hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr2946.txt

Episode: 2946
Title: HPR2946: Sunday at OggCamp Manchester 2019
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2946/hpr2946.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-24 13:44:50

---

This is HPR episode 2946 for Monday the 18th of November 2019.
Today's show was entitled Sunday at Alcamp Manchester 2019
and as part of the series Interviews and it's hosted by Ken Fallon.
It's about 56 minutes long and carries a clean flag.
The summary is interviews and chat from the UK's largest floss event.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by AnanasThost.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15.
That's HPR15.
Better web hosting that's Aniston Fair at AnanasThost.com.
Music
So it's day two of Alcamp.
The morning after the night before and I'm standing here with a gentleman whose name is Michael Dales.
I'm Michael, why are you here at Alcamp?
I build electric guitars and part of that process I've generated some open source software that helps me do that.
Okay, there'll be a photo in the show notes.
You build these guitars yourself.
They look genuinely guitarry to be brutally honest.
Thank you very much.
So yeah, so I build them from scratch.
So I have a pile of wood at one end of my table in the middle.
I have a half built guitar and then the one I'm holding is the finished product.
And sort of hand built.
Electric guitars are quite a nicely democratic instrument.
There's a lot you can fudge.
So if you're always starting to make a violin for instance,
you kind of have to get most of that right.
Electric guitar, there's a lot of room for a customization or
whatever you want, but there's one bit you have to get right,
which is the fret layout because that defines the notes and makes it a musical instrument.
But being a software engineer, I didn't want to leave this to a calculator and a pencil and a ruler.
I wrote some software tooling to do this,
which I've opened source and given out to the Lufio community.
Okay, am I sort of licensed, is it under?
It's under a GPL license.
I think GPL free, if I remember correctly.
And it's kind of nice, the Lufio community, like guitar builders,
like this community here.
They're very sharing, generous with their knowledge.
And so for me as an outsider coming in,
this has been a nice opportunity for me to bring my skills and contribute back to that community.
And I know that that's working is because I can easily get emails from
proper Lufios who have used my tool and said, oh, thank you very much.
And so it's been really nice.
Yeah, there's a newcomer to be able to, you know, give something back.
And that's always the fun bit when you, you can enter a new domain with a different set of
respective knowledge, right? It's always interesting to see how you can apply that to what you do.
Right, for the people paying along at home, what I'm looking at here on the desk is a block of wood.
What about wood is that? It's about a foot by two foot, I guess, in old terms.
That there will be ash.
For the body, it'll be maple neck, and this is Rosewood fretboard.
And then you've got templates here in prospects?
Yeah, so I have access to a laser cutter.
So I design my guitars, and then I laser cut out these templates, which is very normal.
But one thing I realized was that most people actually make templates on a bandsaw out of MDF.
But you can't then see through them. And one of the things you're trying to do with a template is
you want to make it so that the wood grain is all nice.
You won't avoid any defects in the wood. That's much easier if you can see through the template.
So the guitar you're holding right now is your typical think, I don't know, fret.
Stratocaster, I guess.
It's based on a telecaster, this one.
Okay, and the wood itself is just stained, and you've got a lovely grain on it.
And I actually like the way the grains.
If you follow the strings down, the grains go straight to the end,
and then you have the round curves of the knots above that.
So a very nice effect, picture in the show notes.
Okay, yep. So with these templates, I will screw them to the wood.
I will use a bandsaw to get rid of most of the material,
and then I'll use a hand router just to get it flush.
If you're just making the body, the body is the easy bit.
I always advise people, if you don't want to get into guitar building,
buy the neck, and make the body.
Because there's a lot, if you've never done woodwork, there's a lot there,
but it's kind of the less critical part.
You basically can't go wrong with that part.
Yeah, you can't, if you try hard enough.
Yeah, but I've seen people just use a bandsaw or a saw to rough out the shape,
and then sand it down, and have a perfectly good guitar after that,
right? You don't need many complicated tools to make a good guitar body,
and you make it perfect for what you want.
Seeing somebody make one with spaghetti and epoxy.
Yeah, again, like 95% of the sound, a little electric guitar,
is going to come from the kind of strings themselves and the pickups.
So what you make the body out of, you can have fun.
Okay, and so let's move along.
You've got some tools here for cutting soles and the like.
What's this one? It's a small flat.
So these, again, the bit that you have to kind of get right on a guitar,
and the bit where has a lot of the manual labor goes into is the fret work.
So, frets come as wire, and you cut little bits of that wire,
and you hammer them into the fret slots.
But now they're not perfectly level, because you've hammered them.
So then you take a flat file, so I have a flat file here,
and you sharpie up the frets, and just file them until you see silver,
and then you know they're all level.
It picks a couple of goes at that.
Now they're not round anymore, so the tool that you picked up a second ago
is a round profile file, which is forgetting the shape back on the fret.
Now the frets are round, but they're scratched, and so if you do a string bend,
you'll hear it's scraped, so then you have to polish your frets.
And so doing a frets job takes me about two days,
which again is why I advise the first time you do a guitar by the deck.
But the way the open source tooling works.
Which is what I was going to ask you about, because why we're here.
Calculating those fret positions is key, and as a software engineer,
I realize that I can write some software where I type in the size of the guitar.
Is it a bass? Is it a ukulele? Is it a conventional size?
And then how many frets I want?
Well why spend a half an hour doing that when you could spend 48 hours writing a problem to do that?
Indeed, but having, having, you know, like most nerds, I don't account for that cost.
So, but it's not just I can calculate numbers.
I then Microsoft actually make a make a JS library, which outputs,
lets you do basic geometries and output them in files compatible with laser cutters,
3D printers, and what have you.
So you can, they're using it to have JavaScript generate designs.
And so I've used that library, and I can now take my fretboard design and the in-lays,
and I generate that using their JavaScript library, and I take that to a laser cutter.
And so I can't cut the slots with a laser because the laser will cut a V-shaped groove,
and I need a very precise, a dimension, year square profile.
But I can etch a very faint slot that the saw will sit in.
And then I can know that what where I'm cutting the fret slots is precise.
And so I have this very nerve wrecking bit in the middle where I take a neck that I've invested
a lot of time, I'd put it in a laser cutter and hope that I've lined it up correctly.
But it means that the fret spacing I know is going to be accurate.
And so this guitar I've been playing this morning, I'm holding, is partly generated with JavaScript.
And what where does this run on a web servers or do you download it?
It's a static page. There really isn't much cleavage to it.
So it's old, a single JavaScript library.
It's up on GitHub if you go to electricflatjack.com, there's an open source tab at the top
and you can even get the code or you can run it yourself.
Okay, can you give us that in a nice, slow, clear voice?
It is electricflatjack.com.
Electric flap?
That's in the cake.
Electricflapjack.com, F-L-A-P-J-A-C-K.com.
That's probably obvious.
Tanybody is into guitars, but okay.
So it's never named your company when you're hungry.
Yeah, okay.
Excellent, excellent.
No, actually the UI looks pretty cool, as I'm looking here.
Fred Templar Generator and you've got a scale-end, first-fresh,
blah, blah, blah, blah, it's the buttons.
Does this end down on the bottom then?
We see a horizontal guitar, fresh layout.
Does that change if you modify it there?
Yeah, so as you change things, it will live update.
And there are a bunch of options there to do with the manufacturing side.
So if you're targeting CAD, then you'll want to thin lines.
If you're going to laser-etch it, you'll want actually small rectangles for the frets.
I don't want a point line.
I want a small channel.
The in-lays will be dots if you're CAD.
If you're actually scoring the fretboard to drill, you probably won't cross this.
Because the drill bit will sit in the...
Why's that?
Yeah.
So there's a bunch of tweaking for that.
And then at the bottom, we've got Savers SVG or Savers DXF,
which are the kind of common file formats that you'll most of your maker tools will use.
So yeah, so it's a simple thing, but I've never generated a guitar neck without using this.
And I say it's nice when people get in touch and say,
oh, I use this or can you just add this tweak for me and
know that you've made something just helping others, right?
Yeah, excellent.
Actually, the layout seems logical and clear,
which is unique in the old source world, I guess.
Well, there's not a lot of complexity to this.
It is, you know, it is a form-follow function here, right?
It's just got all you need.
It's been very popular here, your boot.
It's been dragging all the euths in.
I think the nice thing about this is it just shows a different side of
we're used to seeing open source in the digital domain.
It's less often that we see it in such an analog domain.
But if you go into a makespace, there are lots of little projects like this
that people work on to generate things for 3D printers and laser cutters.
And so yeah, that's kind of why I thought it would be nice to bring it here.
Fantastic. Well, thanks very much for
sharing that with us and the links for all the supporters will be in the show notes.
Thank you very much.
That's okay, thank you.
Hi everybody, I'm at Grumpy Mike's Electoral Gadgets and you are?
I'm Grumpy Mike.
And you are?
Ty.
Hi, so what?
I'm looking at the booth here and I see,
yes, something that could potentially be a guitar with buttons.
A guitar like a child's toy, guitar with race,
yeah, with small brass pipes above the size of a pencil and then at the top of the
fret there seems to be like a child's blue, blue, red and green buttons.
There is going to be a photo for these in the show notes.
I'll tell you about Mike, can you, or can I call you Grumpy?
Can you tell us what's going on here?
Right, okay, and I meet up once a month with other like mind you idiots
under the auspices of Drake music.
Now Drake music's a charity run basically from London,
but there's a little outpost here in Manchester where a dedicated group was ganna
and nice regular members and also flux of new members.
And our aim is to meet up with disabled people and to remove barriers for them
communicating in music.
That's for us all the time.
So how do you do that exactly?
Right, we work with disabled people and make instruments that suit their needs both musically
and physically.
So there's two sorts of disabled people really that want to get into music,
is that those that already played music or play music and are sort of musicians
and they have a disability that's either getting worse or is suddenly there is also an accident
or something like that.
And then people who've been wanting to make music but have been sort of
prevented and put off it and they don't have enough movement to drive conventional instruments
and etc.
So I'll just demonstrate this one which is which is called a bat space
because it looks like a cookie bat basically.
Yes, it does look like for our American listeners that might be a cricket bat if.
Don't get away yet, he's still a in cricket bat.
So if for our American listeners who do not know what cricket is,
they get alive, they look it up a Wikipedia.
Oh dear, we're not making friends here.
No.
Okay, I am, I am called Rumpy Mike, you know.
Oh, living up to the, it's not just a, yeah, it's not just a handle.
Oh, no, no.
It's a live style.
So anyway, at the handle of the bass we've got buttons.
And each button changes the notes that one of these two strings will play.
And by strings you mean bungee cord.
Bungee cords, yeah.
That's right, Sam actually calls it his bungee bass.
Which is quite a good name for it as well.
I use the Batman logo for bat bass because it's a pun on bat.
Seriously, we're good.
Batman bass.
Nothing subtle here, guys.
Nothing subtle here.
So what's, how's this, what's actually happening here in engineering wise?
Each, each button select a note of a key.
And you can change, you can program in what key you want it to play it in.
At the moment this is playing in the key of F.
So I can go down and go.
Okay.
That's the last, where's the last one we've got?
He's back up here.
He's a bass.
I see what you did there.
Very good.
Now you might, listening to the show, you might think that your grumpy is playing a bass guitar.
Which he is, but basically there are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Little tactile buttons.
And strumming the, the bungee cord is giving that note.
I imagine Midi is playing a...
Midi's playing it all.
What is happening is that the bungee chords are going through a not-to-slot detector.
I don't probably see that because it's, uh...
While we're looking down there and bungee just to describe it.
So there's a PCB on the top, as I said, there's portals and the show notes for this.
And the chords are going past the detector.
Yep.
And what happens is you position the photo detectors so that when it's vibrating,
it's moving in and out of the, uh...
...optos-slot sensor.
When it starts moving in and out of theoptos sensor, you send the Midi on message.
When it stops moving in and out, and others, when it hasn't seen a transition within so many,
with a certain time period, it sends the Midi note off.
And there's two strings.
One string is the, is the base note of the, of the scale.
The other string is a higher note that can be set to track the, uh...
...the base note.
A number of semitones away.
And you can program that number of semitones.
And that number of semitones is...
That number of semitones is, um...
...set up three for the moment.
But it can be set to a fifth or, you know, a fifth.
Can you give us an example of how that sounds like?
Yeah, well...
...this is the F.
And three semitones away from the F is the, uh...
...a sharp...
...or the G in the key of, uh...
...F.
Three semitones is the C.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
So you can do that.
And, and so on.
So very often in a base, uh...
...a base line, you don't need very many notes, um...
...and, and you can get a lot with two notes.
You get a lot with one note, but you can get a lot with two notes.
So, so you can do that.
Okay, exactly.
And the later in the night, the more you can get away with it.
The more you can get away with it.
Yeah, exactly.
So, this, this basically seems to be completely unpopular as it is.
It is. It's one I pulled out of a skip that was being thrown away, uh...
...at, say, company I used to work for.
Yes.
Yeah.
Josh...
...okay, yes.
Um, I'll pull it out of the skip.
Uh, it's, it's a, it's an ancient prototype.
It doesn't do anything.
Uh, I just, I just, I just use it to put a lid on the, on the base.
To act as a two, twofold.
First of all, it acts as a handdressed, uh, to, to go on, um...
...to stop you messing about the electronics.
And secondly, it's a light shield, so it doesn't bugger up the photo...
...sensors.
Could you believe you have any pro, prospects I imagined?
Yeah.
Do you have the plans for any of this, uh, available on here?
Um, for that, no, I've not run to it.
Yeah, I've only just made it.
Um, but it's, um...
Is it the intention to make this sort of stuff up?
Yes, it's the intention to make it all open source.
So that, that's an example of a, uh...
...an instrument that's specifically made for...
...an individual, and to meet their, their needs.
Okay, so moving on to the, um...
...moving on to the...
...what you describe as a child's toy...
...it's actually, it's actually known as a, uh...
...cattlecaster, because those bars look like a cattle grid.
They do, they do, yeah.
And, um...
It looks like an injection molded.
It probably started life as an injection mold with, uh, kids' toys.
It started life as a, as a guitar hero controller.
Oh, that's what it is.
Uh, yeah.
And, um, I picked it up for £3 in a charity shop.
Did you leave me, yeah?
I didn't say, didn't care whether it worked or not.
In the fine tradition of HPR, John called me to your heart out.
So, I, um...
I completely gutted the inside, took everything out,
and replaced it with the electronics.
And this little board that you might see in the photograph
is the prototype of the system.
Um...
And...
I must say, in ESP32?
Uh, no, it's a, um...
Oh, I don't know.
Arduino macro.
Arduino macro, yeah.
A, um...
...capacity sensor.
Yeah.
Uh, and, uh, an OLED display.
Three buttons.
And a slider.
So, that...
And the bars...
...with a...
About the same size as a kickcat, I guess.
Yeah, probably.
Kickcat.
Okay, replace it with the kickcat.
I don't even want to register.
Yeah, actually, I got it there.
Next year, you're on the melting chocolate bar.
Yeah.
Well, I...
Kickcat guitar.
I, I didn't have the melting, um...
...like...
...pick, because I, I, I designed a guitar pick.
Yeah.
...that was conductive.
Uh-huh.
Um, and, and, and conducting paint.
Yeah.
And, of course, it comes off on your fingers.
Yeah.
So, it's a melting bit.
But, it, it really is a proper pick,
because since I've made it,
...it's been lost five or six times
...the way that real picks are.
Yeah, you know, it's something.
So, that, that was, so, that's, that electronics is inside.
Yeah.
Now, this...
This is now the guitar hero you're putting it on, like, in real...
You know, I, I, I've...
Built this for, for, for kids who want to join in and sing a song.
Yeah.
They don't have any great motor skills,
but, so long as they can, um, press a button at the right time
and...
...strung, do the strumming, uh, it will work.
Um, I can store about twenty songs in this guitar,
uh, and I can easily download whatever songs I like,
uh, from the laptop.
There's a little application,
I've written in a language called processing,
uh, which allows you to, brings a window up,
and you can sort of say,
I'll have this chord sequence,
and I'm going to call it this.
So, that's, that's basically what it does.
Uh, I can scroll through the, the songs here.
Now, I'll just scroll through the house of the rising sun.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, we can't.
We can't.
No, it has to be, uh, creative comments.
Creative comments.
Or just giving notes.
What about singer Rainbow now?
It was before 19.
Oh, yeah.
That is worse cannot describe.
Okay, I think that's enough of that, though,
because that's probably, uh, also creative comments.
Uh, three, three chords.
But good luck to any algorithm that's able to find that,
I'll need to hear.
You're not going to get it.
Well, that is quite impressive, actually.
They, uh, just the strumming part.
I'm now strumming the kickcat to be honest,
and, yeah, that's a lot of questions.
I think this may be the solution to being up
and able to learn the guitar.
That's it.
Anybody can play, anybody can play guitar.
That's basically what I'm calling it.
Uh, the cattle caster.
Um, and, um,
so what's the triangle one over here?
The triangle one.
Well, the cattle caster.
Let you strum.
Yeah.
But it knew what chords will come in next, right?
The triangle one, or Arduino caster,
is it's called?
Because it's got an Arduino in it, um,
and is featured in my, in my book.
On Arduino Music and Audio projects,
we're forward by Massimo Banzai and David Cartelis.
From A Press, available, and all good book retailers.
No, no.
He's students of an unavoidable job.
Okay. Um, this has, this has, um,
thing of picking patterns built into it.
So if I, I trigger a thing of picking pattern here.
So they, what he just did there was press a,
what essentially are two contacts.
Yeah.
No, I just process and it played some cool stuff.
In, in, in, in, it played a, um,
a sequence, uh, I've got four possible.
Finger picking patterns.
And this switch down here allows you to have another two banks
of finger picking, finger picking patterns.
Um, I can change the speed of the finger picking.
So I was doing that and turning a dough.
I'm, I'm turning this dial and I'm slowing it down.
It's quite fine control on this.
I tell you why.
Cause like all guitars, nothing's labelled.
Yes, that's what it should be.
And I was turning the wrong knob.
So, um, I'm speeding it up.
There's a little RTB LED flashing that shows the,
the speed and now the same finger picking pattern.
Okay. So, see what I did there.
Uh, and, and on the neck, I've got some,
I've got some keys that change the, um, the chord.
Which are labelled, which are labelled,
e, e, f, g, a, b, c, d.
Why didn't you start at a?
Because you don't with guitars.
Was the answer from my, uh, guitar playing something.
Anyway, so very man, that the speed I've just given you is, uh, is a little tune.
Holy.
Yeah, very good.
Um, which, which I think is,
we should be, we should be safe with that.
I think we should be safe with that.
And, uh, the clever thing about these, these keys,
is that you play, you press, um, the key,
and there's a red light comes up near the, the key.
Yeah. But the following three keys are,
have a green light against them.
Which means that if you press those, you can change the chord.
Okay.
So, it's always a G, but a different sort of it,
that's sorry, it's always an F, but it's a different sort of F.
Yeah.
So, if I press the, one next to the F, it's, it's the minor chord. So,
so that's, yeah, that's the minor.
And similarly,
similarly, I can, I can have, um,
other key combinations,
perhaps generate the, uh, the seventh minor,
the seventh major, uh, the, uh, the fifth,
the sixth, uh, diminished and augmenting.
So, I can have all those variations on the same.
So, the, the target audience, I guess,
would be somebody who would already have played the guitar for this.
Well, I'm-
It's harder to find the guitar chords,
but it's easier than learning how to press them down on the, the frets.
So, if you've lost strength in your hand and your wrist,
and you can't press the, the, um, the frets on there,
or if you, um, want to complicate it, um,
finger-picking patterns, uh, then it can get around that problem.
So, that's, that's the, oh, that was, that was my first guitar, and, uh, first,
go at, um, accessible guitars.
And that's, um, that's quite an old design now.
Very, it looks retro.
Oh, yeah.
Weird lung and off and everything comes back.
Here at the back here, I've got a Yamaha something secret.
Well, it's, it's a Yamaha MU-10, and that's a midi sound system.
So, that's the chip that's generating the sound, and I've screwed it on a board
with two speakers and a power supply, uh, all, it's all wired together,
and I can pick it up and take it from place to place.
Uh, where's the, the previous examples you heard were from, uh,
garage band, other bands are available.
And, um, and the, um, the sounds were generated by that internal sound generator.
Oh, fantastic.
Thanks very much for, uh, taking the time and enjoying the rest of the show.
Pictures will be in the show notes.
I already took some pictures, but I'm not going to go back and take more,
because I now know what I'm talking about.
Okay, thanks very much.
Thanks very much, bye.
I'm here at the open rights boot, and you are Mike Morrell,
campaigns manager at Open Rights Group.
Okay, tell me, what is the open rights group?
So, open rights group, we are sort of like a human rights, uh, organization,
except we defend people's rights specifically online in a digital world.
So, most of the time, and that means we're fighting things like algorithmic
censorship to promote, um, with the, the intention of promoting free speech online.
We also do a lot of work, um, defending digital privacy,
whether that's from governments, mass surveillance programs,
or what we would call corporate, uh, surveillance.
So, that being like, you know, big tech companies, um, you know,
building sophisticated profiles about you through targeted advertising,
that sort of thing, um, or also interest.
We're also working on, um, uh, investigating and, um,
the relationship between democracy and technology.
So, at the moment, we're, um, taking a keen interest in how political parties
are, are handling your, your data, uh, much in the way that we would, um,
scrutinize, uh, companies or the government.
Um, what do you think this is in this?
Because, digital really is not something separate.
It's, it's connected to all aspects of our lives these days.
Uh, any issue really, uh, is connected, has a digital component to it.
Um, even though that's true, it doesn't always get, um,
the attention it deserves.
So, Brexit's a really good example of that.
Um, people rarely consider the digital side of Brexit.
Um, but much like, um, you know, there's, uh,
a lot of action being, or, or concern about, uh, you know, um,
a bunch of like medicine or food getting stuck at the border.
Uh, there's issues like data flows, uh, things like that, um,
that cross-border nature of the internet, um, uh,
poses some really important questions that we need to, uh,
deal with when it comes to, um, you know,
the digital ramifications of Brexit.
So, we're trying to bring attention to those,
those sort of issues that, um, just because it's a little bit less tangible,
because it's in the digital sphere,
people tend to not pay as much attention.
But, I, I think, uh, our audience are fairly up to speed with the,
with the ins and outs of this topic.
But I personally have a, an issue that I'm trying to,
when I'm trying to communicate with people, for example,
how many people are on WhatsApp as a, as a concept.
And the kids have to be honest, because the football things are going to be collected,
and this is a birthday party, so everybody's on that.
So, is there WhatsApp?
Yeah, I'm, I'm WhatsApp.
And you really don't have a choice,
because it's a network effect.
But then I think back to 10 years ago,
we were paying, uh, you know, 10 pounds a month for so many messages.
But now these are free.
And I asked people, where do,
where is the business case for that?
So, where is the business case for that?
Um, where's the business case for having free, free apps that are funded by our data?
Is that what you mean?
Or, yes, but there's no advertising there.
So, where my, my logical question then is,
if you were taking over so many messages,
all of this messaging data flow,
where's the business case?
And I get very concerned then,
because if I was paying 20 years a month,
I would go, okay, well, I'm paying 20 years a month.
That's the business case.
Uh, that's a good question.
Um, yeah, a lot of people, I mean,
I would say, you know, some people don't consider that,
particularly children.
They don't ever consider that, you know,
how's this getting paid for?
A lot of people don't consider, um,
you know, business models of,
and they really do expect a lot of things to be free,
whether it's email or social media or whatnot.
Um, perhaps the solution is a subscription model,
you know, paying dues, much like, um,
you know, Netflix is so great.
There's no advertising on it, you know,
and it's like, well, that's because people pay for it, you know what I mean?
And so, perhaps that's, that's part of the solution.
But, how do I explain to somebody that's,
okay, this is actually what's happening without their face blazing over?
Um, that's a good question.
How do we make this, people stand back and go,
this is something we should be concerned about,
because you're not paying, you're not paying a bill for this.
Yeah, um, well, I like to do is, um,
I think there's a lot of faith, um,
that people put, um, in, um,
or if they're not paying attention to how their data is being treated,
whether it's by companies or governments,
it's because there's some sort of implicit, uh, trust,
or they're not really worried about their ramifications,
so for example, when the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke,
you know, there were like 70 million,
there 80 million people affected,
and they literally had to be notified that they were affected.
So, it's like, it wasn't like it actually stung them,
necessarily, in a way that they could understand it and feel it,
and that's not to say it's not bad.
So, um, I think, um, at this point in time,
it's really, it's helpful to look at other countries,
look at places like China, you know,
where they're using, um, the internet and digital technologies
as a real control mechanism,
and you can, there's so many examples across the world,
where it's just, it's so simple to be like,
oh, well, you know, it's the same technology,
and it's being used in this way to really repress people.
And so, if, you know, and we're using the same technology here,
and if the only thing that's stopping it is who's in charge, you know,
then that's definitely a worrying consideration.
And I think using those sort of examples
can resonate with more people these days,
because politics are getting more fraught,
you know, in the UK, and elsewhere, more polarized,
and people are concerned about who,
no matter what, where they are in the political spectrum,
they're concerned about different parties getting in charge,
and, you know, and being in charge of those,
of those technologies, you know,
or, or for another example is,
if people aren't too concerned about the government,
the UK government, GCHQ following them,
and, you know, for their interests,
supposedly for, you know, counterterrorism or whatnot,
you know, they're sharing that information with, you know,
United States and other governments that they wouldn't necessarily trust.
So, it's about building in those checks and balances, if you will,
to, to who, and ensuring that
no matter who's in charge of these technology,
whether it's a company, whether it's a government,
it better be built in a way that it's not just a matter of
who happens to be in charge, yeah.
So, what are you trying to fix?
Actually.
What are we trying to fix?
Well, we are, broadly speaking, trying to bring
the same sort of protections to
our online rights as there are offline,
or at least making people perceive
those online rights to be as worthy as an offline rights.
For some reason, there's a double standard.
I mean, people, you know, it's like,
if your house is broken into by
government spies, it's a huge violation,
you know, you'd be traumatized by it, you know.
If they do, if they break into your computer,
it's like, we don't think of the same way, you know.
Same thing with them.
If you're walking down the street,
and if there's somebody following you,
watching everywhere you go,
everything you buy, everyone you speak to,
and then it turns out, and you saw them,
and they had this like little badge,
and it was like, oh, you work for Amazon?
It's like, and you're following the around,
what, you know, it's like, we don't see
the spying that goes on by companies in the same way.
It's almost like a lack of imagination
to see, to perceive them the same way.
So we want to change that shift,
that sort of, so people understand
that it's all the same thing.
And I think, you know, the internet of things
is kind of an, it's an interesting development,
because it's bringing,
things are kind of coming full circle.
What used to be in the digital realm,
it's now starting to be in everything,
you know, it's in cars,
it's in refrigerators,
it's in everything.
And so it almost, you could imagine
within a decade or two,
that the whole distinction between
that blurred line currently
between digital and real world rights
really is meaningless,
because it's really going to become more
of a seamless thing.
So, you know, hopefully,
we want to hasten that sort of perceptual shifts.
Do you, in the length of time
that you've been running,
have you seen any improvement,
or is it getting better?
The awareness or is it getting worse?
That's really a good question.
I think it is getting better,
and I think, that's me personally,
I think that's a reflection of
the general digital literacy of society
is getting higher out of necessity.
So, for example,
you know, this whole camera general,
I mean,
okay, in this particular crowd here,
you know, people would kind of bulk
at that statement,
but I go, people don't understand technology.
And it's okay, they don't.
But, you know,
you know, 15 years ago,
we didn't all have smartphones,
we didn't all have broadband connections,
our lives didn't revolve around the computers,
and everyone wasn't staring at a screen all the time.
Things are changing.
It's becoming more mainstream,
and there is an opportunity
to reach a wider audience on these issues.
So, you know,
I don't think that,
you know, the camera general,
a little bit of a scandal,
it may not have caused a
reaction as the magnitude,
as, say, Edwards noted,
and did about surveillance.
In this case, about data protection,
but it still made a pretty big splash, you know.
It's still,
and if that had happened 15 years ago,
I don't think it would have made as much of a splash,
because it wouldn't matter as much to people.
I think, to be honest,
I don't think people,
you know, normal people outside of
who turns up here,
that I was talking to would be
even that worried about the camera generalist thing.
The angle that I was able to get people
on was that,
did you know that if you go to the Ryanair site via a Mac,
you're going to be charged more than if you go on a Windows PC?
That gets people's attention.
Totally. No, that's a good point,
and that's the trick to it.
You know, I'm a campaigns manager,
I try to make people relate to these issues,
and that's a really, you know,
talk to them in a way they can understand.
You know, it's the pocketbook kind of angle,
and it's totally important.
And similarly,
you know, in fact,
the camera generalist scandal,
that story was broke,
it broke a year really,
or well before it actually
was really made really popular.
Part of the reason was because they didn't,
the media didn't really find a good hook for it,
prior to connecting it to specifically Trump,
and also Brexit, you know,
and they're like, okay,
now people can relate to that.
There's these elections,
and then they're really controversial,
and then we think this had something to do with it,
and so therefore,
you know, it by itself,
if it didn't have those connections,
if it was just used for, you know,
other kinds of targeting,
it may not have mattered.
Yep.
I've actually managed to get some people
using the Tor browser,
because of that for doing their,
booking their websites and stuff, so.
Okay, how can we, how can our listeners help?
Can we join the organization?
Can we, have you have any active campaigns going on,
look at them?
Yeah, absolutely.
So open rights group,
we are funded by our members.
We are also funded by grants and foundations,
but about half of our funding
comes from individual donors,
and that's really important for us,
because it gives us the flexibility
to really react quickly,
to the issues as they come.
At the moment, we have a number of campaigns.
Let's see, the most pressing,
or I should say that you'll be seeing soon,
and we'll be looking for people to help us with,
is we're expecting an election to happen soon,
and we are, we're non-partisan, I should say,
very non-partisan organization.
However, we are developing a series of policy positions,
regarding safeguarding digital rights post Brexit,
and we are going to be looking to ask,
well, we're expecting this election to come,
we want to ask candidates and parties
to adopt these, put them in their manifestos
for candidates to pledge to protect our rights.
That includes pledging to,
when these trade negotiations are expected to happen,
we want that to be an open, transparent process,
if there are large international tech companies
that are pressuring the UK to make deals
that could change the way that UK residents interact
with the internet, we want that to be an open process,
we don't want these closed-door meetings,
and so we want candidates to pledge to make that open process
in the interest of democracy.
So that's definitely going to be really visible.
Also, other campaigns that we are working on,
currently we are challenging the ad tech infrastructure
in the way that's what we see as a violation of GDPR
in the way that targeted advertising works.
So we're interested in anyone who wants to help us with that,
and the way that you can get involved,
a couple of different ways, it's great if you can support our work
by becoming a member, which means you give a regular donation
as little as five pounds a month,
and you can go to our website, openridescruect.org,
to do that, or you can also just subscribe to our emails
just to get in the loop to see what we do,
hear about our various campaigns, we have quite a few going on,
and you can also get involved with some of our local events,
we have a presence in about 12 different cities across the UK
from writing all the way up to Aberdeen across the whole country,
so if you're interested in coming to some more events,
connecting with like-minded people concerned about digital rights,
that's a great way to get involved.
Are you a UK-only organization?
That's all right, what?
Yeah, we are, we're focused on, although we have people,
I mean, we do work with a consortium of digital rights organizations across Europe,
usually on EU legislation, because it's going to affect us,
you know, that's going to change it a little bit because of Brexit,
however, we're still, we still have supporters across Europe,
absolutely, and in the States now.
Thank you very much for your time, and good luck with this.
Thank you so much, my pleasure.
Hi everybody, I'm at the Manchester Greyhap,
and you are at my name's Tim Wilkes.
Hi Tim, what is this? Can you describe for me what I've seen before me?
Okay, so what you can actually see before you right now is a variety of different locks,
and some boxes which locks are protecting,
and they are forming part of the CTF that the Manchester Greyhap,
so we're really doing goldcams.
And what is the CTF?
A CTF is a cap to the flag event, we have a website set up,
where people can log on and perform challenges.
These are the actual physical challenges that we've got here today.
Okay, so for people who may not be aware of what log-on is,
can you explain to them?
That's interesting, because this is actually my first floorcon,
so technically I don't really know,
and but it is an event,
Okay, so we're here at Ogcamp, and they've emerged together,
and it's a, basically, the security track, the security belt on that,
from what the log-on speech was this morning,
people come participate in this, and then they have to come down here,
and there's 50 pounds prize, if they win.
I believe so, yeah.
And one of the challenges is that you need to,
I presume, get in here somehow.
Yeah, we have actually six different challenges.
Yep, so two of which are boxes that are protected by single padlocks.
One of the padlocks is Bluetooth,
another one is a combination lock.
A combination padlock.
We have two lock boxes, which protects another two codes.
And we have a custom challenge, which actually is made off of door shutter,
which, if you pick the lock one way,
it reveals one code, pick it another way,
and it reveals the second code too.
Like, a way of lock picking becomes such a thing that's everywhere, really.
I'm not entirely sure, to be honest.
It's great fun to actually do,
you can sit in front of the TV and just have a hobby,
something to do with your hands as opposed to...
Knitting.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, from time to time, we have been referred to as the InfoSec knitting self,
or indeed, the hacker approval.
I've gotten some of these clear transparent keys for the kids,
and the...
The clear training games.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so...
Can you describe what you're looking up at?
Okay.
So, the lock that you're actually looking at is a pin tumbler,
which is effectively made out of acrylic.
Yep.
And it's got metal parts inside it to show how a lock actually works.
Yep.
What I'd normally describe this as is a training aid rather than a practice lock,
although I know that people do actually try and use it to actually pick their first lock.
Yep.
And because they use it as their first lock to actually pick,
they actually end up holding the lock incorrectly.
Yeah, okay.
Because they'll be trying to look at it while they're actually picking it.
And part of what we're actually doing here today is actually showing people
the right way to hold the lock.
Okay.
So, what's the difference?
Well, most people, like you said, try and pick it.
So, they will pick it on the side so that they can still see what they're doing.
Yeah.
In which case, they'll end up with an awkward position.
Yeah.
And I'm trying to actually show them the better way to do it,
which is kind of holding it in the palm of your hand.
Like that.
Imagine a zipple lock in your hand,
and you're making a duck shape.
Right, right, right.
Yep.
And then you hold it quite fast.
Yeah.
Things I have to do for all of you.
Yeah.
And then, as we put in a tension tool,
you can just rest your finger onto the,
yeah, onto the tension tool to have quite tension.
So, and as you're, so then you try and manipulate the pins over and back
so that they're all aligned.
Right.
So, perfect.
We are now bracing ourselves.
We're now going to pick a lock.
Now, on the nodio recording.
Let's see how we do this.
Right.
So, if the actual lock was perfect,
yeah, all the chambers,
which you can see across the top on the training aid,
would be in a perfect straight line.
Okay.
So, all, if you're looking at the lock,
so imagine a padlock.
And the pins, what are we calling these channels here?
Right.
Each one of these is a chamber.
So, each of the chambers are parallel to the ground.
And so, inside each chamber, you've got a spring.
Yep.
A driver pin.
Yep.
And then a key pin.
A key pin.
Yep.
So, there's a spring at the top,
and then two little pieces of grass.
Yep.
That's all there.
Yeah, effectively.
And the length of the key pin is dictated by the...
Well, parallel to the key.
Yep.
And this is one of the reasons why you should never actually photograph your key,
because you can actually work out how deep those cuts are on your key,
which corresponds to a number.
Yep.
And then you can take that number of those five or six digits,
give it to a locksmith,
and he can make your key for you.
Or she.
So, without you in seeing the lock...
So, you imagine a key with a valley and a...
A peak in a trough.
Sorry, I'm so long in the Netherlands now.
I don't even know what a mountain's called.
A peak in a trough.
So, let's just imagine a force five degree, a very simple key up and down, up and down.
Therefore, I would imagine in these channels,
yeah, chambers.
In these chambers, then you would have one very long one for the troughs,
and a rather short one for the peaks, long one for the trough.
And you wonder how long these up.
That's what you're doing with that picking.
Yeah.
So, like we're saying, if all the chambers are in the perfect alignment,
when you actually apply a little bit of tension,
all the pins in all the chambers would bind at the same time.
Yep.
Because they're not in perfect alignment,
only one actually binds at anyone.
So, that's the one we're actually trying to find.
So, if we put in a tool called a hook,
it's effectively a straight rod with a bend at the end.
Yep.
We can then lift up each pin individually
and find out whether it moves freely or not.
Okay.
And if it moves really freely,
that's not the binding pin.
So, we ignore that and move on.
Yep.
If it's got a slight bit of tension on it,
and it's kind of difficult to move.
Yep.
We actually push that one up until we hear it click,
or we feel it click,
and the core actually rotates.
So, the core is holding those pins are trying to come down.
One of them is held.
You're putting a little bit of pressure on the core.
You push that pin up,
and then you feel that pressure go.
Yeah.
So, yes.
Literally, it will, as you push it up,
you'll feel the core turn around slightly,
and it'll move,
and another pin will then bind in its place.
And then you have to, the trick then is to keep that one locked
while you go look for the next one.
Yeah, so, you should be with a very feather-like tension.
You should be able to keep that pin bound
and move on to the next one.
Okay.
And repeat up until all the pins are set,
and the lock opens.
Okay, so now you've got the padlock in your hand,
you go over your thumb,
and then what do you need to do?
So, you've got two pieces of metal here, one.
Yeah.
So, the bottom piece of metal,
this is the tension tool.
This particular one looks like a Z.
Yeah.
And that's just going into the bottom of the keyway,
where I'm just resting my finger on top of it.
So, that's parallel to your thumb,
and the first finger is just feeling slightly
a bit of pressure on that.
Yeah.
And I'm taking the hook tool,
in my right hand, because I'm right-handed,
holding it like a pen,
and just putting that in,
and just feeling all the pins,
as we're going to show you the lock.
And just trying to find out
whether they're binding or not.
And now, because I'm trying to do this in the pressure,
it probably won't work.
Click!
Oh, there it is!
But, yes, that is the general theory,
that you just push in,
and this is what I'm actually showing you now,
because I'm turning it to the side,
so you can actually see the things move.
This is the bad way that people want us to try and do it.
Yeah.
And that actually, I think, was the,
hmm, the issue with my kid's hat,
that they were looking at that,
not holding it in the right hand.
So, what, your first lock,
you go down by the cheapest lock that you can get?
What would you advise?
Um, right.
So, what I would advise people here today,
to actually do,
is I actually have progressive lock sets.
Yep.
So, I actually have made sets,
which have got one of those chambers pennies.
Yeah.
All the way up to all six of the chambers.
All right, yeah, yeah.
So, that people can actually feel what it might
what it's like and how it gets progressively more difficult.
Yep.
But, obviously, you've got to find somebody who's got these sets,
or, indeed, buy a set,
and they're not particularly cheap.
Yeah.
So, I think I've seen them for about 36 pounds for a set.
Alternatively, if you go on Reddit,
there is a lock picking subreddit on there.
Yeah.
And they have a sidebar,
which has got a belt ranking system.
Yeah.
Basically, there's, well,
they start off with white belt,
which is pick any lock,
which could be clear blasted lock.
With any method to get it open,
and they will show you different locks.
They actually go through different skills,
and they try to teach more and more
about different aspects of lock picking.
Okay, can you walk me through some of these?
This show's going to be released after the event is over,
so don't worry about spoilers.
Right, okay.
So, the top lock that we have on the box is Bluetooth lock.
Yep.
Which also has a combination of that.
Who would do a Bluetooth lock?
Who would do a Bluetooth lock?
Yeah.
Well, you know, you might want to actually walk up to the lock
with your phone and literally unlock it.
And it does actually work reasonably well.
Yeah.
There has been security research about that particular lock,
and there are ways to actually open it by a Bluetooth.
Yeah.
In fact, on one previous event,
we actually got the author of that to come and have a play
with that particular padlock.
Okay.
Good.
Yeah.
The lock below it is a combination for dial padlock.
The main difference for that particular padlock
to what most people are thinking
is that the dials are actually on the bottom of the lock
as opposed to on the side.
Okay, yeah.
So, the usual tension trick
and then trying to find out which wheel is binding
doesn't actually apply to that lock.
Yeah.
It has a slightly different issue
in that if you put in a what's called a knife,
which is basically a thin piece of metal
through one of the wheels
and bains it up and down,
you can actually feel a bar moving on it,
which is actually the locking bar.
Yeah.
And if you apply a bit of tension, the lock will open.
Okay.
There you go.
So, other tools
and other ones we've actually got
are basically a master keychain,
which you may find outside certain residents,
you say.
Yeah.
And these are susceptible to
various amounts of attacks.
Usually, again, with the decoded tool
putting it in the side of the dial,
this time actually applying a little pressure on it
and then moving the wheel
and you will actually find
where you'll actually feel the dip in the wheel.
Yeah.
And if you find the dip on all four wheels,
you can try it and the lock will probably not open.
Yeah.
Usually because there's an offset,
so if you actually add one to all the wheels,
try it again and then add one, try again.
Eventually, within 10 guesses,
you will open the lock.
Oh, cool.
Yeah.
And that's not the great,
great experience in the world.
And the obviously infallible,
completely impenetrable key lock.
Oh, great.
My other key safe,
which has got three dials as opposed to the four.
Yeah, the four one.
Yeah, that's susceptible to exactly the same attack.
Yeah.
So, what is the most,
let's talk about this hall made one that you have here.
Right, okay.
So, this is one of the main challenges for the CTA.
Yeah.
This actually has a shutter lock.
So, that's a shutter for a big electric metal shutter
that you would normally find on the front of the building.
Yeah.
And inside there is actually two microswitches.
Those microswitches are wired to an Arduino inside,
an Arduino Nano,
which has also got a display on there.
We've got a charging circuit in there,
which I just bought from China and a battery.
Yeah.
So, basically, it's USB powered.
Yeah.
And we can also reprogram it.
But if you put the lock one way,
it prints up one code.
Yeah.
You can pick it the other way.
It prints for another code.
How can you pick a lot of two different ways?
Oh, great, okay.
And in this particular case,
the barrel will turn either way.
Or left or right, you mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
Most locks will actually pick either left or right.
Yeah.
The only difference between picking them left or right
is the binding order is reversed.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
Okay, cool.
Um, excellent stuff.
Do you ever watch the lock picking lawyer at all?
Yes, I do.
I'm a big fan of his and Bosnian bills as well.
Excellent, excellent.
I follow those.
And I've now taken to not keeping any personal stuff anywhere.
Okay.
Thank you very much for taking the time.
Enjoy the show.
Where can I go to hear more about you?
So, if you want to hear more about Manchester Greyhats,
we're on Manchester Greyhats.com.
That's, sorry, .co.uk.
Manchester Greyhats.
Don't call that you're here.
Yeah, okay.
Perfect.
Thank you very much and enjoy the rest of the show.
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