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Hi, everybody. With money.
Just a quick remark before starting in
in parallel to this talk in culture,
there would be Jekyll's
Applebaum second part of
systems sysadmins of the world unite
and there have been some problem, some
problems with the schedule.
So it is not going to be displayed,
probably. But in in
this room is that we are going to have
hung in the parliament with
SMS done by this art collective.
Check out our collective
O-H in in collaboration with some
with some security experts.
Huk, the government.
Well, such as your thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
This been done.
Thank you for.
Can you hear me?
Yeah, great.
So we are really excited that we are
here and we are even more excited that
you are here at 11:30.
So welcome.
We are staff when you die, but not a
public target. Better Zylka.
Some of these names may be fake,
and we want to
blow your mind first by
doing some explosion of for the
mind. So let's see
if this works out.
There's no sound that is.
And I need to see you on television,
a hectic.
Now you listen to dodgy, very heavy
clanging panorama that squeaks, I'll be
Bruce informal. Tell me about your casino
program, which are thought to be a
similar volley of new convertible
automotive airborne. Be switching off its
head reduction deal is similar to the
movie budget proposal written
money proxies. The reality of many pixie
steps, as we put it out to people as they
make their toll come into it after
watching a little.
OK.
Thanks.
So this is one of the older projects of
Stonehaven.
We try to figure
out how people perceive
reality that's presented by the media.
And we also found found
out the hard way that
our cell phones are not pretty
safe. So everyone who had a cell
phone during that prank on and
on their own identity appeared
in this nice room and had
a short discussion with a judge.
So we try to avoid
this problem with later projects
and the
the later project was
called Citizen Kane.
It was actually
about identities and exchange
of identities, so
we were researching absurdities
of our society that tries to cope with
identity issues of their citizens.
And we found out that it
is not easy to go to jail without the
without a valid national ID card.
They actually require the ID I.D.
card if you want to or not
not want that.
In this case,
the guy wanted to go there.
And
so this was a direct follow up to the
the the problem with the identity
tracking and
what the group did is there were 12
guys. They they took pictures with the
same haircut and in in black
T-shirts, and they used the
computer morphing software to create
identities or pictures with
significant facial features of
both of the photos.
And then in a
few years ago, integrate public.
When you wanted to apply for an ID
card, you needed to bring your own photo.
So they applied for the for the
ID card using the other
guy's identity.
So these are the meta identities.
And then
then then the members of the group were
trying to lever for
a few months under under
the other guy's identity,
which was pretty interesting.
For example, on this picture,
of course, the question is where the lady
sleeps at night, which bed
and OK.
So there was a wedding and
the guy on the left wanted to
marry the girl, but he
didn't have his I.D.
card, so they were exchanged.
So he was the best man
on his own wedding because you need
to show your I.D. card if you want to
marry someone.
And the other guy was, Yeah,
yeah, he was actually standing there
and married.
So, yeah, he doesn't look very
happy.
They also applied for a gun
permit, traveled to
London and London is outside of the
Schengen area, so you actually have to
have to use your I.D.
card.
So this proves that the new
exchange identity worked outside
of the of the
Schengen area.
So it worked out.
And
the basic idea here is
about exploring
identities and how they relate
to us. And
there are some, some problems, of course,
so it's about
exploration.
And also
changing your identity means
exchanging your identity with someone who
means that you need to.
You need to bear a bigger responsibility
for him because the other guy could apply
for loans in your name and so on.
And it didn't work out very well.
For example, the marriage is still not
invalidated, even though it was shown
that it was not
done correctly.
So there are no safeguards
in the system.
That means that they basically
assume that it's working well, and if
it's not working well, then there are
kind of no back up scenarios.
So.
Gone to blow.
Of York volume.
Thanks. So how
how we met and how the Project
Komori form started, exactly.
Me and you, Ray, we are not typical
artists.
We are it geeks.
And maybe two years
ago, we met
with the other guys from our
group, started
at one conference focus
on the idea
of freedom against internet
censorship at this conference.
I showed the the the two, the other
members of staff and that
how easy it is
to send as a mass text message
with a spoofed caller ID.
In the past, we all
knew that it's quite easy to send
spoofed text messages with an
arbitrary source
source number.
But these guys,
these guys, they realized
how there
is a huge potential for
another project.
And that was exactly how our new
project, called Murari Form, started
about our group.
I would like to say that
we are very crazy
combination of many people
from many different fields,
but especially artists
and also hackers.
And some of us also have some
legal background and
thanks to thanks to our diversity,
we are able to make a really
interesting project.
So, yeah,
it was interesting when we met Paul,
and you're right.
They simply showed us
something that is totally basic
for them. They showed us how
the of spoofing works means
that you send us a message from your
number to
know from
whatever number to another's.
And this message seems to be sent
from number you want,
and we got fascinated, fascinated
with this technology.
And since the moment we have learned
about Asomugha spoofing, we had
in our minds just using
it as a direct
interference into politicians
communication.
I think it shows a lot about
some general frustration,
which is widespread
in our country, and
the frustration grows
from corruption unpunished,
malpractise in administration
of our country and so on.
We have discussed for a long time
different scenarios of the actions,
and we have also consulted with
extant politicians
who revealed us the details
of who the parliamentary organization
and communications structure
works, and
we are getting closer and closer.
And during the painful process
of searching for the final concept
of the new action, a view of
parliamentary drama had crystallized
in front of our eyes.
Combined, I may the
heterogenous are distinct
words. Moral reform
has become the main thought of
the action
in Czech Republic's Republic,
where the term reform have
been abused.
And in many
ways we put it in a totally different
context and
proposed reform which
which cannot come from
outside because our morality
is absolutely intimate, intimate
and individual,
and we have decided to create an
ambivalent image
of a topic
ideal political world
by means of an absurd drama.
Each of some us we sent
from one politician's
number to another
seemed like to be sent from
all the members of Parliament, government
and also the presidents of us of
close number
to another's.
And it created a new reality
of communication.
And each isthmus
represented a line.
One of the lines with the drama
of great opportunity,
a great opportunity to
do. The action was provided
to us
by life, by preparing
of life both.
Asked of defending parliamentary
speech of one MP
who was accused of corruption
and during
the two hours of
of broadcast.
We have sent
five hundred eighty five
estimates or messages
containing the moral reform.
Now we would like to show
you a short video where you
can see a record from the first
moment where the broadcast
of the broadcast, where we have
realized that we are in the real direct
communication and interaction
with the Parliament,
he leave it to continue.
This is the Czech Parliament.
This is the speech of some politician
here on the right.
You can see the gathering speak
with Vice Prime Minister and
Vice Prime Minister down and on the left
sleeping that Henry Paulson, minister
of Foreign Affairs, got a shot at.
Somebody was already sending
a message to try
to nudge stay home.
Vietnam record what it had said when
asked about what's on the agenda,
which sits right now
that we should have not September's
Obstet Gynecol summits because that
was not my new high skill stock
because
the guy is still sleeping, by the way.
Sounds pretty interesting to send you
from your
dream lives, Dani.
Your often for a comment.
So while our chance speaks about Montreal
police in your
normal, boring politicians talking,
so we some
of it now especially visible
options at on its custom overlay
or lechon code.
But that said, all that stuff, it's gone.
And here is the message that
was sent to Carolina
during the short moment.
As you can see, observing the current
political situation, I realized
that I cannot continue this way anymore.
We have to do something significant,
something that will fundamentally change
our society.
Yeah. And
here you can see our members during
the action.
But is right there and by
the way, you can see I
thought he first seen that
his first thing, that maybe he will be
presenting it here because he was
wearing during the action the CCC
T-shirt.
I just like CC T-shirts, and these
are incidents that I had
this T-shirt during this election.
Yeah.
So
what was the reaction of media
is extreme was accepted by the media
quite positively, and
many themes were opened,
beginning with the need
of such a moral reform in
contemporary politics until the critics
of abusing the telephone
numbers. And there were also some
security questions that raised
and maybe people could tell
you more about it after
after this event.
There were a lot of conspiracy theories
in Czech medias, for example,
that Czech Parliament
is in, is monitoring
and sniffed by
a special secret agency or special
secret program, and a lot
of other of a lot of other
conspiracy theories.
But we just use
stupid as a mass text
message of the spoof Caller ID.
So firstly, I would
like to explain how
spoofed text messages work exactly.
It's similar to like like some TV
communication like email communications,
so it's possible to do change or to
modify, modify from others
like sender and change it
to something completely different.
In Europe, know it's prohibited
to prohibit it to offer
such services,
but we we use
the service outside of Europe Union
and there are a lot of other services
in the US, for example.
Probably the most difficult
part of
of this project was how to achieve
anonymity, because during this
project, we we
were not sure that we really won't want
to publish everything
and how how we achieve
anonymity.
You tell us something about it?
Yeah. So first, we we are
all huge fans of bitcoin, and
so we thought that, yeah, we would just
use bitcoin based gateway.
There was, fortunately, one called
the text for coins,
but we figure out that it won't
allow us to send so many messages.
So there's a limit of
addresses that that are used for
payment. And after 20
or so messages, it says, Sorry, I
need an system administrator to
add new addresses.
You can't send any more messages.
So we had to do it the hard way.
I don't know if you tried to launder
and anonymize money online, but it's
really difficult. So we we were
playing with prepaid cards and
everything, and we were trying to
find the gateway that accepted some form
of anonymous payment.
What we found out eventually, is that
the easiest thing is to buy
a prepaid SIM card,
top up the credit with cash in
Czech Republic. By the way, you can buy
prepaid SIM cards without revealing
your identity, so it's completely
anonymous. You just go to a
a like supermarket
or a normal store, and you get a SIM card
and it works. You just activate it.
So we did that also.
Everyone, of course, left their phones
at home near the bed.
We were all sick and sleeping,
according to the cell towers.
And um
yeah, but we still had to had to
test the the if our scripts
are working so.
So during the night
before, before even some of us
had to drive the bike to some
very anonymized location, turned the
phone on and see if it received
the fake ass Amazon.
So and so we had to test it
this way.
We found out that it's really difficult
to achieve real anonymity.
And um yeah, there's
always some risk that
we will be revealed.
It turns out that the
reaction was quite positive,
so
we decided to, uh, to,
uh, basically reveal
our identities.
And so here's
here's a walkthrough of the website
that was released a few days after,
um, after.
The event, so this is how it looked like
it's still online, so you can you can
check it out. That's the structure of the
Parliament. The colors are the
political parties on the bottom
are journalists and then there is
government and presidential
pass law office.
And here are the texts we translated
into English for you.
So you can see all the text
messages and the extracted structure
of parliament, how they communicate with
the press and so on.
So here's the President of
the Republic and all these
people were basically the the
actors of the of the drama.
Here's the timeline.
So you can you can see how the
messages were sent.
So that's that's the whole script.
And I really like the last
text that came from the president's
office to two
journalists calling an urgent meeting
of heads of all parliamentary parties
on acceptation of moral reform.
And it will be held after today's
MPC meeting.
And yeah, and he basically
invited all of them to the castle.
So, so that was the first
part that was quite positively
accepted. And here comes
the second part.
After the first parliamentary
round, we have analyzed
all the media and also public and
politicians reaction for a
four hour action.
And
it we were quite
sad of it because of worsening
political and social situation
and also increasing
mistrust to our political representative
in our country led us to an
idea of a simple
multiple media, multiple meaning
and penetrative act
in frame of a collective
political art exhibition and in
the Center for Contemporary Art
Docs in Prague.
We have exposed the complete list
of parliament, government and
presidential telephone numbers and
their names.
The gallery installation was a great
platform to try to cross the borders
of normal, understanding
what and what an
art installation is or
can be.
And I think we succeed because
what followed was totally
unexpected for us.
For one week every day,
main political newscast brought new
information about publication
of numbers and new
circumstances, which were continuously
rising concerning all the action.
Here's the phone number of the Exchequer
president, by the way.
Yeah,
media, public and the most of politicians
simply did not get it.
The media image of the action was reduced
to information that the politicians
numbers were published
and the politicians
were since then heading the blackmailing
and menaces.
The Office of Personal Data Protection
was also investigated,
whether publishing of telephone
numbers is
or is not breaking of personal data
protection.
And finally, they stated that
it's not so an interrogation
did not continue.
And but what is
what is wrong?
What was said for us was that nobody
cared about the manifesto and
the context of the gallery and
also the final
view of the installation, because what we
wanted to depose the
viewer into the middle of
kind of address
address book of the most
influential
lobbyist in the country
and appear for a well in
their skin and be able to
directly communicate with politicians
through the telephone.
Hang in there, which everybody
could use to send whatever
message he wanted to whatever number
from the from the world.
But all the media created
their own stories.
And yeah.
And finally, one of the reporters
called us covert that
we publish others numbers and
hide our own image
immediately. We have
published our numbers on our websites.
And here you
can see our numbers
now, which are which we are using.
Feel free to text us.
Yeah, and we would like to thank
you.
This final of this lecture, and
now we would be happy to
hear any questions from you.
Yeah, microphone four.
How did they get a hold of those numbers
of politicians in the first place?
I assume they're not just like giving
them out in the Yellow Pages.
Yeah, I can.
I can give you a very honest answer
without revealing much.
I don't know.
And we decided not to reveal.
So I'm sorry, but
it's possible to get them
what we can say.
And it was interesting that lots
of the numbers, of course, not all of
them, but lots of numbers.
We were able just to Google
because a lot of the MPs
are some representatives
of several firms or
companies.
And in connection with their
own business,
they sometimes publish their own
numbers. And there are also politicians,
few of them who publish their numbers
without any problems.
But it's rare.
Thank you.
Thank you for a good talk. I have two
questions. Yeah, first, how
long did it take you to plan out this
drama? Who says what?
And second, did this
project affect any kind of change?
Did you get the politicians to actually
meet up and discuss the issues that you
wanted them to discuss
the first?
Do you want to?
You can ask for the first one.
OK.
We are still we are searching
for the concept for a long time because
when we got the opportunity
to use the estimates
of Are you calling me up to the throne?
You're kidding me? Are you kidding me?
And.
I got your number.
I will know you.
OK.
Since the moment we revealed
the possibility to use numbers
and to use the SMI spoofing
like white wiper
action in one time one place,
we were fascinated with that and we also
were thinking about how to use it.
And one of possibilities was that
we wanted to influence getting some
expectation of some new
laws and so on.
But finally, it crystallized
after a long time into the moral reform
concept, and we
we we were not in a hurry.
We wanted to have the concept well
prepared and so on. But then the
opportunity of the
parliamentary speech of the MP was
arrested came.
We knew that this is the right
one opportunity we we have to
use and we have to
try to do it.
So then we had like limited time
of one one month when
we had to really work hard
on all the techniques,
background and so on, and
also the text, mixed messages and
things like that. So it was like one
month of very intensive work and
about one year of thinking about it and
searching for the contact.
And also, what is very
important to say is that
it was not an ordinary hearing.
So there were a lot of people who are
actually watching the livestream,
so people don't usually watch
broadcast from the parliament.
But this one was special.
So so we tried to use that.
And you asked if
we achieved what we wanted to achieve?
Well, the con, if you if you go
through the messages, they're very
apolitical. They're not saying that
please do this type of
reform or something like that.
So it's basically just saying
be better and some
kind of naive now thinks and
I don't think that the politicians just
got better.
And what's also very, very interesting
is that they never
wanted to discuss the content.
So when they when the politicians were
talking to the media, they basically said
that, yeah, we
received some fake text message from this
colleague, that or that colleague, but
they never or very
rarely said what their concern was,
how it's possible that the operators
allow and don't
have secure gates,
that it's possible to send a message of
hands on. And these issues were the main
one, but the content
was not.
Unfortunately, the the content
of this text messages was probably
the most important, but the politician
completely ignored, unfortunately
so.
And we, as I
said, we we tried to to send
a text message, a very positive text
messages.
And there was also reason that it's
quite complicated or difficult
to sue us when we just
said very positive messages through
its.
I would really want to see a politician
who would sue someone over saying,
let's be better and work
for the people or stuff like that.
So it was very naive
because we were thinking also about
sending something completely different.
Maybe not not so positive
text message destructive and destructive,
influencing some voting or something
because this is how the politicians
communicate. So there's like
a head of
political parties or collapse
of the political parties in the
parliament, and they communicate how they
coordinate, how to vote and so
on. So that was one option, but
we really wanted to
stay on the positive side, basically.
Now for
do I get
back to the project
of the mixed I.D.
card identities?
What I I see
on this project that now
when you are applying for I.D.
card, they photograph you at
that point.
So so basically what I see as
outcome of your maybe, maybe
they would do it anyway, but
it could be seen that from your
project, they just improve they
their processes.
So and do you think it is a good thing
or not?
Maybe if you didn't reveal
that that you are using
these mixed identities, it would be
like nice project
and the authorities
would not would not improve their
processes, which I don't think that
it is a good thing.
I also don't think that it's a good
thing to.
Of the processes of ID
and this paperwork and state bureaucracy,
but actually there's a
there's a common format for national
ID cards in the EU, especially
in the Schengen area.
So they were actually working on
on deploying these new things.
So it's basically just grasping
an opportunity to try it
out. They will do it anyway, for sure.
We actually we
we too are not citizens of Czech
Republic, so we had the
funny, nice new European ID
card anyway.
So, so back to
your question.
First of all, I am also not a fan of
national IDs, but this
Hague considers OK, it was possible
thanks to the fact that in Czech
Republic, in that time when you when you
ask for a new national
ID, you just you just bring
your own photo and
an officer just
takes this photo and and you use
it. But it's not possible anymore
into Republican, also in Slovakia,
because now we use official
European national I.D.
format. So.
So the photo is
taken at the place when
when you ask for this national I.D.
But it's also a very interesting part is
the verification process.
So if you have two people
and you merge their facial
features into one photo.
You mean, like is an ordinary,
I don't know, officer at the police
station or at the
Social Security office or anywhere
how they are supposed to know that's
OK. Maybe I just gained
some weight or I'm a little
bit thinner or something like that.
It's it's really not a good
identification of of a person.
And also, I like to think
about it in this way.
That's very often
the you when
you communicate with the state
bureaucracy and the system,
they actually don't see you.
So you're you're basically a body that's
bringing the primary key to their
database and the link
of the body and the primary keys
very weak. So
it's raised more questions
than answers.
I believe.
Three nights project,
but isn't the effort gone to spoofing
eSIMs ideas a bit wasted?
I mean, surely politicians in opposing
parties don't have each other's mobile
numbers, and certainly journalists are
possibly unlikely to have the president's
numbers. It would just look like a random
text from a stranger.
I think your assumptions are very wrong.
They do have numbers of
politicians from opposing parties
and and journalists have
numbers of because these are the
journalists that are covering the
politics so that when they want to ask
the member of Parliament
or the Office of the president something,
they they they can just text them.
So they have, I think your assumptions
are wrong. So that's quite
positive. So a in sugar, probably.
And fellow Republicans problem
parliament, they know each other.
I mean, on a personal level, I
think, yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you for your questions.
And there's just an interesting
point.
There came a message.
I received a message from a number ending
with 666.
And there is a great talk.
Thanks a lot, and we thank you for for.
There was a question in the microphone
for, oh, sorry, yeah, come on.
Hi, thanks for your talk.
Just real quick.
Do you think your targets realized
they were scooped?
Do you think the politicians realized the
messages were fake
during very soon?
Very serious.
So I'm going to take.
I remember one interview with the prime
minister, but then I just
who thought I was receiving strange
messages. But once I
received the message
from my Ministry
of Financials.
Who is calling me to
more reform?
I suddenly realized that this
cannot be true.
This must be some fake service
and excellence.
But yeah, we are now working on
a short movie from this section, and
we had our fellows right
in the parliamentary
room where all it happened
and we were on the phone with him.
So he was a target
for using with a camera,
always the part where we were sending
the messages.
And there are wonderful moments
where all the employees come
together and
showing each other with what they
received, and they're absolutely like
confused from it.
So yeah, you will see in the future.
You can follow us on
our website, on or on Facebook,
and you will get the news.
Unfortunately, politicians did not
receive positive text message,
so they were so thanks
to these that they were able to reveal
very.
But if you if you watch the recording,
actually there's there's a point when
they start to whisper and they stop
listening to the the guy talking
and they're just concerned with their
phones. And we are thinking
about these, like how should we make
it difficult for them to realize that
it's fake?
But it was very difficult because there
is no like official sitting
in the parliament. So sometimes
one. One guy was sitting and
received a text from the guy sitting next
to him. So. So they just
showed the phone and they realized that,
yeah, yeah, that's not the case.
So probably one
last thing I forgot to mention
is that
Seurat told
us, Oh, we just exchange
mobile credit for anonymous
text messages.
In these days, it's it's also possible
to order any, any
any services from the internet using
prepaid anonymised cards.
For example, if you go to Austria in
Austria, there is a special prepaid
MasterCard card called
Cash Cash for.
And when you when you talk about this.
So you you are able to buy this
card with the credit.
One hundred fifty fifty euros.
And you can use it completely anonymously
when you want to pay for any
online services.
Yeah, but we prefer bitcoin based
solutions, of course.
Yet we prefer bitcoin.
By the way, if you have some
bitcoins that you don't like or like us,
you can donate bitcoins to us to Havana
for a cool project.
We wanted to encourage our friends
and followers to
care about bitcoins, to get interest
with it and try how it works and so on,
because in public it
it is not very well
articulated and uh, the
media are already starting to
pay attention to these issues.
Already, the rest of the world is
living with this for more.
Moreover, in two years than integral.
It's a new theme, so we want to
think about the
only bitcoin token CCC was from
a tech guy.
That's true.
Okay. OK, thank you very much.
It was a pleasure for us.
Thank you.