The anniversary of Roe v. Wade to speak out against parental consent, saying it was parental
consent that killed their daughter.
212-279-3400.
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That's after the Webster decision this past July.
And these are the kind of issues we discuss on WBAI.
We bring you, I'll be doing that special show from 8.30 to noon on Monday with reporter
Laura Seidel.
And we'll be covering many issues, including Domino's Pizza.
I know that recently Domino's has been in the news for, I think it, what was it?
They were going to offer Ed Koch and his liquid diet, liquid pizza.
Well, it will get publicity in that way.
But another way Domino's has gotten publicity is that its owner, its sole owner, Tom Monahan,
is an avid supporter of Operation Rescue and the Right to Life movement and has given
money to the Michigan Right to Life movement and Operation Rescue.
And there has been a major boycott of Domino's movement around this country.
And we'll be looking at Domino's and its involvement also in Central America, how by Tom Monahan's
involvement with a cult called Word of God.
212-279-3400.
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you want us to continue to cover these issues.
212-279-3400.
There's two listeners calling in.
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And we can go out to Eric Corley for this late night Thursday night program.
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And right now you can get a copy of the Israeli connection, Who is Real, Arms and Why by Benjamin
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It looks like Eric's ready to go.
212-279-3400.
Sorry, Emmanuel.
And what's your last name?
Goldstein.
Emmanuel Goldstein.
Sorry, I get it wrong every time.
There's three listeners calling in.
And Emmanuel Goldstein is actually after the character in 1984 who led the resistance.
I am the character in 1984.
I am the character in 1984.
I am the character in 1984.
I am the character in 1984.
I am the character in 1984.
I am the character in 1984.
I am the character in 1984.
I am the character in 1984.
I am the character in 1984.
He is.
Excuse me.
I'm leading the resistance now.
And he's leading the resistance.
And he wants me off the air so he can get on.
We've got four listeners calling in and we're going to go out with that flurry.
212-279-3400.
212-279-3400.
Let's make it five.
212-279-3400.
And you can remember for a contribution of $60 get a copy of the Israeli connection,
which reveals many of the relationships between Israel and military regimes throughout the
world.
It looks at the relationship between Israel and Mobutu in Africa, the Shah of Iran.
It looks at the relationship between Israel and Chile, Israel and Guatemala, El Salvador,
Israel and Nicaragua.
212-279-3400.
And this book is yours for a contribution of $60.
Again, the author is a professor at the University of Haifa, a very interesting book.
There's five listeners calling in as I asked for and I think on that note we should let
Emanuel Goldstein get on with his show, the real Emanuel Goldstein.
No, this isn't 1990, we're back in 1984.
212-279-3400.
212-279-3400.
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I think we've met our $2,500 goal for tonight and right now it's 12.46 and a few seconds.
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WBAI News Team, thanks you very much.
I see there's three listeners calling in.
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Commercial free airways.
Put on your seatbelts.
Hello?
Yes, may I speak with Jackie, please?
Um, she isn't here.
May I ask who's calling?
Uh, yes.
This is the Kansas City Fire Department.
Fire Department?
Yes.
And we've discovered a potentially dangerous situation.
A gas leak in her hair.
And approximately five o'clock today, her hair will burst into flames.
Are you kidding me?
No, I'm not.
Oh, well, well, well, well, yeah.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Trouble is all over town, yeah.
It's bulletin' and shootin' and killin'.
And burnin' out, them burnin' out.
Oh, trouble is all over my hometown, yeah.
It's bulletin' and shootin' and killin'.
And burnin' out, them burnin' out, y'all.
But where do I stand in this here crossfire?
And all in all, yes, I know happiness is nowhere on the ground.
I ain't got no wings to fly on to the sky, yeah.
But through the powers of the most high,
I've got to be brave.
I'm still alive to give Jah glory, yeah.
I'm still alive to tell my story.
Early, early this morning, I arose from my slumber.
And when I looked through my belly-bottom window,
they were all around, all around.
I see no faces, I hear a house voice ordering everybody,
just what to do.
You can't make a move now, no.
It's then I remember, Gigi and her baby brother,
how they would suffer so fast.
I'm the only breadwinner.
That's when I scaled through a fence and over the wall,
and there he was standing so big and tall.
He said, don't make a move, else I'll shoot you through.
He ain't never see the dust of my shoes.
He ain't never see the lights of my shoes.
And I've got to be brave.
I'm still alive to give Jah glory, yeah.
I'm still alive to tell my story.
I'm still alive.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm still alive.
Travel.
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Well, that could all be changing.
Because soon, every time you make a phone call, the people on the other end will know
who you are.
And soon, they'll know where you are.
And in the not-too-distant future, they'll even know what you want.
Does that trouble you?
Do you think it's scary?
How could high tech be scary?
Well, I can tell you this.
High tech can be unpredictable.
Unless, of course, it's a record player.
Well, high tech certainly was unpredictable on Monday, wasn't it?
Not for some of us.
Some of us always knew that day would come.
The day the Bell System died.
It really happened.
It really happened.
American telephone and telegraph company technicians worked through the night,
trying to pinpoint and correct a problem that disrupted long-distance service nationwide,
officials said on Thursday.
Service was crippled at about 2.20...
That's odd.
They said it on Thursday.
I got this press release on Tuesday.
Okay.
Well, anyway.
Service was crippled about 2.20 p.m. Eastern Standard Time,
when AT&T long-distance callers began receiving recorded messages
saying the company's network, which, in case you didn't know,
is the largest in the nation.
The recorded messages saying the network was overloaded.
Phone calls within local areas around the nation were apparently not affected,
and there was no estimate on when the problem would be solved.
This is before the problem was solved.
Early in the afternoon, most long-distance callers received a recorded message saying,
All circuits are busy now. Please try later.
But by 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, about half the calls were going through.
Or, depending on your outlook, half the calls weren't going through.
According to a spokesman, the service outage was caused by a problem
with the company's computer software
and was not related to a mechanical difficulty or a computer virus.
It appears to be a problem in the software used to route calls all over the country.
The spokesperson said,
It's a nationwide problem affecting regular long-distance and business service
as well as 800 numbers.
We've ruled out natural disaster and someone digging a ditch too deeply,
said Burke Stinson, an AT&T spokesman in New Jersey.
It appears the problem is in a signaling system that essentially calls to the network
and says which route the calls travel.
Stinson said a signaling circuit apparently sent a message to the national network
saying that all circuits were busy when they actually were not.
And, of course, they were.
It's amazing how it works sometimes.
There are more than 100 AT&T switching centers around the country.
And long-distance calls normally can take one of 14 different paths.
The outages were spread across the country, she said,
the spokesperson, whom you now know as a woman.
AT&T handles about 80 million calls each business day,
but because many offices were closed Monday for Martin Luther King holiday,
the load was lower.
AT&T computer specialists were working diligently,
and for some reason they put that in quotes,
to fix the software problem, but it was unclear when full service would be restored.
Again, that's because this came out on either Tuesday or Thursday,
depending on which part of the release you believe.
The AT&T National Network Operations headquarters is in Bedminster, New Jersey,
and computer scientists there were studying the software
to determine the cause of the outage.
Customers whose calls were blocked on AT&T lines
were able to use other long-distance companies.
Both U.S. Sprint, based in Kansas City, Missouri,
and MCI Communications Corporation, based in Washington, D.C.,
issued statements saying their lines were not experiencing any difficulties.
Abbott recommended against callers using the other companies,
saying people having difficulties with AT&T lines
should continue trying to make calls.
As the number of calls drop off toward the end of the day, chances get better, she said.
If you don't get through the first time, you'll get through the second time.
Did anyone out there try to make a phone call on Monday using AT&T
and not get through the first time, and then get through the second time?
I've never heard about this.
And I must have gotten several dozen calls from people saying,
OK, what did you do?
I mean, really?
When I first got the phone call, I decided, OK, I'm going to try this.
I'm going to see if it's really as bad as everyone is saying.
And I decided to make a call to California.
Call California.
And what the media calls a busy signal is actually a reorder.
OK, let's see if I can do this on the air.
I'm going to try to demonstrate what a reorder is.
This may take a little bit of time, but I should be able to do it.
I have a number I can call that always has a reorder.
And we should be able to...
There, that's a reorder.
Hear that?
It's a fast busy.
You know, it goes faster than a busy.
I mean, you all know what a busy sounds like.
I'm not going to, you know, call one of those.
It's slower.
And what that means, what that sound means is all circuits are busy.
In other words, you can't even get to the point of getting a busy signal.
You can't get to the point of getting a recording saying all circuits are busy.
Because all the circuits are busy going into the recordings that say the circuits are busy.
So that's what I got.
I got that signal called a reorder when I tried calling California.
So, I hung up.
And do you know what I did?
I tried again.
And no, AT&T spokeswoman, whoever your name is.
I did not get through the second time.
I did not get through the third time or anything up to the 41st time.
I did not get through.
And the obscene thing about this is there is no reason for anybody to have been inconvenienced.
No reason at all.
But you would not have guessed that by listening to the reports or by having the operators help you.
Do you know that while this was going on, while the calls were not being processed,
AT&T wouldn't even tell you how you could make the calls?
Even though it's within all of our capability to make a call on another company?
I don't know.
They want to protect their customers.
But how about doing a little public service when obviously the system isn't working?
Telling people who may be trying to get through for a very important reason.
Sometimes phone calls aren't just frivolous.
They're for a reason.
You want to call someone and maybe save their life or something to find out what's happening.
I don't know.
There's all kinds of reasons to call people.
This isn't a phone company commercial.
You can find reasons.
But when the system isn't working, when the network isn't working,
you know, when you go to Macy's and they're out of something,
they say, well, maybe A&S will have it.
You know, they do that occasionally because they're human beings.
Well, they wouldn't do it.
Company policy forbade them from doing this even while this was at its peak.
They would not say, just by dialing five digits, you can make a call on another company.
They would not tell you how to do that.
Now, how do you do that?
Okay, we're going to tell you that.
We're going to tell you that right here, folks.
And it's very important that everybody know this.
What's crazy here is that how do we find this out?
How do people know the alternate ways to route around these things?
These things that we always say are impossible,
but when you have these huge computers running the whole show,
one thing goes wrong, and it's a chain reaction.
And that's what happened here.
One thing went wrong in a New York switching center.
Those bad error messages, or whatever you want to call them, spread to another switching system,
and to another, and another, all across the country.
And if that doesn't sound like a virus to you, I'd like to know what your definition of a virus is.
No, it wasn't something planted by insidious computer hackers.
Uh-uh.
It wasn't that at all.
It was a programming error.
A programming error, a virus from within, but a virus all the same.
And what we have to realize is that just because something is being run on a computer
does not mean it's going to run perfectly.
They say human error was involved.
Yeah, human error was involved.
Human error will always be involved as long as there are human beings on the planet.
So, uh, the important thing, the important thing for us is to be prepared to know
that something like that could always happen.
I had no trouble making phone calls to California that day because I knew the other ways around the system.
And this is completely legal.
This is what the breakup of the bell system was all about.
This is what equal access is all about.
Okay, on to the facts.
Every phone company has a five-digit authorization code.
I guess authorization code is the wrong word.
Access code.
You dial those five digits, followed by the area code and phone number,
and you place your call over that long-distance company.
Now, here are some.
10488 is AT&T.
It's kind of clever, 10ATT.
That's what it spells.
10222 is MCI.
10333 is Sprint.
10444 is a company called Allnet.
10488 is ITT.
It's 10ITT, by the way.
And I believe 10221.
Maybe it's 10220.
I don't have the list in front of me.
This is all coming out of my head.
That is Western Union.
Now, there are many, many, many more.
Hundreds.
And we just printed a list of them, in fact, in the Hacker Quarterly,
which I'll be telling you about in a few minutes as part of a special premium that we're offering here in WBAI.
So stay tuned for that.
It's important that you know these things.
It's important that when something happens,
when AT&T decides to block all calls to California
because they think that the calls are of a frivolous nature and will interfere with things,
maybe they will, maybe they won't.
But who do you want to make that decision?
You need alternative ways to make things work for you.
And that's what knowing high technology is all about.
Now, a lot of people said this could never happen.
And a lot of us knew it was just a matter of time.
They say it won't ever happen again.
But if you asked them a week ago,
could the AT&T system break down,
they'd say, of course not.
It's the best system in the world.
And maybe it is the best system in the world,
but no system is completely safe from something like this.
I mean, even the most elementary of computer users knows the first rule.
Keep backups. Have backups ready.
And AT&T did not have backups ready.
Oh, they had backups, but they weren't ready.
It took them nine hours to reroute things.
It shouldn't take nine hours to bypass a faulty switch.
So it's a lesson to be learned.
A lesson of what equal access is all about.
It's actually, you know, people say the breakup of the Bell system was a bad idea.
Well, maybe it was to some degree, but there's a lot of good in it.
There's a lot of good in it.
There's a lot of potential.
But instead of seeing the good things,
the information is being withheld from us,
and we're being ripped off by those companies that are abusing it.
Case in point, pay phones.
Oh, boy, do I like to talk about pay phones.
The other day, actually, it was yesterday,
somebody beeped me.
Now, you know I have a beeper, okay?
Big deal.
Everybody in New York has one.
And I felt it would be a nice gesture to return the call.
Well, I went through about seven, eight, nine pay phones.
These are real pay phones, too, New York telephone ones.
None of them work.
Pay phones don't work anymore.
It's a new feature.
And then you go to the alternate ones, you know,
the ones that came about as a result of divestiture,
the ones that offer competition.
And they want $9.95 to call a toll-free number.
And that turns a lot of people off to the potential of high technology.
It's disgusting.
It makes me very angry.
But I want to hear what you have to think about this,
because it affects you.
It affects everybody.
It affects all of us every day of our lives.
Telecommunications is a very, very personal thing.
And when we're not given the facts, abused, ripped off, what have you,
it's an offense to all of us.
If you have questions, quick questions,
because we don't have a lot of time.
We're only on until 1 o'clock.
Give us a call now, 212-279-3407.
And in just a minute, we'll have a special offer for you
so that you can keep informed
and know how high technology affects you and can potentially abuse you.
Also, another topic I want to touch upon is this caller ID business,
which you're going to be seeing more and more of.
It hasn't even been introduced in New York yet,
but it is in full swing in New Jersey.
And that, of course, is the marvelous invention
that allows the person calling you,
I'm sorry, the person you call to know your phone number.
Now, of course, the phone calls that we heard a few minutes ago,
we would never have heard
because nobody would ever have made them
had they had their phone number displayed on the screen.
And, you know, some people might say that's a good thing,
but think about it.
You know, it's a convenience in some ways,
but it's also changing the entire way we work phones.
You know, the entire business of making a phone call
is going to be changed by this new device.
And I'm just wondering if we're thinking about it enough.
So I want to hear some opinions on that.
This is Emmanuel Goldstein.
The program is The Fifth Corner.
The number is 212-279-3407.
Good morning.
Hello, you're on.
Is anyone there?
Okay, well, you have to speak, folks.
Okay, dial tones.
We all know what a dial tone sounds like.
Good evening.
Okay, I have the feeling the same person with all the lines
is calling again, and that's very unfair.
Good morning.
Yes, hello, Emmanuel.
That wasn't you on all three lines before, was it?
Oh, no, dear.
I try and be straight
until people antagonize the living hell out of me.
Well, hopefully nobody's going to do that.
What's your question?
Listen, naturally I'm against
all these kind of invasions of things.
Can you turn your radio down, please?
Let me just switch phones.
Throw it out the window or something.
Can you be kind enough for a second?
For a second I'll be kind,
but after that I'm going to be very sarcastic.
Yes, yes.
What you're hearing is this person.
Yes, hello.
Yes, go ahead.
Yeah, well, the thing is this.
Here I am.
I've been an original subscriber
to this wonderful station, okay?
And I see some things that bother me.
So I call in.
I write letters.
I go to Pacifica local board meetings
and even a national meeting
that was held in New York.
My finger slipped.
I'm sorry.
That's the thing with high tech.
You know, you can make mistakes sometimes.
Folks, if he's on the other two lines,
I'm not going to take any more phone calls.
How's that?
Okay, let's stick to the topics.
Good morning.
Hello, Emmanuel.
Do you like beaver?
Beaver, beaver, beaver, beaver, beaver, beaver, beaver.
You were saying beaver or devo?
I don't know.
But it's interesting getting a call from a machine.
Good morning.
Hi.
Hi.
Okay, I'm a listener.
Hey, you sound like our first legitimate call.
If I use one of those alternate numbers.
Okay.
How am I billed?
What happens?
Okay, good question.
When you put one of those prefixes in front of the phone number you're calling,
you will get the bill with your...
Are you in New York?
Yeah.
You'll get the bill with the New York telephone bill.
It'll be another page.
Like if you make a call on Sprint using that method,
you'll get a Sprint page in that bill.
And that way you just write one check to the phone company.
If, however, you choose Sprint or MCI as your long distance company
and make one plus calls,
in other words, not using the authorization or access code,
then you'll get a separate bill from them.
And I'm told that soon AT&T will have that system too
where when you choose AT&T you'll get a separate bill from them.
And I think that's a terrible inconvenience,
but that's just the way it's going to be.
But if you make what they call the casual user calls,
10XXX,
then you'll be billed through your local phone company.
I see.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
Thanks for calling.
212-279-3407.
Good morning.
Hello?
Yes, go ahead.
Oh, yeah, hi.
You know, what I thought about the slowdown,
what did they officially call that?
The AT&T mess.
It was a mess.
It was a programming error.
I don't know the specifics about what did what to who,
but basically it was something that just kept getting worse
as it communicated with itself throughout the system.
It spread to different machines,
and the whole thing got bogged down.
They had to route around the particular problem.
But nobody really knows what happened.
Well, I think the folks at Bell Labs do know what happened now.
Right, but I'm saying outside of a select few people.
I'm saying the general public really doesn't know.
Right.
The point I was getting to is a couple of weeks ago
the Supreme Court made that decision on people's portable phones, right,
that it was okay for anybody who wanted to listen into that stuff
that they can listen into that now, right?
Uh-huh.
Wait, what was the rule that they made?
Well, basically what happened was that a guy, some guy,
I forget what state it was in,
he was using his, not a cellular phone, but a cordless phone.
A mobile phone.
Right. Sorry?
A mobile phone is what they called us.
Okay.
Just a cordless phone. That's fine.
Right, yeah, just a cordless phone.
And he was, I think he was dealing drugs
and maybe hooked up with a couple of robberies in it.
Now, his neighbors, supposedly his neighbors picked him up,
picked up his cordless phone calls on their cordless phone.
And they were able to use what they gained in a court of law.
Right, so they told the police.
The police came and gave the neighbors recording equipment
so that the police now were physically tapping this guy's phone.
Right, and you mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, I believe.
Yeah, but it was...
Now, can you actually send me something in writing to verify this?
Well, no, no, wait a second now.
Okay, because I'd love to find out more about this.
That would be before this AT&T thing happened.
But what I think happened was that with that decision from the Supreme Court,
right, that that gave the NSA clearance to open up,
you know, tie into a whole other network.
And so now they can monitor calls within the United States
as well as outside of the United States
because the government, because the Supreme Court,
basically what the Supreme Court said was that
any phone calls transmitted through the ether
or, you know, transmitted by radio is fair game.
Anybody can tune in on them.
So what happened was that now,
so now the NSA has to get their computers into that network, right?
Has to get or...
I'm pretty sure they're already in there somewhere.
Okay, well, I don't know.
That's what I would say.
Hey, listen, tell us about that Hacker Corral.
Is that going to be a premium?
It's a special...
Okay, I will.
Thanks for calling.
It's a special...
It's a good time to do it, I suppose.
A special premium, this program only.
We can only offer it for this hour up until 1 o'clock.
With any pledge, any pledge at all,
the minimum amount, I believe, is $45 for a basic pledge.
You will get the program guide sent to you.
You'll become a member of WBAI,
but you will also get a subscription to 2600,
the Hacker Quarterly, for one year.
It's a quarterly...
Well, obviously it's a quarterly magazine,
but by reading this magazine,
you'll be privy to some of this information
that a lot of folks don't want you to know about.
I don't know why they don't want you to know about it.
It's just damn inconvenient to have an educated public.
In this magazine,
you'll find things like a list of all the carrier access codes,
a list of every single one of them.
They don't all work in this area,
but the only way you're going to find out is by trying.
You'll hear about ripoffs from all the different phone companies,
and believe me, all the different phone companies
at some time rip you off in some way.
And if you don't know what is right and what is wrong,
you won't know when you're getting ripped off, will you?
Of course not.
You'll learn about customer-owned coin-operated telephones,
how they abuse you and how they can be abused.
You'll learn about computers.
Computer hackers, of course, is what the whole thing is about.
Computer hackers and phone freaks,
ways around the system,
different systems, international systems.
I get impassioned just thinking about it all.
I mean, it's a technological jungle out there,
and folks, you're going to get hurt
if you don't have this knowledge.
So give us a call, 212-279-3400.
Become a part of WBAI,
and become educated by reading The Hacker Quarterly, 2600 magazine.
Any donation to WBAI, and you'll receive this.
It's a donation from 2600 magazine to the people at WBAI,
and you'll get it sent to whatever address you give us.
You'll get the fall issue,
which came out about a month or so ago,
and the winter issue will be coming out in a few weeks.
And we had articles in the fall issue about hackers in Europe,
about hackers in America and where it all is leading to.
There's something coming up in this issue
that I think folks will be interested in.
It's a list of all the area codes,
all the area codes in the United States.
That number, 212-279-3400.
Join the callers on the line.
We have about four callers calling in.
Remember, this is a limited-time offer, 1 o'clock,
and that offer is over forever.
What was I saying?
Yes, the area codes, all the area codes in the country,
which, yeah, that in itself is not a big deal,
but the number of exchanges taken up in each one.
Now, why should you care about that?
Well, very important.
If you read into these things, you can learn a lot.
New York City, our 212 area code
has about approximately 650 exchanges taken up.
650?
Now, that's more than some of the area codes
that are getting ready to split up.
And what does that mean?
That means New York is on the verge,
certainly within the next 10 years,
of splitting up again.
Can you imagine that?
Another area code split?
I mean, we're still shaking over the 212.718 fiasco.
Hey, folks, one more call and we get a bingo.
Come on, you can be that call.
212.279.3400.
Hopefully, there's enough people in the tally room to handle it,
but I sure would like to see that light up.
212.279.3400.
Subscribe to WBAI and get a free year of 2600 Magazine
in the process.
Another split.
Now, how are they going to do this?
First of all, we're out of area code numbers.
I don't know if you've noticed, folks,
but every single combination of something with a 1 or a 0
in the middle of it is taken up.
I believe California is going to be going to 710 or 410
or something like that,
and that's the first one of those kind,
but there's a limited number of those.
In 1992 or 1993, one of those years,
right about when Europe's economic systems get unified,
something strange is going to happen to area codes
in the United States.
They're going to be...
Well, there's not going to be any regulation on how they're shaped,
so an area code could be 279.
There could be a 279 area code.
There could be a 532 area code.
In other words, there's no limit on what area codes have to be,
so that means there can be all kinds of splits,
and there will be.
And my prediction is that when New York splits again,
we'll probably lose the Bronx.
The Bronx will become something else,
and only Manhattan Island will stay 212.
We'll probably lose Staten Island as well.
So it's stuff to think about,
and there's all kinds of tricks
and ways of predicting these things.
You'll be the first person to know information like this.
You'll also get a very detailed,
I mean technically detailed account
of what happened on Monday with AT&T,
with all kinds of technical jargon
that you won't see in the newspapers.
So if that kind of thing interests you,
then definitely give us a call
and receive that free year of 2600 magazine
with your subscription to WBAI,
212-279-3400.
I'd like to see...
Oh, make it three more phone calls.
Three more phone calls, and I'll be real happy,
and then we'll return to the phones here
and take some more calls.
212-279-3400.
Show your support for non-commercial radio as well.
I mean, it's one thing to be educated
and to know what's going on in high technology
and not to be a victim,
but also support non-commercial radio in New York.
That's a big thing.
That's what's important.
Because how often do you see this topic covered
in this way on other radio stations?
It's not.
Because commercial radio stations
don't think the public can grasp it.
And I've been through this a hundred times
with media people.
All the time.
It's sick.
Always the same line.
Well, I don't know much about computers,
so explain this to me in a way that I can understand.
In other words, talk to me like I'm a moron.
You know, and you say one technical thing,
even if you explain it, they cut it right out.
They don't allow you to explain it.
They say, oh, the masses won't understand.
And they get what they want.
They get uneducated masses.
That's not what we want here at WBAI.
We want our listeners to learn,
to learn from what they hear on the radio,
not just technological things.
It's very important in this day and age,
but so are politics.
So are multicultural, ethnic programs that we have here.
Education, that's what we're all about.
212-279-3400, show your support for non-commercial radio.
And show your support for programs like this,
programs like the one before this, Pacifica News,
and programs after this, Bob Fass,
as well as all the other programs we bring you
throughout the week.
And getting back to high tech,
speaking of victims, yes,
I got a call from someone.
I get lots of calls from people that
are quite literally tearing their hair out
with exasperation
because they can't understand how to manipulate
the system to work for them
instead of manipulating yourself
to fit into the system.
That's what we're getting into with high technology.
We have to adjust.
We've got to figure out how to work those damn payphones
on the corner because
they don't work according to what we want to do,
so we have to change our lives to work
according to what they do.
So this person called me,
all flustered,
and she said,
I've been getting all these calls,
people hanging up,
and I don't know what to do about it.
I said, well, the first thing you want to do is
obviously have some kind of a call screening device.
An answering machine is good for that.
She already had an answering machine.
She had been through that already.
Then she said, hold on a second.
I'll pick up the other extension.
So I held on.
She picked up the other extension.
Her voice sounded kind of funny, so I said,
you wouldn't happen to be on a cordless phone by chance, would you?
She said, yes.
I always talk on a cordless phone.
And I said,
are you aware
that living what you do in an apartment complex
in the middle of Manhattan,
talking on a cordless phone,
people with the most elementary of scanners
all throughout your apartment complex,
probably for half a mile around your building,
can listen to every single word you say?
Did you know that?
Did you know that that probably is happening to you,
and that could very well be why you're getting
harassing phone calls in the first place?
And she said, no, I didn't know that.
I mean, it's not like the people that sell those phones
go out of their way to tell you, by the way,
any conversation you have on these things
is completely insecure,
completely open to anybody that wants to listen.
And she wasn't aware of this.
And most people who use cellular phones
are not aware of how easy it is.
Oh, of course, it's not legal.
It's not legal to listen.
But how are you going to tell if someone is listening
in the privacy of their own home?
You can't tell that.
It's simply a way of getting around.
The Communications Act of 1986
is simply a way of getting around
the business of telling people
that these phones are wide open to abuse.
So I convinced this person, I said,
please, please unplug that phone,
disconnect it from your phone line,
don't use that phone.
Use a regular phone.
You don't need that phone, do you?
You're only in one room.
Why do you need a cordless phone?
People who live in the countryside,
they use cordless phones,
and there's... there aren't very many people around
to listen to them anyway.
But in the middle...
...phone calls in just a moment,
but I do want to get at least a couple more calls in.
a couple more calls in. 212-279-3400 have a room full of volunteers just aching to take your calls.
And folks, again, we have to raise money to keep the station going. There's no two ways about it.
It's either raise the money now or listen to commercials in the future. You know,
that's the basic choice every radio station has. And I think we're taking the right road.
Because, uh, what's the choice?
Something like this.
Hi, John. I'm back from my vacation in the hills. I sure hope you've been taking good
care of Spot for me. Well, hi, Charlie. I certainly have been. In fact, I was just
getting ready to feed him now. What the hell is this stuff? My dog only eats famous brand
dog biscuits. This is new improved scam dog food. It's better for Spot than your old brand.
I don't know, John. That stuff is green. And besides that, my dog needs fluoride.
Scam has stannous fluoride, Charlie. The green color means it's working better. And you see
those little brown spots there? Yeah. Well, that means scam has less caffeine than all the other
brands of dog food put together. Really? Want more proof? Let's soak scam in this water. Now
put your backpack on top of this scam. Well, go ahead. Okay. Wow. That scam is strong stuff.
Even when wet, scam holds more than any other leading brand. That means it has lots of protein.
But what about taste? Well, why don't we let Spot decide? Here, Spot.
Wow. I never saw him go for anything like that before. I guess scam is better than my famous
brand dog biscuits. Not only that, Charles, scam is so good that every now and then I feed it to
my wife and kids. And in fact, I've even had a couple of balls myself. You want to try some?
All right. To tell you the truth, I don't really give a damn with scam.
Ah, yes. Well, that's not going to happen here, folks, is it? No, we're not going to have
commercials. We're not going to play that game. We're not going to go out like that. No way,
Jose. 212-279-3400. We're going to do it. We're going to do it with your help.
We have 190,000 and I can never... 191,000, is that? Okay. It's a little tiny telescreen or
whatever way off in the distance and it's hard for me to read it. But we have... Now it looks
like 196. I don't know. We have something in the 190s and our goal is 255. We need $255,000.
Not by one o'clock. Fortunately, not by one o'clock. I don't think we're going to make that,
but we do need to bring in a bit more. And the folks at 2600 are more than happy to donate
subscriptions. Of course, if a thousand people subscribe, I suppose we'll be driven out of
business, but it'll be for a good cause, so who's complaining? 212-279-3400. Your calls,
your support will enable us to keep it up. 212-279-3400. And now, if you have any questions
about the system, the phone system, the computer system, although there is no
computer system yet. There are many computer systems. There are all kinds of databases.
But there's no one system. We're moving towards that, folks. We're moving towards a centralized
system like the one AT&T had, like the one that went down, where everything is integrated. It's
called ISDN, Integrated Digital Network, where everything, everything is tied together.
You know, you buy gasoline and it's immediately taken out of your bank account.
Make a telephone call, instantly taken out of your bank account and
logged with the people that need to know who you're talking to. In fact, there was an incident
a couple of months ago, maybe about three or four months ago, actually,
involving American Express. You've heard of them. Credit cards, those people. And
they have this thing called ANI, which is Automatic Number Identification. It's very
similar to Caller ID, except it's through 800 numbers. And I don't know if folks know this.
You would know this if you were reading 2600, that's for sure.
At number 212-279-3400. Just figured I'd get that in. A lot of people don't know the fact that when
they call an 800 number, their own phone number now shows up at the place you're calling. So
these folks were calling American Express. And those guys at American Express not only
were able to see your number, but they were able to tie that number into their database
and bring up your account. That's right. They would say, oh, 212-279-3400 is calling me.
Let's hook that up to the American Express card that's attached to that phone number.
And then they would answer the phone and say, good morning, Mr. Johnson. How can I help you?
And Mr. Johnson would say, whoa, what goes on here? How do you know my name? What is this?
What is this? And got very indignant. And many, many Mr. Johnson's all across the country
were so indignant that American Express stopped doing it. Now, why do you suppose
the American public supposedly is embracing this technology of
knowing what phone number is calling you before you pick up the phone
and yet recoiling in horror when a company like American Express
uses it, which is exactly what's going to happen as this spreads.
It's all a question of thinking it out, thinking out the implications of technology and thinking
out the possible abuses of privacy. But it's all going to be railroaded into law, into something
that we accept as our day-to-day life. It's all going to happen unless we become educated about it
now before things happen. We have to shape the technology to fit our needs, not the other way
around. And one last pitch, 212-279-3400. Sure, we'd like to see just one more call. That's right,
just one more call. You'll get a full year of 2600 Magazine. You'll support WBAI. You'll get a
full year of the folio, our program guide. And you know what else? You'll get a nice, warm,
glowing sensation in your heart. That's right, 212-279-3400. If you haven't called yet, please do.
Now, if you want to give us a call on the air, well, it's kind of pointless now, all the lines for the on-air are tied up.
So I'll take the calls down there, and hopefully I'll see some more calls come in. It'll make me feel so happy.
Good morning. Yes, I say, are you there? Winston Smith here. I don't believe that for a second.
Good morning. He's always trying. He's always trying. I mean,
maybe he should get a vocoder or something. He just talked about the business that people
would be able to listen in to any call that is broadcast over a radio at any point. Well,
doesn't that include microwave links? Sure, sure, microwave links, satellite. Let me just,
before I say anything else, thank the person that called in with a pledge. You've given me
a warm, glowing sensation in my heart. And if anyone else out there wants to add to that glowing
sensation, 212-279-3400. Yes, microwaves are not immune from this. Satellites are not immune from
this. I have a Kenwood radio receiver. It's a shortwave radio receiver. And I have a friend
of mine who has a longstanding offer to build me a little device, very simple, to plug into my
shortwave radio and hook it into a satellite dish. And by doing that, I'll be able to hear
phone calls of any nature I want. Millions of them. Down converters, yeah. Yeah, you know about
those. And anybody can do this. Anybody can listen. And we all make calls over the satellite.
And that's a pretty simple little project, too. For anybody who gets the ARRL handbook,
you can get enough information from those to build down converters for handbands. And all
you got to do is readjust the frequencies on it and bada bing. There you go. But you know,
that thing with ISDN, I don't feel so bad about ISDN. And actually, the people at BAI are probably
going to love it. Because think about the crank problem you guys have there. All the dingbats are
going to have to go out to pay phones in the middle of the night and freeze. No, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, sir. We will never at this station have caller ID. I can guarantee that.
It's it goes against what we stand for. Not only that, we don't want to know where people call up
a news service and try to be an anonymous source with caller ID lurking around everywhere.
It's going to be very hard. And there's a couple of things. First of all, yes,
we will be thrilled with some things in ISDN. I can hardly wait to play with caller ID myself,
because I know I'll figure out some way around it. And I'll have fun with it. And I'll use it
to my advantage. And I'll figure out a way to maneuver around the system. But
it's going to be fiber. Well, it's not going to be fiber optics, I guess.
But I understood it was going to be a digital is all signals on ISDN equipment going to be
digitized right from the subscriber system? Or I believe I believe as you know, as quickly as
possible after it leaves your mouth, it will be converted to digital and then, you know,
reconvert it back when it hits the other person's ear. I don't know at what point.
It seems to be there's less and less analog involved in the first place.
Yeah, I think right in the subscriber, it seems to me they could the digitization of
the bandwidth for phone lines anyways, and too high, but I thought they're going to increase
the bandwidth somehow so that you could have data and voice on the same line and whatnot.
Well, now there's one thing, you know, folks are getting used to caller ID as existing,
and not not having a choice in the matter. And I think that it should be a default of no caller
ID. And if the person wants caller ID, it should be made clear to everybody.
Like beeping when you're taping?
Basically, yeah, it's the same thing. Because you have, I think you have a certain right to
anonymity. I don't think I have the right to know who you are and where you're calling from. I don't
want to know that. But there's something else we have to consider. And that's the fact that,
let's say BAI doesn't want to know the ID of its callers, we don't subscribe to the service,
we don't get that little burst in between the first and second ring that gives the
ID of your number. But somebody with the box can get that information by tapping into our line.
Well, I was gonna say, you know, presently, I mean, I don't know how many people are aware of
this. But when you call up, when you call the operator, when you call any number, if she taps
onto the phone, the all this stuff comes right up on the operators board. Oh, sure. But I always
thought to myself, well, you know, I'd be a little shaky about calling BAI if I had anything real
important to say, because, you know, if they were really wanted to monitor BAI's lines, they could
get all this stuff right now. So it doesn't have to wait for ISDN. Yeah, that's a that's a bit
trickier. That is a bit trickier. But if you call the operator directly, you know, the operator knows
your number. If you call the police, you know, they know your number to nobody's going to argue
about that. This is not the same thing with the present system. I mean, it must be, you know,
the present system is there are some things in place now that allow that certain people have
that kind of access. Right. It's something called enhanced 911 with the police that that not only
gives the the number, but the address, the name and actually a map of the house to see if there's
any hazardous materials or things like that. That's enhanced 911. That's what they want to
get from New York. But it's not the same thing as caller ID. When you compare it with the U.S. mail,
you when you when somebody mails you a letter, no matter what it is, they generally put their
return address. I mean, unless they have some specific reason for wanting to be anonymous,
which, you know, I guess there are certainly there are circumstances when you'd want it. But
tell you the truth, that's that's something that doesn't scare me near as bad as a lot of other
things. I sort of look forward to certain things, one of which being hopefully in the future
to sort of change the topic abruptly. Maybe you'd like to speak to this sometime.
I have a bank card, you know, an ATM card, and I've lost one and I almost lost another one. And
then right after I thought I lost this last one, I said to myself, I will be so glad when they come
up with biological systems where they can scan your retina or your palm print or something,
anything combined with a PIN number that doesn't which enables you not to have to worry about
carrying a damn card. Sir, is it is it? I mean, yeah, it's an inconvenience when you lose your
card. It's a pain. I know. I know it's a pain. It's a pain when the bank machine eats it and
won't return it. But is that worth giving up every ounce of freedom you have being accountable
every time you make a purchase somewhere? They know where you are and what you're doing. And
and soon they'll have that system for phone cards as well. So when you make a phone call,
they'll know exactly where you are. I hadn't considered, but I guess that's something we've
got to consider. Your voice is coming out as a bunch of you know, it's being translated into
zeros and ones. It's a digital digital transmission. What's what's stored on
computer disks? Zeros and ones. They can record it. They can store it. They can pass it around.
Figure out who I am right now, I suppose, if they really had the system.
You know, so I guess so. I mean, you know, think back to the social security number. It was only
supposed to be used for the social security system. Now it's become a universal ID number.
Right. And I don't recall ever having been asked whether that was OK with me.
Right. Now they sort of demand it. You know, you've got to supply it in order to get any
kind of cooperation out of government agencies. They think it's a right now.
Right. It's your name. Your your social security number is your name. It's your
link to everything. And it's very hard to get around that. So let me go ahead and go.
And then you can talk on any of this or none of it, depending on what you want.
It's a wonderful show. And maybe you'd give the address how to get in touch with 2600.
Give me a few seconds to hang up and so I can write this stuff down. OK. Thanks a lot.
Thanks for calling. OK, folks, you want I'll give them a couple of seconds to
get organized there. If you want the address for the Hacker Corley 2600 magazine, you can save
yourself a lot of time, though, just by calling us up and pledging and you'll you'll receive it
in the mail and there on page three, you'll find the address. So it'll be that simple.
But if you want you want to do it the hard way and write to 2600 magazine, the address is
2600 P.O. Box 752, Middle Island, New York, 11953. And if you say you heard about it on WBAI,
we'll just say they must be insane and toss it away. No, we won't do that. Of course not.
212-279-3400 is the number to call to pledge support for this radio station that allows
information like this to be disseminated. That's that's what it's all about, folks.
It's the information age. And if you don't have access to the information, if you don't have
access to the files, the countless, endless files that are being stored at this very moment on you,
if you don't have access to that, you're at a decided disadvantage, aren't you?
And not only do most of us not have access to those files, most of us don't even know what
those files are. And why is that? Files that credit agencies, employment agencies,
landlord databases, you name it, there's all kinds of files, all kinds of files. And one
one thing that the good old ISDN, the integrated network, is going to bring us
is the ability for all of those systems to talk to each other.
Can you imagine that? All that data being thrown around,
thrown around, traded, added to, and there'll be room for so much more data, too, with all this
new information they'll be getting. Why? They'll be able to keep a permanent record of every number
you've ever called in your life, everyone you've ever called, even what you've talked about. Because,
you know, folks, when something gets converted to digital, which is what happens these days when you
make phone calls, you know, you speak into the phone, it gets converted to a bunch of zeros and
ones, and then reconverted back at the other end when the person picks up the phone. When that
happens, all those zeros and ones, well, they're not speech, are they? No, it's data. It's not the
same thing. It's not subject to the same protection. A lot of people feel that way. A lot of
people in power feel that way. And that's one way to lose a lot of our liberties, is to let it slip
away through ignorance. So know the facts and give us a hand at the same time. 212-279-3400.
If you call to support the station, you will get a free subscription to 2600 Magazine,
The Hacker Quarterly, and learn some of this information, hear about it before the general
populace gets around to it. Again, 212-279-3400. We have gotten quite a few calls. I've been a bit
lax as far as looking at the numbers to find out how much we actually brought in, but
it looks good. Looks good, folks. I'd like to see some more people give a call in. I'm sure
everybody will be happy with what they get in return. They'll get a great-sounding radio station,
and they'll get the information as it becomes relevant, and even before it becomes relevant.
212-279-3400. We only have to fill up, looks like, two more lines, and we'll have a
complete bingo. That would be really nice to have. 212-279-3400. It gives me hope, faith,
all that stuff, to know that people care, you know, that it does mean something.
Because if we don't care, you know, if we just say, okay, those in power, those running the
credit organizations, we trust you. Store our data. Keep it. Do what you want with it.
We know you're going to do something good, and you won't abuse us. We've just thrown away the key.
But if you care, you ask questions, ask a lot of questions, get people mad at you occasionally,
then you stand a much less chance of losing some of those liberties. I don't know about our kids,
though, you know. I'm kind of worried about that. Because when you think about it,
the unborn kids, the kids that will be born, say, the year 2000,
all they'll know about the world is what they see.
They'll never know that there was actually a time when there wasn't pollution.
You know, a time when the skies were clear. And that will become their basis in reality. Pollution
will become, you know, their main way of life. And so will any kind of privacy invasion, because it
won't be looked upon as a privacy invasion, then it'll be looked upon as the way things always are.
So it's very dangerous to fall into these traps, because
it takes a long time to recover, and sometimes, sometimes civilization never does.
212-279-3400. Good morning. Yes, hello. Yes. Yeah, I have some questions,
rather. I have a question about ISDN. Go ahead. By the way, folks, I just gave out that number.
That was for the pledge line, not for calling in. If you want to call in, it's 212-279-3407.
Go ahead. Yeah, well, obviously, this thing has, ISDN, rather, has frightening applications. But
what about the need for it? Is there? A lot of people in industry, telecommunications industry,
consider innovative services subscribers don't need, as opposed to integrated services,
digital network. So what do you think about that? Is there a need for it? Well, I think there is a
need for some of its features. Certainly, we need to tie together a lot of things. But,
you know, a lot of these things are needed in industry, as you say, in the workplace.
And it's different. It's different than day-to-day life, you know, the trivial, supposedly trivial
things that we do with our lives to save all that stuff, and to have it passed around, and compared,
and it just, it's very disturbing to know that that's going on. It's even more disturbing when
you realize that a lot of people don't know that's going on. And it's, you know, it's personal data.
It's not corporate data. It's not business. It's human beings. And that's the difference. We have
to always keep that in mind, that ISDN, yes, it may have some very worthy features, but
there's a lot of potential for abuse, and we've got to monitor it every step of the way.
Yeah, exactly. I feel there's no need to run a trunk that has data, voice, and what-have-you
into every subscriber's home. That's my point, at least. Especially since there are plans to
wire every home with fiber optics. Right, but the thing is, what they do is they sweeten it up
with all these nice things you'll get, like 500 cable channels or whatever, and of course,
you know, you can't have one without the other, right? Well, there's plenty of cable channels
right now over separate copper wire and what-have-you, but don't forget, they also want
to wire in central station alarm monitors, what-have-you, just everything. And it's another
big brother type thing we have here, because you have literally a limitless conduit into the home
with fiber optic cable. Yeah, there's, you know, they'll push the protection, the protection part
of it, you know. We're doing this for your own good. We're keeping obscene callers from calling
you by giving you their number, but at the same time, we're also taking away a little bit of your
liberty. But it's for your own good, you see. Exactly. Is crank calling such a problem that
it requires? That's precisely my point, you know. Has it become more of a problem? I'm not aware of
it becoming more of a problem. Yes, it's always been a problem, but the way you hear the people
at the phone companies talking now has suddenly become a, you know, a catastrophe. And, you know,
there's this one example they give of somebody receiving an obscene phone call and calling the
person right back and saying, hey, don't do that again. And the person said, okay, I won't do it
again. Now, I don't think it's a good idea if you get an obscene phone call to call the person back
and talk to them. I just, you know, that's not the best way to deal with a crazy person if they are,
in fact, crazy. And there are other ways to let the proper authorities deal with it. That's,
you know, the only instance where caller ID even comes into question. What will happen? This
is my prediction. Very soon, we will suddenly realize, as everybody has caller ID, you know,
we get a lot of calls per day and we see these phone numbers. We don't know what these numbers
are, you know. I can't remember phone numbers. I want to see a name. Okay, the public has demanded
names. So we tie it into the database containing the name belonging to the phone number. And now
you see the person's name instead of their number, you know. And then some other bright
person is going to come along and say, oh, wait, that's no good because sometimes people go to
different phones. So they'll say, okay, from now on, it'll be voice print recognizable. So you'll
really get a voice. Yeah, I mean, you'll get the proper name. And before you know it, everywhere
we go, we're being monitored in some way, either through video cameras, through intelligent phones,
through networks, ISDN, what have you. And the funny thing is, you touch upon a very good point.
There could be a lot of good in this system. There is a need for it. But done the wrong way,
it can be our undoing. Exactly. But the thing is, isn't fiber optic lines into the home the
first step? Because again, it has literally limitless bandwidth to accommodate any service
they want. Well, you know, it's interesting you say fiber optic networks. They're very cheap,
you see. Fiber optics are very inexpensive to wire up. But when they fail, boy, do they ever fail
because there's no real backup to them, is there? Oh, yeah. Well, good old copper wire,
you can always like reroute things. But once the fibers go, everything's gone.
Exactly. Well, it's the simple problem of concentrating a lot of information in a small
place. So any system of that sort will have that problem. Okay, I'm going to try to rip through
these other phone calls. Thanks very much for calling now. And our number for support.
Technically, you only have three minutes left. If you want to get in on the special 2600 deal,
212-279-3400. Call us up with a pledge and receive a free year of 2600 magazine. But
have to call within the next two and a half minutes. Otherwise, that offer is gone for
until at least our next marathon. Good morning. Good morning. You're giving out a lot of
misinformation tonight, but... Well, give me an example of some misinformation I'm giving out.
Oh, loads of things. Well, your Electronic Communications Privacy Act
bans listening to cellular phone calls. It does not ban listening to cordless telephones.
Oh, no, no, no, no. I'm sorry. If I gave that impression, no, that is wrong.
Well, you did give that impression. Okay, well, let me correct it right now then.
The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 only applies to cellular phone calls.
It does not apply to cordless phones. Cordless phones, it is still legal to listen to. However,
it is illegal to act on the information, to gain any kind of a profit from the information,
and to, you know, to get ahead in any kind of way. But the obscene thing here is the fact that
most people don't know that their communications are wide open. Well, of course, but that's a
different topic entirely. Also, this caller ID stuff, it's not the case that everybody in the
world is going to get a caller ID, because at the moment, the phone company wants to charge you
$10 a month or so, not to mention buying or renting the box from them. And that's what's
driving this. It's not the need to break everyone's privacy, but the need for phone companies or their
desire to increase their profits every way they get to, to increase your monthly bill every way
they can. Well, okay. I'm going to have to close it off right now, because Bob Fass is here. But
you raise a good point there. It's not necessarily, yes, there is not necessarily a hidden
agenda of people saying, hey, we're going to violate everybody's privacy. A lot of it is
the profit motive. Correct. But you're kidding yourself if you think it's not the agenda of
some people, and a lot of those people are in power. Folks, we've got to continue this conversation.
Maybe in two weeks we'll do it, huh? It's been a pleasure. It's been a lot of fun,
thanks to all those people that did call in. And this is Emanuel Goldstein. The program is
The Fifth Corner, and I will see you again in two weeks, 11.45 on Thursday. Until then,
have a very good morning, and remain educated. See you soon.
Bye.