On four different Mondays throughout April and May, the New York Foundation for the Arts
presents Surviving in the Arts, Points of Entry, a series of conversations with directors
of some of the most significant presenting organizations.
Time and locations for these events will vary.
For more information call 212-366-6900, that's 212-366-6900, and one more time, 212-366-6900.
This has been a public service announcement of WBAI on behalf of the New York Foundation
for the Arts.
And this is radio station WBAI in New York, where it's just about 10 o'clock and there's
a hub of activity in our tally room.
We're going to have fun tonight.
This is Off the Hook.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall, I cut myself while shaving,
now I can't make a call, it couldn't get much worse, but if they could they would, for Billy
Boy, we almost didn't make it that time.
One thing you don't realize when you're listening to the radio, you don't realize what's going
on behind the scenes.
The franticness, the running around rooms, pushing people out of the way, and papers
and all kinds of logic collisions.
Well, that's what brings you a quality radio program, hopefully.
And tonight, tonight is going to be a two-way radio program because we're going to hopefully
get something back from our listeners.
Besides the feedback that we always get, we're going to get some support as well so
that we can keep on going in the tradition of WBAI, the fine tradition of what's probably
the most interesting radio station in New York, if not the country.
It's five minutes after 10 o'clock.
My name is Manuel Goldstein.
This program is Off the Hook, and we're here every week talking about some of the more
interesting aspects of high technology.
It's one thing to talk about the new machines and the new software and all the kinds of
things that are going on, but it's another to look at the human element of it, and by
that I mean how human beings are affected by the actions of machines.
And you may say to yourself, well, machines don't have actions.
Human beings are the ones in control of the machines.
Ah, yes, that makes sense.
But how quickly do we forget that human beings are the ones in control in the end?
It's really very simple.
We never have to become slaves to technology, not unless we want to.
And there are so many of us out there that want to.
So many of us that follow without thinking.
We can sell the kids for food, well, the change is news, spring is here again.
Yes, spring is here again, in the immortal words of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana.
And spring being here again means it's time for the WBAI Spring Marathon.
And this program is not going to be any exception because we're here to ask for your support
so that we can keep going and keep bringing you more things like what we're about to bring
you tonight.
And I guess the best way to start is with a tale of woe.
And you know how tales of woe always seem to involve the phone company.
Oh, this is quite a story.
And we're going to couple this with an international link so you can see the relation between phone
companies here and phone companies there.
It's really quite something.
Well, this all begins.
This all begins with the former New York telephone, which has now become 9X.
That's right, 9X, the New York, New England, and the unknown.
Well, I think the unknown has taken over because nobody there really seems to know what's going
on.
Nobody seems to know what the future holds.
Nobody seems to know how to operate the present, or anything else for that matter.
We've had run-ins with the phone company before.
I think everybody that has a phone line installed has run-ins of some sort.
And after a while, you sort of become used to them.
You sort of almost expect for things not to work.
But I'll tell you, what has happened over the past several weeks has been phenomenal.
Phenomenal in competence, in surprises, technical foul-ups, and blunders that you just could
not believe.
All right.
To set the background a little bit on this particular story, we needed to get some new
phone lines installed over at 2600 Magazine.
We also needed to change some things around.
Switch some lines around, disconnect some lines, put in new lines, that kind of thing.
What people do during their lives.
Well, we expected it not to quite work out all that well.
They managed to install a line, but then three days later, if you call that line, it was
disconnected.
Yeah, it was a recording three days after a new line was put in saying the new line
was disconnected.
Now, for some reason, there is a computer out there, and nobody at 9x can explain this.
Everybody has tried.
And I do have to give credit, there are people at 9x that are trying, there are people at
9x that care, but it doesn't matter because there are too many people who don't care,
who don't understand, and there's too many computers that have been programmed in such
a poor manner that they always win in the end, and whatever it is they say goes.
Case in point, this poor phone number that we got that keeps getting disconnected every
three days or so, it just keeps happening.
It's pointless to keep a phone number like that because you can get the assurances of
the supervisor of supervisors who will say, it's not going to be disconnected this time,
we're going to stop this, and then three days later, of course, it's disconnected.
Nobody knows why.
It just happens.
Then, after this cursed phone line was installed, we received another phone line, except this
phone line was what we call the mystery line because nobody knows where it went.
It didn't belong to us, it was not our phone number, it was somebody else's phone number,
and the way we were able to try this was we were able to dial the magical number of 958,
which is something that hackers discovered many years ago.
In fact, let's see if we can get a line here.
Okay, if we dial out on a phone exchange, and we dial 958, we should get our phone number
back.
Let's see if it works here.
It may not work here.
2-7-9-3-4-0-9.
Okay, now you have one of our secret numbers, too, because that's not the one we give out
over the air, but that's what you get if you dial 958.
It works in New Jersey now, too, which is a totally different phone company, although
they have a similar mentality.
That's how we found out our phone number.
The phone company now tells you to dial that so that you can figure it out yourself because
they don't want to be bothered, and most of the time they don't even know.
So in this particular case, we were getting a phone number that was not like anything
they told us that we would have.
It was somebody else's phone number, and we had no luck finding out who it belonged to
because we would call the number and nobody would answer.
We had no idea where it was going.
I mean, do we make phone calls on this thing?
Do we run up their bill?
We might get arrested if we do that, but the phone is going into exactly where we want
the phone to go into.
It's just not our phone line.
Where is our phone line?
Maybe it's going into somebody else's place.
Maybe they're making calls off of our dial tone.
I mean, you take your life into your hands when you get a phone installed these days.
Okay, now we're getting to the good part.
They had to make a house call.
They had to make a house call to install some new lines.
This was the big trip.
They were going to install a bunch of new lines.
They were going to install a service called IntelliDial, which I'm going to tell you all
about.
IntelliDial is this rather nifty service that 9x offers that allows you, if you have several
phone lines, to have some services in your residence.
You don't have to be a business to have these services.
You can transfer calls.
You can pick up other lines from other lines.
You can put calls on hold.
Yeah, big deal.
I know.
You can do it on any phone, but for 9x, it's a big deal.
The best part of it is TouchTone service is included, so you don't have to pay an extra
fee for TouchTone service.
That's kind of neat in and of itself.
The problem came when they had to make a house call to install some of these lines.
We waited and we waited.
We had to pick a date two weeks before they could actually come out.
It was a joyous occasion when the day finally arrived.
People took off from work.
People took off from school.
Everybody sort of gathered around in a festive atmosphere.
Today was the day that the phone company was coming, except the day went by, breakfast
time turned into lunch time, and the sun began to go down, and the phone company was not
there.
It was gnashing of teeth and cursors being thrown around.
We called the phone company and we said, wherefore art thou, phone company?
Where they go?
What's wrong with you people?
They said, well, we couldn't find it.
We couldn't find your address.
They couldn't find our address at the phone company.
They put phones in every place in the world, and they couldn't find our address.
Do you think they would call us and ask us where we were?
No, they couldn't do that.
That made too much sense, so they just didn't show up.
They just didn't show up at all.
The phone company.
You got to figure, you know, what entity has lines running all over the place?
They must know where those lines go.
They must know where their wires are.
So you give them an address and they can't find it?
Maybe they could just run a voltage check down the wire and follow it or something.
I don't know.
There's no way when you have a wire in somebody's house that you can find the house.
So the upshot is they weren't able to come by, and they made an appointment for another
week.
That's right.
We had to wait another week for them to come by.
They couldn't just come by the next day because there's all kinds of bureaucratic paperwork
that has to be processed.
So another week went by, and the joyous day once again arrived.
And this time, this time midway through the day, somebody, in fact, did show up.
And they said, you know, there aren't enough lines coming in here.
We're going to have to call the splicers.
Now wouldn't that have been something to have figured out beforehand that they didn't have
enough lines in the first place to place the order?
So now they have to wait another week to get the splicers to come in, and then they're
going to send these other people back who hopefully will remember how to find the house
in the first place.
And I should point out that it took three vans to tell us this.
Yeah, three vans came by to tell us that they couldn't finish the job.
That's only part of the story.
I mean, this can go on all night long.
I mean, this is only one small story in a big city.
Everybody has a story.
I've heard them all.
I've heard them all.
There's 9x voicemail.
Okay, I want to play for you an example of 9x voicemail.
I have access to the slide, don't I?
Okay.
They're playing with the phones here, of all things.
Now, you see, this is it.
We don't have a choice.
We do not have a choice.
I'm going to demonstrate something to you right now.
Right now, we're going to prove something, okay?
There is competition.
Judge Green allowed for competition in the long-distance phone market, but he did not
allow for competition in the local phone market.
So, what does that mean?
Well, that means that if you're not happy with one phone company, you can go to another.
And when you have competition like that, it tends to mean something.
Now, let's use this as an example, okay?
We spend a lot of time criticizing long-distance companies and local companies.
We just do.
That's what we're here for.
But there are certain advantages to the long-distance companies.
Let's get our phone.
Let's get a dial tone, rather, okay?
And by the way, that's 9x's dial tone.
We don't have a choice.
If we want to make a phone call, we have to use 9x.
So we're going to use 9x and call AT&T.
Let's see what happens.
Thank you for calling AT&T.
You have reached the Customer Account Servicing Center.
If you are calling with questions about local charges, would like to make payment arrangements,
or are inquiring about your balance due, please contact your local telephone company.
That number is located on either page 1 or 2 of your local telephone company's portion
of the bill.
If you are calling with questions regarding your long-distance service or billing, please
hold for further assistance.
Well, the point here is, it seems like somebody's home.
You have to sit through recordings sometimes.
Or rings.
That never seems to stop.
Thank you for calling AT&T.
All of our representatives are currently serving other AT&T valued customers.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, well, the fact is, you'll get that recording if you call at 4 in the morning.
There's valued customers calling at all hours.
But, in the end, maybe 20 minutes, maybe 45 minutes, you will talk to somebody.
Now...
What if we have a question about our 9X bill?
Thank you for calling 9X.
If you are calling from a touch-tone phone, press 1 now.
If calling from a rotary phone, please wait for a 9X service representative.
Okay, let's press 1.
To help us direct your call, listen to the instructions and respond by pressing the buttons
on your telephone.
If you are calling about your bill, press 1.
If you are calling about your long-distance calls, press 2.
If you are calling about a repair problem, press 3.
I'm calling about my bill.
To find out how much you owe or to report a payment or make payment arrangements, press 1.
To ask questions about your long-distance calls, press 2.
To speak with the 9X billing department, press 3.
Yeah, I want to speak to a person.
Calling for...
Please stay on the line.
The 9X billing department will help you.
This I gotta see.
The 9X Residence Service Center is closed.
We are open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Saturday, 8.30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
except holidays.
If you are experiencing difficulty with your dial tone...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
If I was experiencing difficulty with my dial tone, I couldn't call.
Well, not only do they close down at night, but you have to go through two minutes of
touch-tones to find out they're closed.
And you know why?
Because there's no competition.
You're stuck with them.
That's why.
So, to continue with the story, we were forced to get something known as 9X voicemail.
Now, I want to demonstrate 9X voicemail, too, as long as we're demonstrating things here
tonight.
And you can see what a marvelous service it is.
We were forced to get it because with IntelliDial, with this new service they offer
called IntelliDial, there's really no such thing as a busy signal.
There's really no such thing as a busy signal.
You have to make a decision on all your phone lines.
If it's busy, where does it go?
You know, well, I like it to go to a busy signal because that's what busy means.
It means that you're on the phone and you don't wish to be disturbed.
But no, no, no, no, you can't do that.
You have to have it go to another line that accepts calls.
And so I said, well, can I have it go to the same line so that way they'll get a busy signal?
And they said, no, of course you can't do that.
You have to make it go to another line.
So they said, why don't you get 9X voicemail so it can go there
when you're on the phone?
And I said, sure, why not?
Let's just test this service out and see how bad it is.
So we got that service.
Let's demonstrate it now.
Let's call right into 9X voicemail where we now have an account.
And we can hear what it's like.
You have reached the 9X voice messaging service.
If you have a mailbox on the service and wish to access it, please press pound.
Okay.
Please dial your mailbox number.
Okay, here's the mailbox number.
Didn't think I was going to play it on the air now, did you?
Emmanuel Goldstein.
Please dial your password.
Okay, I'm certainly not going to play that on the air.
You have no new messages in your mailbox and two saved messages.
Main menu.
To hear your messages, press 1.
To change your personal options, press 3.
Not much of a choice, is there?
But let's press 3 and see what happens.
To change your greeting or recorded name, press 1.
To change your password, press 2.
To back up to the main menu, press star.
All right, let's change our greeting.
I want to test something here.
To change your greeting, press 1.
To change your recorded name, press 2.
To back up, press star.
We don't want to back up.
Let's listen to the greeting first.
Your caller is now here.
Hello, this is Emmanuel and I don't seem to be around.
So, why don't you leave a message at the sound of the beep or tone or whatever.
Thank you.
To keep that greeting, press 1.
To record a new greeting, press 2.
I don't think I want to keep that.
Let's start a new one.
Record your new greeting at the tone.
Press pound.
Hi, this is Emmanuel.
I don't seem to be in.
If you're lucky, this 9X voicemail thing will take your message,
but in all likelihood, it will erase it or do something horrible to it
because we all know
what an incompetent company 9X is.
So, if you have any faith at all in their technology,
start talking at the sound of the tone.
Otherwise, hang up and send me a letter.
Thank you.
Your caller is now here.
Hi, this is Emmanuel.
I don't seem to be in.
If you're lucky, this 9X voicemail...
Okay, well, we all heard it.
Now, my point in doing this is
this is 9X's system.
I'm paying to use 9X's system.
Now, will they allow me to say
whatever I want to say on their system
or will they get angry and cut me off?
Well, I've cast the die.
Let's see what happens now.
The reason I think they're going to get angry
is because they also offer this other service
known as...
It's called Call Mover Service
or Call Mover Plus Service.
It's what's known as a customized intercept.
In other words,
when you call a number that's been disconnected,
you can put your own voice on it now
and tell people what your new number is.
Well, we got this service.
I thought, great, this is going to be fun to play with.
And they gave me an 800 number to call.
And I called the 800 number
and, of course, it wasn't working.
Of course, it didn't recognize the phone number.
The password wasn't working and nothing was right.
Finally, they got that fixed.
And I got in and I was able to change the recording.
And I changed the recording to something like
this is...
You've reached an old number. Please call this new number now.
And isn't technology wonderful?
And things like that, you know.
Apparently, that offended them.
They went in, they listened to the message
and they went back and they recorded
their own message instead.
Their own message which includes the name and address
of the new number.
Now, I never asked for the name
and address of an unlisted phone number
to be given out on a recording.
But apparently, they felt that that was the default setting
and that's what they had to do.
And they also thought that by saying anything
other than the name, number or address,
it's unauthorized.
You're not allowed to say it.
Even though it's a number you're paying for,
you're not allowed to say anything else on this recording.
It's utter
imbecility if such a word exists.
So, I don't
very much recommend the
CallMover or CallMover Plus
service at this point in time.
We're going to play with it some more and see what happens.
And hopefully next week, we'll have an update
on that particular thing.
That's
the 9X saga for now.
It's quite a story.
Quite a story. And I know there's other people out there
with similar stories. If you've ever
experienced anything like that, well,
you know.
You know exactly the kinds of things that
await you.
All right.
Now we have a similar story.
A similar story that takes place
in a foreign country
far, far away.
Yes, you thought it was
just 9X that had all kinds of problems.
Well, it's not.
We told you a few weeks ago
about the problems in India.
Well, this week,
we're going to tell you about the problems in Kenya.
Kenya has
long enjoyed a reputation as the one country
in sub-Saharan
Africa that works.
Works, relatively speaking.
Things work over there.
It has decent highways, well-managed game parks,
local governments that provide a modicum
of social services.
Still, there are constant reminders
that you're living in the developing world.
Heavy rains usually mean blackouts
lasting as long as 36 hours,
unless you have a government minister
living in your neighborhood.
And the Nairobi City Council,
which recently announced it was bankrupt,
can take weeks to pump out
an overflowing septic tank
or repair a broken water line.
Perhaps the most maddening aspect
of life in Kenya,
and one that continues to deteriorate
to the annoyance of the Western press corps
and United Nations bureaucrats
who have made Nairobi their African headquarters,
is the telephone service provided erratically
by the state-owned Kenya Post
and Telecommunications Corporation,
known as KPTC.
Consider the local phone call.
On any weekday morning,
simply communicating with my office
or any downtown Nairobi number
from my home
on Nairobi's outskirts
takes a minimum of 35 or 40 tries.
I used to curse
and slam down the phone
with frustration,
but now I've come to savor
the weird variety of technical failures
that greet my attempts to get through.
These include
A. A busy signal
B. Dead silence
C. Dead silence followed by an inability
to disconnect the call
D. An out-of-order tone
E. A taped message
in Swahili
announcing that the number has been changed
F. A low guttural ring
that sounds vaguely like a human belch
G. A message in English
and Swahili
advising me to try the call again later
and
H. My favorite
crossed wires
For some reason, this screw-up
always interjects me into a conversation
at an auto insurance company
or an Indian-run jewelry store.
The main reason for the growing phone mess
is a standard African syndrome,
crumbling infrastructure
and lack of money.
According to officials I talked with at the KPTC,
Nairobi's telephone exchanges
are overloaded.
Most have twice as many phone lines coming in
as they do going out.
The pressure to expand telephone capacity
is growing more intense
as the city's population explodes
but cash is unavailable,
especially since Western nations
and the World Bank suspended
most development aid in 1992
to protest the Kenyan government's
corruption and resistance
to democratic reforms.
Even maintenance has ground to a halt.
Exchange equipment and overhead
and underground lines have disintegrated.
When it rains heavily,
much of Nairobi's phone system
is knocked out for hours or even days.
The red tape laden
and underpaid bureaucracy
hasn't helped matters.
My phone service has been shut off
three times without notice
for various technicalities.
Each interruption requires a trip
15 miles out of Nairobi
to a ramshackle office in a cornfield
where I plead
with KPTC functionaries
and dangle the promise
of Johnny Walker Red Label.
Then, I should try that actually,
then there's the friend in the press corps
whose international phone service
was cut without warning one morning
because she was told by the KPTC clerk
your bills are too high.
The friend pointed out
that her news agency
had paid every phone bill on time
for the past 20 years.
The man was unmoved.
She got it restored 12 days later
after pleas, threats, and finally
a call to the Minister of Communications.
In Nairobi,
merely getting a telephone installed
can be a lengthy ordeal.
Typical is the resident
recently described in the Nation newspaper
who applied for a phone in 1987.
Last month, he received a letter
from the phone company
informing him that they had processed his request
but that the engineer who was to install his phone
had gotten lost looking
for the applicant's house.
Unless the company was provided
with a detailed map by March 1st,
if the letter went on,
the entire procedure would have to begin again.
Beyond mismanagement,
there's also blatant theft.
Last fall, one American correspondent
I know received a call from a phone company clerk
notifying her that her predecessor
still owed $500 in unpaid phone charges.
She went to headquarters
and paid the man in cash
then later learned
he was running a freelance scam
within the phone company office.
Even Nairobi's telephone directory
bears the stamp of incompetence.
Prepared in collaboration
with a Portuguese publisher,
the 1993 phone book
quickly became the city's biggest joke
thanks to a bizarre alphabetizing system
that rendered it virtually useless.
Some Nairobi residents were listed
under their first names,
some unmarried women were found under M for Miss,
and the Aga Khan was listed
under H for what else
is excellency.
The 1994 directory
hit the streets last month
with typically chaotic results.
Although the book is supposed to be distributed free
by the government,
most copies were stolen by KPTC workers
and are now being hawked at Nairobi traffic circles
for $8 apiece.
It could be worse.
In the region around Lake Navasha,
50 miles west of here,
gangs stripped valuable copper telephone wires
from poles strung along 70 miles of highway.
The phone company lacks the cash
to replace the stolen cables
and the entire population
has been without service for nearly two years.
That is from an article called
Can Ya Hear Me?
That comes from the March 28th edition
of the New Republic.
So phone service
is everywhere, isn't it?
But when it's bad here,
you feel real moral outrage
because we say that
we're the leaders.
We say we're the leaders in telecommunications and technology,
and yet, incompetence abounds.
That's why it's important to speak out,
say something,
and let people know
when something like that happens.
Well, I feel I've let enough people know about this.
There's a lot more to let you know about.
But we have to stop now
and we need your support from our listeners
in order to continue.
That's very nice. We're up to $115
and we haven't even asked for any calls yet.
Usually it stays down to zero
until we make a plea.
But that's really nice.
I appreciate the people that were motivated
to call in before we even asked for anything.
We need your support, obviously,
because this is a community-run radio station
and you are the community.
Actually, we all are the community.
And we run the station
in the ways that we can run it
and we need our listeners to run the station
in the ways they can run it.
Our telephone number is
212-279-3400
and while any pledge is helpful,
the following pledges will certainly
be most appreciated.
A $75 pledge
will get you a full year
of 2600 Magazine,
which I'm currently holding up to the microphone.
2600 Magazine is the hacker quarterly.
It's a magazine that
I'm the editor of
and we've been publishing now for 10 years.
This is our 10th anniversary.
Can you believe that?
We've been doing this for 10 years.
We started as a very, very small underground
Xeroxing it late at night in other people's offices
type of magazine or newsletter even.
And we've
expanded
because people out there
were interested.
We're interested in learning, interested in finding out about technology
and it's because of that
that people now find us all over the place
in different countries, at newsstands,
that kind of thing.
For a pledge of $75 though, 2600 Magazine
will find its way to your home
for an entire year
and you don't have to worry. You don't have to worry about getting in trouble.
You don't have to worry about the authorities
coming and knocking on your doors
because it comes in a plain brown envelope
with no mention of 2600 anywhere on it.
So I know that's a concern of people
and not because the information contained
in here is illegal or anything like that.
It's because of the
overreaction of people in charge.
They think that any
information is potentially
bad and people that
seek out information are potential
troublemakers. Well, they're right about that. We are potential
troublemakers, aren't we?
And if we all stick together
then we'll learn a lot from each other.
But we're not sticking together
yet, are we? There's nobody on the phones.
212-279-3400
Remember, we take Visa, we take MasterCard
and that makes it
a lot easier because you can spread your payments
out however long you need to spread them out for.
And it's also good for us because
we don't have to wait for your check to arrive.
It shows up the next day
through the magic of computers.
212-279-3400
You know, we have to use
9X to get through. I know.
It's catch-22.
Here we are complaining about 9X
yet we need to use 9X.
That's a sad fact of life
but that's the way it is.
Through radio programs like this and through
radio stations like this one
people can become aware
of the inadequacies
in technology. They can be aware of
choices.
If an alternative to 9X comes
along, you'll hear about it here on WBAI.
212-279-3400
is our phone number.
Please make a pledge of whatever you can afford
and a $75 pledge
will go a long way towards
helping us.
It will bring 2600 Magazine to your home
for a year. It will also bring the
WBAI program guide. We still have no calls.
Why?
That's kind of surprising.
Maybe 9X got angry
and disconnected our phones.
That's a possibility. But in all seriousness
other radio stations cannot
do this. Have you ever heard
other radio stations going on for that long
about 9X
or any big corporation? No, you don't.
And it's not because they don't want to.
Everybody's got some sort of a complaint.
They want to get off their back.
Everybody has experiences like this.
But you can't say it
in a public forum because
if you do, you'll get
somebody powerful angry at you.
And if you get powerful
people angry at you,
they'll do things like pull the support
of the radio program. Well, this radio program
is supported by you. So don't pull
your support. Show your support.
012-279-3400
And
again, it's our spring
fundraiser. This is the first day of our spring
fundraiser. And
we really need to see some people out
there. We'll be able to continue with the radio
program. We have a few more interesting
things. Actually quite a few more interesting things. We're going to talk
about the HOPE conference coming up.
We're going to have a special
actually two special guests coming in.
We have a fiber optic update
and news from the cellular
world. That's right. We have
some cellular updates.
A lot of questions that some of you have been asking
out there. But we have some answers.
We also have two people on the line which is good.
012-279-3400
I don't think it's unreasonable to expect
the full switchboard. We got this last time
and I know the other shows have been getting full
switchboards too. So don't diss
us. 012-279-3400
We know you're out there
because people
show up at the 2600 meetings.
They contact us on the internet.
They certainly call during non-marathon
weeks to ask questions and
give comments and experiences of the phone company.
Well, if you want us to be here for
you in the future, we need to know
that you're out there for us now.
012-279-3400
I know you're sitting out there
listening thinking this doesn't apply
to you. It does.
It does because you're one
of a very special group of people.
And a very special
group of people are people that can
make a big difference.
There's a lot of radio stations that
just play music, that just
have religion
or meaningless
talk 24 hours a day.
And it's sad because
they don't get anywhere. They don't
make any changes. Maybe they
report on what's going on in the world. Maybe they
play the same songs over and over again. But they don't
do anything. Here at WBAI
we do things. We make changes.
We get people together. We exchange
ideas.
It makes a lot of difference.
Two people coming together turns into
four people coming together. It turns into an entire
community. That's how it all begins.
But it doesn't
come for free. We need your
support. 012-279-3400
One call
on the line. We have
capacity for seven. So,
people out there,
every one of you can add to that.
And when we get up to seven, then we can
move on to the rest of the program
and the other things that we want to bring you for
this particular
two hours. We're on for two hours tonight. We're on
until midnight. 212-279-3400
That's
our phone number
here.
And we have
an update on the HOPE conference,
which is Hackers on Planet Earth.
That will be taking place in
August. Now, that's something else
that has come about because of
the support of the community out here.
Both the radio community and the hacker community
and the technological
community and everything else out there.
So, show your support.
212-279-3400
To update people on
Hackers on Planet Earth, which is known as the
HOPE conference.
It's an opportunity to feel the real magic
of hacking instead of hearing about
how we're about to destroy the world
in a cheap tabloid or something like that.
It's going to take place August
13th and 14th at the Hotel
Pennsylvania.
Yes, we have a location now. The Hotel
Pennsylvania, right in the middle of
bustling New York City. It's right down
the block from here, in fact.
That's on 7th Avenue and 34th Street.
And we're going to
have conferences of all
sorts. Things that you just
could not imagine. And it's all
going to be brought to you by hackers.
All kinds of things on cellular phones,
hacker videos, surveillance demos,
hacker
superstars from all around the planet.
And
that's going to be coming your way in August.
So that's something that we'll be updating you on.
Something that a lot of BAI people
I hope will get involved in.
212-279-3400
Show your support for Off The Hook.
And for a $75 pledge,
receive a full year of 2600 magazine,
The Hacker Quarterly.
If you already get 2600,
then you can still pledge.
And there's all kinds of other things that we are offering as well.
Simply ask our
Tally Room volunteers
and they will be more than happy to guide you
through the list because there's all kinds of neat things
there.
With every pledge that we get,
it adds up. We're up to $200
now, which is great, but
we're still a bit behind.
We're actually quite a bit behind, to be honest.
212-279-3400
Remember, we take MasterCard and Visa
and those nice things
and we really
need to hear from you.
Two more people now will make a big difference
because whatever those two people
pledge will be added
together and that will be added to the 200 we already
have. By the time we're off
tonight, we'll be that much
more ahead in the whole game.
That's how it works.
One person starts it,
somebody else continues, and before you know it
you have dozens,
hundreds, thousands.
It's something
I've seen many, many times because we've
been through a lot of these fundraisers. I'm sure a lot of our
listeners have been through these fundraisers too
and they can be kind of tiresome sometimes.
Yeah, they can be really draining and
believe me, they can be draining on the people
on the radio, but
when all is said and done,
you've gotten somewhere. You've accomplished something.
You've built something out of nothing
and right now
we're at the beginning. We're at the beginning of a fundraiser
and we need to build up
the momentum. 212-279-3400
We have
three calls on the line. Now that's going to make
a huge difference and if you don't believe me,
in a couple of minutes we'll have
a new number to put up there and that number will seem
significantly better than 200. At least I sure hope so.
212-279-3400
Please give us a call.
Please be part of this process.
It doesn't feel bad. You know, when you
call in and you give money to a station
like us, it feels great.
I know because I've done it.
Most of the people on the air here have done it.
It would be kind of hypocritical
if we just asked for money and didn't actually
put more into this, even though we're
not getting paid for what we do here and we
simply grind
ourselves into the ground bringing all
kinds of interesting radio programs to
the air, but that's not
enough. We all know that we have to
put money in as well. I mean, it's true.
It's the only way we're going to keep going.
Case in point, have you read the newspapers
recently? Have you heard about WNYC?
That's the city-owned
radio station. It's a public radio station.
It's a non-commercial station, but it's in the
commercial part of the dial. Now, I'll
explain what that means. Below 92
is what we in the radio business
refer to as
the non-commercial ghetto.
That's where the FCC has mandated
any station below 92 on the
dial must be non-commercial.
So, you have college stations
there and you have some NPR
stations and this is
a bone of contention with me.
A lot of religious stations
wind up down there below 92.
I have to take offense at that because
I think if you're peddling religion
you're peddling a product of some sort
and that's very commercial.
That's my point of view on that
and by having religious stations
down there you're taking up valuable
non-commercial frequencies that
could be used by colleges or
community groups or what have you.
Okay, so you may ask, what is WBAI
doing at 99.5 FM?
I mean, you're non-commercial, right?
You should be below 92.
Why are you above 92?
Well, it's an interesting story, but
basically this radio station was donated to
us by a commercial entity
and
we could theoretically
go commercial. We could do that.
We could, although it would go against the Pacifica
Charter, but we could sell this station
and make a tidy sum
and there'd be another
commercial station in New York.
Now, that is something that there are
people here in this building right now who would
give their lives to prevent that
from happening. They would lay down in front of
whatever it is that would come in to do that
before that would actually happen.
However, at WNYC
that is exactly what they are now talking
about because of our
esteemed mayor who has no
conception whatsoever of what
non-commercial radio is all about
or what radio is all about for that matter.
He sees a radio station
at 93.9 which
is also above 92
and he can figure it out, I guess.
He figured out there was a commercial frequency
and not a non-commercial frequency
and so he said, well,
I guess we could sell this station and make
a lot of money.
We could make a lot of money for the city.
Now, the problem is, what happens to this radio
station that exists?
Now, if you've been reading the papers recently
you might have seen a few solutions.
They want to
merge it with another radio station
WNYE in Brooklyn
and maybe start
another frequency somewhere. Well, that's out of the
question. There are no frequencies available in New York.
Every single frequency is taken.
They cannot start anymore. The only solution
would be to move it to another
station, take over another station
and operate at
less power. Now, what I can't
understand is the people
who are being quoted in the
newspapers are saying this is a good deal for everybody
concerned. How is it a good deal?
How is that a good deal when you're taking
an existing radio station and moving it
to a less powerful point on the dial
probably inside the non-commercial
ghetto and
obliterating another radio station
on top of that, just so
the city can make some money and
so that there's another commercial radio
station on the dial. It goes
to show that
when radio is put in the hands of people
that don't understand, bad things
happen. Fortunately, WBAI
is not in those hands. We're not owned by
the city. We're owned by the Pacifica Foundation
and they have a very good sense as
to what radio is all about, what non-commercial
radio is all about.
The important thing here
is that we all recognize
what Pacifica recognizes, that
this is a valuable radio station. We want
to remain here at this point in the dial.
We want to remain right smack in the
middle of the commercial dial because
that way it's kind of like in your face.
You reach us
when you're going between Z100 and KISS.
You kind of pass by and you
get stuck. People
hit us by accident and they never leave.
Now, if you stick us down somewhere
in a less powerful frequency,
you'll never get that opportunity. You'll never find us.
There'll be people out there that will never hear WBAI.
That's the importance of it.
And yeah, you could say
that
you can make millions of dollars with a commercial
frequency. And we have a commercial
frequency and we're not making millions of dollars
with it. So there.
We're going to remain non-commercial. We're going to remain
right smack in the middle of the FM dial
and we're going to do it with your help.
Right? 212-279-3400.
Show us that you're out there.
Show us that you care. Show us that you want
99.5 FM to remain
right where it is
and that it means something to you.
Show us that
the Giuliani approach will not work
for this radio station
and that our listeners will stand up
for us and keep us going.
212-279-3400.
Please show your support.
There's never been a better time than now.
Okay.
I've said all I can
possibly say on that. It's one
caller on the line. I think there should be
a lot more than that. 212-279-3400.
Please give us
a call.
All right. We've talked about the phone company.
We've talked about Kenya. We've talked about
the Hope Conference.
What should we talk about
next?
I guess we could...
...program over the past year
or so. Fiber has been sent to
federal prison in Schoolkill,
Pennsylvania, which is a really
really horrible thing to have
happen to somebody like that.
It's a minimum security
place, but having been there
myself, having visited him,
I can tell you it is living hell.
Having talked to him on the phone more recently,
I can tell you that he's really
feeling it as far as
the monotony, the
loneliness, just not being
a part of things out here.
I can tell you that he really misses
this place. He really misses the radio show
and, of course, everything that goes on
in the world of technology.
Now, Walter is a friend of
Mark's, who is Fiber's
real name. Is your microphone on,
Walter? It sure
sounds like it is. You saw Mark
this Saturday.
Do you want to update us as to
how he's doing? Well, he's actually
during the visit, he's
always in good spirits. All the times I've
been visiting him, but
of course, he's always going to be happier when someone's visiting
him. I haven't talked
to him on the phone lately, but
when I was there,
he was actually having
fun. We were joking around.
That's something I've noticed
too.
When you think of it, you can only visit him
on a weekend, and he can
only get four visits. Is it four or five
for a month?
Something like four or five. Four or five visits
a month, and that's it. And the rest
of his time, he pretty much has to
do whatever it is they tell him to do.
In the winter, he had to shovel snow
eight hours a day. Now, I think he has to
wash dishes or some menial thing like that.
There's so many
things he cannot do. For instance,
last week, we were looking
at the book by Mishio Kaku that
we were offering on the air before called
Hyperspace.
It's a book that Mark would simply love
to read, and we have to figure out a way
to get that to him because they don't
allow hardcover books.
We have to figure
out a way to send this guy a book so he can
stay sane.
This is the kind of garbage that we have to
deal with. There's also been all kinds of problems
with medication.
They have not been giving him the medication he's supposed to
be getting.
We've been going through every
channel possible to get the right things
to him, and we're just meeting with brick
walls.
He's still not getting the medication.
You talked about that.
He's still not getting it.
Basically, what this
boils down to is that
Mark needs a particular type of
medication to ward off an infection
that he's susceptible to.
When we
brought him there in January,
they sent back that
medication. They sent it back to his house with his
clothes, and they have
not given it to him since.
They've given him a substitute, which, according to
his doctor, is not a substitute.
We had his doctor contact
the prison. His doctor said that he
called the prison eight times
and
each time was not connected to anybody
that was in charge.
It was an extremely frustrating
thing to have happen.
Now we're looking at
legal action of some sort,
but the fact of the matter is, while we're
doing this here,
he's sitting behind
the wall there
and God knows what. Not allowed to read
more than a certain amount of material
in a particular week.
He's not allowed to have more than four books or five books
in total.
He has to restrict who he talks to on the phone
and all kinds of things like that.
So how can you help? Why are we telling you this?
Just to depress you?
I guess the best thing you can possibly do is
write to him and let him know
you're still out there because
that's probably the most
important thing.
Letters do mean a lot to him.
Yeah, definitely.
I think that's the one thing that really
keeps him going.
Let's give out his address
so that people can
do that. If anybody wants to contribute to his
phone expenses
so that he can make phone calls to his friends
and family,
they charge an outrageous amount. They charge something like
25 cents a minute even if he calls at night
and he has no choice. He can't call
collect. He has to use
his special PIN code that they
offer there. I'm sure they're making a bundle off of this.
Anyway, the address
to write to FiberOptic is
Mark Abene, that's A-B-E-N-E
and his number, which is really
his name, is
32109-054
F-P-C
Schoolkill
S-C-H-U-Y-L
K-I-double-L
Unit 1, P.O. Box
670 Minersville,
Pennsylvania, 17954
and
again, every
letter counts.
Every letter counts. If you're on the
internet, I'm forwarding all his
internet email. Yeah, that's a great idea.
Tell us about that. At his account
the system he used to work on before he
went away, Echo.
If you want to send him email, you can
send it to Fiber at
EchoNYC.com. It's P-H-I-B-E-R
at EchoNYC.com
and I forward it
every once in a while when I get a batch.
And have there been many people
sending mail? Well,
lately, there have been a
few, but it
comes and sometimes it's slow.
Yeah, when I talked to him on the phone, he said that
letters had fallen off. He hasn't
been getting very much.
And that's understandable because
he's been in prison now since
January and
we all have lives to lead. We kind of forget when
people aren't around, but he's been there
the whole time. I go there
to visit him once every
few weeks and it's just depressing
being there. It's a depressing
place to be. You just feel this
confinement all around you. You feel
eyes always staring at you. Every
movement you make is being analyzed
and scrutinized.
I would not survive
in a place like that for very long without
getting into a whole lot of trouble
because of something I did.
I mean, imagine my attitude about the phone company being
translated to the prison.
It just wouldn't work out. And I think that's
how a lot of
individuals feel. And Mark is certainly
an individual in every sense of the word.
They're locking up
the wrong people. And I think that's something
that a lot of us who have listened to
this whole saga realize.
You just have
to make sure this doesn't keep happening.
All right, Walter.
Thanks very much for stopping
in and updating us. Is there anything else you wanted to
pass along as far as his condition
or anything? Well, one of his friends
was talking about the food situation there
and I thought this was something
I'd like to talk about.
He was saying one day they had
a bunch of rotten meat
which was already rotten
but they needed to defrost
it otherwise it would get
I suppose even more rotten.
I don't know what the rotten threshold
is they have at the prison but they needed
to defrost it really quickly so they
simply took it and they threw it in the dishwasher
to defrost and served
it later.
Mark's actually lucky because he works in the kitchen
so he knows what not to eat.
Well, that's
something. And one thing he said to me though
recently was that he's really looking
forward to eating food again. Yeah, we
sneak food into him whenever we visit. Really?
Yeah, we buy some things
at some restaurants there and we sneak it in.
You have to be careful though even giving him
food. He got in trouble
the time we visited. He got too close
to his girlfriend
and he was taken aside by one of the guards.
You can't really get too close to
people and you can't
really look as if you're giving him anything.
This was on the more recent visit? Yeah.
Because the same exact thing happened when I visited him too.
Yeah. A repeat offender
I guess.
Well, I can hardly
wait until the day when he can get out and tell us in his own words
what's happening.
Also, with regards
to the conference this summer,
I don't know how, but
he will be part of this somehow. We'll make sure
that he is.
That's something else to look forward to.
Okay, we're here
at WBAI New York.
We'll be going another hour because this is
a special fundraiser
and
we need to make sure that
it was a good idea to do that, to go another hour
with this program.
We need to hear from listeners who will
show their support for this radio
program, Off the Hook, which has been
coming your way for several years now, bringing you
news from the
electronic frontier. I really don't
like that phrase too much. I don't know.
I just don't want to picture people
with cowboy hats and horses.
That's just my own personal
feeling on the matter.
212-279-3400
is our phone number.
Again, for a pledge of $75
you can receive
a full year of 2600 Magazine
and become part of this world
where it's not always good news.
Sometimes
we see things happen to people that are
messed up. The wrong
people are being locked away.
People who question, people who
say
the wrong things or
are in the wrong places
are punished in kind of a
weird way.
It's part of the growing
pains of this technology.
We all have to be a part of that
because if we just sit idly
by and let it happen, it's not
going to work out nicely.
No, it's not going to work out nicely at all.
We have to take part in it. We have to
voice our opinions
and we have to speak up when something is
wrong. By calling us now
you are voicing your opinion.
Very definitely. You're showing your support.
WBAI does not have commercials.
We never did. We never
will.
The reason we are able to
not have commercials is because of our listeners.
Because people out there
call up and they pledge $20,
$30, whatever it is they can afford.
It adds up and believe it or not, it
pays for a 50,000 watt radio
station in the middle of the commercial
dial in the middle of New York City.
It's probably the most incredible thing
that's happened in the history of radio
because there are no other radio
stations of this nature that can
reach this many people.
212-279-3400
call in, show your
support, join the people
that have called already and
make us stronger. Help keep us going.
We need to raise
money somehow and if we're not going to
get it from Exxon and from 9X
and from all those other great
institutions, we have
to get it from individuals.
And the individual voice, I think, is a much
more powerful one than the corporate
voice. 212-279-3400
Remember, we're not afraid here
to say things
that might get big
powers upset. Powers,
governmental powers, corporate powers,
what have you.
We speak
opinions here and we allow our listeners to speak opinions
as well and we share
information in very many ways.
The WBAI community is
quite similar to the hacker community.
The
playing field is a little bit different.
One is computers and phones, the other is radio
and free speech, but it's all
tied together. 212-279-3400
We're up to 350 bucks which
really is not too good, I don't think.
Not to chastise our listeners too much
but come on, where are you?
We need to hear from you. We need to hear from you
now because
if it stops at this point, it'll be
a catastrophe and then
I don't know, I don't know what the future
holds for us. 212-279-3400
Think of it this way,
two people calling in right now, two people
calling in and pledging $75 each
and getting that full year of 2600 magazine
that will raise the total by
another 150 bucks and that will bring us up to
500 and 500 sounds much better than
350, doesn't it?
And three people calling doing that?
Well, you know, it just continues.
No matter what it is you pledge,
it adds up, it makes the numbers sound
a whole lot better, makes the numbers
really be a whole lot better.
212-279-3400, we take Visa, we take
MasterCard and we
take phone calls. Hopefully 9X is
processing the phone calls tonight.
I didn't really mean to offend them, I'm sorry
but that's
just my opinion, that's all.
212-279-3400
If you're driving,
well, use your cellular phone if you have one.
If not, stop at a pay phone and call us
from there. Use your Visa
or MasterCard if you have one of those things.
Otherwise, we'll simply send you a little
reminder in the mail and
at your convenience, you can simply
send us whatever it is that you pledge tonight.
212-279-3400
We have one call on the line.
Let's make that
three or four. I mean, this is
prime time, right?
I think the stand is over now
so everybody should be
able to call up and show some
support for real cutting-edge
radio. 212-279-3400
Two calls on the line.
Let's make that three.
Think of the power you have. You're sitting there at home
twiddling your thumbs, wondering how you're going
to change Western civilization tonight.
Call 212-279-3400
and believe it
or not, you'll make a difference.
I mean, it's happened before.
People have called up and
brought us over the goal, brought us over
the edge, and
individuals have gotten us there.
We've never taken a corporate
grant. We've never taken a check from
one of these multinational
corporations that
we're always railing against because of all
the nasty things they do.
And the reason
we don't have to do that is because there are so many people
out there that show their support.
212-279-3400
It's 1102.
Ordinarily, you hear a rebroadcast of the evening news
at this point, but we're continuing
an extra hour so that
we can reach out to you, our listeners,
and ask you to
become part of this radio station. If you've never
called before, this is the perfect time
to become part of it.
Your name won't go on any FBI list.
At least, I don't think so.
You'll be helping
a unique radio station. You'll be helping us
stay on the air. You'll be helping programs like
Off the Hook continue your way.
It's all up to you.
It's time to make a stand.
212-279-3400
We're waiting.
Make a stand
Before you fall
Your country needs you
To play football
Wake up call
You hear the call
All for one
One for all
All for one
And one for all
What happened to
You made of mine
When things were loud
You made them right
All for one
And one for all
All for one
And one for all
Now in the gossip
I was told
By the empire
By the empire
How you will fall
A pint of beer
Life passes by
Your spirit's quiet
Just like a fly
Your spirit's quiet
Just like a fly
Because it's green
And pleasant land
The power's slipping
Through your hand
All for one
And one for all
All for one
And one for all
Wake up call
You hear the call
Your country needs you
To play football
Make a stand
Before you fall
All for one
And one for all
All for one
And one for all
God bless the queen
Her people too
God bless this country
And see us through
All for one
And one for all
All for one
And one for all
www.WBAI.org
And we're back here on Off The Hook, normally on your radio dial from 10 to 11 o'clock on
Wednesday nights here on 99.5 FM WBAI. Tonight a special two-hour edition. We're asking for
your support at 212-279-3400. I want to thank the people that called in during that break.
Your support is going to make a big difference. It really will. There's no question about that.
Without that spurt of calls there, I would have been very, very depressed. And the radio station
would have been, I don't know, contemplating my future, I'm sure. But we're not there yet.
We're not there yet. We need to continue. 212-279-3400. If you've ever gotten anything
out of this program, please call now. Show your support. Because we're here for you.
But we need for you to be here for us. That makes sense, doesn't it? 212-279-3400.
Here's a story about hackers. Yeah, hackers. You might have heard about this one out of Cambridge,
Massachusetts. They've put a fiberglass cow up there in a working telephone booth.
They've even built a small house. So no one was shocked Monday when MIT students somehow managed
to put what appeared to be a campus police car on top of the 150-foot-high dome on the
university's main building. After all, MIT kids will be MIT kids. They never cause anyone trouble,
but they are mischievous, said Ronald Mendez, a physical plans supervisor. It's too bad other
people don't have the attitude about that, about hackers like this guy has. The car appeared about
4 a.m. on the roof of the Robert C. McLaurin building. It was actually the shell of a car
attached to a wooden frame painted to look like a cruiser, said MIT police chief Ann Glavin.
There was a flashing red light on top and a parking ticket on the windshield.
Inside was a stuffed upper torso of a fake body and a box of donuts.
You guys are laughing a little too hard over there. You don't know something about this, do you?
I sure hope not. The culprits haven't been caught, but all fingers point to the hackers,
an informal and mysterious campus group whose name predates the emergence of computer hacking.
University officials said the hackers probably sneaked into the building, climbed onto the roof,
and assembled the car there. School workers disassembled it by 10.30 a.m.
Practical jokes have a long tradition at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
and the dome of the McLaurin building has been the choice site over the last 15 years.
The building is the centerpiece of the campus, fronting the Charles River that separates
Cambridge and Boston. In 1979, a life-size fiberglass cow was placed on the dome.
Three years later, a telephone booth, complete with a working phone, was installed.
And in 1986, hackers built a small house, complete with door and windows.
Hackers are careful not to cause permanent damage, so no one seems to mind.
Let me repeat that last line for those of you that might not believe it.
Hackers are careful not to cause permanent damage, so no one seems to mind.
Oh, I wish that were true. The part about nobody minding, that is.
Okay. Are we still on the internet? Okay, we're on the internet. If you go on to IRC,
just like last week, and go into the WBAI channel, you'll see us there.
And we're talking to various people on the net, live here on the radio as well.
And I guess we can bring the keyboard over at some point, and I'll chat live with these people
as well, just to say hi. But I really should focus my attention on the radio program,
now, shouldn't I? 212-279-3400 is our phone number for pledges. Please give us a call and
become part of this. Actually, if I'm not mistaken, I can take phone calls at the same time.
Oh, okay. The technological geniuses here figured this out.
We're going to be speaking with Bernie S. in a little while, out of Philadelphia,
who's going to be updating us on some cellular magic. And I didn't give out the phone number.
I don't know why people are calling the special line. I didn't give it out yet. I just said,
maybe I'll take calls. So, already people are calling. Our main phone number to make a pledge.
Very important thing to do. 212-279-3400. We're over the $600 mark, but we still have to reach
the $1,000 mark. That's our goal for tonight. 212-279-3400. Please give us a call. As we move
the computer equipment over here, we also have some information out of, we were just mentioning
MIT. And as many of you know, there was some controversial things going on at MIT regarding
computers and software piracy, quote unquote, which we've been talking about in the past and
we'll be talking about in the future. And some of you may have seen the thing on Nightline a couple
of weeks ago, which was kind of funny and interesting. There's this one person on the
internet. This was on the Usenet news group called comp.risks, who took exception to a lot of things
that I said on that program. And I'd like to read his comments and have an opportunity to respond to
that. And are we on? Okay, we're on the net there. That's great. Well, you can log me in. Oh, you
don't know my password. Okay, I have to log myself in here. I'm logging in as I'm speaking on the
radio. And... His password is... Okay, that's my password there. If people can figure out what
that is, more power to them. I'm going to read from this and then I'll go on to the net after
that. But if you have net access, just get on the internet and join WBAI channel on the IRC,
Internet Relay Chat Program. If you don't have access to that, don't fret because we'll be
figuring out ways for everybody to get on at some point this year or in years to come as well.
But our phone lines are empty. That doesn't make me happy to see that. There should always be calls
coming in, pledges coming in, so that we can continue bringing you innovative programming
first on the radio. I mean, how many radio stations do you know that have internet feeds
live as you speak? You may not have internet access, but through us, you do. You see? That's
the way we're trying to work things, so that you can call us, say something, we can transmit it
over the entire internet, and you can hear the feedback of various other people. And hopefully...
We're getting some beeps there, huh? Hopefully, more people will have access in the future. We're
going to do everything in our power to make that happen. But power is something that comes from
all different sides, and we need your side to come through as well. 212-279-3400. Okay, now,
this person, his name is Michelle Cabay, and I'm not quite sure where he is, but he's from the
National Computer Security Association, so right away, you know there's going to be some differences
in opinion as far as what software piracy is and is not. To refresh everybody's memory on this case,
the case involves a student at MIT, David LaMacchia, who is accused of running a bulletin board
on the internet through which copyrighted software was transmitted. Now, it is the contention of his
lawyers that he was running a bulletin board system and should not be held accountable for
things that his users were doing without his knowledge. And that's fine and true, and I agree
with that. However, I think it's a bigger case than just that. I think this also brings in a lot
of questions concerning what computer programs actually are. Is copying a program the same as
physically stealing something? And I will go down to the wire on this and say it is not. It is
different. It is not the same thing as stealing. That is what I'm trying to get across to people,
and I'm getting flamed, which is a net expression, which means that somebody yells at you for a while
and says nasty things to you. Well, here's part of a flame, and I'll flame back, perhaps, and
we're all flamed together. Okay, this is a comment that I made that this person is quoting.
On the internet, there are no tangibles. You can steal something and they no longer have it,
or you can go on the computer system or computer network and copy something, but it's a copy.
It's not the same as stealing. I think that's the first thing we have to get over. We can't use the
same analogies that exist in the real world, because this is no longer the real world.
Here's the comment. Goldstein exemplifies an attitude prevalent among criminal hackers.
Criminal hackers. Dehumanization of cyberspace. It seems to them that there are no people on the
other end of the communications channel, only things. Stealing software in this context seems
victimless. In reality, companies are losing money and people are suffering monetary losses.
If I can break in for a second. If you keep saying stealing software over and over again,
over and over again, even if your argument doesn't make any sense, as long as you keep
saying stealing software, people are going to think you're stealing software. But you're not
stealing software, okay? This is not stealing. You are not taking something and removing it
from somebody else. That is a definition of stealing. This is something else. I'm not saying
the action does not cause harm to somebody at some point if nothing is done. And by that,
I mean if nothing is done to compensate the people that write the software.
Let's continue with this. Some small companies can go out of business entirely if they cannot
get sufficient revenue to cover the months of grinding, often poorly paid work by their
employees. Human beings have smaller salaries or even lose their jobs because of software theft.
Cyberspace is as much a part of the real world as speech books and telephones. No one would argue
that stealing a book is a victimless crime, or would they? Some unscrupulous bookstores rip the
covers off books, return the covers to the publisher for a credit, and then sell the
mutilated books, with not a penny going to the people who wrote, edited, printed, bound,
and marketed the book. All fine and dandy, and people get murdered in Southeast Asia too. It's
got nothing to do with the issue. The issue is not about people stealing books and ripping off
the authors and things like that. This is about typing a command on a computer and copying a file
from location A to location B. I am saying it is not the same thing as theft. It's copying,
and if that's the only way that computer programs are existing, if somebody can do that and get the
exact same thing that they get if they pay $10,000 for a program, then something is wrong with the
way we're doing it. You can't make the person into a criminal and say they just stole $10,000
because they hit a keystroke. It's not the same thing. We have to get that through our heads.
Okay, continuing to this person's comments. Chris Wallace, who was the host of Nightline,
protested. Actually, he didn't protest. He interjected, but that's the way this person
is looking at it. He protested, what's the difference between copying a program, which
I'm then going to appropriate and use, and stealing? Goldstein continued, it's not stealing
because you're not depriving somebody of it. We're presuming that people are not selling this material.
This is something that someone is simply copying to either examine, to analyze, what have you.
There's different reasons why somebody would legitimately copy something. Here's the comment.
Criminal hackers and software thieves miss the key point about intellectual property or
confidential information. It isn't the copying that causes harm. It's the owner's loss of control
over a valuable resource. Software companies sell a license to use a product, not the product itself.
Software thieves steal the ability to enter into a contract with the user. It is the lost revenue
that is in question, not the extra copy itself. I think this pretty much lays it out on the table.
This is about control. This is about somebody wanting to tell you that they have the right
to keep you from typing keys on your keyboard on your own computer system, and they want to make
it a crime for you to disobey them. Software companies sell a license to use a product,
not the product itself. I think right there, that tells you there's something wrong here.
You can't sell things that aren't tangible and expect people to simply fall into step
and just pay whatever it is you say to pay and not do things that are logical, like make copies
for themselves and examine copies that other people have. It's human nature to do things like
that. If you wish to have a system where people pay a certain amount of money for software,
you have to have it so people want to, so that people want the original, so that they get
something out of it, so it's not the exact same thing as copying. I mean, computer programs are
designed for exactly this purpose, and to tell people that they're not is just simply wrong.
Okay, Goldstein said the problem is that somebody can put a particular value on a piece of software
and say this costs $10,000, and then somebody copies it with a single keystroke and they're
charged with stealing $10,000. Goldstein implies it is illegitimate to apply whatever price the
creator wishes to a product or service, but a producer normally charges what the market will
bear, a price which maximizes profit. Bingo, that is it exactly. It's an arbitrary figure,
and whatever they make money on is what they wind up charging. But what does that do for the people
that can't afford it in the first place? I mean, that kind of mentality might work just fine when
you're selling it to Madison Avenue companies and things like that. Yeah, you'll make a fair return,
but what about some poor end user somewhere that can only afford to pay a few dollars for a
software package? They have to do without. They don't ever get the technology in the first place,
assuming they play by these random rules that are set out. So they never get access to the
technology, and the big companies do get access because they can afford to pay whatever price is
laid on the table, and we have a nice uneven society of haves and have-nots. It's just not right.
Okay. Continuing. Too high for perceived value, and the market chooses alternatives, or they
develop by less greedy competitors. Too low, and the producer risks going out of business.
The other wrong suggestion in this passage is the idea that the ease with which an act is performed
somehow mitigates responsibility. So a single keystroke copy is more of an excuse for stealing
software than a 20-character command. If a vandal demolishes a building by attacking it with an ice
pick over a five-year period, are we expected to perceive his act as worse than if he had blown it
up by pressing a button to explode a nuclear bomb? Once again, Goldstein confuses technology
with morality. I don't think so here, because I think the issue is the access to the means that
you are given by being handed a button in the first place. Yeah, you know, somebody can press
a button and blow up a city with a nuclear bomb, but you know, I'd sure like to know why somebody
has that ability. Why are we giving out buttons to people if they're not expected to press them
occasionally? You know, you don't give out buttons to people to explode cities because we know
somebody probably will, and it's a damn stupid thing to do. So it's also a stupid thing to expect
someone to attach the same value to a single keystroke as they would to something that is
actually physically worth $10,000. It's not the same. I don't know how many times I can say it,
but I'll keep saying it until somebody listens. In a discussion on the extent of copyright
violation, Goldstein explained his view of why programs get copied. Computer programs are designed
to be copied, so naturally people are going to copy them. If we don't want people to copy them,
then we make them so they are uncopyable or so that people want the original.
Here's the comment. The familiar fallacy of moral possibility. This error consists of believing that
if something is easy, it must be right. The corollary is that the victim is to blame for
being victimized. Thus, if a bank robber... These real-world analogies really are wearing on me.
If a bank robber uses a howitzer to blow a hole in the wall of a bank, it serves the bank properly
for having failed to encase its building in a 3-foot-thick titanium beryllium alloy. So,
software manufacturers should impose the endless nuisances of copy protection on their products,
even though these methods increase costs, enrage consumers, and don't work anyway because little
creeps find ways of countering every single programmable technique invented to date.
Just because it's possible to steal doesn't make it right. Here's the stealing again. If you keep
saying we're stealing, someone eventually is going to believe that it's stealing. It's not stealing.
It's copying. Copying is not stealing. It's totally different. Goldstein explained that
many people tape record albums illegally from the band's point of view, though it's a good
thing that the music is being distributed, and that's how I think we should look at copywritten
software. The software is getting out. I don't think Microsoft is going to go out of business,
and they're probably the company that has copied the most. Here we have Goldstein taking up the
unpaid position of marketing director for musicians as well as software companies.
Decisions on how to market a product or a service are rightfully the responsibility
of the owners of that product or service. Criminal hackers have no moral justification
for interfering with those decisions. Well, I think if you really want to contribute something
to either the computer world, the music world, the writing world, what have you,
then the most important thing is for your work to get out. It won't get out if you overprice it.
It won't get out if you limit circulation to only certain people. Maybe that's what you want,
but assuming you want your product to get out, then maximum exposure is probably the best thing
that could happen. What we need to figure out is a way of compensating the people that write
software, perhaps. I mean, there are lots of ideas kicking around. Perhaps one idea is to have
some sort of a tariff on hardware, which is something that is obviously tangible. You
can't steal that without committing a crime in everybody's eyes. So why not have a particular
portion of hardware sales go towards compensating whatever software manufacturers are deemed worthy
of accepting that, and we'd have to, of course, argue about how that would be applied. But I just
think that would be a lot more reasonable than attaching these random numbers and then expecting
people to treat them the same way as tangibles. I mean, I sympathize with people out there that
are spending lots of time writing these things and expecting to be compensated. They should be
compensated. I think what is flawed is the logic that makes people feel they are committing a crime
of some sort. All right, we could go on about this for hours and hours, obviously, but I don't think
we have all that much more time to do this. 212, 279, 3400. We're over the 700 mark now,
which means we have less than $300 to go to get to a thousand, and please be a part of that
$300 if you have not called already. 212, 279, 3400. For a pledge of $75, you can
get a copy of 2600 for a full year. That's four issues that come out quarterly, and it will be
delivered to wherever it is you want it to be delivered to in a plain brown envelope with no
mention of the fact that you're getting the hottest hacker magazine around in it anywhere, so you don't
have to worry about your postman stealing it or your parents getting angry at you or your children
getting angry at you or what have you. 212, 279, 3400. For a pledge of $75, you will get that for
an entire year, and you also get the WBAI folio, which you really need to be able to figure out
what's on when. I mean, I needed a copy to figure out what I was on, and I'm sure listeners need
copies of that to figure out what's on around the clock seven days a week. 212, 279, 3400.
While we're offering the 2600 premium for $75, we also have a whole list of other things
that our volunteers would be happy to help you with. Any pledge is appreciated. Any pledge is
welcome. We take Visa. We take MasterCard, and we're sitting around at 212, 279, 3400. This is
the spring marathon where we need to raise a certain amount to pay for all the bills that
we always have coming in here for transmitter maintenance and electricity and everything
except salaries, because we don't pay people on the radio here, unlike those other radio stations.
212, 279, 3400. Nobody on the line yet. We're waiting for that call to come in.
We're on the internet, and where are we now? We're on the WBAI channel. Okay. Let's see how
many people are on the WBAI channel. 16 people. Okay. I would like to ask people out there that
are on the internet right now to reply on the net and tell us where you are calling from and tell us,
I guess, what city you're in, what state you're in. All right. We have Co-op City in the Bronx.
We have Helsinki, Finland. I don't think so. They would have to be listening, wouldn't they?
Oh, they're rattling across here. Cliffside Park, New Jersey, New Haven, Connecticut,
Throgs Neck in the Bronx, Farmingdale, Long Island, Cliffside Park, Queens, Bayside.
All right. A lot of people out there, and they're all on the net. They're all
communicating with us on the internet right now to our studios, and I'm going to ask them on the net
here. Has everybody pledged yet? Let's see what kind of response we get. 212-279-3400.
I'm going to type the number in here, too, so that it goes out. Of course, this is going to people
that aren't listening, too, as well, that happen to be on this channel. People from anywhere in
the world could be part of this right now. This person swears that he will. Okay. Well, let's
hear you call now. Come on. 212-279-3400. I pledged last time. I can't do it every time.
Okay. I can accept that. If you pledged last time, you can be exempt. You're righteous,
and I will not be nagging you. But if you did not pledge last time,
come on. What's stopping you? What's stopping you from pledging this time?
Okay. 212-279-3400. Again, we need volunteers, as well, so if you want to volunteer time instead
of money, or in addition to money, that's fine, too. You can call us at 212-279-3400 to become
part of the process in that particular regard. You see, everybody helps out in whatever way
they can, and everyone has a way to help out. 212-279-3400. We have two calls on the line.
Let's make that a couple more, and we'll be able to get going, talk to Bernie S. in Philadelphia
about the latest cellular thing. Okay. All kinds of things being discussed here. It's going by way
too fast. WBAI is free speech, and that's really what it's all about. We are definitely free speech.
There's no other way to say that. You know, I'm thinking on this thing, we can actually ask people
that aren't even listening to the radio to support the radio. People in all different parts of the
world would value this radio station. I was in Berlin once, and I found a book on WBAI in German,
which I found to be really amazing. People over there had heard about us. This is a world-famous
radio station. There just aren't very many left that continue to bring non-commercial
alternative programming, so it's a valued thing, you know. Maybe somebody in California would want
to support something in New York, because it's getting free speech out someplace. But those of
you within the Sound of My Voice can definitely benefit from this place, if not from this show.
I mean, there are probably those of you out there that are sputtering with rage right now from the
things I just said about software. Well, you don't have to agree with me. You know, you can come on
and say your piece at some point, and we can get into a nice discussion about it. But there's
probably something on this radio station that you do agree with, something that you feel is
a good thing to have, and something that you could not get anywhere else. That's why it's important
for you to make that phone call. 212-279-3400. Please become a part of this radio station.
Help us keep going. Help keep us where we are in the middle of the commercial dial. I think it's
just great to have a non-commercial station in the middle of the commercial dial. Oh, we changed
the topic. Okay, that's great. The topic is Make a Pledge to WBAI, and that means that that's
showing up everywhere around the world from people looking at the topics of various channels in IRC.
Again, we're on the Internet Relay Chat, which is part of the Internet. If you have Internet access,
join us there. We're in the WBAI channel. And boy, there's all kinds of interesting discussions.
AT&T talks about all the great things we're going to see in the next few years, but who is really
going to be able to afford it? Very good question. They have these amazing commercials where they
say, we're going to find a cure for every disease in the world, and the company that's going to
bring it to you is AT&T. Well, they can make empty promises like that and get credit for things that
don't exist. But here at WBAI, we're not taking credit for things we haven't done. We're not
taking credit for things that are in the future. We're taking credit for the past. We stand on our
record. We stand on the present, what we exist as now. And that's what we ask you to support us
for. 212-279-3400. If you've gotten something out of this program in the past, if you're
listening now and not feeling the urge to switch to Letterman, well,