All next up with Peter Boateng, day mornings at 9.30 here on WBAI.
And this is at 10 o'clock WBAI New York.
Next up is going to be Off the Hook with Emanuel Goldstein.
Hey, let's hear another message.
If you will just look to your left, you will observe a troop of them marching at this moment
across the petals of that giant daisy, itself a tropic monster as big as an oak tree.
Relicars!
Giant ants!
What a wonderland!
Not to mention the more common sorts of leopards and jaguars.
You mean like that one over your head?
What?
Oh, my.
Ahhhh!
Environmental mayhem in the rainforest on this Saturday's WBAI Radio Theater.
I'm your host, Joe Bevilacqua.
Join me for episode three of my absurdist radio cartoon series, Willoughby and the Professor.
It's this Saturday, June 19th at 6.30 p.m. on WBAI 99.5 FM.
And it's 10.01.
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!
Bum diddly bum!
Bum diddly bum!
Bum diddly bum!
Bum diddly bum!
Bum diddly bum!
Bum diddly bum!
Good evening, everybody.
This is Emmanuel Goldstein, and the program is Off the Hook.
And boy, you don't know how close this show came to never being.
Five minutes ago I think I was in the battery tunnel and you know it seems
every now and then you just cut it really really close and you have to be
someplace in an impossible period of time and you just know you can never make
it but somehow you do it anyway. Well I'm sorry to all the people that I cut off
on the way over here but you know there's a lot of people that need a
weekly fix. A daily fix would be nice but a weekly fix of technological
happenings and a way to spout off when the phone company rips you off and when
other nasty things happen thanks to Big Brother or high-tech or low-intelligence
or whatever one of those three things. But you know part of the reason that I
was so frenzied on my way over here was because of computer problems. I know I
said that last time when I was late because of a computer-operated traffic
light that malfunctioned and and people didn't realize that they were sitting
there in traffic and not moving when obviously they they had every right to
move. You know obviously when a light to a main intersection is red for say two
minutes and green for about three seconds and a side street gets the green
light all the rest of the time you know something's wrong with that and you sort
of you know have to take matters into your own hands. Sometimes that's
necessary. Well that's what happened the last time I went through this but this
time this time it was I guess it was entirely my fault because you know I
guess I should have planned it out better but there's just too many things
to do too many things but it did involve high-tech in that one of the things I
had to do was drop a computer off at the house of somebody who is an expert in
these things because after a while yes even the host of off the hook cannot
figure it out we upgraded a Macintosh. Upgrading a Macintosh is usually a
pleasant thing you know it's supposed to be something nice you get new features
new software things go faster things are better you're closer to the
beautiful people you're accepted and for the first time in your life you feel
like you can get something done well that's not how it works that's not how
it works with Macintosh is because every time you upgrade something doesn't work
this the system crashes in new and different ways and in this particular
case nothing of any worth would work on this computer so obviously we had to
take drastic measures and truck the thing in but by doing that and getting
caught in traffic and getting lost a few times and having people beeping you oh
my oh boy that's a that's a blast from the past well apart from that all these
things getting in the way and people getting in front of you and driving
slowly you know because they know you're in a hurry and then you switch
around and then all of a sudden there's construction in that lane and then
potholes and well I don't have to go into this because I just went through
this but fortunately things worked out somehow I prayed to some entity and
somehow I blinked and I was here doesn't happen often like this okay this is off
the hook we're here we're we've got a brand new issue of 2600 magazine which
also added to a bit of the frenzy that has been going on in the last few days
if you've been trying to reach anybody over at the magazine finding you can't
do so well that's that's one of the reasons the new issue is the summer 1993
issue and it's probably I'd say this is one of the better ones we have an
article on the five ESS which is an electronic switching system which a lot
of you have out there it's a digital switch and all kinds of technical
technical explanations as to what goes on and why and how and all that kind of
thing an article about the British credit system you think TRW Transunion
Equifax you think that's all there is no there's there's more every country has
something and England is no exception there's an article on how to hack your
high school your high school computer that is a product review of a DTMF
decoder useful device that will tell you the digits that are being dialed if
somebody enters touch tones a couple of different opinions on how to have a
meeting how to have a 2600 meeting in various parts of the world as you know
we've had some trouble with authorities at some of them the people haven't
misbehaved the authorities have and this is a couple of different very
different viewpoints as to how that should work in the future we also have a
continuation of the last issue of the acronym list first first time we did
this we made it a through G and now we were supposed to go a H through Z but
unfortunately we only made it to R so H to R such things as a KSR which is
keyboard send-receive MAS mass announcement system MTP message transfer
part R slash W read write obvious things like that so you can impress people at
parties with knowledge that you'll get for these acronyms letters to the editor
which is almost as popular as phone calls to WBA I same kind of thing then
we have probably the most interesting part of the issue we mentioned on this
program a few weeks ago how AT&T was upset at us for printing information the
information they were upset at us for printing was a list of where their
offices were located and they sent us a nasty letter saying if we ever did that
again the full weight of God everybody else they own will fall down upon us
well that letter is printed in its entirety as we always do we get these
kinds of letters as well as a couple of words of our own which I might as well
read here on the air they just never stop trying to intimidate us with these
ridiculous letters what AT&T seems to believe is that a list of where their
offices are constitutes proprietary information this kind of absurdity may
work within AT&T's hallowed halls but we're trying to exist in the real world
the good folks at AT&T should consider joining us there someday until they do
they should take note that their threats will only serve to embarrass them and
that further threats or attempts to prevent us from printing information
will be met with strong legal action with this in mind we'd like to dedicate
the next few pages to AT&T and on the next few pages is well let's just say a
continuation of a previous list very useful I mean I don't know what we're
gonna do with this information as to where AT&T's offices are but I'm sure
somebody's writing them all down even as we speak then a very interesting thing
companies make videotapes for other companies and one of them actually we
reviewed three of them in this particular issue they are virus
prevention detection recovery and back in business disaster recovery slash
business resumption but most interesting one I think is we lost control illegal
software duplication because that's the one where the SPA kind of kind of has
the say as to what what the rules are you know the fact that you have to copy
software if you copy software you're breaking the law if you want to use
software on two machines in the same room you have to buy it twice you know
illogic like that and interesting videotape that that you can get for the
for the bargain price of well you can get all three of them for one thousand
three hundred thirty eight dollars and seventy five cents yeah okay and then we
have an interesting I'll just call it a toll fraud device yeah we have an
interesting toll fraud device which I'm sure will cause quite a bit of well it'll
cause a stir let's put it that way and finally an NC bomb it's right when you
think your computer is safe there's some other way that you can be zapped and we
give you details as to how that can happen to you that's the newest year of
2600 the summer issue which you'll note is coming out before the summertime is
out wonders never cease well time now to take a look at what's going on in the
world
sometimes crazy world
yeah we get those annoying recordings I mean they're not so annoying I guess
because they do tell you something it says basically do do do the number you
have reached whatever has been disconnected or has been changed or is
not a working number or whatever imagine if that entire system suddenly
went down
well it happened
and it happened in Baltimore
yeah Chesapeake and Potomac telephone known as C&P telephone have an intercept
system that's what that's called intercept system because it intercepts
your telephone call and tells you something
well that particular intercept system which gives you that information was
knocked out on June 7th by a computer glitch in Richmond Virginia as a result
customers dialing numbers not in service were connected to a recorded message
that all circuits were busy that's according to C&P spokesman Paul Wood the
problem was caused by redundant computer databases at a center in Richmond which
are alternately in service as new information on telephone number changes
is loaded five times a day but you didn't know that five times a day
information is loaded into that system the changeover was being made at about
1130 a.m. when a computer processing problem occurred cutting off access to
the system the problem was expected to be resolved within 24 hours
here's a piece from the risks digest entitled my grocery store is not dumb at
my local supermarket which has wonderful food and excellent service by
the way I usually pay with a visa card like most San Francisco supermarkets
they have a customer terminal with a magnetic card reader you run your card
through it and sign the receipt that the cash register prints out it couldn't be
simpler yesterday the clerk asked me for the card so she could run it through the
old-style card in printer apparently enough people have been rewriting the
magnetic stripes on their cards so the billing goes somewhere else they do that
so often that the clerks now site verify the receipt making sure that the
number in Boston the plastic card matches the number read from the
magnetic stripe that's progress all right I'm sure it speeds things up
incredibly here's a story out of Phoenix since the Suns here in Phoenix are in
the NBA playoffs one of the ticket offices discovered that something was a
miss since the only way to get any of the remaining tickets is by calling up
either of the two ticket offices this happened for one of the games on one of
our local channels they reported that employees from the company that
installed the phone for the ticket office I believe it was Dillard's but
one of those one of those companies one of I'm not quite sure what they're
referring to here they discovered that it had been fixed okay they had fixed
the phone lines that's what happened they fixed the phone lines so the
callers employees of the installing phone equipment would be the first to
get through to place orders for the tickets this isn't written all that well
the new show went on to add that disciplined actions had been taken then
the company would not comment on the situation hopefully it's clearer than
what I've just read here the modification to the phone system was
detected by the ticket office what I believe happened was that they they
tampered with something so that they called a particular special number and
got through before anybody else or something like that okay how about this
Palo Alto library computer system calamity this comes from Peter Norman who
is the moderator of the risks digest incidentally if you want to receive the
risk digest and you have access to the internet you simply subscribe to comp
dot risks or you don't even have to subscribe you can just use a program
like RN or NN and just follow that with the word comp a period and the word
risks comp by the way is COMP risks is RISKS and then you'll be able to read
all this interesting material and there's a lot we don't read here on May
13th 1993 the computer system used by the Palo Alto library's six branches
began to make a few small errors in processing requests the staff considered
the errors not too serious at that time however by May 22nd the problems had
escalated seriously and the service folks were called in the system is an
eight-year-old ultimate system from Honeywell ultimate system yeah only used
or reconditioned that replacement parts are available unfortunately the
replacement parts turned out to be lemons which further aggravated the
situation as a backup the staff resorted to a read-only file that tells only what
books the library owns but not what is supposedly on the shelves
consequently all book borrowing transactions had to be done by hand
while no return books could be reshelved a power surge on May 25th did even
further damage to the system and on the 26th the system was shut down completely
for another week shut down completely finally the system was available again
on June 2nd although considerable effort had to be devoted to processing the
accumulation of return books before operations returned to normal
you know one of the dangers of this computer age of ours is the danger of
becoming impersonal and you know that can work in many different ways I don't
know if you've seen any of the grassroots movements that allow you to
send massive amounts of letters to a particular address because you can and
the problem there is that let's say a congressman someplace will get 10,000
identical letters that are all made on a computer system are all mailed through
the internet or all copied on a high-speed Xerox machine they can even
make them look personal they can even put in typos spelling errors smudges I
mean I've gotten fooled a couple of times by mass marketing houses that send
you things that look like they're hand-typed but actually they're they're
not even have these stamp wiggler machines that will put the stamp on
crooked only a human would put a stamp on crooked well it's all done by
machine and you know we can spot this as individuals we can we can say to
ourselves it's Madison Avenue again trying to hook us but it won't work we
have to be careful not to fall into the same trap and be the aggressor in this
particular scenario I'll give you an example what I mean this is a letter
from Shamal Jajodia of the Risk Digest called grassroots versus AstroTurf
movements this morning there was a report on National Public Radio on what
it called AstroTurf letter writing campaigns apparently some lobbying
firms have started offering this service to clients likely to be affected by
legislation about to come up for vote for a fee they will generate a large
number of letters which will put forward the client's case to several selected
mailing lists these letters also contain an exhortation to sign and mail the
included protest letters which are pre-addressed to the area congressional
rep such campaigns were found by several congressmen who are in favor of the
Clinton administration's proposed BTU tax on the face of it it seems like the
good old American democratic system but the risk identified by one of the
congressmen was that the high levels of noise generated by these computer-aided
campaigns are making it difficult for them to identify the genuine missive
from mrs. Bramley in Peoria in other words what's the real thing and what's a
mass-generated letter they're just going to ignore them all if you send
somebody 10,000 identical copies of the same letter this is a problem I've
always had with with protest organizations you know they'll have
letters that you just sign your name in the bottom but they're exactly the same
after a while these people aren't stupid they're going to see that these letters
are all the same they won't even open them after a while and on top of that
they'll just get angry at the people that are doing this and be all the more
resolute to do anything they can to antagonize them so we need a
imaginative ways and we also need to preserve our individuality so that we
can we can actually get our own individual thoughts expressed and you
know that's possible that's very possible in this technological age to do
that you just have to put a little effort into it you never get anywhere
without putting a little effort into it finally after this we'll be taking phone
calls two one two two seven nine three four hundred if you have a question or a
comment or a tip or just something you want to get off your chest two one two
two seven nine three four hundred two computer hackers who illegally
infiltrated the computer systems last fall at the Boeing company in the and
the United States District Court you gotta hand it to them hackers getting
into the United States District Court probably the same one that later
sentenced them well they were each sentenced to five years of probation and
250 hours of community service magistrate David Wilson also ordered the
two Seattle residents to pay a combined $30,000 in restitution Boeing which said
at the time that none of its systems or data had been damaged by the
unauthorized access will get $28,000 of the fine and the court will get $2,000
to defray costs of changing security and checking files as part of the probation
they're not allowed to own a computer or computer accounts without the permission
of the probation officer well you know there's good and bad here the good is
that these people are not being sent to jail which is what a lot of the more
vocal opponents of computer hackers insist upon jail does absolutely nothing
for a computer hacker it does absolutely nothing for society to send the computer
hacker to jail so it's good that in this particular case that did not happen five
years probation I don't know that's that's a that's a lot of time you get
five years probation to real serious criminals there it's you know a lot of
checking up on somebody as for not owning a computer or computer accounts
without the express permission of the probation officer well again we've seen
worse we've seen it said that convicted hackers cannot go near computers at all
and you know that's that's real silly because it's almost impossible not to go
near a computer these days and it's something akin to torture to tell a
computer hacker that he can't go near a computer
and you can tell somebody not to do certain things with a computer but to
not use such a basic tool in today's society I think is is absurd so this is
this is a positive step in that they recognize the inevitability of using a
computer and they just have to get permission to do that five years of
getting permission though can be a bit of a drag but again we've seen worse now
as far as a $30,000 fine well again we've seen worse we've seen a $260,000
fine for the Atlanta hackers the three Atlanta hackers a couple years ago but
still to say that someone has to pay $30,000 because a computer system didn't
have the right security to start with and now they have to pay to put the
right security in seems to me you're mixing up the messenger with the message
the message was that their systems were vulnerable the people that actually were
able to figure it out are being blamed for those vulnerabilities and I just
don't think that's right I mean you know people trespass you find them a small
amount you tell them not to do it again they usually don't if you extend that
real-world analogy to the computer world you'll see that it will hold up
you know if people go to you and say don't do this anymore and perhaps find
you a small amount and say we're keeping our eye on you they're not going to
certainly do the same thing again so it's something I think is worth trying
rather than find somebody a huge amount of money because they didn't have
adequate security it's equivalent to somebody walking into the Empire State
Building when the Empire State Building is closed and because they were able to
get in they now have to install a real complex lock system and maybe how about
a card reader system too and a retina scan that's it so that people won't be
able to just walk in you know so let's find somebody that walks into a closed
building $100,000 and they certainly won't do it again and then we'll all be
more secure I don't know I just say if we're going to apply something in one
area we should apply it across the board so let's go one way or the other and not
waiver okay two one two two seven nine three four hundred the program is off
the hook this is Emmanuel Goldstein we're together until 11 o'clock and if
you have anything oh for crying out loud what do they want now oh that's
serious well all right I'm not gonna be nervous about that never never bring a
beeper to a radio show this is very distracting okay give us a call 2 1 2 2
7 9 3 400 whatever is on your mind good evening you're on and you're also on
delay so speak up all right well we need people who have brains to go on us
tonight good evening hello yes go ahead yeah and you're on the air hello yes
speak up please all right I wanted to know where I could get that 2600
magazine okay you can probably find it in many bookstores around the area I
know I know Tower Books has it I know Hudson News has it downtown lots of
lots of stores like that if you ask around you'll find it all right and also
I have a cellular phone right uh-huh and there's some way that somebody keeps
making calls with it okay what they're doing is well I mean what kind of bills
are you getting like a couple of hundred dollars extra and some dispute the bill
but then they turned off the service then I came back in they changed the
number for me they reprogrammed they charged me for it they should not charge
you and they if if they don't refund your money you should you should
definitely get a consumer advocate group after them cellular phones are wide open
to fraud people are able to to copy ESNs and and and duplicate your phone number
basically is what they're doing it's very simple to do that it's broadcast
unencrypted so people can just literally grab it out of the air and and program
their own cellular phone to act as your cellular phone and the cellular
companies know this they they have no right to go around charging people for
this until they fix their system it's it's going to happen over and over again
I mean I would suggest not using cellular phones because a you have this
problem and B people can listen in on you all the time no not until they not
until they come up with a better system to protect the information the billing
information and your telephone information and obviously the company
you're using isn't doing that has this happened more than once well I mean
there is there's absolutely no reason for them to charge you for that and you
know I'm sure if you explain to them that you know it's their fault in that
they are selling you a product that is not completely secure I'm sure they'll
wipe that charge away how much do they charge you out of curiosity that's
that's obscene that is obscene call them and tell them that and if they if they
give you further problems call us back because that's that should not be
happening okay all right all right good luck it you know I know what it is about
telecommunications I mean we didn't have cellular companies a few years ago but
now we have cellular companies and they act just like the regular phone companies
it's like something something bred into the whole communication system that
people who run it have to act like sleazebags we're not gonna take it are
we good evening okay are you know what they did recently I'm a scanner
enthusiast they just passed some legislation now where you are not
allowed to so-called eavesdropping on phone calls the cellular phone calls
well there was always a law that said you weren't allowed to listen now I
believe the law states you're not allowed to own something that can listen
well what happens is that the manufacturers are now not able to
manufacture these scanners with the frequencies that you can pick up your
although I can listen to the home phones that you will walk around with right
cordless phones that's perfectly legal you can listen to those no law against
that right that was one thing I wanted to point that because you were talking
to this last fall about that but what was the last time any one of us actually
paid a visit to our elected officials I mean most people don't even know who
they are that's true and you know having been down there last week talking to a
couple of our elected representatives I know it's not easy it's not easy
talking to them because they're as dumb as a lot of the phone company people but
the only way to reach dumb people is to keep pounding them with information and
either they get out of the way or they learn something but you can't stand back
and just let them control things because they really don't know what's going on I
mean to give you an example you were just talking about about cellular phones
and then so was the gentleman before you the person representative fields that I
was talking to last week from Texas is convinced that by by 2600 publishing
frequencies like the 800 megahertz frequencies and showing people how those
public open frequencies have have unencrypted phone calls on them we were
publishing the equivalent of phone codes to allow people to to break into others
privacy that's that's totally absurd but it indicates how people just don't
understand how the technology works for those people who don't understand it
very quickly I could tell you that even with the scanner now the way the phone
conversations work is that if I speak to you off the telephone and you talk to me
at the other end the frequencies change constantly they're they're both
scrambled and quite trunked if you know trunk trunking is it's like it's a back
and forth situation among many frequencies so even with a handheld
scanner there's no way you could possibly listen to one conversation you
may hear one side of a conversation but the things constantly jumping back and
forth uh-huh even with the law involved there's no way you could the technology
is such now that you never will be able to listen to it even if you had the
frequencies yeah and that gets that gets certain law enforcement people very
nervous because they want to be able to listen to everything I would like to
recommend to you a magazine before I go it's a thing called monitoring times
very good magazine yeah and they cover a lot of things including computers I'm a
shortwave enthusiast by the way yeah that's a very good magazine to read if
you are a shortwave enthusiast or just a scanner enthusiast in general yes so I
thought I would pass that along okay well thanks for doing that have a nice
day okay you too and you can find that magazine and the same magazine stores
that you find 2600 in which Tower Hudson Shakespeare books Soho's at is
that still around Coliseum st. Mark's bookstores you know we have a lot of
good bookstores here in this in this city so take advantage of them before
somebody beats you to it good evening yes go ahead I have a copy of 2600 the
hacker quarterly is spring 1990 issue here spring 1990 yeah yeah and it's
building a TDM F Dakota DTM F Dakota right DTM F Dakota I I basically have
the whole thing build but now I'm in a point when I cannot get a hold of the
main IC chip uh-huh which is the s which is the SI SSI 202 I spoke to you
about it at one of the 2600 meetings and you mentioned that you might look into
it and get back to me I was wondering if you found anything out on that well have
you have you looked in popular electronics as a matter of fact I've
called up a few electronic magazines and they told me they will be featuring
an article about building a decoder sometime this year but uh I I did call
up a lot of other places and I couldn't find anyone with the chip that did you
call Jamico yes I called up all the standard digit key Jamico all those
standard places Mouser uh-huh yeah those are all the ones I would recommend what
they say they say they were going to get them or no they just say they don't have
a listing for it there's no cross-reference to that number and that
was it basically something just came in the mail this week that basically is
just gonna make me forget the project somebody's selling DTM F decoders for
$69.95 and if you're interested I could give the address I don't know if you
want to though no go ahead it's Fintronics F I N T R O N I C S that's
13 Stage Street S T A G E Street and Suffern S U F F E R N New York 10901
and he sent me back a little brochure here so I sent the money out and if I do
ever come across the chip I will finish the project though okay well why'd you
give me the the chip number again SS I or 1 it's either an I or 1 I'm pretty
sure it's an I 202 202 okay well fiber optics wandering around the studio
somewhere so if he drops by I'll see if he knows where he might be able to get
that right otherwise I just say keep trying ABA I listeners know of course
they'll call in and help out all right also I spoke to you at the meeting I
mentioned to you about that a CD set that I had purchased with the whole
phone directory of the United States yes it's been working out really good for me
as a matter of fact I had put it an ad in the village voice which came out
today uh-huh that's offering a reverse phone
directory and charging $10 per successful lookup in other words if I
can't find it if it's not listed you know don't even bother to send me any
money I got a few calls for it already but um I think it's a really good you
know program well you're welcome to give you a phone number out here too if you
want because I'm sure people might be interested in that all right well if
you're interested in a reverse directory listing in other words if you
give me the phone number I can give you the name and the address of the person
if it is listed the number is 7 1 8 3 7 9 4 2 7 6 and you just leave a message
and I will get back to you and this is for anywhere in the United States yes
anywhere in the United States is over 70 million listings I have access to right
on my computer here uh-huh and can you tell us what the name of the CD
company that puts this out yes the name of CD company is pro CD and the name of
the software is called pro phone uh-huh okay if I have some of this in front of
me now the phone number for pro CD is 6 1 7 6 3 1 9200 and they're at 8 Dokes
Lane in Little Harbor that's marblehead ma 0 1 9 4 5 okay and how many CDs does
this come on it comes on six CDs and the seventh CD which is business I think I'm
not sure about the seventh CD you know I think I think it's all of the United
States also and only business listings but also there are businesses listed on
the other six CDs uh-huh but that seventh is only for business so that's
incredible because I know only a couple of years ago 9x was offering something
for their only the 9x area for about $10,000 right I know you was mentioning
something like that to me and as a matter of fact I was looking in the
computer shopper the other day in the back it some of the classified and
somebody had an ad in there wanted computer directory listings on CD or
other media so I figured hey you know I got it call them up and it turns out
that uh it turns out that um oh that's my battery okay yeah okay beeps yeah it
turns out that um they already had a copy of pro phone but they it's a few
other companies mentioned that are doing the same thing I think pro phone is the
least expensive uh-huh and it's a good program okay well I'm sure a lot of our
listeners will be interested in pursuing that but yeah information is becoming
pretty cheap isn't it yeah definitely definitely also I work downtown and I
like to go pick up a copy of it of the 2600 before the next meeting well it
should be in the bookstores within say 10 days I'd say and could you tell me a
specific bookstore where I can get it well this tower there's st. Mark's I
believe Hudson and all of these are in the village there's none up further like
by 20 something Street that will have it ah you see I don't really keep track
myself so I don't really know what was that tower Hudson and what else st.
Mark's okay there's others I just don't keep track of that particular aspect of
it all I didn't see that I don't even have to call AT&T information and give
them my 40 cents I could just pop in the CD and look them up that's right
that's right if that alone you'd save a lot of money with true okay listen thanks
for calling okay just goes to show you know a couple years ago $10,000 you'd
have to pay for CDs from 9x that listed everybody in their area now you can get
the whole country for only a couple hundred bucks technology moves on good
evening oh how about that good evening okay how are you
yeah turn down the radio I call I got cut off about I'd say at least five
times waiting waiting for you to answer I want to touch BAI or the phone company
well how do you get cut off it just rings and then what rings I'd say maybe
40 to 50 maybe 40 times and then clicks and I'm gone where are you calling from
from the Bronx you're in the Bronx well it's possible New York Telephone is is
doing something new as far as cutting people off after a certain number of
rings as possible I switch is doing it but it never did it before I know people
in New Jersey have that problem because they use AT&T and that only allows a
certain number of rings hope that's not it anyway point I have a 13 year old boy
and we have a we have a PC and he belongs to America online and he really
enjoys it but it gets into a lot of money and two things I'd let you know is
there a treat like can you get on the internet is the would the internet be
fun for a kid can you learn from it and that's the first part and secondly would
you have a list but are there books you you would recommend for somebody like
myself and my son we're both basically PC novices uh-huh and with I mean I'd
like to know it inside out yeah well again if you head down to one of those
any bookstore really and look for things like the internet companion I know that's
that's good guy to all the services that are on the internet through that you can
also find cheap public Unix systems that will allow you access to the to the
internet because you're right America online is expensive compu serve all those
commercial services run into a lot of money you're best off using something of
an educational nature such as through a school or something like that and then
using that as a as kind of a gateway to everything else and there is there is so
much out there you can hop around the world literally and my son got a letter
from a girl in California I mean he was you know there was a real charge for him
uh-huh yeah well he'll be getting letters from girls in Sweden you know
and and Hong Kong and all kinds of places because that's what the network
is capable of and this would be hopefully a local call and oh yeah
and my second my second question I mean did you I mean I know I can just muddle
through things and try to find out but uh you know I guess basically you know
we both want to be hackers you know uh-huh well if you're into into
experimentation playing around and just trying things out to see what will
happen that's that's what hacking is and if you're not afraid to do that then I
think you'll learn quite a bit but definitely check out some books I don't
recommend taking courses because they tend to be unless you take a
nontraditional course they tend to be rather stultifying and they spend more
time telling you what not to do rather than what you can do I've taken several
courses and they've been exactly that yeah the best thing you can do is just
get online and play around and experiment and just you know have fun
that's really what it's all about and you can't really have fun when when the
clock is ticking and you know that every minute you're spending another 40 cents
or something you have to be able to sit back and not worry about the phone not
worry about the computer services and just sort of you know plot around
imagine if you if your personal computer charged you by the minute yeah you'd
never want to turn it on sure so that's that's why you need a service that's
something like that finally I'm not you know I know you may not have an answer
to this with you I mean is there a language is there an application is
there's something that could get us started you know on to on to being you
as fluent in you as you and your friends on the topic well you know the
funny thing is we may seem like we're fluent in everything but you know
certain people are fluent in one thing and totally illiterate in another you
don't have to be fluent in everything you just have to be like you know some
people are more interested in phones some people are more interested in
programming some people are more interested in networks and personal
computers if you want to really get far in the internet I would recommend
learning C which is a programming language and learning Unix which is an
operating system if you have those two down or even just a rudimentary
knowledge of the two you'll be able to understand quite a bit but don't be
afraid to ask questions and make mistakes because that's what it's all
about to the next 2600 meeting next meeting will be the first Friday of July
and that will be where at the City Corps Center between 5 and 8 p.m. right there
in the lobby by the pay phones okay take a so thank you thanks for calling and on
the subject of meetings you know we've had meetings in other places as well now
we have meetings up in Poughkeepsie the South Hills Mall off route 9 by the pay
phones in front of where else radio shack next to the food court that's up
there in Poughkeepsie and we also have meetings in Philadelphia that might be
within our listening area right there on the 30th Street Amtrak station 30th and
market under the stairwell 7 sign and Danbury Connecticut Danbury Fair Mall
off exit 4 of I-84 in the food court those all happen in the first Friday of
the month between 5 and 8 p.m. and his meetings all over the country all over
the world in fact but we probably don't have any listeners in those particular
areas so we won't get into that speaking of different parts of the world there is
an interesting event happening this August it's called hacking at the end of
the universe it's called an intense summer Congress and that's spelled I N
dash T EN TS reason being that people are going to be inside tents it's sort
of like a camping expedition but somehow it's going to include computer hacking
as well it's something that both hack tick and 2600 magazine are presenting
hack tick being the Dutch hacker magazine over in Amsterdam I'll read you
some of what they have to say about this remember the galactic hacker party back
in 1989 ever wondered what happened to the people behind it we sold out the big
business you think think again we're back that's right on August 4th 5th and
6th we're organizing a three-day summer Congress for hackers phone freaks
programmers computer haters data travelers electro wizards networkers
hardware freaks techno anarchists communications junkies cyberpunks system
managers stupid users paranoid androids Unix gurus whiz kids where's dudes law
enforcement officers appropriate undercover dress required guerrilla
heating engineers and other assorted bald slash long-haired and or unshaven
scum and all this in the middle of nowhere well the middle of Holland
actually but that's the same thing at the Los Cervos campground four meters
below sea level the three days will be filled with lectures discussions and
workshops on hacking freaking people's networks Unix security risks virtual
reality semifun social engineering mag strips lockpicking viruses paranoia
legal sanctions against hacking in Holland and elsewhere and much much more
English is the official language for the event some workshops may take place in
Dutch there will be an internet connection and intertent Ethernet and
social interaction both electronic and live included in the price are four
nights in your own tent also included our inspiration transpiration the
shortage of showers but a lake to swim in good weather guaranteed by God
campfires and plenty of wide open space and fresh air and it all cost around 70
US dollars got a register by July 15 1993 I'll give you some phone numbers
and addresses so you can work this out well you can write to them at hack tick
I don't recommend this because the mails are kind of slow and that's just the way
it is hectic p.o. box 22953 1100 DL Amsterdam the Netherlands you know this
is one of these nights when they just won't leave you alone okay and the
telephone number if you want to speak to somebody is country code 31 city code 20
phone number six zero zero one four eight zero now of course if you're
calling overseas you dial 011 in front of that again city country code 31 city
code 20 number six zero zero six zero zero one four eight zero oh that's too
bad you know this is a flaw with this with this beeper here when the battery
gets really really low it wipes everything so now those people that
were beeping me I hope you're listening because I just lost all those numbers
what a tragedy some of them look like they were important to if you have a
fax machine and you want to fax these people well you can do that too again
it's overseas city code why don't keep saying that country code 31 city code 20
telephone number six nine zero zero nine six eight that's if you want to fax
something to them and if you want to email use the internet their email
address is he you that's like hacking end of universe he you at hack tick dot
nl hack tick is spelled h a c k t IC and nl is spelled nl so that ought to be
interesting if it's anything like the Galactic Hacker Party it's an
inspirational event I know I went to the Galactic Hacker Party I just came back
completely enthused because I don't know the people in Holland just had the
spirit that the people in America seem to have lost and then I think we need to
go over there every now and then and get kind of recharged so yeah that's
happening on the 4th 5th and 6th of August deadline for registration July
15th if anybody goes over there please let us know how it is some of us might
be over there too so maybe we'll see you there okay let's go back to the phones
two one two two seven nine three four hundred good evening you're on off the
hook hello how you doing all right I've recently went to purchase a cell phone
it advertised for $99 so when I went down there the guy I didn't want any
connections so why did he tell me I have to pay an extra $300 I'm sorry they
charge you $300 for what all right the cell phone is advertised for $99 so I
wanted to buy it but I didn't want any connection so he charged me an extra
$300 he charged you $300 not to have it connected because it wasn't connected he
said it requires a deposit and if you don't have a deposit you have to pay the
300 because you don't want it connected at that carrier I'll tell you you know
I've never gotten involved with cellular phones and this is another reason why I
don't have any interest in getting involved in them I have no idea why
they charging you not to connect your phone I mean they advertise that you
mean you've bought the phone right the phone is yours at that price $99 is what
you said okay but originally what did they advertise it as 99 so that was the
cost of the phone they said yes but then they went and said all you have to pay
$300 now because you're not getting it connected right well that's not that's
not that's not a kosher thing to do I don't think what they wanted you to do
is hook up to their network and and pay them connection charges and things like
that when they found that you weren't gonna do that they must have charged you
some kind of penalty well I don't recommend doing business with companies
that deceive you like that and that's pretty much what they did well maybe it
is standard you see I I don't really follow the cellular industry all that
much and it could very well be standard but that doesn't make it all right I
also another question I have a computer for 86 local bus computer uh-huh it's
running at 33 megahertz uh-huh and I have for IDI hard disk and I wanted to
know how come this fuzzy card it won't work with it that's something I really
don't know I'm not that's not my my expertise there either the personal
computer people could help you there on before us or on a fiber optic if it
makes it in here maybe he'll be able to answer that but I suggest calling the
personal computer people okay okay good luck
there was strictly phones and computer systems and Big Brother and things like
that you know good evening that's right yes okay I mean the only thing I can
remember that I believe it's 800 3 2 1 0 ATT 800 3 2 1 0 ATT okay well right now
the the Clinton administration has kind of put it on hold there they're going
and looking for more input which means that they've gotten wind of the
concern I'll put it mildly the concern that people have voiced towards this
chip that would be the data encryption standard would allow governmental
agencies to to well decrypt anything that you decide to encrypt if they get a
search warrant to do so a lot of people seem to feel that they're not all that
comfortable with the government agency having that power and it is an
all-encompassing power something they don't have now something they never had
before and something that if they get that's certainly never going to get rid
of now at the hearing that I mentioned last week where I was I guess defending
the First Amendment because it sort of turned into a trial of hackers it was
originally supposed to be getting our opinion but instead we had to justify
our existence but before that there was another hearing there's another panel on
the Clipper chip and one of the proponents of the Clipper chip Dorothy
Denning was kind of put on the spot by the same representatives and they asked
her what I thought was it was a pretty a pretty fair question and maybe it
wasn't a particularly fair to get her to answer it because it really wasn't her
idea but the question was well what federal agency would you recommend that
the American public would have faith in to hold on to these keys in other words
what what entity does the American people trust enough to hang on to
something that is so private that could decrypt anything that they encrypt is it
the NSA no maybe the FBI maybe the Secret Service who then you know nobody
nobody will pass that test and I think that demonstrates right there that the
American people well I don't know if they're they're paranoid but they
certainly aren't gonna just trust somebody because they're told to trust
somebody in that way we've we've grown up quite a bit over the past couple of
decades so for that reason itself the plan is flawed I don't see how you're
going to get people to agree to just hand over their keys imagine if a
federal agency said we just want copies of everybody's house keys you know it's
just so that you know we need to get in we can get in I mean people won't even
give their local police department or fire department copies of their house
keys sometimes even members of your own family you know it's a private thing you
want to keep things that are private private you know it's simple I'm sure
eventually Congress will understand that good evening yes go ahead oh okay
we're in delay there yes we are okay you know it's interesting I had to redial
you at least about five six times because I got cut off to calling you
from Queens really so this is apparently something new the New York telephone is
installing we'll check it out we'll call some no answer lines and see if they're
cutting people off that's that's really unfortunate if they are yeah tell me
about it yeah we have a redial so at least it got me in there question what
do you make of the answering machine services that AT&T can provide update me
on exactly what they're saying that for example if I'm talking to you right now
someone's trying to reach me and if I don't have call waiting then they can
leave a message for me okay and I can get it some sort of coded signal are you
sure this is AT&T or New York telephone 9x that's 9x okay yeah that's that's
similar to to various voice message systems that are being offered around
the country basically if you have a message you pick up and you get a
stutter dial tone immediately and that tells you that you have a message you
can call a special number to get your messages from any place or you can just
call from your house and enter your password it's nice you know it's nice to
be able to do that but unfortunately it does have problems you know the system
goes down occasionally and you can't access anything in fact nobody can
access anything the system can get filled up in ways that answering
machines can't and also the most important thing is do you trust a
company like 9x or a CMP telephone or whatever yeah to to have all of your
messages to just have them there that's why I wanted to keep my machine yeah you
see the machine is something tangible if somebody leaves you a message they're
leaving it to you you have it I could hold it in your hands a voice messaging
system it's nice in some ways but it doesn't it doesn't really save money
because you buy an answer machine and it's over you've bought it this is
something you have to pay for month after month a lot of answering machines
have the exact same capabilities as voicemail a lot of them have much better
capabilities so you know I would say experiment with it but don't depend on
it because there's a lot of things that could go wrong one other question it's
been going on and on but as far as the cordless phones go yeah an earlier call
either was saying that you can only listen to half the conversation for
friends that I have who use cordless phones and I always tell them we're
basically broadcasting a telephone land can you actually hear both sides of the
conversation or don't you yes you can hear both sides I'm not sure if you're
talking about cordless inside a house or a cellular no cordless by cordless yes
it depends on the on the on the phone it depends on how close you are to the
actual transmitter cordless I've never had a problem listening to to both ends
cellular occasionally you'll only hear the person that is not on a cellular
phone because sometimes you're hearing the the bait the actual transmitter and
that's not amplifying the signal of the person in the car so occasionally you'll
just get one side of that conversation using the information that we printed in
the spring issue of 2600 you can find the other half a lot of times
geographic range that you can no longer pick up conversations on a cordless
phone a cordless phone yes they have they have certain certain limitations
so in other words using your own scanner you'll only be able to say pick up
conversations within whatever sort of radius several several hundred feet up
to a thousand thousand feet maybe oh that's yeah for cordless phone cellular
is miles okay okay so all right thanks for calling that's gonna just about do
it for us here tonight as we are out of time but I want to thank everybody who
did call in and warn everybody that we will be back again next week with
another program off the hook stay tuned for for the rebroadcast of the evening
news this is Emanuel Goldstein until next week stay awake
good evening in the news tonight our Senate Republicans just trying to get
in Clinton's way and what can he do about it is racism in America a human
rights issue for the world to address some South African whites afraid of
change or taking up guns or exiting the country and in New York the city goes
after collection agencies charged with harassing people who fall behind on
their bills 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 June 16th 1993
first to Verna Avery Brown the United Nations embargo on Haiti would block
shipments of arms and oil as well as freeze the assets of Haiti's rulers Mike
McCurry of the State Department says this international embargo will prove
more effective than current sanctions mostly because the current one is an OAS
sponsored embargo applying to members of that organization this now represents an
effort by the international community acting united I believe the the vote in
the Security Council was unanimous more than a million South Africans have
stayed home to mark the anniversary of the 1976 Soweto uprising 17 years ago
police fired at protesting high school students in the black township of Soweto
but today has been relatively calm and there have been political rallies across
the country Patti clay reports from Johannesburg
most black workers stayed home and the streets of South Africa cities were
largely empty African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela told a crowd of
some 40,000 people in Soweto that this was the last time the anniversary of the
uprising would be marked by an unofficial public holiday if democracy
negotiations go according to plan there'll be a black government in power
this time next year and the day will be officially recognized the approach of
democracy was the major theme of Mandela's speech referring to the walkout
by some parties from democracy talks Mandela said the ANC would do all in its
power to bring them back to the table but Mandela said even if they stayed out
democracy was inevitable for Pacifica Radio News I'm Patti clay in Johannesburg
the trial of two white men charged with setting a fire a black tourist is being
moved from Tampa Twyla Huda reports to protect the jurors from pretrial
publicity judge Donald Evans had ordered their identities kept confidential for
at least six months problems began when a memo with the names of would-be jurors
was sent to hundreds of employees at the state attorney's office prosecutors
claimed it was their duty to find out whether the potential jurors had any
involvement with workers at the state attorney's office stories of the leak
were covered by local media however the names or identities of the panelists
were never published television news coverage of the potential jurors did not
alter their voices and the cameras were aimed just below their faces showing
their bodies today several of those potential jurors complained to the judge
they had been identified by friends and relatives who watch television news
stories and now the judge is moving the trial from Tampa the trial will be
delayed until the end of August for Pacifica News I'm Twyla Huda the house
has taken up the foreign aid bill President Clinton says providing over
nine hundred million dollars in aid to Russia will help America it's a very
good investment for the United States and the reverse would that is if
democracy were reversed that would be a bad thing for the United States so I
hope it'll pass and I think it will more charges of racial bias at Denny's
restaurants five current and former employees are suing the chain for five
million dollars in damages alleging they were discriminated against because they
are black Denny's denies any wrongdoing further charges of discrimination come
from the attorney representing six black Secret Service agents who say they were
refused service because of their race attorney John Relman says he got
evidence of racial discrimination at eight different restaurants in four
states North Carolina Virginia Maryland and Florida on Capitol Hill a bipartisan
group says they support a bill funding population control efforts worldwide
Senate Republican Alan Simpson is a co-sponsor of the measure the real issue
is how many footprints will fit on the face of the earth according to the group
the issue of population growth affects the nation's economy and environment the
congressional members say something must be done soon to rein in the rapid growth
in human population one statistic they cite the human population is expected to
quadruple by the end of the next century and those are the stories topping the
news
the nasty fight today in the Senate over campaign finance reform is symbolic of
the battle being waged by Republicans Democrats did manage to keep public
financing of campaigns in the measure being debated today but they lack the 60
votes needed to kill the debate altogether that puts the Republicans in
the catbird seat with enough votes to filibuster and that's precisely what
they're doing it's a well-worn Republican tactic Pacifica's Don Rush
looks at the Republicans Senate filibuster and its ability to cause
gridlock in the Senate the Republicans are becoming the party that just says no
no to the president's stimulus package no to campaign finance reform no to the
president's economic package and one of the best examples of that negative
attitude was delivered by minority leader Bob Dole on the Senate floor he
told his colleagues the American people didn't like the president's economic
scheme they see the Clinton administration's disastrous tax and
spend economic plan and they see it's big-ticket big government solutions to
every single problem and they wonder what is going on they thought they were
voting for change what they're getting now day after day is everything they
thought they were voting against last year and the Republicans believe there
are no way attitude is getting a good response in the campaign trail with
Republican victories Senator Mark Hatfield a Republican of Oregon if you
want to go back just a few weeks ago to the Texas senatorial election which ran
on strictly the Republican action in the Senate or at least in main part go back
to the election in mayor the mayor's election in Los Angeles of a conservative
Republican rich businessman that all of the imagery of the political stereotype
for rich Republicans they won these elections and they won them on the same
issues that we're running here trying to run the Senate on with more Democratic
Senate seats up for election next year than Republican the GOP is licking its
chops hoping to make major gains in both houses and at every turn the Republicans
have been unified in their opposition to the president's policies the president's
stimulus package died at the hands of a Republican filibuster now comes the
campaign reform bill which the Republicans have effectively filibustered
over the last several weeks and the Republican Senate leadership is sitting
on the sidelines as they watch Democrats try to get an economic package
through Congress some critics say this solid Republican front would not be
unexpected had it not been for the record of the Democrats the reason it
seems peculiar is because for the last 12 years the wimpish Democrats didn't do
their job of opposing Irwin know what the progressive magazine rolled over and
played dead for Ronald Reagan and for George Bush so we haven't been
accustomed to the idea that the opposition is supposed to be an
opposition no says part of the problem is with the contradictions of President
Clinton's message if the Republicans are opposed to tax increases for example the
problem is that the president hasn't really explained why tax increases are
necessary because he's opposed to tax increases to the refrain now being heard
from the Republicans is to cut government spending it is a refrain that
served them well during the 1980s with presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush
indeed the latest public opinion survey by the Los Angeles Times shows the
public losing faith in the president's economic plan 53 percent described the
president's economic package is more tax and spend a theme that the Republicans
have been pounding away at relentlessly and those who considered the president's
plan as bold and innovative drop from a February high of 50% down to 28% in June
but there was also bad news for the Republicans 44% said they believed
Clinton had better ideas for the economy as opposed to 31% for the Republicans
and Jim Barnes with the National Journal says the Republicans have not been able
to put forth a coherent economic plan of their own and that the inability to do
that I think is contributing to what we see in in public opinion polls that
people don't really think that the Republicans are as serious as Clinton
about cutting the deficit and that they tend to look at at Republican objections
to Clinton as being politically grounded by the end of the week the Senate
Democrats are expected to come up with an economic package it is one that is
much different from the far more liberal House version and as the
Republicans sit it out David Korn with the Nation magazine says there is a
message in all of this for progressives I think the lesson of all this is that
progressives inside and outside of Washington have to keep up pressure
Clinton clearly is a man who responds to the loudest yells Don Rush Pacifica
Network News Washington the only elected independent in the US Congress says if
President Clinton wants to reverse the current trend of Republican gridlock the
president will have to come out swinging and be prepared to go to the wall with
some bold new programs Vermont representative Bernie Sanders wrote a
commentary in the latest edition of the nation magazine what mr. Clinton has got
to do is not only articulate the problems but go out to the people and
tell working people and poor people and those people who are seeing the decline
in their standard of living and those people who have given up hope what he
has got to do is go out to those people tell them that he is on their side with
some very specific programs rally national support for those programs and
they'll tell the United States Congress they better listen to the people but but
the American people that's that's part that's another problem he didn't come
into office with a mandate and the polls show that the American public is quite
fickle when it comes to Clinton's loyalty the moment he does something that
might require their particular interest group to make a sacrifice his ratings
drop well that's that's the point then the issue is what are we talking about
and who should sacrifice you see I think that mr. Clinton will not be
successful if he tries to balance off the needs of the very wealthy and the
powerful with the needs of working people in the poor ultimately he's going
to have to decide which side he is