We'll be back on this topic again.
This is Jerry Brown for We The People.
Thanks for listening.
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And it's 8 o'clock you're listening to WBAI in New York it's Tuesday night time for off the hook.
Best expect the worst I hope that's understood.
And good evening to everybody.
This is another exciting edition of off the hook the program about computer hacking and
fun technological developments in the world that surrounds us all that concerns the Internet
the phone system the growing technological advances such as DVD and PCS and CIA and FBI
and all that kind of fun stuff so we'll be here for the next hour talking about various
developments will be taking phone calls a little later on in the show and some interesting
things have happened this week one of them will be spending quite a bit of time on we'll
get to that in just a moment but you may have seen an article on the front page of the New
York Times about how digital cellular phones have been compromised it's unfortunately fiber
is not here tonight so we can't get into the full details of it but suffice to say that
there are some major factual errors in the article it does not have anything to do with
PCS PCS service that we've been talking about which includes companies like Omnipoint Sprint
Bell South that is not affected by this what is affected our digital cellular calls digital
cellular technology which is a lot older couple of years it's a lot older than the PCS and
GSM technology that's starting to manifest itself around us so if you have one of those
phones don't panic yet I mean there's always a reason to panic but this isn't it not yet we have
Manos the technician here and uh and Ryan as well uh greetings welcome to the welcome to the
facilities WPL hey what's up how you doing actually all this uh big deal about the digital phones
it's not actually something that everybody gets has to get scared uh the only problem is that
in the best case they can get the number that you dialed and that's about it meaning they can decode
your uh the tones that you dial that's it nothing more that's it you mean you're saying for the
digital cellular as well they can't actually listen to the conversations right they can decode only
the number that you dialed that's uh that's very different from what the uh what the article is
implying but uh you can bet we'll be looking into this more and trying to figure out ways of doing
it ourselves and if we get someplace we will certainly we'll certainly let you know uh some
other news that happened last week has to do with 9x looks like the merger has gotten
at least one go ahead the public service commission gave conditional approval
to allow 9x to merge with bell atlantic it could very well be friends that next year at this time
we will be bowing down to bell atlantic instead of 9x won't even be called 9x it'll just be called
bell atlantic i don't know about you but that scares me all right that scares me you know
the japanese bought up rockefeller center i could handle that all right but bell atlantic here in
new york i don't know they say they say the new building is going to be you know in new york city
and that's going to make things so much better for new yorkers how is that going to make things
better i mean look look at it this way okay yeah we're going to have bell atlantic center
in new york but guess what's not going to be in new york 9x there won't be any more 9x so they'll
get rid of 9x replaced with bell atlantic and somehow that's going to help us i don't know
uh i don't see how it helps to have two giant companies become one mega giant company i mean
who does that benefit it benefits them obviously but how does it benefit us if i'm missing something
here please somebody from the psc or bell atlantic or 9x or one of you people out there
give us a call and tell us just how this this actually benefits i mean didn't we break up the
phone company you know it was one big phone company we broke it up into into little giant
phone companies and then they start getting back together again you know it's like
how about court orders here to like keep them away from each other you know i think that's
that's an order well anyway it's not quite approved yet it was approved by the public
service commission conditionally you know i guess subject to certain payoffs and things like that
but they still have to get through the justice department and the fcc so uh if you feel that
this is an important matter and you want to speak out against it you still have some time
call your elected representatives and contact people in washington dc and let them know this
is not a good idea or you know if you think i'm crazy and you think it is a good idea tell them
that tell them that well don't tell them i'm crazy tell them that you think it's a good idea
they don't really care about me all right as far as other stories in the news a school boy who hacked
into the u.s air force computer system from his bedroom as a prank was fined 1900 by magistrates
in london on friday and no that was not a prank richard price 19 of north london was 16 when he
gained access back in 1994 to the u.s military computer network from a personal computer he had
bought for 750 pounds that's about a thousand bucks or so the court heard price's activities
at one point raised fears that a european spy ring had infiltrated the u.s defense intelligence
network his actions triggered alarm in the pentagon and people are running all over the place
price was accused by the u.s senate of causing more harm than the kgp
how'd the u.s senate manage to accuse a 16 year old kid of something that's what i'd like to know
is it a sort of a a bill they passed and they well he's in england they can't send him to his room i
don't know uh boy he got the senate mad at him uh the kgb must not have been very harmful if a 16
year old could have done more harm than they did price a brilliant music student who plays double
bass double bass mind you admitted 12 offenses of computer misuse his lawyer said after the case
richard has already paid heavily for what was in effect a schoolboy prank it was not his fault that
security systems in the computing and defense industries left something to be desired price
who gained fame when his exploits were compared to the 1983 hollywood movie war games about a
teenager who nearly starts a third world war by hacking into the u.s defense system also had to
forfeit his computer you notice how they always do that they always take away your computer and
and that's that's the price you pay you know i think they they they make their security system
weak so that they get to raid people and take their computers because their computers are so lousy
that they actually envy 16 year old kids anyway that's nothing nothing at all compared to the
story which has been bobbing around in the media over the past uh week or so you hear this one
in 1991 apparently dutch hackers had the ability to win the gulf war for saddam hussein they they
had the information and they offered it to saddam hussein and he apparently didn't want to buy it at
that at that point in time he thought it was a hoax because the information was so good that it
couldn't possibly be real it had to be fake that's that's what they say now interesting thing i'm
holding two different news stories both in the associated press okay one of them says dutch
computer hackers stole u.s military secrets during the gulf war and offered them to iraq
but the iraqis ignored them fearing a hoax the sunday telegraph reported the second story says
dutch computer hackers stole u.s military secrets during the persian gulf war and offered them to
iraq computer security experts for the united states said monday exact same phrase except
once it's a sunday telegraph and then it's computer uh security experts for the united states
so uh i think these people are doing a bit of cutting and pasting with the facts here anyway uh
the newspaper uh which story should i read the computer security experts or the newspaper
version uh the one on the left the one left okay that's the newspaper one the newspaper said a
former head of computer security at the u.s department of energy named eugene schultz
has revealed in a bbc television documentary how he watched helpless as hackers pillaged
top secret information using the internet apparently he was tied up or something in
washington several energy department officials this is this is great listen to this several
energy department officials including two who were at the department during the war said they
never even heard of schultz or the alleged security breach well i mean they can't even
verify this guy even works there and yet it's being reported all over the place as as gospel
anyway according to the newspaper the hackers traced by schultz and the fbi to eindhoven holland
stole enough material potentially to alter the course of the war the attacks lasted for months
we couldn't do anything about it schultz was quoted as saying if we had shut down one machine
that they had been getting into they would have found others to launch the attacks from
according to the bbc this program was aired on monday on the program psi files
might as well be x files bbc spokesman kevin mclain said he had no transcript available but
the newspaper's account of the program was broadly correct schultz who was also responsible for
protecting the computers of u.s nuclear weapons sites does that make you feel good told the bbc
that the dutch hackers plundered the files across 34 u.s military sites in the months before the
1991 conflict he told the bbc that washington learned for certain in october 1990 that the
information was being offered to iraq the stolen secrets included the exact location of u.s troops
the weapons they had the movement of american warships into the region and the capability of
the patriot missile we realized that these files should not have been stored on internet capable
machines schultz was quoted as saying they related to our military systems they related
to operation desert shield at the time and then operation desert storm this was one huge mistake
once the dutch hackers gained access to a military computer site they kept guessing
different passwords until the system let them in once inside they chose the information they
wanted it's interesting how this story has suddenly you know turned to taking everything
this guy says as as the truth um we have on the phone with us uh probably one of the more famous
dutch people uh who has uh dealt with computer hacking rop from Amsterdam who uh was editor of
the former hacker magazine Hacktic and now is uh involved in Holland's biggest internet site
access for all rop are you there i'm here hi there and uh but before we continue let me just say
congratulations because i i just learned that you got married today yep that's that's something i
really want to thank you for talking to us on the night of your wedding uh but i guess um i guess
this is an important uh issue to to address but again congratulations and uh i guess it's a
another step in a in a long and strange journey right oh yeah okay so tell us uh you you guys
you could have won the war for saddam i mean uh that's that's pretty cool yeah if only he had
believed us i could be so rich now uh-huh it's incredible so so should we doubt this kind of a
story uh can you say goofball on american radio you can say goofball yes yes okay would you like
to say that eugene schultz the guy that worked for ciac that was the computer security department
sort of the computer security people for the department of energy eugene schultz is a complete
and utter goofball he wrote a report back in 1991 about these fearful dutch hackers that were
roaming around in u.s defense systems and um i mean long-time listeners of this program may
remember me i was in i was in new york in 1990 i think yes new york california we spread terror
across the nation well according to to that report uh i was currently in the united states on business
at the time that he was writing the report and i was flying first class now you
witnessed me flying i didn't fly first class you barely got into the part where the people were
but the fun part is that he writes stuff like uh army intelligence describes him that's me
in other words as hardened and capable of making considerable trouble and then he says today the
informed me that which happens to be my last name is an alien so in other words i'm hardened capable
of making considerable trouble and i do not exist now your real name is hannibal lecter right or
something yeah like that yeah and so that that's part of it and then and then it goes on about
these dangerous individuals and that german magazines are possibly funneling money for iraq
to to get the information i highly doubt that anything of this story is true
but i have a sneaking suspicion as to why it's coming up this year well that relates to my
question how does somebody a goofball as you say uh get all the major media to believe him and to
put this on the front pages of newspapers everywhere how do you do that because i'd like to
know because because this is the year that information terrorism is finally something
that's believable for some reason they've been all waiting for for this sort of magic moment out
of nothing and now all these all these creatures from under stones suddenly decide that 1997 is
the year that we're going to make the world believe that information terrorism really exists
what is what is information terrorism information terrorism is pretty much non-existent it's the
fear that people should have that that information terrorists can end the world
this bbc documentary i i watched it last night this whole documentary uh is about
you know this type of documentary where are we are are we facing a an electronic pearl harbor
a type of of atmosphere like um there won't be any three minute warnings electronic uh
enemies of the united states can can bring down the country that the west the west is vulnerable
by its own computer systems and it's without a shred of proof without no proof whatsoever besides
bringing up this this goofball eugene schultz again and then some some um uh what was it some
rare admiral uh saying uh yeah something like this could have really happened and and it's
really true that our systems are so vulnerable this is a campaign it's a deliberately set up
campaign and they can point to things like the kid in england they can point to things like the air
force website hack and say here's the proof that that public needs look there's a huge industry
out there and it's out of threat it's really out of okay so if this is the threat then what is going
to be the the the action that follows the threat the action that follows the threat is a global
clamp down on hackers i mean there's u.s documents in europe it's not even that bad but in there's
u.s documents really scary as hell i mean hackers are the major threat to to u.s security and the
cia and the nsa the world's largest spying organizations are requesting congress to
change the law so that it can spy on u.s citizens and they're asking uh to be able to interpret
a 16 year old kid breaking into their computer from some other country they're asking congress
to ratify a law uh enabling them to see that as an attack on the united states in other words they
they would then without any action from congress just a presidential okay can sort of counter
attack a 16 year old boy with military force uh-huh this is where we're getting to we're
getting to the point where a 19 year old uh some other 19 year old in the in the states
what two weeks ago was arrested we're getting to the point where they can say that a 19 year
old is the number one threat to u.s security look they need this they need this because
this is the only threat that people don't yet understand there'll be a point that they
understand there'll be a point that that a telnet session is something normal or or
using the net is something normal but up to that point this is a threat that people don't understand
their last thing that can be unnameably big are people in holland buying this like people here are
no there was a newspaper report saying that it was there was a few newspaper reports before
people saw the documentary but but after the documentary came out i already watched uh
um or i listened to a radio program that was fairly critical of it
no it's there is no proof the documentary if you saw the documentary you'd laugh there there's just
it's people going after each other this is an old 1991 rumor uh saying dutch hackers have sold
secret stuff to to saddam but you see i mean you can say that uh there there's some sort of a plot
to start clamping down on hackers but why is the bbc a part of this why would they buy into it
i don't know this is just some independent documentary makers i was even interviewed
for this documentary but i never said anything useful to them apparently because i wasn't in it
uh-huh who else uh who else was uh profile this was an hour-long documentary no it was like 30
minutes okay and did they talk to anybody else i imagine probably win schwarta was in there right
no both winch worked out and uh steel weren't in there really okay because when you say information
warfare of course that's the name that pops up well both of them do actually robert steel and
and winch warthog are both prominent in in in sort of marketing this whole idea of of information
terrorism and the threat of information warfare to the military and and civil community
uh-huh they're pioneers of of marketing this fear now in 1991 though there were break-ins from
holland to military computer systems oh yes so yes tell us what i witnessed some of these break-ins
right we even have some on videotape but what was it that really occurred let's say it was
99.99 of these break-ins were unclassified military computer systems that just had really
interesting banners like if you break into this computer we will come and get you and raid your
house and and and kill your parents and and take all your computer stuff and and burn it sort of
that kind of banners were were on all these computers and and people here before any
computer crime laws were passed just thought these banners were really funny and it was it was sort of
a sort of a fun accomplishment if you could break into more than 10 military computers in one evening
and um that's the fun part that that that was the fun of these people that were doing this so you're
saying basically it was it was all done for fun for the most part oh yes but there was also the
occasional every once in a while somebody would hit a computer system and would would one of the
10 000 text files in a computer system would have something in there that that they stumbled upon
that that was probably secret and i'm i'm partially guilty to this rumor probably where it
comes down to the patriot stuff because i once out of all these sessions and all these people that
were breaking into computer systems that were sort of loosely connected to the u.s military i once
witnessed uh uh people uh or i didn't actually witness the break-in but i heard a story of people
getting uh stuff that about the patriot missile that is probably better left sacred and did they
call saddam then and offer it no that's how the story goes now you couldn't even call they burned
the floppy disks in their garden so paranoid that's how paranoid they were but that's that's
probably where the patriot missile stuff comes from by the way we're speaking with rup from
amsterdam former editor of Hacktic magazine and now one of the co-founders of access for all
holland's largest internet provider speaking about the dutch computer break-ins that have
alleged to have occurred back in 1991 where dutch hackers are said to have offered war-winning
material to saddam hussein and the thing is that when you look into the story a little bit uh
it seems to disappear all the facts seem to disappear joining us now from philadelphia
is bernie s and bernie knows quite a bit about uh things being uh misinterpreted don't you bernie
all too well uh-huh well have you have you heard about this story in the united states about the
dutch hackers well is this a recent story i've heard you know i heard about this within some
time ago within the last well it's always been sort of around but within the last week an actual
story came out with some guy that nobody seems to know about who uh supposedly uh is an authority
figure on this and eugene schultz eugene schultz everyone seems to believe him and uh nobody seems
to know why i guess the media decided to seize on an old story again which really is no story but
that's sometimes what the media does yes well um bernie what's what's new with you anything
any new developments on your particular side of the woods i've been putting together some uh some
plans for the next uh hacker gathering or uh i guess you'd call it a hacker congress let's uh
let's in fact talk about that because uh beyond hope is taking place august 8th 9th and 10th in
new york city could be one of the uh biggest conferences ever involving hackers but to make
it even bigger still in holland at the exact same time there will be hacking in progress the hip
conference and rob why don't you tell us something about that well hip is very much like heu which we
did in 1993 and heu was an outdoor convention so it was people intense it was pretty intense
as you can say yes pretty intense and there was ethernet running all over the field and at that
time we had two times 19.2 kilobits which today is laughable but back then world wide web didn't
even exist it was people doing telnet sessions that was only three years ago that was 1990
oh no that's four years ago four years ago three years ago for hope and that was 1994 we had a 28.8
connection to the net and i think we're going to improve on that quite a bit for this one
yep but now we're going to link the two conferences together somehow how are we going to pull this off
we're going to have video links and audio links uh at least over the internet and and maybe even
over other means um we're going to share some lectures and and uh maybe a workshop or two
i got mail from one guy that says he's going to go to both i don't know how he's going to pull that off
he'll fly on the concord i guess he'll have to yes
maybe he didn't know they were happening on the exact same day that's also a possibility
maybe you could rent russian icbms well you know let's not let's not say anything that's
going to be misconstrued as uh as being oh boy oh boy oh boy i'm i'm sorry maybe you can rent
something else i don't know what what kind of uh other things have you seen in in i don't know
recent years rob that uh have been misinterpreted beyond belief as far as threats threats that
hackers pose well i think the whole the whole idea that hackers are this global threat to to
to world security is is is the whole concept is is weird but it is very understandable
because it's it's the only enemy that that cannot be sized it's invisible and therefore it's it's
it's infinitely large therefore you need infinite funding to fight it it's the only enemy that
justifies infinite funding think about it is is this happening purely because of ignorance or
is there a darker agenda do people want to see hackers put away and and disappear
the only excuse in these days to get infinite funding for something okay if you if you run a
part of the defense industry this is this is your only enemy that justifies almost infinite or
totally infinite funding the government seems to be a very good more so lately coming up with
boogeymen to uh to blame things on which are just some sort of vague ominous threat that deserve
they can justify uh throwing millions or billions of dollars up to prevent and i think that the
hacker threat is is one of those the real threat is is not hackers but they certainly can whip up
a good story about it we've been seeing this happening for for over a decade ever since um
i've gotten involved in the computer hacker world i've seen this kind of hysteria the thing
now is it just seems to be uh i don't know all encompassing you know everyone looks at it in in
what seems to be the same way hackers can do anything they can cause all kinds of chaos they
can make us lose wars and things like that all with no evidence whatsoever just pure speculation
and and and some wise ass somewhere that's saying something with no no backing up whatsoever
i mean they don't even know who this guy is and but this this last year is the year that
it went official uh-huh i mean up till now it's been the secret service trying to make a mark for
itself or or some some local bureaucracy trying to make a mark but this year it's gone official
it's it's the cia and the nsa telling government that it's the worst threat ever yeah you know i
was in europe and i saw that front page headline in the herald tribune and it definitely made me
worried because it said you know cia says that computer hackers are the biggest threat right now
and you know i do you want to go back home to something like that you know seeing that in the
front page of a newspaper it's scary i think janet reno was it last last year announced that uh what
was it over over the year that the study was made which i think was was a year or two ago that what
was it 250 000 attacks that occurred over a period of uh right 250 000 attacks can you imagine
how many of us there are no not only that two thirds of size two-thirds of which were successful
two-thirds of those 250 000 attacks were successful and we still never found out what they mean by
attacks i still think they meant web hits well and later they admitted that these are all we
need to preemptively exterminate half the kindergarten population in the western world
those late later the government you wonder why they write stories like this yeah didn't the
government later announce that these figures were uh were pure estimates based on simulations that
they ran yes it was their own simulations that they based it on right but that didn't come out
until several weeks after the story hit the front page and a few weeks after they announced this
huge threat uh i believe janet reno our attorney general uh announced that uh our largest
intelligence agencies including the central intelligence agency the fbi and the national
security agency which has a budget of about five times the cia for people who aren't familiar with
them um would be joining forces uh to to combat this alleged hacker threat and would be given
new powers to investigate domestic um to establish domestic investigations which up until recently
was blatantly illegal for the cia to investigate um citizens in this country so now we have the
national security agency and the central intelligence agency and a whole host of
other intelligence agencies now given the green light to investigate american citizens as opposed
to foreign threat and this is all based on what the government has has admitted was just a
simulation without any basis in fact no but the best part i don't know if you if you had tuned in
or if you're just calling in can you actually hear this did you hear the show before you came in
i know not all of it just a few minutes oh the best part is that the u.s the u.s armed forces
have have asked for a law uh that would make it legal for them to see any computer intrusion from
outside the united states and as an as an attack on the united states as a military attack in other
words they want to be they want it to be legal to military to retaliate by military means
if a 16 year old kid from england or somewhere breaks into a u.s military computer system
well this this is great material for future films i can only imagine how the u.s military
is going to uh strike against a 16 year old in some foreign country someplace
yeah i think the answer to this problem is very simple uh there's no cold war anymore
which means all these agents were out of job they have to find a reason to exist so the threat is
the hackers it's much easier to hire to hire a few good uh security people and make sure that
their computers are difficult to hack in rather than to prosecute every hacker in the world or
every curious kid interesting we're taking phone calls uh i guess right about now 212-279-3400 is
our phone number uh if you have uh some comment or uh or a question we're talking about the
uh dutch hackers who could have made the gulf war go the other way apparently according to uh
various media reports and just uh how accurate these things are in the first place and all kinds
of other hacker things that have been going on including uh well non-hacker things including
the bell atlantic 9x merger and and um oh you know i i i saw a dvd play rob do you have dvd
players over there in um in uh holland yet i don't know i i haven't personally held one but
because we just started getting them here in fact uh supposedly supposedly according to the nice
people over at jnr they said that they would start having actual dvd titles this week and
but the best the best part about dvd that i heard is that they still want to maintain a different
standard for different continents oh that's that's just crazy so they finally have a chance to no no
no but but they they have a reason to do that and that's that movies come out about six months after
they come out in the states here the u.s movies hollywood movies come out six months later so if
these discs were available on the u.s market and could be shipped through gray import or something
to to europe it would be a real problem for them well i have actually this this whole craziness
between between talon and tsc the two current video standards has given them uh has given them
the option to market the film twice and to market the video introduction twice and they don't want
to lose that opportunity oh god forbid they figure out ways of having new opportunities and
you know a way of making everything a lot more easily compatible with each other so we can share
things but i guess that's just not the way they they see it well it's it still should be a good
technology once it gets off the ground if it ever does and i'm looking forward to playing around
with it uh okay two and two two seven nine three four hundred we have uh bernie s and rop on the
phone at once so hopefully we can take people at the same time we've never actually done this before
so let's see what happens you think this is gonna be rebel or the other guy i don't know it's bound
to be not line one not line one all right i'll take i'll take line five how's that okay good
evening you're on the air hi how are you okay okay couple quick questions yes um i've had problems
with my phone now my question to you guys is is it possible for somebody to hack into
9x's computers and change my phone bills even if there's blocks on them uh well okay by by
hacking do you mean uh hacking with a computer or hacking by calling over the phone and and
social engineering somebody i don't know i mean it could be either or both i don't even know
the problem being that we get phone bills that are at a state at a country 800 numbers 900 numbers
and the blocks are on them uh okay so basically you're getting phone bills for phone calls that
you have not made correct and they're coming directly from your phone line not a calling
card anything like that they're coming on my phone bill we don't have a calling card okay so
according to is this 9x yes this is according to 9x you don't know anything you are making these
phone calls yourself right okay there's several ways this could be done and none of them involve
hacking into the uh into the uh phone company simply have you ever seen the phone wires coming
into was it you have an apartment a house house okay that phone wire has many different junction
points any one of which somebody could just walk up to and clip into and and and get a dial tone
and be able to make phone calls on your line i know people who have who have junction boxes in
closets in their own apartments in other words they can clip into anybody who's on their floor
so there's numerable ways that somebody can make phone calls and make it appear that it's coming
from your line you know that they they took all those wires out though the multiples and stuff
you're talking about no every phone wire uh has to go through many different uh junctions at some
point everything's been changed the whole house has been rewired it's not the house it's before
the house yeah i mean even up at where the the main place is my my real question is if somebody
could get into 9x's system could they overpower the system to where they're doing something
without lines it would be a lot harder to do it that way than to do it the way that i described
also uh the other the other thing i want to ask you uh do you have a cordless phone now you don't
have a cordless phone okay because that's another way people can can get your dial tone and do
things with it um okay now when these calls are made how long are the calls for it depends it
varies from a minute to five minutes i mean it took but never for very long never for like say
six hours or something no no no no okay here's a way of uh finding out if this is actually being
done on your physical phone line uh you can pick up a uh one of these telephone recording relays
i think radio shack sells them for about 20 and a cheap tape recorder and uh plug it into your
your phone jack or your phone there at your apartment or home and it will record all the
phone activity going on over your phone line whole conversations everything even if it's not you if
it's someone else clipping onto your phone line anywhere between your house and the telephone
company's central office which is probably what's happening uh you will get it all on tape and then
you'll find out for sure what's going on yeah that's that's the first step where can they get
that uh you can get a what's called a telephone just a telephone dropout relay or telephone
recording relay radio shack sells them for about 20 you can just plug it into any cassette recorder
and what it does is it will turn on your tape recorder whenever your phone line goes into an
off hook condition um it doesn't have to be any phone in your house any any anywhere on your phone
line between your apartment and the central office and we click clips on a cheap phone
or a test set yeah we've had that too you start you suction the cup onto the well no that doesn't
that's not the same kind of recorder that you have to manually control you want something
obviously you don't you're not going to know in advance when these calls are being made on
your phone line if indeed they're being made on your phone line so you want to get these
one of these automatic recording relays radio shack sells them again i don't want to plug radio
shack other companies sell them but for about 20 or less you can get one of these little relays that
plugs into your phone line and also plugs into your tape recorder has to be one of those tape
recorders that has a remote control jack where it can turn the recorder on and off by a plug
in the side of it yeah you can set this thing up tomorrow this way and that way you at least know
if that is the problem if it doesn't if it doesn't record anything then we have to look at what it
could possibly be beyond that but i think it's the most likely scenario that somebody's clipping
in somewhere another way you can you can test this out it's a little bit inconvenient to you
do these calls take place every day a lot of calls they have been yes okay you leave the phone off
the hook for a full day and then when you get your phone they'll see if any calls were made during
that day okay one more quick question is it possible because 9x did put uh recorders on
those phone lines okay is it possible for them i mean the lines have been totally dead at times
they've just shut everything down to where i pick up the phone there's no dial tone nothing
i mean it's it's been nuts uh-huh you know it's not just one thing it's like things and the thing
that is so aggravating that's why you know i'm listening to you guys and hoping that something
can come about from this is nobody knows anything uh-huh well that's that standard 9x policy actually
so i wouldn't i wouldn't be too uh upset at that that's everybody gets that it's not just 9x though
i mean we've gone to government agencies nobody knows anything government agencies know even less
than 9x which is there's another thing if your line goes dead often then people intercepting
your telephone line manually by just hooking up another phone could could have been smart
enough to disconnect your line so you wouldn't hear what they what they were doing um yeah i
wouldn't know what to do is this happening while you're in the house also or is this happening only
while you are out no this is happening mom i could be on the phone and the phone could go dead
yeah i mean it's happening i'm home
where could that be happening from oh it would have to be happening somewhere
out from outside their room where the phones are somewhere between there and in the central
office it's probably what drop is suggested is probably what's happening if it goes dead
while she's talking and then somebody makes a call on that line sounds like they're disconnecting
the line from from where they are to where she is so that they have control of the dial tone and
she gets nothing and then that little radio shack device wouldn't work would it no no she'd hear
nothing then because then she wouldn't have a live phone line to record these things and that's
my question is somebody obviously i mean if this is happening has to have the ability to get into
my loin somehow whether it be 9x or whether it be just somebody somebody is on my line all they
need would be a cheap set of wire cutters and a five dollar phone okay there's a whole other thing
to this now you look at the you look at the patterns you see when are these calls being
made are they the same numbers is it is it all over the world they're different numbers parts
of the world that i couldn't even say really i've never even heard of okay what time of the day
mostly are these taking place anytime it happens it could happen four o'clock in the morning can
happen four o'clock in the afternoon but how many different numbers
six different numbers only six that's not very many do you notice the same numbers
popping up month after month um it's been varied i mean they like i said it's not just
out of country phone numbers also it's 800 numbers and the party line numbers the 900
okay here's a trick all the blocks i mean this is happening over blocks oh you have 900s blocked
and they had everything blocked and it's still coming over well you can get around a 900 block
by calling an 800 number and being transferred it's very sleazy operation but they do that
sometimes and that's one way of getting around that the fact that these people are doing that
indicates that they know they have a free line and just trying to use it as much as they can
which uh to me would indicate someone kind of like childlike for five years though i mean this
is happening five years has been going on five years and nobody knows nothing wow have you been
getting credit for these phone bills at least yes have you changed fighting fighting for but yes
have you changed your phone number six times really all right so it's probably it's probably
the physical uh wire that the person is is is tapping into it's not it's not you so much
no it's not us and that's the thing i've we've been blamed for some of this
uh-huh have any of your neighbors had similar things happen no
well okay here's a trick here's a trick try calling these six numbers or have somebody
that's really good in social engineering call these six numbers and tell them that you found
a jacket in new york that had this number on a piece of paper in it and it's a really expensive
jacket i had 50 bucks in the pocket too and do you have any idea who i should send this jacket to
right one of these six people must be stupid it's not it's not six i'm sorry it's not we've
had six different numbers here we've had all over the country and all like numerous numbers i
couldn't even tell you how many you said that nine x had put recorders on your phone line is that
right yes did they say they got anything other than you talking on the line nope they didn't
say or they said they didn't they didn't they didn't know okay i mean this like i said this
it's been investigated if they had put a recorder on the line at the central office that would
definitely get any calls made on your line regardless of whether they put one on there too
no incoming calls do you have any people living in your house that you might not know about
not that i know of unless we have somebody hanging out near our phones okay i just had to ask you
that um well you know it's this sounds like a real nightmare one that a lot of people could
probably uh uh worry about having happened to them oh definitely it is it my father's had a
heart attack i mean it's it's ridiculous because of this he's had a heart attack i'm not gonna
blame it all on this but i'm gonna say yes a lot of it has to do with this i mean it's it's been
very stressful to wake up and not know god forbid somebody broke into the house am i gonna pick up
the phone and not have a dial tone right you know there's there's young children in the house i mean
what am i going to do uh what you should do uh since all else has failed i think you should go
right to the top go to have you called the public service commission yes i have and they've been
here and they found nothing either uh-huh well you know it'd be very helpful if this happened
while they were there you know and they could see for themselves that this is occurring it's
never happened like that it's happened to where we've had repairmen here and something has happened
and then all of a sudden when they go to write their report we'll come back and tell us what's
going on nothing happened uh-huh well 9x is legally responsible for preventing anyone from
accessing your line outside of your place of residence it's their it's their turf outside
of your residence so if anything's happening to your phone line from your place to their central
office it's it's on them you have to fight them unfortunately because they don't like to accept
that responsibility but that's what you have to hold them to either through your state's public
utilities commission or someone else it's it's a tough it's a tough problem it really is uh
it involves a lot of persistence and you know you might have to keep fighting this for a while
longer and you know try and get some uh i mean calling up radio shows definitely is one step
maybe maybe 9x will look into this a little bit more um contact uh elected officials too i mean
i hate to always say that but that we did we did and it didn't do any good nope you mean that we've
done it that's the scary part that's why i'm i'm coming to you guys yeah you know what i would do
though i mean i'd have fun experimenting with this trying to figure it out um i would put in a sec i
mean i don't want you to spend any more money but i put in a second line see if the same thing
started happening to that line as well we did what happened same thing it happened to that line too
well now it must be happening to your neighbors then because if they just start clipping onto
wires at random you know unless you're being targeted you have enemies in the phone company
i'm sure we do now since the past five years but um no originally no no uh-huh no because this kind
of thing is a lot easier to do within the company oh i'm sure that's that was my question can
somebody come over there why or can somebody who's working there do this and cover their tracks
uh you know i'll tell you what what uh what it could be because this happened to me a lot like
every time i move into a different place i plug a phone into a jack and there's a phone line there
and it belongs to another house do you have any empty abandoned houses near you nope okay well
and all the phone jacks have been new right they've taken it you know i mean like i said all
the wires but you see the phone company doesn't know this when they when they have phone lines
going to all different houses in the neighborhood they don't know that they're going there they just
go there i don't don't ask me how they they run their business this way but it happens a lot and
that could be what's happening maybe somebody has this line in their house and they've just had it
for years and and they just wonder why they don't ever get a bill but six different numbers you know
i'm saying this isn't even just happening with one number right this has happened with the six
different numbers that we have well it's possible if one number turned into another number it might
follow the same exact routing you know it might go to the same to the same phone line anyway so
the number might not be the key issue okay because this house has been owned by my parents for 30
years uh-huh so it's like it's just a big nightmare like i said i called you guys because
you know like can i have to do it try try the thing with the radio shack because that might
that might do something that might give you some indication it sounds like it they're a little bit
more sophisticated than that but that you know if they're that sophisticated they can't be hiding
that well either you know i think they'll they'll do something that'll call attention to themselves
yeah that's what i'm waiting for after five years i'm hoping somebody screws up somewhere but above
all don't give up because you know don't let 9x tell you that this kind of thing isn't possible
because it most definitely is it most definitely is it is and and you know i invite other people
to call in with with similar stories and how they may have solved them and maybe through that you'll
get an answer great all right thank you very much all right good luck thank you well oops we lost
bernie s you know this this this phone system doesn't work the way it's supposed to work it's
supposed to not do that anyway hopefully he'll call back um it's it's weird because i hear these
kind of stories a lot more than i should and uh it's it's distressing do things like that happen
overseas rop yeah they do they do and and is there a solution uh usually we have the same
it's even more difficult here to get credit on your phone bill the phone company is even more
arrogant um but yes it does happen we we have less of a problem in one sense though that that
all the lines here are underground we have nothing on poles and there's there's pretty
good protection on the junction boxes it has been since 89 i was part of of showing media
that's one thing we do not have here is protection of the junction boxes it's so easy to just tap in
and and and get a line and here all the junction boxes in the whole country are alarmed you step
into one or if you if you break one open it actually sounds an alarm in the in the central
office do we have bernie s back hello good evening you're on the air hi i have a question
for you yes um i was i was reading in the newspaper recently in the new york times and
some local new jersey newspapers about the new cda bill that's going through the supreme court
right it's being it's being appealed by the government it was it was thrown out by a lesser
court last year and um i'm starting an internet provider with some friends of mine here locally
in new jersey and we were wondering what implications this has for us and um if we're
liable for any of this through the new law at the moment you aren't but if the cda is
held to be constitutional in the eyes of the supreme court that could change radically you
could be uh expected to to shield young eyes from anything that might be uh considered not only
obscene but indecent and that that could be anything from a picture that someone might
see the wrong way to to four-letter words okay uh so it's this is something you should definitely
be monitoring and and spreading the word about because you know a lot of people realize how
absurd it is that doesn't necessarily mean it's not going to happen you see so uh yes it would it
would definitely affect you as an internet provider okay um so does that mean books such
as the catcher in the rye yes i'll show you i figured it could include that anything you know
it's it's based on quote unquote community standards whatever that means okay you know
and uh on the internet you know the internet itself is the community so it's it's very
difficult to uh you know to stick tennessee standards into something that goes to california
or new york but people have done that okay all right thank you very much all right good luck
yep well it goes even further than that there's uh uh back in the time when when it looked like
the decency act was going to pass without any trouble and then be held constitutional
um it was like that for a few months uh internet providers here in europe started
making their customers sign contracts that they would abide by the uh american communications
decency act because otherwise these providers would have their transatlantic links cut that
must have gone over real well in foreign countries oh yes no but it was actually it was getting to
the point where where the major providers were getting scared to have their mci or sprint links
cut uh so they were making their customers sign for liability uh-huh where does it stand today
over there well it looks like it looks now that the decency act is not going to be held
constitutional which it shouldn't be well i think the supreme court will come back with the decision
i think in june or july so well then but this whole thing was going on what was it a year and
a half ago you're two years you know a year and a half ago and then back back then the whole
internet was much more a star network from from washington and california than it is today
so so back then it was really scary if you lost your connectivity to the state you basically lost
your connectivity to the internet and right now the internet is developing into much more of a
multinational thing where we don't have to go through the state to talk to any other country
than our own anymore i think that's uh that's the best way it could possibly go yeah all right let's
see if we can take one more call good evening you're on the air all right how you doing okay
i got a quick question for you regarding um the pay phones 9x the newer pay phones that people
like are all steel encased or something yeah you notice those things aren't those wild they're
they're kind of neat looking they look like they've been uh spray painted with silver paint
you know the problem is they won't let you dial longer than 16 digits so god help you if you make
a mistake and you can't you certainly can't do the pound key to do repeat calls all right this is
what i suggest everybody out there because uh they got rid of the yellow phones we complained
about the yellow phones they they sucked they were awful they they didn't allow all different things
different kinds of phone calls they got rid of them now they put these phones in now we have
to complain about the fact that they cut off dialing after a certain amount of digits you
should be able to dial as many digits as you want i mean was there a reason for that it's just
stupidity that's all it is they think that there were there were people that were like taking
advantage of it by like constantly using touch tones what is i don't know as lethal weapons or
whenever there's an act of overt stupidity it usually is traced back to the war on drugs okay
and they think somehow by cutting off touch tones that drug dealers won't be able to beep themselves
and and communicate in that way if anything it just annoys the rest of us that's what it does
it annoys the rest of us and it makes us all you know curse the name of 9x and if it becomes bell
atlantic we'll curse that name too now you know pay phones should just allow you to dial however
many digits you want after you connect to something it doesn't cost them they don't pay a maintenance
fee every time you hit a six you can hit the digits as many times as you want and just you
know leave it alone at that so one of the things they tried to do was um put a charge a 75 cent
charge for directory assistance i mean if you're at the pay phone on pay funds you're going to end
up making the call exactly it's so ridiculous anyway the last thing i wanted to say was the
dvd technology so no one's really actually seen it i guess it's too new oh i've seen it i've held
a dvd in my hands i've touched the machine myself wow did you like wash your hand afterwards uh no
not not until i have one of my own it's uh it's impressive it really is but unfortunately
it's only there's only the demo disc out right now so it's not that impressive but the picture
actually doesn't look like uh you know i've seen compressed video like on um the mini disc i think
they had it or the cd uh that new cdi thing that they had for like two seconds you know the
panasonic thing yeah when they showed it it was really bad because what it looked like was a
really bad like missed game because people who are moving in the foreground sort of moves but
in the background it was static this is this is good enough where i predict that uh when you go
to see a film in a theater they will stop using reels they'll start using dvds so the compression
doesn't take a big toll i haven't i mean maybe somebody who who has better eyes can can tell me
i'm wrong but i don't i don't believe so all right well thank you very much all right well we're just
about out of time rop uh unfortunately we lost bernie yes uh and and he didn't get back to us
so um we'll have to we'll have to thank him for calling us uh i guess some other time but um why
don't you give that information for the uh for the dutch hacker conference and uh we'll give
that information for the american side of that and uh and we'll let you get back to your to your
wedding night okay the dutch hacker conference is august 8th 9th and 10th of this year it's in
the netherlands uh people can come and set up tents as early as august 5th uh it's going to
be a lot of fun there's going to be maybe even 2 000 people there lots of hackers lots of
interesting people to talk to i really wish i could go to this thing you know how frustrating
it is yeah i know i know but it's going to be so much better if we can link the hope event to
this event that's true that's true for the people visiting this is going to be the best thing ever
there's no there's really no purpose in ever organizing hacker events after this anymore no
this is it you can't get any better than this this is it no no there's this is the event that
ends events is this before or after the comet crashes into the earth it's right before right
before actually good actually i'll tell you something funny we have to pay the bills that
way we have we have an observatory we have somebody that offered to bring an observatory
to the field and that's of course now that you mention it that's of course because of the comet
yeah stupid of me not to think of it okay uh people can find out more information by looking
at www.hip97.nl for netherlands www.hip97.nl and for us for the hope conference um the address
right now is www.2600.com sooner will be www.hope.net but i don't think it's working yet so
continue to connect to the 2600 website that gives you all the information on the new york
version of that which will be happening downtown at the pug building august 8th 9th and 10th
and it's going to be pretty wild we've got some some surprises in store for people
and uh sure we're going to get some surprises ourselves rop it's been it's been great hearing
from you uh thanks for helping us dispel the dutch hacker story a little bit and i guess
we'll talk to you next time something like this happens which will probably be in another couple
of weeks um until then um i wish everybody over there well and uh we'll talk to you soon
okay i'm gonna enjoy my wedding night now okay you do that yeah all right oh he's he's off uh
there we go uh rob from amsterdam there well we're out of time too we'll be back again next
week next tuesday night from eight to nine and who knows what will happen between now and then
but whatever it is we'll be right on top of it and we'll tell you all about it till then it's
emmanuel goldstein for fiber optic who is uh who has taken ill someplace uh we'll hear from him
hopefully next week as well until then have yourselves a good night
well we'll see you next week on 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
do
so
sistema
officer frances lavatu strangled anthony bias and walks
kitchen worker jose anthony sanchez is shot to death by police in queens
circumstances are clear
Every hour of every day, racial hatred is the law of this land, enforced at hollow point upon you.
On Monday, March 31st at 5 p.m., join thousands in front of City Hall
in commemoration of Racial Justice Day. Protests legitimize police brutality.
That is Monday, March 31st, 5 p.m., on the steps of City Hall. For more information,
contact the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights at 212-631-4263. That's 212-631-4263.