The following program is a rebroadcast of Off the Hook, originally aired in 1988.
The number you have reached, 1, has been changed.
The new number is 2. Please make a note of it.
The number you have reached has been disconnected.
This is Off the Hook, the telephone program, a presentation of WBAI.
I'm your host, Emanuel Goldstein.
Over the past few months, consumers in the New York area have been introduced to a wide range of new phone numbers.
These numbers represent the host of telephone services that are now being offered here.
Computerized wake-up calls, interactive weather forecasts, stock market quotes.
But that's not all. Anyone who has a telephone can now dial into a wide range of teleconferences.
If you watch late-night commercial TV, you probably have become painfully aware of this.
I know what you want. You want to meet new and exciting people.
Well, you can. It's easier than you think.
All you need is a telephone. Just call the 7000 party line.
That's where I talk to the hottest guys in town. I call all the time. And so do my friends.
Only 79 cents a minute. Call now.
I'm not the kind of girl who sits home on a Saturday night.
Unless I have a very good reason.
And the new love voice? It's a pretty good reason.
Thousands of others have joined the party. Now it's your turn.
New friends are just a phone call away. For just 89 cents a minute, join the party.
Mrs. Sonny, how you doing? Hi.
You girls sound like a real partying group.
Oh, he sounds really sexy. I wonder what he looks like.
Everybody's calling the party line. You never know who you might meet.
Call the Premier Party Line. Get your kicks. 79 cents a minute.
Chill out, you caged party animal.
Feeding time is here. Check this out.
$1.50 the first minute, plus 60 cents each additional.
Yeah, that was great. Oh, I know. I've made lots of good friends on the wrap line.
Wrap line? Hey, I called and I met this woman who's really into cars.
Yeah, well, I call the wrap line all the time.
And last week, I met this lady who's an absolute computer whiz.
Oh, it's great. We get together and do things all the time. Last Friday, we went to the movies.
Sounds great. Sounds like you do a lot of great things.
Oh, yeah. We went and saw the jazz festival.
Talk to me.
Talk to me.
Talk to me.
Talk to me.
Talk to me.
Exciting people waiting to talk to you.
Just call. Just 95 cents a call and 65 cents a minute.
Call now.
This kind of advertising isn't just going on in New York.
It's happening all over the country. In fact, all over the world.
As the telecommunications industry becomes more advanced, more such services are possible.
Some experts believe all the hype will die down after the novelty wears off.
And after the phone bills arrive.
This is how it works in New York.
There are four special exchanges.
976, 970, 540, and 550.
976 has actually been around for a number of years.
And it's used for various recorded announcements.
The weather, the time, sports scores, horoscopes.
Each announcement is one minute long and there's no interaction with the caller.
So 976 is the most primitive of the exchanges.
Then there's 970, which is used for adult-oriented messages.
It can be a simple one-minute sex message or a more involved and more expensive interactive message.
970 is reserved for adult telephone entertainment.
Not that there's any law against children calling a 970 number.
At least, not yet.
But that's another topic.
The 540 exchange is the most advanced.
On 540, you'll almost always wind up talking to a computer.
Which will ask you all kinds of questions.
Your birth date, what city you want to hear a weather forecast for.
What time you want your phone to ring.
Or any number of trivia questions.
550 is used for teleconferences.
And that's what we're focusing on today.
On 550, different numbers are used for different subjects and different types of people.
For instance, there's a line for teenagers.
A line for people who want to talk about sports.
A line for black people.
A line for gay people.
And all kinds of variations and repetitions.
Now, the way it works is quite simple.
You just dial the number you want.
And you're connected to a small group of others that have called the same number.
The rest is up to you.
You can just sit there and listen.
You can try and have a meaningful discussion with somebody.
Or you can waste time and money by bantering on for hours about nothing in particular.
What many callers don't realize is that time really flies on a teleconference.
And every minute means more money spent.
The 550 numbers you see advertised are regulated by the local phone company, New York Telephone.
Right now, it costs 20 cents for the first minute and 10 cents for each additional minute.
But in October, those rates are supposed to rise to 25 cents a minute, day or night.
That means that if you're on a conference call for an hour, it'll cost you $15.
That's a bit steep for most people.
In fact, for $15, you can call someone in California for two hours.
So the rate is high by most standards.
But $15 an hour is nothing compared to what other services are charging.
These other services are not regulated by New York Telephone,
and they can charge pretty much whatever they want.
How can you tell the difference?
Well, as we mentioned, the 550 exchange is used for those teleconference services that are regulated by New York Telephone.
But other teleconferences use the 900 area code.
In other words, a 10-digit phone number starting with 900 rather than a 7-digit number beginning with 550.
A couple of services also use the 700 area code, an area code capable of being used for interactive services.
You'll probably see a lot more 700 numbers in the next couple of years.
Calls to teleconferences in the 700 and 900 area codes can cost up to $1 a minute.
That's $60 an hour for a telephone call.
That's about what it would cost to carry on an hour-long conversation with someone in Germany.
We called a few of these teleconferences to get a feeling for what was being said on them.
And here's a sample.
Oh, you hooker number one?
Yeah, Shelly Tonda.
Who's hooker number two?
Giggles.
Giggles?
Not to say no giggling. You're acting like Giggles. You're always laughing.
That'd be funny.
Hey, hey, hooker number two.
Yes.
What's your name, baby?
Denise.
Denise?
Where's hooker number three?
She stopped calling now.
That's her right there.
I'm hooker number three?
Yeah.
What's your name?
Chanel.
Oh, Chanel?
Didn't I talk to you before, baby?
You did when?
No.
When?
You remember me.
Who are you?
My name is Homicide, baby.
Homicide, honey?
What's up?
You know who this is, baby?
Who this?
Mystery.
Hey, Mystery.
Huh?
You're not down with that.
No, I'm still watching you.
You down with the hooker posse?
I ain't no hooker.
Beep. Beep.
Any, any, any girls.
Yo, let me hold that pen. Let me sign off.
Any young ladies out there from the Bronx?
Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens.
Word, at least.
Brooklyn, please.
I'm all for the Niagara Falls.
I'm not.
Nah, man. Ain't nothing like that.
You know what that's about?
Do you know what we're talking about at this point?
No.
We found that the conversation quality remained fairly constant.
That is, the services that cost one dollar a minute
were not ten times better than those that cost ten cents a minute.
In the end, they all sounded fairly similar.
But now that these consumer teleconferences,
also known as gab lines or party lines,
have been around for a few months,
something else has started to happen.
The bills have begun to arrive.
One man ran up a $95,000 phone bill.
According to the New York Daily News,
an 18-year-old kid from Brooklyn
who used the phone for up to 11 hours a day
surprised his parents with a bill for $152,000.
A construction worker who wound up with a $30,000 phone bill
compared his telephone addiction to gambling or having a drug habit.
In Secaucus, New Jersey,
a New York City worker used the mayor's phone
to make calls to a conference line.
And in Union City, a City Hall custodian
made nearly $6,000 in calls to a conference line
in just two months.
Meanwhile, Southern Bell and the state of Georgia
are trying to ban conference lines altogether.
And in England, British Telecom was forced
to pull out of the chat line business
because of adverse public reaction to it.
All of this appears to be only the beginning.
According to the Washington Post,
Maryland now blocks access to conference lines
unless a customer specifically asks for it.
In fact, their local phone company,
Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone,
took the unusual step of refusing to cut off customers
who didn't pay their conference line bills.
Instead, after 30 days, the phone company
deducts the payment from the conference line company.
But some of the conference line companies
take on a more combative approach.
Media 4 of Oak Brook, Illinois,
handles many of the 900 area code teleconference lines.
If a customer were to call them
after receiving a huge bill,
this is what they would hear.
You are responsible for all charges
appearing on your monthly phone bill.
If you have current 900 billing charges
that you wish to question,
contact your telephone company service representative.
The number of the call appears on your telephone bill.
It is the policy of Media 4
to independently pursue collection actions
for unpaid Media 4 charges.
To avoid a collections action
and keep your credit rating intact,
payment arrangements must be established
with your telephone company representative.
Remember, you are responsible for all charges
appearing on your monthly phone bill.
Hello?
Hello?
Hello.
Who is this?
This is Kenny.
Hello?
Hello.
Who is this?
This is Kenny.
Kenny?
Yes.
Hi.
Hi.
What's your name?
Are you cute?
What?
Are you cute?
I guess.
You guess?
Are you cute?
Well, am I cute?
Yes.
Well, I think so.
Oh.
Where are you from?
Personally, I think I'm very cute.
Oh, yeah?
Yes.
Where are you from?
I'm from Stanford, Connecticut.
Oh, yeah?
What's your name?
Eddie.
Kenny?
Kenny.
Kenny.
My name is Dora.
Dora?
Yes.
How old are you?
What?
How old are you?
How old am I?
I'm 20 years old.
20?
Yes.
I'm sorry I can't hear, because there's, like, noise in here.
My friend's kids are, like, pain in the ass.
Are you?
Yeah.
So what are you doing?
Nothing.
I'm sitting here talking to you.
Oh, OK.
I'm sitting in my blue chair.
What are you doing?
Sitting in my blue chair, talking to you.
Your blue chair?
So what do you like to do?
Me?
I like to ride horses.
I like men.
I like to have a good time, and I like to party.
Yes.
Do you like to party?
Pretty much.
What?
Pretty much.
What do you like doing?
Just about everything.
Everything?
I like men who like to do everything.
Oh, yeah?
Hello, who's this?
What?
Hi, who's this?
Dora.
Hello?
Yeah, I just got on.
Hello, who's this?
This is Dora.
Hi, Dora.
This is Tom.
Oh, hi, Tom.
Dora, where are you?
Where are you calling from?
Stanford, Connecticut.
Oh, boy.
How do you like that?
I'm over on Long Island, across the way from you.
Who's the other guy that's on?
I don't know.
What?
I don't know.
Hi, Danny.
How you doing?
Danny.
Danny.
Anyway.
Hello, Tom?
Yeah, go ahead.
Tom?
This is Tom.
Go ahead.
What do you like doing?
Well, I enjoy boating.
I enjoy riding.
I enjoy reading, and I enjoy good music and good-looking women.
Wow.
I like all those except the women part.
You don't like good-looking women?
Of course not.
I'm not a lesbian or anything.
So what do you like?
I like good-looking men.
You like good-looking men?
Yeah.
Well, let's see.
Let's see if I fit your score.
How about 5'10", about 150, 155 pounds.
Uh-huh.
Jog.
I play tennis.
I play squash.
And I do a good bit of swimming.
Uh-huh.
And I would consider myself to be more than reasonably attractive.
Well, I like that.
You do?
Yes.
So tell me about yourself.
How tall are you?
Me?
Yeah.
I'm 5'10".
Boy, you're tall.
Hello?
Hello?
Hi.
Who's this?
Hello?
Who's this?
Hi.
Hello.
Hi.
Who's this?
What happened to the person from Stanford?
Where are you guys from?
Hello?
This one's from Long Island.
Tom's from Long Island.
Where?
Where?
I'm from Long Island, too.
Me, too.
Where?
Iceland.
Oh, I used to go from there.
I live in Leavittown.
Oh.
Where's the person from Connecticut?
From Stanford.
What's your name?
Jill.
Jill?
Yes.
Hello?
I can barely hear you.
Where's that guy from Long Island?
Where do you live?
Where do you live?
In Port Washington.
Where are you?
You're way out.
What's your name?
Amanda.
Hi, Amanda.
Amanda.
Hi, Amanda.
Amanda, where do you live?
How old are you?
17.
Amanda.
Amanda, where do you live?
I live in Iceland.
That's where I live.
Hello?
That's where what?
That's where I live.
Get out of here.
Who's the guy from Port Washington?
Right here.
Tom.
Tom?
Yeah.
Tom, you too?
What?
Who's that guy we've spoken to?
Right here.
What's your name?
Mike.
Mike?
22.
Mike, how old are you?
I'm 20.
How old?
22.
Mike, how old are you?
I'm 20.
How old?
17.
Where do you live?
Iceland.
Where?
Wait a minute.
I can't hear you.
You want to call me?
Wait a minute.
This is Tom.
You want to call me?
Seattle-based Omnicall, one of the largest conference line operators, describes the party
lines as very popular services.
A spokesperson said, people are lonely and want to reach out and talk to people.
It's somebody to talk to who isn't charging you to sit on his couch.
Ironically, many of the conference lines charge more per hour than a psychiatrist would.
You're listening to Off the Hook on WBAI.
Richard Cheshire is known as Cheshire Catalyst to phone freaks, those strange people who
love to play with telephones.
Cheshire Catalyst used to be a phone freak, and he also used to write for Tap Magazine,
which was a publication for phone freaks.
He says that for years, decades even, phone freaks have been making conference calls.
And needless to say, they rarely wound up paying for them.
Cheshire Catalyst recollects one of the crude methods of making a conference call.
I remember back in the old days, back in the days of crossbar switches and electromechanical
good solid chunking machines, when we used to talk through the busy signal, I don't think
you can do that anymore with all the electronic stuff that's going on, but through the beeps
of the busy signal, you could hear voices.
And bop, if, bop, you, bop, were, bop, to, bop, speak, bop, between the beeps, you could
actually carry on a conversation like that, and a lot of people did.
A legendary teleconference of the 1960s and 70s was based in Vancouver.
You would dial the number for information in that city, and when the operator answered,
you'd hit the A, B, C, or D button on your touchtone phone.
Somehow, you would be connected to a crowd of other phone callers who did the same thing.
Now, you may have noticed that we just made reference to the A, B, C, and D buttons on
your touchtone phone.
You also may have noticed that your touchtone phone doesn't have an A, B, C, or D button,
but every touchtone phone is capable of producing four more tones.
By playing around with the wiring inside the phone, it's possible to activate these four
tones.
In phone freak lingo, that's known as making a silver box.
Right now, though, there doesn't appear to be any commercial use for those four extra
tones, which would appear on the extreme right of the phone.
On the military phone network, however, these four tones are used, but that's another topic
entirely.
Getting back to the teleconferences, Cheshire Catalyst outlines the different kinds of conversation
you might find on a phone freak conference.
Out on the west coast, particularly, it's a lot of one-upmanship and infighting and
what have you.
On the east coast, it was more information sharing because it was forbidden knowledge,
the information that the phone company didn't want you to have, well, number one, about
how you got into these things and how these things got set up.
Some guys actually would call the frames in various places.
These are locations inside the central office where the phone wires come together, and they
would instruct the switchmen in the central offices on how to set one of these things
up, not telling them what they were setting up, just, hi, this is Charlie down at central,
and we've got to get this thing set up, and here's what you do.
Switchmen are lonely people.
They sit around listening to relays click, or used to back in the days of relays, and,
well, of course, you're not allowed to while listening to private conversations, but if
there was this special gadget called the conference bridge that was set up and people called into
it, and the bridge was set up strictly for internal telephone company use, then it was
kosher for them to be listening to this kind of thing, and it was great entertainment for
them.
So, you call up a guy in a switching office where they don't have such entertainment,
don't know how to set it up, you tell them how to set it up, and then you've got your
own private conference session available.
Now, how would these phone freaks get the knowledge to tell phone company employees
how to run their own equipment?
Through a method called trashing, which is literally crawling through telephone company
trash dumpsters in an effort to get discarded manuals and computer printouts.
Trashing is one of the most effective ways of getting information in the phone free computer
hacker world.
Phone freaks still have teleconferences, and unlike the new commercial conference lines,
they seem to have something to talk about.
This excerpt of a phone freak conference was recorded last year, and the participants were
spread out across the United States, England, and Holland.
What you'll hear is the incredible hunger for knowledge that these phone freaks have,
no matter what part of the world they're in.
Hey, Sean?
Yeah?
How does this work?
I mean, you dial a number?
Area code 800, and then a prefix subscriber's number, and then?
You mean the 1-800 number?
Yes.
I call the 1-800 number?
Yes.
And then the access code, and then the very last four digits of the access code are what
town I want.
I can have it in Chicago, L.A., or New York.
I normally pick New York because it's closest to you, and I get a better connection.
Well, I have a pen and a piece of paper.
I have written down a number, but that is much too long.
That is 1-800-328-4666-5601-0907-00456100.
Right.
That can't be right.
What is what in that number?
That's right.
Okay.
So 1-800-328-4666, okay?
1-800-328-4666 is the...
This is the number I call to get to a phone system, okay?
Yes.
It's a telephone number.
Right.
Okay.
It says...
It comes up with a dial tone, and then I type 5-6-0-1-0, and then it goes beep.
Dial tone?
Hang on, hang on.
Dial tone, and then I dial 5-6-0-1-0.
Right.
And then it'll go beep, okay?
And then I dial 9, it'll go beep again.
Beep.
Then I'll dial 0-7-0-0-4-5-6-1-0-0-0.
0-7-0-0-4-5-6-1-0.
1,000, okay?
1,000, yes.
The last four digits, the 1,000.
Yes.
You can also do 1,001, 1,002, 1,003, 1,004, and I think 1,005, okay?
These are the city locations.
City locations.
Zero is New York.
Zero is Chicago.
Zero is Chicago.
One is Los Angeles.
L.A.
Two is Chicago.
Chicago again.
Three is White Plains, New York.
White Plains, yes.
This is what I'm on now.
White Plains is one of your international receiving stations.
Is it?
Yes, it is.
And 1,000, what number am I on?
Three.
You didn't mention four yet.
1,004 is in Houston, I think.
Houston.
Great.
And after that, I don't think there is any more.
I haven't gone farther than that.
Well, you know, the 1-800 number that you have now is very safe.
Yeah, okay.
You can call it from your own home because the guy who gave me the number called me from his own home, you know?
Yeah.
He said it wasn't dangerous at all.
For Barry?
Yeah.
What's going to happen when this number goes bad, too?
Well, I'm going to call the other guy, Eric, again in the USA, and he will probably give me the new number.
Okay.
Do I figure this number will be dead in about a month?
Well, I think a little longer, within one and a half, two months, is what I think.
Because they just changed it.
Yeah?
I don't know how this guy Eric got them so fast.
Yeah, okay.
I believe they get it from an operator somewhere.
Yeah?
Okay.
You are going to see Beverly Hillcubs, too?
Probably tonight, yes.
Is there no way somebody can copy it with a video recorder?
No, Barry.
No?
No.
Is it a drive-in movie?
No.
It's a walk-in theater.
It's a walk-in theater?
Yeah, like the casino.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, like the casino in Holland, yes.
Yeah, okay.
But you can use a video cassette recorder, you know?
Put it onto the screen and copy the film.
Not like this.
Not over here.
Now, what we heard at the beginning was a detailed explanation of how this illegal conference had been set up.
The first thing a caller would do is dial what is known as an 800 extender.
That's an 800 number owned by some company that gives you a dial tone when you call it.
Extenders are supposed to be used by employees of the company that own them.
But more often than not, phone freaks seem to get there first.
Anyway, after dialing into the extender, the caller would then have to have the proper authorization code to get an outside dial tone.
The authorization code can be anywhere between three and nine digits.
When that is entered correctly, the caller would then enter nine to get an outside line.
The caller would then be free to call any phone number in the world at the company's expense.
The number that many phone freaks choose to call is that of Alliance Teleconferencing, operated by AT&T.
It resides in the 700 area code, and it's kind of like a self-service teleconference.
That is, you decide who's on the conference.
Here's what happens when you call.
This is Alliance Teleconferencing Service in White Plains, New York.
You can interrupt most announcements by simply dialing the number you want.
Please enter the number of locations you need, including your own.
Dial now.
We decided that 12 would be a good number.
The maximum number of calls you can link together on this system is 59.
Your conference size is 12.
To change this request, dial star.
Dial number sign to continue.
Dial now.
Well, 12 still seemed like a good number, so we hit the number sign key, also known as the pound key or the tic-tac-toe key.
Please dial one plus an area code and telephone number.
Wait for your party to answer, and dial number sign to add the call to your conference.
Dial star to cancel the call.
We thought it would be fun to try and link Alliance Teleconferencing to itself
and see if we could make a call that lasted forever.
But they were one step ahead of us.
We're sorry.
Calls to 700, 800, and 900 area codes cannot be placed.
We decided not to pursue this teleconference any further.
With Alliance Teleconferencing, you not only pay a fee to connect to the conference,
but you have to pay for each and every call you make.
And since Alliance can make overseas calls and can handle up to 59 connections on a single conference,
one could very well wind up setting a phone bill record.
What's different about this kind of a teleconference is that only one person or company winds up paying.
All of the calls get billed back to the phone number that originated the conference.
Everyone else simply experiences the joy of receiving a teleconference call.
And that's where the true value of free communication becomes apparent.
A couple of years ago, a group of East Coast phone freaks started a teleconference that lasted for days.
And they managed to bill the whole thing back to, of all companies, AT&T.
At one point, they called a complete stranger in Australia
and told her that she was speaking to a phone freak teleconference.
For quite some time, they chatted away about the differences in their cultures.
Then the phone freaks asked the lady in Australia
if there was anybody anywhere in the world that she would like to talk to for free.
She thought for a while and remembered that she had a cousin in England that she hadn't spoken to in years,
mostly because it cost so much to call.
Within a minute, the phone freaks had connected the two.
Of course, this phone call was far from private since at least 15 phone freaks were on the line.
But that didn't stop the two from expressing their happiness at hearing the other's voice after so many years.
At one point, the lady in Australia said that she wished her husband was there to say hello.
What number can we reach him at? one of the phone freaks asked.
Within moments, he too was on the line,
talking to his wife who was less than a mile away in Australia,
but whose voice was coming to him from around the world.
Such happenings don't occur very often,
but when they do, they illustrate the ease with which people can communicate in this day and age
and also the economic barrier that forces them not to.
By hitting a few touch tones,
these Robin Hoods of the phone lines had given total strangers an experience they'd never forget.
Of course, this was all highly illegal,
but it makes one wonder what kind of effect free communications would have on the people of the world.
Alliance teleconferencing is probably the modern phone freak's biggest toy.
In this excerpt, phone freaks tied together operators from all different parts of the country.
Before they were added to the conference, the operators were told to hold on for a test.
It's interesting to see that some of the operators clearly enjoyed not knowing what was going on,
while others were annoyed.
A single beep indicates a party being added to the conference.
A double beep indicates a party being disconnected.
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Hello, repair service, where are you?
Uh, I'm at a motion control center in Seattle.
They got me on two phones, that's what.
I don't know whether to pick you up over to my supervising letter at home for Vaughn or what.
Well, I hope your telephone company's really getting a good trace on this.
Trace?
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
Keep calling back.
Boy, they're gonna prosecute.
Is this supposed to be a trace of something?
Yes, it is.
Say pardon?
This is Seattle. Where are they tracing you?
Seattle.
Yep.
Well, that's good.
And you got Richmond, too.
Daisy?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you got Beverly, too.
Oh, my gosh.
We got Daisy and Beverly and everybody.
Listen, I'm hanging up.
Don't stay on the line.
I don't think they want you to hang up.
Can I help you?
Sure.
Off the line.
Off the line.
If you wish to end your conference, hang up now.
Wait for an operator to reconnect your conference controller or hang up now.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
They cut me at my crust.
But if they could, they would.
Bundled me up for the best expected worst.
I hope that time is good. Bundled me up.
You're listening to Off the Hook on WBAI New York.
This is a rebroadcast of a program that was originally aired in 1988.
What we're going to do now is rebroadcast part of the teleconference that was aired on that day,
where we hooked up ten BAI listeners.
Okay, now, since we have ten people on the line at once, I'd like to try this.
I doubt it'll work very well, but I'd like to try to get a legal ID from all of you at the same time.
So when I count down to one, I would like all of you on the phone right now to say,
and please don't scream, otherwise you'll overpower everybody,
just say WBAI New York.
And I'm going to count down from three.
Three, two, one.
WBAI New York.
99.5 FM.
Oh, we have a wise guy there. Okay.
That's not a legalized radio.
All right, well, now, we have been talking about telephones, teleconferences, and phone freaks,
and all that kind of thing.
We're on the air for another hour and eight minutes,
and we'll be taking various questions, just individual questions,
about phone systems and the breakup and all that kind of thing.
But before we wind this up, anybody have any more comments?
This is a dangerous question, because ten people are going to speak at once.
Daniel?
Go ahead. Who's this?
This is Bobby from Brooklyn.
Bobby from Brooklyn.
I'm curious, you asked everybody a question about themselves.
You didn't ask me anything. Is that because I'm a female impersonator?
Ah.
Well, you know, I must have just glossed right over you. I'm sorry.
Oh, okay.
Well, go ahead. Go ahead. Tell me something about yourself, Bobby.
Well, while everybody was talking, I came up with an idea.
You know, I read 2600 Magazine, and I know they have monthly meetings.
Is that right?
In fact, it's very interesting you should point that out.
We have a meeting tomorrow.
Do you?
Yes. It's not going to be all that long.
Usually, they're at 6 o'clock.
Tomorrow, it's going to be at 5, and I've got to go to the Mets game,
and I have to leave a little bit early, so 5 o'clock in the City Corp Center,
right where all the strange people hang out in the atrium there with chairs and tables.
And basically, we have copies of the magazine, and we talk about various things,
and we trade information, and it's a monthly event,
usually the first, always the first Friday of the month in City Corp at 6 p.m.
Tomorrow, it's 5 p.m.
So, yes, thanks for reminding me about that.
I was going to mention that.
Is that the biggest attendance you've had in months now?
I'll be kind of scared to tell you the truth.
I mean, because what I've heard the last couple of months,
it's been like one person shows up or two people show up, but they don't see each other.
Uh-huh.
Well, I'll be wearing a brand-new 2600 T-shirt, which is a new thing we're trying.
Are they for sale?
Well, we'll be offering that in the magazine.
I'm not offering that over the air, but it might show up as a BAI premium.
You never know.
What's the significance of the number 2600?
Does anyone on the phone want to answer that?
Well, I'll take a shot at it.
Go ahead.
It's the, okay, in the old telephone systems,
there used to be a tone which was always present on a line.
Do you do it?
I don't know.
Okay.
It's a tone that the Captain Crunch whistle used to generate.
It was used to grab the trunk line, grab control.
That's it.
That's it.
And 2600 represents control, sort of, to every phone freak.
Of course, it doesn't really work anymore.
They've built systems to find 2600 hertz tones when they're generated,
and they've built systems that don't respond to it.
But it's still, it's kind of legendary.
It dates back to the 1960s.
Does it have military implications?
Not exactly military implications.
Apart from just gaining control of the entire phone system,
that could be used to a military advantage.
One of you guys out there maybe could answer this.
Go ahead.
What about the, you know, phone freaks have been around for so long.
I remember listening to, I think it was the original Captain Crunch on Bob Fass' show,
back around, I don't know, 69, 70, a long time ago.
But we have systems these days that automatically record the,
not the number that is calling.
ANI.
Automatic number identification.
Well, now, I think what you're referring to is when you place a call,
the number you're calling from is identified, correct?
Yeah, to the person who you called.
Oh, that's something I believe New Jersey Bell is going to be offering very soon.
Usually it's within the same central office, meaning your local area.
You will see, you can program certain numbers not to reach you,
to always get either a busy signal or a recording or something,
or distinctive ringing so that if the pest down the block calls you,
you'll know it's him.
But, of course, there are systems in place now at corporations,
integrated systems where the number is displayed
as soon as you call somebody within that establishment.
It's nothing all that new, but it could have scary implications in the future.
There have been pagers that have that capacity for quite some time, too.
Yeah, well, the pagers I've seen, I didn't,
but usually the pagers, you have to punch the number into it.
Yeah, you have a pager and you have to dial the number in.
It doesn't get the number in.
It seems to me that there could be serious implications
about having that capability for some people to have that capability.
Well, it would take away, I mean, I would have all of your phone numbers
in front of me if I had that system, and it would certainly,
I mean, I'm not going to do anything nasty to them, but supposing I did.
Well, I'll tell you, you know, it's funny.
I've been thinking about that for a while.
Of course, listening to BAI, I've always been kind of, I guess...
Paranoid.
Yeah, sure, you know?
And especially listening to May Brussels shows way back when
and all up through, and there's the Contragate stuff.
And, you know, it's always seemed to me that, well, gee,
what's to stop some right-wing organization from getting WCAIs?
Well, you know, every time, on Contragate,
every time there's a problem with the phone line,
Dennis Bernstein always thinks it's the FBI.
Somebody dropped the phone.
Yeah.
Sorry about that.
That show earlier this evening, it was, that there was a show on
that they were talking to somewhere.
Chile.
Salvador.
Chile, that was it.
Chile.
Chile, excuse me.
But they were talking to Chile, and the thing was that the people in Chile
could not hear the people in New York anymore, so they just hung up.
But, of course, the BAI announcer immediately says,
well, the phone, the line was cut.
The line was definitely cut.
But I guess they are having some problems with the communications workers down there,
so it could fairly well be, but it sure seems to me like the people in Chile
just hung up the phone.
AM radio, some years ago, when Long John Nebel used to have a show,
I used to hear him announce when someone would bother him.
I don't know if it was true or not.
He'd announce that somehow he had a hookup that gave him the phone numbers
of the people who called in.
Which was a lie.
Oh, okay.
Unless he had a telephone switchman in the central office that would run around
every time a phone call was made, that's very unlikely.
And he'd need police clearance and all that kind of thing.
The thing to realize, though, is if the person you're calling can read your number,
anybody else who's tapping that telephone can also read that number.
Yeah, well, let's see.
I thought that things like 9-1-1, and if you called your police department,
they automatically got a record of your number.
If your area has what's called enhanced 9-1-1, not only will your phone number show up,
but your name, your address, and any kind of characteristics,
such as you store all kinds of flammable material all over your house,
that will pop up so that they'll know this when they go over there.
Or if they say nasty comments about you, they'll store them there.
What's of concern to us that deal with privacy and everything
is with that information all over the place,
with that being displayed with every phone call,
what privacy will we have left?
Well, Emmanuel, I'm not a phlegm.
We have lost Keith from Queens.
Twelve, which is about 20 years ago,
I once performed a great feat of technical prestidigitation,
at least for a 12-year-old.
Even at that age, I was a BAI listener,
and one time someone on the air was calling a famous left-wing political personage of the time
who had an unlisted phone number,
and the person in master control was using a rotary phone to dial,
and I was doing...
Ah, my goodness.
So I actually slowed down the tape, counted the clicks, and...
Well, now, there's many people out there that know,
when you hit a touchtone, what number it is.
Really?
So I don't think you're any safer with a touchtone phone.
I can sometimes...
More musical.
Does anyone here think they can do that?
Me from Manhattan, and I'm going to have to sign off,
but before I go, I want to say how enjoyable and terrific this is.
I hope this becomes a regular feature.
Now that James Ursay, who I've always enjoyed, seems to have vanished from the airwaves.
Well, no, I can't say for sure that he's vanished.
I believe he's scheduled to be back here next week, but I'm not...
Oh, well, maybe you guys can alternate Thursdays the way some other people alternate.
Well, I'd certainly like to, because it's a lot of material.
How many of the other people out there are also avid science fiction readers?
I am.
I'm a performing artist also.
I'm David the Magic Minstrel in one persona.
Pardon?
I'm David the Magic Minstrel.
Sometimes, like, I play my pregnant turtles or a serpent flute on the air, like, during marathons and things.
Great.
And I'm also that, or I hang out at Nyssa's sometimes.
And I wanted to mention, there's going to be an event, that's three,
to encourage communication and community on Sunday.
There's a Rainbow Family picnic in Prospect Park in the Nethermead,
and if people get to the 15th Street stop, 15th Street Prospect Park stop on the F train,
there'll be trail markers leading them into the Nethermead of Prospect Park.
And from noon till dusk, there's going to be a Rainbow Family picnic.
And bring whatever you have to share.
Did you say Saturday?
Sunday.
Sunday.
And bring food and juice to share, and acoustic instruments, and yourselves.
Amy, this is Michael. I was wondering, do you listen to Sound of China?
What? No, I haven't. What station is that on?
If I'm allowed to say.
Sure, you're allowed to say. This is a free country and a free station. Go ahead.
The Columbia station. It's on from 9 to 12 Saturday mornings.
Oh, I usually listen to, I'll admit it, WNYC Morning Edition.
Weekend edition to get my news.
Let's not get carried away, though.
Okay, Amy, you have to go. We're going to take another call, and nice talking to you.
Yeah, it was great talking to you. I wish there was some, I know it's too dangerous.
I wish there was some way we could somehow do this again. You know, I really enjoyed it.
Well, I have an idea. Next BAI Marathon, why don't you all volunteer and come down and meet each other?
Come to the Rainbow Picnic.
Go to the 2600 meeting.
Okay.
There's many ways, you see.
Right. Okay. Thank you all.
Always wear a mirror. Always recognize me. I always, I have a mirror and a small ocarina that's always on my neck.
This is David the Magic Minstrel.
Okay.
Bye, David.
Good night, everyone.
Good night.
Good night, Amy.
Okay, we're going to take two more calls just to link them in here, and then we're going to disconnect the conference,
which, by the way, folks, what time did we start this conference?
About 1.30.
About 1.30. It's 2.30 now. Now, at $1 a minute, times 10 for the 10 of you.
Does somebody have a calculator that can figure out what this conference would have gotten the phone company?
$150.
$60 per person times 10. That's $600.
You don't need a calculator for that.
That's true. You don't.
So if WBAI was a teleconference company, we would have just made $600 just by having that conversation.
Well, this is a much more intelligent conversation than those other lines, let me tell you.
Then there'd be an intelligence surcharge.
Let's go to the other calls here.
Good evening. You're on the air.
I would think there'd be an intelligence discount.
Is this a new person saying this?
I don't know. This is an old person in a new location.
Okay. What's your name?
My name's Frank.
Frank. And where are you calling from?
Parsippany.
Parsippany. Okay. Got it.
I'm just curious. Aren't you people familiar with the new operator switchboards,
which automatically show your phone number when you call it?
The operators know your phone number.
So anybody who's cranking your local operator, they know who you are, of course.
And they have back hold, too.
They have to prank an operator and notice that you can't hang up your phone.
Well, you can physically hang up your phone.
They can't control that yet.
But you pick it up and you don't get a dial tone.
There's no dial tone anymore.
And the operator is still there either chortling or just not doing anything.
And it's a scary experience for every little kid.
I'm sure they've all gone through that at some point.
My biggest problem lately is when I set my computer to auto dial
and I got a few bulletin boards I want to call, all of a sudden my dial tone goes away.
Sometimes central offices see you rapidly dialing over and over again
and they think you're up to no good and they sort of suspend your line.
Is that against the law now?
No, it's just that my bulletin boards have busy signals.
It's against the law.
I believe you're allowed 15 redials and then you're not supposed to do it anymore.
But when does that go into effect?
No, no, no.
It's against the law to randomly dial numbers in a particular central office.
Well, that's called scanning, and I don't know if that's really against the law.
That's not against the law.
I don't think that's against the law.
It's just not one of those desirable things that they encourage you to do.
All right, I'll put it to you this way.
The last I heard, it's up against the edges where people are trying to press for it being against the law.
Okay, that's what I heard.
Okay, that sounds reasonable.
As far as the 15 redials, I don't believe that's against the law either,
but the companies that make these phones that have redial capabilities
are not allowed to make them redial more than 15 consecutive times.
The phone company obviously doesn't want you using the equipment when you're not paying.
Uh-huh.
Unless they're going to start charging us for time off the hook, whether we get a busy signal or not.
Is it true that one of the banks in the city of New York picked up a whole new central office all by itself?
A bank picked up a whole new...
What do you mean by that?
Well, you know, they opened up a whole new set of central office numbers
by moving the New York City area to two areas,
breaking up the two-in-two area, in effect.
There was a whole new slew of central office numbers,
and one of them I hear went to, I think it was Citibank.
Well, it's possible Citibank has their own exchange.
Yeah, that's very possible.
What's the difference between exchange and central office today?
Okay, an exchange...
A central office can hold many exchanges.
A central office is the building where the switching takes place.
And, for instance, we're the 279 exchange in the two-in-two area code.
I don't know the other exchanges in this vicinity,
but there would probably be about four or five other exchanges in that building.
There are about 15 or 12.
Sometimes that many, sometimes just one if it's a remote area.
So that's pretty much the difference.
But an exchange is just a physical switching box.
No.
No?
Well, each switching box, each switching computer,
handles multiple exchanges.
And in a physical central office building,
there might be two or three switches each handling five or six exchanges.
Is that true in the old course type switching?
Now, with crossbar switching,
usually the most they can handle, like out in Brooklyn here,
there's a lot of that, usually four or five exchanges.
In one machine?
In one machine.
That's electromechanical switching.
Right.
Oh, yeah.
You should smell the ozone when they really get going.
You should hear the noise, too.
Oh, yeah.
I'm going to bring one more person in on this.
Good evening. You're on the air.
And who are you?
Don from Brooklyn.
Don from Brooklyn.
Yeah, and I want to tell you, people in Manhattan,
you're missing out on a great form of communication.
We have a couple of pirate stations out here.
I've heard of those.
F-U-N?
MUP.
And, you know, they play you songs that you want,
and you have conversations,
and they can actually get two people on a line at it.
Why don't you have them call up the station?
Maybe they can patch it to WBAI and put some of their radio on.
No, you see, they're very, you see, it's illegal.
So they...
But the lines don't have to be traceable.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah, I know.
So, like, everyone's paranoid.
No one uses their real name.
I know, but don't advertise a bank robbery.
Why don't we set up a pair of lines
and just transfer it over there, radio on to WBAI?
It's not illegal for WBAI to do it.
No, but it's too much trouble.
Well, whoever's there affiliated with 2600,
do you know what a good line pair for the station to use?
A good line pair for the state?
A good line pair for the state?
Well, no, we don't have all that much information as to...
You don't have a techie, then?
No, not at the moment.
You don't have a what?
A techie.
Oh, yeah, you do.
Well, a pseudo-techie.
A pseudo-techie, but he's busy right now.
Yeah, in Brooklyn somewhere.
So what's a good line pair between here and Brooklyn to call up
so that they can't be traced?
You mean like a loop?
Well, loops...
Does somebody want to explain loops to the uninformed?
Well, I'm not good at explaining things tonight,
but I'll give it a shot again.
Go ahead.
No, you do it.
Bobby from Brooklyn.
There are old test lines used by the telephone company
to test to see if there was noise on a line,
and there are two consecutive numbers,
and when you call both ends of the number,
the two parties who call are connected,
one end normally would have a tone on it,
but this has been replaced by...
Now there's clear transmission.
The only problem is noise on the line sometimes.
So that's what I mean.
If somebody's been using a loop line recently
and knows the number,
they could pass it on to you and pass it on to the pirate station.
But in New York City,
they have like a computer system
that's eradicated the need for all loop lines.
But they're still around.
Not in New York City.
But you don't have to call in New York City.
I mean, the station could call a Long Island number,
and this Brooklyn...
Well, we could, but we're not going to.
It's just...
Let's talk to a radio pirate tonight.
Yeah, we'll do radio piracy some other night.
They only broadcast from 10 watts to maybe 50 watts.
Well, in the middle of Brooklyn,
that'll get you quite a few listeners, I'm sure.
The AM pirates get up to around 75,
sometimes more than that.
I don't know if you've listened to pirate radio a lot.
I listened to that station that was on the boat,
and every pirate station I've listened to,
and I'm certainly not saying that's true of the ones in Brooklyn,
which I've never heard,
they seem to just try to imitate the commercial stations
playing the same music.
And I know if I had a pirate radio station,
and of course I never would because it's illegal,
I would play the most bizarre things possible.
I'd say the craziest things.
I'd get people interested
and just do the things that you're not supposed to do.
Without being stupid about it, you know?
Without just saying nasty things all the time.
Well, these guys are just guys who are very enamored
about being on the air,
and that's a key part of it, some of them.
Isn't there some sort of AM station
that you can operate legally a small time?
Carrier current, I think you're talking about.
That's what I'm thinking.
Yeah, well, yeah.
Inside a limited area.
Well, if you're only talking 10 watts or something like that,
you're talking a pretty limited area.
Yeah, but you've got to have,
in order to use that sort of system,
you have to have the area sort of, kind of.
Your neighbor's crazy.
No, it wouldn't be transmitted outside of a building.
Oh.
The way the system is set up.
It'd have to be wired.
Yeah, the universities, they would have wiring in each building.
I thought it was carried by the regular house current.
Unfortunately, we're going to have to fade down
this lively teleconference.
That was taped back in 1988.
Ten WBAI listeners linked together
on a radio teleconference.
And it didn't cost anybody anything more than a telephone call.
And that's going to bring this edition of Off the Hook to a close.
Stay tuned for the Personal Computer Show.
This is Emanuel Goldstein.
I'll be back again next week.