Today I want to announce a tour that

we're doing here at Fulu Foundation.

We're going to be visiting a bunch of

cities all over the United States to try

and get people galvanized and excited,

bring people together that care about

ownership to push back against

anti-ownership laws that exist in the

United States. We are doing everything

that we can to reform, repeal, push back

against these laws wherever we can. But

we can't do that by oursel. We need the

help of everybody else on this channel.

For the past 14 years, you have never

seen me, not once, say, "By the way,

check out Tunnel Bear. Check out Raycon.

Hey, this hotel gave me a free room, so

I'm going to pretend that they're

actually a good hotel and try and get my

audience to pay for overpriced [ __ ] I

never say ring that bell, like and

subscribe. You never hear that from me.

But the one thing that I will ask you to

do is consider showing up for this. And

if you're not able to show up, at the

very least when we release a call to

action in your particular area, in your

particular congressional district, that

you answer the call and you do the

things that we ask you to do to push

back against these in an organized way.

I'm showing up in California next week.

I'm gonna be flying out on Monday. going

to be showing up on Tuesday morning in

the California in Sacramento in the

Senate building. I hope as many people

show up as possible who care about 3D

printing not being destroyed by a law

that requires that the 3D printer

connect to a [ __ ] government database

to try and figure out if it thinks that

you're printing a gun, which again, as I

went over, if you have a cold shoe mount

to a camera, if you have a case to a

Raspberry Pi, if you have a flashlight,

there's there's so many place for this

to go wrong. I'm showing up there to

record all the heroes that have decided

to take time out of their day to explain

why this is a horrible bill and try to

get as many people to show up as

possible to push back against it. And I

we're also going to be doing that with

section 121 of the DMCA and many other

anti-ownership laws. One of the things I

learned while watching the um push for

that bill is that while the group that

is doing it has a lot of money, it's a

very small number of people that are

actually getting a [ __ ] ton done.

Because while our side, the pro

ownership side, the pro repair side, the

pro- freedom side is often very black

pill, deniialistic, and believes eh, you

know, they're never going to listen to

us. What's the point? The anti-freedom

side, the anti- ownership side, the

anti-consumer right side, they are very

[ __ ] motivated all the time. And one

of the things that I'm realizing is that

I need to start trying some new things

to get our side as motivated as

possible. We are going to organize the

people that we get together to take

elective action that actually results in

us being able to say that we all we

bought and paid for. I do not want to

sit back as easy as it would be and

every day come up here and say, "Welcome

to today's episode of How You're Getting

[ __ ] I'm your host, Louis Rossman."

It would be a very easy life if that's

all I did. And it would be a much easier

life if I just started answering even

10% of the [ __ ] sponsorship emails in

my inbox with a yes and sent them that

my demographics like they asked and

started taking the three to5 to10 to

$20,000 checks to show you [ __ ] But

that's not what this channel is about.

This channel has been about, is about,

and always will be about trying to clean

up our corner of the world. So, I'm

going to play you what we did today, and

we're going to be repeating this all

across the country. I will let you know

in the YouTube community posts as well

as in YouTube videos when you can expect

to see these. And I hope to see you

there. And I also hope to see you take

part in the things that we're going to

ask you to do because the things we're

going to ask you to do are the things

that are necessary to move us forward.

Thank you for everybody who showed up

today and I look forward to seeing many

more of you Tuesday morning in the

Senate building in Sacramento for that

3D printer bill. Without further ado,

that was a lot.

How's everybody doing?

>> Yeah, a little more than that. Come on.

How's everybody doing?

>> Yeah, there we go. That's what I like to

hear. Um, hi everybody. My name is Kevin

O'Reilly. I'm the executive director

with Fulu Foundation. And first of all,

I want to thank all of you for taking

some time out of your holiday weekend to

be here with us today. Um, the reason

that we're here is because something

about our relationship with our

technology has changed, right? Uh, we

have all lived through a time of

incredible technological innovation and

progress. And I'd argue that many of us

in this room have been some of the eager

adopters and maybe even advocates for

that tech. Uh but what's become clear is

that the companies that make that tech

are no longer showing us the same

respect. Right? It used to be that when

you bought something, you owned it and

that ownership came with control. So

that meant that, you know, the maker of

your television or your tractor or your

pickup truck had no ability and no right

to tell you how to use it, when or where

to get it fixed, which features you had

access to, right? It was your thing.

When you bought a uh a video game, you

got the disc, you could play it for as

long as you wanted. Um, that's shifted.

And this conception of ownership right

now is under attack. So these days, if

you want to get your Kawasaki's oil

changed, you've got to go to the

dealership, right? If you want to use

your BMW's heated seats, you got to fork

over a monthly subscription. And if you

just don't want your TV to spy on you

and then sell that data to advertisers,

you've got to navigate through five to

10 screens of legal ease and hope that

the manufacturer honors your request.

That's ridiculous. It's not right.

Right. Uh as owners, we deserve the

right to call the shots. We deserve the

ability to make our technology work for

us. We deserve the right to repair. And

for goodness sake, we deserve to own our

[ __ ]

YEAH.

SO, today you're going to be hearing

from a few folks that are leading the

push for ownership, for control, for

privacy. Um, you're going to be hearing

a lot about the Digital Millennium

Copyright Act or the DMCA.

Ooh, that's the right answer. That's the

right response. Um, right. This law that

has made true ownership into a federal

crime with penalties of up to 5 years in

prison and $500,000 in fines. Uh, and

then after that, each one of you is

going to take action. You're going to be

writing a postcard to your member of

Congress because the only way that we're

going to be able to change this is if we

all come together and demand that kind

of change. So, thank you again for being

here. Now the person you've all come

here to see Lewis Rossman, president of

Fulu, YouTube activist, many, many

things. Lewis, take it away. How about a

round of applause for Lewis? HUH?

All right. Beautiful. It works. All

right. So, today I thought we'd start

out with the primary problem, which is

what we've been talking about,

ownership. So, I thought we'd start by

defining the problem. Let's let's define

what purchase used to mean in the 14th

century. In the 14th century, purchase

meant to acquire in exchange for payment

in money or an equivalent. The action or

act of obtaining something in exchange

for payment for money or in equivalent

buying. That was the 14th century

definition. Let's read the 21st century

definition from Sony. Sony, due to

updated licensing arrangements. As of

December 31st, 2023, due to our content

licensing arrangements with content

providers, you will no longer be able to

watch any of your previously purchased

Discovery content and the content will

be removed from your video library. We

sincerely thank you for your continued

support. They didn't say stream. They

didn't say rent. They said purchase. And

then they just took it away because that

is what is normal. Now, another word

that I think is really important is

lifetime. I much prefer the 14th century

definition. The 14th century definition

from Oxford English dictionary is the

duration of a person's or animal's life.

The period of time over which a person's

life extends. Person's life. Let's see

what it means in the 21st century.

Anybody here have to buy textbooks for

college? Anybody here try to buy a used

textbook but the teacher tells you the

questions are different from last years

even though calculus hasn't changed in

70 years? Yeah. Yeah. So let's take a

look at what Vital Source says. Now you

have three different licenses. You have

the $62 for 180 days, $86 for a year, or

$110 for a lifetime. Now, let's see.

What do you think lifetime means to

vital source? Any guesses?

>> Products labeled as lifetime typically

mean five years typically, not even

five. They're not committing of online

access and permanent downloads to a

supported device. Which means if they do

not make that app for this version of

Android anymore, sucks for you. This is

not a PDF file or a document file that

you download. This is a book that you

paid $200 or $400 for for a lifetime

license that you now have access to for

again up up to five years, which means

could be two weeks.

Books. Speaking of books, Amazon used to

allow you to purchase books and then

download them. And many of these books

were advertised as not having digital

rights management. Starting February 26,

2025, the download and transfer via USB

option will no longer be available. And

there are books on Amazon right now that

are being sold without digital rights

management. And yet when you buy it, you

cannot download it, even though the

actual advertising on Amazon's site said

you were allowed to download the book.

Now, my personal favorite was the $400

baby monitor. How many people here have

bought a baby monitor for their family

or their kids or seen one?

Okay, not a lot of people with kids

here, but for the usual price for this

thing is usually 30 to 50 bucks, maybe

80 bucks after the Iran war. This is

$400 for a baby monitor. Now, what do

you think the company did when they

started having financial issues? You

they started trying to make a better

product. Did they try to figure out new

ways to attract consumers? Oh, [ __ ] no.

What they did is they sent out a

firmware update that turned it into a

subscription. Live breathing and sleep

tracking are available with a Meiku

membership. My $400 baby monitor has

locked previously features behind a

subscription payw wall. One of my

personal favorites is that they do this

with wheelchairs. Somebody had a

wheelchair that used to be able to go 8

km an hour and now it's only able to go

5 to 6 km an hour unless they pay to

unlock these new features because being

able to catch the bus is apparently

worth a subscription. So, they actually

did this to somebody with multiple

scerosis. Lovely. Now, this hit a

crescendo for me when there's a company

called Future Home that makes these

smart home products like thermostats,

things for your water heater, everything

else. They were having financial issues

and instead of trying to make a better

product, they sent out a firmware update

to all these devices so that if you

wanted to be able to use it the way you

could before, you had to pay them $117 a

year to use the thermostat that you you

that you already paid for. And this is

the point where this just kind of

reached a crescendo for me and I

realized something has to change. So

when I started this channel, I did a lot

of videos of fixing motherboards and

fixing things at component level. And

what I and at some point I got a phone

call from a lawyer from Kilpatrick and

Townson. It was a very very kind and

polite person from Apple calling out

asking if I could just take down this

one troublesome video that I had of. And

I'm like, why? I like, well, we really

like your content. It's just that one

piece you used this little piece of um

copyrighted or trade secret work, which

was a schematic that showed how the

motherboard was put together. So, if I'm

going to fix a motherboard, I need to

know how the motherboard is put

together. And in the on the bottom

corner of the motherboard, it usually

says something like this that lets me

know what they were mad at. Notice a

proprietary property. Do not copy or

reproduce it. Don't reveal or publish it

and hold her in part. And there were

there were a few million people on

YouTube watching me fix things. So, I I

spoke to a lawyer and the lawyer told

me, "Wow, you have no case. Like, look

at what you're putting on the screen

over here. You have absolutely no case.

You are clearly breaking the law. What

are you doing?" But I'm looking at my

comments and there's hundreds of

thousands of people saying, "Thank you.

Apple wanted $700 to fix this. I just

fixed it myself for $15. Thank you. I

started a business doing this. I no

longer work at Walmart and make minimum

wage. This is great." And I thought to

myself, if I'm actually helping enough

people, if I'm doing the right thing for

the right reasons, then the fact that

I'm net I'm breaking the law is not the

issue. It's the law that's the issue,

not me. So, I paid my lawyer and I told

him politely, "Tell them I'm not taking

the video down." He's like, "What?"

Like, yeah, tell them if they want the

video taken down. They can file the

claim. And the thing is, when you file a

DMCA claim to have a video taken down,

you have to say why. You have to say the

timestamp, but you also have to say the

section that was offending and why. And

I wanted Apple to have to put in writing

a company that has a department and a

director of sustainability and

environmental justice. I wanted them to

say that at 55 seconds to 1 minute,

Lewis Rossman shows where the fuse is,

and we don't want our customers knowing

where it is. Put that [ __ ] on paper.

Now, there's this idea that I have where

I try to frame my life where if I win, I

win. And if I lose, I win. If I win,

they leave me alone. I get to keep

making videos for the next 5 to 10 years

and promoting right to repair. If I lose

and they file a claim, now again, this

trillion dollar company with the

director of sustainability and

environmental justice is now going to

have to explain to the world that they

really don't like you knowing where a

fuse is in your product. And I decided

to take that principle to the issue of

ownership. So, let's see what we did

with the future home thermostat. With

this, I knew somebody who worked at the

company. And I knew a few people who

knew how this stuff worked, knew how to

release a workaround to it. They just

needed a little push. So, we put out a

bounty program of $5,000. And I said,

"If somebody unbricks this thermostat,

if you return it to the functionality

that it had before, we will give you

$5,000." And that little push worked

because very shortly thereafter, the CEO

of Future Home said, "This is illegal

hacking." So, let me get this straight.

When you push out a firmware update to a

product because you went bankrupt,

saying, "We want $117 a year from all of

you, just holding you hostage, holding

you ransom," that's a business model.

But when I say, "I'm going to give you

back access to the product that you

already bought and paid for," that is

illegal hacking. Now, somebody wound up

coming up with a solution, a very nice

open- source solution to this, and they

won the bounty, and it was a great

solution. A lot of people are now using

their thermostat without paying that

corrupt [ __ ] $17 a year. Now, the

thing is, what he said is not true. That

is not considered illegal hacking in the

country of Norway. It's not. However, it

is considered illegal hacking in the

country of America because in the US we

have a law called section 121 of the

DMCA which says if you bypass a

technical protection measure to get

access to a work that the company

doesn't want you to have access to. Even

if it's for the purpose of repair, even

if for you to make the device that you

already bought and own work again after

the manufacturers bricked it, doesn't

matter. You're technically allowed to

fix it for yourself, but you can't show

other people how to do it. So, this is

kind of like saying you're allowed to

work on your own cancer. You just can't

treat other people. How many people here

know how to reprogram the firmware in

their thermostat after the manufacturer

bricks it? Some maybe wanted to, but

most people don't know how to do that.

You're not going to become an expert in

that. So, by saying that you can't share

the solution with others and making it

illegal, you've effectively said

technically you can fix it, but who's

going to do that if you can't share it?

So, we started to get known as the group

that was paying bounties for unlocking

these devices and offering to unlock

these devices for people uh who have

been screwed by this. One of the

examples afterwards was the Nest

thermostat. The Nest thermostat had

anybody here have a Nest in their house?

Yeah. So for the older ones, they said,

"This is just not going to work

anymore." What I found offensive about

this is that there is no

expiration date on the box. Like you

probably say, "Here's how long my eggs

are good for on your carton." Many, but

there are no Okay, bad example. Small

bad example, small farm. A lot of stuff

in your grocery store says when it

expires, but this does not. But none of

these products said when they expire and

it had an expiration date. So we put up

another bounty. Again, this one was for

$14,772.

Now the thing is I as like listen as as

a like large follower YouTuber, I would

never tell people to break the law. I

can't do that. But I also can't tell

people whether or not they're going to

release the solution afterwards. I'm not

your mom. I'm not your dad. I'm a

YouTuber. So if people and the way I see

this is if we win and somebody releases

a solution, hundreds of thousands of

people get back access to what they

bought and paid for. And if they decide,

you know what, I'm not going to release

the solution after I win the bounty, we

also win. The reason for that is because

now we can point to the fact that this

law exists. I would be able to show

millions of people how to make their

thermostat work again instead of having

to throw it away. But I can't because

this is here. And that's the purpose of

what we were doing with this bounty

program. And I'm going to talk about

some of those laws and some of the

excuses that people make for them

shortly. So somebody came out with a

solution, the Nest thermostat jailbreak.

This is on the no longer evil website

making a nice poking jab at Google

getting rid of the don't be evil slogan

around 2008 or 2009. There's a couple of

other examples of this. There's a

company called Echelon. They make these

exercise bikes. It's kind of like cheap

version of Pelaton. And they're sent out

a firmware update that stopped it from

being able to work with third party

apps. Would surprise anybody here that

at the time that they sent out a

firmware update that stopped you from

using other people's apps, their apps

were trying to sell you on

subscriptions. Would that surprise

anybody here? Yeah. And somebody came

out with a way to use it with third

party applications again, the same way

that you could when you bought the bike.

But he decided not to release it after

winning the bounty because he did not

feel like dealing with a 30-year-old law

that could subject him to 3 to 5 years

in federal prison. And again, I don't

blame him. I don't blame him. Now, the

reason that this is important and the

reason that we win even if this man does

not release it is because allow it

allows us to push back against the

opposition's most common talking point

that this is a solution in search of a

problem that does not exist. When I go

around the country and I I talk about

this issue, I'll often meet people that

say this.

Let's Here we go.

>> My name is Samantha Kersel and I'm the

executive director for TechNet.

Respectfully, we are testifying in

opposition to Senate Bill 5799 today. Uh

we believe this legislation is in search

of a problem that does not exist.

>> Something that's resonated with me is

something that you heard early on here

is this is legislation in search of a

problem.

Now, I got in trouble after releasing

this because it had her name in the

title and apparently she said she's

getting all these types of messages

online and and I figured it out right

before this hearing that we went to. She

had tweeted and I quote, "I'm

experiencing phone issues. The phone is

on but the screen is black. I've tried

everything. It's time for and when you

click this, it's like five or seven

years ago, so I don't have the link

anymore, but it said something along the

lines of me to figure out how to fix my

phone." Life comes at you fast. if I

guess with the salary that she's getting

to lobby against consumer rights for

Samsung and Apple, she could probably

just afford to buy a new one. But they

will often say that what we're talking

about is not really a problem. None of

this stuff is a problem. We're just kind

of making it up. And one of the things

that we're trying to do here is

demonstrate every single way that this

particular law is a problem, that this

does exist. U now I'm very biased in

favor of right to repair. So I don't

want you to listen to what I have to

think about these laws. I'd rather you

listen to the person who actually wrote

it about 35 years ago. This is Bruce

Leman. He is the architect of the

Digital Millennium Copyright Act. And I

want you to hear what he has to say

about this law.

>> Unfortunately, at least in some areas,

our policies haven't worked out too

well. Our attempts at copyright control,

at least thus far, have not been

successful. But I don't just blame

teenagers and and college students. I

really blame the the moguls in the music

industry because had they been thinking

about these business models

when we were doing our work in 1994 in

the Clinton administration, had they

been developing effective online

distribution models when the internet

first came into business? said they've

been talking to Steve Casease when AOL

first started to become a big deal and

really seriously developing an online

business model. Perhaps we would not be

in the situation that we are. But the

culture of that industry was such that

you know those people were concerned

principally with uh you know and their

talents were developing talent,

understanding public taste. They didn't

know anything about distribution or

technology or anything like that.

Minions dealt with that. Well, their

industry has paid the price. Hopefully,

there's not any, you know, I won't be

quoting the US, but I'm afraid our

Clinton administration policies didn't

work out very well. Now, a lot of people

accused me at the time of doing an end

run around Congress and everybody else

by negotiating these treaties and then

coming back and saying, "Well, we have

because we submitted this to Congress

before the treaties uh process was

complete." And then coming back and

saying, "Well, now you have to do this,

Congress, because we've agreed to a

treaty." And I would say that they're

probably right that it was an end run

and it was partly deliberate.

>> And the final statute that comes out,

you know, with a guy who was the head of

then the biggest record company in the

world, Warner Records, and he was very

nice guy and he wrote a book a few years

later after he retired and confirmed

what I always thought to be the case

about record industry executives. Record

industry executives are imprarios. And

the typical the best the most successful

record industry executives I would

characterize as 45year-old man who can

think like a 17-year-old girl and likes

to hang out at 3:00 in the morning and

do drugs with rock stars. And he

basically admitted to all of that in his

book that he wrote several years later.

Unfortunately, that is not a way that is

not a mindset, a part of the brain that

does very well at evolving new business

models for highly complex technologies.

So, let's get this straight. He admits

that it is a horrible law that didn't do

what it was supposed to. Check. He

admits and laughs about the fact that he

snuck this into a treaty to trick

Congress into passing it. And he admits

that the entire business model was based

on junkies that should not have the

ability to legislate technology. And yet

29 years later, this law is still the

reason that a man is afraid that if he

shows you how to make your exercise bike

work again, that he will go to federal

prison. Only in America. What we're

doing here is we are trying to fix this

law. And we are trying to also reform

it. And similar laws like it because

this law came out at a time when your

refrigerator, your car, your exercise

bike, your baby monitor did not connect

to the internet. And we lived in a world

of when you bought something, you

actually owned it. the 14th century

definition applied to ownership, not the

new we can take it away from you

afterwards thing. And the reason that

we're starting this off in Austin, as

Kevin Welch said, is that most I think

most people like deep down be honest,

you probably believe there's really no

point to showing up. I'm going to email

my congress person. I'm going to email

my city council person. They go, "Yeah,

whatever. Who cares?" And they're going

to do what they want to do anyway. But

they wanted to spend about $2 million to

put AI surveillance cameras in almost

every single park in Austin. And they

were about to get that through. And then

a bunch of people here showed up in

front of city hall. And you didn't

curse, you didn't scream, you didn't

yell, you didn't throw stuff. You were

just polite, kind, and courteous, but

you made it obvious that you're not

going to go until they do what it is

that they should be doing. And you made

change. Those cameras are not here. They

didn't spend the money on it. And the

point is that it doesn't take a lot of

people showing up. It takes maybe.1% of

the people that care about an issue to

actually show up and get involved to do

something about it and to make real

change. And that's what we're going to

be asking of all of you. So right by

there there's a going to be a QR code

for a chat server that we have. It's

Zulip. It's kind of like Slack or Teams

or Discord but open source. So that when

these issues come up, I want you to be

sharing them with us because I can only

read through I can only keep up with so

many of the echelons and the nests and

the wheelchairs. I want to know when

these issues show up in your life so

that we can push back against them so

that we can update our bounty program

and more so when opportunities show

themselves for us to be able to

collectively push back against these

laws and reform them. I want to get all

of you involved the same way that

happens in front of city hall here with

the flock cameras where we're able to

get rid of them and the live view

cameras. I want to be able to do the

same thing with this. Are you with me?

>> Yeah.

>> Thank you.

>> Yeah.

>> Cool. All right. So, on that note, let's

write some letters to uh big congressman

uh Mr. Casar. So, we've got

we're going to have Maria and Stephie

from our team um who are going to be

coming by to drop off some postcards.

And each one of you is just going to

take a couple minutes, write a couple

sentences, right? A little bit of

friction, not just an email. You're

going to actually put the personal touch

on it and say why it's important to you

that we change this law. So, let me pull

up an example here that we've got.

So, we've got some basic instructs,

right? So, address the postcard to your

member of Congress. We've got a some

like labels for you to put those on.

They might already be on there. Maybe

share a story or a reason as to why uh

you care about being able to own your

[ __ ] You care about being able to

repair your stuff. You care about uh

being able to continue to play your

video games. Um and then make sure to

say about talk about the need to reform

the DMCA. Um encourage your member to s

support the freedom to fix act. So this

is our current legislative priority. So

while uh Lewis is doing all of his good

work to make sure that consumers are

aware of these kind of practices, a big

part of my job is heading to DC and uh

finding ways for us to make steps

forward. So the Freedom to Fix Act is uh

would make it so that at the very least

bypassing a digital lock for the purpose

of repair would no longer be a federal

crime, right? So that Cody Kosmba who

developed the no longer evil solution

for your Nest thermostat couldn't become

a federal criminal. I think that's just

crazy. So ask them to support the

freedom to fix and then add your name,

add your address so that they know that

you are a um constituent because that is

really important. So, any questions

about any of that?

Sweet. When you're done, we've got a box

over here by the merch table um that you

can drop them off. We'll make sure those

get in the mail. Uh also, check out the

merch. It is we've got suggested

donations amounts um there. We've got

food. And then finally, as Lewis

mentioned, we've got a QR code that I'll

put up afterwards. Um that will allow

you to either if you want to donate to

the cause, great. But more importantly,

we want you in that Zulip chat so that

we have a place online where we can let

you know when things are happening um

and we can, you know, take advantage of

those important moments to really drive

some political change. So,

thank you guys again for being here for

the rest of the time. Grab some food,

talk to folks. Um, also Stephie, who is

our social media manager, is going to be

going around and she has some questions

about ownership and repair and why we

care about that. So, if you would, we

would love to hear from you why you care

about these issues. Um, that's

information that we'll be then using to

continue to build this movement and uh

work towards making the change that we

need to make. So, thank you again.

Awesome to see you all. Thanks for

coming.

But only

>> just let them know that these are going

to be coming. So they should be prepared

to send to respond to all these

messages.

>> That went really well then.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay, cool.

>> How' you feel like?

>> Good.

>> Yeah,

>> it went well. I didn't get

>> and

>> I thought your presentation, your speech

was awesome.

>> Awesome. Thank you. I like the thing

that I was thinking is like it's kind of

like getting to watch you make a video

in real life. You know what I mean? It's

>> Yeah. The mic doesn't work, the camera

doesn't work except I can just edit I

can edit all that [ __ ] out though. I can

edit it out.

>> Yeah.

>> I just mean like it's cool to watch the

process in person, you know? It's kind

of like I think of like I went to see

Larry David, like an evening with Larry

David where he just kind of sat down and

talked about like this was what Seinfeld

was like, blah blah blah blah blah blah.

There's a level of like, you know, they

do live tapings of podcasts. It's almost

I wonder if there's an angle for that,

right? It's like come out, we're gonna

do this thing and then Lewis Rossman is

going to film a video live and you do a

video on a topic.

>> Yeah, I wrote a speech and then I didn't

read it. I didn't realize until after it

always done.

>> Yeah, you don't need it.

>> You've got it all here. So, anyways,

great work. I'm happy with how it went.

I'm hope you're happy with how it went.

>> I'm happy with how it went. The one

thing I'm noticing is the percentage of

people that sign up that show up that

maybe just not caring about the whole

fire marshall thing next time. You

always put the mic there at the worst

possible time. Like he literally like

don't care about what the [ __ ] the fire

marshall says.

>> I'm glad you don't get the SD card at

the end of this. Sir,

>> I'm going to hand things over to Kevin

Welch who is the uh president of EFF

Austin.

>> Hello everyone. Thanks for coming out to

the Own Your [ __ ] Tour and uh thanks for

FU for having us. Uh, my name is Kevin

Welch. I'm the current president of the

board at EFF Austin. For those of you

who are new to hearing about us, we're

an Austin based digital civil liberties

organization. We do a lot of work with

Electronic Frontier Foundation out of

San Francisco, nation's oldest and

largest digital civil liberties advocacy

group. We also recently um have been

thankful to uh Louis Rossman's efforts

in more ways than one thanks to groups

like Fudo and Rossman Repair Group. They

have now recently become the home of our

meetups. They're the second Tuesday of

every month at 700 p.m. Um there next

one's going to be coming up. I think

it's Tuesday, July 14th. Um, we're going

to be, I think, having a panel

discussion around the recent drama

around the uh high-end anthropic models

with Mythos and uh what we think about

uh that frontier models can just uh be

shut off like that and the digital

civiliz implications of that. So, it

should be fun. You should come out. We

do a lot of education advocacy in the

local area. Why am I talking to you here

at a right to repair group event? Well,

this is part of an deeper overarching

problem where right to repair is really

looking at the hardware and firmware

side of trying to control how we can use

the things we own. A lot of what we look

at can be more in the software space

basically. So, one of the big activism

pushes EF Austin's been involved in

locally is we're one of the founding

members of what's called the no ALPRs

coalition. This is about a coalition of

about 30 different activist groups here

in town. How many of you know what an

ALPR is?

Oh, okay. Decent number I suspected in

this room. So, for those of you who

don't know, an ALPR is an automated

license plate reader. And now, that is a

very bureaucratic sterile name, but what

it really is is it's a tool of mass

surveillance is what it is. It tracks

every car that goes by a certain

location and you can very quickly build

out a picture of where every citizen is

going at all times. Flock you may have

heard of is the most prominent one. The

reality is there is no good democratic

oversight of this data. It is being

controlled by private companies to do

all sorts of things to violate our

rights. We all have different politics.

I promise I can find you something that

you would find horrifying they are doing

with this data. Well, the nos's

coalition is proud that here in Austin,

we became the largest city in America

that got ALPRs banned. They are not used

by the city of Austin anymore.

However, however, this is not the end of

the story. First of all, there are still

ALPRs in Austin for a couple reasons.

One, they're still legal at the state

level. So, any road in Austin that is

owned by the state and not the city,

there are still ALPRs on those roads.

Um, it's going to take a state level ban

to solve that problem. There's also

private businesses still using them.

Have you been to a Lowe's or Home Depot

recently? Hooray, you've been pinging by

an ALPR. There's actually a cool website

called Deflock where you can see exactly

where known ones are mounted because

they don't want to tell you. But even

more than that, and here's where the

quick call to action I'm going to do

before I turn things over to the real

speakers, which is our city council is

shamelessly exploiting a recent mass

shooting to try to bring back ALPRs

against the will of the voters. And so

it's probably going to come up in July

at Austin City Council. We do not yet

know the exact Thursday meeting that

it's going to happen, but you should

follow both EFF Austin and No LPRs and

and probably Lewis on social media that

we will be telling you more about when

we know. You can find us on any social

media of your choice by going to effg.l.

It's basically our hacker link tree

basically without the surveillance. So

go there um and you can follow us and we

will tell you more. The only way you're

maybe going to keep them away is you got

to write them and you got to show up in

force. Bare minimum, they're going to

have to stare down hundreds of people

saying no if they do it anyway, which is

not a good look. So, I encourage all of

you to follow, get involved, and you

shouldn't feel hopeless about this

stuff. We got ALPRs banned in Austin. We

could have just given up. We didn't and

they were banned. But I also want you to

know that these fights never end. You

can't ever give into apathy. They will

always try to bring it back. They

believe in their view just as much as we

believe in ours. So the fight never

ends. So let's get back to work. And I'm

going to now turn things over to people

who are frankly probably having a lot

bigger impact than us and who are the

reason we're all here today.

>> Thank you, Kevin. Uh do we have any

clippies in the room? Anybody show up?

Yeah,

>> that was such an inspiring thing to see.

And you know, another case of Lewis's

leadership kind of standing up for

people and uh making sure to fight back

against this. But next, I want to invite

up Richard Ryan, who's a local

entrepreneur. He's an author. He's going

to talk a little bit about uh his new

book. So, come have a seat.

>> Oh, yeah.

>> Reserved for you.

>> All right. I'll take it.

>> Yeah. Um awesome. Well, first of all,

you want to introduce yourself and

>> Yeah. I'm Richard Ryan, depending on

what box you want to put me in. Um, I

guess you could say I'm an entrepreneur,

author, co-founder of Black Rifle Coffee

Company, founded Verizon and Hurst Media

Partners, Daily Editorial News Company.

I've kind of been all over the place,

you know, starting with the answer or

the solution. This is it, right? You'll

hear all these different things on

social media, people talking about

existential threats, the things

happening in the world that you have no

control over. This is what matters most,

right? You showing up for your

community, your friends, your family. If

everyone did this, it would scale to a

better world. And I think social media

taps into that fight orflight response

and you start worrying about these

things that you have absolutely zero

control over. You're fighting these

massive corporations and stuff. This is

how you make progress, showing up for

the things that matter in your

community. So, thank you for showing up.

>> Awesome. That's one of the first things

I wanted to ask you about, right? In

your latest book, The Warriors Garden,

right? You write about the attention

economy as well as the importance of

friction, right? And I think of

ownership as being a very kind of

frictionladen experience. Tinkering,

repair, control, those things are not

seamless. So could you tell me a little

bit of like what you think of when you

think of friction and why that's

important to a quality life?

>> Yeah, I mean it's it's really effort or

friction and life is a good thing,

right? Whether you're going to the gym,

uh you there's so many analogies to

like, you know, back in the day maybe

you went to Blockbuster Video or Movie

World or something like that. the effort

of going to get the movie, picking up

the popcorn, going to the theater,

whatever it is, the leadup to that movie

versus the constant streaming. Yes,

things are a little bit more accessible

now, you get more. But I I feel like

there's a lot of research around removal

of friction in your life, the Amazon

one-click experience that it's it's

meant to extract as much value. And to

be brutally honest, you can you can say

it's money, but what does money

represent? It's your time. That's your

most valuable asset. So be it social

media extracting your attention or

businesses looking to extract as much

money from you as possible with having

subscription as a service mattress or

whatever these things are. Right? So for

me I found that by introducing these

things conveniently or inconveniently

back in like even gratitude. Gratitude

was the biggest needle mover for me.

Like I I started doing this uh

intentional practice of gratitude like

I' I'd take five minutes whenever I get

in my truck before I go anywhere. I just

say, "All right, uh, I'm grateful for

this, you know, and just, you know, the

fuel in my truck, the ability to provide

for my family, uh, a job that I'm going

to or whatever it is." And the this this

shift started happening me me me me me

me me me me me me me me me me me me me

me me ment ment ment ment ment ment ment

ment ment ment mentally as I get in

traffic here in Austin because everyone

knows 35 is going to be a parking lot

I'd just be sitting there and like

typically I'd be frustrated about a [ __ ]

I'm running late you know this sucks you

know wo is me wo is me and then I

started looking at things a little bit

different you know oh this guy working

on the side of the road here uh he has a

job he's providing for his family and

everything and he's improving he's

trying to make my community better and

this you know mentally this shift

started happening and everything and you

know there's there's other ways to

introduce friction in life. Uh, you

know, I've I've gone back analog far as

DVDs and stuff like that. I canceled all

my streaming services. Yes, I'm like I'm

I'm slowly regressing technologically in

some ways. But I found that if I'm going

to purchase a DVD or Blu-ray, we have to

make the conscious decision. Is this

worth buying and then waiting, you know,

a day or two for it to come in versus

just going and clicking and watching it

on streaming? And even if you like the

interesting thing is like when you buy

these on streaming services, you know,

be it Apple TV or whatever, typically

you're paying like 20 bucks for it. You

get the DVD, it's like $4. So if you're

willing to wait for it, you end up

going, "Okay, well this is something

that I appreciate just a little bit

more." So just a little added friction

here and there I think has led to a more

meaningful and you know gratifying life

for me. So

>> yeah, absolutely. I mean I remember you

talk about Blockbuster, right? That was

like a Friday night ritual going with my

parents and the excitement, right?

Versus this. So you you talked too,

right? A lot of people are kind of

actively looking for friction in our

lives, right? Whether that's people

starting to turn back to dumb phones or

dumb TVs, people collecting vinyl

records and CDs. They're um looking for

older cars that they can fix. They are,

you know, taking on and looking at

open-source software rather than what

comes in the box. Uh why do you think

that's happening? And why do you think

that's important?

>> Uh, I think that a lot of people now are

craving some type of nostalgic

experience. I think a lot of us, you

know, maybe in our 30s and 40s are

yearning for that '9s, a little bit more

simple, but on the verge of

technological uh advancement. You know,

for me, my first vehicle my grandma

bought for me when I was 13 years old.

Uh, she spent $500 on a 67 Mustang.

didn't run and it wasn't the coolest

thing to have as a a teenager in the in

the 90s because, you know, everything

had moved to electronic fuel injection

and I had this carbureted car. She's

like, "Here's the Hannes manual. If you

want a car to drive when you're 15,

figure it out." So, I worked summers as

a carney, as a attic rat for my uncle's

HVAC company. Uh, did all these odd jobs

and by the time I was 15, I'd figured it

out with the Hannes manual. It would

have been awesome if YouTube was around

and there were tutorials and stuff, but

you know, I ended up figuring it out and

that kind of it really molded who I am

today and like always trying to

deconstruct things, build things and and

everything. And it it's a it's a core

part of who I am. And even when it comes

to things like buying those DVDs and

stuff that it it stems back to that

right to repair and the DRM around all

these systems because you know I've been

thinking about this a lot and really all

these different problems are boiling

down to profit or power and control is

the mechanism to achieve either of those

right and so whether it's corporations

wanting to you know I'm going to beat up

eight sleep because they're just so

frustrating to me that you can pay

$4,500 for a mattress and then they

charge you $300 $100 a year subscription

on it, right? And then their AWS

connection goes offline and then, you

know, they have a statistic around how

many people didn't sleep that night

because the temperatures went through

the roof, right? And so, a number of

problems there. One, like, why won't my

mattress work without an internet

connection? But then two, why do you

have sleep data on all these people that

you're publicizing? I thought this was

this was private, right? So, who else

has access to that data? Um, and of

course you can take and you can go

through their click wrapped terms of

agreement and privacy statements and

stuff like that. But I think it was one

of the justices was like even he he

doesn't do that. So you know it's really

frustrating to see that you know that

mechanism for control through extracting

profit by just keeping people in these

closed ecosystems as long as possible.

But then on the the other side of that,

you have the financial incentive, but

you also have the power incentive where

I feel like we're we're we're we're

rapidly approaching this

totalitarianism.

Um whether or not it's it's intentional,

but the byproduct of you know, like be

it the LPRs, you know, the um the you

know, open AI uh chat GPT rappers of

Siri and everything else. It's like

you're going to have an agent inside

your phone. You're going to have an

agent inside your car. If you go 56 and

a 55, they're going to automatically

deduct your uh you know from your bank

account. All these all these different

mechanisms in play to extract as much

value or uh assert as much control uh

for those in power. So I could ramble on

about that for days, but

very passionate about that.

>> Yeah. Awesome. And then I think you know

one other thing you mentioned was also

right you you're a farmer you've got a

tractor. I'd love to hear just kind of

about your relationship with your

tractor and how that has changed as

these software locks have been

introduced and the problems that have

come.

>> Yeah with a red light going on a camera.

I don't know if I want to say exactly

why I was on YouTube uh looking up some

stuff on my John Deere tractor but

that's how actually how I found Lewis.

Uh, funny enough, I was looking I was

having some issues with my tractor and

as with a lot of these different uh,

ecosystems. Again, I understand there's

a convenience and an efficiency involved

in, you know, adding electronics to

these things. There's GPS. That's

actually pretty remarkable. Some of

these John Deere loaders, you can pretty

much set it and forget it, like grading

via GPS, and it'll get the slope exactly

perfect, right? Um but then you run into

an issue where you know you there's a

very small window for harvesting, very

very small window for all these

different things from planting or

whatever and you're relying on this

equipment and at the point it goes down.

if they can't get over there to service

it, you're so and and that problem has

come up time and time again with farmers

who are like, "Hey, look, it sucks that

I'm in this closed ecosystem and I can't

pay you guys to come here and do this,

but if I can't, I still need to get the

job done. So, there needs to be a third

party or I need to be able to have some

type of solution here because my

livelihood's on the line." And it's

unfortunate that's just that's a very

very small fraction of all the different

instances out there where they're just

they're trying to extract as much value

as possible. And the way I you know it's

frustrating to look at the American

dream in the last you know hundred years

or so and it was like hey I'm going to

get a job. I'm going to be able to

support a family. We're going to have

the white picket fence and everything

else. And now it's like the American

dream for so many people is to create a

SAS company or a CPG company and create

some type of moat and then lock your

users or subscribers into an annual

recurring membership or whatever it is

and get it big enough to the point where

you can go public or you can bring on VC

or PE and then whenever you do then you

can inshitify your product as much as

possible and extract as much value. And

it's like it's like the hollowing out of

the American dream for profit or control

is just one of the most mind-numbingly

frustrating things for me right now. So,

you know, again, coming out and

supporting things like this, I think

it's very, very important to hold your

city council members, your local elected

politicians, and again, when it comes to

one of the issues that I have with the

license plate readers, too, is like, you

know, I support law enforcement, and you

could put me in any box that you you

want, but the Fourth Amendment exists

for a reason. And the people who enforce

the law are separate from those who we

elect. Right? So the judge is the one

who is the check to power to sign off on

that search warrant. Right? And so all

these systems in place are just being

slowly eroded just because of profit or

control. And so it's it's very very

important to come things like this to

meetups or wherever. But definitely

definitely reach out to your

representatives in whatever capacity,

state, local, municipal, county,

sheriff, whatever. Write them, fax them.

Do not make it easy for them. Do not

don't just send them an email because

they just scroll through, scroll

through, scroll through, scroll through.

Send them a letter, right? Send them a

fax. Whatever you can just show up. So,

>> do they still have fax machines?

>> Yes.

>> Okay. All right. There you go. You heard

it here first. Um, and you might you

might even have to use an online service

for it. Go to FedEx or something like

that, but uh yeah, it's one of those

things just it it's great whenever you

fill up um a representative's uh inbox

with just a ton of paper.

>> Amen. Awesome. Well, Richard, thank you

so much for being here. Really

appreciate it.

>> Yeah, I brought a bunch of eggs, too, so

get them before you go. And there's a a

QR code inside of them. So, I built a

tech stack where you can scan the QR

code and then put in the date that's

inside the carton of eggs and you can

see the eggs being laid. You see the

chickens out in the pasture and all that

other stuff. Cuz again, one of the

issues that I have with all these the

extraction of value and profit and

everything else is we're losing so much.

So, by supporting your local farmers, I

built this open source tech stack so

that you can see actual transparency and

supply chain. So, it's not some

greenwashed B-roll footage. It's the

There's a Starlink on the mobile chicken

coupe. So, like they have their own

Wi-Fi hotspot and you can throw a

chicken party for them and play music

and all this other stuff. So, so grab

some eggs before you before you leave.

>> Awesome. Thank you.

>> Show me your solution to the DMCA over

here.

>> To DMCA? Well, this is actually it's a

it's a it's not a bigger problem. It's

just a different problem, right? So, um,

the term greenwashing, have you ever

heard it?

>> Yes.

>> So, it's just deceptive marketing. You

tell people that this is, you know,

grass-fed. Well, what does that mean?

Like, doesn't mean that a cow was on a

pasture frolicking and eating a happy

life, right? It could be on a 5x5 feed

lot and they dump truck grass in. So,

technically, it's still grass-fed or

freerange or, you know, pasture-raised.

A chicken can be freeranging in a a 5x5

cage or something or the the the

container itself could be on a pasture.

It doesn't mean it's out in the open

enjoying the sun. So, I'm trying to

solve a few problems, right? So, how do

you help small farmers compete with the

bigger meat producers or uh a producers

out there? And I think it's through

transparency and supply chain. And how

do you how do you how do you do that?

So, I build a tech stack that I give

away to small farmers. So for my

chickens, I have like 65 of them. We

have cameras in the nesting box out

where they they forage inside where they

roost all over the place. And so

whenever you get a carton of eggs,

there's a a date inside and you scan a

QR code and it'll show all the different

nesting boxes where those eggs were laid

that day. So that in theory, what would

u a small farmer would do is they would

upsell their stuff at a premium. cuz if

I don't know if you kept up with the

Vital Farms controversy or anything like

that, um you know, some producers will

take and put um additives into the feed

to make that the eggs look a little bit

more orange, the yolks. Um what we do is

uh

>> keratene or something like that.

>> Exactly. That's exactly it. You can do

it a number of ways. You can put crushed

peppers and and stuff like that in

there, but

>> it gives you that good placebo of

thinking that you're eating a better

egg.

>> That's exactly it. and you you have a

nice fancy package or something like

that and you you say something nice on

it where it's like very

>> I got tricked by that five years ago

before I realized they were just putting

something in it.

>> Do you want to name drop? You want to

burn somebody down?

>> No, I don't remember the name. I just

remember the placebo of thinking like I

got a better egg and then my personal

trainer tells me that that's just they

just put something in it to change the

color.

>> Yeah. And so that's actually one thing

that I've I've done here recently too is

I uh I sent out my eggs to different

laboratories to have them tested so we

could compare them to all the other

different ones like in Whole Foods and

everything else cuz these are really

really bougie. The average person's not

going to spend that much money on like

oil or olive oil soaked feed for the the

chickens and stuff like that. But I just

want to prove a point that even though

I'm paying a premium for feed and the

experience for the chickens, the cost of

the eggs is actually the same if not

cheaper than going to, you know, vital

farms or something along those lines.

But again, we're solving many problems

here. Another one is I think that if co

showed us many things it's the

vulnerabilities within society and

supply chain and there's not a whole lot

of elasticity in civilization and

there's so many different aspects of

that and I think food is a key right so

like we don't have small farms in a lot

of cities there are food deserts that

have you know fast food Walmart and

stuff like that where they're growing

the the meat the produce and everything

really far away from in the communities.

So, by supporting a local farmer, you're

building that resilience and elasticity.

God forbid something happened like a

hurricane or whatever, there's some some

type of uh supply chain resilience for

uh the communities and everything. So,

and then, you know, small farmers could

upsell their stuff at a premium to

compete with those bigger ad producers

because, uh, you know, in business, you

you're always looking at giving up

margin somewhere. It's usually in

shipping a meat processor or you know

it's not just DTOC and that's that's

where some of these you know social

media there are some places like white

oak pastures where they have a

destination farm that people can go

visit and they get 100% of the the

revenue or profit from that because

people are going direct to consumer. But

>> if I scan the QR code inside of there,

what do I get?

>> Yeah. So that'll take you to uh

chickenparty.com.

That reminds me of something else from

childhood that I knew not to click.

>> So, and again, it's it's very it's very

gimmicky. I'm trying to I'm trying to

just give people a good time.

>> Let's see. Where do I find where do I

find my carton number, sir?

>> Yeah. So, this you just put in It

doesn't honestly it matter. You can put

in any any number, right?

>> A three four.

>> Yeah.

>> What's nest box?

>> Uh just put nest box one

>> one.

>> Yeah. And you can or a you can cycle

through any of them and really any date.

>> Meet the chickens.

>> Yeah.

>> Oh, invalid number

>> here. Just put a

>> I don't think maybe we updated it to

letters.

>> Meet the chickens.

>> Yeah.

>> Whoa.

>> So,

>> so that's that day, right? So, uh

>> Hello, I can see a chicken.

>> So, that's legit. There's a there's a

Starlink on the chicken coupe, two huge

solar panels, and uh I I have it powered

by a Raspberry Pi, a full ubiquity

system inside there. Um and the idea is

like extreme transparent. Some maybe

some of those videos you'll see me out

there feeding my chickens in my

underwear. Um but again, you know, this

is with cows, goats, any of that stuff.

Um, I I just think people the the

disconnect between people and their

food. Uh, you know, it's one of those

things where, you know, some people may

be hunters and they can really speak to

that intimate relationship with their

food. It's it's like it's very

emotional. It's visceral. Um, it's very

meaningful. Um, and I'm just wanting to

bridge that gap a little bit more for

some people so that hopefully they can

support those local producers and they

can sell their stuff to compete with the

bigger uh companies.

>> You know, I thought about this. I was

there was this documentary I was

watching about this one company in

Israel that makes tomatoes, but they

make tomatoes that are that they last a

little longer before they go moldy.

However, they have very little taste,

but more importantly, when it was

measured in a lab, they had very low

nutritional value. And there was people

asking if people could see at the store

that your tomato was 5% cheaper but had

75% less magnesium, 80% less calcium,

and so on and so forth. I forget the

exact nutrients, but something like

that. Do you think that they would still

be willing to spend 5% less for your

product if they knew it had 80 or 85%

less nutrition? And the CEO would not

give a clear answer. And obviously all I

think 99% of the world would buy the

product that actually has nutrition in

it. And the thing is when you go to the

store, there's all these different

products where you can't really tell

from looking at it. You would have to

take it to a lab to figure out if it is

actually nutritious. And this looks like

one way to one step closer to have an

idea of what you're actually getting.

And I think there are some um solutions

out there that people are trying to

build like I think seed oil scout yoka

yuka like a lot of these applications

are trying to make more conscious

consumer decisions much like what you

did

>> is awesome for fruit that's still a big

fruits and vegetables is still a big

problem.

>> Yeah. But the same thing with the

consumer rights wiki right like you're

trying to make a more educated consumer

so that they know how they're spending

their money how they're being vulnerable

and like you know all these different

things. So uh you know for me I think

that the time to act on a lot of these

things is yesterday but if we again look

at these solutions they can be

overwhelming at times was I'm just

trying to start at a local level

>> the next best time is 30 years ago. No

the best time is 30 years ago. The next

best time is now.

>> Yeah.

>> Thank you for coming by. I really

appreciate it. Thank you so much.

>> Thank you.

I spend most of my time. Hello.

>> Hey, Louis. Thank you. I'm Danny. This

is my son, Wesley.

>> Pleasure to meet you, sir.

>> He's told me all about it. Pleasure to

meet you. Very excited to meet you.

>> Uh, I heard in the beginning the Tuesday

night meetings. Is that something that's

the the guy mentioned before, the very

first speaker, is that something that

happens at your shop or

>> It happens upstairs. It's an event space

upstairs from my building and it's a EFF

Austin. They have a meet up for people

who just care about things like digital

privacy, not having you spied on, not

having digital ID, people who would

oppose age verification, use the

internet,

>> anybody who's within that space, it's

important to show up and realize that

there are people like you. Like one of

the things that happened, my girlfriend

at work was called an idiot by her boss

in front of other people for voting

against digital ID. And now, aside from

the fact that I think she should have

immediately punched him in the face for

saying that in general in front of other

people, but it's very easy. The point my

point is it's very easy in modern

society to believe that you're like one

of a thousand people that think this and

that you're the crazy person. So being

around other people that will that share

these views makes it easier to realize

I'm not crazy. It's just most people

don't know about this. But when they do

know about it, the group gets bigger and

bigger and bigger.

>> And it's every Tuesday.

>> I think it's the first Tuesday of the

month, but don't quote me on that. If

you go to EFF Austin's website, you'll

find it. Yeah. I don't know if Kevin is

still here, but if he's right out there,

so if you ask Kevin,

>> we're like the electronic like that EFF.

>> So there's EFF, like the national one,

and then there's an EFF Austin that

there's a local one

>> and he's like he that he has a local

one.

>> I think it's been around since the early

90s or so.

>> Jeez.

>> It's a good meet up for people who care

about this. Every month I'll have a new

speaker come about the issues. Like

sometimes he'll let people come from the

city. Um, there was one lawyer that

showed up who gave a really good talk on

AI and how people lawyers were getting

put held in contempt. There were some

lawyers that were being held in contempt

because they were using hallucinated

case precedent in their briefings. Uh,

>> I've tried that hallucinated like OS.

You've have you seen it like I haven't

seen that.

>> Like there's like this fully AI written

uh OS. Well, I mean also that's Windows

but like

>> Yes.

Like it's crazy like it's stupid that

like that like it's all vibe coded and

now like once people now people are like

switching to Linux more and more and

Microsoft's like wait why did we do

this?

>> So what got you to come out today?

>> What got you to come out today?

>> What are the things that

>> Well, he got me to come out. I

subscribed I guess to something. I saw

an email and I was like hey is this

something that is of interest to you?

and I told him about the event and your

name and he's his eyes lit up and he

said, "Yeah, can we go to it?" So, we

signed up and I'm kind of learning from

him more about the privacy and uh he's

urging me to, you know, get off the grid

quote unquote more

>> than I am.

>> Like, it's stupid that I even have to go

to the vent. Like, these should not be

problem.

>> I agree. Like, this stuff should not be

a problem. And I think the way that it

gets snuck in is by convenience. And

then it things are very convenient the

way they are and then over time they

just make it a little bit worse but just

enough that you're not gonna ride over

it and then that happens a thousand

times over 10 or 20 or 30 years.

>> Yeah. It's like uh like Netflix like

like uh there was like Shrek on Netflix

and like and then they're like, "Oh,

this is going to be removed." And I was

like, "Come on, I love Shrek. Why' they

have to like remove it? It's stupid."

Like and then like there's ads for like

Amazon Prime. like when you uh do a

subscription for Amazon Prime, you still

have to watch ads to watch the stuff

when you're already paying for it.

>> The fun part of it is is that they made

it so that if you're using Amazon Prime,

let's a lot of people pay for Amazon

Prime yearly, right? So, you pay I

forget exactly let's say $140 for the

year and they said if you there they

were putting ads inside of it, but if

you wanted to avoid the ads, you could

pay more. Now, this went to a judge and

the judge said because they are still

offering you the service that they

didn't increase the price because they

said in the terms that they can change

what they offer you, but because they

changed what they offer you and kept the

price the same and said if you want it

to go back to the way it was before

it'll cost more money. The judge ruled

that that is not a price change. So, if

I give you like if if I if you buy eggs

from Richard Ryan, if you buy a dozen

eggs from him and then he goes into your

fridge and takes out six of the eggs and

says if you want them back, you could

pay double, that's not a price increase.

That's a change in the service. It's

insane. And then that's why they did it

again cuz I think they started with

video and now they did it with music

afterwards because they realized that

they can just put ads in and say you can

pay a little bit more to have the ads

taken out. It's it's a change in the

it's a change in the sale after the

sale. And the thing with Netflix is that

at least they're honest. And at least I

don't like Netflix. I don't use N. I

shouldn't say they're honest. Not honest

about 4K, but that's another story. But

at least with Netflix, they are telling

you you don't own this. Here's the deal.

Is whereas and you pay every month. So

if you object to something, they do. you

could just stop paying. Whereas with

Amazon, they changed the terms of the

sale two or 3 months into a lot of

people's subscriptions and said if you

don't like it, you can suck it and pay

us more money for the because you

already paid for the year.

>> Yeah. Like I tell my mom like that she

should like be more like focused on like

online privacy cuz like she has like

lots of things like she has like um ch

like children like if like she gets like

her like bank gets compromised or

something that would not be good. And

I'm like she's like I shouldn't I don't

need to care about that. Like if if

someone was spying through your window

watching you, would you be fine with it?

>> Well, yeah. Like 27 years ago, the

people who were saying that your TV is

watching you and the government is

listening to you through the that was

like that was Alex Jones. And now the

people that are saying that your

television is spying on you, watching

it, and selling it to everybody are the

people that read the terms of service.

>> And that's that's the difficulty is that

everybody who said these types of things

20 to 40 years ago were insane. And now

you're just the person that read the

terms of service. So, it's going to be

it's it's a tough battle to win because

the people that were saying these things

before were usually people who were

just, you know, little nuts,

>> but I appreciate it. Thank you for

pushing.

>> Yeah, he tells his dad the same stuff,

too. I'm his dad, by the way. Some

people were wondering. And uh yeah, he's

he's my son. Don't

>> No, I'm just kidding. But yeah, he get

>> get your um get offline. Get all this

same thing he tells his mom. And I'm

starting to listen a little more.

>> I appreciate it. Also, thank you for

like encouraging your kids' interest. I

really appreciate it.

>> Oh, yeah. Of course.

>> That's awesome.

>> Thank you.

>> You're a cool son. Thanks.

>> That was a worthwhile conversation. How

did you hear about this to come out

here?

>> Um, he heard from me.

>> Oh, cool. How'd you hear about this?

>> Oh, cuz I watch your channel and

>> Awesome.

>> I would never have switched to Graphine

OS without you. I

>> That's awesome. Did you see how with the

Volkswagen app, they're trying to a lot

of companies are making it so if you use

Graphine OS, it doesn't work. And

they're claiming that it's for security.

The interesting thing is that if you're

using a 3 to 5y old unpatched version of

Android, as long as it's stock Android,

even if it's unpatched, no security

updates for 5 years, that's totally

okay. But if you use a upto-date version

of Graphine OS that has been patched 5

days ago, that's not secure. It's

complete [ __ ]

>> I have an app cellgate for my apartment

to go in and out the gates and it did

the latest update and now it doesn't

like graphine and it says it's unsafe.

>> They have to find some way to spoof

that. I I know. I appreciate that the

graphine team says these please leave

reviews telling them to allow our

signing keys and I get all that but at

the end of it I don't want my phone to

just not report location data. I want it

to report false location data. I want to

be able to do that cuz for the app

because there are some apps and there's

some things where it just requires your

location to work. So just not saying I

don't want to give you the location

means that you're just going to not

work. I want my phone to actually be

able to say I'm in Sarasota, Florida

right now and report that back to the

app. I want my phone to be able to

actually report something different to

the app and just pretend that you're

something else.

>> Yeah. The cellgate app was working just

fine and then I did the update and then

it's like

>> hello.

>> Hi, I'm Austin. Thanks to YouTube. Been

watching you since you were repairing

MacBooks. Love the section on New York

during co.

>> My cat also switched off Greenies on Mr.

Clinton's advice. Thank you for that.

>> And it's he's not very happy about it.

I'm trying to teach him the concept of

principles. The company that bought

Greenies

does something with they bought a

company that they shut down all the

products of with without an alternative.

Mars Pet Products purchased the I forget

what the device was. It's like some dog

tracker

>> and they said if you want this as soon

as they bought the company they shut it

down but they made their own dog tracker

and they say they think they send out

free ones but the new one is a

subscription service that's more

expensive. So I told Mr. Clinton we

don't support things being turned into a

subscription in this household. I can't

buy you treats anymore.

>> Yeah. I'm lingering on the end of my of

Fitbit here. Right. They find the app's

finally gone. It's Google now. Like

literally unusable app. I don't know

where I'm going after this.

>> Previously Pebble, right? Yeah, it was

Pebble and then they died to Fitbit and

then Google bought Fitbit.

>> Google likes to

>> buy companies and products that they do

not support for the long term.

>> Yeah. Well, I mean it's because they

want me to buy a Pixel watch

>> probably,

>> right? That's exactly why.

>> So, what are the experiences that you've

had with this in your life where you you

buy something and something changes

about it after you purchased it?

>> The Fitbit's probably the most poant. Uh

cuz I I had Fitbits before they were

even when they were still clip-on. Uh I

got over a decade of health data in

there and I don't know where I'm going

to take that. Do they allow you to

export it in an easy fashion or an open

format or

>> You're laughing. You're grinning. Uh I

take that as a no.

>> No, it never. There was it was always

either a third party app or uh or just

somebody's open source project to scrape

your stuff out of Fitbit if you wanted

to move it for, you know, there was

brief flashes in time where there

somebody had a service that would act as

the connector that never seemed to last.

I haven't checked. I've kind of given up

that I'm assuming I'll have to start

fresh with my health data. I think I

have a short window now that the Fitbit

app is finally gone and Google has

finally closed that. I think there's a

short data export window. I'm probably

just going to hit him with a give me all

my data request since that's now my

Google data.

>> Google takeout.

>> Yeah,

>> sometimes Google Takeout is a mess. I

don't like this. But so let's say for my

YouTube videos, they'll split it into a

bunch of files. You have to click each

individual file. As you click each

individual file, you can only click two

or three at a time. There's about 5,000

different videos. I click two or three

at a time. If I click one file more than

two or three times, it stops working

altogether. And if you try to download

too many at a time, it doesn't work.

It's there's there's an option to export

to Google Drive that actually does work,

but then you have to pay $200 for their

cloud plan for the it's actually export

if it's a lot of data. Yeah. So, I've

I've essentially given up. I assume my

health data is gone. I'll have to start

over with some new company and service

that I don't know what it'll be. Uh I

don't know what I'm doing with the

tracker, right? I assume the software

side is is solvable much more than an

open health tracker, but I don't know. I

haven't looked I haven't had a chance to

look at that yet. The thing I've been

using for over a decade is going away.

>> That sucks.

>> That's the most point one. And what I

was telling them earlier, uh, we have a