Call 115th Street and Broadway.
Take the number 1 or the number 9 train or the Broadway bus to 116th Street and you're
there.
For additional information, call area code 212-695-4465.
See you at the fair.
The New York Times called it one of the best science books of 1994.
The Washington Post called it one of the top five science books for the entire year.
The book is the national bestseller, Hyperspace, a scientific odyssey through parallel universes,
time warps, and the 10th dimension.
It's the perfect Christmas gift.
This is Dr. Michio Kaku, professor of theoretical physics, inviting you to find out what the
excitement is all about by coming to the WBAI Crafts Fair.
I'll be at the author's table this Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m.
That's this Saturday, December 17th from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Ferris Booth Hall at Columbia
University at 116th Street and Broadway.
It's also the perfect time to do your Christmas shopping all weekend long from Friday to Sunday
at the Crafts Fair with some of the finest handcrafted gifts found anywhere in the world.
So come celebrate the Christmas holiday in the 10th dimension.
And come join us BAI people who live our lives in the 10th dimension here on WBAI in New York.
It's 10 o'clock, time for Off the Hook.
And good evening everybody, this is Emanuel Goldstein.
Off the Hook comes your way every Wednesday night at this time where we get together and
trade gossip about the latest happenings on the net and in high technology and all kinds
of other fun stuff going on.
I finally got a copy of The New Scientist from October 22nd, 1994.
Those of you who don't know, The New Scientist is a British publication and they had an article
about the hacker conference we held over the summer called Hope.
We're going to take a look at excerpts of that, answer some reader mail and of course
take phone calls and there's all kinds of other fun scandals and happenings going on
that we'll update you with.
FiberOptic will be joining us in a few minutes and we'll have his opinions on some of this.
But the article which came out, and I'm sure virtually nobody in this country saw,
was actually quite good, certainly much better than anything that has been published on the subject.
It's called Hacker's Code, so why did computer hackers forsake their terminals for a weekend
in New York City?
Charles Arthur joined the young aficionados and tried very hard not to be mistaken for a fed.
It all started Friday, they give the time in military time, 1945, but we'll translate that
because it can be difficult sometimes.
I know, 7.45pm, Friday night.
New York in late summer is mad as usual.
Outside the hotel, a van is unloading VDUs.
Clearly, this is the right place.
I'm in the heart of Manhattan for what's billed as the biggest two-day hacker conference yet,
HOPE, Hackers on Planet Earth.
The program promises speeches from spies, hacking into the New York subway system,
reading telephone pagers around the city from the comfort of the hotel,
talks by hackers from Germany and the Netherlands, lessons on cloning cellular phones.
None of it entirely legal, it should be fun.
I check into my room.
The TV remote control tagged by wire to the bedside table doesn't work.
Someone's taken the batteries.
I can't plug my modem into the phone because there's no socket, just a mess of wires.
It's definitely not hacker friendly.
But will it be enough to stop them hacking into the hotel computer and staying for free?
8pm, on the 18th floor, the top one, the conference is being prepared.
In a huge anteroom beyond the main hall, a young team wires up a computer network to the internet.
Rows of empty tables sit, waiting for terminals.
The people already there, 16 hours before the conference, are a mixed bunch,
mostly teenagers, and all go by a handle.
That's hacker speak for name.
Hi, I'm Dr. J, says one, grasping my hand warmly.
Another introduces herself as Empress.
She works for Burger King.
A guy known as Madcap, wearing a floppy purple and green hat,
is selling t-shirts with hope on the front and a long screed entitled
The Conscience of a Hacker on the back, priced $10.
So, you can be a hacker and an entrepreneur.
Yet another, dressed in black, with as much of a goatee bread as he can muster,
says bread, not beard,
introduces himself as Satan.
Gradually, it dawns on me why everyone is so keen to say hello to apparent strangers.
They want to know if they have met before in cyberspace,
as words on a screen.
There is a lot of talk of red boxes, 1-800s, and co-cots.
Red boxes, I learn, are bits of electronics that you hold over the speakers of pay phones.
When you are asked to insert a quarter,
you get the red box to play a rapid sequence of tones.
These fool the billing computer into thinking that you've paid,
but in fact, you're freaking.
I also discover that 1-800s are free phone numbers,
which are widely exploited,
and that a co-cot is a common operator coin-operated telephone,
a pay phone, to you.
Well, he got just about every word of that wrong.
A co-cot is actually customer-owned coin-operated telephone,
not common operator.
But, valiant attempt, nonetheless.
8.35 p.m.
A pizza the size of a dustbin lid arrives for those wiring the network.
I follow Dr. J, Empress, Satan, and someone entitled L-O-H-T-K.
How would you pronounce that?
I can't pronounce a T and a K at the same time, so it's...
I'll just say...
I can't say anything.
Whatever that name is.
Across the street to a fast food store.
As we wait in the queue, a mystery named person leans over and says,
Excuse me, Mr. Over 21, would you mind buying me a beer?
He's obviously too young to buy alcohol in New York.
I'm obviously not.
This is a barrier the hackers and freakers have yet to overcome.
11.10 p.m.
Upstairs is getting crowded.
There are about 20 terminals on the network already.
Word is there'll be a thousand people at the conference,
three times more than at any other.
But the organizers don't really know.
How could they?
Outside the room, a huge sheet of paper covers a whole wall
intended for graffiti of all sorts.
At least it'll keep the toilet walls clean.
Someone has put up a contest offering a prize if you spot the Fed,
meaning a federal agent working for the FBI or CIA.
Someone walks in and calls out,
Has anybody seen Storm Shadow?
No one responds.
Well, if you do, can you tell him his mother's looking for him?
I get talking to Lauren, one of the few women at the do.
I guess that's a British phrase.
She's in her mid-20s.
Freakers are younger, tend to be still living at home.
Their parents pick up the bills, she explains.
With them, it's about getting a rep, a reputation, and being one up,
not about meeting people.
Hackers are more cooperative, says Lauren, often working in a job,
and many of them have known each other for maybe a decade.
Saturday, 1 o'clock in the morning.
Dr. J tells me he wants to try hacking into the city's
central traffic light controller, if one exists.
Jet-lagged, I leave him to it and go to bed.
The real hackers stay up till 3, 4, 5 in the morning, just doing stuff.
10 a.m., breakfast in the hotel restaurant.
The hackers among the guests aren't hard to pick out.
They're the pale, shifty ones, and when they leave, they pay by cash.
Credit cards have names.
They can be traced.
Seems paranoid, if you ask me.
11 a.m., outside the main conference hall, there is a list of rules.
Number one, don't hack, freak, or amass with hotel property,
wiring, or fire alarms.
Number ten, assume you are being watched at all times by your worst nightmare.
I walk into the huge back room, now thronged with people.
Load up my camera and stand on a chair to take a picture of the scene.
When the flash goes off, a lot of faces turn around.
Few of them look happy.
An organizer comes over.
If you're taking photos close up of people, then you have to get their permission.
Yeah, these people really are paranoid.
They can't think I'm a fed, or can they?
There's a mobile disco with huge speakers spilling out rock music at a tolerable volume.
The rows of tables are filling up with people who have brought their computers to show off what they can do,
to get one up, establish their rep.
Some have brought some pretty serious equipment with them.
One has a Silicon Graphics Iris workstation, a very expensive, very powerful machine.
It's a rep in itself.
12 noon.
The first conference speech is given by Robert Steele, a former CIA agent.
I spent nine years in the CIA, he tells the enthralled audience.
But in computers, the threat doesn't come from the military or the government.
It's from the whole country.
I would like to see you guys write a book about what's wrong with the system,
and what we should do about it.
But I don't want you to publish how to do it, because although I trust you,
I don't trust the people who would read it.
People nod.
I wander back into the ante room.
There's no coffee, although there's lots of Coke and pizza and hamburgers and fries.
The crowd out here still all look below 20, and they're all about 20 pounds overweight.
It's all those hours at the keyboard.
2.15 pm.
The conference's key challenge gets underway,
to crack the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority's MetroCard.
It's about the size of a credit card, and has a magnetic strip,
though no one is quite sure if that is what it is.
The cards provide up to $80 worth of subway rides, which cost $1.25 a go.
The hackers want to be able to control the cards,
so they can have everlasting rides or recharge their card for free whenever they want.
The speaker introduces himself as an MTA ticket clerk and hacker.
He is wearing a baseball hat, glasses, and has a polo-neck jumper rolled over his mouth.
You can see as much of his face as Robocop's.
He wants to keep his job, he says.
He explains the mechanics of how the card operates,
how it appears to work, what he has to do as a clerk.
In that job, he says, he has tried every means available
to get under the skin of the computer that programs the cards in the booth,
including an accidental coffee spill.
Nothing worked. The MTA is clearly well-prepared.
The audience and speaker throw ideas around.
What and how much data does the magnetic strip hold?
Could you put two cards through a reader or charging machine at once?
What would happen if you created two cards with the same serial number?
Although there aren't any card readers there,
the speaker has tried so many methods that he can answer almost any suggestion.
Overall, it reminds me of some of my more enjoyable university lectures,
the ones where you did some thinking rather than just being told things.
Except that these guys make university undergraduates look middle-aged.
2.30 p.m.
Wandering around the anteroom, I come across someone soldering chips together.
I'm now acclimatized, so I know that these are phreaking boxes,
either red or blue to make the billing computer think the call hasn't been connected
while you're talking, or black for free international calls.
Well, that's kind of wrong, but we won't get into that right now.
The solderer in black jumpsuit, Mohican haircut,
and a chip apparently stuck to the side of his head says that they're red boxes.
He's malice, and he's 22.
He got started after reading William Gibson's Neuromancer,
the seminal cyberpunk novel that revolves around the exploits of a genius hacker in a future world.
The new thing to hack will be interactive TV.
I ask him where he's from.
Um, the 617 area, he replies elliptically, referring to his local telephone dialing code.
I'm not sure why he's being wary.
If the police were that serious about arresting every hacker in sight,
you wouldn't get far walking around with a chip stuck to the side of your head.
I chat with Wynn Schwartau, a brilliant American author with a handlebar mustache,
who is promoting his latest book, Information Warriors.
It's about people who have hackers' skills, but not their good intentions.
There should be an electronic bill of rights, he says,
to set out what constitutes private information and what rights you have over it.
Some people think I'm nuts, specifically politicians in Washington,
but there are people out there who have another, nastier agenda.
I know how to shut down just about anything, so thank God I'm a good guy.
7.50 p.m. on Saturday.
The demonstration of how to read everyone's pager passes off peacefully, not to mention dully.
Since the speakers don't actually hack into anything,
they just explain with diagrams how you might do it.
After all, hacking is illegal in New York State.
More shades of university lectures, but the boring ones this time.
I wander off.
One guy is showing off a card reader that can read magnetic strips.
It's amazing how many things do have magnetic strips on them,
and how much information they contain.
I don't offer him any of my things.
He might just be collecting it all for later use.
Paranoia is catching.
A second shows off the walkie-talkie he modified to operate on 16 channels instead of just 2.
The modification was absurdly small.
He simply bought one, opened it up,
and found that the chip inside had been lobotomized to 2 channels,
but would happily support 16.
Think of all the people who bought that system and never knew what it could do.
9 p.m., another speaker turns up, a hippie in his late 40s,
with wild gray hair and a slightly manic laughing light in his eyes.
Cheshire Catalyst is here to give us the history of TAP,
a radical magazine for hackers.
As he's a senior citizen of the hacking world,
Cheshire used to do it on the Telex network,
The question-and-answer session following his talk consists of people seeking wisdom.
Be careful.
Don't do anything really dangerous,
and don't get them really worrying about you,
because they will come down hard.
The name of Kevin Mitnick comes up.
He was the boy who hacked into the U.S. military's computers as a teenager,
inspiring the film War Games,
and then went on to bigger things, mostly unrevealed.
That's something that hadn't been revealed up till now.
He's a fugitive from the law.
Before the conference, he had eluded some FBI agents who were after him by tapping their phones.
Again, that's alleged.
No one knows where he is. Few people know what he looks like.
He agitates even the hackers.
I want to know more, but if I ask more than two questions about anything,
people give you that look, the one that means, I am learning,
they are weighing up whether you are a fed.
10 p.m., next comes the editorial team of 2600 Magazine,
entitled The Hacker's Quarterly,
that's The Hacker Quarterly, but never mind,
which is named after the basic tone used for freaking.
They set up this conference by advertising it on their internet bulletin board.
I flick through an issue.
This article is an attempt to teach the reader the basics of CCITT-5 international signaling.
Other pieces include elaborate schematic diagrams,
perhaps like those used by a freaker such as Malice to build his boxes.
Another article looks at how to hack digital locks.
It's remarkable how boring hobby magazines can be if they're not about your hobby.
Being known as a hacker's magazine has its excitements.
The FBI called round in the 1980s,
wanting to use the mag to encourage Soviet hackers to divulge their secrets.
Editor Emanuel Goldstein and his five-strong editorial team refused.
Now the magazine's success is the problem.
From being run by hackers in their spare time
and distributed by a few anti-establishment independents,
it's now available on newsstands nationally, selling about 20,000 copies per issue.
A lot of people read us for shortcuts,
which worries us because we want people to understand hacking,
Goldstein tells the attentive audience.
The room is full again.
10.45 p.m., the first signs of dissent.
A rambling question from a woman worried that everyone will be arrested for conspiracy
elicits mumbles from the audience, even boos.
The topic of fiber optic comes up.
Was or is a 2600 staff writer who's in prison for hacking?
It was a sobering experience, says Goldstein.
He didn't do anything malicious, just spread information about.
11.55 p.m.
Now it's the cryptography session,
featuring how to make sure no one ever traces your name or whereabouts on the Internet.
You are on computer A, sending to computer C via network B.
Diagrams proliferate, with circles and arrows going back and forth.
I can't handle this.
Back in the anteroom, they are still trying to hack into things on the Internet.
I watch a thin, fidgety character in his late teens who wears bottle glass spectacles.
He's trying to set up a fake user account on The Well,
the California-based network widely known for its social ability and openness.
I watch over his shoulder. He seems to be making good progress.
He's got into the registration program.
It asks for a credit card number. He puts in a row of nines.
It asks if he wants to pay now.
He declines, choosing instead a few weeks' free use before deciding.
It asks for a daytime phone number. He provides a row of ones.
Now he must choose a password.
Passwords on The Well, it explains, must be at least six characters long
and contain at least one number or punctuation symbol.
He enters six Ps.
The machine rejects this.
Huh? he says as the same screen comes up.
He enters six Ps again. The same thing happens.
He literally jumps in his seat.
I point out his mistake as gently as I can.
Oh, he says. He enters a valid string.
It thanks him and says that his new account will be set up as soon as...
Again, he doesn't bother to read the message.
He just hits a key to return to The Well's main level and enters his new fake username.
It asks for his password. He keys it in.
Unknown user ID flashes the screen. Access denied.
Of course, Unix systems don't say that, but never mind.
The would-be hacker just stares.
I point out what he must have missed by not reading the messages on screen,
that the account will be set up only after his card number has been validated
and his telephone number has been called to check his identity.
You can't just set up a free account at midnight on Saturday, not even in New York.
Nah, nah, he mumbles not believing me and hacks on.
I'm starting to feel weary and go downstairs in search of that
older, hallowed, elixir-cold beer.
I find some.
Unfortunately, it's in a video karaoke bar.
I've swapped people who can't read words on the screen for people who can't sing words off one.
Sunday, 1.25 AM. Refreshed.
The hackers are still going strong, both in the session,
still rowing upstream through cryptography and on the terminals.
Zoran exclaims one.
What channel are you on?
He needs to know this so he can send Zoran some email along the lines of
How is it, dude?
To find out what channel Zoran is on, he turns around in his seat.
Zoran is sitting a meter away.
I'm starting to think hackers are less of a threat to national security
than to each other's sleep patterns.
Certainly they are wrecking mine.
2.30 PM.
Cheshire and Goldstein are back, this time to talk about social engineering,
also known as getting people to tell you things they shouldn't.
With them on the platform are Captain Crunch and someone going by the name of John Draper.
Actually, John Draper is Captain Crunch, and neither one of them were there,
but I guess this guy was kind of tired by then.
Draper is going to get someone at the local phone company to give him the free phone number
of the database containing the names and addresses of its customers.
Actually, that was SN, not Draper.
This allows a caller to dial the database and key in any customer's number
to retrieve a computerized voice giving that customer's name and address.
The free phone number is supposed to be top secret, known only to nominated company employees.
In fact, every hacker in the New York telephone area knows the number for the CNA customer name
and address database, and Draper, that is SN, reads it out before he begins the demonstration
so that the rest of us know what the target is too.
On a phone wired up so we can all hear both ends of the conversation,
he calls up directory inquiries and tries to adopt that breezy tone of someone working on Sunday
in the phone company's computer department.
Being breezy in front of a thousand people who are hanging on your every word isn't easy.
He tries to charm the operator, but his voice wavers a little,
and when he asks for the CNA number, she sounds doubtful and puts him on hold.
He rings off at once.
When people put you on hold, that's a bad sign, says Cheshire.
It means they're referring things upward.
He tries again.
We hear inquiries. This is Marcy.
Of course, they don't say inquiries in this country.
Hey, Marcy, how's it going? This is John over in CIS.
Marcy draws. You busy today?
Kind of, yeah, the operator replies.
Oh, Sundays. I know how it is, he sympathizes.
Listen, I was just calling because we've got a glitch over here.
The systems just went down, and I can't pull the CNA number up.
I just need it to complete this job. Have you got it there?
The CNA number? The free phone?
They don't say that either here.
Yeah, that's it.
Sure. There's a pause, and then she comes back and gives him the number.
You need the PIN number too?
No, that's fine. We got it here, he says.
The PIN would be very valuable, but getting it would also be a touch irresponsible
since any hacker here could then make unlimited use of the system,
including unlisted numbers.
He puts the phone down, beaming, and the audience burst into applause.
4.10 p.m.
A panel of writers, magazine, book, and film
face their fiercest critics, the people they write about.
They are joined later by three men who are making a film about hackers.
They tell the hackers to develop a new attitude towards the media,
not to distrust its members outright, but equally,
not to jump at the slightest chance to have their name in lights.
Where in society, someone asks,
does the panel think hackers and their pursuit will be in five to ten years?
I don't know, replies Julian DeBell,
who has written on hackers for The Village Voice and Spin.
It depends on what hackers' self-image is.
Do they get comfort from thinking that it's a minority thing?
It's poised right now. It could go either way,
staying small or really exploding.
8 p.m.
The conference is winding down.
On the graffiti wall, someone has written in large letters,
Hackstock, which, in a way it is,
more like the first Woodstock than the second.
A haphazard registration, a rigorous timetable,
which went awry almost as soon as the event began.
High ideals, but low reality.
No violence, unless you count the man who was arrested for freaking some mobile phones.
Not many people, unless you count the...
I'm sorry, not many police,
unless you count the six government agents that Steele swore he noticed,
recognizing them by their abstract interest in overshined shoes.
Instead of free love, free internet bandwidth.
Well, what do you expect in cyberworld?
I catch a word with Ed, who is packing his computer into a bag.
What's the point of it all, I ask?
Why get together?
Couldn't hack the MetroCard, didn't make any earth-shattering decisions, so...
Well, in this country, it doesn't matter if 500 people stand up and say,
let's get rid of the government, he replies.
But it does if 500 people know how to get into the phone system.
The conference's organizers reckon that at least 1,500 turned up,
and maybe that is the point.
Spreading knowledge is a political act in itself, says Ed.
That is the article from New Scientist, which we read here,
because I doubt very many people will be able to find that magazine.
British scientific journal.
If you are able to find it, it's the October 22, 1994 edition,
that article written by Charles Arthur.
It's a good article. I mean, there's a lot of things wrong in there.
A lot of facts.
But, you know, you almost come to expect that when you deal with the media.
I mean, you're just looking for those facts that are completely askew.
And this article is no exception to that.
But for the most part, I think it captured the spirit pretty well.
For the most part.
Hackers on Planet Earth.
I guess that's probably the last article we'll see on that.
Unless there are films, or the making of, or anything like that coming out.
We have a letter that we're going to answer from a listener here.
For some time, I have been getting several hang-up calls, virtually every day,
around the same time.
They all show up as out-of-area and caller ID.
I thought I heard you say on the radio that if you switched your long-distance carrier
to a Wiltel or a cable and wireless, you would get out-of-area numbers on caller ID.
Is that correct?
Would getting an 800 number and call forwarding to that work?
Forwarding to a pager? If so, which CLs would be best for this?
I don't want to involve NYNEX, so any advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated.
Well, the caller is the person that has to change the long-distance company
for a number to be passed along and translated into caller ID.
I don't think you're going to succeed in convincing the person that's calling you
and hanging up to switch to a long-distance company to make it easier for you to find them.
There are a number of ways that the number won't be showing up on caller ID.
The most obvious way is that the caller is, in fact, out-of-the-area.
As of December 15th, which I believe is tomorrow,
callers will also be able to block their number from not only caller ID, but from call return
by either dialing star 67 or by having it blocked altogether.
If you don't want to involve NYNEX, there's really not very many ways that you can get this number.
Obviously, if you can have the person call an 800 number, you'd get the number that way,
but the person isn't calling the 800 number and forwarding your line to an 800 number
is not going to have the same effect.
It's simply going to show your phone number as calling the 800 number all the time.
Really, the only solution here is to have NYNEX, the Call Annoyance Bureau, have the call traced.
They won't tell you who it belongs to.
They won't tell you who's doing this, but they will tell that person to stop,
which doesn't seem quite right, but that's the way it works,
and that's really the only way that you're going to track this one down
because of the nature of how this is being done.
Other than that, looking for clues as far as background noise, time of day, things like that.
If you have any suspicions, you know, ways of perhaps social engineering a phone bill somehow.
Of course, that's not legal to do that and seeing who is calling your number.
If you have any suspicions, though, that's the direction some people would head,
so hopefully that's of some help.
I'm going to take some phone calls.
212-279-3400.
There have been some interesting things going on in the net this week, too.
I don't know how many of you read the Usenet news group, all 2,600,
but over the past couple of days, there's been an interesting post that seems to be going out
connected to this news group.
Apparently, everybody that posted on the news group had their post forwarded to computer emergency response team,
cert.org, and also to the postmaster, the person that handles the mail at the system that they are on,
and along with a warning message.
I'm going to read you this warning message, and this is a rather ominous thing here.
I don't know why this was done.
We don't know who's doing it, but the idea of it is enough to really scare you, I think.
This is the message.
If you posted on all 2,600, was sent to your administrator and to computer emergency response team.
If you are not aware of the nature of the group, all .2600, I will explain it.
It is a hacker slash cracker news group containing many illegal messages.
A great deal of its posters ask questions about or give advice on compromising system security,
even that of the system they are on.
Phone phreaking is freely discussed,
and they explain to each other how to cheat the long-distance telephone carriers.
Pirate FTP and FSP sites are often traded by these people,
and you should verify that one has not been set up on your system
and that the user does not have pirated software in his directory.
Such could get your entire site shut down.
Other verified topics that people explain how to do and admit to doing are disrupting IRC,
spamming, mail bombing, shoplifting, disrupting public transportation,
and similar dangerous and illegal mischief.
This automated message is sent for two reasons.
One, to alert you of a potential threat to your system's security
in the cases of users asking or being told how to attempt to exploit security vulnerabilities.
Also, the poster may be using a stolen account.
Two, to alert you that there are crackers on your machine.
The account used to post from may not be legitimate or may be stolen.
It is extremely common with Alt 2600 posters to use fraudulently obtained accounts.
Or, a post of its nature may likely be a violation of terms of a membership agreement,
and the user making this post may be preparing to break into yours or another system
if they have not done so already.
It is suggested that you keep a close eye on users who have posted to Alt 2600
and to inspect their files and email if the posting warrants such and you can legally do so.
And then the text of the message that the person posted originally was also forwarded.
Now, I noticed a bunch of these in my mailbox,
and it was interesting because the first thing I had a problem with was,
well, what do I do with this?
Do I contact this person who was named P. Bergman?
Now, it came from two places at once.
There were two from fields in this.
The first one was P. Bergman at netcom.com,
and then the other one was ghost, that's G-H-O-A-S-T, as in ghost with an A in it,
at new.ai.mit.edu.
The name there was Cracker Buster.
Now, I wasn't sure where exactly this post was coming from, which one of those two addresses,
and I was a bit hesitant as to posting the whole thing
because I thought maybe the other person was leaking this information to us,
and it wouldn't be cool to just sort of plaster his name all over the net if he was leaking that to us.
So we started looking into it to see what was real and what was not real.
But then I started to read the news group,
and I saw in there that this whole thing had exploded onto the news group itself
because everybody else had been getting these messages.
And in the true hacker spirit, when someone got something that was unusual, suspicious,
they posted it for everybody to share.
So this message went out already, so it was kind of a moot point by that stage.
So everybody who posted in the past week had a message sent to their system administrator.
Now, whether or not this is true or a joke or something like that as far as the motives of the person,
it does show you how easy it is to blacklist somebody.
It's extremely simple to simply say, hey, this person is doing this rather suspicious activity.
Keep an eye on this person.
See what this person is up to.
Imagine if this message had not been forwarded to the users themselves.
What would have happened then?
What would have been the result when we have ever found out about it?
Sure, we would have found out about it, but this could have been happening for quite some time.
Imagine if only the cert address had been used or only certain federal agents...
I mean, it's easy enough for anybody to read all 2600 and see what's on there,
but to cast suspicion on somebody in such an automated way...
I mean, McCarthyism is what everybody is saying on the net, and it is rather similar to that,
although you have to wonder what the motives are behind this.
It seems to be more a demonstration than anything else.
I would like to hear from people out there that may have had this happen to them,
what their reaction to it is.
I know some people are rather hesitant, especially if you're at a university and you're posting something,
to know that if you post something, it will be forwarded to your system administrator.
We've seen the kind of craziness that goes on when people do weird things with accounts.
We had people in Texas get kicked out of school for printing out a password file,
which didn't even have passwords in it, it was just a list of the users.
Kicked out of school, expelled, things like that happen.
So I'm sure a lot of people will be very paranoid about this,
about posting questions that could be looked at in the wrong way,
or posting information that could be misused.
With the most rigid, conservative person judging you, you have to sort of hold back, restrain yourself.
We may be seeing a lot of that.
We may be seeing people going to compromised accounts,
because it's the only way to post something securely.
We may be seeing a lot more anonymous posting through anonymous remailers.
FiberOptic is here.
Hello.
Welcome.
What's your take on all this?
Well, I've been following what's going on, and frankly I think it's really ludicrous.
I mean, the mere nature of Alt.2600 as a group is,
because of the fact that it's under the ALT hierarchy, which stands for alternative,
it's alternative subject matter.
And it doesn't fall under the scrutiny that the other news groups do.
And for that very reason, I think it's ludicrous that someone's playing net cop or net police,
and thinking that they have some say in the subject matter of an alternative news group.
It's no one's business what goes on in that news group.
The fact that administrators all over the world, or news administrators all over the world,
are sanctioning it, are allowing their site to carry that news group,
that already says in and of itself that people want that news group to exist.
If they didn't, then you'd see administrators all over the world going up in arms,
saying, we're not going to tolerate this.
This is ridiculous, or something like that.
But that's not the way I've ever seen people react.
Certainly not on Usenet.
There are far more controversial news groups in existence.
It's kind of similar to the way we do things here at BAI, actually.
We let the person at the end of the communications link decide for themselves if they want to participate,
if they want to listen to a program, if they want to read a news group.
We have alt.sex.beastiality.
Some people like to read that, some people don't like to read that.
If you don't like to read it, you don't read it.
If you do, you do.
But imagine a group like that, for instance, and having your name forwarded to everybody,
and people saying, hey, this person's posting there.
It creates a very chilling effect.
Right. People are just acting like babies.
It's the same with any other medium.
If you don't want to see something on television or the radio, you turn it off.
Likewise with Usenet.
If you don't want to read a particular news group because the subject matter is, I don't know,
is disgusting or repulsive to you, you simply don't read it.
No one's thrusting it in front of your face.
Absolutely.
Well, so far as far as the reaction to this,
Netcom has pulled the account, the account that was used, the P. Bergman account.
They say they just permanently barred that person from using the system.
As far as the MIT account, that is still up from what we can tell.
We don't know who this person is.
Supposedly there was some kind of an apology posted, too, from the P. Bergman account.
I don't have it with me, but they basically said that they were, what was it?
They saw the error in their ways.
It sounded, I mean, the person came off sounding really puny.
Yeah.
And it didn't, I got the impression that it wasn't really the person themselves posting.
It was more of a mocking tone, actually, I thought.
They said, you know, boy, I really learned from you people.
I was wrong. I was out of line. This will never happen again.
By the way, can anybody help me?
I'm having this problem. Please help me.
And in the same token, saying that he's being bombarded with mail, mostly insulting email,
and then saying, I guess that's what I get. I guess I deserve that.
What else can I do?
It sounded ridiculous, almost.
More fun on the Internet.
So, anyway, somebody went to the trouble of tracking this person, and this is what we found out about him.
Steve Bergman logged into netcom.com, where he then telnetted into cloud9.net,
where he then telnetted to wombat.nu. Is it gnu or nu?
Gnu.
Gnu. You're supposed to say gnu. Okay.
Because the animals aren't called gnus.
Yeah, I know. It's a joke.
wombat.gnu.ai.mit.edu.
From there, Peter telnetted to kropotki.com.
It's really kropotkin with an N at the end.
Oh, is there an N at the end?
Yeah.
kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu, which is the source of the mail messages.
So, I don't know if anything new has happened in the last couple of hours,
but I think the messages have stopped.
I haven't gotten any more in my mailbox, but it was weird.
It was kind of an automated program.
For instance, my address is emmanuelatwell.sf.ca.us.
Mail was sent to me.
Mail was sent to cert.org, certatcert.org,
and then postmasteratwell.sf.ca.us, then postmasteratsf.ca.us,
and finally postmasteratca.us,
which tells me that they have some sort of crude program running,
trying to find the right address for the postmaster.
Or maybe he just thought he was being thorough.
To my knowledge, there is no postmaster for those little fragments of domains.
Right.
Well, sometimes, though, for instance, netcom.
You have netcom10.netcom.com.
So, the postmaster would be postmasteratnetcom.com, I think.
Right.
I think what this results in are some very peeved postmasters
that are getting tons of mail,
and they couldn't care less about what their users are posting.
The thing that's interesting and almost suspicious
is the email message that you first brought to my attention
when you were questioning whether this P. Bergman person was real or not.
The email message was interesting because,
if anyone is familiar with SendMail and the way mail on the Internet works,
the difference between the envelope of the message
and the actual header of the message in SendMail parlance,
the envelope of the message had P. Bergman at netcom in it,
and the header of the message had this ghost person, G-H-O-A-S-T, at GNU.
Right.
In the header of the message.
It's almost as if he wanted you to know that ghost was P. Bergman.
When I first saw it, it didn't make any sense
that there was a different name in the envelope as in the header.
And it looked like something was wrong, actually.
I don't think I've ever seen a message where that happened.
Well, there are two from addresses.
I think it's been proven that the ghost address was forged,
and the message actually came from netcom.
I think that's what the conclusion is right now.
But in the analysis from the person that looked him up,
it says that he connected to GNU and uses the account ghost.
It could be that's where he's running the program from
and he's forwarding it back to netcom.
I'm not really sure, but I'm pretty sure both accounts are involved in some way.
I can't say that there is a person named Peter Bergman doing this or not.
It's hard to say exactly.
Yeah, that's some of the fun we can have on the net.
By the way, I learned something interesting on this.
Ways of fingering sites that don't allow fingers.
Did you read about this?
I heard about this recently.
It was something that I wasn't at all familiar with,
and I never bothered taking apart the finger demon.
Well, in this particular case,
let's say you're fingering a site,
and I think Cloud9 was one of these,
where you finger the entire site to see who's on,
and it won't let you do that.
You can only finger individual people.
Well, if you finger one of the individual people,
you see where they logged in from.
You get a name of a particular machine on that network.
What you do is you finger that particular machine
and follow that immediately with an at sign
and the specific name of the machine.
It will think that that machine is fingering it
and give you a list of who's on,
even though it's not supposed to.
Yeah, I actually tried it, and it was very interesting.
I've never seen finger used in that way before.
But if anyone wants to try it,
they should bear in mind that this only relates
to the original finger, the Berkeley BSD finger,
and that this won't happen if someone has installed
the new finger package from GNU software,
and that it only manifests itself...
It's the same GNU?
Yeah, same GNU.
Interesting, very interesting.
Okay, a tangled web we weave.
Let's take some phone calls now.
That's the latest.
If you have some news about this, give us a call.
If you've had it happen to you, we'd like to know how you feel.
And if you don't get through, well, don't worry.
We'll try to get to everybody.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Well, hello, Emanuel.
Fiber, it's Jeopardy! Jim.
I hadn't heard about that net problem,
but that's very interesting.
And...
...when we're up in February, anonymous.
A couple of things.
Did you get the Mosaic web page listing
for the Pentium that I sent you?
Mosaic, I believe so.
I believe so.
Me or Fiber?
Emanuel.
I think so, but I'm not 100% certain.
We've been in production this week.
I haven't read every piece of mail that I've gotten.
Okay, I don't know it offhand,
but it's on the What's New list from Netcom
or from the National Supercomputer site.
So it's easily retrieved if you've got Mosaic or Netscape.
And it has a whole list of what's wrong with the Pentium
and what you can do about it and how it was found
and the exact details of the problem.
The other thing I wanted to mention was
last week you had a caller who was talking about
yellow payphones on the street.
Yes, I think we've determined what those are.
Yeah, I had mentioned to you at the last 2600 meeting
that it's the charge...
not charge card, but the debit card that NYNEX issues.
It started at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal
and is now moving north through the streets
like most other horrible things in science fiction movies.
I'd also like to mention that NYNEX
and the New York City Transit Authority
are installing payphones...
well, let's not really call them payphones...
telephones in the subway.
Those blue credit card phones.
Exactly, blue credit card phones.
You know what's weird is that they only install one at a time, though.
Yeah, but the point is this, that there will be entire stations
where there will be no telephone where you can insert a coin.
Oh, I think there are stations like that already.
Yeah, well, there probably are.
I'm not at every station.
Where you won't be able to insert a coin,
you'll have to either dial 911, an 800 number,
or use your calling card or other credit card...
I'm not exactly sure what works in these...
to make a phone call, which I think is blatantly unfair,
because anything other than 911 or 800 numbers
will charge you exorbitantly.
That's true.
They charge you that little surcharge
for the privilege of doing it,
but when you don't have a choice,
it's not really a privilege, is it?
Very true.
Oh, and one other thing.
I wanted to ask Fiber if he knows anything
about what Echo is doing exactly on First Night.
I've read just a tiny little bit about this,
that on New Year's Eve,
which is being called First Night,
the last few years New York City has taken an idea
that I think started in Philadelphia
of having public events in cultural institutions
on New Year's Eve.
Like ballroom dancing in Grand Central Station.
Ballroom dancing, et cetera.
Fireworks, I don't know where.
Also in Grand Central Station.
Yeah, supposedly Echo is going to have computers
and public internet access up on the east balcony
of Grand Central Station.
Well, what's being planned is
there's going to be a bunch of computers set up,
I believe both PCs and Macs,
in Grand Central Station on New Year's Eve,
and there's going to be, first and foremost,
there's going to be connections over the net
to a chat system that's run on Echo.
And we're going to have connections
with other cities in the world,
such as Rome and I believe London
and a few other major cities.
And we're all going to be linked up
on New Year's Eve on the chat.
And I think also at the same time
we're going to be running a worldwide web
and we're going to be basically browsing the web
so that people that just happen to be wandering by
through Grand Central can chat with people
in other cities all over the place
and experience the web, possibly for the first time.
What part of Grand Central Station
are you going to set this up in?
Oh, the exact part I don't know,
but I'm sure it'll be kind of hard to miss.
Well, according to Echo's website,
the word given was the east balcony,
but that may be incorrect.
I don't know for certain.
If that's what it says, then maybe that's what it is.
You just got to watch those commuters
running through there.
You don't want them plowing into you.
No one's going to be rushing for a train on the balcony.
Thanks, guys.
You can only hope.
Thank you very much.
Bye.
That's interesting.
I didn't know about that.
In the works.
Is there a time for that?
Well, I don't know the specifics,
but I would assume it's going to start in
sometime before midnight.
Well, if you want to talk to people in Rome,
I think they'd like you to start well before midnight
since it's about 5 in the morning their time.
All right, we'll have more details on that
as it gets closer.
Yeah, I'll find out.
Okay, good evening.
You're on the radio.
Hello, this is Emanuel.
Yes, go ahead.
Speaking of the so-called cyber-Nazis,
I found something very interesting
on Alt.Conspiracy.
I heard Alt.Conspiracy disappeared.
Yeah, I was the fellow who told you about that.
Okay, that was awfully suspicious in and of itself.
Well, it disappeared right after I got this message.
It was on November 26, 1994.
It said,
N-T-T-P from F-T-P dot B-R-R-L dot M-I-L
to moderator C-C, all users.
Government order.
All posts from the White House shooting
are to be destroyed.
All future conversation about this topic
are to be halted.
No communications on this message
or the White House shooting messages
are to continue.
If the above is not met,
the U.S. government will shut down
this Alt.Conspiracy Usenet group
and ban all members
from the military and government servers.
Remember, the Internet is a privilege,
not a right.
Well, you know,
this sounds almost in the same tone
as what we were reading on Alt.2600.
You have to wonder if it's really serious.
Yeah, I will.
Or somebody just trying to, you know,
cause some sparks.
Yeah, it's a possibility.
What do you think?
You take it with a grain of salt,
but then again, I mean,
we're dealing with, like,
we're dealing with psychological warfare
on a number of degrees.
Well, the Internet and Usenet
are the best ways to be able to say
whatever it is you want
without somebody stopping you.
So I say that's a basic human right,
not a privilege.
And don't listen to anybody
that says it's a privilege.
Oh, yeah.
You know what this all reminds me of?
You know when you go
into an international airport
right before you get to the docking bay
there's this huge sign
with all these regulations?
You know what that kind of reminds me?
What?
Where this port begins,
the Constitution ends.
I have a feeling
when you look at a phone,
they ought to place the same sign
on the phone
where it's like this.
Basically,
this is the plain language statement
on the bottom.
Where this loop begins,
the Constitution ends.
Because that's basically
what it's boiling down to.
Uh-huh.
That's an interesting suggestion.
Certainly some Internet sites,
I think,
would put that on their login banner.
All right.
Thanks for the call.
Definitely.
Bye.
Take care.
Good evening, Euan.
Hey, Manuel.
How you doing?
Uh, you know,
if I ever get to go up to Morrisville,
I'm going to really be careful.
You're not there yet?
What are you waiting for?
I hear it's beautiful this time of year.
Hurry up.
Get there for the holidays.
Yeah.
Nice for the holidays.
It'll be a nice Christmas present.
Just hope that I get accepted.
Anyway,
if there is a problem
on the telephone system,
like something's wrong
with the AX computer
or something's malfunctioning
somewhere in the inside operations,
how do you tell?
Of course,
the care service doesn't know
what I'm talking about.
Well,
they wouldn't anyway
because there's no such thing
as an AX computer.
What do you mean by that?
You're talking about
the automated coin toll service?
Yeah.
It's software.
There's no computer involved.
It's part of the switch.
But where does it come from?
Why don't you describe to us.
It comes from a planet far away.
Think of us as the 611
that understands
what you're talking about.
So here we are.
9X, can I help you?
What's your problem?
How do I tell the phone switch people
that the phone is not supposed
to trip down to a dial tone
after you get connected to something?
It's not supposed to trip down
to a dial tone?
What phone?
Be specific.
I'm calling you right now.
If you hang up on me,
I'm going to stay on the line
and I'm going to get my dial tone back.
What's wrong with that?
How do I tell the people
in the central office?
Who do I tell?
Of course,
I don't tell the people.
Is that what's happening to you?
No, no.
I'm just giving you an example
of what if it does trip down
to a dial tone
and it's not supposed to.
Well, how do you know
if it's supposed to or not?
You mean an unrestricted dial tone
on a pay phone?
Is that what you're talking about?
Well, no.
On a regular line.
Maybe I should give you
a better example.
Yeah, give me a better example.
Yeah.
Okay, here's a good example.
RCI long distance, 10211.
Dial 0, the area coded number,
you get an RCI billing tone.
Enter 917249
and then any eight digits
and it'll take it.
Okay.
How do I tell?
I've told customer service
they don't understand
they fit to call repair.
This is in Rochester now.
Well, you're talking about
something completely different now.
You're talking about RCI,
the long distance company.
You can make free phone calls on them
using a certain series of numbers.
Is that correct?
Tell them that they have
a wide open system.
Thousands and thousands of people
are going to get in
and make free phone calls
and they will go out
of business shortly
unless they listen to you.
Maybe if you're direct like that.
I'm sure lots of people
will call on your behalf now.
With RCI, this happens
outside on pay phones?
Right.
Go to a regular line
on a pay phone.
Dial 10211.
0, the area coded number.
You'll get the RCI billing tone.
Enter for a calling card
number 917249
and then any eight digits
after that.
Okay, now I should point out
you're coming dangerously close
to giving out a code
which we did not do.
We gave out a formula here.
But if that's true,
that's a blatant security hoax.
I don't understand the relevance
of the 917 part.
Because 917 is not an area code.
It's an area code for
pages and cellular phones.
Right.
So, 249 is the deeper exchange
in the 917 area code.
Well, there's a lot of
deeper exchanges.
One deeper exchange.
Well, apparently 917249
and then any eight digits
worked.
I tried 249, all zeros,
all ones,
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
So, the last eight digits
are what?
Well, I mean, you have
917 is the area code,
249 is the exchange.
Then you have four more digits
for the phone number
and then four for the PIN
at the end.
The PIN is anything.
So, you're saying that
you can basically make
a calling card call with RCI
and bill it to any deeper number.
Right.
That is essentially
what you're saying.
And make up a PIN number.
Well, now that we've announced
this on the airwaves,
I think that it'll probably
quickly come to a screeching halt.
I think a lot of people
are quickly running out
their doors right now
heading to the nearest
pay phone, too.
I can hear it in my address,
myself.
All right.
Well, we'll have to update
people on this one
because I'm sure...
How do I tell about this?
I think you've told
enough people just now.
You just told 9 million
New Yorkers.
Yeah.
I think that RCI
is going to notice
very quickly.
Yeah, even RCI
is going to notice
very quickly.
Let's just see what happens
and we'll be back next week
with that particular information.
Thanks for the tip.
By the way,
last week,
he tipped us off
about the 516 exchange
in 212.
Remember that?
Right, yeah.
After the show,
we went out
and we explored
the 516 exchange.
We actually went to Penn Station
and were playing with the phones.
Yes, we did.
It was very interesting.
We got every single
pay phone in Penn Station
to ring at the same time.
Yes, at the same time.
That was fun
because that's one
of the few places
where you can dial 660
and you flash the switch
hook and hang up.
Right.
What a wondrous sound that was.
Having every pay phone
in the whole floor
ringing at the same time.
And you know,
not one person noticed it.
Not even the cop
that was pacing back and forth.
He didn't even notice
every single phone
was ringing at once.
Nobody picked them up.
Eventually,
they stopped on their own.
But that's just
the kind of dangerous thing
that we anarchists do.
I guess now
I'll have to check this one out
and get back to people on that.
Let's see if we can fit in
one more.
Good evening.
You're on.
Hey, Manuel.
How are you doing?
I'm fine, thanks.
I have a few things.
Could you speak up?
Yeah.
First of all,
you know the 890xxxx prefix?
Yeah, the old 9x prefix.
Yep.
I had my run-ins
with them this week.
They just kept
hanging up on me again.
Oh, gee.
No, you're kidding.
Yeah, but I don't
want to get into that.
What's your problem with it?
Well, I found something
really weird with it.
When you dial, for instance,
890oxxx or 1xxx,
you dial a number
that doesn't work.
Yeah.
It says the number
you've reached,
and then it says...
And it gives the area code
as someplace far away.
Like 914, maybe.
Or 607.
Yeah.
Yeah, it says 718,
but with a different thing.
It then says 607.
Right.
Why does that happen?
It's forwarding.
When you call 890,
it's forwarding to a real
POTS number someplace else.
Yeah.
Sometimes it has
the same phone number,
sometimes not.
I realize that, but...
That way anybody in the state
can call a particular number.
But do they have
to call from branches?
Is that why it works?
The main branch is in when?
Valhalla, New York?
Yeah, 914.
Yeah.
Some bizarre place up there.
So rather than have you
make a long-distance phone call
or call an 800 number,
they just have this particular
toll-free exchange.
I mean, it is their network,
after all, so they can do that.
And it forwards
to wherever they want to forward.
Okay.
And then the other thing
I have a question on is
there's a certain exchange.
I'm not going to mention it.
Okay.
In an area where...
You know how, for instance,
with, you know, you dial 121,
the area code in 121,
you're supposed to get
an inward operator,
and obviously that's been blocked.
Right.
With Bluelax and whatever.
Is it possible...
I found an exchange
where when you dial 1
plus the area code
and the exchange
in any four digits,
you get information.
The weird thing is
you don't get charged for it.
You sure about that?
Positive.
I've done it for a while.
Because it used to be
that you could call 555
and get any four digits
and you'd get information,
but you'd only be charged
if you dialed 1212.
Not 555.
Okay.
It's a different exchange.
And the weirdest part is
the switching office
I get connected to,
I'm positive it is not
my local switching office.
However, nobody else in the world
but my area,
the people who call
from my switching office,
can dial this number.
Have they just forgotten
to block it?
Well, the question is
why does that number
exist in the first place?
It must be some sort
of contact or to something.
They say it's the whole exchange?
Not the exchange,
the switching office,
but just the switching office
where I live.
Let me ask you this question.
You chose to mention
that you were talking about
inward operators and 121.
So, in the same token,
are you talking about
dialing your area code
plus 131 for directory assistance
and any four numbers?
It doesn't start with a one.
It's like a regular prefix.
Oh.
It's a regular prefix
and it's not listed
anywhere.
Nope.
It's not listed at all.
In fact, when you dial it
from a different area,
it does something different.
You get ringback.
I see.
Okay, so it's programming
in your central office.
Someone has programmed
your central office.
Does it go to any information
anywhere or just a particular...
It just goes to the one
in this area code.
It sounds like somebody
just put a speed dial
of some sort in there
and it just forwards...
It forwards to another number.
I say enjoy it
because some bored switchman
must have put it there
for his own enjoyment.
And since it only works
in your particular area code
or exchange, rather,
there's no need to share it
with too many people
because nobody will benefit
from it anyway.
Well, the weird thing is
that, for instance,
the switching office
right next to me...
I work for them.
I live in Greenwich,
Connecticut.
Uh-huh.
The switching office
next to me is
in Byram, Connecticut.
They just had a switchover
and I don't know
if this has anything
to do with it
because they can't call it
because now they're
in a separate
switching office
and, in fact,
the weirdest thing with them,
that's another good point.
Well, I'm sorry.
We're going to have to
cut you off
because we're out of time.
Okay.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks for calling.
Bye-bye.
It's, you know,
a typical weird switch
kind of a thing.
Every switch is different.
Every central office
is different.
You just have to
explore them all.
We're out of time.
It's been another fun show.
We'll have to update people
on the latest
as far as weird information
and strange RCI bugs
and weirdness going on
on the Internet as well.
So we'll be back again
next week from 10 to 11
with news on all that
and more.
It's Emanuel Goldstein
with FiberOptic.
Good night for Off The Hook
and stay tuned
for the evening news.
Good evening.
In the news tonight,
Republican leaders
team up with U.S. business
to eliminate what they say
are unnecessary
federal regulations.
The city of Baltimore
takes a bold step
in favor of working Americans.
And in New York,
a parent's group
comes to the aid
of school's Chancellor
Ramon Coltinez
while a prominent minister
and the mayor
trade barbs
over last winter's
police raid
of a Harlem mosque.
With these and other stories,
I'm Jose Santiago
in New York
with Verner Avery-Brown
in Washington.
And this is the news
for Wednesday,
December 14, 1994.
First to Washington
for the Pacifica National News.
At least 70 Russian soldiers
have now died
while fighting
in the breakaway republic
of Chechnya.
Emily Harris
has more from Moscow.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin
is offering amnesty
to any Chechen fighter
willing to lay down arms
by tomorrow.
An official statement
says anyone
who does not comply
will be held
criminally responsible.
Russia's lower house
of parliament
supports the ultimatum,
but it's unclear
if it will affect
the fighting.
The Chechen delegation
walked out of talks
in Vodyakov cars today
and Russian fighter planes
continued to attack
areas outside Grozny.
Chechen forces
downed at least
one Russian helicopter
and killed
two of the crew.
Yeltsin first sent troops
to Chechnya in 1991.
Just after
Dzhokhar Dudayev
became president of Chechnya
and declared
the mostly Muslim area
independent,
about a thousand
Russian troops
flew into Grozny.
Chechens protested
and the Russian soldiers left.
About a year later,
both sides faced off
by a massing troop
on the border
that retreated
after a month.
Russian soldiers
say this time
troops planned
to encircle Grozny
but not invade.
The ten thousand
Russian soldiers
outnumber
Dudayev's forces,
but Chechens
have a strong tradition
of guerrilla warfare.
Dudayev says
they will use
their guerrilla skills
until the opposition
dies of fear
and horror.
For Pacifica Network News,
I'm Ellen Harris
in Moscow.
Vice President
Al Gore has arrived
in Moscow
for three days of talks.
In brief remarks
at the airport,
Gore did not mention
the Russian conflict
with the Chechens.
However,
the U.S.
has repeatedly stated
that the dispute
is an internal
Russian matter.
The Northwest Planning
Council has approved
a $177 million plan
to save salmon
from extinction.
The four state
council's action
comes in the wake
of a federal court
ruling that previous
plans gave too much
weight to utilities
over the survival
of the fish.
The plan increases
the volume
and flow of water
through reservoirs
and so helps
migrating salmon
to reach the ocean.
The council estimates
the plan will cost
Northwest households
an additional $2 a month
on their electric bill.
Amtrak's cutting back
on its rail service
to stem the flow
of red ink.
Amtrak President
Thomas Downs
says the changes
will wipe out
this year's projected
$200 million
budget deficit.
We'll eliminate
21 percent
of our national
system train miles.
It also envisions
about total
about a thousand
management personnel
losing their job
and about 4,500
organized labor
employees losing
their job as a
result of this
adjustment.
Only three routes
are being
completely eliminated.
Others will see
less frequent service.
The cuts are expected
to save over
$7.3 billion
by the year 2000.
In Bosnia,
the United Nations
is sending more
food convoys
to Sarajevo
now that a few
have been allowed
through by rebel
Serbs.
Meanwhile,
military officers
from several
nations,
including the U.S.,
Britain,
and France,
will be meeting
in The Hague
Monday.
They'll be discussing
changes in the U.N.
peacekeeping mission
in Bosnia.
1,800 U.N.
peacekeepers
supported by 2,000
Rwandan government
troops swept
through refugee
camps in southwest
Rwanda.
Their mission?
To confiscate
weapons and so
reduce violence.
U.N.
officials say they
failed to find
any of the heavy
weapons or suspects
whom they'd been
looking for.
The U.N.
officials say
there's a risk
of lung cancer
compared to
non-smokers
even after
20 years of
not smoking.
That's the
conclusion of a
British study
published today.
Researchers say
smokers shouldn't
kid themselves
that it's okay
to smoke until
they're 30 or
40-something
because the risk
never goes
completely away.
And those are
the stories
topping the news.
Overregulation
has been the
perennial cry
from American
business.
Conservatives
claim that it
cost the American
people roughly
$500 billion
a year.
And with
Republicans
in control
of Congress
next year,
the business
community will
get its chance
to eliminate
thousands of
federal regulations.
But critics ask
at what price
to the American
people,
particularly
in the area
of health,
the environment
and workplace
safety.
Pacificus
Donrush has
this report.
On Capitol Hill,
conservatives
began the
assault on
government
regulation of
American companies.
It's called
Project Relief,
an organization
of business
groups and
conservatives.
Top House
Republican
leader Tom
DeLay
stood behind
stacks of
books containing
government
regulations
saying
if Americans
are to succeed
in today's
highly competitive
economy,
we've got to
break the choke
hold of
regulations around
the neck of
every budding
entrepreneur and
allow them to
compete freely.
DeLay said
such regulations
had cost the
average American
family $10,000
a year.
And it did not
matter how
altruistic these
regulations were.
Bruce Gates,
chair of
Project Relief.
Well-intentioned
and cost people
their very
livelihoods.
For good
measure,
small business
people were
brought to the
podium to tell
their tales of
the endless
regulations from
a nightmarish
bureaucracy.
We have EPA
regs, the
Clean Air Act,
we have
notifications,
monitoring,
inspection,
maintenance,
record keeping.
Barbara Harvey
owns a small
mom and pop
dry cleaning
business in
Maryland.
She has
many hoops
to jump
through.
Uncle Sam,
I implore you
to lighten
our load.
Thank you.
There is no
doubt that
regulations have
proliferated over
the years as
government took
on more
responsibility.
The modern
economy has
generated concerns
over health and
worker safety
to say nothing
about the
environment.
But Doug
Henwood, with
the Left Business
Observer, has
more to say
about the
regulations.
But the
battle over
regulation has
already begun on
Capitol Hill.
The top GOP
leaders urged
President Clinton
to freeze nearly
all government
regulations for
at least 100
days.
During the
moratorium,
they said
government
agencies should
analyze the
costs and
benefits of
these regulations.
The
government
agencies
said they
would also
give the
GOP time
to approve
legislation to
restrict the
formulation of
new regulations.
Anna Goodman,
with Public
Citizen, says
the object is to
gut such laws as
the Clean Air
and Water Acts
without attacking
them directly.
What they're
doing is