
Well, someone did say, I'm confused. 
What's the point? 
And why would people side with private health care? 
Side with private? 
Well, hold on a second. 
Are we saying if you say murdering a CEO is bad, you're siding with private health care? 
That's where we are now? 
I mean, Alex, has there been a similar rise in, you know, has anybody taken the URL, RIP, Brian Thompson or anything of that nature? 
I haven't seen I haven't been monitoring the DNS for Thompson in particular. 
I've really just been focusing on interesting that you didn't do that, Alex. 
I wonder why. 
Well, no, I did actually think about, well, it was a mistake to not start monitoring for United health care when this thing started, because it would have been that that would have been fascinating as well to see those deltas. 
I can still go back in time and do it. 
It's just a lot of effort for me to. 
Yeah. 
But anyhow, I don't have to go into all the details about that. 
But but no, but Gila, with respect to any stance taken on Luigi himself, they've all been universally positive. 
But even like some some weird domains to that that have popped up like there's there's one that was just strange. 
Actually, it was kind of cool looking to it was Luigi, a I one six z dot com. 
And it resolved to a Web page that displayed what looked like a terminal session. 
And in the terminal session, it tried to display a video. 
And then the video was pulled from YouTube. 
But it says video unavailable. 
This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated. 
So I wonder what the hell that was. 
That was something weird that was up there that got taken down. 
Well, it could be completely unrelated to just use the word Luigi, right? 
It's a very common name. 
But it would be weird that that domain popped up the day after his name was announced to the press. 
All right. 
Go ahead. 
We do have a clarifying question. 
The listener 83 why said when I said, what's the point? 
I was referring to scanning DNS is so far. 
You've called that crypto and I I bullcrap. 
I am. 
Who was that addressed to? 
I don't know who it's addressed to. 
I'm just reading it. 
OK, well, I don't know who it's addressed to either. 
I'm just listening. 
Was there any others from that? 
Someone else said, I think you can only make sense of this trend in comparison with other breaking news events. 
I bet this happens every time. 
And I believe it does happen a lot. 
But I'm willing to assume. 
And Alex, I think this is part of what you're pointing out, that it's all been uniformly supportive. 
And I'm wondering, based on some things that I've heard, is there a concept of like, is there a Luigi is hot kind of vein in these things? 
Oh, good God. 
Sub vein. 
Well, I'll tell you that there are some curious ones. 
I can I can pull them all up. 
I don't know why you're paying attention to that. 
Why are you giving them more publicity? 
It's just obviously, you know, a cheap way of gaining attention for something, you know, and saying something that's offensive to many people. 
You know? 
Oh, I don't know about that. 
I mean, there's, you know, there's one, you know, Luigi Wick there. 
But they're all like, you know, about pardoning him or him being a hero. 
And I'll tell you something, Alex, the reason why we're seeing an upswing in this is because people have lost respect for law and order based on things that have been happening in this country. 
I'm talking about people not being held accountable for their crimes. 
You know, being held to a standard that none of us can can possibly approach. 
It doesn't mean anything anymore. 
They're dismantling the FBI. 
They're they're they're tearing apart all kinds of things that we depend upon to maintain law and order. 
So, yeah, you're guilty of murder. 
Doesn't matter anymore. 
Everybody gets a free pass. 
That's kind of where I think a lot of people are coming from. 
Yeah, I think that they very well may be. 
But, you know, there's there's obviously this this kind of notion that he did something for the public. 
There's a bunch of domains. 
We are all Luigi. 
Oh, good God. 
There's but I will tell you the most curious one. 
And this is what I think the the gentleman or or gentlewoman, I guess, in the chat that had referenced whether or not some of these domains were were kind of hinting that that this guy was hot or whatever. 
The one that stands out in my mind was slots for Luigi dot com that showed up the day after this was. 
And what does this knowledge get us? 
What do we what's interesting is, is it seems to be entirely expected. 
Nobody's done anything with that with that domain yet. 
You would think with a very specific name like that. 
Give it to you. 
No, no. 
All they know is to say a couple of words that will trigger people. 
They don't know how to make a website. 
They just know how to register a site and be done with it. 
And now we're talking about it. 
So, you know, mission accomplished for them. 
But, you know, it's not what most people, most rational people don't think that way. 
I really don't believe that. 
Oh, I don't I don't think that everybody does, but I think you can make some kind of extrapolations about this, though. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
Yeah, I think the the main the main interesting thing about this, like Alex was saying, is that when any big event happens in the news, when any sort of major thing is going on, you know, you'll see tons of sites go up. 
You'll see everyone trying to, you know, get on the train about it, whether it's, you know, speculative domains. 
They think they're going to make, you know, cash out on it or selling T-shirts or stickers or what have you. 
People are going to try and capitalize on the story from any end possible. 
And in this case, it seems to be basically one sided, which is fascinating capitalizing. 
But also, I think with a situation like this, it is symbolic. 
And you think of the the the types of things that he's alleged to have been reading and referencing and other big sort of symbolic things. 
I'm thinking like Oklahoma City and these these kind of domestic, quote, terror events or however you classify or categorize them. 
I think that it is it is it is it puts the the witnesses, the the the survivors of the events in a position to ingest both their act and what they're trying to point out. 
But also their crime, which is itself in in a vacuum, sort of its own moral moral quandary. 
Right. 
You have to determine and it has. 
And in this case, he'll be coming before a judge and that will be determined. 
But separating those two, I think it blurs basically what the crime was and then what the the assailant, the alleged assailant is trying to inject as far as meaning and symbolism. 
And the anger is not in my I guess my point is the anger is not necessarily or what we have to, I guess, strive to do is separate that and not allow that blurring or compartmentalizing. 
It might help from from from fusing those two subjects because you're angry at a multinational that doesn't care about you. 
The kills has plenty of victims, you know, blood on its hands, all of that anger could entire could be entirely justified. 
And you're, I guess, apathy, right? 
Yeah, maybe socially sort of edgy and unacceptable in polite circles. 
But to say it's necessarily condoning the act that the individual perpetrated, it's it's what it's the it's what becomes of something that is intentional in this way. 
That this person did something that was thought out to have all of this meaning associated with it that I think is confusing people into being seemingly like cheerleaders when they're interpreting the message in the few details. 
Like we don't have a lot of evidence. 
It's coming out slowly and there hasn't even been a full like investigation. 
But since we have like this incredibly high rate of media and high frequency of communication, we're all so aware of every detail of it, like incredibly quickly. 
And the part of that was the manhunt or the person hunt. 
And, you know, my point was, you know, we bow down to the cops all the time. 
But what do they really do here? 
They they they wandered around Central Park a little bit. 
Yeah, you had some divers go in, but they didn't find anything. 
Which, you know, fair enough. 
But as far as the actual surveillance that came from people that came from independent companies and and as far as finding him, that was a person, an employee at McDonald's and a customer who who who tracked him down. 
You know, the cop came in and said, you're under arrest. 
OK, applause for that. 
But but, you know, let's give people some credit, too, because they do a lot of important things, individual civilians. 
So without them, we would still have have have nothing. 
The guy would still be on the loose. 
So it just bothers me that, you know, we're constantly constantly saying how great cops are. 
Let's give them even more money. 
And, you know, sometimes they don't deserve it. 
Sometimes, you know, they deserve something. 
Sometimes there are good cops out there. 
But too many times, too many times we overdo it. 
And I'm not sure why, if we're trying to keep on their good side or something. 
But I just like to, you know, pay tribute to individuals out there who do the right thing. 
Alex, go ahead. 
Yeah. 
If you think about this, it's extraordinary that this guy who murdered somebody on 6th Avenue was able to get out of the city by using nothing but a face mask, cash, a bicycle and taking that bicycle into the park and then getting changed and leaving things around. 
And it's amazing when you think about what a surveillance state we live in and what a failure of the surveillance state it has been to not be able to capture this person before he left the city and got two states over. 
Hang on. 
Is a failure of the surveillance state good for us? 
Because it sounds like it should be. 
Well, it is in the sense that it shows that it's ineffective. 
Right. 
But it should also be a wake-up call to everybody who's in favor of this surveillance state because they think it's going to keep them safe. 
It doesn't keep you safe. 
It's, you know, a surveillance state is never going to stop a crime from happening. 
It's only going to help track down the person who committed the crime. 
And that's what happened here. 
But what I like about this is that it wasn't state surveillance or government surveillance that did the work. 
It was a hodgepodge of individuals that pulled their resources together. 
And that is how this guy was eventually found. 
You know, obviously the word was spread, but the media did most of that. 
And, you know, that's how you basically track people down if they need to be tracked down. 
I would be much more uncomfortable if the whole thing was done, as you say, where the guy was captured within minutes and they knew exactly where he was or what his intentions were. 
This way, you know... 
This is what people expect. 
This is what people think can happen with facial recognition technology, with artificial intelligence, augmenting the capabilities of these camera systems and connecting them in ways that are more sophisticated than ever before. 
I think this demonstrates that what we believe to be some kind of law enforcement panacea that we knew as the surveillance state to keep us all safe is not actually keeping us safe. 
It should be considered a failure of that. 
It is this hodgepodge, this patchwork. 
But again, Alex, it wouldn't have kept this guy safe from this killer. 
It couldn't have done that. 
But it might have caught the guy much quicker. 
It might have caught him quicker. 
But I'm not comfortable with that. 
I'm not comfortable with this all-knowing surveillance state that can move much faster. 
I'm not saying that I want that by any means. 
I'm not saying that at all. 
I'm saying that this is a demonstration that that state does not actually exist. 
Right. 
And all of this information that we are essentially trading for, what we presume to be security purposes, isn't really effective. 
So, you know, you have to think about that trade-off. 
But I also think, though, that this hodgepodge of cameras that came to the ready, though, I think there are a lot of those cameras that NYPD has access to that are in the hands of private parties, not necessarily the state. 
I think there are a tremendous network of these cameras to which the NYPD has negotiated some form of access ahead of time. 
Well, I think that's a mistake. 
I think it should always be up to the individual, the people who own the cameras, who run their particular businesses or whatnot, to share that information that feels appropriate. 
Look, let's look at it a different way. 
Let's say this guy did something heroic, which he did not do. 
But let's say he did. 
All right. 
And people don't want the state to get him. 
Well, if they have control over their cameras and who they share it with, the guy is safe, you know. 
But because people felt this needs to be shared because they made that decision, that is why he was caught, period. 
And as long as people have that power, then we have a much less of a risk of falling into the all-knowing surveillance state that you're not safe from at any moment in time. 
Keep it in the hands of individuals. 
You know, I think that that is the only way to deal with this kind of technology in a safe way. 
Well, it's certainly better than the alternative. 
I'll put it that way. 
All right. 
Our phone number, 802-321-4225, 802-321-HACK. 
If you didn't hear it on the radio, next week we will be taking phone calls on the radio, on Off the Hook. 
And we will not be on overtime next week. 
So kind of a tradeoff there. 
We haven't taken calls on the show in over four years, I guess. 
And it's been a while, ever since before COVID, because we haven't been in the studio. 
We've been remote ever since then, because it's pretty awesome to be remote sometimes. 
But we ask that you refrain from clogging up the phone lines next week, because we want to hear from the people who just listen to the radio. 
Because I'm sure there are a lot of people out there that we haven't heard from in years, and we'd like to hear their voices again, too. 
So our phone number, 802-321-4225. 
Kyle, is my point about to be proved by who's on the phone now? 
I guess let's find out. 
Good evening, you're on Off the Hook Overtime. 
Yes. 
See, this is what we don't want to happen next week. 
We don't want to hear this voice on the radio, only because we hear this voice so many times, and there are so many other voices out there. 
But with that said, it's so good to hear your voice again, Rebel. 
On the radio, I have you. 
He didn't even stop talking. 
This is what I'm talking about. 
Go ahead. 
Talk. 
I'm not going to greet you a second time. 
Okay. 
Oh, it's good that you're going to be back in the studio, back on the air. 
I could call in, you know. 
Anyway, let's see. 
By the way, on what you're talking about, about catching people, that's why you have to show ID when you go on Hamtrak. 
That's how they find him. 
This person, he had gone on a Greyhound bus to Georgia. 
That's not how they found him. 
This person in McDonald's saw him. 
Nobody saw his ID on a bus. 
They didn't know where he was going. 
They thought he was going to Atlanta. 
Well, that's why you have to show ID now when you go on a Greyhound bus. 
Unless that's changed in the last couple of days, that's really, well, I mean, anyway, he had fake ID. 
So, if he did have to show ID on a Greyhound bus, it was fake ID. 
So, I'm not a big fan of that either. 
And I never have to show ID on Hamtrak, but that's a whole other thing. 
Or at McDonald's. 
I'm sorry, Kyle, go ahead. 
Or at McDonald's. 
Who said he has to show ID at McDonald's? 
You don't have to show ID at McDonald's. 
I know that, but who thinks you do? 
You might get ID'd at McDonald's. 
Why would you get ID'd at McDonald's? 
So, they don't serve beer? 
No, like... 
At least not here, they don't. 
...this alleged killer. 
Mm-hmm. 
Okay, well... 
Caller, did you have a question or comment for us? 
Yeah. 
Have your ISD online. 
What? 
Have your ISD online. 
How is our... 
What, are you calling from the 90s or something? 
Is this Rebel from 1991? 
No, I mean, you know, because I'm using T-Mobile. 
Well, Sprint used to give you 50 gigabytes of, like, high-speed tethering data. 
Okay, I haven't had an ISD in line in decades, so I don't know what you're referring to. 
Oh, well, I mean, you know, but now I have an ISD in line because T-Mobile is, you know, Sprint used to give you, like, 50 gigabytes of tethering data, you know, like, high-speed, like, you know, 100 megabytes a second or 80 megabytes a second or whatever it is. 
Uh-huh. 
You know, now that they merged with Sprint, now it's T-Mobile, and then now they give you 40 megabytes. 
So you're... 
When they merged. 
But now it's 30. 
Now they just do the reviews with the third. 
So now I use the... 
Now I'm at, uh, 56 kilobits a second, and you're buffering now. 
I can't even, you know, like, you buffer sometimes, like, on the YouTube. 
Well, we're intentionally buffering, just for you. 
So your contention is that your plan or the rate keeps your speeds to the levels akin to an ISD in line. 
Right. 
Like, 128, you're saying 56. 
That's, like, almost... 
So you don't actually have an ISD in line. 
You're just comparing your speed to an ISD in line. 
Right. 
Like, you know, it's like 30 megabytes of hyper... 
Oh, like, when you watch TV on cable TV, do they say, oh, you watch too much TV. 
We're going to, um, you know, uh, um, I don't know. 
Maybe I shouldn't compare it to TV. 
They don't do that, do they? 
They're kind of stingy with the data these days. 
Wouldn't that be cool if they did? 
You've watched enough TV, you can't watch any more TV because you have to get a better plan. 
Well, that's what T-Mobile is now, you know. 
I mean, I have unlimited data on my regular cell phone, but when I tether on my computer... 
Let's go on a little thought experiment, okay? 
Let's, let's just say that this so-called data is actually information. 
And if we're not treating information as though it is something we want many people to have an abundance of, but rather we're holding it hostage in certain ways, what kind of people, I mean, what would they be missing as a people, would you say, if there was a so-called, let's say, scarcity of this data? 
Because it's caused. 
Well, they would not be having a, they would not be having a very efficient computing experience. 
Yeah, they would be devoid of information. 
What kind of society do you think you would have with perhaps low amounts of information abound? 
I'm willing to give it a try. 
Well, my point is this. 
I'm surprised they don't take away the touchtone service on your cell phone, you know, if you use too much. 
Uh, it doesn't work the same way and I'm not going to get into that. 
My point is we should live, we should be, uh, coming from a place of abundance. 
This is something we have in plentiful supply and it makes society better. 
And yeah, like you're saying, throttling it, being micromanaging every bit of it. 
If it's, if it's a network constraint or it's an emergency situations, the, the, the certain types of, of, uh, entertainment, perhaps that's almost in a sort of realm of net neutrality. 
But certainly our everyday need for, uh, an abundance of this precious data should be encouraged by all relevant parties. 
So I'm with you. 
I think it's absurd. 
Well, like when I use my data on my regular cell phone, that's unlimited. 
You know, I, the high speed is unlimited. 
When I, if I had a wired line, like a file flying from the phone company or a cable modem with it, they don't tether the data. 
Like you can use however many gigabytes of data, the high speed data you need for your computer. 
Yeah. 
And, and I think the realization is that you could, um, sort of, uh, use your, uh, cellular handset as a modem and, and, um, have a whole lot of, of things that are employing what bandwidth the network has. 
And, and basically they're counting on your behavior being more sporadic than connected all the time over your handset. 
Um, because that's better for their sort of network design, having people pop up and use information, you know, use a little bit here and there. 
Uh, if everybody starts running like whole systems over their handsets, their, their, uh, capacity is reduced because it's being saturated constantly. 
I mean, that's like maybe the business argument. 
I don't know. 
I'm not, I'm not in this world of, uh, telecom engineering and businesses, business plans. 
They have their reasons for how and what we get, but certainly, um, it should be, it should be, uh, uh, expected that you're going to have situations where you need to use your handset as a modem. 
So yeah, like it, it is, it's a shame when no like early, um, uh, GSM GPR S data was too slow for any of this anyway, uh, to say nothing of like encrypting it. 
And so just when the phones are fast enough to be used in the way you're describing that they start saying, okay, no, you can't do that. 
That's tethering or, oh, your hotspot has too many devices or you can't have any thing these certain hours or whatever. 
Yeah. 
I mean, it's, it's silly. 
It should be designed to be used in a much freer and like more, uh, as I was alluding to abundant, uh, pro abundance way. 
Right. 
But then if we're in 5g now, I thought that would be, they would take away this kind of restriction when they had 5g. 
Well, I think like the, um, the, uh, sort of the deployment is there, but it isn't necessarily being used to its full sort of design capacity. 
I don't know that, but I suspect that just because we see different infrastructure changing or more masts and, and, uh, different kinds of antennas and stuff that is not necessarily, uh, being operated like with like the pedal to the metal, like fully, you know, within like every bit of its ability, they're going to slowly introduce things. 
And, uh, of course build, um, uh, business models around handsets and things that are capable of, of using the new technologies. 
But I, I think I have a 5g plan and I don't ever really get service because they don't, they don't particularly like the device I'm using or something, you know, like there's, there's weird reasons for all of this. 
Like it is absurd, I think. 
Yeah. 
I mean, maybe in the future they'll like do something like that. 
There's, there's just very slow, very slow implementation, I guess is what I'm kind of saying. 
But, uh, well, is there a way to hack this or go around it? 
Go around like, so that, you know what I mean? 
Like, is there like a, like a way to get around these restrictions? 
Um, trying different things. 
Absolutely. 
Yeah. 
And, um, doing what you can to, yeah. 
Like if, if it, if it's a cable that's not working, try using a hotspot or try, um, calling them like, you're pretty good, you know, chat them up, find out what actually they're able to do. 
Um, maybe, maybe you have some trips that you're not actually going on, but you need, uh, this extra little bit of data and, uh, you can work out a little short term deal, uh, and string that together. 
But it's, it's weird, you know, finding out the limitations, like what actually they're on off, what's off, what's being offered and reading the fine print. 
Cause they'll say sometimes or change the plan. 
And it's like, oh yeah, by the way, you can't hook up your, your laptop over USB or USB C or, or, um, over Bluetooth or whatever kind of hotspot. 
Or you have, you have a limit to two devices or something, or I don't know, a certain hours of the day. 
Like I was saying, you got to look at the fine print and they change that stuff dynamically because they don't really have a lot of strictures or regulation. 
They're not run like public utilities or private companies. 
Right. 
Exactly. 
And they're a West German company too. 
I might add. 
Not really. 
You know, the American T-Mobile is separate from T. 
And there's no West Germany anymore either. 
Okay. 
Well, so there's no way to hack it so that you can get, you know, you know. 
Well, we never said that. 
No, there's always a way. 
Don't you dare say that rebel. 
The minute you believe that it's over. 
All circuits are busy now. 
Please try your call later. 
8040T. 
Well, rebel, what that means is that your time has expired. 
I think he left. 
Okay, now we know how to make him hang up. 
Just play one of those recordings. 
Okay. 
Thank you for that call. 
802-321-4225 is our phone number. 
Good conversation you two are having there, Kyle. 
Yeah, I feel like we scared him off. 
No, that wasn't the intent, but it's fun anyway. 
I was just trying to, you know, go into it. 
No, it was a good conversation. 
Get into it with him, you know, really talk about it. 
But there are other people trying to get through. 
Those are my silly theories. 
I want to be wrong. 
Maybe I'm totally wrong. 
Okay, let's take this phone call. 
What, is it him again? 
Well, it's... 
You pick up the damn phone. 
We can't talk about who's on the phone before we pick up. 
Good evening. 
You're on off the... 
Go ahead. 
Over time. 
Okay, now I'm calling on the right way. 
It is him, see? 
Freeway. 
Yeah, okay. 
Rebel, I don't know if you heard us, but we're trying to move on to other callers, and you're hogging all the time. 
Oh, well, I know you know. 
Okay. 
Okay, I'll call next week. 
This is a... 
What's the phone number for IWG? 
No, no, no. 
You call all the time here, so take a week off next week. 
Let other people have a chance. 
And talk to us again in two weeks here. 
Okay? 
What about on the radio? 
Let's listen to the radio for a change. 
Just let other people call, because there are other people out there. 
Yeah, of course. 
All right. 
And they dial faster than you, too, so it's a moot point. 
They'll get on quickly. 
Thank you for your call. 
We do value your presence. 
Yes, Gila, go ahead. 
Is Rebel still on the phone? 
No. 
Why would you ask that? 
I was going to ask him if he could give us his email address, because if he's going to keep giving out ours, I would like to give out his, so he can get some junk mail for a change. 
Wait, what's wrong with giving out our address? 
We do that on the radio. 
Right. 
I have no issue with giving out the show's address. 
I have an issue with people using the show's address when someone asks them for an email address. 
Okay. 
And you think he's doing that? 
Yes. 
I think Rebel went to the Tesla dealership in Queens and gave out the show's email address. 
No. 
What makes you think of it? 
Because we keep getting, just idle speculation. 
Well, there's a lot of people in Queens, you know. 
I don't know. 
I also think Rebel used the show's email address when he got a home insurance quote. 
You need a better spam filter. 
Because, yeah, most of the mail out there is spam. 
Apparently I do. 
Yeah. 
All right. 
802-321-4225 is our phone number for anyone out there. 
That wishes to be a part of the conversation. 
Wherever it's going. 
Yeah. 
Well, now we got rid of Rebel. 
Do we have anything to talk about? 
Wow. 
Well, there's lots of speculation about, you know, the drones still in the chat. 
That conversation is still going on. 
And, you know, I like the alien theories. 
Well, please share some of the speculation that's going on. 
Just, you know, there are someone called Drakken says it's the alien's smiley face. 
You know, I personally think it's probably related to a certain incident in Grover's Mill, New Jersey in 1938. 
But you can look that up for yourself on October 30th of 1938. 
Yes, naturally. 
I mean, I'm assuming that part of the reason that it's not taking place in New York City is because, what, you can't see a drone at night in New York? 
Certainly not in Manhattan. 
Too many lights. 
Do these things fly in the daytime at all? 
Does anybody know that? 
I think the mysterious ones seem to have, at least in what I've been able to find out, it seems to be happening at night. 
Sometimes they're lit up. 
Sometimes they're not. 
I know where we live. 
We're in Queens, and we're in proximity to two airports. 
So anyone flying unauthorized stuff around would get a lot of interested eyes on them that I think would be more inclined to do something about it. 
Well, it's flying over Newark Airport, I heard. 
So I'm not sure. 
I mean, yeah, I guess that's an invitation to try us out. 
It'll be interesting. 
The classified briefing about that is tomorrow. 
Oh, is it? 
So if you're going to that, please definitely. 
You got tickets? 
Yeah. 
All right. 
Cool. 
O-T-H at 2600.com. 
All right. 
And good evening. 
You're on Off the Hook Overtime. 
Go ahead. 
Hey, it's Dr. 
Gonzo. 
I'm the guy who called me from China. 
Are you in space now? 
What's going on? 
Boy. 
I'm driving in the rain. 
Can you hear me? 
It sounds like you're running in the rain, but okay. 
Yeah, we hear you, but please don't risk your life on our account. 
Is it better? 
It's probably my crappy. 
You turned off the rain. 
Yeah, it's much better. 
Okay. 
Well, the phone's got a better audio system. 
Okay. 
I'm calling in because I had an experience just yesterday. 
My father-in-law found himself needing to buy a phone. 
And my mother-in-law is in a nursing home. 
And they're at that point in their life right now where he has to account for all the money he's spending and have, like, check receipts and all that. 
So, you know, and they're trying to buy a cell phone in 2024 using a check. 
So, the first challenge we found is nobody wants to sell a cell phone without a contract. 
We couldn't give AT&T cash. 
We couldn't give T-Mobile cash. 
Nobody was looking to sell phones. 
Target will only sell prepaid cards now. 
They don't sell phones locally anymore. 
And the only place we were able to do it, God help us, was Walmart, who allowed us to buy one without a contract and without putting it on a plan and all that. 
Wow. 
It's the craziest time we live in. 
And amazingly, Walmart took a check, but I think I need to take 75 showers to gain there yet. 
That's true. 
Alex, did you have something to contribute here? 
Yeah. 
I've recently purchased a phone for somebody who lives overseas and just really didn't want to be subject to a contract, just wanted to have essentially almost like a pay-as-you-go type of SIM card. 
This person would only be using the phone when he came into the United States. 
And I found actually that… Alex, you froze. 
Say that sentence again because you just froze. 
Oh, I did. 
I'm back, though. 
Okay. 
So there are a ton of options to do this in the city, in Manhattan, at some of these smaller, almost like wholesale cell phone stores that you can find around 28th Street and Broadway to like maybe 32nd and Broadway. 
It's kind of this weird area of the city that's been really highly gentrified but also has a bunch of these wholesalers for perfumes, jewelry, watches, and a lot of cell phone shops. 
And in those shops, you can pick up the phone for like 20, 30 bucks and just get a pay-as-you-go subscription or a really, really low monthly fee. 
I was surprised. 
So, you know, there's places, but I think you've got to get away from the big chains. 
Yeah, there's just, you know, there's life in, you know, the Hudson Valley or the Catskills. 
And, you know, there's nothing. 
The malls are dead. 
You got mom-and-pop shops, I guess, but they're all looking to get you on plans, too. 
But you're right. 
I didn't think I – I don't think I went into any of those. 
But in my experience, I've always been very weary of those places. 
But I hear you. 
Well, that's another reason not to be, a reason to realize they serve a purpose. 
It's true. 
Yeah. 
No, they're – but they're kind of intimidating. 
I get it. 
You look in there and it's just, you know, it's not like a warm, inviting place. 
It's odd. 
And Walmart is? 
Walmart is a warm, inviting place? 
Oh. 
Yeah, yeah. 
You can wear whatever you want at Walmart. 
They at least have that. 
Well, I guess, yeah, fashion is not their key. 
Or nothing at all, so. 
I'm not sure about that. 
So your problem is pretty much solved then. 
Yeah, yeah. 
It worked out. 
But it was just – it was kind of shocking. 
And the woman at the counter there, she said, they had only just started taking money for phones. 
And, you know, here we are. 
And I'm like, I thought this was America and it was all about the money. 
But it really apparently isn't. 
And it's about hooking you on to a contract and maximizing shareholder value. 
That's crazy. 
You know, it's just a short-sightedness of latching on to a particular way of doing things without ever considering that maybe other people need a different way to do something. 
And, you know, whether that's landlines or paying for a cell phone with a check or whatever, you have to have these options open. 
Go ahead, Gila. 
People are chiming in in the chat, suggesting that buying a phone off eBay or a Pixel from Google, apparently that Target sells unlocked Pixel phones that you can use with any carrier, says someone. 
Yeah, that's totally fine. 
And I think that's where my challenge came in. 
I had tons of 20-24 solutions to a problem that he was using, like, you know, 1890 check technology. 
So, you know, it's one of those things, be eBay and all that, be Dan. 
It's just, you know, he's an 87-year-old guy trying to make his way through, and he does okay. 
But, you know, I don't know what people do when they don't have somebody they can call back to. 
Well, that's why we all need to take care of each other. 
It was great talking to you guys. 
Talk to you soon. 
All right. 
Thanks for your call. 
And, Alex, I think you had a point. 
Not in relation to the caller, but in relation to something that Rob had mentioned earlier and for which I think the listeners on YouTube were clamoring, which is to speculate a little bit more on the drones in New Jersey. 
And I just wanted to ask Rob if he made an oblique reference to the Grover's Mill incident that had to deal with the War of the Worlds and the hysteria surrounding the broadcast of the War of the Worlds. 
That's what you were referencing, right? 
It was, yes. 
Ten points to Alex. 
Yeah, and there's, like, that Grover's Mill monument in New Jersey, right, about this, like, the Martian landing site, right, where people got – you tell the story. 
You made the reference, which I thought was brilliant. 
Yeah, there is an actual – well, Grover's Mill, New Jersey is a real place. 
When they wrote the War of the Worlds play that went over the radio in 1938, apparently Grover's Mill, New Jersey was chosen as the location. 
The original story, of course, took place in England. 
But when they were making – when they were writing the radio version, they just dropped a pencil on a map and found something near it that sounded like an interesting place name, and that was Grover's Mill. 
And so there is a bronze plaque that you can visit, a monument, to where they decided the Martian landing site was in Grover's Mill. 
And you can check that out if you're traveling and want to see some cool roadside attractions. 
Cool. 
Our phone number, 802-321-4225. 
Phone lines are open. 
But what a great reference to bring up in relation to the drone speculation, right? 
Maybe this is all just to kind of whip us up into hysteria, one little bit of New Jersey. 
Has anyone tried following – you know, tracing out the path that the drones are taking? 
I don't think anyone has done that because I don't think it's easy to do. 
But maybe it's spelling out a word or something, you know? 
Maybe it's spelled 2600. 
I doubt that. 
But, you know, it's – whoever is behind this knows what they're doing. 
Well, it's take me to your leader, but they're very confused about – I mean, it's a transitional point. 
It's just a lot going on. 
And, yeah. 
No, it's no laughing matter. 
This isn't a joke. 
Yeah, it is. 
It's funny. 
No, it's not funny. 
There's nothing funny. 
This is very serious. 
There are no calls on the line. 
Okay. 
That's more serious, I think. 
But we don't have to stay on the air. 
I mean, it's not like radio. 
We can just sign off any time. 
So let's give it another minute and we can, you know, adjourn. 
Yes. 
802-321-4225. 
That's 802-321-HACK. 
Tell us what's on your mind. 
We want to know what you're thinking. 
But, yeah, if no one's interested in talking with us, we can roll it up a little early today. 
So what have you got there, Gila? 
So the Wonder Ball says we are going to have another caller. 
Was that some kind of, like, horoscope or something? 
No, I got this really fun, disco-looking Magic 8-Ball. 
Oh, I like it. 
A little disco ball. 
And I asked it if we were to get another caller. 
And it says the future is bright. 
So... 
The future being bright can mean we get no more calls and we can just, you know, turn in early, you know, start early on dinner, that sort of thing. 
See, it's open for interpretation. 
And I appreciate that. 
It's not just yes. 
All the best divination is open to interpretation. 
I also shook it again and now it says yes, boogie down. 
That works for me. 
I don't like your 8-Ball. 
It's not like the one I had as a kid. 
All right, we have a phone call. 
It comes through. 
All right. 
It worked. 
Let's take this call. 
Good evening. 
You're on off-thook overtime. 
Go ahead. 
Turn in early. 
And I'll ask. 
Speak up. 
What are you shaking your head for? 
What does that mean? 
I don't think... 
I think it's a wrong number. 
Well, it was us on the phone. 
I heard our voices. 
So they just called up and played us. 
Wow, that was clever. 
You got us. 
Wow. 
I can only imagine the many clever things you do in a day. 
I'm pretty sure that was... 
That might have been Rebel. 
And then he realized that he would have been in gross violation. 
Well, you can tell if it's Rebel. 
We do get caller ID. 
Okay, and he still doesn't realize he's in gross violation, but... 
Is that him? 
Good evening. 
You're on off-thook overtime. 
Go ahead. 
Hotel reservation. 
For all other calls, press pound. 
Just for calling today, you'll have the opportunity to receive a $100 retail rebate voucher, which you can redeem from your purchases at major retailers like Walmart, Target, and many more. 
The $100 rebate voucher is yours today for just $1.95 when you subscribe to one of our savings programs. 
So make sure you have your credit card. 
There's not enough evidence here to suggest that's Rebel. 
All right. 
All right. 
Excuse me. 
Hung up? 
Hung up? 
Okay. 
8-0-2-3-2-1-4-2-2-5. 
We'll give it another minute and a half. 
Okay. 
You do not need to provide a credit card. 
Well, I mean... 
Go ahead. 
And good evening. 
You're on off-thook overtime. 
Go ahead. 
Can you subscribe to one of our savings? 
Okay. 
Here's the deal. 
We're going to give it one more minute. 
If we get another call like that, we're done for the night. 
Period. 
Yeah. 
I'm not the most patient person in the world sometimes. 
All right. 
Here we go. 
Good evening. 
You're on off-thook overtime. 
What was that, Kyle? 
Hello. 
Go ahead. 
What's on your mind? 
Hey, I want to ask you guys about a simple question. 
Uh-huh. 
How do those... 
I want to get an extra phone number. 
So I use that thing called text now. 
But they block me for any verification purposes. 
How do they do that? 
I don't know what he's talking about. 
Do you... 
Alex, you know? 
Go ahead. 
It's like Google phone. 
You can get a separate phone number so they can call you and you can use that for like anything else. 
It's like a virtual number service. 
Yeah. 
Correct. 
Correct. 
And you forward it. 
Pardon me? 
You like forward it or something. 
Anyway, go on. 
Alex, what do you have? 
Well, I just wanted... 
Okay. 
He changed his mind. 
I just want another number so I can say have that with Facebook so they can text me a special code or something. 
And I'm using this thing called text now, which is one of the apps you get from Android phones. 
But they... 
If I don't pay them, they will disable me for verification purposes. 
So how do they know it's a verification code sending to me on that number? 
That's what I don't understand. 
Does anybody understand this? 
Is that from a third party, the verification? 
Like if you're using it with a third party and they sense that, you're saying they limit the way you're using it? 
Well, it's basically like sometimes... 
What did I do? 
I use something. 
Oh, like I'm using a log on to my bank account thing. 
So they'll send me a verification code and I got to punch that in. 
Yes. 
And if that's... 
Excuse me. 
That verification code never gets through to me because I have to pay extra to get to it. 
So they're filtering. 
They're doing some kind of inspection of your traffic and not providing certain content or certain messages based on where they're coming from, which is probably whatever SMS service the bank is using to send those codes. 
So how much is it? 
What do they want for it? 
They want like $6.99 a month or something like that. 
On top of whatever you're already paying? 
Well, it's free until you want all those other things. 
I see. 
So have you researched... 
Have you found one that works a little better or works in a different way that you like? 
Well, yeah. 
I was thinking of trying to use Google phone or the Google number or something. 
All right. 
I can try that link. 
Well, they'll take it away from you if you don't use it at all. 
I found that out the hard way. 
Oh, yeah. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
They do take it away from you if you don't use it. 
I was to the point of like I had an ongoing message with myself that was just like hi, back and forth. 
And that worked for a really long time until I didn't keep it up. 
I stopped talking to myself, if that makes sense. 
Oh, okay. 
Do you guys know anything about the Google number at all or no? 
What do you mean about the Google number? 
About Google Voice? 
Well, they have a Google number. 
I go to NJIT... 
Actually, not NJIT. 
Dentistry. 
New Jersey Dentistry for my dental work. 
Okay. 
Don't give out your whole care routine, but... 
Yeah. 
Gotcha. 
But they use Google numbers so I can text the students or whatever stuff that I need. 
And so I don't need to talk to the student dentist at all. 
But they can text me. 
I can call them. 
I can do all those other things. 
So I was just wondering whether I should try to go with a Google number or not. 
It does work. 
I used it for some time and was able to message and use a fair amount of the voicemail features. 
I don't know. 
You should play around with it. 
There are other services, like virtual voice services, that may be more dedicated, may work better. 
So read some reviews, do a little bit of that to get a sense of what's out there. 
But you can set one up because, again, the other service you're already using, it's free. 
So it's kind of a low cost. 
So if you use it just for getting, I don't know, alerts about takeout orders or something simple, if you want to use it more because you like it, you can sort of slowly rely on it more as you use your other services less or whatever makes sense for your scenario. 
Anyway, I'll let that go on. 
Cool. 
Cool. 
I just want to tell you guys, you guys are great. 
And you are knowledgeable and very, very enlightening listening to you guys. 
Well, thank you. 
Thank you very much. 
Thank you for your call. 
That's really generous and kind of you to say. 
Thank you for your listening. 
Hey, I love that. 
But also, you guys really know almost everything. 
Oh, that's so not true. 
Actually, it's quite the opposite in my view. 
Like, it's all about not really knowing anything or knowing a certain batch of things that makes sense in some way to me. 
But, like, I think still being open to being kind of learning new stuff and being malleable in your learning is important because you get kind of set in, like, oh, you do know a lot. 
I mean, you know, we know what we know and try to, like, share as much as we can and build on that knowledge. 
But it's good that it comes off that way. 
But I by no means would take that kind of credit. 
No, no. 
Like, you guys are good in the sense that you are humble and at the same time knowledgeable. 
And you are not snotty at all. 
So that makes everything great. 
Well, cheers. 
Thank you very, very much. 
Thanks for your call. 
Hey, take care, guys. 
All right. 
Good night. 
Okay. 
Do we end now? 
What's that? 
Oh, it was very kind of him to say that. 
Yes. 
Yes. 
Yeah. 
Very, very West German, as a rebel would say. 
Rob, go ahead. 
Gila, whatever. 
Something that was mentioned by a listener was that we should be promoting the holiday specials on the 2600 website, which obviously we didn't do on the radio. 
But if you want to do that here, always an option. 
Oh, yeah. 
Okay. 
There are holiday specials on the 2600 website. 
They will be. 
Right now there's an announcement about this very show. 
No, they're on the website right now. 
Oh, right. 
Yeah, yeah. 
On the main page, you have to go to the store. 
But yeah, they're there. 
Right. 
There's an announcement on the website, but store.2600.com. 
As you can see, we're not really great at promoting ourselves, but yeah, they're there. 
We're talking about five different ways. 
There are many announcements. 
They're all in different places. 
You can get cheap flash drives, and you can get extended subscriptions and things like that. 
Yeah, Gila. 
And also, just looking ahead, we will be on the air two weeks from tonight. 
We will be on the air three weeks from tonight. 
Wait, wait, wait. 
We'll be on the air next week. 
What do you mean? 
I know. 
But some people might have other plans next in two weeks, in three weeks. 
Okay. 
You just, for the holidays, we'll be on the air. 
But we will be on the air next week as well. 
We'll be on the air next week. 
But nobody was wondering about that. 
The 18th is like, whatever. 
But the 25th and the 1st, we will be on the air. 
Whether we'll be on overtime is a different question. 
If we're on the air, we can be on overtime. 
But if we're taking phone calls on the air, then we're not going to be on overtime. 
Next week, we're taking phone calls on the air. 
So there won't be an overtime. 
It's simple. 
So stay tuned here to find out if there's going to be overtime on the 25th and the 1st. 
But there's definitely off the hook until we'll be BAI those nights. 
Correct. 
And just to put the info out there, I know sometimes folks find us on YouTube without listening to the radio show first. 
So you can catch our main program, the thing we do, the main thing we do that this is an accessory to, on WBAI.org. 
Wherever in the world you are, you can log on and listen to us live on WBAI.org at 7 p.m. 
Eastern United States time and on Wednesday evenings. 
If you have one of these things called radios, you can tune to 99.5 FM in the New York City area, the tri-state area, actually, and listen to us at those times and listen to the radio at all times. 
Absolutely. 
Catch us on the radio if you're local. 
We love that. 
We have a last phone call, Kyle. 
All right. 
We've got to go. 
Okay, I don't know what that is, but I haven't brought up the phone yet, so is there a phone call, Kyle? 
Yes. 
Okay. 
Good evening. 
You're on off the hook overtime. 
Speak up. 
There's nobody there, Kyle. 
There's nobody there. 
Okay. 
All right. 
I think it's as good a time as any to call it a night. 
No. 
Yeah. 
Yes. 
Let's all talk over each other. 
That's fine. 
We can do that. 
We're just all agreeing with each other. 
I would like to say... 
You going to give that one another chance? 
We're going to give it one more chance? 
All right. 
One more chance. 
That's the last time. 
Go ahead. 
Go ahead. 
Who's going ahead? 
You. 
Oh, me? 
Yeah. 
I just want to thank the 55 people who are hanging in with us live in the chat right now. 
Lord have mercy. 
I know, right? 
Watching live right now, which is very cool. 
We're glad you're here. 
We know there are so many better ways to spend your Wednesday evening. 
Thank you for choosing us. 
Let's see who's on the phone here. 
Good evening. 
You're on overtime. 
Go ahead. 
That's it. 
I'm done. 
No, I'm finished. 
That's the last straw. 
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall. 
As I fade into the distance. 
Remember, when you're adding moonshine to your eggnog, three milliliters is a shot. 
Yeah, we're not picking that up, so don't even touch it, Kyle. 
We're done. 
We're finished. 
It's over. 
Good night. 
Thank you, everybody. 
OTH at 2600.com is our address. 
Drink responsibly during the holidays. 
We're getting back on the air before the holidays. 
No, I mean, if you're starting early, if you're making plans. 
Don't do that. 
No, no, don't start early. 
Don't drive. 
Look out on the road. 
All right. 
We'll see you next time. 
Good night.