Mark, Kent Barwick is the president of the Municipal Arts Council, one of the groups
that filed suit against the city.
Although he says the sale will probably go through, he questions the soundness of a fiscal
policy which depends on what he calls a one-time cash infusion from the sale of an important
piece of public property.
It's like somebody selling their grandmother's bracelet or something in order to pay the
rent.
Cities can't do that.
Dinkins, however, said because he plans to raise taxes and cut services, the sale is
only being viewed as one way to raise revenues.
The final budget will have to be approved by the Board of Estimates in June.
For WBAI, I'm Lauren Comato.
And that's some of the news for Thursday, February 1st, 1990.
The news was engineered by Natalie Boudelis.
It was produced with Jenny Bourne, Evelyn Tallecosta, David Sears, Nadine Michelle Shaw,
and Ricky Vecchio.
I'm Amy Goodman in New York with Michael Beattie in Washington for WBAI Listener Supported
News.
And this is Emanuel Goldstein.
The program is the fifth quarter.
The music is computer-driven.
And the station is Radio Prague, Czechoslovakia.
The station is Radio Prague, Czechoslovakia.
Hello?
Oh, hi!
How are you?
Mm, I'm fine.
What's up?
Mm-hm.
No, no, it's alright. Um...
Yeah.
Go ahead, I'm listening.
Mm-hm.
Mm-hm, yeah.
Mm.
Mm-hm.
Mm-hm.
She's bugging me again.
Run to use the phone.
Find and rent a hip man.
From the Twilight Zone.
It was good in the beginning.
But why's it become a drag?
Found me a solution.
Inadventure night.
Five things has downed me now.
It's just a call away.
Cheaper than some real deals.
And they do the job today.
So, if you've got a problem, pick up the telephone.
For the bouncing glory cowboys from the Twilight Zone.
At the Cronin and her club, there's no extra falsities.
We're the gang that couldn't shoot straight, but we aim to please.
We are vets and drifters.
Shell-shocked from the get-go.
At the Cronin and all,
Doc Savage pays the bill.
Yeah, soldiers are fortune.
But they're not meant to drive us.
But mister, I must tell you,
Neither are our kind.
So, if you've got a problem, pick up the telephone.
For the bouncing glory cowboys from the Twilight Zone.
At the Cronin and her club, there's no extra falsities.
We're the gang that couldn't shoot straight, but we aim to please.
Good job in Georgia.
Money it ain't fun.
Fingers through the bones.
We're chillin' on shut-offs.
I've seen some civil war now.
For the cash, we took their lives.
Back here on the homestead.
Rich on people's wives.
Grady's bounty hunter.
Comical ineptitude.
Modern cowboy caldres.
Guns and glory dudes.
So, if you've got a problem, pick up the telephone.
For the bouncing glory cowboys from the Twilight Zone.
At the Cronin and her club, there's no extra falsities.
We're the gang that couldn't shoot straight, but we aim to please.
May I help you?
May I help you?
Yes, is this the operator?
Yes.
Give me Lafayette 06, person to person with Mr. Carson King.
That's King with a K.
Oh, I got it.
Have a good evening and thank you.
One moment.
Wrong number.
Wrong number.
Is this Mr. King?
Is this Mr. Carson King?
You dirty little shitheel.
I paid you five C's of my hard-earned cash.
Now look what you did.
Who is this?
I paid you to bump off my wife.
I've got to check the file.
Check the file.
Target address.
4275 South Brooklyn Avenue, apartment 42C.
4275.
Okay, okay.
I got it.
All right, let's see what we have.
Uh, let's see.
Target was attractive Caucasian woman, early 30s, named Marcelle Lee.
Yeah, but you got the wrong girl.
Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Payment was made easy-pay credit plan with monthly installments.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, never mind all that.
Look.
Look, you mother...
We have a completion report on the file.
It was this 715 EM 4275 South Brooklyn, apartment 42B.
Not B, you fool.
It was C, C, 42C.
So my wife's screwing around with this guy next door.
Then the monkeys come down and they shove his wife out the window.
How's that supposed to make me feel?
Look it, man.
It's just 42B on the report.
It's not our fault.
It's not your fault.
Well, I ain't paying, huh?
So go ahead and sue me.
You're not going to pay, huh?
I'm not paying.
Okay.
42C.
42C.
Yeah, that's it.
You got it.
Yeah, well.
We'll be calling.
Hey, wait a minute.
Operator.
Hey, come on now.
Operator.
Oh, we all know what that sound means.
212-279-3400.
Pick up the phone, get that sound, and dial those numbers.
You know, it's an interesting thing.
But the operator won't tell you the time.
You know, it doesn't bother you that you have to pay.
It's going to be 35 cents this month.
The rates went up again.
Twice in one year.
They went from 28 to 30 and now 30 to 35.
Just to find out what time it is?
I mean, look, folks.
I'll tell you.
It's 1218.
That didn't cost you anything, did it?
18 minutes after 12 o'clock.
Okay.
Now, it's incredible how we're putting a price on all this information.
Time, weather, horoscopes, lottery numbers.
Lottery numbers.
You can read that in the paper, you know.
You can watch it on TV.
But people pay incredible amounts of money just to hear the lottery numbers that won.
And also to hear the ones that some mystic somewhere thinks are going to win.
People pay money for anything.
Or at least they try anything and then they're astounded at how much it actually costs.
It's kind of sad, actually.
But there's an interesting trick, interesting way around the system.
There always is.
You know, you just got to look for it.
And that's the simple fact that the operator may not tell you what time it is locally.
But the operator will tell you what time it is somewhere else.
Yes, operator.
I need AT&T, please.
AT&T, please.
Thank you.
AT&T, please.
Thank you.
AT&T?
Yes, is this AT&T?
Yes.
Hi, I need to know the time in Dar es Salaam, please, in Tanzania.
One moment, sir.
Thank you.
You're welcome, sir.
AT&T.
Yes, hello.
I need to know the time in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, please.
Sir, you have two operators on here.
Oh, well, I only need one.
Thank you very much, though.
Hang on, okay?
Yeah, sure.
Thank you.
Yes, the time in Dar es Salaam.
Oh, I have a dial tone.
Hold on, sir.
I'm still here, okay?
Can you hear me?
Yes, I hear you.
I've got a dial tone for some reason.
I don't know why.
Hang on.
That's the other operator that was in there.
Oh, okay.
I get it.
Well, I guess a little music or something is in order.
All right, it is 8.23 a.m.
They're eight hours ahead of us.
They're eight hours ahead of us.
8.23 a.m.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome, sir.
Bye-bye.
And there you see it.
You just simply subtract eight hours from 8.23,
and you find out what time it is.
And the best part about that is it's free.
You just call from any pay phone, ask the operator what time it is.
They always pick a city, you know, that no one's ever heard of before,
so they find it a bit of a challenge, you know, to ask for something like London.
They might not.
They might just say they're five hours ahead of us and stop there.
No, you've got to, you know, pique their interest a little bit.
It's a game of give and take.
Let's shut Germany up for a second there.
Our number is 212-279-3400.
Area code 212.
I'd like to hear what's on your mind as far as how we're doing.
I'd like to hear what's on your mind as far as high tech,
any interesting experiences with telephones, computers, that kind of thing.
I'd like to talk about Robert Morris a little bit.
You know, that was about a week ago.
A week and three days ago, if I'm not mistaken.
And he was found guilty, guilty of violating the computer fraud bill.
I believe it was.
I'm not exactly certain on which law he was found guilty of violating,
but it's kind of scary, you know.
It's kind of scary.
I know a lot of computer hackers who are not sleeping well these days
because so much seemed to have been misunderstood in that trial and misrepresented.
I mean, none of the jurors owned a home computer, for one thing.
They didn't use computers very much, if they did at all.
A lot of what was said simply was not understood by them.
So it's kind of hard to judge a case when you don't understand the basic tools involved.
And one of the fundamental things with this case was the fact that Robert Morris
wrote what is known as a computer worm,
a program that replicated itself and spread around all over the country.
But he made a mistake.
He made a mistake in writing the program so that the program replicated itself much too quickly,
at such a rate that it bogged down entire computer systems.
Hence, it was discovered and wiped out.
No data was destroyed, but a bit of time was spent wiping this thing out.
And Morris never denied that he did this.
But one has to wonder, had he not made that programming error,
would they have been so quick to jump and say it was a crime, you know?
I'm not sure if they would have.
Simply a program that went out there and explored a little bit,
found people's passwords, and wasn't noticed.
Had somebody discovered that a few months down the road,
I don't think it would have made such headlines.
The only reason it made headlines was because
it slowed down systems, clogged down systems, made the systems shut down.
And the only reason it did that was because he made a programming error.
So, has he been convicted simply because of a programming error?
Interesting question, I think.
And the other point that I'd like to raise is the fact that he actually didn't
break into a computer system.
He wrote a program that used legal channels,
namely the send-mail feature of Unix,
and wandered about and grabbed passwords,
but he did not actually log in using any of those passwords,
at least not in that attempt.
I'm not sure what he did beforehand, but that's something that
might seem like a minor point, but it was not undisturbed.
It was not made clear in all the reports that I read about this.
So that's one thing I'd like to see if people have any opinion on,
as well as any other stories about phones, technology, that kind of thing.
279-3400, area code 212, let's see who we have.
Good morning.
Yeah, WBI?
This is what it is, yes.
Yes, possibly I could read a short poem to the listeners out there?
Well, it's not really relevant to what we're discussing, is it?
No, it's from the phones, yeah, telephones.
I used to work in AT&T a long time ago,
Oh, it's kind of funny, I did it a long time ago.
I called it Downtown.
Okay, go ahead.
Okay, I'm proud to be a German Nazi.
That doesn't have much to do with phones, does it?
Good morning.
Good morning.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
I'm trying to discuss with you about WBAI.
I looked in the latest folio, I don't see a report to the listener.
I looked in their report to the listener that's printed in the folio, and...
That's not relevant either, what's wrong with you people?
Good morning.
Hello?
Yes.
Have you ever heard of Norman Cousins and his book on curing yourself by laughter?
Curing yourself by laughter.
Yeah, here's one that he uses to tell people, it's in regard to telephones, AT&T.
Okay.
And it seems that he arrived at the airport a little early, so he wanted to go and call his office.
And he put in his money, and he lost his coin.
Now, I have to read the way he says it, because he writes very well.
I pondered this melancholy event for a moment or two, and then decided to report it to the operator.
Operator, I said, I put in a quarter and didn't get my number.
The machine collected my coin.
Operator, she said, if you give me your name and address, we'll mail the coin to you.
Appalled.
Operator, I said, I think I can understand the reason behind the difficulty of AT&T.
Now, you're going to take the time and trouble to write down my name on the card,
and you're probably going to give it to the person in charge of such matters.
He will go to the cash register, punch it open, take out the quarter,
at the same time recording the reason for the cash withdrawal.
He will take the cardboard with the recessed slot to hold the coin,
so he won't flop around in the envelope.
He then will fit the cardboard with the coin,
first taking the time to write out my address on the envelope,
and seal the envelope, all of this, just to return my money.
Now, operator, why don't you just return my coin, and let's be friends.
Sir, she repeated, if you give me your name and address.
In a way of afterthought, she said, sir, do you remember to press the coin return plunger?
Truth to tell, I had overlooked this nicety.
I pressed the plunger. To my great surprise, it worked.
It was apparent that the machine had been badly constipated,
and I happened to have the plunger.
All at once, the vitals of the machine opened up and proceeded
to spew out coins of almost every denomination.
The perfusion was so great that I had to use my empty hand to contain the overflow.
With all this happening, the noise was registering in the telephone
and was not lost on the operator.
Sir, she said, what is happening?
Reported that the machine had just given up all its earnings for the past few months at least.
At a rough estimate, I said that must be close to $4.25 in nickels
that had erupted from the box.
Sir, she said, will you please put the coins back in the box?
Operator, I said, if you give me your name and address, I will be glad to mail you.
That's beautiful.
Where was that found?
It's in Norman Cousin's new book that he's just written.
Let's see, I'll give you the name.
It's Head First, the Biology of Hope by Norman Cousin.
He has several other good jokes.
It's written up in the East-West Journal for this month, the review of it is,
but the book is just coming out.
There are several others too, but I thought this one was appropriate to your evening.
I think we've all had a story like that at some point.
I know I've had several dozen of those.
It is so, you know, you go through this.
I've gone through it, and you have too, I suppose, losing your coin.
Although I rarely use coins and pay phones anymore
because there's other ways of making the phone calls,
and there's fewer and fewer dependable pay phones around too.
I've heard there are ways.
I don't suppose you advertise them over the radio.
Well, sure.
I mean, there are legal ways.
There's illegal ways too, but that's not what I'm talking about.
Legal ways, yes, you can set up accounts with various companies.
MCI, Sprint, Cable & Wireless are a few that come to mind,
and you can simply have a toll-free number to call,
enter your authorization code, dial a number.
And, you know, what's interesting about it is that if I were to dial a local number,
like here in New York, if I was to dial from a New York pay phone to another New York number
and stay on the phone for, say, a minute,
at this time of night it would cost me about seven cents,
as opposed to a quarter that I would drop in and lose from a pay phone.
So it's actually at some times cheaper than using a pay phone to use these services for local calls,
even though they're long-distance companies.
What phone are you calling from then?
From any phone.
But you're doing it through your Sprint or whatever it is number.
Right, except the companies like Sprint and MCI are stopping offering that service for some reason.
I think they realize that people are actually using it and being happy with it.
So they're adding these surcharges and making you dial 14-digit authorization codes
instead of using five- or six-digit codes and having tremendous savings.
But I do know that TDX, or Cable and Wireless, is one company that still does that.
And I think Sprint still does it, but they're cutting back.
Well, I have Sprint.
And so does All Net and Western Union and ITT.
Yeah. Okay.
So it's worthwhile to set up accounts with different companies so you always have options.
Have fun with your telephone.
Okay. Thanks for calling.
You know, interesting point that caller touched upon, the coin return mechanism.
I don't know if it's just me, but I don't think I've ever used the coin return or had it do something on a pay phone.
You know, the quarter always seems to come back on its own accord or something to that nature.
But the actual mechanism, the coin, I've never known that to work and get a coin to come back.
I don't know. Maybe it's me.
279-3400. Good morning.
Oh, somebody told me that if you call somebody with a computer that their phone lights up before it rings
and they pick it up before it rings, that you don't have to pay for the call. Is that true?
No. No, that's a phone fable.
It used to be that there were devices known as black boxes.
And what the black box would do, it was a special device hooked up to a telephone.
It would pick up the phone without dropping the voltage so that the phone company would think that the phone was still ringing.
But the voice path would be open and you'd be able to talk to the person and it sounded like a normal conversation to you.
What that meant was that the phone call was not being supervised and the billing was not kicking in
and the phone company would just think that it was either busy or ringing and the person was just sort of staying on.
That was probably a distorted version of what you were told.
In other words, there's no way that if I call somebody, say, in California, that I wouldn't have to pay for it.
Well, I mean, there's plenty of ways, but I'm not going to go into how to make free phone calls.
But many, many people are doing that, obviously.
What is the name of some of the books that tell you these things?
Well, I know Abby Hoffman Steele, this book, went into it a little bit, but all those methods are outdated.
I don't know of any... Well, there are several organizations. I don't have the addresses with me.
I know Consumertronics is one that comes to mind. They're in New Mexico somewhere.
Loom Panics is another. If somebody has the address for that, they can give us a call.
Consumer what?
Consumertronics. I know they print documents that detail things like that.
And Loom Panics is another. I'm not sure where they are. They're somewhere.
They're not in New York, I know that much.
At 2600, which is the magazine I work for that deals with computer hacking and phone freaks and that kind of thing,
we tell people how it's done, but we don't give out codes or things like that.
We don't tell people to do that kind of thing.
But we do think the education is important, both for the person using the phone system and the person owning the phone system.
It's important to know how it can be abused and how it can hurt people, hurt users, by not providing certain essential services.
I'll tell you one trick that you might like.
If you call somebody from a pay phone and you keep your conversation under three seconds and hang up, your money will come back.
It's not easy to convey very much information in three seconds.
Actually, you can convey quite a bit.
If the person is expecting your call, you can just say, hey, I'm downstairs, come get me or something and hang up.
And your money will come back.
I don't know what the reason for that is, actually.
But it's just something that works.
No, it's good for things that you've already made arrangements for.
Let's put it that way.
If the person is expecting you to call and you call and say, it's me and hang up.
Or, you know, just passing on little bits of information like the Mets won or guilty as charged or whatever.
Just certain factual bits that you just need a yes or no answer.
I guess it might be good for stockbrokers to call up and say bye and hang up.
Although that could be misconstrued as somebody saying goodbye.
I don't know.
But you've just given me an idea for something else, which I'm going to release you and demonstrate it to the folks.
Thanks very much for calling.
That is the brand new, brand spanking new.
Actually, it's not that brand new.
It's a couple of months old.
But I think it's new to our area right here in the BAI vicinity.
And that is the automated collect service that has just been installed.
Well, fairly recently.
That allows you to not use an operator anymore.
That allows an operator to do other more important things like wait on unemployment lines or what have you.
Now, when you dial O plus a number.
And let's see.
What number should I dial?
Okay.
I'm going to demonstrate the system to you.
Actually, can I demonstrate the system?
I don't know if I can.
Okay.
I'm going to try to demonstrate the system.
Because we can't hit touch tones here.
So I might have to do some funky things on the phone.
I'm going to call a number.
Collect.
And hopefully this will work.
All right.
We'll get a little fading dial tone.
Oh, no.
It will hang up on us instead.
Okay.
I don't quite know why that happened.
But let's try it one more time.
This time I'll make sure it connects.
Simply by dialing O in front of the number.
Welcome to New York Telephone.
For collect calls, dial 1-1.
To charge this call to another number, dial the complete billing number now.
For person-to-person and other calls, at the tone, please say your name.
Call me back at 279-3400.
Please wait to see if the charges for this call will be accepted.
Now this is going to call an answering machine of mine.
And it's going to ask if it's going to accept the collect call.
This is New York Telephone.
You have a collect call from.
Call me back at 279-3400.
Please answer the following question.
Yes or no.
Will you pay for the call?
We're now recording this.
Not understood.
You have a collect call from.
Call me back at 279-3400.
Please answer the following question.
Yes or no.
Will you pay for the call?
Yes.
You see, it can't hear me.
If you want to refuse the charges, hang up now.
For operator assistance, please stay on the line.
No, no, we don't need real people to get involved in this.
The computers will do just fine.
But it's an interesting system.
It tells you...
Well, it asks you if you want to accept or not.
It recognizes yes or no.
I mean, that's nice.
And if you call a payphone, it'll tell you you're calling a payphone.
And payphones can't accept collect calls now, can they?
It's a rather useful thing to have.
And if you try calling BAI with that,
you'll be told that BAI does not accept collect calls.
Well, you won't be told BAI doesn't accept collect calls,
but you'll hear at the customer's request,
the number you have dialed does not accept collect calls.
Now, all fine and good.
A lot of fun for us to play with.
And as you can see, I conveyed a message
that a normal operator would not allow me to convey.
A normal operator would ask you what your name was,
and if you said, my name is call me back at 279-3400,
she'll say, uh-uh, that's not right.
In all my years as an operator, I've never heard a name like that.
But the computer does not question you.
Lovely.
Computers can be a lot of fun, if used properly.
Now, my other point,
and I think this is the important point,
is what about all those poor people
that don't have touch-tone phones?
What about all those poor people?
Well...
In the old days,
in the old days,
you would pick up the phone,
dial O, plus the number.
You'd hear that little fading dial tone.
And if you didn't enter anything after that tone,
you'd get an operator.
Welcome to New York Telephone.
For collect calls, dial 11.
Now you get this cheerful little recording.
For person-to-person and other calls,
dial 0 for the operator.
Now would be a good time for an operator to come on, don't you think?
For operator assistance, please stay on the line.
New York Telephone, this is Brian, may I help you?
Uh, yes, operator, I'm having trouble getting through to this number,
I was wondering if you could help me?
Okay.
What, are you getting no ring, busy, recording?
Uh, I was getting a busy, actually.
Okay, one moment, please.
Do you want it verified, or?
Yes, it is.
Yes.
You're welcome.
If you're dialing an 0-plus call in your local area,
you've got an extra 25 seconds to kill.
And that is what I call progress.
212-279-3400.
Good morning.
Sorry, good morning.
What's wrong with this phone here?
It doesn't work.
Okay, let's go down here then.
Hello?
Good morning.
Go ahead.
Listen, the phones are very important, but so is WBAI.
You're right, I couldn't agree with you more.
Good morning.
Yes, good morning.
Yes.
I was told that there is a new way,
if you're getting nuisance calls or prank calls,
there's some sort of way of knowing where the call emanates.
Have you heard anything about that?
That's called Caller ID Service.
Do you, by chance, live in New Jersey?
No.
Okay, well, it's being offered in New Jersey quite heavily.
It soon will be offered in New York.
I believe Poughkeepsie is going to be testing it.
There's good and bad in that, of course.
It's a lot of fun.
If you get a call, say, in the middle of the night,
you get a nuisance call, be able to trace that call?
Well, you're able to trace those calls now.
I mean, not you as a person, but you can tell the phone company,
you know, somebody called me at this time, please check it out.
And they can check it out with increasing ease.
But this new feature called Caller ID allows you, the customer,
to see the phone number calling you even before you pick up the phone.
Well, you say with ease.
It used to be you'd have to be on a minimum amount of time.
In other words, if the phone rings twice and you hang up
or somebody hangs up or rings once, they can trace the origination of that call?
Well, if it just rings and if there's no actual pickup, that would be tough.
Unless they were monitoring.
I don't know if they can do this.
They have the ability to in the future, I'm certain,
to monitor all digit style from all phones, whether they connect or not.
But if somebody called you and it wasn't…
It rang once or twice.
There's no way in the world they can find out where that came from.
I don't think so.
Not now.
Not without a connection.
You would need more sophisticated software for that, I would imagine.
Or you would need a suspect that they could throw a PIN register on their line
and watch all the numbers they dial and just see if that person dialed that number.
But like I said, there's lots of ways around the system.
But I think what you're talking about is the caller ID feature,
which after that feature, after the first ring and without you picking up,
does give you the phone number.
So in that way, yes, they do provide that service.
But that's only in caller ID areas that have been wired for that.
Which is what, New Jersey?
So far, it's a good part of New Jersey.
So in other words, the caller ID, you can ring once and they hang up
and you know where that's from.
You can find out where that's from?
In most cases.
It has to be in a certain area.
I mean, eventually the goal is to have the whole country wired like that.
And the data is sent after the first ring, between the first and second ring.
If you pick up before the first ring is over, you don't get the number.
It's sent.
Is that a service or a piece of equipment you own?
It's both, actually.
You have to pay a monthly fee and you have to buy a piece of equipment.
The problem with New Jersey Bell is that New Jersey Bell is not offering call blocking.
I don't know about you, sir.
I don't know if you want your number shown up everywhere that you call.
No, I've gotten calls at odd hours.
It rings once or twice.
And I don't know if they're callbacks or whatever.
But I read somewhere that there are nuisance calls and people ring once or twice.
But there was a way of, I guess it's what you've just said, with this, what do you call it?
Caller ID?
Caller ID, yeah.
Without picking it up, you know where it's from.
That's amazing.
Well, that's the intent of that service, I believe.
But let me just make one point, though.
If somebody is harassing you, that's not necessarily the answer because they can always harass you from a third location,
such as a pay phone, or they can route their call in a way that it's not traceable.
Sure.
So to think that this service provides all the answers is a mistake.
Oh, no.
I didn't think so.
It opens up a lot of potential problems with privacy as far as calling certain services and wishing to remain anonymous.
You never quite have the feeling that you're anonymous anymore when this technology exists.
And that's going to affect the way we live our lives.
But it's a way of cracking down on the prank calls.
It is.
But I don't believe that they've gotten out of hand more so in the last few years than ever before.
If we have to give up our freedom to find who's making all those prank calls.
One more question, if I can ask you.
Go ahead.
When you call a number and you get a message that the number has been changed or disconnected, are you charged for that?
Oh, no.
No, you shouldn't be if you are.
Some long-distance companies don't have answer supervision, so they start charging after a certain amount of time.
Also, some what we call private branch exchanges or PBXs that some companies use.
Various internal companies have a certain sort of mini phone system of their own, and they generate their own bills.
In other words, they get billed by the phone company, and then they rebuild their own people inside departments.
And they don't have the sophistication to recognize answer supervision, which is what happens when somebody actually picks up the phone.
So they do it after time, too.
Lots of times people get billed for calls like that.
So if you're making the call from your home, you shouldn't get charged.
New York Telephone won't charge you for those.
By the way, I think 3400, there's something wrong.
I think if people dial 3401, they may get through easier.
There's some sort of malfunction.
Why do you say that?
Well, it was true last night, people calling in.
And I just noticed tonight I was getting a busy signal on 00, and I just dialed 01 and got through rather easily.
Well, the reason that happened was because you dialed, just when somebody hung up, 3400 trips to 01 and trips to 02 and all the other ones down there.
And the fact that you called in 01 meant that the space opened up.
You're showing up on 07, so you went all the way down there.
If you had called 3400, you still would have jumped all the way down.
Don't give out too many tricks.
Well, people have the right to know these things.
Thanks a lot.
Okay. Bye-bye.
Our phone number, actually, he showed up on 06.
I gave out bad information.
Our number is 212-279-3400.
Area code, area code.
Oh, it's area code.
Oh, 212, right.
Area, you know, you ever think of these words?
It's kind of weird.
Area code, what does that mean?
What's an area?
What's a code?
Hang up.
What are you hanging?
Hang up?
It must be.
I was thinking about this before.
It must be from the old days with those old-fashioned telephones
that, you know, you would hold one piece up to your ear
and talk into the main unit with your mouth.
And when you were finished, you would actually hang the earpiece up on the phone itself.
But you don't do that anymore.
I mean, you're not hanging anything up.
You're putting it down.
You know, so we still use the phraseology from those old days,
but we don't realize it.
We just say, he hung up on me, when you should say, he put me down.
212, 279, 3400.
You know, he's right.
I stand corrected.
He is absolutely right.
3400, there is a problem, because when I press that button, it doesn't pick up.
My apologies.
My apologies.
I see what he was saying now.
Okay, well, there's nothing I can do about that.
I have no idea who is on 3400,
but I'm trying to push that button, and I can't do it.
I can't do it.
I can't push that button.
So I'll write this up as a problem, and hopefully it will get fixed.
But you won't be able to tell.
When you call in, you won't be able to tell if you are on 3400 or not.
So there's nothing I can do to help.
Sorry.
212.
Okay, I'll give out 212, 279, 3401.
How's that?
People can call that number.
That way, they definitely won't get hooked into 3400.
So if you find the phone's been ringing an awfully long time,
it's a good chance that you're the one that ended up on the wrong line.
So let's go to another line.
Good morning.
WBI?
Yeah, that's it.
Is this the radio program?
That's what it is.
Oh, I'm on the air, then?
You're on the air.
What's on your mind?
Oh.
Hi, Hitler.
Hi, Hitler.
Hi, Hitler.
Ah, boy.
Good morning.
Hello.
Yeah?
Just a minute.
Actually, I tried calling 3400 about 15 minutes ago, and it did ring.
Okay, the person who is on 3400 has hung up.
And now somebody else just called in.
Person, you are not going to get picked up because I can't pick up that line.
So hang up and call 279, 3401.
Are you talking to me?
No, I'm talking to the little light that I see flashing on the console.
I am connected.
You're connected, yes.
You can hear me, too.
I can hear you fine.
The thing that you just mentioned, yes, you called up and it rang, and I could see it ringing.
The problem is I can't pick up that line.
Ah.
That's the problem.
So it sounds and it looks like it's working, but it's not.
It didn't give a busy signal or anything, but it does.
It doesn't give a busy signal because it's actually ringing.
The problem is with the mechanism here where I can't push a button.
And the person who has called in has ignored my pleas to hang up.
It's still ringing the phone.
There's nothing I can do.
I can't pick up that phone.
I can't do it.
Listen, I've been listening to what you have to say.
What you have to say with great interest and, of course, like everyone else,
I could provide you with some stories both current and all the way back.
Uh-huh.
I can remember when you actually did hang up the phone.
When I was a kid, that's the way the phones were.
They had a receiver and you picked them up and you held it to your ear
and you talked into this daffodil sort of thing.
Uh-huh.
Anyway, there's something I'm almost embarrassed to mention,
but I get the impression people haven't thought about it,
and that is that there are too many people using the phones, you know?
How so?
The whole system.
How so?
The system must have an overload,
and if you get too many people all trying to use the system,
the system, any system, it breaks down.
And we're obviously reaching that point.
Well, systems can be redesigned to handle more traffic.
It can, but eventually the efficiency of redesigning it, I mean, there are limitations.
Now, we've gotten to a point where there are a number of different companies,
Sprint and all these other companies,
and obviously, I think it's obvious anyway, maybe it's not,
that one company should be handling the whole thing.
Nobody liked AT&T.
When they were broken up, everybody cheered,
but now almost every rational person thinks,
well, it would be better if AT&T,
as much as we hate AT&T,
it would be better to have one outfit running the whole damn thing.
Why is it better for one outfit to run something rather than,
you see, it's not the same system.
They're all using their own individual systems.
That's the problem, is that you call some,
you're using Sprint or Doz or Dice or Ringo or whatever,
and you want to call somebody else who's using Whiskey or Sprint or something,
and there's got to be some kind of interface,
and since both of these systems are competing with each other in some respects,
there are going to be glitches and anomalies and whatnot in the connections,
and you multiply the number of connections possible by the number of users
and the number of different companies all trying to fight for the same business,
and it's amazing that it works at all.
Let me correct you on one thing.
When you call someone using Sprint and you call someone else who's using MCI,
it doesn't care what they're using as their long-distance company
because that's only for outgoing service.
Everybody has a phone number, and that's handled by the local Bell operating company,
and that hasn't changed.
It might change someday, but it has not changed yet,
and I understand your concern, but I don't think that's an issue.
I don't think that's something that is likely to happen.
The systems aren't intertangled.
They're just different options.
It's like you run three wires to a certain location instead of two,
and then you give people the choice of three instead of two.
That doesn't mean that they're going to get intertangled.
Handled improperly, yeah, it could happen,
and I think things are being handled improperly to a degree, but not to that extent.
So in other words, you're telling me then that I'm wrong and you're right.
Well, that's what I think.
Well, okay, you may be right.
Can you give me an example of that happening?
Well, I'm, of course, since I'm not intimately familiar with how the whole damn thing works,
I'm never quite sure why something doesn't happen the way it should.
I recently have been having some experience with another dial system.
It was in a hospital that I was in, and the system had no name on it,
so I don't know whose system it was.
It had a phone that looked like a regular phone, but you had to, even for a local call,
you had to first dial the number and then wait until somebody answered before dropping the coin in.
Right, you're talking about one of those newfangled payphones, which actually go back to an old system.
Again, they don't have the capability of detecting when somebody answers,
so they leave it up to you to deposit the coin.
That's just that payphone, though.
That payphone is using regular phone company lines to complete its call.
I realize that, but I'm just...
All right, another example that, again, I could be, you know, I could be just dumb about this,
so help me, I'm not making this up now, I swear this is true, I never lie on these things.
About three months ago, I got a call from an Australian,
and I started to hang up because I don't know any Australians,
and he said, don't hang up, don't hang up, and I'm calling you,
and he said, the hell you are, you got the wrong number, and he says, I'm calling from Tasmania,
and I said, well, wherever you're calling from, you've got the wrong number,
and he insisted he hadn't, that he had called my number at random,
and it turned out there were four guys on there from Tasmania.
I taped the call, as it were, and we talked for about two hours, they were all drunk,
and they had evidently some way, they told me, calling from Tasmania,
that they knew now how to dial New York,
and they dialed my number at random in New York.
Now, they shouldn't have been able to do this, and sit there and talk for two hours.
Why not? I mean, why can't we talk to people for two hours?
Free?
Well, it's amazing.
Ain't that fun?
Well, you talk for two hours, it must have been fun, right?
It's an amazing experience to be able to talk to somebody.
Well, I was, for several days afterward, I was a bit uneasy,
with the thought that, jeez, how do I know it was free?
Maybe they had some way of making it correct, and maybe I'm going to get a bill for $150,
for a call to Tasmania in a week, and a bill to my number.
Well, it didn't happen, or at least it hasn't happened yet.
Well, yeah, I understand your concern.
It do seem to me that, you know, people hark back to the good old days of the phone system,
when, as you say, when you could pick, dial, and then a live operator got on,
and if you had a problem, she'd listen to you,
and was apparently intelligent enough to understand you.
But now, obviously, there are not enough operators, you know,
and probably not enough operators in the entire United States to handle all the calls in that way.
Nobody would be calling because they'd all be working in the phone exchange.
Well, you know, I think I'm going to have to let you go because we're out of time,
but I think you've raised some good points.
There is a tangled web, but I don't think the tangled web is so much of the technology as it is of the education.
I don't think we're being told enough, and we're not stupid.
We're not dumb for not understanding this.
It's just not being explained properly. It's not being designed properly.
It's not being designed for human beings to use.
Well, we are clear out of time again,
and I won't be back in two weeks because I'll be away somewhere.
I don't even know where.
Driving away on my car that has no mileage on it, which is going to be an amazing experience.
I want to thank everybody who called in,
and hopefully we'll see you again in about four weeks or so.
Emmanuel Goldstein saying good night.
I shall never choose the other way.
Show me not that bottle and show me not that bag.
I will turn my head and look away.
Let me live a clean life, lead me not astray.
I shall never choose the other way.
If there is no heaven, if there is no hell,
neither good nor bad will get their pay.
But I will live a clean life, I'll not go astray.
I will never choose the other way.
This is WBAI in New York City.
Good morning, Cabal.
I saw, this is Bob Fass, this is Primary Unnameable,
or whatever it is it's called in the folio.
Thank you very much, Emmanuel Goldstein.
And I wonder where he's gone to.
He says he's not sure.
Thank you very much, Emmanuel Goldstein.
And I wonder where he's gone to.
He says he's not sure.
Well, send us a card and let us know where you are,
if you find out, okay?
It used to be, like, in the days before, you know,
whatever it was that happened,
when the movement became Remember the Movement.
Sometimes some of us would get a message that said,
go to a certain corner in the street,
and don't make any appointments,
cancel your appointments for the next few weeks,
and we'd be whisked underground to visit some person.
You know, and you'd have an adventure.
So maybe that's what's happening to Dr. Goldstein.
Could be.
Anyway, I saw something that made me think that
maybe the world had really been turned upside down today.
Coming out of my television set, there was Chancellor John Chancellor.
You know him?
Sixth Chancellor John Chancellor.
And he was talking about how the problem for Mr. Bush was that,
like all of the presidents for the last so many years,
except for certain years,
he had to deal with the fact that the Congress was in the hands of another party.
Now, isn't that what's just, I mean, he was recommending,
I guess, a one-party state in the United States.
He would like it to be, it's more efficient.
There's more order, he said,
if the president and the party are the same.
I mean, isn't that what just like all of that wall-tumbling
and Ceausescu baiting has been all about?
One-party state?
I guess maybe it really is the world turned upside down.
I guess maybe it really is the world turned upside down.