279-3400. Incidentally, it also has a special dictionary that will correct you if you're
using sexist or racist comments in your literature. 279-3400. What it doesn't do is it doesn't
get you on the air. And the only way you can get on the air is by making a donation to
WBAI so that next week you can call in when we're live on the air and you too will be
on the air. You know, actually, we want to thank everyone who has supported us in the
past three weeks. For those who might be interested in knowing, I would say combined
with tonight, we'll probably raise somewhere around $7,500. And we do thank everyone who
supported us. Next week we're going to have Hal Glasner join us. Hal Glasner is going
to talk to us about mass storage, particularly optical storage. He's the editor of Optical
Storage newsletter. And optical storage is something that's... There are seven phones
busy now. That's wonderful. We haven't had that so far. They'll keep coming in. We've
got actually nine volunteers taking all these calls. Keep trying. The premiums are either
going to go in the next few minutes or they're not gone. If you're on the phone, we will
take the call. If you're not on the phone, then you'll have to wait till next year, I'm
afraid. 279-3400. We're off the air. We're about to be followed by On The Hook. I thank
you very much for your generosity. Off the hook, not on the hook. I thank you for your
generosity. I thank you for your help. I thank you for thinking about and doing something
about all the people out there who need your help even more than we do.
Hi, I'm Greg Thomas, co-producer of WBAI's Thursday afternoon edition of Talkback. This
Thursday after Talkback with Playfell Benjamin and the Evening News, Playfell Benjamin will
present a five-hour special entitled The Afrocentricity Controversy. We're working
on the best lineup possible. A sample of the invited participants include Henry Louis Gates,
Alefe Asante, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Maulana Karanga, Cornel West, John Hendrick Clark,
Bell Hooks, Stanley Crouch, Linda James Myers, and Dinesh D'Souza. Don't miss what promises
to be an historic radio event. So tune in Thursday, May 27th from 7 p.m. to 12 midnight
for The Afrocentricity Controversy right here at 99.5 FM WBAI.
As we walked out into the courtyard, a man fell dead. Two others, they must have been
over 60, were crawling towards the latrine. I saw it, but will not describe it. In another
part of the camp, they showed me the children, hundreds of them. Some were only six. One
rolled up his sleeve, showed me his number. It was tattooed on his arm. D-6,030 it was.
The others showed me their numbers. They will carry them until they die. An elderly man
standing beside me said, the children, enemies of the state.
Friday, May 28th, 8 p.m. to midnight. Join us for a WBAI weaponry special on the controversy
surrounding the PBS film Liberators fighting on two fronts in World War II. Among the topics
to be explored will be neo-Nazism, Holocaust denial, and Nazi policy towards Africa and
Africans. Friday, May 28th, 8 p.m. to midnight only on WBAI Pacifica Radio in New York.
That's what this is, and the program coming up right now is Off the Hook.
Off the Hook.
And a good evening to one and all. This is Emanuel Goldstein. The program is Off the Hook.
We're with you for an hour on this, our last marathon night of this particular marathon
here at WBAI. We hope that we get lots of support from our listeners in this one last chance.
We have a couple of interesting and at least one shocking development to report to you tonight.
I hate that word, shocking. It's so daily news-ish, but that's just the way it works
here in the media business. We have different things to reveal. One of them is something
new that just happened, a new service that is just being offered. Now, a lot of us are
in the habit of making collect calls occasionally, and what we're going to do right now is show
you how collect calls can be made. Usually, you pick up your phone and you dial some digits.
Now, we're going to call ourselves Collect and see what happens. We're going to put 0
the telephone number, which is 212-279-3400, and see what happens.
It's ringing, but it's not ringing here.
I'm sorry. We are unable to complete your call. If you are making a call in the 212 area,
please try again without using the 212 or ask your operator for assistance.
We are unable to complete your call.
From this voice, it sounded like a Laurie Anderson type of creation, saying that I had dialed wrong.
The only thing we could do is apply inverse logic and put the area code.
Okay. Do you think we should do that? Put the area code first. So, dial 0 plus 212-279-3400.
This is to make our collect call. Okay. 0-212-279-3400.
All right. It's possible that logic might work. Let's see if it really does.
There you go.
Yes.
Okay. We're going to press 1-1.
1-1. Here we go.
Your call could not be completed. Please hang up and try your call later.
Actually, you know, that's a very stupid thing to tell us,
because the reason the call couldn't go through is because we don't accept collect calls.
We have a block on collect calls, and it should say that.
If I keep trying later, I'm going to think that maybe I can get through,
and it's going to be a big waste of time for me and the phone company and everybody else.
So, we're not going to try later, but it used to say at the customer's request,
collect calls are not accepted on this line. I don't know why they changed that.
Let's find out if collect calls cost a whole lot extra.
We're going to dial the operator here.
Hold on one moment. I think I dialed the wrong thing. Okay.
I hung up by accident. All right. Let's try this again.
Okay. We're going to be demonstrating a brand new service.
That's why we're doing this. This is the old service.
It used to be, back in the old days, that you would actually get an operator,
and the operator would converse with you in the language of your choice, and you would get...
Here we go. Let's get our dial tone back.
We have a dial tone. Let us now get an operator.
This is all coming to you live on the radio.
New York Telephone.
Ms. Evans, may I help you?
Yes. I was wondering if you could tell me what a collect call would cost.
This is from the...
Depending upon where you're calling from. What area code number are you calling from?
I'm calling to this same exchange, the 279 exchange in the 212 area code.
Okay.
876.
One moment, please.
Certainly.
Okay. Let's see. Now I'm calling up with...
Okay. It's after 9 o'clock. Okay. So, it's after 9.
A collect call would cost you a station approximately about $1.59 plus tax.
That's for how long?
How long is that for, $1.59?
That's... Excuse me. I'm losing my voice.
I'm sorry. There's no overtime, sir, because it's a local call.
Okay. So, $1.59. I can stay on for 12 hours if I wanted to.
12 hours, 24 hours.
Okay. And... All right. So, that's for the local area, right?
Right.
And is $1.59 for anywhere in the area that would have a toll applied to it afterwards?
For instance, if I called, say, to 516 area code.
Well, 516, now that would be different.
Yeah. Could you tell me, say, 516...
I need the whole number, because I have the key in the computer, so it can give me a rate.
Okay. 751-2600.
751-2600. Okay. Hold on one moment.
Thank you.
Okay. Okay.
Okay. Collect from 9 p.m. until 11 p.m.
Okay. Now, that would be... The initial period would be roughly $1.69 for the first minute
and approximately 6 cents each additional minute.
Okay. Great.
Thank you very much for your help.
You're welcome, sir.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Okay. That was very helpful.
We learned how much a collect call costs.
I bet a lot of you didn't know that, how much collect calls cost.
I didn't really know that.
I don't think I can remember the last time I made a collect call.
This is educational for a couple of different reasons.
A, we realize that it's incredibly expensive to make a collect call locally.
God knows how much it would cost to make a collect call to the other side of the country.
But now we have a basis for comparison, and we're going to use this new service,
which you may have seen advertised on television in the last week or in newspapers.
It's called 1-800-COLLECT, and we're going to call that up and see what they charge and how it works.
Now, I've never called this before.
I have no idea what's going to happen, so let's experience this together.
1-800-COLLECT.
Let's see if it's worthwhile or just another shady ripoff scheme.
1-800-COLLECT. May I have the area code and number you're calling, please?
Yes. I was wondering if you could tell me how much this will cost the person.
Sure. For right information, sir, I could transfer you to customer service if you'd like to hold the line.
Okay.
One moment, please.
Thank you.
Oh, that sounds interesting.
MCI Customer Services. Todd, may I help you?
Yes. I was wondering how much a COLLECT call costs on this service.
Okay. It depends on where you're calling to and at what time of day.
Okay. Does it matter where I'm calling from?
No. Huh?
Oh, it doesn't matter where I'm calling from. It only matters where I'm calling to?
Right. It depends on the mileage and the time of day you call.
Okay. Well, I'm calling to Manhattan, 212-279-3400.
You're calling from the phone you're on now?
Yes.
I'll check for a moment.
Thank you.
Placing the COLLECT this time?
Yes.
Okay.
Is this a local call?
It's kind of local, yeah.
Okay. For a moment.
If you place it now, it's $1.61 the first minute and 11 cents each additional minute.
11 cents each additional minute. Okay.
All right. Is it possible to get switched back to the other operator?
I can place a call if you'd like.
Okay. I'd like to try a COLLECT call.
Can you give me the number again?
Yes. It's 212-279-3400.
For a moment.
Thank you.
For a moment.
Thank you.
I'm having some trouble. Let me get you an operator that can place the call.
Okay. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Having a little bit of trouble there.
Please hold for operator assistance.
That's twice we've been through that little recording.
Okay.
MCI Customer Service. This is Hiram. How can I help you?
Yes. Hi. I'm trying to make a COLLECT call, please.
This is on the 1-800-COLLECT?
Yes. That's what I dialed.
And you're trying to place a COLLECT call?
Yes. That's correct.
Okay. What number were you calling?
I'm calling to 212-279-3400.
212-279-3400?
That's right.
Okay. It seems that number does not accept COLLECT calls, sir.
Oh, really? It's blocked?
Yes. That's what I'm showing that it is blocked for COLLECT calls.
I see. Okay. So I guess there's no way I can make this call then.
All right. I'll send the letter.
We can try and build another way, but we can't call COLLECT to that number.
All right. Well, I'll consider my options then. Thanks for your help.
All right. Thank you. This is 1-800-COLLECT for MCI.
All right.
Well, that's how it works.
I'm surprised. No automation.
Human beings.
Does that surprise you, Fiber?
Yes. That's pretty surprising.
In this day and age, no human beings.
I mean, no computer. It's just human beings.
They were able to tell.
They do subscribe to the same database.
That tells that the number is blocked.
Boy, they sure breathe heavy over there, don't they?
There must be some stressful jobs.
I guess it would be good for...
What would it be good for?
Why would you want to use that system above dialing zero plus?
To avoid the rip-offs on COCOTS.
Dialing zero plus COLLECT, you pay an arm and a leg.
If you called 1-800-COLLECT, you can be assured of a fixed COLLECT call rate.
But if you dial zero plus from a regular pay phone, then...
Then you're probably not saving anything.
Okay. That's something to think about.
Okay. So that's a new service just introduced this week, 1-800-COLLECT.
If you make COLLECT calls, something to be aware of.
And something else to be aware of is that we have a fundraiser going on here at WBAI.
This is off the hook.
And we're offering a special deal for those people that are into this kind of thing...
...where you want to learn about the newest 800 numbers...
...and the newest Hacker News and Big Brother Orwellian kind of thing.
Give us a call at 212-279-3400 and pledge.
For a $75 pledge, that is, you'll be able to get a full year of 2600 Magazine...
...and a 2600 Hacker T-shirt.
Two things that we will send out to anybody that pledges $75 at 212-279-3400.
And it will also allow us to continue to bring you little tidbits like that.
That's just one. One in a series of many things that we have.
And we have something on a much more serious nature coming up in just a couple of minutes.
But let's get some phone calls coming in. 212-279-3400.
And we'll be right back with our special guests here on Off The Hook.
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USA! U-U-U-USA!
USA! U-U-U-USA!
USA! U-U-U-USA!
USA! U-U-U-USA!
USA! U-U-U-USA!
Well, speaking of New York telephone and all kinds of telephone related hassles, I just
about reached a breaking point with them concerning I've been complaining about
this now for weeks haven't I about getting the aforementioned collect call
block placed on a line you know I've been asking for this for now a couple of
months and they still have not done it well this week this week I called the
Public Service Commission that's about the scariest thing you can do in the
eyes of the phone company once you do that you get calls you know in the
morning it calls in the evening it calls from the phone company saying you know
why'd you do that to us they still haven't figured out how to put a collect
block on the line I want to collect block on but at least now they're
running scared doesn't make me feel a whole lot better but you get the feeling
something's being done someplace some hallowed hall somewhere all right we
mean what we say we need phone calls at two one two two seven nine three four
hundred and once you hear the story that we're about to tell you you might
understand why it's important that you give us a call two one two two seven
nine three four hundred pledge what you can afford and for $75 pledges you will
get a 2600 t-shirt and a 2600 subscription and this story first came
to my attention only a few days ago you know when when you when you live in a
world where things like the Steve Jackson case and the the Craig Neidorf
case happened in the hacker world you kind of become immune to the idiocy
that is out there you know the the ignorance involving computer systems and
telephone systems so when something when something new happens you almost just
accept it and there's a big danger in that you can't allow that to happen you
can't allow yourself to just become complacent you have to become outraged
when when something new happens and this is certainly something new this comes
out of Houston Texas and we have the people involved in the case with us here
tonight let me first give you a brief rundown this concerns a student at the
University of Houston who had taken a computer course and had gotten an
account that was that was attached to the course well later he dropped the
course and his account was canceled so when he went to find out why his account
was canceled they said okay you can you can clear out your account we'll give
you two hours to do that at that point the person decided to print out what is
known as the password file however before we jump to any conclusions this
is not a password file it's called a password file but it doesn't it doesn't
have any passwords in it doesn't even have any encrypted passwords in it it
just has a list of the users on the system they use what is known as shadow
passwording which means the passwords are actually stored someplace else in
encrypted form but what this person decided to do is simply print out a list
of whoever else was on the system for whatever reasons and that information is
there it's publicly available well would you be shocked if I told you that
because of that action because of the fact that he went and printed out a
publicly accessible file he's been kicked out of school for a year that's
that's the facts as we know them we have on the line with us James Henderson
of the University of Houston James you there yes okay and this this really
happened to you did it now perhaps you could just describe in your own words
what happened on that day you you had a computer account on a Unix system and
you had dropped the course which had allowed you to get it and and what
happened from that point on basically I dropped the course two days after school
started so I had the account actually longer after I dropped the course they
have failed to to find out until later when I posted a a message on the news
net publicly readable they found out that I was posting from my class account so
they then went and found out I dropped the course and shut the account off I
called that day about three o'clock and asked them if I could at least you know
have a warning beforehand so I can clear out my stuff but they said well
we'll give you two hours right now to clear out your stuff so I logged in and
there were I cleared out my stuff that I needed and the university doesn't allow
general general student accounts for Unix it's only class-related so I was
thinking that if I had a list of the users and I could find out who is given
higher is given privileges without having a class like you know special
kids that are given special treatment for you know giving a general Unix
account so I printed out the file which is called password it's spelled PASSWD
and it's only a user list there's as you said there's no encrypted passwords no
password any anything that leads to passwords and I printed this out to and
then with the thought in mind that I was going to set up a petition to the
administrators at the computer science department and asked them to let people
you know have general Unix accounts but they had in mind that I was going to do
something malicious with this list like brute force hack or whatever but uh they
uh I found this out they shut down my another account and I called in and they
they said that they had confiscated the printout of the password so that it's
actually a user list not a password file password it's called password file for
historical reasons of the operating system that's basically what happened I
went before the dean of students and now suspended there's a lot that went on
between with the dean of students which is a big case and basically that the
ignorance of the administrators not knowing that it's there's no passwords in
there well not not it's ignorance and prejudice there's another story to this
and mainly ignorance on the dean of students part I say I'd like to read
before we get more into this a little bit from a memo that they they sent out
they being the University of Houston support services of people that that run
the computer system support services has found that mr. Henderson acquired a it
says a menudo account what's that what's a menudo account that is the node name
okay okay then they give you an account number from from a class that you had
dropped based on the policy that all accounts assigned to a class are to be
used for classwork we disabled the account on April 21st mr. Henderson
called me today April 22nd at approximately 3 30 p.m. to find out what
had happened to his account I informed him of our policy he asked if if he
could back up the files from his menudo account I agreed to give him two hours
to retrieve his files during this time mr. Henderson copied the password file
on menudo and printed a copy to the central site printer now you're claiming
you never even copied the files all right it's just I'm not sure if that's
important but I don't know why the man said that I copied it I think that's the
Tom Monroe who works for support services uh-huh yes I just I printed it
out that's all I did from the I didn't copy it into my directories I did the
file the password file is in a world readable directory anybody can access it
and therefore I printed it out why would I need to copy it when it's already
readable by me uh-huh okay I'll continue with this this memo one of the operators
at central site saw the output being printed and quickly informed support
services about the situation upon finding out about mr. Henderson's
activities Jerry rashki disabled his account and I picked up the evidence
from central site the evidence being the printout later that evening mr. Henderson
used his account on the Jetson cluster to harass a user named Daniel Taylor by
sending him a large amount of junk mail Daniel notified David Smith at
production services and instructing mr. Henderson of mr. Henderson's actions
Daniel then sent mail to mr. Henderson and support services instructing mr.
Henderson to immediately stop his abusive behavior this is just another
example of mr. Henderson's continued blatant disregard of other users rights
and of the computer usage policy now I've come to understand that this
situation involving harassment of another user was some sort of a
misunderstanding that you've been able to resolve that issue with that person
who's trying to make an example of me well this is just another example of how
they've become prejudiced against me there's just somebody there that doesn't
like me because about a year ago this all started about a year ago the the
first the very first thing that happened was they shut my one of my accounts off
because I was using our login I was online and talking to somebody and
without warning I was knocked out and I had called in and found out that it was
one of their guys mistakes and he apologized to me but the way I was so
fed up I was kind of bitching them out actually so they I got on their bad side
and that's how somebody there's somebody in there that doesn't like me and they've
been it's been admitted that they've just been trying to get rid of me for a
while now about a year it seems like they've they've used just about every
opportunity they can to to accomplish that yes and that's why the
misunderstanding of the harassment was Daniel Taylor is my friend one of my
best friends and I was trying to send him some executable through mail and when
I was using a batch program and it went it went haywire and I sent him a few
copies and the exe file was like an IBM program which is quite big so it filled
up his disk space and he wasn't sure if the mail server was messed up or what
was going on he's not too smart on the computer system but he he says he
contacted the production services guy named David Smith and then the guy
misunderstood and he thought that I was harassing somebody and you know he
immediately jumped to conclusions on me and that just shows that you know they're
out to get me yeah that's so I mean your friend has said that that he is not
saying that you harassed him but they're going on record as saying that that you
are yes okay that's that's incredible let me read the the conclusion that they
reached and then we'll we'll talk to a couple of other people about this this
comes from the Dean of Students after considering the presentation of your
case the referral the investigation and the University of Houston student
disciplinary policies and procedures the following conclusion has been reached
and this is a gem this is a great sentence here you did use the computer
account for purposes other than what it is to be used for I guess that's a
capital offense in Texas but using the computer account for purposes other than
what it is to be used for is what they're saying you did thus you were in
violation of the University of Houston's disciplinary code a 3.14 which
that's pretty close to pie isn't it it defines as unacceptable unauthorized use
or misuse of any computer computer system service program data network
cable television network or communications network our records
indicate this was your third violation of this code a third violation indicates
to me an unwillingness on your part to obey the rules governing conduct now we
can get into that that history in a little bit but basically what they have
hit you with is disciplinary suspension effective May 17th 1993 and ending May
17th 1994 you are prohibited from attending the University of Houston and
from being present on university property without permission from the
Dean of Students office for the duration of the suspension also disciplinary
probation effective March 31st since 1992 here I imagine that's a misprint
should be 1993 right actually no that was I was on probation and that is why
the suspension was the sanction was a suspension okay I say so we can we can
get into that a little bit later but effective that date ending on your
graduation date from the University of Houston any student life policy
violation during this period could result in the consideration of more
severe disciplinary actions by the University of Houston a notation of
disciplinary probation will be entered on your University of Houston academic
record also loss of computer account privileges effective immediately you are
prohibited from obtaining a general student account or an instructional
account with the Department of Academic Computer User Services if you choose to
return to the University of Houston you will need to pursue coursework that does
not require access to an account now I believe your major is computer science
is that right I took away computer privileges permanently so after the
suspension is over or if they decide on my appeal which which hasn't been
decided yet by the main Dean if he approved my appeals to reinstate me even
if I do you know come back to the university I won't be able to use a
computer any computer resources so I won't be able to get a computer science
degree they've actively prevented me from getting a degree well it sounds
like they've those people that that don't like you really have gotten the
upper hand here we have James Henderson's attorney Steve Ryan who we
can describe as a computer literate attorney I don't know how many of those
there are out here Steve what do you think of this case just unlike anything
you've ever seen yes actually I have seen a couple of these cases before and
they're usually just a result of what mr. Henderson was pointing out a moment
ago just ignorance on the part of the disciplinary authorities but in this
case it seems to be a particularly aggressive kind of ignorance well it's
not uncommon what the my experience has been the Dean's office will follow just
about anything that's reported to them by the computer science department so
you basically have these system administrators down there who are
exercising control over other people's academic careers and the Dean's office
doesn't understand it so they can make general allegations that are in a sort
of hacker hysteria atmosphere blown out of proportion yeah I think we're
certainly seeing some hacker hysteria here I mean the if I can look at some
of these some of these security guidelines that they have at this
University they the user shall not seek or reveal information on obtain copies
of or modify files tapes or passwords belonging to other users nor may the
user misrepresent others fair enough the user may only use his or her legal name
or actual title the University only one person may use a computer account and
that is the person to whom the account was granted the user shall not use the
resources provided by the University for purely recreational or trivial purposes
that's that's kind of interesting too and also the the user shall not engage
in deliberately wasteful practices such as printing large amounts of unnecessary
output performing unnecessary computations simultaneously queuing
multiple batch jobs and holding unused tape drives and telephone lines it seems
pretty pretty open-ended here what what you can interpret that as being me
performing unnecessary computations how do you how do you define something like
that I think well it's a very difficult it I think that kind of language is
aimed directly at like cyclic loop things and processes that spawn infinite
amounts of other processes those kind of attacks on a system but one person's
necessary computation is unnecessary to another the prohibition on recreation
and trivial purposes actually we have an answer to every one of these I don't
know anybody that uses it the internet for recreational trivial purposes they
usually use it to educate themselves anyone who knows anything about Unix
file permissions or the accessibility of files within the Unix operating system
knows that this type of shadowed password file is nothing more than a
just a user list and it contains no meaningful information about the
security relating to the security of the system so that's not a violation there
but the Dean's office doesn't understand that all they hear is the word password
file I once represented a person who was basically going to be thrown out of
school for logging on to an IRC channel known as pound hack they just didn't
like that name that's that's a channel that I mean I'm on that channel quite a
lot actually myself and it's it's a place where people basically send
messages back and forth to each other you you type IRC on a Unix system and
then you you join a particular channel in this case the hack channel and there's
people all over the world sending one-line messages back and forth to
each other it's not exactly organized crime it's just people communicating and
I think that's what they they're really afraid of it that these particular
points speaking of communication we have a friend of James Henderson's also on
the line averaged gauche who I guess broke this story to the internet is that
right yeah hey yeah after a case he got his account shut down he had basically
no internet access so I thought you know this is a pretty clear-cut case of
abusive admins and so I thought hey let's spread this out as far and wide as
possible and so I posted it here and there on the use net and this is what
the response has been and so far it's been mostly positive uh-huh have you
gotten have you got negative response uh yeah but yeah I mean what's interesting
I mean I really don't think they have a case most negative responses have been
of the same type that the teen has act teen has actually said which has been
things based on anyone innuendo you know like they'll say oh Casey has a
history or he's clearly violated it a lot of people like restating the premise
is those that's supposed to you know be a self-fulfilling prophecy or something
you know you say of course he's violated policy and that's the proof of
apparently now let's discuss this history a little bit because I looked
into it myself and it's it's kind of hard to believe that this is considered
a you know a criminal past or something we're talking about about using IRC is
that right that's that's one of the offenses is that you actually had the
audacity to use this program that would allow you to communicate with other
people sort of like using mail but a real-time mail yes it's multi-user real
time just like a telephone except text descent line by line basically what
happened that during that that time when I had to go before the Dean of
students was up I was on a channel using my First Amendment rights freedom of
things and there were a few bad words in there of mine and send it to my
administrators and then they shut the account off then took it before the Dean
of students I went before the Dean of students for the charge of using
computer resources for purely recreational purposes and possible
engagement in behavior that unpleasant and pleasant for other users I was found
guilty of the charge using computing resources for purely recreational
purposes I mean that sounds like an absurd charge in itself I can't even
believe it's it's a charge using a computer for recreational purposes
that's a crime huh according to them Houston Texas 1993 let's make sure we're
on the same wavelength here that's that's something that I think a lot of
our listeners will have trouble following it would be that just about
any use of the computer network in that manner is educational and there's a
there's nothing trivial about this this is a routine use of a Unix system they've
mischaracterized it to the Dean's office resulting in this extreme and unwarranted
and it's attracting quite a lot of attention including that electronic
frontier foundation now what can the EFF do in a situation like this oh in many
cases not much they are their funds are limited their involvement is limited
they had outstanding success in the Steve Jackson case as everyone knows by
now but often these kind of calls come in from all over the country and what we
do is coordinate a network of cooperating attorneys of which I'm one
and these attorneys have different specialties I'm a civil specialist and
they are called upon to give legal advice and in some case actually enter
into representation of people charged with these kind of offenses alleged
offenses I say do you think there's lots of cases like this going on in the
country obviously I've seen quite a few of them they they're well publicized
they appear over the net I can only surmise how many more people accepted
this kind of punishment meekly and just went home or had no choice but to accept
it so they didn't have access to either access to legal counsel or access to
legal counsel that could understand the issues involved well you know I think
this is a this is a good example of how the net can be used as as a means of
getting the word out on important issues like this average you spread the word do
you think it could have been done effectively without the net or certainly
this fast no not at all I mean it's it's the discussion that occurred after
it was posted which you know really did it you know I think Ryan had said that
he was discussing it with his friends and you know they all you know
originally from the post and I mean you know you got in contact with me through
the post and the discussion you know all originated all through the use net you
know and a lot of admins have actually offered to write letters and things like
that and I think that'll help out you know also now Steve where does the case
stand now he has been effectively kicked out of school for a year now is there an
appeals process going on yes there's an administrative appeals process which
we're going through right now and we're also requesting a full disciplinary
hearing because of certain procedural deficiencies in the process the kind of
due process have been giving my client they have not really provided them an
opportunity to confront the witnesses against him some of the key people
involved conveniently went on vacation and didn't appear at the hearing there's
no effective notice of the charges you heard that absurdly tautological charge
of using a computer other than what is to be used for well the computer is the
most flexible tool on earth and you can use it to just do just about anything
and if this can be looking up a phone basically a phone directory inside the
characterized as an offense and everyone's at risk that's certainly true
and you know something like this actually does manage to be done
successfully I started to think what they're gonna try next the University of
Houston is that a public school or a private school public it's a public
school it's a part of the state of Texas okay so is it possible Steve let me ask
you this is it possible for for James to to sue the school for depriving him of
an education yes it is in modern jurisprudence contracts are interpreted
to exist between a college and a student they pay their money and you get certain
things in return and he can't be deprived of these things without certain
procedural safeguards regarding due process this is well-established law the
law also requires that you exhaust the administrative process within the school
before going to court a substantial right of the student like the right to
receive an education or when absurd sanctions are imposed such as because
mr. Henderson is a computer science major it's utterly meaningless to allow
him to return to school if he's not allowed to have a computer account and
that's a it's a form of discrimination and it shows that they really don't know
what they're dealing with here there's also the was known as the chilling
effect of an action like this I mean what how how is a student supposed to
react knowing that this is the kind of thing that can happen to him if the
slightest thing goes goes wrong well if they incur the displeasure of these
almighty sysadmins that they have there when they take a dislike to someone they
can do them a great deal of damage and I've seen documents indicating that the
sysadministrators of of the University of Houston are prejudiced against my
client because of they don't like his attitude or something some vague thing
they just don't like him well you can like or dislike a person as you wish but
when you want to terminate their academic career you're going to need to
prove that in court and they just go and tell tales to the Dean and the Dean
doesn't know what's going on and I guess technically under this code they could
charge a person with misuse of resources for printing one sheet of paper too many
on a printout or having an inadvertent infinite loop that results in quite a
few pages before he gets caught all these all these crimes we had no idea
people were getting away with that's right and and the worst crime under the
sysops administration here is is to have the wrong attitude or or to push
the system to its limits to expand its flexibility I shudder to think that the
what they really want is for students to go through using a text editor and email
only and not use any of the other vast resources available on the internet
that's exactly backwards that is the opposite of educational purpose yeah I
mean I've always said that you know they should be happy that people are using
computers and exploring their uses and figuring out new ways to apply them and
instead of trying to regulate and and tell people exactly what they have to do
and what all the things they cannot do I believe there was one other charge
against James in the past and that was running a mud is that right yes you want
to explain to the listeners what a mud is mud is short for multi-user dungeon
it's a type of multi-user real-time game sort of like the infocom games Zork
planet follow those kind of games it's text where users log in and they can
interact with by talking saying things or doing actions basically what I did
was some a friend of mine out of UT had closed one of his games he downloaded it
to me and I set it up I was just getting it in the set of the set I was using I
was just in the setup stages of the mud and there were no active players or
anybody logging in when I got this email warning to not use game servers on their
system basically they don't want game servers because it takes up too much CPU
time well even if there were 50 or 100 users online it would wouldn't take more
than 0.5% of the CPU it takes very little resources but they don't give any
sort of detailed explanation why they don't want it you know no reason that I
can see that that means anything I had some information on the game so I had to
reload it and instantly about 30 seconds after I reloaded it they were watching
me they have Hawkeyes on me they shut my account off and later I had to go
before the Dean on this do you think they actually go so far as to go through
people's mail and their private files well they they say they don't in a in a
daily cougar which is the campus newspaper they say that they don't go
through email unless it's unless they have to what exactly does that mean they
don't go through it unless they have to well I'm not sure what the wording was
in the newspaper but they said they normally don't go through email email
should be private so they do have some sort of respect but who knows they they
could they could be going through mine all I know another another reason for
encryption but that's that's an another topic entirely interestingly that same
daily cougar article actually said it in their mind it was illegal to use talk so
I mean it which was kind of odd in my mind but they could mention that article
actually claimed it was illegal to talk to people on through an account now for
the for listeners talk is a program that allows you to communicate real-time with
another user one-to-one not not a public forum like IRC so they're saying that
that even doing that is illegal they probably say that's a that's a waste of
computer resources and not what the computer is intended to be used for is
all right right well if you look in the policy it does say account at the
university are to be used for email using that and editing purposes only any
other function it's considered a violation so what I'm wondering is how
do people do directory listings direct to do a directory listing you have to
run a program which is on the system would that be considered doing another
function would it be considered a violation it's just absurd policy Steve
let me ask you as a lawyer do you think that it's possible this entire policy
can be challenged not just as it applies to James but the entire University of
Houston computer policy that's so restrictive well you could only work the
law only changes in instances of specific cases and from that you try to
abstract general principles it's clear that this present set of guidelines
isn't going to work and I was wondering the same thing about it how can a person
run a compiler for example or invoke a different shell if that's not running a
text editor it's just absurd and it results in selective prosecution the
computer community and the computer using community is going to have to come
up with a formulation of these rights and not leave them up to the the Dean's
office and the legislature's to write that results in terrible law it can be
overturned but only in specific cases to answer your question this is certainly a
shocking case I think from from the point of view of civil liberties freedom
of speech that kind of thing in many ways I mean you don't have a raid by the
Secret Service here but I think it it it rivals the Steve Jackson case and just
the I don't know the the offensiveness of the way that the the victim is is
dealt with I mean you're assumed guilty no matter what what facts are presented
on your side it just they present their version of things and that's the way it
is I mean they say that you read a password file you did no such thing
exactly it's interesting you draw that parallel Emanuel because I was just
reviewing that tonight one of the aspects of mr. Anderson's case we're
looking into is exactly that a violation of the same statutes that were violated
in mr. Jackson's case and as you know in that case the Secret Service was defeated
and lost the substantial judgment to mr. Jackson for violation of the Privacy
Protection Act and Stored Wire Communications Act and the Electronic
Communications Privacy Act these were the three statutes involved and it's
possible that the University of Houston which does maintain these facilities has
has basically violated his rights by refusing to continue his access to
grant him his access certainly would seem that way we're talking with James
Henderson the student at the University of Houston who has been suspended for a
year for printing a file on a computer system his friend Avijit Ghosh who has
helped to get the word out on the internet and his attorney Steve Ryan who
works with the Electronic Frontier Foundation at this point we have to
break for a couple of minutes just to ask our listeners to please phone in
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Claude is here valued studio engineer from the computer show mm-hmm one of the
minions who have unpaid staff here yeah we don't get paid here you know that's
something I think we should point out point out quite a bit money doesn't go
to us as money goes to the radio station to keep well to keep for instance the
phones working so that we can talk to people in Houston Texas without hearing
annoying you know hums and buzzes and things like that and Leona Helmsley
infers well yeah you know it goes you see the way it works is we have to pay
for the space in the Empire State Building and it just so happens that you
know 95% of the world's wealth is owned by 1% so that 1% obviously is able to
you know to thrive off of us but think of it this way by having our transmitter
up there we're able to reach you you're able to hear our signal you're able to
learn something if you've learned anything from this program tonight think
about how much knowledge is worth is it really worth say a dollar a week you
know it's about what we're asking you to to pledge here not everybody has to
pledge $75 that's not what we're saying uh-uh people can pledge what's the basic
amount well 50 $50 25 low-income 25 low-income and you know if we were
pledging we'd be low-income because that's how BAI is two one two two seven
nine three four hundred we only have one call of the line and I know we have more
than one listener and you know you who are listening you know that that your
$50 is not going to make or break the station as you know that unquestionably
if you give much thought to anything but it's a form it's it's free loading for
one obviously and you know in your heart that the right thing to do is to give to
a station you actually do listen to you give hours of your life to listen to it
and in another way you give you'll be giving some hours of your life to help
support it so that you can hear this so that it will still be there for you it's
not a given thing that it will be here there are no other radio stations like
this in New York City I mean yes there are non-commercial radio stations but
there is there is no program like off the hook anywhere I think in the country
let alone in New York City we are committed to freedom of speech here
other stations other non-commercial stations are committed to classical
music or jazz or you know news of some sort but not alternative ideas to the
extent that WBAI is we're unique in that we're we're world famous in that in fact
WBAI has a reputation that spans the globe or at least infamous if not famous
that's true two one two two seven nine three four hundred please give us a call
now we have a couple of people on from Houston Texas who have been talking to
us about a an injustice rather large injustice that's been going on down
there Steve Ryan you're an attorney and I believe you have a station down there
that's a Pacifica station as well right KPFT now that's located at 90.1 on the
dial absolutely and what kind of things do they do well they what I like them
for is their wide variety of programming everything from unusual world beat music
to talk shows that I like to listen to it's a good alternative to the same old
formula radio stations and techno radio commercial Yammer they play techno music
as well huh yes just about everything there's a gentleman down here who has a
show called radio drum on there which is a pioneering cybernetic type of show they
interview net personalities and go online during the show and read off the
screen into the mic various things like that uh-huh so the thing is you need
alternatives to the mainstream now the case that we've been talking about here
for the past 45 minutes or so you probably have not heard about in the
mainstream media even National Public Radio hasn't picked it up yet they might
but they haven't as of yet and certainly NBC and CBS and ABC have not
picked up this story of a student being kicked out of school for printing a file
a printing a publicly accessible file on a computer this kind of techno phobia
has to be reported has to be reported at the early stages because if it's not
it's going to become the norm it's going to become something that we're all used
to and we're all going to just say anybody that uses a phone and a modem
and a computer is a criminal we're going to say things like that and we're
actually going to believe them 2 1 2 2 7 9 3 400 our lines seem to be all lit up
but I know that can't be true I know there must be an open line in there
somewhere there's one okay 2 1 2 2 7 9 3 400 join the people on the phone and
pledge whatever you can afford $75 will get you 2600 magazine for an entire year
we're a quarterly magazine and we've got it just about every major corporation
angry at us for one reason or another yeah and our 2600 t-shirt has a
schematic of a blue box on the front which some people say is illegal to wear
in California because there's some sort of a law against access devices but I
don't know if that's really true but then again if you like to live a daring
life you know you'll wear a shirt like that white lettering on a black
background it's it's the in thing to do 2 1 2 2 7 9 3 400 WBA is is probably the
most unique radio station of its kind in the world I would say I found the book
about WBA I in Berlin in a German bookstore there's a book about the
Pacifica Network and they were talking all about WBA I of course I couldn't
understand it because I can't read German but I could see that you know
they were it might have been it might have been ripping the station well no
you see the thing is they they kept going into English they would quote
something that was an English document and they would speak English for a while
and then it would go back to German and I'd be lost but you could tell the whole
thing was pretty much getting into the Pacifica spirit of everything that's
what we like people to do out there get into the Pacifica spirit that's that's
what it's all about the Pacifica spirit if you don't know is basically that
which allows you to listen to things you don't agree with which allows you to
speak your mind freely and openly and which allows you to sit back and enjoy
listening to the radio you know that's the kind of thing that a lot of people
just don't do enough of anymore we watch mindless TV we listen to mindless top
40 radio but we don't ever sit down and actually listen to what's going on and
you know I believe that in the original document that founded Pacifica one of
the one of the important phrases in it was to give voice to the voiceless mm-hmm
and in commercial radio there is there are voices you are just not going to
hear your your voice I don't think would be wanted no my voice is inhibited my
voice prohibited on commercial radio me they do not want me around no no
definitely not this is how they know what's good for me around but and then
I think the show that preceded you the computer show they could not possibly
personal computer show could not possibly do what they do ripping you
know attacking companies for putting out shoddy software shoddy machinery if when
they believe that so it's not just verbal vandalism they do it's it's sort
of consumer points of the air yeah and that's that's the difference people say
well why do you have to have these megathons why do you have to you know
ask for money and degrade yourself on the air and you know I guess it is
degrading to a degree but if we didn't do this we'd have to have commercials
and if we had commercials we couldn't do this we couldn't have programs like this
we couldn't have programs that criticize the system they you know powerful
entities that that run things I mean we just we were just making fun of the
people that own the Empire State Building where we have our transmitter
you know we're able to do that as long as the rent gets paid and listeners
could help with that yeah see that's the only requirement you know they don't
have control over what we say it occurs me that on Friday mornings there's
fairness and accuracy in reporting and that organization puts out a magazine
called extra and the current issue is has a picture of Rush Limbaugh on it and
it talks about the it has a large section about the right-wing tilt of
talk radio and mentions a particular there was a talk radio host in Los
Angeles who was winning in his time slot he was one of the very few liberals on
the air he apparently every so often he would he would the station would get
annoying annoying calls from the sponsors and eventually the station
pulled him off the air really put on Darryl Gates Darryl Gary remember yes
yes sir LAPD that's incredible they put him instead when I was driving across
Texas in January I was listening to the a.m. radio and I actually heard a
station out of Denver I think it was the same station that that inspired talk
radio you know that had the the talk show host that got murdered yeah and I
heard this surprisingly liberal talk show host on the a.m. radio on a clear
channel station and it was it was it was something to hear you know something to
hear a voice of sanity out there in all this craziness because he was talking
about the referendum in Colorado concerning homosexuals and that was
something that you'd expect there'd be a lot of you know kind of redneck talk
against and there was all his callers a lot of his callers were you know ready
to string him up but he was one of the people that was standing up for his
principles and you got to admire that when people stand up for their
principles even if you don't agree with them and I know a lot of people don't
agree with what they hear on WBAI I know that I hear it all the time but in fact
people still think we're a communist radio station but we're not we're we're
a voice of alternatives and you know all kinds of strange people are alternative
voices and that's that's what we are and just one more point that what another
program that I engineer is the gay show and a couple weeks ago they they've
never they never did this before they took calls on the air and calls here are
uniformly unscreened so you call you get on the air and they were very thoughtful
calls there was the first caller wished death to some totally irrelevant other
host of another program on WBAI but that was it and on any other radio station if
you had a gay show with gay hosts talking about those issues they would
get the the the beeper however they do their screening of their yeah the
sensor the sensor right it would have been used half of the calls would not
have been there and on this station not only is what you hear of value you're
helping not only to inform yourselves but inform other people of like mind
all right so I'm going to keep in mind two one two two seven nine three four
hundred this is really your last chance as we're going to be going into the
rebroadcast of the evening news in a couple of minutes so if you want to take
advantage of that special $75 deal you'll get a full year of 2600 magazine
and a t-shirt on top of that as well as being a member of WBAI for a full year
and getting the folio every month now's the time to call two one two two seven
nine three four hundred and support freedom of speech support alternative
views support off the hook and keep us going for for another year at least I
mean we're gonna be here a while I think well this radio station never
guaranteed it's quite amazing it's not 30 years now but it's not guaranteed and
you know I hear those I hear those those naysayers that say you know we should
sell this this frequency because we're right in the middle of the FM dial we're
not down there the non-commercial section we're in the middle we're on
Main Street 99.5 FM we're in the middle now that frequency is worth millions of
dollars we could just sell it and then you know make a tidy profit and then
move to a less desirable frequency with less power down at the bottom of the
dial where all the other the non-commercial ghetto you know we could
we could move down there with everybody else and now it's that would suit the
commercial world just fine but having us here in the middle of the of the
commercial spectrum is kind of a thorn in their side well as a matter of fact
you know that of the all of the Pacifica stations I believe there are six of them
there's Washington LA Berkeley Houston Houston all of them are down there in
that ghetto you talking about except except one nothing really wrong with the
ghetto down there but I'm just saying it's good to have you know entities
outside the ghetto as well you know so that you can you can hit people from all
different angles we're right here in them in the middle of Park Avenue that's
not where we are but I'm just I'm drawing an analogy here you know we're
in the Park Avenue 99.5 FM is kind of the Park Avenue of of the radio airwaves
and here we are and we're able to spout our various forms of rhetoric and and
yours too because you can call us up and be on the air and you know all these
people on their way between K rock and and and kiss and and any W and all these
other crazy stations that just you know do the same thing pretty much they
sometimes stumble and find us and sometimes they can't turn their radio
dial they're stuck and we're stuck at $300 and it would seem to me that if
somebody I didn't want you to say how much we made because it's well
embarrassingly low but if somebody would would pledge $60 it would give us a
dollar for every degree of a circle make it full circle it's um yeah I guess
that's one way of looking at it but anyway let's just give out the phone
number one more time we're going to wrap this up with our with our guest from
Houston 2 1 2 2 7 9 3 400 be so nice to see the phone lines light up one more
time because this is it for us we're out of here and we won't be back again until
after the marathon is over 2 1 2 2 7 9 3 400 if you're driving in your car just
pull over at a payphone you can dial us at a payphone and we take visa we take
MasterCard so you don't you know you don't have to fumble for anything except
your those magic numbers that you know mean so much to you visa MasterCard
whichever 2 1 2 2 7 9 3 400 can't call us collect as we proved before but you
can call us you can call us you know you can tell others to call us all right do
a manual favor yeah and you'll feel good about it too you'll feel like you're
actually doing something you know and that makes a difference when you feel
like you're actually accomplishing something now speaking of accomplishing
something we have still on the line James Henderson who has been thrown out
of school in Houston Texas for printing out a file on a computer system we have
his lawyer Steve Ryan and his friend Abhishek Ghosh is there is there some
way that people in New York can help I guess I should ask Steve this more than
anybody yes I'd say one of the first steps that you should take is to if
you're of like mind and want to protest injustices like this is to join the
Electronic Frontier Foundation it's good idea how can they do that well they can
contact the Electronic Frontier Foundation in Washington DC or they
frequently advertise over the net you can access their membership forms over
the net or write to them and I think I have the information here at hand if
someone cared to write the address is the Electronic Frontier Foundation six
six six Pennsylvania Avenue southeast suite 303 Washington DC two zero zero
three they got that six six six number after all I was impressed by that this
goes to show you know that that groups like this aren't afraid of you know a
fundamentalism or anything like that no no and they hope to make a positive
change and erase some of these these outrages we've got to move into the 21st
century here and these folks just aren't helping they're holding back the
development of their students with policies like this they're punishing
people unjustly and the rules they're making just don't fit the situation okay
now if anybody is out there that has internet access is there any particular
address they should write to for more information or to to send helpful hints
or anything like that of course you can send mail to EFF at sign EFF org and
that's EFF at EFF org and may all mail there will be answered I'll be glad to
send you an electronic membership form annual membership is $40 per year 25 for
students much like membership in WBAI that's true and it's quite a desirable
thing there's also some local groups scattered throughout the nation that
have varying degrees of affiliation with EFF and we'd encourage people to join
those local groups which are concerned with these identical issues and through
the power of organization we can turn some of these things back one of the key
aspects of the Steve Jackson case is I don't believe that win would have been
possible without the outpouring of public support poured through the EFF in
support of Mr. Jackson as you may know the EFF was a substantial financial
supporter of that litigation and even when they don't give financial support
or they're not able to they still deliver organizational and resource
support so it's important to have a group like that around just as it's
important to have a station like this around absolutely it's the only
alternative Mr. Anderson is in a position where he does not have access
to a whole lot of legal counsel his case could easily go unnoticed and he would
just have to suffer the consequences whatever these these people wanted to
do to him without regard to his contractual or constitutional rights
he's been deprived of due process he's had his accounts taken away without
justification and the allegation by the way that he misused the computer in any
way by continuing to use an account that was granted to him by the University is
just inane and more importantly though besides losing the account he's lost his
education he's been kicked out of school absolutely and this is a black mark on
his disciplinary record until removed he's been denied a contractual right
something that he's paid for and his life has been very seriously affected
this is a serious case this is not a case of some just a trivial
administrative action this is the type of case that can and will if necessary
be redressed in the district courts of the state okay so something was
certainly gonna be following over the weeks James or average is there any
email address you want to give out or any anything that you think folks should
do a different way we haven't already mentioned yeah well okay go ahead Casey
I'll leave it to you you're the one uh do you want to give out your email yeah
sure I um y'all can contact me at ST 1 0 T at Jetson UH edu and I'd like to say
that I think this case really exemplifies how important networks that
you know really promote freedom of discussion information like the Internet
and like really Pacifica how important they are because that's really made all
the difference that's well said let's just give out that address one more time
for people that might not have written it down it's ST 1 0 2 1 0 2 1 0 T 1 0 T
Jetson Jetson J E T S O N UH dot UH uh-huh okay University of Houston dot
edu dot edu okay so once again it's ST 1 0 T at Jetson dot UH dot edu and
Jetson is one of the machines they were they were mentioning in the in the memo
saying that mr. Henderson had done something like something horrible like
run IRC or run a mud on it that's their ancient VAX machine it runs VMS uh-huh
or with a friendly username like ST 1 0 T I guess I would indicate that I want
to thank you very much for being on the program and wish you the best of luck
we'll probably talk to you again at some point thank you all right keep us
updated good luck hang in there you have friends here sure thank you and that's
that's the story of someone in Houston Texas being thrown out of school for
printing out a computer file just it never ceases to amaze me what kind of
things that ignorance is capable of but then again it shouldn't it shouldn't
amaze me anymore you know I've seen so much of it we'll keep you updated on
that particular that particular horror story in the weeks ahead in the meantime
stay tuned for the evening news we're broadcasting it in a couple of minutes
Robert Knight will be on later on if you have not called this is really the last
time I'm going to ask 2 1 2 2 7 9 3 400 show your support for freedom of speech
show your support for off the hook show your support for WBA I New York this has
been off the hook we back again next week Emanuel Goldstein saying good night
good evening in the news tonight to whom do federal employees complain when the
one doing the sexual harassment is their boss a sailor apologizes for beating his
gay shipmate to death and an update on the executive coup in Guatemala 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 26th 1993 first to
Washington with these top stories President Clinton's reportedly seeking a
deal with conservative Democrats to get his deficit reduction package passed the
compromise may involve annual spending caps on programs such as Medicare
Clinton has expressed confidence that the BTU or energy tax will pass White
House communications director George Stephanopoulos refused to be specific
about any compromise but also sees victory we hope we will get a deal
fairly soon and lock up lock up some more votes and then move on to victory
tomorrow we're trying to get it done as quickly as we can minority whip Newt
Gingrich Republican from Georgia says the White House is twisting the arms of
both Democrats and Republicans I think it will be very close and I think as of
right now they don't have the vote so it's going to be a very interesting 36
hours the House vote on Clinton's five-year 340 billion dollar package is
expected tomorrow the German Parliament is on the verge of approving an
historical change to the Constitution that will drastically restrict the right
to political asylum Alexa divorce in reports from bond that about 10,000
demonstrators gathered outside the Parliament to protest the move police
security was tight as demonstrators held a vigil that began last night and lasted
most of the day this morning protesters tried to block politicians from entering
the Parliament and casting their votes in a climactic decision that ends years
of bitter controversy during more than 12 hours of debate today speaker after
speaker told of the necessity to stem the flow of asylum seekers arriving in
Germany which numbered nearly 450,000 last year the change to article 16 of
the Constitution will allow Germany to effectively turn back refugees at the
border when they enter through any neighboring country migrants who