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Joined tonight by Kyle.
Hi.
And out in Signal Land, we have Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
And we have Gila.
Good evening.
Well, okay.
We have a lot to discuss, a lot to get over tonight.
We also have overtime coming up at 8 o'clock on YouTube, which is always fun.
Opportunity to call us directly and chat without radio restrictions, which is always a bit refreshing sometimes.
But, you know, we have some breaking news here.
Apparently, the new supreme leader of Iran has a verified Twitter account.
Did you know that?
Yeah.
No, I didn't.
That's the headline from CNBC.
Iran's supreme leader.
Forgive me if I pronounce this wrong.
Moshtaba Kameni.
Kameni.
I understand you're supposed to pronounce it differently.
Kameni?
Or Kameni or something.
Kameni?
It's weird.
It's...
Well, we'll settle on something.
It's basically the same arrangement of letters, but just with different pronunciation.
So, it's a different Ayatollah, Kameni or Kamani.
I don't know.
I don't...
There's a lot I don't understand.
But he's found to have a verified account on Twitter.
I should point out, having a verified account on Twitter don't mean squat.
But really, because anybody can just pay to get that little blue check.
It's not like in the past, where the blue check was something that was vetted, and there
was a team of people or something that went out and said, yeah, you're who you say you
are.
You're legit.
This is just to hand over a certain amount of money to Elon Musk, and you get a blue check.
Gila?
Is it a blue check?
Or is it...
Aren't there, like, gold checks and gray checks and a various variety of gray checks
if they're, like, politicians or something?
And it was supposed to mean something different.
But the other thing I wonder is, is there, like, an Ayatollah Twitter handle in the same
way that, like, Pontifex has been passed down between three popes now?
Well, okay.
I'm going to give you the account name.
And you can check yourself and see what color the check is.
But, you know, just when I give you this, I think you'll understand why I don't really
believe that there is an official checkmark of any sort.
But the name is, I guess it's pronounced, Rob Barangahelab, and spelled R-A-H-B-A-R-E-N-G-H-E-L-A-B
underscore.
Now, it's that last part that tells me that whoever has that account without the underscore,
maybe they're the Ayatollah and not the person who has the underscore.
And, you know, why would you take that as your name when it doesn't even resemble the
name that you're using in real life?
And you could probably get that without the underscore, right?
I mean, I don't use Twitter very much at all.
But that seems like common sense, which I know is the last thing anyone is subscribing to
these days.
Yes, Rob.
It's interesting because we pulled that account up, that Twitter account.
And there does not currently seem to be a check of any kind, of any color on the account.
Nor do there appear to be any posts.
Now, I'm not signed into Twitter because I can no longer do that.
But I see an account that says, Rob Barangahelab hasn't posted.
When they do, their posts will show up here.
But it appears to be a blank account with 81,000 something followers.
Wait, hold on.
Because there's 30 posts up at the top.
So are there anything under replies?
I can't see replies without logging in.
You've got to log in.
You've got to play the game, Rob.
There's no way we can do this without actually looking at the account.
Okay.
Well, then somebody with a Twitter account will have to log in and check this out.
Is this your way of exposing who still has a Twitter account?
I'm just saying, this is not a function I can fulfill on our team at present.
Fine, fine, fine.
I'll do it.
But you have to fill time with something else.
While I use one of our spare accounts and see if the Ayatollah has a blue check mark.
Because that apparently is news these days.
Well, we can also speak to the underscore because that screen name without an underscore on Twitter appears to be another blank account that was started in May 2023, according to this.
So somebody was really forward-looking when they started this account and then apparently did nothing with it.
But, yeah, there's not even a user pick on this one.
Okay, I'm seeing a lot of posts.
A lot of posts with this account.
Okay.
It's in Arabic, so I can't understand what's being said.
But 81.2 thousand followers and following seven.
Yeah, that's what I'm looking at, except I can't see any posts.
So here's one other note is that apparently the username is, it's not Arabic, it's Persian.
Oh, I'm sorry.
In Persian, it means leader of the revolution.
Well, it's interesting you say that because, you know, he's following another leader of the revolution a little further down.
Um, and that account is, uh, M-K-H-A-M-E-N-E-I underscore I-R.
Okay.
And that's the official account for the news and statements of the leader of the Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Saeed Maja, the same guy, basically, a few more names.
And that's 131,000 followers.
I don't see a check, though.
Anyway, the point is, the point is, um, CNBC, uh, got all excited because they found a verified account and, and, and they assumed that was him.
But my point is, verification doesn't mean anything anymore because it's not verification.
It's simply writing a check to Elon and, uh, getting a check in, in, in return, a different kind of check.
So that's, that's, that's how we get our news these days is by, by, by, by some, uh, fanciful, um, uh, authority telling you that this is legit when in actuality, there's no indication that it is.
Yeah.
I seem to be remembering when Twitter opened up the verification thing to anyone who threw them, what was it, like $8 or something?
Um, someone immediately got verified as a fake Elon Musk, which, uh, was entertaining, but.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Yes.
But, you know, apparently since statecraft takes place on social media now, be it Twitter or Truth Social, um, you know, this is warfare by social media post, apparently.
It's just, it's a shame they're not fighting on the same platform.
Yeah.
Is it a shame?
Well, I mean, yeah, everyone's on different platforms.
Trump is on Truth Social.
A bunch of us are on Blue Sky or Mastodone or, or, um, other things that are out there as well.
Well, it's a real problem because we can't really communicate, um, and, and, and reach people
anymore.
Uh, and, you know, I, I don't, I don't get, uh, the people who say, yeah, I don't use email
anymore.
What did you replace email with?
That's what I'd like to know.
Carry your pigeon.
But.
We all have jokes, but there's no answer, you know?
No, I know.
And we're not talking to each other.
But here's my question.
If the Ayatollah and the president of the United States were on the same social media
platform and could just engage in a flame war back and forth and tweet or truth or whatever
we're calling it these days at each other that our heart's content instead of dropping
actual bombs, wouldn't that make the world a better place?
Yes, Virginia, there, there is, there is a place where leaders can go, maybe be locked
in a room someplace and, um, and, and everything will work out.
But you know what?
They're going to talk past each other no matter what forum they're in.
They're, they're not interested in listening.
They're interested in provoking and in getting attention and in being powerful.
It's all nonsense no matter what side you follow and, you know, it always has been.
Uh, and now it's splintered.
It's, it's splintered all over the place.
So you can't even, um, uh, reach the same people, you know, everyone is following one
person over here and the opposition, everyone's following over there.
They never talk to each other.
They don't hear any, any opinions that diver, you know, digress too much from what it is
they're saying.
It's very unhealthy.
I just, uh, the first, uh, warlord who gets on the Fediverse, that'll be newsworthy.
Well, maybe they're already there.
Look, what's, what's stopping them from doing that?
No, sure.
I'm not, I'm not kidding.
What, what, what is stopping them from getting onto mastodon?
Nothing.
And if they spin up their own instance?
Oh yeah.
Nothing at all.
Okay.
We keep laughing about it, but, but you know, this should be a reality.
This should be something that is easy to do.
And yeah, we should be able to talk to world leaders on the Fediverse, but they don't seem
to be there.
And that's a problem.
It's, it's a funny thing to think about though, because, you know, in, in the very early days
of the, uh, you know, public facing web, it was a big deal when the president got an email
address that was published and it was president at whitehouse.gov.
And, uh, it was, uh, president Clinton at the time.
And, you know, of course that's not his personal email address, but, uh, you know, you could
email the office of the president and theoretically have your stuff read, but it was still a very,
like, um, throwback to when you would just write a letter to the white house and, uh, hope
that someone somewhere reads it and files it somewhere.
But we, we found ourselves in a social media era where people are expecting immediate access
to companies and public figures and politicians of all stripes.
And the, the lack of that now is, uh, kind of being felt.
And I don't, I don't know if I miss it as much as I thought I might.
Kyle.
Yeah.
I think Rob's point is, is well taken, you know, he doesn't miss it because for what it
turned into the negative aspects.
I think that's, that's what he is saying in, in this and no, I mean, everybody has their
own reasons for different things, but like that, and it's really just a historic legacy
that it is, um, that those particular sites commercial as they are ad driven or algorithm,
um, be damned.
They're there because early on that was a way to attract customers.
The companies have changed.
They turned into real shells of their former selves.
And what we're faced with is something that's still very real in a part of their business
model, which is making it illegal to interoperate with their platforms.
They want everybody there captive and only using things on their terms, a la driven by
ads and algorithms and whatever other crap they want you to be subjected to.
They won't allow people to interoperate.
And unfortunately there are, there are aspects of the way the elections went when, um, there
were, um, different agencies that were using data from, uh, Facebook interoperability to,
um, run polling and then, uh, uh, use it for certain forms of political strategy, uh, in ways
that Facebook hadn't really been transparent about.
So for rightly, so people were critical of that scheme and saying, okay, well, we shouldn't
have interrupt interoperability, but that wasn't what killed it.
It is that these companies didn't want people to be able to do whatever they want with like
writing their own sorts of, uh, uh, programs and things that interoperate with data to display
or, uh, analyze or, um, uh, allow it to, to reach other parts and protocols of the open
internet.
So as wonderful a utopia as the federated universe is, it is locked out.
It's not that the federated platforms can't participate and, and they do people screenshot,
I guess that's a crude form of it.
But there are probably people that are trying to string things together, but they're working
under a environment where they could be charged, practically speaking, for trying to develop
any kind of software that did this because the companies that are now hosting a lot of
government sites and that have been really changed in a lot of ways, but are really totally
for profit.
Those companies are still acting with that, uh, sense of like, uh, a closed environment
like America online was in the early days or, or prodigy or, or whatever other comp you
serve, all of those things.
They're, they're very much playing out like that and calling it a new thing.
Like, like with 3d avatars saying, Oh, this, this is web three, but they're really running
playbooks from, from pre-web stuff.
So I think it's just, it's interesting and I'm hearing all of this in the conversation,
but yes, it's, it's historically that they were, um, the hegemonic platforms, the dominant
players got all these government accounts and they're considered like the place where, uh,
government and, uh, society, uh, popular influence, influential types are that may not be where
everyone is, but it is just something we're dealing with.
But on top of that, my point is that we're really locked out from playing together or
interoperating in any kind of automated way.
It's really just like screenshotting and moving content over to one or linking from one platform
to the other.
It could be a lot better.
And I think there's, there's a lot of room to operate to, to innovate with this, but these
for-profit players aren't playing nice.
Like they never have been, and we can't expect them to be, they, they're literally trying
to sue people who want to make software that works with their stuff.
So, okay.
You're saying that people are being sued who try to make it so that you can, you can read
one platform on another platform.
I'm saying that if you develop software that does stuff they don't want to do, they'll
shut it down.
They will, they will attack you because it, it allows their platforms to do things that
they don't want it to be able to do.
And they might give you all kinds of reasons about safety or various precedent where, um,
people abuse the ability to interact, um, and develop tools and things that worked on top
with these platforms, but they really clamped down on it.
And I think, I don't know, I'm not saying there's pending losses.
I don't have, uh, uh, uh, uh, specific cases I can cite, but I'm saying this practice of,
of, um, developing apps that are then bound by all sorts of terms and conditions, this stuff
that we've talked about on this show and various in one way or another over the years and, um,
and, and talk to many other people about, and it's just, that's why we're fragmented.
Right.
It's, it's that these platforms could do that.
They just don't.
Well, you can take, for instance, let's use Trump as an example.
He, he posts on true social, uh, which I don't think any of us have an account.
Actually, I did have an account on that, uh, on that once and it got purged without me doing
anything just because of my name, which is, yeah, that, that tells you something.
Uh, but, um, you know, he posts things on that platform and they get reposted onto Twitter
and I'm not going to call it what it's called now because I think it's stupid.
Um, but, um, uh, there are people who do that.
People take a post and they post it over there.
Sometimes there are official people in the administration that do that, but there isn't,
I think what Kyle's speaking through, there isn't a way to automatically do this.
Like I remember back in the early days, my Twitter account would automatically repost on
my Facebook account, which yes, I have a Facebook account.
I never check it.
I never go in there, but it exists.
And back then I would, I would post quite a lot because I'd be posting on Twitter and
it would show up on Facebook.
And granted, I wouldn't see replies on Facebook, but, uh, you know, at least it got to people
who were interested and you can't really do that anymore.
I would like to see that on every platform and maybe, you know, as hackers, uh, we should
make that a project to make that easy.
So people can do that and, and challenge them to come after us and say, yeah, you're not allowed
to, uh, share information from one platform to another.
I think that would bring people together so that, you know, no matter what you post on,
your friends can read it.
You know, I think, isn't that what we all want to be able to talk to people who are interested
in what we're doing?
We seem to have lost that.
And it's very frustrating.
You know, you can't join every single platform there is, and you don't have time, even if it's
just, you know, three or four of them.
That's how, that's a lot of different platforms that you have to, you know, keep updating and
checking and resetting.
Um, you know, we, we, we should have something where you basically, you're able to say your
piece, you're able to read what people are saying in return and you move on with your
life.
You know, isn't that the dream?
It was the dream.
And in the early days of like the blogosphere, when everyone figured out RSS feeds and you could
post something and it would get propagated out, reposted elsewhere, syndicated.
Uh, you know, pulled in all sorts of directions and all these people would be reading the stuff
you put out there wherever they might be.
And that was a decentralized, um, scheme that, uh, that worked, I think really beautifully
and still does for the, uh, half dozen of us or so who are still using RSS feeds as a,
as a major thing.
Yeah.
I'm sorry about that.
There has been a lot of, uh, coverage of RSS lately, just as it's, uh, aged, uh, so many
years on, and I don't even know what the number is.
It's been around for a long time, but people are finding it, uh, revisiting it as a way
to get information anew, uh, in the form of RSS readers.
And if you're interested in filtering stuff on the internet, it's a great way to do it.
And a lot of people do consume stuff, um, all types of media news in particular, I just
want to go back to the, uh, interoperability thing though.
If you, if you could filter and choose different things, especially on a multitude of platforms
based on, uh, stuff like a silver check Mark where it's coming from a, or whatever the color
is for like, uh, official government accounts that aren't paid for, not the, not the blue
necessarily, uh, but you should be able to customize it or particularly, uh, verified news sources,
right?
If you want to get, um, that, uh, pushed from whatever platform they are present on, and then,
uh, you get it delivered to wherever, uh, you are on, on your own, uh, social network.
So you can have that in your, your timeline or feed or whatever you're calling it.
That may accomplish with upvoting by, by users, not so much what they're saying, but who they
are so that when you see associated press posting, is that the real associated press
or, you know, some kids somewhere, uh, there are people who are following that particular
account.
They say, yeah, that's legit.
That's legit.
And, you know, that is what generates a blue check or equivalent, you know, not, not, uh,
paying a certain amount and the post itself, you know, I think that should be just open
for everybody to interpret, but the actual account, you know, that's.
That's something that, um, uh, I, I, I think the people you're speaking to, they're the
ones that say, are you legit or aren't you?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And this has all been thought through.
It's just been torn down and rebuilt and pushed or, you know, turned into different things.
So let's build it again.
So it absolutely, yeah.
We have to keep building it.
I think this is, this is something that should be a priority because this is our communication.
You know, we, we, we love to say at society, we love to say this particular piece of technology
is dying.
Radio is dying.
We're told that all the time.
Uh, you know, telephones are, are, are, are dying, you know, landlines.
And, and now, um, it's, um, various platforms are, are, are, are dying or, you know, kind of
interconnectivity is dying.
Um, we don't have to accept that.
That just seems to be, uh, eventually what everybody is, um, uh, labeled as it's like jumping
the shark or, you know, this, this rock band has put out too many albums, you know,
they're no longer relevant.
Well, you know, it's, it's up to all of us to prove, no, it is still relevant.
And, uh, you know, we, we can continue doing this or improve upon it or, uh, connect it
to something else.
We don't have to accept that, uh, this is no longer relevant just because we're told
that.
Yeah.
It's, uh, it's like, you know, these, these platforms that are commercial and they're
there to make money.
They're going to do all kinds of things to warp things into their vision of what the internet
should be.
And we're in an age now where social media, you know, algorithms are no longer functional
search engines, no longer work using the web is a lot harder and stupider than it used to
be.
And it's where we're, we're reaching this age where like, you don't know if an information
source you're looking at is legit.
If it's written by people, if it's, uh, you know, one thing or another.
Um, and I think, yeah, going back to what you're saying about, uh, interconnectivity, you're
going to have to see like, oh, I know, I know this person and, uh, I know this person knows
that person and, uh, just verify things like organically through our own networks.
Again, like, like we did in the old days, if somebody is looking for Gila and they're
following me and they know, I know Gila.
So the Gila I'm following must be Gila.
Um, it's, it's a lot more work.
It's a lot more tedious, but, uh, it's something that, uh, is kind of inarguable in an age of,
uh, slop, but the other thing that's occurring to me is that because we are stepping away
in so many ways from monoculture that so many things are balkanized.
And I was thinking about the Oscars, um, because I'm an awards head and the Oscars were this past
Sunday, a lot of exciting things happened, but part of the situation I talked about was
that it's going to be moving to YouTube in three years and the idea that you could tune
it in over the air and watch it privately as opposed to watching on YouTube where Google's
going to know what you're watching and where your eyeballs are, if you're watching it on
your phone and it, that's not going to be necessarily easily accessible for everyone.
So this idea that things are splintering at the same time and we're moving away from these
moments where everybody's experiencing the same thing at the same time, I think that's
also a very interesting dovetail to the whole moment.
Good point.
Yeah.
And, uh, you know, Rob, you're absolutely right that, um, uh, things have gotten harder, you
know, simple things have gotten harder.
Uh, you know, just turning on a TV set, it's no longer turning on a TV set.
There's all these, you know, HDMI configurations and input and so many different options with
the picture quality and the resolution and the surround sound and all that people just
want to turn on the damn TV and watch, you know, the news sometimes.
And it's, it's, you know, been over-designed to the point where, you know, you need a degree
in engineering to get it right.
You know, I was talking to my aunt in, um, in New York recently and, uh, you know, she said,
you know, in the middle of the night, spectrum turns on my TV and starts feeding ads or sending
ads over the TV.
I don't know what exactly is going on there, but I believe it.
I don't think she's making it up.
Uh, and, and this is what people are subjected to.
Does anyone in New York city have their TV turned on in the middle of the night?
Uh, I imagine, you know, maybe it's the cable box or something.
I don't know, but people should not have to deal with things like that.
You know, they should be able to just live their lives and, uh, turn something on when
they want it on, turn it off.
Yeah.
We can all say condescendingly, well, if you do this, that won't happen.
Or, you know, you set it up wrong or something like that.
That's what a spectrum was saying to her.
Just, you can go into the configure menu and do all this.
And she was saying, no, I want you to do that because you did this.
And she's absolutely right.
But we tend to mock people who don't get it.
And I think that's, that's a mistake we make in the tech community that we need to fix.
Uh, because those people are every bit as smart as we are.
Uh, they just don't have the same passion for spending endless hours setting things up
to work just right.
Um, we need to make it easy.
And this goes for encryption.
This goes for communication, interoperability, all of this.
We make it simple and it works.
We make it hard.
It becomes irrelevant because nobody's using it anymore.
And where we are now, we have difficulty communicating with each other.
And it's really sad because, you know, we have a lot to share.
We have a lot to share with people that we don't agree with and people we do agree with
and people we don't even know yet.
So that's something where I think we really can, um, uh, can improve.
But on the subject of, um, of, uh, world leaders, accessibility, you know, getting letters
from the white house or whatnot, uh, what do you think if, if, if, if we, uh, had, uh,
Donald Trump's phone number?
Hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's true.
Uh, a listener wrote in said, given the apparent ease of accessing Donald Trump's private phone
number, uh, as evidenced by the article, we're about to read a little bit of, uh, I propose
this listener proposes that the next hope conference holds a social engineering panel in which you
call Donald Trump and prank him.
Um, well, uh, let me address that for a second.
Uh, no, no, bad idea.
I don't think we should do that.
I think, uh, we wouldn't see the end of the hope conference if we, uh, if we did something
like that.
Uh, but, um, I, I am interested in, uh, seeing just, you know, uh, if it's possible to get
the phone number, uh, but I would not, uh, uh, encourage abusing the phone number, but what
would you say if you had the phone number and you were able to make one phone call that you
knew would be picked up?
You know, think about that.
I don't expect anybody to have an answer immediately, but it's an intriguing thought.
Not that I can give over the air.
Yeah.
You see, that's what I mean.
You know, if you're just going to yell at the guy, you're not going to accomplish anything.
That's, that's true in real life.
Um, but maybe you could say something that would distract him for the next three years.
We'd all be safe.
I feel like this is a fantastic essay question for like a college, maybe like.
No, sixth grade.
Sixth grade.
Yeah.
Definitely sixth grade.
Yeah.
All right.
Yeah.
Okay.
Because they won't hold back.
Wow.
So, okay.
Uh, let's, let's look at the article a little bit.
Uh, and thank you to the listener for bringing it to our attention.
Um, president Donald Trump's private digits have become a hot commodity and the white house
is receiving reports about a growing market of people trying to nab them one way or another.
Uh, the Atlantic's Michael Scherer reported on Saturday, uh, citing two administration officials
that the president's private phone number is involved in suspected horse trading and black
market sales among influence brokers.
Uh, CEOs and crypto investors are reportedly offering money for the number while journalists
are taking to trading the phone numbers of other world leaders in baseball card like
exchanges.
Yeah.
They never grow up there.
They're, they're, they're just the elementary school kids just riding their bikes and exchanging
insults.
Yeah.
And you know, your industry has a solid business model when you need this number so badly.
Well, the thing is, if you have the number, then, you know, you could just post it someplace
and everything falls apart because you can't trade it anymore.
It's not worth anything.
And Trump has to change his phone number too, which he probably doesn't want to do.
Anyway, according to the report, Trump's number has been offered for sale to deep pocketed
interests seeking influence.
Is it that easy?
You have the number and right away you can influence.
You just have to have his ear literally.
Okay.
Uh, what is unusual about the president is how accessible he is with journalists.
Often noting with surprise that they can simply call the president's private line.
If I had to say any good thing about Trump, this might be it that he is accessible in that
way.
However, that's also a very bad thing because he's accessible in that way and all kinds of
people with, uh, nefarious, uh, goals can, uh, influence him as well.
Yes, Gila.
But if there were a coordinated effort among journalists to just keep him off, like keep
him on the phone and not doing anything else.
Yeah.
I think this could be a good way to like redirect his energies.
Do you think perhaps, um, we could get an AI model to, uh, take on that job and just,
Oh, do you remember?
Was it the British AI robot that would pretend to be a befuddled grandma?
Oh, yes.
Yes.
For telemarketers.
And just talk to telemarketers for hours.
So we have one designed for Trump.
Yeah.
And if, and that, uh, bot would make phone, if you gave it a telemarketer phone number,
it would make the call.
So all we'd need to do is feed the phone number to that British telecom AI bot.
And I think we're made in the shade.
Well, you just got to get him to pay attention.
We have to keep his attention.
You know, that's, that's the important thing.
According to the Atlantic, Trump can typically receive 10 calls from the press and two hours
on his private line.
Wow.
That's, you know, that's five an hour.
It's one every 20 minutes.
Uh, and who knows how long they last for?
How does he, how does he have time for this?
You know, I, I just thought the president of the United States was busy doing other things,
not being on the phone all the time.
But what do I know, Rob?
I mean, I think, uh, I think a central element of his character that I think his, uh, proponents
and critics would agree on is the man enjoys attention.
And, uh, I think he's, he's going to be enthusiastic about anything that enables him to, um, lap up
more of it.
Yeah.
But he's talking to one person on the phone that nobody else can hear.
How is that attention?
He might think it's attention, but he's really, you know, just being distracted.
Well, anyway, one of the officials said it's literally call after reporter call.
It is just boom, boom, boom.
Many of the numbers are reportedly not even saved under names.
The number is now so widely circulated among press that White House officials have found
themselves Googling independent names they've never heard before.
An administration official said it's out of control.
It's like a wrecking ball.
Incidentally, it's out of control.
It's like a wrecking ball is a phrase that has been, uh, associated with the Trump administration
more than any other phrase in the past couple of years.
Yeah, it's true.
Uh, on top of CEOs offering money or crypto bros offering cryptocurrency, the Atlantic noted that they got their own offer for the president's number.
Um, they said we were recently approached by another journalist who offered to trade more than two dozen cell phone numbers of significant stature for the one number of most significant stature.
We declined.
One person we talked with, uh, has heard that the going rate for this sort of swap is a one to one trade for another major world leader.
Okay.
We're, we're deep in the hacker community.
We've got some numbers.
Uh, what can we trade here to get, to get his, I'm thinking, you know, uh, I still have Legion of Doom phone numbers.
I do.
Uh, I haven't used them in a while, but they, they still work.
Uh, I think that's something that, uh, it might not be a one to one trade, but it certainly could be a good chunk of it.
You guys got anything?
I mean, I've got your number, but, uh, nobody wants that.
So we need more numbers.
So this is like a good solid trade.
Like we'll do like a group buy and then everybody gets one digit of his number.
Well, I mean, you know, back in the day we used to trade numbers of all the speaking clock in London, you know, that number was, was good for, you know, a few sprint codes or whatever it is.
Um, look at the hacker community, we come together and we can do this.
We can, we can get that number and then we'll figure out what to do with it.
Well, we could turn it into a, turn it into a payphone, you know, with social engineering.
That's what we used to do.
Oh yes.
Lots of fun.
Lots of fun.
All right.
Well, thank you very much for that, uh, that listener letter.
Hey, we have another, uh, listener letter.
Actually, this is, um, uh, this is related to a letter we read last week and I wanted
to, uh, to read this as well.
We read a very short letter last week, uh, and it resulted in a very long letter that
came, uh, in response to us reading the short letter.
Um, let me, let me, let me go into it, uh, before we run out of time.
Thank you for reading my letter on the air.
I think the last time you read my letter on the air was around 13 years ago in 2013.
Wow.
Uh, your assessment of me couldn't be further from the truth.
Sounds like us.
I am not a Trump supporter that wants to silence you.
I am also not a person who was saying no one cares because I care the most.
I am telling you, I don't care because I don't care.
Okay.
I remember the letter.
I think we all do.
Uh, and, um, he did say no one cares.
So I think that's what we were referring to, but, uh, to assume he was a Trump supporter,
you know, that's on me.
I, I, uh, basically, um, we get a lot of letters.
We get a lot of letters from people who say things like, you know, does shut up and talk about hacking or shut up and talk about technology.
Don't talk about, uh, politics or, you know, it's, it's not just us, you know, um, uh, sports people shut up and dribble, you know, actors shut up and just be in the movies.
Musicians shut up and play your guitar, which by the way is a three album Frank Zappa, uh, thing that it's really worth checking out.
Um, but I digress.
Oh, no, the, the actor, uh, one, that's, that's, you're too stupid.
You're not intelligent enough to have an opinion.
That's the, that's the, the go-to.
If somebody, let's use Kid Rock as an example.
He is a, a, a musician, allegedly.
He has an opinion, an opinion I don't agree with.
I would never say, shut up.
I would never say, don't give your opinion.
In fact, I would encourage you to give your opinion because that actually helps my opinion.
Uh, but the point is everybody has an opinion and everybody should speak if they have the
opportunity to speak and if they have something to say.
So, you know, to say no one cares, I don't think that's true.
And I think that's what set us off, but we're sorry if we categorized you in the wrong way,
but that's based on the letters that we do get from people who say things like that,
because invariably they, um, uh, they, they, they basically say pro-Trump things.
Not, well, not invariably, but very often.
And, uh, it might lead to a, um, uh, an overgeneralization on our part.
Anyway, um, for the February 22nd, 2026 show, OTH host spent 45 minutes talking about political ideology and 15 minutes on anything that resembles hacking slash technology news.
I don't know exactly what we talked about on that show, but I can say that if, um, if we're talking about something, uh, quote unquote political, it has a connection to technology in one form or another.
Look, we've just talked about things now for the last, um, 38 minutes or so.
Uh, and a lot of it is, is related to politics.
We're talking about world leaders.
We're talking about, you know, policy and differences and things like that.
But we're also talking about social media and telephones and computers and, and, uh, you
know, all kinds of things like that.
It all relates.
It's all of interest to people who, um, are, are, are following these things.
And we get a lot of feedback from people who say, yes, I'm interested in, in, in, in
that perspective.
I talk about repairing things.
Yeah, you do.
And breaking things too.
And destroying things.
Absolutely.
We're all interested in that.
And, uh, audio production.
Uh huh.
Anyway, go on.
Anyway, okay.
So continuing, uh, so that is frustrating as a long time listener, referring to the,
uh, 45 minutes talking about politics, 15 minutes on, on technology.
My point to you is that I can scroll TikTok and be bombarded with endless videos of the
same device of politics from both the left and from the right that OTH spent the majority
of the February 22nd show talking about.
I got to hear this show, but I, you know, I don't think we're divisive.
I think we're always open to hearing different views and we have discussions with people
who disagree with us.
And oftentimes they're quite civil, you know, even though they don't understand how we come
up with what we come up with and vice versa.
Um, I enjoy OTH because, um, it is supposed to be hacker news that I cannot easily get
anywhere else.
Simply providing you this feedback and then being labeled as a pissed off Trump follower
by the host of OTH misses the mark completely.
Can you not see that asking OTH hosts to focus on hacking technology, which is supposed to
be the entire theme of the show resulted in me being constantly and incorrectly labeled
as political opposition to the show?
How is that not a huge problem?
That is my entire point.
All right.
You know, point taken.
I, I, I hear that.
I get it.
I hear it, but I'm also, I'm confused as to what exactly we're supposed to be talking about
that, that is, um, that hasn't already been said either on this show or elsewhere.
And that is, um, a political because my understanding, or at least my following of hacking in general
and the way technology has been pervasive in our lives, I think it's, it's become intertwined
with a lot of, uh, the political as well as the, um, the, uh, sort of commercial and,
uh, other, other parts of the technology industry, as it were, uh,
in America.
And, and that is really had a profound influence on a lot of policies and, and, uh, uh, developments
of innovation and, and things around the world.
So, I, and I, I don't know, I could, I just find that the, uh, trajectory has changed for
hacking.
Like many of the things, like if we talked about the kinds of transgressions, I guess we're
supposed to be reporting on, or are we supposed to be reporting on people that are, um,
doing ransomware or like, uh, uh, uh, infiltrating on behalf of state actors.
I think we've covered stuff like that.
We talk about that, right?
We do.
It comes up, but, uh, day to day.
Yeah.
We, we talk about what everyone else has talked about as an inch talking about as an entry point.
And I guess my, my point is a lot of the things that occurred early on, if we were talking
about them, first of all, they're illegal now, well, illegal.
They were quasi league illegal back then.
And many people got in trouble.
We've covered that people have been in prison.
They've gone to jail.
They've done time.
They've, they've, they've turned on people.
That was a big thing.
Hackers turning informants, all of that.
Like that is part of the history that landed us where we are today.
So in, with all due respect to this letter, I just think that if we ended up talking about
those things, what we would be accused of as being retro or like, oh, you're talking about
old stuff or, you know, like you'd get that complaint, that critique.
No matter what people are going to complain.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Not necessarily the same people, but people will complain about this is in our defense.
It's why maybe we might make assumptions about certain people's takes on what we're saying.
Well, we try to mix it up.
We try to talk about different things.
And my point is, um, if you, if you say to people, you're a movie star, you shouldn't
talk about politics.
You're a musician.
You shouldn't talk about politics.
You're an athlete.
You know, you're, you're doing a hacker show.
You shouldn't talk about who is left to talk about the politics and, you know, and, and,
and offer a different perspective than what you're hearing on TikTok.
Uh, which, you know, oftentimes is fueled by bots and is, uh, meant to be divisive,
hateful.
And, uh, you know, it's there to, to trigger a reaction and we're not trying to trigger
a reaction.
We're just offering our views, how it relates to the things that we do talk about, which
remain technology, hacking, hacker mentality, all of that.
Anyway, let me, uh, continue here.
Um, I don't understand how you can constantly say we need to unify as a hacker community, then
instantly label listener feedback as political opposition.
Okay.
Well, as long as many times I can apologize for that, uh, for, for labeling a person in
a particular way.
Uh, but, um, yeah, you know, uh, let's, let's continue.
I've listened to every OTH show weekly for the past 30 years.
Wow.
I have been, uh, writing the show letters for over 20 years.
That's, that's pretty amazing.
That's, uh, that's, that's commitment.
Check your inbox.
Wow.
Okay.
I, I, I've never once said, I, I didn't agree with your personal politics.
It doesn't matter if you agree or disagree, you know, that's not the point.
Uh, I just don't understand how you do not recognize the unique position you have and
not to waste it by falling into the right versus left, left versus right echo chamber
trap.
You know, uh, it's bigger than that.
It really is because what we are experiencing now, I don't think as a right versus left thing.
I think it's, it's basically a fight for the very existence of this nation.
Uh, and I know, you know, people on different sides say things like that to be dramatic,
but if you look at what is going on around, you see all kinds of institutions crumbling.
You see, um, um, um, basically the values of this nation, uh, even if they're only, uh,
in, in, in words, you see them being negated, being cast aside.
Uh, and, and in the end you can wind up with a country you do not recognize.
We're not the only ones saying this people on the right, people on the left, people from
all different walks of life and, and, uh, uh, levels of expertise are saying this is
unprecedented.
We have never lived through anything like that for us not to talk about it.
Um, that would be tone deaf.
That would be something that, um, I don't think any of us as thinking people could live
with.
And I, I, I imagine most of our listeners as well, Rob.
Yeah.
Um, I, I, exactly along those lines, like my life as a hacker, my view as a hacker, my perspective
as a hacker, um, I think that's, you know, our perspectives as hackers are what we all
add to this program.
And my perspective as a hacker is such a major part of how I see how things are.
And for all of us to be observant in this way and proficient in all our different, uh,
skill sets and interests and everything, um, and pretend that we can't see things that
are going on in the world just because, uh, we want to force ourselves instead to talk
about like new AMD chips or something.
Um, I don't think that would be a very hacker thing to do.
I think that would be sticking our heads in the sand and none of us have ever been about
that on this program or on the station.
To answer Alex's question, if I would complain if OTH was talking about Biden, Clinton, or
Janet Reno, the answer is yes.
Uh, the proof is in the OTH inbox.
I am not the new go back to Cuba guy.
Oh, okay.
He knows what he's talking about.
If he knows to go back to Cuba guy, this guy has been listening or, or, or woman.
I'm not going to reveal details.
Um, the, um, uh, the letter was short because I've written this to OTH so many times, uh,
when feeling the show has gone completely off the rails from its roots, I didn't feel
I needed to justify it again.
Okay.
Um, we don't keep track of who says what.
Uh, so, uh, you might, obviously, you know what you've said.
We're not going to know everything you said.
We're not going to say, Oh, but you're deviating from your point of three years ago.
Uh, and we get, we get a lot of mail.
So, uh, it's, it's entirely possible that, uh, we don't know exactly where you're coming
from and what you've, what you said previously.
Um, lastly, if the reason Emmanuel said he was not going to read my name, uh, because
he was doing me a favor was in reference, uh, to my federal criminal record.
Okay.
We have no idea what that's all about.
Uh, I am not ashamed of my criminal record.
I'm a whistleblower and, uh, okay.
I'm not going to go into the details that you sent after this.
But you should be proud of what you have done and, um, to not be ashamed of your criminal
record.
I think that is also a point of honor and, uh, something that we, many of us, uh, can, can,
uh, identify with.
So, um, all right.
That's, that, that's really, that's really kind of, um, kind of amazing.
Uh, I 100%, uh, actually, let me, let me zoom over here.
Uh, there, there is a, um, an unfortunate narrative, uh, by the DOJ about me, but that
is where the government, that is what the government does to its perceived enemies.
I'm not trying to convince you, apologize, or justify my criminal record.
I'm saying that I am not ashamed of it.
And, and bravo to that.
Uh, listening to OTH, writing OTH, having my letter read on the air has been the first
consistent step in rebuilding my life after this major disruption.
I appreciate this dialogue more than you will ever understand that has brought a small
piece of normalcy back to my life.
Thank you.
This to me shows how, uh, we can sometimes forget that everybody who writes a letter is
a human being, has a story, has a lot more to them than what you might assume.
And that was, that was on us for, uh, you know, making assumptions and they happen to
be incorrect.
Um, it's not to say that, uh, they're not correct sometimes, but I'm glad we have this
listener.
I'm glad this listener cares enough to write to us and, uh, I'm glad we do what we do,
but we will always try to do better.
We're always trying to, you know, um, uh, address the, um, um, the, uh, desires, complaints,
whatnot of the people listening.
And if you're one of those people who has something to say to us, no matter what it is, OTH
at 2600.com is our email address.
We encourage you to write to us.
We get a lot of mail.
We don't, uh, read them all on the air.
Uh, but, uh, occasionally when we do, you know, we, we get a big discussion and that's
what it's all about.
And I'm glad that, uh, we can all participate in that way.
Well said.
Well said.
Yeah.
Um, while we're, while we're still, uh, on, I just want to give a shout to WBAI and encourage
people to keep us doing what we're doing here.
The, uh, fundraising efforts on this station are ongoing.
Um, go to give to WBAI.org.
That's give the numeral to, uh, WBAI.org and throw in what you can to, uh, help us out.
Yeah.
This, uh, this radio station is non-commercial.
We have never aired a commercial, uh, except on the old time radio shows on Sunday nights where,
where we play radio from many decades ago.
And there are some commercials there that, uh, are, are played for demonstration purposes,
but they are not advertisements.
Uh, we depend on our listeners.
Our listeners have kept us going since 1960 and hopefully they'll keep us going to 2060
and beyond, uh, give to WBAI.org or, uh, buddy.wbai.org.
Uh, the important thing is to pledge whatever you can, uh, become a BAI buddy.
A monthly payment is, is, is so good for us.
Uh, and, uh, we can continue speaking our minds.
Uh, you can continue speaking your mind and, um, that's, that's the most important thing
in this, uh, this day and age.
Oh, and that means our time here is up, but we'll be back next week with another over the
air show at seven o'clock, seven to eight o'clock here on WBAI 99.5 FM in New York City.
Coming up at eight o'clock on YouTube channel 2600 on YouTube, you will hear our voices continue
to speak, uh, except they will be joined by some listeners who will call us and speak their
minds as well.
So that's kind of, that's kind of fun.
Uh, again, channel 2600 on YouTube or go to the link on the top of www.2600.com.
And again, our email address, OTH at 2600.com and keep listening to 99.5 FM in New York City
and, um, pay attention to what's going on in the world and what's happening with technology.
And maybe we can build better technology and a better world.
Who knows?
See you next time.
Good night.
We'll be right back.
Thank you.