How And Why To Gain Technological Advantages By Harvesting Entropy From An Unsuspecting Public

[Music] hi hello um I have to confess that I've my hobby these days has been getting stoned and coming up with a talk title and then I have to make the talk around it which is kind of how how futel started it too so um this is going to be uh um not as techy of a talk it's going to be kind of a uh um motivation and kind of backstory on projects talk so I'm Carl Anderson um and I'm talking about I'm talking about uh my project me and several volunteers uh we're all volunteers called futel and uh how and why we're doing it and what we get what people get out of it so I'm

Carl Anderson I've been a software engineer for forever I've I've worked at security companies but I haven't been doing that much uh I'm not a security engineer myself I'm a software engineer so I've uh I'm old and so my career has all kinds of highs and lows um you know I was a young ignorant naive person and I've been a corporate drone and I've been a startup Cowboy working at startups I've always been a salary man though I've always just gotten a paycheck um and it's been a very successful career I think by which I mean um I've been able to do interesting work you know and fun stuff usually you know I've had all sorts of

crap work too but uh it's it's turned out very well which I think I've been very lucky to be as a computer engineer um and this is despite um the fact that computer engineering is one of the most unnatural environments for humans it's not a it's not a good way to work and there's a lot of worse jobs you know this is a I picked this picture because these people are working night shift workers on a subway which is like that that that lowers your lifespan you know there's there's all sorts of like completely seemingly unrelated outcomes from from working at night and sleeping during the day so it's not you know the worst environment for for people to work

in but it is a sitting at a desk um in an office is it's not what we evolved to do and we've had to do heavy conditioning to be able to do this all our lives um and so even you know even if the job is good there's a lot of there's a lot of ways to get in things you have to do to get into it and in the end of the day you're working for a conference table full of VCS you're working to make an investor money that's that's your goal so there's a lot of kind of no matter how much you love the work there's a lot of kind of twisting and

turning to get into that so this is how I adapted to work in such a harsh environment is I started a phone company on the side and a lot of people talk about their side hustles and there to make big money you know that's why they do that and I always Envy them because they're motivated to work really hard on something they don't know if it's going to work necessarily and they're making it up as they go they're kind of building the building the plane while they're flying it is one one thing I heard and a few of them make make it big and they make big money and I'm really psyched when that happens but I do not

have business sense or even like the aspiration to do this kind of thing I don't you know I've worked at a lot of startups and a lot of companies and I like is this a good idea is this going to make it and I never can tell I I just have to say well you know I like this environment I like the people I'll be working with and I the people who you know the business people coming up with the idea I I believe in what they're doing so I'm just going to try it so my side hustles are always um yeah I'm I'm always like stuff that I want to be doing you know text stuff that I want to

be doing that I'm fascinated with the text so I think how can I make this into something interesting which is not the right way to do this kind of thing at all if you're trying to be successful this picture is a church of Robotron so it's all about uh being fascinated by the technology around you while it's um blowing air in your face and making loud noises and chalking you and slapping you with little whips and stuff like that so I didn't try to make any money and me and a co-founder started a phone company like I said um which is seems like a really good industry to break into right you know the Telecommunications you know

but we had a differ differentiation strategy uh we deployed payones and we made them free to use so you have to walk up to the phone and then you don't have to pay to use it so that's how we really uh stand out in in this crowded Market of uh phone companies so I'll tell you now about futel itself every time I give a talk about futel there's always someone who hasn't heard of futel for some reason so so I'll talk about the background and uh what it is what we do and some some part of how we do it and so what we do is we uh plunk down pay phones and we put them in public places they are all

um the the phones themselves are sitting on private property but they all extend into the public space so you can use all of them almost all of them you can use them um at any time of the day day or night walk up to them and you don't have to go on private property no one can kick you out for just being there you know you don't have to get permission to use them and uh you don't need anything you don't need uh an account identity a password or anything like that you don't need an identity is the important thing for me you don't have to tell anyone anything to use the phone and when you

uh walk up to them you uh you pick up the handset you can hear a menu but the first thing the option you're given is to make a call and that is by far what people do with the most is make calls um and these are all photos of of our phones some of our phones some of them are some of them are gone some of them are still there these chickens would come and look for cigarette butts around the phone these are my favorite uh enclosures that kind of rounded uh oval I ovalized rectangle ones these are all salvaged um this one's an alley which is nice this one is in ipolani Michigan um

they're almost all in Portland and this one is in Detroit uh Michigan I like this one because they put this chair next to it so you can sit while you're using the phone whenever anyone calls from that phone I say is the chair still there and they're like oh yeah you know it's you know this chair is here this one was in front of hedrin hacker space this was a great location uh this one was also a great location now gone but this was an open signal uh which is a kind of Av not AV but a media uh C access well it was cable access yeah that's how they started yes um so this was actually there was

actually a project associated with this so um people at open signal were making uh creative Works to put on the phone but of course the first thing you can do when you walk up is make a call uh then when coid started everyone was freaking out of course and uh no one knew how it was spreading and stuff like that at the beginning and we were thinking this is not the right business to be into uh but you know it's not like we're going to Pivot or anything like that so we yeah so we we put handwashing stations at the phones so they they're foot operated which is a drawback because you can't be a wheelchair user

and use it but they're foot operated and there's soap there and water and so you can wash your hands before or after using the phone or you could uh just what you know if you could use it while you're walking on the street whatever also another free public an amenity is the handwashing stations uh this this one was made by someone made um this person knew what he was doing who make the who made this series of stations here um we got a grant to pay for them so um and this one was made by me this is my design as you can tell it's not as a but it works though it does it does

the same thing and then we also had a sanitization program where people would sanitize the phones and then importantly they would leave they would mark on the phones when they were sanitized so you could see that you it gave you a perception of there was safety at the phone so not only were we sanitizing them but we were showing people that was that was what was important and this is the most recent map of our phones this is they're all you know maps are always out of date because we only make one of them a year but this is uh 11 phones in Portland and one in Detroit ipsan and Long Beach Washington and of the phones in Portland

one of them is at right to dream 2 um so that's their phone you have to you have to get their permission to use them one of them is at the social justice Action Center um and then one of them is at a bar bar phone so you need that one you need the bartender's permission to be there so that's not ideal but it's nice it's fun uh Matthew liot made this uh map and uh you can call anywhere in North America with the phone so that's uh it's free calling to anywhere in North America uh this picture was ripped off from The Oregonian this is a um this is actually a friend of mine it's not a

creep shot uh but yeah but one thing I like about this picture is um someone someone just put a flyer up there there's like a it's like a some kind of fundraiser or something they just I love people were just putting Flyers up on the phones it was a community space and the phones so you can uh you can make a call like I said um other features are there's directories there's directories of interesting numbers um if there's anything artistic that you can reach on the phone we'll we'll put it there if we can and then there's a social services directory so things you can you know housing legal help health you know things like that anything

that's uh that might be useful to people especially houseless people we'll put that on the phone and uh voicemail you can uh set up a voicemail box and check your voicemail and leave voicemail on the phones um and then there's uh we have some creative stuff too there's some puzzles and artistic stuff to to there is a uh uh we have kind of an audio Zine called the Wild Card line where you can uh you can you can hear messages that someone else has left and then we kind of digest them and respond to them and then you can respond to earlier ones too so I mean it's a podcast is what it is but

it's basically voicemail as a project uh and there's other things along long you know those ideas anything that's a anything that's a interesting number we'll put it on there and uh we did have the uh whatever the Oregon UFO call-in hotline if you see a UFO you can call it in um and the guy running it actually called me and said can you take our number off of here because no one has a real UFO that's calling from this phone

yeah um and so the phones are very they get a lot of use when I first put the first phone up there I didn't uh I didn't put any copy on the phone it didn't I didn't put the fule labeling on it or anything it just said why mactel or whatever and I just put it out there to see who discovered it and it took about 2 weeks for it to get regular use like daily use and then people saw people using it and or told people or something and then that's when I knew um that it was an experiment that was actually useful for people so I just I just thought I thought like maybe people

could use a phone so I put it out there and uh they did it you know I'm saying I and we there's there's many Volunteers in this group but I'm you know I'm speaking for myself I think a lot of us have the same motivations but um I'm the one here talking so um I'm so I'm speaking for myself but there's there's many essential volunteers that keep the project running as well and then I put I started putting our own copy on the phones um I I didn't really want to do that I really like the project being uh kind of situationist kind of uh un undescribed you know you had to you had to guess about what it was but you know

it needs funding so I had to eventually I had to put my own name on it and stuff like that so I could uh and and have a web presence and have things like that to kind of keep the project running so it's it's not as uh as mysterious as I'd like it to be this is one of the plates we put on the phones you know so um I like how it gets you know used up used and smeared and stuff like that in in the field um these are you know these are kind of riffs on the little plates you'll see on payones or used to see on play payones where it has all this

little copy that no one ever reads no one ever reads these things except me and a lot of you I'm sure too you know kind of like spury people but um I like sneaking that in there so you know there's there's a rant on there you know it's like why is this what's the point of that you know but it also tells you that you could that it's free that you can get 911 and you can call an operator too we have operator calls on the phone you got a question yeah uh yes is it a live operator yes um we have seven operators right now and you're not sitting in a room picking up operator

calls they they get forwarded to our phones and then uh whoever accepts the call there's a little uh warning before you accept it if you want to accept it and then you can be the operator yes we're looking for operators you know um this any uh anything that looks good too that was made by Debbie another volunteer I can't do anything like that so it's we have all all sorts of people working on the project um most of the operator calls are people looking for things like Services you know what's the number for Blanchet house or where is is the this place I'm going or something like that or health clinics or stuff like that um and then there's a lot of

uh people just looking for whatever phone numbers or locations and stuff like that and then there's a lot of people who are um who just are having fun you know want to talk or something like that which is fun too and then there's a lot of people who are just like whoa what is this and I just say it's a phone and hang up on them because find it yeah I'm I'm usually not rude you know it's a you know why don't you try it you know say things like that um but you know the thing about being an operator um you you the point is to help people of being an operator you know some

people really need the help and you don't have to like the people you're helping you know the people can be rude or tweaking or having serious mental health issues or stuff like that and I'll still help them they may not be pleasant to talk to but you know I'll still help them if I can because it's you know I have the luxury of sitting by my phone and they're out on the sidewalk somewhere too you know but you know if anyone's being like um rude or you know if it's if it's a unpleasant if it's too unpleasant to be an operator operate can just say try again when you can not scream at me or

whatever but so yeah all types of people do use these phones it's all run on salvaged equipment and most of the stuff we use we are the last stop before it's going to get shipped off to China and children will be melting it down for the metals um this is a most of you many of you will recognize the venerable wrtg 54g yeah yeah yes um we can't use these anymore because so these rouers we use them for our VPN and uh we have the we get all our all of our routers from the personal Telco project so we take the stuff that they can't even use anymore and then and Russell here uh told me how to basically strip it

down so I could fit it on the routers we use so we can't use these ones anymore they're too they're too uh tiny but we are using everything that everything that's the last stop and including the all the phone Hardware of course you know that's uh we get those whatever way we can and uh but all all this stuff you know yacel all the phone companies they they don't when the phones get decommissioned they just leave them there they don't they don't take them down and then when they do take them down they're just they don't even hire someone usually they're like you get the money you know like yeah sure here's your route pick up with these phones and

don't tell us where they go you know pay sell the metals and you can have the quarters if there's quarters in there you know um I really don't like how PE how the phone companies leave phones that aren't working on the street that's what bothers me I mean if if it's not you're not going to make money off it fine you know you don't have to be you don't have to do something if it's not working for you but uh one we got one operator call because uh someone there was a OD or something someone had to run to one of our phones and they had to pass two pay phones they like they told me or they told the operator how

they got there and uh I figured out they had to run past two non-working payones to get to our phone to talk to an operator so you know our phones go down but the uh the the priority is robustness we keep them up you know they go down we bring them back up you know I can I monitor them I can see what's happening and uh so that's the priority is reliability because people do rely on these phones and so yeah so we put them out and people smash them uh actually they don't these phones they don't get smashed very much this was one year all these pictures of smashed up phones are from one year I think it was 2021 I

forget but uh it was a bad year um and uh but usually I have to replace Maybe one phone and two handsets a year so it's not so bad and most of them I can re I can repair them and put them back out this phone you can see someone had a crowbar or something in the coin slot trying to get into the Vault down there um which is and then when that doesn't work they just tried to get in however this it's hard to do this kind of damage to a phone the phones are made pay phones are made that's why we use payones because they're made for you to take out your aggression on the phone

when you don't like what you're what you're hearing on the phone you know so and they have money in them so but you're never going to make money by breaking into a phone because when I've had to do it I uh to get into the Vault I had to it it cost me like two and a half cutting discs and several hours of work you know it probably cost me 10 bucks even if my time was free so it's it's not you're not going to be doing this if you have like you know common sense you know you know people people who do this are tweaking usually and uh and our phone so I try to make them so

that the if you put a coin in it goes straight to the to the return so if if this person had a coin they could have seen that coins are not going in there you know but some some of them the phones there's not enough Hardware in there and so if you put a coin in there it just goes into like it's just bounces off the circuit board and goes into the case or something like that some of them can't do that is there a question yeah yeah why not just remove the coin why not just remove the coin box because um well two reasons one is cuz needles and crap will get put in there cuz cuz

whenever there's like if you notice the the bottom of this enclosure it's it's a I think this is one of them it's tilted you know you don't want to put a flat surface out because people will put trash on there so you put a tilted service so the trash falls off you know but also um it's I I like the look of having the coin box in there but also um the way you attach a phone to the enclosure is you uh open the case you Bolt the back of the case onto the enclosure just with normal bolts and then you lock the case so the phone locks itself under the enclosure there's no like security bits or anything like

that it's it's just the the lock in case protects the phone and some of those bullets are behind the coin box so that's why there's actually two different locks because uh there's one key most most phones have the same key for the top case because that's that's where the phone is repaired and then the vault is where you get the money out and we do have some phones that aren't actually pay phones that they are uh little stainless steal courtesy phones and those those do not get smashed up this one someone uh used a rock to smash this and someone there was a warehouse worker watching him the whole time and yeah he did it with his Rock

and he didn't have gloves he had his bare hands and so this guy smashed up his hands to smash up this phone and you can see it so smashed up the T Bar there um I bent it trying to open the phone it was it was hard to get into this phone and this I love this phone no one's getting into this phone uh but then they just got the Marquees instead you know but this has this phone has like an extra case welded over the case with like a little keyed you know Keys together so it doesn't some of them you'll see like an extra hasp over them with a with a third lock over them but

this is excellent phone um I like to tell people that these are the operators um taking your calls but it's not actually true this is a we're uh this is a control h actually we just making making the hardware and stuff and uh testing them out by making print calls to people people U but you can see it's a it's a router and a little sit box that's all it is on the phone end and then it's a landline phone that they're hooked up to and we have an incoming line too um which has some of the features on it but the main thing about the incoming line that I like is that uh you can set up

your voicemail at a phone and then you can leave or check voicemail from the incoming line so you don't have to once the phone is you have to be at the phone to set that up but then you can do it from any and then we use the voicemail password for certain features on the phone you need a voicemail password to get in and then if uh if it's uh you know sometimes if I'm worried about it being loud people being loud at night I make it so you have to enter your voicemail password to make a call if it's not 911 um which you can get a voicemail account at that same phone for free but

you have to have the presence of mind to go through the menu and get your password and then enter that in so that's kind of like the it slows people people down makes them kind of think a minute before they make a phone call and there's other uh so all all the stuff to support the project there's a website we do a Zen every year kind of a newsletter uh there's we have a SoundCloud for our for some stuff out there you know patreon site for fundraising so there's all that stuff around built around it to make the phone company run um which isn't necessarily the fun work but it's it it's all really all the media metadata and stuff like

that and that is futile that is what we do

and that was the interesting part of the talk and now I'm going to talk about our motivation and why we do it um yeah is there a question yeah so what do you do about power what do we do about power the phones so there's a little if you see the little router and stuff that gets plugged into the wall inside a building somewhere or we could put them in the phones but we usually don't because then that goes to the internet these little routers and those and that little sit box that's it on the client side and so that that gets power and internet from the building or whatever and then just the phone line goes to the phone so the

phone does not need to be powered for for the phones we're using um unless you have a lamp in there or something the phone itself is just off a phone line power so whoever you whever you put this your cont discussing this with the building operator and their yes yeah yeah and internet yes although we do have a a it hasn't been deployed yet um for a few things to tweak out but uh we do have a solar wireless phone a wireless phone we've invented a wireless phone wow yeah yeah but but all all the ones right I mean that's that's going to be for like events or whatever you know or temporary so uh all of these uh um all these have

a host which is providing that kind of stuff and the the space for it too you know and whatever was there a question you got five minutes five minutes I thought this was a 50-minute talk okay well anyway this is our motivation just just tell me when I go over okay our motivation was because you know when you're talking about the career tracks of engineering professionals there's two there's kind I mean this is a broad simplification but not talking about management or anything there's two c of professionals there's the morlocks who are just um making the the Machinery that everything runs on and then there's the Loy who get to do the interesting things that make that

Machinery happen you know that that make that Machinery useful to do and helps people or at least make someone money and I'm not talking about like you know backend versus front end because I was always a back-end worker which was where I like to be but the the clever stuff the interesting stuff and so some people get the freedom to do the fun work and some people are doing the [ __ ] work you know and it's the kind of people that they're always threatening that they're going to be replaced by Officer workers or AI is now or something like that so that's kind of like the class boundary that keeps you keeps you wanting not

wanting to fall back down there you know so this is a mouse Utopia this is a mouse experiment where this this is the perfect work environment for a mouse instead of a little Skinner box and some people never can get up to that fun part you know for whatever reason they don't have the skill or the ability or the motivation which is a skill really but then there's capacity which is you know a lot of times is economic reasons you know it's a privilege to be able to get educated and have the time to educate yourself and stuff like that so that is something that uh you don't always get at your day job you know and some people

seem to belong in the fun part you've you've all worked with someone who's like clever not only works all the time but works very cleverly and is very you know who just like they're at the top you know or at least in their own in their abilities and this is how I was able to be one of those Loa is I just had to start a phone company that will never make any money see look at those look at those squiggles on the on the repos you know look at all that work it's it's great you know um and all I had to do is make something that isn't going to make any money and that's you know and it's

no one's going to want to join this startup both because they're not going to get paid but also because if you have any Pride you're not going to want to do something like this really so that is our yeah so you're not going to want to have a garage full of payones you know like stuff like that so this is our motivation and our secret that's how we could find the niche and exploit it and so I mean does this the secret that makes me a successful and happy person at work no it doesn't do that but it has been it has been good career-wise I like the business of software I like the burndown charts and the tech trees

you know I I like putting all that together you know and I've always wanted to be an Ops person I've always been an engineer and I thought the Ops people were a lot cooler or or devops or Sr whatever you know those were the people I admired so I get to be an Ops you know that's great it's and it's like you know those stupid motiv motivational posters of work you know it's like that in real life it's not fake but for a project like this I always have to kind of take stock and look at the benefits because I never have judgment over what's going to be a good project and what isn't going to be

a good project I don't have especially because um I mean I can never map it out and see like sometimes in hindsight I'm like what did I just do for the last three years of my life and I'm also usually doing stuff that uh I'm I don't know what I'm doing I'm learning it on the job this is a this is the controller for the Church of Robotron that was it's on the ground it's a teen CU I I just put leads on there am I getting kicked out all right all right thank you everybody thank you for coming to the talk thank [Music] [Applause] [Music] you