1.30 Wednesday night, Thursday morning, following Robert Knight.
2.30 Building bridges.
3.30 Community labor report, Thursdays, 7.30-8.30pm.
4.30 People in motion, where they live, where they work, how they organize.
5.30 Exploration of people and issues that shape these important movements for social change.
6.30 Building bridges, a community labor report, Thursdays, 7.30-8.30pm, over WBAI 99.5 FM.
7.30 Exploration of people and issues that shape these important movements for social change.
7.30 Exploration of people and issues that shape these important movements for social change.
That's not our theme. This is our theme.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
It couldn't get much worse, but if they could they would.
Bum diddly bum for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood. Bum diddly bum!
And a very good evening to one and all.
This is Emanuel Goldstein, and the program is Off the Hook, where we talk about high technology
and the various progressions and regressions that go along with it.
And, of course, this week is no exception, as no week is.
Every week we seem to have a new story, something different, something amazing
or shocking or scary or what have you.
Well, this week is going to be rather unusual.
We're actually doing something different this week.
We're simulcasting this program on another radio station.
Actually, we're kind of bringing in another radio show at the same time
and having two radio shows at the same time on two different stations.
If you listen to WNYU at 89.1, you'll hear a show over there
that will be talking to us and will be talking to the people at WNYU.
And in between us both is a special guest that we have who has come all the way in from Holland,
and that is Rob from Haktik.
And, Rob, are you with us here in the studio?
Yes, I am.
Okay, and over at WNYU we should have Paul.
Paul, are you there?
Okay, Paul, we're not getting yet.
Hey.
There he is. Okay.
I'm going to just transfer you over to our airline.
So I'll be back with you in about 30 seconds.
Okay, 30 seconds then.
And we'll be speaking to both listeners.
I guess it's more than two listeners, but both sets of listeners,
WNYU listeners and WBAI listeners,
all non-commercial radio listeners of one form or another.
And, well, Rob, you're here in America for, I guess, this is the third time, right?
Yes, it is.
And it just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?
Oh, it's wonderful.
New York is a great city to be.
Yeah.
Well, now, there is some interesting news coming out of Holland,
and we're going to get right to that as soon as Paul gives us a shout when he's back.
Are you there yet, Paul?
I think I'm here. Can you hear me?
Yes, and are we being broadcast now over WNYU as well?
Yes, we are.
Okay, great.
So this program can now be heard at either 89.1 or 99.5 FM, NYU or BAI.
If you listen to NYU, it'll sound like I'm on the phone.
And if you listen to BAI, it'll sound like Paul's on the phone.
Well, good evening to you, Emmanuel.
We should probably really quickly mention what your show is about for the listeners tuned into WNYU.
Okay.
So can you tell us a little bit about Off the Hook?
Well, we've been doing Off the Hook now for quite a few years, actually, maybe about two or three or four.
I don't know exactly. I'll find out one of these days.
But we basically talk about new developments with the telephone system,
various foul-ups that AT&T and 9X and all the other companies are engaged in,
and also some consumer ripoffs.
We don't stop there, though.
We go on into various computer networks, the Internet, credit agencies,
Big Brother monitoring-type things such as they have in Singapore.
And we just find that we never run out of things to talk about,
as we'll hear a little later on when some people start calling in.
There's always something happening.
More recently, we've had some sad developments,
seeing one of our featured guests, FiberOptic, being sent to prison for crimes of hacking,
which are very nebulous crimes indeed.
So it's been quite an adventure.
It's been definitely an interesting few years doing this program.
And I believe this is the only program around that I can find in the country that deals with these issues.
And there's a tremendous interest in these issues that we've found,
not just among computer hackers, which is a large amount of our listeners,
but also just among everyday people that never really thought all this out before.
And certainly if you read your telephone book,
if you read the manuals that computer companies give you,
you'd never quite get that quest for knowledge that you get from being a hacker.
And I think there's a lot of hackers out there that are waiting to be unleashed.
And that's sort of what we're here for.
Do you find, because your show is a heavy call-in show,
do you find you get a lot of people calling who are in the hacker scene?
Are you supposed to sound like you're from space?
No, but I kind of like that.
I wasn't sure, actually.
It's like I'm talking to a robot or something. It's kind of neat.
I'm sorry, what was the question again?
In terms of your listeners, people that call up,
do you find that most of them are in the scene or not in the scene?
I find a mix, actually.
There are some people that are very heavily into the hacker scene.
They show up at the 2600 meetings every month.
There are other people that are from completely different walks of life.
We get a lot of elderly people, a lot of people from different backgrounds
that are trying to use telephones to their advantage,
to use the best billing options,
to understand what the phone company means when they tell them something.
Basically, what we've found over the years is that hackers can explain these kinds of things.
Basically, you need a computer hacker to tell you how to make a phone call these days,
and not just illegitimate phone calls, legitimate ones as well.
For instance, next time AT&T goes down, how do you make a call over MCI?
How do you make a call over Sprint?
Hackers can tell you basic things like that, and also a lot more in-depth things,
such as why certain things happen in the first place.
I think my space being is going to be with us for a while.
I think it's in the phone couple that we have here.
That's fine, actually. It makes things rather interesting.
I just wanted to mention a little bit about the show we do here.
It's on Wednesdays. We come on at 9 o'clock, and we go off at 10.30.
Things very similar to what you're hearing my voice sound like happen weekly.
We play with sound. We do collage.
We have an interactive kind of mixing situation going on where the listeners can call on the station
and trigger sound samples that in turn go out over the air.
In effect, they can mix live with what's going on in the studio.
We're not doing that tonight, obviously.
We're talking and trying to get some information out.
With that said, I'd like to hear what Rob has to say about things in Europe.
Actually, I just wanted to ask you one question before we switch it over to Rob.
Have you ever heard of a program out at KPFA in Berkeley called Over the Edge?
Oh, sure. It's done by the Negative Line folks.
Yeah, okay, because that's what your show reminds me of.
Right, yeah. It's definitely similar to that.
Yeah, it's definitely interesting.
We play a fair amount of Negative Line stuff, too.
Well, that's certainly healthy.
Okay, Rob is here, and why don't you ask the first question?
Well, first of all, Rob, how often do you find yourself physically in the States?
Do you do a lot of traveling as it relates to talking about the haptic and related issues?
Well, I was in the States last November, which is a funny story in itself
because it was at a conference for intelligence people.
So I was in the room with America's most intelligent.
And then before that was years ago.
Yeah, I was just visiting then.
No, in Holland I talk a lot about haptic and what we do
and the magazine and the computer network
because we also offer Internet access for people.
That's also one of the things we do.
Right, right.
What's the major difference between, say, the European community and the community over here,
both in terms of the government and the, quote-unquote, hackers?
Well, as far as relations between the government and the hacking scene,
in Holland, I don't say that's true for all European countries,
but in Holland we are mainly left alone and then they pass nasty laws anyway.
I'll talk about that later.
And here they mess with you at every single conference
or every possible gathering of hackers that you hold.
I don't know.
But yet the public is more aware of certain things here than they are over there.
It's a kind of strange difference.
What kind of things?
Well, for instance, the Dutch government is now trying to pass a law banning cryptography
and we're having a very hard time making people understand what's really going on.
And only recently are people beginning to grasp what that's going to mean for them in the future.
Maybe I should talk a little bit more about this if you want.
Definitely.
What kind of a thing have we had fall into our hands here as far as this?
Because I understand it was not meant for public consumption,
the fact that they're trying to outlaw cryptography.
What does that mean exactly?
How are they going to outlaw something like that?
Well, there is a new law coming that does a lot of things with telecommunication in Holland.
It's basically the law that finally privatizes the PTT.
The PTT was already, the phone company was already a separate company.
It wasn't a state monopoly anymore.
It's now a corporate monopoly.
But they're selling stocks now on the open market.
That's going to happen this year.
So that's why the law was needed.
And in that law is a provision or they want a provision in it.
The law is not yet signed into action.
It's not even come to vote.
There's a provision in it that controls the possession of encryption programs.
It controls the use of it.
And basically you're not allowed to encrypt anything unless you have a permit to do so.
And the permit, one of the requirements to get a permit is that you register your secret keys.
In other words, the keys to all the envelopes you use are to be registered with the government.
And the permit can be refused and they don't even have to tell you why they refuse it.
So it's kind of interesting.
And cryptography, for those listeners that don't know,
is the technology that's replacing envelopes in the information age.
Because up to now on computer networks you were not allowed to send anything
or you were not able to send anything that had an envelope around it.
Anything you sent over electronic mail was going through other people's systems
and anybody that had sufficient privilege on any of these systems in between could read your mail.
And now encryption is the technology that's giving you the possibility to secure your mail.
What you said is very important, though.
It's something that I think a lot of people, when they use a computer network, they should realize this.
And obviously the commercial systems are not going to tell them that everything you do can be monitored.
Everything you do can be read.
It's something that I think we need to drive home.
And that's a very good way to say that.
But encryption, as you mentioned, is a way out of that.
Why are they so worried?
Because it gives people the possibility to use envelopes that the government cannot open anymore.
Encryption is now so strong that if I encrypt something,
nobody in between can open it unless they have the secret key of the person that I send it to.
Now, how analogous is this to straight wiretapping, for example?
You know, the government has a provision where if they get a court order,
they can tap a line to protect us from terrorists.
Is not that a lot of the rhetoric that's being thrown around concerning cryptography and on and on?
Well, about cryptography, if the government in any country wants to ban cryptography,
what they do is they come up with child pornography.
It's even better than terrorism these days.
What you do is you find somebody that has encrypted child pornography on his disk,
or at least you think he has encrypted child pornography on his disks,
and then you arrest him and you say you can't prosecute him because he uses cryptography.
Actually, I think a better analogy is they hire this person to have child pornography on their disk,
and then they say they can't prosecute him.
Yeah. Well, the thing about cryptography is that governments all over the world are very worried
because it's now possible for anybody to buy a little box that you hook up to your telephone,
and then if the other party also has a box like that, nobody can tap you.
It is becoming that.
You can now buy commercial systems that basically defy any wiretap for $1,000 or $1,500,
something like that.
But, Rob, how enforceable is such a thing that the Dutch government is trying to do?
How can they possibly tell when somebody is encrypting something?
It doesn't have to be enforceable.
They just arrest two or three people that are openly using encryption and throw the book at them,
and then everybody else will stop using encryption,
and then after that, if you see somebody encrypting traffic, he's up to something.
And would it be illegal to write a program that can encrypt something?
It would be illegal to possess the compiled code.
That's what it would be.
Related to this, Rob, could you keep us up to date?
I'm going to forget the exact name of the program, but there's an encryption program.
It's supposed to be very strong,
and there's an issue because it was being distributed overseas from the states,
and the U.S. government didn't like the fact or doesn't like the fact that this is going on.
Are you familiar with this issue?
Yeah, the program is called PGP.
I hope our BAI listeners were able to follow that question.
The program is called PGP.
It's pretty good privacy.
It's written by Philip Zimmerman from the United States,
or at least the first version was written by him.
It's now written by a whole team of people globally.
And what's happened is he put it up in the public domain.
It's freeware.
Everybody can copy it and use it.
And somebody from outside the United States, some evil person,
downloaded it to a bulletin board outside the United States,
and suddenly it was a global program and not just a U.S. program,
which violates some patent in the U.S.
No, there is a PKP, Public Key Partners.
Don't buy from them.
There is a patent on RSA, which is an algorithm that's used,
but the patent is not valid outside the United States.
And the cryptography is so strong that you can't export it from the United States.
That was the legal basis for giving Philip Zimmerman legal trouble last year.
We're speaking with Rob from Haktik over in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
And we're simulcasting this program on both WBAI 99.5 FM, as off the hook,
and on WNYU.
Paul, do you have a name for your program?
Yeah, it's called Digilution.
Digilution, okay.
And Paul is speaking to us from the planet Neptune,
and you're hearing a universal translator there ticking in.
Okay, so basically, Rob, a question I have for you is
why should people listening now worry about this,
people that don't even have computers?
Why should this distant ruling in Holland be of any concern whatsoever to them
and how does it affect things in this country?
Because it's the classic picture of a government clinging to its right,
quote-unquote, to hear and listen in on anything they want to.
It is the last stand of governments trying to maintain their right
to be able to plug into every phone line,
to plug into every piece of communication that they want to.
But can they really stop it?
No, they can never.
And what's, I mean, as an everyday person who might just have a computer,
just has a modem and is maybe connected to some board,
what should that person be thinking about or worried about
or be trying to do as it relates to this issue?
What they're trying to do is ban you from having secrets in the information age.
That's what it's, it's now outlawed to whisper
if this law comes into effect in Holland.
You're not allowed to hide stuff.
And the fact that you are hiding stuff is a criminal offense in itself.
And what is important, and this has not been mentioned yet,
is in America there is the whole clipper chip debate.
I don't know if you've heard about that.
But the clipper chip is a chip that does encryption and decryption.
So two clipper chips can talk to each other
and then you can throw plain text into one chip
and it comes out as plain text on the other
and anything in between is crypted.
If I understand correctly, clipper is for telephones and capstone is for data.
Well, it's just data encryption.
What you do with it doesn't really matter.
It's all ones and zeros in the end.
Yeah.
But the algorithm behind clipper and capstone is called skipjack.
And the algorithm has a provision
where every chip has to send a serial number
and they can't fake their serial number either.
So you can't fake a clipper chip and fake a serial number.
So they send the serial number over the communication as well.
Part of the communication is the serial number going up and down.
And the government stores the key with every serial number.
So in fact these chips are manufactured
and then the key, the secret that each chip contains,
is stored by the government so they can tap communication in the future.
And now what they want to do in the States
is they want to have that chip put in as many phones
and computers and what have you.
So that it becomes an industry standard
and therefore people that want encryption can have encryption
but the government can listen in to anything they want.
And in Holland they're using the other approach.
They're first banning all other encryption
and then they'll come up with clipper
as the answer to this whole hassle of registering your key with the government.
So they're trying both approaches here.
In the States they're trying to make clipper an industry standard
and then ban all the other stuff.
And with us they're trying to ban all the other stuff first,
have us register keys,
and then as that turns out to be too much of a hassle
they'll tell us to use the clipper chip.
Do you have any evidence of collusion
between United States efforts and Dutch efforts here?
Well there's these awful rumors of people from agencies that don't exist
that come over the ocean and talk to all these European governments
about how wonderful the clipper chip is
and how easy it would be to manufacture our own chips
that work with the skipjack algorithm.
Yeah, it's happening.
I'm Manuel Ropp and everybody, listen, I just wanted to let you know
I've got to jump out of here soon because I go off the air at 10.30
and I wanted to just make sure people knew
that Ropp is actually speaking physically at NYU
and perhaps you could mention briefly
what you're going to be speaking about on, let's see,
this is Friday at 6.30 p.m.
What will you be talking about?
We'll be discussing this law that's coming into effect
or that's not coming into effect
but that they want to get into effect in Holland
and we're going to go more specifically into what they're exactly planning
because there's some interesting details about it
and the general situation in Holland
and we're also going to be talking about the Internet situation there.
What's going on in the digital domain
and freedom in the digital domain basically in Europe
and in Holland in particular?
I'd like to also take this chance,
as long as we have NYU listeners here,
if any of them are interested in getting in touch
with either Ropp or myself
or either one of our magazines on the Internet
and you have Internet access,
we know NYU has Internet access,
I guess we should give out our addresses
and Ropp, why don't you go first?
I'm ropp.nl, that's R-O-P-P,
at is that little crazy sign,
and then haktik is H-A-K-T-I-K dot N-L.
Okay, you've got a really neat address.
Our address isn't quite as neat yet but it will be
and that's 2600-2600-at-well,
W-E-L-L dot com
or Emanuel, E-M-M-A-N-U-E-L at well dot com
and if you're on the Internet, drop us a line.
And I should also let you know,
if you just need to get in touch tonight,
immediately with a human,
I could give you that information
if you call 998-1818,
it's area code 212
and we'll be in this conversation.
Okay, and you'll sound like a human
when you pick up that phone, right?
Exactly, I'm being encrypted right now.
This is what it could all sound like in the future, I guess.
And we'll be taking phone calls here at WBAI
for anybody interested in calling in at 212-279-3400.
We'll be doing that for the next half hour or so.
So Paul, are you leaving us now?
Yeah, I'm afraid I've got to start cleaning up this mess back here.
Okay, well you do that.
It's been fun and a unique radio experience,
simulcasting on our two stations.
Yeah, perhaps we'll do it again sometime.
Have a good stay.
Perhaps I'll hook up with both of you later.
Okay, take care.
And he's taking off into the stratosphere
with kind of a neat effect.
I wish we could do that here.
I guess it's something we'll just have to bug our engineers about.
212-279-3400, we have Rob here from Amsterdam.
And Rob, as long as you drop in every year or so,
how are things changing in the hacker world over there?
Are things still as lively as ever?
Well, we've had this major conference last August,
but I think I told you about that last radio show
when I was here in November.
Hackers at the End of the Universe.
Hacking at the End of the Universe.
Hackers at the End of the Universe.
Yeah, yeah, it was great.
What else is happening?
Is it still as lively?
Lots of people are very concerned about this new cryptography law,
so it's becoming lively again.
I'd say we had sort of a slow winter,
but things are heating up again.
Well, that's good.
Okay, we're going to take some phone calls now.
212-279-3400.
And, you know, I want to not pick up
and get the same person we always get as the first call.
So this time I'm not going to pick up line 1.
I'm going to pick up line 3.
But, you know, I just bet he's going to be there.
I bet he's going to be the first call
no matter what line I pick up.
So let's try it.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Hello, how are you doing?
I'm not the usual caller.
I haven't called in ages.
And you know you're not the usual caller.
That's great.
Okay, go right ahead.
This is a good sign.
I wanted to ask you, what do you think about
if a bleached, ugly dog was killed?
All right.
Maybe we should get the first caller anyway.
Good evening, you're on.
Yes, Emmanuel, hi.
Hi.
Hi.
Hello to everyone in WNYU, if I'm on there too.
That's amazing.
You know, I almost pushed that button.
So he's number 2, not number 1.
Well, I just want to make a discovery.
I just want to tell everybody about a discovery
that I've noticed about the 516.
Everybody that's listening in Long Island, listen to this.
Because if you dial...
All right, everyone, 516.
Please pay attention.
516.
That's Long Island, Nassau, Suffolk.
That's you.
Suffolk.
Okay, we have their attention.
Go ahead.
Dial 555-1212 for information.
But you will get the billing tone, you know, the bong.
And then you just dial 0 or wait for the operator.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
You dial 0 plus 555-1212?
No, no, no.
Just plain 555-1212.
And you get a bong?
That's right.
Well, when you dial 555-1212,
you're supposed to get information immediately.
Here, you do.
In New York City, you do.
But for some reason in Minneola, Long Island...
Well, it sounds like something maybe is messed up
with one CO out there.
But I wouldn't advise people to dial that
because it's going to cost them 45 cents if they dial that.
There's more to this.
There's more to this.
But when you dial that from a pay phone,
you get that billing tone.
Now, listen to this.
You either wait for the operator or dial 0.
Okay.
Now, when you dial the 0 or wait for the operator,
you're getting the information operator.
You can ask for a number.
And when you get the option to connect,
when they ask you if you want to be connected to the number,
guess what happens?
It connects you.
From a pay phone.
It doesn't know that you're on a pay phone
when you dial it that way.
Well, I suggest people run out and try this
because it's probably not going to last more than an hour
after this announcement.
But that's interesting.
How do you discover these things?
Because I happen to be on Long Island today.
And I just happen to need to call information.
And I just happen to discover that.
And I was surprised that because 411 gives you
the regular information that when you connect to it,
it knows you're on a pay phone and it asks, you know, if to...
So what you're saying is 411 can tell if you're at a pay phone.
555-1212 cannot.
If you're on Long Island.
Or at least in that particular area of Mineola.
Now, I just want to also give out the number
to the 1-800-NEW-YORK-TELL-COIN
because still a lot of pay phones are...
coin returns are being removed.
Okay.
And anybody, again, who finds a pay phone
with no coin return or no dial tone,
please call 1-800-698-NEW-YORK-TELL-COIN
Just spell out NEW-YORK-TELL-COIN.
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
Oh, N-Y-T is a 698 part.
Yeah.
Okay, so it's N-Y-T-COIN.
Yeah, and you'll get the automated system dial 1 for VIP.
Okay.
That's 2-6-4-6, by the way.
That spells coin.
Right.
Just dial that 800 number and report it as a VIP
because there are a lot of pay phones.
I don't know why people are removing coin returns out of pay phones.
Well, maybe they're removing the coins and the coin returns...
How can they be removing coins if they're removing the coin returns?
The coin box is on the other side.
Uh-huh.
Maybe they're misguided.
I don't know.
But all kinds of things are happening.
But I do know when they vandalize phones,
it gives New York Telephone or 9X the excuse
to just make it a credit card phone and not take coins at all,
which is very inconvenient to a lot of people, I know.
And did you know that their 1-0 access code that RCI has,
they do not know whether you're calling from a pay phone or not?
Really?
So what do they do?
They put third number calls through, things like that,
because I have a friend who got a bill from RCI.
Well, they won't do a direct dial, will they?
They won't do a direct dial, no.
Okay, so they're not that stupid.
Right.
You know, something interesting.
You might be interested in this.
There have been advertisements on TV recently by AT&T saying,
forget about that 1-800-COLLECT and 1-800-OPERATOR.
Now, 1-800-OPERATOR happens to be AT&T.
Now, they're going around telling people to forget about it
and to forget about 1-800-COLLECT, which is MCI,
even though MCI never admits that that's them.
And AT&T is actually saying,
it's so hard to remember 1-800-COLLECT and 1-800-OPERATOR,
so instead dial 1-800-CALL-ATT.
Now, maybe it escapes me,
but how is it easier to remember to dial 1-800-CALL-ATT
if you can't remember 1-800-OPERATOR or 1-800-COLLECT?
I don't follow this marketing here.
I don't know.
They disconnected that number for a while, and now they have it back.
Which number did they disconnect?
AT&T.
You just have to dial 1-800-321-something.
I wonder if they're running out of 800 numbers.
You would think they would by now.
I was predicting a couple of years ago
that they would have to have a second 800 exchange,
800 area code type of thing,
maybe the 400 area code or something like that.
Yeah, I mean, there's so many of those.
Okay, we're going to move on. Thanks for your call.
212-279-3400. Good evening. You're on.
Matt?
Yes, go ahead.
Manuel?
Yes.
Oh, there's a voice delay. Hold on one second, please.
Okay.
Always turn down your radio when you call in a phone show.
I have a couple of questions about payphones.
Okay.
When I drop my quarter in a lot of the payphones in the city,
I hear these five beeps.
You know, right in a row, the five beeps?
Right.
If I were to capture them somehow, what would that mean?
Well, from many payphones,
all you need to do is capture those tones and play them back,
and the payphone will actually think that you're depositing a quarter.
It's called redboxing.
But redboxing does not work on local calls
because they don't use that particular type of signaling for local calls.
It will work on anything outside the area,
whether it's carried by 9X or AT&T.
It won't work on local? I mean, if I was to...
Unless the phone has been fixed or modified so that it cannot do that.
And some phones have been,
and it does not work on any COCOTs, obviously.
Oh, the COCOTs are horrible.
There's a COCOT that took me for a dollar yesterday.
When I put four quarters in,
it said $0.25 for 30 seconds around the country anywhere.
If I put a quarter in, it asked me for $0.75 more,
so I put it in, and then after my money dropped in,
it goes, sorry, this is an invalid number, and took all my money.
Wait, why did it ask you for $0.75 more if it's $0.25 for 30 seconds?
Neither, but I was at that phone,
and I tried three other New York telephone phones
that were vandalized and were broken.
The only phone I had to use was this one COCOT, and it ripped me.
Right there by the 9X building there on 41st Street,
between 6th and Broadway.
I'd like to know how many people are interested in declaring organized war
on these bandit machines, because something has to be done about them.
We need some sort of organization.
Right now there is no organization.
There's something like two people at the Public Service Commission
that even know what a COCOT is.
Why isn't the phone company aggressively going after
or at least fixing the phones that are broken?
Anywhere in Midtown, there's got to be half the phones are out.
Yeah, well, you see, it benefits 9X to have COCOTs around,
because when they rip people off, it just makes 9X look good.
And they don't really rush to fix their own phones,
because that encourages people to make calling card calls,
and they pick up a nice fat surcharge every time somebody uses a calling card.
Why are they also advertising, you know, when you dial 411 for an operator,
they come on and say, with a recording,
thanks for using 9X, and it holds you up another four seconds,
or whatever it is, and then they come out with their other recording.
Why are they doing that?
Well, it's all part of automation.
When you call information these days, you don't even speak to a human being.
Every time I speak to an operator, I tell them that I think they should cut that out,
and I guess it's worthless to tell them that.
But what do you think? I mean, should they stop doing that, or what?
Well, I think they basically believe that people are a lot stupider than they really are.
They think that people won't mind all these nonsensical recordings
and all this time wasted on the telephone.
Waste of time, isn't it?
Yeah, and they think people won't react to, say, being hung up upon when the number is given.
It used to be that they would repeat the number and come back on the line,
to ask if there's anything else they could help you with,
and at that point you could ask them for the address or something like that.
Now, the other day I was trying to get a phone number for somebody,
and I had the first number.
I needed a second number for the person.
The first number was busy, so I needed the second number,
and I called information, and I said,
yes, I need a phone number for this person, but I don't need this number.
I need the other number.
Of course, they play the recording for the first number, and they hang up then.
So there's no way I can call them and tell them,
without spending another 45 cents, to say,
hey, you gave me the wrong number, at which point they did it again,
and I had to eventually call and just ask for the supervisor
and get the information that way.
But a lot of people won't resort to that.
Oh, God.
Well, I don't have time to complain either.
I only complain when I'm losing time,
and I don't have time to go back and complain.
Anyway, sometimes when I drop a quarter in,
it sounds like there's a recording that a quarter is rolling around in the background.
You know what I mean?
A recording? No, not really.
My quarter drops in the machine, and the machine activates,
and I hear, like, another quarter dropping in the background,
and it seems to be rolling around like a pinball would roll, you know,
before it fell into the hole.
Well, I don't know.
Maybe your payphone is moonlighting as a pinball machine or something,
but I've never heard of something like that.
And what does it mean when a phone just rings like a little perk?
It goes ring, ring, ring, and then doesn't really fully ring.
It'll just be sitting there, and it'll ring like a half a ring,
and then it won't ring anymore.
Are we talking about a home phone or a payphone?
A home phone?
Yeah.
Just in the middle of the night?
Yeah.
Okay, basically what happens is you're on a digital switch of some sort.
They do all kinds of testing throughout the night,
and some sensitive telephones are able to pick up
when they send a particular signal down the line,
and that translates as a chirp.
Oh, it's a chirp, right.
So I thought it was somebody trying to call me, then hanging up.
No, it also shows up sometimes if you have an LED on your phone.
It'll light up for a second,
and it'll look like somebody's picking up an extension.
That generally goes away very quickly.
It also tends to happen at the same time.
What's actually happening is they're dropping the line voltage
for a couple seconds, and then they're bringing it back on
to see if you have any phones attached
and to see if there's shorts on the line.
They're doing a bunch of basic electrical tests on the wire.
If you want to test it yourself.
It happens to me a lot.
It seems to happen to me a lot.
Would they be picking on me?
No, it happens to everybody.
Usually overnight is when it happens.
It happened 5 minutes ago.
I don't believe it.
It can happen at any time of the day, actually.
They usually do it during non-peak hours.
But if you want to see this for yourself,
you can call, although unless there's a problem with your phone,
you really shouldn't.
But if you call 611, repair service, from a different line,
you report a particular line out of service
or having trouble of some sort,
they will test it immediately as you're talking to them on the phone,
and you will see whatever reaction that is.
You'll see the light come on, and you'll hear a chirp or whatever.
Line's in the house.
Yeah, they'll check it right there.
I don't have that.
That's really the only way you can do it.
Otherwise, you'll be on the line when they're doing it,
and you won't notice it.
Yeah.
One more thing.
Is it possible that people say
that they can actually listen in on a conversation
with a phone that's hung up?
You mean an infinity transmitter?
I don't know what that is.
If they wanted to listen to a conversation in a room,
they can just tap into the phone even though it's hung up?
Okay, Rob has some feelings on this.
Boy, are you lucky.
There's two types of things, basically, that can happen.
There's the infinity transmitter,
which is an old bug invented for the mafia,
which was hooked up in the time that there was still speech path
before you picked up the phone,
which means that they actually switched an analog voice path
through the switch and then rung the receiving phone,
and then when you picked up.
So you could send something down the line
before the phone would ring,
and then what you would send down was a tone
that would trigger the infinity transmitter, it was called,
which would then pick up the phone
and activate the microphone in the telephone
without the receiving end ever hearing the phone ring.
That's not possible anymore with modern switches
because there is no voice path before the phone connection is made.
So there is no actual voice being switched,
so you could never send it a tone not to ring before it rings.
That's a good application for technology.
That's one of the good technological improvements.
If you have access to somebody's phone wires, though,
and somebody has a telephone that is of a somewhat older type,
or even some of the very cheap digital or more electronic phones,
I wouldn't say digital because they are still analog phones,
what happens then is very interesting.
You can either use the bell, the mechanical bell in the telephone.
If somebody speaks in a room,
the actual mechanical bell will move
and that will propagate down the telephone line
at least a mile or so.
So you can hear what's going on in a room
through the mechanical bell in a phone.
No kidding.
But that's very tricky
and needs a lot of high-tech equipment to hear anything.
You need a van full of fairly high-tech.
How do you like that?
There's a really simple way.
If you want to monitor somebody,
you simply go and present them with a nice cordless phone.
They use that phone, you just listen to them.
That's the easiest way, or a cellular phone for that matter, too,
but it's harder to track.
There is a more tricky way.
In the phone, the hook switch is actually a switch.
It's a contact.
But if you send down a high frequency, 50 or 100 kHz,
at extreme amplitude,
like a very loud 50 kHz or 100 kHz signal down the phone line,
it will cross that switch.
The switch will become a capacitor
and it will then travel the normal DC path,
so it won't use the ringer.
It will travel the normal DC path through the phone
and therefore the mic will be activated
because you're sending down enough current
to activate the mic in the telephone,
so you could tap somebody on that.
The mic would actually modulate the 50 kHz
that you are sending down the phone line.
That's the most tricky phone-on-the-hook tapping that can be done.
That works with a surprising amount of telephones
and it can be done from as much distance as the CO,
so it can be done on any line.
It can't be done through the CO,
so you can't do it on somebody else's line
while you're just calling in.
You have to be at the CO to hook it up.
But then you could do this to somebody
without them ever knowing
and you could remove the equipment with a relay
once the person picked up
and give them the normal dial tone.
But this is with certain types of equipment?
I just wanted to know if the capacity was there
and obviously it is.
Is it still there or is it something from the past?
It's there with a lot of phones from the present.
From the present as well?
Yeah.
Okay.
Thanks for your call.
Thank you so much.
All right.
I had once seen you years ago on TV.
Remember when that virus was around?
Did you once do an interview with a TV show?
The Michelangelo virus.
Michelangelo virus.
You had long hair at the time?
Yeah.
You still have?
I still have long hair at this time.
Same guy.
Same guy, same hair.
You did a little blurb on you.
I always meant to tell you that.
Okay.
Yeah, you probably saw the Live at Five thing.
Yeah, you showed up on TV and I knew that guy.
Emanuel Goldstein.
Oh, that's him.
That was at an Egghead Software, I believe.
Yeah.
All right.
Thanks very much for your call.
Bye-bye.
Okay.
It's interesting.
If you want to see a demonstration of an infinity transmitter
or a quote-unquote demonstration of one,
rent the film The Conversation with Gene Hackman.
It's an excellent film.
Basically, there's a trade show of private eyes
and one of the things they show is an infinity transmitter.
Whether or not it's a real one, whether or not it really worked
or did anything that they said it could do,
that's up to your interpretation.
But it is kind of interesting to see.
What I'd like to do now, before we go on to the next call,
is we touched upon information.
We touched upon people being automated
and wasting your time with all these recordings.
It used to be you could call 411 and just immediately,
immediately after you dial the last one,
information can I help you, what number do you want?
And you tell them, they tell you.
Anything else I can help you with?
Okay.
Have a nice day.
Goodbye.
And that's it.
Not anymore.
Not anymore.
You wait for a while, pass some time on the phone,
then a recording comes on and says 9X,
and then another recording comes on and says,
what number please?
A lot of people think that's a human being,
but it's really a recording.
And then you say the number that you want
and then you get the number, which is obviously a recording.
Now what's interesting about that is that
you never speak to a human being
and a human being never speaks to you.
You hear recording number one, recording number two,
you speak what you want, recording number three.
Now I'm not sure how it works here in the city,
but in most places now it hangs up after it gives you the number.
Sometimes it gives you the option to spend more money
and connect by hitting a button or saying yes at the tone
and you can be milked for even more money then.
Let's see what happens when we...
Okay, we have a bad line there.
We definitely have a bad line, so let's try another line.
And hopefully we'll be able to connect here
and get the 9X information.
Another bad line? This is incredible.
Every week this phone system is a new adventure
in primitive lifestyles or what have you.
Okay, here we go.
Okay, let's get a dial tone.
And let's call information, 411.
Going to get the number for WBAI.
I forgot about this part.
What listing, please?
Yes, the number for WBAI in New York.
Thank you.
No thank you.
I did not understand your response.
Please try again.
The number you requested can be automatically dialed
by pressing the number 1 or saying the word yes at the tone
for an additional charge of 35 cents.
Operator, what was that number again?
I didn't get it the first time.
Your call cannot be completed.
Please hang up.
You see, it can be kind of frustrating
if you don't get it quite the first time.
I have to call back again, spend more money to get that number.
Well, okay, it seemed like that time.
I don't know, maybe it's because it rang so many times.
We got a live person.
That was not a recording, the person picking up.
And we actually had some interaction with them.
They said okay or something like that.
Usually what you get is one or two recordings at the beginning.
Sometimes it's a 9x greeting,
and sometimes that's followed with a recording saying,
what town, please, or something to that effect.
At which point you give your number
and you get the recording back.
But you only get the number once.
You only get the number twice,
and it hangs up on you at the end
so you can't even ask for additional information.
And the 45 cents for that call will come out of my pocket.
So in case anybody's keeping track of that.
212-279-3400.
Don't call that number.
That was our office line.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Daniel, how are you?
Okay, how are you?
I wanted to know, on Long Island,
it says here at 9x, what town, please.
Yeah, it's different.
What happened to you?
You said, I can't understand it.
It hung up on you.
That's because there was no human anywhere near
the conversation we were having.
So they couldn't give me the number
or wouldn't give me the number again.
Welcome back to New York to Rob.
Thank you.
I wanted to ask you a question
before I get to Manuel's question.
Haptic, did they change their phone number overseas?
Yes, we did.
We just published our new phone number on the Internet
and it's going to be in our next issue.
The new Haptic telephone number is
Country Code 31,
City Code 20
and then the number is 6222-699.
So that's 6222-699 in Amsterdam.
Our email addresses and everything else
have stayed the same.
Postal address is also still the same.
So 6222-799?
No, 6222-699
and the fax is 6222-753.
Haptic is still showing the demon dialer.
I was going to ask that question.
The question is, I was up in Albany and...
Let him answer the question first.
In fact, we're not.
We're not manufacturing or selling the demon dialer anymore
because it's kind of against the law
to possess anything that even remotely resembles
a demon dialer in Holland now.
They actually wrote a special law for you or something?
Yeah, well, the law text is about
the most close legal representation
of the demon dialer that I've ever read.
It's actually quite a nice text about the demon dialer.
It's sort of good advertisement.
But unfortunately, that same law
also makes it illegal to have one.
Do they say demon dialer in the law anymore?
Almost.
Any other questions, caller?
I was up in Albany and I tried to blue box
the telephone up there, and it didn't work
when I called into Long Island.
So what you said was right.
If you were to capture those five tones...
You mean red box?
Yeah.
I was able to capture those tones
and I was able to call Long Island.
Uh-huh.
Well, make sure those calls are experimental in purpose.
We don't want to be engaging in toll fraud here,
but it does not work, obviously,
from non-Bell Operating Company-paid phones
because they use different types
of signaling and money-gathering.
I have heard, however, that many co-cots
have other weaknesses in their security.
I would never do a thing like that.
Oh, they have plenty of weaknesses in their security.
Yeah, I have heard stories about, you know,
people that call an 800 number
and then have the 800 number hang up,
and then when the dial tone comes back,
they quickly rush in their touch tones and everything.
I would never do a thing like that,
but I've heard stories of that effect.
And some even allow you just to dial one-plus
because they're programmed wrong,
and some can be programmed to allow calls
to particular area codes for free.
There's all kinds of ways of ripping off a co-cot
if you so desire to do that.
And of course, with the other rip-offs
that the other phone companies are coming up with,
namely 800 numbers that charge,
which I think is one of the biggest mockeries of justice
since mankind was created,
800 numbers that cost money, what next?
Well, you can call them from a co-cot
and charge the co-cot money for calling the 800 number.
Let's not talk about mockeries of justice
on this day of mourning.
Okay, all right.
I'm sorry?
Uh-huh.
Well, from listening to this,
you can see that hackers are not the problem here.
It's people with agendas and people that don't have a clue.
Thanks for your call.
All right.
What do we do on a day of mourning, anyway?
I mean, I was trying to figure this out all day long
because I can't recall a day of mourning.
The post office is closed.
Lots of other places are closed.
I mean, what do you do?
You have a party that's disrespectful.
That's not what they intend.
What do they intend for you to do on a day of mourning?
I look at this country fresh every time I come here,
and it's a whole different country now that he's dead.
Uh-huh.
The people look differently.
It's different.
I don't know if you can sense a difference
in the step of the average American
now that Nixon's not around anymore.
That's what you think because you're around here all the time.
You don't notice it anymore.
Yes, definite.
Wow.
Well, it was certainly impressive
the way the weather suddenly changed in California
as soon as his body arrived.
And in New York.
Well, that was as it was leaving,
but as it arrived in California,
suddenly the sunny sky gave way to thunderstorms
and wind and hail and all kinds of things like that.
People running and screaming.
Well, that's California, though.
Okay, let's go back to the phones.
212-279-3400.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Hi, Emanuel.
This is, I think, the thing that I saw this week,
which I thought was interesting.
I thought I'd seen it all when I'd seen
that Budweiser or Miller commercial a couple of years ago
that used the Ramones' Blitzkrieg bop.
But then I saw an MCI commercial this week
that uses Iggy Pop and the Stooges' song
1969, which I thought is kind of an odd
song to be using for a commercial.
A guy who cut himself up and abused himself
and smeared peanut butter all over his body for a living
as the basis of an ad campaign.
Have you seen this commercial yet?
No, I have not seen that one.
I've seen a car commercial that sounds eerily
like a Talking Heads song.
Have you heard that one?
I haven't heard this one.
On the MCI commercial, they actually use the Iggy Pop
and the Stooges' song, and I guess it's geared
towards people that were born in 1969
because they show a baby being born,
his rear end being slapped, and I guess it's geared
towards people who were born in that
20-something, Gen X-type people.
It's a very odd choice of songs.
It's a strange thing that the Stooges,
the band the Stooges, were always
considered in the same vein
like brother and sister band with a band called
the MC5, which is eerily close
to MCI. It's just very strange
to have the Stooges and MCI now
instead of the MC5. Very odd predicament.
You'd like a commercial that I saw recently
out of England. I don't know what it was for.
It was just such an amazing commercial, and it played
an old Velvet Underground song.
Basically, it was just these images
of grotesque faces and
strangeness, and it was like
some sort of a drug. Actually, we have someone
from England here. Do you want to fill us in on that?
It's a Dunlop tire advertisement.
A Dunlop tire
advertisement.
What were they thinking?
It was the most amazing commercial
I think I've ever seen as far as
imagery. It's sadomasochistic,
and the rubber fetish is meant to make
tires in England.
Okay. Sadomasochism and all that.
All right. Well,
that goes to show that nothing
is sacred, I guess. Keep up the good work.
Okay. Thanks for calling.
212-279-3400.
If you see an interesting commercial, let us know.
Good evening.
You're on the air. Great. Okay.
Question. Yeah.
Two of them, actually. Two questions.
Cellular phones.
I know you're not into them too much.
Well, I don't use them only because they're too expensive,
but I do play around and listen.
There, I said it.
For example,
why can't you have two cellular
telephones with one
telephone number?
Well, you can. That's a problem
for the cellular companies
in that you can duplicate
the ESN and the MIN and all that
and create another phone,
a clone, as it were.
Cloning is illegal, though.
Right. Cloning is illegal, but I see nothing wrong
with making a copy for yourself so you can have
a phone, say, in your car, a phone in your home
with the same phone number. I agree.
And that's called cellular emulation.
Am I correct? Cellular emulation.
That might be the term they use for it.
I'm not entirely familiar with cellular
industry terms. Okay.
So, in other words, it is actually
legal, and you can
have two cellular phones with one
cellular number.
I think you have to go
through the company to do something like that.
What company would that be, though? The carrier?
Well, if you had cellular
one, if you had 9x cellular...
Well, in New York State, it's
cellular one and it's 9x.
You have no
choice of any
other than the two companies.
Well,
luckily, there is a choice, but
you can only have either
carrier.
And they're both about as bad as the
other one. Well, they're
probably equally, so they're equal
as far as what you have to pay.
So...
Have you
asked them?
Basically,
they will not let you have one cellular
number with two
separate telephones.
There may be a technical reason for
that, though. What would the technical reason
be? The system gets a little
confused if two phones get used
in the same cell. It gets awfully confused,
in fact, because it starts
sending IDs that get answered
by two phones, which it
doesn't like. There's the other thing.
Mobile phones are
often not paged globally anymore.
They are paged in the cell where
they were last found,
which is a problem if two phones are
running around with the same number, because then it
has to remember two cells where it has to page
or do a global page,
which uses up more network.
It sounds like something that we're being forced
to crimp our style because of the failings
of the technology.
What you could easily do is have one number
call two cellular
phone numbers, but it's not so easy to give
two cellular phones
one number.
It would amount
to the same thing, but using a
cloned
ESN would not be the right approach,
because that messes up the system
in the sense that the system gets
confused. Or thinks that you're up to something.
Or thinks that you're up to something, or whatever.
So what you could do is attach
the same phone number to two
ESN-min combinations,
but you wouldn't normally
use a clone for this.
It gets way too confusing, doesn't it?
For the average consumer, certainly.
And for most of us, yes.
Alright.
So basically,
if you had
two different
telephones,
and you had one cellular number
installed
in each of those phones,
how could you possibly
have them both turned on at the same time?
It's absolutely impossible.
How could you have them
turned on? Oh, you can turn them both on.
You mean if you have a clone in there?
A clone of the actual electronic serial number?
You took two telephones,
you put both numbers in,
and then you called into
activations departments of whatever carrier,
you called in
ESNs, and you turned these
numbers on, would they both
work?
If you called one cellular company
with two serial numbers,
and they'd have
to have the option to set that number to
two serial numbers, it depends on the service.
They normally can't attach
a number to more than one phone.
Right. Did you ever hear of something called
cellular emulation?
Yeah, that's cloning.
That's giving two phones
the same serial number. Is that illegal?
It's illegal.
I think it's illegal in most American
states. It's probably illegal in Holland
and in most of Europe.
But the thing is, it won't work.
Cellular emulation won't work for your purpose.
If you want to have two phones on the same number,
this is not the way to do it because
the system gets confused.
If a person
has a cellular phone,
let's say a man has a cellular phone,
he wants to have a cellular phone for his wife.
And he goes out and he buys a cellular
phone for his wife.
And he gives the cellular phone to his wife.
And they both want to share the same number.
Why can't they both
have the same cellular telephone
number? Why won't it work?
It's just,
as we've been saying, a failing in the technology.
Something that is not...
I mean, what happens if you call
the number? Do you get your wife?
It's something that
the cell phone is not designed to handle.
At least not at this point.
But wouldn't it make sense that
you could have an extension
on your cellular phone?
It might make sense, but really
sense has got nothing to do with it.
Well, a hundred years ago,
or let's say ten years ago,
when people were afraid
that they had a second extension
on their phone,
they were afraid that the ringer
might ring when the phone man was around.
Do you understand?
Yeah, and they could sometimes tell
if you had an extra voltage on the phone line
or something like that.
But that's something that was a lot more easy
to get around.
It's not extra voltage, it's extra impedance.
Whatever. You know what I'm talking about.
It's basically they could sense
the same way that they sense when people have TV sets on in Europe.
That kind of thing.
So what is the actual reason, though,
why people can't have
two cellular phones with one cellular?
I suggest you call a cellular company
and ask them that,
and get back to us and let us know what they say,
because they're the people with the answers.
We're going to try to fit in one more phone call.
Thanks for calling. Good evening. You're on the air.
Hello? Yeah, go ahead. Real quick now.
All right.
I've got a red box over here,
and it's been pretty interesting
because I've been using it a lot.
Wait a minute. You have a red box right there?
Yeah. In your hand?
There you go.
Let me hear that one more time.
That's a Tandy Radio Shack dialer
modified for a red box.
Get the serial number. We can get his address that way.
No, I'm only kidding.
But, yeah, that sounds like a red box.
Those are the magic tones,
and just playing those tones into a phone.
That's how ridiculous the system is right now.
It's archaic.
Yeah. What's your question?
We've been using it at school,
and occasionally, like, the operator
will call back and ask us to deposit
five cents after we used it.
Uh-huh.
And I was, like, wondering how they know.
Well, no, that doesn't mean they know
that you're just sending down tones.
That might mean you went into overtime or something,
and they call in to get whatever was left over.
Oh, really?
Are they satisfied when you play those tones?
If you did play those tones, that is.
Are they satisfied?
No.
Oh, they want a real nickel or whatever.
Yeah.
But they have to be trained
to take notice of it in the first place.
Decent red boxes also do nickels and dimes.
Mm-hmm. That's true.
And super one-dollar spurts as well,
which I've seen this in demonstrations.
I've seen it be accepted.
You send 20 of those tones in a row,
and the system takes it.
Like, it's a dollar.
What kind of a coin could possibly
go through that fast?
I don't know, but they just take it
without any question.
Well, that's all the time.
And thanks, Rob, for coming by.
Maybe we'll hear from you again next week
because you'll be here for a little while to come.
We'll be back next week,
same time, I believe.
I'm told that we're going to be on next week.
I know we preempted one of these weeks for Marathon.
So we'll talk to you then.
And stay tuned
for the WBAI Evening News.
Also, this program note.
A white comedy, as Richard Nixon
attempts the greatest break-in of his career.
Not the Watergate, but the Pearlygate.
The late filmmaker Emil D'Antonio
will probably be there,
tracking Nixon as he did
with his radical documentary film,
Millhouse, a white comedy.
Tonight on Earthwatch, Robert Knight
presents excerpts of his 1984 interview
with Dee, along with the soundtrack
of Millhouse.
That's tonight from 11.45 to 1.30
on Earthwatch with Robert Knight,
the Evening News.
Emanuel Goldstein, good night.
See you next week.
Good evening.
In the news tonight,
it's day two of South Africa's
historic all-race elections.
Some Americans mourn the loss
of Richard M. Nixon,
while others do not.
And in our region,
the Justice Department refuses
to pursue a civil rights case
in the killing of teenage teenager
Philip Pennell.
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,
April 27, 1994.
First to Washington
for the Pacifica National News.
The first full day of voting
in South Africa's elections
has been marred by logistical problems
at many of the polling stations.
Nkata Freedom Party leader
Mangusutu Buthelezi has threatened
to withdraw from the election
unless the problems are sorted out.
James Larimer reports from Johannesburg.
According to voting materials,
polling stations around the country
reported they didn't have enough ballot papers,
ballot boxes, or special ink
to mark the hands of people who had voted.
The two areas worst affected
are the region around Johannesburg
and Natal Kwazulu,
the area where Buthelezi's Nkata
has its power base.
Long lines of people formed
at many voting stations.
The Independent Electoral Commission
is running the election.
The first day of voting tomorrow
goes off as smoothly as possible.
Sealed postal bags are being used
as additional ballot boxes.
Local printers have been told to print
more than 5 million extra ballot papers,
and more special ink is being delivered
around the country.
Judge Crickler says he's been in contact
with Buthelezi, and he says they'll take
a decision tomorrow on whether or not
an extra day of voting is needed.
For Pacifica Network News,
I'm James Larimer in Johannesburg.
Israeli negotiators for the first time
will stay in Cairo this weekend.
The PLO's top negotiator says
the two sides are working day and night
because they're close to a final agreement.
Today is a national day of mourning
for former President Richard Nixon.
Federal offices and financial markets closed,
the House and Senate shut down,
and all living former presidents
attend a memorial service in Yorba Linda, California,
with eulogies from President Clinton
and Republican Senator Bob Dole.
Reportedly, over 40,000 people,
some waiting as long as eight hours,
filed past the casket of Richard Nixon.
This past weekend,
the Cuban government hosted a conference
aimed at normalizing relations
with Cubans living abroad.
This morning, authorities in Havana
made another gesture toward Cuban immigrants,
releasing 50 political prisoners and their families.
Phyllis Bennis has details from Miami.
The waiting and the flight
on this morning's charter
from Havana to Miami seemed normal,
but when the plane landed in storm-drenched Florida,
security guards entered the plane
and announced that the political prisoners
would be taken off first.
It appeared to be the first knowledge
anyone else had of the release.
Journalists in Havana for the just-concluded
conference on emigration and the nation
had not been informed, and an informal meeting
was held at the airport.