Part 1, Monday, April 3rd, 1.30 a.m. Part 2, Monday, April 10th, 1.30 a.m. An exploration
into the heart and mind of Rod Serling, a journey into the twilight zone, lurid details,
cultural impact. What has Rod Serling wrought? Part 1, Monday, April 3rd, 1.30 a.m. Part
2, Monday, April 10th, 1.30 a.m. Right here on WBAI in New York City.
And at just about 10 o'clock in the evening, you're listening to radio station WBAI in New York. It's time now for Off the Hook.
I cut myself while shaving. No, I can't make a cut. I couldn't get much worse. But if I could, I would.
I'll do it all for the best, expect the worst. I hope that's understood. I'll do it both.
And a great big hello to everybody. This is Off the Hook. Emmanuel Goldstein here with
you on this Wednesday night on the program that talks about telephone issues and computer
security, the latest hacker news, and everything else going on in this wild, exciting world.
CyberOptik is here with us. Good evening. Your microphone's not working. It's not. Oh,
now it is. Okay. Oh, you moved microphones. That's why I got all confused. Well, my headphones
aren't working, so I can barely hear what's going on. But I'll just have to deal with
this. Anyway, we have chapter two of our exciting saga, The Search for ISDN. And in
this week's episode, we actually get appointments for the phone people to come to our homes
and install ISDN lines. And Supposing, Fiverr, we let you go first this time. Tell us what
happened to you this week. Last week, you began by ordering ISDN. The saga began. Looking
at your face now, I can tell you don't yet have ISDN. No, as you can tell, I still look
rather sad. Well, last week, of course, I ordered ISDN, too, and I don't have ISDN yet.
I have an interesting story, but you go first. Okay. Well, what happened was that the order,
as originally taken, was incorrect. So they had to cancel the appointment to come and
install the line. That's sad. Yeah, it was sad. The problem was that, according to my
now, I could say I have a representative at 9X, who I've been speaking with regularly,
said that when you place an order for ISDN, it's different. Although you get a normal
telephone line, they have to provision the order differently because they have to install
all kinds of equipment in the central office. So they canceled the original order, and they're
proceeding to place a new order. So now, where I stand right now is my representative tells
me that if I don't hear from her by Friday, to call her. And she says that all this provisioning
and ordering is being done by fax, and that she has to get faxed back to be notified that
the order's ready. So now I'm basically waiting for what she says should take only eight to
ten business days. Well, speaking of faxed back, I used the old 9X fax back service over
the weekend to get the latest on their prices for ISDN. And you know, I called up and I
ordered the fax. You know, it was kind of neat to be able to do this because usually
it comes right in. You know, you get the fax immediately. But after doing this, the fax
didn't show up. It just did not appear. So I did it again, and it still didn't happen.
And a couple hours later, I figured they must have fouled up something, so I just tried
it one more time. Still nothing. Finally, very, very late that night, around 1130 or
so, all three of them came through at once. Really wasted a lot of fax paper there. But
that's how it works. You get the rates that way. That's the only way to really find out
what the rates are.
Incidentally...
Those rates are pretty bizarre, pretty strange. Some of it doesn't quite make sense. I want
to add, though, about that 800 number, 800-GET-ISDN. It hasn't been up.
What, it's not up now?
Since you... I didn't check it today, but since you got those faxes, it hasn't been
up.
Are you implying that I broke it?
No, I'm implying that something was wrong.
I broke ISDN. Oh, no.
Something was seriously wrong with it.
Actually, if anyone's going to break ISDN, it's going to be us. You know that. But that's
not a threat, it's just probably a fact.
Okay, what we're going to do then is we're going to try and call the fax back service
right now and see if we get a fax. Even though we don't have a fax machine here, that's not
going to stop us from trying to get a fax.
Okay, so the number is 1-800-GET-ISDN. And you say this number has not been up.
It just keeps ringing, unless they fixed it.
Okay, let's hope they fixed it.
Ah, they fixed it, they fixed it.
We're going to inquire about New York.
We're not a vendor.
We're not a channel.
That's us.
That's us.
What we're going to do is, we're going to ask if the BAI area, 212.279 area code, has
ISDN capabilities.
Okay, that's what we want to do.
212.279.
ISDN basic rate and ISDN primary rate are available.
For more options, press the pound key.
That's good news, isn't it?
To send the call, press 1.
Okay, we want more information, is that right? To get the fax?
Yeah.
Hit pound.
If you would like to check availability, press 1. If you would like to receive pricing, press 2.
Okay, I think that's what we want. We want to receive pricing, is that correct?
Yes. Press 3.
Yeah.
To leave a message, press 4.
Please enter the 9X area code for which you want pricing information.
I guess our area code, 212.
Please enter your 10-digit fax number.
Okay, we're going to enter a secret number here.
You entered 212.279.340.
If this is correct, 1.
To re-enter, press 2.
Okay.
Thank you. You will receive a fax of the requested information shortly.
For more options, press the pound key.
Try something.
You will receive a fax of the requested information shortly.
For more options, press the pound key.
Try something. Do more options.
You want more options?
Yeah, more options.
If you would like to check availability, press 1.
What, of the same area?
No, for a different exchange.
Press 2.
Okay.
Please enter the area code and exchange that you are inquiring about.
Okay.
Do 718.369.
You entered. ISDN is not available.
Now, note what they're saying.
That happens to be a prefix in my own central office.
They're saying it's not available, yet I ordered it and it is available.
Well, maybe that explains why you don't have it yet.
No, it's to illustrate the point that they don't seem to be updating the service very often.
You mean that that could be data from a long, long time ago.
Yeah, I don't know at what frequency that they actually update things.
Well, now, I had a bit more success last week.
I ordered ISDN and I actually got them to agree, though grudgingly,
to make an appointment to come out and install this ISDN line.
You have to get a special ISDN truck and all that and cart it all out there.
They don't really know what they're talking about.
One representative called it IDSN.
We're at that stage where it's still developing technology at 9X.
They said on Friday, Friday morning, bright and early, they will be out installing ISDN.
Since that particular appointment has been made, I've made some discoveries regarding pricing.
And this is what's bizarre, is the pricing.
What was the rate that we were able to...
When we got one of these faxes to a real fax machine...
By the way, our fax has not arrived yet.
When we got a fax, we looked at the installation prices.
You mean just for the line, right?
Just for an ISDN line.
Yeah.
And they are incredible.
Yeah, and I was told by my representative that that was wrong.
Well, never mind that.
Everything is probably wrong that they tell us.
But what does it say?
It actually said $225 for a residential installation.
And that if you were in an area where ISDN wasn't yet available, and you had to have it specially wired for you,
they would charge you extra money.
They would charge you an additional $75 for a total of $300.
Now, to upgrade an existing analog line to ISDN, how much does that cost?
It was only $24.
Okay, so it doesn't stand to reason.
You don't have to do a lot of thinking to say to yourself,
well, why not just have a regular phone line installed?
Maximum cost is $80.
That's the maximum.
Right.
Okay?
And then you upgrade it for another $24.
Well, $80 if you already have wiring.
Well, you do.
I mean, most people do.
So, that stands to...
Oh, our fax is here.
Hello, fax.
Listen to this.
This is our fax.
That's what a fax sounds like when it comes in.
So, if you ever get a phone call with these little beeps on it,
you're getting a fax.
But you don't know you're getting a fax because, well,
you don't have a fax machine to pick it up.
So, right now 9X is trying to fax us something.
Can you do a fax imitation?
I'll try to do my best fax imitation.
Okay, here comes a fax imitation.
How's that?
It hung up.
You made it hang up.
Well, okay.
Maybe it'll call back.
If it's good fax, it'll call back incessantly.
All right, so, we have a situation now where the pricing just doesn't make any sense.
And I'm thinking of calling them and saying,
look, come out and install an analog line.
And then, as soon as they do that, I'll say,
hey, you know what?
I want to upgrade this to ISDN.
Here's $20.
You know, go do it.
I don't know where this is going to end.
This is obviously the beginning of a very, very long saga.
Yeah, it doesn't make sense.
I explained this to my 9X rep, and she reassured me.
They don't know where they got that figure from in the fax bag.
But she says that they will not charge me more than what it would cost to install a normal phone line.
Right.
Well, the day is coming when we will have ISDN service.
What do you plan on doing with your ISDN service?
Actually, what I wanted to do, besides just making data calls or voice calls,
what I wanted to actually do was play with the X25 packet switch service,
because it seems to be a brand new thing,
as far as just seeing who's networked, who's out there.
Someone's hacking our phone lines.
They're moving one by one down all the phone lines,
trying to find the secret number that will make us think they're a fax.
But we already did this, so forget it.
Just give up.
Look at this.
They're going all over the place.
Now two people are doing it.
It's incredible.
They're just hopping all over.
Unless it's 9X, and we got them angry.
That's possible, too.
One by one, our phone lines started blinking until they all lit up.
So, yeah, I don't know quite what I'm going to do with ISDN yet.
I'm not sure.
I think I'll just experiment with it as a regular phone line with special equipment,
just to see what its capabilities are,
and then from there we'll just maybe upgrade other lines as well.
I did find a local Internet service provider in the city
that actually has ISDN access right now.
It's the only one I know of, and it's the Internet Channel.
Okay.
And they actually have a couple of Ascend pipeline boxes.
So right now you can actually make an ISDN call,
and they actually do gateway ISDN to Ethernet.
Pretty neat.
Yeah.
Pretty neat.
Okay, we have a couple of updates.
First of all, media news.
Let's update people on various media things.
I was told there's some sort of a story tonight on NBC about the nation running out of phone numbers.
I guess NBC just sort of found out about that.
We are running out of phone numbers, as we mentioned.
The 800 area code is going to be expanding to 888, which I think is very hard to say.
Call us toll-free, 888.
It's just, I don't know, it doesn't roll off your tongue.
It seems like an effort to say.
And 887, 886, 885, all those will be toll-free.
It's not intuitive, though.
If they had done it this way, if they had said, say, the 400 area code, 300, 400, 500, 600,
something like that, all toll-free, it would have been easier to remember.
Now 888, okay, what about 889?
Is that toll-free?
We don't know.
It doesn't make much sense.
But that's the way things are going to be in the future,
10-digit phone numbers of all different styles and varieties.
So that's something supposedly that was on NBC.
If anyone saw that, give us a call.
Let us know what they said.
Later on this week, perhaps next week, there's going to be a piece on CBS
that involves filming here at BAI where they were.
Remember that CBS person was here a couple of weeks ago?
I don't know what their piece is.
I think it's got something to do with spies or something like that.
Spies, yeah.
I don't know where we fit into that.
It can only be us.
Then a week from tonight, Discovery Channel has a one-hour piece,
another one-hour piece, not Hack Attack.
This is something in conjunction with time and their cyberspace issue.
Do you see the cyberspace issue?
No, I missed that.
That came out last week.
But this will be on next Wednesday, 8 p.m.
So it's right before our show, and I don't know.
We'll be good and mad, I guess, by the time we get on the air,
if it's anything like the other one.
Okay, and we have an update on the Bernie S. situation.
As we mentioned last week, Bernie S., who has been on this program many times,
is a consultant and expert.
In fact, he was on while FiberOptic was in prison,
talking with us about many things.
In fact, he also was with us when we drove you to prison, FiberOptic.
So it was quite an experience.
Now he himself is in prison, and this just gets stranger and stranger
as I read more about it.
It would appear that simply because he had in his possession a red box,
which is really when you come down to it, five beeps,
actually one beep five times, that's what a red box is.
We've done it on this radio program,
so I guess the radio program itself can be considered a red box.
But for having one of those, he has been in prison since March 13th
on $100,000 bail, and that's a really scary thing when you think of it.
This is a press release that is being distributed on the net,
and we urge people to spread the word about this
so more and more people can find out about it.
Several friends of Bernie S., who is known as Ed Cummings,
that's his real name, have prepared this press release
due to the fact that a man is being held on $100,000 bail
for possessing the right electronic components
to trick a pay phone into giving free telephone calls.
His promotion of these devices is not against any law in the land.
However, the governments of Delaware County, which is in Pennsylvania,
and the United States are acting as though their own laws do not matter to them.
Ed Cummings, also known to many in cyberspace as Bernie S.,
was arrested on March 13th for two misdemeanors of possession,
manufacture, and sale of a device to commit telecommunications fraud.
He is being held in Delaware County Prison on $100,000 bail.
This is his story.
On the evening of the 13th, Bernie S. received a page from his mail drop.
Some people he knew from Florida had stopped in at his mail drop
thinking it was his address.
They were looking to purchase several 6.5 MHz crystals.
These crystals were used to replace the standard crystal
on the Radio Shack hand telephone dialer,
and with a little programming, produced tones that tricked pay phones
into believing they had received coins.
These are commonly referred to as red boxes,
and get their name from an actual red box
pulled from a pay phone in the late 70s by some curious person.
Ed Cummings met these people at a local 7-Eleven
where he was to sell the widely used electronic timing crystals
for roughly $4 apiece.
The purchaser only had two $20 bills, and Ed Cummings had no change.
He went into the 7-Eleven to get some change to make the transaction.
A police officer noticed a van parked in the parking lot of the 7-Eleven
with several African Americans inside.
Well, there you go. Right away, there's something up.
As Ed was leaving the 7-Eleven, he noticed 15 police cars
pulling into the parking lot of the 7-Eleven.
Can't have vans with African Americans hanging out.
You don't know what's going to happen after that.
Next thing he knew, the police were asking him
if they could trifle through his car.
He said no.
Moments later, as he was talking to a detective,
he noticed another police officer going through his car.
He asked the officer to stop. They did not.
Remember, after 12 years of Reagan-Bush,
they can pretty much do whatever they want.
They confiscated a few hundred 6.5 MHz crystals,
which, as we mentioned, he sells for about $4 apiece,
and a large box of 100 dialers.
The police told him they would get back to him
and he could have his electronics back
if the contents of the bag were legal.
In the contents of the seized items was one modified dialer
that a customer returned after modification,
explaining it did not work.
In other words, it was a broken red box.
The next day, Ed Cummings was over at a friend's house
working on their computer
when eight to ten plain-clothed armed men
burst into the house
and ordered him and his friends to freeze.
They cuffed him and took him to a holding cell.
There, he was left without a blanket or jacket
to sleep with in a cold cell.
That evening, the Secret Service had been called in
when someone figured out what the dialers and crystals
would do when put together.
The United States Secret Service found his home and entered it.
The next morning, at his arraignment,
he was finally told of the charges he was being held on.
There were two misdemeanor charges of manufactured distribution
and sale of devices of telecommunications fraud
and two unlawful uses of a computer.
His bail was automatically set to $100,000
because he didn't talk with the police
without his attorney present.
Therefore, he was labeled a troublemaker.
The Secret Service presented to the judge
a nine-page inventory of what they had found in his home.
On that inventory were 14 computers,
two printers, boxes of BIOS chips
for the systems he worked with,
EPROM burners, which the federal agents had labeled
cellular telephone chip reprogramming adapters.
EPROMs are used in everything from automobile computers
to personal computers.
They also confiscated his toolbox of screwdrivers,
wire clippers, and other computer-oriented tools
he used for his consulting jobs.
The judge dropped the two unlawful uses of computer charges
due to the fact that the evidence was circumstantial
and the county had no actual evidence
that Ed had ever used the computers that they were talking about.
As of now, Ed Cummings is still in Delaware County Prison,
awaiting his trial, which has not yet been scheduled.
And, of course, raising $100,000
is not something that's very likely.
That's everything we know.
Sound familiar?
It sounds like business as usual
where law enforcement's concerned.
But what I can't understand is
what are they trying to charge him with?
I mean, has it been illegal to possess a kit on how to build...
I mean, they sell these things in popular electronics.
You know, you can buy kits to do all kinds of things,
but actually using it to do something illegal,
that is what is illegal.
Now are we going to say that having the components together
to make something that could be used to do something illegal,
that in itself is illegal now, too?
You know, it's a very murky ground.
It is in California.
Well, I've heard that.
I've heard in California that's true,
but it's very hard to enforce.
And, you know, the whole thing with red boxes
is that everybody's got one of these things,
but the thing that's illegal about it is using it.
Right.
If you're caught using it, that's when you get into trouble.
But, you know, even if you're caught using it,
$100,000 bail?
Does that make any sense?
I think they were watching that new program on USA,
the William Shatner show, the tech war,
the whole tech thing.
Maybe they think...
Didn't they originally think that Ed was doing a drug deal?
Well, that's what they thought, you know,
when they had the van filled with African-Americans.
Yeah.
They, you know, parked in a 7-Eleven.
They originally thought there was some sort of drug deal going on.
Of course, when they got there with their 15 cars
and realized there wasn't, I guess they figured
they wanted to get something for their money, you know,
and they concocted this whole thing.
Maybe it was all the talk about crystals.
Well, remember the story we read last week?
Yeah, the story we read last week from the Philadelphia Inquirer
made Ed out to be some crazy person,
that he spent hours in his room alone sometimes,
and he had books on explosives
and how to get even on people and spy catalogs
and all kinds of things like that.
So after reading that, yeah, $100,000 bail doesn't seem like enough.
But when you know the person, as we do,
and when you realize what this is really all about,
it seems like every time we examine things a little bit further,
like with the Kevin Mitnick story, with your story,
with this story,
we see that the facts just don't support
what they are saying, what they are doing.
So we don't have an address for him as of yet.
We're going to get that.
And we don't really have much else in the way of information.
It's been kind of hard to find out.
But I'll spend the next week trying to get more firsthand information
on the Bernie S. case.
And, of course, if you have any questions, feel free to call us,
and we'll do our best to answer them.
It's a scary world out there, you know?
Anybody could just be stopped.
And, hey, you got a crystal on you?
You think a crystal could be used for something illegal?
Go to jail.
Okay, today's daily news.
Caller ID lets people who have bought little devices
see your phone number when you call.
That's fine, but it's also possible to block caller ID
so your number does not pop up whenever you use the phone.
We have done that with our phone for privacy reasons above all.
One day, to validate a new credit card,
I dialed an automated 800 number.
In less than 30 seconds, the recording told me
that my phone number was verified.
Where was my block on caller ID?
After many calls to 9X, I finally was advised
that 800 and 900 numbers override the caller ID block.
The 911 emergency number is not technically sophisticated enough to override,
but business operations and phone sex lines are.
This has got to be viewed as fairly disgusting.
Well, I can sort of see this person's point,
but he's woefully misinformed as far as how this actually works.
It's not a question of overriding.
800 and 900 numbers use ANI, not caller ID.
Yeah, nothing to do with caller ID whatsoever.
It's a different technology.
As for the 911 number, I always assumed that they could see your number.
No, actually they can't.
Right now, if you check your phone bill,
you'll notice that for the past couple of years
you've been paying for the new New York City Enhanced 911 system,
which doesn't exist yet.
Why are we paying for it then?
Because they're billing it back to us
basically for a system yet to be announced.
Well, a lot of the rest of the country already has this system
called Enhanced 911, where you call something,
and not only does your phone number show up,
but your name, address, even in some cases a map of your house,
where it is, if you have chemicals that are going to explode,
and various things that you have told them, supposedly.
Well, thanks to 9X, one of the biggest cities in the world
does not yet have Enhanced 911.
Fascinating.
But if you call the police and hang up,
and call them again and keep hanging,
they know your number. They do.
Well, chances are they're going to call the phone company
and have the call traced.
I mean, couldn't the police just have regular caller IDs?
Yeah, nowadays they can.
Nowadays, sure.
All right, well, that's something.
Hey, I've got an interesting story.
This just happened to me today.
First, I want to show it to you.
Check that out. What do you think of that?
Do you see that? That's amazing.
Your signature on a receipt.
Oh, yeah, it's my signature on a receipt.
That's what it is.
But the way this whole thing transpired
is totally different than any other receipt
I've ever signed in my life.
Now, normally when you make a credit card purchase,
it used to be you had to, you know, chunk the thing,
and you had several cards you had to sign through.
Now a little printer prints out this slip of paper
and you sign the bottom of it.
But as of today, I saw a new and different way of doing it.
The person said to me,
I need you to sign your name within the box.
And I noticed that she wasn't ripping off the piece of paper.
She was holding the piece of paper onto the machine.
And I looked closer, and I realized that when I signed my name,
it was actually being recorded into the machine.
And this little light went on saying, sign.
As I was signing, it felt the pressure of the pen as I was signing,
and it was registering the fact that I was doing this.
As soon as I finished signing,
I heard a dial tone, the thing dialed away and verified my identity,
my signature, my purchase, everything.
Wow.
This is the new way credit cards are going to be verified.
You ever sign a UPS package?
Sure.
They record your signature digitally.
Yeah.
Well, they're doing the same thing now for every credit card purchase,
at least for this one.
I imagine this is the prototype of something new.
So, yeah, take a good look at that.
I wish I could show the people over the radio,
but hey, it's not my fault it's a radio.
All right.
212-279-3400 is our telephone number.
What?
Do you want to see it up close?
A new thing about Satan.
Satan?
Yeah.
Oh, tell us about Satan.
Oh, yeah.
A new update about Satan.
For those who don't know, Satan is an acronym.
You like saying that, don't you?
Yeah.
Just like saying Satan.
Okay, fine.
Tell us more about Satan, Fyber.
It's an acronym for a tool, a security tool,
that was written by a security specialist named Dan Farmer,
who is well-known on the Internet.
He developed Satan along with a colleague of his from the Netherlands.
And all the hoopla is that Dan Farmer is going to be releasing Satan to the world for free.
Oh, joy.
On April 5th.
Is that prophesied somewhere?
That Farmer would release Satan one day.
Because of this fact, he was actually fired from his job at Silicon Graphics.
Yeah, there was a big article in the New York Times last week about this.
Now, the update that I read in this brand-new issue of Information Week,
there was a whole big spread with pictures of Dan Farmer and more updates.
Basically, since SGI, Silicon Graphics, had a relationship with Netscape,
Netscape being the people who make the nice web browser,
he actually designed the interface for Satan around Netscape.
And they had a picture of it.
Basically, it looks like a web page.
It has a twisted-up picture of Satan's face, I suppose.
And it has a little box in the middle that allows you to type in the name of a domain on the Internet.
And then it allows you to click whether you want to attack that machine specifically,
or a subnet, or every machine in that domain.
And underneath that, you can click whether you want to do just a really quick check,
a medium check, or a super-duper, really thorough security attack on the site.
And that's basically it.
And it'll try any number of security attacks on the site
and come back and give you a report of how it's vulnerable.
Now, those in the Don Parker school of thought...
He was quoted in the article.
I'm not surprised.
He tends to think the exact opposite, that these kinds of tools should be restricted,
not given out to people.
And apparently, at least at SGI, that thought prevailed.
I think it wasn't so much that.
They were worried about lawsuits.
I think it was more legal.
But he wasn't releasing it as SGI.
He was releasing it as himself, right?
Yeah, but people could say he was an employee of SGI,
and he developed it on SGI's time, on SGI's computers.
But Don Parker's quote was kind of funny
because he had the typical knee-jerk reaction that this is bad, this is wrong,
that low-level hackers are going to use this,
who won't even understand security.
They could just load up Satan and point and click,
and all of a sudden they'll be able to access a site or an entire domain.
And then the paragraph right after that,
they had a quote from someone from Trusted Information Systems, TIS,
which is another security consulting firm,
saying that anyone who thinks that Satan does anything harmful or dangerous
has their head in the sand,
and that it's a completely ridiculous response to say that,
forgetting the fact that Satan doesn't do anything new and different.
All the security holes that Satan checks for are known and published.
And more importantly than anything else,
it allows any system administrator a simple point-and-click interface
to come back and tell them exactly where they're vulnerable.
So on the one hand, you have professionals saying that
the risks are outweighed by the fact that
even an unskilled system administrator can learn to protect their site.
And on the other hand, you have crazy people like Don Parker at SRI
saying everyone should remain uninformed at all costs.
Well, if everyone remains uninformed,
then suddenly the job security consultant becomes that much more lucrative
because he's the only one speaking the language, and you need him.
You need a translator, too.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Hey, does anyone know Morse code?
No.
Okay, you've got to tell us what this means.
Okay, sorry, you only get one chance.
But if anyone out there got it, let us know,
because that's what happens when you turn on this neat device
that I just got called the Scout,
which allows you to listen for frequencies or monitor for frequencies.
If someone were to transmit anywhere around this area,
I'd immediately see the frequency, and it would beep to let us know this.
So this is an important thing to have when you're wandering around
looking for interesting things to listen to,
or if you're wondering if your room is monitored,
some sort of a transmitter someplace,
it's important to have these things.
So we'll be playing with that in the weeks to come.
We'll let you know what we find.
Okay, 212-279-3400 is our phone number.
And shall we go to the phones?
Sure.
Let's do it.
Good evening.
Hi.
Hi, you're on the air.
Hi, just a minute.
I'll turn my radio down.
Hi, about the iPhone.
Which we have not talked about at all today, but okay, yes.
iPhone being the way of transmitting voice over the Internet live.
I haven't actually gotten to use the iPhone yet.
I've been trying, but it's no avail.
But I have a theory, an idea.
Could you tell that to a dial-out,
and then with your iPhone call, like, say, a voice number,
someone who doesn't have a connection to the Internet,
and talk to them with the iPhone through the dial-out?
No.
No, not exactly.
Well, it depends.
Do you believe in magic?
No, iPhone doesn't actually use normal telephone numbers.
It actually uses Internet addresses.
Basically, someone with a direct connection to the Internet
or a SLIP or PPP account,
whereby using their high-speed modem through an Internet service provider,
they seemingly have a direct connection to the Net.
But you need an address on the Net.
It has nothing to do with the public telephone network whatsoever.
I understand, yes.
I've been trying to connect.
Do you have to use Winsock to connect to the iPhone?
If you're using a PC, you need some sort of dynamic,
what are they called, dynamically linked library.
Yeah, you need some sort of Sockets module.
Winsock is the easiest one to get on PCs since it's free.
Yeah, that's what I have.
It should expand in the months ahead.
Yeah, that's what I thought.
And I had another question for you about craft access computers.
Yeah, the ones phone companies use.
What exactly do they use them for?
Well, there's a couple of different models of craft access terminals.
There's the older yellow ones that look like oversized test sets
that had a screen behind the earpiece with a little joystick to scroll
and a keypad behind the mouthpiece.
There were more enhanced versions that looked like little palm-top computers.
The most common thing that they were used for
was for a repair service technician to pick up an order.
Basically from dispatch to find out where their next job was going to be,
the address, what the actual order was.
And then when they were done with the work, market is being completed.
And some craft access terminals actually allow access to test phone lines and so on.
And a lot of them have an electronic mail feature.
Okay, all right. Thanks a lot.
Okay, thanks for calling.
See you. Bye.
212-279-3400 is our telephone number.
This is off the hook.
You know there was a train disaster in Jamaica this past week?
Really? Do you know about this?
I heard this on the radio the day before that there was going to be.
Yes, no kidding.
There was going to be a derailment at Jamaica
where a diesel train was going to hit an electric train.
It wasn't really a derailment.
It was a planned disaster so they could see how well these things worked.
So bright and early Sunday morning,
me and a couple of other press people went over there to see just how this thing worked.
Too bad we didn't have this frequency counter then
because that certainly would have yielded quite a few frequencies.
But the way it worked was basically we all stood up on the bridge,
just west of the Jamaica station on the tracks.
There's this little overpass.
And we all stood up there and the police said, okay, we're about to start.
And then over the radio they actually said,
we have a report of a derailment at Jamaica station.
And then from around the corner all these fire trucks that had been waiting there
suddenly started careening around the corner to get there as quickly as they could.
And they got there pretty fast.
And then once they got there they all kind of put out the fake fire.
They managed to get smoke to come out of the train.
You know what's funny was at one point they said the fire is out
but the smoke kept coming out.
Apparently they couldn't turn off whatever smoke was being generated.
So they didn't really do that.
Then they started carrying out these fake victims who had a tough time not smiling,
especially when we were saying funny things in front of them.
It's awfully hard to take pictures, you know, for the media,
to take pictures of victims who are smiling.
So they had all these.
It's fascinating to watch a disaster in the works.
They have little tests and I guess progress reports that they get back to each other on
and they have meetings about this.
They do this several times a year from what I hear.
It's the first time I've ever heard of this.
Yeah, I've never heard of it myself.
And if they hadn't mentioned it on the radio I never would have known at all about it.
I don't know who they tell about these disasters.
But the funny thing was just watching all these people
running around with their equipment, radio communications,
you would never know, you know, walking down the street if this is real or not.
I mean, it sure looks real, but it was totally fake.
You know, is it a movie? Is it a fake disaster? Is it a real disaster?
It's hard to tell, even with radio communications, you know,
unless you know what to listen for.
You may never know if it's really happening.
So, in case people were wondering what was going on in Jamaica last Sunday morning,
that's what it was.
Fake disaster this time.
Okay, 212-279-3400.
Good evening, you're on the radio.
WBAI?
Yes.
Ah, good.
Two points.
This is probably old news to you, but we got a letter from the phone company
saying that not all the, we have caller ID blocker.
I don't know, is that the right name for it?
Yes, and it wasn't working on a lot of phone lines.
Was yours one of them it wasn't working on?
Right.
Okay.
I think I remember a couple of occasions when, well,
phone company operators evidently overcome it anyway.
That's understandable.
But I think I recall, only not clearly,
several occasions I was surprised that somebody knew my number.
You know?
So I guess, I don't know, I suppose they're working on that.
Well, the operator knows your number, but that's not through caller ID.
I know, I know.
They know the number anyway.
I asked them and they said, well, telephone company operators will know the number.
Right.
Now, as far as regular people knowing your phone number?
Yeah, I think I've been surprised on some occasions.
That's, yeah, that sounds like caller ID.
I don't see, unless you were calling an 800 number or something.
Straightening it out, I don't know.
Also, when I was calling in, is there a, I know on long distance
they cut you off after about 24 rings now
so that you can never stay plugged into something
where it's important that you stay plugged into it
for the person on the other end eventually to answer, you know?
Right.
It's not just long distance, it's also local.
That's a good question because I've stayed on here,
but I thought I might be getting to the top of the queue.
I wasn't, you know, I've got a, the plunger is in the handset,
so I thought maybe I had tilted it the wrong way
and turned it off, you know, because I moved wrong, you know,
with my handset and my face and everything.
Okay.
But maybe I just stayed on long enough, they get to the top of the queue
and you're about to pick up the phone and they cut off the phone number, right?
Uh-huh.
Well, that's what they do.
How many rings do they give you?
Well, it's hard to say exactly.
It depends on what your circumstances are.
Are you in New Jersey?
No.
Are you?
Brooklyn.
You're in Brooklyn.
Okay, so you don't go long distance to get here.
Right.
You go through 9X.
So what's going to cut you off will be our central office,
the 212-279 central office, which has, I don't know,
a couple of minutes, three minutes, four minutes?
I don't know what it is exactly.
Something like that.
Yeah, all the digital offices seem to have some sort of an upper limit.
It's longer than long distance companies allow you, though.
If you call from New Jersey and you go through AT&T or MCI or something like that,
they're going to cut you off before the 212-279 exchange cuts you off.
Can various, like a call-in station
or any other number that had a reason to let its caller stay on a queue longer,
can they ask the telephone company to overcome that?
Of course, at an appropriate, exorbitant fee.
Well, I mean, it's certainly doable, yes.
It's definitely doable.
Whether or not the phone company will do it is doubtful at best.
And, yeah, you're right, they probably would try to charge us,
even though they're certainly not losing money from this.
I mean, worst-case scenario,
10 phone lines are ringing without collecting money for them.
I mean, I'm sure that's going to break the phone company right there.
Can you, if you have sufficient engineering ability, do it yourself,
or is there a legal or engineering reason you can't?
I think there's some pretty clear-cut legal reasons
why we can't be in the phone company computer making adjustments,
even though we'd like to be.
Yeah, I don't know.
I didn't know if it could be done at the local, what do you call it, the local number.
Everything is programming.
Everything is a computer program.
Okay, thank you.
Okay, thanks for calling.
What do you think it would take to do something like that?
I can't even imagine.
I don't know exactly at what point they started doing that.
It seems to be every digital exchange, 5 ESSs and DMS-100s.
They weren't always like that, though.
You mean DMS-100s and 5 ESSs didn't always time out?
No, they would eventually time out, but it used to take a very long time.
I remember crossbars and I think 1As, too.
It would virtually ring forever.
They would ring forever.
I mean, there's really nothing wrong with that because very few people are doing it.
And if you're letting a phone ring 100 times, it's probably for a good reason.
I don't know.
Or maybe for a bad reason.
But the thing is it just doesn't seem like an economical reason to cut it off after 24 rings or however many.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Oh, terrific.
You guys are going to have to figure something out because what that guy said was absolutely true.
You ring, you ring, you ring.
You guys are talking.
It was fascinating stories.
But we're like biting our nails waiting to see if they'll cut us off before we get on.
Yeah, it's all chance.
I'm going to drop this, but is there a way for you guys to put us on hold or something?
That's the only way I can think of.
Otherwise, people are going to ring in and get hung up on us.
Well, there have been rumors of a new phone system being installed here.
But then again, those rumors have been around for quite some time.
Maybe we'll be able to do that.
But keep in mind that as soon as we pick up the phone, that's when billing begins.
I realize for most people around here it doesn't really matter.
It's a local call.
Yeah, no, I understand.
It's just a question of it's an hour show.
You think you're going to get on, and boom, the rug's pulled out from under you.
On the other hand, though, we do want only the strongest people to get through.
People that are able to survive the wait.
We don't want someone who's going to give up after a mere five minutes.
We know that people that are on here are cheating, of course.
Right.
People like you are, you know, you'll stick with us for the long run.
I'm, fortunately, for whoever.
You asked before, I sort of have an answer one way or the other.
The NBC report you were talking about?
Yes, did you happen to see that?
Yeah, they just basically, it was like a basic fluff piece.
But it was kind of informational because I don't think they said anything no one ever knew about
that did a decent amount of reading.
I think there was a telephone area code FAQ on the Internet.
And it has been on the Internet for a long time.
Someone's been posting a huge file about the way that Telcor, or Cortel.
Belcor.
Right, Telcor.
No, Belcor.
Area codes?
Yeah, Belcor.
Belcor, excuse me.
Yeah, that's it.
And basically, they said that, you know, all the zero and one rules are going to go out the door.
And if you want to call your aunt down the hall, you're going to have to dial an 11-digit number.
So, aside from that, there wasn't much more than saying that telephones and everything else are taking up bandwidth.
So, nothing much new on the horizon.
But now more people know about it, obviously.
The other question was Internet access.
There are a few number of Internet providers that provide ISDN access.
And you were talking about, one of you were talking about Internet channels who has, I think, two lines up.
If I may pitch something, I don't have an interest in this company, but IngressCom has like 10 lines, or they claim to have 10 lines.
What is that company?
IngressCom, I-N-G-R-E-S-S, is one of those basement type of operations.
Okay.
And, yeah, they snagged 10 ISDN lines.
And they proudly emblazoned that fact on their shell account.
So, if anyone's interested.
And they only charge like, I think, 25 flat for a PPP account.
So, both ways, it's pretty good.
Okay.
All right.
Well, thanks.
I don't know if you knew about that or not.
I didn't myself.
But, then again, there are lots of companies out there right now.
Well, they're all standing in line like we are.
Yeah.
The other question I wanted to ask you was, basically, relate my experience with ISDN.
I hope I can sort of give you a quick summary of what happened.
I've been sort of trying to do this for three months.
I don't know how far, how long you guys have been trying to do it.
But, anyway.
We've been trying straight for about two weeks.
Two weeks.
Yeah.
I mean, we've been thinking.
You young, naive, idealistic people.
Well, we wanted to get ready, you know.
We knew the state was coming.
Three months ago, I could safely say that, from the president on down, 9X knew nothing about ISDN.
Or, at least, they claimed not to.
And, first of all, they don't have a consumer division that will treat ISDN.
I don't know if that's changed.
But, last time I called, which was about two weeks ago, everything was handled through the business office.
Actually, they do have a residential ISDN person now.
Yeah.
It's only one guy.
But, if you reach him, he can answer questions.
Are you talking about the product manager?
Was that a product manager?
I think, ultimately, they all report to the product manager.
But, my representative is in Manhattan.
It's a woman.
Okay.
And, she knows everything about residential ISDN.
Oh, good for her.
Because, there's another woman in Long Island who apparently gets her share of the Queens accounts.
Which is where I am.
Well, I had a man on Long Island.
And, he took care of the Long Island accounts.
Really?
Yeah.
So, there's at least three people on 9X that seem to know something about this.
There's another person that, apparently, everyone reports to.
Well, that's only fabled.
In any case, it was like pulling teeth.
No one knew.
If you asked them, some of the representatives are pretty funny.
They would get kind of angry because they wouldn't know.
And, they thought you were like pulling their leg.
Yeah.
Well, they've had their share of four-letter acronyms that have been thrown at them over the years.
Well, I had the same experience with 800.
I was laughing my head off because I had the same experience with 800 at the ISDN.
I don't know if it's improved.
The prompt sounds a little different.
When I called, it took like 10 hours.
In the middle of the night, my phone rang about five times and gave me five blank sheets of paper saying this fax is not available.
The one that I did get was dated in May 1992 saying how wonderful business ISDN was going to be for years.
So, the prices were outrageous.
When did you get this fax from 1992?
That was their latest document.
That's their latest one.
I don't know.
I hope you guys have better luck when you get your faxes.
Well, by next week at this time, we will have something to say because supposedly at least one of us is supposed to have ISDN by then.
So, we'll see what that actually results in.
Okay.
Just to wrap things up positively, absolutely the last thing.
9X, obviously, like you heard about some of the prices.
Those were quoted to me as well.
Now, they're telling me that if I convert an analog line, my current analog line, I'm more than happy to upgrade, I think, for like $20.
But they have to have someone come in to look at the line.
And I said, are they going to install the line?
No.
They have to look at it.
Why do they have to look at it?
Because they have to physically examine the line.
They couldn't give me a better answer than that.
And they said, is he going to do anything?
No.
But he's going to charge you for an on-site visit.
That'll cost like $160.
So, it's like, well, why don't you just convert it from the central office?
And they couldn't have an answer for that.
And they said they could, but the guy still has to come out and physically look at your line.
It's a fascinating company.
The only difference between this and any other baby bell provider that I know about, PacBell has their own web server.
I think five out of the seven bells have their own web page, including ELEMICBELL, just in our backyard.
NYNEX does not.
And I believe there's one out in the west that doesn't.
But anyway, all the others will convert your analog line in maybe two days.
NYNEX says that even when they convert it, your line has to be off the hook for eight days, which is lovely for those of us who don't want another line.
Off the hook?
And PacBell will charge you $125.
Most of the other companies will charge you about that.
But they will waive it if you sort of, quote, unquote, pledge to keep the service for two years.
I think every one of them is pretty decent with that.
I don't think anyone's going to change once they convert to ISTN.
Well, I think once competition is introduced, NYNEX may not be around for two years.
Crazy.
And they all say if you make calls within local access, within your local calling district, it's a flat rate call.
It may be $0.12 versus $0.10, but it would be $0.12 if you're on an hour or if you're on a minute.
NYNEX has the infinite wisdom of charging everybody a penny a minute.
Now, if, you know, obviously a penny a minute, big deal.
It's a digital phone charge.
If you're on an Internet server, I'm sorry, if you're on an Internet server, and you're on the line like 40 hours a day, that's $24.
And they can't, I mean, for business, maybe you can get away with it.
In fact, I think most Babybels charge a minute rate.
But if it's a residential consumer, and you're actually, I think NYNEX ends up saving money when this is all converted,
I don't understand why they're so, I don't know, ill-retentive about these rates.
Well, I think the reason is because they're a monopoly, because they're the only one in town,
and because that kind of practice has worked for them over the years.
They think it's going to keep working.
I think they're wrong, but time will tell.
Thanks for the call.
We're going to move on.
There's one thing that I want to check.
What's that?
That's the ISTN number again.
I'm going to call that back, okay?
1-800-GET-ISTN.
What do you think happens if you ask it if the 555 exchange has ISTN?
I would probably think it would say no.
The NYNEX ISTN information hotline.
Let's find out.
We're calling to inquire about the New York region.
We're on number 3, whatever 3 stands for.
Please try again.
You want to do New York first.
We're calling to inquire if you are a vendor.
Now 3.
If you would like to check availability, press 1.
Please enter the area code and exchange.
Okay, we're going to enter 212-555.
It should not like this at all.
You entered 2.
We're sorry.
The information you requested is not available at this time.
Please leave a message so that we can assist you in the future.
Please leave your name, telephone number, including the area code.
Okay, we got the meds, so we're not going to continue with that.
Now something else I wanted to try.
We're going to call a friendly operator,
and we're going to ask them about an exchange which should not have existed last year.
Pick a new one.
An area code, rather.
Can I help you?
Hi, operator.
I'm trying to find out the location for area code 360.
What area code?
212?
No, 360 area code.
Okay.
I'm going to give you information.
I don't think there's an area code 360 that I know of.
Hold on.
Do you want to talk to information?
Well, information where?
New York information will give you area codes, and they will check to see.
See, the area codes have been changed now, and I'm not familiar with that.
Uh-huh.
I have one before they didn't.
I don't think I recognize that unless you're calling overseas.
No, I think it's an area code in the United States,
but wouldn't the long-distance operator know this?
Yeah, but you get a recording first.
So information here will have that information, too.
Okay, and for only 45 cents?
I guess it's worth it.
Okay, transfer me away then.
Thank you.
Thank you.
They get a percentage every time they do this.
Should have went to AT&T.
Can I help you?
Yes, where am I?
Is this information?
It's directory.
Hi, I need to know where area code 360 is, please.
360 is not an area code, sir.
360 is not an area code?
I'm sorry, it is.
It's a new one.
Oh, it is.
Washington.
It's Washington?
Yeah, it must be a new one in Washington.
Okay, so you have a list of all area codes there?
Most of them.
Some of the new ones we don't have yet.
There's a few that are coming in that we don't have,
but basically we do.
The one that has the complete list is your long-distance service operator.
I see.
So if I just dial, say, 00, I can get that?
If you have AT&T, yeah.
All right.
I'll try that then.
Thank you.
Actually, they don't charge you either.
Okay, thanks.
Mine does.
Yeah, thanks for the tip.
I mean, you get more from them because they have more access.
They deal with that.
Well, you know, my local operator insisted on transferring me the information.
She seemed very eager to do that.
I have that information.
Yeah.
She only has the stuff.
See, what people don't understand is we're two different companies now.
We actually only handle the stuff in the metropolitan area,
and the AT&T and all those other companies do the long-distance,
so we don't have those records.
Yeah, that's what I thought.
You know, what you say makes a lot of sense.
It does, and what we do is we have some area codes, you know,
but I couldn't, like I had a customer before wanted to know where Calgary was in Canada.
It's in Providence.
I don't know, but if he had called his regular long-distance,
she would have been able to tell him, but I can't.
I wish I could.
Yeah.
Wow.
Okay, well, you've been very helpful tonight.
Thank you.
Thank you for the information.
Okay.
All right.
More helpful than you could possibly know.
Okay.
That's the second time I heard an operator refer to a province as a Providence.
A Providence.
Yeah, that's really something.
But, yeah, do you notice how the local operator,
it's like policy to transfer you to information where they'll charge you money,
as opposed to transferring you to the long-distance operator
who will charge you nothing and give you more thorough information.
I'm just glad that information operator had the honesty to tell us that at great length.
She was really friendly.
She certainly was.
She should sell ISDN.
But considering that she probably knows what it means, too.
Considering that you pay 45 cents for partial information, you know, you have to wonder.
You should call 211 now.
And get credit for that.
Get the credit.
We don't have time for all these conversations with phone company people.
Let's go back to our loyal listeners here who have been waiting for a long, long time to be on the air.
Good evening.
You made it.
Hi.
Hi.
How are you doing?
Hi.
Am I on the air?
Yes, you are.
Okay.
I'm not having a problem here.
Let me lower down the radio.
That's a good idea.
Okay.
I think when he reached to lower down the radio, he actually lowered down the phone because he's not there anymore.
Let's try another one.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hello.
Hi.
I was on before, but I forgot to ask another question.
Make it quick.
I've often argued with the telephone company operators that when a street phone is full of money,
you can't put money in, they should then allow the public to make all calls free until they come and repair the thing
because they're denying the public the use of that telephone box just because they haven't gotten around to collecting their money.
Well, that's true, but would you say the same thing for all credit card phones, phones that don't take coins in the first place?
You see, everything you can do from a credit card phone you can do from a coin phone without using coins.
Yeah.
So you can still make 800 calls, 950 calls, calls through the operator, that kind of thing.
Right.
But, yeah, I agree.
I think coin phones are important even though you have to admit the rates are outlandish, especially if you call to another city.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Right.
So it's not like we're really getting a great service from these pay phones in the first place.
Part of it not, whatever 9x weakness is, I find a lot, I get the impression a lot of the other companies that got into the business
simply wanted to make money, not provide telephone service.
They seem to have an inferior quality of service, and you never get anywhere with them.
That is true to a degree.
To another degree, it's true that 9x is the company that has to hook these companies up to the actual phone network,
and they don't always do a very good job.
They leave the wires exposed sometimes, so anybody can just simply plug a phone in and make free phone calls that way,
and that's why they charge higher rates to make up for that.
That's a whole big catch-22 sometimes.
Oh.
Anyway, thanks for the call.
We're going to try to move on to somebody else.
Good evening.
You're on.
Hi.
I have a question about security.
Okay.
I've been getting phone calls, unsolicited phone calls on Saturday mornings, which is kind of a pain in the ass,
because I'm usually asleep like 9, 30 or 10.
You'll have to speak up a little bit.
I've been getting phone calls at 9, 30 or 10 in the morning.
Okay.
As well as your regular unsolicited phone calls telling you things at, you know, around dinner time.
I was wondering if there's anything I can do about this.
Well, now, what kind of phone calls are these?
Are they computers, people?
People.
All right.
Is it the same agency calling you?
Once, actually, the same agency called me back like an hour later, and it was the same person, too,
and I recognized her somehow.
You need to tell them that you don't want them to call you again and to make sure that they live up to it.
If they call you again, they're in violation of the law.
So there are laws saying that they...
Absolutely.
If you tell them not to call you, they cannot call you.
Okay.
It's as simple as that.
I think that what a lot of people should really do is make really formal complaints to both NYNEX
and the Public Service Commission for NYNEX to tariff call rejecting.
Call rejecting is a service available in other regional bells, like specifically in Pacific Bell,
that's been available there for a number of years now,
and it's one of the newer features like call return and repeat call and caller ID,
and technically it's a feature that is available right now if one were to gain access to their telephone switch and enable it.
The only reason that it's not offered as a service is that it's not tariffed.
If it were tariffed, then you could simply get the call from the person you didn't like
and add them to a screening list,
after which they would get a politically correct recording saying that you don't wish to receive calls from them right now.
Now, I wish you could personalize that recording, but is call rejection linked to anonymous call rejection?
If so, how?
Anonymous call rejection?
Yes.
Anonymous call rejection is where you reject calls from anybody that blocks their number.
Oh, right, the Bell Atlantic feature.
Well, it's not a Bell Atlantic feature, it's a regular feature.
But that's the only place I know of that's offering it.
I think they're using it in other parts of the country.
Really?
Yeah.
Yeah, no, it's...
They will be here, I can tell you that.
That's a separate feature altogether.
I mean, specifically call rejection is one of the screening list features.
It's a star six something,
and basically you maintain a screening list of anywhere from, say, maybe 10 to 30 phone numbers,
and in some cases, in certain areas, based on policy...
Only 10 to 30?
What if there's a lot more people you want to reject calls from?
The thing is that people in the entire telephone exchange need to be able to maintain screening lists,
and it takes space.
I can think right off the bat, though, of at least over 100 people calling me.
Also, AT&T has a new feature, just to close things off,
where you can now, whenever you get a busy signal overseas, you can continuously dial that.
Right, star 234.
Star 234, that's kind of weird.
How does that tie into local star features?
I don't think it does at all.
What I think is that they probably programmed the translation in everyone's switch,
and it probably, apparently, because I tried it,
and my long-distance company at home is not AT&T, and it didn't work,
which means either it wasn't programmed, it isn't available yet,
or it only works if your long-distance carrier is AT&T.
That's what they say. They say it only works if you use AT&T.
Right, but it should do something.
I just dial star 2, and I get intercepted with your standard recording,
which wouldn't happen if it was a valid code, even if your carrier wasn't AT&T.
I can't believe that it's worth $3 a month to be able to simply keep redialing a busy signal overseas.
Why can't they offer this nationwide as well?
Why does it only have to be overseas?
It seems kind of wacky to me.
Yeah, that I don't know.
Something we haven't had a chance to play with yet.
If anyone out there has, let us know.
We'll be back again next week with another edition of Off the Hook.
Thanks, everybody, for listening, and keep those cards and letters coming in.
Our address is Off the Hook here at WBAI, 505 8th Avenue, New York, New York, 10018.
This is Emanuel Goldstein for FiberOptic.
See you next week.
Good evening.
In the news tonight, term limits appear headed for defeat in the House.
In Haiti, a prominent Aristide opponent is murdered,
while human rights groups renew charges that Haiti's police force is filled with recycled army officers.
And in New York, another round of student protests,
with a march and rally in lower Manhattan and a funeral procession at John Jay College.
With these and other stories, I'm Jose Santiago in New York with Cheryl Grant in Washington,
and this is the news for Wednesday, March 29, 1995.
First to Washington for the Pacifica National News.
The House today is expected to reject a constitutional amendment to limit congressional terms.
Speaker Newt Gingrich told reporters Republicans will not take the blame for any failure of a term limits measure.
Today we believe that over 80% of the Republicans will vote for term limits,
and frankly, if about half the Democrats vote for term limits, they'll pass.
But the group U.S. Term Limits is charging that the Republican leadership set up term limits for a fall.
It says the GOP deliberately set too high a hurdle by asking for a constitutional amendment,
which requires a two-thirds vote as compared to a statute which only requires a majority.
The Senate today unanimously passed its own version of regulatory reform, giving Congress a legislative veto.
The House last month approved a measure freezing thousands of federal rules and regulations for a year.
But some senators said that was going too far,
since the House moratorium would have meant stopping everything from new meat inspection rules to new toy safety standards.
The Senate version will allow Congress to vote down a federal regulation going back to last November's elections.
The U.S. Senate has taken up the rescissions package, cutting over $13 billion from already funded federal programs.
Senator Paul Wellstone, Democrat from Minnesota, argued against the cuts.
All too often, the cuts are going to be aimed disproportionately at those citizens who are least able to tighten their belts.
But the reason they're going to be aimed disproportionately at the citizens least able to tighten their belts,
starting with children, I could also include the elderly, I could also include other citizens,
is because they don't have the political clout.
One provision, the Forest Health Bill, would require the U.S. Forest Service to sell 6 billion board feet of timber for emergency salvage logging.
It would suspend all environmental regulations to allow that logging.
Republican Senator Slade Gorton of Washington State says the nation's forests need to be thinned to get rid of diseased timber stands
and to protect against huge wildfires.
But today, five Forest Service firefighters, also known as smokejumpers, came to Washington, D.C. to argue against the forced timber sale.
John Kearns has been a smokejumper for the past seven years.
Just going in and saying our solution to the forest health problem is to cut as many dead trees as we can in as short a time as we can
does not promote forest health. Those dead trees perform a function in the forests.
Whether it's soil erosion control, whether it's providing habitat for dependent species, those dead trees are not a blight on the land.
But Republican Gordon argues the measure will restore the forest to health and provide jobs.
The National Voter Registration Act also...