This is the synopsis of Off The Hook that aired on 13 February 2008.
In the studio: Emmanuel, Mike, Not Kevin
On the phone: Bernie S from Philadelphia, Mitch Altman from California
Another week of fundraising.
RIM's Blackberry service had another outage between 3:30pm and 6pm on Monday but the company claims that no data was lost.
Not Kevin's Verizon Samsung phone went on the fritz and throwing it from a ten-story building didn't fix it. Emmanuel reports that, upon trying to SMS Not Kevin after he obtained a new phone, receive a response stating that the phone was unreachable, even though it was on.
This week brought many news stories of persons crossing the United States border and having their computers more than thoroughly inspected or even seized by Department of Homeland Security or U.S. Customs and Border Patrol employees. The searches include confiscation of laptops and cellular phones, forcing users to divulge their passwords and in some cases wholesale copying of data of disks or SIM cards. Emmanuel advocates United States citizens refusing these searches. A number of blog posts on the web have suggested keeping a secondary account on your laptop with some fake data, in order to comply with the search request without actually divulging data. Bruce Schneier still recommends employing strong encryption techniques to protect your data. Bernie S proposes the use of tiny memory cards, such as MicroSD, for storing ones data and hiding it when crossing the border. The EFF is suing to stop the practice.
The Senate voted on a bill to give retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that participated in warrantles wiretapping. Noted votes are those of potential presidential candidates; John McCain voted YEA to grant immunity, Barack Obama voted NAY and Hillary Clinton was (strategically) not present for the vote. The bill passed with 61 YEA votes, including all Republicans and a number of Democrats.
Network neutrality has come up again as Barack Obama spoke about it in a podcast from two years ago. Obama advocated the continuation of net neutrality, a de-facto policy that has been in existence since the beginning of The Internet. The senator chastised cable and telephone companies for being against network neutrality and also spoke in support of increased competition in broadband access. Much like her failure to vote in the above-mentioned issue, Hillary Clinton has been conspicuously silent about net neutrality, despite her numerous speeches covering technology issues. John McCain is on the record against net neutrality instead leaving it to the market to decide; the problem with such a stance is the duopoly that most consumers are left with for high speed access. Mike Huckabee is in favor of net neutrality, explaining his position with an analogy involving trucks on a highway.
Premiums for the hour:
- $25 - Off The Hook t-shirt
- $40 - DMCA coffee mugs; one white on black, one black on white; for coffee only
- $50 - [TV B Gone](http://www.tvbgone.com/cfe_tvbg_main.php)
- $75 - 2600 zippered hoodie; "2600" on front, "hacker" on back
- $250 - Super TV B Gone; 100 meter range
A clip from February 15th, 1995, the day Kevin Mitnick was captured, is played. Emmanuel discusses the situation surrounding Kevin at the time and his near-miss capture a few weeks prior. Phiber Optik made an appearance discussing Kevin Poulsen's case.
Mitch relates a story of a TV crew following him around Paris, France as he walked around turning off TVs.
Emmanuel mentions the real-world protests of Scientology by "Anonymous"; in New York, more than 200 people were present. Another demonstration will take place on the 15th of March at Scientology sites throughout the world.
Gah, telecom immunity pisses me off. I can't believe that passed, and I hope the public takes note of that vote when the elections roll around. I don't consider myself especially liberal, but I can't see how anyone would agree that the telecoms should have immunity. But then again, they don't send me campaign checks. Clinton not voting speaks just as loudly as if she had voted for the bill, just as her not speaking in support of net neutrality should count as her speaking against it. These issues affect everyone, and I honestly care way more about net neutrality than any other hot-button topic.
I'm not sure who I support, but I know it definitely isn't McCain or Clinton. Obama is almost winning my support just for his standpoint on net neutrality and his voting record.
I saw some hi-def videos of Anonymous' protest in LA - they did very well. The only part that was slightly disappointing was when one Scientologist offered to talk about his beliefs in a very casual and non-confronting manner, and a couple protesters got in his face. I don't agree with Scientology either, but there was no reason for them to do that when the guy was only offering peaceful discourse. Overall though, the protests are amazing! The whole thing is a lot better executed than I ever would have imagined a group of people from the Internet were capable of doing.
Thanks for summary and the links! Keep it up :)
A lot of news organizations have simply said that Hillary wasn't present at the vote, ignoring that, in all likelihood, her decision to not be present was entirely strategic, so that she can't be chastised for voting either way. You're absolutely right that she would have voted in favor of immunity for the telecommunications companies; her campaign staff is simply smart enough to know that the majority of her supports oppose such a view and not voting is the best way for her to bow out.
I looked through the videos on YouTube of the LA protest and couldn't find any scientologists getting shouted down but it is bad that the protesters ganged up on him. As Emmanuel said when the first internet attacks on Scientology were launched, silencing anyone's views, even if they don't agree with your own is not the way to go about things. Everyone deserves to be able to speak, at least in our country. Side note, whatever idiot decided the anti-scientology movement should be called "Anonymous" needs a kick in the teeth. If you understand the actions of the Church of Scientology, it makes a bit of sense as the church viciously attacks anyone who speaks against them. It's still an annoying way to refer to a groupe.
I'm glad I know that at least one person appreciates these synopsis!