Off The Hook - 1992-04-01
[00:14.720 --> 00:22.560] [SPEAKER_00]: Carrier Wave, extremely emotional, inexpensive, and multicultural live radio with Sidney Smith.
[00:23.000 --> 00:26.560] [SPEAKER_00]: Alternate Sunday nights, Monday mornings from 1 to 3 a.m.
[00:27.580 --> 00:30.860] [SPEAKER_00]: I'll be seeing you, won't I?
[00:37.770 --> 00:39.490] [SPEAKER_05]: This is WBAI New York.
[00:39.650 --> 00:40.190] [SPEAKER_05]: It's 9 o'clock.
[00:40.310 --> 00:41.370] [SPEAKER_05]: Time for Off the Hook.
[01:06.160 --> 01:11.580] [SPEAKER_03]: And a good
[01:40.450 --> 01:41.370] [SPEAKER_05]: evening to one and all.
[01:41.470 --> 01:42.670] [SPEAKER_05]: The program is Off the Hook.
[01:42.770 --> 01:43.970] [SPEAKER_05]: This is Emmanuel Goldstein.
[01:44.150 --> 01:48.050] [SPEAKER_05]: We're speaking tonight about privacy and your telephone.
[01:48.390 --> 01:48.850] [SPEAKER_05]: Stay tuned.
[03:40.460 --> 03:44.620] [SPEAKER_05]: And we do take a lot of things for granted in this day and age.
[03:45.200 --> 03:55.420] [SPEAKER_05]: One thing, though, that we're learning to do more and more to protect and are less and less surprised by the things that happen to us.
[03:56.320 --> 03:58.340] [SPEAKER_05]: One of those things is privacy.
[03:58.600 --> 03:58.900] [SPEAKER_05]: That's right.
[03:59.060 --> 04:04.100] [SPEAKER_05]: Privacy is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain these days.
[04:06.180 --> 04:10.420] [SPEAKER_05]: And in a moment, we'll have some rather frightening news.
[04:12.020 --> 04:13.920] [SPEAKER_05]: But first, some rather funny news.
[04:14.740 --> 04:19.380] [SPEAKER_05]: This is a story entitled, Mad Computer, Khan's Supermarket Customers.
[04:21.060 --> 04:27.180] [SPEAKER_05]: It comes out of the Le Canard Enchant of March 25th.
[04:28.680 --> 04:30.120] [SPEAKER_05]: Out of France.
[04:31.140 --> 04:40.160] [SPEAKER_05]: Seeing one's bank account being repeatedly debited over a period of several months to the credit of a store where you have never set foot.
[04:40.740 --> 04:47.580] [SPEAKER_05]: That was the complaint of about a thousand customers of a Paris supermarket.
[04:47.860 --> 05:00.560] [SPEAKER_05]: Whenever they paid for their expenses using their Visa International card, they were in fact feeding, without their knowledge, a clothing store, which hadn't even asked for it.
[05:01.860 --> 05:08.000] [SPEAKER_05]: And because of a computer error, more than 450,000 francs, which is about 90,000 U.S.
[05:08.080 --> 05:12.500] [SPEAKER_05]: dollars, was drawn from these involuntary customers.
[05:14.200 --> 05:24.280] [SPEAKER_05]: It all started on October 14th, 1991, with a manager of a Kodak supermarket, that's the name of their supermarkets over there, in Paris.
[05:25.340 --> 05:31.900] [SPEAKER_05]: Notice that his cash registers were systematically rejecting all payments made by Visa International cards.
[05:32.160 --> 05:40.820] [SPEAKER_05]: He called the PSI Alcatel ISR company, which installed the system and is responsible for its maintenance.
[05:41.700 --> 05:52.540] [SPEAKER_05]: In order to find out the source of the problem, a technician from PSI Alcatel made a copy of the store's customer file into one of his company's programs.
[05:53.580 --> 05:59.220] [SPEAKER_05]: And having apparently corrected the error, he sent the file back to the Kodak supermarket.
[05:59.580 --> 06:08.080] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, a few weeks later, a riot, or something rather close to that, erupted at the Kodak supermarket.
[06:08.760 --> 06:11.880] [SPEAKER_05]: Dozens of irate customers stormed into the store's offices.
[06:11.880 --> 06:23.120] [SPEAKER_05]: Their banking accounts, which were debited normally the previous month, after they made a few purchases at Kodak using their Visa Internationals, found they were being debited again.
[06:23.300 --> 06:32.380] [SPEAKER_05]: But this time, to the credit of Jiffy Center, which is a clothing store in Nantes, a city on the Atlantic Ocean several hundred miles from Paris.
[06:32.680 --> 06:39.100] [SPEAKER_05]: The grand total of these double payments, 229,000 francs, or about 40,000 U.S.
[06:39.180 --> 06:39.400] [SPEAKER_05]: dollars.
[06:40.300 --> 06:46.400] [SPEAKER_05]: In early January of 1992, the manager alerted PSI Alcatel.
[06:47.080 --> 06:49.940] [SPEAKER_05]: The answer was given without any trace of emotion.
[06:50.540 --> 06:54.940] [SPEAKER_05]: PSI Alcatel knew about these computer blunders for several weeks.
[06:56.100 --> 07:05.760] [SPEAKER_05]: And that was because Jiffy Center, who was also wondering why they were suddenly getting all this money, had taken the trouble to inform PSI Alcatel about all this.
[07:05.760 --> 07:16.780] [SPEAKER_05]: Now, for the poor manager of the Kodak supermarket, being unable to provide any explanation, he found himself being called a crook by quite a few of his customers.
[07:17.400 --> 07:23.980] [SPEAKER_05]: PSI Alcatel claimed to be working hard on the problem, but to no avail, since the trouble started all over again in February.
[07:23.980 --> 07:35.760] [SPEAKER_05]: This time, from a store in Brittany, on the West Coast, also part of the Jiffy Center chain, which is the beneficiary of this horrible mistake.
[07:36.240 --> 07:38.200] [SPEAKER_05]: 500 clients this time are affected.
[07:38.400 --> 07:43.760] [SPEAKER_05]: Some of them, according to the Kodak manager, are even being debited four times for the same amount.
[07:44.400 --> 07:53.780] [SPEAKER_05]: At this stage, the police, being flooded with complaints, open an investigation, and they summon the poor Kodak supermarket manager.
[07:54.760 --> 08:04.240] [SPEAKER_05]: It's not hard to understand why many of the affected customers have had to pay interest penalties to their banks, since their accounts have had overdrafts because of these repeated payments.
[08:04.660 --> 08:10.860] [SPEAKER_05]: Others have had to pay penalties for return checks, or have been on the brink of having their bank cards cancelled.
[08:11.740 --> 08:18.460] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, through a series of hard work, PSI Alcatel at last discovered the source of all these computer follies.
[08:20.500 --> 08:21.500] [SPEAKER_05]: Are you ready?
[08:22.140 --> 08:30.440] [SPEAKER_05]: The technician, who had copied the customer file into his own program, had forgotten to erase the file.
[08:30.780 --> 08:42.220] [SPEAKER_05]: A fateful mistake, because every time PSI Alcatel sold their program for managing cash registers, they were also unwittingly selling the Kodak's customer file.
[08:44.100 --> 08:53.700] [SPEAKER_05]: And after that, whenever the program had been inserted into a store's computer, it would direct the banks to debit the accounts of the customers recorded in that file.
[08:57.800 --> 08:58.720] [SPEAKER_05]: Amazing, isn't it?
[09:01.360 --> 09:02.780] [SPEAKER_05]: One piece of good news, though.
[09:03.280 --> 09:10.980] [SPEAKER_05]: PSI Alcatel claims to have sold this overfilled program to no one else other than Jiffy Center.
[09:11.180 --> 09:19.860] [SPEAKER_05]: The customers of the Kodak supermarket have avoided the worst since Jiffy Center owns about 40 stores in France.
[09:19.860 --> 09:24.040] [SPEAKER_05]: That's the number of times the mad computers could have emptied their accounts.
[09:25.070 --> 09:25.960] [SPEAKER_05]: Quite a story.
[09:26.060 --> 09:30.300] [SPEAKER_05]: Something to think about next time you see an unauthorized charge on your credit card.
[09:30.300 --> 09:34.000] [SPEAKER_05]: It's happened to almost everybody I know at least once.
[09:36.120 --> 09:36.960] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yes.
[09:37.740 --> 09:41.340] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, the Washington Post also had an article about...
[09:41.340 --> 09:43.180] [SPEAKER_05]: This is for all you privacy nuts.
[09:43.740 --> 09:51.780] [SPEAKER_05]: About a new Xerox software product designed to provide remote access to a personal computer through a fax machine.
[09:52.400 --> 09:59.880] [SPEAKER_05]: Basically, you can fax a message to your personal computer with instructions on what you want and it will fax the files to a number of your choosing.
[10:00.520 --> 10:07.800] [SPEAKER_05]: And if you don't have the proper form handy, you simply fax it a blank sheet of paper and that will cause it to fax the blank form right back to you.
[10:08.820 --> 10:18.540] [SPEAKER_05]: Now, according to a posting in the Risks Digest by Jeremy Epstein, the product sounds really neat, but the first thought that came to my mind was security.
[10:19.020 --> 10:25.900] [SPEAKER_05]: If I know that Jane Doe has this software on her PC, how will it prevent me from asking for a copy of anything on her PC?
[10:26.580 --> 10:31.380] [SPEAKER_05]: The article didn't mention any security measures to prevent a machine from attack.
[10:32.140 --> 10:45.160] [SPEAKER_05]: And talking about computer viruses, traces of the GP1 virus have been discovered in the computers of the Court of Cassession, the Courts of Appeal and the High Tribunal for Public Waters in Italy.
[10:45.540 --> 10:49.580] [SPEAKER_05]: The virus was discovered by the Central Security Office, which reports to the presidency.
[10:49.580 --> 10:56.500] [SPEAKER_05]: Rather than destroying data, GP1 awards maximum security clearance to all minimum security level users.
[10:57.640 --> 11:01.440] [SPEAKER_05]: Now, on to our main feature of the day.
[11:01.720 --> 11:06.880] [SPEAKER_05]: And that involves the FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation.
[11:07.260 --> 11:14.220] [SPEAKER_05]: They have a proposal on something called digital telephony.
[11:15.420 --> 11:24.120] [SPEAKER_05]: and to basically read very quickly the summary of the issues that they have brought up in this particular proposal.
[11:25.320 --> 11:29.560] [SPEAKER_05]: And a kind of a summary of facts here from the FBI point of view.
[11:29.920 --> 11:30.920] [SPEAKER_05]: We'll look at that.
[11:31.060 --> 11:39.680] [SPEAKER_05]: We'll speak to Mike Godwin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and we'll also take your phone calls at 212-279-3400.
[11:40.240 --> 11:41.360] [SPEAKER_05]: Digital telephony.
[11:41.600 --> 11:50.280] [SPEAKER_05]: The FBI utilizes electronic surveillance known as wiretaps in virtually every area of its investigative responsibilities.
[11:50.740 --> 12:03.040] [SPEAKER_05]: The telecommunications industry, which remained virtually unchanged for approximately 50 years, is now rapidly changing to address the need for more advanced telecommunications systems, i.e.
[12:03.540 --> 12:16.040] [SPEAKER_05]: personal communications networks, advanced cellular integrated services digital networks known as ISDN, which has the capacity for high-speed transmissions of video, voice, and data.
[12:16.880 --> 12:31.320] [SPEAKER_05]: One of the telephone telecommunication industry's major developmental efforts is to provide total digital connectivity end-to-end for their subscribers to include residential and business communities in the near future.
[12:31.840 --> 12:39.680] [SPEAKER_05]: At present, no capability exists to intercept ISDN transmissions.
[12:39.920 --> 13:04.500] [SPEAKER_05]: Therefore, the emergence of digital telecommunications technology will preclude the FBI and all of law enforcement from being able to intercept electronic communications, thus all but eliminating a statutorily sanctioned, court-authorized, and extraordinarily successful investigative technique.
[13:05.480 --> 13:25.080] [SPEAKER_05]: The Department of Justice and the FBI have been working with the White House, other various administration agencies, the telecommunications industry, and Congress to find a workable solution to this very serious problem which endangers the safety of the American public.
[13:26.580 --> 13:36.980] [SPEAKER_05]: A legislative solution has been developed to ensure that the legitimate need for law enforcement to lawfully intercept communications is met by the telecommunication industry.
[13:39.360 --> 13:47.960] [SPEAKER_05]: Translation The FBI is nervous about new technology and they want a handle on it, just like you and I want a handle on it.
[13:48.100 --> 13:49.560] [SPEAKER_05]: They want to be able to control it.
[13:49.640 --> 13:58.560] [SPEAKER_05]: However, the difference is that the FBI wants to be able to control you a lot more than you would want to control other people.
[13:58.560 --> 14:05.200] [SPEAKER_05]: the FBI wants to be able to listen in easily using the new digital technology.
[14:06.100 --> 14:17.880] [SPEAKER_05]: And while some of us may say that wiretapping is fine and dandy for criminal investigations, what they are proposing here goes much further than just simple wiretapping.
[14:18.580 --> 14:32.320] [SPEAKER_05]: They're proposing to have systems built in to all future digital telephone networks and systems and things like that that will allow them to pretty much flip a switch and listen at will.
[14:32.580 --> 14:37.100] [SPEAKER_05]: And yes, you can say that it'll all be protected by court order.
[14:37.820 --> 14:39.540] [SPEAKER_05]: But how much does that really mean?
[14:40.180 --> 14:42.960] [SPEAKER_05]: Los Angeles Times, March 7, 1992.
[14:43.340 --> 15:00.100] [SPEAKER_05]: The FBI contending that rapidly developing telecommunications technology is hampering the vital tool of wiretapping has proposed legislation Friday that would require the industry to ensure that improvements do not interfere with the ability to secretly record conversations.
[15:00.540 --> 15:09.800] [SPEAKER_05]: And it also proposed that consumers pick up the cost of changing current wiretapping equipment to keep pace with new technology.
[15:11.280 --> 15:19.860] [SPEAKER_05]: An FBI official said the expense to consumers could be passed on at a cost of probably less than 20 cents on average per month.
[15:20.380 --> 15:21.100] [SPEAKER_05]: What a bargain.
[15:22.040 --> 15:30.600] [SPEAKER_05]: FBI officials maintain that they already have encountered difficulties in recording digitally transmitted conversations now used by about 10% of the nation's phones.
[15:30.920 --> 15:35.060] [SPEAKER_05]: They declined however to give any examples of such difficulties.
[15:36.540 --> 15:47.860] [SPEAKER_05]: A comment by Ian Wakeman who finds it strange that the FBI should be tapping into lines directly.
[15:48.680 --> 15:54.580] [SPEAKER_05]: He saw an old Cagney and Lacey the other night which had them sitting in a basement with a breakout box and a tape recorder.
[15:55.240 --> 15:56.380] [SPEAKER_05]: Definitive proof of the
[16:16.340 --> 16:25.760] [SPEAKER_05]: security assuming assuming the home secretary gives permission and all they need to do is attach a tape recorder or a tape drive to a port at the exchange.
[16:27.500 --> 16:36.720] [SPEAKER_05]: And this from an engineer in Sweden Tortsen Tortsen Some years ago I worked in Ericsson's effort on designing ISDN telephones.
[16:37.000 --> 16:48.860] [SPEAKER_05]: One of the features we implemented was that in order to facilitate testing, the exchange could send signals to set up loops in the terminals, fairly standard, and leave an open end in case deeper testing was ever needed.
[16:50.580 --> 16:57.220] [SPEAKER_05]: A mechanism for reading or writing any data address on the terminal's internal system bus was provided.
[16:57.860 --> 17:03.720] [SPEAKER_05]: In theory, a piece of code could then be added byte by byte to the RAM of the terminal and a patch jump applied to link it in.
[17:04.200 --> 17:09.100] [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, you don't have to know what that means to understand what is being said here.
[17:09.720 --> 17:18.560] [SPEAKER_05]: Basically, one morning in a coffee break brainstorm session we started speculating on what could be done if a feature like this were abused, say by the FBI.
[17:18.860 --> 17:37.990] [SPEAKER_05]: And we realized that since all the control ports of the phone were regular bus devices, anybody who knew the address to the proper latch could send the instructions to activate the microphone and connect it to a B channel without going through all the layer 3 protocol stuff or the phone's internal program.
[17:37.990 --> 17:41.660] [SPEAKER_05]: Just a couple of pokes and presto, the room is bugged.
[17:42.580 --> 17:49.250] [SPEAKER_05]: This would be more devious than the normal kind of bugging where a line is tapped, since it would take place when there's no phone call going on.
[17:52.010 --> 17:58.440] [SPEAKER_05]: So, as a collective act of civil disobedience, you folks out there, pay attention because you might be in a position to do something like this.
[17:59.860 --> 18:10.510] [SPEAKER_05]: The various designers got together and put in an extra HW and gate in a strategic location so that the bit stream from the codec to the S interface was choked.
[18:10.990 --> 18:17.040] [SPEAKER_05]: Unless either the receiver was off the hook or the hands-free indicator LED was turned on.
[18:17.040 --> 18:30.220] [SPEAKER_05]: What this basically meant was that two latches had to be set to connect the phone to the line, and if anybody were to try and turn the phone on for bugging purposes, they would have to turn on the LED on the front of the phone.
[18:31.060 --> 18:35.140] [SPEAKER_05]: And the hope was this would be conspicuous enough to alert anybody in the room.
[18:35.680 --> 18:41.250] [SPEAKER_05]: Of course, this didn't prevent bugging of a phone call, but that's impossible to guard from without encryption anyway.
[18:41.250 --> 18:46.990] [SPEAKER_05]: All exchanges have supervision devices that can be abused to listen in on conversations.
[18:49.400 --> 18:56.640] [SPEAKER_05]: But it helps to have people that care about privacy in positions of power.
[18:57.250 --> 19:06.420] [SPEAKER_05]: And finally, from William Sessions, the head of the FBI, a piece that appeared in the New York Times last Friday, March 27th.
[19:07.690 --> 19:16.560] [SPEAKER_05]: He says, Digital technology makes possible the simultaneous transmission of multiple conversations and other data over the same lines.
[19:17.290 --> 19:31.340] [SPEAKER_05]: The problem is that voice transmission will soon be replaced by an endless, inseparable stream of electronic emissions, making it virtually impossible to capture criminal conversations.
[19:32.900 --> 19:35.790] [SPEAKER_05]: The Federal Bureau of Investigation is not complaining.
[19:36.420 --> 19:45.510] [SPEAKER_05]: As the telecommunications industry develops digital technology, new services such as Caller ID are becoming available to business and private customers.
[19:46.130 --> 19:49.560] [SPEAKER_05]: The new technology already has provided benefits for the FBI.
[19:49.560 --> 19:54.470] [SPEAKER_05]: For example, it helped solve the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.
[19:56.060 --> 20:03.530] [SPEAKER_05]: It doesn't go into any more detail on that, unfortunately, but I don't know how Caller ID or digital technology might have played a role in that.
[20:04.580 --> 20:08.510] [SPEAKER_05]: But the FBI is concerned, and the FBI is making moves to do something.
[20:09.860 --> 20:19.430] [SPEAKER_05]: With us on the line is staff counsel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Mike Godwin, who speaks to us from his home in New Hampshire.
[20:19.560 --> 20:20.040] [SPEAKER_05]: Mike, are you there?
[20:20.290 --> 20:20.900] [SPEAKER_11]: Yes, I'm here.
[20:21.300 --> 20:23.930] [SPEAKER_05]: What is your take on what the FBI is proposing?
[20:23.930 --> 20:30.190] [SPEAKER_11]: Well, I think a lot of what they say about the issues is misleading.
[20:30.530 --> 20:50.900] [SPEAKER_11]: I think that it's really misleading of director sessions of the FBI to say that the new technology, digital telephone technology, is going to make wiretapping, you know, impossible or close to impossible.
[20:51.560 --> 20:57.030] [SPEAKER_11]: What it does do is create a new set of problems for people who want to tap phones.
[20:57.860 --> 21:00.580] [SPEAKER_11]: But I don't think they're insoluble problems.
[21:00.750 --> 21:27.750] [SPEAKER_11]: I think one of the things that we've found out in our own investigations of this FBI initiative is that every technical expert we can consult says that the FBI's claims are overstated, that really the worst that can be said about new advances in digital telephony is that they make wiretapping more difficult.
[21:27.750 --> 21:39.140] [SPEAKER_11]: And they make it more difficult perhaps in the sense that Sessions refers to it by, you know, making it harder to sort out the signal you want to tap on the line that you're tapping.
[21:39.450 --> 21:52.320] [SPEAKER_11]: They also make it difficult because in order to ensure that you've got the right person, you may have to do your wiretap closer to their house or closer to their place of business rather than, say, flipping a switch at phone central.
[21:53.140 --> 22:00.520] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, now, can you give us just a scenario here as to what the FBI is actually asking for in rather simple terms?
[22:00.860 --> 22:03.600] [SPEAKER_05]: What features do they want installed?
[22:03.690 --> 22:06.020] [SPEAKER_05]: How easy would it be for them to actually implement this?
[22:07.360 --> 22:08.720] [SPEAKER_11]: Well, we're only guessing.
[22:09.980 --> 22:35.190] [SPEAKER_11]: But we have, based on what they say that they're looking for, it looks like they want to compel the phone companies to build in a capability in the telephone system for law enforcement agents to be able to go to the central telephone office and listen to a particular conversation or capture a particular electronic communication.
[22:36.120 --> 22:41.620] [SPEAKER_11]: So, in effect, in a nutshell, they want to build tapability into the new digital telephone system.
[22:43.360 --> 22:48.880] [SPEAKER_05]: Now, is there any such capability that's already in there that they could make use of?
[22:49.190 --> 22:55.260] [SPEAKER_11]: Well, by all accounts, you know, the technical people I talk to say yes.
[22:58.540 --> 23:27.080] [SPEAKER_11]: This is not my area of expertise, but the people who are, you know, deeply interested in the phone system already talk to me about various ways, various software that's already in place or software that's coming online with switching system 7 that should enable people to tap phones if they have to.
[23:27.400 --> 23:30.240] [SPEAKER_11]: But the FBI seems to want something more than that.
[23:30.340 --> 23:36.880] [SPEAKER_11]: And it's unclear, you know, from the language of their initiative that they maybe understand all the technical issues involved.
[23:37.540 --> 24:01.500] [SPEAKER_11]: In any case, I think it's a problem not just because, on the one hand, the FBI doesn't seem to understand all the technical issues, but also because it really, instead of placing the burden on law enforcement to keep up with technology, it's placing the burden on technology to keep dumbed down for the advantages of law enforcement.
[24:02.420 --> 24:09.690] [SPEAKER_11]: And that's a real topsy-turvy sort of arrangement, especially when you consider that we live in a free society.
[24:10.320 --> 24:28.300] [SPEAKER_11]: I mean, if you think about it, once we make it easy enough for, say, any FBI agent to tap the phone with minimal technical expertise and minimal technical help, isn't it, you know, more or less obvious that non-FBI people are going to be able to do it more easily,
[24:28.320 --> 24:28.580] [SPEAKER_11]: too?
[24:28.580 --> 24:29.460] [SPEAKER_11]: I think it is.
[24:29.900 --> 24:39.930] [SPEAKER_05]: It's interesting you should mention that because also in our studio today is a non-FBI person who is a computer hacker, fiber optic, very knowledgeable on precisely this kind of thing.
[24:40.060 --> 24:42.220] [SPEAKER_05]: And I'd like to ask what your take on all this is.
[24:42.660 --> 24:49.820] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I think what the FBI is worried about is that they won't be able to tap phone lines quite as inexpensively as they were able to do in the past.
[24:50.240 --> 24:58.160] [SPEAKER_07]: And if they're dealing with an analog telephone line, they can just simply stick a little device on the line anywhere they want to and simply listen in at a later time.
[24:58.580 --> 25:16.040] [SPEAKER_07]: What they're worried about, what William Sessions was saying about being able to decipher or being able to tell which specific channel, say if it's a digital link, saying which specific time slot is allocated to a specific conversation, that constantly changes over time.
[25:16.040 --> 25:23.040] [SPEAKER_07]: But I don't really see what the problem is since they can simply record every channel and then go through it later and sort it out.
[25:23.190 --> 25:24.520] [SPEAKER_07]: So I don't see what the problem is.
[25:24.720 --> 25:27.500] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, I see a very big problem if that's what they're going to be doing.
[25:27.500 --> 25:28.660] [SPEAKER_05]: They can actually...
[25:28.660 --> 25:32.800] [SPEAKER_05]: You're saying the capability, if it doesn't exist already, will exist for them to record everything?
[25:33.100 --> 25:33.960] [SPEAKER_07]: No, I'm not saying that.
[25:34.060 --> 25:36.100] [SPEAKER_07]: What I'm saying is that it's there already.
[25:36.280 --> 25:51.220] [SPEAKER_07]: And what Mike Godwin is just touching upon is that there have been means and methods for the telephone company to perform what they call testing, which is in reality allowing them to listen in to any kind of telephone conversation, digital or not.
[25:51.660 --> 25:56.280] [SPEAKER_07]: And this has existed since any switching system has come into existence.
[25:56.500 --> 25:58.710] [SPEAKER_05]: But it's never been in the hands of the government.
[25:58.860 --> 25:59.500] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, this is true.
[25:59.720 --> 26:00.500] [SPEAKER_07]: It's never been...
[26:00.500 --> 26:15.100] [SPEAKER_07]: Usually it's never been allowable, at least to my knowledge, by law enforcement officials because it's internal proprietary phone company means and methods that are implemented within the systems themselves and are usually not accessible normally to an outsider.
[26:15.280 --> 26:16.690] [SPEAKER_11]: Are you talking about things like Elmoth?
[26:16.690 --> 26:18.000] [SPEAKER_07]: Not specifically.
[26:18.260 --> 26:22.480] [SPEAKER_07]: I mean, that's an old example, the mechanized loop testing, doing a trouble verification.
[26:23.140 --> 26:26.160] [SPEAKER_05]: You're going to have to explain that a little bit for our listeners since you brought it up.
[26:26.320 --> 26:27.660] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I'll go into that in a second.
[26:27.660 --> 26:35.820] [SPEAKER_07]: I'm talking about stuff that's elemental in the switching equipment itself and not simply some sort of testing system, which that would fall into the category of being.
[26:36.280 --> 26:51.080] [SPEAKER_07]: What I'm saying is that there are subsystems which are elemental to the switching systems themselves, which are put in by the manufacturers to provide some sort of testing by the switching control centers and by the workers in the central office.
[26:51.620 --> 26:54.000] [SPEAKER_05]: Now, give us an example of how such a system would work.
[26:54.450 --> 27:17.900] [SPEAKER_07]: Well, very simply, for instance, even on a digital switch, it's common knowledge, at least amongst people such as myself, that there does exist systems such as switching control center, talk and monitor circuits, which allow an individual to connect to a piece of equipment which is part of the switch itself and would allow you to drop in on a telephone conversation.
[27:18.380 --> 27:19.620] [SPEAKER_05]: And you can do this remotely.
[27:19.860 --> 27:21.600] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, doing this remotely in most cases.
[27:21.900 --> 27:23.540] [SPEAKER_07]: And that's just a simple example.
[27:23.900 --> 27:27.000] [SPEAKER_07]: And that's using something that's part of the switch, not a separate system.
[27:27.020 --> 27:31.540] [SPEAKER_05]: When you say drop in on a phone conversation, you mean without any noise at all, without being heard?
[27:31.760 --> 27:31.840] [SPEAKER_05]: Yep.
[27:32.400 --> 27:35.060] [SPEAKER_05]: And that's something that currently exists in digital phones.
[27:35.210 --> 27:40.120] [SPEAKER_05]: And digital phone switches are in place in quite a few areas in Manhattan and around the country.
[27:40.120 --> 27:43.240] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I'm not talking about a digital telephone system end-to-end.
[27:43.240 --> 27:48.240] [SPEAKER_07]: I'm talking about a digital switching system, which may or may not have digital phones.
[27:48.240 --> 27:52.380] [SPEAKER_07]: More often than not, they're analog phones, like the phones that us normal people use.
[27:52.520 --> 27:53.820] [SPEAKER_05]: So, just give me an example here.
[27:53.950 --> 28:07.760] [SPEAKER_05]: If I was somebody that wanted to listen to somebody's conversation, and I knew they had a digital phone switch, and a good portion of New York City people have digital phone switches, would I call up a particular computer system, type in their number,
[28:07.860 --> 28:08.840] [SPEAKER_05]: and it's as simple as that?
[28:08.840 --> 28:11.380] [SPEAKER_07]: Well, it's not exactly that simple, and it's not only...
[28:11.380 --> 28:13.360] [SPEAKER_05]: If I have all the passwords, though, it's that simple, isn't it?
[28:13.560 --> 28:15.190] [SPEAKER_07]: Well, okay, along those lines.
[28:15.380 --> 28:19.220] [SPEAKER_07]: And also, I might want to touch on the fact that it's not just digital switching systems.
[28:19.640 --> 28:25.320] [SPEAKER_07]: I'm talking about all switching systems that are under computer control, whether analog or digital.
[28:25.690 --> 28:30.360] [SPEAKER_07]: Any switch that's under computer control is more often than not going to have a facility to do this.
[28:30.690 --> 28:37.690] [SPEAKER_07]: What I'm talking about is without... I'll try to be vague, at least, so I don't further incriminate myself.
[28:37.690 --> 28:51.880] [SPEAKER_07]: But as someone could hypothetically enter into a telephone company switching computer, and what they could do, theoretically, there's numerous ways that you can accomplish such a feat as listening to a conversation.
[28:52.500 --> 28:56.640] [SPEAKER_07]: You could check to see that a phone is in use, and to see who they're connected with.
[28:57.100 --> 29:11.800] [SPEAKER_07]: You can further be able to set up a routing code, or set up a telephone number that would connect to a routing code, which would allow you to dial in to an actual internal element of the telephone company's switching system.
[29:12.460 --> 29:24.040] [SPEAKER_07]: And being able to access this piece of equipment or subsystem, you would have some way of signaling to the equipment the actual telephone line that you wish to monitor, and you would, in essence, monitor it.
[29:24.860 --> 29:26.560] [SPEAKER_05]: And it's as simple as that.
[29:26.710 --> 29:28.620] [SPEAKER_07]: Well, I'm making it sound simple.
[29:28.780 --> 29:34.040] [SPEAKER_07]: Someone who would know how to do this, and would know the necessary commands to issue, it may seem trivial.
[29:35.210 --> 29:35.640] [SPEAKER_05]: Mm-hmm.
[29:36.410 --> 29:43.820] [SPEAKER_05]: Now, as far as... is it possible to store these particular conversations and come back to them later?
[29:44.100 --> 29:49.430] [SPEAKER_07]: Well, as far as storing, if you're listening to them, in essence, you could just record them on a tape recorder.
[29:49.620 --> 29:49.780] [SPEAKER_05]: Mm-hmm.
[29:49.880 --> 29:54.020] [SPEAKER_07]: As far as storing them digitally, that would take a bit more, and it's really not that necessary.
[29:54.400 --> 29:54.580] [SPEAKER_05]: Mm-hmm.
[29:54.710 --> 29:56.520] [SPEAKER_05]: But do you think it's something that could happen in the future?
[29:56.540 --> 29:56.720] [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, sure.
[29:56.820 --> 30:00.560] [SPEAKER_07]: No, there's no doubt it can be done in numerous ways I can think of just offhand.
[30:00.560 --> 30:08.360] [SPEAKER_05]: Mike, getting back to what the FBI is proposing, what is the position of the Electronic Frontier Foundation on this?
[30:10.500 --> 30:18.720] [SPEAKER_11]: We believe unequivocally that this is the wrong approach for FBI to try and solve its investigation problems, whether they're real or imagined.
[30:19.000 --> 30:30.020] [SPEAKER_11]: I think, as fiber optic illustrates, you know, that some of the problems the FBI claims to be having or claims to be anticipating may be imaginary problems.
[30:31.640 --> 30:50.220] [SPEAKER_11]: But to the extent that they're real problems, the approach throughout history has been, throughout the history of the FBI and throughout the history of law enforcement has been, that the law enforcement people carry the burden as part of their mission to keep up with the technology and develop new ways to cope with technological advance.
[30:50.220 --> 31:05.210] [SPEAKER_11]: The wrong approach is to say, no, we're going to build in special facilities of some sort to make the FBI's job easier, to take the burden off of them and say, put it on the phone companies.
[31:06.220 --> 31:22.880] [SPEAKER_11]: Well, I think, in a way, FBI is trying to divert attention from the real issues here because they often stress, on the one hand, that they're not seeking any expansion of their legal authority to seek wiretaps, which, of course, is true.
[31:23.000 --> 31:23.400] [SPEAKER_11]: They're not.
[31:24.500 --> 31:32.710] [SPEAKER_11]: And on the other hand, they say, well, this would be very cheap to the individual rate payer, which, you know, possibly may be true.
[31:32.860 --> 31:42.460] [SPEAKER_11]: But the issue isn't really whether, you know, the FBI has legal authority to get wiretaps or whether rate payers have to pay 20 cents a month.
[31:42.760 --> 31:46.280] [SPEAKER_11]: The issue is, how are we going to design our communication system?
[31:46.460 --> 31:49.840] [SPEAKER_11]: We're designing a communication system, not a surveillance system.
[31:50.520 --> 31:51.400] [SPEAKER_05]: Good point.
[31:51.600 --> 31:52.210] [SPEAKER_05]: Very good point.
[31:52.280 --> 31:57.000] [SPEAKER_05]: And it does seem to be what we're moving into is designing surveillance systems for our citizens.
[31:57.400 --> 31:58.860] [SPEAKER_05]: I think that things have...
[31:58.860 --> 32:02.210] [SPEAKER_11]: Right now, the stuff that Fiber mentions...
[32:02.210 --> 32:02.380] [SPEAKER_05]: Right.
[32:02.580 --> 32:05.260] [SPEAKER_11]: ...is stuff that could be used in surveillance, perhaps.
[32:05.520 --> 32:16.040] [SPEAKER_11]: But it's essentially, I mean, it's built into the system for the purpose of maintaining the communication system, for maintaining the quality of the lines, for troubleshooting phone problems, and so on.
[32:16.220 --> 32:18.930] [SPEAKER_11]: What FBI wants is something in addition to that.
[32:19.040 --> 32:29.540] [SPEAKER_11]: They want a layer of technology, whether it's hardware or software, or both, that will enable surveillance just for its own sake.
[32:29.880 --> 32:35.450] [SPEAKER_05]: And unfortunately, we seem to be at the stage where it's quite possible to design that rather simply.
[32:35.960 --> 32:40.900] [SPEAKER_05]: The question is, will the consumers allow this to happen?
[32:41.060 --> 32:47.640] [SPEAKER_05]: What's kind of ironic is that most people seem to be upset not so much by the surveillance, but by the fact that they're being required to pay for it.
[32:47.640 --> 32:55.900] [SPEAKER_05]: And I think perhaps if the FBI had not said that particular part of it, maybe they wouldn't be facing all this backlash from consumers.
[32:56.140 --> 32:58.840] [SPEAKER_11]: Well, you know, we'd have to pay for it anyway, right?
[32:58.960 --> 32:59.400] [SPEAKER_11]: That's true.
[32:59.500 --> 33:04.460] [SPEAKER_11]: Because the FBI is funded by appropriations that are allocated from our tax dollars.
[33:04.640 --> 33:09.430] [SPEAKER_11]: So no matter how the FBI decides to solve its investigations problems, we're going to have to pay for it.
[33:09.690 --> 33:10.980] [SPEAKER_11]: The difference is how.
[33:10.980 --> 33:24.880] [SPEAKER_11]: You know, recently the FBI had approved by Congress $80 million over five years to keep up with telecommunications advances.
[33:26.460 --> 33:32.360] [SPEAKER_11]: But you see, that process, the process by which that money was approved, is the democratic process.
[33:32.560 --> 33:38.360] [SPEAKER_11]: I mean, it has to pass through Congress and pass through the review of our representatives in Congress.
[33:38.360 --> 33:51.400] [SPEAKER_11]: What FBI wants to see happen, and this is one aspect of the proposal that we really haven't brought up yet, is to have all of this happen in closed to the public FCC hearings.
[33:52.340 --> 34:10.100] [SPEAKER_11]: Both the imposition of rates on the rate payers and the specifics of the implementation of this wiretapping capability are all going to be decided on in private, closed to the public FCC hearings.
[34:10.360 --> 34:11.820] [SPEAKER_11]: Well, that's not...
[34:11.820 --> 34:25.120] [SPEAKER_11]: Once you start doing things like that, you start taking policy decisions of that sort that really affect everybody's phone out of the public eye, you know, you're undermining a democratic society and a democratic process.
[34:25.520 --> 34:45.080] [SPEAKER_05]: It does seem as if, as new technologies are emerging, that we seem to be focusing way too much on how we can watch our fellow citizens, whether it be through surveillance cameras, telephones that can listen to you, ATMs that watch whatever you do, and all kinds of electronic transactions that say where you are and what you did.
[34:45.840 --> 34:53.500] [SPEAKER_05]: It can be a lot of fun, technology can be, but it can also be very inhibiting, and we have to be careful not to step in the wrong direction.
[34:53.500 --> 34:55.260] [SPEAKER_05]: Let me give out the telephone number here.
[34:55.320 --> 34:58.740] [SPEAKER_05]: We are taking listener phone calls at 212-279-3400.
[34:59.080 --> 35:00.100] [SPEAKER_05]: The program is off the hook.
[35:00.260 --> 35:16.060] [SPEAKER_05]: We're speaking with Mike Godwin, staff counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Phiber Optik is here in the studio as well, talking about various technical aspects of today's existing phone systems, and God only knows what's in store for us in future phone systems.
[35:16.480 --> 35:19.040] [SPEAKER_05]: Let's take a couple of questions from the telephone.
[35:19.260 --> 35:19.740] [SPEAKER_05]: Good evening.
[35:19.880 --> 35:20.260] [SPEAKER_05]: You're on the air.
[35:21.060 --> 35:21.520] [SPEAKER_12]: Hello.
[35:21.820 --> 35:22.120] [SPEAKER_05]: Go ahead.
[35:22.120 --> 35:23.540] [SPEAKER_12]: Glad you're on.
[35:23.600 --> 35:25.450] [SPEAKER_12]: I was sick when I heard they tried to take you off.
[35:25.580 --> 35:25.980] [SPEAKER_12]: Oh, thank you.
[35:26.020 --> 35:47.320] [SPEAKER_12]: In any case, in Idaho, I guess about 10 years ago, there was a public referendum on the ballot, and the gist of the ballot and the gist of the argument was they wanted to be able to have your telephone be switched on at will in case of emergency because of the snowstorms and stuff like this.
[35:48.080 --> 35:53.320] [SPEAKER_12]: This was on the ballot, and apparently the folks in Idaho, if I'm not mistaken, said yes.
[35:53.520 --> 35:56.260] [SPEAKER_12]: And that's in the way right now.
[35:56.450 --> 36:08.060] [SPEAKER_12]: The next thing is that the New York City Police Department, through a friend of mine who is a police officer, said that the criminal investigation division of the New York City Police Department's headquarters is in the New York telephone buildings.
[36:08.430 --> 36:08.860] [SPEAKER_12]: Period.
[36:10.380 --> 36:10.780] [SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
[36:11.180 --> 36:12.500] [SPEAKER_05]: Do you have any question?
[36:12.840 --> 36:14.280] [SPEAKER_12]: No, that's just sharing that.
[36:14.460 --> 36:16.400] [SPEAKER_05]: A couple of factual bits of information then.
[36:16.460 --> 36:16.560] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[36:16.800 --> 36:17.020] [SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
[36:17.200 --> 36:18.160] [SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for sharing them with us.
[36:18.380 --> 36:31.900] [SPEAKER_11]: I think Fiverr can confirm this or not, but my understanding is that telephones can be turned on remotely without ringing the residents in any case.
[36:31.980 --> 36:32.400] [SPEAKER_11]: Is that right?
[36:33.240 --> 36:34.040] [SPEAKER_05]: Normal telephones.
[36:34.240 --> 36:35.740] [SPEAKER_07]: Well, the mic's not on.
[36:36.180 --> 36:36.700] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, it is.
[36:36.800 --> 36:37.240] [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, it is.
[36:37.300 --> 36:37.460] [SPEAKER_07]: Okay.
[36:37.460 --> 36:58.480] [SPEAKER_07]: Well, a device, since a telephone line is just a pair of wires, a device can be connected to the line which may reside within the home so that when ringing voltage is sent down the line, 48 volts DC is sent down the line, this device could activate itself every time the phone rings and in essence turn on a bug in the house.
[36:58.640 --> 36:59.960] [SPEAKER_05]: But you have to physically install the bug.
[36:59.960 --> 37:01.280] [SPEAKER_07]: You have to physically put it there.
[37:01.450 --> 37:04.160] [SPEAKER_07]: There's no way you can make a phone pick up remotely.
[37:04.160 --> 37:07.430] [SPEAKER_07]: It has to be physically and mechanically picked up.
[37:07.520 --> 37:09.760] [SPEAKER_05]: Unless it's designed within the system to do that.
[37:09.870 --> 37:14.760] [SPEAKER_05]: There are some institutional phone systems that you can turn on a microphone on a phone remotely.
[37:14.810 --> 37:15.460] [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, sure, yeah.
[37:15.460 --> 37:17.890] [SPEAKER_07]: I'm talking about a normal consumer's telephone.
[37:18.580 --> 37:23.180] [SPEAKER_07]: The circuit has to be physically completed by you lifting up the receiver off the cradle.
[37:23.830 --> 37:29.980] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, if we continue going in this direction, though, it could one day be conceivable that the rules of telephones change.
[37:29.980 --> 37:35.850] [SPEAKER_05]: You have to get a particular kind of phone that does allow for this microphone to be turned on whenever they feel like turning it on.
[37:35.960 --> 37:39.060] [SPEAKER_11]: I think that's exactly the slippery slope that we're looking at.
[37:39.220 --> 37:56.810] [SPEAKER_11]: Because once it becomes a burden, you know, once it becomes the obligation of the telecommunications industry to design their technology in any way to cater to the needs of law enforcement, why not, you know, why not design, why not pass a law requiring phones to be designed a certain way?
[37:57.060 --> 37:58.430] [SPEAKER_05]: It is a slippery slope.
[37:58.430 --> 37:59.180] [SPEAKER_05]: No question about that.
[37:59.240 --> 38:00.040] [SPEAKER_05]: Let's go to another phone call.
[38:00.410 --> 38:01.020] [SPEAKER_05]: Good evening.
[38:01.160 --> 38:01.520] [SPEAKER_05]: You're on the air.
[38:02.100 --> 38:02.540] [SPEAKER_02]: Hi, R.
[38:02.660 --> 38:02.960] [SPEAKER_02]: Crowley.
[38:03.450 --> 38:04.260] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, go ahead.
[38:04.560 --> 38:05.830] [SPEAKER_02]: This is Mr. Quayle.
[38:06.600 --> 38:07.430] [SPEAKER_02]: Brain damage.
[38:07.640 --> 38:08.310] [SPEAKER_05]: What's on your mind?
[38:10.220 --> 38:11.480] [SPEAKER_02]: Do you think that...
[38:12.700 --> 38:15.200] [SPEAKER_02]: Do you think that if George Bush...
[38:16.000 --> 38:16.760] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, dear.
[38:17.180 --> 38:20.960] [SPEAKER_05]: I guess our phone system is more intelligent than I gave it credit for.
[38:21.370 --> 38:21.950] [SPEAKER_05]: Good evening.
[38:22.080 --> 38:22.460] [SPEAKER_05]: You're on the air.
[38:22.560 --> 38:24.390] [SPEAKER_06]: The key word search for George Bush.
[38:25.000 --> 38:25.600] [SPEAKER_05]: Go ahead.
[38:25.950 --> 38:26.430] [SPEAKER_06]: Oh, yeah.
[38:26.500 --> 38:27.100] [SPEAKER_06]: I thought he was talking.
[38:27.740 --> 38:29.080] [SPEAKER_06]: I'd like to make a couple points.
[38:29.280 --> 38:31.780] [SPEAKER_06]: It seems to me that if people...
[38:31.780 --> 38:45.060] [SPEAKER_06]: If we go to a digitalized phone system, I mean, it seems like it would be easier than ever for people who really do want to conceal their conversations to get phones which you can encrypt the conversation digitally, which is very, very difficult for them to decipher,
[38:45.370 --> 38:45.660] [SPEAKER_06]: you know.
[38:46.780 --> 38:53.890] [SPEAKER_06]: I know they offer them now, and I suspect that as things get cheaper to produce, you know, you have these big VLSI chips.
[38:54.120 --> 39:01.200] [SPEAKER_06]: It would be cheaper to make phones that you can encrypt your conversations on and, you know, use random patterns or whatever.
[39:01.600 --> 39:12.580] [SPEAKER_06]: The other thing is, you know, talking about having a phone that you can pick up or activate remotely, people don't realize now most phones do not use the old network and ringer stuff.
[39:12.580 --> 39:29.120] [SPEAKER_06]: They use, you know, chips that you buy from Motorola or someplace, and it wouldn't be so difficult in this kind of surveillance-sensitive society to make a, you know, for these guys to collaborate and say, listen, why don't we just have a little undocumented feature that says if you ring the phone and then present this tone to the chip,
[39:29.120 --> 39:34.200] [SPEAKER_06]: it will, you know, activate the thing without, you know, telling the listener.
[39:34.410 --> 39:34.780] [SPEAKER_06]: Uh-huh.
[39:34.870 --> 39:38.910] [SPEAKER_06]: And sell these things to people who have no knowledge of it.
[39:39.000 --> 39:41.390] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, I don't see why that would be such a big problem.
[39:41.560 --> 39:44.370] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, there's all kinds of hidden features in things existing today.
[39:44.370 --> 39:44.640] [SPEAKER_05]: Right.
[39:44.720 --> 39:48.910] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, there's lots of undocumented features in computer chips that people are always looking for.
[39:49.280 --> 39:55.680] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, even like the HP 95LX, already people have begun to hack it and they find all these little undocumented features.
[39:55.680 --> 39:56.700] [SPEAKER_06]: So, why not?
[39:56.890 --> 40:01.950] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, now, I'm more interested in digitally encrypting conversations.
[40:02.100 --> 40:05.830] [SPEAKER_05]: Are there phones out there that allow for this to happen that are available to the consumer?
[40:06.180 --> 40:08.450] [SPEAKER_06]: They're available now, but they're really expensive.
[40:08.450 --> 40:11.330] [SPEAKER_06]: But there's no reason why they couldn't be made much more cheaply.
[40:11.370 --> 40:16.740] [SPEAKER_06]: And I think if you're going to have a direct digital connection end-to-end, it would be much simpler, you know, than...
[40:16.740 --> 40:17.980] [SPEAKER_06]: Actually, there's no big deal.
[40:18.120 --> 40:27.120] [SPEAKER_06]: You just, you know, transcribe these digital pulse trains into analog tones like a modem, you know, and you shoot that over the line and the other end, it demodems it.
[40:27.280 --> 40:30.100] [SPEAKER_06]: So, now it would be even easier and you'd have better bandwidth.
[40:30.480 --> 40:36.950] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, right now, you can buy from Motorola A, analog-to-digital converter that uses, I think, three or four bits.
[40:37.160 --> 40:42.460] [SPEAKER_06]: It's sort of like speech quality that military communications use for secure communications.
[40:43.120 --> 40:44.740] [SPEAKER_06]: So, what would be the big deal?
[40:44.960 --> 40:49.280] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, you'd need a few support chips to generate lots of different random codes.
[40:49.450 --> 41:00.640] [SPEAKER_06]: But, you know, theoretically, you could, if you really wanted to be sophisticated, you could have this thing synchronized with the one on the other end and generate, you know, it would just change codes at random and it would communicate with the other unit.
[41:01.160 --> 41:05.410] [SPEAKER_06]: So, you could have a very, very secure system now with digitalized phones.
[41:05.410 --> 41:14.950] [SPEAKER_05]: Let me ask Mike Godwin if he thinks it's legal for people to be using phones to encode their conversations.
[41:15.370 --> 41:17.260] [SPEAKER_11]: Whether I think it's legal, of course it's legal.
[41:18.430 --> 41:21.080] [SPEAKER_11]: There's no problem with doing that now.
[41:21.500 --> 41:32.680] [SPEAKER_11]: I think the hazard is down the road because, let's face it, commercially, you know, barring, say, legislation by Congress inspired by the FBI and the Department of Justice,
[41:40.250 --> 41:45.130] [SPEAKER_11]: in people's handsets, is going to be widely commercially available.
[41:45.330 --> 41:54.810] [SPEAKER_11]: And it'll first be used by businesses and then increasingly, you know, the economies of scale are going to reduce the prices on these units and everybody's going to potentially have them.
[41:55.790 --> 42:15.010] [SPEAKER_11]: But, imagine this, you know, once we've established a precedent in the law for the law enforcement agencies to come and dictate the shape of our telecommunications technology, then it's really only an incremental change to say, well, in addition to building capability into the phones,
[42:15.670 --> 42:25.290] [SPEAKER_11]: we also insist that we're going to outlaw point-to-point encryption based on cheap, you know, commercial encryption schemes built into people's handsets.
[42:26.770 --> 42:40.030] [SPEAKER_11]: And I think that's a real slippery slope because what they'll say, what they're saying now is we want to have tap ability in digital phone systems to preserve our right, to preserve our already established statutory right to tap phones.
[42:40.570 --> 42:58.550] [SPEAKER_11]: What'll happen is, in the future, let's say they get that, then when handset-based or cheap, available commercial point-to-point encryption schemes become available, the FBI can come back and say, look, we're just trying to preserve our investment in the telephone,
[42:59.650 --> 43:03.350] [SPEAKER_11]: you know, in having tap ability in our digital phone lines.
[43:03.570 --> 43:12.270] [SPEAKER_11]: And, you know, it's important that we not lose the telephone company's investment in adding this feature to us.
[43:12.270 --> 43:13.710] [SPEAKER_11]: So we're going to outlaw that, too.
[43:14.450 --> 43:15.870] [SPEAKER_05]: All right, let's take another phone call.
[43:15.950 --> 43:17.650] [SPEAKER_05]: 212-279-3400.
[43:17.810 --> 43:18.070] [SPEAKER_05]: Good evening.
[43:18.210 --> 43:18.430] [SPEAKER_05]: You're on.
[43:20.610 --> 43:21.170] [SPEAKER_05]: Go ahead.
[43:21.290 --> 43:21.490] [SPEAKER_05]: You're on.
[43:22.010 --> 43:22.390] [SPEAKER_08]: All right.
[43:23.130 --> 43:32.730] [SPEAKER_08]: One thing concerning directly to this is the question in lots of magazines I see ads for tapping indicators that tell you, you know, if your line's being tapped.
[43:32.990 --> 43:36.030] [SPEAKER_08]: I was wondering to what extent those work.
[43:36.530 --> 43:40.410] [SPEAKER_08]: Also, you know the new collect call computer with New York Telephone?
[43:40.610 --> 43:40.990] [SPEAKER_05]: Right.
[43:41.210 --> 43:43.270] [SPEAKER_05]: The one we did in Exposé on a couple of weeks ago.
[43:43.530 --> 43:43.730] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[43:43.890 --> 43:45.170] [SPEAKER_08]: I mean, that's a great trick.
[43:45.350 --> 43:48.070] [SPEAKER_08]: You know, that's a good positive note about how you can trick the phone system.
[43:48.070 --> 43:51.350] [SPEAKER_08]: Just tell the person your number instead of your name.
[43:51.510 --> 43:55.270] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, yeah, except that there are some that will charge you anyway, and you've got to be careful of those.
[43:55.610 --> 43:56.010] [SPEAKER_05]: But I think...
[43:56.010 --> 43:57.290] [SPEAKER_08]: And also, one final thing.
[43:57.430 --> 43:58.570] [SPEAKER_08]: The new area codes.
[43:58.710 --> 43:59.910] [SPEAKER_08]: You know, they said they're running out.
[44:00.050 --> 44:04.730] [SPEAKER_08]: Bronx is having one of the last few in the summer.
[44:04.970 --> 44:06.610] [SPEAKER_08]: Have they found a new system yet?
[44:06.610 --> 44:10.010] [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, I'll answer that question in just a moment.
[44:10.150 --> 44:11.550] [SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for calling in.
[44:11.610 --> 44:12.470] [SPEAKER_05]: The area codes...
[44:12.470 --> 44:15.030] [SPEAKER_05]: The Bronx is not getting a new area code.
[44:15.170 --> 44:16.870] [SPEAKER_05]: They're being added to the 718 area code.
[44:16.970 --> 44:19.330] [SPEAKER_05]: That's later, I believe, over the summer this year.
[44:19.470 --> 44:28.330] [SPEAKER_05]: A new area code will be added, 917, the first in the nation ever to encompass only things like pagers, cellular phones, that kind of thing.
[44:28.390 --> 44:29.570] [SPEAKER_05]: It'll be interesting to see how that works.
[44:29.690 --> 44:33.550] [SPEAKER_05]: In a couple of years, however, area codes will no longer look like area codes.
[44:34.030 --> 44:38.550] [SPEAKER_05]: There will no longer be a 1 or a 0 necessarily as the middle digit.
[44:38.710 --> 44:41.470] [SPEAKER_05]: In other words, any three digits virtually can be an area code.
[44:41.590 --> 44:44.650] [SPEAKER_05]: So that will make sure that we don't run out of them for a while.
[44:44.750 --> 44:45.450] [SPEAKER_05]: That's in a couple of years.
[44:45.510 --> 44:46.070] [SPEAKER_05]: That's going to happen.
[44:46.130 --> 44:54.770] [SPEAKER_05]: I think Phiber Optik wanted to answer the gentleman's first question on the effectiveness of those tap detectors.
[44:54.970 --> 44:55.930] [SPEAKER_05]: Are they effective at all?
[44:56.030 --> 44:56.150] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[44:56.830 --> 45:12.390] [SPEAKER_07]: So as far as these companies manufacturing devices to detect taps, I think they're just playing on the ignorance and fear of the general public, first of all, consider who's going to be tapping you of all people, whether you're a candidate for being tapped by anyone in particular.
[45:12.830 --> 45:30.930] [SPEAKER_07]: Then I just want to touch on the fact that most of these taps, these tap detectors, all they're going to do is try to detect some sort of loss in voltage on the line as opposed to what it would normally be if you were engaged in the conversation as far as being able to detect if there was possibly a third-party on the line.
[45:30.930 --> 45:35.970] [SPEAKER_07]: As far as that goes, if someone wanted to tap your phone, they could do it and you'd never know.
[45:36.150 --> 45:42.610] [SPEAKER_07]: So if you're even considering buying any of these supposed tap detecting devices, save yourself the trouble.
[45:43.350 --> 45:50.250] [SPEAKER_05]: I often am talking to people on the telephone and we hear clicks and invariably people say, oh, those clicks mean the phone is being tapped.
[45:50.350 --> 45:55.890] [SPEAKER_05]: But I tend to think that if somebody really wanted to tap the phone, they'd be able to do it without making any noise whatsoever.
[45:55.890 --> 46:03.530] [SPEAKER_05]: And I pretty much say that it's all those silent periods that you should be worried about because that's when they could be tapping you and you would never hear it.
[46:04.070 --> 46:04.510] [SPEAKER_05]: All right.
[46:04.670 --> 46:05.970] [SPEAKER_05]: Let's take another phone call.
[46:06.190 --> 46:06.710] [SPEAKER_05]: Good evening.
[46:06.850 --> 46:07.650] [SPEAKER_05]: You're on the air.
[46:07.810 --> 46:08.030] [SPEAKER_10]: Yes.
[46:08.190 --> 46:08.730] [SPEAKER_10]: Good evening.
[46:09.770 --> 46:24.350] [SPEAKER_10]: You seem so concentrated on the telephone technology, but I'm just wondering, it's April Fool's Day, is it possible we could get a lie detector, portable lie detector, and when people are lying, it would go red or something rather than green?
[46:24.530 --> 46:25.230] [SPEAKER_10]: You know what I mean?
[46:25.230 --> 46:26.870] [SPEAKER_10]: And then you'd know what you're dealing with.
[46:27.510 --> 46:28.770] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, I'm sure that's a great idea.
[46:28.950 --> 46:32.070] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm glad that you called up to give the FBI that idea.
[46:32.350 --> 46:35.550] [SPEAKER_05]: And it wouldn't be April Fool's Day without hearing from that particular caller.
[46:36.350 --> 46:37.350] [SPEAKER_05]: Let's take another call.
[46:37.450 --> 46:37.730] [SPEAKER_05]: Good evening.
[46:38.850 --> 46:39.150] [SPEAKER_09]: Yes.
[46:39.390 --> 46:39.750] [SPEAKER_05]: Go ahead.
[46:40.670 --> 46:40.930] [SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
[46:41.030 --> 46:41.810] [SPEAKER_09]: Is this B.A.I.?
[46:41.810 --> 46:42.470] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, it is.
[46:42.530 --> 46:43.170] [SPEAKER_05]: You're on the air.
[46:43.790 --> 46:44.230] [SPEAKER_09]: How are you doing?
[46:44.590 --> 46:44.910] [SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
[46:46.130 --> 46:51.910] [SPEAKER_09]: First of all, last week you stated that you would give out the 800 number for the psychic hotline.
[46:52.650 --> 46:54.210] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, you got me on that one.
[46:54.210 --> 47:00.210] [SPEAKER_05]: However, I'm going to open this one up to the listeners as a write-in campaign on this one.
[47:00.310 --> 47:00.790] [SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
[47:00.790 --> 47:12.630] [SPEAKER_05]: Only because there are a few people around here that seem to think it's a bad idea to give out 800 numbers that can charge you $120 just by hitting a few Touch-Tones on your phone.
[47:12.990 --> 47:13.210] [SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
[47:13.210 --> 47:22.930] [SPEAKER_05]: I happen to think and it's always been my thought on this that knowledge is something that should be shared and if giving out a phone number causes chaos and that's chaos that deserves to be caused.
[47:23.250 --> 47:27.470] [SPEAKER_05]: That's my position but I want to know what people think before I go out giving the number.
[47:27.770 --> 47:27.990] [SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
[47:28.150 --> 47:33.430] [SPEAKER_05]: It will be published in the next issue of 2600 either way so even if we don't do it here we'll do it there.
[47:33.870 --> 47:34.010] [SPEAKER_11]: Okay.
[47:34.090 --> 47:36.410] [SPEAKER_11]: I suppose that's the secret which is Jerry Brown's 800 number.
[47:36.890 --> 47:38.370] [SPEAKER_05]: That's, yeah that's something.
[47:38.610 --> 47:40.270] [SPEAKER_11]: How he's been keeping his campaign alive.
[47:40.530 --> 47:44.390] [SPEAKER_05]: Actually, this is a lot more nefarious but we'll get into it later.
[47:44.670 --> 47:50.290] [SPEAKER_09]: My second point was that concerns the turning on of phones remotely.
[47:50.570 --> 47:52.390] [SPEAKER_09]: I work under a Roam system.
[47:52.610 --> 47:53.090] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh boy.
[47:53.330 --> 48:10.950] [SPEAKER_09]: I found that if I dialed 9 which lets me out the area code without the 1 and 3 digits for let's say an exchange and 1 extra digit wait 30 seconds I will connect with a number in that exchange.
[48:11.270 --> 48:13.510] [SPEAKER_09]: For 30 seconds I get listening time.
[48:14.010 --> 48:18.510] [SPEAKER_09]: I've done this repeatedly to make sure that I'm not gone crazy or anything like that.
[48:18.690 --> 48:27.450] [SPEAKER_09]: I've had two coworkers try the same experiment and we have turned on mics remotely all over the place listened to all types of phone calls.
[48:27.610 --> 48:33.050] [SPEAKER_09]: I can even hear a customer at a payphone drop in a coin.
[48:33.050 --> 48:39.610] [SPEAKER_09]: I'll hear the the tones generated and I'll listen to conversations I get 30 seconds worth of listening.
[48:40.290 --> 48:43.150] [SPEAKER_09]: After 60 seconds this feature terminates.
[48:43.370 --> 48:53.310] [SPEAKER_05]: You know that reminds me of an old northern telecom bug and it's possible that that might be something that you're experiencing not related to the Roam but then again it's possible that it is related to the Roam.
[48:53.590 --> 48:58.670] [SPEAKER_05]: Without giving away too much specifics where are you located approximately?
[48:59.070 --> 48:59.610] [SPEAKER_05]: Manhattan.
[48:59.850 --> 49:00.150] [SPEAKER_05]: Manhattan.
[49:00.630 --> 49:10.310] [SPEAKER_05]: I'd definitely like to speak further about this off air because we're investigating things like that and that's something that we're certainly interested in pursuing.
[49:10.750 --> 49:11.090] [SPEAKER_05]: Okie doke.
[49:11.230 --> 49:12.190] [SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for sharing it with us.
[49:12.790 --> 49:12.870] Bye.
[49:13.950 --> 49:16.950] [SPEAKER_05]: Our number is 212-279-3400.
[49:17.370 --> 49:17.910] [SPEAKER_05]: Good evening.
[49:18.050 --> 49:18.470] [SPEAKER_05]: You're on the air.
[49:19.350 --> 49:21.590] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I'm thinking of buying a computer.
[49:21.830 --> 49:25.690] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to spend too much money but I want to buy a good computer.
[49:25.910 --> 49:27.650] [SPEAKER_02]: Do you know any suggestions?
[49:28.090 --> 49:31.050] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, listen to the personal computer show it's on right after this program.
[49:31.330 --> 49:31.870] [SPEAKER_05]: Good evening.
[49:32.610 --> 49:33.110] [SPEAKER_01]: Good evening.
[49:33.450 --> 49:33.770] [SPEAKER_05]: Go ahead.
[49:35.510 --> 49:36.250] [SPEAKER_01]: Good evening.
[49:36.410 --> 49:38.110] [SPEAKER_01]: This is Dave Rothstein in Long Beach.
[49:38.110 --> 49:38.650] [SPEAKER_01]: How am I?
[49:38.970 --> 49:39.750] [SPEAKER_05]: I don't know.
[49:39.850 --> 49:40.310] [SPEAKER_05]: How are you?
[49:40.490 --> 49:42.650] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I'm just killing all my monitors here.
[49:43.010 --> 49:43.190] [SPEAKER_05]: Ok.
[49:43.430 --> 49:43.610] [SPEAKER_01]: Ok.
[49:44.070 --> 49:45.090] [SPEAKER_01]: I had a question.
[49:45.310 --> 49:51.450] [SPEAKER_01]: There was a network calling having a feature called One Person One Number.
[49:52.470 --> 49:54.930] [SPEAKER_01]: I believe it was Cellular One doing this.
[49:55.150 --> 49:56.550] [SPEAKER_01]: The B-carrier.
[49:56.950 --> 50:04.270] [SPEAKER_01]: And what this would be is you'd have one telephone number for your home phone, business, and a cellular unit.
[50:05.250 --> 50:07.110] [SPEAKER_01]: And wondering if you heard of this.
[50:07.770 --> 50:09.430] [SPEAKER_05]: I've heard mention of it.
[50:09.530 --> 50:11.150] [SPEAKER_05]: Mike, have you heard anything specific about this?
[50:11.250 --> 50:12.490] [SPEAKER_11]: Yeah, I've heard of it.
[50:14.590 --> 50:22.170] [SPEAKER_11]: Occasionally different telephone companies, including Cellular One, come up with the idea of a single phone number for everybody.
[50:22.270 --> 50:28.490] [SPEAKER_11]: So that regardless of where you were, regardless of, you know, if you moved, you'd still have the same phone number.
[50:28.630 --> 50:38.950] [SPEAKER_11]: And rather than rely on sort of a geographically based area code system and so on, the computer would just route it to you, route a call to you wherever you were.
[50:39.850 --> 50:43.130] [SPEAKER_11]: The problem is, of course, what happens when you break up with your girlfriend.
[50:44.290 --> 50:46.530] [SPEAKER_11]: There's no way you can stop her from calling you, right?
[50:46.610 --> 50:50.410] [SPEAKER_11]: Because no matter what, you can move away and she'll still have your phone number.
[50:50.590 --> 50:52.890] [SPEAKER_05]: That's true, but you can block her, can't you?
[50:53.390 --> 50:58.650] [SPEAKER_11]: Well, you know, I guess you'd have to build in blocking if you had that particular system.
[50:58.770 --> 51:00.850] [SPEAKER_05]: It seems like making phone calls is becoming...
[51:00.850 --> 51:03.910] [SPEAKER_11]: I don't know of any plans to implement such a system.
[51:04.010 --> 51:12.230] [SPEAKER_11]: And I think that there is concern by people who want to preserve their anonymity by, for example, changing their phone numbers.
[51:12.590 --> 51:21.890] [SPEAKER_05]: But with this kind of a system where you carry the same phone number with you all the time and people always know, making a phone call becomes a lot more combative.
[51:22.170 --> 51:28.950] [SPEAKER_05]: You know, you have to protect yourself against certain people all the time and send them messages before you even deign to pick up the phone.
[51:29.830 --> 51:31.490] [SPEAKER_05]: It's really changing all the rules.
[51:31.590 --> 51:38.490] [SPEAKER_05]: Caller ID is, you know, it has nice features to it, but it really is changing the way we use the phone completely.
[51:38.910 --> 51:39.170] [SPEAKER_11]: Certainly.
[51:39.450 --> 52:04.470] [SPEAKER_11]: Jean-Louis Gosset of Apple Computer observed with regard to ISDN and Caller ID, he said this at Macworld back in 1990 in San Francisco, that the whole, oddly enough, the reason one of the main arguments for pitching ISDN had been used up to then was that it would allow the implementation of Caller ID so that if you got a call from your mother-in-law,
[52:04.750 --> 52:09.090] [SPEAKER_11]: you could look and see that it is coming from your mother-in-law and not answer the phone.
[52:09.890 --> 52:18.150] [SPEAKER_11]: Well, as Jean-Louis Gosset immediately responded by noting that how hard is it going to be for your mother-in-law to walk down the street and use a payphone?
[52:19.390 --> 52:20.190] [SPEAKER_05]: That's something.
[52:21.310 --> 52:22.590] [SPEAKER_05]: Fiberoptic, you've got a comment on this.
[52:22.590 --> 52:31.170] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I'd just like to note that more often than not people are trying to peddle other services by combining them with other ones and saying that they're directly related.
[52:31.950 --> 52:35.450] [SPEAKER_07]: And Caller ID has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with ISDN.
[52:35.490 --> 52:36.190] [SPEAKER_07]: Absolutely right.
[52:36.870 --> 52:37.730] [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely right.
[52:37.950 --> 52:38.950] [SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for the call.
[52:39.270 --> 52:40.310] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I have another question for you.
[52:40.430 --> 52:41.010] [SPEAKER_05]: All right, make it quick.
[52:41.290 --> 52:44.690] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, pseudorandom codes, how are they generated, how do they work?
[52:44.710 --> 52:45.930] [SPEAKER_01]: I've seen them all over the place.
[52:46.090 --> 52:48.810] [SPEAKER_01]: They're always talking about these codes that encrypt information.
[52:49.410 --> 52:51.410] [SPEAKER_05]: You're talking about the things in the New York Times?
[52:52.830 --> 52:55.810] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I haven't seen those specifically mentioned.
[52:56.370 --> 52:56.830] [SPEAKER_07]: Okay.
[52:57.550 --> 52:58.790] [SPEAKER_01]: Handy talkies and the like.
[52:58.930 --> 52:59.790] [SPEAKER_07]: Farber, you want to take that one?
[52:59.950 --> 53:02.050] [SPEAKER_07]: I don't specifically know what he's talking about.
[53:02.390 --> 53:07.910] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, pseudorandom codes generated by chips so that two devices would be on, say, the same frequencies.
[53:08.670 --> 53:15.070] [SPEAKER_07]: I'm just talking about analog encryption of voice over jumping carrier wave.
[53:15.230 --> 53:16.030] [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, okay, I see.
[53:16.510 --> 53:20.690] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I've heard stuff to the effect of that, and as far as...
[53:20.690 --> 53:21.610] [SPEAKER_07]: See, once...
[53:21.610 --> 53:39.070] [SPEAKER_07]: I'm just guessing, because I'm not specifically familiar with this, but I'm just guessing that if both places, say you and some partner that you're communicating with, are somehow synchronized and jumping from along some carrier frequency, you're synchronized and using the same means of encryption,
[53:39.790 --> 53:50.250] [SPEAKER_07]: that I'd have to think that it would be rather hard for someone to be able to know at what point in the jumping that you are, if you're constantly moving back and forth.
[53:51.210 --> 53:59.570] [SPEAKER_07]: But then on the other hand, I'd have to think that if someone were doing this and two people were able to be synchronized, I don't see why a third person wouldn't also be able to synchronize with the other two.
[54:00.310 --> 54:02.010] [SPEAKER_05]: Let's try and fit in one more phone call.
[54:02.370 --> 54:03.390] [SPEAKER_05]: Good evening, you're on.
[54:03.990 --> 54:04.350] [SPEAKER_13]: Hi.
[54:05.870 --> 54:08.030] [SPEAKER_13]: I think y'all may be barking at the wrong tree.
[54:08.030 --> 54:09.170] [SPEAKER_13]: I don't know.
[54:10.270 --> 54:25.290] [SPEAKER_13]: It's my understanding the NSA has the capability to monitor phone calls at the drop of any keyword or any sequence of numbers by using their computer they acquired in 1982, I think.
[54:25.390 --> 54:26.430] [SPEAKER_13]: It's called the Crate 2000.
[54:26.690 --> 54:28.150] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm glad somebody brought that up.
[54:28.850 --> 54:30.310] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, who wants to take that one?
[54:30.950 --> 54:31.430] [SPEAKER_05]: Mike?
[54:31.930 --> 54:35.130] [SPEAKER_11]: You know, I hear that too, but I can't verify it.
[54:35.190 --> 54:40.230] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, first of all, is it not true that the NSA, I mean, do they do domestic work or is it simply international?
[54:41.090 --> 54:54.930] [SPEAKER_11]: Well, they're purportedly doing, you know, primarily international work, but as you know, and one of the, one of the, that includes monitoring overseas traffic that originates domestically.
[54:54.930 --> 54:58.270] [SPEAKER_11]: So, that includes a large amount of domestic jurisdiction.
[54:59.710 --> 55:15.150] [SPEAKER_11]: Whether, you know, what the NSA's capability really is for, you know, tapping telephone communications or other kinds of communications based on keyword searches and so on, is a question I can't answer.
[55:15.930 --> 55:19.990] [SPEAKER_11]: NSA is a pretty secret agency and I can't claim to know a lot about it.
[55:24.930 --> 55:26.630] [SPEAKER_05]: They've had such technology in their hands.
[55:26.750 --> 55:42.970] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm sure it's capable, they are, if the post office is capable of translating virtually any kind of handwriting and delivering it with a computer, I'm sure it wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility to listen to almost any voice and decrypt certain words and flag those particular calls.
[55:43.210 --> 55:57.130] [SPEAKER_11]: Well, voice recognition and handwriting mission pose, you know, fundamentally different sets of problems, even though, you know, to, you know, to the person who's not having to solve either of those problems, they may seem similar, I don't think they're very similar.
[55:57.430 --> 56:04.550] [SPEAKER_05]: It depends really on where our priorities are because if we devote a lot of attention to certain things like getting a man on the moon, we'll do it.
[56:05.030 --> 56:06.910] [SPEAKER_05]: It all depends on what we think is important.
[56:07.290 --> 56:08.430] [SPEAKER_05]: We're just about out of time.
[56:08.570 --> 56:15.710] [SPEAKER_05]: Mike, I want to give you the opportunity to give addresses, phone numbers people can write to, and also how they can contact the Electronic Frontier Foundation as well.
[56:16.290 --> 56:36.850] [SPEAKER_11]: Well, okay, if you have, let me tell you a little bit about EFF, if you have questions about civil liberties on the Electronic Frontier, and that includes for telephone users and computer users and network users and so on, you should write the EFF, write the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
[56:36.930 --> 56:44.950] [SPEAKER_11]: at 155 2nd Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02141.
[56:46.510 --> 56:56.870] [SPEAKER_11]: If you're having a particular emergency and you need a very quick response, you can call me at 6.0.1.
[56:57.010 --> 57:01.030] [SPEAKER_05]: All right, Mike, I want to thank you very much for chatting with us tonight.
[57:01.290 --> 57:04.570] [SPEAKER_05]: Phiber Optik, I want to thank you for coming by and answering some of those technical questions.
[57:04.870 --> 57:07.290] [SPEAKER_05]: And that's going to pretty much do it for Off the Hook tonight.
[57:14.450 --> 57:22.290] [SPEAKER_05]: We'll be back again next week with some more exciting news on high-tech and how it relates to us as individual people.
[57:22.510 --> 57:25.770] [SPEAKER_05]: Stay tuned for the Personal Computer Show here on WBAI New York.
[57:25.930 --> 57:26.030] [SPEAKER_05]: Good night.
[57:26.590 --> 57:40.040] [SPEAKER_03]: Now I can't make a call It couldn't get much worse But the best expect the worst I hope that's understood But maybe boom
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