I think radio is magic.
Let's go this way.
How about you just say it this way, instead of making that commitment?
Because I don't hear your heart when you say,
I want to take my responsibility and I want to do what's right.
I want you to say to her, honey, do you call her honey?
No.
Sweetheart.
Every once in a while I'll use a pet name.
Okay, well, I'll tell you what.
Could you use the word sweetheart right now and talk to her and say,
Sweetheart, listen, I'll do the best I can,
but I want to be close to you and I need you.
See what those words do to you if you say it right now.
Follow your heart.
Go ahead.
I won't promise anything.
I just want to be near you and love you.
That's The Positive Mind, every Wednesday at 1 p.m.
here on WBAI 99.5 FM.
And it's 8 o'clock.
You're tuned to WBAI New York.
It's time for 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 cost.
It couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
But we'll be born for the best, expect the worst.
I hope the thunder's good for making it move.
I hope the thunder's good for making it move.
And I'll see you.
We'll be right back.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And a very good evening to one and all.
This is Off the Hook.
We're here today with me, Emmanuel Goldstein, and Fiber Optic over there on the other side of the broadcast facility.
Hello there.
And we've just returned from a very interesting weekend over at a science fiction convention.
I don't know why we fit into science fiction conventions, but for some reason we do.
And we met a bunch of interesting people out there at Stony Brook, where the interesting people tend to congregate.
And I talked about all kinds of things that we talk about on this radio show.
Except we did it in front of crowds of tens of thousands of people, I would say.
Oh, you bet.
It had to overflow into the streets.
It was something.
It was something.
And there's a lot of interest in net-related things and privacy-related things and hacker-related things.
And it's exactly what we're going to continue doing on this radio program.
Last week we announced a change in direction, and, well, we got a letter.
Actually, we got many letters, but I'm going to read you one letter.
And I'll tell you what effect that letter had on us, on the station, on the entities that have been controlling us,
trying to manipulate us and take over our minds and things like that.
I listened to Off the Hook from work where I can.
And I don't like the way BAI is trying, it seems, with success to push the station to the right.
Telling Rebel to repent, I believe, is someone else talking, not you.
And I did read somewhere that someone at BAI or Pacifica had these intentions.
It's a shame.
After 35 years of what appeared to be free speech,
I hope you and Fiverr can do something to retain your class.
I mean, I read this letter when it came in, and it just tears were streaming down my face.
Because I realized, I realized how on the money this particular letter was.
And I came in and I read it to a bunch of other people who made some copies.
We read it to more people.
Before you knew it, it spread throughout the entire organization.
And it was kind of like a science fiction thing because we kind of shook our heads
and realized that we were under the control of an evil influence.
And this religious right which had taken us over last week on our last show, April 1st,
that it was an evil thing and must be gotten rid of immediately.
That one letter really did it.
That one letter really woke up a lot of people.
And I'm happy to say that we're back to normal.
Or as normal as we can possibly be.
And with that out of the way,
let's get back to business.
You have no signal out in Long Island, do you, on your PCS phone?
No.
It's a complete waste of space.
It's a hunk of metal that doesn't do anything.
I thought you were talking about Suffolk.
Well, Nassau as well.
Nassau and Suffolk.
Complete waste of space.
Complete waste.
Couldn't do anything with it.
Couldn't do a thing.
And, you know, it's hard enough.
I mean, people trying to call you can't reach you.
You trying to call people, you can't reach them.
Well, the problem is there aren't too many good places to put these base stations.
That's a problem which is not going to go away.
I mean, the only way you're going to solve this problem is if you build buildings everywhere.
So what you're saying is this service that you've bought into is never going to work in the countryside.
Ever.
Well, it'll be difficult but not impossible.
I'd like to know how exactly they're going to do it.
But, I mean, Long Island has a lot of buildings.
They really do.
Nassau County is one big building.
It really is.
I had coverage in half of Nassau.
You had coverage for 10 seconds in Nassau.
Yeah, but you're forgetting, number one, we're going 80 miles an hour.
We don't break the speed limit to get to the radio show.
Number one, we're going 55 miles an hour.
Yes.
And number two, I mean, just because in one particular part of Nassau we were driving on the expressway, I got momentary coverage.
It doesn't mean there's better coverage elsewhere in Nassau.
Yeah, but the thing is, if you couldn't get it on the expressway, where in heaven's name are you going to be able to get it?
Where there's more buildings.
Well, they have plenty of buildings.
Nassau County has no buildings.
Yeah, but they have transmitters.
Transmitters are always on expressways.
That's where they keep them.
I don't know why, but they're just there.
Well, maybe they didn't get around to putting them up there.
You know why they keep them there?
Okay, because that's where people are driving in their cars, right?
That's where they use their cellular phones.
That's why they put the antennas there.
Well, maybe ultimately they'll put them there.
Yeah, I don't think they've built them there yet, but, and I think they will.
I think they'll get them on the roads, but I'm just wondering how they're going to get them in other places.
That's a good question.
Yeah, so that's a question I think we need to start asking.
Yeah.
Well, we should, we should, we have a minor correction from last week's show.
Yeah, about last week's Sprint PCS rhetoric.
Yes.
And I apparently misunderstood the guy that we had on the phone from Sprint Spectrum,
but apparently Sprint Spectrum is the GSM company.
Right, and Sprint PCS is not GSM.
Yeah.
Sprint Spectrum, which is currently operating in the Baltimore and D.C. area,
is a GSM company and is using the same technology as Omnipoint.
So if I was to find myself in the D.C. area, I would be able to roam on Sprint Spectrum.
On the other hand, Sprint PCS, which is not yet available in New York City,
they're saying is only going to use CDMA, which has nothing to do with GSM.
Right, and they said that Sprint Spectrum is not going to come to New York City
because they're not allowed to come to New York City for some reason.
And probably because Sprint PCS is, they're not going to compete with themselves.
But that doesn't really make sense.
Yeah, but that means nobody's really competing with Omnipoint.
This is true.
Yes, and that's kind of distressing.
I mean, we've got AT&T with their fake PCS,
now we've got Sprint with apparently their fake PCS.
Because, you know, it would be nice to have some GSM competition going on around here.
Yeah.
And so far we don't see any.
Well, then there's, what's this, LexTel business.
That's what they got for them.
Nextel.
Nextel, LexTel, whatever they are.
Nextel, yeah.
Now, they supposedly are offering digital cellular.
Right.
And you can go into other places, other parts of the country,
and not ever pay any roaming charges and have one nice low price.
It's simple, easy to understand.
But it's not GSM, it's not PCS, it's digital cellular.
But everything you just said, AT&T can do for you.
Uh-huh.
You could go anywhere with an AT&T, and they have digital cellular.
No roaming?
No roaming charges?
I don't know about roaming charges.
Yeah, that's what Nextel is claiming, no roaming charges.
Maybe there's some special AT&T offer, but who knows?
It's very confusing, you know?
Yeah.
I don't know if we should be talking about this so much,
because most people are just trying to figure out their regular phones.
Yeah, I mean, we have four different technologies.
Uh-huh.
That are being used presently for mobile phones.
Three of them are directly competing with each other.
And the fourth one is the oldest one, analog cellular.
Right.
And that's not even counting cordless phones, in case people think we're talking about those.
Yeah, it's not even counting cordless phones.
Oh.
But three completely dissimilar technologies competing for each other.
It's amazing.
It's getting like ham radio, where, you know, all we talk about is the radio itself.
You know, people on ham radio never talk about anything other than their setup.
Yeah.
And people on phones now are talking about the kind of phones they have,
and how complicated it is, and which is better.
And that's like the majority of the conversation lately.
Yeah.
Anyway, so you were away for several days with no service.
Now, did your phone go crazy when you came back?
Uh, it, uh, basically, once we got into the middle of Nassau, I got signaled back.
That's not exactly true.
You got signaled for a second in the middle of Nassau.
I got signaled momentarily around Glencove or Hempstead.
Yeah, but the, the Queen's border is where it came back.
Yeah.
Well, around Glencove or Hempstead, where we were on the expressway, I got back momentarily,
and then we got into, like, a really, uh, vicious area of trees and nothing else.
Yeah, trees.
Their biggest enemy of progress.
Yeah.
So, um, so I had no signal there, but then once we got on the Queen's border, then I got it back again.
Basically, all the, all the, uh, news headlines and things that, uh, I hadn't received,
because I was out of the area, suddenly came in one after the other.
I see.
And, uh, yeah, you're not going to mention the fact that your phone crashed when you came back in.
Oh, well, that, that happens sometimes.
That has nothing to do with Omnipoint.
That, that's Ericsson.
Every so often, uh, maybe, I'd say probably maybe once or once every month or every two months,
um, a message will come in and I'll look at the phone and all of a sudden it's as if I just turned the phone on.
You know, it prompts me to enter the pin again and everything.
Right.
Every so often.
Do you think it had something to do with being out of service with someone?
No, because it's happened when I was sitting at home, too.
Uh-huh.
It doesn't happen often enough that it's a problem.
Right.
But, uh, every so often.
I mean, uh, it's a new technology.
I don't really hold it to them.
I mean, if it was happening all the time, then, then, you know, then I'd report it.
Right.
But if it's something that happens once every month or two, I'm not worried about it.
Let's, uh, let's talk about some of the issues we raised over the weekend at this, uh, sci-fi convention,
which, uh, I guess digital privacy and hacker issues are of interest to the sci-fi community.
And especially evil investment bankers.
And actually, I learned that sci-fi is a bad term to use.
Is it?
We call it SF or science fiction.
But sci-fi...
SF sounds like San Francisco.
Yeah, it does.
I know.
But, um, sci-fi is like the cheap stuff.
It's the stuff that nobody respects.
Oh.
You know, it's like, uh, it's, it's garbage.
So, don't say sci-fi.
Like the sci-fi channel.
You know, that's a good point.
They don't call it the SF channel.
That's true.
They don't.
Maybe that, that means something.
They have good stuff on there sometimes.
Sometimes.
Yes.
Yes.
And then they have, uh, all kinds of shop at home things after, after hours.
Yeah, this is true.
Uh, so now, we had, uh, we had two panels over there.
And, uh, the first one, we had about 50 people on the panel.
I don't know why.
Yeah.
It just sort of worked out that way.
And the second one was, uh, was more or less, uh, hackers talking about various, um, various
things.
Anything that stands out in your memory?
Um, well, the thing that stands out in my memory at the first panel was, um, that there
was us, and then there was, like, one or two people who were supposed to be on it, I
guess, opposing us, and all their friends on the panel.
Yeah, they brought, they brought cousins and uncles.
Yeah.
And, uh, it was basically, um, uh, what would you call it?
Whitey?
What would you call those guys?
They were kind of the stereotypical whitey.
Whitey?
Yeah, I think they were representative of that, that right-wing faction.
He kept saying, oh, I'm ultra-right-wing.
I'm an investment banker.
That guy.
Oh, um, I guess.
Yeah, I mean, he was saying that, but, uh, you know, we didn't really get into politics
as far as, as, you know, ideology goes.
You know, there weren't very many debates, arguments going back and forth that, uh.
No, because they seem to be doing all the time.
There's just too many people.
Yeah.
And we have, there were some people in the audience that were more, more panelists than the
people on the panel because they were, like, answering questions, too.
Yeah.
And, which is okay, but, uh, just got kind of, like, uh, you know, the train didn't exactly
leave the station, let's put it that way.
Yeah.
Uh, but I, I was pretty impressed by the number of people who were on the net.
I mean, you know, we asked how many people are on the net, and it's, like, virtually everybody
in the room is on the net now.
Well, they were, most of them were Stony Brook students.
No, that's not true.
Really?
I mean, some of them were, but, uh, you know.
A lot of them were.
People from off campus.
Unless, you know, Stony Brook students have kids, I don't think, you know, most people
have Stony Brook students.
Well, yeah, I mean, obviously not everyone.
Yeah.
I, I thought we had a lot better control over the second panel.
But the awareness of, of things like the CDA, Communications Decency Act.
Right.
That, that seems to be very high.
Sure.
You know, people are aware of the threat that poses, and the fact that it's, it's currently
being heard by the, um, by the Supreme Court.
And it will be decided this summer, whether or not that's, uh, that's, uh, constitutional.
There was a big editorial in the New York Times yesterday about this, uh, opposing the CDA,
as, as well every newspaper in the world should.
I think, uh, I think the word is getting out.
And, and we talked about, um, you know, about webpage hacking, things like that.
Sure, yeah.
You know, it really bugs me that people think that the CIA, you know, had their privacy violated
when those Swedish hackers came in and, and, and put something up on their webpage.
I mean, yeah, it was, you know, I guess you could say like an act of graffiti or something
like that, but it was easily fixed.
And I think the CIA has violated a lot more people's privacy than, than, you know, that
happened to them.
You know, I think they should look at this in a more, you know, educational light.
You agree?
Uh, well, I don't know if we should necessarily badmouth the CIA over the air, because we
don't know who's in the CIA.
Well, yeah, that may be so.
But, you know, we're not badmouthing them as, uh, you know, specific people, but just as
Well, let's just say, theoretically, if I did agree with you, then I think it, it does
make sense, it sort of, that, look at what's become of you.
Look at, look at this, look at the pathetic specimen in front of me here.
You're afraid to say anything that the CIA might take offense at, you know?
It's, it's, it's sad.
It's really sad.
They're, they're dangerous people.
Do you want to attack the Secret Service then?
Is that enough for today?
Oh, well, they're, they're not, are we up to the CIA?
They're not nearly as secret as the CIA is.
Uh-huh.
Well, actually, there's, there's more secretive organizations and, you know, than we can even
talk about.
Sure.
Names that we don't even know.
People we've never heard of.
That's right.
And never will.
Like the National Reconnaissance Organization.
But the point is, I mean, there are people there that were trying to bring up the house
analogy, you know, breaking into houses and things like that is the same as breaking into
a web, you know, a web page.
I don't think that's, that's as prevalent as it was in years past.
I think more people are intelligently discussing these issues and realizing that, you know,
the real abuses take place from, you know, the, the organizations that keep a lot of this
information, governmental organizations, um, corporations, telemarketers, things like
that.
But there was a, that telemarketing guy there.
That was a, that was a trip, wasn't it?
Yeah, that was weird.
This guy was in the audience representing a telemarketing firm and, uh...
He might've woke you up one morning.
Yeah.
Well, no, I mean, you know...
I didn't even know if it was him.
I've, I've, I've set it up so phones can never wake me up.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
That's good.
Phones really don't wake me up anymore.
And, you know, I, I think a lot of people should probably work it that way so that they
don't get disturbed by these, these maniacs calling them at all hours to sell them things.
You know?
But, you know, on those rare occasions when I actually pick up a phone, because, you know,
usually it's, it's, you know, screening of some sort.
But if I pick up a phone just out of, you know, I don't know why I do it.
Sometimes I just do it for the fun of it.
Um, it's almost always somebody trying to sell me something.
Hmm, like long distance, ceramic tiles, or some of the product that I really need.
Well, that's you, John Q Consumer, right?
Uh, yeah, yeah.
John Q Consumer with the foul mouth that, that talks to the telemarketers that call me.
Uh, that guy said, and this is the funny part, he said that they have a 10%, what is it,
a 10% approval rating?
Yeah.
Is that what it was?
Something like that.
10% of the people that they call welcome them calling.
Yeah.
And this is what I almost said, you know, I almost said this, but it probably would have
made him feel really bad.
I was going to say, why don't you telemarketers use your telemarketing ability on yourselves?
And, you know, say that 90% of the people don't want us to call, so we're going to stop
calling, you know, doesn't that, doesn't that make sense?
I mean, if they just did that, then they'd never call anybody again.
Nine out of 10 people hate you.
Yes.
And he thinks that that's a, that's a, that's a good thing.
He thinks that's good.
One out of 10 people is good.
And of those nine out of 10, you know, I'm sure there's varying degrees, you know, homicidal
maniacs that want to kill him, and people that are just very annoyed, people that just
would wish he would call somebody else, you know, all kinds of different varieties there.
But one in 10 people actually are, I don't know if it's happy to hear from them,
or just, you know, aren't rude.
Indifferent, yeah.
So, yeah, it was, it was educational.
Learned quite a bit from, from other people as well, and people shared information with
us, and that's the kind of thing we like to see.
Hopefully at, um, our Beyond Hope Conference in August, we'll, uh, there won't be any science
fiction there.
It'll be just macking things.
But we'll see that kind of, uh, mood reproduced.
Well, hopefully it won't be too hot that day, because then people get really angry at each
other.
Yeah, well, there's lots of air conditioning in that place.
Okay, good.
So that's, that's not a problem.
And we don't want to get into a debate at each other's throats or anything.
No, August 8th, 9th, and 10th.
So, yeah, it's in the, it's in the height of summer, but we do have air conditioning.
At least we have things that look like air conditioning, so I assume they work.
Well, we'll, we'll check into that.
Uh, let's take some phone calls.
212-279-3400, um, look over a couple of stories.
California regulators gave final approval.
You, you think that 9X Bell Atlantic is the only, uh, only real, uh, instance of phone
companies merging that's taking place right now.
Well, no.
California regulators gave final approval Monday to, uh, SBC Communications.
Southwestern Bell.
Southwestern Bell, yeah.
Uh, 16.7 billion dollar takeover of Pacific Telesis, Telesis or Telesis?
Telesis.
Telesis?
Telesis, yeah.
Okay.
Pacific Telesis Group.
A deal that creates a local telephone powerhouse covering seven states.
So, right away, two phone companies merging, merging into one.
The state's Public Utility Commission attached several conditions, including the refund of
$213.5 million over five years to customers of Pacific Bell, which is Pacific Telesis' phone
subsidiary.
Um, the FCC approved the merger in January, rejecting challenges from competitors.
The deal was announced in April 1996.
The new SBC will be the second largest provider of local phone service behind the combined 9X
Corporation and Bell Atlantic Corporation.
It's interesting how they're saying this, like it's already going to happen.
Yeah.
It still hasn't been 100% approved yet.
It, you know, the PSC buckled in and approved conditionally some things, but it still has to
go through, uh, the FCC and Justice Department and groups like that.
Um, anyway, those companies, uh, are set to merge pretty soon, it looks like.
So, we'll have, what do we have left?
We'll have, uh, five total regional Bells instead of seven.
So, there'll be, well, now what are they calling this one?
They're calling it, uh, I guess they're calling it SBC.
So, there'll be no more Pacific Telesis.
Pacific Bell's going away.
SBC, there'll be Bell Atlantic, so no more 9X.
Right.
No more Pacific Telesis.
Telesis, um, and that leaves, who else?
Bell South?
Yeah, it leaves Bell South, it leaves Ameritech.
It leaves the U.S. West, and, uh, that's it.
That's it.
That's all.
That's it.
So, who knows if there'll be other mergers after that.
It's kind of, kind of a scary thing.
Yeah.
Uh, only, you know, think about it, only, only five more, and, you know, then we're back
to the Bell system.
Yeah, except then we got this AT&T, you know, around.
We've basically doubled.
Yeah.
Doubled them somehow.
And AT&T just split up.
Yeah.
It's, uh, I mean, these big corporations are kind of scary.
That's the other thing we were talking about at the conference was, um, uh, another part
of the telecommunications bill, which was, um, the sort of deregulation of communications,
where radio stations can be owned by the same people, and, and how, like, every radio station
in Long Island now is owned by the same corporation.
Right.
And how, uh, you know, you're seeing less and less variety.
Less and less variety.
It's, it's, it's, it's horrible.
It's shocking.
It's scary.
And for individuals like us, for radio stations like WBAI, it's, um, becoming more and more
of a, um, of a corporate world out there.
It just is, it seems to be, you know, uniform, you know, one voice, one opinion.
Kind of sad.
Uh, here's something that I found, which is kind of interesting.
This company is offering, uh, uh, sort of a solution to the America Online problem,
you know, the busy signals.
Our phone company has created a software program that can connect you to America Online with
ease, and we're giving it away for free.
Wow.
If you're tired of listening to busy signals, this program can help.
Simply run our program before you try to connect to AOL, and the software will persistently
attempt to lock on to AOL until it succeeds.
Amazing.
This is one tough piece of software.
It will not let up until it gets you connected.
The moment a free line becomes available, the program will sign you in.
Similar programs have sold for $20 to $50, but we're giving our software away for free.
I should point out, every time they say we're giving it away, they forget the apostrophe,
and it's basically we're giving our software away.
But that's a petty point.
If you sign up for long-distance phone service with UST, we're the nation's number four phone
company.
Okay.
Between now and April 18th, well, rush you, I guess they can't print apostrophes, because
they didn't say will, they said, well, rush you a free copy of our software.
What's more, because our long-distance service costs less than the three biggest carriers,
you'll also enjoy a lower phone bill.
We only charge 12.9 cents a minute for long distance.
Here's how that compares to the major, well, they basically go into all the different companies.
Looking for an address, US telephone, quick connect to AOL offer, department PH10, P.O.
Box 660127, Flushing, New York, 11366.
I mean, this is like, it's almost like a joke.
Yeah.
Want to look this over?
Look at the fine print.
Tell me if you see anything weird there.
Fine print.
Well, it's in Flushing.
Yeah.
I mean, that's just right there, you know?
What phone company is in Flushing?
It's kind of weird.
Yeah, really.
So, I don't know who, I don't know who is saying things like that.
And they discovered how to redial a modem.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, and what are they doing there?
They're basically just redialing over and over again.
Yeah.
You know, not really all that complex.
You know what you should do?
What's that?
You should come out with 2600 telephone.
What does that do?
Basically, you're going to buy up a whole bunch of bulk, long-distance minutes, just like these people,
and you're going to resell them at a huge discount.
And you know what you'll do?
If you do, you'll throw in a subscription at 2600.
Well, that sounds like a great idea.
Something to spend even more time on.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Phone company.
I'd like to become a phone company.
That'd be fun.
Yeah.
But do something totally different with the phones.
Like what?
I don't know.
Just charge outrageously low prices.
You know, encourage alternative ways of dealing with telephones.
I don't know.
Something that would get the big phone companies really angry.
You know what you could do?
You could claim that you found a way to provide PCS services on regular wired telephones.
Yeah, I'll call it PCS.
Yeah.
Just like AT&T.
But it won't have anything to do with cordless phones.
That's very good.
I'll call it, yeah.
Yeah.
Just PCS services.
PCS.
It'll be a regular desktop telephone.
Yeah.
PCS.
Pretty cheap service.
There you go.
There you go.
PCS telephone.
212-279-3400.
Let's go to the first phone call, see if it's Rebel.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
No, it's not Rebel.
Oh, it's not?
What a surprise.
Surprise I got through before this time.
Wow.
It's Scarecrow.
Scarecrow?
Yes.
I called you last week.
Okay.
What's on your mind?
I was just curious.
When are you going to come to a New York meeting?
You always say you're going to be there, but I didn't see it.
Actually, I was at the last New York meeting, but I wasn't recognized.
Really?
Yeah.
I was there.
I was definitely there.
And I noticed that they did not fix the downstairs yet.
I was very disappointed in that.
I was under the assumption that by the time I came back to New York, that would be fixed,
but it still is not.
Man, they have, they're putting two more payphones in, but I don't think they're finished
with them yet.
I don't know what takes so long to restore a building to the way it used to be before
they started destroying it.
I don't know.
So, I'll be at the meeting next month, too.
Maybe people will recognize me, then.
Okay.
Okay.
Thanks for calling.
Actually, I was only there for about three minutes, but it was a bad traffic day.
Let's put it that way.
Very bad.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hi.
Two things.
First, for the last two weeks, I, like, boycotted the show, because the last time I called in
three weeks ago, after I hung up, you really, like, insulted me and did a number on me,
and you said, Rebel and I always call, and you inferred that our calls are boring and
you don't like us, so you really hurt my feelings, but, you know, I'm back.
I guess I have a thick skin.
I wanted to just...
Oh, that's not all that's thick, I don't think.
Sorry, I didn't.
No, I don't want to insult you when you get off the phone.
I think maybe we'll just insult you while you're on the phone.
Okay.
Is that all right?
Do you prefer it that way?
Yeah, I'm like the human doormat.
I wanted to mention something about MetroCard.
Yes, go ahead.
I was at your favorite station the other day, Canal Street No. 6 train, and all the MetroCard
receptors were taped over and broken, so all I had was my MetroCard, and I didn't want
to use any money, so I said to the token booth, can you take my MetroCard, deduct $1.50, and
give me a token?
He said, no, only a turnstile can do that.
So I'm thinking, if and until they upgrade the system where it's, you know, online all
the time, don't you think it would be advantageous for a token clerk to be able to deduct, specify
the man from your MetroCard in exchange for a token?
Don't you think that would be a good idea?
I'm very surprised that they're not able to do that already.
They can do that, he just didn't want to do that.
I don't know, maybe he just didn't know how to do it, you know?
You mean from behind his plexiglass and clothes?
Oh, he said only a turnstile, and he was lying to me, or stupid, or both?
Yeah, I would bet on stupid.
Either he didn't know how, or he didn't want to.
Oh, well.
He didn't want to, because then everybody else would want him to do it.
Can you briefly say how it's done, so the next time I encounter one of them, I can tell
them if they don't get me arrested for, like, badgering them, or?
Well, I mean, first of all, you have, you're in a MetroCard station, correct?
I mean, they are required to allow you to use your MetroCard in a MetroCard station.
If they're having difficulties, that's tough.
It's their problem, not your problem.
You should not have to buy the same thing twice, because they're incompetent.
Exactly.
As far as how they actually deduct it, well, I mean, they have a machine there to make
the damn things in the first place, right?
I don't know.
I mean, they do.
On Canal Street?
I mean, you could have just read what was on your card currently, and made another one
with the amount minus the fare, and it kept yours.
You could have done a number of things.
Well, this guy said to me, no, but I mean, I guess that's part of living in New York, and
you know, I guess after the money train, they're all a little bit paranoid about, you know,
any wild-looking customers.
Let's see, what else?
He just called himself wild-looking.
Well, I mean, sometimes, no, sometimes I have like a bad hair day, and I look like Eddie
Munster or Christopher Lloyd or something, but...
I'm trying to picture this.
Oh, what happened?
I don't know if you mentioned it, because of my boycott.
The last time you called Blockbuster about, you know, getting a video on that new technology
did you go there, and did they have it?
I'm sorry, I didn't hear that.
You called Blockbuster Video three weeks ago?
About new technology.
What?
Yeah.
Oh, oh.
The DVD?
Okay, yeah, you missed it because you boycotted the show.
Well, basically, we went over there after the show to get the DVDs that they said they
had, and it was like a Twilight Zone episode, because the...
I mean, we knew which one we called.
It was the one on 34th and 3rd, I believe, because that's how they answered the phone.
We went over there, and, you know, those people were no longer there.
They vanished, and the people that were there had never heard of DVD.
It was really weird.
They didn't hear of DVD.
They said, okay, maybe we'll get such a thing in June.
Yeah, June, that's it, and that's where they left it.
But since then, DVD titles have become available in various places.
I think you can go to J&R, P.C. Richards.
I think they have them now.
Do you know if porn is on DVD?
Well, I mean, porn can certainly be put on DVD.
I don't know if it's on it right now.
And do you think it's going to make the VCR obsolete?
Eventually, it has to.
But right now, the way they're doing it is very stupid,
because they have these DVD players that only play single-sided DVDs.
And obviously, the whole point of DVD is to be able to do multi-layer, multi-side,
or double-side, anyway.
And that's what's going to be happening in the future.
Now, the DVD players that you buy today are not able to read the second side.
So as soon as that's introduced, they're completely obsolete.
Okay, the last two things briefly.
I ordered and got voice dialing.
It was cool.
Within two days, you know, I called to order it on a Tuesday.
I got it on Thursday.
I'm using it now.
It's cool.
There are no problems.
It's much better than the Sprint long-distance one.
I'm using it now for my home phone.
I have like 30 directory for $450 a month.
Right.
No, it's a good deal.
I've always said nice things about voice dialing.
The only difficulty with voice dialing is that they occasionally lose your whole directory,
and then you've got to redo it all.
And also, when you go to a payphone, you suddenly realize you can't just suddenly speak somebody's name.
You have to remember their phone number, and you don't necessarily remember their phone number
since you are speaking their name.
And the last thing, I guess if you're, I don't know, like the perspective of your conscience,
whether or not you're like a giving, sensitive, new-age guy, but like to sort of make up for like the emotional pain you caused me,
I would accept two tickets to the Hope Conference.
Yeah, you see, basically what you've just done is double the price for yourself,
because you're speaking to somebody here who has no conscience whatsoever.
How about you, Fiverr?
Maybe you could be a little bit more compassionate than me.
Well, whether or not I have a conscience?
Yeah, do you have a conscience?
You feel any, I mean, he's appealing to our conscience.
Did you know that you're in jail with Sideshow Bob, do anything for you, Fiverr?
Sideshow Bob.
That's a joke.
Anyway, I'm going to get on, and Rebel, I'm a fan of you,
and hopefully you'll support me too against the evil Emanuel Goldstein.
Ciao.
Well, the battle lines have just been drawn, so we'll see where that goes.
Boy, I bet the Canal Street Station isn't your favorite.
All right, wait, are you going to start insulting him, or do I get to start insulting him?
Wait, wait, who's going to insult first?
Go ahead.
No, I insulted him.
Oh, no, I've said might be.
You'd be afraid of him, aren't you?
Oh, no, not.
You think he's with the CIA?
No, definitely not.
Can you imagine him working for the CIA?
Maybe a whole other organization.
I can imagine him trying to kill the president.
You could?
Yeah, but not working for the CIA.
You just, like, open up a Secret Service investigation by saying that on the air.
You know that?
Oh, boy.
The president of...
Of...
Not Rodeja, they don't exist anymore.
Mattel Toys.
Yeah, that's it.
No, East Pakistan doesn't exist either.
That's Bangladesh.
Bangladesh.
There you go.
President of Bangladesh.
That's what we're talking about.
Yeah.
Okay, great.
Got to have that one nice and easy.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Oh, hallelujah.
Wow, I've been trying for...
No, no more religion.
No more religion.
Out of the religion.
This was the giggling guy from last week, remember?
You were giggling on the air last week, weren't you?
I haven't been on in a long, long time.
Well, there was a guy on the air last week giggling just like that.
Well, good.
Please don't giggle anymore.
Oh, this is getting too religious then.
No, not religious, all right?
So what's on your mind?
Okay, two things.
The PCS licenses?
Yes.
And why there's no Omnipoint competition yet?
Yes.
Basically, when the FCC sold the licenses, they were exclusive licenses in order to raise more money.
Because someone would pay a lot more money for an exclusive right than they would pay for, like, oh, well, I'm going to have competition.
No, I don't think that's how they did it.
I think they did.
I remember reading that they were selling one license in each market.
Um, no, that's totally against the whole concept of, did you hear anything like that, Fiverr?
Um, I can't say that that is true or not.
I mean, certainly not calling this man a liar, but I think it deserves looking into it.
We're not going to insult any more of our listeners, but, I mean, I don't think that would have washed very well with various consumer groups if they were just making an instant monopoly.
No, what actually happened, I should clarify, what I understand to have happened was that there's a primary carrier that, you know, is like Omnipoint or whoever is, you know, doing it elsewhere in the country.
Um, and then later they're bringing in a sub-class kind of carrier, and that will eventually be competition.
Um, so it's kind of a two-phase process, and so that the initial round is a one-operator process.
That is, that's my understanding.
I mean, I, you know, I could have a horrible memory, and, you know, this is all a bad dream, but, uh, you know, I...
I mean, look at, look at the, the cellular industry.
Now, we had, what, two carriers when cellular was introduced, cellular one, and, what was the other one?
And 9X.
That's 9X, was that what it was called originally?
Uh, was it, uh, 9X?
Yeah, I guess it was 9X Marble.
9X Marble originally, before it was spelled 9X.
Uh, so, there was always the desire to have at least two, at least two.
I don't think they would give that up with any new technology.
The local, uh, I think that's the, that's the plan, as it stands, but, but, you know, right now it's one, and it will eventually be two.
I think that's the plan.
Well, plus, there, I mean, there are so many frequencies available.
My understanding is that there are many more frequencies available under PCS, under GSM, uh, than under the old system, which means that there could be, there could be a lot of companies.
Right, but they haven't been auctioned off yet.
That's the other thing I don't understand, is all this auctioning off, you know, it's, it's like, you know, it's control of the electromagnetic spectrum.
It's just, uh, you know, it seems like it's very, um, very open to, uh, abuse of all sorts.
Yeah, it's arguable in both directions.
I mean, pro and con, and I don't want to get into it.
The other thing I was calling about is MetroCard.
Um, I love MetroCard.
Um.
I hate MetroCard.
Oh, well.
I really hate MetroCard.
Another day we'll argue about that, too, but, um, basically, I didn't realize that it was available at Canal Street yet.
I thought they were, just had the turnstiles in and were getting it ready, and that it wasn't operational yet.
Maybe that's what the caller before, uh, maybe that's what his mistake was.
Maybe he thought it was broken, but it was not yet put into service.
Well, then the token clerk should have told him.
The token clerk should have said something, that's true.
I'm sorry, what?
Well, yeah, he really should have said, well, they're not ready at this station yet, rather than saying, go, drop dead, you know, but, whatever.
But, you know, you can't, uh, New York.
But then we don't know what that caller might have said to the token booth clerk to get that kind of reaction in the first place.
Definitely, definitely.
Okay, well, uh, you know, enjoy the day.
All right.
I have a great idea.
I mean, he looked like Herman, you know, Herman Munster, is that the guy's name?
That's what he said.
That's what he said.
I mean, if he says that, you can imagine what he looks like.
In the spirit of the FCC, I have a great idea.
Okay, what's that?
I'm going to auction off blue.
You're going to auction off blue?
Blue.
You're finally going to do it, huh?
It's part of the electromagnetic spectrum, and I think that we have every right to auction off blue.
No one has to take the claim on it yet.
Well.
And just think, so, how many people use blue?
I can tell you this, we could use the money.
Yeah, everybody in this room is probably using blue.
You're using a blue microphone right now.
Yeah, look at that.
But you have the right to, because you have the license to blue.
Yeah.
All right.
That's good.
I can make anyone in this room pay me for using blue.
What, uh...
You subscribe to blue?
Uh, well, uh, you know, on an interim basis.
Okay.
Yeah.
I don't know if I want the full feed.
Well, you could beta test blue for me for a while.
Okay, well, we'll accept any offers then.
Okay.
Mail your offers in to Off the Hook, Care of WBAI, 505 8th Avenue, New York, New York,
WandaBlow, 1-8th Avenue, and, uh, I guess the highest bidder gets it.
Yep.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hello.
Yeah, speak up.
Yeah.
I'd like to talk about Army Point and tell you that there is another competitor to it,
Sprint, but Sprint is not on air because they're having tremendous technical problems.
Well, we talked about Sprint, uh, last week, and it would appear that the Sprint PCS that's
being offered is not necessarily GSM.
No, it's not.
What they're doing is they're up converting 800 meg conventional digital cellular systems
to 1,800 megs, but they're doing it, they're taking conventional 800 meg cell sites, and
they're putting a mixer, is what they're doing, and they're doing it the cheap way, and they're
having tremendous, uh, problems with this system.
Army Point right now is just not the only company out there that's doing it, but they're trying
to have some problems.
If you've noticed, their stock was up as high as 34, it is right now trading at nine and
three quarters.
Oh, wow.
When did that happen?
In all the last couple of months.
Uh, what they're doing is they're running cell sites every mile, mile and a half, and
that's about what it is, and they're having a lot of handoff problems and some software
problems in their system.
It's a completely a digital system from the handset directly into the, uh, T1 line that
goes right into the, uh, into the phone company.
Uh-huh.
I think you mean 1900 megahertz, not 1800.
No, 1800 Sprint, 1900 megs is Army Point.
1800 is European.
They don't use, they're, that's not being used here for GSM at all.
Yes, it is.
Sprint is on 1800 megs.
Where are you getting this information from?
From looking at the FCC docs.
Really?
And they, they're giving out 1800 for Sprint?
18, Sprint already got it.
There was, there's two classes of licenses, a B and a C carrier.
There's actually three licenses being given in each area.
Some of it is called PCS, some of it is called GCM.
It's different in the technology.
Some is using a post-coded modulation, and some is using, uh, TDMA.
Uh-huh.
There's two different types of digital format, and it's all depending on what they're going
with.
Uh, so, as, do you see any other companies that are licensed off of GSM in this area?
Sprint is, and I think there's one other company.
I'm not, I forgot the name of the company that's doing it, but there is three companies
that are doing it.
But the problem that most people are going to realize, it's going to come down to the
fact that it's going to have to be one company.
The fact that Omni Point is finding this out, they're all finding it out, it's just,
just, it takes too much capital investment to do this for, and split it up.
Well, I mean, that's, and the reason, that's what's happening in New York.
The cost is not going to come down right away for the fact that they're paying so much money.
Landlords are getting $1,000 to $1,500 a month for top rooftops, deciding at hard-getting sites.
Yeah, but I mean, they've been doing this in Europe for years, and there's more than one
company, uh, in every major city there.
Yeah, because Europe doesn't have the expenses, they don't have, a lot of the buildings are
owned by the government, so they're not, they're not spending a lot of money in, in, uh,
in real estate.
The real estate is what creates a big problem.
A lot of places, uh, the roofs are already crowded with all these antennas.
And a lot of buildings now are getting uptight about radiation.
I know a couple of sites or locations, building management, that says they don't live, because
they're afraid of lawsuits for their tenants with the radiation factor.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, in fact, there was an article in the Times about that a couple of weeks ago, about
a building that, uh, I guess, changed its mind about the whole thing, and wants the antennas
for Sprint off their building, and Sprint won't do it.
Well, they, they already signed a contract, though.
I mean, that's up to whatever the legal agreements are in their contract.
You're signing a contract, I mean, in this building, they're going to have to go to litigation.
I mean, that's what's happening.
People are getting very concerned about it.
So, inside the building, I would say there's not that much to worry about, because the
radiation goes away from the building.
But there could be some leakage.
And you're up near, you're pretty high up there in the microwave field.
I have no real opinion.
But I would say, it all depends on how many milliwatts or microwatts per square centimeter
of signal you're on.
Understand one thing.
These transverse are up all the time.
And they are a square wave.
Not like an analog signal.
So, you could have more damaging effect.
That's an interesting, interesting point.
Because of the post-coded modulation.
It's a, it's a digital format.
And it's not like a continuous wave.
But when a wave comes up, you could have harmonic production.
Then, I think more of the effect does not come from the heating.
It just comes from the magnetic fields.
And we haven't done enough research.
And I understand there are people out there who say that they're getting affected physically
by the phones.
Well, there's people that are physically affected by virtually everything.
Not there.
But, thanks for the points.
They're very interesting.
And it gives us something to think about.
I don't know.
This 1800 thing.
What do you think of that?
That's the first I'm hearing about that.
I don't think it was available at all.
I know that the edge of 1800 is part of PCS 1900.
The actual frequency range is at the top of 1800 to about mid-1900 megahertz.
But Sprint told us themselves last week that they weren't offering GSM in New York.
Yeah, but you don't expect them to know what they're doing, do you?
No, not necessarily.
Basically, this is so confusing that nobody understands what's really going on.
Yeah.
And the health aspects are just another thing that we've never even, you know, approached.
Well, actually, they do mention some health things in the Ericsson manual for my phone
that you should keep phone calls as short as possible.
Really?
They say that?
Yeah.
And that if the rubber comes off the antenna to replace it immediately and don't touch it
or you could suffer minor burns.
Really?
Yeah.
Wow.
Well, you know, it's common sense not to hold a transmitter next to your head for very
long periods of time.
Maybe it's not common sense.
Many people think that's, like, you know, part of life.
But it's really probably not a good thing to do.
Nope.
Probably isn't.
And, you know, I think there's a lot of people out there that just want to sort of stay
with the phones that have wires, you know, because, I mean, when you're outside, you're
not on the phone, and it's as simple as that, you know?
What's wrong with that?
You just sort of, like, live life and then go back home and use the phone when you have to.
Yeah.
Or use a pay phone.
I'm told that there is a 2600 long-distance service of sorts.
If we dial, let's see, 950-2600, we get something.
Wow, that's really clever.
That's really good.
Okay.
Well, let's try it one more time.
Maybe that was just a bad look.
Okay, wonderful.
Thanks for that tip.
He's saying it's available, but it's not in use.
Thanks for that tip, yes.
All right, well, basically, I guess we'll look into that some more.
212-279-3400.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
What was that?
Yes, go ahead.
Hi, I was wondering if you had heard anything about the Community Telephone Company.
The Community Telephone Company.
Right, they're a new local service provider.
Where are they located?
Well, I guess there's been another one, Teleport, right?
He had one in Manhattan, but they're available in Brooklyn now.
I got a flyer.
And what were they saying in their flyer?
That they were, I mean, you know, that they were cheaper than 9X.
I mean, I don't really care if they were the same price as 9X.
That would be okay with me.
I just don't want to ever have to deal with 9X ever, ever again.
Yeah, I can understand that.
So, if the quality of service was good, you know.
I don't know, is that the name of the same people who put up those shoddy payphones?
Teleport is doing this?
No, no, Community Telephone.
I never heard of them.
Well, Community Telephone is kind of a generic type of a name, so you might be able to see it someplace else, but it's not necessarily the same people.
Right.
So, you know, it's hard to say.
So, nobody knows?
Not per se, as far as, you know, if that's the same company.
I mean, do you know a particular pay fund that says Community Telephone on it?
Well, no, no, but have you heard of that company, and do you know anything about their local service?
No, this is the first I've heard of it.
I've never heard of them either.
You say they're located in Brooklyn, or they provide service to Brooklyn?
I don't know.
They provide service to Brooklyn.
You know how you get those value pack coupons?
Yeah.
Every once in a while, there was one for them in there, and I called them, and they seemed very nice, and they sent me information.
They claimed that across the board, everything would be 10% cheaper, and you could keep the same phone number, and there wouldn't be any setup charge, and everything would be great.
Uh-huh.
And they offer everything Nonex offers?
I don't know about it.
Yeah, seemingly.
The same that you could keep the call waiting or the call forwarding or those things.
I mean, I don't know about ISDN service.
What about calling plans, things like that?
They had, again, they said that their one-distance provider would cut below whatever your, 10% below whatever your current service was.
Really?
Yeah.
Well, you know, I'd get more information on them, because we definitely need competition.
That's why I'm calling you.
Yeah.
I don't see how a local phone company can claim that they can give you the same phone number.
That's what they say.
Because those phone numbers belong to Nonex.
Well, that's not necessarily true, because Nonex gives out blocks of phone numbers.
In fact, this is why they have to split two on two, because they give out exchanges of blocks of 10,000 numbers.
But I'm saying, if your number is your number, you can't move that number to another phone company.
Maybe not under today's rules, but I know that's something, I mean, with 800 portability, they changed that so that the customer could move to different companies with the same phone number.
I think they're attempting to do the same thing with local numbers as well.
Right, but if they're claiming this now, that technology isn't possible today.
They were definitely claiming that.
I don't see how they're going to do that.
Call their bluff, see what happens.
I mean, you know, don't go so far that, you know, you ruin your phone service, but see where the, you know, the, I don't know, conditions start appearing.
You know, then tell us what they say.
Okay.
All right?
Yep.
Good luck.
Bye.
Interesting.
I mean, we knew this day would come.
Yeah.
Local competition.
It's about time.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hello?
Yeah, speak up.
It's me again.
Okay.
Yeah, I just called that 950-2600, and I got a little more than you did.
What'd you get?
Well, it says, your call cannot be completed as dialed.
Please check the number or area code and try again twice.
Yeah.
Then it says, we're sorry, all circuits are busy, twice.
And then it goes to the busy signal you got.
Well, what that means is basically the recordings are kind of messed up, right?
They forward to a different recording after they finish, right?
Basically, yeah.
The person was trying to illustrate that 2600 was not taken.
Yes.
Not that it was in use.
Yes.
We know it's not in use.
Now we know that, yes.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Thanks for calling.
212-279-3400.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hi, Fiber.
You cracked me up with that auctioning off blue.
That was a good one.
You interested?
Thank you.
You're interested there?
No, I just...
Let's make a bid.
We gave the address before.
Maybe I'll see if I can submit a request for proposal or something.
All offers will be considered equally.
Okay.
All serious offers.
All right.
Now, I had a seemingly unexplainable experience with the phone this week.
And it turned out that my friend basically wound up having call waiting waiting.
All right.
He has call waiting.
Call double waiting.
Call double waiting, which you're not supposed to have.
Okay.
And I have three-way calling.
Okay.
So I was on with one friend, and we decided, let's call this third guy.
So we call him.
His wife answers the phone and says, I'm on a long-distance call.
I'm on another call.
Can I have my husband call you back?
We say, okay.
She hangs up on us, but we never disconnected.
So we think, well, we're still lurking on hold for her.
So when she hangs up, it'll be a ring and we'll be there.
Right.
Which ultimately happened, which didn't surprise us.
But then she said, wait a minute.
How come you guys are still there?
I got other beeps from other people while you guys were on hold.
I'm saying, how can that happen?
You know?
Okay.
So you called into her conversation, and then she hung up, but you didn't.
She thought she hung up.
Well, she flashed.
She flashed.
So basically that put you on hold.
Right.
And then while she was having her conversation, she continued to get call waiting beeps while
you were parked on hold.
Right.
And it didn't ring until she actually physically hung up.
Right.
And we were back there at the end of her original call.
Would that happen on a 1A?
It doesn't beep on a 1A.
It doesn't beep.
You sure it was a beep and not a click?
You can't get call waiting on a call waiting on a 1A either.
That's true.
What was that thing on 1A you could get?
You could get call waiting if you're on three-way.
Yeah, you could do that.
Well, there's one other possibility.
She's mistaken.
That's true.
I guess it's possible.
There's that possibility.
We went over this very finely, though, because my friend and I are both very into the telephone,
and we couldn't understand how this could happen.
Well, okay.
The best way is to do it again, see if it happens again.
Mm-hmm.
No, we didn't try that yet.
Okay.
Well, that's the first thing to try.
Set up the situation so that you do exactly the same thing,
and then have somebody else try calling in.
They just have a regular phone over there, right?
It's not like a switchboard or something?
Right.
One line, yeah.
Okay.
But this is not impossible.
There are certain conditions under which this can happen, according to your knowledge.
Well, is it physically impossible?
It's not physically impossible.
It's not physically impossible, no.
Some feature could be concocted.
The reason why it doesn't exist is because how do you prioritize what the switch hook does?
Mm-hmm.
Do I restore the most recent call or two calls back or, you know, what's call waiting, is it?
Yeah.
If you have something like what you had, IntelliDial.
IntelliDial.
Oh, yes.
Or if you have Centrix, then you can receive multiple calls.
It's like having a multi-line phone, only whenever you flash the switch hook,
you get a controlling dial tone that allows you to enter in star codes
that allow you to go back and forth and use features.
Uh-huh.
But if she has no such thing, then it's not possible.
Well, do you think that this is...
She lives...
This is in southern Westchester County, and I live in Queens,
so I don't know if that makes a difference,
but do you think that this is something that's kind of lying in wait for future use,
or is it just a mistake that they don't even know can happen right now?
Well, it certainly wouldn't be in use in its present form because it's confusing to everybody,
and I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that don't know what we're talking about right now,
so it would be very hard to sell a product like that.
It's probably something, you know, if...
Assuming it exists, it's probably something that's not supposed to be existing in quite that form,
if any form.
It could just be a bug in the switch.
It could be a bug, but I'd like to know if that's possible.
Yeah, if you can repeat this...
And I like other people out there.
Other people should try the same thing, see if they get it,
and, you know, we'll see if anyone else can do the same thing.
Basically, you call somebody who is on the phone,
they put you on hold by hitting flash,
and then we see if those people can get additional phone calls
while you're still sitting on hold and while they're still on the phone.
So I guess it would take a minimum of three different phone people.
Right, we expect them to get busy signals.
They should get busy signals, correct, yes, because both lines are in use.
Both the call waiting line and the regular line are in use.
Right.
Well, I'll try it again. I'll let you know what happens.
All right, good luck.
Okay.
Thanks.
That's the kind of experimentation I like to see.
Yeah, that is peculiar.
We should have weird things like that happen, right?
Not like that exactly.
I haven't had weird things like that happen recently.
Oh, when we were playing with the ISDN lines.
Oh, that was a weird thing, yes.
We had some pretty weird things going on there.
Should we describe that?
You can try. I can't, but go ahead and try.
Basically, what we did was, you called me on...
That should have been on the X-Files.
Yeah, it was bizarre.
You called me on call waiting.
No, I'm sorry.
You called me, right?
Yeah.
Then...
Did we both have ISDN lines or just you?
It was, uh...
No, I was the only one using the ISDN.
Okay, so I used a regular phone line to call you on ISDN.
Right.
You called me on ISDN.
Right.
Then I told you to emergency interrupt me.
Right.
And you wish you did on a separate line.
Except when you try to emergency interrupt an ISDN line, it confuses the operator because...
Yeah, apparently what happens is that, uh, since it's digital, the, uh, the send and receive
path are going over two separate trunks.
Uh-huh.
So, we kept losing the trunk coming back from you.
Right.
And you could hear me talking.
I could hear you talking.
But I couldn't hear you.
We were both on IRC, so we were talking.
Right.
I was sending you messages that way.
Right.
I could hear you respond to what I was typing.
You could hear me speaking.
Right.
Right.
I couldn't talk to you.
Right.
And this happened several times.
But then we heard MF tones.
Yeah.
Then the interesting thing was that, um, if we did it in just the right sequence of events,
um, what would happen was when I would get stuck on the...
We'd have to do it twice.
Yeah.
What would happen is I would get stuck on the operator's verification line.
And if we called her again and told her to do an emergency interrupt, instead of connecting
into the, you know, like a busy verify, she would connect to me.
Uh-huh.
And any, uh, any MF tones that she sends, because they still use MF tones to do emergency
interrupts, would, uh, those MF tones are received by me instead of the equipment in
the central office.
Yeah.
I'm supposed to hear them and decode them.
They came through very loudly.
Yeah.
Uh, which was basically KP and the phone number we wanted to interrupt and ST.
Uh-huh.
But it was very interesting.
Yeah.
And I got charged for all those too, you know.
Oh, really?
Even though they didn't work, they, they somehow managed to bill me for them.
But it was, it was pretty, pretty funny actually making the operator generate MF tones.
Right.
In this day and age.
Yeah, you can still do it.
Yeah.
Uh, so yeah, you can have fun with phones, especially the, the new services.
All right, see if we can fit in one more phone call.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Oh, great.
Thank you.
Uh, has this ever happened to you?
A friend of mine called me a couple weeks ago and it rang once and a recording came on
and said, your party is, uh, is, is, uh, not available.
Would you like to leave a message?
And what happens is that was 9X imposing that on my line and, um, I was home.
And what happens a few minutes later is the phone rang and the 9X recording came on with
my friend's message and it rang and it did that every 10 minutes until I picked up.
Well, that's interesting because, uh, you're supposed to get that if you call somebody who's
busy.
The, the new thing these days is you call, you don't get a busy signal.
You just get a, a pitch to leave a message for an additional fee.
And that works with, with, uh, I know it works with AT&T and I guess it works with, uh, 9X
now as well.
Uh, it shouldn't happen if your phone is not busy and, and, uh, on the calling end, your
phone will keep ringing until you decide to pick up or an answering machine picks up to
receive that message.
I think up to an hour, it'll keep trying.
I don't, I don't want that.
I don't want people getting 9X.
I have my own message.
Right.
And they, and I called them and complained about it and they said I was a select, some
selected, uh, group of test, uh, trial numbers.
Well, whether you select it or not, they should only get that if your phone line is physically
busy.
Or if, or if they don't answer.
Or if they don't answer.
Yeah.
I guess if they don't answer as well.
It rang once and I, of course I didn't answer once and my machine comes in after two rings
and it picked up instead.
That's why they're calling it a test.
Yeah.
It's obviously not working properly.
It's such an imposition on privacy.
Do you know about the, uh, maybe what you could do is call your, call your service center,
call the business office and tell them that, uh, you do not want to take part in this test.
Right.
And they should be able to remove that feature from your line.
Yes, of course.
I have to put it in writing.
Uh, I just want to, do I have time to say the critical infrastructure protection, the,
uh, executive order.
Do you know anything about that yet?
No idea what that means.
Uh, the, the, uh, all this about the, um, the, the communications decency, it's kind of overruled
by a new executive order.
Okay.
Which executive order is this?
It's like a presidential decree.
One three zero one zero.
It's called the critical infrastructure protection act.
And it basically allows, uh, pretty much, uh, license for the government and an agent to
police the internet whenever they think that there's a government emergency and try to
define that.
And it also permits for a government takeover of the internet.
But what exactly does that mean?
I mean, how do they define that?
Policing the internet, taking over the internet?
What does that mean?
It's very vague terms.
It's Clinton wrote it.
It's addressed, you know, Bill Clinton from the White House.
And it's written in pretty much vague terms.
I think for the purpose of, uh, it's like regardless of whatever the definitions are of
communications decency, uh, this, this, this allows a kind of like an open, like a, almost
like a wiretapping or a, or a, uh, uh, a position where they can look at, uh, any, any one of
your transmissions as they so please.
I'd like to see how the government plans to take over the internet.
Yes.
I guess they'll just go to internet central now.
Send us particulars, send us particulars, including dates and things like that.
And we'll, we'll look into it some more.
We're out of time.
Um, thanks everybody for calling in.
We'll be back again next week with another exciting edition of Off the Hook.
Until then, um, continue staying awake and watching the net and seeing what kinds of disturbing
trends are, are happening.
For FibroAptic, this is Emmanuel Goldstein.
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 couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
Bum, Bum, Bum, Bum, Bum, Bum, Bum, Bum, Bum.
Bum, Bum, Bum, Bum.
Bum, Bum, Bum, Bum, Bum.
Come to a conference on Cuba, sponsored by the New York Organizing Committee for the Friendshipman Caravan,
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