With Paul DiRienzo, keeping an eye on the New World Order, 1.30, Wednesday night, Thursday
morning, following Robert Knight, Let Him Talk, on WBAI 99.5 FM.
We're here to do Poison Dart.
The funniest radio show ever produced is back.
Poison Dart!
The Poison Darts Minute debuts Monday, October 4th, at 3.59 PM, continuing the adventures
of Charles and Emilian Andrews, the unmarried couple who adopted Mr. Woburn, an old man
from the welfare department.
The Poison Darts Minute, every Monday through Thursday in October, at 3.59 PM.
Hello, hello, hello, it's the show about people answering the telephone.
Emilian, they brought you a carload of Venusian coleslaw.
Oh, thanks, Mr. Woburn.
I was down to my last barrel.
Hi, this is Steve Post.
Have you ever thought of becoming a radio announcer?
You can train now at the Steve Post School of Audio Excellence.
The Poison Darts Minute is written by David Dozer and stars the author and Janet Coleman
as Charles and Emilian, and Peter Zenger as Mr. Woburn.
Yes, it's Bob Fass at the Jim Croyne School of Microphone Arts.
The Poison Darts Minute, every Monday through Thursday in October, at 3.59 PM.
More than just a summer replacement show for Hello, it's Goodbye.
And it's 10 o'clock on Wednesday night, that means once again it's time for Off the Hook.
And a good evening to one and all.
This is Off the Hook, the program that tells you how to use your telephone, tells you how
your telephone can be used against you, and updates you on all the latest in computer
foul-ups and strange things going on throughout the planet.
And that's exactly what we're going to do tonight.
We have some news updates, special guests, that kind of thing, and of course your phone
call is a two-on-two, 279-3400.
The theme music at Stranger Every Week.
Well, let's start right in by talking about something that we started to bring up last
week concerning a college prank and an FBI investigation into the college prank.
Basically somebody made some fake email at a college and made somebody resign that wasn't
supposed to resign.
You know, kind of like one of those things that happens in your college years.
The only difference is this was done on a computer and because it was done on a computer
it became federal and the FBI got involved.
Imagine doing this on paper and having the FBI investigate.
It would be rather absurd.
At least a few people on the network seem to agree with this, taking a look at some
things that came across the Risks Digest over the past week.
This is from Frederick Cohen.
You may know him as a virus expert.
And this is concerning the FBI investigating such college pranks.
He says, it's a sad state of affairs when the FBI investigates a college prank but doesn't
investigate murder and rape running rampant through the nation.
When I was in college, students sent a resignation letter from the dean of students to the president
on official letterhead.
There was no federal investigation and the most any student would ever get for such a
prank would be a stern lecture about being sociable.
If they investigated half the pranks, the FBI would be forever chasing kids around our
college campuses.
Hey, you know, he should wake up.
That's exactly what they seem to be doing, them and the Secret Service.
Let's keep some perspective on things and spend our federal time and money on something
more useful.
How about a study of how many times a butterfly flaps its wings before it dies?
And this from the Wall Street Journal of October 7th.
Federal safety investigators said autopilot problems have caused certain Boeing jets to
change direction for no apparent reason.
The National Transportation Safety Board has asked the Federal Aviation Administration
to warn pilots that autopilots on Boeing 757 and 767 airplanes have engaged and disengaged
on their own and to take precautionary measures.
The FAA said it would put the matter under high-priority review.
The autopilots of Boeing 757s and 767s are made by Collins Avionics, a division of Rockwell
International.
Collins' officials couldn't be reached to comment.
And this reassuring note from Canada.
Supposedly Bank of America fired an employee after snooping in his email and discovering
that he worked as a mail stripper at night.
Well, that's not entirely true.
That was the rumor.
The truth is that the Bank of America fired the man after it discovered his moonlighting,
but they discovered it by going through his desk, not his email.
And what's interesting about this is that this along with 500 other invasions of privacy
are written up in War Stories, which is a collection published by Privacy Journal.
And I suppose we should give information on how to get something like that because it
is of interest to people who listen.
You can either call 401-274-7861, or you can write to PO Box 28577, Providence, Rhode
Island, 02908.
And that's the folks over at Privacy Journal.
Interesting publication there.
And for those of you that feel this is just a waste of time, you know, that we talk about
things that, well, it doesn't really affect us, we've got something to think about, something
that probably will affect you.
This comes from Andrew Hagen.
He says, it's enough that everyone has taken for granted that the danger of massive nuclear
war has passed, while nuclear missiles in the former Soviet Union remain pointed at
U.S. and Western targets.
But now, if the software has a few bugs in the code that decides when all Russian military
leaders are dead, and it is triggered by some anomaly, well, then a very serious, huge disaster
would follow.
Yes.
And here's something, as a final note, that I think is fascinating.
This comes from, it's kind of hard to tell, this came electronically, I'm not sure if
it came from Jay Hudson or Mike Cavey.
One of those two people writes this, maybe they both sort of wrote it together.
Most of us probably already know how much damage can be done with the magic three pieces
of information.
You know what the magic three pieces of information are?
You don't.
Well, there's at least a few people out there that don't know what the magic three pieces
of information are.
Well, I'll give you a hint.
We should all have the magic three pieces of information about ourselves, and it's very
likely that many of us have the magic three pieces of information on a lot of other people
as well.
And it's with those magic three pieces of information that you can do all kinds of wondrous
things and all kinds of really nasty things, too.
The three pieces of information are, of course, your name, your date of birth, and your social
security number.
You've got that information, there's much that can be done.
Here's a story.
In Massachusetts, the default driver's license is your social security number.
In the USA, the default identifying number on your credit history file is also your social
security number.
Two years ago, my wallet with my driver's license inside was stolen.
Using the magic three pieces of information which were on the license, some person called
TRW Information Services and obtained a copy of my credit history.
It cost them $8.
On the credit history was every current credit card number.
Armed with the magic three pieces of information plus a credit card number, the person convinced
the credit card company to change my mailing address.
A few days later, the person called and reported the card had been destroyed and got a new
one.
Within a week, the person had run up $8,000 in automatic teller machine cash withdrawals
using the card.
Now, the credit card company, which wishes to remain anonymous, readily admits that their
customer service agent should never have changed the mailing address of the card based on only
the magic three pieces of information.
However, their security system clearly failed in this case.
Having dealt with six different credit card companies during the history of this little
affair, I can attest to the fact that the magic three pieces of information are all
that is needed to pass most companies' security.
And a follow-up to this from Jeff Kooning, he says, I recently moved and took the easy
way out in several cases by filing my change of address by telephone.
I was pleased to note that several companies sent me a follow-up letter of the form, quote,
we recently processed your address change.
Please contact us if this is incorrect, unquote.
Unfortunately, in every case, they sent the letter only to the new address.
It doesn't do you much good if it gets sent to an address that you know nothing about.
All right, and this brings us to a point where I kind of like to try something out.
Now, this is risky.
This is dangerous.
This is something that you won't get on all those other programs about high technology
that are on at this time slot.
We're going to do it anyway, because we believe in testing the waters and trying things that
may work or may not work.
We're going to call at random, at random, a credit card company.
We're going to ask them.
We're going to ask them what it takes to change your address.
Got a bunch of cards here, shuffling them.
Kind of hard to shuffle plastic cards, but we're going to do it anyway.
Okay, we have a number here.
We have a number, and we're going to try and get some information.
Okay, let's see if we can get our magical dial tone.
Okay, do we have?
No, we don't.
All right, we have technical problems.
Let's fix the technical problems right now.
All right.
Now, I believe we have a line.
Let's get our dial tone there.
Okay, we're in business.
Things you have to do to set up things around here.
All right, let's give a call.
Okay, I suppose the phone company thinks that's funny.
Well, let's try another line.
That's better.
That's what happens if you don't pay that touch tone fee.
Your tones just go out into space, and absolutely nothing happens to them.
All right, let's see what we can find out here.
Thank you for calling the Chase Bank Card Center.
This service requires a touch tone telephone.
If you have a touch tone telephone, please press 1 now.
If you do not have a touch tone telephone, please hold,
and a customer service representative will assist you.
Let's go for that option there.
We'll get lost in touch tone land.
Please stay on the line for customer service assistance.
Oh, what fun.
And we get music, too.
Hey, that's the music they play on TV.
Good evening, Chase Customer Service.
Mr. Brad Miller, how may I help you, please?
Yes, I just had a general question.
I was wondering if in the future I wanted to change my address,
could I do that over the phone?
Yes, sir.
What would I need to provide in order to do that?
Verification, you know, like social security number, mother's maiden name, previous address.
Okay.
Okay, so mother's maiden name.
See, I don't have an account with this.
Would I have to give that information in order to get a card?
In order to get a card, sir, what do you mean?
Well, I would have to give you my mother's maiden name in order to get a card.
Is that correct?
Do you have an account with this presently, sir?
No, I don't have an account yet.
I was thinking of getting an account, but I just wanted to know what it would take in order to do that
if I did decide to change my address.
That's what we would have to have, sir.
Okay, so I would have to give you that information in order for you to have it.
Okay, well, thank you very much.
Thank you.
All right.
And I think I've totally confused him as far as that goes.
Let's try one more.
Let's see.
Okay, let's try this one over here.
Do we have a line?
All right, we don't have a line.
We have to get a line again.
They certainly make things challenging around here.
Okay, I believe we're in the process of getting a dial tone.
And we have one.
Of course, we'll meet up with the touch-tone thing again.
Thank you for calling American Express Gold Card Division.
If you have a touch-tone phone and have a question about your balance
or a recent payment, please press 1.
If you need to report a lost, stolen, non-received, or replacement card,
please press 2.
If you would like to speak to a representative, please press 0 or hold,
and you will be con-
0.
American Express Gold Card, Ms. Jones speaking.
How may I help you?
Hi.
I just had a very general question.
I was wondering if you might be able to help me with that.
Okay.
Basically, I was thinking of changing my address in about a month or so,
and I was wondering if I can do that over the phone when the time comes,
and if I can, what I need to provide at that point.
Yes, you can do that over the phone,
and you just need to provide your account number.
Uh-huh.
And then the representative will just ask some identification questions.
Okay.
So things that you would already have, nothing that I have to look up
or anything like that.
No, things that you would already know,
like just general questions about the account.
Uh-huh.
Maybe my Social Security number, my name, and my account number.
Right.
Things like that.
Okay.
That sounds fair enough.
All right.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Thanks for calling.
Bye-bye.
Okay.
It's that simple there.
It doesn't sound like really it's all that difficult to get this information,
like mother's maiden name.
Well, you know, most of us don't keep that a secret,
but the fact of the matter is when they ask you that question,
they don't know if you're telling the truth.
So, you know, you can tell them that your mother's maiden name is 79,
and they'll accept it because they're not going to check into it,
but nobody else will know.
It'll be your little secret with the credit card company.
So that's my little tip of the day for keeping this information confidential.
If you give them Social Security number, your real mother's maiden name,
and all this other information that anybody else can find out,
you could be wide open for all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly things.
All right.
We'll be talking with a special guest in a moment,
and we'll be taking your phone calls in just a couple of minutes.
Here on Off The Hook, the phone number is 212-279-3400.
And it's just about 22 minutes after 10 o'clock.
That long pause, by the way, is for the most embarrassing reason.
I couldn't dial out. I couldn't get an outgoing line here.
I couldn't hack the system either.
It was completely unpenetrable, so we had to run down the hall
and find a phone access code, but we did it.
And we have on the line with us Craig Neidorf. Craig, are you there?
Yeah, I'm here.
Okay, Craig is in Virginia, and those of you who have listened to the show
for a number of years know Craig as the publisher,
the ex-publisher of Frack Magazine, who was raided by the Secret Service,
forced to stand trial for printing an article
that was alleged to have cost Bell South something like $80,000.
Turns out that it was only worth about $14,000.
We haven't talked to Craig in a while.
I figure it's time to update folks, see if anything new has gone on.
Craig, anything new happening?
Well, just that I think there's been a similar case going on
that's up in Connecticut right now. I don't know if you've heard about it too much.
Well, tell us about it.
To be honest, I don't know that much about it.
There's a guy who ran a bulletin board up in,
I believe it was West Hartford,
had a text file on his board that someone else had put up there,
and it's actually a very old text file,
containing information typed up from one of the
Anarchist Cookbook type of magazines or books that you could find in the bookstore.
Yeah, what was it? Something on how to make a bomb or something like that?
Right, a bomb or set fire to something. I'm not sure exactly.
But it had a little disclaimer inside.
Unlike most of the kinds of disclaimers you might have seen in Frack
or some other people's works,
basically advocating that readers of the article
actually use it for a damaging purpose.
And while that may make the author liable,
it certainly shouldn't make the SysOp liable
for carrying the file on his board, especially when it's a good chance
he never even read the file himself.
So what wound up happening to the SysOp?
They actually put him in jail.
I think it's a little more than murderers get.
Now this case hasn't gotten all that much press.
Not that I'm aware of.
The only place I've seen any material about it has been
in what's called the Computer Underground Digest.
The young man's name is Michael Elansky
and I believe he used the handle of the ionizer.
I don't know what his board was called.
But it was up in Connecticut.
Anyone who's familiar with the 911 case,
it's, well, like three and a half years old now.
That was your case, the 911 case.
Right.
I did a little research with the Bellcore manual,
the one that you can use to order documents at the 800 number.
A lot of the regional Bell operating companies now
no longer sell their products through Bellcore directly.
They'll still be in the catalog,
you can only call up, for the most part,
and order specific Bellcore publications in the Bellcore catalog.
So whereas some of the key documents in my trial
were actual Bell South publications that were sold from Bellcore,
today if you were to order them,
you'd have to contact Bell South specifically.
But not all of them charge.
As a matter of fact, at least when I placed an order,
Ameritech on several of their documents had no charge whatsoever.
So anybody can call and get this information?
Well, you have to send it in writing.
The instructions are in the Bellcore catalog.
I think it's 1-800-521-CORE.
I'd be happy to mail that to you.
Anyway, I looked through the Bellcore catalog
and saw some documents from Ameritech that had no fee,
things on X-25 and X-75,
about the Bell operating companies getting into cable services
and providing cable to television programming,
and even a document about 9-1-1.
Really? Was it the same document that was supposedly worth $80,000?
No, it wasn't the same as the Bell South document.
However, let me read this to you real quick.
It's called Interface of an E-9-1-1 PSAP,
that stands for Public Safety Entering Point,
to a 1-A ESS switch and to an E-9-1-1 database.
It's very nice.
It comes tape-bound, dated September 1991.
It has a little map of the state served by Ameritech on the front cover.
That's always handy.
And it is approximately 23 pages.
It has some nice charts and graphs inside.
You didn't have any charts and graphs,
and I think yours was only about 12 pages, wasn't it?
Sorry, it was 11. We chopped out 13 pages.
Well, this could easily be worth a couple hundred thousand dollars,
in that document right there.
Right now, this one does say inside this document cannot be reproduced
without the express written permission of Ameritech.
However, they did send a letter that came with the document they ordered.
And if I can find that here.
The letter does say,
OK, attention, Craig Neidorf,
Dear Mr. Neidorf, per your request,
I'm enclosing the following Ameritech publications.
They're listed here by document number.
And the paragraph reads below,
Ameritech services hereby grants permission for you to reproduce
the enclosed documents as necessary for internal use only.
That's incredible.
So you get a notice saying you can't reproduce the document,
but you get a reproduced letter saying that you can do that.
Well, strictly, all those people listening, keep it internal, OK?
I guess we can interpret it any way we want.
I would consider it that way.
Tell us about FRAC. How is FRAC doing these days?
Uh-huh.
Also, they handle Eric Bloodaxe, I believe.
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
You know what?
Uh-huh.
It's getting that way.
There was a convention down in Las Vegas this past summer.
What was that called again?
Defcon, yeah.
OK, it's hard to keep track of all these things.
Then, of course, there's SummerCon, which takes place every summer in St. Louis,
and there's HoHoCon, which I believe is taking place in Austin this winter.
Is there an upsurge in hacker conventions all of a sudden?
Well, I don't know.
As far as the law enforcement people are concerned,
these cons are great for them because it gets them free vacations on company time.
Yeah, in fact, when I was over in Amsterdam,
I was thanked by several people who said,
because of me, they were able to get free tickets to Amsterdam
so that they could talk to me over there.
I had to wonder, why couldn't you talk to me in New York?
These are media people and governmental officials and things like that.
They had to ask special permission to go to Amsterdam
so that they could talk to me in that environment.
I don't get it, but I think a few people are taking advantage of this.
There is some talk.
We are considering moving SummerCon this year for different reasons,
a lot of which has to do with the fact that
the founders of the conference no longer live in St. Louis.
Yeah, that is true.
It is getting increasingly difficult to plan these things from 800 miles away.
Well, you know, it would be awfully confusing
if you had two SummerCons at the same time.
That way they wouldn't know which ones to spy on.
It is also sort of the rationale behind the 2600 meetings
where we have something like 25 meetings all going on at the same time
that just aren't enough corporate spies and federal agents
to be in all places at the same time.
Well, there were quite a few at the same place at the same time about a year ago.
Well, say the next meeting will be in November here,
and that is of course when the famous Secret Service
Pentagon City Mall incident took place.
Yes, it seems like longer than a year ago,
but it was only one year ago this November that that took place,
and that is a story that is not yet over.
There is still more information coming out of that,
and of course we will bring that to you here and off the hook.
You know, as long as I have you on the line here,
there is some kind of really strange, bizarre, unique conference going on there.
Do you want to tell the folks about that?
You probably know more about the conference than I do,
but what I was going to bring up is that the conference
lasts Tuesday through Thursday of the week prior to the 2600 meeting,
and this being the one-year anniversary of the incident
here in Washington, D.C., 2600 meeting,
and you being here the Thursday before,
we were thinking maybe we could get you to stay an extra day.
Maybe you will have to negotiate with my agent.
What is the exact date of that?
I believe it is the 2nd through the 4th of November.
Okay, well, that is a governmental type of thing, right?
Right.
There is a private organization called Open Source Solutions,
and I believe the conference has to do with computer security
as far as it applies to
foreign invaders and foreign intelligence agencies.
Foreign invaders. How fascinating.
Now, of course, you have all these federal agents
coming to hacker conventions and hacker meetings,
but now you also have hackers going to these
corporate and governmental conventions.
Well, I think more and more maybe the tide is beginning to turn.
Maybe some of the people in government, in private corporations,
are beginning to recognize that as long as these hackers are out there,
they might as well exploit them for some of the value that they bring
from their knowledge and not treat everyone like they were the enemy
just because they had some childhood exploits.
Uh-huh.
Well, hopefully dialogue will be a positive thing.
But in any event, it will be interesting in the next couple of months.
Craig, I know you have to study for a test,
so I don't want to keep you on the phone too much longer.
We do want to start taking some phone calls.
No, just that I'm glad to see that your show is still on.
We're glad to see you're still around and still taking an interest in things.
But it appears that my case was just the first.
I mean, it really wasn't the first, but it wasn't the end, either.
There's been a lot more people, First Amendment issues,
bulletin board operators, a lot more prosecutors
saying that the First Amendment does not apply to electronic media
and holding third parties responsible
for printed electronic data that's passed through their systems.
And as we become more computerized and more online
with all the Internet and various other computer systems
and bulletin boards and so forth, it really makes you stop and wonder
just what we're coming to here.
And best wishes for Michael Lansky, who was just the latest victim.
We'll be following that case, and hopefully we'll have some news,
some updates on that in the weeks ahead.
Craig, thanks again, and good luck.
Okay, well, thank you.
Craig Neidorf, former publisher of Frack Magazine,
and, of course, he was put on trial back in 1990
for publishing an article that Bell South slightly exaggerated the worth of.
All right, we have some updates.
Razor has just come in with an update on some news you may have heard
on the radio, the commercial radio stations today,
concerning a big takeover.
Well, not a takeover, but a merger.
Not only a merger of companies, but a merger of technology,
something that will affect each and every one of you listening.
So, Razor, take it away.
Okay, today there was, on Channel 10,
the CEOs of both Bell Atlantic and TCI,
which is Telecommunications Something Incorporated,
I'm not quite sure, have merged.
TCI is probably, I think, the biggest cable company in the country.
Yeah, I'm not sure exactly.
But, anyway, it's a $33 billion merger,
which is the biggest merger to date.
It's bigger than the Nabisco mergers, which are the most famous.
And, basically, Bell Atlantic now and TCI,
their CEOs announced that they were going to put a lot of effort forward
toward the multimedia and electronic communities.
And, basically, they sounded like that they were going to monopolize
the entire multimedia industry,
such as video conferencing, interactive television.
And, although they all made it sound good,
it's basically, it's going to be a $33 billion monopoly
over the new technology, such as 3DO and various other things.
Now, what bothers me is that, like we saw the breakup of AT&T
into the regional Bell operating companies,
no one seems to be taking any action here
for these two giant corporate entities to merge
and start taking over our electronics and electronic frontier.
Uh-huh.
Well, now, some of what I've heard is that your television set
will become the center of attention, as if it isn't already for most people.
But you will get your mail through the television set.
You'll be able to communicate with people and, of course, watch TV and shop
and do just about everything imaginable.
But I take it that's not necessarily a positive thing.
Well, I mean, I think it's definitely positive
to have interactive multimedia and television.
And with the 500 channels coming soon,
you're definitely going to have a hell of a lot of stimulative media to watch.
But I think these are all good things the company is doing.
I think the bad thing is that they want to monopolize the industry
and not give any small third-party developers a chance
to take stake in this new frontier.
Have they actually said that, or is that just the interpretation?
Yeah, that's my interpretation.
As well, I've gotten feedback from a lot of people
on what was going on in this television show
and all the corporate briefs that they've sent out detailing the merger.
Now, this just happened today,
so it's kind of early to say exactly where this is heading
or if it's actually going to happen.
But by all accounts, it seems like this will probably affect us
even more than that Nabisco merger.
Right. You know, Nabisco is food. This is our lives.
That certainly did affect most of us in some form or another.
But, yeah, it's kind of the promise that we've been hearing now
for quite some time, the marriage of technologies and ISDN
and all that kind of thing.
It seems to be one step closer, but not necessarily one step better.
It could be frightening. It could be done poorly.
It could be done in a monolithic way that will only make things worse for us.
So, yeah, I agree competition is the answer here.
Let's see if any of our callers have any details or information or opinions on this.
Our phone number tonight and every night, as always, is 212-279-3400.
The program is Off The Hook. Let's see who's out there.
Good evening.
Hello, Emanuel. This is Jay Hawk.
Hey, how are you?
Hello. Okay. A couple of comments.
A bunch of comments, actually.
First, thumbs up on the Twin Peaks music.
Could you speak up a little bit? You're fading away.
Oh, sorry. First, thumbs up on the Twin Peaks music.
Thank you.
Second, you mentioned, like, information services through cable.
Performance Systems International, which is one of the biggest commercial Internet providers,
struck a deal with a cable company in Massachusetts recently.
Uh-huh.
They're having a lot of things happening.
Yeah, and they're, you know, going to be providing Internet through the cable network
or through revising the cable network or some sort, some deal with the cable company.
Right.
Bring it into your home without the necessity of dealing with an external provider,
as it's kind of hard today.
Uh-huh.
Um, let's see.
Do you see that as a good thing or a bad thing?
Well, you know, it's a good and a bad thing.
It reflects an evolution of the industry and an evolution of the Internet,
and it's coming towards, you know, the common user.
And that's good, but it also reflects, you know, big commercial ventures, which are bad.
I think Razor has a comment.
Um, yeah.
What this is basically saying is that your local phone company,
your local division of your Babybel,
is no longer going to be involved in the process of selling lease lines
to bring information services and Internet services to your house.
Currently, the way it works, PSI sells the service.
Here, New York Telephone sells the lease line to your house.
And so basically they can offer more economical rates
through having their own cable going to your house,
but they're going to have to lay a lot of cable
because the Bell operating companies have built up such a huge infrastructure.
But I think this is definitely a good thing
because we've got more competition than just our local phone companies.
That's the first step to get competition for the phone companies
because that's the biggest monopoly right now.
The danger here is, of course, having companies like PSI
turn into monopolies like the phone company.
Well, I don't think the local phone companies are going to be going anywhere,
and I don't think the local cable companies are going to be going anywhere.
So, you know, the entry of companies like PSI into this
will certainly be advantageous.
Another little question was when's the next 2600 issue coming out?
Oh, I'm glad you asked, actually, because I'm holding.
That's the sound of the next 2600 issue, which just came out.
In fact, it's in the mail.
If you're a subscriber, you probably have it in a day now,
and it should be on the newsstands in a week or so.
But, yeah, the autumn issue.
It's a little bit late, but we finally got it out.
Articles on caller ID, various Unix things,
more high school hacking and book reviews,
virus news, cellular, you name it, it's in here.
Okay, and two more things.
One about Mother's Maiden name stuff for credit cards.
There was actually a discussion, I think it was in Risks,
but wherever it was, recently, like the past month or so, about this.
And a lot of people said that a lot of services will accept just about any past phrase,
like a password, but more than one word
or more than one contiguous sequence of characters,
and a lot of them will just accept a sentence or something.
And so, just like any other password,
you should make sure you use different passphrases for different credit cards and the like,
and just make sure you don't forget them.
The only difference is that it's very hard to change your Mother's Maiden name.
You're supposed to change passwords, but how do you call a credit card company
and say, I want to change my Mother's Maiden name?
Well, I don't know, if you have something that's obviously not your Mother's Maiden name,
you're a little more inclined to do that.
Yeah, I don't think the representatives there are programmed to take anything
that they don't believe is a Mother's Maiden name, but it's always worth the effort.
Also, local phone companies and long-distance companies as well
have services where they will attach a password to your account.
Unfortunately, they don't check to make sure that it's actually you
attaching the password to the account, so you could, in effect, lock somebody out
if you know what you're doing.
And that also sort of brings up the fact that you should change your calling card pins every once in a while.
Yeah, it would be nice. It would be nice to do that.
Most people probably don't.
And maybe even your credit card numbers.
It'll drive the whole industry crazy if everybody keeps doing this, but...
Credit card numbers often expire every once in a while.
Yeah, they expire, but they don't change the numbers.
They just give you a new piece of plastic.
Only if you lose them.
Only if you lose them or if they're compromised in some way.
Yeah, it's rare they actually...
I mean, maybe some companies do that, but not the ones I deal with.
I wish they would.
All right, thanks for calling.
One final little item.
Make it quick.
Oh, well, it's sort of...
Well, okay.
You know the NIC, the Internet, which runs the name-assigning and number-assigning parts of the Internet?
Right.
They sent out a piece of junk mail to me for the first time ever.
They just recently contracted to General Atomics and AT&T.
But they used to be run by the Defense Data Network, and they used to be run by the Stanford Research Institute.
And all that time, they never sent me any junk mail.
I actually received junk paper mail earlier this week from them.
What kind of junk mail was it?
They want me to come to some stupid network information center conference on how to run a network information center, NICFEST, in San Diego for $89.
But it's kind of scary that the one item of mail I get from these people who do fairly important work,
they assign all the names and numbers to the Internet.
The one item of mail I get, and I've been in their database for quite a while because whenever you register a host name or get a number,
or get a database with your name and your address and your phone numbers,
the first thing of mail I ever got from them is junk mail.
Well, and it's paper, too. That's interesting as well.
I got like five copies electronically before.
Well, that's a sobering thought for the future, but thanks for sharing it with us.
Let's go on to our next call here.
Good evening.
Hello?
Yes, hi.
Yeah, go ahead.
I had one quick question and then just also a brief story about credit cards.
You told a story about how someone's wallet was stolen
and then the person who stole it subsequently charged $8,000 on the credit cards from ATMs?
Yeah, cash advances.
Right.
Don't you have to have a PIN number in order to get cash advances on a credit card?
Yes, but it's very easy to get a PIN number if the company believes that they're dealing with the person.
All they have to do is ask for it.
Oh, so if the actual owner of the credit card had a PIN number
and the person who stole it wanted to find out, they could say they forgot it or something, you mean?
They could say they never had one to start with.
They could make that part of their address change.
Please send me a PIN at my new address.
I see.
Once you convince the company that it's actually, you know, you're the cardholder,
they'll tell you anything, you know.
They'll send you all the bills.
They'll send you new cards, additional cards.
I see.
It's unlimited what they can do.
And how difficult is it for a person whose credit card is stolen to,
once they've discovered that however much has been charged to their credit card fraudulently,
how difficult is it for them to make the credit card company believe them and have those charges?
Surprisingly enough, it's more difficult to fix it, to stop it, than it is to actually start it.
It only takes, you know, one act of deceit to get somebody to believe that you're who you are.
Right.
But once something suspicious has happened,
it takes a lot of convincing for them to actually believe that you're the right person to talk to
and it takes a while to get the charges erased and to prevent negative credit from going to TRW
and all kinds of things like that.
I just recently moved and I changed all two credit cards, student loan and a number of other things,
over the phone, and they didn't ask me any questions except for my name, account number, and social security number.
So from my experience, it's even easier than how you were describing.
Yeah, it's very easy.
It's very easy, and that's one of the things that has to change with credit cards.
The other thing that has to change is the ease with which, with just a credit card number,
you can order vast amounts of merchandise.
I mean, you don't even have to have physical access to the card.
You just have to know the numbers.
You can guess the numbers.
There's all kinds of things you can do.
You can just see a list.
You can look over someone's shoulder.
And, of course, there's massive fraud because it's a very insecure system.
Well, thank you very much.
All right.
Thanks for calling.
212-279-3400 is our phone number.
We have about 10 minutes left.
Let's see how many calls we can get in.
Good evening.
All right.
Hi.
Emmanuel.
Great program.
Thank you.
First thing on my mind, I just have to scold New York Telephone for this annoying timeout on the rings.
Well, I guess we can spare a little time to scold New York Telephone.
We haven't done that yet today.
All right.
Shame on you, New York Tel.
Okay, that's done.
That's done.
Seriously.
It's not us doing that.
To everybody else out there that thinks we're cutting them off after 50 rings or whatever, no.
It's New York Telephone that does it.
Well, I know that.
People still blame us, though, even though we've said it so many times.
You don't have to tell me.
I mean, it's obvious.
I'm sorry.
Okay.
Listen.
This whole thing with the PSYSOP, with these files on the board, something about munitions or something.
Right.
The Connecticut case.
Yeah.
I mean, listen.
First off, when did it become illegal to publish material on making munitions?
You can go into the library and get that.
Absolutely.
You can get that.
You can get all kinds of information on anarchy, on making nuclear bombs, making regular bombs.
However, when you attach it to a computer, somehow it becomes a weapon in itself.
And I think these prosecutors, they're relying on the ignorance of people in charge.
People think that with this computer they can actually do damage.
And it's not the case at all.
Like the computer's going to go out and blow something up.
Right.
But the thing is, we know this.
People who have never experienced what a computer can do have no idea.
They have no idea what the relationship is.
They don't see it as the same thing as, say, printing a newspaper or a book or something like that.
They hear computer.
They hear computer hackers.
And right away, it's D-Day, and they have to do something.
But how can the PSYSOP possibly be held accountable?
I mean, it's not even contraband information.
And how can the PSYSOP be held accountable?
I mean, what we should do, I mean, not you and me necessarily,
but some listeners there who haven't denounced themselves,
should just take, like, I don't know, some contraband drugs or something
and ship them to all of the prosecutors' homes
and then try to bust them for possession of narcotics.
Well, that's an interesting approach there.
I mean, you know, something physical like that obviously is a lot more easy to deal with.
We're talking about words.
We're talking about words on a computer.
You know, bits and bytes, that kind of thing.
Not even a computer program.
Not even something that's going to do anything.
Just words.
And you're right.
Since when did words become illegal?
As far as I know, they haven't.
But when they're coupled with high technology, with computers, with things like that,
you know, imaginations can run wild.
And if those are powerful imaginations running wild, then people will suffer.
We're going to try and follow this story up as best we can.
We've been trying to track down somebody with regards to this that will talk to us.
Hopefully in the next couple of weeks we'll be able to do that
and update people on what's happening specifically, what the facts are.
Hopefully you can contact someone to speak on the program who actually has influence on the trial.
Yeah, that would be nice.
It would be nice to actually have some influence someplace.
But the thing is, listeners to BAI do have influence.
Lots of times what we say makes a difference.
To give an example, a couple of weeks ago we talked about the tax on information providers,
which was very unfair.
A lot of people have called up the New York State Tax Bureau about this,
and they are rethinking the policy.
In fact, some very powerful people have said this is a big mistake, we have to redo this.
And it comes from people calling up, people making a fuss.
And it goes for the phone company, it goes for law enforcement, it goes for everything.
So if you don't say anything, yeah, horrible things are going to happen.
If you make a fuss, somebody will listen.
The thing is, though, what I was saying, it is very analogous to the thing with a courier, for example.
You're given a brown paper bag and you're instructed to deliver it.
You know what I mean?
That sort of thing.
It's analogous to that, but it's more like the thing with having a delivery to your house.
You're not there.
You don't know what's delivered.
It's in your mailbox.
Yeah, but I don't like the analogy because we're not talking about anything physical.
We're talking about words.
We're talking about ideas.
And we can't really compare that.
Yeah, you can deliver things that are illegal in brown paper bags.
You can certainly do that.
But can you say something that's illegal?
Well, what I'm saying is that it's like a nested problem.
Not only is it ridiculous to declare the information illegal,
but now you're going to compound it and say that not only is the information illegal,
but it's illegal to unknowingly acquire it.
Yeah, that's true.
And, you know, you can't really hold the system operator responsible for acquiring it
because a bulletin board is a community of people.
It's the entire community that is taking part in this conversation.
If somebody puts something up there, then it's for the community.
It's not just for the system operator.
I know what you're saying.
I used to run a system myself.
Yeah, it's a bizarre mess that we're getting into.
Yeah, like every day or so.
Every day, every couple days, I do a little housekeeping.
But even at that schedule, I mean, I was going out of my way to do that.
You really don't need to do it that often.
And even in the meantime, during those 24 hours, the file comes on, you know?
You can't be there every minute.
That's certainly true.
In this particular case, it would seem that the file passed what I would consider to be
the criterion to keep it on the system.
In other words, it didn't give specific information,
didn't give credit card numbers or calling cards or anything like that
that could be used in a fraudulent manner.
It simply talked about techniques and things like that.
So that's totally different in my view.
I want one analogy on that, especially with this field,
considering the munitions and whatnot.
There's a perfect example of that.
You go to your encyclopedia Americana, not even Britannica.
You go to Americana, look up on the nitrogen.
Look in the section.
You get an exact procedure for making nitroglycerin.
It's right there.
That's illegal, and that makes perfect sense.
Thanks for alerting us to this alarming turn of events.
We'll have to do something about that.
On a computer, suddenly it's illegal.
Okay, thanks very much for calling.
Okay, thank you. Bye-bye.
Okay, let's take another phone call.
Good evening.
Yeah, hello?
How are you doing?
This is WBII.
You're on the air.
Yeah, okay.
Last week in the New York Times, there was on page Wednesday,
New York Telephone put in an announcement,
about proposal for a new feature,
anonymous call rejection for phone smart service.
Okay.
Now, they want to charge you for redirecting an incoming call
with an activated number restriction feature
to an announcement that the called party is not accepting such calls.
And here's the punchline.
Yeah.
Calling parties will be billed
for appropriate tariff juicers rates for intercepted calls.
To me, this is like being charged for an unanswered phone call.
Calling parties will be billed?
That is different.
Yeah.
I've never heard of that before.
On page C14, Wednesday, October 6th in the New York Times.
Okay, I'll look into that.
But in other states that have had this feature,
basically people that elect not to get anonymous phone calls,
or phone calls that we used to get all the time,
the people that make those calls will get a recording saying,
the person you're calling doesn't accept anonymous calls.
Yeah.
I've never heard of a charge for that recording
because it's already upsetting enough to have your call blocked like that.
And also, this doesn't address the issue
that we've all been talking about here on the program
concerning blocking of call return,
which allows anybody to call you back,
whether you block or not.
And yeah, they won't get your number, but maybe they will,
because they're calling you.
What if they get your answering machine
and your answering machine says your number on it?
There's all kinds of possibilities, all kinds of ways of getting a number.
This is the punchline.
They'll bill you for intercepted calls.
That's completely crazy.
And it's supposed to take effect on October 22nd.
Well, that's coming up, but I have heard nothing about this.
I already wrote a letter to the PSC and a copy to the Attorney General.
I hope they'll be able to do something about this.
Let us know what you hear, because this does sound important.
I wasn't aware of this. I'll look into it.
When I saw this, I said, I've got to call off the hook.
I'm glad you got through.
After three times getting cut off.
Yeah, I know. They make it difficult, don't they?
I know, but I finally got through.
That's why I wanted to bring this to your attention.
I figured the people should know about this.
This is billing you for an unanswered phone call.
And if you've got your answering machine,
at least leave a message on your answering machine.
They'll figure out how to do that soon, too.
They'll figure out how to bill you for airtime even though there's no air involved.
Listen, sir, thanks for the call.
Okay.
Speaking of call return, we did a little experiment last week,
and we promised you the results of that experiment.
And here they are.
We asked people to call up a particular number,
especially from New Jersey and Connecticut,
and see if their phone number would show up on a caller ID device
that we had installed on a special line.
Well, we got a number of phone calls.
We weren't able to capture all of them because, fortunately, there was call waiting on the line.
So occasionally some calls would just go into call waiting
and wouldn't be captured by the caller ID box.
But the ones that were, we had about 30 of them in a 10-minute period.
We did not get a single phone number,
but we did get several numbers that said they were private numbers.
In other words, numbers that were either blocked by the caller or blocked automatically.
So what this could mean is that calls from New Jersey and Connecticut are going through.
The data is being transmitted, but the data is being blocked,
and the private number data message is being sent instead of out of area.
So that could easily mean that we're on the verge of interstate caller ID.
As we mentioned last week, we received a call from Virginia that showed up on a caller ID box.
Made it all the way up to New York.
We did some research into the exchange.
We found out that it's the exchange of the Meter Corporation,
which is a big Internet site and all kinds of military contracting goes on there.
So we're looking to do some experiments with that.
We're looking to figure out some more things.
For now, it appears that it's available on a limited basis, but it is getting there.
The way to figure out if it is there is to try many different possibilities,
many different ways of making phone calls.
We did some experiments from Virginia using AT&T, using MCI, using Sprint
to see if the data might be passed on a certain long-distance company.
We were not able to get it to duplicate.
However, we weren't able to call from that particular exchange.
That's the next step.
That's what we're going to try to do in the weeks ahead.
So if anybody has any information on caller ID that they feel we've missed,
please give us a call.
Let us know what it is.
Do experiments.
Yeah, sometimes it involves subscribing to the ripoff services that the phone company provides,
but the advantage is that you learn what they're up to before it becomes reality.
And I guess that's just about all the time we have for today.
Boy, the time goes fast, doesn't it?
We'll be back again next week with another edition of Off the Hook.
Until then, this is Emanuel Goldstein.
Take care, stay awake, play with your phones and computers, and read the papers.
Stay tuned for the news.
Good night.
Music, please.
Bam! Who's next?
Alright, let's get on it.
Peter Beauchene, all mixed up.
That's right, it's 9.30, straight up.
This is Chico Alvarez's time to get funky.
Morning, everybody.
How you doing? I'm back.
My name is Delphine Blue.
You're listening to Accident Percussion with yours truly, Montego Joe.
Morning Music, Monday through Friday from 9.30 till noon.
Here on non-commercial, listener-supported WBAI.
What?
Good evening.
In the news tonight, the Supreme Court hears a case
that will help define sexual harassment in the workplace.
Will a new embargo loosen the military's grip on power in Haiti?
The new man in charge of disease control in the U.S.
says he's as concerned about violence as he is about viruses.
And in New York, will the city's University Center for Puerto Rican Studies
get a new director?
With these and other stories, I'm David Sears in New York
with Verna Avery-Brown in Washington,
and this is the news for Wednesday, October 13, 1993.
First, these stories topping the news.
While the Clinton administration is pushing today
for the renewal of United Nations sanctions on Haiti,
105 U.N. soldiers and police officers remain in Port-au-Prince
waiting for orders to pull out or to resume a U.N.-led plan
to professionalize the Haitian army and create a new police force.
J.P. Slavin reports.
The commander of the United Nations military mission in Haiti,
U.S. Army Colonel James Pulley, said today 46 U.S. troops
and seven Canadian soldiers are continuing with their mission in Haiti
until they receive new orders.
Meanwhile, Army Commander Lieutenant General Raoul Sidra said
he hopes to retire Friday, but he criticized the United States
for arming Washington's U.N. troops with M-16s.
Sidra said the assault rifles violate a U.N.-brokered accord
that calls for exiled President Jean-Patron Aristide to return October 30th.
Yesterday, 150 police auxiliaries named attachés
and armed with knives, machetes, and clubs
attacked U.N. human rights monitors in the central Haitian city of Hanche.
Many Aristide supporters here are disgusted with President Clinton
for stopping the deployment of 218 U.S. and Canadian troops here yesterday.
Some Aristide backers say they believe the pullout was done by the Pentagon
to block Aristide's return.
Based on the events of the past few days, they may very well be right.
For Pacifica Radio News, this is J.P. Slavin in Port-au-Prince.
Defense attorneys in the Reginald Denny beating case
are seeking to have another juror dismissed.
The juror in question is a white woman.
Judge John Outterkirk will rule on the motion later today.
Two jurors have already been replaced since deliberations began.
The lawyer representing one of the three people accused
of killing South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani
has admitted his client is guilty.
The state today closed its case against the accused.
James Lorimer reports from Johannesburg.
Polish immigrant Janusz Walasz was identified by eyewitnesses
as having been the man who shot and killed Communist Party leader Chris Hani
outside his home in Johannesburg in April.
His lawyer said in court that he found the ballistic evidence
that had been presented as incontrovertible.
The state has now closed its case against the three white supremacists
accused of the murder.
Right-wing politician Clive Darby Lewis has not contested evidence
that he procured the gun used to kill Hani.
His wife Gay has been accused of being part of the plot,
but the evidence against her appears flimsy.
Every day of the trial there's been a crowd of Communist Party supporters
outside the courthouse.
Some of them say if any of the three accused are acquitted,
they'll be very angry.
There's a strong police guard around the court,
but that anger may boil over elsewhere in the country.
For Pacifica Radio News, I'm James Lorimer in Johannesburg.
Angry youths rampaged through the capital of the Trans Sky Black Homeland today,
following a memorial service for five youngsters killed last week
during a raid by South African troops.
The youth broke into and looted every shop on the main street
and attacked white motorists.
Officials of the Pan-Africanist Congress,
which organized the memorial service,
said that the rioters were not members of the PAC.
West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd introduced an amendment today
calling for Congress to cut off funds for U.S. military presence in Somalia
on February 1st.
That's two months before President Clinton's deadline
to withdraw troops from Somalia.
White House spokesperson Dede Meyers.
We're currently working with Senator Mitchell, Senator Dole,
and some of the others who are developing an amendment
that we believe supports the President's position.
We're very encouraged by the progress we've made today.
It's been made on that.
The President's talked with Senator Byrd,
but the President remains committed to the program he outlined last week.
President Clinton issued a report to Congress today
defending U.S. policy on Somalia.
And those are the stories topping the news.
The reimposition of sanctions against the Haitian military regime
is before the United Nations.
The world body lifted the embargo earlier this summer
after the coup leaders signed the Governor's Island Peace Accord.
That agreement promised to let ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
back into the country October 30th to regain his post.
But those accords seem to have fallen apart
as armed Haitians yesterday forced the retreat
of a U.S. ship carrying military engineers and instructors.
President Clinton has urged the United Nations Security Council
to reimpose the sanctions.
As Mark Bevis reports, the Haitian military leaders
don't appear ready to give up power.
The refusal by the Haitian military to allow the USS Harlan County
to unload the military instructors
was a direct violation of the July agreement
between Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
and General Raoul Sedra.
That violation of the accord has pushed President Clinton
to call for renewed sanctions against the island nation.
Mike McCurry is spokesperson for the State Department.
My understanding is that the sanctions package
that is developing today at the United Nations
follows very closely those sanctions that were imposed
by U.N. Security Council Resolution 841
relating to bans on equipment, services, and oil-based supplies.
In addition to that, they're looking at the question
of how they can apply an assets freeze
to the accounts of certain individuals
within the police and the military.
McCurry admitted that since the embargo was lifted
earlier this summer, the Haitian military
has been able to stockpile about three months of oil.
Most observers credit the earlier embargo
put in place by the United Nations last June
for bringing General Sedra to the bargaining table in the first place.
And today, members of the Congressional Black Caucus
urged the Clinton administration to do what it could
to force the Haitian military to abide by the agreement.
Representative Kweisi Mfume, Democrat from Maryland,
is the caucus chair.
We encourage the president to use the powers of his office
to guarantee the full enforcement of that agreement.
And full enforcement requires that both General Sedra
and Port-au-Prince Police Chief Francois
vacate their offices by October 15th.
October 15th, that's Friday.
And there's no indication that Police Chief Michel Francois
is planning to leave his post.
And although General Sedra had promised to vacate his office by that date,
today he reneged.
He said he would resign as planned only if the Haitian parliament
passed a broader amnesty package.
He told a news conference in the Haitian capital
that the amnesty plan designed by President Aristide
does not go far enough.
Representative Major Owens, Democrat from New York,
believes it's up to the international community
to turn the coup leaders into pariahs.
Psychological warfare is what we're engaged in.
And the firmness of our government is the key to it.
Well, it's about that time again.
What time is that?
Come on, you know.
No, really.
What time are you talking about?
Why, it's time to start thinking about the 22nd annual
WBAI Holiday Crafts Fair.
Oh, you mean the one that's held the first three weekends in December.
At Columbia's first booth hall.
Oh, that one.
Right, the one at Columbia.
Okay.
And the firmness of our government is the key to it
because the United Nations and everybody else
will hold together and be firm only if we are firm.
And I'm glad that the president in his statement yesterday
made it clear that he intends to see Aristide return by October 30th.
October 30th is the day that President Aristide
is going to be sworn in as president of the United States.
He's going to be sworn in as president of the United States.
He's going to be sworn in as president of the United States.
October 30th is the day that President Aristide
is supposed to regain his position.
While he has been gone, Father Antoine Hadrien
has been Aristide's representative in Haiti.
Hadrien expects these new sanctions to do the trick
and force Cedra and ultimately Francois from power.
...to go anywhere else.
Impossibility to have any international trade.
Well, this is a serious, serious, serious threat, I think.
André Vancour with the Washington office on Haiti
is also optimistic renewed sanctions will work,
but they won't work alone.
Of course the sanctions had its positive side
because it brought the guys to the negotiation table.
But now after the sanctions, what happened?
Have they kept their words? No, they have not.
Until Friday we still have doubts that Cedras will resign.
But Vancour is disappointed President Clinton
ordered the USS Harlan County to return to Guantanamo.
I think he should have left the ship in Haiti
pending the resignation of Cedras.
I think he should also proceed with the deployment
of the other ship that was supposed to follow.
By that he would himself keep his words.
Right now, unfortunately, it looks like the UN alone
with the United States is not totally sincere,
but they are backing up the negotiation.
Vancour is not suggesting the U.S. send in the troops,
rather leave them in port as a show of strength.
Laurie Richardson is the co-director
of the Quixote Center's Haiti Reborn Project.
She sees the whole situation as a result of the lack of resolve
by the Clinton administration and the international community.
While we're seeing verbalization of support for democracy
behind closed doors, there are other things going on,
and I think that we have to hold the international community
and our government, the U.S. government,
really responsible for what they're going to do inside Haiti.
For Pacifica Network News, this is Mark Beavis in Washington.
Israelis and Palestinians began talks today
in the Egyptian resort town of Taba
to hash out the details of turning the West Bank town of Jericho
and the Gaza Strip over to the Palestinians.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas
of the Palestine Liberation Organization
both issued a statement saying they hope to implement
the peace accord in letter and in spirit
by the December 13th deadline.
The two agreed on five immediate steps
to start the process towards Palestinian self-rule
and set schedules for future meetings.
Kahil Jishan is executive director
of the National Association of Arab Americans.
Like many other Palestinians, Jishan is paying close attention
to this latest round of peace talks.
Well, there are several meetings taking place today.
First of all, you have the committee that is meeting in Cairo
called the Liaison Committee,
and that's a high-ranking committee
of both Israeli and PLO officials
basically meeting to discuss the larger picture, if you will,
and to try to iron out the differences that emerge
in terms of the other contacts between the PLO and Israel.
There is another committee meeting in Taba, in Egypt, in the Sinai.
The purpose of that committee is actually to discuss
the implementation, the specifics,
in terms of the PLO-Israeli agreement.
They are focused today on the implementation
of Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the Jericho area.
There is a third meeting taking place in Tunis
that's part of the multilateral negotiations
and involving the deputy foreign minister, Yossi Beilin, of Israel,
that's focusing on the refugee issues.
And that involves 43 or 44 countries right now
who are meeting in Tunisia to discuss that.
Of course, around that meeting there were several bilateral meetings
held between the Israeli delegation and the PLO
to discuss specifically the issue of family reunification,
whereby Israel has conceded to raise the number of families
allowed to reunify or return to their territories
to be reunified with their relatives.
Families that have been split apart during the conflict,
particularly since 1967.
Now, there's a series of meetings taking place throughout the world.
The meeting in Taba,
what are some of the sticking points likely to be for the Israelis?
Well, the extent, again, the extent of the withdrawal
and how to basically work out the logistics,
how is authority, practically speaking,
going to be transferred from whom to whom,
and the setting up, if you will, a time schedule
for that transfer of authority,
how, practically speaking, the Palestinian police force
is going to be introduced into Gaza and the Jericho area,
and how, again, the transfer of security or police authority
is going to take place from Israeli hands to Palestinian hands.
So these are right now some of the most immediate kind of issues
that are being discussed.
And what about the sticking points for the PLO?
What are going to pose,
which issues will pose the biggest challenges to the PLO?
Well, the PLO right now is trying to translate this agreement
into practical and tangible and visible results
for its Palestinian constituency
in order to facilitate its entry into the territories
and its, if you will, its assuming responsibility
for running or administering the territories.
It has to show the people that there are some tangible gains
as a result of this agreement.
So it's trying, first and foremost, to convince the Israelis
to take certain steps that the Israelis have been kind of resisting
over the past few months,
particularly steps pertaining to improving the quality of life
immediately right now in terms of the release
of thousands and thousands of Palestinian prisoners,
the reopening or renewing access to Jerusalem
since most Palestinians in the territories have been deprived
from entering Jerusalem for several months now,
and steps like this that simply show the Palestinians
that this agreement brought them something tangible and practical
before the excitement, if you will, and the enthusiasm
in support of the agreement fizzles.
I mean, if people simply see an agreement as ink on paper
without any direct and visible impact on their daily lives,
I think they're going to lose interest in this agreement.
Mr. Gishan, realistically speaking,
is there anything that men meeting in Egyptian resorts
can do to persuade the Israelis and Palestinians
living in close proximity in the West Bank and Gaza Strip
to stop shooting and killing one another?
I think so.
I think this agreement and the fact that some practical steps
have been taken now and put in place to begin to look at these problems
might be the first step in that direction.
Of course, the violence and the killing have not stopped,
even though they have diminished a lot
subsequent to the signing of the agreement.
But still, I think we're not... I don't want to mislead anybody.
We have not achieved peace between Arabs and Israelis.
What we have here is a first step in the right direction,
a good agreement on a long road of very difficult decisions
that remain ahead of us.
Kahil Gishan, executive director of the National Association of Arab Americans,
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas
reportedly appeared on friendly terms today following the meeting.
They were said to be smiling and deferring to one another.
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handguns are posing a major threat to public health in the U.S.
According to recent statistics from the Federal Centers for Disease Control,
every 14 minutes someone in America dies from a gunshot wound.
Dr. David Satcher has been named as the new head of the CDC.
He's every bit as concerned about bullets as he is about bacteria.
And Satcher intends to treat violence as a public health problem,
a position he realizes he'll need to define.
Some people...