Cancer of the gums.
So there are certain therapies that you should avoid, even the therapies of established medicine.
But let me say one thing, and there is a rule of thumb, and that is, if you are faced with
a life-threatening situation, if you are in an auto accident, if you're suffering from
internal bleeding, then for God's sake, go first for the conventional therapy.
For example, even x-rays if you're in a car accident, if it's life-threatening.
If you have cancer, for example, of course you can always try an anti-cancer diet, but
if you already have cancer, then give serious thought to the conventional therapies, no
matter how hideous they are, because at the present time there is no cure for cancer.
In fact, we hardly even know exactly the mechanisms that cause cancer, let alone given a cure
for it.
So once again, there are crazy therapies out there.
However, the kernel of New Age medicine is basically correct.
The AMA has been slow, very slow, to realize the virtues of a low-fat, high-fiber, vitamin-rich,
vegetable-rich diet for the very simple reason that many doctors and researchers are on the
payroll of the food industry, which of course wants you to eat a high-end fats and high-end sugars.
Well, unfortunately, that's all we have time left in exploration.
This is Dr. Michio Kaku, professor of nuclear physics at the City University of New York,
and once again, every Wednesday evening from 8 o'clock to 9 o'clock on Exploration, we
discuss the issue of science, as well as war, peace, and the environment.
Good evening.
Good evening.
Come to WBAI's special screening of the documentary film, Incident at Oglala, on Sunday, July
26th at the New Community Cinema in Huntington, Long Island.
After the film, we'll have a panel discussion about the continuous attacks on the American
Indian movement and media representations of Native Americans, with Gustavo Rabin Silva,
host of Circle of Red Nations, Ingrid Wachinowatuck of the Indigenous Women's Network, Shinnecock
attorney Roberta Hunter, and William Kunstler.
As some of you may know, Leonard Peltier was convicted of the murders of two FBI agents
on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1975.
He was convicted on the basis of information that was withheld from the jury that his weapon
could not possibly have been the murder weapon.
Incident at Oglala, a benefit screening for WBAI with the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee,
Sunday, July 26th at 7.30 p.m.
For ticket and transportation information, call the New Community Cinema at area code
516-423-7610.
That's area code 516-423-7610.
And it's 9 o'clock, time for another exciting episode of Off the Hook.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
It couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
Von Diddley Bond for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
Von Diddley Bond!
Von Diddley Bond!
Well, that was a speeding Metroliner.
I don't quite know how it got in there, but all kinds of unusual things can happen here.
The program is Off the Hook.
This is Emanuel Goldstein, and we're together until 10 o'clock talking about all kinds of
neat developments and not-so-neat developments in the world of high tech, and the sometimes
unpredictable things that happen in that particular world.
Stay with us, we've got a lot of interesting things to talk about today.
Now, a couple of weeks ago, when we did a program on the
We mentioned some late-breaking news involving hacker raids.
Actually, not hacker raids, this time the second step, hacker indictments.
And that leads to the third and fourth steps, hacker trials and hacker sentencing.
Since there's usually a fourth step, you know how the third step goes most of the time.
Well, we have a couple of things we didn't know about then that we'd like to pass on to you.
The most disturbing is what the Associated Press did with the story they were given.
And, you know, if the Associated Press gets everything wrong to this degree, then I guarantee you,
you're not hearing anything about what's really going on out there.
Now, a couple of weeks ago, actually it was two weeks ago today, that the indictments were handed down.
And these were all kinds of crazy accusations for all kinds of potential terrorist acts, I suppose.
And one of the things that the indictments said was that these computer pranksters had left a message on a computer.
Just a computer system, not a bulletin board system, just a regular computer system.
A couple of years ago, on a Channel 4 TV show, News 4 New York, the 11 o'clock news, I believe,
a couple of these hackers mentioned, or at least one of them mentioned that they had left a prank message
on a computer system that said, Happy Thanksgiving, you turkeys.
And that was really it, you know, just a prank message left on a computer system that had absolutely no security
and no way to prevent the prank message from being left.
What did the Associated Press do with this?
Well, they changed it just a little bit.
Instead of somebody on a Channel 4 news show saying that they left a prank message saying,
Happy Thanksgiving, you turkeys, on a computer system,
they reported that a couple of years ago, coast to coast, on the NBC TV network,
a message flashed over the screen saying, Happy Thanksgiving, you turkeys.
Well, I know who the turkeys in this case are, but it's a sad thing to report when,
really, the equivalent of our task news agency, because it really is the only news agency in this country,
when they can't get something that's portrayed so clearly to them,
you wonder how can they ever possibly interpret the various nuances that require some intelligence.
This didn't require any intelligence, and they still got it wrong.
Well, as we mentioned last time, one of the indictees is a frequent guest on this program named Friberoptic,
and for those of you that have expressed concern, Friberoptic is alive and he is well.
In fact, he is here right now.
I've advised him not to say too much, so I'll let him say whatever he feels like saying right now.
I'd just like to say hello to all the listeners.
I am alive and well.
I'm not in jail.
And I'd like to say that myself and my attorney will vigorously contest the charges.
Okay, well said, and that's really all he can say right now, folks, because that's how the legal business works.
So when you call in, feel free to express your regards, but just don't expect a response,
because you never know what can be read into a response.
Conspiracy, you know, we're all part of the conspiracy.
AI listeners could get charges in the mail because they support this kind of thing.
Who knows?
It's a sad situation, but it's also, as most sad situations are, an inspiring situation,
because you realize, with all the garbage going on in the world, that we don't have to sit back and just allow it to happen to us.
We can change things.
It takes time to change things, but we can start changing things by getting angry.
And this is where the anger begins.
Now, I don't want to sound like an opportunist here or somebody tying in a product with this particular series of unfortunate events,
but the fact of the matter is, if you don't support the radio station, we're not going to have the voice to tell you about these things.
So please give a call to 212-279-3400 and pledge whatever you can afford,
because every bit counts, every bit will go towards keeping the station going.
It's not the easiest thing in the world to keep a station like this going.
There's a lot of things that keep coming up, that keep getting in the way, electric and transmitter problems,
and you just don't want to hear the whole sort of detail.
We don't get rich off this, we don't even get poor off this,
because we don't get anything out of this except the satisfaction of reaching our listeners.
212-279-3400, we've got no calls on the line there,
but we've got some response to start off the show, because we've got a bunch of interesting things to tell you,
a bunch of things that, well, if we were not here, you wouldn't have known about them in any other way, let's put it that way.
Where else can you hear from a computer hacker facing, what is it, 55 years in jail?
55 years in jail for God knows what.
And a $2.5 million fine.
You don't hear that on the major radio stations that sell commercials,
you don't hear that on the TV stations either, because they're not interested.
There's nothing in it for them.
But we like to think there's something in it for you to hear freedom of speech,
to hear the other side of just about every story that we can find.
Please support that, 212-279-3400.
Of course, you don't have to dial the 212 if you're in 212,
and those of you up in the Bronx, welcome to the 718 area code.
But you still have to dial 212, it's just the way it is.
212-279-3400, and I say when we get three calls there, we'll move on to the rest of this particular program.
There are attacks going on left and right on freedom of speech.
Right now it's taking place on computer hackers and other adventurers
who discover things that perhaps are best left undiscovered in the eyes of some.
Well, they may win.
They may win against computer hackers because it's really kind of hard for them to defend themselves.
For the most part, they're people in their teens, twenties, that kind of thing.
It's not the easiest thing in the world to stand up to the federal government
and all the other agencies that come after them.
So, if they are successful with computer hackers, who do you think they'll come for next?
Who do you think they will try to silence next?
Well, it could definitely be somebody you know.
It can be something that you appreciate, whether it be someone who paints the wrong kind of pictures
or writes the wrong kind of books, puts out the wrong kind of records,
or even looks the wrong way themselves.
We may sound like we're hysterical and like we're all paranoid and have conspiracy theories and things like that,
but we're living on the front lines and it's something that you should be concerned with.
And you can support our efforts.
You can support the efforts of this entire radio station
because what we have here is a vast array of communities that come together
and share information, put it into a whole mishmash of eclectic programming.
But there's a common bond between us all.
And that common bond is freedom.
You know, it's freedom to express ourselves, freedom to communicate amongst ourselves,
and freedom to express ourselves to the people out there.
So, please give us a call, 212-279-3400.
We have all kinds of interesting things to send to you as a thank you for your call,
but the most important thing right now is to make those phones ring.
We'll take phone calls later.
I see the phone in lines are full.
Of course, they're full.
But we need for those other lines to be full.
We're only doing this for one week, and it's kind of an emergency thing.
So, show that you're there for us.
Because if you're not there for us, you know, why are we here?
We have to start asking ourselves these questions.
And before you know it, we have all kinds of self-doubts.
And when you have self-doubts, that's when you lose whatever it is that you stood for.
Ah, we have an updated premium list here and all kinds of neat things.
You can get the Gary Null AIDS video for a pledge of $100.
You can get a year's subscription to Health Magazine.
That's six issues.
They come out once every two months.
All kinds of other exciting things.
Please give us a call, 212-279-3400.
Still waiting for those calls to come in.
We know you're out there.
All right, we're going to share some more disturbing information with the people out there.
Hopefully this will illustrate just what it is we're talking about.
Okay, we over at the Hacker Quarterly, 2600 Magazine,
are always treading on people's toes.
Mostly large corporations' toes.
And other parts of their anatomies, too, I suppose.
And it's the kind of thing that we do because, well, we have to do it.
You know, if we don't go out there and if we don't find out things,
and if we don't report them to the public, who will?
You know, Time Magazine is not going to tell you that your cellular phone calls can be listened in on.
Well, they may tell you after a long period of time has gone by
and after a lot of people have listened in and after a few senators have complained.
But we'll tell you well before then.
Will anybody listen?
Well, that's something else.
But we have to try.
And we have to reach the people that care.
And we know there's a lot of people out there.
With that in mind, last winter we published an article about a security hole.
And the security hole concerns something called Busy Line Verification, BLV,
and a way that operators and other people can access this
and actually spy on people's phone lines.
Now, this information was given to us through internal documents and memorandum
that was forwarded anonymously to us, obviously from some kind of insider at Bellcore.
And we printed an article based upon that.
And the article was well received.
We had compliments on it.
People were very interested in it.
And it also caught the attention of Bellcore,
who last week sent us a certified threat.
Actually, the post office doesn't have a term for that, but it's certified mail.
But usually when you get certified mail, there's a threat in there somewhere.
And yes, there's a threat in here.
I'm going to read it to you.
It comes from one of their intellectual property matter general attorneys.
Now, this is a direct attack on the magazine
and on anybody that reads the magazine and benefits from it
and anybody that listens to this show and benefits from the kinds of things we talk about.
Because we talk about this kind of thing all the time.
And they do not like it.
All right.
Addressed to me, Emanuel Goldstein.
Dear Mr. Goldstein, it has come to our attention
that you have somehow obtained and published in the 1991-92 winter edition of 2600 Magazine
portions of certain Bellcore proprietary internal documents.
This letter is to formally advise you that if at any time in the future
you or your magazine come into possession of, publish or otherwise disclose
any Bellcore information or documentation which either
1. You have any reason to believe is proprietary to Bellcore
or has not been made publicly available by Bellcore
or 2. Is marked proprietary, confidential, restricted or with any other legend
denoting Bellcore's proprietary interest therein
Bellcore will vigorously pursue all legal remedies available to it including
but not limited to
injunctive relief and monetary damages against you, your magazine and its sources.
We trust that you fully understand Bellcore's position on this matter.
And Leonard Charles Sukya.
I hope I pronounced that right.
That's the letter.
And it definitely got a reaction over at the office.
It's gotten quite a bit of response.
We've posted this letter over throughout the internet and various computer systems
because we believe this is something else that people have the right to know about.
And hopefully people out there are benefiting from this knowledge right now.
They're angry. They don't want us to be printing information about their particular organization.
And it's amazing the gall that they have to actually expect us
to listen to this.
This is complete nonsense to tell somebody that they have to obey
corporate rules.
Even when they're not in any remote way a part of the corporation.
If we come into possession of a document.
If somebody gives us a document that they don't want us to have
in their eyes we are guilty of something.
And we should be charged with something.
And if we look at these documents and if we write about what is in the documents
as is expected of us
then we're facing all kinds of legal problems.
Now when Bellcore says they will pursue all legal remedies available to it
they've got quite a few legal remedies.
Doesn't mean they're right.
But in this world of lawsuits and counter lawsuits
they have quite a few at their disposal and quite a lot of money to waste.
Why else do you think that such inflated figures such as the $80,000 for the memo
that wound up being worth about $13
why do you think that figure was allowed to stand in court?
Because Bellcore has good lawyers.
Good lawyers that can tell lies and get away with it.
Alright.
Now we're going to redo the response
which should now be in the hands of Bellcore
and which also will be printed in our upcoming issue
along with the original letter.
Addressed to Mr. Suchia
We are sorry that the information published in the winter 9192 issue of 2600 disturbs you.
Since you do not specify which article you take exception to
we must assume that you're referring to our revelation of built-in privacy halls
in the telephone infrastructure which appeared on page 42.
In that piece we quoted from the internal Bellcore memo
as well as Bell Operating Company documents.
This is not the first time we have done this.
It will not be the last.
We recognize that it must be troubling to you when a journal like ours
publishes potentially embarrassing information of the sort described above.
But as journalists we have a certain obligation that cannot be cast aside
every time a large and powerful entity gets annoyed.
That obligation compels us to report the facts as we know them to our readers
who have a keen interest in this subject matter.
If, as is often the case, documents, memoranda, and or bits of information in other forms are leaked to us
we have every right to report on the contents therein.
If you find fault with this logic your argument lies not with us
but with the general concept of a free press.
And as a lawyer specializing in intellectual property law
you know that you cannot in good faith claim that merely stamping proprietary or secret
on a document establishes that document as a trade secret
or as proprietary information.
In the absence of a specific explanation to the contrary
we must assume that information about the publicly supported telephone system
and infrastructure is of public importance
and that Bellcore will have difficulty establishing in court
that any information in our magazine can benefit Bellcore's competitors
if indeed Bellcore has any competitors.
If in fact you choose to challenge our First Amendment rights
to disseminate important information about the telephone infrastructure
we will be compelled to respond by seeking all legal remedies against you
which may include sanctions provided for in federal and state statutes
and rules of civil procedure.
We will also be compelled to publicize your use of lawsuits
and the threat of legal action to harass and intimidate.
And that is a reply of 2600 Magazine to Bellcore.
And we have started to let people know about this.
And I have to say seriously if you're listening to this
and you're as upset as I am, as upset as I think you should be
consider the fact that at least you're able to hear about it.
And think of what would happen if you could not hear about it.
You know, we're not like the religious broadcasters who...
I'm sorry if this offends anybody, but they're really selling a product.
You know, when you're constantly harping on the same thing
and selling your books and your tapes and garbage like that
and making a profit off of it even though you don't have to pay any taxes
it's not the same thing. We're fighting for our survival here.
You know, if we don't raise enough money then something bad will happen.
We won't fix the transmitter when it needs fixing.
And then the transmitter will blow up or something a few weeks from now
or a few months from now.
So we need to hear from the people out there.
212-279-3400. Let's get a flurry of calls
and we can continue with the program and take some more calls
and share some other bits of information too
because that's certainly not all that's been happening.
All kinds of fun and semi-exciting things have been going on.
212-279-3400. Let's see if we can get a handful of calls coming in.
This is an emergency fundraiser that we are doing now
to raise money for our radio station, WBAI New York,
the only radio station around that has programs like this.
And you know that's true.
It's not anything I have to harp on and convince you of.
Anybody who has ever listened to a radio knows that this radio station,
whether you like it or not, is unique.
There is nothing else like it any place on this dial in New York.
And I just recently traveled around the country a little bit in a car
with an FM radio and I listened to non-commercial radio stations.
I mean, I even listened to commercial stations a little bit
but after about 20 minutes you get sick of that.
So I was wandering around the non-commercial area,
which for the most part is below 92 on the dial.
WBAI is a glaring exception to that.
We're non-commercial and we're right smack in the middle of the dial,
which I think is great because you come upon us when you least expect to
and then you're hooked for the rest of your life.
That's kind of neat.
Well, voyaging around the country listening to non-commercial radio stations
below 92 on the dial, you realize that while we may say here that
BAI is unique within New York,
you realize that New York is unique within the United States
because there are very, very few radio stations
that have any kind of creative programming whatsoever.
Do you know what I found 90% of the time when I wandered down below 92?
I found National Public Radio and I found religion.
No, I didn't find religion, but I found religious radio stations.
Now, I have nothing against either one of these two concepts,
but the fact of the matter is they are swallowing up the spectrum
and erasing all those small, struggling college stations
and community stations that have no affiliation
and that do things their way and don't just broadcast off a satellite 24 hours a day.
Tell you, there's very few of them.
Very few of them left.
I came across a few, but there weren't enough.
Your support is a vote that this kind of radio means something to you,
that it is an alternative to radio that is considered alternative
because non-commercial radio of all sorts is considered alternative
and I like to think that we're the ultimate alternative
because nobody bosses us around except, of course, our listeners.
If we get a strong outpouring of support or disgust for something, we listen to that.
And I don't think very many other radio stations,
certainly no commercial radio station will do that.
All right, one more phone call.
We had a bunch.
212-279-3400.
You can be that phone call and then we can continue with the program
and continue talking about these things and hopefully take a few phone calls too.
212-279-3400.
Those of you on Long Island, those of you in New Jersey, Connecticut, even Pennsylvania.
I got this station in Pennsylvania.
It wasn't easy, but I did it.
So, I know you're out there.
I know if you're listening, you're listening for a reason.
212-279-3400.
We have all kinds of neat things.
I don't want to spend a lot of time going over them
because our volunteers are specially and rigorously trained to do just that on the telephone
if that's what you want, if you want one of these neat items that we have here.
Things like Gore Vidal, Noam Chomsky, and Dick Gregory on three cassettes
or Crisis in Democracy or the Gary Null video.
All kinds of things that we have.
Just our way of saying thank you for helping us out in our time of need.
And, of course, everybody that pledges gets the WBAI folio for a year
which is really the only way you can figure out what's on the air.
I mean, that's how I find out when I'm on the air, by looking at the folio.
And it's required reading if you're serious about BAI.
212-279-3400.
Thanks to those people that are calling in.
Now, to continue with disturbing news about lawsuits and things like that.
Well, I'd like to know, actually.
We're going to take a few phone calls,
but I'd like to know if people want to actually hear the article in question.
I mean, it's kind of technical.
It's two pages long, but it is a bit technical.
But this is something that we have every right to know about.
And you cannot let anybody push you around and say,
you can't know this.
So, there's a demand for it.
We'll read it later in the program.
Those of you that have copies of the magazine, though, you can tune.
Turn to page 42 of the Winter 91 issue and read silently to yourselves.
And you'll learn all those things that Bellcore does not want you to know.
And this is by no means an isolated instance.
We know there's lots of other things that are printed.
And similarly, on this radio station, a lot of things that are said.
That organizations, institutions, corporations really don't want to be said.
And they will strike out in any form they can.
Right now, it's kind of hard for them because, you know, the one thing,
the one reaction that we get from everybody when we tell them this,
is that, hey, you're a magazine, you know.
You have First Amendment rights.
Or, you're a radio station. You have First Amendment rights.
Or, you're a reporter. A journalist.
But they weren't so quick to say that
when the person getting tried put out a magazine on computer,
in electronic form.
So, you see, there's a step that we are losing.
And that is not going unnoticed.
It's very easy to lose the First Amendment if you just change the rules a little bit.
You just publish electronically and all of a sudden you don't have the same rights.
So, you can expect to see some more electronic publishing
if it can be manipulated that easily.
And I think you're going to see a lot more of that.
And that's why we have to step in now and make sure that
the First Amendment does not die with the 20th century.
That it continues into the Information Age.
And whatever lies beyond, we carry these values with us.
Again, 212-279-3400. That's the pledge line.
And we really do appreciate every pledge that we get.
We really do.
We're not kidding about this because
we can always count our pledges on one hand, it seems, when they're coming in
because, actually, we have a limited number of lines.
We don't have banks and banks of phones.
Very humble operation here.
All right. Something else that is coming up in the more recent issue,
the summer issue, which is bound to get various phone companies angry as well,
although I can't imagine why.
This is something that we also found out about through a source.
Something that will be happening in the future.
And briefly, I'll just say that
caller ID is expanding.
Oh yeah, it's expanding like an oil leak.
All over the place.
First of all, when I was in Milwaukee,
I noticed that the phone company was handing out little pamphlets that said,
even though we don't offer caller ID,
if you call another state, your number may be transmitted to that other state.
And a person picking up the phone will know your phone number.
So already it's going interstate.
We predicted this, but it's going interstate a bit faster than a lot of us guessed.
And of course, here in New York, we're going to see caller ID in a matter of months,
maybe even weeks.
Already Star 69 is working in lots of places,
especially on Long Island, some parts of 718.
Star 69 allows you to call back the last person who called you.
And it's very disturbing to a lot of people because there's no way to block it.
And nobody knew about this.
Nobody knew this was going to happen quite like this.
Caught everybody by surprise.
Wasn't part of the PSC hearings.
They talked about caller ID and being able to block your number from being sent.
Well, guess what?
You can't block someone from calling you back if you call them directly.
Oh, there's ways to defeat the system, and that's what we're here to tell you.
But for the most part, the public is being duped.
And there are lots of people that don't want you to hear this,
but it's the truth.
So caller ID is something that is being increasingly updated,
becoming more sophisticated.
And what we will see in the future is something that is not technically possible right now.
If you have call waiting, you cannot get caller ID on a call that comes in on call waiting.
Well, that will no longer be true.
At least if Bellcore gets its way,
they're proposing a new standard where certain bits of information are sent while you're already on the phone.
While your phone is in what they call an off-hook state.
That's what it's called when those people calling in on the call-in lines right now,
their phones are in off-hook states.
I wish I could say the same thing about our pledge lines,
but maybe some people are racing to the pay phones now or whatever phones they have.
So that will be something.
It seems rather minor, but there's a hitch.
There's a rather big hitch.
And the big hitch is that when this happens, you have to be alerted.
You have to be alerted that you are getting a call,
and that information is being contained in that call that will be passed on to your caller ID box.
And that information cannot pass over the line while you are speaking.
So guess what?
For four seconds, your mouthpiece and your touch-tone pad will be completely disabled.
Every time you get another call and you have caller ID, that's going to happen.
And that's rubbing people the wrong way, a few people that know about this already.
And it will be preceded by a tone.
And that wasn't the tone, but this is the tone that you will hear on your phone.
It's a mixture of, I believe, 2130 Hz and 2750, if I'm not mistaken.
A tone just like that will be sent over your phone line.
I'm not quite sure how loud it will be. I'll give it to you again.
Every time you hear that tone, that's a signal that your phone is about to be deactivated for four seconds
while another call comes in and information about that call is processed and recorded.
Doesn't seem like too much, does it?
But that's the kind of information that we feel we must share with you at this early stage in the game.
Still a couple of years away, if it even happens at all.
They're debating whether or not that's the right tone.
They said after careful consideration, they came up with that tone.
I can't imagine why that tone, but they seem to like it.
So, who are we to argue?
Okay, pledge line, once again, is 212.279.3400.
And the phone-in line, 212.279.3407.
Let's see if we can take a couple of phone calls there and get people's reactions.
We're going to have to keep them kind of short, though, because we do have other business at hand.
And we do want to have a strong showing at the pledge lines.
Okay, let's see who's out there.
Hello?
How you doing?
Hello?
Go ahead, you're on.
Am I on?
Yes, you are.
Oh, yeah, hi. I had a couple of questions for you.
Okay.
One is, have you ever been in Grand Central Terminal in Penn Station
and seen those phones that you put in a quarter and get 30 seconds anywhere in the state?
Are they in Grand Central? I've seen them on the street.
Yeah.
Okay, those are Colcats.
They're not Colcats, actually.
They're not owned by New York Telephone?
Well, they're New York Telephone phones, but you can call anywhere in the state for 30 seconds.
Anywhere in the state.
Okay, I thought you were referring to another phone that allows you anywhere in the country for a set price.
Yeah, those are unforgiving pay phones.
They don't give you any warning.
They give you, what, 30 seconds?
And they just cut you off.
For some people, that's a good deal.
Yeah, it is a good deal, but did you know that they have funny phone numbers?
They have 516 exchanges, and if you try doing 958 to them,
they say something like, congratulations, you've reached one of the central offices there.
I was wondering if you knew why they said congratulations.
You're saying the 958, which is the ANAC, automatic number announcement.
It doesn't give you the phone number, it just gives you this congratulations message.
It sounds like it's going to a 9901 number, which generally announces the type of central office that you're in.
It does, but the 958 on these type of phones happens to do that.
And I noticed that whenever you dial 956-9910, you get a tone, you get a dial tone in 718 area code.
When you dial what?
718-956-9910.
Uh-huh, you get a dial tone.
And can anything be done with this dial tone?
I don't know.
Well, I suggest experimenting with it and seeing what it does and reporting back.
Sounds interesting.
I wonder what would happen if you do star 69 to those type of phones.
Who knows?
In general, star 69 does not work at pay phones, but of course there's all kinds of mistakes that can be made.
And maybe they will work under certain conditions.
We have to experiment, we have to try things.
And you know, there's a call custom that puts through collect calls.
In other words, what it will say, it will say if you want to accept...
Yeah, that's the biggest scam in the world.
If you want to accept a call, hold on.
What's an answering machine supposed to do?
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
What's a fax machine to do?
You know, they don't know to hang up.
So you wind up with all these strange collect calls on your phone.
Right.
And it's because of that.
We did an expose on that actually a few months back.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
If that's still going on, you should report it to the Public Service Commission.
I did, actually.
Okay, good.
And you should get a reply.
And I'd like you to let us know what that reply is.
Okay?
Do you know about Cointest?
Cointest, does that still work?
What is it, 959...
What?
Yeah, 959-1230.
I know that.
Yeah, I think it's 0959-1230.
I know, but is there any variation to that?
Is there any other numbers like that?
That's the only one I know of.
I mean, in that 959 exchange?
Basically, if you can even call the 959 exchange,
that's one of the few test numbers that are generally known.
But, I don't know, there's a few, but that's the most interesting.
You drop in a quarter and it says quarter.
Right, right.
You drop in a dime, it says dime.
Do you know if there's any other test lines like that?
I'm sure there are, but you have to go and discover them, you know?
Oh, all right then.
Okay.
Thanks for calling.
And I'd like to give a...
I don't know if I can do this.
I'll try to do this.
Things are kind of crazy because we have a marathon going on.
But I'll try to connect us to something.
A recording similar to what that person was talking about.
Okay, here we go.
Live from Brooklyn, it's Kenmore DSO,
serving 252, 253, 859, and 951.
Yeah, that's similar to the congratulations message that he got.
Sometimes they have some fun in the central office,
and basically it announces the exchanges served by that particular switch,
and most times what kind of switch it is.
Okay, 212.279.3400 is our pledge line.
Please show your support for the radio station.
212.279.3407 if you want to be on the air.
Good evening.
My best to FiberOptic.
I hope that you will announce a defense fund
that we can contribute to through the magazine, perhaps.
We'll keep you updated on anything that develops.
Thank you.
I have an interesting communique from Kenmore.
Thank you.
I have an interesting communique from Cable & Wireless
to the effect that they're blocking their 950 access.
You know, I got the same letter a couple of days ago,
and it's very disturbing.
And this is something that I intend to follow up on
and ask them why they're doing this.
What they basically said was, because of computer hackers,
because of computer hackers,
their 950 system is being cracked constantly,
and since they have a six-digit code there,
what they're going to do is tell everybody
to call the 800 number instead,
which has much higher rates, much higher rates,
as opposed to, say, 15 cents a minute or less,
even, on the 950 number.
The 800 number carries rates of 33 cents a minute,
which is absurd, really.
And because the 800 number has an eight-digit code,
it's going to be so much more secure
from these evil computer hackers.
Now, this is nonsense, of course.
If they wanted to keep computer hackers out,
why would they not just simply make an eight-digit code
on their 950 number in the first place?
It seems that, unfortunately, and I hate to say this,
Cable & Wireless is following the example of MCI, Sprint,
and all the others that have abandoned the 950 service,
which allows you to place point-to-point calls
at pretty much the rate that you would pay from your house,
making a direct call,
rather than having to pay a surcharge on a calling card
with each and every call you make.
So you could actually...
I could pick up my payphone, dial a 950 number,
enter my code, call a number, speak for a minute,
and it would cost me about 9 cents, no surcharge.
Now, if I do that with Sprint or MCI
or any of the other companies,
it's probably going to cost me about 65 cents
because of the surcharge they put on it.
And now, thanks to their logic,
it's going to cost at least 33 cents,
which is still more than a payphone would cost.
Isn't it also true that, in fact,
the extra two digits are exactly the same
on virtually every one of their accounts?
Well, it is on mine, so I guess you're right about that.
Then I've had several accounts,
and each time that number's the same,
so there's only 99 possibilities
that somebody would have to try...
That's true.
...in order to get those additional two numbers.
Well, it seems like there's only one possibility
if they're always the same as the last two of the codes.
Yeah, I mean, but just even if you didn't have any idea
what they were.
Uh-huh.
I was wondering...
I mean, I guess what you said sort of answers it,
but what I could say to them,
I'm considering terminating my service with them over this,
or at least telling them that, you know,
I don't like what they're doing.
Well, what I would suggest doing is contacting the...
Did you go through a sales representative
to get the service?
Yeah, I have a representative.
Okay.
A personal, you know, person who calls me and writes to me.
How much writes personal letters to you?
Well, she sends me these letters personally,
and she calls me to let me know what's going on.
Do you spend a lot on cable and wireless?
Not a heck of a lot.
Between 50 and 100 a month.
Uh-huh.
Well, you know, it's generally good to talk to these people
because one good thing about cable and wireless
is that they are people.
You can talk to them.
Unlike, you know, you never get the same person twice
at the big companies.
And if you tell them that this really does make a difference
and I'll probably wind up going to another phone company
if you cut the service off,
there's no good reason for them to cut the service off.
Certainly the computer hacker reason is bogus.
There's no reason for them to cut that service off.
And if you're spending 50 to 100 dollars a month
using their service,
I don't see how they can look upon that as a bad thing.
I just don't see it.
9-5-0 is already blocked, I think.
It still works every phone I've tried.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, that's good to know.
Okay, well, thanks very much.
I'll keep you posted on how they respond.
Do call them, and I recommend anybody else call them, too,
that has that service because it's a valuable thing,
and you need to share that information.
It's a valuable thing.
Okay, thanks for calling.
Okay, thank you.
And, again, our number for pledges,
and I can't emphasize enough the importance of that,
is 212-279-3400.
We do need your support.
We don't do this on a whim.
We do this because we need to do this.
Whatever it is you can afford to pledge to this radio station,
if you enjoy off the hook,
if you get something out of this program week after week,
then show your support for it
and for the radio station that presents it.
212-279-3400.
Again, we accept Visa, we accept MasterCard,
and everybody who contributes
will receive the program guide for an entire year
filled with all kinds of interesting articles as well.
And our call-in number, which is probably busy right now,
is 212-279-3407.
So those of you that are all upset
that you can't get through on the air,
take heart in the fact that you can get through to us
in, right now, a much better way
because every little bit helps.
I can't say it enough.
212-279-3400.
Please make those phones ring.
We have a room full of volunteers.
Good morning, good evening.
Anybody there?
Yes, sir.
Okay.
A friend recently told me that
if one wanted to know who had called last at your house,
there's a special number you can dial and find out.
Yeah, that's star 69.
Star 69?
That's the number that you dial?
Yeah.
If you don't have a touch-tone phone, you dial 1169.
Now, this assumes that it's been set up in your area
and it looks like it's going to be set up
just about everywhere in the fairly near future.
In other words, you could have rotary service
and still be able to do this with a touch-tone generator, true?
We don't need a touch-tone generator if you have a rotary phone.
You just dial 1169,
and it will immediately call back the last person that called you.
It doesn't have to be the person that you talked to,
just somebody that rang your phone once and hung up.
And it's good for people that get harassing phone calls.
So it'll only call them back?
In other words, you won't know the number?
Uh-huh.
No, no.
Okay, that's a point of contention
because the phone company says you will not know the number,
but it's not that difficult to find a number.
Within the city, it's very difficult, if not impossible.
But on bigger areas, such as Long Island, Westchester, New Jersey,
you can get things like local itemization.
And if you star 69 somebody that would appear on your local itemization,
you simply find out what their number is when you get that bill.
It's that simple.
And eventually it will work long distance, too,
so you'll find out what their number is then.
It doesn't discriminate.
Okay, star 69, meaning a three-digit dialing.
Okay, now you're saying that when I get my monthly phone bill,
that I will know from the bill who I called back?
All you have to do, let's say somebody called you now.
Yeah.
And you star 69 them, and you got somebody,
and, you know, you still didn't know who they were.
All you'd have to do is look at your phone bill
and go to July 22nd at 9.48 p.m.
Yeah.
And see what number shows up at that time.
Oh, you mean it will appear specially, even though it's only a local call?
It will appear just like any other phone.
Well, depending on what kind of call it is.
I'm talking about if it's something that's not necessarily local,
which is just a little bit in the future.
But for local calls, what area are you in?
212.
You're in 212.
Okay, they don't have local itemization in 212.
That's not to say they can't do it.
Oh.
It's not impossible to do, because obviously they bill you for it,
so they know that you can do that.
I mean, if you make a local call, you can't find out what numbers you called.
Are you saying if you requested it specially?
There's a service New York Telephone provides called local itemization.
It costs $1.56 a month.
Oh, I understand that.
Yeah, and that provides you.
You have to pay them to get a bill, I realize,
but you do get a list of the local numbers you call.
I'm not really sure how extensive that is in the 212 area,
but if it's anything like 516, you can find out just about any number that you called.
All right, before we hang up, I want to make a comment.
Yeah.
I called New York Telephone and asked them about this,
and I talked to two different people, two different numbers,
and they told me, no, that service doesn't exist yet.
It exists in Poughkeepsie.
It won't exist in the New York City area until next year.
Your comment on that?
When did you speak to them?
Last week.
Last week.
Okay, they're wrong, because it was tested in Poughkeepsie originally.
It's been in 516 now for a couple of months,
and there's advertisements every day in Newsday for that.
Oh, it's been in 516, but you're saying it's also in 212.
It's not in 212 yet.
It will be in 212, who knows, fairly soon.
When you say it, you mean the local itemization, or you mean the 1169?
No, no, no, local itemization is already here.
Star 69 is a service that is being slowly introduced as a precursor to caller ID.
Oh, so if I do 1169 now in the New York area code, I'm not going to get anywhere?
Probably not, but you might.
Oh.
I can't guarantee anything, and that's how it started in 516.
They didn't tell you that it was going to work.
It just all of a sudden started working.
So that's why I recommend people constantly experiment with these things
and report what they find, because lots of times you'll find very interesting things.
Now, let me give everybody a hint out there, and this is very important,
because you're going to run into this.
You're going to have what I call high-tech war games here on your telephone.
And, you know, you can obviously find out who they are very quickly
by star-69-ing them or waiting for the bill or whatever.
But supposing you call somebody and you don't want them to find out who you are
for whatever reasons, and we're going to assume your reasons are, you know,
morally upstanding and all that, but I really don't care.
I'm just talking about it from a privacy angle.
Well, you call somebody, and they can star-69 you and ring you back.
And, of course, if you don't pick up your phone,
they won't ever be able to get your number.
And if your phone never gets picked up by an answering machine
that announces the number or whatever, they'll never be able to find out that way either.
But through a couple of interesting things, you can have some fun with them.
You can, first of all, defeat their star-69 capabilities,
because, remember, star-69 simply calls back the last number that called you.
So if they get another call, it doesn't work anymore.
Because when they star-69, they will star-69 the new call and not your call.
So what's interesting here is that, say, somebody star-69s me,
and I don't want them to have my number ever.
And I realize that calling them directly was a big mistake.
You know, let's say you call somebody who just happens to be insane,
just to say hi, and you realize that they can now find out your unlisted number.
Well, if you call through a long-distance company, call that same number,
you will, in effect, disable their star-69 capabilities,
because they will then dial star-69.
The phone company will say, hey, this number can't be star-69,
because it came from a long-distance company. Sorry.
And you can't go back one call and star-69 that one.
So if they don't get the information right away, you can stop them from getting it.
And you can be more careful the next time.
We've got to be real careful these days when we make phone calls.
You never know what's going to be on the other end.
Good evening.
Hello?
I didn't mean that as an insult, but go ahead.
I have a few questions.
Number one, oh, yeah, I once was at the CW Post campus,
and I was on a pay phone, and I dialed direct, and it went through,
so I tried the 0700 numbers, which is AT&T Alliance.
Among other things, yes.
And it went through. Why is this?
It went through on a pay phone.
Yes.
Well, it's not supposed to.
New York Telephone also.
It's not supposed to, but then again,
New Jersey Bell wasn't charging for long-distance phone calls from pay phones only a couple of months ago.
These things happen, you know, programming errors, you know, missing digits, all kinds of bizarreness.
So that's why I say keep experimenting.
You'll find weird things happening.
You'll find pay phones that allow free directory assistance.
You know, that's really kind of neat because it used to be that way.
You know, you can go to Canada, in fact, cross the border,
and call information anywhere in this country, and it doesn't cost you anything.
But here, it costs you something like 75 cents a call.
It's just amazing.
All right.
And one of the companies that I want to mention is one of those companies that have the, you know, it's like defense.
If you go on there and there's an answer machine, then it will accept it, like as a call.
It's Amex.
Ever heard of that?
I'm not sure exactly what you mean.
The company's called Amex, A-M-E-X or something like that.
Yeah.
Or Amex or something.
You're talking about a pay phone company.
I think it's Amex, actually.
Yes, but there are 950 and 800 access numbers.
Right.
There are.
I don't have them with me, but…
I know them.
Okay.
Tell us what they are.
950-0370, I think 1-800-444-1644, but I'm not sure of the 800.
And through those, you can sort of pretend you're at a COCOT pay phone type thing,
make a collect call to somebody, and if they don't hang up the phone, they'll wind up accepting the call.
Is that it?
Yeah.
Okay.
They used to accept credit cards and all those neat things.
Yeah.
Well, I heard they actually accepted almost any 14 digits that you would give them.
They used to.
They don't anymore.
Yeah.
They're learning from their mistakes.
Yes.
All right.
Listen, thanks very much for the call.
All right.
Thanks, dude.
Take care.
Later.
All right.
Let's see if we can squeeze in a couple more calls real quickly,
and see if those out there that have not pledged yet can squeeze in a call or two.
We really could use the help.
212-279-3400.
You can do it.
Good evening.
Hello.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
I have a touch-tone telephone with a bunch of memory on it here.
Uh-huh.
And if I push on one of those, and a few minutes later the operator comes on and says,
all lines are busy now.
Then I put it down, and I touch the redial, and it rings right away.
Now, what's the matter with my phone?
What do you mean it rings right away?
I mean, you just get a recording once, and if you try it again.
The lines weren't tied up.
It says all lines are busy now, and they weren't.
Okay.
Does this happen all the time, or just really?
Yep.
So every time you dial this number.
Any of the numbers on my memory.
I've got eight or nine of them.
Uh-huh.
The first time.
But then you're hitting redial.
You're dialing the exact same thing, aren't you?
Pardon?
You're dialing the exact same thing, right, when you hit redial?
Yeah.
Well, okay, this is what I suggest.
You know the numbers that are in your memory, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Dial them by hand first, and see if it happens then.
You know, without calling it before.
Pick up the phone, dial them by hand, see if you get that recording.
No, I don't.
When I dial other numbers, other than what's on my memory up here,
if I dial some other numbers, straight dial, I don't have the trouble.
Does your phone dial extremely fast?
Yeah, I don't know how that's extremely fast.
Well, it's possible you might be confusing the central office
with the speed that you're dialing or something,
or there's a stray character in there.
I would suggest reprogramming them, all right?
Program them again.
Yeah.
And see if that gets rid of the problem.
If not, there's got to be something with the way those numbers are being dialed
that's messing up the central office somehow.
I don't know exactly how.
I don't either, because I hear it, and I slam it down right away,
and then I do the redial, and then it rings.
How long do you hang up for?
Oh, just long enough to push the thing down.
Yeah, but if you hang up for, say, five seconds, pick up again,
and then hit the button, what happens then?
I haven't done that.
All right, try that.
See if you get the recording again.
If you do get the recording again, then when you flash,
you're obviously getting a different kind of an outgoing line
that doesn't fall into the same trap.
But again, it's kind of hard to diagnose over the phone.
You have to sort of try every experiment with it.
Whether there's something wrong with my phone, I should get it exchanged.
No, I don't think there's anything really major.
It seems like a fairly minor thing, but I think you can fix it by reprogramming it.
Yeah, well, in some cases, for instance, if I want to redial,
like I just dialed WBAI, sometimes it'll go through.
Uh-huh.
Most of the time it doesn't.
It went right through to you, so I didn't have any trouble.
Well, the phone system is filled with all kinds of perplexing mysteries
that sometimes we'll wonder about for the rest of our lives, I suppose.
We're out of time, though.
Thanks very much for calling in, and we're out of here until next week.
And that is off the hook for this week.
It's 2 minutes to 10 o'clock.
Stay tuned for the personal computer show coming up next.
This is Emanuel Goldstein, and I'll be back again next week at this time.
And we have the wrong thing up on the tape.
Oh, this is amazing.
We don't have the theme queued up, so I don't know.
Maybe I'll just play some tones instead.
How's that?
Here's the tone of the future again.
That means a call is coming in.
There's all kinds of other things we can play, but I think probably the best thing to do
is to play a public service announcement and get out of here gracefully.
All right, 212-279-3400 is the pledge line.
Please call that line, show your support for WBAI.
This is Emanuel Goldstein.
We'll be back again next week.
Good night.