When I thought that hope was really gone, you showed me I was wrong...
And a very good evening to everybody.
It's time now for Off the Hook here on WBAI New York.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
It couldn't get much worse, but if they could they would,
for they live on for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood, for they live on...
for the best...
And hello everybody, this is another edition of Off the Hook.
the hook, Emanuel Goldstein, fiber optics over, not near a microphone fiber, there you
go. That's better. You're there. You're number five? Okay, I got you. Okay. Yeah, it's been
a fun week and lots of activity, lots of things that we've learned about and we're going to
be bringing you all kinds of details on that throughout this hour as well as taking phone
calls, but that's a little bit later on. We have new information on the Bernie S case
and related cases, how it could affect you and many other people throughout the nation
as it has already been doing. So we will have that coming up in just a couple of moments.
What's new in the, there's a New York Times article today, isn't there? On the three Kevin
Mitnick books. Yeah, there certainly is. Now, I wonder why it took them a month to review
them or maybe they reviewed them before, but they're now reviewing all three of them together
as sort of a phenomenon in and of themselves. Maybe nobody noticed because it wasn't splashed
on the front page. Well, there's a, there's the old picture of Mitnick again, a picture
of Shimomura. At least they're using the newer picture of Kevin. Yeah. Well, since ever since
they got that picture of him going out of the van in North Carolina, they they've had
new footage to go with. At least they're not using the baby fat picture anymore. That's
true. You know, I didn't, when I hung out with him in California back in 1990, I didn't
think to take a single picture. I could have used those pictures and they would have replaced
all the, all the ones back from like the seventies that they were using in the newspaper. You
know, I probably could have sold them for a hundred thousand dollars too. And everybody
would have been far more educated and whatever. Supposedly Kevin's hearing has been postponed
until April. Now it was scheduled for, I believe today. And it was moved back to April. I don't
know why they keep doing this. I don't know why they keep moving things back, but it's
a, it's real torture, especially when you're already in prison. So there's not a whole
lot we can tell you as far as, as that particular case, uh, right now, except that, uh, you
know, he's still in prison. It's, it's over a year now. Think about it over a year. Now
you have to ask yourself, is that, you know, has he served enough time for what he is accused
of doing, namely violating probation. And, uh, what were the other things? Well, uh,
supposedly allegedly, uh, breaking into Schumer Moore's machine, although that's more and
more doubt being cast on that by the moment. Well, he's a computer security expert. You
know, someone broke into his machine again, apparently, because if you, if you, if you
tell net over to port 25 of, of the takedown website, you'll see a little thing in brackets
that says KDM was here, you know, Kevin David Mitnick. And somebody also changed the name
of SNAP, uh, uh, send nail to send whale. Somebody, uh, somebody who's playing around
there. And it's been like that since the 14th of February. Apparently he doesn't, uh, check
his own SMTP port. I don't think, I don't think there's a lot of checking going on in
that particular system, but I used to concern with security. Uh, yeah. So this guy, Kevin
is, is locked up in prison for a year. Um, I don't think the net is a better place for
it and I'm not really sure what is being proven by this, but, uh, let's just make sure he's
not forgotten sitting over there somewhere in California. We'll bring you more details
as we get them on that. And we'll try to, uh, look more into his case after the Bernie
S case gets finished. Bernie S of course is the person we've been following throughout
the last year, uh, who has been put in prison for the better part of that year for ridiculous
charges for having hardware, for having software. And, uh, no one's really quite sure what he's
being accused of. We'll get to that in a minute. But first we have something important to talk
about, namely the new nine X phone bills. I got mine. Did you get yours? I got mine
too. Well, uh, pretty nifty, huh? They come in blue envelopes now. Yeah. And, uh, they,
they, they, they, they really stink, don't they? I can't stand these things. I can't
understand them at all. They're there. They're laid out in some bizarre fashion. I mean,
I think they mean well by using recycled paper. I don't think they mean well. No, I think
they're out to get us, but that's another theory. They've been using recycled paper
for a while. Yeah. I mean, everyone has. McDonald's has been using recycled. Everyone's using
recycled paper. It's the big thing these days, but I don't, they, they reorganize the way
their bills look simply because I don't know why. Did you have a problem with the old bills?
Uh, no, not at all. In fact, I don't like how the new bills don't break down the time
chart with the, uh, the different calling areas. Oh yeah. That's only one of the few
things that they, that they do wrong. That was the major thing, or it said that you needed,
you needed your phone book as an accompaniment. You need your phone book to read your phone
bill. That's what it said. Yeah. To figure out how much you're supposed to be, to figure
out what, what times and what calling areas this is for what regional calls of both local
and regional. You see now, now that they have competition, competition has finally been
introduced. All right. On the local level. That's not really local, local. It's, it's
regional local, which means, well, what does it mean for people in New York? It means people
making calls to, uh, to what Nassau, the region. Yeah. It would be probably a Westchester,
Nassau and Suffolk, but not New York city. No, New York city is considered local and
not seven one eight. The five boroughs are considered local. Okay. So now we have regional
local calls and regular local calls. So there's two different parts in the bill for those
two different types of calls. And you can select a different company for regional, but
I think you're still stuck with nine X for the real local stuff. Um, and it's broken
down in, in, in those ways. It's kind of confusing because the way they do it, I wish I had a
bill in front of me, but they, they itemize everything. Like first of all, they itemize
the total. That's number one. Then the first phone call to make the total is item number
two. So they're itemizing things that are totally different type of things where it
used to be. They numbered the calls. Now the calls started say number two or number three
and number one is the total. And I don't understand why they have to do this. It sounds like,
you know, poor programming on, on their part. Uh, no long distance bill I've ever seen is
that confusing looking. And you know, here's the, here's the real clincher. They say, this
is their way out of it. They say, we listened to you, you gave us your feedback and here
it is. So it's our fault that this is happening. You know, anything that's wrong with this
is because you told us to do this. Now I don't remember telling nine X to restructure their
bill like that. And if anyone out there did tell them this, please turn yourself in now
because I'd sure like to hear what the, what the story behind that was. Um, it's with nine
X's idea I think. And they just want to put some insurance in now. I don't know how many
people have tried to pay the bill yet, but when you try to pay the bill, you might by
chance tear on the perforated line. I discovered there's actually, for some bizarre reason,
two perforated lines on the front page. I tore on the wrong one and it was only after
I put the thing into the envelope and realized that there was just nothing there, you know,
or just like random text where the little window is and it wasn't going to go any place.
I realized that I was supposed to rip off the second perforated line, take that part
of the piece of paper and stick that in the envelope. So I had to do that. And that left
me with this little thin strip, which was the, the, the region separating two perforated
lines. So I had this like little mini one inch wide phone bill that, uh, I don't know
what to do with. Why would they print two perforated lines on, on, on a page? It doesn't
make any sense. You got me. I'm asking you and I think you should come up with an explanation
for this. That's, uh, that's, that's our, our little, uh, expose on the, on the new
9X, uh, phone bills. Anything else? Hmm. Let's see. I'm trying to think. ISDN maybe. We haven't
talked about ISDN. Yeah, that's true. You know, we haven't spoke about ISDN lately.
Is there anything, anything new in the realm of ISDN? Well, have you heard anything new
in the on again, off again, penny a minute charge? Nothing new since the last rumor that
we started last week that they were thinking of stopping it. Yeah. Um, so, uh, I, I haven't
heard anything new since then from anybody. Yeah. Nobody at all. Absolutely silent on
that front. Well, I, I, I'd sure like to, to get to the bottom of that. I've, I still
haven't heard anything one way or the other. Uh, our, our friends at Pearl street continue
to be, uh, tied up rather, uh, frequently with as far as, as far as, uh, being able
to take orders. And why is that? Uh, apparently there's been some increase in demand or something,
but, um, I mean, uh, people that I've suggested ordering ISDN too recently were not able to
get through to a representative. And, uh, I've, I've called a couple of times to try
to, uh, take care of some problems, not with me, but with, with some, somebody else and,
uh, was not able to, uh, to get through and haven't heard back from them yet. So a nine
X, if you're listening, please give me a call back. Thanks. I guess that's the only way
to get a call back is to, uh, get on a 50,000 watt radio station and get a message out.
But, uh, how about the actual service? Has the service been, uh, uh, my, my service has
been, uh, just chugging along rather, uh, rather readily. I'm actually, uh, hoping
some new services come out. I'm just, I'm really eager for, for something new to happen.
Uh, there, uh, there has been talk about new, uh, new pot services in the works. I mean,
for, for non-ISDN people. Yeah, for regular people. What kind of new services? Like, uh,
distinctive call waiting and caller ID on call waiting. And caller ID with, with name
attached? Yeah. Caller ID with name delivery and so on. It's nothing really new though.
I mean, other parts of the country have had this for a while. Certain parts have had it.
Yeah. Um, then there's also some call management features that are coming out that do things
that we've always complained about on the show for years. Like being able to add somebody
on call waiting into three-way. Wouldn't that be nice? You will. I will, huh? With 9x call
management. I got, I got a little counter to that. You will thing. I'll believe it when
I see it. Okay. It's being tested right now. Uh, somewhere's around, I believe around
Poughkeepsie. You don't say. Well, um, okay. So, uh, to move on to a couple of other rather
important things, uh, the, the Bernie S case, hopefully we'll hear from him later tonight.
Um, although I'm not really sure, uh, if we will hear from him, I got a bunch of, of collect
calls from him earlier today to my, my machine. Unfortunately, you know, it was at a bizarre
time, which I'm never up. So I can't understand why he, uh, he was calling at that time unless
something was, was happening that he needed to, uh, to get a hold. And there's no way
to leave a message, obviously with these automated collect things. So, um, um, usually we hear
from him by now. So I don't know if something has changed, something has happened, but I
can tell you on our front, something very definitely has changed. And that involves,
uh, something we've been, we've been interested in from the very beginning, other cases, other
cases that have similar, um, meaning than, than, that the Bernie S case has to us. Well,
we found something that, um, it's really unfortunate, you know, that it took so long to find out
this information, but there was actually an article in this magazine called nuts and vaults,
which a lot of people, uh, have heard about on this radio show. It's kind of hard to find.
And I guess we had the same problem finding it, but, uh, there was an article in there
in the current issue called, uh, cellular extensions on trials, secret service targets
extension cloner. And, you know, I looked at this and I said, wow, it's an article on
the Bernie S, but you know what? It's an article on somebody else. Somebody else is going through
the same thing. And here's the really ironic part. The article begins in what is probably
the first case of its kind. A Kentucky man has been indicted on federal fraud charges
for cloning extension funds to existing cellular service agreements. Now, what's amazing about
that is that, uh, obviously it's not the first case of its kind. So in this particular case,
that person also had the same problem finding out about Bernie S. We couldn't find out about
this Kentucky guy. He couldn't find out about Bernie S. It just isn't enough communication.
And, uh, despite all the, all the technology we have at our fingertips, we didn't have
enough to, uh, to get this story on time because this was happening last year. This
was happening towards the end of last year. Don Billy Yates of Lexington, Kentucky was
indicted on November 2nd, 1995 by a federal grand jury. The indictment charges Yates with
possessing and using equipment for altering and modifying telecommunications instruments
with intent to defraud cellular phone companies. The, uh, entire cellular phone industry will
be watching the case because it is thought to be the first such criminal prosecution
in the United States. Uh, said Thomas Tolliver of the Lexington Herald-Leader, who happens
to be totally wrong on that. Obviously it's not the first case of its kind. A fraudulent
use of a cellular phone has traditionally involved programming the mobile identification
number known as the MIN, an electronic serial number known as the ESN, of an unsuspecting
subscriber's cellular phone into an additional phone, which then became an electronic clone
of the original. The cellular bandit would place calls with this duplicate phone, causing
the charges to appear on the victim's monthly bill. Uh, cellular carriers end up absorbing
the cost of these calls, claiming that collective losses exceed $300 million annually. Well,
guess what? There's another way to, uh, to do this exact same thing without breaking
any laws whatsoever. And that's if you, if you make your own extension on a cellular
phone, you use the, the, the same technique, but you're not doing it for criminal purposes.
Actually I said it's, it's not violating any law. That's kind of what the argument is right
now, whether or not it does violate a particular, uh, law of any sort. Uh, this article really
goes into quite a bit of detail on it. Um, the person who wrote it, Damien Thorne, is,
is quite knowledgeable on the subject. Uh, he says, as a whole, the cellular industry
has disliked this practice since it deprives them of the revenue generated through one-time
activation fees and the base charge assessed against every cellular phone number assigned.
This per-number charge is often itemized on the customer's bill as an access fee and ostensibly
covers the cost of accounting, preparing bills, and accommodating the user's cellular
phone within the network. Um, whether or not a customer places and receives calls his or
her cellular phones periodically, uh, transmitting information to the cellular network, which
in turn keeps track of the transceiver's approximate location. Since each transceiver consumes
resources within the network to some extent, the access fee assessed by carriers is generally
not an unreasonable charge. What it appears the cellular industry is currently trying
to do is set a precedent in which they claim they are actually entitled to these access
fees and activation charges whether or not a customer consumes resources within the network.
Now, uh, they print the entire affidavit against this guy, and, um, then they go into some
detail on the inaccuracies of the story. Um, the story as presented by the Secret Service
and the cellular companies. Anyone with even a bit of knowledge pertaining to the operation
of cellular phones and networks has probably laughed at some of the blatantly incorrect
information concerning this case. The most glaring error is the assertion made that electronic
serial numbers and mobile phone numbers are the property of the cellular carrier. You
ever heard that argument made, Fiber? That the phone number is a property of the carrier
itself? Uh, I can't say I have, no. You've never heard that argument? That's what the
cellular phone companies are, are, are constantly saying. Really? Yeah. I mean, you know, the
phone company, the local phone company, they have an argument that it's their phone number,
it's their network, but when you have, you know, the cellular company, first of all,
they have to get the phone number through the local phone company. Yeah, I always figured
that it would be, it would still be the property of the local phone company, ultimately. Anyway,
serial numbers are assigned and programmed by the manufacturers of cellular hardware,
and begin with a prefix that was assigned to each manufacturer by the FCC. Since this
assignment is a matter of public record, not only are serial numbers not the property of
a carrier, but at least two of the eight hexadecimal digits are a matter of public record. If there
is any claim to an ESN being proprietary, the information should be considered the property
of the phone's owner, since he has purchased the hardware bearing the ESN. Since a cellular
carrier is not a telephone company in the technical sense, cellular telephone numbers
don't really belong to them either. Since cellular carriers rely on the landline telephone
company, which is a local exchange carrier, to route all calls into and out of the cellular
network, such cellular numbers were no doubt assigned by the local telephone company, with
all phone numbers moving toward portability, like the 800 numbers, in which a customer
can keep a phone number no matter which carrier he or she chooses, these numbers will soon
become the customer's property as well, won't even belong to the phone company anymore.
At this point, like a specific frequency in the radio spectrum, a carrier may be authorized
to assign numbers from a pool set aside for their use, but they certainly don't own the
numbers in the sense that one owns intellectual or real property. Although it may seem to
be a minor point, this becomes very important when it is part of the foundation of a criminal
case. Left unchallenged, the concept of a carrier owning ESNs and MINs lends great credibility
to a carrier alleging that their numbers have been stolen or used without permission. The
technical reality, however, is that carriers are not entitled to claim ownership or control
over these digits. A phone number is simply an address pointing to a customer. The affidavit
also contains a misleading statement that customers using a cellular telephone with
a telephone number and electronic serial number can obtain telephone service throughout the
United States. This is self-evident, much like saying that a person with money can buy
something. What the statement fails to mention is that such service can only be obtained
if the telephone number and ESN reside in a cellular network database and are deliberately
validated to allow calls to be made. As written, the statement gives the false impression that
mere possession of these two numbers will somehow magically allow uncontrolled use
of the cellular telephone network. The biggest falsehood, though, set forth in the affidavit
in the opinion of this author, is also the foundation for the entire case. With the programming
or cloning of an extension phone, the only monies not being collected by the cellular
carriers are the activation fee and the monthly access charge. Why do you suppose the cellular
telephone representative chose to claim that the actual loss in dollars to the cellular
telephone industry is unknown to date due to their inability to differentiate between
calls made on the originally purchased telephone and any phone cloned by Don Yates? This comment
has nothing to do with extension cellular phones because the customer pays for any use
of the phone, original or extension. That's a very important fact. You know, that's something
that they don't seem to be... I sometimes wonder, maybe they just don't understand.
Maybe they think that these people are stealing from them when in actuality they're just using
an extension phone. You know, I expect them one day to say, oh, sorry, we got it all wrong.
We thought you were stealing from us. You were just using a cellular extension, no problem.
It's tantamount to the phone company prosecuting you for having an extension phone, which some
people were afraid of back in the 70s. They actually thought the phone company would come
and charge them or something. No one thought something like this would happen, but there
was a fair amount of paranoia. It was the phone cops. The phone cops, right, exactly.
Everyone thought the phone cops were everywhere. And it was one phone company. You know, they
had everything monitored. And, you know, back then, if you stood up in a group of ten people,
odds are one of them worked for the phone company somewhere because they owned everything.
They owned your phone. They owned your phone. They owned the long distance company. They
owned the local company. They owned the wire. They owned the poles. So, yeah, quite a few
people worked for the phone company. So they were kind of scared by that. But even with
all that monopolistic paranoia that was imposed upon us, there was nothing to compare to this,
where people were actually thrown in prison for making a cellular extension. Unbelievable.
And the funny thing is, we're talking about Don Yates here, the guy in Kentucky who we
just found out about. He was charged with having a black box which is used to make these
cellular extensions. Bernie S. never even had a black box. He sold software that would
enable you to make your own extension. Never even did it himself. This guy here would charge
people $150 to make a cellular extension. That was his business. That's what he did.
And Bernie S. would simply give you the software. You could do it yourself. He was charged with
less than this guy. Less. And they kept him in prison for seven months. And they put him
back in prison this year. And sentencing for that comes up next week. A week from today,
in fact. Continuing with this, in this case, the carrier seems to be claiming that they
are lawfully entitled to collect an activation fee and a monthly access fee for every transceiver
owned by a customer. From there, the issue becomes clouded by falsehoods regarding undetermined
losses and claims to ownership of the ESN that really belong to the customer. Throw
in comments about ESN and MIN allowing access to the network from anywhere in the country
and to a non-technical person, it would appear that there might actually be some fraud going
on. It's pretty apparent that in this case, smoke and mirrors are being used to distort
the truth. I think you had some smoke and mirrors in your case, didn't you? Yeah, actually,
it sounds a lot like something they tried to pull on me, which was say that each and
every network address on a particular network was worth X amount of dollars. Like just my
knowledge of an address on a network, independent of a login or a password, but just knowing
how to get to a computer on a network was worth so much money. So the knowledge was
where the fraud was. Yeah, you had it in your head. That was they put a dollar. Yeah, there's
this intrinsic fraud in the knowledge. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing how judges and juries and
lawyers believe all this crap. I can't understand it. So yeah, smoke and mirrors all over the
place here. In a recent issue, recent issue of nuts and bolts, we mentioned the petition
for reconsideration that has been ongoing before the FCC. A portion of the issue before
the FCC is an assumption on the part of the commission that carriers are entitled to activation
and access fees. Assumption is the key in that debate as there does not appear to be
any regulatory mandate which entitles carriers to assess these charges. In a written statement
to the FCC, trouble reading this name, but someone whose last name is Glover, chief counsel
for advocacy of a small business administration, made the following statement. What the proposed
rule would not prevent is the offering of cellular extension service by some party other
than the licensed cellular providers for the area. As the Office of Advocacy noted in its
ex parte communication in support of the petition for reconsideration, nothing in the communications
act mandates that cellular telephone companies are entitled to any specific amounts of revenue
for its development of public resources. The proposal would protect cellular companies
to the extent possible from fraud without denying the public needed competition in the
provision of cellular extension telephone service. So here we have one federal agency
telling another that it supports the rights of both customers and small businesses to
compete with the cellular industry in providing extension cellular phones. Meanwhile, another
branch of the government has slapped together a case to prosecute an individual for engaging
in the very same business being advocated by the small business administration. And
this case with Mr. Yates, you know, he was being prosecuted, but there was another case
where someone was imprisoned. And not only that, but there are cases currently in Chicago
and in California, and I believe there's another one in Georgia that are taking place right
now. This is all within the last few weeks where they are prosecuting people based on
this. Now, something else that was unknown to us while all this was happening last year,
last spring, just about the time that Bernie Yates was first imprisoned, a company known
as JEM, located in Southern New Jersey, was also visited by the Secret Service, and they
had their entire customer list seized. That's how they found this Yates guy. They looked
at the customer list and they discovered that he was actually selling these boxes or making
extensions for people's telephones. They got a list of all kinds of other people, though,
and we don't know what they've done with that list yet, but it's a pretty frightening prospect
to think that they have lists of names of people who have done business with certain
companies and they are investigating each and every one of those people. I think that
we've pretty much covered everything from this story. Don Yates, just to finish up,
Don Yates has become the unfortunate victim of the Secret Service and the cellular industry
and their zeal to ensure the revenue streams to which they become accustomed. With literally
hundreds if not thousands of individuals and businesses throughout the country offering
cellular extension programming services, Mr. Yates just happened to be in the wrong place
at the wrong time and has become the principal in a case that will set a major precedent
either for or against consumers of cellular telephony services. Well, he wasn't quite
the principal. He was close to being the principal, I think, and he wasn't in the wrong place
at the wrong time, but he certainly could have been in a wronger place at a wronger
time if he was Bernie S., I guess, in Philadelphia. There's one part of the story we have not
told you yet, and that's how it all turned out, and that's probably the most interesting
part of it. Mr. Yates decided to take on the government, to actually plead not guilty
to these charges. He took it all the way to a jury trial, and that jury trial took place
this year, January, last month, actually. And it took the jury less than two hours to
come back with a verdict. The verdict was not guilty. He did not violate the law by
offering cellular extensions, by making extensions for people. And when we think about this,
we have one person who felt he had no chance of being found not guilty because of the way
this law was written and the way that he was being harassed by Secret Service people. Him
being forced to plead guilty and as a result of pleading guilty having a conviction on
his record, which then resulted in a probation violation, which resulted in him being put
back in prison. And then you have one guy that took on the system and won. Two different
cases, the same basic thing, and two totally different outcomes. The story just gets more
and more amazing by the week. Next week we'll be, of course, reporting on the sentencing
as they decide what's going to happen to Bernie S. I mean, if they give him any more prison
time, I just don't understand how they can justify this at all. It's hard enough to justify
what they've done to him so far if they can even do that. But next week we will know just
how that has turned out. So that will be happening next Tuesday morning at 830. And it's open
to the public. If anyone wants to take a little road trip out to east in Pennsylvania. It's
not the funnest town in the world, I have to tell you. But it's it's an education. You
know, it's this picture, a small American town with a big whopping prison in the middle
of it. I think it's about everybody in town seems to work there. Of course, they all support
the idea of a prison and more prisoners is good for the town. So so I guess he's he's
welcomed there, even though he has not yet even seen the scene, the light of day since
they put him in in January. So that will be taking place next Tuesday, 830 in the morning.
You can get to Easton by taking. What is it, Route 87? Yeah, I think it's really 87 just
heading west for about an hour and a half or so. And then you wind up on on I think
it's Route 611. Just after you cross the Pennsylvania line, it takes you right to Easton. It's in
the court building. And the more press we can get over there to witness this and more
people would get over there to witness this, the better, because then you'll be able to
tell more people about it, even if it's a worst case scenario. Even if having more people
there doesn't do any good at all, it certainly can't do any harm. And I think we've demonstrated
the real problem here is that there's not enough communication. We didn't know about
this case. Bernie's lawyer didn't know about this case. Had we known about this case, it
could have made a big difference. The two cases could have been seen as as as the same
basic test of the law. And he probably would not be in prison right now. So that's that's
I guess a sobering education there as far as keeping informed. And it's only going to
get bigger. More and more people are being dragged into this in various places. We'll
keep you updated as soon as we find out more about that. But again, we have to hear about
it in order to know we're trying the best we can to to learn about this. But it's it's
not always possible to to get all the details in a timely fashion. Anyway, I guess we're
not hearing from Bernie S. tonight. And I don't know what that means. You know, I know
he was trying to reach me earlier today. So there's not a whole lot we can do. We can't
reach him, certainly. Best thing I could suggest to people is to keep checking the
Web site on twenty six hundred dot com. We'll have updates and Bernie has a story. Also,
you can finger his account Bernie s at twenty six hundred dot com or send mail to that account.
And if we learn anything, we will certainly pass it on. Our telephone number is two one
two two seven nine three four hundred. We'll be taking your phone calls if you have any
questions, comments or experiences of your own. You know, there could be a hundred cases
like this going on right under our noses. We don't even know about it. So if you have
a case like that, feel free to give us a call. Two one two two seven nine three four hundred.
Let's see who's out there. Good evening. You're on. Go ahead. Speak up. Yes. Yes. There you
are. Speak up. OK. OK. You got me confused. That's what we're here for. I wanted to tell
you about that case. OK. Eastern Pennsylvania. You take route seventy eight west. Seventy
eight. I had it backwards. Thank you very much. OK. Route seventy eight west. OK. Get
off around the six mile marker. So you'll see a sign for route twenty two. You take
route twenty two across the river. Wait a minute. Route twenty two. Yeah. Well you can
go you can continue on seventy eight and take it and pay the extra toll. It's a 50 cent
toll. It's a 50 cent toll. But you can come and you can you can come across the free bridge
and it leads you right to the prison. But at any rate, the prison is up there and the
courthouse is up on a hill. Explain that to the people when they get these and they might
come on the bus. And basically there's a hill overlooking part of Easton and it's overlooking
this area. And from the bus station, it's a short cab ride. How do you walk it? How
do you know where this little tiny town courthouse is? You live out in Easton? No, not in Easton,
but I live about maybe ten miles from there. You know, I'm over that way all the time.
I'll be there. I'll see you there. Oh, great. I'm coming in the morning. Great. And I'll
see you there. You know, let me ask you another question here. Ed said that he was a ham operator.
Do you happen to know his ham call? Not offhand, no. All right. Because you see, if you guys
got somebody who was a ham operator and got on the repeaters out there and spoke it up
with the ham community, lots of times they come out and support their kind. Excuse me,
this is the 9X operator. Is this 279-3400? Yes, operator. You're broadcasting to all
of New York City right now. Can we help you? Well, I have someone interrupting the line.
He said it's an emergency from a Maxwell Goldstein. Will you give up the line? Well, do you have
a phone number that they're calling from? I can't give out the number. He requested
an interruption. This is a radio station? Yes, it's a live talk show. Who do you favor
in the primary, operator? Operator, we're taking a poll. Dole. I'm sorry? Dole. Who's
Joel? I said Dole. D-O-L-E. Oh, Dole. Okay. All right. Well, I guess you're not going
to give up your line, then, right? No. Ask him to call back on the regular one. I will.
I will tell him. Thank you very much. All right. Well, she can spell Dole better than
every guy can spell potato. Yeah. Dole. Do you think most operators want Dole? Jeez,
I hope not. Wow. It's more like a CWA. I didn't expect her to answer that. Anyway,
I guess we should turn that off on our phone system. So, it might be possible to alert
the ham community and have some of these people turn out, you know? Yeah, well, that would
be great. I'm not sure how well known he is. I know he went to a lot of ham fests. Yeah.
But I'm not that tied into that community, so I don't really know. Well, if you get a
hold of that, ask him if he got on the air much, you know? Uh-huh. You know, maybe he
does. You know, he's one of these... See, there's all kinds of ham amateur radio operators
out there. Some just build. They never get on the air. Some just go to ham fests, and
they never actually buy anything, you know? Right. I mean, you know, there's all sorts
of... It's a very, very interesting hobby. Well, I do know that he was in total support
of the whole, you know, ham situation of, you know, radio broadcasting and things like
that. He was very much into it. And, you know, one of the nights there, he had a show, I
guess, about two or three weeks ago. And where I work over here at the airport, I was
in one of the ready rooms. Well, the guys are always picking up stuff on the airplanes,
you know, newspapers, old newspapers, old magazines, you know, and they bring them down.
So I was in one of the break rooms, and there was this magazine sitting there. It was called
Hogs in the Tunnel or something like that was the title of it, all right? It was some
avant-garde little pamphlet about secret tunnels under Washington, D.C. And lo and behold,
in there, written in there, is the code names for the president, the frequencies of the
Secret Service, you know. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm holding it. They can listen to your
radio show and the whole explanation of the state. Wow. Just like a month ago. Do you
have a way of getting a hold of those people? Getting a hold of who? The people that publish
that. Well, I'll tell you what, I'll... Hang on, we got another operator coming in here.
Yes, sir. You're on the air right now. You're on the air. Operator? Is this a phone operator?
We're asking... Oh, I'm coming through a tunnel here. I don't think he's capable of making
that kind of a call. No, I'm sorry, we can't release this line right now. Goodbye. You
know, every time they do this, it costs how much? It costs about $3 every time they do
an emergency interlude. Like they're paying for it. Well, what are you suggesting? Anyway.
Okay. Yes, to get back to the point you were making, sir. Yeah, well, I could give you
the booklet when I come out there. That would be really good. That would be really good.
How many names do they have? Oh, they had like three or four code names, the president,
the different people, and I think the president's code name was Hogg or Boss Hogg or something
like that. Oh, really? I thought it was Eagle. Well, I don't know. That's what this book
claims, all right? You know, I mean, the book could be just pure... You know, it's just
one of these stupid pamphlets, you know? Call the White House and ask for Eagle. I think
you'd get them right away. Well, I don't know. It's weird because they have handles just
like hackers have handles. You know, there's Dark Knight and Masked Avenger and all these
kind of things. They're all just playing the same game, except, you know... Yeah, yeah.
So, I'll see you there, okay? Okay. And I'll see if I can, you know, maybe try to find
out some more. See, I just had an old call book, you know, which would... But it was
like over ten years old, you know, to look up, you know, person's call letters by their
name. Right. Well, look up... And if one of your friends is a ham operator in New York
that's active, he may have a more recent issue of that particular call book where you can
look up the person's name. Well, did you... If you know the person's name and his relative
Did you look up Ed Cummings?
No, I'm sorry. We can't accept that right now.
No, I stubbornly refuse to do that. You can say that too. I'm sorry, what?
Well, actually, you know, I don't really want to talk about the primary. That's not the
point of this show. I don't really care anymore. Okay, bye now. All right, take care. Okay.
You know, I think that only happens on the first line. So, they can like, you know, waste
their time now doing that. They're not going to be on the first line anymore. But that's
a little problem with our phone system. I think we can fix pretty easily. Good evening.
You're on the air. Yes, hello. Do you have an address and telephone number for Nuts and
Vaults magazine? You know, I don't have it on me. I've got the actual Xerox of the
magazine with me, but that doesn't have the address and they're very hard to find. I know
they're in California. I think it's area code 909. If you want to call 909 information,
ask for Nuts and Vaults. You might get something that way. Okay. I'm sure one of our listeners
always calls in with, you know, with that information when we lose it, which is practically
every week. So, if someone out there has that number, I'm sure they'll call in and tell
us what it is. Would it be possible for me to leave a message with you magazine 2600
or send a self-addressed postcard maybe? Do you have email? No, unfortunately, I don't.
Okay. That'd be the fastest way to do that, but yeah, you can try. You can do that. Okay.
You have a great show. All right. Thanks. Thanks a lot. Take care. Something else I
didn't mention. We were able to get a front page story in the Allentown Morning Call this
past Sunday about the Bernie S case. That was the same newspaper that wrote a terribly
distorted story right after his sentencing. Well, actually, his hearing last month that
said basically that the Secret Service hangs up on phone freaker after he continues to
commit fraud and garbage like that when he was never accused of committing fraud in the
first place. And basically, he's just been in prison all this time. They wrote a follow-up
piece, which was still got some facts wrong, but I think it was much better in that it
questioned what the Secret Service was doing. And that is what we've been trying to get
through from the very beginning in this particular case. So, there are stories out there. People
are starting to take an interest in this. Other cases are being seen. We are getting
someplace, and that's always good to know. 212-279-3400. Good evening. You're on the
air. Go ahead. Speak up. Hi. Two things. If you'll forgive me for being so naive, I don't
really understand why are you not taking that call because every... I mean, I would assume
that it's from Bernie S. Why? Well, you see, that's the difference. You cannot assume things
like that because what... First of all, Bernie S. is in prison. The only kind of call he
can make is a collect call. He cannot make an emergency interrupt call. What do you think
are the odds of Bernie S. somehow managing to make an emergency interrupt call one minute
after someone makes an emergency interrupt call in my name to the very same number? You
know, just... I'll have to think about what you just said, but... I suggest you do that.
Okay. My second point was I... a certain very well-known, very famous radio personality
who is very concerned with issues about the FCC and censorship is also a very close friend
of the Congressman of Pennsylvania, and I was just wondering whether or not it would
be worth speaking to that radio personality about making a big issue about this case.
Well, are you able to do that? Yes. Well, yes, definitely. I would say speaking to anybody
would be worthwhile. We should pursue all leads possible. I mean, the thing is, to get
awareness out there of a particular injustice, you tell people about it, and eventually somebody
will lend an ear who can do something about it. I think we've made a lot of progress so
far, but obviously we haven't made as much as we could. I also wonder, how could I find
out what he was actually... I'm very new to this program, it's only my third week listening,
and I love it, but because I don't know the facts of his case, where would I best read
about it or find out so I can tell this person the information? Well, the last few issues
of 2600 have had pretty extensive coverage of it. Okay, I have that address. Okay, do
you have net access? No, no. If you had net access, you could just right away get all
the information possible, so you should work on that. I don't. It can be difficult at first,
but once you get started, it can be... If you get the current edition of Nuts and Bolts,
you'll be able to see the other case that's going on as well. And 2600 is at newsstands
if you don't have a subscription to it. Right. Okay. I'm hoping I can enjoy something that
will make a broadcast in 13 cities, and this person can do something. Okay, that's good
to know. Thank you very much. Thank you. Take care. There's all kinds of people we
can hook up with that might be able to help in some way, so by all means, tell whoever
you can. Good evening. You're on the air. Hey. How are you doing? The case on Nuts and
Bolts, right? Can you speak up a little bit? The case on Nuts and Bolts? Yes. If I was
to do that in New York, would I get arrested? It's possible, because the Secret Service
basically is going after people who are doing things like this and using a bizarre statute,
which was passed about a year and a half ago, to back it up. So if you have parts that could
be used to build a red box, if you have parts that could be used to copy a cellular phone
number, they may come after you and prosecute you. But they seem to only do it when it's
a high-profile type of a thing, when they think they can send some sort of a message.
And I think that's what they're trying to do in the Bernie S. case, is send a message.
Unfortunately, I don't think it's really the message they want to send. But if that guy
got off, how come I would go to jail or something? The courts are funny. You can only challenge
a law if you've been convicted under it. This guy was found not guilty, and yeah, you can
point to that as a precedent and say, this guy was found not guilty, so I should be found
not guilty, too. But it doesn't strike down the law. We need to have the law changed,
obviously, so that people can't even be prosecuted under this. That's the big challenge ahead.
You may not want to go through the hassle of having to get a lawyer and fight the whole
system. With a good lawyer, you would be able to get off without much of a problem, I think.
But then again, a lot of people don't want to go through the hassle of doing that.
No, I have no idea of doing it. I was just asking.
Uh-huh.
All right. Thanks a lot.
Okay. A lot of people are imposing self-censorship on themselves. I've heard people who publish
information saying they're not going to be doing it any longer because of what's happened
in the Bernie S. case. It extends beyond the technical aspects. They were categorizing
him as a dangerous person because of the books he had, because he had books on explosives.
Oh, that's scary stuff. Really scary stuff. I mean, you know, everybody collects books
of some sort. And when you happen to discover Loom Panics and other publishers like that,
you tend to collect all kinds of things. I've seen books, you know, how to blow up a high
school and things like that. It's not meant to be taken seriously. But of course, you
know, the Secret Service takes everything seriously. And they were able to use that
to justify holding him without any bail whatsoever. You know, it's funny, I realize when I say
that to people, sometimes they get the exact opposite impression. When I say Bernie S.
was held without bail, they're like, oh, okay, no problem then. It's like, no, no, I don't
mean they said you can go without any bail. I mean, they won't take any amount of money.
You know, the Shah of Iran can come back to life and give you everything he owns. And
they won't accept that. He has to stay in prison. That's how much of a danger he is.
Now, this other guy, Billy Yates in Kentucky, was the opposite. He was released on his own
recognizance. I think that's the best way to say it. And Bernie S. was, well, he wasn't.
Let's put it that way. He was imprisoned on his own recognizance. So that's the situation
we're dealing with here. Big inequity of justice.
Good evening. You're on the air. How are you doing?
Mr. Hook?
Yes.
Okay, I got a number for Nuts and Bolts.
Oh, great. See, I knew this would happen.
I know.
Go ahead. What's the number?
It's 800-783-4624.
Okay.
And it's $19 one year, $35 two years.
Okay.
All right.
That sounds really good. Thank you very much for calling.
Excellente.
All right.
Bye.
It's good when people come through like that. All right. Good evening. You're on.
Good evening, Emmanuel.
How are you doing?
Pretty good. We've got some information for you.
Information is what we live for.
I know that. First of all, a rumor, which I saw on the net and was trying to find but was unable to.
Okay, the internet shutdown thing was a joke, okay?
We know that.
Don't shut down the internet on the 29th.
We know that.
I can't tell you how many calls and pieces of email I've gotten.
No, this is from our friend Brock Meeks, or at least it's attributed to him.
Brock Meeks. He's a Secret Service expert there.
He discovered they were behind the 1992 raid on the Pentagon City Mall meeting.
Well, anyway, this has to do with the infamous modem tax rumor in a way.
Oh, that's not bad.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
This attribution, which I may have seen in Risk Digest, is that according to Brock Meeks,
there's an obscure provision in the telecom law that allows the phone companies
to charge anyone on any sort of phone line for putting data over voice lines.
Oh, joy.
Not just ISDN lines, but, you know, dialing up your internet service provider.
So, what, they're saying that that's actually real?
That's actually real. It's not a modem tax by the government.
It's allowing the phone companies to...
Can I ask you a question?
How would they know what it is you're transmitting unless they listen in to their phone calls?
That's the only technical flaw I saw in this discussion.
Well, that's a pretty big technical flaw, don't you think?
I do.
It's like saying that you have to be able to have the ability to read minds to enforce this.
Yeah, at first glance it sounds unbelievable, but then again, so does the Communications Decency Act.
Well, that's true, but that I could see going through just with a spirit of fundamentalism in the air.
Like I said, I thought I had forwarded that to you.
I apparently didn't, and I can't find it again, but I'm looking.
And the other bit of information comes from a friend of mine who's here, and I'll put her on.
One second.
Okay.
Just a little tidbit, Eric.
The instructions you were given on how better to get to Easton are absolutely accurate as per your first caller,
because I used to live about five miles south of there.
What, did everybody used to come from Easton?
No, no, no, but it's a much shorter trip.
You won't have to go over the Tappan Zee, although that's a nice bridge,
and I think you'll find it a little easier to get there.
Well, I don't know why I would go over the Tappan Zee.
That's upstate.
I thought that you were saying you were going on 87.
Well, okay, yeah, that is 87.
You're right, but I'm not going to go to the origins of 87.
I'm going to join 87 wherever it meets up with whatever road I take.
Exactly.
Well, I was a little afraid.
It's 78 is the cool way to get there.
78.
Anyway, hopefully I'll be joining you on Tuesday.
Yeah, that would be great.
Excellent.
All right, take care.
Yeah, I guess Easton is a proverbial town that everybody moves away from
to find fame and fortune in a big city
because it's just down one road, you know.
You go down one road, and here you are in New York.
It must be all kinds of fun stories coming out of there.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Hi.
How are you doing?
The issue of nuts and bolts is February, in case anybody's curious.
That's right.
The phone number the guy gave you is correct.
Okay.
So two people were going to give me the phone number.
Well, I'll just repeat it, but it's 800-783-4624.
Nuts and bolts is a good deal, and you can get it at half price at the computer,
at the Trenton Computer Fair in April.
Do you know of any place in New York that sells this magazine?
I would guess in the Village there's a very, by Broadway, just north of NYU,
there's a very good bookstore, magazine store that has all sorts of stuff,
and I would be very surprised if they don't have it.
Also like in Grand Central Station,
and some of the Barnes & Nobles have very good magazines these days.
I know that you can get the shortwave book out of North Carolina,
the magazine that they publish.
I forgot the name of it, but I wouldn't be surprised if that place on Broadway,
it must be around 8th Street and Broadway in the Village.
That's Hudson News.
Hudson, exactly right.
Yeah, they may have it as well.
Well, if someone finds it for sure, let us know,
and then we can tell people where to get it,
because it is a very hard magazine to track down sometimes.
Well, I'm sure it's a February issue,
because I was reading the article before I got on the air,
this afternoon, just a coincidence, I happened to see it.
And you would have told us about it, right?
No, I wasn't.
You would have told us about it, though, had we not discovered it on our own, right?
No, I didn't think it was too relevant.
Of course, I really detest the federal government,
and I think if all these people want less government,
why don't they do away with the copyright laws?
If you want to see some people go crazy.
Well, that would have a fair amount of insanity in the air.
But anyhow, it's a good program. I enjoy it.
Okay, well, thanks for calling.
Listen, if you guys ever come across low-cost, long-distance,
you should just keep announcing that sort of stuff.
We're always looking for low-cost, long-distance.
Okay.
All right, take care.
All right.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Hello?
Yes, go ahead.
I want to comment regarding cellular phones and making extensions, et cetera.
I just want to mention that on one of the alt groups,
I think it's alt.cellulartech, or technical, they discuss this type of thing.
Okay.
And they've been discussing that other case that you have mentioned.
Have they discussed both of these cases?
They've not discussed Bernie S. at all,
but they constantly discuss making extensions to cellular phones,
and they're discussing that guy who fought it in court.
Well, that's amazing.
I don't understand why they aren't talking about Bernie S.
when this case has been so—we've tried so hard to get this out.
We've posted it every place.
I wasn't aware of that particular news group.
When you do a search for news groups, search with the name cellular.
And there's one or two news groups,
because there's one that I read all the time devoted to cellular.
And I know every now and then you talk about stuff you get in the mail.
Yeah.
And, you know, like you may have won $500 million.
Well, with my current visa bill, I got something that said I could be winning a lot of money.
I read all the fine print,
and they're sending out 5 million entries,
which is more than the entire population of the United States.
So I have a big rubber stamp.
Wait a minute.
Whoa, whoa.
What year are you in?
There's more than 5 million people in the United States.
No, I mean 500 million.
Okay.
500 million, which is like double the population of the United States.
Well, for now, yeah.
Okay.
We're getting there, though.
Well, I think we're about 235 million, something like that.
Just got to knock down a few more trees.
Yeah.
Well, anyhow, along with the payment of my visa bill,
I'm sending them back their entry form rubber stamp.
Well, I won't say the words over the air, but the abbreviation is BS.
Uh-huh.
I have this rubber stamp that says that.
I've not used this for a long time.
Uh-huh.
The last time I used it was with a phone bill
that every month they were not giving me the correction they promised to give me.
Uh-huh.
After I stamped that and wrote a few other expletives,
they finally straightened out the bill.
Wow.
Well, do you think a human ever actually saw it, though?
Oh, yes, a human saw that one, the phone bill,
because they called up my wife and said that we should not be sending that type of letter
because the mail is opened up by young ladies.
Ah.
Wouldn't want to offend anybody.
Yeah, but they straightened up the bill when they got that last letter.
Uh-huh.
Well, that's good to get people's attention in whatever way you have to.
Well, it certainly does.
Yeah.
And this, see, they will take a look at this
because they're going to be looking for parts
that we have filled in with our account number
for this more or less scam contest,
which is really to get us to sign up for magazine subscriptions.
They have to look at it
because they want to see what magazine subscriptions we're signing up for,
which is nil.
Uh-huh.
But, see, some of the credit card companies
send you out all this junk mail with your bill.
Some don't.
And some of them are really scammy.
There's a place at the top where they want you to initial,
but if you initial that, you're buying at an extra cost insurance
in case you get disabled so that you can pay off your charge card bill.
And I bet you some people just initial that
without really reading what they're initialing.
They think they're just initialing that the bill is okay.
Interesting.
Well, never initial anything without knowing what you're initialing.
That's my policy.
I read everything.
I mean, I just got a pile of checks.
I'm an actor.
I got a pile of checks, and most of them are wrong
from different movies I've worked in.
I mean, they don't pay us for all the hours we're supposed to be paid.
One of them deducted $15 for recouped payments.
I called them up.
They said, oh, it's a mistake.
We'll give you the money back.
I mean, you've got to be a damn bookkeeper to survive nowadays.
That's certainly true.
And read everything with a magnifying glass.
Yeah.
Well, bookkeepers and people who make magnifying glasses
are in their heyday right now.
That's right.
All right.
Listen, thanks for sharing that with us.
I was thinking for these credit card things,
it would be a good idea to come up with rip-off insurance.
It insures you against being ripped off.
If you get ripped off, then they pay you back whatever you got ripped off.
But the insurance is expensive.
I think that's a great idea.
No one's done it yet, though.
Okay, just about out of time.
You know, I heard something before, though.
AT&T is offering free Internet access to its customers.
Did you hear about this?
Not at all, no.
Well, this was just announced.
They're going to be offering free Internet access to all their customers
for, I think, five hours a month.
And then after that, it's something like $20.
And that is their first step into the world of Internet providing.
And how do you get a hold of these AT&T people?
Well, I don't know.
You subscribe to them, and I imagine they'll contact you if you are.
I am, okay.
I guess I'll just sit and wait.
Yes, you'll be getting a letter of some sort,
or someone will come to your door and sell you this Internet thing.
And you'll get it through AT&T.
I don't know exactly.
This is something I heard on the radio, so I don't know how accurate it is.
I can't believe I just said that.
But sometimes they get it wrong when they first say it.
When they say Internet, they might mean something like AOL or Prodigy
or one of those other Internet look-alike things.
So, I don't know.
We'll just have to see as time goes by.
I think we should just avoid all these newfangled contraptions altogether.
Yes, it's never going to catch on.
Well, we're out of here.
Our time is up.
But we'll be back again next week.
And next week we will have the update on Bernie S.'s sentencing
and see how things went with him.
We'll also find out why he didn't call this week
if some kind of crisis came up or anything like that.
If you want information, you can finger Bernie S. at 2600.com.
That's B-E-R-N-I-E-S.
And you can also visit our website for the latest information there.
If you want to send us, email O-T-H at 2600.com
or individually, Emanuel and Fiber at 2600.com.
Fiber spelled P-H-I-B-E-R.
We'll be back again next week.
And we'll have all these fun updates for you then.
In the meantime, if you see an interesting news story,
please pass it along to us.
And we'll be happy to share it with other people.
Until next week, good night.
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