Episode: 2454
Title: HPR2454: The Alien Brothers Podcast - S01E02 - Strictly Hacking
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2454/hpr2454.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 03:25:20

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This is HPR Episode 2454 entitled The Alien Brothers Podcast, S-Nero 1-E-Nero 2,
Trictly Hacking. It is hosted by The Alien Brothers Podcast, ABB, and in about 106 minutes long,
and carry the next visit flag. The summary is Casper, Andrew Tiger Discussor, Uber Hacks,
and they didn't tell me known and unknown vulnerabilities.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by archive.org.
Support universal access to all knowledge
by heading over to archive.org forward slash donate.
The Alien Brothers Podcast with Casper and Radiger.
Welcome listeners. Welcome to the second episode of the Alien Brothers Podcast.
Thank you for joining us once again.
By that you mean second squared episode? You mean the fourth episode of The Alien Brothers Podcast?
Don't you Casper? Radiger, I thought we talked about this, that this was the second episode.
That way. Okay. Okay. Well, I misinterpreted it. See, listener, what happened, what you don't know,
but I'm going to share with you. And for that reason, I envy you right now.
We, as we might have alluded to, no, I guess we wouldn't know because the only episode that's been
posted was the first one we did up at where Bethany or Rohobeth or wherever we were.
We recorded two, the two are so unknown. We recorded two more episodes during that initial
burst that you haven't heard. To you, this is the second episode. And every time we're, I'm already
overexplaining this. Yeah. As is my want. And I'm here to keep you on track as always.
That's Casper looking out for you. That's W-O-N-T. Okay. Okay. So moving on.
Hacking. Hey, thank, hey, happy Thanksgiving, man.
Happy Thanksgiving to you as well. And happy Thanksgiving to all of the listeners out there.
I hope they're having a hacking Thanksgiving. Oh, god, that was horrible. Hacking at that,
hacking at that, that delicious white meat, dark meat, all will be carved. Yes. All will be carved.
And for our first of this episode, episode, quote unquote, air quotes, too, for our first
contests or feedback note from the populace for the episode, I will, I will present it. I
wrote a girl of the Alien Brothers podcast. If you know and can give us the name of the movie,
where the, the line, white light meat, dark meat, all will be carved. Thanks,
giving comes from there will be a prize to be determined. Oh, wow. That's, that's pretty
courageous of you, theoretical. I didn't know you're going to drop that.
Well, I'm full surprises. Oh, I'm, I'm, I'm surprised.
Yeah, count where I have officially painted you surprised. Yes, I've called, I've colored you
surprised. Color me. So as we record this, it's the eve of Thanksgiving. And I have much to be
thankful for this year, I know. As, as do I? Very much indeed. But I could, I could just,
like, just keep going and going. But I am, you know, very sincerely thankful for you,
Casper. And I have been for, for many a year, but this year, I think our friendship has grown.
Definitely. Probably in large parts, spurred by bad behavior on my part.
But, you know, what, what, what, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger is a cliche that sometimes
has some truth to it. Yeah, yeah. I heard something recently, somebody had put something in a song.
And it was something by JFK. And they said a, an error only becomes a mistake if we do not learn
by it. And, and correct that. And I, I take that to be a good word to look by.
And by, so could you, what was that quote again? An error only becomes a mistake.
An error only becomes a, I'm sorry. I wasn't using a ball. So next. And I don't really have,
shout out. Shout out. Shout out. Yeah. Shout out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In Kennedy Voice Quads.
I'll take, or Mayor Quimby. I mean, I'll take, you know, you want to go to high brow. That's the
ideal. Yeah. You want to go meta. I'll, I'll go mid brow. I'll go low brow. I'll do it.
Okay. I don't, I don't care. That it doesn't matter to me. What was low brow was that, that, that
Apple Bing in the background, man, I've heard that on way too many a, a network podcast,
anything recently. It's everywhere. Can't get rid of it. Well, I mean, I could,
I could mute my, my system. I, if that would, if that would make you happier. It, it would. Yeah.
Huh. Okay. Oh, let me, let me, let me just do that. Sorry. Sorry. It's, it's okay. It's like,
I, it's all muted. It's a commercial. It's all, it's all better. It's like a commercial for me.
And okay. Well, I know how easily influenced you are by media.
Mr. Who has, who has, how many, how many, see, how many years of ad busters on his shelf at
home, you know, I know, I know what a lemon you are. How easily accessible you are to the
external influence. So, um, today's topic is called strictly hacking, strictly hacking,
strictly hacking. And the reason it's called strictly hacking is because we've listened to the
feedback from listeners and they thought that us going on a specific topic is what they want to
hear. And this is hacker public radio. So let's talk about hacking. There's been plenty of it in the
news lately. Uh, I deal with it at work, uh, on a constant basis. And, um, we've been talking about
it also, uh, in conversations, uh, non on air. So yeah. And before we get into that, yeah, since it's
my, it's my job to keep things off the rails. But this is very important. Yes.
You wouldn't, since you referenced feedback that we've received feedback from, I take it from,
uh, the first episode of the Alien Brothers podcast that was posted on hacker public media.
Is that correct? We received, uh, feedback. Yes. You want to talk about, you want to talk
about that? I, I, I was actually, I was, I was shocked. Um, yeah, we, we did receive one comment
on hacker public radio, uh, from someone that has posted a good number of podcasts themselves.
They, they also, uh, they do GNU, uh, new world order dot info. It's GNU world order.
Dodd. And who is this? It's just this, this, this, someone out of the, uh, the, uh, yes, the tag is,
uh, Klatu, K-L-A-A-T-U, or maybe that's pronounced differently. Klatu. Klatu was the, uh, was the
emissary from, uh, the day of the earth stood still, wasn't it? Uh, possibly. I, I do not, uh, definitely,
definitely before your time, although it was remade with, uh, oh, excuse me, canner Reeves and,
the not too distant past, but Klatu, thank you so much for taking the time. Um, I'm going to admit,
right now, and I'm ashamed to say this, but I'm going to rectify it. I haven't read the comment
yet, even though Casper did send, uh, me a link to it and a capture, I happened to be walking
or riding the bus at the moment and had my, had only my, I, only my iPhone and, uh, I, I wanted to sit
down and, and, uh, really give the comments, the attention it deserved, but so all I can say for
now is thank you. Thank you for listening. Yeah. And thank you, thank you for taking the time to
comment. And from the little bit I did read, it seemed, uh, complimentary, um, which, you know,
I think we should give ourselves some credit Casper. We're, you know, I mean, for myself,
not to, you know, overblow it, but, you know, this isn't, this podcast isn't my first rodeo.
Yes, yes. I was very impressed with your previous work.
The, the depravity, the, the occasional sound quality, but, uh, I think a little to the left,
a little to the right. And, uh, you know, you stand in between the lines.
Is, if, if there were no lines, but thank you, Clatoon. And, uh, we will be responding to that soon.
And we will also be responding, uh, on hacker, uh, public radio via a mechanism. I'm not clear on yet.
Giving access and, uh, with the social media accounts, we're setting up, um, incrementally,
because right now we've acquired them. And, uh, they're kind of empty right now.
Post-processing. Post-processing. Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a depth you hit the nail on the head. We,
we, we snatched them and we got work to do to, to work with them. And by snatched them, I mean,
we picked some really lame frickin, like social media aliases and identities, just so we didn't have
use ideal ones with like some number embedded in it, at the end, which is not acceptable to me.
It offends me. Yeah. But anyway, so this is the, this episode's called the day the hacking
died, right? I was going to say strictly hacking, but yeah. Okay. Okay, strictly hacking. So,
we're going to talk about, um, how do you, how do you, I mean, you, among this crowd of two
Casper are truly the, the hacker. Okay. Well, I'm, you, you, you, you are the hacker. No,
you are the hacker. No, I'm, I'm not. I've, I've very limited hacking capabilities. I'm, I'm aware
of software and, and things to do such activities. I've, I've actually taken a course, uh, the OSCP,
the, uh, offensive security, uh, certification program. And, uh, it's unsuccessful in completing
the exam. I might, I actually didn't even take it. I was only able to get a, it's like 33 out of
75 of the computers are, and it's, it's, it's very, very, very, uh, very difficult, but it's,
it's very eye-opening to, uh, the ways and mechanisms and just everything you can do, uh, with very,
very little, uh, little knowledge of, you know, or at any previous knowledge.
Well, without, you know, feel free just to move right along from this, but why do you feel you failed
the exam? Oh, well, I, I didn't take the exam. Um, I took, I took the entire course, and I read
through the entire book, and then after you do that, you have a lab environment where they give,
they give you a certain number of computers to hack into and complete, um, and at the time, uh,
I, after I finished that and I started hacking the computers, I'd gotten, you know, one after another,
and you get on a roll, and I'd done a number of them, but then there were some that were just,
it, it was like banging your head against a wall. Um, I, I didn't know even where, where to begin, um,
because it, it's kind of left, it, it doesn't, there's no explanation as to how, they,
they give you some tools, but, you know, there's a lot left open. Do you think they, they throw those
in there as distractors to see if you'll wind up wasting a lot of time on them versus cutting bait
and moving on? If that's even an option, I don't know anything. No, no, no, you, well, the, the other
thing too, is that the, the ones that I had done, um, I used, uh, the Metasploit tool, um, and the
Metasploit tool makes all of this hacking very, very automatic, uh, if you use Metasploit, uh, Meturperter,
you can essentially just run scripts that are automated to take advantage of security vulnerabilities
and then gain run access, um, and pretty much do whatever you want. Um, so it, it was really fun,
really, uh, educating, um, but to actually complete the exam, you need to, uh, not use the Meturperter
or, uh, Metasploit framework, you can't use it, you have to program your own programs to do that,
which is an entirely different level and it, it would probably take me about a year solid of studying,
um, to complete that, um, and, and that's with it without working or anything, which, which I couldn't
do, I have to have something, I have to have a day job, so, well, I know you'll, I'll know you'll
get it someday without, without being a script kitty, you got it in you, I know you have it in you.
Yeah, yeah, it's, uh, I think the, the challenge really for me too is also, uh, after working all day,
coming home and, uh, doing more computer work is not exactly what, what you want to do, uh,
especially lately, I've, I've just been kind of tired after I get home, it's fall, it's cold,
winter, kind of starting to get the hibernation sent in.
Well, my suggestion to that would be, of course, to quit your job and then, you know,
either focus on, uh, this other task or not, but we've seen how that turns out for me. Of course,
I'm not wrecking that, recommending that to anyone I'm just kidding, uh, although that's what I do.
So the, okay, so you, as we've established now, even though I know the phrase script kitties,
I actually ran a outdated WordPress blog once where it was impressed upon me, the need to keep
um, internet software platforms patch because some, some script, some script kitty, maybe using this
so-called, uh, MetaSploit tool or something else that, uh, easily defaced and, uh, shamed my blog
and, uh, which was associated with another podcast, but that's not, that's not important. So,
you deserve the, I was totally, I was begging for it. You were,
yeah, aren't we all? Yeah, but, uh, we, we had the last laugh in the end though.
Not really, we didn't know that. It's, it's, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, it's the,
it's the, it's the, the, that's the whole another conversation. Let me, let me rephrase that. I had,
I had a backup of the blog and associated PHP, BB system. So, after we rebuilt it with fresh
software, we could load it back in. So that was, yeah, so that was the big one. Yeah, is it?
So it's a, no, no, it should never have been hacked and it never should have never happened
in the first place, which maybe is the segue into, you know, we talked a little bit before the show
about what we were going to attack here. And, uh, do you want to start this off with the hacks that
are going on right now, including what's going on right now for anyone listening to this and
this and future is Uber just announced that, uh, they had a big hack. Uh, I'm not sure how long
ago. I've heard exactly like 30 seconds of content regarding this, but they did the ultimate
or not the ultimate, but close to ultimate. No, it, it's worse than the ultimate boo boo in my
humble opinion. Well, all I know and you can incorrect and expound is they got hacked. They knew
about it. They didn't report it to the public per the standard protocols and they paid off
the hackers to be quiet about it. That's, that sounds, that sounds foolproof. What could go wrong?
What could go wrong? The story could get out. Maybe, maybe, maybe by said, uh, said hackers
going to the one, was it the, the post that? It's, it's pretty much everywhere. Now, um, I mean,
but they had to, I think the, I think they came up with WAPO. But so, yeah, that's, you know,
we're being had constantly. I, I just enabled a, uh, uh, as a benefit on my job, a, uh,
a monitoring service, uh, that they just throw in as a, as a freebie benefit for you that keeps an eye
on your accounts. In my case, telling me how, how, um, how really how,
uh, right at the poverty line I am at the moment, but also keeping track, keeping me up to date on
recent attacks and hacks. And yeah, I get pretty much multiple times a day notifications of various
organizations getting hacked and the type of information that's getting stolen from them. I'm
not going into any detail because our listeners, our target audience certainly knows these things.
How do you want to, what do you want to make of this strictly hacking episode? You had a
suggestion I thought was very interesting, which is what drew me into the idea of doing this
on Thanksgiving Eve. What, like, what, what have we hacked since like we were kids? Is that kind
of what you were getting at there? Yeah. There are many ways to attack this. And this is why I thought
it would be an interesting episode. It's topical. Um, Uber is in the headlines, um, 57 million
accounts of, uh, drive or not drive. I'm sorry. Uh, customers, 57, 7 million customers,
and a large number of drivers as well. They headed for a year. They didn't reveal a two US
regulators until now. Uh, they had some tricking language at the front that made it sound like
they were speaking to investigators at the time of the incident, but that was not related to the
incident. That was about something else entirely. So they made it sound like they would smooth it
through there. But, uh, yeah, it's that. So that, that's bad. I think, um, if anyone is working
in the tech industry, they might be more familiar with the, uh, the Intel management engine and
the security vulnerability that was released, uh, just recently with that. What's up with that?
Have you heard anything about that? No, why don't you talk about it? Well, um, as some people might
know, the, uh, Intel management engine, uh, built into any, uh, pretty much any recent Intel CPU,
I think it's been since 2011 or so. Um, they have this Intel management engine. There's been a
lot of conspiracies and stuff about capabilities, uh, et cetera, et cetera. And, uh, there's been some
conferences also about it. Um, a lot of people, it has access, um, it has root negative three
access. So, uh, when you log on to your computer, whether it's, uh, a, whether it's a PC, Linux,
when you log on as root, you have, uh, the rights are zero. Um, so you, and so if you're to give
access to a user, let's say they might have, uh, uh, why that to just to clarify, to clarify,
you mean, level zero, not zero, as in you have no rights, zero refers to what's, yes, like,
from a, from a, you, from a user's perspective, what is typically considered the highest level of
administrative control? Yes. Absolutely. Yes. Uh, thank you for clarifying that. So, uh, yes,
uh, you're welcome. Level level, level zero access is full, full control. And then if you go
down one, two, three, four, then you get two limited accounts, uh, maybe guest accounts, uh,
backup accounts, things of that nature. Um, anyway, this Intel management engine, um,
this is built into the CPUs. It runs its own web server. It has direct access to the CPU,
to the network controller. Um, and it runs on proprietary code. Uh, it runs Minix, which is a,
a Linux distribution, um, and Intel did a recent security audit and, uh, there are some patches for
Dell servers at this time. There are no patches for Dell clients. Um, but that recently came out
this week. So the concept here to break it down, since I'm the, the straight guy here,
who doesn't work in tech, is that there's like a, basically a supervisor,
component to Intel's CPU or system on chips or whatever you want to consider. Let's just say
they're processors that has a, a level of runtime authority that is lower negative three,
which really means superior. It's like, like, like God mode for gamers. Yeah, but it, like,
be beyond. I mean, it, yeah, basically, it, it, it, it, and to clarify for any, I mean, again,
I'm, I'm sure our audience would mostly know this. Maybe if I started listening to our fellow
podcasts, again, I'm ashamed. I, I haven't spent much time with that. I would, I would know more,
but the, the, the real, the point being these different levels exist to basically control what an
executable, um, what, uh, what an executable running as a user or an interactive user can access
in terms of system resources, be it files or areas of memory or that sort of thing. So,
it's a dramatically oversimplified, right? It's basically what, what you can access and that
this supervisor on the CPU, uh, seems, biver, Intel has disclosed that it disclosed something,
I guess, that had not been disclosed previously. I guess is that part of the story here?
Well, it was not general knowledge that this, because to me, from a, as a technologist perspective,
yeah, it makes a lot of technology sense that the thing monitoring, although, you know,
there's a difference in terms of how different supervisors and different context work, you know,
that the thing monitoring the system holistically certainly has to have the ability to
see everything, um, if not necessarily, um, modify everything, which, you know, we're get, we're
speaking, I'm speaking generally of something that needs to be spoken of very specifically,
but what, what kind of hubbub is this, is this causing in the everyday, uh, IT world, where,
where you work as a technologist, you know, you mentioned that there, they got a patch or a
patch coming for servers, um, which would be an obvious target for rogues. Yes. Look, looking,
looking to attack and gain access to that, to that powerful thing, that powerful supervisor,
I keep saying supervisors, probably there, is there a correct term I should be using here?
You, you can use supervisor, hypervisor, you can use whatever you want. I think everyone
gets the concept. Okay. Yeah. So they're patching servers, which would be the first target.
Right. It's, although, although not necessarily, if you want to, you know, make it easier than ever
to install botnets on, you know, if you, if you break it down to the code, you basically have to
get to the root zero level, uh, when you are hacking, uh, in order to get to the CPU stack,
as they say, uh, you got to get to the stack, and then you can run whatever code you want,
and that, and that's basically what the, uh, what the process is in, in any hack or, or the way
that that happens, whether it's through memory corruption or, um, binaries, there's, there's,
there's many different ways of, uh, remotely attacking a computer.
So alongside this Intel announcement regarding current and forthcoming fixes, are there
announcements of any actual exploits or nefarious events that have been where, where this,
this root level run level minus three has been exploited. Are they just saying, hey, it's here,
we're fixing some exploit, but don't worry, nothing's gone wrong. Uh, yeah, it, it, it depends on, uh,
on your, on your take on it, um, we know that, uh, some, uh, some nation states have started to
invest in creating their own, um, hardware, um, as you know, a lot of military hardware is, uh,
produced and only secure facilities that don't have access to, uh, to any foreign entities,
and, uh, they've done something similar, uh, they, they found out a while ago that there was a
way for, uh, governments to disable the Intel management engine, um, one hacker found that out
quite a while ago, um, and they found a way to disable it with that, uh, with that thing,
what they called the highest assurance program, it's an NSA program, describe it, describe the
series of rules for running secure computing platforms. Um, and so there, there was a bit in the code
that was called ReserveHap, and when they would change that bit that would, uh, allow them to sort
of bypass, uh, the Intel management engine. So, yeah. So, uh, that, that's the specific thing. So,
we know that nation states have built it backdoor into it, at least, or, or they have the ability
to disable it so they must know that it's there. Um, so once they discovered that everybody knew
that it was there. Now, what research has been done on it, and the exploits, I'm not up to date
with that, but I would assume that there are exploits, uh, whether they're known or, or unknown at
this time, if there are patches being delivered. Um, so, that, that's just kind of interesting, but I,
I think another, uh, topic we focused on, as well, to just kind of tie it into like day,
our daily lives, is that people didn't realize, uh, how much their conversations and their everyday
exchanges with people would then, uh, be picked up, recorded, and then transferred into an ad.
Um, as soon as they would log in to say Facebook or any other website, uh, you would just
load up your browser, and then you've got an ad for something that you just mentioned to somebody
in the other room, and it was just you and them, and you happen to have your phone on them on you.
Um, yeah, or Alexa, or, or sorry, meaning Amazon's.
Hi, sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up, go back to sleep. Um, wait, we're shifting gears here.
Are you sure you want to, you want to tackle that one? I thought we were doing research for that,
for another show. Oh, um, we, we don't have to go there, but, uh, I just state and think that, uh,
uh, that's kind of the same, same kind of concept, is that everything's being, you know, listen to,
and everything has a embedded hack into it, um, whether it's being used or not, and that, uh,
drives people to, uh, free and open software that they can audit themselves, and, uh, that's a
movement that I know a lot of people that listen to hack republic radio, uh, support the, uh,
you know, free and open software foundations. Indeed. And what percentage of the overall
population do you think that represents? Uh, the number of open source, uh, are you talking about
the population that uses it or the number of, um, um, talking about the number, the, the,
well, one kind of maps to the other in a way. They had percentage of the population that
frankly has the cape, but the, the, the percentage of the population that listens effectively to
things like hack or public radio, the techniques you're describing to secure, to a, use secure
platforms and be that, that aren't susceptible to the ones, like the one specific kind of
concepts where, okay, everything's listening to us. Okay. Uh, it's over-simplify it and let's just
go ahead and say most of all of that data is being sent, uh, processed, uh, sometimes in real time,
sometimes in post-process, sometimes archived, sometimes deleted, you know, it does depending on
who gets their hands on it or what its purpose was. But the, you know, I'll jump straight to
stop asking rhetorical questions. The, the, the percentage of certainly our nation's population
that can you, that has the, the capability, the time, the patience, and the technical knowledge to
effectively live their lives, running mobile devices, a computer, a cell phone, or a smart phone,
whatever you want to think of it as, in a secure way is, you know, I would say a, a fraction
of a percent. Yeah. Wouldn't you? I, I would say some people may say it's near zero because
there's just no way to get away from it. It's pretty much embedded into more and more of our daily
lives. So really, from a certain point of view, yeah, a lot of it's, a lot of it's about in my mind,
when we were discussing this the other night about where we might want to take this,
part of it's about education and for a vast majority of the population that education boils down
to something almost dramatically oversimplified, which is, you apply patches. I mean, that might sound
stupid, but I mean, I'm being dead serious here, you know, it's not okay to let your 80 something
your old mother who loves Windows XP, keep her Windows XP computer if she's using it to shop and
do banking transactions or do anything, right? It's just, it's not okay. It's sad, okay, but it's
actually it's not sad, it's the nature of a reality. So yeah, there's the education regarding
you know, malware, phishing, all that. I feel like a lot of education does happen, you know,
it could always be improved, but we are, I feel like when we, I watch, when I lower myself to
watch mass media, we're constantly being barrage with high level, you know, warnings regarding
remember, and I'm thinking of like watching NBC for, you know, here in Washington, DC,
suburban, you know, and this, this virus was announced today. So remember to do these things,
say, you know, you know what I'm saying? I mean, we've reached that point in our society where
that page goes up on the screen and they go down the bullets and say, never go to a website,
you don't trust, you know, in other words, you know, if you, if you, your gut instinct says,
don't do it, don't do it, right? You know, don't, you know, just, just don't, it's probably not
legitimate. And that's where, I mean, a wise man, DF Menisky wrote in his, in his seminal
work, the nature of systems in chapter eight, you know, if you want to keep a computer secure,
don't attach it to a network, you know, I have no problem with that. And now we've learned that
there are techniques to infiltrate even disconnected devices with, by manipulating radio wave
frequencies. Van, Van, Van, Van, Van Eek freaking and then the whole nine. Yeah, no, that's actually
why one of the parts of the thing I was just talking about, the secure program that they found,
the HAP, high assurance platform, they also disable the microphones on any computers running
in a secure fashion that the NSA uses. That's obvious to disable the microphones at that level,
but it's not only to disable the, the obvious picking up conversations, but also to disable hacking
through the microphone, because hackers have been able to inject code through the microphone
and actually take over computers that have never connected to a network.
Well, Mr. Menisky wherever he is, well, hopefully, hopefully he's staying on top of these things,
it sounds like a new addition to the book needs some, it needs an update, it needs an update.
It might, but I think if you read the last paragraph of chapter eight and you apply
Menisky's principles for how to secure a computer, I think, I think the NSA, I think the NSA,
A, they would look on approvingly, and B, I think they might learn a thing or two from it,
that's just what I'm saying. We'll have information regarding DF Menisky's, the nature of systems,
volume one in the show notes, of course. We've subjected our listeners to a lot of who we love,
and we're very glad you're listening. We've, especially to, to that, could that have come out
anymore, like, I, it sounded like I was being forced to say it, because we do love our listeners,
we do love our listeners. Absolutely. Why else would we do this? That is such a great question.
It's, it's for the listeners for to educate.
What did they learn from episode one?
They learn the style that they aspire to, at least for a club too. So,
I got to get into that column. Do you want me to just read it to you? It's actually,
it's quite unbelievable. And maybe I think you, I think you, I think what we need to do is take
a break and we'll take a, we'll take a quick break and then we'll be back and club two,
this is for you, man. And we're probably mispronouncing it because it's probably not a name designed
to be spoken by the human tongue without pulling it out of your head and pulling it out of your
mouth and tying it and not around your head. But this is the Alien Brothers podcast with
a, a, a, a, and we'll be right back after these important messages. All right.
The Alien Brothers podcast with Casper and Reddiger.
We're back and live. All right. And boy, listener, unfortunately, you missed a good old time during,
during our, our break. Oh, yeah. But, but maybe, you know, who can say what the future will hold,
except all, all you would get is the, is Reddiger side of it because Reddiger had the foresight
to keep recording because that's the thing about. No. Once you start, once you start, you really,
you really got to think if you ever want to hit stop. Well, I did. You did it. And now you've got
more editing to do because of that, I guess. Yeah, that's going to be a tough two clicks. Yep.
Well, and one hit of the delete key. But this is the Alien Brothers podcast. Welcome back.
I'm Reddiger. And I'm Casper. And where today's title is strictly hacking, although we certainly
have deviated from that. But that's okay. Because that's, you know, our style is wild. I would,
I would say the Alien Brothers podcast style. It's wild. It's loose. What are the,
it's in petuous. It's sporadic. It's sporadic. It's sporadic. It's, it's spastic.
It's a little freeform. I like to think it's, you know, sometimes it's a little funny. I think
I have fun. I have fun too. I hope the listeners have fun, most importantly. Yeah. I mean, because
I can't imagine how badly a person would have to hate themselves if they're listening to this
and not enjoying it. Wow. Yeah. Absolutely. I bet that can be said for anything.
Although the truth, you know, when you think about it, when you think about the rise of Howard Stern,
you know how that all played out. He became number one in the New York market because the people
who loved him and the people who hated him listened, because everyone listened to him. Both
is detractors and his fans and his detractors listened to him because they wanted to be angry
and they wanted to hear what outrageous thing he was going to say. So, so the, the title,
that's what that's, that's what he says in his, in the book, Private Parts. And I have no trouble
believing it actually. So, no publicity is bad publicity. Exactly. You hit it. So, in this,
so as promised, in this segment, we're going to strictly hacking. And Howard Stern. Do you ever see
that, do you ever see that movie Strictly Ballroom? No, I did not have the mean either. Oh, okay.
I'm, I'm, well, thanks for bringing it up. I have no plans to. But in this segment, we are,
we had a, we got a nice post, a comment from one of our listeners and Casper's going to be reading that
on the, but before that, on the topic of, oh, and later, after that, we're going to talk about
some early hacking we didn't life, which I don't know, certainly in my case, if it will actually
qualify, but you, you will be the judge. And I don't mean you, Casper. Okay. Good, because that, I,
I don't like to judge. Are you sure you're recording? Yeah, I'm recording. Why?
All right. You're checking. You doubt me. You always doubt me. I am live and direct.
It's live and direct. It's, it's a simple mistake anyone could make.
When we're, when we're having too much fun, the, uh, and then we'll do that. And who knows what will
happen after that? I suspect, I suspect we did a sound check and we confirmed everything was
working. And now we're, we're rehashing this, this old chestnut.
So on the topic of security and where our computers and other devices come from,
I'm sure any listener of this show may be less so the general American at large, but I think
anyone under a certain age certainly knows this, but, um, a lot of the electronics, uh, consumer,
consumer electronics and business electronics that we use in this country are more consumer,
more so consumer electronics than business electronics are, um, manufactured, assembled,
or otherwise turned into finished goods overseas. Samson, a Korean company,
is a huge player in the North American market and Apple known for designing their stuff in
Cooper, Tina, California. I have manufacturers, a shit ton of it in China. In Fox,
some factories, thank you, thank you teenagers for working over time. We appreciate it.
Thank you. We want, we want the iPhone X now. We want it. We thank you for keeping the price of
the eye for so many years, keeping the price of an iPhone under $1,000 until it became time for
it to become a thousand. You passed the savings on to Apple. Thank you Chinese workers. But,
but it could, but I'm going to say I'm going to clear up any potential confusion there is right
now. I am grateful. Okay. Because I think life is improved by the smartphone. Okay. I think,
even though I'm, you know, it's a dichotomy technology is when you get down to the fundamentals
in every scripture and every philosophy inherently, you're absolutely right. In every work of arts,
in every story ever told, what is technology fundamentally? It's, it's like the knowledge,
the Apple, the forbidden fruit, the Apple logo, we were just discussing the other day.
Yeah. And I don't just mean Apple's products. I mean, I mean technology in general,
no, absolutely. I mean, I was just drawing the metaphor with that. Yeah. And, you know,
what the ability to, you know, kill on a mass scale as opposed to having to line up tens or hundreds
of thousands of soldiers and have it be a matter of numbers and, you know, fighting in a traditional
style versus making an automated machine that can kill thousands or tens of thousands rapidly.
Right. So, and if you're a fan of Lord of the Rings, absolutely, very, for anyone else who is,
that's not a very very, always in the fan of the Lord of the Rings. Come on.
Well, I feel in some people. There's some people. Okay.
I'll stay. I'll stay. Well, I mean, one of the major themes, of course,
is that technology is an enabler of, it's, it's used primarily in those stories as an instrument
to do evil. Yes. There's really no examples of it where it's used affirmatively or for good.
It's nature. That's good. It's coming to be coming together of different people. That's good.
It's selflessness. That's good. And those things are good. There's no question. But it's like,
it's like when they put the ring on, they would gain super abilities, but at the same time,
the target was on them because the eye of mortar could see them.
Yeah. Or they could, they cut down all the trees to make war machines.
Yeah. Right. Right. Right. So yeah, like, oh, that's China in this case.
That's pretty much every. Well, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's everywhere, but that's another story.
So going, going back to, so how are we going to start the second segment?
I'm going to, I'm going to start it. I'm going to start it with a quick story that some of our
listeners know some might not, but it has to do with, so there's a company called many of you
might know it called Huawei. Uh, it doesn't, it's not spelled that way. It's spelled.
Is that the X, X u a w e i? Or something?
I think it's, I thought it was H, oh, H, I, H u a, I know, I, I have a w e i. That's what it is.
It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's u a, it looks like you want to pronounce it
Hawaii. Hawaii. Okay. But, but it's pronounced Huawei. And they're kind of like the,
they're, they're kind of like China's Dell with some of, like HP thrown in some other things.
They manufacture a lot of stuff. And that includes computers and storage.
There's like Dell plus, like Motorola plus, plus like Hughes modem plus, uh, like IBM.
I, they, they own a lot. I mean, they're multinational networking and telecommunications
equipment and services company is, is what they are.
Are you reading their web page? I'm just looking at the brief description.
I wanted to see how to spell it for the listeners because I appreciate you doing that.
And I'm glad we're working as a team on this. While being like 50 plus miles apart. See,
that's technology doing good. But the reason I bring this up and I haven't thought about Huawei
in a while, although they pop up in the news more and more because there are Huawei products at
use in America, is that a few years ago, more than five years ago, but less than 10 years ago,
a notable, and this is not secret knowledge. This was reported on pretty broadly.
Um, uh, you're probably familiar with semantic, uh, notable, old time computer software security.
Do you mean, do you mean on the word?
That's an important guy. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't know. That's an insight.
Judging the truth. The true hacker speaks to hear that would remember what's his name.
Peter Norton. Peter Norton, I bet I don't think he's real. I think he's like Carmen Sandiago.
And there's Carmen Sandiago. And there's another nerd, nerdism for you.
Obviously, you've never seen the show. It wasn't during your time.
Well, I used the program. I played the game, which is more important.
Well, I, I did both. I watched the program and the game. And that's why I know how to,
how to pronounce it. What, what, what, what's your, what's your position on Mavis beacon?
Teaches typing. Oh, you're quick with the Google. Aren't you?
That's straight off the couch, sir. Straight off the cuff. Did you hear, did you hear any keys typing?
Nope. I, I remember Mavis beacon while I, I used that program. So, uh, going back to away.
Huawei, um, semantic had a strategic partnership with them because semantic at that time owned a
company called Baratoss, which they bought in 2004, which made data center, uh, data integrity,
and data loss prevention products. What we would typically call backup products.
And they merged last semantic bought them and, uh, semantic makes a product called net backup,
which is kind of like the 800 pound gorilla, a big company, big boy backup products,
although it has competitors. And it has a lot of competitors that do certain features better
than net backup. But that's not important right now. What is important is that, uh, semantic wanted
to make an appliance that ran that backup, um, appliance, meaning a, a server that's got the
software already installed. And to some degree configured. So you didn't have to go buy a server
and stall at license. It set it up yourself. Make sure it met all the specs. You'd be given
something out of the crate. And you, that would be, uh, predictably performing and built to a
specification to do a certain, it was a, it was a backup appliance. So it would run at a certain
throughput. It would store a certain amount of data, um, duty duplication and stuff like that.
Interesting, an interesting choice, uh, semantic chose Huawei as their strategic partner to
provide, um, the server hardware, uh, for the, uh, for the appliance. So a, a, a Chinese, uh, computer
company with, let's just say, um, with, it goes down the name, resources, um, limited resources
provided, perhaps by China's government, um, uh, providing bricks, babies, providing bricks
that have that are running, um, backup software that store in corporate data. So eventually,
someone that went on for a while, I don't know how that, that the idea that maybe that wasn't a good
idea, having the computer manufacturer for a American company's backup products produced, uh,
storing. Yeah, yeah. So that, that, um, that changed that relationship ended and they went
another way. But it, uh, the reason I wanted to bring it up and dramatically, um, over-explain it
was because you were mentioning, uh, the influence of, uh, overseas manufacturer and the risks that
are involved when, um, you know, when we're taking something that, you know, we can deconstruct it
in reverse engineer as much as we want, but the people, we got smart people working in America,
brilliant people and, you know, guess what, so do all of our enemies and friendamies or whatever
it's called, you know, it's, you know, America does not have a monopoly on brilliance, I guess,
really. Yeah, absolutely. So in someone's semantic probably got fired, um, you wanted to read
clout to his comment, right? Uh, yeah, I, I do want to read his comment and I think that will explain
quite a bit here, uh, on the Alien Brothers podcast. So, uh, and for those of you just joining,
welcome. Go back and start, but clout to has been, I think, our, our only commenter in response to
episode one, is that correct? Uh, yes, and it is a very bright glowing comment and I was very
humbled by it. Um, we need to do something special. I thought, or, or, right, uh, I, I thought that
this was a joke actually by you, because it was so glowing. Um, so that's, I would never do
anything like that. So yeah, but I looked into it and it appears to be somebody else who, who
post some on, uh, Hacker Public Radio. Um, and here's this comment. I'll just read it to you
briefly. Uh, and it's called shows like these. It says, it's episodes like this one that
make me want to quit podcasting because I'll never reach this level of greatness. It's so
disjointed and natural that you think it couldn't possibly have been planned, but it's so coherent and
persistent that there's no way it could have been scripted. The characters in it have mysterious
backstories, quote, you say my life, Casper, quote, they cut to empty commercial breaks. They come
up with the name for the series in the episode itself. They talk about how they'll talk about movies,
but then barely talk about movies. They talk about video games, but can't decide how to categorize
them. Those barely even know one another's handles. And yet they pull through. It's gripping and
triumphant. This is some amazing avant-garde audio. Well done, alien brothers. Well done.
Well done, glad to thank you. You know what? That is that made my that made my day and it makes me
triply ashamed that I didn't go out and read the comment right away. And boy, he's really got
our number. He pretty much wrote the elevator pitch for what certainly with that episode was
probably how it's going. Hey, I'm trying to keep a topic based. I'm trying my best.
But we're here, but we've just heard that that's not necessarily the way to go. Who can say how?
Yeah, I mean, we're just doing this. We'll get more feedback. I know that keeping it on topic
was something that I'd heard offline from another listener. But yeah, I think offline from
another listener. How interesting. Yes, it's a highly secret top secret. Different dimension.
Well, you know, it is possible that in episodes X and Y, some of those things that
we would about see. We got to zip it up. Okay. So, Clot 2, thank you so much. We got to do
Clot 2. I don't know what we're going to do. We're going to do. We got it. So I mean, you said
something about a prize or something for naming, but that's that's separate. So
yeah, that again, for those just joining the line from a movie is white meat, dark meat,
white meat, dark meat, all will be carved thanksgiving name the movie that comes from.
And yeah, the prize is guaranteed to underwhelm, but it's it's it's the thought that counts.
It shows that we care. Yeah, it shows that we can get yourself very much in a it's the thought
that counts mine. So I think you nailed it. So early life hacks. Sure. Tell me.
Tell me, tell me Casper. Early life hacks. Not life hack. No, yeah, no, but hacking and
or life hack or life hack. Just keep it with hacking in general. I didn't have any exposure to
hacking on the Amiga platform. Just because it did not have a modem. So there was no
way to get other information other than what you would buy at the store. At that time and
platforms were inconsistent. Late you didn't have you didn't I never got a modem. Modems were
becoming new in or they seem to be just coming on in the late 80s for the Amiga platform.
But it was kind of dying out at that time as well. So but with with the PC we eventually got
AOL and that was a haven for for file sharing. It was like the original Napster essentially because
AOL you could upload whatever you wanted and it was all stored on AOL servers and all you would
have to do is advertise in a chat room the software you would want to get or the software you'd
that you had and someone could get an email and then download that software. So you were getting
full speed from AOL servers which which wasn't much. We're talking about 14, 4, 28, 8, 56K
cape later. So you're still talking about some hours to download something pretty small and size
now. I'll I'll preface it with I forgive you because I know you're about a decade younger than I am
and bless you for that. I'm so happy for you. But I'm pretty sure that IRC and just straight up
bulls and boards for probably the original file sharing. Absolutely. Yeah, no. I also did
that dabble a little bit. I did get one BBS number and kind of did a little bit on that but not
much. In my area I didn't find much on that scene but yes, you're absolutely right. The the
freaking scene and the whole BBS scene was was very lively. Way before AOL you had go for you.
All those other things. So yes, absolutely. Well, maybe I'm more of a if that if that's considered
hacking and again I need to do my homework. I ran a bulls and board for like eight years. I mean
and the comedy is for three or four of those years running that bulls and board was what I used
as my quote unquote service work for national honor society. So I would just side my own slip saying
yeah, I run a bulls and board which had like ten chat boards nobody used and
okay, we're talking up to 1991 which is when I graduated high school. So you know how old I am
and so I had a whopping let's see. Originally 20 but later 80 megabyte hard drive and it was pretty
much all pirated max software and apps and that was that was that was awesome. I didn't think of
that as very hacky though because you know I'd be I was using the white night bulls and board
software and you just downloaded it and paid your shareware fee and you were off to the races. It
was a piece of cake. Well, the hack hacky part of it was that there were certain programs developed
for ALL. So there was the most popular one which people may remember was ALL which had a bunch
of different scripts to do different things. For instance, if someone else had the ALL program,
you could do something that would trigger like a Snoop Dogg soundtrack. They also had like
automated scripts where you could message everyone. It was basically fishing software so you could
say hey I'm a TOS administrator. Please give us your credit card information. This is you know
well before that you know the public was informed of these sorts of things but I did know some people
that actually did that sort of thing and used credit card numbers that they would get online.
I never participated in that activity but that I think that kind of goes into hacking.
That's more of social engineering, fishing but it's definitely a way of hacking I'd say.
I also knew people who did those things and did not do those things.
Yeah. One of my best friends to this day ran one of the biggest pirated Amiga software boards.
Oh wow. Do I dare shout it out? I think the statute of limitations. I don't think anybody's
killing for Amiga. Yeah I think you're good. Oh the statute of limitations on
I don't think the Amiga corporate board is going to be coming after anyone.
It would be grand theft and be a felony. You can explain the hypothetical situation if you would.
So yeah. So he ran the bolts and board out of northern Virginia and his users were primarily
overseas and he would recall that he would refer to them as the euros. This was back before
the euro currency but his that you know the euro. Okay got it. And this was in the early days of
the U.S. Robotics. Yeah we're still talking pre 56K but 2028 was big. That was actually a big part
like in the movie hackers for anyone who remembers that. It's like oh you got a 288 I might have
referenced that before I apologize. He had a U.S. Robotics what was called dual standard because at
the time getting 9600 BOD up to 192 and beyond required one of two two different competing
compression algorithms. One called V32 and the other one called HST if anyone remembers that
and the dual standard was the one that they wrote or that they made that actually implemented both
of them versus buying a modem with one or the other so they could basically charge one and a half
times the price for manufacturing costs that had no zero difference whatsoever but it's not as
I'm often fond of pointing out to certain people we both know you're paying for intellectual
property and R&D you're not paying for hardware but anyway. Yeah I ran a bolts and boards so I was
that was kind of overclocking. That just came to mind as well. So you overclock things? If I can yeah
if you can what what determines on any on any given opportunity if you're going to you do this
personally or for professional I can't imagine it happening at work. Oh no no never never in a
production work environment at all that would violate any employee user agreements or anything
you'd sign I assume but just for gaming I have an unlocked motherboard it's actually quite old
before this Intel I mean stuff we're talking about a quad core you know old CPU but I have a dual
GTX 970s and those things keep the keep the game time and so so that is overclocked from 2.6 to
3.4 gigahertz so it it again it's a way to kind of overcome that hurdle when people impose
like Intel will essentially print the same chips but disable certain cores the manufacturing
processes the same as as many people know they just pick the higher grade ones for the higher class
or they you know the 7700s as opposed to i5s or the i3s yeah of course I mean who's gonna
that's the only thing that makes sense manufacturing wise so you so you overclocked by what is that
about 20% uh yes something like that I don't know so you have like so I mean I so what's going
on cooling wise in there you got like glycol hoses spurting things on you no I just put it
putting on nut in your eye I never went into liquid cooling I did look into it but
yeah it's just it's too much hassle and if there's fluids and just fluids and electronics I just
don't trust my myself with that so the system I have is air cooled the fans are quite loud
I think you you know the computer I'm talking about um so when it's on you you can certainly hear it
um so that yeah it's completely on air but it's mainly used for gaming
all right and about how often does it like blow a gasket just pan oh never never
it never it's solid as a rock it's uh it was a solid dude i actually have had a
I have a I have a lifetime warranty on it believe it or not um it's an EVGA they had some series
uh it's an Nvidia chipset and yeah it's it's great product
So when you or anyone over clocks their system, is it mandatory that you put those absurd
like ground effects lighting kits into them?
Oh, not at all.
Mine has none, actually, it's just a black box, that's all.
Okay.
I mean, to each the right, I will admit, over the years, my computer cases, as well
as many things have gone more conservative.
So maybe the computer cases isn't an extension of that, but I don't know.
It's just more simple.
I don't need the distraction.
Yeah.
I mean, and you know my preferences, I think the commercial consumer computing stuff
I buy is already a work of art, anyway.
Why would I want to modify it?
Well, that's, that's your opinion.
For anyone who hasn't picked up yet, Rutgers, a big, I will not say fanboy, but I like my
Apple products, I like the way they make, I like the way they make me feel, I like the
way they work.
I like the way they look.
What can I say?
I mean, I mean, very simple.
And to each of them, I like the wall, I like that walled garden.
That can be a whole, that can maybe you should be a whole other episode if it hasn't been
covered.
Right.
And that's better by somebody else.
I know.
I think that's the one shout out I'll give to Clat 2, who gave us that glowing comment.
Word.
Yeah.
I really found the, the name of the site just amazing.
I also love the, the layout and again, that's GNU world order.info.
If you go to it, I think it's run by the guy that gave us that comment there.
He's got his own, his own podcast going on there.
He does everything.
Open source.
He is.
Even his code.
Will you do me the, sorry, will you do me the favor of sending to, if you didn't, sending
me that like, you can just SMS, can it, because I'm never going to be listening to this
show.
Yes.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
I mean, thanks, thanks to the two and a half listeners we have out there.
And actually, actually, in all seriousness though, and I should have said this earlier across
my mind, but then I, I crossed my mind differently, a Clat 2, I know, I think I'm pretty sure you
were just saying it as a compliment and a comparison when you said, you know, it's
not.
And or maybe just completely sarcastically, which I would totally dig when you said it's,
you know, shows like this that make me want to get out of podcasting.
Do not a do not get out of podcasting, even though I've yet to hear your podcast.
Do not.
It's every, I don't know, you know, I'll just stay, he's a, I'll stay, I'll stay, I'll
stay one of my life philosophies, you know, 80% of everything is just sitting down and
doing it.
You know, the, the, the result is so highly unpredictable and impacted by so many things
beyond our control, no matter what we're doing.
I'm not just referring to podcasting that it's, but I, I do take that as a compliment,
but just, please don't actually do that.
It does remind me actually, Steve O said the same thing about one of his friends who's
a skateboarder.
He's like, this guy is so good, he made me want to quit skateboarding.
So I know, I know it's a common phrase.
Oh, yeah.
I, I, I, I say the same about Wonder Shows and I, I, I, when I saw Wonder Shows and, uh,
which was a show on MTV two for a limited time, you, you can probably find clips on YouTube.
I thought, wow, I never want to make a TV show because that is perfect.
But that's just my, my, uh, my style, I guess.
So that, it's, it's, it's, it's the ultimate compliment I, I made my day.
Definitely.
Yeah.
I need to get over that way of thinking a bit because I, it holds me back from watching
a lot of shows because in my case, I'm such an, an arrogant ass.
I'll watch, you know, uh, Rick and Morty and I'll be like, yeah, this is what I should
have been doing.
Oh, yeah, that, that, that, that, that, that's, that's another show that, that, that, for,
me, I'm like, oh, man, that, that's the perfect, that's another show that, that would be
up there with Wonder Shows and, yeah, Rick and Morty, yeah, Rick and Morty, man.
Absolutely.
Sh, props.
So, okay, those were some kind of like, mid, like, teen hacks, I'm, I'm, I'm going to take
us, we're going to go back, we're going to go deep, we're going to go deep, right?
So I guess this is pretty accurate compared to the, you know, the typical kid, um, but
also just kind of a feature of the times.
So I started, even though I don't do much of it now, frankly, although when engaged in
IT type stuff, I do program, for anyone who doesn't know, maybe the first time I mentioned,
I actually do have a computer science degree that I've, any math minor, well, okay, I don't,
okay, listen, I'm one, I'm one class short of the math minor from my perspective, I have
the math minor.
Now, it doesn't matter because I'm terrible at math.
It's a joke that I have a math minor and this is an accredited university, okay?
So, it's right, if it, if it makes you feel any better, uh, I
have a master's in, like, information systems and I was highly impressed with the code
work that I have seen you do.
So just take that for, for what you will.
I, I'm aware of the code work you've seen me do and I know you're being insincere.
Thank you.
You were just, just learning Pearl, I believe, and it looked, it looked good to me.
Yeah, because I, I wasn't using Pearl like these lunatics who think it's something funny
to write obscure and unintelligible Pearl, I was using it like a, like a, like a, like
a legible language, you know, which is why I'm going to, I am going to learn Python.
When I started dabbling with Docker, I'm like, okay, I'm going to, this is the time I
just need to figure out a project, but then I got a job working at a grocery store.
So I had to derail that for now, but, um, because this is much more rewarding, what
we're doing.
But the podcast is where it's at.
I mean, all the kids are talking on the street.
It's going down.
That was a, that was a, that was a segue just to get me away from where I, I was.
So back when, um, so my point being no one's ever asked me even during the, the hundreds
of hours of my life I've had where people were interviewing me, um, for various things.
You know, when did you start coding?
Because I'm not known for coding.
I'm known for, you know, for inventing architecture, it will, and also, I mean, don't
forget my contribution to inventing the whole field of data control.
Okay.
You know, so that I'm proud of that as you, as you should be, you know, but, you know,
I did, I did read the chapter you gave me of your, uh, your novel on, uh, it was, it
was about storage and computing, I think, fundamentals, uh, if I remember correctly, it
was pretty well.
Pretty well.
You, you've, you've just outed me as being, do you have fun in this scheme, but that's
okay.
Nature systems will get it in the show notes.
Um, I would say there's up, I'll say there's up to a 10% chance we'll get it in the show
notes.
Um, but the first, the first, my introduction to programming was I, we had, um, this is,
if anyone else ever had one of these, I'll be impressed and would love to see a comment
on it.
Um, it was called, uh, the Bally Basic Home Entertainment Center.
And this was a, a console that was probably, um, a cohort in time to the Atari 2600.
Um, don't have it in front of me.
Hopefully you're, you're pulling it up right now looking for Bally home console or something.
And, uh, it, you could get a, a basic, you know, the basic programming language, right?
You could get the cartridge for that.
Now the thing didn't have a keyboard.
It had to, excuse me, this, this second two liter bottle of, of, uh, Harris Teeter
Dieter.
Uh, no.
You're doing that again.
What is going on?
Uh, going down way too.
Way too soon.
Uh, dude, it had a key, it had a keypad.
So typing, I can, I can see that I'm looking at a picture now of it, actually.
Yeah, it was, okay, we, we'll suspend, we, we'll parking lot the discussion of how awesome
this thing was and how vastly superior it was to all other, it was okay.
Anyway, it has, as you can probably see in the picture, which will be in the show notes,
you're making, you're, you're making a list of all the show notes, right?
Oh, of course.
I'm jotting them then down.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Did you hear my pen?
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Lois Lane.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks for capturing that one.
It's a good thing.
We're not captured.
We're not captured again on the other way.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
All right.
We, all right.
Okay.
Okay.
Got him.
So it's got a, it's got a keypad on it.
So if you want to, okay, so when you put the basic carton in, hello, there you are.
Is that static?
Is that static?
You're making?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or you just had a disconnect.
Sonspot.
Yeah.
Sonspot.
Ssrr.
Ssr.
Ssr.
Ssr.
So the valley professional arcade in 78.
Yeah.
That's right.
That's the one I'm talking about.
You take the basic cartridge you put in there and it's got an overlay.
You know, like a cut out overlay that goes over the keypad.
So it had some macros for like standard basic command.
I'm guessing print was probably one of them.
go to was maybe another as far as I can personally remember printing go to
really only two commands in basic although I'm sure there were some kind of
conditional constructs too so I did program base I learned basic on that
nice nice I did I yeah yeah I was I was pretty awesome but I still I still
but 78 okay so I was I was five and so I wasn't really doing anything I was
basically like copying programs out of the out of the the code book they gave you
right but that that's the first step you know so so I be you know through yeah
exactly so I made it play green sleeves I thought that was pretty cool that's
my yeah I mean I mean one night I spent the whole night once I discovered
HTML I was just the whole night I was I was like oh man you can see the source
code for for all these web pages and you can basically take whatever you want
and you know like you know make your own web page that that was a great great
experience I remember I remember that of me that was that was pretty cool and when
I was at Virginia Tech by third year is when the web broke I mean when it
exploded it's when mosaic came out it's when we finally had serial TCP IP
coming till like all the dorm rooms I think it was slip at the time I don't even
think we were using PPP yet and yeah I was actually I was in the fourth year I
was in the first HTML class that tech taught now now just to sound like an old
codger I'll mention that everything I had learned by the time I left tech any
intricate interesting computers due to the web and availability of information
would know by age 12 just just because you know that's how it is and maybe I
would have been the same way who could probably not I don't know frankly I don't
know either so yeah the ballet basic was awesome I mean the games were vastly
superior to almost anything on the Atari 2600 oh absolutely it looked like it
had a pretty broad color spectrum range for that time yeah absolutely the last
thing I'll say about it is that the two things one the top of it had this
plastic kind of opaque smoke smokey I guess you would say lid you like like
like a set like kind of cover or record player kind of thing great exactly
exactly and that's and that's where you put the the cart the the game cartridge
the the things you right right so so it held them in there which was genius
okay and they in the cartridges were about the size of a of a cassette tape
yeah yeah you know even you know with that yeah so like the two space it was
like like like an eight track almost except way smaller yeah and way and way
and way less fidelity yeah actually it's it's it's about the quarter of an
eight track and then the controller was a it was a pistol grip and with a
pistol trigger and then on top was a eight directional joystick that also
rotated okay so you had rotation you had eight directional deep
battery you had in one in fit in one hand and you use the other hand with the
knob slash deep head on top it was amazing so like with the football game you
would be moving your quarterback around with the deep pad and then to rotate it
you would be rotating the angle was arm for how he was going to throw this I
mean so if you ever played a Atari 2600 football the original one not the real
sports football that came out later which was where they improved all
there because they had competition it was like gun like gunfight right just the
standard gunfight game was was dramatically superior because you could control
the angle of your shot you know I was I was not aware that they had that the
type of input peripheral at that time that that that that's pretty it was they
were way they were way ahead there was nothing like it really until
Calico basically emulated it with a very similar but enhanced four button
pistol grip controller with a joystick on top that also had I should say
four trigger controller it also had a keypad on it which I guess was
because the standard Calico vision controller had a keypad to it it's launch
game was the the rocky promotional tie-in box it rocky three boxing games so
like the top trigger would be the hard hit and then like the jab and all that
bullshit the games all right thanks for taking us on the control that's cool
the controller that you learn basic controller was and stuff yeah and then I
learned logo and more basic when I got my clicko vision atom which that's a
I'm not even gonna go there if anyone knows what the atom is they know what a
disaster that was from a technology marketing everything down the line
perspective and that combined with cabbage patch kids is what helps puts
Calico on the path to being acquired by Kenner I think or their destruction in
some way and also I finally learned Pascal and C after I got my max and
then I went to school and wrote almost everything and see cool and there you
have yeah it's my life and then I haven't written a line of C since school I
think I can promise you that yeah I ever ever I just haven't I my career has
not needed that it's all been bash said awk pearl and soon Python if you want
to consider html and it's in our in CSS and his derivations coding then well yeah
for that and there's yeah there that's that's not much hacking I didn't build
those boxes what do they call blue boxes where you hold them up to the phone
to get free phone calls that was freaking yeah yeah I there was some oh I knew
one I knew one trick where you could call a number and then hang up the phone
and it would make your phone ring but that's that's not really hacking I think
that was just a telephone trick my friends did a funny hack one night when they
came over to my house and we were playing this game called police quest I don't
know if you I'm sure it sounds familiar it's definitely well it came from
Sierra online so it it came it had the mechanics of kings quests kings quest
two etc except you were a cop and you had to follow cop procedures and they they
were in the office playing it while I was in the bedroom watching a movie or
something and what I didn't know is like they would get to the next scene and
get stuck and just keep calling the helpline provided by Sierra where where
you were you know automatically gets charged to your phone bill so like there
was like seven oh no they just they just they just went through the whole game
that night like we'd be like how's like we kept calling the helpline I'm like
you oh dear yeah yeah no one no one that yeah with friends with friends like
these how could anything how good things have turned out differently now it's
I'm kidding of course it's not their fault I'm a mess it's no it's okay we but
the important thing is that you learn from your mistakes so you now have a
block on your number for the Sierra online help desk is that correct the charge
service it's not it's not even a person you know it's like it's like a it's like a
menu okay I'm sorry I didn't never never never call this this if you if you
if you reach this point yeah it's just like a binary tree the brand like the
first question kind of figures out whether you're halfway through or not and
then that just continues continues continues so those blockers man I I don't
like people that use books and stuff to figure out I mean I understand it if
you run into something I've run into things in like outer scrolls where I've
had to look it up just because it's a bug and I've had to like manually do
stuff the game files to get it to work but that's that's a that's a different
story but I don't know it's just I think you should at least at first try to be
a game you know with what's get with what's given to you if you can I totally
I totally agree I do everything I can to not go to the the cheats various the
Bethesda supporting wickies unless I think I'm like glitched in something game game
genius remember game genie wasn't that a early form of consumer consumer
hacking selling was that like game genie was something you would hook up to
your Nintendo and it went it went between yeah yeah that that was like a
early form of a commercialized form of hack so what would you do you would
pay them extra money once you had the genie to get like unlock oh no no no
oh no no it wasn't on that level at all it was just you would you would buy the
game genie and it had a whole bunch of codes for a whole bunch of games that
were already out I mean Nintendo was a pretty solid like primary platform for
a long time so game genie had plenty you know they listed what games they they
would work with and everything so it wasn't a surprise but it was all built
into the hardware it wasn't like you had a call number or pay more money get a
code it was just like 50 bucks or whatever it was to get the thing I remember
having a original NES controller from I want to say a third party where in
addition to the standard a b buttons in the deep had and the original NES I don't
think had bumpers on it no it also had buttons that were basically like just
rapid fire the same thing is like hitting the a or b like repeatedly right like
three different speeds so like so track and field games instantly became like right it
no let less than no fun because you were just play as fucking the off-market peripherals always
genie they generally have that option where you just like hit something and it does something
over and over and over again do you have any fancy peripherals gaming gaming peripherals like
like a 3D mouse a 3D mouse like a track like a track ball I was I had a couple track ball I mean
I I use a track ball yes for gaming and and and for work really yeah I thought you knew about
this I use a Kensington track ball Kensington that's who it is are they still yeah they're they're
so around are they like the premiere they're they're solid I they're still making the same
product a hundred bucks man you can't beat it I've got two I've got I've got two of them I've had
for one for seven years one for nine years still kicking so how do you clean you just take the ball
out and clean it you just spray some windex or whatever I'm sure I'm sure that's not the proper
way to do it and it pleased if there is a proper way to clean it Kensington laser mouse track ball
laser mouse please let us know but I just spray windex in there and take paper town just kind of
like wipe it out gets all the kind of grime out and stuff yeah that's one of the special things
about you it's it's 2017 and you're still using quality Kensington products man I'm glad to hear
that they're still on the street or were seven years ago and or and nine years ago and I mean
there's there's still out as far as I know they're still kicking it doing the same old product solid
so a lot of people are getting into older like keyboards and stuff maybe that's just a hipster thing
I don't know if the deal is they like the clickety-clack or something but uh yeah well the last thing
I have about hacking now and it's not I don't know it's not I don't know how hacking ish it is
because I was I wasn't there for the original incarnations but in my noise making in the last
four and five years I've you know picked up quite a few programs that are emulating
basically old analogues you know like the moog synthesizers and yeah I like those you know
you know so you it's it's all now in the digital domain except you're dragging and dropping wires
between LFOs to you know make noise which is I think you would agree the best way to describe
this the music I make so that's kind of hat that's that's kind of like a hacking music thing you know
and there were people that were hacking like their Yamaha DX7s and stuff to make them do to
but like the whole like like NES emulation in music to make music out of that and people
had done a lot of crazy stuff yeah I'm trying to think of what the phrase is for
where you like take apart like a video game or some other piece of electronics and then you wire
you you pack it to make it make crazy sounds and stuff there there's a
ready great radio head
yeah no I'm joking like all all our listeners already know well that that's the kind of stuff
you see on like Hackaday like there's a website called Hackaday.com and that's the kind of stuff
that they do maybe it's called Chipcore or something like that shout out to the advantage the
advantage do you know the music of the advantage I do not I'm unaware okay well maybe I don't
know do you have are we gonna take this anywhere do we have anything or do we shut it down with
some outro music from the advantage what do you what do you think I think I just want to drop one
thing I was I was thinking about yeah we were talking about hacking and to kind of take it to a
philosophical level if anybody's familiar with computer simulation theory and if anyone has made
it this far into the show one could say that we are all just bits of code hacking our way through life
indeed that the universe is a is a running system of simulation it's it's entirely possible and
yeah Neil the Grass Tyson cannot argue against it even though he does not believe it's true
it's entirely possible I've only just begun exploring the whole are we living in a simulation
philosophy and I've obviously done so much research I'm just embarrassing I mean that's
sarcastically I'm just embarrassing myself I even bringing it up but so I can't remember the
philosophers name who has the best known argument for the moment I just know it has three points in
it and yeah it seems like the main point being I maybe this was a different argument but the
curve of the argument was very intuitive which is problematic of a lot of philosophical arguments
sometimes the more intuitive they are the easier they are to break apart but the idea is simply this
a we humans are building simulations and have been doing that for a long time b we get better and
better and better at them c and this is the part you can't disprove because there's the problem
of resolution meaning literally how how small can we see right so it's you know so it follows
philosophically from a certain point of view that if we're making simulations and we're getting
better and better then at some points we will and I mean certainly if you look at the world
around us now we're making more and more higher increasingly higher resolution simulations okay
so the point is at what point what would stop us short of the catastrophic end of a civilization
from making a simulation that had inhabitants that did not know they were in the simulation
so then that takes you to the right and the philosophy is behind the matrix and the text that they
used to kind of I think that's a good I think that's a good place to leave it because that brings us
on the fringes of the conversation that we were discussing the other night when it we probably
talk about two hours just trying to narrow the scope of what we would talk about if we if we were
going to talk about AI and you know define AI what kind of AI we're going to talk about where
is it going to go what is it and and that so I thought hacking would be a little bit more direct
I know we kind of diverged on this and that as as we often do but no but you know we we're trying
to to keep things on topics so we're doing our best here folks and we appreciate the comments
again those are there's a great we appreciate the comments we love the listeners we hope you keep
listening and that will inspire us to keep podcasting yeah so the conversation the conversations that
we have which I enjoy Casper I assume you do because you keep subjecting yourself to them they
otherwise they would just they would just happen and in the ether and then they'd be gone and
what led this podcast was one of the things was like man we had some great conversations wouldn't
it be great to to share them with the public to yeah we're already talking about any stuff anyway I
mean you know we're so fucking smart that we're doing the world of disservice by not getting
yourself there is basically well that's what you were I think that you're smart I would say
that I'm smart by any means but I mean we probably feel the same way about each other I don't know
but I know that I always find myself having interesting conversations with you and I thought it
something that should be recorded if people enjoy it and I know now that there's at least one
listener out there Clot 2 again thank you for your kind words
yes amazing and so yeah I'm just if we could you know make one person's day then that that's
worth it for me so and don't give up podcast no no not at all yeah and I've listened to your stuff
it's it's good man keep keep doing it I really like the format of your website it's really really
cool and thanks for the comment even if you're a bot and you probably are yeah I mean who knows
what's new and what's not but that's that's a whole another podcast so everybody stay tuned for
episode three all right cast for man I love all right retiger man love you man and so I'm gonna
just click and sign out here all right have a joyous holiday thanksgiving absolutely you too sir
I'm I'm sorry that we will not be able to interact in in IRL or afk but I'm glad we got to do this
indeed I am as well and thank your your parents for spawning you for for the not for the least of
rich selfish reason for saving my life this year and in other ways leading up to this year but
that that again for another for another time we'll let the mystery uh continue on that we'll
let it hurt we'll let it perfectly all right this is the alien this is the alien brothers signing off
we'll see you soon and we need to sign off thing like uh standard sign off but like right now we'll
we'll say we'll say later can I say good luck and good night or did I just go for it good luck and
good night again peace out the alien brothers podcast with casker and retiger
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