And a good evening, everybody.
This is Off the Hook, the program that deals with the dreaded term of cyberspace and all
kinds of other fun things going on in the net community, the telephone world, the hacker
world, the big brother Orwellian future that lies ahead for all of us.
Tonight we have some rather sad news in the world of cyberspace, as it were, in the world
of hackers.
This is something that has not yet gone out over the wires, because I don't think the
wires know about it yet, but after tonight they will.
Early this morning, Kevin Mitnick was apprehended, Kevin Mitnick being the hacker who was on
the run for at least a year, and this happened as a result, starting with a parole violation,
probation violation last year.
If you recall, we had a show focusing on what happened in Chicago at a convention called
Computers, Freedom, and Privacy, where the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated
three wrong people, including a former CIA operative, thinking that they were on the
trail of both Kevin Mitnick and Agent Steele, Justin Peterson, who was someone working for
the FBI at one point, who was trying to entrap hackers, and then went on the run himself
and was committing all kinds of crimes.
They caught up with Agent Steele not too long after that, but Kevin Mitnick always remained
one step ahead, sometimes two steps ahead, up until this morning, when he was apprehended
in, from what I hear, North Carolina, our favorite state, and that's really all we know
right now.
We know this happened at about, I think, three in the morning our time, and what's funny
about all this is that I just talked to him only a couple days ago, actually I was talking
to him fairly recently, before he actually got apprehended, and it's kind of a sad thing
when you're talking to somebody that's on the run like that because, you know, there
are so many things that they want to do that they just can't do.
They can't hang out publicly, they can't go to meetings or see anybody that they might
be expected to see.
You pretty much have to live a rented car, motel, fast food life, and that's sort of
what Kevin was doing.
I never asked him where he was, I didn't want to know.
I only hoped, deep down within me, that he had left the country.
Obviously he didn't.
I know a few weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago, there was a very close call in Seattle
where he almost got picked up, and I think he somehow found out about it a half hour
afterwards.
He basically missed them by about a half hour, and they were very frustrated by that.
One thing I tried to tell Kevin was that these people are very, very good at what they do.
You have to keep that in mind.
Somehow, they're able to find people if they grow facial hair or get a nose job or something.
If you get your picture in the paper on America's Most Wanted, they somehow figure out that
it's you anyway.
When's the last time you heard of the FBI not finding somebody?
Well, there was Abby Hoffman, of course, but I think he was the only person that was able
to do it and pull it off successfully.
Everybody, especially today with cameras all over the place, you never know when you're
being looked at.
Actually, you never know when you're not being looked at these days because most of the time
you're being looked at somewhere.
That's the kind of world that Kevin Mitnick had to live in and not be recognized.
It could only last for so long.
I think we all knew it was going to end at some point.
I had this gut feeling that it was going to be soon because it just seemed like things
were reaching a crescendo.
When you're on the run for so long, you kind of get sloppy after a while.
You kind of don't think to cover your trail quite as neatly.
I was worried that he was calling and that I was talking to him.
If my phone was tapped, maybe they could do a trace.
If he was talking to me, maybe he was talking to other people.
It was rather sad to think of it in that way.
Now, you might ask, well, this guy is a criminal.
How can you talk to someone like that?
How can you harbor a fugitive?
Of course, that's nonsense.
Kevin is as much a criminal as any of us, I think.
Basically, his crime is knowledge, and I think that's something that really, really frightens
people and certainly frightens governments, agencies, people in power, because here's
a guy that can do virtually anything on a network involving computers, involving the
phone system.
Admittedly, he's very good at what he does.
Admittedly, he's very good at getting information, and that makes people in high places very,
very nervous.
No question about that.
But is the guy a criminal worthy of being locked up?
I don't think so.
And when you think of what is in store for him, you really, really have to wonder if
playing by the rules makes any sense at all these days.
Now, let me bring up another story, the story of Kevin Paulson.
Kevin Paulson is this other former hacker from years ago who was also quite good at
getting into things, and in fact, he really did lead a life of crime.
He actually stole things.
He stole equipment from a central office.
I don't know how many of you have seen Unsolved Mysteries, but Kevin Paulson was featured
on that once when he was still wanted.
It seems they found various phone equipment in his locker, a locker that he was renting,
and they used that to charge him with a crime, and this, I think, was the second time that
he had been charged with a felony.
Now, what happened in this particular case was that the evidence was ruled inadmissible
because they did not have a warrant.
They went into a locker that he was still paying for.
It was illegally searched, and the evidence did not hold up in court.
Well, a few months ago, the government appealed that, and unlike most appeals, the government
won, and so Kevin Paulson will be sentenced on February 27th.
Now, the good news in this is that Kevin Paulson has been in prison for four years, and there's
no way he could get any more than four years for that crime.
The bad news is that there are other crimes that he's accused of, one of which is espionage.
I don't know if you saw this, if you saw the thing on Unsolved Mysteries, and I really
thought they'd present a stronger case against him on a program like that, but basically
they said because he had an unlisted phone number of some embassy on him, and because
he was believed to have tapped into a phone conversation at one point, that made him a
spy, and so they were going to charge him with espionage, and a whole host of other
things that they were able to come up with after a night of brainstorming with a box
of Dunkin' Donuts or something.
You know, when you want to charge somebody with a crime, it just takes a bit of imagination
to figure out what to charge them with.
And so, if Kevin is not sent to prison for longer than four years, the time he's already
served will have counted, and then he'll go straight to Northern California where he'll
face these new charges.
What does that mean?
Well, California has this wonderful three strikes, you're out rule that the crime wave
of this country has forced us to implement, and that means the guy could get life imprisonment
for this with no hope of parole, and that is the kind of society that we are living
in now.
Life in prison, no parole for people like Kevin Paulson and Kevin Mitnick, and I know
Kevin Mitnick was very concerned with this, too.
One of the reasons, you know, if you were facing the kinds of things he was facing where
they were accusing him of all kinds of bizarre things, one of which was stealing cellular
software worth millions of dollars, now come on, we all read the papers, we all know that
some judge somewhere in Georgia or Tennessee or one of those places is going to say, oh,
you copied software worth millions of dollars, that means you stole millions of dollars,
so you're a bad criminal, bad criminal, you go to prison, and that's another felony.
That could wind up putting you in jail for a very, very long time, if not forever.
So yeah, if you were facing that kind of thing, I don't think you'd be knocking on the Fed's
door trying to talk things over.
I know I wouldn't be.
A lot of things are going wrong with the way we're setting up here, and I guess most of
it is based on just very badly foreseen laws, very badly understood technology, and it
certainly won't be the last time we see something like this.
So we'll update you on the Kevin Paulson story, and we'll certainly bring you more on the
Kevin Mitnick story as that happens.
I think the most important thing, though, is not to forget these people, not to demonize
them in ways that the press has, because first of all, you never hear their side of the story,
you never talk to these people.
It's not the same as when we had our own fiber optic go to prison.
We heard from him.
We'll hear from him tonight.
You with us?
Hi, Emanuel.
Yes, I am.
See?
Now, we can do that with fiber, but we could not do that with the others.
There are other people out there that are facing all kinds of injustices, and you need
to keep that in mind.
You need to know that they're out there and that you have to somehow think that what you
hear, what the government says, what the newspapers say may not be the truth.
Does any of this surprise you?
No, it doesn't surprise me at all.
The sorriest thing is that at no point in time did Kevin Mitnick attempt to make any
kind of statement because of that fact, he kind of put himself in a really bad position
to be demonized by authors and journalists who kind of just made up all kinds of cockamamie
stories about him, about things that he allegedly did, and either they made it up as they went
along or they took the word of law enforcement officials who, in my opinion, are just going
to make up anything that they want to.
Anything that remains unsolved could now be the fault of Kevin Mitnick, simply because
he's on the run.
He could have did it.
He could have done it, rather.
He had a really good sense of humor, though.
I was talking to him about just that, about the fact that he gets blamed for everything.
And he said, yeah, I should take responsibility for world hunger while I'm at it.
I asked him if he ever wanted to say anything on the radio, and I think he was closer to
doing that now than he was ever before.
I guess he's kind of shy or something.
He just didn't see himself as, I don't know, maybe even worthy of doing it, but he
certainly was. And I guess the one thing that he conveyed, that he said he just wanted
people to know, is that he's innocent.
He didn't do these things.
He's, you know, he's totally misunderstood.
You know, and even if he did do everything they said he did, the kinds of penalties we're
looking at are crazy.
Even if Kevin Paulson did all the things that they said he did, I think four years in
prison more than overstates the case.
But not for the prosecutors.
They want more than that, a lot more than that.
How are we going to react? What are we going to do?
What are we going to say? Who are we going to talk to?
Well, you got to talk to your elected representatives because they have a lot of
power. And then when they get things wrong, they really screw things up.
Case in point, this guy, Senator Jim, how do you say it?
Exxon, Exxon, Exxon, Moron, Exxon, I don't know.
And he's a Democrat, too, which simply adds fuel to the fire that Democrats and
Republicans pretty much are cast of the same mold.
And they just land on different sides of their head, I think, when they when they come
out. That's the only.
Spare in mind, he is from Nebraska.
Is that supposed to be good or bad?
I think that's bad.
It's good for us and that he's far away.
But it's bad in that he has control over.
He has this far reaching.
Yeah. And he can make ridiculous laws.
I'll read you what I have here and then you can read what you have there.
He introduced this was as of February 2nd, he introduced S.
314, the Communications Decency Act of 1995.
I see a collective rolling of eyes throughout New York City right now.
Yeah. The Communications Decency Act of 1995.
Let's make communications decent and nice for everybody.
Well, in an effort to stamp out digital pornography, it makes all telecommunications
providers doing business in the United States from the phone companies all the way
down to offices that use local area networks.
It makes them all liable for the content of anything sent over their networks
to avoid the possibility of tens of thousands of dollars in fines and up to two years
in jail. Business owners will be forced to police their networks and monitor in
advance all messages sent over them.
This bill is substantially the same as the one he put forward last year.
He'll offer it as an amendment to the pending telecommunications deregulation
legislation in the United States Senate, which is expected to be enacted by July.
Last year, his amendment was adopted, even though many thought it hastily drafted
and poorly thought out. Fortunately, the telecommunications deregulation legislation
died. This year, a more conservative U.S.
Congress may be even more reluctant to challenge a morality amendment.
And its legislative vehicle, the telecommunications deregulation legislation,
stands a much better chance of passage.
So this actually could happen.
According to this press release, I'm reading from EMA Alert.
Action by the business community is needed now.
Please notify your corporate government affairs office and or your legal counsel.
This measure could be adopted as an amendment to the telecommunications bill in a
matter of weeks or potentially added to any legislation pending on the U.S.
Senate floor if business does not mobilize against it.
S-314 will not stop digital pornography, but it could devastate the messaging
business. If you are interested in further information, you can contact these folks
at the Electronic Messaging Association.
The telephone number is area code 703-524-5550.
And that's geared towards those agencies, those businesses that send messages that
act as as senders of data packets and things like that.
But it's also of interest to anyone who's an individual that makes use of such
systems. This could be very bad for everybody.
And again, it's it's Senate Bill S-314.
And Senator Jim Exxon, D-E-X-O-N, Democrat of Nebraska.
You have anything straight from the horse's mouth there?
I think we should just take a reality check for a moment.
I'm constantly doing that.
Here we have a senator rambling about something completely insane.
Bear in mind, he's from Nebraska.
This is one of the same parts of the world where farmers are blaming cattle
mutilations on space aliens.
Okay. And these are the types of people that are dictating how our computer networks
are supposed to be run. Meanwhile, they can't keep cattle from being mutilated by
space aliens.
Maybe they should enact a law against that, maybe.
Maybe that's what they should be doing.
There probably is a law against that. We just haven't heard about it.
Well, they can't catch the culprits.
In other developments, again, that's that's an important, important thing.
Why don't we give his phone number?
Oh, yeah. Give his phone number.
He doesn't have email, unfortunately.
He's too conservative for email.
But his phone number is area code 202-224-4224.
That's good. Keeps it simple.
Only use two numbers.
Do you know what I do now? Whenever I'm with a media person, I always say this to
them. I, you know, look them very straight in the face and I say very solemnly, I
turn down all the surrounding noise.
I tell them the true purpose of the Internet was to peddle child pornography and
nothing else. We've all known this from the beginning.
There, I've said it. But that's what they believe, these people out of Nebraska.
And that's what we we have to fight somehow.
Well, I don't know. He does have a fax number, too.
Oh, does he? Yeah.
OK, give that out as well.
Go ahead. It's again, it's area code 202-224 again.
And it's 5213.
Don't miss dial because I think all the senators have the same prefix and very
close to the same number. So you can get another one very easily.
No numbers at Nebraska there.
No, unfortunately not.
That's what 402 area code.
Is that what that is? Nebraska?
Yeah, it's one part of the world.
I've never had a need to call.
Well, that may change.
That becomes a regulatory headquarters of the country.
OK, now a couple other things that I think are of interest.
This comes from a user from America Online and we don't have any other details on
that, just somebody from America Online, AOL.com, which is the address which
provokes all kinds of hysteria from people because usually usually people on
America Online ask rather, let's just say non-pointed questions, rather flat
questions, questions that don't really make much sense and only only invite
sarcastic answers. So we start off with this.
Now, before you get all upset when you see the AOL in my address line, let me
just say this is my backup Internet account, which I'm using only because my
regular server is down due to hardware failure.
People always feel compelled to say that when they write from AOL.
Anyway, this isn't about AOL.
It's about us, the people who use the Internet, no matter how we access it, though
more to the point, it's about anybody who likes to frequent or even just browse the
alt.sex hierarchy.
Big Brother and the media have taken the Internet on as a new cause to beat their
drums to. What was up until a few years back just a place for computer geeks
suddenly has become a playground full of, quote, rabid sex monsters, unquote.
And that is the words of someone that was in the media fairly frequently.
The new boogeyman in the news is the computer pedophile, by far the most known
group to get picked on, certainly not the last.
So what we have now is everybody screaming regulate, regulate, regulate.
Never mind free speech, freedom of choice or rights to privacy.
They want to take all that away.
With obscenity laws, for example, just about any erotic work can be defined as
obscene, depending on who does the judging and who is that person in any case to
judge what is obscene. One man's opinion is not everyone's.
Everything from the most brutal pedo story to the softest consensual romance can be
defined as obscene simply because some judge or bureaucrat says it is or some
senator from Nebraska.
This could be further extrapolated to mere posts, not just stories and graphic
images. Take all the anti-homosexual flames in all that sex, that stories and all
that sex, that stories, that discussion.
Why aren't these akin to hate crimes?
Maybe not directly.
No, but Big Brother could always say that.
And since Big Brother rules, forget democracy, folks, it's just a word.
These days, Big Brother will be right.
What this means is soon you will no longer be able to say what you want to read or
look at what you want or even to, say, have something in your home for your own
private use, be it graphic sex depictions, erotic stories or even your own personal
diary. Your own personal diary, which you keep and say things about other people
without Big Brother having a say.
As for that last part, just look at the new exclusionary rule the U.S.
House of Representatives voted on only a couple of days ago.
Imagine if somebody accused you of, let's say, killing your boss and they came to your
home, no warrant, they're doing it in good faith simply because you worked with the
man and perhaps had a disagreement with him.
While they searched your house, found your diary in which you'd written, I'd like to
kill my boss and then use that against you.
Don't think it can happen?
If not, where are you living?
Fantasyland?
The point of all this, Big Brother has power like he has now for one reason.
We gave it to him.
You, me, everybody.
We let them take control and never told them to stop.
They grow powerful and we grow powerless.
For everything we let Big Brother take away, he'll take something more.
A good example, for instance, is the alt.sex.stories, which I frequent a lot and also
write for.
A lot of people would like to see pedo stories.
A lot of people would like to see pedo stories banned.
Okay, let's say they succeed.
Of course, next we'll ban the gay stories.
Fine.
But then let somebody, then somebody will say, you know, I don't like animal stories
either.
Let's ban them and on and on until finally somebody says, you know, these sex stories
are obscene and disgusting, even though they are about married consenting adults.
Let's ban them too.
Get the idea?
With any right, it's all or nothing.
Personally, racism disgusts me, yet I believe racists have as much right to shoot their
mouth off as anyone else, but not to commit violent acts, etc.
I'm talking about marching or making speeches.
Free speech, remember?
Of course, these speeches can lead to violence, but going after the speechmaker does no
good.
The violence will continue, speeches or not.
Once an idea is set in motion, it's like a ball rolling downhill.
It doesn't stop until it hits something.
I believe very strongly in the Bill of Rights that none of those rights should be
infringed, legislated, removed, or altered in any way.
Now, for example, and my favorite, the right of free speech shall have no exceptions,
that nothing shall be deemed hateful or obscene by any judge, bureaucrat, or otherwise,
and then thrust on the masses.
Let the people decide for themselves on an individual level.
As the old saying goes, one man's junk is another man's treasure.
Probably about the most intelligent thing anyone on America Online has ever written.
That's something that's bouncing around the net.
You may not see it if you don't read the alt.sex stories, but a lot of discussion on
freedom of speech is taking place there and in other places on the net as well.
It's going to be an ongoing issue for weeks, months, years ahead.
What we decide in the coming days is going to affect a lot of people in the future.
We have a special guest that will be joining us in just a couple of minutes.
This is Off The Hook.
Stay tuned.
Job on tension, tend your sky, douse your eyes.
Shadow strength to kill the tears of day.
Aim your stether, fountain rise, halfway spin.
Lost my patience halfway through all the time.
Comes and goes, comes and goes.
Comes and goes.
Comes and goes.
Comes and goes.
Peter, Peter, Peter, sweetie, wash your hands all night.
Not around to bail me out this time.
Would you be and would you be caught up to me?
Lost my patience halfway through, halfway spin.
Comes and goes, comes and goes.
Comes and goes.
Comes and goes.
Comes and goes.
Comes and goes.
Before we get into our special guest for the night, one more cheerful story to leave you with.
And that's a case coming out of Minnesota.
Yeah, really strange thing.
This comes from the Ann Arbor News.
A University of, did I say Minnesota? I meant Michigan.
A University of Michigan student ousted from his dorm room and sentenced, suspended by President James J. Duderstadt
after posting violent sex fantasies about another student on the internet expects to know by Monday if he can return to class.
That's right, he was suspended for writing a story.
Jake Baker, a sophomore linguistics major, was suspended Thursday after a campus investigation of his internet submissions,
especially a story that named the female student in its title and in scenes of rape, torture, and mutilation.
Now, he wasn't expelled as was reported by the news on Friday, but was suspended under a bylaw of the University of Michigan Board of Regents
that allows the president to take emergency action to maintain order on campus.
Duderstadt's action included removing Baker from the university computer system,
barring him from university property, and changing the lock on his East Quad dorm room.
In a letter delivered by campus police, as Baker left the class on Thursday,
Duderstadt suspended Baker for the remainder of the current winter term,
and further stated that he can only be reinstated by order of the president.
Very interesting.
I mean, the guy wrote a story, you know, but it involved another student, but it was a story,
and it wasn't, I don't think it was meant for that person to read.
It's kind of a weird case, you know, is this a proper action?
We have an expert here, not an expert, but you're a witness to this?
Well, I've been following this on the net and on the news.
The upshot, the latest on this is even more horrific from our point of view.
Not only has he been suspended from school, he's been arrested and held in federal prison
because of violating a law that supposedly regulates threats across interstate lines through telecommunications.
But wasn't this on a campus?
Because people read about this in Tennessee and other places?
Exactly.
In a federal prison?
The way that the story was originally discovered, in fact, is kind of interesting.
A University of Michigan alumnus who resides in, of all places, Moscow, Russia,
read the story on AltSec Stories and emailed back to the university that they should look into this kid.
Well, they read the story at the University of Michigan, suspended him,
and then the next day he was arrested by federal authorities.
How come that's not in the story?
Well, if you got that from my email to you, I was emailing them as I read them.
So there's probably something three or four messages along.
No, this is fairly recent. This is as of Monday.
Well, as of Friday last, he had been arrested.
That's incredible.
You know, suspending the person is kind of borderline.
It is something that's fictitious, that's written.
I don't think it was sent as a threat, per se.
It was something, a fictional account.
It's like a fantasy of sorts, albeit not a very healthy one.
But it's like, you know, someone talking to someone in a locker room, perhaps.
Well, in the interest of completeness, there's still a little more.
He apparently gave someone, whether it was the University of Michigan or the Fed's permission to look at his email,
they found email messages to someone in Canada stating,
and I'm trying to quote exactly, that fantasizing isn't enough, I'm going to have to do this.
And the two of them apparently, according to the wire services, AP notably,
were conspiring to hit her on the head, put her in a locker and drag her off campus.
Now, whether this was another story or an email message as to planning this, I'm not at all sure.
It gets more and more nebulous as it gets more and more serious.
That is interesting. I mean, what are the odds, though, of conspiring somebody in another country to...
I mean, you say things on the net that, you know...
Well, it's only 100 miles from Ann Arbor to Canada.
So 100 hard miles, but I don't know.
Giving permission to read your email is one thing in itself.
But whether or not this actually holds water, I don't know.
It seems like a very heavy-handed way to respond.
If there's some sort of a threat, you have to respond on the basis of the threat.
And we're not sure if there actually was a threat here.
All right, so it's been a very cheerful day so far.
Hackers in prison and people being punished for saying the wrong things at the wrong time.
Bills coming down from Nebraska that will change all of our lives.
So we're going to cheer you up a bit now.
We're going to talk about our favorite topic, caller ID.
And if you remember, last week we started talking about this.
It seems that 9x has not been entirely forthright in how caller ID works.
Or at least they don't really understand it themselves.
A lot of people that thought they were blocking caller ID...
They actually weren't blocking caller ID.
We have on the phone with us from Albany, Daniel Forrest, who works for Forrest Research.
In fact, runs the company.
And he's the person who discovered this in the first place.
Daniel, are you with us?
Yes, I am.
Okay, you want to tell us how you figured this out?
Well, sure.
My company does a number of things.
And one evening I was doing a favor for a friend of mine.
He's a private investigator.
And I was trying to locate a fugitive, someone who had jumped bail.
And during the course of that, I interviewed his girlfriend over the telephone.
His name wasn't Kevin Mitnick, was it?
No, I don't know.
Okay, I hope not.
Okay.
So locally, you know, I chatted with her.
And, of course, she wasn't very happy with the situation and kind of copped an attitude.
And I hung up the phone.
And about 11 o'clock that evening, I started receiving phone calls.
And they stretched into the morning.
And, you know, without getting into the onion of them, they got graphic enough.
And she read off my phone number to me and told me that, you know,
they were graphic enough to make me nervous.
So it wasn't just a star 69?
No, actually, you know, I considered that.
And I contacted a friend of mine out in Syracuse, which would be out of that call return area.
And I had him ring her up.
And then after she answered, hang up the phone.
You know, I thought that would eliminate it, but it didn't.
You had to cancel it out.
Yeah.
Didn't happen.
And ultimately, you know, through investigation, we found out that it really was on her caller ID box.
We actually viewed the box with my number on it.
So that's how I discovered it.
What did you do at that point?
At that point, I, you know, having, first of all, caller ID came to Albany, I think, in about November or December of 93.
So I had signed up for the blocking service in January of 94 and had verified it a number of times through NYNEX.
So at that point, I contacted NYNEX.
This was the first week of January of 95, so about a year afterwards.
And I talked with a NYNEX rep there who told me that caller ID was on my line.
Rather, the block was on my line, and that block was working.
And I argued with her.
And knowing a little bit about how the phone company works, requested that she call into my switch and verify it through the switch engineer, which she did.
And came back several moments later and apologized to me and said that, quote,
this is a common problem we're having with our March's computer system, and we apologize, but the blocking is on your line now.
And we've received a lot of complaints.
We're correcting them as they come in.
So that told you that the problem was a fairly extensive one.
That's right, yeah.
So how did you manage to get it to the public?
Well, at that point, you know, I started to work with NYNEX.
You know, needless to say, I was kind of upset.
And I asked NYNEX to please respond to this.
After about a week of enduring lies from NYNEX, in fact, the farther up the ladder I went, the worse the lies got.
And then hearing my situation be described from the beginning as a common problem to now after a week of trying to get NYNEX to tell me what was going on,
now they were saying I was a unique and isolated problem.
After a week of that, I went to the Public Service Commission.
You know, our PSC, I thought for sure, man, just call them up.
This is a great country.
They're going to take care of it for you.
Of course, yeah.
Yeah, no way.
You know what, man, I spoke with a guy named Jimmy Mock in the PSC down there in New York City.
You know what Jimmy told me?
He said the Public Service Commission doesn't handle caller ID.
You know, I don't know how much your listeners know or you know about this, but the PSC, the Public Service Commission, was responsible for passing the opinion on it.
So, you know, he was way off there.
Of course.
They're supposed to know about all telephone company features.
Yeah, right.
And I tried to express that to him.
It took me 15 minutes to try and convince him what his job was.
And he said no and basically said he wouldn't take a complaint on it because they didn't handle that.
He said they handled the negotiating bills and refusals of service.
I asked to speak to a supervisor.
He wouldn't put me through.
So, man, I was now getting really frustrated having been lied to by NYNEX and then having the PSC, you know, fail me.
Attorney General's office here at all, but he said that they could just negotiate between NYNEX and myself, which I didn't really see that as being anything useful.
And so that's when I said to hell with that.
I called the guy who works for me.
I had him.
He's a programmer.
I had him write some code and use some existing programs.
And we created a call restrict verification device, something you could call into our local number and it would read back your calling number.
So, basically, it's kind of like a call ID box for the blind.
Yeah, that's a very good idea.
I was hoping something like that would exist, actually, when Caller ID first came out because, as you say, there's no way to verify if, in fact, it's being blocked or not.
Yeah, there was nothing.
And, you know, the phone company's solution to this was, well, find somebody with Caller ID, you know.
Or get it yourself and get a second line while you're at it.
Yeah, you know, pay $6.50.
So, you know, I paid all that money out of my own pocket.
It's not good for my business to get a lot of publicity.
And I just felt that this was putting the public at too much of a risk.
So I paid to have a separate line set up and I approached some local media stations.
I convinced a local news station and a newspaper to run a story.
And they did.
And, you know, the anecdotal evidence just poured in.
Including a Public Service Commission employee who didn't have blocking on his line who was told that he did.
And 9X basically, you know, was quoted in – I have one of the articles here in front of me.
Marc Marchand of 9X said that we are unaware that this has happened to any other customer in the entire state of New York.
He said this is the first time we have seen an incident like this happen.
He also emphasized that 9X has received the service – has reviewed, excuse me, the service it provides to customers.
Who asked to have call restrict and could find no other instances in which the blocking feature had not been placed on the line.
So, you know, I guess if you would believe that, I mean, from those articles, it sounded like 9X had the situation under control and there was no problem.
And, of course, I didn't believe that.
And the investigation proved that in my area, the failure rate of 9X to place the blocking on the line was about 15%.
15%?
That's right. In my area alone.
So, 15% of everybody that was blocking their numbers actually had their numbers sailed right through.
In my area, that's correct.
That's incredible.
Yeah, it sure is.
And the worst part was, you know, they were telling you that it was on the line.
This was, for me, this was a nightmare.
Mm-hmm.
And it continues to be a nightmare.
Well, now, I just got a second letter a couple of days ago.
I received a whole bunch of letters from 9X saying that you have blocking on your lines.
I got one for every line that I have.
And it said that there's this potential problem.
I got a second letter saying that, in fact, one of my lines was having the number go through even though it didn't, you know, it wasn't supposed to go through.
Right.
And it's been in place over a year.
Right.
So, I guess I'm one of that 15%.
Yeah, damn straight.
Well, now, you know, in other areas, 9X said that the percentages varied.
You know, they're now saying that about overall 5%.
But it's hard to know because, you know, one of the things that's interesting is at the Consumer Protection Board,
which I think everyone in the state right now, the Consumer Protection Board is kind of fighting for their life with all these budget cuts,
should support because it's a tremendous organization and they really are looking out for us.
One of their lead investigators, the Director of Research and Investigation, was kind of confused by 9X's statement
since she reported that she had not only discovered that the blocking wasn't in place on her own home phone number back in February of 1994,
almost a year before my complaint and a year before Marchand,
Mark Marchand was stating that 9X never received any other complaints on this subject.
Not only did she complain in February, but she complained three times between February and August
and had someone else from her office call in to 9X and was told by a supervisor there that it was a common, ongoing problem.
So, here 9X is, you know, obviously there are some conflicts between what 9X is stating and what the anecdotal evidence was relating, you know?
Now, were you responsible for getting the letters sent out in the first place?
Yeah, I sure was.
I mean, 9X has thanked me privately for bringing this to light and, you know, that was one of my requests.
But I have to tell you, it wasn't easy and it continues to be a real struggle.
If you look at what our Public Service Commission here in New York has done compared to, let's say, Rhode Island,
there was a New York Times article by Matt Wald around February 2nd.
That same day in Rhode Island, their Public Utility Commission held an emergency meeting based solely on that article
and passed emergency orders that 9X had to cease and desist selling and taking orders for both Caller ID and Restrict.
They had to advertise in the papers in the entire state of Rhode Island to tell people that they were having a problem
in addition to checking the problem and sending out letters, etc.
Conversely, our PSC has done nothing like that.
It's, you know, it was a battle just to get to them.
I had to go through a senator's office to complain.
Incredible.
I know that they've also changed technically the way that you can block.
Now it's not star 67 as a toggle.
Star 67 will block and star 82 will unblock.
Yeah, and 82.
That's just for the per line, you know?
Right.
But is that related to this problem, to make it clearer to the person?
You know, to be quite honest, Emanuel, it's difficult to say.
You know, it's difficult to say whether or not that intermittent blocking was working at all.
It's really scary.
You know, it poses a real problem to undercover investigators.
Also, hey, let's look at O.J. Simpson.
You know, that's a big case in the news now.
A lot of domestic violence shelters had requested this,
and some of them have found out that, you know, their blocking wasn't in place for their center directors
who call, you know, sometimes 100 calls a week to very violent people.
So it's really a scary situation.
And NYNEX, to be quite honest, as far as I know,
has not released anything stating that they know technically exactly what's wrong.
I've heard them say that generally they know, but nothing technically.
Incredible.
What should people do who have gotten the second letter?
Well, people that have gotten the second letter have to make a decision here.
First of all, I would advise them, it's my opinion,
not to rely on the Public Service Commission to stand up for your rights.
So the first thing that they should do is decide what kind of potential threat, you know,
this violation of their privacy means to them.
I think the second thing that they should do is, one of the things they could do is call me at 518-436-7039.
Now, I'm not an activist, I'm not a social worker, and I'm not in this for money.
Everything that I've done so far is out of my own pocket, and I'm not a rich man.
But if you call me up and leave your name and your phone number,
I'll definitely try to get back to you and give you some advice and keep you updated on what's going on.
And definitely, you know, get the truth to you, which is what's real important.
The other thing is they should send a letter to the New York State Consumer Protection Board,
the complaint unit, and they're at 99 Washington Avenue in Albany, New York, at 12210-2891.
And again, my number is 518-436-7039. That's up in Albany.
Okay, if there are people out there that have problems with NYNEX, give us a call.
212-279-3400 is our phone number. We'll have time to take a few phone calls.
And this is definitely an interesting story, something that affects just about everybody in one way or another.
But when you said that you didn't have a technical reason, I was wondering,
FiberOptic, do you have any technical advice for NYNEX?
What's interesting is that the little babble that NYNEX tends to sneak into things when they're trying to explain the problem,
I noticed that he mentioned that the person at NYNEX mentioned the March system.
What's really interesting about that is that other people might not have caught this fact.
March is a fairly new system, at least in NYNEX. It's not new in the rest of the regional bells.
It's a system that was developed by Bellcore to replace the Mizar system.
And what this particular system does is it processes recent changes, a.k.a. service orders, on switches.
And it's supposed to do it all nice and neat and automatic.
There was a day and an age when switches first became automatic, at least in our area after the crossbar days,
that people were doing it by hand initially, entering in these service orders one by one.
Now, the thing that makes me wonder is that Mizar always seemed to work okay.
March isn't really doing anything all too differently.
Now, if you really think about it, blocking caller ID is really just another feature.
Just like 3-way or call waiting, you can think of it that way.
It's a feature that you either have or you don't.
If they're trying to blame the problem on the March system,
why aren't there people out there claiming to have subscribed to 3-way and not have 3-way?
Yeah, you know, again, that's not something that's official from NYNEX.
That's just something that I heard when I first called in.
And to me, really, technologically speaking, there's no way now that NYNEX can guarantee that this thing is going to work.
Even after, now they've gone through, they've corrected the problem manually on those switches.
But what's to say that, you know, five months from now, this isn't going to break down?
I mean, we know or I know that this is not the first time.
Connecticut, two years ago, when they introduced caller ID, experienced all-call restrict failure.
Now, the interesting thing about NYNEX is they have a habit of granting,
giving grants to organizations that complain too much.
One of the organizations NYNEX gave grants to was the Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
They have been one of the most outspoken opponents, obviously, against this call ID deal.
And in Connecticut, coincidentally, not only did they give a grant to that coalition,
but they also managed to keep it out of the press when it first came out.
So no one out there was ever notified, as far as I know, that their number was exposed.
Fascinating.
Yeah, it's pretty scary.
Something that we should note is that these MISAR, or AKA MARCH systems,
there's 14 of them that serve New York State.
And on each of those 14 machines, they might serve a couple dozen switching systems.
And these switching systems all together serve the phone service in all of New York State.
Now, that's an awful lot of switching systems to have screwed up on.
We're talking about hundreds.
And it's one thing to say that we messed up the processing of a single feature on one of these 14 machines, but all 14?
Unless it's something inherent in the system.
Yeah, or the software.
The software itself is flawed.
Let's take a couple of phone calls.
Okay.
Good evening, you're on Off The Hook.
Yes, hi. I'm calling to find out, can caller ID block?
Can it be overwritten so that a person can see the number on their display, even if it's blocked?
I could field that one if no one else wants it.
Go right ahead.
Yeah, it's my understanding that caller ID block, actually the information, the call number identifier, is transmitted out of band,
which is to say that it's not transmitted on the same channel that our voice is transmitted on.
Now, it originates within your switch, which means that there's something called the signal 7, right?
Fiber optic?
Yeah, signaling system 7, right.
And this caller ID, your information, originates within your switch.
When the block is placed on the switch, to my knowledge, there is no way that that block can be taken off in another switch
or the terminating switch, the destination that you're calling.
So essentially, if the information isn't transmitted originally from your switch, I don't know.
I can't see any way that any technology could remove, go into that switch and remove that block.
On the other hand, ANI, or automated number identifier, is transmitted in band
or on the same channel that your voice is transmitted on, and maybe there's some technology out there that could pick that up.
I mean, we know that ANI information, you know, anyone that calls an 800 number, your phone number is being taken.
So to my knowledge, the answer to your question is no.
There's no way to override that privacy block other than by the caller or the phone company.
Does this apply also for, say, New Jersey?
I'm sorry, what'd you say?
Is this the same, you know, would it apply for New Jersey that cannot be blocked?
Yeah, the, well, I'm not sure what your question is. I can't really hear you that well.
He's asking if the same applies for New Jersey.
Yeah, I think the technology is the same everywhere.
Also, I'd like to know, when does the caller ID, does it go national?
Supposedly in April, right?
Yeah, that's something the FCC just ruled on.
In other words?
They said that to provide per-line block would unfairly hurt the caller ID industry, and I guess that goes in in April, so.
Of course, the caller ID industry is more important than individual people.
Can I ask you also, this means if I call someone, say, in Hawaii, they would see my number even there, right?
Even if you had all-call blocking, I believe, right? All-call restrict.
Yeah, unless you dial the manual blocking.
Which is star six seven.
Star six seven.
So the federal guidelines are a lot looser than the state guidelines, and unfortunately, they supersede them.
You bet.
Another question related to this.
All right, last question. You want to take another phone call?
For caller ID to be extended, say, worldwide to Europe and all over.
Well, it's a possibility, I suppose. No one's really talking about that yet, but I think it's on the minds of some people.
Thanks for the call. Let's see if we can fit in a few more.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Yeah, hi.
Something interesting over here.
I'll turn down the radio.
I was at 9X, one of their main offices.
I had to see somebody upstairs, so I just wanted to dial up.
And they said, oh, you can't use that phone.
That phone's not working.
I said, well, can you get anyone in here to repair it?
And they said, well, not yet.
We haven't found anybody yet.
You should have volunteered your services.
No, I would not have helped if I had volunteered anything,
but I thought it was kind of strange right there in 9X itself.
You can charge in the hefty home premises visit charge there.
Wow, that's a good story.
Yep.
All right, thanks for calling.
I have an interesting 9X story.
This just took place yesterday, in fact.
I was with a camera crew.
In fact, there's going to be a piece supposedly on Channel 2 News this Sunday
about the ease of listening in on cellular phone calls.
You know, you basically turn on a scanner, and you turn up the volume, and there you go.
But they wanted to do a story on that, and it was kind of interesting the way we decided to do it.
We took the 2600 van, which looks just like a phone company truck,
over to the Long Island Expressway.
We pulled over to the shoulder, and the media people pulled behind us.
They have this car.
It looks kind of like an unmarked police car, I guess you could best describe it.
And so we're sitting there on the side of the expressway during rush hour,
and we're trying to figure out exactly what the best way to film somebody
listening to a cellular phone call on the expressway would be.
Suddenly this four-wheel drive vehicle comes from behind.
We can see it coming, and it's pulling over to the side of the road.
My first thought was that it was some sort of a state trooper or somebody
that was pulling over to see why we were there.
But no, the truck continued, pulled onto the grass next to us,
and stopped right next to the 2600 van, which looks just like a phone truck.
And on the side of this four-wheel vehicle was the sign 9X.
And there was this bearded guy that looked at us kind of curiously,
and then he motioned to one of us to move out of the way of the van.
We were kind of stunned by this development, so we just obeyed him without question.
And he saw, instead of 9X, it said 2600 Magazine,
and he just sort of smiled and continued on his way.
Now, keep in mind that a single word was spoken during this entire encounter,
but it led us to believe that 9X has this fleet of people that are out there
to save 9X employees in trouble, whether it's with the cops
or whether their vans are broken down or whatnot.
A four-wheel drive vehicle, I've never seen anything quite like this before.
And he was in and out of there in like 10 seconds.
So that was something.
Anyway, you can probably see that piece.
I say probably because sometimes things don't air when they're supposed to.
On the Channel 2 News, 11 o'clock this Sunday.
And the 60 Minutes bit, which was supposed to be on a couple of weeks ago,
will be on a week from this coming Sunday.
And that's not something we're really looking forward to
because that was with Mike Wallace talking about bestiality on the net and things like that.
Let's go back to the phone and see if anybody else has any interesting 9X stories.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Okay, go ahead.
Okay, that's very handy.
Camelot?
No. It gives me pause, but I have not heard of it.
And it's supposed to be out by the second half of 95.
Okay.
And I don't know.
Do you think the phone company will have anything to say about that?
Well, I'm not really sure.
Anyone have any ideas on that?
They might get angry or whatever, you know.
Why would they get angry?
Making long-distance calls, you know, for the price of a local call.
You know, I could talk to my friend in New Jersey, you know,
by calling up my internet account and talk to him, you know.
There's a little bandwidth problem involved.
I mean, calling up a friend in England,
you know how long it takes to unload a worldwide web page,
even one that's all text and three words.
Yeah, well, supposedly this thing broke through that or whatever.
Well, I'll believe it when I see it.
I think we need more details on this.
Yeah, I have the whole thing right here, but I'm not going to take your time.
And another thing, the other day I got one of these super NES entertainment systems, right?
Uh-huh.
And I wanted to open it up to see what kind of processor or whatever is inside, you know.
And the screws, you know, they're like, you can't open it, you know.
So I called them up and asked them, you know, how to open this thing.
And they wouldn't tell me anything.
They said, you know, we can't let you do that, you know.
Aren't they supposed to like, you know, it's your piece of property, right, you know?
Yeah, but I don't know.
Yeah, go ahead.
Well, I'd be glad to tell you what processor is in there so you don't have to open it.
I still want to see what it's about, you know.
You could smash a thing on the side of a wall.
Yeah, I was thinking about that.
Well, tell them what kind of processor it is, then we have to go.
We don't have time.
It's a 65C816.
It's the same processor that used to be in the Apple IIgs.
That's it?
That's it.
That's it.
With that knowledge, you can go far.
All right.
Thanks for calling.
Okay, Daniel, if you want to give out that information again as to how people can get a hold of you
and what they should do if they get the second letter and things like that.
Give me a call at 518-436-7039.
That's 518-436-7039.
Or write a letter to the Consumer Protection Board up in Albany,
at 99 Washington Avenue in Albany, New York, 12212-2891.
And I just want to say one thing.
I want to thank you for doing this because I think that most people don't see the importance of maintaining privacy.
For a lot of people, it's something that's not tangible.
They can't wear it, drive it, or spend it or anything like that.
It's like a ghost.
And, you know, until it's gone, they don't recognize the importance.
And for a lot of people like myself and the victims of domestic violence
or other people whose lives can be put in danger by this, it's a real tangible part of our life.
And pretty much it's for sale by NYNEX.
You know, it's a commodity to them.
And I don't think they need the money.
So if it makes you angry, give me a call, 518-436-7039.
I only accept real names and numbers, no hacked VMBs, please.
Okay, fair enough.
Well, Daniel, I want to thank you very much for your efforts and for continuing to stick up for people.
And I hope people do get in touch with you and get in touch with us, too,
if you want to spread information over here.
The WBAI address is 505 8th Avenue, New York, New York, 10018.
And the name of the program is Off the Hook.
Again, thanks for being with us tonight, and we'll be back again next week.
And until then, this is Manuel Goldstein saying goodnight for FiberOptic and everybody else.
Again, updating our top story, hacker fugitive Kevin Mitnick was apprehended earlier this morning.
We'll have more details on that as they happen, and we'll probably have something more on this next week.
Again, thanks for listening.
Stay tuned for the evening news.
Good night.
I hope that's understood.
Good evening.
In the news tonight, the Mexican government offers amnesty to the leader of the Zapatista rebels.
The GOP's contract with America promotes the rights of property owners, but at whose expense?
And in New York, reaction to the mayor's budget proposal,
which calls for the largest funding reduction since the Great Depression.
With these and other stories, I'm Jose Santiago in New York with Verna Avery Brown in Washington,
and this is the news for Wednesday, February 15, 1995.
First to Washington for the Pacifica National News.
John Salvey III has pleaded innocent to two counts of first-degree murder and five counts of assault with intent to murder.
The Massachusetts state charges arise from shootings at two Boston-area abortion clinics last December.
Authorities confirm a fire today, which destroyed a Planned Parenthood clinic in San Luis Obispo, California, was arson.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich says Republicans should be fighting the surgeon general nominee on the issue of White House honesty, not over abortion.
The White House originally stated Dr. Henry Foster performed one abortion.
Now it's escalated to 39.
Dr. Foster today met with senators on Capitol Hill, lobbying for their support for his nomination.
Palestinian police detained a human rights activist overnight,
and Israeli authorities arrested a founder of the Jewish settler movement.
Peter Shaw Smith reports.
U.S.-born Miriam Levinger had to be carried bodily into Jerusalem Magistrate's Court.
On arrest, she charged the government with Bolshevism and racist behavior.
Her neighbors in Hebron's Abraham Quarter are angry that she should face court for assaulting police last May
when what they call Arab terrorists roam free.
The other half of this controversial couple, Rabbi Moshe Levinger,
founded the Israeli settler movement in 1968 by taking over an Arab hotel in Hebron.
In 1990, he served three months in a plea bargain for shooting dead a Palestinian shopkeeper.
His wife's hearing was adjourned till June.
In Gaza, Arab lawyer Raji Surani, head of the city's Rights and Law Center,
was released today by the Palestinian Authority.
He was held overnight for criticizing the authority's new court system.
Tribunals have been set up at Israel's behest to try violent opponents of the Oslo Agreement.
Peter Shaw Smith, Pacifica Network News, Jerusalem.
House Democrats have been staging a series of parliamentary maneuvers
aimed at preventing a vote on a Republican defense bill.
One provision would direct the defense secretary to submit a plan within 60 days
for deploying an anti-missile defense for U.S. cities at the earliest possible date.
Democrat Nancy Pelosi of California charges the Republicans are giving a standing ovation for reviving Star Wars.
A standing ovation for Star Wars in this bill at the expense of readiness for American troops.
A standing O for Star Wars, which jeopardizes START, ABM, and other treaties, including chemical weapons treaties.
The bill would also require congressional approval in advance for U.S. participation in U.N. peacekeeping operations
and prohibit U.S. troops from serving under foreign commanders.
The secretaries of state and defense have said they will urge Clinton to veto the bill should Congress approve it.
The defense giant Raytheon is threatening to pull out of Massachusetts
unless unions, utilities, and the state give the company concessions.
Raytheon says it wants to cut costs by $600 million by 1999 to be competitive with rivals in Arizona and Texas.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting spent $92,000 to respond to a questionnaire put out by Senator Larry Pressler.
That's the same amount of federal funds provided to Native American radio station Keeley in Pressler's home state of South Dakota.
Pressler heads the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees federal funding for public broadcasting.
And those are the stories topping the news.
On Capitol Hill, Republicans are pushing a property rights measure that could profoundly change the face of the Constitution.
In essence, property owners are looking for the government to compensate them for any losses they suffer as a result of government regulations.
The measure is part of the GOP's contract with America and could seriously upset the nation's environmental laws.
Pacifica's Don Rush has this report.
The principle of compensation for property taken by the government is as old as the Constitution itself.
At the time, no one dreamed of the limits the government would be forced to place on property owners.
After all, there was land as far as the eye could see.
But today, there are all kinds of federal regulations that can limit what a property owner could do with his or her land.
That has big landowners up in arms.
Louisiana Congressman Billy Tozin complained that these regulations violated the Constitution that requires just compensation.
It doesn't say, comma, unless there's an endangered species on your property.
It doesn't say, comma, unless part of your farm is a wetland.
It doesn't say, comma, unless your woodlands have spotted owls in them.
It says, nor shall your private property be taken for public purposes without just compensation.
So the GOP decided to include a measure in its contract with America that would require the government to pay for the impact of such limits.
During a hearing of a House Agricultural Subcommittee,
the GOP brought forth a host of landowners who said they had suffered at the hands of the government.
Most involved federal laws protecting wetlands and endangered species.
One such witness was Randall Abbott.
His company owned 6,000 acres of farmland in the San Joaquin Valley near Bakersfield.
He said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents came to him
complaining that his farm was harming certain types of lizards and rats protected by the Endangered Species Act.
These agents interfered with the farming activities.
They actually harassed employees and management.
They went into the fields and stopped the drivers of tractors from conducting their duties.
They did this without any written accusation, without probable cause, or without any warrants whatsoever.
Abbott said the federal government demanded that he set aside a portion of his property for a habitat
and pay a mitigation fee of $300,000.
The case is still pending.
Critics of the compensation measure say if there is a problem with these regulations,
they should be addressed directly.
Ken Cook with the Environmental Working Group.
If we have a problem with the Endangered Species Act,
let's have a fair and full debate about the Endangered Species Act.
If there are instances where wetlands regulations are not working the way it was intended,
well, let's talk about that specifically rather than try and...