In commemoration of the days of outrage, the Patrice Luma-Makolisha and Africa Latiscope
will present a seasonal pre-Kwanzaa consciousness-raising community forum, empowerment zones, and rent control,
assisting African and Latino communities in New York, or handouts to monopoly capitalists and landlords.
It is less than two weeks before the new year.
Do you know where you'll be in 1997?
By the way, who's representing you anyhow?
Friday, December 20th, from 6.30 p.m. until 10 p.m. at the Harriet Tubman Learning Center,
127th Street at Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard in Harlem.
Special invited guest speakers, Reverend Calvin Butts, Miles Matthews,
Jim Horton, Harlem Fightback, Professor Hedy Fox, Neo-Presearch Energy Foundation,
Mark Torres, Socialist Action Movement, Viola Plummer, December 12th, Annie Lambe-Brath,
Patrice Lumumba-Kolisha and moderator.
For further information, call area code 212-663-3805.
That's area code 212-663-3805.
And it's 8 o'clock, time for a live edition of Off the Hook.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
It couldn't get much worse, but if it could, it would.
Oh, did it bomb for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that I understood funding it now.
Damn!
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks, because we're here live tonight for another fun-filled edition of Off the Hook.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
This is Emanuel Goldstein, along with Fiber Optic over there.
Yes.
How are you doing?
And this sound, if you'll get up off the table there and sit back down, is the sound of England.
And this, yes, the old colonial power comes back once again with the newest, hippest, most energetic sounds there are.
And this is what everyone over there is listening to right now.
It's definitely energetic.
It is energetic.
It is energetic.
Yes.
Anyway, we have lots of energy tonight because we have lots to talk about and some fun things to demonstrate and teach people about.
There's always fun things going on.
I don't know how many people listened to the show the last couple of weeks, but we had a couple of repeats.
Actually, they weren't repeats, were they?
They were presentations of lectures which occurred during the Hackers on Planet Earth conference in 1994.
The first week was sort of a history of 2600 magazine.
The second week was the social engineering panel, and that was a lot of fun.
It really was.
I hope people learn something from that.
And we are having another conference this summer coming up in August, the Beyond Hope conference.
So we'll be updating you on that.
If you have any suggestions, thoughts, ideas for things that we should do with that one, just let us know over the next couple of months, and that should be just fine.
Anyway, yeah, England's a weird place.
Europe in general is a weird place.
Many ways are ahead of us technologically.
In many ways, things are just a little different, you know?
They have the cellular phones.
We'll be getting to that a little bit later.
Are they technically cellular phones?
Well, do people call them cellular phones?
I think people are only because of the, you know, it's kind of like saying, you know, are they mobile phones?
Well, we don't use the old IMTS system anymore.
Yeah, but they are phones and they are mobile.
Yeah, they are phones, they are mobile.
What is the definition of cellular?
Cellular.
Well, technically, these phones do not work.
GSM does not work the same as cellular did.
The cellular was based on the AMPS system, and this is a totally different system altogether.
All right.
So, if you want to be technical about it, no, they're different.
But a lot of the companies that were cellular companies are now GSM companies, so they're just calling the whole thing cellular.
It's just...
So, as not to confuse people.
Right.
Okay.
It's just a new way of doing something that people have been doing all along, which is just using a portable phone.
Mm-hmm.
It's interesting.
When I was in a bus in Luxembourg, there was a big sign on the window in French saying that for security reasons, you could not use a GSM phone on the bus.
Does that make any sense at all?
For security reasons?
That's what it said.
Of course, they didn't say what security they were talking about, but for some reason, on a bus, you weren't allowed to use a GSM phone.
I'm not sure what they mean by that.
I wasn't sure either, and I didn't want to ask.
I know they banned them on planes.
Right.
Why did they do that?
Seems like it would be kind of cool to be up there in the sky.
No, the problem with that is that the same reason why they banned...
Well, it's only during takeoff and landing.
No, no.
Takeoff and landing, that's personal computers.
Yeah, right.
Cellular phones, the whole time.
Really?
Yeah, really.
I thought it was that they were worried that it would interfere with the flight instruments.
Do you have an answer?
Oh, yeah.
I've got to find your microphone first.
Let's try that one.
It's because when you're six miles in the air, you can hit, like, 300 cells at the same time.
When you're on the ground, you can hit one, two, maybe three cells.
Wait, I just assumed that they were...
Yeah, they do.
They're not cellular.
GTE air phones.
They don't use a cellular system.
Really?
Oh.
Yeah, you really confuse the system.
I mean, you can hit several states' cells because you have a line-of-sight connection to, you know...
We were getting local dial tones, right, when we were playing with GTE air phones?
Yeah, like, wherever we went, we would get the local dial tone or whatever state we had.
So that's not cellular.
They don't do that.
Uh, no.
No.
Yeah.
So I thought they were saying that for the protection of the airplane, but they're actually
protecting the cellular industry.
Yeah.
So, okay, so you won't make the plane crash by using your cellular phone, but you might
disrupt all kinds of communication.
Oh, you might make the plane crash.
Oh, I guess.
Well, that's another theory about that.
I hate traveling in planes.
It's just such a stressful situation.
I don't know why, but I just, I mean, I do know why.
You're sitting in this little tube, and you're up there in the sky, and God knows what could
happen.
I mean, they say static electricity now caused the Flight 800 to crash.
Static electricity.
Yeah, I told you.
Static electricity caused by a missile.
Yeah, well, whatever.
I don't know.
It's just, it's a stressful thing.
I mean, it doesn't make sense to me when you're up in the air, you know, it just, you shouldn't
be there.
Well, the way I try to explain it to people is if you compare it with, like, the original
Wright Flyer, right?
It was, you know, it was really light.
It was, you know, it flew a couple of feet off the ground.
That's how it should have stayed.
Why can't they fly the plane only, like, three feet above the ocean, okay?
You're not likely to hit anything, unless it's a boat, and you'll see it, and then you'll
go up.
But that way, you know, if something happens, you just go, you know, plop into the water,
and everybody can sort of swim around for a little while until the helicopters come.
Yeah.
I mean, that makes sense to me, but being up there 35,000 feet is, you know, if something
goes wrong, you're, you know, you're out of luck.
You might as well be flying in, like, a brick or something, because if you hurl anything hard
enough, it'll stay airborne.
I guess.
See, I always thought, you know, they always tell you, in the event of a water landing,
which implies that water landings can be done nicely, but you saw that thing off the
coast of Africa.
That was a water landing that didn't go so well.
The thing split into pieces after it looked like it was landing okay.
Yeah.
So, I don't know.
Although, you know, people give me statistics, and this just proves you can do anything you
want on statistics, how air travel is safer than any other form of transportation.
Well, I don't know.
You know, I just think my chances of being in a plane crash go up tremendously the moment
I get into a plane.
You know, it's not going to happen to me while I'm sitting on the ground, and you have some
control over your destiny when you're driving around or walking around.
Yeah.
But any nut can do something on an airplane.
Now, I was reading a study in the newspaper a couple of days ago how they don't match
baggage with passengers on domestic flights, only on international flights.
And that's a security hole, because if you don't match the bag, somebody can put a bag
on, and then, you know, then just, I guess it could blow up or something, and they're
back on the ground.
But what they don't seem to think about is, what if the person wants to commit suicide?
It doesn't matter.
What they're saying is they can't detect a lot of these things.
They can't detect plastic explosives at all, at least in our country.
In Europe, I think they can, but in our country, they don't do it for some reason.
I guess it's too expensive.
I think that's what it is.
Yeah, it's too expensive.
Yeah, you know how it is.
So, yeah, all those thoughts go through your head when you're flying up there in the sky.
You just want it to be over with as soon as possible.
At least, I don't know, some people just relax, and I just don't see how you can do that.
I can relax on a train, I can relax on a boat, I can relax in my car, but I can't relax
on one of those things.
But anyway, that's kind of off the subject, although I guess that's something to do with
blind trust of technology.
You don't really know how something works.
You just know it works, and you're confident that it's going to keep working.
Well, I think we know exactly how a plane works.
We just don't approve of being in a really heavy one.
So, if something goes wrong, you'll be able to troubleshoot it and figure out what's...
Oh, no, no, no.
Yeah, well, then you don't understand exactly what's going on, do you?
Well...
You have a lot of faith in these other people that you don't even know.
Well, I guess.
Yeah.
I mean, I always look at these things, you know, are these people competent or what?
Hey, I'm not a big champion of airlining, either.
I'll give you an example of incompetence, okay?
They have this thing called Eurostar.
That's how you get from Paris to London.
You use the chunnel.
Except, the chunnel...
The chunnel.
You think that's funny?
There's a lot more funny words than that over in England, let me tell you.
Tailback.
Do you know what tailback is?
Is that tailgating?
No, it's not, but it does have to be something to do with traffic.
Really?
Tailback is what happens when you get stuck in a traffic jam, and there's all this traffic going
for miles.
That's the tailback.
And I got stuck in several tailbacks, and there was no explanation as to why they were
happening.
It just happened, and everybody had to deal with it.
Don't we just refer to that as backed up traffic?
We do.
They don't.
Tailback.
Yeah.
And when they tell you...
This really confused me.
When they tell you to go straight ahead, and I was driving, and that's not as confusing
as you might think, driving on the wrong side of the road, but when they tell you
to go straight ahead, they say straight over.
Straight over?
Straight over.
Now, do you go over or do you go straight?
I would think it means pull over to the curb.
Uh-huh.
Straight over.
Yeah, that's what I thought, too.
Anyway, Eurostar ordinarily takes about three hours to get from Paris to London by train,
high speed, but the tunnel had this fire, which it wasn't ever supposed to have, and
it did anyway.
And so they closed it, and you had to take a boat.
And so they take us by train to Calais, which is in France, put us on a boat, and the boat
goes over to Dover, which is in England.
And then you're supposed to, for some reason, get on a bus instead of a train to go to London.
And I looked for a bus.
There was no bus.
We asked everybody there.
There was no bus.
So they said, look, you take...
What they must have meant was you take the bus to the train station, and then you take
the train.
So we took the bus that everybody told us to take to the train station, took the train,
and the guy at the station was saying, no, you've got to get a ticket to London because
this isn't a train ticket.
And that's when I got my whole, like, American attitude back.
You know, we all have this.
We may think we don't have it, but we do.
We all have an American attitude when it comes to certain things, like somebody saying they're
going to take you someplace, and they don't.
So I'm like, you know, I bought a ticket to London, and someone's going to take me to
London, okay, because I already paid to go to London.
So you're going to, you know, do that.
And the guy just could not understand my point of view at all.
You know, it wasn't the right ticket to him, so I had to buy another one.
And there was no way of getting there with that ticket.
It was ridiculous.
Turns out, Eurostar is like another company that uses the same train tracks, right?
We're not used to this concept there.
But apparently, if they screw up and don't get you to where you're supposed to go, British
Rail doesn't care at all.
You know, it's their tracks, but it's not their trains.
That's a concept that's just so completely alien to me.
And I called the Eurostar people in London, and I was trying to find out, you know, what
possessed me to think like this.
And they said, yeah, you're right.
You know, it's a bad situation.
What you need to do is complain to the Eurostar people in Paris, because they really shouldn't
have given you a ticket like this.
And I say, well, you know, you're Eurostar, too.
You're in the same company.
And I guess that rubbed them the wrong way.
They thought I was being really obnoxious and offensive, because they were like, sir,
you don't have to get all angry at us, but it's not our fault, it's their fault.
What's the point of having a company with the same name if they're not responsible for
what they do in other cities?
You know, I just, I can't understand that.
Well, they were offended because you were calling them French.
Well, I guess, maybe, yeah.
I don't know.
Yeah, there's this whole French-British thing going on.
But there's this whole French-American thing going on, that people are snubbing each other
left and right.
But the situation in England is really, really amazing, as far as what's going on with the
hacker world, which is the main reason I went over there, is to see the Manchester-UK meeting.
I've been to the London meeting, and there's a meeting in Bristol, there's a meeting in
Aberdeen, Scotland.
I found out there's a meeting in Leeds we didn't even know about, there was sort of a meeting
in secret.
But it's exploded so much in the last three years.
It's gone from no meetings at all to about six meetings, and all these hackers suddenly
have popped up out of no place.
And they're reading the magazine, seeing where meetings are, going there, meeting other people,
and it's just, it's growing so incredibly.
And it makes you realize that a lot of what we do really does matter, and it does pay off
in some way.
People are getting connected, they're waking up to playing around with technology and sharing
ideas.
And I learned a lot over there, and made some nice connections.
I think things will continue to grow.
Hopefully these European people will come over for Beyond Hope in August, like they did
in 1994.
Something interesting happened while I was over there.
Did you hear about the website that got hacked?
Yes, I did.
Yeah, that was kind of funny.
Give me that.
The newspaper The Guardian, dated December 10th, has a front page story, Hacker Takes Over
Labor's Cyberspace.
Now, the Labor Party is like the party that's not in power.
The Tories are in power now.
They're like the conservatives, the Labor Party's like the liberals.
For a man who professes to be the champion of the information revolution, Tony Blair could
not have received a better lesson in the consequences of arming the nation's youth with access to
cyberspace.
Last night, the Labor Party's internet site was being stripped in a desperate attempt to
fend off a determined onslaught by an American hacker, which started on Saturday.
Well, I don't really know if it was an American hacker.
I just want to say that right now.
I don't really know if that's true.
In the space of two attacks, the site was transformed from a slick exercise in the future of political
communications to the laughing stock of the World Wide Web.
During the first raid, the hacker changed the title Road to the Manifesto to Road to Nowhere.
And he also tinkered with links to other websites, so they read the Labor Party sex shop and
transferred visitors to pages carrying pornography.
Or as they say in England, prawn.
Prawn?
Yeah, I don't know why they say it, but they do.
What?
They call it prawn, all right?
They just do.
Never mind, it's a cultural thing.
The site was restored within 20 minutes, but as senior labor officials met yesterday to
discuss improving security after the initial raid, the hacker, who would not reveal his
identity, contacted the Guardian to warn that he was about to hit labor again.
Watch the labor homepage.
I'm going to hack it again, he said, before ringing off.
Ringing off means hang up.
I see.
Yeah.
He regained access and carried out a more devastating raid, adding Mr. Blair's spitting image effigy
to the homepage under the banner, hacked labor, same politicians, same lies.
Spitting images is a political show over there using marionettes to basically imitate all...
I've actually seen them in music videos.
Yeah, they're really funny.
Links supposed to detail labor personalities transferred visitors to the site of Jim Henson's Muppet
show.
Uh, he may have done labor a favor.
The site temporarily became one of the most popular on the web, at one point collapsing
under the weight of visitors.
At first, labor was philosophical about its ordeal, with officials pointing out that accessibility
was what made the internet so appealing.
But the soft line changed after the second raid when a spokeswoman said police had been
called in.
Uh, the running of the site is contracted out to two companies, Online Publishing, which
sets up and maintains the pages, and PopTel, which provides the web space.
Last night, both companies were struggling to discover how the hacker had managed to overcome
security measures on two separate occasions.
How indeed.
So, uh, yeah, fun stuff over there.
It's, uh...
And somebody hit Singapore, too.
Did you hear about this?
Really?
Someone hit the Singapore governmental...
And that's really daring, okay?
You don't mess with Singapore.
But somebody did, and I haven't seen this one.
I'd like to see a copy of that one, if anybody has it.
Um, a lot of web hacking going on out there.
You know, I still think it's kind of fun, you know, because it's not really destructive.
The old copies of the material are still there, and if you fix the security hole, the problem
goes away.
And it's kind of a neat way to get a political statement out, using your enemies to do it.
I think it's just kind of ingenious.
Um, I met a few people over there that were considered outlaws.
You know, hacker outlaws.
But the thing that they were running from the law because of, um, it was kind of silly.
They basically had been accused of accessing a net site without authorization and planting
back doors so they could get in.
And basically what they were trying to do was get access to the net.
Because over there, you have permanent charges for just about everything.
It's a lot more expensive.
It's a lot harder to get a dedicated connection.
And at a decent price.
So, these people basically have been turned into outlaws because they want to be on the
internet.
So, it's kind of, kind of, uh, silly that they have to go that, that route.
But, um, eventually with competition, they have competition with local phone connections.
They have 9X, actually 9X is over there, uh, pairing up with some cable companies offering
what's known as cable phones.
And I guess we'll be seeing that here pretty soon as well.
Uh, Teletext.
We talked about Teletext before.
Uh, they have Teletext on every single one of their channels.
They have three-digit channel numbers or Teletext numbers.
I think 888 is always closed captioning.
And 100 is, is news usually.
The, uh, the website thing made Teletext on, on one of the BBC channels.
So, we were looking at that.
Uh, we have Teletext in this country.
Or we have something.
I'm not quite sure.
Maybe our listeners can help us with this.
If you go to any new TV set and play around with the captioning mode, you'll get closed captioning.
But there's some other mode where you just get a big black square on your, on your set.
I see everybody nodding, and I think everyone's done that.
But, has anyone ever seen anything besides the big black square?
No, no one's ever seen anything.
Yeah.
No.
You seen something?
What have you seen?
I heard NBC was doing something with, with program listings, or something exciting like that.
Weather, too.
Well, if anybody knows when these things are on, I would sure like to play around with them and, and, and see.
The neatest thing about being overseas, though, was being able to walk into these net cafes, which are popping up everywhere,
and just able to check mail, communicate with people back home, at a fraction of the cost of making a phone call.
Uh, that's, that's like the latest thing, being able to do that easily.
And, hopefully, people will, uh, will make use of that.
There are some in the city, not enough.
There should be more.
There are a lot overseas.
So, in that, in that regard, I think they're, they're way ahead of us.
Now, this is the interesting thing that I want to, um, to focus on right now.
We're going to, uh, play around with this.
Um, while I was traveling, I was reading a newspaper on the train, actually.
And I was reading about the demonstrations in Belgrade.
You know, every, every day, about 100,000 people march against the Serbian government.
And what, um, what they did over there at one point was shut down the radio station, B92.
They just shut it down.
I guess they figured that that was, uh, that was the way to, uh, to handle the situation.
Um, what happened after they did that was a, a, a group of Dutch people who we know very
well, known as Access for All, they have a lease line over to Belgrade.
They simply put B92 over the internet.
And all of a sudden, all these people that weren't able to get it were able to get it,
and, and people all over the world were able to get it as well.
So, what we're going to do, first of all, uh, we're going to, um, we're going to listen
to some of this ourselves over, uh, a real audio link.
And then we're going to talk to somebody over in Holland about this whole situation.
Um, actually, click on the, uh, we're, we're connected to the site right now.
Let's, uh, turn down this, uh, this happy hardcore music there.
There, it's gone.
Okay, we have, um, we have a connection to the site right now.
Can we connect to the Serbian language version?
I think that's over to the left.
Yeah.
Okay, and, uh, we connect to that.
And that should play for us.
And then we'll connect to English.
Okay, this is, this is live over the web.
Okay, this is live over the web.
Okay, I think we have the idea of what the Serbian language sounds like.
Okay, so now let's, uh, let's click on English and see how English sounds.
Can I turn your mic down when we're listening to it?
Because of the mic compression.
Yeah, no, that's the only mic that's on right now.
Okay.
So let's, uh, click on English, hear that, and...
This is the live.
This is live.
Well, oh, wait, you want the, you want the live?
No, the news from England.
Uh, the news from, in English.
Is that what this is?
No, this is, that's live.
This is live now.
Okay, so we can also hear, we can also hear, uh, B-92 live from Belgrade.
They're playing music now, apparently.
There's several different things you can do.
They have, uh, they have some pre-recorded shows.
Is that not stopping or something?
No.
You can't stop that from playing, huh?
It's an insistent B-92 signal there.
Okay, so now, uh, now we're going to hear the English version.
It's a little slow.
Hang on.
Okay.
We still have to iron out all the kinks in the technology.
But just the fact that we're able to connect over there.
We're actually connecting to Holland.
We're not connecting to, well, they're connecting to Serbia from Holland when we listen to the live signal.
But when we listen to the news in English, we're listening to, uh, a pre-recorded version that was transferred over there at one point.
Uh, connect sound we hear should be the English language version of this.
This is the radio B-92.
Welcome to Radio B-92's daily English news service.
Italian foreign minister, Lamberto Dini, is to meet with Serbian president, Pablo Milosevic, and Yugoslav foreign minister, Milan Milosevic, as well as opposition leaders in Belgrade on Thursday.
Mr. Dini, the first high-ranking Western official to meet with Mr. Milosevic, since the beginning of the protest, will present NATO's statement condemning the November election fraud.
John Shattuck, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Labor, in an interview with Radio B-92, expressed his concern about recent development in Serbia.
The United States, uh, is not only condemning the fundamental violation of human rights that we see in the case of the invalidation of clearly...
Okay, I think we pretty much get an idea of that sound.
The sound is very low because we're listening to this, actually, over a laptop, which I think demonstrates how, um, how interesting the whole thing is, that we can do that.
And, uh, the fact that we can just tie a laptop into, uh, into radio from Serbia, I think that demonstrates the power of the net.
We have, uh, Rob from Access for All, uh, on the phone with us, live from Holland.
Rob, you're there.
Hello there.
How you doing?
Uh, first of all, congratulations on getting this, uh, getting this out to people.
I think it's, uh, it's really a demonstration of what the net is all about.
Um, what kind of reaction have you gotten?
Oh, overwhelming.
There's a lot of people congratulating us.
We didn't really do that much.
It was the people in Belgrade that, that did the work.
They, they make these, they make these broadcasts.
And they've had a line to us for a long period of time.
They had a, a least line for, I think, almost a year and a half now.
They've had a least line into Access for All, all the way from Belgrade, which came in really useful when this all started.
We were their sort of primary, primary internet connection, which is why we set up the, the real audio server, uh, in the first place.
And then, um, after a few days, they got a better internet connection from EUNet.
And by that time, we had a 500 stream real audio server up so 500 people could listen at the same time.
But it all went very fast.
I mean, just one mail to the people at, at, that make real audio, the, the, the, the progressive networks company.
I did one email to them.
Immediately, they gave, they gave back a code so that we could have 500 audio streams simultaneously.
They gave that for free.
And everybody was just willing to do everything for free and instantly and on the spot and no fussing.
What, what kind of bandwidth do you need to handle 500 people at once?
I don't think 500 people have tried to listen at once.
Uh, but, uh, we could do that experiment right now.
If you all, everybody with a real audio player go to www.excessforall.nl slash the tilde open net and then click on the live stream, uh, I hope we can see the usage go up right there.
Yeah, I mean, it doesn't cost anything to do this because you're on the net and you're able to just listen to this.
If you don't have real audio, obviously you can download that.
Let me see if I can, if I can access the number of streams in use.
Yeah, we can, we can watch it go out live on the air.
Yeah.
Hold on.
Let me see if I can get that graph on the screen.
Ooh, yeah, I can get that graph on the screen.
There's now the real audio server at, at our thing is for the last 25 hours.
It peaks at about 20 people listening simultaneously, even though 500 people could.
But we can refresh this often and then see how it goes up.
So again, the address is http colon slash slash www.excessforall.nl slash tilde.
That's the thing to the left of your one when you press the shift.
Well, it's not always to the left of your one.
Well, sometimes it is.
Yeah, it's in different places.
And then open net, and that should do it.
And then you get a page where you can click all sorts of audio, but you can also select the live stream,
which is what's currently coming out of Belgrade.
And then I'll reload this often, and we can see it go up.
Okay, what was it at right now?
It's now at 19.
Only 19 people in the world are listening to this right now.
I don't understand why.
It's well publicized.
I thought our listenership was low.
That's something.
Because anybody in the world can do this who has net access, obviously.
Yeah.
So all you have to do is go into Netscape or Internet Explorer or whatever.
Well, you have to have the latest version of Real Audio, the Real Audio 3.0 player.
Okay.
So maybe people have to download that first and get that set up, and then they can just click in any time.
Yep.
All right.
Well, I guess that's pretty much everything we have to ask you.
I mean, are you planning anything else as far as expansion of this service?
Well, the whole idea of we've never really played with Real Audio that much.
And seeing how easy it is to encode live streams, we were thinking of putting the parliamentary radio.
The Dutch have a system where they broadcast the audio from parliament.
And we were thinking of putting that online just for the fun of it, because nobody has the copyright over it.
You can just do that.
Right.
And just take all sorts of interesting audio sources.
But, of course, the most interesting things would be if people just shared whatever random audio they got from the air or from anywhere that was public and just put it online.
Right.
On the net, we're all broadcasters, and we can all share what we have with other people.
And I think that's the most amazing thing about it is that there's, you know, they call them pirate radio people.
They call the people that go on without authorization that.
But what I'm learning over time is that the ones that are on the air legitimately are the real pirates, because they've taken something which is public and kept it out of the public's eyes or hands or whatever, you know.
It's something that I think we have to look at again with, you know, I guess a renewed outlook.
The net is something that's equal to everybody, and we have to remember to keep it that way.
I haven't followed your broadcast before I came in, but did you actually explain what happened in the period that B-92 was taken off the air?
Well, I know it was taken off the air, and it was eventually put back on the air.
But while it was off the air, it was still available on the net.
Now, if there's more details, no, I did not go into those.
Oh, there's a few great details.
I just reread all the press releases they gave out during this whole crisis.
And they were taken off the air, and then they were jammed, put back on the air and jammed.
And then they were taken off the air again, and then after two days, the Ministry of Information said that water had leaked into their coax cable,
because they don't even own the transmitter.
The state is actually broadcasting their signal.
And so water had gotten into their transmitter, coax cable, and that's why it didn't work anymore.
It got really funny.
Exactly at the time, at the heights of crises, their signal was pulled off the air, and then that was all, of course, into the water.
The whole movement has been punctuated by all kinds of humor on the part of the demonstrators.
I know at one point the government was saying that the capital was being infested by pests,
and so they show up the next day with insecticide, and that's just to mock the government.
And it's really inspirational the way they're doing this.
It is, yeah.
Well, Rob, I want to thank you very much for providing this service,
for helping to provide this service, and just for continuing to be an inspiration.
Well, as I said, in this case, we really didn't do much.
Everybody was really helpful, and it's the people in Belgrade that have really done the work.
Well, the important thing was that you were there so they could do something.
And I think you got there by working in the hacker world over years,
and building things up so that we're actually the people that are designing things, building things,
and, you know, being taken seriously by the populace.
I think nowhere is that more clear than in Holland.
Maybe.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, listen, I know it's very late over there, so thanks for talking to us.
Okay.
And keep it up.
Have fun.
All right.
Take care.
That was Rob from Access for All, who helps run the Access for All site that currently broadcasts Belgrade Radio.
And that's really something.
Hopefully, one day this show will be on real audio as well.
Maybe not 500 channels, but, I don't know, something close to that would be nice.
You can hear a couple of old shows on the website, www.2600.com.
In fact, you can hear the Bernie S. shows, the ones where he was originally beaten in prison and then eventually released.
I think there's three shows there altogether, which are quite interesting to listen to.
This news item just came in today.
Fiber, you might be interested in this.
What's that?
It might apply to you, actually.
The U.S. Parole Commission will restrict computer use by certain high-risk convicted criminals who have been released from prison on parole, the Justice Department said.
It said the panel made the decision December 4th after noting that information was available on the Internet.
I guess they just figured that out.
And computer online services involving such offenses as child molestation, hate crimes, and illegal use of explosives.
Unrestricted access to the Internet and other computer online services can provide sophisticated offenders with new opportunities for crime and criminal associations.
Edward Riley, the Commission Chairman, said,
We cannot ignore the possibility that such offenders may be tempted to use computer services to repeat their crimes.
Those on parole already face numerous limits on travel, association, and other activities.
The Commission now has the discretionary power to restrict computer use.
For example, a person on parole may be required to get written approval from the Commission to use an Internet provider, bulletin board system, or any other computer network, the Justice Department said.
It said other conditions could include requiring unannounced examinations of the computer by a probation officer, keeping a daily log of computer use, and installing equipment that monitors use.
The restrictions will be decided on a case-by-case basis.
Well, the thing that's really misleading about that is that parole and probation are not the same thing.
Well, that's true, yes.
That's true.
I don't know if some of the time in there they're talking about probation and other times parole.
I don't think most people know the difference themselves, but the point is that they're coming up with other ways to watch people.
Right.
And any time they do that, it's something you have to sort of, you know, be very wary of.
In England, they have cameras everywhere.
They have speed cameras.
They have red light cameras.
They even have fire lane cameras.
If you go into a fire lane or a bus lane, you're not supposed to, a camera captures your license plate and sends you a ticket.
You know, it's...
Well, they have some of those here.
Yeah, they do.
But over there, they have them every place.
And people are just used to it.
You know, it's not something that is considered controversial anymore.
It's just cameras all over the place.
I was in Manchester, and I don't know if you know the history of Manchester over the past year,
but there was a tremendous explosion there in the spring where the whole center of town was devastated.
And I stood in the middle of this where the bomb actually went off.
This is bigger than Oklahoma City, but nobody was killed.
It was an IRA bomb.
They warned people beforehand, which I guess was fairly nice.
But it's led to all kinds of increased surveillance, obviously.
And, in fact, a friend of mine was telling me how...
This is really kind of Orwellian.
And they were being evacuated from Manchester,
and these helicopters were hovering above them with loudspeakers saying,
please, leave Manchester now.
It was straight out of some sort of, you know, science fiction story.
And these people were being herded across a field out into God knows where.
And it's just...
It's a very weird situation over there.
I've got to tell you, England is a crazy place.
Speaking of crazy places, 9X, starting today,
I don't know if it's today or whenever this thing was mailed out,
star 69 tells you the number of the last person who called
so you can decide how to handle the calls you missed.
Have you seen this?
No.
Apparently, star 69 speaks to you now.
Really?
Well, this is what the little brochure says.
In the past, star 69 automatically called back the number of the last person
whose call you missed.
Now, with new 9X technology...
That means technology that is supposed to work and just hasn't up until now.
When you press star 69, you'll hear the number of the last person who called
plus the time and date.
Wow.
If you decide you want to be connected right away, just press 1.
Or, if you want to call back later, just hang up.
Because, let's face it, there are some calls that can wait.
And, guess what?
Star 69 can even tell you long-distance numbers.
It just can't automatically connect you.
I don't know why not, but you'll still know the number you just missed,
even if it's coming from, say, California.
Well, I have a question.
Is it still going to bill you the 75 cents, regardless of whether you connect?
I'll get to that.
That's in the next paragraph.
The newly improved service is available to you right now,
and it costs just 75 cents each time you press star 69 and hear a number.
Does that answer your question?
Yeah.
Once you press 1 and are connected, you'll pay for the usual cost of the call.
In addition?
No.
Well, I mean, yeah.
In addition to the 75 cents.
But that was always the case beforehand.
Even better, you'll never pay more than $6 a month for the star 69 service.
Basically, after you use it 8 times a month, the 75-cent charge is on us.
How can they afford to do this?
This is amazing.
They pay the 75 cents to themselves.
Yeah.
That's incredible.
Of course, if you think you'll use star 69 more than, say, three times a month,
you might want to consider a monthly subscription,
which gives you unlimited service for only $3.
Pretty amazing, huh?
Well, the thing that's interesting about that is you've got to wonder about caller ID.
They make more money off this than they would off caller ID
because you get the number before the other person actually gets connected.
Is this, in fact, caller ID?
Because it's giving all the same information.
Yeah, but what I'm saying is that this could stand to actually cut into people wanting to get caller ID.
Well, yeah, because all you have to do with this service is every time somebody calls you,
you don't pick up the phone.
Then you pick up the phone, dial star 69, get the information, write it down.
You save on the caller ID box.
You save the $4.50 a month for caller ID.
You only pay $3 a month for this.
The only disadvantage is you can't pick up the phone ever.
You have to call everybody back.
No, but my point is that ultimately 9X makes more money this way.
They do because they're, well, it depends how people do this.
If they only pay $3 a month and then they don't use caller ID,
9X is making less than if everybody got caller ID, obviously.
Well, an example would be if you call me and you're within 9X,
then if with caller ID, I'm not going to know if it's you calling.
Well, actually, no, I'm sorry.
If you call me and you're within 9X,
then if I answer the phone, obviously you're billed for the call.
If I don't answer the phone and then later on I go and look at my caller ID box,
I just see that you happen to call at that particular time.
And I'm paying a flat rate for the caller ID service no matter how many times that you're going to call me.
But you can pay a flat rate for this, too.
Right, but how many times are people going to actually use that service
before they realize that should I get the flat rate or should I not?
How many people are going to even know that you can get a flat rate?
That's true.
Most people are largely unaware.
They're going to see the commercial and they're going to try dialing.
They do have the maximum $6 thing, which they had before, too.
Right.
So it's really not that big a difference.
Because, I don't know, it's interesting.
I know in other parts of the country they have had speaking Star 6ix9ine.
Right.
What I don't understand, though, is why can't they connect you outside the 9X area?
Why can't they just Star 6ix9ine over there?
They probably just don't have permission from the FCC.
Well, did old Star 6ix9ine connect you outside 9X?
No.
It didn't?
No.
So I guess that's the reason.
But, in effect, is the data being sent the same way?
Yeah, it is.
Basically, 9X is giving everyone caller ID.
Sort of.
Well, no.
Because when you subscribe to caller ID service...
See, the number is always delivered regardless.
All caller ID does is...
Actually, that's not true.
Because if you listen to a ring...
Right.
If you...
I don't mean it's being sent from the switch to the subscriber.
That's what I mean, to the subscriber.
No, it's not.
Okay.
What I'm saying is that the information is always sent over the SS7 network between switches.
Yes.
When you subscribe to caller ID service, you're paying for the presentation of it.
Okay.
So what you're doing, then, with Star69 is you're querying your central office to tell
you what the number was.
The number that's already stored there.
Yeah.
Could you not query the central office to get the last 10 numbers?
If you so chose.
But they don't offer such a service.
Yeah.
A service like that.
Interesting.
So it's just another way of getting the same information.
Yeah.
And it's also, like what you say about querying for the last 10 numbers, it's really limited
by the amount of memory that the switch actually has.
Right.
Okay.
Interesting.
So that's the newest 9X development.
We have some interesting 9X numbers here.
You've seen this?
People are going around scanning the 890 exchange.
Oh.
I think that's a great exchange to scan.
Yeah.
And if you want to help out with the scan, let us know.
Because we want to find out about these things.
There were several numbers we were calling.
I don't remember which number we were calling.
Which one was it?
Circle it.
Let's throw a circle around that because there are a lot of good ones in there.
In fact, there's one number in there.
We can't find it at the moment.
We were looking for it before.
But there's actually a live ANAC.
A guy picks up the phone and says your phone number to you.
And he's there live.
If it's not a recording, there's a guy whose job it is 9X to just read back numbers.
I call him.
Are you sure it just wasn't somebody who thought it was a prank call and was trying to intimidate
the person by reading back their numbers?
Well, that's a possibility, I suppose.
But I don't know.
At least that one time, it served the same purpose.
So, okay.
What do we got here?
Okay.
We don't want that one.
We don't want that one.
That wasn't...
No, wait.
There was another one.
Ah, okay.
Here it is.
Do you remember this?
Do you remember the New York Telephone Adopt-A-Payphone Hotline?
Adopt-A-Payphone?
You don't remember that, do you?
Well, we found it.
It's back, apparently.
Let's get a dial tone here.
And we'll dial the number.
Okay.
Now, I don't know why they call it Adopt-A-Payphone, but basically, it's to report a problem.
Welcome to New York Telephone's Adopt-A-Payphone Hotline.
Please enter your group identification code.
If you do not know your group code, enter three zeros.
Okay, well, we can do that because we don't know.
Please enter the area code and telephone number that you are reporting.
If you make a mistake, press the star key.
Enter the area code and telephone number now.
Okay, we're going to enter our phone number here.
Maybe it won't know if it's a payphone or not.
Uh-oh.
Did she say to hit press?
Please enter your response.
What?
Please enter the area code and telephone number that you are reporting.
Didn't I just do that?
If you make a mistake, press the star key.
Okay, I'll do it again.
Enter the area code and telephone number now.
I will, but this time listen a little more carefully.
You have entered area code 2-1-2 and phone number 2-7-9-3-4-0-0.
If this number is correct, press 1.
If incorrect, press 2.
Please hold on momentarily while we retrieve your repair records.
Sounds fair enough.
Press 1 for no dial tone.
Press 2 for blocked coin slot.
Press 3 for broken handset.
Press 4 for broken dial.
Press 5 for broken equipment.
Press 6 for dirty.
Press 9 to repeat the trouble descriptions.
Press pound to cancel this trouble report.
I think you should say dirty.
I think so, too.
This trouble will be fixed on December 18, 19, 96.
I don't get this.
If you would like to report another trouble number, press 1.
To end your call, press 2.
We're going to end the call here.
Thank you for calling the Adopt-A-Payphone hotline.
Now, that's the dumbest thing I have ever seen because, first of all, that's not a payphone, okay?
I just reported our line here as being dirty.
God knows what 9X is going to do.
It's not even 9X.
It's New York Telephone, a company that ceased to exist several years ago.
So now we just reported our line, which wasn't a payphone, as a dirty phone, and I don't know what that means.
But that's just some of the fun things you can find by scanning 890.
You'll find these old computers that probably are sitting there and haven't been touched in years.
Do you know they're changing the number for repair service?
Yeah, do you?
890-6611 apparently was too hard to remember, so they're going to replace that with 890-6611 for home people and for business people, 890-7711.
Well, you know, the 890-6611 number is always on your phone bill, but it was only recommended for people who were in those special areas who couldn't dial 611.
Yeah, I always wondered about those people.
Now we are those people.
Now we're them, too.
Beginning January 1, 1997, if you dial 611, you will reach a recorded announcement directing you to call the new numbers.
I don't get it.
I mean, what do they need to do that for?
Can't they just forward you?
They could forward us, but they only have to tell us this.
If they have a problem with 611, they can just have 611 forward to 890 and have the 890 people dial that number if they want to do that.
But why do they have to get rid of 611?
You think they want to, like, assign 611 as a prefix?
I don't know.
Or maybe as a three-digit code of some sort.
I don't know.
Who knows what they have in mind.
Okay, here's something else.
10297.
Have you seen this one?
Yeah, I throw it away all the time.
Well, okay, we just got a ton of these ones.
The return address is just 10297, which I think is kind of mysterious because 10297 is a zip code.
Really?
So if this thing gets returned, it's probably going to go back to wherever that is.
And someone in 10297 is not going to be very happy.
Okay, so basically, new dialing instructions, stickers and clothes, special notice to telephone customers.
We've seen things like this before.
Effective immediately.
If you currently use AT&T, Sprint, or MCI for long distance, you can now save up to 50% on the state-to-state long distance calls you make.
You can save on international calls, too.
This guaranteed savings is possible because 10297 has just been activated in New York.
No fees associated with this program.
No minimums.
No fees.
None of that.
None of that.
None of that stuff.
It takes one second to save up to 50%.
With the 10297 savings code, your call is automatically priced below the basic rates charged by AT&T, MCI, or Sprint.
But the farther away you call within the U.S., the more you save, up to a big 50%.
And internationally, you'll save up to 66%.
Okay, well, we have to find out what the catch to this one is because we always find out what the catch to this thing is pretty quickly.
What do you think it is?
The catch?
Yeah.
I mean, there must be a reason why you throw this out.
Why do you think it's not good?
You're automatically switched to some company you never heard of.
No.
No.
The classic catch.
They're not supposed to do that.
That's illegal.
Well, yeah, but how many companies do that?
A lot do.
That's true, but I don't think they would send out this mass mailing just so they could scam everybody.
That's not...
I wouldn't imagine a mass mailing to scam people.
I mean, listen, save 15% to 50% on state-to-state calls, no club to join, no minimum number of calls, no activation fee or monthly charge.
Keep your current long-distance carrier.
Just dial 10297 before you dial a number.
What could be simpler than that?
Sounds pretty simple.
Yeah, it does.
It does.
Okay, now let's try to find the catch.
All right, let's call AT&T and find out what a nighttime call to California will cost.
Let's get ourselves a dial tone.
102-880 to get an AT&T operator who will no doubt help us with rate information.
AT&T.
To place a call, please dial the number that you are calling.
For other requests...
I'll just hit zero.
That's always the quickest way.
Please hold for operator assistance.
AT&T, how may I help you?
Yes, hello.
I'd like to know what the nighttime rate is between here and the number in California.
Area code 415-exchange-332.
332?
Yes.
And that's after 11 p.m.
Okay.
Hold on.
Thank you.
It's, oh, after 11.
Hold on a sec.
It's 17 cents a minute after 11.
Okay, great.
Okay.
Thanks for your help.
Now, for these guys to beat that, what would it have to be?
15 to 50 percent.
Anybody have a calculator or configure that now?
Here, we have a computer.
Oh, okay.
Well, I don't know if that can help us.
Well, let's just, let's just, since we're running out of time, let's call them.
We have their 800 number.
They say if you have any questions to call this number.
Hey, it's a double ring.
Thank you for calling customer service.
My name is Marzina Hardin.
How may I help you?
Yes, hi.
I'd like to know the rate between New York and California after 11 p.m.
Okay.
Okay.
Calling from your home, 212-279?
Yes.
And what is the area code and number you're calling to?
I'm calling to 415-332-Exchange.
And this is with 104-57 or 102-97?
102-97.
Okay.
If you hold, I'll get that information.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay, I'll give you the rates for three blocks of time.
Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. is 22 and a half cents per minute.
During the evenings, from 5 p.m. to 11, Sunday through Friday, is 13 and a half cents per minute.
Hmm.
On nights and weekends, Sunday through Friday, 11 p.m. to 8 a.m.
All day Saturday, and Sunday until 5 p.m. is 11 and a quarter cents per minute.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
And you're familiar with all the benefits of using 102-97?
Yes, I am.
Okay.
Thank you for calling 102-97.
Okay.
Thank you for answering.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
All right.
Well, that's interesting.
It is cheaper.
I don't see anything wrong with this one yet.
We don't have time to really pursue this any further, because we have something else we have to do tonight before we run out of time completely.
In the three minutes that we have left.
Yeah, we only have about three minutes, but unfortunately, we just had so much to talk about.
We've got cellular information, GSM, PCS-type information from overseas, where we compare prices.
And I guess since you have your PCS phone, and you're fairly familiar with your rates, what's the basic comparison?
I think they're cheaper over there.
I'm pretty sure they're cheaper.
Of course, the rates are in pounds there, which is a bit more than dollars.
Well, some things...
Well, it is kind of confusing for me to, like, convert pounds to dollars, especially since they use comma instead of decimal points.
Well, they just use commas instead of decimal points, and they use points instead of commas, but other than that, it's exactly the same.
Okay, well, it seems like some of the rates are comparable.
Some of the companies are more expensive.
Well, the big difference is that you don't pay to receive phone calls.
You pay a little extra to call a cellular phone.
Well, in the chart that I have, they don't actually...
Oh, wait.
No, that's not true.
You're lying, or you were misled.
No, it was.
Because it says price of incoming calls.
Price of incoming calls?
And it's expensive.
But I know people that have this service, and they don't pay for incoming calls.
Are you sure that's every company, or maybe just one or two?
These are the most common ones.
Orange, Vodafone, One to One, and CellNet.
Uh-huh.
And now the thing, though, is that there is a smaller network that was started by Mercury before GSM was available, called PCN.
It's only available in certain parts of Britain.
And PCN is completely incompatible with the GCM network, and it's not global.
It was a precursor.
And the rate structure for that might be cheaper, since it's a little localized network that's competing with GSM.
But the GSM rates in England look at least as expensive, if not more expensive.
I don't think that's true, because lots more people use the phones over there than here.
And I'm told that they are not as expensive, that rates in this country have not yet gotten to the point of other countries.
Well, then, like I said, maybe it's PCN, or this article is misleading.
But these rates are comparable, if not more expensive.
Are you looking at both charts there?
Because we have two charts from two different magazines.
No, actually, this other one is, for digital, it's only cellular.
They're not listing GSM features.
Oh, they're not, okay.
In this other magazine.
Okay.
All right, what we're going to have to do is look this over really carefully, talk to some people over there,
and we'll be able to compare that, we'll probably be able to get to that next week.
And hopefully, next week, we'll get some phone calls, too.
I'm sorry we weren't able to do that this week.
Are you here Christmas Eve?
Am I here Christmas Eve?
Is that what next week is?
I guess I am.
Soma?
Oh, well, won't that be fun?
Yeah, well, we'll just have to make a party out of it.
And you know what?
If we're here Christmas Eve, that means we're here New Year's Eve, too, doesn't it?
That's just great.
You know what I discovered today?
That Halloween is the same day always as New Year's Eve.
Did you know that?
Halloween?
Yes.
The same day of the week.
Yes.
So, we must have been here on Halloween, were we?
I think we were.
I don't remember.
Well, somebody told me this.
What?
Yeah.
Okay, so that means every year Halloween is the same day of the week as New Year's Eve and Christmas Eve.
A little fact for you to ponder.
Okay, we're out of time here, so we'll be back again next week with another action-packed edition of Off the Hook.
Until then, have yourselves a good week, and stay tuned for Housing Notebook.
Good night.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
It could be yet much worse, but if I could, they would.
Oh, did they bombed for the best expect of birth?
I hope that I understood.
Oh, did they bombed!
Oh, did they bombed!
I want everybody to listen.
I want to talk about the rich and the super-rich.
In commemoration of the days of outrage, the Patrisula Momacolisha and Africa Latiscope will present a seasonal pre-Kwanza Consciousness Raising Community Forum,
Empowerment Zones and Rent Control, Assisting African and Latino Communities in New York,
or Handouts to Monopoly Capitalists and Landlords.
This is less than two weeks before the new year.
Do you know where you'll be in 1997?
By the way, who's representing you anyhow?
Friday, December 20th, from 6.30 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Harriet Tubman Learning Center,
127th Street at Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard in Harlem.
Special invited guest speakers, Reverend Calvin Butts, Miles Matthews.