This is dedicated to all the hackers and the crackers, to the hackers and the crackers.
I see in binary, I speak source code, step on my toes, I'll post a million jpegs of you
in a fag pose, in your digital stance getting firewalled ho, cause I'm riding the net in
my six foe, I was a dick with my 56, now with my cable I'm able to get that stable, on the
out, my name is Ace and I'm a Leo, on the digital highway, my name is Neo and I'm a hero,
in a flash I'll screw you on burning dream cats, you need some ISO, let me through my
hard drive rifle, our exchange you could never stifle, in a digital hug, you just caught the
love bug, I bootlegged your CD, I caused a fight between Un and Jay-Z, cause CG, it's all gonna
be free, whether we take it by force or we take it nicely, you feel that rattle in your
bones, when I tell you we just hacked out Jones, and NASDAQ, leave your fight on your
back, cause I am he who loves to hack and crack, cause I am he who loves to hack and crack.
This is dedicated to the hackers and the crackers, serial codes, source codes, ISOs, RANs, SIPs,
SIS, this is dedicated to the hackers and the crack.
Hello everyone and welcome to Binary Revolution Radio.
My name is Stankdog, and today we are going to be talking about something very interesting.
Alright, that was my pathetic attempt at a Sigmund Freud impression, because we're gonna
actually be talking about some pretty deep stuff coming up later on with my new co-host
today for the show, Desius, welcome to the show.
Hey, thanks.
And thank you for being on, cause we are going to talk about something that you have a lot
of experience with, and I have a lot of questions about, so we're gonna go over some of that
later on, specifically memetics, but of course we will go into some detail later on.
But before we do that, and again, I apologize for that horrible impression, I didn't say
it was a good, a good Freud impression.
If you would indulge me and go through some email with me.
Let's do it.
Alright, actually before that, let's do a couple other little housekeeping things and
get these out of the way.
First of all, I mentioned last episode that we had the magazine page up and ready to go.
Well, I've updated the pages with the cover image, sample PDFs that you can look at, browse
through, see what the topic is, see what the magazine looks like, and all the source code
and all the scripts from the magazine.
You don't have to retype in all that code, specifically Slipmode and his IP tables code that's in there
that's a couple pages long, so you don't have to type all that in.
You can just go straight to magazine.binrev.com and go to whatever issue you want, this is
true for all issues, and download that code to save you hopefully a lot of typing time.
And then modify it as you see fit or as you need it.
That's the whole point of it.
And since I brought his name up, Shouts to Slipmode, if you aren't already listening,
go over and check out In the Now, his radio show over there at Slipnet.
And what else did I want to talk about here?
Oh, Hack Radio is coming up very soon.
We've also been letting you guys know that that's coming, and it still is very, very soon.
I am waiting now for people to send me emails if you want airtime on the station.
I'm trying to work out a schedule so everybody gets time, where they want, when they want,
the days they want, et cetera, et cetera.
I've gotten a couple people who have emailed me, but I also have a couple of noticeable absences.
So please don't assume that your show is going to be on there, that I'm just going to take it.
I need you to email me because I need other information.
I want to know what your official description and stuff is going to be.
I'm not going to make stuff up and have that kind of weird situation going on.
So please, if you go into the forums, forums.binrev.com, and in the Hacker Media Forum,
there is a description there of what I need from everybody, and I need you to email me that stuff
so I can start making a schedule.
And frankly, I'm going to start making a schedule.
By the time you hear this, I will have started.
And I guess we're going to have to go first come, first serve.
So please, the sooner you get that stuff into me, the sooner we can go on.
And if you have sent it in to me, obviously, then we've got it, and we will see what we can work out for everybody.
Third thing I wanted to bring on, and I'm not going to get mad about this.
I'm a little disappointed that I had to take this step, but I've had a problem, and I've mentioned it on the show,
where we have a hacker's gallery on the site.
And in the forums, we've uploaded a lot of avatars, and we give people room to store their own avatars,
and emoticons, smileys, whatever you want to call them.
And over the past year plus, people have been very liberal in their use of them.
So, you know what?
I don't really mind if people use, you know, link over to the site, or show it, or email it to people,
because that's only a few hits here and there.
That's fine.
But we've had a problem that's just been growing and growing,
where people are just absolutely leeching the graphics from the site.
And it's starting to add up.
So, you know, I came on the show a few times.
I try to be polite about it and just, you know, do the honor system.
Kind of just, you guys, don't take advantage of it.
I'm not here to host your image.
There are tons of image servers out there that that's their job, and that's what they do.
You can go find them.
That's not what I'm trying to provide here.
So, I just finally decided that I'm going to have to do something about it.
So, I have blocked deep linking to any of the images, at least in the gallery and in the forums.
The link boxes still work and stuff like that,
but all the other graphics are being blocked out now,
because it's just, the bandwidth is starting to add up.
And we need every little bit with Hack TV and with all the radio shows.
We need every little bit.
And secondly, frankly, I'm a little bit insulted at the way people are doing some of this stuff.
They're using emoticons from my site and other people's forums and other people's sites.
I mean, do you really think they're pulling something over on me?
Do you think I don't see this happening?
So, anyway, I've let it go for a while, but you know what?
It ends. It ends now.
Do you ever have people do that?
Has everybody ever, like, leeched graphics from your site?
Well, I don't have that many graphics, but I understand, you know,
information wants to be free, but bandwidth is expensive.
Yeah, you know, it comes to a point where you have to do something.
Uh-huh.
Well, it's cool that you went into your website and actually implemented a technical solution
for preventing deep linking.
There are so many news sites that have, you know, gone out and filed lawsuits.
I was going to say, I was going to sue everybody, but...
Well, I mean, the thing is that, you know, I always get frustrated when I see some site
suing people because they're getting deep linked, and, you know, it's a few lines in their Apache
configuration to prevent that from happening, and, you know, I guess that's too much trouble
for them to do it.
Yep, exactly.
I just didn't want to have to.
I've known all along, you know, I just didn't want to have to do it, but, well, I guess I
have to do it.
Yeah.
I'm still going to sue everybody.
Hey, man, I need the money for bandwidth.
What do you want to know?
Hey, that's a great revenue generating technique.
Exactly.
Fish them in, wait a few months and trap them, and then spring the lawsuit on them.
There you go.
Yeah, we won't go off into that tangent.
Oh, okay, but that's it for the general housekeeping stuff.
Now, we're going to jump into a few emails, and there's some, we actually had several,
I cut out a few.
Wait a minute, let me play the email intro, our new email intro music first.
All right, and now let's do the email before I was, I started talking before I played our
theme music there.
We got some really good emails, and we're going to talk about some of them today.
I'm going to save some of them for an upcoming show to make sure we have enough time later
on to talk about some stuff.
And because the ones that we got were pretty good and pretty in-depth, so I wanted to make
sure we gave enough time to each of them.
And our first one comes from, gosh, I hope I pronounce this, I think it's Drakken.
It might be Drakken.
I think it's Drakken.
Who says, Stankdog, I've been listening to BinRev for a while now.
I think you've got a great program and am amazed at the new and exciting content you're
able to provide on a weekly basis while still maintaining a job and a life.
The juggling act, well, I don't know about the life.
I didn't guarantee that part.
The juggling act between your own individual hacking interest, your life and job, and the
content from the show must be a delicate one.
Thanks for all that you do.
Yeah, you just don't know.
I've recently checked out the BinRev, and this is the reason I have this email on here.
I recently checked out the BinRev RFA PBX that the DDP has set up.
I think it's pretty damn sweet, especially the ability to conference and listen to the
archive shows.
Admittedly, I don't know much about them, PBXs.
However, I'm anxious to learn.
I'm going to be conducting a lot of my own research upon the topic.
I think it would be really cool, though, if you discussed on BinRev some of the issues
concerning a PBX.
How difficult would it be to set one up?
What type of software would be required?
How feasible is it for an individual or group of individuals to set one up?
My friend and I, whom you may remember from the war typing and Wi-Fi antenna email sent in,
have been considering establishing a PBX with a lot of our favorite music and self-generated
content located on it.
That way, when we're bored, in class, or anywhere else, we have our entire archive to listen to.
Thanks for your help in advance.
And again, that was from Dracken.
Now, you know what?
But that is an excellent suggestion, because you're absolutely right.
That could be a whole show and then some dedicated to talking about that.
I'm going to try to talk to Not Theory.
And also, the DDP, PBX, you called it.
I guess that's okay.
I don't think.
Bell's Mind, PBX.
That's Not Theory's box, so just to make sure he gets credit.
That's Not Theory who set all that stuff up.
And I'm going to try to get him on a show again soon, whenever we can work out a schedule with him,
because he's a busy guy.
And he's running, let's see, that could go into so much detail, because of not only the setup.
You know, I'd like to do an overview of what it is, and how, and why it works, and the setup,
and maybe some general programming behind it of how you can write scripts and stuff,
because I know that Not Theory really gets into that a lot.
And even how it can, in turn, interact with other pieces of hardware,
like Voice over IP boxes and things like that, separate from the actual Asterisk box itself, Asterisk box.
So, yeah, I'm going to have to get Not Theory on here and talk about not only the Asterisk box,
but any other solutions.
But mostly Asterisk is the one we really have fallen in love with.
Do you have any experience now with the Asterisk software, Desius?
I have some experience.
I haven't delved in it too deeply, but I'm actually in the planning stages of a project
to kind of do some analysis of Voice over IP security.
And I think that, you know, we'll be taking a look at that box and some other missions as well.
But that's, you know, it's a really interesting software package.
And those guys have gone out to a number of the hacker cons in the southeast
and talked about their project and what they're doing with it and what it's capable of.
And, you know, it's really neat to have a PBX and to have one that's designed, you know,
with the idea of people playing around with it in mind.
And it's got a lot of interesting features that, you know, a commercial PBX probably wouldn't have
that, you know, you might want if you were setting up some kind of personal thing for your friends.
Right.
And the fact that you can develop for it, you know?
Yeah.
That's not something they normally, that's not normally an option you have.
That's certainly true.
This, you know, Voice over IP is a really exciting thing.
You know, the reality is that over the next 10 years, a lot of changes are going to happen to the phone system.
And, you know, it's all going to be about Voice over IP.
And it's a very exciting thing to get involved with right now, like, in its early stages and be able to tinker with it.
Yeah.
And without going off on another tangent that you and I probably both would just jump on,
if we can just keep the government out of it.
Oh, man, well, yeah.
And there's been a lot of movement on that front lately.
The FCC has ruled that the FBI can, or rather that people providing Voice over IP services
have to provide the FBI with access to their networks the same way that people running POTS networks
have to provide the FBI with access to their networks.
Wow.
So that was a pretty controversial development.
But, I don't know, I could probably talk for 30 minutes about that stuff.
Yeah, I know.
That's what I said.
We don't want to go off on that one because, you're right, it could be a whole show.
They actually, that was, I thought that was actually shot down at first,
but they eventually did get that through, that they have access.
Yeah.
The FCC voted 5-0 quite recently, like a few weeks ago.
Great.
I can dig it up.
Oh, my goodness.
That's just freaking wonderful.
Oh, man, what a downer.
Well, you know, that's where encryption comes in.
That's, you know, until they ban that too, until they outlaw that.
Anyway, yes, thank you for the suggestion to get back on a lighter topic
so I don't get pissed off.
I mean, peeved or, yeah, whatever.
Thank you for the suggestion.
We are definitely going to try.
I am really going to put that on a list.
I'm going to put that on a future episode, no doubt about it.
So thank you for the suggestion.
Another email we got this week was from Exile.
Exile says,
Dear Stank Dog, I recall in episode 57, that was just last week,
Nothari was speaking of how he would like to maybe see Apple's downfall.
Well, it seems it's coming closer because in this news article,
it describes the work of a Norwegian hacker who cracked some of Apple's multimedia technology.
And then he provides a link.
Believe me, you guys can go out there and find it.
I'll put the link in the show notes eventually,
but you can go out there and find it pretty easily.
Just do a search for DVD John, John Johansson.
It's the same person from the infamous DVD case.
Anyway, Stank love the show.
Keep up the good work.
This is the first email I've ever sent you,
and I hope it may be of some interest.
I plan on buying the mag so I can see what other helpful things you have for the community.
Farewell for now.
Well, thank you very much for the email.
First email of yours I've ever read on the air, obviously.
Yeah, I don't know.
Let me just not put words in anybody's mouth.
I'm not sure that Not Theory requested or was calling for their downfall.
He might.
If we put him on the spot, he might want that.
But I know he doesn't like them because they're proprietary hardware.
And frankly, I kind of feel the same way to a certain extent.
But that's the only thing they've got right now.
You know, especially their operating system now is, you know, built on top of Unix backbone.
So they're not even really fully developing their own operating system from the ground up.
So they can't depend on software only or operating system to compete there.
All they've got is their hardware.
So I kind of understand it from a business perspective.
It's either that or, you know, die.
Go out of business.
So I understand that.
But what you're mentioning here, again, this is John Johansson.
And this just happened, I think, a day or two ago.
Maybe over the weekend.
I'm sorry?
It wasn't long ago.
I think it was like the end of last week.
Yeah, it was very, very...
It's definitely since the last episode that this has happened.
And what he has done here...
And let me kind of back up because this is actually very interesting what he has done.
This is not...
Now, also not too recently, in the past year, there was another...
You know, he had come up with another trick for iTunes itself.
For the iPod, for iTunes, for Apple's iTunes system, which, honestly, I don't have a Mac,
so I don't really know much about it.
But this is not that.
This is something new within the past week.
And what he's figured out, though, is...
I don't like the way that it was reported.
I looked at three or four different stories on this,
and they're making it sound like an iPod slash iTunes thing.
And it's really not exactly.
It's not so much that at all.
What he's done is he's figured out a way not to crack iTunes itself or the encryption within iTunes,
but the way iTunes...
The way that the music is broadcast over Apple's hardware,
they're access points that Microsoft...
I almost said Microsoft.
Whoa, that would have been...
We do not want those two getting together.
Actually, they are together, because does Microsoft still own a percentage or a small...
It's a very strange relationship.
Microsoft certainly sells its products for the Macintosh.
It's interesting.
There was that whole conspiracy theory that they sunk however many million dollars
and bought shares of Apple back when it was struggling,
and the conspiracy theory was that it was worth it for them to drop a few million into it
to keep them around so that they couldn't cry that there was no competition.
Instead of putting themselves as to be a true, obvious monopoly,
the conspirators say that they bought Apple only to keep them around
and dangle them around as a token operating system as competition.
Well, I've got a Mac, and if that's the case, then I'm glad they did,
because now I've got a really nice Unix workstation.
You know what?
I don't personally have a problem with Mac.
I think Mac got pretty cool stuff.
I just wish it wasn't...
I wish other people made them, besides Apple.
That's true.
They went through a period of time, though, where I wasn't too happy with their stuff.
Got me a little...
I'll let you go ahead.
Oh, I was just getting...
Actually, I just took a sip of iced tea there.
Well, I was going to say, you know,
just to talk about this cryptography in the iTunes system
and how it interacts with these access points.
You know, and there's also another thing that happened in the last couple weeks
where I think Real Media cracked Apple's DRM technology
that they used to prevent you from playing iTunes,
the songs you've purchased from iTunes on other players,
and sort of released a compatible player,
and Apple responded by patching the code so that they couldn't do that anymore.
Oh, I think actually Real was selling songs that could be played on the iPod
that used the iPod's DRM.
But anyway, I mean, there is a...
You know, I guess I have some concerns as this moves forward
that, you know, this DRM technology, this encryption technology,
is not just being used to prevent, you know,
illegal copying of copyrighted music,
but it's also kind of creating this platform walk-in
where, you know, I've bought a lot of songs on iTunes,
and, you know, if I wanted to buy another player
instead of buying an iPod the next time I buy a music player,
you know, I won't be able to play my songs on that new player.
I'd have to repurchase all my songs.
And, you know, if I wanted to stream my songs out to a device
that was different than, you know, one of Apple's access points,
you know, I couldn't do that.
I would have to buy an Apple access point,
or, you know, I was out of luck, you know,
notwithstanding the encryption crack from a few days ago.
But, you know, really things like this are the only thing
that doesn't make me as worried about getting sort of
walked into this platform, the fact that people are out there
trying to, you know, kind of figuring this stuff out
and providing tools, and, you know,
if I decided I wanted to move to a different platform,
I might be able to bring my music collection with me
that I've purchased legitimately.
So, I don't know, I'm kind of worried about that.
Yeah, well, you know, it's like, it's an excellent point.
The thing is, let's say, again, I said on the Forbes,
on the show before, that I still,
99 cents is still not quite low enough for me.
My price point is 50 cents.
I'll pay 50 cents for songs that I like.
Yeah.
Okay, and everybody has their individual price point.
But let's say 99 cents is my price point,
and I start buying these songs.
You're absolutely right that I am locked in
to the proprietary hardware that will portray
these particular songs.
What's to stop Apple from, you know,
and don't tell me that the recording industry
and the businesses are not going to do this
because we've seen it in the past
as increasing CD sales and CD prices and stuff go.
What's to stop them next year
from jumping the price up to $1.99 a song?
And then $2.99.
And then, oh, you can't buy individual songs anymore.
You have to buy the whole album digitally through iTunes,
and it's going to cost you,
and eventually you're buying the same $16.99 album
that you can only get through iTunes.
And what is your other choice?
Well, abandon your entire collection.
You've sunk so much money into this particular format
and this particular hardware
that you're locked into it.
Is there a way?
Somebody email me,
and maybe Desiis maybe knows this.
Is there a way that at some point,
let's say I decide, you know what?
I don't like iTunes anymore
because a new alternative,
AugVorbis takes off,
and they start making players open source
that you can modify the players
and put extra storage space,
and it takes off,
and AugVorbis takes off as a format,
and I decide, yes,
I'm switching over to that.
Is there an option to do that?
Can you burn?
Can you get all of your iTunes stuff
that you bought and paid for
and validly own?
Can you get those
and convert them over to another format
that you can buy on new hardware?
Not legally.
No, and that's ridiculous.
There are some tools out there,
but it's illegal to distribute them
under the DMCA,
so they're kind of transient.
They're usually offshore
and they're hard to get a hold of.
There is some stuff out there,
but it's definitely not straightforward.
I mean, maybe you and I
could get through the hoops,
but a regular consumer couldn't.
Yeah, and that's exactly why
we're always preaching.
We don't go into a lot of politics
on the show,
but that's one of the ones
that just affects us so much
that it's just ridiculous,
the DMCA.
It's just,
and this is an absolute example
of it right here.
If you don't think in a couple of years
they have the potential
to abuse this
and people aren't going to be
locked into this stuff,
you're not thinking clearly.
You're not thinking ahead.
You're right,
and this has absolutely nothing to do
with intellectual property whatsoever.
Yeah, I mean,
it's a whole different,
this is a business trick.
But anyway,
let me rein back in here
because actually what
John Johansson has done here,
DVD John,
I hate it when the media
calls him that,
slapping, you know,
the homeless hacker,
DVD John,
you know,
all these,
they just make up
these names for people.
What he did now,
I thought was really cool
because it wasn't so much
dealing with the file itself.
What he found out
is that Apple's airport access points,
their airport hardware,
will apparently work
and interact with the iPod
and let you stream music
to a stereo in your house,
for example.
And I know they make a tiny one
that you can plug into the iPod
into your car.
I don't know if that's the same,
I would assume it's the same protocol,
just a smaller scale,
that will let you play your songs
on your iPod
and broadcast them to your radio
inside of your car
very, very short distance.
And apparently the access point,
you can do the same thing
in your house.
You can stream your music
into your actual nice stereo system
in your living room,
for example,
wireless over the airport access point.
Well, he realized
and what he has figured out
is that
you don't have to necessarily
deal with the files themselves.
You can deal with the files
in transit.
You can catch the files
and how they're being encrypted
and broadcasted
and shouted out
through the access point.
And that's what he's cracked.
That's what he's done.
It's a crack or actually a key
to the encryption itself,
the encryption
of broadcasting those files.
So he's catching them
after they leave the system
and as they're encrypted
on the way to the stereo.
Well, I think actually what,
if I'm not mistaken,
I think that the deal is
that these access points
have a private key
and a public key.
And he found the public key
for the access points,
which means that
I don't think it's so much
that he can intercept
traffic coming from your computer
to the access point
because in order to do that
he would need the private key
in the access point.
But he can,
what he can do is
write software,
say for Linux,
that plays music
on the access point.
So that you could buy
an Apple access point
and, you know,
without having to have a Mac.
You could use it
from your Linux machine.
You could maybe use it
from your Windows machine
if someone wrote
the appropriate software
that used this key.
I think that's the story.
Well, that's another part of it too.
That's something he released,
I think, a few weeks ago
called, oh my gosh,
what was the name of that?
He released an app
that does that very thing
and I can't think of the name of it
offhand,
but it was in these articles as well.
But the combination
of the two of those things
will, yes,
allow you to broadcast
since you now have the key.
He cracked the key,
like you said,
that will now allow you
to broadcast it
from a Linux box
or something like that.
But it's basically,
if I understood,
and by all means,
somebody correct me,
email me,
correct me if I'm wrong,
the way I understood it to be
was that you can now take,
I guess the short,
the application of this
would be you can now
take your MP3 collection
and encoding it
with the key
that for the airport
you can start streaming
your MP3s
in the same exact way
as you would have done
with the iTunes format.
Is that,
am I understanding it
correctly there?
Yeah,
I think you're right.
You can stream MP3s
using the iTunes streaming format.
So anything that
can receive
iTunes streams
can receive streams
from you
without having to use iTunes.
Right.
Maybe I was a little unclear
on explaining it there
but the long and short
of it is that
because what he's always been,
besides being a big
open source advocate,
he's also against
intellectual property rights
a lot like we are somewhat
and he said all along
that the whole closed source,
the whole closed proprietary
application system
is what he doesn't like
and why he's done
so many things
with Apple
and the iTunes stuff
lately
is because he wants
to be able to do
the same thing
with MP3s.
If he bought
and paid for it
and not just for Apple
and I don't want to
put words in his mouth
either but not just
for Apple
but when people
buy something
and spend their
hard-earned money
and buy a product
like this,
you know,
to me,
I don't understand
how they can try
to enforce
all these extra rules
on something
after I've got it
in my house.
Like, you know,
I'm not a big gamer
but like the console gamers
are all, you know,
about you can't
mod your Xbox
or you can't
mod your Dreamcast
or whatever it is,
you know,
you can't do that stuff
with what,
no, I bought it.
I walked out
of the store with it.
I brought it
into my house.
I'm going to do
what I want to.
If I want to set it
on fire and dance
around it naked,
that's what I'm going
to do.
And I've done that
on many occasions,
don't get me wrong.
But that's,
I hate it when they
try to limit people
using what their,
you know,
their hardware and stuff
that they buy.
So by building in
these keys and this
encryption and stuff
like that,
they feel like
they've been slighted.
Oh, somebody cracked
your encryption.
Guess what?
Too bad.
I don't feel sorry
for you at all.
So that's exactly
what happened here.
iTunes only?
Hell no.
That is completely
unacceptable.
No.
So, you know,
I think that's exactly,
you know,
I'm glad there are people
that think like that
and have the ability
to do something about it.
So I think this was
a great story
and I'm going to read
more on it myself
because I do want to
be perfectly clear
on exactly what hit,
and I got to admit,
his site is down.
As you're listening to this,
the site is down.
I don't know why.
Ironically,
the site is,
I think his site's name
is SoSumi.
Really?
Yeah,
because he's been sued
so many times
and threatened.
It's not SoSumi.com
but it's on another site.
It's his blog
on another site.
I can't think of
the name of it.
I'll put it in the show notes
obviously after we're done
but it's down right now anyway
so when I went there
to actually get
the technical information
and the details on it,
I couldn't get to the site
and there was no archives
that I could find anywhere
that were as up to date
as the last few days
when he released it
so I don't know
if he's gotten threatened again,
if he's gotten sued again,
cease and desist
or if the site's just,
you know,
slashed on it or something.
You know,
the first sound
that was ever put
in an Apple computer
was also called SoSumi
because Apple Records
had sued them
because they called
themselves Apple
and said that it was
a trademark
because they were
infringing on their trademark
and the arrangement
they reached with Apple Records
is that they would never
include audio capabilities
in their computers
so when they finally
did include audio capabilities
they added the sound
and they called it SoSumi.
Yeah, I vaguely remember
Rax telling me that story
one time before.
There's some irony
in there somewhere.
Anyway,
the whole,
also I like the way
he was thinking
about this whole thing.
It's not always about
looking at the ends
of the chains
as I like to make
a metaphor for it.
It's, you know,
he's not looking at
the file at the beginning
or the end result
and whatever.
There's all these steps
in between
and all the links
in the chain.
You don't look at
just the ends of the chain
and try to chip the end off
or try to break the end
or try to bend it
to whatever.
Look at all of the
individual links
in the chain
and break the weakest
one in there.
And if that's a piece
of hardware
that broadcasts
the music out there
that may be the
weak point
that you can override
and make it work
for what you want it to do.
You know,
there's so many
different ways
and so many points
of attack
that I like the way
that I,
from what I've seen
and the stuff
that he's done
in the past
I like the way he thinks.
So,
big,
big credit to him
for this.
Alright,
now I have another
email here
from Fireblade
who says,
Dear Stank Dog,
my name is Fireblade
and I live in Belgium.
I love your show
and I told all my friends
about it.
The reason why
I mail you
is because you talked
about the iPod.
We just talked
about the iPod.
And that you have
cheaper MP3 players.
I bought a GP32.
It's a handheld
that looks like
a Game Boy Advance
but you can connect
it to your PC
via a USB cable
and then you can
put files
on the smart media card.
This rules
because you can put
games,
movies,
cartoons,
and music on it
and that all
for 150 euros.
I'm rough on it.
I don't know
what the equivalent
would be here
but 150 euros.
It's open source
so a lot of programmers
make new programs,
games,
firmware like the OS.
I just wanted
to tell you this
because it's really cool
and I wanted
to inform you.
Greets from Fireblade
straight out of Belgium.
Now funny,
maybe he was predicting
we were going to talk
about the iPod or something
but well first of all
first of all
he's from Bel
and not only is he
from Belgium
but he's straight
out of Belgium
like gangster
out of Belgium
so shouts to Belgium.
We get emails
from so many cool places
I just can't
reiterate that enough.
I love getting emails
from other countries.
I can't believe
that somebody in Belgium
listens to this show.
I'm shocked
every time I get
an email like this.
So we're very much
glad to have you listening.
Thank you very much.
Yeah and I guess
this does kind of
harken back to what
we were talking about.
a minute ago
here in the United States
we're limiting everything
and trying to make
all this proprietary hardware
and stuff like that
and I love hearing
a story like this
because it just goes
to remind us
further and further
how we continue
to stifle creativity
here in the United States.
In this country
in the United States
of America
we are stifling creativity
especially with
all these intellectual
property laws
that they're passing
and the strictness
and these
it's just ridiculous
how they do it.
other countries
are embracing
open source
the open source
movement
they're putting out
new products
better products
more flexible products
that you can adapt
and customize
and use as you see fit
while what are we
doing over here
we're spending all
our times waiting
in line
for a court date
and lawyers offices
and filling out
lawsuits
for God's sake.
Oh I didn't want
to get mad
on this episode
Oh
I'm
okay
you
say something
about this
I gotta calm down
I gotta have
an iced tea
Oh man
And you're gonna
get mad too
I can feel it
Well
Maybe we should
okay look
you know what
I mean
it's almost
what do you say
you know
Yeah I mean
let's accentuate
I totally agree
that in the United States
where you know
that there are a lot
of people
who have
a lot of
you know
sort of infrastructure
built up
that has
that is invested
in the old way
that media works
and in the broadcast
form of media
and in these
you know
sort of
in these sort of
distribution networks
that involve
handing people discs
and handing them paper
and handing them cassettes
and you know
these guys are threatened
by the way that
the world is changing
and you know
the United States
seems to have taken
the position
in terms of
how things change
of you know
defending these
entrenched interests
as much as possible
and you know
I think it could be
difficult for us
in the future
as we move along
I think that
you know
there will be people
who sort of
break free
from this way
of working
and you know
it'll be harder
for us to do it
because we're
you know
we're so interested
in sort of
propping up this stuff
for as long as
we can possibly
prop it up
and you know
it's quite
it's quite frustrating
yeah I just
you know
I'm gonna
I'm gonna accentuate
the positive here
it's cool
that something
like this exists
you know
maybe I can import
one
maybe I can order
one overseas
and that's the
beautiful thing
about the internet
we have no borders
on the internet
so maybe I can
get one of those
I just convert euros
to American dollars
whatever that comes out
to see how this
is you know
but you know
at the same time
I do get mad
because
you know
I think
I think I mentioned
this last week
or a week before
on a different topic
but it still comes
back to me again
we wonder why
we're not selling
our electronics
aren't selling
as much as other
countries
well because
they're being
creative
they're coming up
with new stuff
and we're sitting
in the same old rut
sending special interest
groups and lobbyists
to stick money
under the pockets
of our politicians
alright no
you know what
no
I'm backing up
from this
you know what
there should be
one person
in the world
and it should be me
there should be
one person in the world
whose job is it
to go to
politicians
at any level
in the United States
of America
and when they do
something stupid
or vote for something
that is so obviously
stupid and or corrupt
and this person
should be the only
person authorized
in the United States
to punch them
in the face
and it should be me
that I'm the only
person that should
be allowed to do that
and I would do the
job with such vigor
I swear
oh
oh man
okay
I'm gonna move
I'm just gonna move
to the next email
is that cool
because I'm just
getting angry
oh man
okay
I'm gonna end
with this email
this is from
Moth
the reason I email
he says among
other things
the reason I email
on episode 57
again last week
thank you not
that we were
talking about
the digital media
levy up here
in Canada
yes there is one
but it's not
enforced that much
I can go into
any real computer
store
not the huge
chain stores
but and purchase
digital media
without a levy
the only places
that do have
levies are the
huge chain stores
like future shop
which is a
Canadian equivalent
of compusa
I actually have
ordered from future
shop online
I didn't realize
they were a chain
though I thought
they were just
a web only site
that's interesting
to know
so I learned
something out of
this email
and the like
so anyone who
alright I'm gonna
do a little
creative editing
so anyone who
buys writable
media at
Walmart
deserves to pay
levies
so thank you
for clarifying
that
we talked about
the levies
when they were
first announced
I think it was
Gluco who told
us about them
originally
and we mentioned
it last week
they're trying
to do similar
stuff in Canada
and I always
kind of thought
Canada might
have had some
sense
but it doesn't
sound like
they're doing
much better
you think
there's any
American pressure
for them to
pass these
type of things
that's an
interesting thought
I don't know
I think that
Canada's laws
are a little bit
more liberal
than the United
States
with respect
to this stuff
but it's still
a very vigorous
debate there
and certainly
the same
sort of
industries
that have
the same
sort of
interest
exist there
that exists
here in the
United States
and they're
certainly
doing everything
they can
to push
their agenda
so you're
going to see
stuff like
this
well anyway
it is good
to hear that
if you're
going to
the chain
stores
the
compuses
the
future
shops
whatever
they are
up there
you're
going to
get hit
with the
levy
but you
still have
other
options
I mean
I assume
well I don't
care either way
but I assume
he means legal
options
I mean he's
saying going
into real
computer stores
so I guess
that's
they're taking
they're making
the choice
I guess
I wonder
if they get
if it's like
taxes
see I don't
know how
levies work
in Canada
as opposed
to taxes
maybe
maybe you
know what
maybe
moth or
gluco or
somebody can
email me
and let
me know
it's not
exactly like
a tax
so I'm
not sure
you know
on taxes
they have
to charge
it
I don't know
it might be
a little bit
questionable
like you
know you
go down to
your local
corner
computer store
you know
that's not a
big chain
and you know
maybe they'll
cut you some
CDs
and you know
they're not
reporting it
like they're
probably supposed
to do to
the government
yeah and I'm
all for civil
disobedience
that way
that's fine
but
that might be
the story
I wonder
though
if it's like
taxes where
they have to
report their
sales and a
percentage of
those tax
and they have
to report
those taxes
to the
government
and if
they don't
is it
coming out
of their
pocket
are they
just absorbing
it as a
cost of
doing business
because you
know you
can go
into some
stores where
they don't
charge you
tax in the
United States
but they are
still reporting
that tax to
the government
right
and really
they are
they're just
basically calculating
that into the
cost of the
item and cost
of doing business
that could
certainly be the
story
those smaller
computer stores
want to compete
and maybe by
offering to
cover the
cost of the
levy they can
bring people
in to the
store who
otherwise might
not and they
might pick some
other things up
while they're
there
exactly
and hey
it's hard to
tell from his
email what
the story is
and if
you know
if it means
I have to
walk out
in the
alley out
back and
buy it off
the back
of the
truck
I'm not
above that
all right
anyway let's
wrap up the
email here
we're probably
about halfway
through the
show so let's
wrap up the
email
I'm not going
to read the
who wrote the
theme song
emails which
yes I got
again this
week
zero wrote
the song
blah blah
blah anyway
and we actually
got a couple
other good
emails I'm
just going to
have to save
them for
another one
so we can
move on
into the
show and
tell part of
the show
and talk
about what
we've been
working on
lately
myself I
mentioned last
week I've
been kind of
putting some
time into
learning SQL
server SQL
server as
Microsoft calls
it so I'm
kind of learning
that kind of
adapting over
from Oracle to
SQL server
believe it or
not there's some
stuff I like
about it but
there's some
stuff I don't
like as well
and I think
we'll probably
get a mini
review of that
coming up soon
touch back on
databases again for
another episode
it's probably
going to be a
few episodes away
I got a lot of
good stuff lined
up
and I put
the finishing
touches on some
articles this
week I'm finally
getting caught up
on a lot of my
writing I updated
the website as a
lot of people know
with the magazine
putting the radio
server stuff up
etc etc I also
put the finishing
touches well
finishing touches on
two articles and I
wrote a new third
article actually over
the weekend something
that I found that I
thought was kind of
interesting kind of
funny so I sent
three articles in
total to 2600 in
the past couple weeks
and one into
blacklisted so
hopefully we'll be
seeing those in
print soon maybe
maybe not who
knows and that's
been pretty much it
for me believe me
that was enough
don't get me wrong
did you have now
we're going to talk
about meme streams
which I know is
your big that's your
baby but is there
anything else that
you've been working
on lately that's
just really been
interesting to you or
any other projects
you've started that
you wanted to talk
about well you know
I was thinking about
how to answer this
question I've got
always got lots of
projects going on but
I decided instead that
I wanted to mention a
book oh we love
books there was this
really interesting
article that I read
this morning on a
Riley net by this guy
who read this he read
this book called the
villains of all
nations Atlantic pirates
of the golden age by
Marcus Rediker and it's
a book about pirates in
the 18th century and this
guy he's writing for a
Riley net you know I
mean he's he's a
computer guy and he
he was reading about
these these 18th century
pirates and he was
thinking that you know
he there are some
parallels between them
and sort of you know
the pirates of today
in the computer
community and you know
it's Rediker this
author that he's
referencing is kind of
a Marxist and so his
he kind of views 18th
century pirates through
this rose-colored lens
but you know he says
you know pirates had
created an on-board
ethos of democracy
sharing and mutual
insurance they created
the first social
security system and
this was in contrast
to military and
trading ships of the
day ruled by
absolutist captains
who cheated their
staff and kept food
and water rations
criminally low and
freely employed the
whip and you know he
goes on to discuss how
it is difficult to
is it difficult to find
a common thread between
the vilification of
18th century pirates
and the vilification of
people who illegally
trade and sell music
movies and books and
software today like the
old pirates information
traders create a
bounty from the work of
others but at the same
time they create a new
vision of information
democracy that contrasts
positively with the
control freaks and
commercial cynicism of
the mainstream media
conglomerates so you
know I like I said
Rediker is kind of a
Marxist so I'm not sure
like I haven't read his
book his book might
actually be very good
but you know he does
kind of have a certain
take on things and it
reminded me though that
I've kind of thought
about this analogy
between you know 18th
century pirates and
computer hackers before
and I have a favorite
book about pirates and
it's called Pirate
Utopias Moorish Corsairs
and European Renegados
and it's by this guy named
Peter Lamborn Wilson who is
kind of well known in the
in the cyberpunk scene he
wrote this he wrote this
book called Temporary
Autonomous Zones which
under a different pen name
which is a sort of about
anarchies and it talks
about cyberspace and how
you can create sort of
small anarchies on bulletin
boards in cyberspace but you
know this book is about
pirates in North Africa
in the 18th century and
you know he did a bunch
of research and there
aren't many good
references and he quotes
some of the things that
they said and some of the
things that they did and
tries to figure out what
motivated them and you
know sort of the ideas
that they you know felt
oppressed by the you know
sort of proper Victorian
English society and they you
know didn't feel like they
could really be free and so
they you know so they kind
of revolted by building their
own little world in North
Africa or they could you
know what they did you
know clearly that they you
know it's you know they
aren't they aren't angels by
any means they were you
know rating ships and the
like in order to in order to
pave their lifestyle but you
know at the same time they
had kind of an egalitarian
culture and they they and
it's just interesting to see
these guys and you know see
what they did to you know
escape the society and you
know how that you know how
they tried to create freedom
in their lives so I would
highly recommend this book
if you're kind of interested
in it's it's kind of a it's
kind of an interesting
subject and maybe we'll
maybe we'll draw you away
from the hundreds of
computer books that all of
us read on a regular basis
and this subject that's a
that's a little bit of a
tangent but anyway that's my
yeah you know actually I
first of all that that could
be a whole show in itself
a little non-technical but
there's actually not joking
aside there's a lot to talk
about and debate right there
because some things jump to
my mind immediately there's
definitely parallels there are
definitely things in common
but I would I'm not sure how
to equate them or if they do
equate exactly or the same
you know I don't think they do
equate exactly or the same I
mean the reality is that most
people in the hacker scene are
not sort of making a living off
of you know other people
there they're just really sort
of exploring and playing
around with stuff but at the
same time you know the
hacker scene has this you
know sort of you know it's
an anti-establishment
subculture and you know
it's certainly all the people
who are engaged with it seem
to be very interested in you
know freedom and you know
they kind of seem to think
that you know this is the
world they live in is a little
bit too restrictive and
they're trying to figure out
how to build a world in
which they can be more free
and there seems to be some
similar thinking at least
along those lines with with
the North African pirates and
you know it's at least an
entertaining thing to read
it's interesting to see the
sort of thoughts that these
people were having the things
that they were writing
yeah it sounds like comparing
them to hackers and not so
much pirates of today you know
software pirates per se
yeah comparing them to hackers
I mean I use those words loosely
in this in this case yeah and
I'm sure they also were very
you know broad in their
definitions as well but um
you know like for example
again we could probably we
could sit and talk about this
for a long time anyway this
is this is something we're
going to save this we'll talk
about this at freak nick you
and I one day
awesome
yeah I mean because even like
you said about them forming
their own island forming their
own society off you know I
can't help but think yeah look
at the peer-to-peer
applications that went
offshore so that they could
survive and live and form
their own you know anyway that
yeah that could go on to be a
whole a whole long topic
there
well anyway the
um send me
he's kind of an anarchist so
his he certainly views pirates
with his own his own viewpoint
as well but uh I I think um I
don't know whatever for some
reason his viewpoint suited me
better than uh than reddick's
but uh you know check this stuff
out it's interesting stuff
yeah and definitely um email me
links to that where people can
check it out online and you know
if they want to order it if they
want to buy it at amazon or
o'reilly or whatever right on
and we'll put it up in the show
notes okay we'll do um and
that's gonna leave us let's see
we've probably got about 25 20 to
25 minutes to jump into our main
topic here um actually let me give
one one very brief topic before we
start on memetics and um and that
is just a site that I stumbled across
um earlier this week um monday
actually um it's called see what
you share dot com see what you
share in reference to see what
you're sharing on peer-to-peer
networks and this is a site and I
just find I just think it's really a
uh I don't know if clever is the
word but I I like the fact that
somebody did it I think it's
something that should have been
done to let people see exactly how
stupid they're being sometimes and
what this is is um basically I
don't know if it's one person or a
group of people I don't know who
runs the site quite honestly um but
shouts to them anyway see what
you share dot com and they're
basically putting up lots of
interesting documents and files that
they have found on peer-to-peer file
sharing networks and they found
credit card numbers bank statements
medical information pictures all
these things that people you know
they install whatever peer-to-peer
application they want they just do
it poorly sloppily they just want to
be you know download whatever they
want to download and they don't pay
attention to what's going on they
don't get it and understand it and
you know it's been you know hackers
have known this for a long time I
found a lot of interesting stuff too
if you know what to search for you
know Google hacking is the art of
knowing how to structure your queries
or your your searches well enough that
you can find precise information
sometimes too precise that wasn't
meant to be found and it's kind of the
same thing with this if you know how
to know what to look for um you'd be
surprised even you know what how many
people go on peer-to-peer and search
for dot xls most people aren't looking
for an excel spreadsheet on peer-to-peer
they don't even think about it but you
know what you might be surprised that
you'll find quite a few spreadsheets and
you might find quite a few personal
spreadsheets and it doesn't stop at
that so just kind of think about that
and what could be shared any document
files any text files what if you knew
the um extension of I don't know
their um uh what it what is that uh
banking software from into it what is
that called um yeah quicken if you knew
the quicken files or extensions or
directories or whatever you wanted to
search by or what names you know you
could be and that's exactly what this
site shows this site shows excuse me
um is all the dangerous things that
people have put out there now they do
the right thing and blur all all all the
information you're not going to find
credit card numbers they blur it out
they blur out real names they're not
embarrassing people but I love at the
bottom the disclaimer the disclaimer I
should have copied and pasted verbatim
but basically the the disclaimer was all
of these files were gained through legal
access by downloading from peer-to-peer
networks they were intentionally shared and
we downloaded them they didn't go break
into anything they didn't steal they
didn't break into a server they didn't
do anything like that they got
something that someone was sharing
intentionally they may not have known
it but they were sharing it I don't
know legally where they stand with that
but I think that's something that
needed to be done and I hope that site
gets a lot of publicity so people see
how stupid they are sometimes hey it
needs to be done sometimes you need to
raise awareness about that kind of
thing because honestly you know people
need to know how to configure their
stuff and they need to think about it
yeah sometimes you have to slap people
in the face and call them stupid
before they realize it you really do
oh anyway gosh I hate to segue now
after something so crude into something
that's much more on it well I'm going to
try to do it anyway I'm going to go from
the rock bottom to the top here because
the rest of the show we're going to
talk about memetics and if you don't
know what memetics are we're going to
explain that and in detail and ask
some questions that I have because I've
only learned bits and pieces here and
there and I know that this is something
that's very near and dear to you and
that you know very well so let's talk
about first of all we're also going to
show how it's applied but first of all
let's just start about with the idea of
what first of all is it memetics or
memology or memology I've always said
memetics I always say memetics too but
the key word is the meme right now what
exactly is a meme is that something is
it an easy definition well no but you
know but I'll give it to you the in order
to understand memes you really have to
talk about genes and I'll start by
talking about Charles Darwin most people
are familiar with Charles Darwin he wrote
this book in the late 1800s which in
which he you know proposed the theory of
evolution and he talked about you know
survival of the fittest and the idea is
that different species compete with each
other and the ones that the ones that are
most fit to survive end up you know
propagating and it all has to do with
you know survival of the species and you
know everyone's really familiar with
those ideas and genes live forever you
know one person may you know live for a
hundred years but you know his genes were
passed to him from his parents and he'll
pass them on to his children and the
gene you know may have a thousand year
lifespan before it's wiped out of a
species and it's really important to
focus on genes in terms of how you think
about evolution evolution doesn't really
optimize for species and the easiest way
to understand that is to think about the
lifespan of species you know you would
think that if the idea was to propagate
your species all over the planet that the
species that would that would win the
evolutionary struggle would be the one
that lived the longest you know you
have species you have animals that live for
three and four hundred years because you
you know because if you live that long you
you know you could reproduce a lot and you
know you just sort of fill up the planet
with uh...
with people like you but the thing is
that
the reality is that animals don't usually
live much longer than
you know there first or second or you
know after a few reproduction cycles they
have enough time to produce you know a
certain number of offspring and then they
usually die
and the reason for that is that you know
even if a particular organism dies as
long as it is reproduced its genes
survive and that's that's all that's really
important so of course the gene is just a
piece of information it's it's this basic
code that gets mixed up again ends up
producing you know you know an animal but
really at its heart it's just data and
dawkins started thinking about you know
what other kinds of data replicators do
we have that kind of reproduce and
survive in in the in the in the universe and
so he he coined the term meme in the book
the selfish gene to refer to an idea that
works the same way that a gene does and i
guess the best example of a meme is a
knock-knock joke
the thing about knock-knock jokes is that
they're real small
they're easy to remember and they're easy
to repeat
so if i tell you uh
a knock-knock job
a knock-knock joke hopefully you know you'll
think it's funny and you'll remember it and
it's really easy for you to spread it to
someone else and you're motivated to do
that because you want to make that person
laugh too
right so these knock-knock jokes they kind
of spread word of mouth you know they're
not you don't see them on tv you don't
really read them in books you don't
hear them on the radio it's just
something that you hear from your
friends and they live you know for
years uh just passing from person to
person sort of like a virus uh and that
that's that's what dawkins was talking
about when he was talking about a meme and
he wanted to ask questions about you know
what are the different kinds of memes in
our society and uh what are they doing
i think that uh you know there's two
qualities that are that are um that make
a piece of information more meme-like
uh the first quality is that it reproduces
readily
okay wait before before we make a comparison
to to memes and genes more specifically
and data let's back up just a little bit
okay if memes okay because i think you made
a point early on i just wanted to clarify
obviously an animal that i like um you're
saying a child for example would have a
genetic disorder and die at an early age
due to a bad gene or bad genetic disorder
and therefore it doesn't get passed on
so the gene sort of dies out is that
true or is does does data stop do you
lose data if it's in a situation like
that because again i'm very first of all
i'm asking this is definitely a question
because i don't know the first thing
about it isn't that still carried on
somehow through the parents if they had
other childs that did not for example get
that disorder
okay okay so uh the way this works is uh
you know that uh that information you're
mentioning is related to the the question
of um uh you know is it survival of the
fittest genes or survival of the fittest
species um certain kinds of information
uh and in the case of genes certain kinds
of genetic code are more apt to survive
than others uh for example let me go let me
let me go back to my my mimetic uh contact
and talk about knock-knock jokes a knock-knock
joke that isn't funny is not going to
survive very long because you're not going
to spread it you know someone might tell it
to you but you're not going to tell it to
somebody else because it's not very good
uh the same thing happens with genes uh if
you have a and you know if you have a gene
that you know causes uh certain people who
have it to die you know when they're 10
years old chances are those people would
not have made it to reproduction by the
time uh that gene takes effect so they're
not going to spread that gene onto their
children uh whereas you know other animals
that don't have that gene you know they'll
they'll uh they'll you know happily
reproduce and spread whatever genetic code
they happen to have so uh genes that can
cause uh um you know sort of early childhood
illness are less likely to uh you know
propagate in the gene pool and we certainly
have them uh but they're rare there there
is you know there's this thing that happens
in genetics where certain genes are
recessive and dominant and it's uh there
are situations where you know you've got a
genetic disorder uh that affects you as a
child but um and it came from your parents
but your parents didn't get it because um
you know they uh they happen to get lucky
uh you know and they they didn't get the
you know that particular gene wasn't active
it wasn't dominant for them all right so
it's so i i think i understand now it's a
matter of over time those genes because
they don't get passed on as frequently they
become more and more recessive so they may
still exist but just less likely to uh take
shape or take form well the reality is that
they work their way out of the system because
you know if 50 percent let's say we have two
genes a or b and you either have a or b and
you know 50 percent of the people who get a
die before their cat uh you know but everyone
who has b lives you know during your first
generation you know you know you've got so
many people with a and so many people with b
and they're equal so in your second
generation you've lost 50 percent of the
people that had a so everyone who had b
reproduced and only 50 percent of the
people who had a reproduced and then in
your next generation you lose half of the
a's again right so it becomes more and
more ultimately those kinds of genes
whittle themselves out and everyone in
the world has just got b and very few
people have a right but they they do
still exist is what i'm basically asking
they'll exist even on the most tiny
minuscule fractional possibilities well i
mean eventually they can die out they
can oh yes i mean it's possible to uh for
these things to get bred out of the system
interesting i didn't know that uh the
dominant recessive genes is a technical
subject that i'm not really qualified to
talk about sometimes uh you know genes are
more likely to get exhibited if they exist in
your system the other ones like they
overpower each other uh uh so depending
upon the certain makeup that you've got
you know some things some things will end
up uh you know exhibiting in you and you
know other things you'll have the
information inside of you but it won't
actually turn into a physical
characteristic right okay so let's so
let's go back now to that idea of
turning of memes as or excuse me as
genes as types of data as being just
basically like similar to data
right i i mean genetic code is just
information and it's information about
how you build an animal uh and the
reality is that uh memes in a sense are
just information a knock-knock joke is
just raw data but what's interesting
about both genes and memes is that they
replicate and they and they um spread
themselves and they survive over long
periods of time even though one
particular carrier you know a person may
have a gene and then die or a person
may know a knock-knock joke and then
either forget about it or die uh but you
know the knock-knock joke lives on the the
gene lives on uh you know because it gets
reproduced that's what memetics is all
about it's all about taking a look at pieces
of information that tend to that tend to
reproduce and spread through society in the
same way that genes reproduce and spread
through species
okay so so memetics sounds like it's very
very it's obviously very very closely tied to
genetics as you said it's it's definitely
that's what it's all about why do i hear the
term memes and memetics so much lately like in
um like uh you know i hear it used in the
same breath and um i'm not forgive me if i'm
putting on the spot here but as uh culture
jamming for example because the something
about repetition of ideas and slogans and
catchphrases and that type of thing
well there are there are there are two
things that um make a meme there are all
kinds of different pieces of information and
some aren't very mean like and some are uh you
know for example calculus isn't a very good
meme because it's so complex and it takes a
long time to communicate uh but it the thing
is that it's very useful and so we do
communicate it anyway so it does survive for
long periods of time within our you know
sort of you know information soup that uh
gets shared between all of us human beings
um but uh you know it it also spreads kind
of slowly really complex ideas you know tend
to spread slowly if you've got something that
is as useful as calculus but it is as small
as a knock knock joke that's the kind of
thing that will spread through society like
wildfires it's like a fad you know everyone
will find out about it in the course of a
very short period of time because it's
really easy for it to spread and it's
really um people really want to spread it
so uh so something like culture jamming uh
you know what uh what people who are trying
to sort of influence other people might be
interested in doing is finding ways to
communicate their message uh um in in um
in you know without necessarily like they
they may not necessarily particularly when
you're talking about culture jammers they
don't necessarily have access to you know uh
big tv stations and you know big media so
they can't really write an article and have
it appear uh and have like millions of
people read it so you know how are they
going to get their message out there to a
large number of people well maybe what if
they expressed their their uh their idea in
such a way that it was like a knock knock
joke it was really short and maybe it was
even funny and uh people would repeat it
word of mouth um you know sort of maybe
take a quip at somebody and other people
will spread it and it kind of you know you
might spread it because you think it's
funny but it also kind of communicates this
message and as it goes from person to
person as it kind of spreads around um you
know it informs people while it entertains
them so you know people who are interested in
sort of communicating messages through society
might be interested in coming up with really
good memes that they could uh that they could
tell a few people to that would kind of
spread on their own um and would uh and
would give a particular piece of information
to everyone everyone who um who heard about
it let me let me think let me let me let me
throw this at you and tell me if this is a
good example or a bad example okay um
thinking like calculus like you said
something that uh sure it may spread around
for a while but it's not really that way
like like let's let me go with let me go
music let me go on a music thing
beethoven mozart all these brilliant
composers and stuff but how many people do
you hear playing that in their car or
singing or whistling that and stuff like
that that's something that as an idea as a
bit of data as a an existence a meme i
guess is i guess i can use the word that
way you don't hear so often yet you can
very easily and commonly hear somebody
walking down the street whistling the
mcdonald's jingle that's interesting or
something like that because it's short
easy to remember and stick into people's
head and therefore propagate me more
likely be more likely to propagate and
spread because of its simplicity because
it's catchy because it's something that can
easily stick in people's mind and one of
the things that dawkins talks about in
the selfish gene is the idea that memes
sort of change the consciousness of the
person they infect uh when you when you
receive this piece of information it kind
of rewires your head a little bit and how
effective it is at rewiring your head
relates to how likely you are to spread
it if it really has a great influence on
your thinking then you know you're very
likely to uh you're very very likely to
repeat it and catchy jingles are a good
example and that's why you know advertisers
use them uh you know they they want to
get a song like the mcdonald's theme song
stuck in your head and then they attach
this and it's catchy so it's it has it
has a i guess a good memetic quality in
the sense that it it rewires you and it
tends to pop up in your thinking and then
they attach this message to it you know
mcdonald's um so whenever this this thing
pops up in your head you you know you kind
of end up going to mcdonald's um so i mean
that's you know that's certainly uh that's
certainly related and and to take that a
step further then and apply it again to
my why always i i think i'm putting two
and two together here the way it's i see
it mentioned with culture jamming so much
is and let's stick with a mcdonald's
example the golden arches you know very
famous everybody knows and recognizes the
golden arches simplicity easy to remember
something you associate with food whatever
um the culture jamming that i've seen is
like artists generally um who will take
those mcdonald's arches and spin them and
put their own message into it like the
t-shirts that say um oh gosh i can't
think one of one now that i'm on the
spot it'll have the mcdonald's arches but
it'll have little demon eyes inside of it
or something i'm just making something
completely up to show that yes you
recognize the arches but i'm sending you
a different message about the arches that's
true is that how it's applied to culture
jamming i think i'm actually understanding
this a little bit yeah i think you're
right the only thing that i add is that
you know those aren't really effective
memes unless you spread them so you know
if you see them and and you know on the
one hand if they can sort of take
advantage of um you know a corporate
jingle or some some sort of thing like
that that's in your head that's going to
pop in your head and they can put a
different message there then that's very
interesting um you know because they can
uh you know because they can kind of piggyback
on that uh that infectious idea uh in order
to present a different uh concept to you but
the thing is that memes really have to be um
they really have to do with uh reproduction
they really have to do with the idea that
uh it's not just that you'll get infected
with it but that you'll spread it to
somebody else so if you see a t-shirt that's
got kind of a funny slogan on it um you know
it's not just about like does it affect your
thinking it's also about you know are you
going to say to somebody else hey i saw
this really funny t-shirt or i want to buy
one of those t-shirts as well or you know
you'll buy one as well you know maybe you'll
cause other people to buy them it's all
about like does it spread from person to
person through the word of mouth network
gotcha yeah i understand i think that is
what the goal of a lot of the culture
jammers is to you know sell the t-shirts
that are slave you know not the farfing
you can t-shirt but the one that's a little
bit different for you know i think i see
that now now tell me what have you done
we've got probably about 10 more minutes
here we got time um tell me exactly how
memes and how you how memetics can be
applied in a technical application because
that's really what you do over at meme
streams well uh you know the thing you
might want to ask about memes once you
realize that they exist once you realize
these pieces of information kind of
replicate and spread is uh you might want
to find out two things the first is you
know how did they spread uh um you know
where are the where are the people that
are really good at spreading them um you
know are there people that uh you know
maybe one somebody gets a meme and you
know they tell everyone they know about
it but they don't really know that many
people so it doesn't go very far whereas
if you tell somebody else about it that
person they tend to be connected to
everybody and they start talking about
it and all of a sudden everyone's
talking about it those are kind of
interesting questions uh and the second
thing that you know i think would be
really useful is to be able to harness
the the knowledge about the spread of
memes through society so that you can
kind of catch memes before they reach
critical mass maybe you want to know
which ideas are up and coming and they
really haven't they really haven't you
know spread all over the place but a
few people are talking about them and
they might be the next the next big
thing maybe you want to know about that
before everyone else does so you want
to be in tune to where those new ideas
those new those new memes arise right so
um those are those are kind of the
questions that me and a friend of mine
started uh asking each other and we uh
we kind of um got from that topic on to
uh you know it's a very long story we
were talking about uh reputation
systems which is a kind of um related
subject and reputation systems have to
do with uh determining you know who it
is that you trust who it is that you
respect uh and that that's a very
important thing when you get into the
spread of memes um you know somebody
that you that you don't respect you
know that gives you a piece of
information you're much less likely to
you know repeat it than if um if
someone you have a lot of interest in
and trust in uh gives you a piece of
information uh but what we really
wanted to try to do is a couple of
different things but one of the things
we wanted to do is build a build a
network where we could see um see how
memes propagate between people you know
sort of word of mouth and figure out
you know who who's got the most
interesting memes and um maybe get those
memes in front of us faster than they
otherwise would uh so uh what what
meme streams does uh it's it's a
reputation system for weblogs uh weblogs
are very meany things uh you go out on a
website and you see a an interesting
article and what you do is share it on
your weblog uh so that other people can
get it and maybe they share it too um
networks of weblogs are really
interesting places to study memetics you
can figure out you know that there's a
couple of uh there's a couple of weblogs
that you know sort of are at the center
of the network and when those guys find
out about something everybody's got it
uh and you can maybe find out where
those guys get the information that
they're looking at uh and you can you
know you can if you can if you could
look at all the traffic that goes into a
big weblog network and see where things
start how they flow you might learn some
interesting things about how people work uh so
so uh mean streams is a reputation
system for weblogs you post content there
and you read other people's content and it
kind of passively learns you know whose
recommendations you find interesting and
whose um whose content you tend to read
and it figures out who you trust and one of
the things it does is it shows you over
time once it's learned about this stuff it
shows you content that it thinks you'll
like because you've trusted those people
in the past uh so that's kind of um that's
kind of uh you know it's useful because it
helps you filter out all this stuff that
goes around on the internet you know it
gets you it gets you closest to the
people that you uh that you are most
interested in and the other thing that
it does is uh it kind of it doesn't just
look at who you find interesting but it
looks at who those people get their
information from and as you use the
system over time you know maybe you start
out by reading a couple of your friends
weblogs and but uh the the information
that you really like from one of your
friends is actually coming from someone
else well the system will figure that out
and then you'll start reading that person
directly and then maybe it turns out that
the stuff that he's recommending you know
maybe most of the stuff that you like
comes from another person and he's getting
it from them so it'll it'll put you
closer and closer and closer to the
sources of information that you really
find interesting right and i see the
clear obvious relationship to genetics
and passing the information along
yep it's it's all about uh it's all
about replicators um now is it just by
people that you associate it with or is
it also by topic does it track and can
tell the way like if i only let's say i'm
i find uh acidus a lot of the links that
he provides to be very interesting and
the system can tell that and then uh
whoever acidus finds interesting in turn
and on down the line but what if i only
find interesting like the technical and
like on the show we always say we try to
stay technical not political is it is
there some way that it will weed out not
only everything that acidus says but the
things that acidus says that are tech
related is there a way to control that
uh yes there is um you know in this
system uh you you you post them when you
post a weblog or you post a weblog entry
you associate it with the topic and then
when you were um when you're using the
system it doesn't just ask you know whose
links you like it asks uh it rates the
person and it rates the person by topic
and the whole all the articles in the
system were broken down by topic so you
can say something like i like what this
guy's talking about technology but i don't
necessarily i'm not so interested in
what um that guy's saying about pets uh
you know but there's there's kind of
differing philosophies about that and so
it's possible to turn that system on and
off uh you know some people think that
you know a really you know smart
interesting person is going to have smart
interesting things to say regardless of
what subject they're talking about so um
i don't know it kind of depends some
people want to filter out uh you know
or focus in on the content that the
subjects that interest them and some
people kind of want to focus in on the
people that interest them and i i've
tried to build something that lets you
do either or oh yeah and and you know
that's that's really one of the things
i i've got to say as we're starting to
run out here i want to point out that
one of the things i've liked and that
i've noticed is that i i've i like the
intellectual nature of what i have found
on the site even though i don't usually
like a lot of other you know i usually am
looking for technical information i'm
just really hardcore tech guy i just
don't like getting into the whole
political end of things however i do
still find some interesting topics on
there at least when i do find them
they're very intellectual and analytical
in their style and again maybe that's
because the people that i'm associated
to are feeling and finding the same
things and feeling the same way now is
there i i'm going to make a very wide
open question here for you as we wrap
it up because we've got a few minutes
left four or five minutes left maybe um
is there anything else uh first of all
the url
www.memestreams.net
okay make sure let me spell meme
streams because people don't understand
how to spell it it's m-e-m-e-s-t-r-e-a-m-s
uh oh i was really amazed when i picked
the name i thought that more people were
familiar with memes and knew what memes
were but it turns out that very few
people know about memes so you know
usually when i tell people about this
site they say meme streams and mem
streams and they you know they're
they're just not comfortable with that
word so
okay meme streams and it's dot net right
yep
um is there anything else on there like
um i i don't know if this is an insult
to say this or a sore spot but is is
there i mean slash dot
well okay so
are there some similarities or or not
there's certainly like at first glance
or some similarities because what you see
when you come to the site is a list of
articles and you get pretty much a list
of articles when you go to slash dot
and those articles have threads and you
know some of that structure is similar
um the difference is not so much up front
um the difference is what's going on
behind the scenes um right the way that
slash dot works it has this karma system
and the thing about the karma system is
that it has and i'll use a 50 cent word
here a monohierarchical view of what is
quality content um the guys that run
slash dot they hold all the karma and
they give it out to you know their people
that they think are interesting and those
people give it out to people that they
think are interesting and it kind of
spreads out from one source uh so the
stuff that you see on slash dot is
stuff that really relates to the interests
of the people that run slash dot and if
your opinions were grossly different
from that of slash dot and you know
that that's really unlikely in a site
that's focused on technology and it uh
it's more likely to come up in a
political contact but um if your
opinions were grossly different you
know you would have a very hard time
getting lots of karma points because
you know people would be uh you know
people would be unlikely to give them to
you because you would be sort of
outside the inner circle um the way
that mean streams works is it um all
of the sort of karma i guess in the
system flows from you it looks at who
you think is interesting and whose
opinions you respect and when you use
the reputation agent you get a list of
articles that is custom to you so you
know two people could use the site that
had very dramatically different interests
and different opinions about what's
valuable and they would get very
dramatically different views of the
site and the sites you know so instead
of having a site that circles that
that circles around commander taco this
site circles around you and what you
think is important um very interesting
the uh there's a really great example
of this that i wanted to mention on the
show uh there's this guy that does
analysis of um of networks of people uh
who has some a website with some very
interesting graphs uh and um i'll give
this url out it's www.org net o r g net
dot com uh slash divided dot html
organet.com slash divided dot html this
guy did an analysis of the amazon.com book
data uh where you know some people you
know people who bought this book might
have also bought these other books and
what he found out is that there's you
know pretty much two categories of
books there's uh in the political
space there's democratic books and
republican books and people that read
republican books don't read democrat
books and people that read democrat
books don't read republican books and
there's almost there's very very few
books that get read by people on both
sides so really we have in our country
two great groups of political think
thinking that are totally echo chambers
and they don't really communicate with
each other uh they don't know what each
other thinks so uh it's a very
instructive graph and if you think
about you know if you read if you're on
a website that was that had sort of a
karma based system and you know someone
on the blue side of this picture a
democrat was running the system it would
be very difficult for the republicans to uh
uh to really get what they wanted out of
it because uh because you know they
would have almost totally separate
interests right absolutely absolutely
now we're we're gonna have to wrap it
up here um last minute last 30 seconds
anything else well i i uh i want to thank
you very much for uh giving me the
opportunity to come on your show no no
you don't have you don't have to do
that let's let's pimp the site again
memestreams.net please go register and
watch what we've explained here of how it
works and see and notice it in action you
know that's the best way and then maybe
come back and re-listen to the show
afterwards yep so no thank you for
actually being on the show and let's
let's jump into shout outs we've got
just a couple minutes here um i let me
give a couple quick shout outs myself um
sub-zero dj mollusk they've been
helping out with some things that needed
to be done they took the initiative
themselves to work on some stuff that
they knew were projects and stuff that
i needed to do so they jumped on that
and started you know helping me out
with that so i appreciate that um to
salvea he sent me an email i did not
read on the show tonight but about some
problems with my kvm switch i'm going
to try to follow up on his suggestions
and see if that works um and to death
mule who has put up another mirror of
the show we can always use more mirrors
so shouts out to him and you anybody
want to shout out to i know you got a
big crew there in the southeast the
dirty dirty well i'll give a shout out
to uh to acidus and i'll give a shout out
to rattle uh and glm yeah i i met both
acidus and rattle both very very nice
guys i definitely definitely second that
shout out absolutely and i want to uh
give a shout out to dolomite and the
freaknik crew can't wait for that that's
coming up in uh it's coming up in
november it's gonna be a lot of fun yeah
i'm trying my best to get to that if the
airfare works out so uh i guess that's
uh i guess that's it all right sounds
good um and again anybody that wants to
email us um about anything radio at
binrev.com is the email address for
feedback i'm still accepting articles for
issue 2.2 of binary revolution magazine
you want to submit those articles to
this address articles at binrev.com makes
sense and our closing music tonight is
from tech nine it's called slacker now
somebody sent me this somebody sent me
this link and told me about this guy
and it's it's awesome i really like this
guy i don't like a lot of i'm very
particular in my taste of music and
especially in in rap and hip-hop or
whatever you want to call it but this
guy i really like a lot so um i burnt
the cd been listening to it all week so
who i don't remember who sent me the
link so please email me let me know so
i can thank you on the air um been
listening to tech nine his whole album
um he's put online for download you
can download burn the whole album for
free um again hoping maybe that you'll
buy the other albums he has available
but he put the one out for free very
cool of him to try something new try a
new distribution method trying to get
attention like that i think that's a
very cool thing to do and it's a damn
good album so that's going to do it
now desius thank you so much for being
on the show i wish i'd be here yeah i
wish i'd set aside more time there at
the end i learned i i've heard so many
you know i hear the buzzword itself but
i've never had someone sit down and
explain it to me so thank you for doing
that and i hope i i hope the listeners
got as much out of it as i did so and
you know what we'll have to have you back
on again to maybe pick up on something
we missed or or talk about some of the
other stuff you got going on hey i'm
more than happy to do that uh you know
we just kind of uh just kind of uh you
know scratch the surface here there's a
whole lot of stuff to talk about so
absolutely absolutely i'll gladly have
you back we'll work something out but
until then we end the show the same way
every time it may be cliche and
repetitive but i still like it and we
still end the show by saying that we
will see everyone next week same hack
time same hack channel
slacker a person who shirts his work or
duty a person who evades military
service in wartime
i know one thing man i'm gonna have my
kicks before the whole shit house goes
up in flame you know what i'm saying
eat drink and be merry tomorrow you may
die that's what life's about man
i'm a product of reaganomics neurotic they
saying i'm it just got up inhaling chronic
the artist i'm staying honest i'm about to
make it famous so you can take the j-o-b and
you can shove it up your anus i ain't
never understood how the world works but
i always understood why the girls twerk
for a baller not a nine to five barely
making it with disgust behind your eyes
so i just grip my piece rip off fleece
i have to take your lip off chief with my
peeps we roofless if you got money induced
the goofs get toothless we loose off two
fifths we useless
i wanna kick it but ain't got the dough
drink in the concert trip and make them stop the show we gots to go push me and i sock the pole getting the bell from my parents is impossible
i'm a slacker i'm a slacker never did i have a lot of dough i'm a slacker
go whichever way the wind blows though just tuning in i'm just letting you know i'm a slacker every time i take a look around i'm a slacker i'm a slacker
i just fool around i don't do enough i just fool around y'all can go to hell how does that sound now you can tell by my everyday fits i ain't rich i sneak with a piece when i grit i'm just another gap man caught up in the mix
trying to take your dollar and your fifteen cents i grind with a pistol i stay rid of you lanes
y'all game i play video games all day
we can't city mo brains it's gritty slow game we diddy bop with really no change
y'all game and people holler how you do that there
why your pants hangin new and why you grew that hair
light in a bleasel with my people riding a rego
always in trouble with coppers cause we driving illegal
and i ain't never giving them leeway
to him he named the judicial assembly's gay hey i come out at night cause i sleep all day
tryna give a damn jam louder mca
i'm a slacker
never did i have a lot of dough
i'm a slacker
smoking pot and watching videos
i'm a slacker
go whichever way the wind blows
though just tuning in i'm just letting you know
i'm a slacker
every time i take a look around
i'm a slacker
i don't do enough i just fool around y'all can go to hell how does that sound
get to the party and my homies got to pay for me
holidays them just be another day for me
getting drunk hoping i get to the krilla safely
pray for me cause i'm needing money majorly
sit at home watching mtv
with a m t p o c k e t i m p 3
everything that i hear on the street
never buy don't deny it i'm the fear i'm a beast
you say get a job
i say hit a knob
cause the way you run the world is every bit of fraud
so what you ask of me
you get no tax from me
i got whites native and mexican and blacks with me
huh
i'm tryna get up there with master b
pass the d
cause that's the way it has to be
we bust to be free
we trust to be g
so fuck who be glee
it sucks to be me
i'm a slacker
never did i have a lot of dough
i'm a slacker
smoking pot and watching videos
i'm a slacker
go whichever way the wind blows
though just tuning in i'm just letting you know
i'm a slacker
every time i take a look around
i'm a slacker
i just fool around
y'all can go to hell
how does that sound
i'm a slacker
never did i have a lot of dough
i'm a slacker
smoking pot and watching videos
i'm a slacker
go whichever way the wind blows
though just tuning in i'm just letting you know
i'm a slacker
every time i take a look around
i'm a slacker
stuck up on my face
i'm a slacker
oh no what i'm doing
i just fool around
y'all can go to hell
how does that sound
i'm a slacker
yeah
i'm a slacker
yeah
i'm a slacker
yeah
i'm a slacker
yeah
Choo, choo, choo, choo, choo.