This is dedicated to all the hackers and the crackers
I see in binary, I speak source code
Step on my toes, I'll post a million jpegs with you in a fag pose
In your digital stance, getting firewalls ho
Cause I'm riding the net in my six-fold
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 Dreamcast
You need some ISO? Let me through my hard drive rifle
Our exchange you could never stifle
In a digital hood, you just caught the love bug
I bootlegged your CD, I carved the fight between Un and Jay-Z
Cause CG, it's all gonna be free
Whether we take it by force or we take it night free
You feel that rattle in your bones when I tell you we just packed out Jones
And NASDAQ leaves your fight on your back
Cause I am he who loves to hack and crack
This is dedicated to the hackers and the crew
They're real code, source code, ISO, RAM, SIF, SIF
Good afternoon and welcome to Binary Revolution Radio episode 113 for September 13th, 2005
I'm Strom Carlson
I'm Black Ratchet and we have two guests this week
Koresh and the Kid from Boston 2600
Say hi folks
Woo!
Hi folks
Not you Strom, go away
This is a historical moment, we have four people on the show
This just shatters our old record of three
Let me get out the noisemaker
Yay, I just think we should have some lackluster clapping or something
Yay!
That works
We're cool, we're awesome, four people
And if we ever had the column line, we might be able to get five
But the column line's broke, so ha ha
Yeah
Solely moving toward our live show, which will happen eventually
Ooh
Yeah, we're going to have a live show
Don't you guys want to do that?
We'll be taking columns on our live show, so it's cool
Anyway
I'll probably get the column during that one
Yeah, so we'll get a prank called on our show
It'll be like Freak Factor probably
And everyone's worst nightmares will be realized
No, what we'll do is I'll have a set up so I can screen the callers before we bring them on the show
Wow, aren't we getting fancy?
Yes
Wow
We're better than off the hook
You can give away free Porsche
Even Stern doesn't have that
Yeah
What are we giving away? Free cat sex?
That works too, and you can cat sex in a Porsche
But the Porsche is the draw
Ah, yeah
Come for the Porsche, stay for the cat sex
Exactly
All right, well, this is a bit of a thing that Strank used to do
And I feel it's kind of important
And I think we used to have a moment of silence for September 11th
And I really should have done this last week
But I'm doing it this week instead
So we just think about all the stuff that goes down
And everything that happened that day
All right
Now that that's out of the way
So, I think we should go straight into the email
Actually, I think we should let the kid and Buck Rogers introduce themselves
So, who the hell are you guys?
Who aren't we, really?
Who aren't you?
We'll start with you
So, you're both my...
You both know me
You're both from Boston 2600
That's true
That's correct
You're both in the Boston area
Mm-hmm
Yeah, and the vicinity somewhere
We don't want to get too specific
You know, for security reasons
But, yeah, yeah
We enjoy the Boston area
Sometimes
All right
Sometimes
Well, yeah, it does have its drawbacks every once in a while
It's really what I do
You know, you can only enjoy so much of the time
Yes, they're both cool
And they're both friends with me
And that's how you get on the show
Because you've got to be friends with me
Yeah
There are only so many overflowing sewers
You can handle in Boston, I think
The sewers aren't overflowing
We're actually...
We just had a bit of a wildfire today, actually
Right about down the street from me
Because of the sheer lack of rain that we haven't had
And that's always exciting
So, anyway, now we can actually go into the email theme, so...
All right
Our first email this week is from DeBeave
From Telefreak.org
And show 110, episode 110, asterisk rehash part 1, Roth
During the show, there was a bit of talk about the G729 codec and licensing
I just wanted to point out that with asterisk, you can choose G729
For non-commercial and experimental purposes for free
For more information, check
Here's a tiny URL that I created for that
Tinyurl.com
And I've got to say, I didn't know that
And I don't think Strom knew that either
Because he...
How much did he spend on that?
20 bucks?
It was 20 bucks
But you know what?
I seem to recall looking at it
And it was something complicated
There was some complicated way of getting it to work with asterisk
So I said, you know what?
I'd just rather spend the 20 bucks
Oh, so this doesn't actually plug right into asterisk like Digium did?
I don't think it did
Although I might be wrong
Well, anyway, you're a sucker because you didn't get it for free
And you suck
Ha ha ha ha ha
Yeah
You paid for something
Ha ha ha
Well, remember, kids, software piracy is wrong
Yeah, software piracy is very wrong
Yes, but this would have fallen greater for us
Because that's exactly what we're doing
We were doing experiments on it to see how crappy it sounds
And that was the second least crappiest sounding codec, I believe
Ha ha ha
Yes
Not like LPC-10
No, no, no
G726 was the second least crappy sounding codec
G729 sounds roughly like GSM
I really didn't hear much of a difference between the two
Really? No, I kind of picked that up
I don't know
Hmm
Anyway, our next email
Hey, Strom and Black Ratchet
Greetings from Australia
Anyways, been a long-time listener
And like what you guys are doing with the show
More towards my area of interest
Anywho, was listening to Binrev, number 111
And heard you talking briefly about VoIP over GPRS
I was sitting at work one day some time ago
And I had the idea of doing this as my mobile phone provider
Has a strange billing system that believes voice is more expensive than data
Probably because nobody's using it
In fact, one provider over here gives GPRS data for free
So I was wondering if you are aware of any J2ME ports
Or of soft phones out there
I know SIP Communicator is planning a port in the future
And I had planned to start one of my own
Just to get things done quicker
But won't bother if there's something similar that you guys are aware of
Anyway, keep up the good work, guys
Route 2
So, VoIP over GPRS
Hmm
Down flow
Yeah, as far as I know
I think it's an impossibility at this point
GPRS works fine for web surfing
Well, fine in a very general sense
But latency and bandwidth, it suck
Bandwidth is an issue
I think GPRS only gets about 30, 35 kilobits per second
Once you build in over the overhead
I believe the theoretical maximum is 48
Although that also depends on signal quality
I mean, on my hip-top
It can really suck sometimes
If I only have one or two bars
It can be very, very, very slow
And I don't even want to think about doing a VoIP conversation over there
So, for the time being, Route 2
You're shit out of luck
Sorry
Apparently there is hope for the future
I was doing some research on this
And I found an API from Sun
For J2ME that does SIP
And it's tinyurl.com
So, I guess people are thinking ahead
Because, you know, we have all this
We've got GPRS now
But over in Japan
3G networks
What are they up to?
Like, I think they're 768 kilobits per second standard
Oh, that sounds yummy
Yeah, I just died to get that down to my cell phone
Wouldn't that be great?
Just, like, surf porn on the bus
Oh, yes
I mean, not have to wait, like, hours for hours on end for porn
I mean, right now, I think the best
Oh, baby, give it to me
Yes, yes, yes
Dude, you can have VoIP porn
All right
Yes
That'd be sweet
Yeah, the kid knows all about that
Yeah, well, don't I?
Yeah, especially on buses
But let me tell you
With Nextel
Well, yeah
Nextel and 900 numbers
That involve things of that nature
That don't work out very well
Reach out and touch somebody
Well, hell
With Nextel
You could do all your phone sex
On speakerphone on the bus
Well, that's what I thought
And I thought everybody else would enjoy
On a long bus ride
That same thing
But apparently
Whoops
Yeah, not a family event
I know I mentioned to you two
About what I do on Nextel
But I'm not sure if I ever
Talked about this on the show
About my fun with Nextel people
Dude, I don't think I've ever
I don't think I've ever
I basically recall you
Either telling me about it
Or talking about it on the show
But regardless
I think it's funny and worth repeating
Anyway, yeah
I think so
So I eventually
I take the bus into work
And back every day
Because if
For anyone who ever
Has been to Boston
There is no parking
Period
So there's a bus
That's about
A quarter mile from my house
And I walk it
Take it in
It stops me about
A quarter mile from work
And it's a pretty good ride
I can sleep on it
But I run into my fair share
Of Nextel users
Who have the
Speakerphone
On their walkie-talkie
Ooh, gotta have the walkie-talkie
They're cool
Chirp
Hmm?
Chirp
So
No, I never actually thought
This was a major problem
Because I thought
They had to have it
On speakerphone
And then
I was enlightened
By default radio
And I found out
That they can turn that off
And at this point
I was aghast
So
I was
Next time
After I found that out
I was on the bus
And there was some guy
Middle of the morning
Talking to Jim
And he was
I don't even remember
What they were talking about
At this point
But he was going to meet Jim
And he was constantly saying
Jim, Jim
Gonna do this
Gonna do that
And you know
He was walking off the bus
And I was walking right behind him
And I say
Hey, have fun with Jim today
And he just turned to me
And just looked aghast
That I was listening
To his conversation
And I thought
This could have possibilities
So
I eventually started staring at people
When they were doing it
And then I started
You know
Then I started fully participating
In the conversations
Like if someone asked a question
I'd say
Oh
You know
This is how you do that
Or
Oh
That's
You know
It's very strange
And people get very pissed off
When you start participating
In their conversations
Like that
Yeah
It's almost as rude
As walking around
Talking on the phone
Yeah
Or driving on the phone
Yeah
Oh no, no, no
Driving on the phone is fine
As long as you're paying attention
To the road
More than you're paying attention
To your conversation
About supper
Or some other dumb crap
People talk about
See I
You're down at the grocery store
And you hear people like
Confirming what kind of chips
They want
As they walk around
I
I actually have a story about that
I
Of course, for example, if you had a Western Electric handset while you're walking in the store,
you get all kinds of conversations, right, Strom?
Oh, yes, exactly.
The first time I talked to a complete stranger in Los Angeles was on Strom's phone while I was talking to him,
and he had a Western Electric handset plugged into it.
Amazing.
Me and my father, growing up, used to listen to people's cordless phone conversations on his police scanner.
Let me tell you how much fun that was, hearing a husband and wife, like, you know,
more or less putting the nails into the coffin of their relationship on the phone.
How to be a nosy neighbor.
Yes.
Oh, it was beautiful.
Man, seriously, there used to be a way to impress so many people when you just sort of flip that out
and you picked up their conversations.
It was weird.
Yeah.
In sort of a semi-related but not entirely related vein,
I found that the best way to be able to change lanes on the freeway is drive with your window open
and then stick your head out the window and look at the other driver directly in the eye,
and they will drop back and let you in without question.
Wait.
This must be a Los Angeles thing.
Yeah, I was just going to say, no, that doesn't work around here.
No, there's, no, your head is irrelevant to somebody else's schedule.
Don't cut it off.
If it's a way or not.
Yeah.
So anyway, getting back onto the topic.
We have a topic?
Yeah, getting back onto the email here.
We're talking about changing lanes in cars.
We're talking about 3G.
Yeah, 3G is going to come out, and I think someone recently, didn't they have like 50?
I remember reading this on Slashdot.
Someone did like 50 megabits per second, which made me shit myself.
But anyway, that's not coming out anywhere over here anytime soon.
Then again, I get to Flashdot.
Yeah.
I don't know why Flashdot is.
Yeah, Flashdot.
News, cutting edge.
And, I mean, they've got the phones that do the Wi-Fi, too, so that's also an interesting concept
where you can basically flip over to VoIP and not have to use your cell phone companies.
But they're kind of kicking and screaming about that, and I wonder why.
Now, if you can do MULA over VoIP over your cell phone, then that would certainly make it worth it.
Well, with WiMAX, that's another idea.
I'm curious what that'll be like, because that's like 50 megabits per second, too.
That's insanely large, but I'm curious what the equipment thing will be.
And also, I'm not interested in holding a transmitter like that up to my head.
Oh, come on.
Don't you want a microwave brain omelet?
But that would be fun.
Totally.
Anyway, our next email is from VoltageX, and he says,
I'm reasonably good at PHP.
Do you think I should worry about learning Perl?
Also, as I was listening to your future of telephony, a thought came to me.
If payphones are dying due to mobiles and VoIP, why not make VoIP payphones?
The rates could be much cheaper, and listening to your show, it seems that you could use an adapter
to convert standard payphones to use VoIP, although I know nothing about them, so maybe not.
Skype has already made steps towards us with Skype zones, Skype-friendly Wi-Fi hotspots,
so why not go the whole way, VoltageX?
Do you want to take the question first, or shall I?
Because this is more your question, and this is equally both of us.
Well, I guess you can do the PHP thing, and then I'll do the telephone thing, and then we can jump into the hacking stories.
Well, PHP, I mean, learning languages, you should always be wanting to learn more languages.
It shouldn't be a question of, should I learn X?
Even if you just sit down and fiddle with it for a while, I mean, I've recently started playing around with VisualBasic.net a little more,
and, yeah, yeah, don't get me started on that.
It's interesting.
It's a Q2C language.
I'm really starting to compare it to be the Perl of Windows, because it's there for quick hacks.
I believe Perl is compatible in Windows also.
I don't know if that takes away from your point.
Yeah, well, yeah, why don't we run Perl instead?
Thanks.
Yeah, well, it's not all cutesy-wootsy, and, you know, if you basically toss a Windows user command prompt,
they'll start to scream and break out in hives, so it's a question.
But anyway, if I can learn VB, other people can learn Perl, because Perl is just an infinitely better language.
You never know when it's going to come in handy, really.
Perl, it's used in web development, but it's a whole lot more useful in a ton of other things.
But I think there's been studies out that PHE is much more efficient than Perl in the web language,
and I'm sure people are screaming out there, the Perl mongers.
I use PHP for web, all of the apples in PHP.
I used to use Perl for web development, and then I was introduced to PHP, and it was like,
wow, this is just so much better.
But for Perl, I basically use Perl for almost everything else in a Unix environment,
and even in Windows, like I was talking in whatever episode that was, 109, I think.
There's diehards out there that have made an interpreter that are from the command line for PHP,
and there's people out there that continue to use Perl for web development despite it, you know, sucking sometimes.
There's a lot of stuff that it's good at, but there's a lot of stuff that it isn't good at.
Look at it that way.
It's silly.
Use a hammer when you need a hammer.
Use a saw when you need a saw.
Otherwise, I don't know where I'm going with this analogy.
Well, I mean, you could always bang on the piece of plywood until it shattered into a million pieces.
Yeah, yeah, but you're going to – basically – actually, yeah, I must figure where I was going with this analogy.
You're essentially going to come out with this shattered piece of wood that looks like crap.
Or you could just call the head off the nail.
The government and not use .NET.
Anyway, yeah, moving on.
All right.
So as far as, you know, pay phones dying, they're dying because of mobile phones, not because of VoIP.
Yes, Ratchet and I are just torn up over this.
But no, the thing about pay phones is they are dying because people are increasingly using their mobile phones as a means of communicating while they're away from the house.
Because VoIP is more threatening the traditional landline business more so than it's threatening the pay phone business.
So having VoIP pay phones is probably not going to change much on one hand.
On the other hand, more so as a second facet of the argument, the pay phone industry, you know, the rates are tariffed with PUC for the most part.
And traditional long distance rates, even from, you know, from, you know, from, for switch long distance is cheap enough now as to where your pay phone calls could be competitive even without VoIP.
So I think you're going to see, just as time progresses, a general move away from wireline phones and towards VoIP.
But, you know, I just had a power outage here in Los Angeles today.
So VoIP didn't work, but my wireline phone still did.
So.
The decoder is smiling.
Yes, decoder is smiling somewhere.
So, yeah.
Well, actually, well, I guess.
This just in.
Go ahead.
Well, I had the opportunity to ask.
I was curious of what the point of Verizon hoping to accomplish by raising the price from maybe what it used to be for $0.35 or possibly even $0.25 to $0.50.
And if that's really necessary to keep the costs, you know, I think it kind of turns away that market a little bit.
Well, I mean, adjusted for inflation, a pay phone call costs the same today as it did in 1968.
Yeah, but.
Oh, really?
Yes.
$0.10 in 1968 is $0.50 today.
Right.
But there were no alternatives in 1968.
And now they have cell phones.
It just doesn't seem very competitive.
Well, I mean, it's not that competitive.
But at the same time, when you do $0.50 for a local call, it's unlimited as opposed to your cell phone, which is per minute for the most part.
Right.
Unless you have, like, you know, the $1,000 plan or something.
And also labor costs go up, you know, as time goes on.
So the cost of maintaining the phones probably warrants a rate increase.
Yep.
Yeah.
And that's what it is.
Plus, you know, the other question is, you know, with the price raises and everything, I guess it's more toward inflation now.
But I always thought it was more toward it's a premium.
They're raising the prices because not enough people are using it.
And it's – this is the kind of logic that certain companies use, which is silly, I will admit.
But, you know, hey, whatever.
Well, I mean, as quantity – if you take an economics class, it just relates right back to supply and demand.
If there's less demand, the prices go up.
No, no, no, no, no.
If there's less demand, the prices go down.
That's right.
Boy, you better go back to college there, Strom.
Oh, you are.
Hey, no, don't blame me.
I'm not entirely awake right now.
You're never awake.
I never am.
I'm frazzled all the time.
And since we're talking about –
Can we edit that out?
No, of course not.
No.
We'll see.
Since we're talking about VoIP here, Koresh just IM'd this to me.
eBay to set the spot – to buy Skype for $2.6 billion.
Really?
Yeah.
This just in.
Wow.
Earlier this morning, I guess.
But, wow.
$2.6 billion.
I heard it was actually going to go earlier today.
But, like, some idiot bid $2.6 billion and 50 cents.
Right at the last minute.
It was horrible.
Yeah.
That was a lame joke.
But, hey, check out somebody.
You're killing me over here.
I'm laughing, but you just can't hear it.
I hope eBay doesn't pay with PayPal.
Well, anyway, let's go over to show and tell before we make other bad eBay jokes.
Who wants to kick it off?
We'll let Koresh go first because he hasn't talked to much.
Oh, no.
What have you been doing, Koresh?
What have I been doing?
Yeah.
I have actually spent my entire weekend praying in front of my iBook because my battery is completely dead.
So, rather than spending $140, I have made a little shrine in my living room.
And I am calling to the gods on this one.
With some bourbon.
So far, nothing.
Well, what kind of battery is it?
G3 12-inch iBook.
Well, no, no.
Nickel metal hydroxide, lithium ion.
Probably lithium ion.
Lithium ion, yeah.
Okay, you're screwed then.
I don't know.
I was very pissed off when I actually found out that my ThinkPad's battery that I have for my spare laptop was actually lithium ion,
so I couldn't try to flush it and redo the memory on it.
But, oh, well.
Isn't there something going on?
I'm sure, at least in California.
I don't know about nationwide, but Apple's doing a recall of the various batteries for the iBooks.
Really?
Yeah.
Yeah, that I'll have to look into.
If nothing else.
Yeah, I mean, California, so there's an idea.
No, no, we're not talking about fraud to commit to Apple.
Ben River Radio does not endorse fraud, nor Apple, for that matter.
I wasn't talking fraud.
I was talking about redeeming a defective battery under a recall program.
Yeah, in California.
That doesn't help a few of the Massachusetts.
Anyway.
The kid.
Yes.
What have you been doing?
Do you have anything else, Kuresh?
I'm good for right now.
All right.
Yeah.
What do you do with the kid?
I just know you just hang around in the apartment all the time.
Yeah, no, nothing legendary.
Yeah, no, I kind of, I bring drinks and finger sandwiches.
Yeah, that's, you know, that's, I've been doing some work for Nerve Systems.
Did you hit on Robin Lee Cook?
Most of that's pretty confidential.
I can't really.
Rachel.
Rachel, whatever it is.
I don't know why I have a blind spot for that name.
It's the same, for Amanda Bynes and me, it's the same thing.
I don't know why, but I hit that block, too.
Anyway.
No, that's about it.
Yeah, no.
No, that's about it.
I'm sorry.
Another exciting week for the kid.
Woo!
Yeah.
Well, for me, I have a new mail server, and oh boy, was that fun.
Moving DNS records over, and bouncing stuff around, and then watching the email slowly
dry up on one, and then I'll move over to another one.
It was, that's how I spent my weekend, rather than actually doing something exciting.
Good times.
Actually, I have, I actually have, I don't know, should I talk about this now?
I guess you should talk about this now.
I've been reading a book.
Mark this date down.
Yes.
It's, it's, and I'm going to actually make a book recommendation on air.
It's called Crypto by Stephen Levy.
And for any, I really recommend this to any technological person out there.
It's just a really good book on the history of cryptology, and basically how PGP just started,
and how basically SSH, RSA, all those little companies you hear about, Phil Zimmerman, all
the little people you don't really know, but you hear, and they actually sound like they
know what they're talking about.
And, and they, they basically explain who the heck they are, and what they did, and
why they're so famous, and, like, for example, I, I was always cool, because when I log in
with SSH, and I put it on verbose, it says, doing the Diffie-Hellman key exchange, and I
didn't actually know what the hell that was.
I just assumed it was two names, and this book has a, entire chapter dedicated to Diffie
and Hellman, um, with Diffie and Matt Hellman, I believe, I, I could be wrong.
I actually didn't read it today, I fell asleep on the bus, but, and it, it's just, it's a
really cool book, and I picked it up for 50 cents at a, at a yard sale, and I gotta say,
it was the best 50 cents I have ever gotten, ever paid for.
Buy this book so that you don't think that the encryption is based on mayonnaise.
Well, there's actually the mayonnaise algorithm.
Is there?
Yeah.
Um, actually, one of the, one of the, the original algorithms for PH, uh, PHP, sorry, PGP was,
uh, called Bass-o-matic.
Bass-o-matic.
As, as, as, as in the fish.
Well, isn't that as in the, as in the Saturday Night Live skit?
Yeah, as in the Saturday Night Live skit.
Phil Zimmerman basically wanted to, he, he, the way he looked at it was, oh, when I encrypt
my messages, it'll be this gooey soup type of bass, and no one will be able to figure
it out until they have my special key.
Of course, then, like, a person who actually had a cryptology background with, which Phil
Zimmerman never actually had, said, this, this algorithm sucks.
I can break this in about 10 minutes.
PGP is not like that anymore.
If you, you'll find this out in the book, it's, it's actually secure now, so you're good.
But I, I just find it amusing that, because I just, I love the Bass-o-o-matic.
What have you been doing, Strom?
Nothing terribly exciting.
I've been contemplating setting up a DNS server and learning how to do that.
DNS is evil.
Yeah.
Well, I had some DNS trouble with, with my DEF CON group domain this, this weekend.
So I've been contemplating just doing that on my own, too.
Have you looked in everydns.net?
I'm going to, I'm going to send a shout-out to them, I guess.
Um, I, I've, what have I been using?
Um, myDNS or something, or?
Never heard of them.
My, no, sorry, myDomain.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, I've, I've heard mixed reviews about them.
Yeah, well, a friend of mine used those, so I've been using them.
But I think, you know, if I'm, if I've got an extra Spark Station 5, so I might as well just turn that into its own DNS server.
Ooh.
Yeah.
I figure that's, that's a wimpy enough application for the Spark Station 5 to be able to handle it.
There's nothing wimpy about a Spark Station 5.
Well, okay, wimpy in comparison to, say, like a, a, a three-geekers P4.
Oh, okay.
Um, everyDNS.net, in case anyone's interested in having DNS, they're, they're a really nice service.
They're free.
They ask for donations, and I've done my donation.
But, uh, they're just, they're, they're rock solid.
I don't think I've ever, I think I've had, like, one bit of downtime since 2002.
And it was, it was literally for a morning when they didn't, and they didn't have any redundant servers back then.
This was, this was very early in their, uh, careers, I guess you could call it.
They've been doing it since 2001.
They're a really good website.
And shout out to them.
What is that again?
EveryDNS.net.
And what are they?
They, they are a, they are a free DNS hosting service.
Basically, you can point your domains over to it, and they'll take care of all your DNS requests.
Excellent.
And they have this really nice, elegant web interface.
It's, it's not as fully as customizable as controlling your own DNS server, of course.
But it, it, for basically all of my needs that I've ever had, it's, it's shined.
It's amazing.
Beautiful.
And the other thing that I've been doing is, uh, my cousin's iPod battery is starting to go.
So what I'm going to do for him is I'm going to try to do one of those do-it-yourself replacement kits.
So I will report back, uh, in a week or two as to how well that worked.
Drum, do you know the generation of the iPod?
It's a fourth generation iPod.
Oh, okay.
It doesn't qualify for the battery replacement program, then.
Aren't the fourth generation ones the new ones?
What the hell did he do to it?
I don't know.
Yo.
He's third.
God, I mean, heck.
My, my, my first generation one just clunked out.
I mean, God.
Hey, update regarding the, uh, G3, no, uh, batteries.
Mm-hmm.
It's only G4 batteries that are covered by that program.
Oh.
Uh.
Yeah.
All your G3 owners.
But my iPod is covered under their iPod battery settlement.
So that's good news.
That's very exciting.
Yeah, my iPod's covered under it.
Yeah, first, second, third gen.
Yeah.
But I, I really just think I'm going to send it in to Apple because I really don't feel like gutting mine.
And hopefully they'll have no more generation one ones and they'll just send me a generation two instead.
Mm-hmm.
Or at least I can, I can dream that.
I don't think why not.
Yeah.
My question to all the listeners, and maybe you guys might know this off the top of your heads,
is there anything one can use to polish the scratches out of the screen?
Because I've had my iPod in a special case ever since I got it and for the most part scratch-free,
except for the screen under the plastic thing that's supposed to prevent the screen from getting scratched.
It's where it got scratched.
How deep is it?
It's just, it's not terribly deep.
It's just cosmetic-level scratches.
You know something?
It's going to sound kind of dumb.
You ever been to a Swatch store?
No, I haven't.
Okay.
If you bring them a Swatch watch, I mean, even the old one with a really thin cover on them,
they have a really, like, light buffer.
Mm-hmm.
And they'll buff any scratches out of your watch.
Mm-hmm.
So you might try and bring it to them and see what they say.
Hmm.
You couldn't have told me about this when I was trying to buff that scar out of the 19-inch monitor?
Well, it's also a 19-inch monitor.
But it's a really nice monitor.
Yes, but that's glass.
I'm talking about a piece of plastic.
Or an iPod, I think, is probably the perfect thing to use on the buffer they have at the watch store.
There's one down in the back of the market.
It's worth a shot.
I'd also worry about the fact that it's an LCD screen.
Yeah.
And pressure on the screen might not be the best thing for it.
Yeah.
Well, there isn't much pressure at all.
Oh, okay.
That's the thing with the watches, because the casing on the watches is really delicate.
Mm-hmm.
But, yeah, she took care of my watch, meaning, like, perfectly.
I brought it right to her, and it was scratched to hell, and she made it look, like, brand new.
Wow, not bad.
Beautiful.
Yeah.
And, like I said, it's really cheap plastic on those watches.
They were, you know, $20 watches years ago.
Mm-hmm.
But, yep, it looks like brand new.
So, I definitely would recommend walking into there and see what they say.
All right, cool.
Or a bottle of tequila.
Yeah.
So, if any of you in listener land have any other suggestions, please feel free to email us at radio at binwrapped.com.
Yes, help out Strong's iPod.
Yes.
Okay, so that kind of wraps it up.
We'll move on to Pacific – I never say this right.
The show topic.
Specific show topics.
Yes.
I also had a nice time trying to pronounce philanthropy today, and, boy, did that not work out at all.
Yeah.
I just couldn't get it out.
Don't know why.
Something wasn't clicking in my brain.
So, our show topic this week is meetings.
And, meetings and, you know, gathering and going to your meetings and finding out what meetings are in your area and what you might want to learn out of them.
A.K.A. how not to be a complete antisocial nitwit huddled over your computer screen for the rest of your life.
I mean, hackers are very antisocial creatures, but we're antisocial amongst ourselves, so go figure.
I think I used the wrong word.
I think it's unsociable.
Antisocial has a totally different connotation.
Well, no.
You can use antisocial in that context.
Can you?
Okay.
I believe so.
Well, let me look it up anyway.
You don't like social meetings, which is bad because there's tons of meetings out there in the great giant world in your area.
I think Counter-Strike and EverQuest both qualify as a social gathering or meeting.
Yes, but the interesting part is they all say, oh, I'm antisocial, but they go out and they participate in forums.
They participate in mailing lists.
And these are social aspects.
They just don't for some reason want to ever get up from the computer.
Well, I guess the word social to them connotes actually talking face-to-face with people as opposed to just chatting over the Internet because the Internet is just text on a screen.
It's not real people.
Yeah, and I've got to admit, I am still like that.
I much better talk to someone in front of a computer screen because, hell, I mean, it was a big thing for actually me to start doing a radio show or talking on the phone because there's no backspace in radio.
Well, technically there is.
I guess I can edit all my stuff out.
Anyway, you're right.
The first definition for antisocial is unsociable.
So, ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha.
I'm always right.
But Crash wins the prize.
Do I get the Porsche?
You win the crumb off my floor.
Oh, that was right on to L.A.
So, anyway, first off, why should you go to meetings?
And we kind of hit on this in the old show, whatever it was, the introduction to hacking.
FaceTime.
Go out and meet your fellow hacker or person or geek or whatever.
Meet new people.
I mean, I never knew Koresh or the kid before I started going to the meetings, which was, when did I first go, May?
Sure.
That sounds about right.
How could that happen?
After recently?
Hmm?
No.
After recently?
Yes, yes.
No, it was before that.
No, I think it was either May or April.
I went – we'll talk about this later with my whole 2,600 experience.
2,300.
Yeah, whatever.
2,300?
Yeah.
Maybe you were thinking 2,368.
Yeah, there we go.
That's probably it.
Anyway, and the last reason you should go to meetings is learn shit.
Oh, my God.
People talking about computers, you may actually pick something up.
Oh, yeah.
I've been introduced to a whole bunch of really interesting things.
I know more Cisco stuff than I did before, although that's not saying much because I'm still a total Cisco noob.
But I've learned all sorts of interesting things.
And I have, too.
And I've enlightened people on the voiceover IP and asterisk.
I can actually read my iBook.
Boy, you're going –
Cell phone down.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I said I picked up some sweet mod ideas for my iBook.
Oh, cool.
Oh, yeah.
Jake.
Jake is the man.
He has all kinds of elite stuff on his iBook.
Like feedables.
Yeah, we'll just leave it at that.
And duct tape on the CD-ROM.
Anyway, this is sort of an inside joke on the Boston 2600 crew.
Just sort of ignored.
Sorry, Jerome.
Oh, it's okay.
I'm always out the loop on those things.
Yeah, you can learn all kinds of crazy stuff in the meetings.
And that's something that I really started kicking myself for because I missed a lot of opportunities to go to these things.
And I completely ignored it.
And I just realized that there's a lot of truthful people there, which is amazing for me.
So, well, what goes on at meetings?
What actually do they do?
Well, for the most part, people sit and talk.
Talk and eat.
Yes, and eat.
Sit and talk and eat.
Those are the three main things.
People do bring computers and they show cool stuff off to each other.
But for the most part, it's sit and talk and eat.
I personally think the talking is far more interesting than the computer.
I don't even bring my computer to the meetings anymore unless there's something important, which I have to show somebody.
I bring my computer just in case.
Yeah.
It's a personal choice.
Chances are if you need a computer, someone there will have one for you.
Mainly it's because I usually take that one.
There is also the off chance that someone might have something cool that you might want a copy of, something totally legal that you might want a copy of.
So, you know, you could use your computer for that, although theoretically you could just carry a USB key chain and use one of those too.
Yes.
Very true.
Anyway, so first off, let's go over the various meetings.
First off, your mileage may vary.
You may have a very different meeting than what we're talking about.
Yeah.
Your 2,600 group could be run by a maniacal dictator for all you know, which we're not knocking 2,600.
We're not saying don't go.
You never know until you actually get there.
So go anyway.
That's true.
Some areas, you know, tend to have weirder 2,600 groups than others.
Some areas have smaller gatherings than others, you know, especially if you're kind of in a rural area.
You might have, you know, only maybe three or four people that show up to the meeting.
Yeah, but still, that's three or four people you probably didn't know.
So that's not, we're not saying don't go to these things because, you know, we're not trying to ward people off.
Yeah, no, we're just giving you ideas of what the meeting might be like.
Your mileage may vary.
Go with an open mind.
Exactly.
So let's go over the various meetings one can go to.
I think, let's start off with the granddaddy of them all, 2,600.
2,600.
Oh, yeah.
2,600.
Woo!
2,600, I guess you could say 2,600 was, yeah, don't try to, 2,600, I guess you could say is the granddaddy of them all.
Was there really like a group that met beforehand that was organized as much as the –
This is what I have been told for the Los Angeles meeting.
The Los Angeles meeting was – it's the second oldest 2,600 group, and it was officially founded in 1992.
But apparently there were people meeting before the meeting was LA-2600.
It was just a bunch of computer enthusiasts and hackers getting together and chatting.
So the origins –
They've had those meetings everywhere for – I mean, since like the mid-70s, you know?
Yeah.
The origins of the group from which LA-2600 directly descends supposedly go as far back as either 1990 or 1989 at least, maybe even further.
And, I mean, even before that, there was – the hacker group was sort of like people going into the homebrew computer club.
Yeah, they were just going to mention that.
Yeah.
I mean, if you don't know what that is, look it up because that's basically where the PC revolution started.
A friend of mine has an interesting story about going to the homebrew computer club in the 70s.
Well, enlighten us.
Yes.
This is the legendary Mark Brunet who went to the homebrew computer club.
And he was telling me that one of the decisions that he regrets in his life is not going up to Steve Jobs and saying,
Hello, I'm Mark Brunet, and I'd like to invest a few thousand dollars in your company.
Yeah, that's pretty stupid.
He should have done that.
Woo!
So, anyway, getting back, I guess you could say 2600 was the first real organized hacker meeting out there that they started trying to set up.
I believe – when did 2600 get started?
1985 was the magazine?
Well, the magazine was 1984, but I think the groups – if Los Angeles is the second oldest one, it was started in 1992.
I don't think the groups can be any older than, say, 1990 or so.
Yeah, true.
I wonder how that started.
I think there should be an article on that in 2600.
So someone do research and go submit it and just give me shouts or something, I guess.
I don't know.
Well, 2600 isn't nearly long enough to support an article of that length.
That's something that should be put on the Internet.
Well, not – I mean, you don't have to do one for everything.
Just say how the meetings actually got started and how someone organized it.
Talk to Emmanuel.
I'm curious if he actually had something to do with it.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I'm sure there are also some who would argue that 2600 is not ready for an article that factual, but –
Yeah, we're not knocking – this is not coming into a 2600 knock fest.
I know.
I said that's why I said there are some who would argue.
Some who would argue.
I don't feel that way personally, but –
No comment.
We want to represent everybody's point of view here, you know.
Exactly.
Even for those who might not be here, we can play devil's advocate.
Yes, yes.
So, now, actually what goes on at 2600 meetings can – like I said, this can be completely various
because Boston, we are very, very informal.
I don't think we have a main topic hardly ever or actually some type of organized system.
Koresh has actually just started doing an agenda, which is completely foreign to us.
And I don't even think he likes doing it because when did we actually start doing it?
Last meeting?
Not too long ago.
Well, no, I think we started like around 10, 15 after we got kicked out of the food court.
Oh, yes.
And our meeting starts around 5, so we can tell how long we've been postponing this.
That's okay, though.
At least something gets accomplished.
Los Angeles is pretty informal.
The way it works in Los Angeles is we meet from 5 to 7 at Union Station.
Then we meet at Philippe's, which is the restaurant, which is supposedly the birthplace of the French dip sandwich, just up the street from 7 to 10.
And then from 10 to whenever the last person decides to go home, we meet at Denny's around the corner.
Oh, Denny's.
Yeah, Denny's.
You've got some class down there in L.A., don't you?
Oh, yeah.
Well, I mean, heck, I think it would be great if we had a Denny's like that.
What actually is really cool is they have honest-to-goodness Internet access down in L.A., which is absolutely amazing.
Oh, yeah.
They have a Denny's?
No, no, no.
At Philippe's, there's Wi-Fi.
Oh, okay.
When Ratchet and I gave our preview of our asterisk talk to our 2600 meetings, we connected via Wi-Fi at Philippe's, and he was there on speakerphone via VoIP the whole time, co-presenting with me in Los Angeles.
Yes, I was fejering that one.
So 2600, I guess you could say, is fairly informal.
Yeah, we do tend to have at least, you know, an announcement phase, and we have a talk with a topic of some variety, although they tend to vary as far as what we talk about.
Sometimes we have really technical topics, you know, like security.
One time someone did RSA by hand as a talk.
Someone's done a talk on smart cards.
And other times we have more informal talks.
Since this most recent meeting, we had a talk about tattoo machines and how they work, and we tattooed potatoes.
And see, and this is the cool thing about 2600, because basically you can go up there and give a talk about anything.
It doesn't have to be computer-related.
People will listen.
I mean, I think it'd actually be pretty cool to tattoo a potato.
Oh, yeah.
Really freak out.
In fact, if you go to LA2600.org, there are photos of us tattooing the potatoes, and you can see a photo of me holding the one that says cat sex.
That's nice.
I'll have to check that out, though.
Real appropriate, Strom.
Yeah.
Strom has a cat sex obsession, in case anyone hasn't told.
Well, the cat sex thing came out of Los Angeles 2600, so it's not surprising.
See, look at that.
Go to 2600 and learn about cat sex.
Yes.
That we as a group decided to first tattoo into the potato.
Ah, I see.
Okay, so I guess Strom isn't completely guilty there.
No.
And you wonder why the media will get down on us.
Yes.
So, another group out of there that sort of spread it out from 2600 is DEFCON groups, which is based off of the DEFCON conference down in Nevada, Las Vegas, wherever it is.
Nevada, ask Brad.
Nevada, whatever.
Nevada.
It's that whole East Coast, West Coast thing.
DEFCON groups, from what I can tell, are a bit more organized.
They actually try and have a nice structured talk.
I know this is the way in L.A., and I've actually heard this from – oh, shoot, where is that person?
I completely forget.
Some other group, and they actually have organized meetings.
And someone actually picks out a topic.
I believe Los Angeles – sorry, DC213 actually has a cookout beforehand, right?
Yeah, that would be my meeting.
I run DC213.
Fijir.
So, yeah, probably best if I explain it, isn't it?
Yes.
What we do is we – one of our members works at a really awesome place that does a lot of consulting and design and theory R&D for the military, which is in this really cool building, so –
He's a fad.
Which has a courtyard.
What?
He's a fad.
I'm a fad by association.
So, no, in the courtyard, we start off with a cookout.
So we have, you know, hamburgers and hot dogs and all sorts of cool stuff and sodas.
We chat for a bit.
Then we go upstairs, and we actually have use of a conference room with a projector, and we have a talk in the conference room.
And they've been on really interesting technical topics.
They've – we've had one on the history of cryptography.
We have – we've had one on human fleet cycles.
I'm sorry?
Was Stephen Levy there?
Unfortunately, he wasn't.
We did, however, have Alan Turing in a coffee can.
Well, that's always handy.
I have two of those.
They come in six-packs, don't you know?
Yes, yes, yes.
But, no, we've had cryptography.
We've had human sleep patterns.
We've had a talk on neurolinguistic programming, all sorts of really interesting talks.
And it's actually been my goal to record them and put the talks up on the DC213 website, although, to be honest, I haven't been as vigilant with that as I've meant to be.
No, you haven't.
No.
But I do have the mini-discs lying around somewhere, so I will get those up soon.
So go to – whenever Strom gets off his ass, go to DC213.org and remark at their crappy website because Strom sucks.
Well, I threw it up, you know, just hastily at some point, and I haven't bothered to make anything nicer.
Sure, sure.
Excuses, excuses.
But, no, it's a pretty cool meeting, and we're – the way it kind of works is, you know, the majority of – there's a lot of overlap between the groups that attend LA2600 and DC213.
So the way we've kind of decided to work is to have the two meetings work together in synergy with each other.
LA2600 is the more informal, social kind of hangout and talk and have fun talks meeting.
And then DC213 is the more formal, technical meeting of the two.
Makes sense.
So if you're listening and you're in the Los Angeles area, you can come to both of these.
LA2600 meets – I'm just going to shamelessly plug mine.
LA2600 meets first Friday of the month, Philippe's Union Station and Denny's downtown.
Go to LA2600.org.
Yeah, yeah.
We'll talk about this and how to find your meetings.
That's how some are going top.
Okay.
Well, then why don't we just mark the time?
I can edit that out.
Whatever.
We'll figure that out.
So anyway, the next meeting we're going to talk about is BINREV meetings, which is a fairly newcomer on the scene.
I believe there's only about three or four, and I've attempted to get one started in Boston,
and I failed miserably, much to my own fault because I don't try hard enough.
Well, Stang started the idea of BINREV meetings for basically have something that's a little more – I guess you could say it's a little more DEF CON-y than 2600-y.
I guess you could kind of say that.
That's kind of making up words as we go along.
Anyway, it was just something where you can basically gather anybody from anywhere, like any walks of life.
If you even have a general inkling of computers or technology, come on down.
We'll have you.
And I think, for example, the BR561, which is somewhere in Florida where he is, it's rather taking off.
They have about 18 people there, and they've only been there for about two months, which in my opinion is completely amazing.
And heck, even Stang is saying that's completely amazing.
And that's what it is.
If you want to start a BINREV meeting, and, like, for example, if you want to try to get something a little more organized,
you're not completely happy with your 2600 group, or just, heck, you want to meet with more geeks more times,
I'm trying to start Boston the third Sunday of the month, which is third Friday of the month,
just so we can, you know, meet up more often.
But we'll get into it.
So what is it, third Sunday or third Friday?
Third Friday, third Friday.
I was confusing.
Third Friday.
Why do you guys always do it on Fridays?
Because everyone's cracking out and whining out, and you can stay out late and do stuff.
Yeah, actually, we ran into this problem.
When I took over DC 2 and 3, one of the kind of – one of the problems we were having with it
was we couldn't exactly decide if the meeting was working on Friday and whether or not it should be rescheduled.
So we looked into rescheduling the meeting from being the third Friday of every month.
And, you know, we talked about it.
We went back and forth and tried to figure out what people do.
And the end result was that the meeting moved from being the third Friday of every month
to being the third Friday of every month.
It just happens to work best, at least here, that Friday is work.
I think the explanation is that Friday is close enough to the end of the work week
where people can come directly from work and chill out and relax.
And it's at the beginning of the weekend, so you can stay up late.
But if you do – people tend to schedule things on Saturdays and Sundays, social events.
Yep, yep.
And, I mean, even if it isn't the third Friday, you can do it anyway.
2600 meets first Friday of the month, but there's groups out there that meet sometime else.
It's up to you guys, meaning the listeners, of course.
It's all up to you.
If you want to start a meeting that's – heck, just start an informal meeting and branch it off from there.
If you want to meet on Sunday at 2 p.m., go out for brunch, have some mimosas, go right ahead.
And do Tuesday at 10 a.m. at your college.
Yeah, that works.
Mm-hmm.
So, BINREV meetings, let's go to that.
And we're constantly – they're constantly looking for new people.
I mean, I'm still trying to set up Boston, but that's slow-going because I'm lazy and I'm doing this show.
So, just go out on there and set it up and set it up.
It's BINREVmeetings.com.
We'll just – we'll talk about that again later, but go right there.
Another interesting group that never really receives much interest from the hacker community is the amateur radio community.
Amateur radio, a lot of people think, is just a bunch of crusty old guys.
And for the most part, it's true.
There are a lot of crusty old guys out there, but there's people like me who go to meetings and I head out.
It's actually the second Monday of the month, the North Shore Radio Association, for anyone who's curious.
I go out there and they have topics on radio, but I've also introduced people to computer stuff.
And it's – they may not be computer geeks, but they definitely are techies, and I've learned a lot of stuff from them.
Like, I had no idea how to solder before I started going to the meetings, and someone actually took me under their wing and taught me how to solder.
And I've learned crazy stuff from there.
I mean, radio is an infinitely cool subject for geeks, and I'm surprised how little coverage it actually gets.
It's kind of sad and disappointing.
Of course, also, the venerable Linux user groups meetings.
Linux user groups are everywhere.
They're like cockroaches.
For every one you actually find, there's ten you don't.
I believe there's at least four or five in Boston.
There's the main one, which is the Boston Linux user group.
And there's also at least one for every college.
I believe there's an MIT Unix group.
I know there's a university called Northeastern, and I believe their university group is called Lugnut.
I think it's a Linux user group for Northeastern university techies.
And the only reason I remember that is because I found it highly amusing with their names.
Linux user groups are very much – they're a bit more structured.
Everyone, they try to have a topic every month, and they talk about something, whether it be kernel pointers.
I believe my group actually did something on EFF last month.
And they do all kinds of crazy subjects, of course, all of which are related to either computer or Linux.
They're really not hacker-orientated in the KRAB SkipCriti form.
But, for example, if you want to go out there and talk tech, there's a ton of people out there.
Another group is there's – my personal one that I'm in – I don't actually go to the meetings, but I know about in Boston.
It's called the Perlmongers group, and basically what they are are pro programmers.
And there are some infinitely talented people.
I hang out on their mailing list, and some of the code they actually produce just blows me out of the water for stuff I do.
And there's also a lot of other code groups out there.
Like, I know there's a – there's actually a FoxPro programming group in Boston.
FoxPro is an ancient database language from about, oh, 1990 or so.
And it's grown, but I believe Microsoft is finally ending support on it.
But there are a lot of companies out there that still hire FoxPro programmers because their incredibly old database application needs an upgrade.
And they're too late to actually port it over to someplace else.
One of the jobs I was doing last week, they asked me to, you know, up-updating the server.
We're doing all this.
So I'm digging through files and folders and going through and looking through stuff, and I'm like, what kind of files are these?
God, I don't know what the heck this stuff is.
And I go and look it up online, and sure enough, it's FoxPro stuff from 1992.
You haven't referenced it in 13 years.
You probably still need it anymore.
No, we – my – not in my place of business, but a group that we're closely affiliated with, they still have a FoxPro database that they have been running since, I think, 1992 is the date of the copyright on it.
It is old.
It is – we basically – there's a programmer that supported it for the past 13 years.
And he retired in 2000, and they've been having him on contract.
He dials in from Montana to program on it.
Classic.
Yeah.
It's amazing.
I never thought this actually would happen.
I always heard horror stories, but I never actually thought I'd run into it, and sure enough, I have.
It's weird.
It's terrifying that they actually have a database that spans Bush administrations.
It more than spans Bush administrations.
It spans the Clinton administration as well.
Yes, both of them, both of the Bush administrations.
Oh, I see where you're driving at.
Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
So I guess the question everyone's asking now is, okay, are there meetings in my area?
Where can I go?
Where can I sign up?
Where do I find them?
So we have a handy-dandy list.
And we have 2,600 – handy-dandy.
2,600.
They have – they're on their website, 2,600.com slash meetings.
Now, binrev meetings are binrevmeetings.com.
And there's a list out there, and there's – basically, what you would want to do is you want to go to your area code.
For example, I would have 617.binrevmeetings.com.
I believe the one that is really active is 561.binrevmeetings.com.
But, like I said, set up your own.
Get out there.
Do it.
DEFCON groups.
That would be tinyurl.com slash 7whiskeyquebecuniform7.
Amateur radio.
There's a group out there.
It's called the ARRL.
It stands for the American Radio Relay League.
And they basically have a club list of about 2,800 clubs scattered across the U.S.
It might be Canada, too.
I'm not sure.
Anyway, but they are an American organization, so I'm not sure if they're international or anything.
That would be tinyurl.com slash alphasierralima92.
And for those of you ever curious, where I picked up all my phonetics from was from amateur radio.
So if you ever want to talk cool like me, just join ham radio.
Your lugs and your Unix groups and your code groups, look at Google.
That's the only way to do it.
Look for, like, you know, East Poughkeepsie Linux or something.
You might find something.
East Poughkeepsie.
Or, yeah, East Poughkeepsie.
Oh, I don't know.
White Plains Linux Association.
914-11.
Pearlmongers actually does have their own website.
That's www.pmpapamike.org.
And they have all kinds of stuff.
That's international.
There's stuff from Madrid, London.
I believe London is one of the largest groups they have.
And also, I mean, if you look at these groups and there isn't one in your area, start one.
Preferably a bin rev meeting.
We're going to plug ourselves here.
You're not the only one in your area.
Don't think that you are because there are people out there.
Hey, what you might want to do is, if you want to start your own meeting, pick a time, pick a place.
Go to Kinko's, make up some really cheap-ass flyers on your coffee machine, and start posting them around.
Post them in coffee shops.
Post them on the community bulletin boards, and you'll find people, believe it or not.
It may take a while.
You know, whatever.
And I guess we can – should we plug our own meetings?
Yeah, sure.
Why not?
I'll let – Koresh, you're much more involved in Boston 2600 than I am, so I'll let you go first.
All right, all right.
First Friday of every month, Prudential Food Court.
If you don't know where the Prudential is, you just look up in the sky.
It's the really big one.
Food Court, nice outside.
We're on the patio.
This is in Boston, by the way, in case you were wondering.
This is in Boston, yes.
Of course it's in Boston.
Where else would it be?
Well, you didn't mention that beforehand, so maybe someone in Texas might be looking for a food court at the Prudential building.
The other meetings don't matter.
Thanks.
If you're in Texas, fly out to Boston, because we're cool like that.
Exactly.
I mean, who would want to hang out in Texas anyway?
George Bush.
No, he doesn't want to hang out there anymore.
None of the refugees there.
You didn't hear Barbara?
Okay, we're going political.
Let's stay away.
First Friday every month, about 6 o'clock.
We get together, hang out, eat terrible food court food, and talk until, I don't know, it's way too late.
Yeah, we usually stay until at least about 10 or 11.
Yeah, definitely.
We go late.
And at which point, we usually get kicked out of the food court before the meeting ends.
So, that's how that usually works on.
Yeah, exactly.
I definitely think a Boston BINREV meeting would be interesting now, so we should definitely set one of those up.
If you're interested in a Boston BINREV meeting, either email me, or heck, come to Boston 2600.
I'm usually there.
I think I've missed one meeting so far since I started going, and that's because I was out of state.
So, just swing on by.
I mean, come to the 2600 meeting.
If nothing else, just, hey, meet me.
I'll give you an autograph or something.
I don't know.
Should we talk about L.A.?
Because L.A. sucks, but I guess we should.
Yeah, good old Los Angeles.
L.A. 2600 meets on the first Friday of every month, starting at 5 p.m. at Union Station downtown.
From 5 to 7, we meet there.
We meet by the payphones in the – there's a main hall at the Union Station.
There's payphones off to one side, near the front entrance.
We meet kind of outside of those, if the weather permits.
If it gets too cold, we go inside.
But it's generally always warm enough in Los Angeles for us to be outside.
Yeah, cold in L.A. is like 60 degrees.
No, it gets down to 52 here occasionally.
And then at 7 p.m., generally maybe a few minutes earlier if we don't think anyone else is going to come,
we go to Philippe's just up the street at 1001 North Alameda in Los Angeles.
And we're there from 7 to 10, taking over the back room and eating sandwiches.
And usually there's some sort of flea market-esque thing where someone's giving away some old hardware.
And then from 10 p.m. onwards, we've stayed as late as the sun coming up.
We go to Denny's, which is on Ramirez Street, just through the Cesar Chavez Street tunnel.
So they're very nice to us at that, Denny's.
We occupy the entire back room, and they set that off for us every month.
Wow, that's pretty cool.
Yeah, it's very nice.
So anyway, boston2600.org or la2600.org.
Right.
And don't forget also DC213.
Oh, yeah, you've got that one to plug, don't you?
Hey, it's my meeting.
I can plug it.
We tend to meet the third Friday of every month.
But if you're listening this week, there is no meeting this week because of TourCon in San Diego.
So most of us will be at TourCon, and DC213 is not going to happen.
But we meet at Systems Technology Incorporated in Hawthorne.
If you go to DC213.org, you can look up details there.
We tend to meet at like 7 or 8-ish p.m. at Systems Tech Inc.
In fact, if you watch, I think, I forget exactly where in Pulp Fiction it is,
but where they're walking around outside the diner,
in the background of that shot, you can see Systems Technology Inc.
Yeah.
Okay.
Let me go fire up Pulp Fiction so I can find out where DC213 is.
No, just go to DC213.org.
And both LA2600 and DC213 have a mailing list that you can join and chatter with us about everything from computers to everything else.
Yeah.
Boston 2600 also has a mailing list.
Please join it and chatter on it because it's nowhere near as active as where we want it.
So, at this point, I'm going to toss keys over to Koresh because we've been talking about meetings,
and Boston 2600 has a couple of projects that are meeting-related for a more general sense.
Meeting-related?
Well, they're kind of meetings as in the general scheme of things.
As in, if there wasn't any meetings, you wouldn't be having this project in the first place.
Communications between meetings.
Oh, yeah.
How about that?
Very important.
You ready?
Yeah, it's all you, man.
Okay, I couldn't hear you.
I thought my phone cut out again.
Oh.
So, the first thing we've got going on here is called 2600 United.
www.boston2600.org slash 2600 United.
What we've got going on is we're trying to get everyone from the different meetings to come together,
talk, maybe on IRC, maybe on a bulletin board we set up,
talk about your meetings, talk about what you guys have going on,
perhaps, you know, create some discussion between groups,
meet some new people in time for hope next summer.
Should be a good time.
But, yeah, we want to find out where the meetings are happening, where they're not.
I mean, just because there's a meetings page doesn't mean there's actually a meeting taking place.
Yes.
And there's probably meetings that are happening that people don't know about
because no one's thought to send an email to 2600 and let them know.
So, Ratchett, anything else you want to toss in there about the United?
Well, I think I'm going to want to talk about – that's something that I didn't mention on the thing.
The list for the meetings, especially in 2600, certain meetings just don't exist anymore,
and 2600 is kind of questionable on how often they update that list.
Like, for example, Minnesota 2600, I have on good authority from one of my friends
that apparently they do not meet.
It's about two or three people, and they don't officially meet at the place where they say they meet.
And he went to – attempted to go to two meetings and not find anybody.
Yeah, if your group has a mailing list, it might be a good idea to get on the mailing list and say,
hey, where do you guys meet, just to be sure.
Yes, and also they have a forum, but I don't – I think when he went on,
the last person that posted was about six months before he checked.
So that should have been a warning beforehand, but he was least hopeful.
Yeah, and sometimes there are breakdowns in communication.
A story that I get told about Los Angeles is at some point in – a couple of years ago,
the group decided to stop going to Union Station because no one was ever showing up there.
So they met from five onwards at Philippe's.
And then apparently some people started meeting at Union Station.
So for I think two years, there was a – there were two parallel Los Angeles 2600 meetings going on
that didn't know about each other until I think one day someone – some of them decided to go down to Union Station
and see if anyone was there.
And they said, are you 2600?
Yeah.
Oh, we are too.
And that's where the two meetings merged back again.
But –
See, this is what we want to accomplish with 2600 United.
Everyone can figure it out.
If someone joins the 2600 United list, they'll find out about that.
And it's also good for people who might live in a very rural area who can't exactly drive the three-and-a-half hours
to a meeting once a month or whatever the deal is to stay in contact with other people that are going to meetings
that are involved in the community, stuff like that.
Exactly.
So it's definitely a good idea.
Post your projects, post your ideas.
Perhaps get a little friendly competition going in time for hope next year.
I think it could be a good time.
Hopefully people will get interested, get involved.
So what's the web address again?
And www.boston2600.org slash 2600 United.
Just a simple page giving what we want to do, what we want to accomplish, and some contact information.
If you need the email, it's 2600United at gmail.com.
Okay.
That's the next thing I was going to ask.
Yep.
And then I'd also make a point of checking back from time to time to see if new things have happened
and updates and such.
Because it's a pretty new thing off the ground, and it's yet to really develop much.
But that's up to the people.
Yeah.
We've just started this project.
I think the first time I announced this, I actually announced this on a couple episodes ago.
And I was there the night the show was airing, and we were all working on the website to get it up before it actually,
the show aired so people could have something to go to.
It was pretty amusing.
Yeah.
So we're still working this out, and we're still figuring it out.
But basically what we want is if you are involved in your 2600 meeting, contact us and tell us where you meet
and tell us, you know, if there's a person in charge, you might want to forward this information to them.
Or, you know, heck, if you want to start a 2600 meeting in your area, contact us.
We'll put you on a list.
We're trying to make a comprehensive list of all the 2600 meetings so everyone knows where everyone is.
Yeah, I also think it's important, though, to point out that people just don't have meetings in their area,
like you said, like Minnesota.
And if no one's going to go, if there's only one person interested in a meeting,
they're more than welcome to join in and discuss these topics with us.
Exactly.
No, no, we're not saying that 2600 people only can come.
If you are even remotely interested in tech, come on down.
You're the next contestant on 2600 United.
Yeah, we kind of, between the talk now and on the page,
we kind of said that we wanted people from the meetings.
But if you don't go to a meeting or you wish there was a meeting in your area,
you're obviously more than welcome to discuss this stuff.
Indeed, indeed.
So is there another project or is that the only one you had?
Oh, well, there's a number of them going on.
I don't know if any of them are really too...
Oh, yeah, we have some of the secret projects that haven't been released yet.
I know that.
We can't talk about those on air.
There's big things in the works.
Hopefully by December 2006.
I'm sorry, December 2005.
Pardon me.
2005.
Jumping in the calendar already, are we?
Yeah.
I'm getting ready for the year change.
Putting some pressure on.
Oh, technically it's...
Oh, yeah, we were shooting...
How about 1-1-2006 was the deadline we set for ourselves?
Yeah, it sounds about right.
Yeah, yeah.
A bunch of us from the various Los Angeles groups have kind of got this thing going where
we may or may not build a grease car for DEFCON next year.
And if we do build that, we'll actually drive it out to DEFCON and raffle it off and give
the proceeds to the EFF.
See, and this is the cool stuff that we have at 2600 Groups.
I mean, I think that'd actually be pretty cool.
We should try that at Boston 2600.
Make a biodiesel car?
Yeah.
Heck, I'd use that myself.
I don't have to pump gas anymore.
Yeah, bring it.
Just pull up to McDonald's and say, yeah, throw up.
Bring it to DEFCON.
We can have the grease car wars.
Yeah, there we go.
Dude, I can like pip it out with hydraulics.
Get some dubs on it.
Well, the hydraulics run out in grease too.
Oh, yeah, true.
Very true.
So anyway, we're trying to wrap up our show tonight.
We're sort of coming around an hour and a half, so.
It's a minute 13.
Yeah.
Minutes, yeah, that's about what we wanted.
Anything else, guys?
Boy, no.
I'm all lost in words.
Have any announcements?
Are there other things you want to talk about?
Something that's going on?
Trying to think over here.
Yeah, boy.
Yeah, we've got a lot of things going on right now,
but I don't want to disclose them until we're nearing completion here.
We've got some samples for everyone.
Yeah, we've got some exciting things in the works.
There should be stuff coming down the pipes relatively soon.
Yeah, definitely.
So the only announcement I have this week is, once again, Sunday, Sunday, Sunday,
the MIT flea in Cambridge, for those of you in the Boston area.
Hopefully, Boston 2600 will be there.
I think we really almost agreed we're going to get a table regardless, right?
Sounds like a good idea.
Yeah, we're going to get a table out there.
We're going to have flyers out there.
We're basically going to pimp ourselves out.
We're going to sit there.
Come visit us and buy baked goods.
Yeah, we might have baked goods for some reason.
Hack or bake sale?
Yeah, hack or bake sales.
Come support the Boston 2600 group.
Oh, come on.
Maybe?
Oh, no, that's a definite.
Everyone likes bake sales.
Everyone likes brownies.
Okay, well, bake sale it is.
Come to the MIT flea and buy baked goods from the Boston 2600 group.
Make sure your cupcake doesn't have any worms in it.
The Happy Hacker bake sale.
Bad joke.
Very good.
So, yes, that's a good cake.
No worms, no mold.
Only at Redneck do you get things like that.
That's in Cambridge, Albany Street.
It's from 9 till whenever.
It usually shuts down at some point,
but we're usually there for the behind being.
Come check us out.
Yeah, we're there for a while.
Those are the obnoxious ones in the lawn chairs.
Wearing the sombreros and Hawaiian shirts, sorry.
Oh, dude, I'm so bringing my Hawaiian shirt now.
Oh, please do.
Oh, yeah.
Come see Ratchet in a Hawaiian shirt.
For all of you people in, around, and near Southern California,
TourCon is this weekend, in case you haven't noticed.
Go to tourcon, T-W-O-R-C-O-N.org.
It's a really cool hacker convention in San Diego
from September 16th through 18th.
So I'll be there, and a lot of the L.A. people will be there.
Yes, but will you be wearing Hawaiian shirts?
I'll be wearing a shirt with a collar.
Does that count?
No, I guess that's okay.
So there's that, so come to that.
Anyway, we actually have a topic for next week,
already set up next week.
The topic is we're going to have Dr. Zygman on from the forums,
and he's going to give a nice little talk on video editing and hack TV.
We're pretty sure he's coming on.
We actually haven't got everything figured out yet,
but hopefully that'll work out.
So next week, if we come on and we're just waving around
and talking about something which is obviously not video editing,
you know things went wrong.
Yeah, so it should be either this week or next.
I'm saying definitely, hopefully next week.
So if you have questions about hack TV or stuff you want to talk about video editing,
send your emails in, radio at binrev.com.
Email them in, and we'll get them on the show.
So which platform is he going to be discussing?
Do you have any idea?
I honestly don't know.
All I know is that he told me he has a page and a half outline.
Yow.
What?
Is that double space?
I don't know, but it's all handwritten.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, it's a handwritten outline.
So this is going to be one hell of a show.
And Dr. Zygman's a cool guy.
We hang out in IRC a lot,
and he does a great job at op-ing the channel with me.
So he's a cool dude.
Do you have any more announcements, Strom?
Oh, yes.
Although it's not presently working,
we're having some technical difficulties.
Don't forget the Binary Revolution radio voicemail number,
which, again, is area code 213-415-1047.
And if you call it and you just hear music,
we're kind of just figuring out, working on it.
If you call it and you get the message, it's backup.
Yay.
Hopefully it will be backup soon.
Yes.
Side of the week.
Besides boston.2600.org, boston2600.org slash 2600United,
tagxania.com, T-A-G-Z-A-N-I-A.com.
And it's a really cool implementation of Google Maps,
and you just have to see it to believe it.
It's basically add stuff to Google Maps, stuff you want to map.
It's really hard to explain.
Just check it out.
It's a fun site.
Thanks, Bob.
Yeah, Bob.
Bob from Phoenix posted that one out.
And I was thoroughly enthralled with it.
I'm trying to bend it to my own nefarious purposes.
But anyway, email, as always, radioatbinrev.com.
I think I mentioned that, but let's go mention that again.
Closing music tonight is Yellow Six,
and the song is called Tomorrow.
And shout out again to epitonic.com for that one.
So, as always, we, once again, we'll see you next week.
Same hack time, same hack channel.
And we'll see you next week.
You'll see you next week.
Thank you.