“We’re protesting the lack of attention given to it or the cover up of it. If they spent half the amount of money that it cost them to pull this off, on preventing child sexual assault or sexual molestation, we probably wouldn’t be here.” he said. "It’s millions of dollars, clearly.”

“Sex with minors is illegal on the Internet, Why is it allowed in our Yeshivos?” read one sign. “The Internet never molested me,” read another, in the lap of a girl sitting on the sidewalk with about ten others. Their interest and dedication had clearly peaked earlier in the evening.

Before I'd even made it over to the protest, one Hasid stopped me on my way out of the stadium and grouped me in with the detractors—on account of my non-conforming haircut he later told me. He thought I was one of the “rabble rousers” there to “stir up trouble,” because he saw me recording audio. In response to my confusion he became embarassed and apologized for the assumption.

Despite my yarmulke and formal attire, the Hasid could tell that I had never set foot in a Yeshiva, “I almost passed you a note that said, ‘What’s up, undercover brother?’” he said.

Meanwhile, our really undercover female reporter got in and out undetected.

Once I identified as a member of the press, this Hasid acknowledged the muddiness of the message and the Orthodox's PR problem. He grappled to explain the importance of regulating the Internet and even how it affects his own life. When he's on Facebook, it's a moment that he's not studying Torah, he explained. "I'd probably get more out of this conversation than I would in there," he said as we exited Citi Field in the middle of a speech. There was no readmittance.

“If you find an Orthodox Jew in Williamsburg or Boro Park and offer him $50 for a ticket, I bet you could get one,” said the wise Rabbi Eliyahu Fink. Another source said that tickets went on sale today at a synagogue near the BQE.

With those two hot tips, Betabeat hopped on the subway and headed straight to Brooklyn. As the synogogue came into view, so did a gaggle of Hasidim crowding around two tables on the sidewalk. Betabeat stood in the crowd just like we would at any other disorganized ticket outlet, wondering if anyone would notice our lack of peyot. They did.

"Are you registered to vote?" one Hasid asked.

Beatabeat told them that, yes, we were registered to vote and just wanted tickets.

"Tickets to what?" he asked. What other tickets were they selling, we wondered? “Do you know what it is?” another asked as we handed over our $20. Even another asked, "How did you know we were selling them here?"

Apparently the Citi Field event has garnered so much interest that a second venue had to be added at the National Tennis Center in Queens. As Betabeat walked away with tickets (they came with bus passes!) to the National Tennis Center secure in hand, another Hasid called after us to get “the real reason” we wanted to attend. We responded that we were press.

At that, he became adamant about the fact that they didn’t want to “drop a bomb” on the Internet and that it was simply an issue for their community. "The world is what it is," he said.

So is the Internet. And no amount of filters or blocked pages will stop a motivated kid or Hasid from sinning with the mouse.

Shhhh.

Update: Contrary to a previous source, there’s at least one man behind this rally with an email address. The man in charge of the not quite non-existent but ever-elusive press-passes, Eytan Kobre, told Betabeat in an email that “to my knowledge, all available press passes are spoken for.” If only it hadn’t taken three weeks, six phone numbers and a call to another newspaper to find him. Mr. Kobre said he would "check further and try to get back" to us but that's the line we've been getting all along. Ichud HaKehillos may be online but organized, they are not.

Update: It turns out that the Five Towns Jewish Times will be at Citi Field on May 20th, at least. Now on our sixth phone number ("the mailbox is full. Goodbye") Betabeat's attendance looks more promising, if not yet a sure thing.

After three weeks of getting the run-around (“Uh, I don’t know, call this number”) it seems that the rally of “Jews against the Internet” at Citi Field on May 20 is looking to exclude reporters as well as women. We asked, not The Times? The Post? The Daily News? Nope.

In retrospect, we should have purchased tickets. The rally is organized by Ichud HaKehillos, an Orthodox Jewish organization aimed at educating the masses regarding responsible use of technology, and we realized gaining access would probably be a unique experience after the moratorium on vaginas.

But after taking our information down on three separate occasions and promising to get back to us, one of the organizers gave us a flat-out no. The last number we tried led us straight to a voicemail explaining that there are no more tickets available for buses to the event.

When we called asking for an email address, the man who answered said they didn’t have one because “we don’t have the Internet.”

Actually, Ichud HaKehillos does have the Internet, and a website:

Ichud HaKehillos is an organization that was founded with the purpose of educating the masses regarding responsible use of technology. Backed ... by Reb Matisyahu Salomon, shlita, and the Skulener Rebbe, shlita, after many years of trying to keep families disconnected from the rapid advancements of modern-day technology, this organization rose out of a realization that fighting technology is an exercise in futility and is doomed to failure.

Gawker reports that the sold-out event, where tickets were originally $10 dollars (wait, you have to pay to rally against something?) are now appearing marked up on eBay. Citi Field holds 45,000 people, and apparently some original ticket holders aren't against making a couple of bucks on the web, even if the Internet is inherently evil. The top bid for two tickets is $124.50. A single ticket has a top bid of $75, but if you want to lock it down for sure, buy it right now for $1,800.

Betabeat continues to call the two three four phone numbers that Ichud HaKehillos representatives gave us. They won't admit they have the Internet, but they seem pretty proud of all their phones.

Solidoodle. (Photo by Ben Weitzenkorn)

Eighty-eight percent of Dev Bootcamp's Ruby on Rails grads are going to startups with an average salary of $79,000 [Tech Crunch]

Brooklyn-based Solidoodle's $500 3D printer gets a review [CNET]

The rumored T-Mobile and Metro PCS merger makes little sense for either company [AllThingsD]

Facebook's  test-drive of "Highlight" will allow all users to pay to promote their content [TechCrunch]

Baidu takes aim at iOS and Android in China with its own cloud-based service [The Next Web]

Another unseen 1980s Apple commercial surfaces featuring Steve Jobs in Ghostbusters parody [MacRumors]

(Source: Hans Weingartz via Wikipedia)

Anybeat, the anonymous social network, was bought and will be shut down [TechCrunch]

Nokia has it's appeal dropped in patent case against IPCom [Engadget]

Prepaid and wholesale reignite growth for T-Mobile [CNET]

Safari update disables any out of date plugins "to help keep your Mac secure" [Ars Technica]

Government owned China Mobile raises U.S. concerns as it seeks to expand to America [The Next Web]

Sony loses a record $5.7 billion [Gizmodo]

Picadilly CIrcus, London, (Source: Paul Atherton via Wikipedia)

LAWGIC. Today 2tor is partnering with Washington University to put their Master of Laws degree online. 2tor's previous partnerships with USC, UNC and Georgetown have put high-end higher education online with programs in social work, business and nursing. The Washington University partnership is specifically aimed at removing a hurdle for international students who want to study U.S. law. Now they can do it from abroad but still have access to the faculty they would be working with if they were physically in St. Lous.

BE MOBILE. Last week New York City based bMobilized locked down $1.5 million in series A funding from European VC firms Alliance Venture and Investinor. The mobile technology company uses cloud technology to convert websites from one of seven languages to HTML5 for a better mobile browsing experience.

RABBIT EARS. Yesterday NimbleTV named Lou Borrelli as their CMO. Mr. Borrelli joined the cloud-based television subscription service last year as an advisor and investor. His resume includes senior positions at NEP Broadcasting and AOL.

WORKSITE. Yesterday, Scrollkit, the intuitive site building platform, unrolled two big new features. Now users can draw on their websites and buy a domain that automatically propagates. Build entire websites at the speed of Twitter.

COMMUNITY. New Work City just revamped their community membership policy. Now, for $30 a month, members receive one free day pass, discounts on other days and events and access to happy hours, a startup support group, meetups and show and tells.

URBAN EXPLORATION. NYC BigApps winner MyCityWay has gone transatlantic. The urban concierge app is in London just ahead of the Olympics with all the features New Yorkers already enjoy. Need to find Tea? Crumpets? Petrol? They've got you covered.

PUNCH THE CLOCK. Hourly, a matching service for workers and employers looking for flexible work, just relaunched with a slew of new features including enhanced search, a premium membership offering and civic and trade group associations.

DIY. In response to customer feedback, Vook, the e-book creation, publishing and distribution platform, is making their product financially feasible for small players. The new Vook Starter Account is available for $9.99 a month and includes 100 MBs of storage and all the other features that make Vook so attractive, including automatic distribution to the Amazon and Barnes & Noble and royalty collection. Another victory for independent and individual publishers!

INTERNET INVASION. In celebration of Internet Week, WalkaboutNYC is pulling back the covers on New York tech. For the third year, everybody is invited to check out the offices of big names like 10gen, Behance, Art.sy, Codecademy, Gilt Groupe, Jetsetter, eBay, Knewton, Lot18, Spotify, Tumblr—there's a lot, okay? The citywide event is completely free thanks to time tracking company Harvest, and participants can tailor their experience with tours, founder talks and of course, demos.

NERD PROM. The 2012 Webutante Ball is a week from tomorrow where founders, investors and other big names in tech get together to drink dance and crown the king and queen of the Internet. "Series B" tickets are still available for $60 but if you wait for those to sell out the "IPO" ticket round bumps the cost up to $70. All this is happening on May 16 at Marquee, 289 10th Ave.

T-Mobile is finally getting up to speed for the iPhone [AllThingsD]

Video encoding company Elemental Technologies scores $13 million in series C round [VentureBeat]

Drawing app Doodle.ly reaches 20,000 downloads and gets a social upgrade [TechCrunch]

In the wake of the BART protest controversy, when can the government shut down wireless service? [Ars Technica]

Uh, $350 for an FM radio? [CNET]

Silicon Island? (Source: Blueseed.co)

OS X Lion bug causes some users passwords to be stored in plain text [Gizmodo]

Apple enters negotiations with Proview in an effort to put its Chinese legal battle in the past [The Next Web]

Blueseed wants to make your startup float [VentureBeat]

"The Unknowns" hack NASA and the ESA [The Verge]

Payday lender Wonga.com plans to fill the lending gap in Europe [TechCrunch]

Adobe CS 6 now available; Creative Cloud coming May 11 [Engadget]

Thompson. (Source: Yodel Anecdotal/Yahoo! Inc. via Wikipedia)

Apple finally stops snubbing OpenStreetMaps [The Next Web]

Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson is under fire for a fib on his resume [CNET]

Engrade closes $3 million seed round led by Rethink Education [TechCrunch]

Ebay brings 200 jobs to its new 35,000 square foot Flatiron office [VentureBeat]

Small time retail investors might be able to get a chunk of Facebook's IPO after all [DealBook]

Apps in Google's store continue to wreak havoc on Android devices [Ars Technica]

Undercover 3G Palm Tree. (Source: Gary Minnaert via Wikipedia)

House Democrat asks wireless carriers for data on police cooperation citing privacy concerns [The New York Times]

Vonage loses $14 million, 19,000 subscribers [Engadget]

Microsoft's new New York research lab is full of Yahoos [Bits]

New customizable "action links" on Facebook will let users interact with third party apps in new ways [CNET]

EA was just kidding when they told you Rock Band for iOS was shutting down [The Next Web]

Is "big data" really a good idea? [Technology Review]