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Altel 83.
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Bum Diddley Bum.
is good evening and um that looks like gila over to your your left good evening and uh do i see
alex you're correct once again on a roll emmanuel good evening wow it's just like old times and by
old times i mean at least a month ago which is the last time we we gathered here uh since that that
time uh kyle and i have been traveling all throughout europe uh talking to so many people
including a good number of our listeners uh and it's just it's it's great to be back it was great
to uh be traveling and to be talking with uh uh with so many of you uh and just to be experiencing
all kinds of different things that there's so much to share so much to uh to talk about i should point
out i just had a tooth extracted so i'm a little out of it uh and and the dentist said i shouldn't
talk so much i'm not sure if he was referring to in general or uh just you know because of the
medical procedure but i'm gonna you know try and fall back a little bit and and just um uh try and
say what's um uh what's absolutely vital uh but any any um um updates or or questions or things that
um uh we need to catch up on oh just uh we are interested in hearing about uh your adventures
and travels and uh so now that you can't talk as much that's not as that's not as useful a question
unless uh kyle you want to take the uh the lead on telling us about what uh what you've been up to
there well one of the things that i took away uh was that it really has changed in just a little bit
of a hiatus for me in traveling just some of the um ways that it is a little bit easier than i
remember it as far as planning and um taking care of different logistical parts of of being out in the
world and i've definitely been inspired by some of our listeners travels and um getting back out
there it just was really cool to notice how many places are pretty welcoming and generally kind to
visitors yeah there's systems there's different elements of places that can be a little cumbersome
and hard to navigate or just don't feel as welcoming but for uh for me that reminder of um
just how welcoming the the outside world can be and inviting to just explore and and find cool things
and then you get to take it back in the form of stories and and uh adventures that you get to share
you know i'd say the only the only time things seemed unwelcoming was uh upon arrival where you
weren't sure where you were where to go how it all worked but then once you got used to that it
became very familiar very welcoming and and things work like technology works great you know everyone
has uh these contactless cards for mass transit and um it's it's like the omni card you know it's it's
just it's a universal thing absolutely contactless payment and um just the ease and sort of speed you can
um transact and go about having your your uh snack or or a coffee along the way it just it really is uh
kind of amazing how you just don't have to deal with a lot of um cumbersome stuff like with cash and
and uh you can pretty well take care of yourself without doing a lot of like uh withdrawing money and
exchanging it and trying to keep track of exchange rates um the other thing that i think i really
appreciated is there were some countries that we went to that just had uh ubiquitous access to
internet and i think that's something that has has to catch on there's still this attitude that it's um
it's a a sort of a perk or an extra thing as as opposed to being sort of standard and expected and
really everybody needs to access data and it was just really cool to be in certain places where
you check if there's a a connection other than like cellular and it's just there you're not uh wandering
through accepting a whole bunch of terms and taking different time uh signing up for things and and
creating this pattern or or this uh uh trail of of uh marketing and and advertising that that you have
to agree to there's none of that and some of the uh places that i got to visit and that that feeling of
like wow this is just normal uh and your your um your standard of living is that people should
have access to they deserve information and it helps your uh overall economy because our home carriers
really sucked they were terrible they were slow uh they were spotty uh oftentimes we would get
absolutely nothing and you know every country that i um i entered i would get welcomed by my carrier
saying hey if you want true high speed internet you got to pay more uh otherwise we're going to limit
you to 128k uh which is not exactly uh um feasible for almost anything uh so but you would just look
for wi-fi and you know if you're on a bus hey bus has wi-fi or this this train has wi-fi no password
nothing like that just it's everywhere especially places like estonia the the baltics were great as far
as connectivity rob um one question i have um i think for all three of you guys who have been
doing uh some international traveling at this particular point in world history um have you
noticed any difference in the vibes um traveling as an american i was really worried about that because
um uh while i'm a european citizen and i i switch to european as soon as i get on the plane
uh i i readily admit i'm from new york when you say you're from new york people light up
they really do and they say it's my dream to go to new york of course i'll never be allowed to go
to new york so many people say that too and these are people who live in europe not allowed to come
to the united states uh you know if i say i'm from the united states i'm gonna get a look i know that
um but if you say you're from new york it means something different it really does uh and um we didn't
get any hostility for uh where we were from and um you know we we didn't uh exhibit any hostility
towards people because you know we're all in this together and um people really look out for each
other you don't have to know the language you don't have to know the culture you just have to be open
to it and that's the magic of travel and this is the first time since before covid that kyle and i
have been overseas so it was really important to catch up with a lot of people uh and you know we went
to the chaos communication congress which is the annual hacker event takes place in in hamburg i
believe we talked to you on new year's um and uh that was that was you know like mecca for hackers
it's you know about 20 000 people show up for this thing and it's just an incredible uh display of light
and music and and technology and just magic and the thing is you know so many people came up to us
wanting to know about hope uh and and the fact that hope was canceled uh by saint john's university
because there was an anarchist in our midst we we allowed anarchist collectives to be part of um of
the entire conference as attendees and that was too much for them and uh and that's why uh hope was
canceled due to that and you know the number of people who uh talked to us and paralleled that to
what's going on in our country you know with all the horrible things and boy did we hear a lot of
horrible things while we were traveling and occasionally turn on the news um we didn't see
it as quickly that yeah you know what what happened to hope is is very similar to what's happening all
across the country universities are terrified to have anything resembling free speech these days
because they will be targeted and many of them are simply uh just lying down and taking it
and it's awful it's awful for people who want to be able to express themselves it's awful for people
that want to expand their minds it's awful for people who want to push back and right now you
know that's that's a lot of us who want to push back and you know ever since we got back which is
only a few days ago uh wow it's really gone into hyperdrive and um you know i'm i'm i'm super
impressed with what i've seen from fellow citizens here in the states but you know i want them to know
that the rest of the world or at least the parts of europe that we went through and that's starting
in iceland and going down through the baltics and western europe they're with us you know they support
us they are um uh sending their support their love and you know we have the ability to inspire them
as they inspire us um you know when we were in um um was that lithuania i'm sorry sometimes they
merge together yeah lithuania had the buses that every single bus said vilnius loves ukraine you know
there were so many shows of support for a country being besieged by another country and it doesn't stop
there you know there there were all kinds of displays of support for people who were being oppressed
or victimized and that extends to us because guess what we're those people now too you know and um
we're living in a society where you can be executed in the street now that is a reality and it's scary
to think that's true what's even scarier is the possibility that we might think that's normal that
we might start to accept that and what i'm so happy about is that i'm seeing people aren't accepting it
driving down the street today there was a protest at an intersection just right there anti-ice there
was one on saturday they're not going away this time i don't think they're stopping and that is
inspirational to the world and i just hope people realize that that none of us are alone none of us
are alone people are watching people care people ask us all kinds of questions about what's going on
here about how such a thing is possible how did we get to this stage it's hard to explain it really
is hard to explain but it's something that a lot of us saw coming and um we have to deal with it and
make no mistake we have to deal with it all of us all of us listening and just know that places like
wbai who i really hope you support because can you imagine not having this voice
they are going to be so important in the days weeks months years ahead as long as we have that
amount of time that's where you will hear different points of view that's where you will hear what is
actually happening and that's where you will get past the lies the disinformation that's being spread
i mean we all saw it last week we saw how you know you could see something with your own eyes and be
told that no you didn't see that you know they used to be just an orwell uh saying but now it's
it's reality and um you need places you need alternative media you need individual people
to tell you that you're not alone that we're in this together and that you're not crazy you know that
that um these things are actually happening and we have to find strength in each other and find unity
in each other so i'm not sure if i was answering a question just now but i really i felt i had to
get that out because i haven't been saying a lot recently and um uh there is so much going on and
we're really at a pivotal point in history and i just don't want anybody to um to pass up being a
part of that pivotal part of history alex i see your your hand is up yeah well you know on that that
very note i want to mention a few things that that i've been up to over the last couple of weeks here
too i mean i've been very angry with what's happening with ice all around the country
especially in new york and and i think what you're speaking to emmanuel it really i think it it strikes
a chord with so many people right because you have to do what you can do it could be joining a protest
it could be making calls it could be something but you know we have to push back in some way or
another because this is not it's not just ice it's a coordinated attack on our freedom and our
democracy and on in particular this station as well if you think about how public funding for
broadcasting related issues has been just yanked across the board i mean this station and many
stations are suffering and it's it's more important by the day by the minute i think to have listener
sponsored places like this that give everyone a sense of community and show them that they're not
alone and on that front i i thought i was going to be alone and doing something a couple of weeks
ago i got this email as part of a mailing list i'm i'm on um with some nyu folks and whatnot and it
was a request to join in this effort from an nyu law clinic to push back on the ice detentions that
are happening in new york in the five boroughs and it was a request for people to volunteer and file
habeas petitions basically contesting the right of the federal government to hold these detainees
in federal custody because very often ice is using the wrong authorities when they detain these
people or they're detaining them under an expanded theory of authorities that is not actually the law
and so any event i said to myself well you know what i have to i have to do something and i'm a lawyer
here and i have this superpower i have this ability to file these habeas petitions under my own name so
i checked with the founder of of the ethereum name service you know the entity for which i'm
i'm general counsel and uh he's over in the uk and he's he said not only do i i think you know you
should be doing this but i entirely support it and we can support this financially if you need to
and i showed up for this training for lawyers that volunteered and i couldn't believe what i saw
i mean it was absolutely incredible it was so inspiring to see not just my name and like five
other people there were hundreds of lawyers that volunteered to file these habeas petitions
i mean i could you could just the names just kept scrolling and scrolling these were coming from
non-for-profit organizations they were coming from private law firms they were coming from in-house
they were coming from all over the place everybody was volunteering to get this and now when these cases
come in they're hard to get because people volunteer so quickly to pick them up there's there's more
lawyers than there are actual cases and detentions happening right now that are willing so i feel
really good about the fact that my profession is pushing back really hard against ice right now in new
york and we're going to continue to do so and i will probably get my first habeas petition within
the next week or so to be filing so something fun and i'd love to talk further about that on this show
as uh as this effort gets underway well you know um on the subject of of ice and and training and all
that you know to train law enforcement um officials takes months at least takes you know a number of
months um six months perhaps 20 weeks i don't know i've seen all kinds of different um uh figures thrown
around and um for these ice agents who they are literally grabbing from the streets you know
basically they're looking for um uh mega supporters they're looking for gun rights people uh the
qualifications are not that high you don't have to have an education uh and they're basically just
handing out guns to people and saying you now have authority the um this i i just read this a little
while ago and i'm still stunned that this is actually what's going on the training period has
been reduced from from months down to 47 days and the reason it's 47 days is because donald trump
is the goddamn 47th president you know this is the kind of childishness they engage in it's all about
numbers and symbols and power and it doesn't matter about qualifications anymore you know
they just will take anybody and we saw we saw in minneapolis what happens when you have people who
don't have a handle on their emotions and don't have proper training and have way too much power
you see what happens there you see what happens throughout the country when somebody steps up and
challenges these people as everybody has the right to do everybody i think has the obligation to do
what they are doing is no different than what jackbooted thugs do in in in places where where
people are are holed up in their houses trying to um trying to live their lives and not be
brought to some horrible place that they probably won't survive you know and this is not what people
voted for it certainly is not what people voted for but this is the reality that we're facing right
now so yeah people don't want this people are standing up to it and boy i gotta tell you it is
making them mad it is making them insanely furious i'm not just talking about the ice agents i'm talking
about people in the upper echelons of government because they are becoming increasingly unhinged and i think
that is the best thing to do is to keep pushing them until they go stark raving mad and let's not
be afraid of the power they have because don't forget we gave them that power we can take it away
and we need to push hard to do that you know i've been to a bunch of these demonstrations
and they're great you know hundreds thousands of people and we're talking about you know not very
large places and they're all over the area all over the country but you know i ask myself how many
people do i know who are basically passionately in favor of these things quite a few how many of
them do i know who went to one of these demonstrations almost zero and there's all kinds of reasons why not
and they're valid reasons for sure but can you imagine if we all showed up if we spread the word
and you know a lot of this also is the way the word gets out you know i ask people these demonstrations
how do i find out when the next demonstration is oh you have to join our facebook group i'm not on
facebook i i don't give a rat's ass about facebook i don't want to be on facebook isn't there a better
way to let people know when the next demonstration is we just need to be more open to new people coming
in and um i don't think we have to worry about being disrupted by new people i think new people are
the key uh so um yes gila go ahead um i had seen a uh a tweet that went viral about a week ago and i
enjoyed it and just wanted to share it um cheesecake factory training is up to four weeks and then even
after that you're still in a probationary period and have to follow lead servers around until they
deem you fit enough to drop brown bread by yourself just leaving that here for some framing and that quote
tweeted um the atlantic saying ice agents only receive 47 days of academy training and that came from
a person who's known as grip skylark at tallyberry baby um on twitter um i moved to new york from
the twin cities so this is a very strange um moment to be seeing um seeing the people i know
talking about it in what's happening in their neighborhoods what they're seeing as they take
their kids to school and try to go to the grocery store and the way that the community is coming
together is heartening um it shouldn't have to be but it is communities are coming together to create
mutual support for families who are too scared to go to the grocery store
because people are not leaving their homes right now for very very good reasons and it's terrifying to
see um and that the secretary of the department of homeland security was standing behind a podium that
said one of ours all of yours yeah that hits something scarily in my gut um
i don't i feel like i've been saying this a lot over the past few years but i
i am so frustrated and so scared and so unsure of what to do other than throw up my hands and hide
i hear you and uh it's it's difficult but again knowing that we're not alone knowing that there are
many people around us that means the world especially if you're somebody who is who's trapped somebody who
feels like they can't even go outside without being grabbed because either uh you don't have
all the right papers and you're still in the process of of filling out all the right forms
uh or you look like somebody that they might think fits that qualification it's disgusting and this is not
at all what people even people on the other side you know what they voted for at least in my mind
the people i know who voted that way would never want something like this they would want you know
violent criminals and threats to society yeah take them off the streets absolutely but that's not
what's happening that's not what has been happening over the past year and um it's got to stop it's got
to stop and if if um uh doing everything possible to stop ice from from finishing whatever it is they
start if that's the way to do it then that's what has to be done we need trained people trained law
enforcement to carry out law enforcement you know people who are qualified to do the job we don't have
that right now we have a bunch of people who are power hungry and over weaponized and they're abusing
their power there are so many videos out there of of people who basically are are commanded to stop
and then they have their windows broken by these thugs because they didn't stop fast enough or they
didn't stop in the right place and these are these are citizens not that it should make a difference
you treat everybody with respect this is one thing you learn traveling is that people treat each other
with respect you know you may have nothing in common with them a totally different background totally
different language but you treat people right and that comes back to you and what's happening now is
is so ugly so disgusting that if if we don't fight it if we don't destroy it we're going to lose
whatever it is that we have here in this country it will fall apart and we used to think we were immune
from what's going on right now we are not immune from that we are not immune from from whatever
can come about as a result of this you know to bring it to technology you know i i just want to ask
this question how many of you run windows 95 be honest be honest now yeah now no nobody no okay i'm
surprised why uh all right i mean windows 95 is a good operating system uh it it worked you know connected
to the internet and all that and had programs that worked and uh nobody really nobody is running
windows 95 okay um i don't know i'm not running it yeah okay well that's kind of honest um all right
well okay i i imagine you're not running it because you believe it's outdated and i guess maybe you've
updated to another windows platform or or maybe you've gone to ubuntu or something or you know some other
linux distribution you've you've upgraded updated you've you've modernized right because that's what
you do with systems you don't leave them as old systems because they're prone to all kinds of
malfunctions and and and things get really slow and there's security issues and it's just not smart
it's not smart to do that sure you know you could probably run some programs but i really wouldn't
advise connecting to the internet or to other computers because you know they'll pass you around
the campfire like a bag of chips it's just basically you know you will be a victim it's it's it's awful
uh what will happen to old operating systems what we have in this country is a very old operating
system and i worry that it's not prepared for what is happening right now you know i'm i'm seeing in the
news that um uh hey the congress is going to vote on the president's uh power to uh invade foreign
countries like venezuela you know they're going to do that this is considered a victory but okay you
know in the unlikely event that it actually passes in the first place the president can just veto it
he can just say no so what kind of a system is that you know that seems like a very uh antiquated
outdated system where you need to rein in somebody and the person you're trying to rein in can simply
say no i won't be reigned in there's nothing you can do about it we seem to have this scenario over
and over and over again where this guy can just destroy the white house he can get rid of of public
broadcasting he can do all kinds of things and nobody can stop him he can get the supreme court to to
do his bidding and there's no way around it it just feels like you know if um the founding fathers
had maybe spent a little more time thinking of the the the possible scenarios out there we'd have a
better operating system or maybe we need a way to do some updates every now and then what do you say
every tuesday we do an update you know just send it out and uh it works for computers i you know i
really think it should work for uh for governments because right now we have is a very very broken
system alex do you agree do you think the system is broken i know you're uh you know you're into the
whole uh legal system being a lawyer and all but you must see that a lot of it is failing
uh i do think so i i absolutely do think so and what's it's really weird that you you mentioned
this because my my next article that i'm thinking of and already putting the bones together about
um is is here's the working title for it democracy is unpatched code in a failing state machine
literally that's that's the working title of the next article that i'm writing and i and i do think
there is a there's an analogy to be made here right because we have a lot of modern democracies that do
seem like they're they're almost like window dressing in a sense you think about like today
in brussels they've got 600 days without an actual government that's kind of amazing like so you have
to really wonder like what is the actual function of modern democracies and are we confusing uptime
essentially with something like self-government and self-rule you know the fact that these these
systems just keep trucking along and haven't been rebooted and haven't been taken down and haven't
been patched does not necessarily mean that they're great and that they're fit for purpose right like
like you're trying to make this analogy not you're not running windows 95 anymore because you know
you you'd be subject to attack you need to you need to update you need to upgrade and so i i do think
that we have a lot of broken processes that we need a very serious reboot of democracy and think about
how we do this because to bring this back down to to hacker terms again democracy is just a system
it's a set of rules it is a a a system that has certain vulnerabilities in it and it has certain
people exploiting those vulnerabilities in ways that i think we need to patch now
and the systems by which we ordinarily do this namely the legislative process and the election of
officials that we trust to represent the public interest well that those processes all seem to be
in some way or another infected or also being exploited at this particular time as well and it does seem
like almost from a constitutional perspective we need to rethink how the system works how it operates
how we can make it stronger and more resistant to these threat actors that were certainly not
anticipated back in the 18th century it's founding fathers constitutional malware you can use that by
the way i can use that yeah i mean it really is crazy that you you're mentioning this particular
analogy right now because that was something i actually started writing earlier today so um i guess
mediocre minds think alike i've heard that said yeah
well okay so um yeah it's it's um it's a trying time and um you know i just hope we all stay alert and
awake and involved because that's that's the only way it changes yeah my thought uh when i was traveling
was that you know we have a lot of um support and interest and ideas but we have a unique set of
circumstances and and problems and we'll have to solve it in uh only ways we we understand in this
context so as a system it is what we have and there's there's quite a bit that um needs to be improved
long term but as it stands now i think it's really just about um our own sense of dignity and control
uh as as um the does this design of the system dictates uh with co-equal branches and the like
that that system is um i think lost um faith and i would say credibility uh and it it should be
something that we can count on as uh a sort of guardrail and that that really deteriorates when
you have like the kinds of flaws we're seeing in the judiciary and um and with uh our representative
um institutions it just doesn't seem like they're really that busy with our interests
yeah i i couldn't agree more with that kyle and um and i i think that you know we really have to
think about how we elect our politicians as well i mean there is like we have a lot of people that
are elected that don't necessarily feel like they have a mandate to represent the public interest
because they were never they were never really elected on running for something like the public
interest and so i i think in in the absence of some kind of watchdogs or or you know robust civic or
institutional you know equivalence it's going to be you know really difficult for any kind of
government i think to to repair itself here i think there needs to be more institutional changes
we have to change it i think from the outside in um and what i think is really quite fascinating if
you think about the history of our republic going back to the 18th century these problems that we're
having right now do seem to all be entirely unique and so many of them seem to be born out of the
misuse of technology and the misuse of data and the surveillance capitalism economy that we've allowed
to be put in place that allows these bad actors foreign hostile actors as well to target the polity
and manipulate the people in certain ways that were never even imaginable 15 to 20 years ago and so it's
incredible how quickly things can degrade how quickly this system can degrade and essentially become
headless in so many ways and i think if we don't act quickly to begin to repair it and to patch it and
perhaps it needs some downtime i don't know if that's necessarily a government shutdown i don't think that's
the kind of downtime that we're talking about but i think time to to think and repair and change some
of the democratic processes that we've had in place because i think we're sliding into an area
and a time where it may be difficult to to ever get out of this type of quicksand there's been some
staying power uh with the protest actions and um also i think murmurings or just uh whispers of
of uh general strikes and walkouts and things like that and at least some of the regional actions that
are going on in response to the the um the news cycle and the sort of horrific nature of what has
been going on with uh ice actions but um yeah we could maybe expect some of that on a larger scale
to actually have an impact and be felt because um those are those are valid forms of of action that
are um really uh something that are the like last uh form of civil disobedience i think that people
can really exercise on mass without facing um the sorts of repression and and um authoritarian tactics
and and basically being uh cast as rioters or something when you're actually um out there
voicing your opinion and exercising your your first amendment rights because i think after a certain
point you you reach a consensus with people that are in an action and you need um you need to have
some some uh other recourse pick up the the um demands of people on mass and and put that into action
yeah and i i you think um you know a lot of people saw that um uh when the folks in minneapolis were
characterized as violent rioters and you know everyone saw the videos and knew that that was a lie and they
saw our our highest officials just jumping into the lie without any evidence whatsoever uh within minutes
of the incident itself and i think a lot of eyes were opened at that point we realized how low they
will go and how how much of a how much they will lie without any shame whatsoever and meanwhile
characterizing the riot the true rioters of january 6th as heroes it's just we're living in the upside
down i mean we really are um you know there was this uh piece that i i keep seeing on on late night tv
about uh trump appointing himself acting president of venezuela on wikipedia and i was wondering okay
first of all how does a person do anything to themselves on wikipedia that's not supposed to be the
way it works uh it turns out that uh it was a doctored wikipedia page which i believe doesn't mean it
was an edited wikipedia page it was a wikipedia page that was simply um uh made to look like it was
changed when it wasn't uh and that page called himself the acting president of venezuela in a
truth social post so basically he was spreading a lie on a wikipedia page that did not exist if i
understand that correctly uh the way it was being portrayed though in the media was that he had somehow
changed the wikipedia page which i'm sure he believes he has the right to do but he really
doesn't so did i have that right i mean i just had to do some research because it wasn't really being
reported anywhere rob yeah anyone can make a wikipedia page not only change it to say anything
you want and uh you know get your screenshots or whatever but you don't even have to go that far
if you're if you edit a wikipedia page make the changes you want to appear have been made and then
just click preview you will get that page as if you made those changes to it with no record of you
doing so um so you know you would be free and clear to take screenshots and spread them around and do
whatever you liked but um as opposed to if you actually edit a wikipedia page and there's a log of
your user account or your ip address or whatever um just uh and also a digital screenshot is eminently
alterable to say whatever you want in any case so yeah it's it's easy to fake so there's no record
because you didn't actually do it and if you did do it uh you'd be set upon immediately by a whole
bunch of wikipedia editors who would quickly fix whatever it is you were trying to pull off yes
because there are crack uh there are crack wikipediaans out there who are very good and
wikipedia has been so amazingly excellent at um beating back the tide of um biased and uh fake edits
and things like that um it is it is really a triumph in terms of uh community-led projects
unlike some so many um out there it is it is a shining beacon in the world of uh projects like
this where people who are actually there just to make it the best uh reference site that they can
make um keep it that way we need so you know we need to recognize uh their contributions and the
amazing value that they add uh to uh to everything really uh and and there are so many um uh journalist
outlets that um get it wrong that that basically uh bow down to the pressure we're seeing that
everywhere in the corporate media which is why the corporate media was always a bad idea and you know
we've railed against that for decades having massive corporations take over newspapers doesn't work out
well and we're seeing the proof every single day uh so um that's something to keep in mind and of
course you know you can always uh start another paper you can always uh you know get more people
involved and and fight back against this simply by telling the truth uh okay we have a letter i'd
like to read uh our email address is oth at 2600.com uh hi all hope your new year is off to a good start
i don't know about that uh i mean you know we're fine but uh boy everything around us is falling apart
but uh thanks thanks for the uh good thoughts i'm uh looking forward to hearing uh uh many more
great off the hook shows this year well we will see uh i hope emmanuel and kyle have made it back
safely to the u.s from ccc as well as alex from the fancy dress party in london yes um i hope i hope
you enjoyed that too i would really like to hear um their and the rest of the crew's perspective on the
attack that martha root performed live at ccc that is making the rounds uh this is from frank and you
know that's an interesting question because kyle and i were at ccc the chaos communication congress
in in humburg uh and uh this martha root talk somehow we missed that there were so many talks
there really were tons of them so it's not hard to miss things but um we didn't find out about this
until days afterwards but basically martha root um from what i understand uh hacked a um uh some
kind of a dating site for white supremacists live on stage and was able to reveal the identities of
their entire user base i'm not sure i have that incredible totally right uh you're waving your hand
frantically alex so what what go ahead correct me i'm going to pass it over to rob to explain
the urgency here yeah because um we we actually we read this letter and talked about this story
last week when uh you folks when you uh you emmanuel and kyle were not with us um but uh the the story
was amazing and there's there's been this huge reaction to it but you know we we did go we we did
go into depth on what happened and how it happened and uh but there has been um there since last week's
there's been an interesting update to it um a story from the 11th from the observer in the uk
um a couple of those leaked white supremacist dating site profiles have been linked to tory and reform
counselors uh a conservative counselor that's a that's a member of representative government over
there has been suspended after her account was included on a leaked user list from uh one of the
sites um that's so you know the pink power ranger performed this great act of uh superheroism
at ccc and uh our friends at uh ddos secrets uh were hosting some of the material not not putting
it all out in the into the public um but uh making it available to researchers and journalists um who
who uh who requested it for you know proper reasons and this story appears to be the result of that um
the uh people found by the observer in the database this from the story here appear to include an
ex-member of the british national party activists within the neo-nazi group patriotic alternative
and a man who ran for political office for britain first also listed as lilith osborne a former teacher
and conservative counselor in glastonbury somerset um and when she joined the the pro-white dating site
before she was elected she described her political orientation as pro-white and said she was seeking
a partner interested in indigenous european spirituality um so yeah there there has been
fallout from this uh amazing move on the part of the pink power ranger over there in germany so i i know
that uh whenever smack this happens there are questions raised about privacy about uh doxing people and
things like that um where is the line because i you know if if i got a list of everybody who voted mega i don't
think it would be appropriate to release that list but we're talking about people who are overtly
white supremacist here and and i believe that's the difference is it i i think that's a part of it but
also these people who are in government who are in public service and uh as such need to be um you know
prepared for the level of accountability that comes with that sort of work theoretically um we're not seeing
that always uh the case at least in this country but these people who were in positions of power
in the uk um who on the down low were on a neo-nazi dating app um i think i think that's worth knowing
that knowledge is worth uh spreading out there and um at least one politician seems to have lost their
job as a result well if it's on the down low they're going on to this white supremacist site
and entering their real name so how much on the down low is it actually well i think that's also part
of what the presentation included was that part of it was that the security and the um
uh practices the uh opsec thank you uh we were so
small they were it was terrible and the fact that morph the brute was able to set up an ai chat bot
lure in users and get them to identify a bunch of information about themselves um i mean i just the
the sites that got wiped are so gross sites plural and i mean this whole story is fascinating we did talk
about it a lot um last week but yeah i didn't listen to last week's show i'm sorry but you know
it was an interesting letter and i i wanted to talk about a little bit too because you know it it kind
of um it's an interesting test as to what the boundaries are as to what is what should be considered
private and what needs to be known and i think if people are you know uh spouting white supremacy
that needs to be known especially if they're in positions of power but you know i'd also
like to know uh if uh if if my neighbor is a white supremacist i think that's of interest
you know that could that could definitely come up in the future uh so um um this is something that i
think is is important and and i don't know will we see more things like this well i guess if people
are dumb enough to do this yeah we will also i think in in the context of something like this like
if you're putting yourself out there on a on a let's say a dating app and uh you know the info
you're putting about yourself on there is stuff you're sending over the internet about yourself
and you're ready to go out into the dating world and say this is hey everyone this is who i am
uh shouldn't you be ready to back up all that same this is who i am in terms of being accountable
to a public who you uh you serve oh i guess we'll we'll see now uh okay uh we are going to have
overtime tonight on youtube we haven't done that in a while uh what you do is you go to youtube.com
slash uh slash channel 2600 or just go to the link that's on the front page of 2600.com join us at
eight o'clock and uh you can listen to us talk more and maybe even call in and and have all kinds of
uh fun in that regard i wanted to close though with um a couple more observations about uh our
travel overseas you know we um we we tried uh kyle especially tried to get um you know the hard
plastic cards that are um a contactless uh rfid that uh you use to get onto buses and trains and
things like that and you know we noticed in a couple of cities in in uh warsaw uh basically and
in prague uh you can ride mass transit for next to nothing or completely free if you are over a
certain age which i happen to be and so it was suggested to me uh particularly in prague that um
yeah you know what you don't have to pay anything to ride the buses and the trams and the trains
all you have to do is uh show your passport if you're challenged or show your license or whatever
and um that's it so you know i find that very interesting that um there are free buses in many
parts of the world it works the system really works some cities also offer this to students
so don't tell me it can't work in new york i think it can it just has to be done intelligently and it's
going to be um an interesting uh test ahead to see if we catch up to the rest of the world
alex i'll let you have the last word on this because we got yeah sure i mean i'd like to say
to the to the struggling masses contemplating the free buses out there that the you know the reality
of the fact is if you ride the buses like i do very often in the city mostly nobody pays anyway
these buses these mta buses in manhattan i don't think i think maybe 85 of the people probably don't
pay for them now anyway so i doubt there'll be much of a difference to the mta's budget even if
people started paying or the which we just make them free because they're kind of symbolic anyway
we have to leave it there we're going to close with a public service announcement and uh we'll see
you on off the hook overtime at eight o'clock on youtube and next week here on wbai at seven o'clock
good night
this is a public service announcement with guitar
you have the rights
you have the rights
you have the rights
you don't mind a little investigation
humiliation
and if you cross your fingers
we have the intention
know your rights
these are your rights
hey say why
how the
things to do
your rights
...
Oh, you know these rights
Number three
You have the right to free speech
As long as you're not dumb enough to actually try it
Know your rights
These are your rights
Oh, know your rights
These are your rights
Of the oven
And it has been suggested in some quarters
That this is not enough
Whoa
Get off us, please
Get off us, please
You're right
Thank you.