UBAI will present a special edition of Hour of the Wolf with Jim Freund.
Our special guests will include science fiction writer Terry Bisson.
This will be the finale of the entire day which began at 5 a.m. and goes all the way
till 1 a.m.
So join us May 2nd, this Saturday, for Science Fiction Day.
And today is Science Fact Day, so tune in.
Off the Hook is next on WBAI New York.
Off the Hook is next on WBAI New York.
And a good evening to one and all.
The program is Off the Hook.
This is Emanuel Goldstein.
We're with you for the next hour, talking about various new forms of technology and
old forms of media distortion and general fantasy regarding what's going on out there.
Stay tuned.
And with those magic tones, we begin by admonishing the media once again for distorting the word
It's been a couple of weeks since we've been on the air, so time for an update.
I'm sure everybody picked up the newspapers and watched the television, heard the radio,
BAI accepted, and heard the story of the thousand hacker gang that's out there waiting to disrupt
your life, to steal your credit rating, to terrorize you.
It's the most amazing story I've ever seen.
I've been deluged with all kinds of calls from people wanting to know more.
Most of them people who are writing those stories that claim to know all the facts.
Well, here are the facts.
The facts are that some people based mostly in San Diego at this point had stolen something.
Lots of things with credit cards, credit card numbers.
Take a good look at your credit card.
You might think that because you hold it in your hand, you possess it.
But that's not the case.
Anybody that is able to guess those 16 digits or less, if you're not as privileged as some,
anyone who can guess those numbers can use those numbers.
It's an absurdly simple system to abuse.
You can jump into a garbage can and pull out little carbons that have people's credit card numbers on them.
You can figure out credit card numbers yourself.
You can overhear them on a cellular phone call.
There's all kinds of ways to get credit card numbers.
And that's what some people in San Diego and in other parts of the country as well did
and have been doing and will continue to do in the future.
And it might make for an interesting sentence occasionally.
Not really an interesting story, but an interesting sentence, maybe a few other words.
And most of it based upon the fact that it's so absurdly simple to do this.
However, in mass media, we somehow make a connection to computer hackers.
Why? Well, I guess because somewhere along the lines, a computer was used.
By tapping into Equifax or TRW or any other agency that has all this information on us,
we can see people's credit card numbers.
And once we see those numbers, we have them and we can use them.
Now, the act of tapping into a credit agency and seeing numbers
and then using those numbers to steal something,
and that's pretty much what it is when you order something and somebody else pays for it
and you get it for nothing.
It might be the completely kosher definition of the word steal, but it's close enough for me.
That act or those series of acts has absolutely nothing to do with hacking.
Hacking is the quest for knowledge.
It's the unending spirit of quite a few people to just learn and not take no for an answer.
Lots of times, hackers get a bad rap because they go places they're not supposed to go.
But that's what adventurers have been doing, explorers, for all time and will continue to do.
It's a healthy thing, something we should be encouraging.
But when we lump it together into something that is no more than stealing,
when we say that because on a hacker bulletin board people may have been able to share this information,
that because of that there's a gang of a thousand hackers
that are getting ready to steal merchandise and abuse your credit rating,
it doesn't bear very much resemblance to even a little bit of the truth.
It was interesting how all of those news stories were talking about these thousand hackers.
And I talked to a few reporters and I said,
Hey, do you know the names of even one of these hackers?
And of course they didn't.
They were hoping that I would know that information and that I'd be able to share it with them
and find all these hackers that are out there.
Folks, the majority of hackers have very, very little interest and a lot of impatience with this kind of garbage
because that's exactly what it is.
People that go around stealing things with credit card numbers
could not interest us in the least.
And if you're someone like that, that goes around and thinks they're hacking,
by playing with that information and using it solely for their own benefit,
you're making a big mistake.
This is nothing new. This is not any kind of new hacker ethic. It's always existed.
Sure, hackers break the law all the time. We all do.
Probably broken the law about 14 times today in some form.
Hackers have a very distinct distaste for authority.
And today is not a bad day to say that, is it?
But one thing most hackers do have is a sense of fair play.
Hackers are probably among the most honest people
because they don't hide behind any walls of delusions.
Anyway, that's pretty much all I want to say on that particular subject.
It was pretty annoying. I'm sure everybody out there saw at least one story about this.
And I can't say any of those stories really reported what happened.
Or, in this case, what didn't happen.
We're taking phone calls at 212-279-3400.
I'd like to devote most of the program tonight to listener phone calls
as we so rarely get a chance to answer questions and really get to know who's out there.
So give us a call and we'll try to get everybody on that gets through to our line, 212-279-3400.
There's one thing I'd also like to focus attention on, something new that we kind of saw coming,
something we've been talking about on this program for some time.
And that's the notion of telephone numbers that no longer change whenever you move around,
but a telephone number that goes with you from the cradle to the grave.
A telephone number that by penalty of law is assigned to every citizen.
Citizens are required to answer to their number
when their number calls out to them.
This is for a happier life.
Well, we may be a couple of years away from that, but we're closer.
We're getting there.
And today, in the New York Times and various other places,
it was announced that AT&T is devising just such a service.
And it's really not anything all that amazing.
I mean, it's interesting.
But I'll get into why I don't think it's all that amazing.
And we'll also experiment a little bit.
The article is entitled Lifetime Telephone Numbers That Ring Anywhere You Go.
Now, that in itself is kind of deceptive.
I mean, it could be, in fact, just that.
A lifetime telephone number that can follow you anyplace.
But it doesn't follow you anyplace.
And it's not a lifetime thing, unless you want it to be.
We'll take a look at this article, and we'll take some phone calls.
212-279-3400.
The article by Anthony Ramirez.
Tired of telephone tag?
People who want to be reached anywhere they go.
At home, the office, a friend's residence, or at a vacation house
can sign up for a single telephone number under a service to begin in June
that AT&T announced yesterday.
The service, the first of its kind,
which is not true, but we'll get to that later,
the first of its kind is part of the emerging technology
for personal communications networks that could someday
revolutionize how people use telephones.
The service is somewhat cumbersome,
and is aimed mainly at consumers,
who tend to phone less often than business customers
and make their calls during off-peak hours,
like the early morning and evening.
But it's an important first step toward communications networks
in which single phone numbers, like social security numbers,
would be assigned to customers everywhere,
allowing phone calls someday to follow them to any location,
if they wish.
That's the operative phrase there, if they wish.
Under the plan, subscribers to the nationwide service
called Easy Reach 700
would be assigned a permanent, long-distance number
that begins with 700.
Unlike most traditional area codes,
the 700 area code does not identify a location,
and the individual numbers would remain with the subscribers
as long as they live, or until they grow dissatisfied with the service.
Or until they don't pay their bill, or whatever.
The average American, and this is interesting,
the average American changes his telephone number 11 times.
That's because the average American moves 11 times
during a lifetime.
That's according to AT&T.
God knows where they got that.
But the 700 code allows for 6 million possible phone numbers.
Now you might say 7-digit number, that means
there should be 9,999,999 possibilities,
but they say some numbers are reserved for other uses,
such as numbers beginning with 0,
numbers beginning with 1.
And you know, I don't know what the other ones,
why the other ones wouldn't work,
unless AT&T has them reserved for something else.
Unless AT&T has them reserved for something else
that we don't know about.
So 6 million possible phone numbers.
So obviously everybody in the country
can subscribe to this service,
or there'll be fights in the street,
and that kind of thing.
Now the cost of this is not all that unreasonable,
if the service actually proves to be a service.
The Easy Reach program will cost $7 a month,
and there's a one-time charge of $25
for the personal phone number,
which can be adapted like vanity automobile license plates
to contain messages like 700-call-mom.
Of course, only one mom in the country
will be able to be called on that number,
but you get the idea.
It's a separate line for any kind of extra phone,
but subscribers to MCI and Sprint
and all those other companies have to dial
into the AT&T network to use the service.
In other words, they'd have to dial 10288,
the AT&T carrier access code.
And callers will be billed at fixed rates
rather than proportional to distance.
State-to-state rates will be $0.25 a minute
and is rather expensive
for any phone call during the day.
$0.15 a minute all other times,
roughly comparable or slightly more expensive
than regular toll calls.
And prices for in-state calls will vary
according to the local telephone company,
so the local phone company will still handle
the local calls to the 700 number.
AT&T will handle it state-to-state
and customers for the nation's
140 million telephone lines
will want to keep their familiar local telephone numbers
for their homes, facsimile machines,
computer modems and pagers,
but if that number does not answer,
a caller might then dial the 700 number.
Now, the new service is going to be available
on June 15th and allows subscribers
to reprogram or program any nearby phone
for their business phone.
The EasyReach subscriber dials 0700,
then the personal number, 7-digit phone number,
then they would enter a 4-digit
personal identification number.
The maximum in security is 4 digits.
Then after that they would dial 1,
then the pound sign,
and finally the number to which calls are to go.
Now, I respect the times for actually printing
a phone line after you enter your 4-digit
personal identification number because
a lot of people are interested in that kind of thing.
And that's how it works.
Unlike call forwarding,
this new service allows call forwarding
at the subscriber's discretion
as many times as they wish.
Another difference is that the new service
can be programmed from any touch-tone phone,
so can today's services,
which require the subscriber to go back to the original phone
to enter each new destination.
Moreover, the subscriber can assign passwords,
actually special 4-digit numbers to friends and relatives,
to allow only the calls that are wanted.
So you can selectively receive calls to the 700 number
or reject calls to the 700 number.
The subscriber can hand out as many as 19 passwords.
Now, Easy Reach
could have some of the same drawbacks of call forwarding
as says Elena Worrell,
director of voice services at Bellcore.
If you forget to undo the call forwarding,
all your calls will go to the place you already were.
Now, here's where it gets kind of weird.
The service is made possible by new computer programs
and changes in AT&T's huge 5-ESS switches,
computers that can cover half a floor
in a telephone central office.
These 5-ESS switches, less than 100 around the country.
I'm not quite sure what that means,
because there's certainly more than 100 5-ESS switches in the country.
So we'll have to clarify that a little bit.
They handle operator-assisted calls and calling card calls.
The new program's involving millions of lines of computer code,
one of which is bound to be faulty somewhere.
We'll find out about that in future years.
There are additional profiles of subscribers
that allow the computers to route calls quickly
to any telephone line in the country,
except, of course, everybody together, Hawaii and Alaska, yes.
Now, Robert Aquilina,
network services vice president for AT&T,
says without a 700 number,
this service just wouldn't be possible,
because the problem of updating the computer's databases
would be vastly more complex.
There are valuable lessons for establishing
the vastly more complicated personal communications networks
that would tie together residential and business customers,
traditional telephones, along with cellular telephones,
pagers, and other handheld devices.
Now, the first thing we'll learn
is whether people want this service, says Mr. Aquilina.
For instance, call forwarding's been around for quite some time,
yet not all that many people use it.
And it's thought that the reason for that
is that it's a little too complicated.
People have to remember to un-forward their calls,
and they have to be at the particular phone
to program it in the first place,
so things can get kind of full of hassles.
So call waiting is the number one feature
that people subscribe to.
Call forwarding is number two,
but it's dramatically less than the number of people
that subscribe to call waiting.
Now, this was mentioned several times
by Anthony Romero's front-page article, too.
It is an important story. It's an important new service.
Now, a couple of things here.
First of all, it's not the first time such a service has been offered.
As we've mentioned many, many times before,
Cable and Wireless has a service for 800 numbers
that allows you to program wherever it is you want them to go.
In other words, you give somebody your 800 number,
and your 800 number can ring you at your home,
it can ring you on your pager, or even your fax machine.
It can go any place you want it to in the country.
It's that simple.
So this service has been around, and actually the rate is about the same
to call the 800 number. Of course, you pay the bill then,
but the rate is pretty much the same,
25 cents a minute, I believe, in the daytime,
and less in the evening and night, of course.
So let's just clear that up right away.
Now, I talked to somebody at AT&T today
and, in fact, I told them about the service.
They weren't aware of it yet. I guess it's a brand new thing
that they haven't quite gotten around to telling everybody about.
But they found the documentation on it,
and they went and looked it up,
and were giving me all this information.
Now, it seems that with this particular 700 number service,
you have the option of paying for the call yourself
or having the person calling you pay for the call.
And I'm wondering how are they going to convey
when the person makes the call?
Or is it just going to be a big surprise in the phone bill?
I mean, think of it. A number that you call,
which maybe you'll get charged for, or maybe the person you're calling
will get charged for. It's bizarre.
Something that really has not ever happened before.
Now, the 700 area code is an interesting one.
It's got a couple of things in it now.
It's got Alliance Teleconferencing,
which is 0700-456-1000.
That allows you to tie people together
all over the world into huge teleconferences.
But be careful. If you call that,
you could easily dwarf the charges of any 900 number
by calling that, because not only do you have to pay
to use the teleconferencing service, you have to pay for each
and every long-distance call that you make.
And seeing as how you can tie together something like 40 different phone calls,
if you simply got on the Alliance Teleconferencing
and patched together a bunch of international calls,
you could very quickly wipe out any small company
or any homeowner that might be unfortunate enough
to dial that number and play around with it.
Now, that's significant, because 700 numbers can be dangerous.
They can be as dangerous as 900 numbers,
and that means a lot of people will be opting to block 700 calls.
And this will make it difficult.
This will make it rather difficult to make calls
if you're not allowed to make calls.
The other thing that's going to be kind of confusing
is the fact that 700 numbers are carrier-specific.
In other words, you can't call this particular 700 number
on MCI or on Sprint. You can only call it
on the carrier that it's assigned to.
So AT&T can have a whole line of 700 numbers.
MCI can have a whole line of other 700 numbers.
In fact, theoretically, I suppose it's even possible
for two companies to have the same phone number,
but have it going to two different things.
Not certain about that, but it does seem like it would be possible.
Now, let's do a little experiment here.
Let's see what happens when we try calling a 700 number from here.
Typical radio station in the middle of a typical city.
And we want to call a 700 number located someplace.
Now, they don't have these personal ones yet.
They will, but presumably the same thing will happen.
First, what we do is we request a dial tone from our local phone company.
And our request is granted.
Kind of a static-y line, though.
I'm going to try for another line.
That's better.
Now, let's dial away.
We're going to try the Alliance number.
This has got to be the worst quality recording I've ever heard in my life.
I don't know how they managed to make a recording sound like that,
but basically, I guess what we can learn from this is
that for some reason or another, calls to 700 area code numbers
are not permitted from this location,
which means that the service AT&T is offering would be completely useless from here.
And presumably from a lot of other places as well.
So it's a good idea.
But I question how much of a difference it's really going to make,
especially since there are services like this available in the form of 800 numbers,
and certainly more services like that could be made available.
I don't know if we need to have such a massive publicity blitz,
but we'll see what happens.
We'll be playing with this on the air and off the air,
and we'll report our findings.
And if anybody out there has anything interesting they'd like to share,
please either call it in, 212-279-3400,
or mail it in to, off the hook,
CARE of WBAI, 505 8th Avenue, New York, New York, 10018.
And we're going to take some phone calls, 212-279-3400.
If anybody has questions about computer hacking,
how the media portrays it, new technology,
new threats to individual liberties via technology,
or questions about your phone,
any of those things we'll be happy to talk about,
because that's what we're here for.
Good evening.
Good evening, Emmanuel.
Having a little bit of trouble hearing you.
I'm so happy to have your program maintained.
You know, I had fear that you would be off.
Yeah, I had that same fear,
but I'm trying to figure out why you're so low.
Why don't you turn the volume up?
Well, I'm wondering if it's your line, or if it's...
Come on now, let's play it straight.
No, look, usually I do mess around with this person,
but today I swear I'm not doing it.
You're coming in very low for some reason, and I don't know why.
You can't hear me?
I can hear you, but you sound very, very far away.
Keep talking, though.
All right, now...
I can't believe I just said that, but keep talking.
It's a first.
All right, are you getting any better?
Actually, it's not, but say what you want to say, and then, you know...
We'll call you on another line, then.
Okay, you want to do that?
Sure, thank you.
Okay, and knowing him, he'll get another line very quickly.
Even though this line is already taken up by another caller,
somehow he'll get through.
I don't know how he does it.
Good evening.
Hello.
Now, I think maybe it's our phone lines,
so let's speak up.
Okay.
I would just like to say that after your introduction,
I think I would like to become a hacker.
I think I found out that the problem is
somebody was messing around with the controls on the phone.
Okay, I figured it out.
I'd like to become a hacker.
You want to become a hacker?
And when I get my computer, I will certainly use it.
Thank you.
Okay, that sounds kind of ominous.
I don't know exactly what we have in store from that person,
but I wipe my hands of any responsibility.
Computers are little tools,
and how people use their tools is none of my concern.
Good evening.
Oh, hi. Can you hear me?
Yes, I hear you fine.
Yeah, I wanted to just mention a couple of points.
First of all, on the business of the media
and the use of the word hacker,
I think that maybe it's time for the computer community
to come up with a new word,
because I think that...
I always wondered how they protected you
when you made a mail-order purchase
using your credit card over the phone.
They don't protect you very well at all.
In fact, many times the mail-order companies
share your credit card information with other people.
Well, let me tell you what they did in my case.
Okay.
It had so happened that I had a change of address,
and I had notified...
I had a new mailing address for my email.
Okay.
And I had notified...
I had a new mailing address for my email.
Okay.
And I had a new mailing address for my credit card.
So the credit card company had one mailing address,
and I wanted the merchandise shipped
to a different address than my mailing address.
Okay.
Than the address that they had on their records.
Okay.
That's a very common form of credit card fraud
for people to do that.
Well, anyway, but what I did...
What happened was when I did that,
and I gave them the order,
the credit card company called me up.
In other words,
they didn't accept the order.
Because there was a mismatch
in the billing address
and where I wanted the merchandise delivered.
So they did trap that,
which I was kind of impressed with.
And I had to go through
giving them certain information
to prove that I was the person
who had the card.
And then they approved the purchase.
But they did do some kind of a security check,
which I thought was more
than I thought they had been doing.
So, anyway, that's one positive note.
I just thought I'd mention also to your listeners,
this is kind of a minor thing,
but it was sort of a little pain.
I called up the phone company
to try to get a directory
for an area outside of New York City.
And it used to be you could get those for free.
How far outside New York City?
Dutchess County.
Okay.
Which is not that far.
All right.
A little far out, but anyway,
it's not free anymore.
I was a little bit pissed off about that.
Yeah, well, you know,
this is something that's been happening slowly.
No.
I can't believe there's...
A few years ago,
I have an older copy of the thing,
and a few years ago it was free.
Right.
And also directory assistance was free, too.
I know.
Well, that was even further back.
And the consolation to charging
for directory assistance
was that you could always get directories.
But now, you know, increasingly...
That either, so they keep nipping away at you.
I also wanted to mention about cable and wireless.
They really only deal with business accounts,
not with personal accounts.
Well, they do lean towards businesses.
That's true.
But we're all small businesses in some sense,
so we can get around that.
Now, I also want to ask you,
are you going to have a monthly meeting this Friday?
Yes, I'm glad you reminded me.
I might not have gone if you hadn't.
Yes, the monthly 2600 meeting
takes place every first Friday of the month,
from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.
I went up there to the Citicorp building
I guess the first Friday of the last month,
and I couldn't find it.
I didn't know where it was.
Where specifically in the building is it?
Well, you see, we take pride
in blending into the scenery.
I mean, how would somebody know
that there's a meeting there?
There's a bunch of tables there.
It's sort of an atrium area, isn't it?
Right.
Yeah, we don't really hang out by the tables.
We hang out by the payphones near the elevators.
And, you know, we don't really stand out very much.
We just sort of hang out and talk to other people
and see who comes.
The thing is that there's a whole bunch of other tables
and how do you know who the meeting is?
I mean, I might have passed by the meeting
and not even really known it.
It does take a little bit of investigation on your part.
I grant you that.
But that's part of the whole game, you see.
It's not really a meeting kind of a thing.
It's just a gathering where you meet people
that have interesting information.
I wasn't in the right area.
I just wasn't intrusive enough.
Yeah, you've got to be a little more intrusive.
You got it exactly.
Okay, thanks a lot.
Thank you very much.
All right.
I'm going to go ahead and hang up now.
Bye-bye.
Good evening.
Good evening.
Yes, I'd like to ask you a question.
Go ahead.
A bit of, I guess, telephone company trivia.
I don't know if it's allowed to be disseminated or not.
But I used to know how to...
I used to know the number that you could...
If you're at a pay phone
and there's a number that you dial,
you can get the number of the pay phone.
And I don't know if they've changed it or what,
but it doesn't work anymore.
Are you talking about 958?
958 used to work.
Where did you get it from?
I tried it from just the same pay phones I used to...
New York City, Queens, Brooklyn?
Manhattan.
In Manhattan.
What you might try...
What they do is,
they don't like people knowing these trade secrets
of actually being able to read off your phone number.
Sometimes they'll make it so you'll get a fast busy,
which I assume is what you're getting.
I don't think I got anything the last time I tried it.
Really?
Well, I know some phones give you a fast busy.
I've tried it five times in a row.
It does work.
The repairmen know this,
but the average person will give up after one try,
or maybe two tries.
It's kind of a pain to have to do it five times in a row,
but I'm told that it does work most of the time.
That's helpful information to have sometimes,
because sometimes you may have someone at a pay phone
that you have to call.
Yeah, but you should also always do this.
I stress this to everybody.
When you have somebody call you back at a pay phone,
call it yourself first
and make sure that it's a phone call
and that it rings audibly.
A lot of phones these days don't.
For some reason, they think they're going to cut down
on drug trafficking by not allowing pay phones
to accept phone calls,
and it's really kind of silly.
It's very inconvenient for us.
Okay, great. Thanks for that.
Okay.
Okay, good night.
212-279-3400. The program is off the hook.
We're on the air until 10 o'clock tonight.
Good evening.
Yeah, hi.
My name is Steve Cole.
I'm a first-time caller.
I tuned in a little late tonight.
Are you aware of a notice that went out
on computer bulletin boards from 48 Hours
looking for scanner enthusiasts
to pick up cellular and cordless phone calls?
They did that, and they called me as well.
Oh, they did?
That's interesting.
I just tuned in late,
so I don't know if you got the mention.
I didn't realize they were blanketing the area so much,
but I guess it's no secret 48 Hours
is doing something.
Well, actually, they're doing something on privacy.
I spoke to her myself a few weeks ago,
and I think maybe the audience should know.
I do my own program on shortwave.
Matter of fact, I left a message for you.
I'd like to have you be a guest on our program.
You do a program on shortwave?
What station?
We're on shortwave.
We go out of Radio New York International.
We're on shortwave on Sunday night.
Radio New York International.
You're the guys who used to be on the boat, right?
You got it.
You're working out of a station somewhere else in the country,
like Kentucky or something.
Okay, we're on a transmitter out of Tennessee.
Tennessee, that's it.
That's right.
The station's out of Tennessee,
and we send the signal down by phone line,
and we're also on satellite.
And you share time with Gene Scott and people like that, right?
Well, Gene Scott's on one transmitter all by himself,
and we're on the other one for four hours every Sunday.
Really?
And you want to give us frequencies and time and all that?
We're on Sunday nights from 9 p.m. until 1 local time
here in the East,
and it's 7435,
7435.
It's WWCR, normally a religious station,
and there are secular programs on it.
We're happy to be there on Sunday nights.
And you do a non-religious show, I imagine.
We do a secular show.
We do a program on communications called Cross Band.
I'm there every week for the first half hour,
and then it's mostly political
and freedom of expression.
How far does your signal get?
Well, we've gotten Bulgaria.
I think Japan came in.
The station's had a lot of problems
with signals in Australia.
They had to change frequency a couple of times.
But we get around.
It gets around,
and we have a lot of listeners across the country.
Well, that's great.
I'd definitely be interested
in talking to you further about that,
because shortwave radio is something
that a lot of people took an interest in during the war
and kind of forgot about afterwards.
We're also on satellite.
There's a new satellite service
which is intending to feed
a couple of low-power TV stations
and cable stations
called the Becker Satellite Network.
We're relayed through there.
And they'll be going full-time in the fall.
So you can hear us
in many areas across the country
now on cable systems.
Does this cost you a lot of money to do this?
Yeah.
It costs a bit of money.
Our listeners are sponsored in part.
But we do take commercial advertising as well.
And where are most of your listeners based?
All across the country.
We get calls from Florida.
I get them from Ohio, Illinois.
I get them from New England, Long Island.
We get them from California now,
which is really pretty hard at this time of the year.
I see.
And Canada as well.
You know, I heard something
you might be interested in, actually,
that Radio Havana is broadcasting
on the AM dial.
It's interfering with stations,
I believe, from about 1,200 to about 1,400
on the AM dial.
There are four frequencies right now in use.
I have them off the top of my head.
But basically, they're retaliating,
again, to TV Martí,
which is another retaliation
since TV Martí has expanded their hours.
But it's possible for people in the New York area
to actually tune in and hear Radio Havana
on their AM radios now.
I've got a new sensitive radio.
I used to pick it up at night anyway
in Spanish.
But now they're doing some particular programs
designed in English for the American audience,
not just relaying what's on in Cuba.
Fascinating.
All right, so did you have a particular question
or anything?
OK, well, we were discussing the 48 hours story.
We discussed that,
and it looks like she's finally learned
that the ECPA is out there
and makes scanning of cellular calls illegal.
However, it looks like
they're going to give a demonstration
of how to pick up a cordless phone call
at this point.
Well, I mean, I think that's kind of silly
because cellular phone calls
are very easy to listen to,
and people can easily listen to those
as well as mobile phones.
It gives you a false sense of security
if you think the ECPA is going to protect
cellular phone calls.
I think they'll probably discuss it and say it,
but to do an actual demonstration
would cause a problem legally
for the person who did it.
Even if they didn't appear on camera,
if someone at the FCC
or someone in the Justice Department
decided to be, you know,
that kind of person,
what could happen is that CBS could,
not to actually show a demonstration,
this is from what,
as far as last week was concerned,
but they will explain that it is possible,
and it even was shown to her
by one of the engineers
that it could be picked up
on one of the old-style 82-channel
UHF, VHF TV sets.
Right, very simple.
You simply take an old-style TV set
and tune between the old UHF channels up there.
I think it's 79 to 81 or something like that.
Yeah, it's fairly simple to get.
Yeah, very simple.
It's a wireless phone
because there is a false sense of security.
People pick up a wireless phone
of one nature or another
and think they're talking on a wire
and the person next door
could be listening to whatever you're doing.
Something that I think
they're going to bring to national attention.
There was a program, I think,
last year, expose on NBC,
which featured two of the editors
of the very shortwave magazines
actually talking about it,
giving demonstrations of it.
Yes, definitely do that.
All right.
And to add on to that point
about cellular phone calls,
yes, it's very simple.
People have demonstrated it for me many times
where you can just simply
turn on a scanner
and go through however many phone calls you want.
And it's amazing,
the cross-section of America
that you hear in a cellular phone call.
You do hear drug transactions.
Yeah, you hear lots of them.
And you have to wonder,
how come everybody can hear you?
You hear credit card transactions.
You hear personal conversations
of all sorts.
And I like to say,
if CBS is not willing to demonstrate this,
we'll demonstrate it here.
But we need help from people
that have access to the equipment.
If you have cellular phone calls
that you're able to listen to
and you want to send them to us anonymously,
we won't ignore them.
Let's put it that way.
AI 505 8th Avenue,
New York, New York 10018.
Sometimes you've got to
do something loud and abrasive
to wake people up.
And this is a good example
of how that is necessary.
Cellular phone calls are not private.
They should be, but they're not.
And simply making it illegal to listen to them
is really not solving the problem at all.
So if anybody wants to send in tapes
to prove this,
we'll be more than happy
to point them in the proper direction
to show people how unsafe it is.
But again, for your protection,
because we probably will get subpoenaed
for the information,
keep it anonymous.
No harm with that.
All right.
212-279-3400.
You can also send it over to the magazine
2600-PL-BOX-752,
Middle Island, New York,
11953, that's right.
And either one of those addresses,
just address it to my attention,
Emanuel Goldstein.
Program here is off the hook,
and we're on for another 15 minutes.
Let's see who's out there.
Good evening.
Yes, it is.
You're on the air.
All right.
That tells you what your
long-distance phone call is.
All right.
OK.
OK.
Did you try 0700?
No, I tried 1700.
No, you have to try 0700 on that one.
Right.
You see, the thing is,
I dialed 0700 and I got a recording.
Yeah, but I think you'll be able to get through
unless you have some sort of blocking.
I think VAI has blocking on that.
It's got something to do with
routing the carrier,
because when you dial 0
plus a long-distance number,
so by dialing 0 in front of the 700,
it goes to AT&T,
and if it sees that
there's any other carrier there,
like MCI or Sprint,
it won't process the call.
So AT&T is the only carrier
you can get through to that 700 number on.
Oh, so that's what the 0 has to do with.
That's one of the reasons,
I believe, is the case.
And these new numbers
will be 0700 numbers, too,
not 1700 numbers.
I see.
I remember all the interesting stuff
that you could do with just phone numbers.
It's amazing how dead things are now.
What do you mean,
the interesting things you could do with phone numbers?
For example, the days when only AT&T
basically gave 800 numbers,
there was a number,
a fortune number you could append
to the exchange of the 800 number.
Right.
It would tell you what city it was from.
Yeah, I remember that, too.
I do remember that.
These days, I think you can dial
four 0s, maybe four 9s,
and you'll get the company that it belongs to.
But that's going to change, too,
because soon all 800 exchanges
will be integrated
so they can be many different companies.
Right, that makes sense.
It used to be the old deal was 0059,
as I recall.
Yeah, that does ring a bell.
There were a little thing,
but then you also have
other kinds of specialty numbers
to give you other kinds of odd things.
It used to be you could find out
when you were a teenager.
You figure, I'm like 10 or 15,
10 to 12 years out of date.
That's what it is.
You just wake up or something?
No, I sort of got out of it.
That kind of stuff tends to be interesting
when you're a teenager.
You're interested, but let's be honest,
you have more to lose by messing around,
and you have money so you don't care
about making phone calls so much.
Yeah, it's kind of sad
because there's always something going on out there,
and you've got to keep up with it.
Well, I must admit,
I never felt comfortable
at 2600 meetings.
I always felt they were being surveilled
whether too heavily for my taste.
Oh, they are being surveyed
or whatever all the time.
Not to mention the fact that
some of the people who go to them
don't necessarily seem to be the kind of people
I'd want to be friends with.
Well, of course,
when you have a group of 50 people,
that's going to happen.
But let me tell you something
it's very easy to find the people
that are watching you
by simply taking a picture of everybody
and seeing who objects.
Right.
It's usually in most cases,
of course you might get some paranoid people like us,
but in most cases it's the people
that are watching you
that are trying to stay hidden
and don't want their picture taken.
By the way,
is that kind of surveillance going on
in every city or just New York meetings?
I'll tell you,
I know from the publication of the magazine
that they have meetings out there
and I would bet they have
less surveillance there than here.
Well, it's hard to say.
Surveillance is a tricky thing.
You never know who's really watching
and how good they are.
This is true.
Shifting topic to things legal
but maybe questionable circumstances.
Any advice on where to get good info
on FANAC systems,
or FANAC plans?
Good question.
I don't direct it in the magazines
but I'm wondering if there are any other sources
besides the obvious ones
that are always in the magazines.
I couldn't direct you at the moment.
I'd have to ask around.
You should know what I'm talking about.
How about they say FAN what?
Well, do you want to explain it for our listeners?
Yeah.
Basically FANAC technology
would be a method of monitoring
the signals from a computer,
usually from the monitor,
from a distance away from the machine.
So you can see what's being said
and see what's being typed on the screen.
On the screen, let's say down the street
so to speak or what have you.
It can be useful for different purposes
but some of the purposes probably aren't legal
so obviously if you want to keep it legal
seek legal counsel.
It doesn't go for very long either.
It doesn't go for a very long distance.
I think 1.5 miles is the longest
it can possibly go.
People look into this
and they figure, oh great,
I can look into an office building or something.
I can look into computers in the 20 foot radius.
Right, that makes it kind of difficult.
That's difficult.
The only thing that might help you
is if one guy, maybe the big guy,
has a much higher resolution monitor
than the rest will be at a higher frequency
and they may separate it from all the others.
Maybe.
That's the only way.
It's not exactly as practical as all that
but I'm trying to look into
setting up something for it
just for experimental purposes.
Although, be aware,
it can be recessed.
The cheap 12 inch black and white portables
are great for that
or even the smaller ones sometimes.
What you can usually do
is you play around with the sync controls and so on
there are times you can get an image
to synchronize just from a plain television set.
Really, without any modifications?
Without any mods at all, basically.
You just got to extend all the controls.
You usually got this with a screwdriver.
You put a little piece of tubing on them
so you can turn them easily.
It sounds like you spend a lot of time on this.
Well, at least.
But that's as far as I've gone so far.
It's kind of a clumsy technology
but it's something that's interesting anyway.
It is.
Although, it's going to be less and less valuable
though, in time.
Right, with laptops and all.
Not just that.
Laptops, you're not going to be able to monitor that way
but also, everybody is so scared of monitor radiation
now that all these new monitors are ultra-shielded.
Right.
You're not going to get much out of them.
I mean, those monitors are almost as good
as Home Tempest in what it means.
I would guess you are.
Yeah, I think there will always be a way
of monitoring somehow, though.
I'm sure they'll always build something in.
As far as the cellular call business goes,
I've had a handheld scanner for years
that can pick up 800s.
Right.
800s meaning the frequency for cellular calls.
Yeah, the 800MHz frequencies for cellular calls
will cover 800 to 999.
Right.
And the only bad thing is that it scans
in 25KC increments with a drop switch
and you're going to miss some in the middle.
But big deal.
At the time it was a good value
and there weren't too many units out there
that could do it.
Right.
So, I've had this thing for years.
And you know what?
To be honest with you,
I don't find the cellular calls worth listening to.
They are kind of, well,
anybody's personal lives are kind of boring.
I mean, it's kind of boring.
I've had people around that I've done it
just to prove, oh yeah, look at this,
this is the proper range and all.
And one of them came up one time.
It was a lawyer talking to a client
and it was kind of interesting.
And these things happen.
But to be honest, I never bother with it.
That scanner gets used for other perfectly
legitimate purposes because I really
never found the call that exciting.
And by the way, I should point out to people
that it is not illegal to own one of those.
It's not illegal to buy one of those.
Is it illegal to modify your scanner
to cover those frequencies?
There are people who think it is.
But what goes further is in some cases
it's not even illegal to be on those frequencies
because in some cases,
the modifications to open that up
also opens frequencies right next to it
which are used for other services.
Right. The radio world is a crazy one.
Listen, sir, we want to get on to another call.
But thanks for all the input.
Yeah, definitely. I would guess that would be it.
All right. Have a good evening.
All right. You too.
212-279-3400. Let's see how many we can get through.
Good evening.
Hi. This is not necessarily about telephones,
but what's happening to BAI?
What's happening to BAI?
There's an article in today's Newsday
concerning the purchase of WNYE
because it says somebody is entitled
to use 99.5 FM.
Under federal regulations,
due to take effect August 1st,
a current FM licensee would be allowed
to add 99.5 FM.
And as a consequence,
BAI is eyeing WNYE,
which is for sale.
Oh, this is the first I've heard about this.
Shows you how in tune with the station I am.
It's in the current...
It's in today's Newsday page.
Undoubtedly a Paul Colford article, right?
57. Who's...
Yeah, Paul D. Colford.
Well, I'll have to check into that.
Basically, it says that
we're thinking of moving to 91.5.
Is that it?
Well, because somebody is entitled
to use 99.5.
Well, I don't know how somebody
would be entitled to use our frequency.
Something was decided.
You know, some FCC decision.
I could read the whole thing.
A game of musical chairs may ensue
because one of the dozen or so parties
that have expressed interest
in buying NYE
is Pacific Radio,
the non-profit operator of WBAI-FM.
Because WBAI's present 99.5 FM dial position
may be used by a commercial broadcaster,
the station's relocation to 91.5
would allow WBAI to sell its present home
at a windfall price.
I don't know what they mean by...
Oh, OK. I can explain that to you.
You see, we're in the middle
of the commercial dial.
The non-commercial dial
is from 88 to 92 on the FM.
So, if we were to sell this station
to a commercial broadcaster,
we would be selling it
to a non-commercial station.
So, if we were to sell this station,
we could sell it
to a commercial broadcaster,
whereas WNYE cannot do that
because they're below 92.
So, yeah, we could make a lot of money
selling the station to somebody else.
But, in all honesty,
and this is only my opinion,
I think that would be a bad move
because here we are
in the middle of a commercial dial
where people are wandering around
from station to station
and they always are looking for funds here.
And I just hope we don't get desperate enough
where we make a move like that.
You know, I hate to say it,
but it really depends on listeners.
If listeners support the station enough,
I don't think we'd have to do that.
Without raising money,
I think it's a horrible prospect.
Right. We're at 50,000 watts,
I believe, now,
and I don't think WNYE is anything near that.
But, undoubtedly, you'll be hearing more
about this on the air
on various other programs.
And I'm sure they'll be girding their lawns
or whatever it takes to get money.
Yeah, well, the marathon begins, I think,
in two weeks.
And hopefully we'll get a strong response.
I'm one of the volunteers.
So we'll do the best we can.
OK. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.
And let's see if we have time
for one more phone call.
Good evening.
Yeah, testing, 1-2-3-4.
Well, I guess it's appropriate
that you end the show.
So what is it you have to say?
Well, first of all,
thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Again, I tell the WBAI
that they can't have a senior citizen
if they don't have someone else
go and see the news day, for instance.
Well, I want to break in,
but we are talking about technology
and you're bringing up technology.
The Radio is modern technology.
Let me introduce you
to one of the most potent forces
in our world.
Well, yes, so's the telephone.
But that doesn't mean that anything
you say over the telephone
has to do with the subject.
This is a terrible thing.
I feel that the people in leadership of WBAI are suspect, in my mind, and I want something
to change.
They allow Lynn Samuels, who buddy-buddies now with Bob Grant and Rush Limbaugh, rather
than saying, I disagree with them.
This is why I disagree.
No.
She's on ABC as well as BAI.
I don't know why.
She has plenty of a voice on ABC.
So let it be on ABC.
And while he's fading out, let's just say that we will be back again next week talking
to more outraged listeners.
The program is off the hook.
This is Emanuel Goldstein.
Again, we're back next week and talking about more interesting things.
Stay tuned for The Personal Computer Show.
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