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Sounds good, right? So call 212-279-0707 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.
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And it's just about 10 o'clock. You're listening to WBAI New York. It's time for 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.
Bum-diddly-bum for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood. Bum-diddly-bum!
And good evening to one and all. The program is Off the Hook. This is Emmanuel Goldstein.
We talk about high technology, telephones, computers, Big Brother, and sometimes virtual reality.
We'll delve into that a little bit. Of course, we're also taking your pledges tonight, and we have a special guest with us.
So do stay tuned. It's going to be an interesting hour.
I'll take your brain to another dimension.
I'm going to send him to outer space, find another race.
I'll take your brain to another dimension.
Pay close attention.
Pay close attention.
I'm going to send him to outer space, find another race.
I'll take your brain to another dimension.
Pay close attention.
This crazy program's been on TV for the past couple of nights called Wild Palms.
It's all about the future, the distant future, only 15 years away, where people interact with holograms
and have all kinds of altered senses of reality through the help of drugs
and just a general willingness to accept whatever people tell them.
We see that already. We've already mastered that willingness to accept whatever people tell you.
90% of us seem to have that.
I'm telling you, it's true.
But the technology has not yet been perfected.
You have to wonder, where is it going to go?
How exactly will they develop these kinds of things?
Obviously, there will be people that want to make money more than anything else.
And they'll be marketing virtual reality and holographic images
and all kinds of things like that to their advantage, not necessarily yours.
Whenever you're confronted with a new form of technology, you always have to ask yourself,
how can this help and how can this hurt?
Over the weeks, we try and answer those questions with regards to computer systems
and telephone networks and new emerging technologies such as caller ID and things like that.
And what's key to the whole thing is understanding how it works.
And that's something that a lot of the entities out there don't want you to know about.
They don't want you to know how the phone system works.
They don't want you to know how the credit reporting agencies and computers that keep files on you,
how they all work, how they all tie together.
They don't want you to know how easy it is to listen in on your phone calls and read your electronic mail.
And in recent weeks, we've even found out that they don't want you to know where their offices are.
That's right.
The people at 2600 Magazine got a nice threatening letter for printing a list of AT&T offices,
and the issue which is going to press right now has a continuation of that list.
It'll be interesting to see what happens.
All those people out there that don't like what they hear on this particular program,
they wish we'd go away.
Well, I don't think we're going to go away.
But that's up to you and the support you show tonight.
Our telephone number is 212-279-3400.
For those of you that call in tonight and pledge $75,
we'll be giving you a full year of 2600 Magazine, the Hacker Quarterly.
And if you're already a subscriber, no need to worry.
No need to fret, because we can either tack on another year
or give it to somebody else that you know or somebody you hate.
It's up to you.
And in addition to that, you'll be getting an extra large 2600 T-shirt
with a schematic of a blue box on the front
and all kinds of articles on the back about phone freaks and computer hackers.
So that's for those of you that want to call in right away and pledge something at 212-279-3400.
We'll be getting more into that a little bit later on, though.
I don't know how many people actually saw the program that's been aired over ABC
in the last few nights.
FiberOptic is here. I understand you've been glued to the television set.
Yeah, I've been watching it since it started Sunday night.
Yeah. What do you think?
Well, I can't figure out why people are comparing it to Twin Peaks.
I remember Twin Peaks being a bit different.
Probably because it's weird. It's weird.
It's got pictures of trees, two words, and people don't understand it.
Well, if anything, those are the only things that hasn't come.
Well, that's enough. Believe me, that's enough.
I don't know. I'm enthralled by the technology.
It's fascinating to see people actually doing virtual reality,
and where it could go in the future.
But I'll tell you, I don't go much for the acting.
I think the acting is terrible. I think it's been miscast.
I mean, Angie Dickinson, for God's sake.
The kid from The Wonder Years, his brother playing his evil character.
That doesn't work. I'm sorry. It just doesn't work for me.
The plot is good. The idea is good.
The technology is great. The effects are amazing.
But, you know, the dialogue is kind of strained,
and the acting is at points non-existent.
But I'm sounding like a film critic.
It's an interesting idea. Worth checking out.
But not going crazy over.
You disagree?
I don't know. I don't think it's so bad.
I don't have as big of a problem with the casting, I guess, as you do.
It didn't really bother me all too much.
But, um, I don't know.
The thing I don't really get is the whole drug thing.
How this ingested drug could allow you to feel things in virtual reality.
Drugs are always going to enter into anything that's marketed to you.
There will always be drugs to enhance it.
There will always be drugs to make it a little bit better or more intense.
And there will always be a black market or a legalized market.
The mentality is the same behind either one.
So it's not really anything different in the future.
What's different is the technology that's being used and how we deal with it.
I saw in that film, in that miniseries,
a lot more of what a lot of those miniseries are guilty of.
They assume that everybody is just going to blindly follow and not question.
And while that's true for a lot of people,
I don't think it's true for even the majority.
I think the majority of people are capable of questioning
and just not following that blindly where they don't see the threat.
I mean, a lot of us accept technology today for what it is.
But we do question it at the same time.
The problem is we don't know how we can change things.
We don't know how we can fight the phone companies
and make them do it our way instead of us having to do it their way.
We don't know how to get our credit files and how to change things,
make it so that they have to ask us permission
before we actually have a file started on us.
If we knew how to do these things, we'd be doing it more often.
So it's a question of education.
And it's up to us to educate each other
because I don't think any governmental agency or any private entity
is certainly going to break its back doing that for us.
So that's what we're here for.
That's what this program is here for.
That's what this station is here for,
to educate, spread information, share knowledge.
If that's important to you, give us a call, 212-279-3400,
and show some support.
We mentioned the $75 pledge.
That's not the only pledge level we're taking by any means.
If you can't afford that much and you want to pledge something,
we have all kinds of things to give you in exchange
as a thank you for your pledge.
The number is 212-279-3400.
We do take Visa and MasterCard,
but we prefer if it's your Visa or MasterCard.
It's possible for anybody to call up mail order places
and just give out 16 digits and bill it to some person somewhere.
That's not right.
There should be safeguards.
Now, don't try that here because we have safeguards
and we know what we're doing,
but there is a problem with credit reporting,
with credit cards, with telephones,
and you're not going to solve these problems by having more surveillance,
by knowing what people dial,
by keeping track of every single digit
they've ever entered into their telephone.
That's not going to solve the problems
because you still have technology with wide open doors
that allows people to get in
and do all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly things.
So the key is not to create a feeling of fear.
The key is to know what the weaknesses are
and talk about them,
and only by doing that can you fix them.
All right, 212-279-3400, please.
Let's see some calls come in.
We have a special guest with us.
A couple of weeks ago,
you may have caught a rebroadcast of a program last year.
We talked to Robert Thomas,
who is a system operator over at Amateur Action,
a California bulletin board system that was seized last year
and seized by local authorities.
Well, I guess probably the best thing to do
is to have him explain that to us,
exactly what transpired back then,
and then we're going to update people as to what finally happened.
Robert, are you with us?
Yes, I am.
Okay.
What was it that happened last year,
to refresh the memory of those people
that might not have heard the rebroadcast?
Basically, my bulletin board was seized
on Martin Luther King's birthday,
back in 1992, January 20th,
by the San Jose police.
They raided the home at 730 in the morning,
took the computer and everything,
got us out of bed,
and that was basically it for...
Now, this was in your home?
Yes.
What time did they come?
Pardon me?
What time did they arrive?
It was 730 in the morning.
And they just awoke your whole family, is that right?
Well, I was in bed.
The kids were in bed.
I have a couple of older boys.
My wife answered the door,
and it was the police at the door,
about seven or eight of them,
with a warrant, and they came in.
I ran to the door,
and the first thing they did,
I was in my pajamas,
and they patted me down,
looking for a gun.
You don't have any weapons, do you?
I said, no.
What can I have?
I just woke up.
They came in,
and they took my boys in the other room,
and they went in
and started taking down the bulletin board.
Now, can you describe this bulletin board to us?
What do you mean?
What kind of a board is it?
What kind of messages might appear
that would arouse their curiosity?
Well, I run an adult board.
It's an adult board.
Adult files, the same as, basically,
the Rusty's and Eddie's or whatever,
the R-rated, X-rated type of files.
But nothing illegal, no.
So, basically, a board with messages,
text files, picture files, perhaps?
Yes.
Things like that.
Now, did they make any particular kinds of comments
when they came in concerning this?
Yes, they were looking for child pornography.
I see.
Okay, now, this happened over a year ago,
and we reported on it back then.
At the time, I remember one of the things
that they said that was particularly disturbing
was that you could speed things up
by buying them some computer equipment
so that they could go through your stuff faster.
Right.
Now, that was incredible
that they actually would suggest something like that.
So, now, let's go to the point
where we did the program last year,
and your equipment had still not been returned to you,
and your board had been taken down.
This was a source of income for you, too, right?
Yes, it was, yes.
I invested a lot of money in the bulletin board,
and as far as getting the photos taken,
the models, modeling fees, and so forth, yes.
Okay, so your business had been brought to a standstill,
your family life had been shattered,
and you didn't know what was going to happen next.
Right.
So, what happened next?
What do you mean?
What happened afterwards, after we left you last year?
Okay, I'm confused now,
because there's a delay here in the phone,
and it's kind of jerking or something.
That's the BAI phone system.
Yeah, there's a problem with that phone system.
I apologize for that.
I apologize.
It's kind of jerking, and it's hard for me to understand.
Okay, we can hear you fine, though.
Okay.
Basically, I had a lot of support.
My attorney was no good at all.
Matter of fact, I suspect that he may have been a part of the raid
and getting the raid.
Not sure, but, you know, it's a possibility.
A lot of local support.
They wrote letters and so forth.
And finally, yes, indeed, they made an agreement with me,
and they gave my stuff back, and that was it.
And what kind of agreement was this?
I cannot disclose the agreement.
Okay.
That's on paper between me and the San Jose police
and the state of California and the county of Santa Clara,
although I will tell you that they will not come back here to pursue me again.
So you're comfortable with this agreement?
Pardon me?
You're comfortable with this agreement?
Yes.
Okay.
The only thing I will say is that they did violate the electronic privacy laws
as far as e-mail goes.
I caught them on that, and they just basically had to give my stuff back.
So they were basically reading people's mail without permission.
Well, you know, basically raiding a bulletin board system
without having the proper warrants, which they did for me, you know, did here.
They realized they were wrong, and I could have got them, yes.
But I did not do that.
I got my stuff back within five weeks, got back on the air,
instead of fighting the matter in court probably for years.
That's one way of handling the situation, getting your feet back on the ground
and getting the board back up as normal.
We had a case with Steve Jackson Games, I imagine you've been following.
Yes.
And he was successful in his fight against the Secret Service
for a fairly similar action back in 1990.
Do you see this as a trend, people fighting back in whatever way they can?
I do see it as that.
As a matter of fact, a guy by the name of Keith Henson,
and he is involved in the Jackson case.
He helped me out more than anybody.
He did free work for me, helped my attorney,
fed him software and everything else,
and I just cannot thank Keith enough for what he did.
And to this day, I have never met him either.
But he is involved in the Jackson stuff, involved in everything here.
What did you think of the kind of support that you got through the computer networks?
Were they effective in getting the word out?
They were effective, yes, they were.
A lot of people wrote letters and tried to support me as much as they could.
But I think it was basically Keith and the EFF
and just catching the authorities breaking the law
as far as the electronic privacy goes that did it.
We basically told them,
you can't come in and seize a bulletin board without the proper warrants.
It's not the same as the house.
This is something that we seem to have been doing quite a bit over the past years,
catching the authorities breaking the law.
We had a hacker meeting in November in Washington, D.C.
that was broken up by what appeared to be security agents of the mall
but later turned out to be people acting under orders from the U.S. Secret Service.
And that's a case that's going further along,
and we'll be getting updates on that as well.
We have the Steve Jackson case.
We have other hacker cases that are coming to trial.
It seems like a lot of people are getting fed up
with the way the authorities are handling these particular cases,
breaking laws that they pushed for in the first place.
I have to wonder where it's going to lead in the future.
But do you have any advice for people that might be running bulletin boards now
of either a similar nature to yours or a completely different nature?
Yes, I do.
The main objective is,
is do not post the message that states that all e-mail is considered public.
Like most boards, they post that.
There's nothing to support that at all.
What you want to post is that all e-mail is protected by the Constitution,
and you must have warrants to seize it, basically, in a nutshell.
It's hard to explain.
I do have a file if any of your listeners want to have that.
I do have that.
Don't let those people get that.
Don't open your doors to the people and say that all e-mail is considered public or whatever.
They'll come right in and seize it,
and they'll use your statement as an example,
and write your first amendment rights off.
So basically you're just opening yourself up to all kinds of problems
if you say that electronic mail is there for anybody to read.
Yes, you're opening your doors.
We're looking particularly into systems that implement forms of encryption on their e-mail
as well as any other files that might be considered private,
and that's something we're going to be updating people on over the next few months, hopefully.
If we get something like that, of course, we'd let bulletin boards like yours know this.
Has anybody talked to you about encryption?
Yes.
Keith Henson has mentioned encryption to me,
and he said there's some good stuff out there, and I will do that.
I will encrypt, yes.
Whether or not the software is good or what, I don't know what's out there.
I just heard there's some good stuff out there.
Maybe you can tell me something, Emmanuel.
Yes.
Well, I mean, there are programs that do all kinds of encryption,
whether it be on your PC or on a Unix system.
There's PGP, which a lot of people use to encrypt text and other kinds of files.
It has yet to really reach the stage where it's quick and easy
and something that people can do without even thinking.
That's what I'd like to see.
I'd like to see people just use encryption as a matter of course.
Of course, now we have the Clipper chip, which threatens to put all that on hold
while we debate the issue of whether or not the government has the right to have the keys to your encryption.
I would imagine you don't feel very comfortable about something like that, would you?
I haven't heard about that yet.
I don't feel comfortable about that now.
It's something that I think most people wouldn't really—it would throw a flag somewhere,
having the government have the ability to just listen to your encrypted phone calls
or read your encrypted mail.
It's a rather unhealthy step to take,
and that's something that I think you're going to see a big fight against in the next year or so.
I think they do anyway, though, basically.
You think they do what?
They have the right to do what they want to do, and this is the reason why they do.
All they have to do is go to some judge and say that,
oh, so-and-so has kiddie porn or whatever on his machine, on his computer, whatever,
even though he does not.
That's the main word.
Just mention the kiddie porn stuff or whatever.
Yeah, that's a flag that will—
Right.
It's an instant warrant, like it was for me, which was bogus.
I had nothing, although I had to pay thousands of dollars to fight it, but it's a bogus deal.
But any judge will sign, oh, yes, instant warrant,
and they'll go out there and they'll seize the guy's stuff.
You know what I mean?
And what do they get?
They're going to go after some guy that has maybe 20 Macs or whatever in his house.
Sure.
Or some guy that's running a bulletin board that has 124 lines or whatever.
So running a bulletin board really is a risky business these days, no matter how clean you are.
Well, it is. It is.
It is a risky business, yes.
And I really think the authorities are after the equipment.
All they're going to do is mention anything to a judge, you know,
and if you've got the stuff that they want,
because the states and whatever are hungry for money, you know that, they'll seize it,
whether you're illegal or not.
They just want your stuff.
We're speaking with Robert Thomas, system operator of Amateur Action BBS in California.
His system was seized last year.
He has gotten his system back after a bit of publicity concerning the raid.
And I guess, Robert, your story could have had a much different ending,
especially if you hadn't sought any publicity at all.
What do you think would have happened had you just quietly done whatever they said?
Quietly, you mean?
Yeah, if you just did whatever it is they asked.
What would have happened, really?
Yeah.
Probably would have been sitting here with nothing.
Probably had nothing.
All right.
That's something to think about for those of you running bulletin boards
or facing any kind of search and seizure.
If you feel it's unjustified, you're obligated to fight it.
And I think that's not asking too much in this day and age,
especially when there's people, groups, organizations that will show support of various kinds.
Not as much financial support as we'd like, but certainly moral support,
and hopefully we can get publicity.
Do you think publicity helped your case,
like getting it out on the radio and getting it on the Internet?
I think it did, yes.
I think Chief Henson, though, the person that I've never met to this day,
did help me for the most part.
The letters and so forth, and probably the Internet, too, did help me.
I don't know.
I just feel sick thinking back about the situation.
I feel like crying here, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Sad memories.
Well, it's a very disruptive thing to have people come into your home at 730 in the morning
and start taking things.
It's basically like a woman would feel being raped, you know what I mean?
Uh-huh.
The same thing.
Invasion of the privacy and stuff like that.
Guilty.
Uh-huh.
Same thing here.
Exactly.
My family was raped.
Uh-huh.
That's the way I feel.
At this point, we'd like to ask our listeners to show us a little bit of support
for the various things that they have heard over the past couple of years on this particular radio program.
This particular case, with this bulletin board being seized,
is a good example of something that can happen if nobody does anything to prevent it.
In other words, if we just allow these things to occur and don't question them, don't fight them,
life won't go on as usual.
Life will get worse.
They will take liberties of various sorts and expand upon them time and time again,
and it will just become a deteriorating situation.
You can help by keeping WBAI on the air, by keeping this radio station going,
by keeping this program on the air.
212-279-3400 is our telephone number,
and we are offering several different things for you if you give us a call and show your support.
We have volunteers in the tally room right now that are taking your phone calls.
212-279-3400 for a $75 pledge.
You can get a full year of 2600 Magazine as well as a 2600 Hacker T-shirt,
and you can wear that proudly around your neighborhood
and get all kinds of people asking questions as to just what all those things on the shirt mean.
If you read the magazine, you'll learn all kinds of interesting things as far as high technology,
the latest in telephone company schemes and rip-off scandals and things like that,
as well as cases like Robert Thomas' where the authorities break into someone's private home
and start taking equipment.
There aren't very many places you can read about that.
In fact, there aren't any places you can read about that these days.
The media just doesn't seem to get it.
They don't seem to understand how important these stories are.
Robert, I'd like to ask you if there are many mainstream media stories about what happened to you.
No, none.
None at all?
That's incredible because I think everybody listening can understand the importance of what happened to you.
Why do you think the media is constantly missing the boat on this?
I don't know.
I've been wondering that myself, too.
I don't know.
The local people, no interest whatsoever.
This is big-time First Amendment protection, and it seems like nobody cares.
After it happened, I was thinking that nobody cared myself.
But now, it's different.
I fought.
My family survived.
My kids survived.
My wife.
We're back up now, and we can fight it now.
But I'll tell you, if anybody needs any help out there, give me a call.
Okay, we'll be giving out your number later on for those people that are interested in that.
Anybody that needs help in this First Amendment stuff, because if you don't fight now, your rights are going to be gone.
Guaranteed.
212-279-3400.
I know BAI people care, but right now, there aren't any of them on the phone.
No, we have seven lines, and they're all wide open, so please show that you care.
Show that you're not like the mass media that doesn't care about a story like what happened to Robert Thomas.
It's something that doesn't happen just once a year.
This happened last year, but it's happened more than once.
It's happened many times.
It's happening a lot, and we've got to stop it from happening.
We've got to continue to fight.
We've got to continue to get the word out, and there are many ways of doing that, whether it be through magazines, whether it be through bulletin boards,
whether it be through radio stations.
The point is we have to support all of these forums.
We have to make sure that they all remain strong and remain out there questioning in whatever way they can exercising their rights to freedom of speech.
212-279-3400.
Show your right of freedom of speech.
Show your interest in this.
In a way, it's like voting.
It's a way of showing that you believe in the particular system that we have here, which is a radio station with no sponsors except for our listeners.
Now, I think the reason why mainstream media did not cover this story at all is because of their sponsors.
They might offend people.
They might offend the big phone companies.
They might offend the government.
They might offend all kinds of people by asking these very basic questions,
and perhaps they might also feel that they're getting a little bit too technical and that people won't understand.
One thing mass media has is a very low opinion of its audience, but we don't have a low opinion of BAI listeners because we know that they're probably more intelligent than anyone here.
We have the most interesting people in the world listening to this radio station, and that's why it's important for all of us to stick together and support each other.
If something like this happens to somebody that you know, you get the word out.
You make sure other people know about it.
You spread the word in whatever way you can.
You show support in whatever way you can.
Now, we have a situation where this radio station needs funds in order to survive.
We don't have commercials.
If we had commercials, we couldn't even have a program like this, let alone a program like the one we had a year ago where we were talking about the events that took place with this bulletin board system.
But we would not be able to do this because we'd have to worry about whether or not all of the sponsors would be happy with the way that we're phrasing this.
We talk about the phone company a lot.
We talk about caller ID and how it's an invasion of people's privacy, how it's a ripoff, how the phone company is constantly stealing money from you in various ways.
Do you think we could honestly say things like that if this was a commercial radio station?
If you don't believe us, go to another station.
Go to a commercial station and see if they do say things like this.
They don't, and there's a reason for it.
That reason is you.
You're the sponsor of this radio station, so please give us a call, 212-279-3400.
212-279-3400.
We need to get a couple more calls on this particular break, then we can speak more with Robert Thomas about his bulletin board system and what happened to it a year ago and how to prevent things like that from happening again.
If you run a bulletin board system, if you run a printing press, if you publish anything, if you're just into freedom of speech, this concerns you, and a lot of what goes on in this radio station concerns you, too.
212-279-3400.
For a $75 pledge, you'll get a full year of 2600 Magazine, and you'll also get a 2600 Hacker t-shirt, white lettering on black background.
212-279-3400.
Usually, we take phone calls during this period, and the phone lines are all lit with all the people calling in with various questions, bits of information.
What we're asking for today is slightly different.
We're asking for you to call in.
If you've called in before, please call in now and show whatever support you can.
212-279-3400.
We're up to $475, but we need to pretty much double that by 11 o'clock if we're going to meet our goal for this particular program.
And it's important that we meet our goal because, you know, if we don't meet our goal, that means that you have to start asking yourself the question, do people care?
I think technology is something that we all have to care about.
It's going to wind up controlling us, perhaps, if we don't control it.
I don't know how many people actually watch that program on ABC, but it could go that way.
It could happen where technology is an evil force.
Right now, it can be evil, but it's not necessarily evil.
You know, it can be manipulated into something good.
I mean, we have computer bulletin boards that are bastions of free speech.
So if you believe computers are evil, obviously that's a contradiction right there.
Computers can be used for good.
Telephones can certainly be used for good.
Any form of technology can, in some way, be used for good.
But we have to have control.
We have to have the knowledge and the understanding.
And this is hands-on technology.
We're asking you to please get your hands on this and call us, 212-279-3400,
and pledge whatever you can afford to keep this radio station and keep this program going.
Robert Thomas, System Operator for Amateur Action Bulletin Board in California.
How have your users reacted to all this?
Did you lose a lot of users? Did they all come back?
Some did. Some came back, yeah.
And what has their reaction been to all that's happened?
Are they happy about the way things turned out?
Are they more into freedom of speech?
Well, it was hard, you know. It was hard to...
...a freedom fighter and educate the people on what your rights are after it happened.
My kids, you know, same as my boys, you know.
You just tell them that, you know, people cannot do that, you know, to somebody without rights.
And they came back, yes.
A lot of them did. Some did not.
But for the most part, you know, we answered the voice line and explained it to them.
And we had lots of support for what happened.
And, uh...
Yeah. It was a touching deal.
Yeah. Now, have you become aware of other system operators that have the same concerns
that might look towards you as an example?
Is there any kind of a network being formed out of all this?
Not really. You know, I'm basically...
As far as I know, I'm the only one that has ever had their system confiscated for any reason
and actually got their original equipment back from the authorities.
And I guess in a nutshell, I'm sorry type of deal, like mine.
But, you know, nobody really...
No, hey, you know, nobody's ever, you know, reached their hand out and said,
Hey, you know, you made it.
Well, that's too bad. I mean, there should be more of a spirit here
because, you know, we're all kind of in this together in some form.
Whether or not you agree with the kinds of things that might be on this particular bulletin board,
the fact is it's an exercise of freedom of speech
and it's something that should not be shut down simply because somebody doesn't like it.
There's all kinds of bulletin boards out there that deal with objectionable material
and I think the definition of objectionable material has certainly expanded over the last decade or so.
Whether it's anarchy, whether it's adult material, whether it's hacking,
it's something that, if you look at it in a particular way,
you can think that it's really suspicious and something that has to be controlled.
Or if you look at it in a different way, it's really something that's very fundamental to everybody.
It's just simply speaking, simply sharing ideas and thoughts.
Why is it that that always is something that authorities want to control so much?
It's scary. What we're seeing is an evil portent of the future if this is allowed to go on unchecked.
And I think what has happened here is at least we've challenged it and it's made a difference.
I mean, do you think these same people that came into your house will go into another house
without thinking like they did in your case?
No.
So your fight had an effect and the support that people showed?
I think so, yes. Do you know why?
Why is that?
Because before, let's see, it was a few days before the anniversary of the raid,
I called the San Jose police and I asked for the same officer that was on the warrant for the raid here.
And I made a joke with him.
And I said, can I sleep on Martin Luther King's birthday?
Or are you going to come back here and raid my house again?
And he laughed.
And he goes, no. Robert, you can sleep. We have no reason to come back in there.
Honest, I did. I called him. I called the police officer.
The guy that got the warrant to come in here, I called him back.
I said, can I sleep this Martin Luther King's birthday? Can I sleep?
And he said, you can sleep. We're not coming back in there.
Well, you can sleep, but how many others out there can say the same thing?
Well, I don't know. But I'll tell you, I can help a lot of people if they want to be helped.
Okay, now why don't you give out that information so people can call you or write to you or however you want to work it.
They can call me by voice if they want to.
Okay, go ahead. How did they get in touch with you?
408-263-1079.
Okay.
That's my home phone.
Okay.
My wife, my family. That's my home phone.
They can call me for advice.
Okay, this is for anybody having questions on running a computer bulletin board in the face of challenges.
If they want some stuff sent to them, some tools, some files sent to them as far as First Amendment stuff, I'll send them to them.
Okay.
Well, Robert, we want to thank you very much for being on the program today and wish you all the luck that you could possibly have in the future.
And I don't think you'll have to worry about this kind of thing happening to you in the future, but as I said, other people might not be so lucky and we've got to watch out for them.
That's right.
Okay.
Thanks very much for being a part of things tonight.
Okay, thank you.
Okay, good luck.
That was Robert Thomas, System Operator for Amateur Action Bulletin Board in California.
And a happy ending for a change.
You know, it does happen where there's a happy ending, but it doesn't happen often enough.
There are a lot of cases that you don't hear about.
And folks, that's where we need your help because we have to find out about these things.
We have to keep strong.
We have to keep on the air.
I mean, a lot of people send us information when something happens.
Imagine if those people weren't there.
And then imagine if we weren't here to tell more people about the information that those first people send us.
It's all a big chain.
You know, and it's not something that we're just saying so that we can make a profit here, so we can improve our ratings or anything like that.
You know, begging for money on the air is a painful thing.
But the pain becomes less when people show their support.
And right now, I really can't say I'm happy with the support that we're getting here.
I can't say that at all.
There's a room full of people in there that have quizzical looks on their faces, and they don't really know why they're there.
People have come in.
They've sacrificed their evenings to answer phones, and the phones aren't ringing.
212-279-3400, show your support for WBAI.
Show your support for Off The Hook.
Keep this radio station strong because when we're strong, you're strong.
It's as simple as that.
When you have a forum for people to voice things like what we just heard, then you can actually work towards changing the system, towards making it a bit fairer, a bit more equitable.
212-279-3400.
Remember, for a pledge of $75, you'll get a full year of 2600 Magazine and an exclusive Hacker t-shirt,
which is perfectly suitable as a gift or whatever if you're too scared to wear it in the streets yourself.
Some people really are scared to wear these shirts.
But they're not objectionable.
They're not obscene.
They're just schematics and newspaper articles.
I know that scares a lot of people, but let's think seriously about this.
212-279-3400.
Join the caller on the line and help make us strong.
Imagine if five people call up now and they each pledge $50.
That's $250, and we've practically made our goal.
You can be one of those five.
212-279-3400.
Off the Hook has been on this radio station now for a number of years.
We've broken all kinds of stories as far as new things that various companies and phone companies, computer agencies.
We've broken those stories.
We've brought them to an audience that would not have been served by any other means.
Even the New York Times wouldn't bring you the things that we bring you here,
namely things like how to work your telephone to the maximum advantage.
What do hackers really do?
What are phone freaks?
What's a computer bulletin board?
How can I get access to the Internet?
These are all things that people are interested in because they're constantly asking these questions.
Now, if you rely on the commercial networks and the commercial radio stations
and just wait for them to finally get around to it,
they're probably about 1975 as far as answering questions about technology.
That's as far as they've advanced.
We talk to real media people, people in the networks, major networks, major markets,
and they always say the same thing.
They always say, you know, I don't know anything about computers.
I don't even know why I'm doing this story.
They just assigned it to me, so you're going to have to help me through this.
Now, this has happened so many times.
You have to wonder why don't they ever have anybody that knows anything about computers
or about technology and can explain it to people in ways that they might be able to understand.
Instead, they have people that know nothing, and they wind up communicating misinformation,
and this misinformation turns into fact.
Welcome to the world of mass media.
That's how it works.
That's why there's an alternative, because there's a need for an alternative.
This station isn't here because we have to be here.
This station is here because we need it.
You need it. We need it.
Everybody, whether they know it or not, needs a radio station like WBAI.
Fortunately, New York City is able to have a station like this.
We weren't always this lucky, and who knows?
We may not be this lucky in the future.
The costs keep going up.
The FCC keeps coming down on various entities for certain things.
Who knows what they're going to be doing in the years ahead?
The fights that we broadcast information about on these airwaves, on this program,
tie into a lot of other things that go on.
Having a bulletin board seized, in one way,
is very similar to fighting for freedom of speech over the FM airwaves,
being allowed to play a particular kind of music,
a particular song with objectionable lyrics.
It's all tied together.
Freedom of speech is something that covers a lot of ground.
So by supporting one form of freedom of speech,
and telling other people about it,
you're supporting a lot more than what it appears.
By calling this radio station now, 212-279-3400,
and showing support, you're making us that much stronger,
you're bringing us that much closer to the goal,
and then we don't have to do this for the rest of the weeks that we're on the air.
It's as simple as that.
Okay, we usually take phone calls.
I'll tell you what, we're going to take a couple of phone calls,
but a special number this time, 212-279-3407,
just to give you an example of the kinds of things that we do,
and also to give you an example of how quickly I can make the phone ring,
if it's not to ask, see, it's ringing already.
If only the other lines would ring that fast.
You know, that says something.
I could be nasty, and I could say I was just doing that to prove a point,
but I'm not, I'm not going to do that.
We're going to actually take some phone calls here.
And we're going to ask people, though, to give us a call on the other line as well.
212-279-3400, and show support for the radio station.
212-279-3407 is the on-air line.
Let's see who's out there.
Good evening.
How are you doing?
How are you doing?
Listen, you know, they have this number that, an 800 number was created
to get involved in a party line that otherwise would have cost, you know, money.
Could you comment on that thing, you know, how that was created
and what the ramifications are for people who use it,
and is only the person who set it up responsible?
And then I met this guy Tristan.
You know that guy's name, Tristan?
Like Dristan with a T?
The case of Tristan with, yes, the T.
You know his case?
No.
He said he knew you.
He's in deep, deep water, deep hot water.
Well, a lot of people are in deep water these days, but I'm not exactly sure.
We probably shouldn't talk about it on the air, though,
even if we do know who we're talking about.
His case might have some, you know, about he got caught for, I guess, fraud.
But to what extent are you, like you're very concerned with Big Brother.
Are you also concerned with, I'm going to be sure you don't advocate
any kind of ripping off of, you know, defrauding other people out of service?
No, I don't advocate that kind of thing.
But if you have people, if you have a lot of people taking advantage
of a big hole in the system, I think the answer is to figure out
why that hole is there.
For instance, I'll give you two examples.
There's a lot of credit card fraud.
Now, the reason there's credit card fraud is because it's so easy
to have credit card fraud.
You just call up somebody and say, yeah, I want to order this,
and you give them a fake number and a fake expiration date and all that,
and, you know, most times it works.
There's something seriously wrong with that,
and that's why you have a lot of credit card fraud.
It makes more sense to close that hole rather than simply get
a hundred more Secret Service agents to chase after people.
You know, it makes sense to have some element of privacy
where people can't use your credit card number without some form
of verification.
Another example is a lot of people are going around these days
using red boxes, calling places for free all over the world,
and that's, you know, using quarter tones at a pay phone,
you know, thinking that particular tones are actually quarters.
Now, you could say, yeah, these people are ripping off
the phone company.
But when you look at it, the phone company charges $2.30
for a one-minute call.
What's a quarter tone?
A quarter tone is basically five quick tones.
Are you asking for the frequency?
No, this is all new to me.
What are you talking about?
Okay, when you put a quarter in a pay phone,
you might hear five quick little tones.
Right, right.
Yeah, in many cases, all you have to do is play those five
quick little tones into the mouthpiece when it asks you for money,
and it will think that you gave it money.
I see what you mean.
So you have two things.
You have a case where the technology is so simple that it's easy to fool,
but you also have a case where it's such a ripoff that, of course,
people are going to fight back and try and save money because $2.30
for a one-minute call, you know, at nighttime, it's absurd.
And that's AT&T.
That's normal.
If you do it from your house, it costs something like 15 cents.
So how can you be surprised when something like this happens?
Okay, I'll make room for other people.
Okay, thanks for calling.
Yes, we only have one line going in, so 212-279-3407 is our on-air line.
The pledge line, though, is 212-279-3400.
Okay, the number has gone up to $580, but that's still far short of $1,000,
and we need to make $1,000 by 11 o'clock, which is only about five minutes away.
212-279-3400.
Let's get a flurry of calls in there on those lines.
We have six open lines, it looks like.
212-279-3400.
If you've gotten anything out of this program, whether it be this week, in weeks past,
if you anticipate getting anything out of it in the future,
if you have questions that you want answered and you think this is the only place you can ask them,
give us some support so we can stay here and answer them.
212-279-3400.
Pledge as much as you want or as little as you want.
If you pledge $75, you have the option of getting the 2600 Hacker Quarterly delivered to wherever you want it delivered to
for a full year, as well as a 2600 Hacker T-shirt.
212-279-3400.
Join the callers on the line.
Good evening.
That's real clever.
You know, some people use their phones for different things than other people do,
but that's part of the whole mystic aura of the entire technology in the first place.
Good evening.
Hi, I'm paid up as a subscriber and urge everyone else to do so.
I want to get your opinion on this whole issue that's been in the paper the last week or two,
where the airlines want you to turn off your portable CD players and Walkmans and so forth,
because they claim that there's interference with the flight instrumentation.
That, to me, sounds ridiculous.
I recently took a flight across the middle of the country,
and I found I turned on the AM FM radio on the Walkman,
and I found that while the AM you couldn't pick up anything,
the FM, since those signals go straight up flying at 32,000 feet,
you could pick up the local FM stations of the cities that you're flying over,
and, of course, they would fade out until the next group faded in.
That's true.
That's a fun thing to engage in when you're flying on an airplane,
is to listen to all the radio stations, FM stations.
My feeling was that they probably didn't want you to use these radios
because the band that they communicate with the tower is just above the FM band,
although I believe it's an AM signal,
but I had a feeling that maybe if you were listening to your radio on board,
you'd be able to hear their communications, which they don't want you to hear.
But I don't see why they would then want you not to play a CD player,
which is not even a receiver or a transceiver.
It's just something that plays the CDs.
Well, I mean, it strikes me that they don't really know what they want.
They just want to have a blanket ban on various things, just keep it all away,
and somehow that's going to solve the problem.
It's not. Obviously it's not.
I mean, certainly you don't want to be transmitting on the same frequency
as air traffic controllers,
and that's something that you certainly wouldn't want to have happen.
But listening, there's nothing that can possibly happen from listening.
Right. You're breaking up, by the way.
Our phone system needs to be repaired,
so calls calling in will have trouble hearing you,
so that's why people should pledge their money and make good on it.
Yeah, that's another reason.
Thank you very much for pledging, and thanks for your support.
That's something that we don't just do this for effect.
The phone system is terrible. I know that.
That's embarrassing.
But how are you going to fix something like that?
You've got to have money to fix things like this.
Those commercial stations on Madison Avenue and all over the place,
they have carpeting, they have phones that work,
they have turntables and CD players and boards
and all kinds of nice things like that.
But what they don't have, they don't have human beings.
They don't have people to run them.
We have lots of human beings here,
so if it comes down to a choice between the two,
I'm willing to suffer for a little while with the telephone system
if we can have some good programs on the air.
You can ensure that 212-279-3400.
Do I see four calls on the line? That's incredible.
Four calls, that means we only have three more calls
and we have a full switchboard.
212-279-3400, that means you out there that have not called yet
are one-third of the solution.
I bet that's the best odds you've gotten in quite a long time.
We have a special guest who has come in here to answer telephones.
Would you care to identify yourself, special guest?
Yes. You might have heard me on the air calling in.
That's right. Some people might recognize this voice.
Notice how much clearer it sounds now because he is here live in the studio.
That's right. I'm known as Rebel.
I go to monthly 2,600 meetings.
That last call about the airplane, I noticed that when I was flying,
they didn't want me to use a video camera.
I don't know why that is, but that's besides that point.
I also want to mention something that I have discovered,
and I had mentioned this a couple of weeks ago,
and I just want to update it.
It's about the $0.25 for 30 seconds pay phones
that are in Penn Station and Grand Central.
It's a special pay phone that I've mentioned
that when you put a quarter in it,
you can call anywhere except 212 in the state, except 212 and 718.
So you can call any place in the state for $0.25 for 30 seconds.
Right.
Why don't they let you call locally for 30 seconds?
That I don't know.
That's probably why it's only in train stations like Penn Station and Grand Central.
But I have discovered that you can make a free phone call on that
by dialing 10288 and then 1, the area code and number.
No, the area code meaning anything outside of 212.
Now, the 10288 is the AT&T carrier access code,
which is how you would select them as a long-distance carrier.
Could you use MCI?
No, I tried that.
You can't dial 800 numbers.
You can't dial anything.
You can't even dial any other access code.
I tried star 6-9-ing the phone.
It doesn't work.
The other thing I'd like to try is trying to see
what if you call somebody on those phones that has call ID.
That's another thing I really want.
Those are the kinds of experiments that are good to engage in
because you learn things.
You learn all kinds of weird limitations that caller ID has
and all kinds of things that other technologies don't have.
And that's part of what we do here.
So give us a call, 212-279-3400.
Show your support.
We're out of time.
And if you show your support for me, if you like my voice.
Yeah, he might even answer the phone.
He's one of the volunteers, one of the many volunteers.
All right, so give us a call now, 212-279-3400.
Remember, $75 pledge.
You'll get that 2600 t-shirt and a year subscription to the magazine.
I want to thank everybody who did call in already,
and hopefully a couple more people will pick up the phone
and give us a shout-out.
212-279-3400.
Help us make our goal.
Stay tuned for a rebroadcast of the evening news.
Robert Knight after that.
Good night.
Good evening.
In the news tonight.
Openly gay representative Barney Frank explains why he is calling for compromise on ending the ban on gays in the military.
Reflections on the life of Malcolm X.
And in New York, a national sports figure speaks out against U.S. policy in Haiti.
With these and other stories, I'm Laura Seidel in New York with Verna Avery-Brown in Washington.
And this is the news for Wednesday, May 19, 1993.
First, to Verna Avery-Brown with these news headlines.
Today I am pleased to announce the United States' recognition of the government of Angola.
With those words, President Clinton reversed U.S. policy for over 15 years.
Clinton contrasted the positions of UNITA, which once enjoyed U.S. backing with the winners of the 1992 elections.
The Angolan government, by contrast, has agreed to sign that peace agreement,
has sworn in a democratically elected National Assembly, and has offered participation by UNITA at all levels of government.
Today we recognize those achievements by recognizing the government.
Nobel Prize winner Bishop Desmond Tutu told reporters at the White House photo session that he was thrilled with Clinton's announcement.
The Freedom of Choice Act is still being considered before the House Judiciary Committee.
An amendment letting states require parental consent before allowing minors to have abortions was narrowly defeated.
By a vote of 19 to 16, the Freedom of Choice Act would guarantee abortion rights under federal law.
The entire White House travel office has been told to clean out their desks by the end of today.
Press Secretary Dede Meyers says the seven were fired because of a number of shoddy management practices,
uncovered by independent auditor Pete Marwick.
There's no invoice procedures. As I understand it, the bills went out on White House letterhead.
There was no invoice system, very lax accounting principles,
almost no documentation of money that was coming in and going out,
and the records that were there were found to be inadequate.
Meyers says the travel office staff worked only four days a week.
As Meyers put it, there are seven of them doing about four people's jobs.
All seven, Meyers says, have been working at the White House for at least ten years.
President Clinton's cousin, Catherine Cornelius, has been appointed to run the travel office.
After meeting with congressional Democrats, President Clinton was upbeat about his economic package.
The American people also recognize that over this five-year period,
we have to make up for some of the investment deficits we've had in the past,
with all the defense cutbacks, the people being thrown out of work.
This will produce an economic recovery, it will produce new jobs, and I believe we can pass it.
Clinton's nominee for the number three position in the Justice Department
has resigned from an almost all-white country club in Arkansas.
Webster Hubble told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he didn't want perceptions
of some lack of sensitivity to interfere with his work at the Justice Department.
Defense Secretary Les Aspin announced a panel of eight retired generals and admirals
will examine changes in forces and missions for the U.S. military.
Aspin says the changes will include more than the end of the Cold War.
We're going to have to maintain readiness while we're making big social and cultural changes in the forces.
These changes reflect what is going on in American society today.
Issues such as sexual harassment, opening of additional jobs to women so that they can compete for them
to give us the best person for the job, and gays in the military.
The panel will submit a report by years in.
Public Citizen is reporting over 260 hospitals around the U.S. practice what's called patient dumping.
That's where hospitals transfer emergency cases either because patients don't have the money to pay for care
or have a condition the hospital doesn't want to treat.
Dr. Sidney Wolf of Public Citizen warns the problem of patient dumping will not go away
as long as 37 million people remain uninsured.
The U.S. trade deficit has jumped 29% in March to reach $10.2 billion.
That's the worst showing in nearly four years.
The Commerce Department blames the red ink on Americans' appetite for foreign oil and cars.
Those are the stories topping the news.
One of the few openly gay lawmakers in the U.S. Congress, Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank,
has called for a compromise over the thorny issue of gays in the military battle.
But others in the gay and lesbian community say he threw in the towel too soon.
Frank's compromise would amount to a policy of don't ask, don't tell, don't listen, and don't investigate.
But David Smith, a spokesperson for the Campaign for Military Service, says it won't work.
Let's look at exactly what Congressman Frank has done.
And what he has done is articulate what he believes would be a proposal that Congress would support.
And our one area of disagreement with the congressman is identifying the issues
that Congress would support and the issues that Congress would not support.
Our one area of disagreement with the congressman is identifying oneself as gay or lesbian on duty, on base.
And that would be prohibited under a policy that he's proposing.
And we do not believe that that is a workable situation.
I mean, we do not believe that it is right to ask someone to keep their sexual orientation private.
The whole discussion comes down to that one fundamental area and how best to implement that.
Does identifying yourself as gay or lesbian constitute reading The Advocate over coffee?
Does it constitute having a photo of you and your lover on your desk?
The same would have to look at heterosexual couples to draw a comparison.
I mean, it would be not realistic to assume that a heterosexual person would keep their sexual orientation private.
What did you do last night? Oh, I went to a party with my wife.
Does that constitute revealing one's sexual orientation?
So you see the unworkable aspects of this one specific aspect of what Congressman Frank is proposing.
But it's also important to look at what he's acknowledged, how far the debate has moved.
I mean, there is almost universal understanding that gay and lesbian people are in the armed services
and serve with distinction and honor.
And that there's almost universal understanding that that is going to continue.
So we're now not if the ban is going to be lifted, but exactly how lifting the ban is going to be implemented.
David Smith with the Campaign for Military Service, a coalition of gay rights groups fighting the ban.
But others criticize Frank's policy as maintaining the status quo, something Frank himself takes issue with.
It differs in a very critical way.
It says that in addition to the military ending its policy of asking people and, in fact, formally investigating people,
it would explicitly recognize the right of gay men and lesbians when they are off duty, not on the military base in which they serve.
It recognizes their right to act in ways that express their sexual orientation.
It recognizes their right to live together with a lover of the same sex, to go to bars, to participate in gay and lesbian activities.
Right now, and in fact, if you look at the history of how gay men and lesbians have been victimized by this,
virtually none of them have decided that they really had to tell their captain or their major about their sexual orientation.
Somebody snooped on them. Somebody invaded their privacy.
And what this would say was, you no longer have to worry about that happening.
You are entitled, after work, to live your life as a gay man or as a lesbian without any fear that this can be used against you.
Obviously, I wish we could go further.
But I have to report to people that it is very clear now, and I've been reinforced by this conversation I've had recently,
Congress has to choose between a total repeal of the ban or imposing it statutorily.
Unfortunately, it will choose, by a large margin, to reimpose it.
But now, the Pentagon hasn't even made its recommendation yet to the President.
It won't do that until July.
Why not at least wait and see what the Pentagon would recommend?
Because it's too late then. The barn door is then closed.
I want to influence that Pentagon recommendation.
You must understand, given the way Congress is, it is the recommendation that will come from the military that will almost certainly win here.
What we have to do is to influence the Pentagon proposal.
Now, Congressman, some of your critics on this say that the political reality is that you're a Democrat first, and then a gay Democrat.
And they're suspicious of the timing.
They charge that you're concerned with avoiding a political embarrassment for President Clinton.
No, it's nonsense.
I am willing, frankly, if this becomes this kind of a situation, to compare what I've done on behalf of gay and lesbian rights to any of my critics.
I have been working, I think, more effectively in the House of Representatives on blocking anti-gay initiatives.
I'm trying to protect the D.C. sodomy repeal.
In fact, I asked President Clinton in August of 1991, I was one of the first people to say to President Clinton, as then-candidate Clinton,
I hope you will support the repeal of this ban.
I think, frankly, what you've got is some people who are trying to explain away why the results of our lobbying weren't better.
Now, there are some people who say, well, let's lose.
Better we should let them impose a complete and total ban as a statute.