Robert Knight, Let Em Talk, on WBAI 99.5 FM.
I ain't lovin' you until the day I die.
This is...
POISON GARDEN!
Whatcha doin', Mr. Woburn?
Playing solitaire, Mr. Woburn.
I'm Emily Anne, Mr. Woburn.
Hello, Mr. Woburn.
Charles.
What, Emily Anne?
Something's wrong with Mr. Woburn.
Black 8 on the red 9. Seems all right to me.
Ask him what's wrong with him, Charles.
Is everything all right, Mr. Woburn?
Everything's all right, Mr. Woburn.
Everything's all right, Mr. Woburn, Emily Anne.
Everything's all right, Mr. Woburn?
Yeah.
Oh, good. Everything's all right, Mr. Woburn!
Let's eat!
If you want to know that everything's all right, Mr. Woburn,
be sure you're listening to WBAI every afternoon at least 5 minutes before 4 o'clock.
Monday through Thursday afternoons, you'll hear Poison Darts.
For your safety and convenience, never turn your radio off.
Well, I can't be 100% certain, but I believe you're listening to WBAI in New York,
and it's time for Off the Hook.
Yeah, I'm sure.
So I ripped it off the wall
I cut myself while shaving
Now I can't make a cough
It couldn't get much worse
But if they could, they would
For Billy Bone, for the best, expect the worst
I hope that's understood
For Billy Bone!
Newsflash
Good evening, everybody. This is Emanuel Goldstein.
The program is Off the Hook.
We're here to talk about high technology, telephones, computers,
cyber space and all the abridgments of freedom that are to come and that are
coming already that I've been here and ways we can help things we can do and
things we can never hope to accomplish and it's not all that bad I mean we're
not gonna be all pessimistic like some of us out here are but there is a time
for pessimism there's a time for despair and that time usually falls between 10
and 11 on Wednesday nights unfortunately there's all kinds of neat things going
on and all kinds of depressing things going on we're gonna try to get to all
of that this hour we're talking about an upcoming conference computers freedom
and privacy they'll be taking place later this month a neat service a really
really neat service offered by MCI the only question is we don't know why
they're offering this service we'll be talking a little bit about Metro cards
yeah Metro cards it's gonna reach out and affect your life if you ever come
into New York City and also fiber-optic news fiber-optic of course the voice
many of you are familiar with who is locked away in prison up until at the
very earliest November I visited him on Sunday I went over to Minersville
Pennsylvania it's it's quite a drive it's not that bad basically you take to
two interstates route 80 and then route 81 and you're there so it's it's
fairly easy to get to from New York City the problem is getting approval to
get in in the first place it wasn't very hard for him to get in but it's very
hard for people to get in and visit him unfortunately however I did manage to
get approval and I managed to to go down there and I'll tell you it's it's an
exercise in patience whenever you you deal with prison life and that includes
if you're on the inside or on the outside it's it's amazing the kinds of
things a little tiny things which I I'm convinced get you more crazy than the
big things you know the little tiny administrative nonsense things that that
they do for instance I went with one other person we made sure we got there
nice and early we left New York at 4 in the morning 4 in the morning so that we
could get there by say around 8 830 and that way he'd be able to to visit us
when visiting hours began at around 9 o'clock well what do they do we get
there right on the dot at 9 o'clock and we tell them who we are of course that's
the usual shenanigans at the at the front desk well your signature doesn't
quite look like your signature on your license could you could you sign your
signature the way it is on the license that way we can be sure that it's you it
doesn't matter that we see your face and everything like that we have to make
sure that that you can sign in that particular way because we don't want you
to be losing those particular skills hey what does it prove what does it
prove to have a license in front of you with a with a signature in a certain way
and they want you to match that you know it's it's it's not that difficult to do
it's obvious that it's the same person but they just feel they have to kind of
embed that upon you that that they're in control here they can make you leave
they can make you stay they can do whatever they want to do now this is to
a visitor imagine what they do to the inmates well anyway we went through all
that and signed our names and and became recognized as the people we said
we were I had to fill out little forms too and this this my friends is the
craziest part of the whole day this is the craziest part of this whole ordeal
we were supposed to fill out our names our addresses no problem there who it is
that we're visiting the the inmates name and the inmates number and before I knew
what I was doing I had filled out the inmates number without even thinking I
memorized fiber optics inmate number it's like it's his name now 3 2 1 0 9 0
5 4 that's him I mean what's happened to me I've memorized a number and
associated that with a person I've succumbed to the system and I I was in
shock after I did this I just suddenly looked at the piece of paper and I said
my god did I just do this and and then I hope maybe I got it wrong you know maybe
maybe I got a digit wrong something like that but no it was perfect I even put
the dash in the right place so I didn't feel too good about that and we took our
places inside in this this little room with a lot of chairs you know
comfortable chairs they've got you know downy type things on the chair not hard
chairs and gradually the room filled up with with people inmates would come in
and and their families would be there all the inmates were dressed pretty much
the same way in I believe the beige beige color which is what's in fashion
out there now and it was kind of sad you know I was very sad actually seeing
people being reunited with their family and just sort of they all had the same
kind of look to them where they were kind of helpless I mean they were very
helpless they just were there they knew this time wasn't going to last very long
and maybe it wouldn't come again for a long time and a whole room full of
people like that can really can really be pretty depressing problem was fiber
optic was not one of those people they they called him now fibers real name is
Mark Abene well they called Mark Albine and of course over a PA system it's hard
enough to hear your name in the first place but to hear something that's
completely different I mean this is a guy that's going to be with them for a
year and they don't even take the time to pronounce his name properly so he
didn't hear the first the first announcement at all and when he heard
the second one he came right down however he got down at about 925 or so
and they said well it's getting pretty close to 930 you're gonna have to go
back for the 930 count do they have this rule where if you if you get to the
place at 930 or beyond you have to go back and participate in the count and
then come back later and later means around 11 o'clock so because he had come
that close to 930 couldn't come back out until 11 o'clock so of course I was I
was pretty frustrating and we wound up waiting in that room watching everybody
else talking to their their prisoner friends or whatever for another hour and
a half there's a pay phone there which I had to ask permission to use they have
to throw a switch a lot of things that say that this area is off-limits to
inmates they have vending machines the inmates cannot step past the line where
the vending machines are I don't really understand the logic behind that I also
noticed something else the bathrooms are behind that particular line too and I
don't think the inmates can leave and they can't go to the bathroom so I mean
if they go if they go back they might lose the visit for the day it's quite
possible that will happen I didn't even think about that actually until now so
finally finally at around 11 o'clock or so they they allowed him to come through
he'd been waiting in the hallway for quite some time and and we saw him when
we spent about four hours just talking hanging out and talking and trying to
catch up on things talking about the world at large you know a lot of things
a lot of things don't get through that that are of interest to people for
instance virtually nobody there knew that John Candy had died Mark had heard
something about the TCI Bell Atlantic merger falling through but he didn't
have all the details so there's a lot of a lot of things to fill him in on and
he's been getting a lot of mail very happy about the mail he gets it's the
highlight of the day virtually no day has gone by where he has not gotten mail
and that includes publications that includes books that includes just news
updates of various sorts one thing which really stuck with me was when he admired
a shirt I was wearing he said that's that's a really nice shirt this is a
shirt I've worn a hundred times this is a shirt that you know that there's
nothing special about it and I I I've never known this guy to comment on on
somebody's clothing and admire it but then I realized he's wearing the same
every day for a year of course anything other than that that that sickening beige
look is going to look really really appealing and that was that was a pretty
sad in and of itself so much else really to to tell about that it was just it's
just really good to see him again he looks different he's he's sort of
growing a beard hair is a little longer but he's angry you know and that's a
good thing he's angry he's upset with with all the the crap he has to deal
with day after day for instance we told you last week he forgot to fold his
blanket and got 20 extra hours of work because of that he has a note from his
doctor that says he's not supposed to be lifting things but the prison
authorities don't consider shoveling snow to be lifting things and so for
eight hours a day five days a week the person who would be very helpful to a
lot of people getting them on the internet and helping them out with
computer problems and answering phone questions that person is shoveling snow
and even if all the snow is shoveled they find another place for him to
shovel and just waste a whole lot of time you know it's the old cool hand
Luke get that dirt out of my hole syndrome and that's that's how he's
wasting his time there's a lot of a lot of guards there that are just you know
they they happen to always come down on people say bad things never really say
anything good I just don't really like prisoners all that much I guess and
whatever the reasons for that fiber is a victim of that and so he had the
opportunity to you know to tell us all about this to complain a bit we had the
opportunity to fill him in on various things and on the end two of us left and
one of us stayed and that's the way it is I'm gonna try to get back there as
often as possible but again another administrative thing you only allowed
five visits a month and if you use those up you know nobody else can visit you so
you have to be careful as to how you do that people can visit in groups and it
only counts as one visit but if one person comes and that's one visit to
another thing if one person comes and then goes away to get some real food or
something out in the real world as real world as Minersville Pennsylvania can be
and then comes back again what counts as two visits so you could use it up pretty
quickly and also there's limitations as to how many people can be on the list
how many phone numbers he can call and various things like that but we're
trying to keep him as much a part of this world as as we possibly can and I
know that means a lot to him and we're also gonna try and have him take part in
the CFP conference later on in the month we'll have more details on that in just a
couple minutes there was an article in the Daily News the Daily News of all
papers had a very good article in their March 2nd edition on fiber-optic I
want to read at least a few pieces from that here because I realize a lot of BAI
listeners don't really get the Daily News and it took me almost a week to
find a copy but I was really impressed with this I was really impressed with
the way they managed to just capture it it's called Explorers rise and fall of a
cyberspace invader this part is kind of silly Mark Abene aka fiber-optic never
met a computer system he couldn't hack until he was short-circuited by the feds
okay well it gets better than that that's just your hook there now you're
hooked or whatever this is the real article state line Minersville
Pennsylvania it was an artistic thing like being the Picasso of cyberspace
there was a process to computer hacking that resembled painting so that every
time Mark Abene entered another computer system when say he hacked onto phone
company innards he felt the pride that comes from giving an idea in your head a
tangible shape Abene didn't hurt anyone make money from his exploits or damage
the integrity of the systems he cruised through he got his rush from the
challenge from the knowledge that a working-class kid from Almhurst Queens
had beaten the big guys and cracked another technological puzzle from an
artistic perspective he says there was the gratification of accomplishing
something of having understood something you've quenched some sort of
intellectual curiosity Abene was a major player in the cybernetic world and he
liked the feeling he appeared on Geraldo which actually is not true he
appeared on for a few seconds now it can be told which was a Geraldo type show
Geraldo was on it but it was not the show called Geraldo all right he
appeared on that and in Harper's Magazine he lectured on computers and
telecommunications at NYU and the New School attended national conferences as
an honored guest under his nom de hack fiber-optic he became a public figure
there was only one problem as far as the federal government was concerned
Abene was a criminal and an arrogant one at that he was performing illegal acts
entering systems without permission using access codes he wasn't supposed to
have then going public with his knowledge law enforcement wanted fiber
behind bars federal prisoner 3 2 1 0 9 dash 0 5 4 shares a small pod with
another white-collar felon in the minimum security facility deep in the
heart of Pennsylvania coal country painted in sterile institutional colors
of blue and beige the small room is about 8 feet by 5 feet it contains a
bunk bed desk chair and small cabinet the bathroom and TV room are down the
hall the cafeteria a short walk away in another building 3 2 1 0 9 dash 0 5 4
isn't locked in at night and because his fellow cons are white-collar types he
does not fear for his personal safety but 22 year old mark Abene is doing real
time and has been since early January when he was sentenced to a year and a
day after his conviction on charges of conspiracy to violate several computer
related federal laws by breaking into telecommunications computers the feds
who wanted to send a message to the hacker universe have made Abene an
example he stands as a symbol in this field because of his own efforts said
the judge who sentenced Abene letting cyberpunks everywhere know that law
enforcement is serious about going after those who violate the integrity of other
computer systems but Abene's incarceration has created a furor in the
hermetic world of computer freaks the sentence is seen as a case of the laws
lagging behind the subtleties of a new technology according to this line of
thought fibers biggest crime was his success and demystifying a complex
system and explaining it to the outside world while Abene's defenders
acknowledge that he entered places he shouldn't have they also believe there
should be some means of distinguishing between non-malignant explorers like
fiber people surfing through cyberspace for the sheer thrill of it and the real
criminals hackers who want to destroy computer files steal information or use
illicit knowledge for financial gain every time you have a technology like
this you always have a small collection of people who get interested in these
systems says Mike Godwin of the Washington DC based electronic frontier
foundation the mark of any case is paradigmatic because he more than anyone
else typified the non-malicious computer hacker the phone companies would rather
there not be people have all the knowledge of fiber optic has in his head
the mere fact he has it is threatening but Mark Rotenberg of computer
professionals for social responsibility does not regard Abene as a hero we've
written laws that prohibit people from going into other people's computer
systems he says I don't think that's a wrong line to draw but I also think when
the law works right it treats people fairly people who don't cause harm or
don't mean to take things are not causing the same offense as those who
would steal from others the issue hinges on harm and Abene declares himself
innocent on that score I wasn't ripping anyone off I wasn't taking anyone's
money and I wasn't depriving anyone of anything he says which is essentially
correct yet Abene did break several laws that by themselves were not necessarily
enough to send him to the slammer but it's easy to see why he wound up there
when other offenders might have been sentenced to probation there's an
arrogance about him a smug sense of intellectual superiority that does not
do you a lot of good when you are plea bargaining with the feds fiber is
physically slight sports a scraggly beard and has very pale yellowish skin
he speaks slowly in a nasal voice which is not right I mean anyone who's here
with us here heard fiber here on this radio show knows he does not have a
nasal voice discoursing in an almost pedantic manner but he's a bundle of
nerves holding his hands in front of his face as he speaks picking at his
fingernails every once in a while when something strikes him as funny he erupts
into a sweet goofy almost pubescent grin the fact is he's still a kid and
thinks in all the willful obstinate ways kids tend to think and despite his
bigger-than-life reputation he's in prison for doing boyish things Abene
comes from a solid working-class family his dad is a custodian at a Manhattan
school his mom works for a department store in the customer service area when
he was about three years old the family visited Mark's older sister who was
attending SUNY Albany there was a science fair going on and Mark was
struck by the majesty of the huge computers that filled the room you know
this is something we talked about actually the fact that he's able to
remember something of when he was three years old in fact he claims to be able
to remember things even earlier than that I just found that incredible
continuing here in elementary school he got into video games which led him quite
naturally to computers soon he was going to the local mall with friends to hit
computer stores where they would play with the machines for hours then he got
a Radio Shack computer for Christmas using a modem he began calling into a
computer bulletin board he met other computer types in cyberspace and got the
numbers of other bulletin boards Abene soon found his knowledge was outgrowing
the capacities of his machine but eventually he discovered he could access
bigger systems and then he found there were people on the boards with
information about getting into other computers at 13 he accessed the first
system he shouldn't have entered he doesn't remember which one but says I
wasn't so much interested with the fact of whose it was as what it was a big
cool machine I could log into and play with for as long as I wanted by 17 he was
a full-fledged legend in cyberspace the name fiber optics stood for adventure as
if Abene had become a high-tech cowboy he was facing down the big corporations
in the name of free access and knowledge then bragging about his successes in as
many public forums as possible he and a group of New York friends even formed a
loose hacker group called the masters of deception or MOD after a group of
comic book villains the moniker was predictably rebellious they were
arrogant kids filled with themselves and their abilities they would post
confidential credit information on computer bulletin boards access phone
numbers and credit histories of celebrities Abene admits his pranks were
rash the work of a kid with a pretty big chip on my shoulder he says he may have
done them to get back at people who thought I was just some rambunctious
teenager who is no different from some punk skateboarder he was in fact
something of a genius but a very undisciplined one with a skewed sense
of moral priorities I likened fiber to Billy the Kid says Douglas Rushkoff
author of the forthcoming Siberia life in the trenches of hyperspace
when a young person is the most skilled at something as these young hackers
often are they're going to have to prove it any way they can who's the
fastest gun in the West who's the fastest codebreaker in the East there's
a numbing sameness to Abene's prison days up at 730 a.m. eat breakfast walk to
a barn like building where he reports for work as a landscaper in the winter
he shovels snow in the summer he'll probably pull weeds at 1030 he reports
back to the barn for a headcount he has lunch and returns to work at noon when
there's another count at 3 or 330 he knocks off work and heads back to his
dorm for mail call at 415 there's yet another count then it's off to eat
dinner he does not have access to a computer the experience is a complete
waste of time says Abene of prison and every day I'm here I pretty much curse
being here Abene has three years of supervised probation and 600 hours of
community service to complete after he gets out of prison which with time off
for good behavior should be sometime in November one thing he doesn't have to
worry about his future employment he has been offered several jobs as either a
programmer or telecommunications engineer for a small phone company the
irony of Mark Abene's life is that he shed the fiber image a long time before
the feds did him in he was moving from the shadowy world of hackerdom into the
warm glow of responsible computing in a way he was following the path of
big-time techies like Steve Jobs of Apple and Bill Gates of Microsoft who
all began as cyberspace explorers then applied their wisdom to real-world
problems of course Abene may also choose to become a freedom fighter on the
high-tech frontier an advocate for open access to the information highway he's
well aware the government and the big corporation see hackers as the loose
cannons of the world information order that as he puts it they're rounding up
the Indians so the homesteaders can settle in whatever Abene decides to do
with his future 10 years from now he'll probably look back on this period of his
life as some sort of surreal episode in otherwise normal career path fiber optic
will be just a memory a name that will come up at computer conferences and pop
up occasionally in histories of the hacker era but it will be just that
ancient history first of course Mark Abene has to make it through nine more
months of snow shoveling weed pulling and deadening boredom it's not easy
being a martyr to the cause that article from the Daily News of Wednesday
March 2nd written by Lewis Beale and I think a really a really good article
actually except for all that cyberspace and nonsense like that I hate that word
but I think it really did capture what it was all about a couple of good
pictures of Mark in here too okay looking to the future mentioned the
computers freedom and privacy conference is coming up in Chicago and that will be
happening March 23rd through 26 here it is again it's called cyberspace super
highways access ethics and control and I'm gonna be involved in a panel for the
first time the hackers actually have a real panel about time but yes a panel on
Friday Friday sessions called hackers and crackers using and abusing the
networks will define some terms I suppose and answer these these questions
what can and should be exchanged to a monitor appropriate use what's the
current difference if any between hacker and cracker what should be expected and
accepted regarding the role of law enforcement agencies actually concerning
hacker and cracker I honestly have never met a cracker I don't know what a
cracker is there's hackers in this people that aren't hackers it's pretty
much where where it lies in my mind but I'll go into more detail on that some
other time and also at this conference and what we're going to try to do is
have fiber optic participate one way or another in this conference still trying
to work that out so I'll let you know how that goes but there's all kinds of
other other things going on data encryption who holds the keys is it time
for a US data protection agency and of course they'll be talk about about the
clipper chip and all those other neat things that are that are greeting us in
the 1990s I guess I can give a phone number or something for information it's
kind of a kind of a confusing pamphlet here bear with me for a second while we
figure this out okay computers freedom and privacy well you know there's no
address on here I'll continue scanning this and yeah there's a number for hotel
reservations but that's not really that's not really what we're interested
in here okay I'll continue looking at this hopefully I'll figure it out by the
time the show is over if you're interested in going to CFP 94 which is
in Chicago it'll be at the Palmer house Hilton so hopefully that'll be helpful
as well okay actually I guess I can give the hotel number I can't hurt it's area
code 312 726 7500 and can also call 1-800-521-4041 to register for for
discount airfare to get to this thing okay and there's a there's a form to
fill out but I would not I would not really advise mailing out this form or
sending away for this form at this point because there's no way you get it in
time and get it back in time so that's that's my only concern as far as that
goes all right well if I can find if I can translate this a little better I'll
give out more information later on in the program okay coming up we're gonna
take a little look at the MetroCard and talk about this amazing service that MCI
is offering and we'll be taking some listener phone calls here on WBAI so
stay tuned
okay I've done a full scan of this of this form here and there's no address
really to to write to to get information on this in time no no real email address
or a phone number so I guess the best thing I can suggest if people are
interested in going to CFP 94 just show up and deal with registration there it's
one of those conferences that's real expensive but but that's just the way it
is that's how conferences work it should be interesting either way you
can make it or not we'll bring back information here on this program
continuing now with information on MetroCard slowly surely they're popping
up left and right perhaps you've played with it yourself perhaps you've seen a
card in use perhaps you've seen someone try to use it and fail well maybe you
saw me
I've had my share of misfortunes already with this system
it's fun to play with and it's it's definitely an interesting idea something
that really hasn't been done before and I showed I showed a card to fiber when I
went out to prison to visit him of course he couldn't touch it he's not
allowed to really touch anything that you bring me to give you an idea of the
lunacy here we weren't allowed to bring in a newspaper because you know we were
waiting for an hour and a half for him we thought maybe it'd be a good idea to
read a newspaper but no no you can't do that so I held up this MetroCard at a
distance and I just sort of pointed to it and smiled at it and turned it around
everything and he marveled at it he was he'd never seen one before he
couldn't touch it he couldn't feel this rigid plastic that it's made out of but
I explained the system to him as best I could and he actually thinks it's a good
system he thinks it's an intelligent system and here's why the whole thing is
run on a huge huge Unix system and in fact there are workstations in many of
the of the stations as you walk through that's why the stations are not yet
online it's interesting you'll see the the the card readers there they're
turned on they they say hello and all that kind of thing but they're just not
connected and you might wonder why why can't they just take tickets well it's
got something to do with connecting it all to the big network of turnstiles
throughout the city this is not like the DC system this is not like the Bay Area
Rapid Transit because we're not talking about cards that that have value within
them these are cards that pretty much reference an account every time you buy
a card you have an account made on a Unix system and every time you use your
card that account is debited in some way so even if you do manage to make a
second card and believe me there's people out there trying well whoever
depletes the account first will simply deplete the account and the other card
won't be of any use unless there's a way to figure out how accounts are made in
the first place and how to how to make the system think that an account is
valid when it's not basically I think the I think the account is a lot of this
I don't know yet but it's based on this number that's printed on the back of
your ticket in my case it's 0 0 1 7 2 9 0 3 0 1 it's the same one I had several
weeks ago that's because there's so few places you can use these things and you
go around from from place to place and you push this thing into into the
machine you have to push it at just the right speed or it won't take it it'll
say you you scan too fast or you swipe too fast you swipe too slow you have to
swipe just right and in the right direction or who knows what will happen
to you it's an interesting system something worth playing with and if
anyone knows of anything interesting with this system that we have not yet
covered please let us know right now we're trying to figure out the data
format on the strip and if we can do that we'll we'll share that information
as well and right now right now the system seems to be fairly secure it
seems to be but then again it hasn't really started working yet has it okay
here's something I'm sure everybody is going to like especially at this time of
year and we have the friendly people at MCI to thank for this and right after we
do this we're gonna take some phone calls from our friendly listeners all
right let's get ourselves a dial tone here okay there's our dial tone we're
going to dial a number an 800 number
here we go
welcome to the MCI wow it's hot hotline the newest fun way to stay warm during
the cold days of winter the MCI wow it's hot hotline you hear any of nine fun
warming sounds to help you warm up absolutely free all you need is a
touchtone phone and you can hear as many sounds as you'd like as many times as
you want just by pressing the number of the sound you want to hear thanks for
calling the MCI wow it's hot hotline to hear people playing golf press one to
hear a baseball game press two to hear seagulls press three to hear someone
waterskiing press four to hear tropical birds press five an evening tropical
stream is on six to hear a carousel press seven children at the beach press
eight and to hear a baseball stadium vendor press nine yeah okay well we're
having a little bit of trouble with that line let's try this on a different line
because we're only getting one speaker I'm never getting a hum on that line
this is the great BAI phone system strikes again okay we're still getting
just one speaker there let's try this one okay our phone system is pretty much
met its match I guess we'll just have to we'll just have to live with with one
side of the of the speaker let's call that number again and let's actually
listen to some of these sounds and maybe they'll make us think of summertime
wouldn't that be nice I don't know what happens if you don't have a touch tone
phone I think it just hangs up okay the first one was let's hear some people
playing golf well that's right you can't interrupt her until she finishes with
the speech absolutely free all you need is a touchtone phone and you can hear as
many sounds as you'd like as many times as you want just by pressing the number
of the sound you want to hear thanks for calling the MCI Wow it's hot hotline to
hear people playing golf press one oh boy
it's how this one being beaten actually
that's how there's somebody driving I'm not driving with golf but driving a car
well I don't really know what that sound was golf press one to hear a baseball
game press two okay let's go for the baseball game next you know that sound
like somebody belching at the end there I don't know if somebody hacked into
their system and re-recorded something or if that's an essential part of playing
golf but let's let's go to the baseball game now
to hear people playing golf press one to hear a baseball game press two to hear
seagulls press three seagulls
the great thing about the system is you can interrupt it and let's go back to
playing golf let's skip ahead and I don't know what number four is I think
it might be tropical birds no it's not that sounds like a speedboat of some
sort
this is just what we need to get out of the winter doldrums the only question is
what does it have to do with MCI and how can they afford this
all right now for the spot let's go somewhere else ah tropical birds the
same bird that was on Pee Wee's Playhouse I'm pretty sure it was okay
let's go somewhere else sounds sort of like I think this is a this is a stream
or something these are the sounds New Yorkers are familiar with let's skip
ahead
Fogger would love this number eight oh it's little children playing that's what
it is
and let's finish off with the finale which is a bender at a baseball game
hot dog hamburger yes that's what it is
and now let's skip through them all really fast
and of course if you hit other keys you get her now let's find out why this
particular this particular service exists in the first place I don't
understand it myself so it's uh let's pair in MCI customer service here every
time we hit a button we're gonna get another sound effect here it'll be hard
to explain this to the operator hello hello are you there I'm sorry I paired
into conversations there at once I was wondering if you could answer a question
for me your MCI right yeah I've been handed a promotional piece of paper here
about a promotion that MCI is doing called wow it's hot are you familiar
with that you've never heard of it huh is there a way to find out who's who's
behind this yeah it's it's eight hundred nine six nine four eight seven four four
eight seven four yeah it's it's called MCI wow it's hot and they play basically
sound effects from the summertime I was just kind of wondering why yeah you see
I have four way on this on this phone line here and it just sort of yeah it
didn't hang up right you haven't heard anything about that huh yeah it's
basically kind of nice you can listen to speed boats and tropical birds and
things like that but just it doesn't seem to have a whole lot to do with long
distance you know yeah you can dial from anywhere it's called wow it's hot wow
it's hot yeah well actually it came to me in a message on a computer system it
wasn't straight from MCI but it is an MCI recording yeah yeah one of those
modem systems yeah yeah yeah that's it bulletin boards maybe an 800 MCI 800
number but they you know I don't know if maybe the you know somebody has done
this on their own or something I don't know if anything associated with MCI
well they do say this is MCI when you call it says this is the MCI wow it's
hot hotline so let me punch it up here and see if I find any information on
that in our information system okay okay that sounds good
yeah
just punching it up here
hmm anything coming up
no I don't have anything yeah it come across on a bulletin board system
well it's being passed around everywhere as far as I can see people are talking
about this and it's causing a lot of excitement but nobody really knows why
let me contact our customer relations here you want to hold for me just a second
if you just pass it on to them I just figured I'd let you know okay sure
thanks okay take care I mean we could we could do this all
night long but we have people waiting to get on the phone here so we'll just have
to solve this mystery at some other point but MCI knows about it now so if
somebody out there saying this is MCI and they're not MCI well your days are
numbered but I think it is MCI I just don't know what they're up to
wow it's hot all right okay our number is two one two two seven nine three four
hundred this is off the hook let's see who's out there and see what's on their
minds good evening you're on hi great show it could just be like a public
service you know corporate feel-good gesture I don't know well it's a
feel-good gesture but it's an 800 number and I just have the feeling that somehow
the rates pay for the 800 numbers I don't know but listen I have four brief
questions should I just ask them sequentially and hang up sure okay the
first question ever since I heard about fiber-optic situation that the thing
that came to mind is why didn't he just skip to Canada why is he like
voluntarily going through it well I I guess by best if I answer your questions
one by one probably because he couldn't deal with not ever seeing his family
again not ever seeing his friends again and not ever being around here again so
I think that had something to do with it question number two is about two
years ago you did a show where you broke the MasterCard algorithms you remember
that well we didn't really break an algorithm basically we just explained it
anything new on that situation since that report no it's still the same same
basic system or more information about the numbers or any tricks or anything no
if I can I can explain it very quickly basically you take your MasterCard visa
American Express any credit card and if it's if it's the total numbers are even
in other words if there are 16 numbers that's an even numbered card what you do
is you double every odd number you double the first number you double the
third number you double the fifth number if if doubling it brings it above 10 you
subtract 9 and then you add all the numbers up and they should be divisible
by 10 now if it's an odd numbered credit card if it has say you know 13 digits or
something like that then you double the even numbered ones 2 4 6 8 again if they
if they go above 10 when you double them subtract 9 add them all up they should
be divisible by 10 otherwise it's not a valid card question number three is
there any way of defeating their new telephone thing with the phone
automatically hangs up here for X number of rings there's no way because right
now the way that is set up it's set up with the local central office and the
local central office simply disconnects what there's no connection made they
generally do it after about I think 40 50 or 60 rings I'm not sure exactly how
many or it might be a time function my question is more a comment I live in a
you know depressed neighborhood in the Bronx and I'm sort of aware of in terms
of technology and the information revolution about how those who are poor
or live in minority neighborhoods or whatnot sort of have always been but
even more so now it's sort of being left behind in terms of you know not only
computers and technology but stuff like cable television absolutely and
telephone services pay phones I mean that's why we have so many cocotte's up
in in in depressed neighborhoods if you would address it sometimes in terms of
the economic and social disparity and what people think about the future of
technology and bringing it to all people mm-hmm that's something I addressed in
my congressional testimony last year basically we're on the verge of creating
a society of haves and society of have-nots the gulf between which we've
never seen before people that have all this great computer equipment right in
their homes and people that have absolutely nothing that came and feed
themselves and and just being separated by a few blocks it's a very dangerous
situation it's something that's that's very bad for society and something
that's not incomprehensible it's not impossible to solve okay basically
access Oh who killed Kennedy take care okay we'll work on that boy if we had
been around maybe we would have figured it out then two one two two seven nine
three four hundred good evening you're on
okay are you gonna get into some some cellular hacking perhaps maybe talk
about well we'll certainly spread information around as far as as how
things are done we've talked about it before though not very much in depth one
of the reasons I haven't talked about is because I don't have a cellular phone
and I've I've never really felt like getting a cellular phone because there's
such ripoffs right well it's not just that but I was very interested in the
cloning and well you see a legitimate use for cloning would be if you want
your own extension I mean it's it's hard for me to imagine the logic that that
says you're not allowed to have another phone with the same phone number with
the same you know code and everything like that same ESN it's the same logic
that says you can't have an extent another TV set hooked up to your cable
if you're already paying for it as far as I'm concerned you can do whatever you
want with it so yeah I mean I would agree with that the thing is I don't want it
because first of all you're broadcasting your conversations out to
everybody that can hear them you're paying even when you get an incoming
call you're paying astronomical rates when those things start changing maybe
maybe I'll actually break down and get one okay can I get the telephone number
for wow it's hot that sounds like a lot of fun oh yeah you can you can spend
hours at this it's 1-800-969-4874 I'm sure that spells
something but I don't know what okay thanks I love you sure okay take care
yeah we just keep finding these amazing numbers don't we wow it's hot good
evening you're on hi how are you okay we're delayed yes we are delayed last
week you spoke sort of briefly about a piece of legislation called paradoxically
or maybe ironically the digital telephony communications privacy
improvement act yes and before yes I don't believe they actually call that
the privacy Improvement Act but what this is going to do is basically destroy
much of the privacy which we have in communications and there was a fairly
good-sized article on Monday the 28th in on the first business page of the Times
which you didn't mention last week and I'd like to sort of direct people to
take a look at that article because it goes into more depth than I want to
waste time doing tonight but I just wanted to sort of put out two quotes
maybe three quotes from this article which are pretty significant one this is
quoting Louis free who's the director of the FBI the quote is the costs are high
but you have to do a cost-benefit analysis says mr. free who insisted that
fighting terrorists and criminals was the government's intention not playing
big brother to the citizenry how reassuring the administration this is
not a quote but it's a quote from the article the administration wants to
impose new technology that would enable law enforcement agents to gather a
wealth of personal information by monitoring citizens calling patterns and
credit card transactions over the telephone network and over the two-way
cable television networks being planned by cable and phone companies the system
would go well beyond current wiretapping technology because much of the
information could be gleaned without the police or FBI actually having to
eavesdrop on specific voice or electronic mail conversations I find
that very very scary yeah that is very scary and it begs a response from us in
so far as how do we protect our privacy how do we protect our anonymity
anonymity is not a crime it's it's it's a right as far as I'm concerned is
something that we all have have the right to to use to our benefit there are
many ways we can do this we can we can create all kinds of duplicate IDs we can
create the unlisted numbers and dead ends so people can't find specific
information out about us it's becoming increasingly difficult to do that I
know it is but you know I read something today it was of all places and landers
or dear Abby one of those they said they had written to somebody this was
concerning somebody who's who's who's conscious was tearing them apart because
they had they had a fake social security number it's not illegal at least
according to the Social Security Administration it's not illegal to have
a social security number under a different name to have a second one
under a different name assuming with a different number I didn't know that well
that's what they said it's in today's paper and I know that people got there
and try it you can present yourself in the world under any name you choose so
long as it's not for the purposes of fraud as long as you pay your taxes or
whatever you know and you don't use it to defraud you can be whoever you want
to be and I think people should take advantage of that be who you want to be
to take advantage of the mentality that pervades the computer world where you
pick your own name you pick your own name and everything about it and you're
judged basically on what you say and what you do so we can do this in real
life too we can we can come up with as many different identities as we want as
long as we don't use them to defraud they don't have to be used for that well
on just a tangential note on that which is a particular quirk of mine with
bulletin board systems it's becoming very difficult to just sign on a
register on a bulletin board system without giving your real name because
even now bulletin boards are doing caller IDs on registrations well then
there's ways of calling without using caller ID and you have to do that yeah
you know you have to block your number you have to call through another another
system and yeah this this caller ID can be used in a very bad way we have to be
very careful well what particularly bothers me is that within our own
community of the online community it's becoming difficult to do that right
perhaps somebody will come up with a service where they will reroute your
phone call in other words let's say you want to make a local phone call in New
York City well you call this number and they simply bounce your number over to
where you really want to call and their number shows up on the caller ID now you
can't charge a whole lot of money for that because it's not very expensive for
you to do there's a one-time charge of like 10 cents or something when you when
you pass the call over but multiply it by a lot of calls and there could be a
business right but if you charge somebody a small amount and you know not
a dollar a minute or something crazy like that you charge somebody you know a
few cents to do this you know whatever it takes to cover your cost and to make
a small profit it'll be a very valuable service and I hope somebody out there
can be the last real quick thing I wanted to give you from this article is
again reporting what free said he said that taxpayers would be asked to pay up
to a half a billion dollars to develop and deploy the necessary network
software Wow now what's this guy's name it was free the director of the FBI how
do you spell his last name F R E E H okay well that H is what makes me stand out I knew there was
something in there okay I'll let you go thanks let's see if we can fit in
another phone call good evening you're on okay you have to speak up a little
bit because you got a bad connection here an email address which is okay
what's that okay okay I'm glad you had that information I could not find that
anywhere in this pamphlet okay that's great okay thanks living proof that BAI
listeners have the information we just need to get together and share it good
evening you're on okay good evening you're on oh yes turn on your radio
please yes you there yes you are
you're in a car phone well I've heard differing differing views on that I've
heard some people say it is legal some people say it isn't legal and I'm not
I'm not clear as to what it is in New York
for myself for some particular reasons I won't go into where I thought it'd be
very helpful and I spoke to the president of the company who was
actually in Huntington at one of the local places he said the FCC has
granted them a license and they're doing it above board and with literature and
it appears to be legal do you have the name of this company sir just another
two quick ones while I have you I guess I can't hear me I have a copy of a
magazine which I think was the first magazine that was ever recalled because
of the communication information inside of it any idea of what it is are you
talking about tell magazine no it's a rampart actually tell me what is it it
contains a diagram for a telephone of mute uh-huh and as a result at that time
AT&T which was the local carrier or you know nationwide took them to court this
was in the 70s I think was 73 I'd have to look it up I'm in the car now and
actually forced the you are in the car location and only those who subscribed
actually got the magazine I see and the last just a last quick question okay you
have you have ten seconds some kind of crazy literature for something that
disturbed me although I find some of the communication stuff interesting this
seems to be an invasion of privacy for the wrong side what they were selling
was a device that they stated would allow the user break into any telephone
answering machine up to three digits and gain complete access I have heard of
that I've heard of that and I'd sure would like to see it because if such a
device exists and we should know about it and we should we should make sure
everybody knows about it and if that means they get to sell their device fine
but at least let people know that it exists in the first place I don't know
do you want the name of the company that's actually putting it out sure go
ahead yeah but make it fast cuz we have we have like one second now okay no give
it to us right now okay
again I could drop your note on it but they get into all kinds of crazy
weaponry and you know right-wing technology and spy kinds of information
okay well thanks very much for the information and if you pass it on to us
we'll pass it on in the air all right take care all right bye-bye and that's
another reason why I won't use a cellular phone because you can't hear
people half the time it's all this noise but the technology is improving it'll
get there someday and when it gets there I'll be waiting for you see you next
week good night
good evening in the news tonight the tobacco industry turns out in force
against attempts to raise taxes on cigarettes some say the nation's economy
is turning around but average Americans can't tell it by their pocketbooks and
in New York there's a verdict in the trial of the man accused of killing
Latino journalist Manuel de Dios Unanue while labor groups charged that some
New Yorkers are working in slave-like conditions with these and other stories
I'm Jose Santiago in New York with Verna Avery Brown in Washington and this is
the news for Wednesday March 9th 1994 first to Washington for the Pacifica
National News the Tuesday Texas primaries claimed one of the nation's
most progressive congressman Houston's Craig Washington who was beaten by a
conservative black Democrat Pacifica's Kyle Huckins reports that powerful
business interests helped unseat the congressional black caucus member the
winner Houston City Councilwoman Sheila Jackson Lee was able to raise and spend
twice as much money as Washington depending largely on local business
leaders unhappy with the congressman's votes against the North American free
trade agreement and the state's pork barrel projects but Washington remains
unapologetic saying he's an activist not a politician I made a conscious choice I
mean I set my course for the win and I knew where I was going all along I knew
that that would be wind pushing against me I knew that that would be I'm
intelligent enough to know that that the way to go along and get along in
politics is to do it a different way Washington says funding for public
housing and other urban needs is more important than supporting the state's
supercollider or space station he was elected to the seat in 1989 succeeding
Mickey Leland and Barbara Jordan for Pacifica Network News I'm Kyle Huckins
in Houston in Waco Texas a judge has reinstated weapons convictions he had
previously dismissed against seven branch Davidians a federal court jury
last month cleared all 11 branch Davidians on conspiracy to murder
charges but convicted seven on weapons violations federal judge Walter Smith
originally dismissed the verdicts because they were based on the
conspiracy to murder charges Smith has not offered an explanation for his
change of mind the Joint Chiefs of Staff chair John Shalikas Vili said today that
as many as 50,000 Western troops half of them American will be needed to oversee
a Bosnian peace agreement meanwhile Turkey has offered to send 1,000 troops
to Bosnia and the British government is expected to raise the numbers of their
troops in the area from Berlin Paul Hakanos has this report on European moves
to build on the recent successes in Bosnia in Europe's capitals today
diplomats continue to work towards peace in Bosnia in Moscow the Bosnian Prime
Minister met with the Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kosarev to discuss the
proposed Muslim Croat Federation Moscow is yet to back the plan which would
create a multinational Muslim Croat state within Bosnia all of those
involved know that the support of Russia and Serbia is vital if the plan is to
succeed the Bosnian Prime Minister charged the Russian government with
favoritism toward the Bosnian Serbs Moscow rejected the charge on another
front France announced that it will send an additional 800 soldiers to Sarajevo
the offer came in response to a UN request for 10,000 more troops the
French and the British the largest contributors of troops claimed other
countries too such as the US should begin to shoulder their share of the
responsibility this is Paul Hakanos reporting for Pacifica Network News more
than 400 Palestinians including 130 members of the PLO leadership today
signed a petition demanding that peace talks remain suspended until Palestinian
security is secured the petition calls for the dismantling of Jewish settlements
and international protection for Palestinians in the occupied territories
and at the PLO headquarters in Tunis 100 staff signed another petition urging
suspension of talks with Israel relations between the PLO and Israel
have deteriorated since Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein massacred Palestinian
worshippers and today an Israeli Commission of inquiry into the massacre
inspected the Hebron mosque where the incident occurred an officer on duty at
the time of the shooting told the Commission that soldiers saw Baruch
Goldstein arrive in a white car and wearing headphones a government
spokesperson also said that a letter of confession from Goldstein was found in
an adjoining room a five-member Commission began their inquiry yesterday
and those are the stories topping the news
the economy may be roaring back to life but millions of American workers aren't
feeling it yet while worker productivity grew last year by record numbers wages
remained stagnant facing these numbers President Clinton offered up some
remedial measures to help out the American worker but critics say what the
president is proposing is not enough Pacificus Don Rush has this report
retraining top the president's list of answers to the woes of the jobless
American and he wants to spend 3.4 billion dollars to help victims of
corporate layoffs and defense cuts learn new skills under his plan he would turn
the unemployment offices into re-employment centers in these centers
an American worker could apply for benefits receive counseling and sign up
for job training president Clinton the re-employment act of 1994 builds on our
greatest strengths invest in our most important resource our people so that we
can turn the 20th century safety net into a 21st century springboard to
succeed and win in the global economy but even workers who have jobs find the
real wages remain stagnant despite an uptick in the economy so the president
unveiled a new effort to get federal employees to sign up for his expanded
earned income tax credit aimed at low-income workers and during his
announcement today the president said he recognized wages were not up to snuff
millions and millions of working people now have had stagnant wages for virtually
two decades that more and more people work hard and their wages don't keep up
with inflation the principle behind what we are doing with the earned income tax
credit is simple if you work for a living you shouldn't be in poverty but
critics charge the solutions the president proposes do not match the
problems the economy faces for instance Dean Baker with the economic policy
institute notes that the president ultimately envisioned spending around
14 billion dollars over the next five years on his retraining program this is
not going to be a serious expenditure in terms of the budget or even less so in
terms of the total economy to really have a training program that's likely to
address the needs of all the workers who are going to be displaced or threatened
with displacement you'd be talking about tens of billions of dollars a year last
year recorded the highest worker productivity numbers in years and
corporate profits rose by over 11 percent economists had expected wages to
be rising by this time in the recovery but they have not manufacturing where
productivity rose by seven and a half percent wages and benefits dropped by
0.2 percent and many of the new jobs are showing up in the low-wage service
sector Carlos Bonilla with the employment policies institute which
represents low-wage employers Japan is seeing the same growth in service sector
employment that the United States is seeing it's not an American phenomena
it's a worldwide phenomena that reflects everything from technology to the cost
of doing business in certain occupations economists suggest that the reasons for
this phenomena include the declining power of labor unions international
competition and the impact of automation on jobs
Doug Henwood is with the left business observer he believes that there are too
few jobs for too many workers I think a long-term problem is that the economy
needs fewer and fewer workers to produce equivalent amounts of stuff and the
workers it requires are being employed in generally lousier jobs and I don't
think any amount of training is going to change that most of the attention has
been placed on the worker who loses his job in the manufacturing sector but
Henwood said the white-collar worker will soon follow his blue-collar
counterpart for a lot of manufacturing firms for example they've really
squeezed the production workforce as hard as they can and they're really now
beginning to see that the the white-collar workforce is their next
target of opportunity and so we're seeing massive layoff announcements
really targeted not at production workers but middle managers at this
point what says the president would need to spend billions of dollars in
government funds to create enough jobs to keep everyone employed Don Rush
Pacifica Network News Washington the tobacco industry has been taking some
serious hits as of late the Food and Drug Administration is considering the
regulation of cigarettes as a drug and therefore regulated by the agency the
Pentagon has banned smoking in all workplaces and now the state of Maryland
is on the road to prohibiting smoking in all public places even bars and
restaurants today the tobacco industry took to the streets
Mark Bevis reports
the tobacco industry brought some 16 to 20,000 workers farmers and smokers to
Washington to protest the Clinton administration's proposal to triple the
federal tax on cigarettes the purpose of the plan is to fund health care reform
but the issue for these protesters many of whom were paid a day's wages to be
here higher cigarette taxes will cost them their jobs
they're trying to put taxes on the cigarettes industry and we're up here to
show our support for our jobs, for our companies and for the working people
we're here protesting the high taxes, it's very unreasonable to us, the whole tobacco industry
we don't think it's fair
What's wrong with that? If this passes, we're all going to lose our jobs
Why would you lose your job because of the tax increase?
Well, if you put a big tax increase on every pack of cigarettes, like they say, it's 75 to 90, 95 percent per pack
you know that's got to be a low blow to the industry right there
I'm sure jobs will be cut and be lost because of that
Government statistics show that if the federal tax on cigarettes was increased by the
Clinton administration's proposed 75 cents, 11 billion dollars could be raised
in addition 3.7 million fewer people would take up smoking and 900,000 lives
would be saved, but some marchers still believe that all the talk about cigarettes and cancer is a big lie
The media has been lied to and those lies are being disseminated back to the people of this country
What's the lie?
The lie about secondhand smoke, for one thing, I mean there is absolutely no scientific evidence
that secondhand smoke hurts anyone, any place, and that's something that everybody believes
even smokers are believing that and it's just not true
The American Cancer Society charges that the tobacco industry is lying, especially on this issue of jobs
The industry says a 75 cent tax increase would cost 275,000 jobs
but anti-smoking organizations say there are only 259,000 jobs in the entire industry
John Bloom is with the American Cancer Society
What the tobacco industry has done, though, is to generate absurdly exaggerated job loss estimates
as a scare tactic to try and motivate its employees
They pretend that there is no export market when in fact there's a huge export market
that's unaffected by the tax
These tobacco companies are making more cigarettes in the United States in the early 90s
than they were in the early 80s, all because of exports
In addition, a new study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association
argues that non-tobacco producing states may even see an increase in jobs
due to higher cigarette taxes
because the money not spent on tobacco would be spent in other sectors of the state's economy
therefore producing jobs
Of course, an increase in tobacco taxes would be harmful on the health care industry
Some 450,000 people are still dying each year from tobacco use
But those death rates may soon start to decrease
as it becomes harder and harder for people to light up
In the past week or so, new obstacles have been imposed or proposed
to limit where people can smoke
A number of people have called the last 10 days
10 days that shook the tobacco industry
Because not only do we have, for the first time ever
serious prospect of major tobacco tax increases
suddenly we have every aspect of our federal government
taking action on tobacco and health issues
The American Cancer Society's John Bloom
We have major legislation moving through Capitol Hill
that would ban smoking in public nationwide
We have, for the first time ever
the Food and Drug Administration taking a serious look
at simple regulation of tobacco products
simple oversight of what kinds of addictive
and carcinogenic substances are being put into cigarettes
The Pentagon has prohibited smoking in all workplaces
affecting 2.6 million personnel
and the state of Maryland is expected to join Vermont
in banning smoking in all public places
even restaurants and bars
Kathleen Schaegg, with action on smoking or health
has been pushing for the Maryland law
I think we've hit a critical mass
and I think people have suddenly seen it can be done
I think there was a myth that the tobacco industry
was all powerful and you couldn't do it
and now people have seen it can be done
they've seen that there's overwhelming public support
I mean, the tobacco industry tried to scare people off
saying you'd turn people away, it wouldn't work
and there's now so much evidence of it
working across the country
that the next state knows they can do it
Vermont has already gone smoke-free in public places
phasing in bars and restaurants by 1997
The state of Utah will join the ranks in 1995
Mark Bevis, Pacifica Network News, Washington
Comedian Jackie Mason has again fanned the flames of racial hatred
between the Jewish and African-American communities
Last week on conservative Pat Buchanan's
nationally syndicated radio program
Mason offended a number of African-American listeners
when he issued a broad-brushed condemnation of blacks
We're talking about black people
We're talking about black people
We're talking about black people
We're talking about black people
We're talking about black people
We're talking about condemnation of blacks
We're talking about the susceptibility to violent behavior
The susceptibility happens to be more among blacks
than among whites, a hundred times more
Mason, who hosted his own national sitcom
has a history of making racially insensitive remarks
under the guise of humor
His sitcom ultimately bombed
but his comments on the Buchanan show
were not intended to be funny
and indeed they struck a discordant note
with Robert Williams of the NAACP
Williams calls Mason's remarks
indefensible, particularly given
the current political tension between blacks and Jews
Nation of Islam minister Louis Farrakhan
who is black, was publicly condemned
in recent weeks for anti-Semitic comments
made by his aide Khalid Abdul-Mohamed
The outcry led to Mohamed's eventual demotion
We have been beaten to death
by the Jewish civil rights organization
to distance ourselves from Farrakhan
and we have disavowed
some of the statements he's made
The Congress has gotten up
and unanimously condemned Farrakhan
We want...