 Cool. So our next speaker is an engineer, a security researcher. He's a developer of free and open software. And he's not going to talk about any of that today. He's talking about something that I've only read about or seen in movies and kind of a far-gone era, I thought. He's talking about being a hobo in modern-day America. So please welcome John. Hello. Thank you for coming to listen to me, make words, and I will try to not fuck it up. Thank you. So to start, unlike other aspects of the security or software industry, the community who's doing this at this time are not doing it for profit, but mostly a lot of people are doing it in order for survival to get around. North America is a very large place. It's not cheap to go from point A to point B there, especially if you don't have a lot of money. So in order to protect those folks, I'm going to keep it pretty high level. There's not going to be a lot of really finite details. However, I will give you some resources where if you're interested, maybe you can look into it further or do this on your own, I guess. So to start also, I have to disclaim that it's quite dangerous to be running around getting on these massive pieces of steel with no supervision and people get hurt every year, die every year. It's also illegal. So part of American culture is ingrained, or rather, hobo culture is ingrained and aligned with American culture in a lot of ways due to the Great Depression. And during this time, migrant laborers would travel using freight trains as a means to go and find work. And this has continued, definitely less prevalent, thanks to the economy turning around in some ways or whatever, but it's still happening. And moving into this, the antithesis, I guess, to hobos would be the rail police. They work as private police forces across the country, employed by the rail companies such as Amtrak or CSX, Union Pacific. And, you know, they've been around for a long time as freight trains have as well, and they're not really like the type of people you want to be talking to if you're going to go out and be doing these things. They drive around in SUVs. They have flashlights. They have guns. And, I mean, they won't shoot you or beat you up if they catch you, but they'll definitely mess your day up. Generally, the legal implications of getting caught would be a trespassing charge. However, if you're going into containers or opening things you're not supposed to open, it can get a lot worse, legally speaking. Sort of like moving into if you were going to be doing this, the way that a lot of people go about it is by having a basic understanding of the way that a train yard is laid out. This is used in order to sort of guess or infer where something that will take you somewhere will be. So, as you can see, there is... I'm not sure if you can read it, but each train yard will have a main line as well as departure yards, and then there's a space where they build these trains up, and generally they'll be classified based on whether or not it is an intermodal or general manifest freight. These distinctions are important because if you're traveling via freight train, you can gauge how quickly something will be getting somewhere, how frequently it will be stopping. So, for example, if you are riding... I think it's kind of hard to see, but essentially you have boxcars, grainers, lumber carriers, things like this. These all exist in the land of general manifest freight and carry large amounts of raw materials, sometimes garbage or whatever, and they have a lot more places to hide, I guess you could say, and in this case are more useful for riding. So, boxcars, things like that. The problem with that is that they move quite slowly, but the benefit is that since it's low priority freight, there's going to be a bit less security if you get caught on them, like nobody's going to accuse you of trying to steal TVs out of a freight container or anything like that. But then, again, you might end up sighted out in the middle of nowhere, waiting for half a day in the heat, and so it's less than ideal. The other type would be intermodal, which is these containers, which are freight shipping containers. They're going to have less places to hide, however, the ones that do have places to hide will get you to where you're going much quicker. However, you're going to want to be a lot more careful on them. For example, there's tagging on the containers and stuff, which is supposed to be tamper evident notifiers, messing with things like this and then being caught by the rail police or by the rail police. The regular cops can have a lot worse implications for you as an individual. There's another rideable car, which is the distributed power units. They have nice facilities like a bathroom, heat, air conditioning, and AC. However, as with up and explaining, the risk is much higher when riding in these cars, especially because all the controls are right there. You have access to the radio. It's not really a place that's recommended to be or be caught in. Talking about the way that people go about getting on to these trains or the conditions in which you can actually board something like this, the safest way is probably figuring out where the train is going to stop to switch out the crew. All the roads in the U.S. are unionized, and so they have really strict labor requirements. Every 8 to 16 hours, a train will have to stop and switch out the engineer who's driving it. During this time, they'll do things like inspect brake lines and ensure that all the safety mechanisms are working properly, meaning you have about a 15 or 20-minute window in order to actually board. This ties back into the layout of a train yard. Generally, if something is just pulling in to swap out the crew, they're not going to be getting off of the main lines. They'll just stop right on the main line and be there for about 15 to 20 minutes. A lot of people will find bushes to hide near these areas or what have you. Also, at signaling stations, trains will wait for clearance, and because of this, you can also get on them. It's less reliable, and sometimes you might end up waiting around for days for something to show up and stop. But the benefit there is that you're not going to be actually inside the train yard where the police are actively looking for trespassers or graffiti artists or whatever. As far as getting on the moving trains, a lot of people imagine when they think of it, like, oh, you have to hop on a moving train. You see it in movies all the time and stuff like that, and it's super not recommended. It's extremely dangerous. I know people who, and myself, have done it successfully in the past, but also, every single one of my people that I know who are missing limbs or have almost died, it was from hopping onto a moving train. It's extremely dangerous. A four-kilometer-long piece of steel does not care about you, and it will eat all of your limbs if given the opportunity. These are all just, like, basic safety precautions or ideas around what it goes into, like, actually getting on and utilizing this means of transportation. There's also a lot of resources which can be utilized, which are sort of, like, open-source intelligence, I guess you'd call it. Railfan websites tend to have really good data on, like, what types of trains are showing up at when. There's some, like, well-known lines that have specific timetables, so you can utilize, like, forums. You can talk to people, just act like you're a railfan, and get some really good data on that, as well as there are streams of the various, like, scanner, the various yard radios and stuff like that, which are actually being streamed, so, like, rather than, like, buying some really, like, expensive piece of, like, unique hardware, which, if caught, it's, like, obviously you're trying to listen to the radio because you have a scanner, you can use your smartphone, or even this railroad radio website has a telephone stream that you can call into the stream with, like, a regular phone. So it's great if that's what you're into, and in addition to this, there's a lot of, like, basically every single car has a serial number and is trackable through various means. It used to be that this was, like, completely open. You just dial a 1-800 number, and you could track, like, any car at any time. You could also, like, go to the railway websites and just, like, navigate to, like, through the login page, like, rather than logging in, it used to be that you could just navigate straight to the tracking page, and so if you had a smartphone, go ahead and, like, find out, like, oh, this boxcar is going to be in New Orleans in, like, a week. I don't want to sit on a hot boxcar going through the desert for a week. Maybe I'll write something else or whatever, so... It's actually rather surprising, like, with the internet and some, like, Googling, you can totally just, like, learn everything that you need to learn about whatever specific ride that you want to take. Additionally, there's, like... I traveled for a long time with the Railroad Atlas of North America, so you have, like, actual maps of each major yard, each major line, as well as, like, it has, like, higher-resolution maps for smaller lines, and this is really useful because when you're on a massive piece of steel, like, a compass isn't going to work very well. It's sort of, like, hard to tell exactly where you're going all the time, and you can utilize these maps to say, like, oh, like, you know, I've been going, like, what looks like Southwest for the last eight hours? What's the only line that goes Southwest from the town that I left? Oh, great. So I'll probably... You can, like, use it to infer your location or where you'll be going. Which is quite useful if you don't have a smartphone or anything like that. Yeah, so it's sort of short as far as, like, actual technical or, like, in-depth material goes. This, a lot of, as I said before, has to do with the fact that I try to keep it pretty high-level and, like, go over basically, like, the fundamentals or the idea behind it. However, I'm willing to, like, take some questions and talk a bit more about, like, I don't know, anecdotal stories or something like this. Sorry. Anyways, thanks. Cool. Thank you. Thank you very much. So you know the drill? There are microphones in the center. Well, one microphone. Line up for questions there, please. And maybe I'll start off... Generally, how long would you say you talked about some lines take longer, some lines don't take as long? Yeah. And I was thinking, like, okay, a couple hours. But how long would it take to cross, I don't know, from New York to San Francisco? Is that even possible? Yeah, it's possible. There's not, like, a direct route. It would require quite a bit of planning or, like, knowing what you're doing. But you'd probably have to go from New York to Washington State and then south. Alternatively, you can ride, like, the midline, which goes south first and then, like, cut through the center part of the country. However, I mean, if you're lucky, seven to ten days, some people will take a lot longer. Trains are rather slow. The fastest you'll be going is maybe, if you're on a high priority freight, like, 100 kilometers an hour, like, yeah, 150 kilometers. No, probably about 100 would be the fastest. So, seven, ten days in a hot metal box or waiting on the side of the tracks, something like that. Yeah, hanging out in a lot of bushes Well, we have one more question there. Hi. Do you generally have a specific destination in mind when you get onto a train? It sort of depends on the reasoning for where you're going or, like, what you want to do. So, if you... It just depends. Like, when I was doing it at first, I would just sort of go around aimlessly, like, just for the sake of hopping trains. And then, as I got a bit older, I was, like, having jobs or trying to work a harvest, like, you know, in the Northeast or the Midwest, so you end up, like, I need to go to Minnesota to, like, work this harvest or I'm going to go pick apples here. So, a lot of times, like, you'll have a reason to go somewhere. Although, it's obviously, like, not required if you're kind of hoboing around, like, and you have no destination. It's not a necessity to travel, I guess. And, but if you have a destination in mind, is it, like, do you have a... a high likelihood of success with getting there? Yeah, I mean, it depends on how much research you do and, like, the type of trains that you're riding. So, yeah, if you're just looking to get, like, from point A to point B, you can use your map in Atlas or, like, search online for specific routes, like saying, like, oh, freight routes from, like, this city to this city. Generally, it's going to be major cities which have the best routes. And you can use the railfan websites from a weekly or something like this and then get on that train specifically. So, yeah. Did you ever get caught by the railway cops? And if so, what happened? Could you tell some anecdotes? Yeah, sure. So, I was only caught, like, actually on a train a couple times, and both times I was actually just thrown off. Like, the guy was, like, basically, this isn't a passenger train, like, get out of here or whatever. But I have been, I got a ticket for being on property once in California. So, like, you know, they'll run up on you, hop out of the SUV, and be like, oh, I do the normal cop stuff. And generally, it's like, since it's a private rail force, you might get a trespassing ticket, which is actually, like, a civil fine where, like, you owe the rail company whatever for the trespassing. And a lot of times, if you're a repeat offender, they'll take you to, you know, they'll decide to, like, make it a criminal a criminal offense and then, like, submit it to the government. But in general, it's actually, like, oops, rather low impact, I guess. As long as I said, like, as long as you're not opening up containers and, like, messing with the actual freight, because they carry sensitive materials, so there's, like, expensive electronics, sometimes, like, toxic materials, things like this, so you can really, like, you're taking really high risk and they can try and charge you with all sorts of fun things, like terrorism and stuff, so... Yeah. Yeah, please? Can you talk about minimizing risk generally and in whatever category of risk you think is most appropriate? Okay, yeah, yeah, for sure. That's a really good question. So I would say, like, probably the most important risk for minimization was going to be a safety, like, you don't want to be out there dying on the tracks, like, and stuff like this because, one, it sucks for you, and then also, when that happens, like, the police are going to come, the railways become a lot tighter, like, secure-wise, I mean, there's so many railways, it's completely impossible to secure them totally, but if it's a major railway where there's lots of other riders going and you go and, like, lose limbs, then you're going to get in trouble for people. So a lot of times, as I was saying before, you're going to want to avoid, like, getting on moving trains or if you're, like, going through the yard through the train yard and you're climbing over trains, don't be, like, stepping on couplings or climbing underneath them or anything like that, like, you're going to want to use, like, pretend you're a rail worker, if you work on the railroads, you're going to use the ladders and the platforms, like, on the cars that exist there already, and if there's not a ladder or platform, you should go to a different car because these things, they can jerk around in the yard a lot or move unexpectedly. And then as far as, like, once you're actually on the train because you can be in a hot metal box for a really long time and sometimes getting stuck on the side of the tracks for a long time, you're definitely going to want to be prepared with water for estate kits, like, it's, like, here, it's, like, drink more water, wear sunscreen, you know, things like this, bring enough food, generally you'll be carrying, like, at least two days of food in your backpack and then, like, have extra food to take with you, just, like, really standard stuff like that, and then as far as legal risk, like, being sneaky is the best advice that I can give you. I mean, don't be seen if possible. Generally people are, like, hopping out at night and then during the daytime, if you're on a train, like, don't go, like, climbing on top of cars and, like, I don't know, getting drunk and yelling at people on the side of the tracks and stuff like that. Just use common sense, like, you know. Can you elaborate a bit on sneakiness in this context? Yeah, for sure. So, the idea is, like, essentially that you're going to want to, like, minimize your impact at any area that you're in so you're not going to want to be, like, going to a train yard, right? You're, like, sitting at a bush by the tracks and then, I don't know, digging holes or, like, doing things to disrupt the area as well as, like, when you're actually on the train itself you don't want to be, like, leaving, like, I don't know, huge tags, like, sitting in a car and then, like, drawing on the car or, like, during the daytime if you're hiding on a train you're going to want to stay hidden as much as possible. Basically, like, don't move around, don't stick your head out, like, just relax, I guess. And when entering rail facilities the best time of day to do that is generally when the sun is down you're going to want to, like, be staying on the outskirts. Like, a lot of it has to do with, like, I don't know, just, like, pretend you're a ninja or something and, uh, sneak, be quiet. Uh, well, if you're, you can climb in the units and, like, there's bathrooms in the nose of the unit for the crews but, you know, otherwise just bring a bag, I guess. What was the most dangerous thing that happened to you? Um, nothing specifically to me, because I tend to, like, be really careful, but I've watched people, like, try to get on trains that are going too fast and, like, I watched this dude, like, he threw his dog up into the, into a box trying to catch it and he couldn't catch it and then he, like, was grabbing it he was holding on and his legs went underneath the track uh, the, and I was, like, oh no I'm going to watch this kid die. Luckily, somehow he didn't and I had to, like, run down the string and grab his dog out of the, because he fell down or whatever so it was, like, one of those moments where it's like, man, I almost watched this kid, like, lose his legs almost watched this dog get stuck on a train about to go to the desert. So, and it goes back to just, like, really common sense things. Like, if a train is moving and you really have to get on it, like, make sure that you can run faster than it first before, like, throwing all your stuff in it, you know, like, or if you're getting on a moving train don't have a huge heavy backpack that you can, you know, just be very aware of, like, yourself and your space and, uh, that will be the best way. Um, yeah, luckily I've never had any, like, personal, like, life-threatening moments but I'm, like, I call it the survival instinct. I'm like, that looks dangerous. I'm not going to do that. Did you ever catch any graffiti writers when they were at work? Um, yeah, I mean, sometimes, like, you end up in particular yards that are known for artists, like, being there and, and, uh, so, like, I never, like, personally ran into any of them, but you, like, hear people running around and, like, spraying on cars and stuff, which is, if you're, like, hiding in a boxcar and you hear someone walking outside the boxcar, it's a bit nerve-racking, but then to hear a can rattle is a, you're sort of, like, ah, they're being illegal, too. That's cool. Yeah. Thank you. Could you perhaps elaborate a bit more on, uh, the planning process regarding food, uh, water, other supplies and also what you do if, after two or three days, you, you run out of it. It could be that you end up in a place which is, I don't know, 50 miles from, uh, from a town. You don't want to walk that. Yeah, for sure. Um, a lot of times, like, with food planning, it's the same, like, if you're going on a long hike or something like this, like, you really just want staples that aren't non-perishable that aren't going to go bad, like, that are sealed so you're not, like, getting ants all over your stuff, and it really has to go with, like, guessing, like, as I said, you, you know that, like, you could be on a train potentially for seven to ten days. Like, that can be a rather long time, so just plan for that amount of time. And in general, like, as long as you're not riding, like, huge strings of, like, really long strings of empty cars or stuff like this, like, the likelihood of you ending up stranded is a lot lower, so the planning of minimizing the risk would be, like, calling in and tracking the car that you're considering getting on to find out if it does have a destination, which isn't some, like, random word that you've never heard of, because that probably means it's going to, like, get dropped off at a granary in the middle of nowhere for a week or something, so. And I mean, this has happened to me in Utah. I was at a sighting. And you end up, like, walking a couple miles and then hitchhiking or whatever to, like, get back into town. But, yeah, a lot of it is, like, always have more water than you think you need, always have more food than you think you need, and be prepared to, like, have to walk along with. And what do you do during the traveling? Are you reading stuff? Are you singing? I don't know. Yeah, I mean, it depends. Like, some people are, like, traveling with instruments. I usually had a book, yeah, I would be reading different books and stuff or, like, figuring out where I'm going next. So you have a railroad atlas, like, there's so many lines and, like, so much space to cover that a lot of times, like, if you're on a train, you're just researching, like, where the train might be going, like, where you want to go next, and it's sort of, like, and then also the scenery. Like, you see amazing things that roads don't go to, so there's, like, really beautiful scenery that you can just kind of sit around, get drunk. Thanks. Can we stick to one question now and then just circle around if you have two questions for us, because we're getting a line there. So is it very common to run to other people doing the same thing? Like, do you jump on a carriage and be like, oh, hey, cool, nice to meet you. Generally, you're not going to, like, get on the same car as somebody by chance, because, like, any train is going to have, like, a long, a large amount of... But yeah, in the train yard and stuff, you'll see people, like, sitting near the tracks, drinking or, like, doing whatever, but it depends on if you want to go talk to them or not, though. It's up to you. What sort of people do you meet doing this? I mean, like, who does this these days? What's your sort of sense of... of who's doing it? I'd say a range is pretty, like... It's a large range of people. Like, sometimes you just see, like, there's, like, young people who, like, learned about it through, like, whatever culture. Like, one time I met this old dude who's, like, a really normal guy and he didn't have a backpack and he had a Bible. He told me he was, like, hopping trains for Jesus and stuff, so, like... Yeah. A lot of crazy people, a lot of, like, normal people, too. It's, like, anywhere, like, just happens to be that they also are into trains, I guess. Did you ever meet normal people working there and how was it like? How did they react? Did they look inside just pretending you don't see you or did they talk to you? That also varies, like... I think there's a level of understanding in the rail industry where, like, people see hobos and stuff and sort of, like, some people appreciate them and, like, understand that, like, the cultures go hand-in-hand and then others don't. So, like, I've had rail workers give me boots or, like, throw water at me and stuff and, like, help me out or... Then you have rail workers that just call the rail police on you, so... Generally, though, like, if you're mostly hidden and you're not, like, being a dick and, like, just, like, making a mess and stuff, that being said, like... It's hard to know if they're turning a blind eye because you don't know if they see you unless they come up to you or the cops show up, so... Is there a culture of helping each other? You told about grabbing the other guy's dog off the train. So do you leave signs for each other or if you have spare food leave it somewhere where people can find it? Word, yeah, I actually meant to talk on that, but, um... So, yeah, there's, like, this, like, mythology of, like, hobo signs and stuff like that. And it's kind of, like... I don't know if it ever happened, but nowadays it's not as common because you sort of, like, have a way of, like... You'll see people and they'll tell you tips or, like, tell you about what's going on. And generally, like, you're not gonna want to, like, leave, really. I mean, if you have a signage, right, which is well-documented, and then you're leaving these signs everywhere, it sort of exposes people who also may want to, like, take advantage of, like, other... of hobos or, like, the police or whatever, so it's, like, a bit... It's, like, poor opsec, I guess you'd say, and so generally, like, people aren't doing this these days. Cool. If there are no more questions, we are great on time. Oh, one more question. Maybe one more question. Have you ever heard of, uh, hoboing in other continents? Uh... No, I heard some folks saying that you could track all the trains in Australia, but... I'm not sure, like, why... I mean, I wouldn't really want to hop trains in Australia because that's a really, like, scary hot place, and I don't like... I like mountains and snow and stuff, so... But yeah, I haven't heard that much about... Oh, actually, I mean, of course, like, it's central to North America. It's, like, Central America, Mexico, South America, stuff like that. I'm sorry, I completely, like, didn't mention that. Um, it's still super prevalent down there. I mean, this is how people get around. Um, a lot of, like, exploited peoples are, like, using the rail system in order to travel, to, like, find work or, like, get to better situations. It's very prevalent. Are sheriffs afraid that you are Rambo? I've never been accused of being Rambo, but I had, generally, when they run your name, that's, like, the first thing. They're like, we just want to make sure you're not a murderer, so give me your name, yeah. Cool. Then, thank you very much again. It was a very interesting topic.