wake up call and building bridges your community and labor report will celebrate mayday
focusing on the performing arts with us will be president bill moriarty of the musicians union and
jazz great ron carter after local president jr horn and rich gelber of nabit who's currently
fighting disney's union busting will also be with us then we'll move from one to three p.m
with building bridges to whisk you around the world from brazil to bangladesh on a tour of the
world's class struggles after looking at the british elections we'll talk with former labor
secretary robert reich and then with willie james president of the transport workers union on his
way to lead a massive protest rally so tune into wbai may 1st international workers day produced by
ken nash and mimi rosenberg
and it's almost exactly eight o'clock which means it's just about time for an exciting edition of
off the hook where we discuss the impending crisis facing new york city that makes all other crises
look pale by comparison stay tuned
the telephone keeps ringing so i ripped it off the wall i cut myself while shaving
now i can't make a call
i just let me just point out at this point uh evacuation is not necessary so uh please we don't
mean to start a panic it's a crisis but it's not oh do what you feel is best
but you know it's going to be unpleasant it's going to be confusing it's going to be mayhem
no question about it
yes we're talking about no we're not talking about things at bai that never work we're talking about
things in um in the future of telecommunications that uh are going to cause us all kinds of problems
all kinds of problems and that's because that's because of um of what happened last week
involving bell atlantic and 9x yes that's right it went through we lost the battle
it's going to happen just as if we hadn't done anything at all within a year 9x will be no more
bell atlantic will be here and we're going to all have to adjust to some different rules different
people in charge all kinds of things that maybe we won't really feel that enthused about so we're
going to talk about that um as well as a couple other things that have been going on fiber you've got
a new bit of technology there and well you don't have it in front of you but you have uh information
about it yes yeah okay so uh what is this marvel of marvels that we are we have yes this marvel of
marvels it's um a company by the name of oh look that's what we were trying to get to work and it
finally it finally kicked in uh never mind it's too late go away
a company by the name of e-stamp i guess for electronic stamp since that's what everything with an e and a
hyphen and in the beginning means these days uh they they believe that they can come up with a
secure system that would allow average people like you and me and small businesses to take a small
handheld doodad plug it into their serial or parallel port on their computer and print their own postage
meters on an envelope securely um let me just stop you right there now you're saying i can print
securely my my but i mean if i can print it right can i not also copy it oh well they claim yeah well
yes you can copy it but they claim that uh that they're incorporating all kinds of things into the
encrypted barcode that gets printed on the envelope by your very own printer and they claim that it
contains a postage license number and uh that it also contains who you're mailing it to who you are
and uh for whatever reason they think that this information is sufficient to deter counterfeiters
uh somehow i get the feeling that either these people are incredibly stupid or they're leaving
something out i think they must have that information is is is particularly unique yeah they must be
leaving something out yeah i don't know what they're leaving out but i mean that's uh it just
seems too easy yeah it does well uh we'll have to look into that uh some more you see just what it is
they're really talking about yep uh here's an item that came across uh the newspaper yesterday i don't
know if people uh looked at the new york times and the metro news briefs i thought this was kind of
interesting concerning um a form of technology that can be certainly misused and uh reacted to in a
rather uh i guess bad way amid rising concerns about the use of lasers which can be used to help
snipers hit their targets the police arrested a harlem man on saturday night for shining a laser pen
out his window and onto a police officer on the street below now uh this guy his name we won't give
out because he probably has has enough problems right now was arrested and charged with menacing for
shining a laser pen onto a police officer who was responding to a reported dispute outside his
building uh which was up on seventh avenue in the 1800 block um and that uh is according to a police
spokeswoman the officer took cover called for help and had the building searched as soon as he noticed
a red dot on his arm no guns were recovered lasers are increasingly attached to guns and rifles in
february after a number of police officers noticed that they were being targeted with the red dots
the police department issued guidelines on what to do in such a situation and here's what they say
upon seeing a quote-unquote dot assume the laser is attached to a weapon seek immediate cover to do
otherwise might be fatal now this is this is especially interesting i mean um what's interesting
about this laser pens they're everywhere now i mean you can you can buy them all over the place do you
want to talk about your story okay we happen to have somebody here that had this almost exact
thing happened to him um what was it like a year and a half ago yeah it was it was last february do
we want to give you a name or do we want to keep you an eye on this vinnie's fine um yeah last february
um not this past one but the year before february of 96 yeah uh i was arrested i believe for
disorderly conduct not menacing after i uh shined a laser pen out of an apartment window into a swat team van
well if you were in harlem it would be menacing down in the village it's it's it's just disorderly
conduct i guess um but they didn't they didn't seem too uh too too scared about it they just seemed a
little more uh pissed off i guess uh they didn't dive for cover or anything uh-huh well you you did
more than just shine on a police you you shined it on on who the the emergency services which is the
swat team you shined it on a swat team yeah you didn't know they didn't they didn't like like jump
behind any any cover or anything like that they just got pretty angry and came up to the apartment
and uh and uh asked me very very politely for for the device that i was using uh-huh and then they
they took it and then they came back and said they changed their minds yeah yeah they took it and
actually i don't even believe they they took it initially they they just uh they they asked for
at first they asked for the gun they were like who's got the gun uh-huh and uh we convinced them
that it was in fact a laser pointer and they left yeah without really doing much of anything except
they made me they made me go down and apologize to the uh officers in the van they were pretty
broken up down there yeah they they were they were pretty broken up uh-huh but uh yeah and and then
they they just kind of left and later they came back and decided to charge me with disorderly so what
happened after the whole uh trial process prison time that kind of thing what uh no i was just taken
down to the station and they threw me in a holding cell for a while and took the laser pointers
and uh gave me a summons to court for for disorderly conduct uh-huh and of course the the judge threw
it out she actually laughed um and said it was stupid not disorderly and uh you were charged with
stupid then huh i i guess uh officially yeah that sounds kind of appropriate but giuliani put that
one in you know it's stupid a crime yeah and then uh yeah after that the you know the police were kind
enough to give me back the laser they gave it back to you they did i i had to like go on some
bureaucratic paper chase for a while but after that i did in fact get them back uh-huh and uh
did you point it at the judge no no no i didn't that would be something well you know what's funny
about this and it is kind of weird because i mean they're saying that uh these red dots only mean
one thing when obviously they mean many things well yeah but i mean every hacker meeting i see
these things you know and and i'm sure only not only hackers have them i'm sure all kinds of people
have these laser pointers if there's such a threat why are they being sold everywhere how much do they
cost it's just like fifty dollars or something like that yeah i mean it's cool to be able to point
at something three blocks away and see the little red light on it yeah but then again i mean it is it
it is indicative of a potentially hazardous situation oh that's true it's very easy to
misunderstand you know so yeah i mean the thing is though what about all the times you're being
targeted with guns that don't have laser pointers should you react the same way then should you
always be paranoid assume you're being being targeted yes if i was being targeted by a gun that
didn't have a laser pointer yeah i'd still be worried yeah and if i was a police officer i would
probably assume a lot of the time that i was being targeted just to be safe well i mean i guess the
question i really have i'm looking at these um these guidelines upon seeing a dot assume the laser
is attached to a weapon seek immediate cover to do otherwise might be fatal should all citizens do
the same thing or only cops i mean whenever you see a red dot on you should you die for cover i would
i would consider it why i'm gonna be mayhem out there if this starts happening well i i mean i if you
i guess if you're a cop and you if you saw a glint from a you know a reflection off of some kind of
scope or something like that you could be advised to do the same thing but interesting well uh
i guess we're in for some interesting times ahead you know we're in for some red dot specials yeah
yeah definitely have you ever read that shiny yeah i mean i i've had them on my arm before
yeah it happened to uh to my roommate in our uh our dormitory just the other day uh somebody from
across the courtyard was shining a laser pen and then really you called the cops no i didn't call the
cops it would have been kind of funny if the same cop came up you know that would have been funny
officer golden all right let's let's not let's not uh rekindle memories like that all right back
to uh back to uh thank you very much vinnie for for you know showing up and and telling us your story
um back to the bell atlantic merger that is something that's another case of stupid
well i'm sorry i missed that comment another case another case of stupid yes well i think it's another
case of greed really um and um monopoly and and things like that you know all all things that go
along with telephone companies and take over bids and that kind of uh madness um what's it going to
mean to us and what do people out there think that's really the gist of the show tonight and we'd like to
hear from people especially people in bell atlantic territory which in case you don't know is new
jersey yes our friends in new jersey have been part of bell atlantic for a long time well it was okay
a little bit of history here uh back when it was uh all the bell operating system uh things were
broken up i mean we still had new york telephone back then right right uh we didn't have 9x no
there was no 9x uh there was a new jersey bell there was a bell of pennsylvania was there a bell
atlantic there was no bell atlantic okay there was no bell atlantic before 1984 then 1984 came
around the seven regional bells were created right and among them 9x and bell atlantic right we kept
the little phone companies underneath them new york telephone new jersey bell uh new england
new england telephone all those and then they started to disappear and become uh enveloped by
the the regional uh bell operating companies yep of 9x and bell atlantic so that happened a couple
of years ago bell atlantic you know new jersey bell turned into bell atlantic and so did bell
pennsylvania and cmp telephone and all those uh whereas here in new york it all became 9x now what's
going to happen is 9x is going to disappear completely and bell atlantic is going to come over
the river and take us all over all the way up to uh to maine so we're going to have this this
massive phone company that's going to stretch from maine to washington dc no virginia right
yeah um and out to pennsylvania and all over the place boy i mean uh it it seems like we're going
back in time a little bit and the phone companies instead of being broken up are sort of you know
getting bigger and bigger and turning into monopolies we should go to war with new jersey
well how are we going to do that now we got the same phone company that's uh we're going to have
to go to war with like ohio or something i don't know so um i guess according to all the newspaper
uh reports the the hardest thing right now is credibility uh bell atlantic and 9x completed a
regulatory steeplechase last week when the justice department announced it would not try to block
their 22 billion dollar merger and though the company's tangled for more than a year with angry
consumer advocates annoying radio talk show hosts bulky state officials and skeptical regulators
their big deal came through without a scratch you know what's amazing about this when they did the
merger of uh sbc and pacific telesis right they had to get they had to get all kinds of um of rate
guarantees uh the the psc's public utilities commissions out there um said that they would
not let this go through unless you know rate cuts were promised no such thing here nothing like
we have no expectation of what the rates are going to be totally clueless the hard part may be for
competitors and consumers to accept the government's conclusion that the combination posed no threat to
an open marketplace at least not as defined by antitrust lawyers the fact that they're a monster is a
foregone conclusion said john f malone president of the eastern management group a consulting firm in
paris superney new jersey whether they become a friendly monster or an unfriendly monster remains to
be seen the fcc must still sign off on the deal but its approval is expected to be routine okay well
now we mentioned at the beginning of the show that we were facing a crisis and um this is part of the
crisis but it's it's it was the first crisis this is the crisis that started last year where we saw this
as a potential at first you know we weren't even speaking out against it we decided to you know
entertain the notion and we reached the conclusion that it was a very bad move um but then there's
this other crisis that started to take place earlier this year and that of course is the 646 crisis
you know what that is right the 646 crisis yes no i don't think i remember that jar your memory on
what 646 is that's that's the area code split for 212 oh that's right yeah and we don't know how
it's going to happen i mean how is it going to happen it's uh you know what are you going to
split well my friends i've done a little bit of research here and i've i've reached some very
disturbing uh conclusions i've been uh i've been looking at at a lot of the area code splits let's
let's have a little fun here let's see if people can uh can actually tell me what some of these new
area codes are all right um because this is this is all happening it happened a lot faster you don't
look at this thing for you know a month and you miss like 10 new area codes um i'm gonna i'm gonna
say an area code and you're gonna tell me where it is right so i'll try but i make no promises okay
um let's see let's try this one 781 i have no clue 781 you don't know where 781 is it's the one
everyone's going to be trying to dial and getting 718 by accident instead you know it's uh it's boston
massachusetts actually it's the outskirts of boston 617 will remain you know the inner part will
remain um boston or 617 rather the inner part of boston and and everything on the outskirts will be
781 i mean it's it's it's ridiculous 867 how about this 867 i i don't you're baffled you have no idea
no clue whatsoever they're just not memorable yeah they're not memorable at all 867 is the yukon and
northwest territories baffin island all that kind of thing why didn't i know that i mean this this is where
absolutely nobody lives and for some reason they ran out of numbers in in 819 i don't know how
they're they're running out of numbers so fast i really don't understand why they're running out
that fast now 312 area code you know what the 312 area code is 312 is chicago area that's right but
you know how much of chicago it is right now uh probably a little dinky part of central chicago it
is just the part that's called the loop in other words when you go to chicago you have this elevated
train line that goes literally in a circle around a certain uh you know a couple of square miles
right that's it now how is it that they have used an entire area code in that small space
is that possible i think something's going on someone is hoarding numbers all right yeah and i
don't know what they're doing with them but there's no way anybody could use that many and i don't care
what kind of city it is you can't i mean how many numbers are we talking about it's 10 000 numbers per
exchange right how many exchanges are there you know it could be quite a few in a single area i mean
technically a thousand but uh let's let's say let's say it's as low as 600 right 600 times 10 000
that's 6 million isn't it is i'm ready to calculate 6 million it's a lot million phone numbers in a few
square blocks i don't get it doesn't make sense somebody please enlighten me on that one all right
so we have area code splits of all sorts and um and they're happening everywhere and it's going to
happen again in new york why is it a crisis well it's a crisis obviously because it's going to be
confusing but let me tell you what i uncovered here new area code 443 do you know what 443 is
no all right how about 240 don't know that one either they're both in maryland both in maryland
and uh 240 is a split of 301 which was the original maryland uh area code for baltimore and then 443
is a split of 410 okay but the difference and i believe this is the first time this has happened
anywhere these two area codes are what is known as overlay area codes overlay area codes what in
the world is an overlay area code well for this we should um we should look at an article that
appeared in yesterday's news day actually um called the numbers game what's in a number despite the lame
paraphrase of shakespeare there could be plenty a sense of place a sense of identity a sense of community
however on thursday a technological psychological sociological historical threshold will be crossed
in maryland for the first time anywhere in america all seven digit phone numbers will be increased to
ten digits in other words when you're in maryland you have to dial ten digits no matter what
you can have two different area codes in the same house everybody up until this point has 301 if
they're in the 301 area and if you're in the 301 area after thursday you get 240 and same thing goes
for 410 and 443 now what's the company that spearheaded this well actually i mean it was it was it was
bell core that uh that you know did it that made the the advisory but it's bell atlantic territory right
i can't help but think that bell atlantic is going to become used to this kind of thing and they're
going to say you know that's a solution for new york for new york city and my prediction is that
that's going to be what's proposed that we all dial 10 digits every time we make a phone call now
people is that what you want i think extra digits per number you dial speed dialing and voice dialing
going to become real popular four digits because you have to dial one yeah you need the one yeah
why do you need the one i don't know you know it's not a long distance call well ultimately when
everybody's universally dialing 10 digits you won't need a one anymore this um this actually
was an editorial written by martin hollander in uh in newsday every local call will require an area
code rather than continuing to divvy up the state into new calling areas bell atlantic is introducing
an overlay system half the state will be zoned under 301 or 240 the other into 410 or 443 that's as
geographic as it's going to be if you already are in the existing 301 or 410 areas every phone fax beeper
modem you have still gets tagged with 301 or 410 but if junior wants to surf the web and demands a
computer modem or if your teenage daughter can't abide you overhearing her calls on the kitchen phone
and wants her own line in her bedroom then the new equipment gets prefixed with 240 or 443 one home
two area codes or a single baltimore block could be unevenly split with two codes thus every local call
will require pressing 10 numerals bell atlantic says it's the only way the public for racist appetite for
communications new phones faxes modems uh beepers is devouring seven digit combinations and once you
reach all nine something's got to give that's rather simple way of looking at it but it does happen to be
true um new york city's telephonic unity was sundered beginning in 1984 with manhattan retaining the
distinctive 212 while the outer boroughs got stuck with what one editorialist called tacky 718
remember folks this is not us talking all right we have a lot of 718 listeners and and you know we
respect them but we're in 212 don't forget it that's uh that's not so bad look at chicago chicago has
has uh 773-630-708-847 and its original 312 i mean that's that's that's incredible it's unbelievable
so that's that's the crisis i think it's facing us but more importantly in all seriousness
what kind of service is bell atlantic going to bring to new york city what do you know anybody in
new jersey do you speak to people over there uh not not in quite some time but uh i'm concerned
connections over there right what's that bad phone connections yeah i'm more concerned with what's
going to happen to the isdn rate structure uh-huh but what's it what's it like in jersey or um
i think they charge a nickel a minute instead of a penny for uh i've heard rumors of that but you
know i've seen no confirmation no i've i've seen confirmation of the tariff bell atlantic's tariff
says a nickel a minute and the other thing last i heard is that they wanted to uh they wanted to
abolish the difference between uh the residential and business rates and they wanted to make
residential isdn timed just like businesses that would be bad that would be very bad extremely bad
um just to continue with uh some new area code information uh pittsburgh was uh splitting from
412 into 724 but there was all kinds of regulatory and judicial intervention and because of that the
previously announced area code overlay for the 412 area code which was the same thing uh schedule
for may 1st has been halted it is anticipated a new relief plan will be developed but no details are
available so somebody apparently objected out in pittsburgh and stopped it yeah and that's
fell atlantic too that's that's fell to pennsylvania so uh we'll just have to see where that goes
okay this is something that's kind of fun every time there's an area code a new area code created
they make a test number right a test number for the new area code um and what what do you think
the purpose of this is uh just so you could confirm that you actually are able to reach
the new area code okay um let's see if we can actually get a dot on here all right we're going
to try and call one of these test numbers i guess doesn't matter if uh the numbers go out
we'll see if we can successfully call something in the new 562 562 area code which i'm sure you all
know where that is oh sure here we go you have reached area code 562 you have successfully completed
a call to the new area code dialing format cardina 86t yay we got through successfully isn't it nice
okay there's uh you have reached go away go away okay there's there's i said go away he won't hang up
okay uh there's a better one there's a better one this one is actually part of former area code
809 i'm sure you can tell us where 809 is yeah that was the caribbean it was the caribbean it still
is the caribbean yeah but it seems that every single island is getting their own area code now now this
one this one i believe has a test number that still works let's see if it works
you have reached the cayman islands using our new area code 345 after the tone please leave the name
of the country you are calling from and the carrier thank you mailbox number two two one two zero
is either full or is currently inactive please try your call again later thank you for using this
service goodbye uh okay i think the cayman islands is begging to be hacked into i think they they're
out of control there how'd the mailbox get full i wanted to say what country we were calling from
i guess everyone else wanted to also and did and they didn't check they didn't care yeah they never
bother checking all right so every time uh and you can get this information too um by connecting
on your on your uh web browser to www dot what is it bellcore.com www.bellcore.com slash capital n a n p
as in north american numbering plan and what does that stand for north american numbering you said as
in i wasn't sure that was really what it stood for okay um and what's interesting there is that you get
all this information but you also have the opportunity to click on their their official
letters which they used to send out to interested parties but now they charge ten dollars just to see
the letters yeah and these letters explain what's going on with the new area codes that really kind
of rubs me the wrong way rather pompous yeah that they they restrict the information that it really
applies to everybody and charge you ten bucks to just see what's said i mean why isn't that made
available online it's it's not like you know it's it's only their information and no one else has come up
with it this is this is how we're all going to have to live and survive for instance there was there's
a letter there you can see all the titles of the letters it's a letter they're saying that the 3-1-1
and 7-1-1 um exchanges i believe have been allocated for certain uses and i know 3-1-1 is that thing
clinton came up with for non-emergency police right which i think is not really that great an idea
because you know for a rotary dollar it takes less time to dial 3-1-1 than 9-1-1 so i don't know if
they were going to give out that number i think would have made more sense to do it the opposite
but yeah um if it's a non-emergency i don't know why you have to dial it fast it doesn't really make
that much sense um so what's 7-1-1 7-1-1 i we don't know nobody knows nobody knows what 7-1-1 is
does it do anything when you dial it let's try it but i don't think so because i don't think it's
been allocated yet let's let's try 3-1-1 too because it's not an emergency so we're not going to be
harassing anybody but i don't think it's in place yet in new york if it is we'll apologize
it's it's still it's still that uh that police for the death thing yeah yeah which we announced
a couple of years ago but i guess that's going away maybe 7-1-1 is turning into that maybe but
if that goes away then is it what happens then deaf people can't call for help no i guess not not in
that manner anyway because it's more important that non-emergency calls get through how are they
going to convey that they can't do that anymore that's a that's a good question let's try 7-1-1 i'm
sure it's not going to work in fact i think it's waiting for more digits so let's give it some more
digits
ah it's going somewhere i'm sorry the number you have reached area code 2 1 2 7 1 1 1 2 3 4
is not in service at this time no further information is available i'm sorry well you
know what's interesting about that is i think that's the only case of an exchange like that
with a 1 1 at the end of it even existing in new york city actually they were doing the same thing
a couple years ago with 8-1-1 and what is trying 8-1-1 in new york city and it was it was actually
waiting for four more digits and then it would go through a recording let's try 8-1-1 and every number
i tried said it was out of service well it doesn't do that now it rings 8-1-1 rings
we're sorry your call cannot be completed as dialed please check the number and dial again
um okay so um let's try asking an operator
where 7-1-1 is since it obviously exists yeah all right so if it exists they must have an answer for it
9x mr trisman yes hi i'm trying to find out where uh the exchange 7-1-1 is in the 2-1-2 area code
i would have to connect you with local directory assistance they can check that for you would
like me to connect you if you must yes sure i understand this 9x listing charge for this yes
i'm trying to find out where the 7-1-1 exchange is in the 2-1-2 area code
okay thank you it just says in manhattan doesn't say if it's the east side or west side of manhattan
doesn't say anything like that no i'm sorry oh but it does exist yes okay thank you very much
you're welcome bye and uh i guess we can try the 9-9-0-1 thing might as well yeah because if it's a
if it's a if it's a valid exchange 9-1-1 uh 9-9-0-1 tells you what kind of switch it is
it should yeah it should i have a feeling it's not going to yeah but let's try oh it's going somewhere
usually usually picks up by now
i think they forgot to put the machine on
okay we'll let this ring for a little while maybe somebody will pick up and tell us something
our phone number is uh 212-279-3400 if you have any kinds of
questions or comments we especially want to hear from those people in new jersey
who uh can tell us what we're in for when bell atlantic crosses the river
sounds like the revolutionary wars it does doesn't it yeah
it's going to be it's going to be mayhem it's going to be bloody but
you know we tried to warn people actually we did warn people it's not the people's fault it's
the fact that people didn't really have much say in them in in the whole process
okay well i guess we're not gonna get anywhere with that uh that test number we'll try to find
out more about what 7-1-1 is without paying the 10 bucks that belcourt wants us to uh to pay
um 212-279-3400 is our telephone number let's get rid of that thing and pick up our first
no no let's not pick up the first call because we know who that is yeah the first call is always
the same person or persons uh let's pick up call the number five good evening you're on the air
yes it's you you're on the air all right okay you're number five remember that great i'll remember
that thank you okay one thing you have to look forward to in uh new jersey in bell atlantic is no
more six one one no more repair because everything works well actually uh it's now an 800 number
oh really you already changed it here you mean six one one doesn't work here either no it's eight
nine oh uh six six one one i didn't know six one one didn't work at all i think uh i don't think it
goes through anymore really yeah okay uh well we'll have to we'll have to verify that as well but okay
anything else no would you like to uh give it a try here sure we'll conference it in okay let's find
out what happens oh wow they get dramatic music over there too are you there does everybody get
dramatic music like that sorry this is six one one okay bell atlantic recording i'll bet
the new number for bell atlantic repair is 1-800-275-2355 if you have selected an alternative
service provider please consult your local directory well i'll be isn't that nice so uh how long has
that been going on for i discovered it about two weeks ago really interesting okay well now are there
other things over there that uh you think might uh affect our daily lives all done briefly yeah let's uh
get rid of that okay that's really nice um what what else what else do we have to look forward to
well it seems like they're going back to their uh shoddy old service up until about uh three weeks
ago i would say they had been getting better with the type of service they provided until i needed a
uh uh a small change done to a uh telephone number for a uh no busy transfer a no answer busy transfer
uh that's um what is that what do you call that call forwarding no answer call forward don't answer
and call forward busy line both of them exactly and you can have two separate numbers one for the
busy and one for the no answer right that's true so i called to have one phone number changed and it
took uh four days to get the service back to normal because they sent me up to a mailbox which
didn't exist and so on and so forth it was turned out to be a a real mess wow that sounds like what
they do here in ninex really does um yeah only it takes more than four days well you know one of
the things that they've been saying to us here in in ninex territory is that our service is so bad
that anything will be an improvement and bell atlantic is not nearly as bad as ninex do you think
they're trying to uh to make it so that change isn't so traumatic for us i don't know it seems that
way well that could be yeah okay well thanks uh thanks for the uh advice thanks for giving me the
opportunity to talk okay take care good night let's let's try 6-1-1 from here and see what we
get i think it still works yeah yeah i don't think so all right put some money on it yeah make this a
little interesting all right well 6-1-1 is ringing
thank you for calling 9x telephone repair service our number has been changed if you are a 9x customer
calling about your home telephone please hang up and call 890-6611 pay up you didn't you didn't make
a bet you're a 9x customer calling about your business telephone please hang up and call 890-7711
if you are a customer of another telephone company please call your local telephone service provider
how would you have gotten that recording if you were in another phone company i don't know you can't
dial someone else's 6-1-1 i don't know well the way 9x routes things who knows yeah you might end up
there accidentally quite possible let's go to call number four now good evening you're on the air
yes that's me speak up please hello yes go ahead uh am i in the air you're on the air
right now as you speak oh hi uh i wanted to say something about uh netcom okay um well you know
the problem with them going uh to the hourly rate now i heard about that now is that a mandatory hourly
rate uh i believe so but they have another problem on top of that okay what's that a while ago i had
account there and i quit however for the past year and a half now they've been sending me credit card
bills yeah that's that's one of netcom services uh not to ever let you go uh yeah so i have to
dispute it every month and you know well here's what you do and this is this is really the only
way that you can get rid of them is to cancel the credit card that way they have no place no place
to bill it to you tell your credit card company please send me another card change the numbers and uh
you know don't transfer any balances over it's a pain for you but it's really the only effective way
to get rid of them i have a feeling they'd come and steal my children stuff like that well yeah
that's when things get really interesting uh are you gonna be at the next 2600 meeting uh i'm glad
you mentioned that the next 2600 meeting in new york yes i will be there that takes place this friday
uh 5 p.m to 8 p.m at the city corp center uh in new york city and unfortunately you know they still
haven't finished that building yeah i know i was there last month and they promised it was going to be
finished in april but now they're like using the the place where the chairs are for something that
doesn't involve chairs and from what i heard it's not going to be available for you know people to
sit down and hang out until mid-june but we're gonna hang out a little hallway anyway yeah and
they don't have any pay phones either yeah that's up the one barnes and nobles which is like old
yeah very good for things well we won't get into that okay all right well uh we'll see you at the
meeting then okay thanks take care bye-bye and of course there'll be 2600 meetings going on
all over the place all over the world first friday of the month okay call number six good
evening you're on the air speak up please hello yes yes how you doing oh pretty good how are you
oh fine great um my name's george i'm calling from long island and i had a question about cordless phones
okay go ahead uh and you're the experts there's three kinds i see advertised there's the 900 then
they have something called 900 broad spectrum they have the old 45 megahertz or whatever that
they have like a scrambling they call it uh each manufacturer has a different name i was wondering
what's the most secure you know you're doing business over the phone and you don't want
eavesdropping is there like a big difference well five i believe you have a fairly secure 900 megahertz
yeah i have uh i have a 900 megahertz phone and um it's not uh it does the the typical scrambling it's
not actually encryption um and uh the things that are good about it is uh it's it's a lot clearer
than the older 45 megahertz ones the 45 megahertz ones are are completely analog anybody could just
tune them in and listen to them the 900 megahertz ones are uh digitally encoded so if somebody tries to
tune into you unless they have uh more advanced equipment than just a simple handheld scanner
they're just going to get garbage they're not going to be able to hear what it is you're saying
but um what if they clip into and just just to compare this to regular phones what they clip
into your actual phone line though oh yeah regular phone oh sure yeah so you always have that to
worry oh yeah yeah this is uh this is just if somebody sees you talking on one and they figure hey
he's got a cordless phone let me try to pick up his dial tone which is a big problem with uh
the 45 uh megahertz uh phones is you could literally drive around somebody's neighborhood
with the same model phone and just look for a dial tone cruising for dial tone yep exactly
so uh the uh the 900 megahertz phones are are much better if you could find the 900 megahertz uh
spread spectrum phones which tend to be more expensive those uh those tend to be even better
because they jump around a lot and they don't just sit on one single frequency for long periods of
time so that even if someone did have the equipment necessary to demodulate your voice it would be a lot
harder to uh remain listening on the line because you would be hopping around within a certain range of
frequencies instead of just just one or two so that that sounds like the way to go but the 45 megahertz
phones with the scrambling feature is that like uh you'd have to go to out of your way to unscramble it or
defeat it or that would probably take you about uh five extra minutes worth of electronics to
unscramble it they still sell those i don't i've i haven't seen them 45 megahertz i saw a motorola
with that feature and i was considering buying it um probably not the best one no i would not
recommend that how much how much are you looking to spend i was thinking at the most the good ones
seem to be around 200 and it could be worth it for security if you're doing banking transactions
over the phone things like that you have to use a cordless phone to do this well i generally try to
use the landline but there's times where you get caught off guard and you have to use something and
uh i'd rather not but if there was a real security issue there i kind of would avoid the whole thing
but i wanted to see if that spread spectrum might be the way to go though i guess what can you expect
to pay for a spread spectrum a 900 megahertz phone you might pay within the area of uh three hundred
dollars and up maybe maybe cheaper than that if you find one on sale that sounds like uh if if the
information is that sensitive then i would recommend uh adopting the practices of a uh certain large
organization which is to whisper it in the person's ear well now these these new pcs phones right there
they're they're cordless i mean they're you know they're wireless obviously they don't use they
don't send the conversation over a regular wire line so you can't clip into it and it's scrambled
right is that more secure than using a regular phone though yeah um i mean if you really want to be
technical about it no one has come forward and uh said that they can break uh the encryption used on
on gsm phones so i would uh if i was really concerned about uh the uh the content of a phone
call i was about to make um then i would probably trust uh using a gsm phone a lot more than just
speaking over a regular wired line but um but then again if it's if it was that important i probably
wouldn't say it over any communications medium just keep it to yourself or tell the person in person
uh-huh what about parabolic microphones and satellites that can look at you well i don't
care if they can look at me but they can read your lips they can look at you they they can't read your
lips from overhead not unless you have a mouth on top of your head how much do you know about the
other person that you're talking to oh wow there you go see that's the weak link right there well
then you should only know who it is you're talking to just talk to yourself that's my motto don't talk
to anybody all right thanks for your call hope we were helpful there uh this is the paranoid show
where we tell you how to how to not let anything out but yeah that might be a useful bit of
information for all the criminals and drug dealers that i know make up a large part of our audience
oh no wait wait i was i was told that disclaimer yes general disclaimer is that the the uh the
company in question the carrier say for example omnipoint or sprint spectrum okay if uh law enforcement
goes to them they do have the capability to listen in on the telephone calls that's true but you have
to do something to get their attention to do that in the first place oh right if you're just
committing random acts of you know uh insensitive speech or something right and uh you don't want
that to be to be listened to well then you can simply you know use one of those phones and it's
actually it's actually safer to use a wireless phone than a phone that plugs into the law i think
that's that's amazing because it's the exact opposite of where we were a couple years ago this
is true unless this is great if you're calling another person who's on another one of that's true
yeah they have calling somebody on a landline right you get all bets are off right exactly exactly it's
like the newt gingrich thing except the opposite right yeah 212-279-3400 you want to try it number
one number one yes let's get it over with good evening you're on the air hi emmanuel oh how did
we know he was there i gotta i gotta ask you how do you manage to stay on line one even after 9x
disconnects you okay well i'm on location on the 835 here you got the worst phone i think i've ever
heard what are you on i'm on a 9x payphone there you go one of those you know the new ones you know
thank you for using 9x you know it's cutting in and out i'd like to tell you about them that um
sometimes when you dial from them that they don't dial right and when you dial things it did you have
to dial like specifically and i noticed that's that's why they're called 9x payphones well they're
going to be called bell atlantic soon yeah uh i also noticed that a lot of homeless people are
stuffing the phones in other words when the coin return flat they'll stuff something up there so that
when the coins come back they you know get stuck they've been doing that for years in fact you've
been you've been telling us for years and i i should point out to people that are that have web
access you can now well now not now but pretty soon when we put up i think the 1992 shows you'll
hear rebel talking about the exact same thing five years ago but the thing is is that they do it
in all boroughs in other words upper manhattan lower manhattan east side west side even in queens
in brooklyn and all other places yes they're very resourceful yes people that stuff those things up
the up the payphone slots have a better network than the people that fix the 9x phones they're
well organized but you know there's a 1-800-NYT coin number but that probably will change when
bell atlanta comes around probably yeah i would guess so uh but because repair is sort of unreliable
because when they uh they sometimes don't have the number and they have to tell them and you sort of
don't know whether they're going to repair it uh-huh did you know that you can make free directory
assistance calls by using a tdd payphone and having the operator dial the special 800 number
i don't have it with me but let me ask you a question rebel maybe maybe you actually know
the answer to this do you know of any way that somebody can bill an operator assisted call to
overseas information to another phone number and make it appear that that person dialed it from their
phone yeah it used to be a way you used to be able to dial 800-860-4000 and uh through an operator
and make it seem like you're you're not there make it seem like you're not there tell me a little
bit more about in other words you'll get an ani failure whenever you dial the 9x operator or any
local operator in most parts of the country in a lot of new jersey the ani is passed which i'm sure
will be changed when the bell atlantic merger comes through yes um you used to be able to dial well
you still can dial zero and have the 9x operator connect you with an 800 number which sometimes you have
to say you have operator privileges uh-huh and sometimes they'll connect you with an 800 number
and then they uh-oh what happened what happened the coins fell through and i have to put in more
money oh no oh you've never done this before have you you've put money into pay funds unfortunately yes
that's amazing well now okay so what you're saying is that there you can you can fool that 800 number
into making it seem like you actually were at a number and making an operator assisted call yeah
just like how you knew you know you could make a collect call somebody and and say like uh i was
from someone i can uh call oh i guess that's so i'm still here it's you we're worried about
of course i had to put a quarter in oh put the quarter in let's hear that nice tone
excuse me please deposit five cents for the next two minutes or your call will be terminated
thank you for using 9x this is a recording i wonder if when they merged off they'll change it to three
minutes something so scary uh-oh okay it's a red that's the red box by the way i hear the termination
squad coming um unfortunately i think i have to go but anyway i think you better start running now
well actually uh yeah so that's the story with that and also let's see what else did i want to
say uh just think of yourself right now make for the hills come on um um we want to hear from you
in the future i'll be at the 2600 meeting okay there you go you want to we'll talk more about this
email me at rebel oh that's hello email email me at rebel at escape.com you know what stinks you put
a quarter in but it's only going to count it as a nickel i know doesn't that stink i know well i actually
if i was on an operator assisted call i'd get credit well you're not are you i could dial zero and have
the operator dial the number for me well you're not going to do that i know so we'll talk to you
later thanks thanks so much for calling and uh okay it's interesting because that actually happened
um i discovered these numbers that showed up on my on my phone bill and somebody somehow figured out
a way to bill overseas and from now the operators say this is impossible at&t this time is saying this
is impossible now it's not really a big issue until you until you check into one little fact
one teeny tiny fact here let's call up at&t and ask them a question
by the way when you call at&t never be talking while you talk to them because
it's voice activated credit card call and you'll confuse them to place a collect call press two
for at&t customer service press three for directory assistance press four for operator assistance press zero
here we go
at&t how may i help you uh yes i'd like to know how much it costs to call information in ireland
oh let me check for you hold on please thank you very much thank you
just so we can uh get a phone number in ireland i believe it costs 10 cents a minute to call ireland
now really yeah it's gotten a lot cheaper a lot cheaper
that's the sound of at&t checking cost of information the sound of silence yes our numbers
212-279-3400 usually they tell you like right away thank you for waiting over at&t will cost you
seven dollars and ninety five cents mercy seven dollars and ninety five cents to call information
right to ireland yes wow uh okay all right then i guess uh i guess i'll just figure i'll write a letter
thank you very much
we've uh
we express shock when the when it costs three dollars
seven ninety five just to call information is that insane i mean what are these people
used to be free it used to be totally free they used to have all kinds of fun calling information
yeah and seven ninety five i mean it costs so little to actually call somebody you could call
a total stranger ask them to open up a phone book for you and look up a number yep and you could
have them curse you out hang up on you do it ten times and you're still saving money
unbelievable well i think it's a racket of some sort okay let's uh since we've already taken
caller number one let's take caller number one again see what happens good evening you're on the
air okay that's what happens it's a cursed line good evening you're on the air okay yeah now look i
don't want to yell at people again i'm sorry for yelling at people last week because i was wrong
because claude plugged the thing into the board and nobody could hear me but he hasn't been let into
the into the room this week so there's no way there's no way that anything could be happening
here i know people can hear me on the phone you have to stay close to the phone though when you
make a phone call don't go back to the radio you'll just get confused best thing to do best
thing to do is keep a radio next to the phone and that way when i come on i'll come on seven seconds
before you hear yourself on the radio so it'll be a little confusing but i think you can recover
all right that out of the way let's go to the next phone call good evening you're on the air
that person panicked they heard themselves and they hung up all right it's tough i know
we'll get through this together good evening you're on the air oh hi how you doing okay i'm just curious
um when uh a long distance carrier says that their uh fidelity is clearer than another one um how's
that possible if if all the you know all the lines are the same well that's just it all the lines
aren't the same remember sprints fiber optic network yeah their f-o-n well that was supposed to be
the clearest signal anywhere well how do they reroute uh your your your line well the trick is they
don't oh because you still go over the exact same phone line between you and sprint as you would
between you and your mom that lives in oshkosh yeah so if you have a bad line right then a bad
line yeah it's going to be with you no matter no matter what you use what they're saying is
once you get to the point of actually choosing a company at your central office it'll sound better
and you know it can sound better you know because if you have really crappy lines on one company
it's going to sound terrible and if you have better lines it'll sound better and it'll overcome whatever
bad quality you have in your own local line i see so how does fiber optics work actually oh boy oh
well let's see if we could explain this in the five minutes no no you have 30 seconds okay the 30
seconds we have left yes um i can't explain it in 30 seconds i would recommend that you look it up in
an encyclopedia what are fiber what was the fiber optic business it's uh it's basically glass fibers
really thin and we pulse beams of light through them and we could encode digital information
on these light fibers it's it's the best thing since sliced bread trust me isaac newton
isaac newton invented this what no he didn't he didn't no i always thought isaac newton invented
fiber optic cable no not at all how'd i get that wrong oh well uh 212-279-3400 um remember the
at&t thing where they they said they had better sound but all they were doing was amplifying your
voice yeah right true voice or something actually it was like louder loud voice loud voice yeah that
didn't go very far did it no it didn't that sort of went away good evening you're on the air
hi how you doing this is regards to the cordless phones okay turn on your radio please go ahead okay
yeah the old style phones used a 46 to 49 megahertz split of 10 channels each right and uh they get
picked up by every baby monitor in the neighborhood down because that's where all the baby monitors have
input right the motorola unit's pretty useless because a sound blaster will decode the voice
inversion and the 900 meg phones at least from radio shack can be defeated by retrofitting an existing
one on the cincinnati microwave chip the same guys make the radar guns so that you can randomly scan
all the other ones made by radio shack you've done your homework haven't you that's uh that's something
and uh have you guys gotten anywhere with the uh mtech manager 15 megahertz 64 bit toll tag
uh you're talking about the um wait you mean the um the ones that the uh easy pass right yeah the
easy pass have you guys had any success with that well what is it that we're trying to do you know
replicate it uh we don't we don't really have we don't really have a uh a goal yet as far as how to
you know how to defeat it or doesn't work properly in the first place yeah you know my bill is all
all wacky i could be the way they got the antenna set up i'm willing to bet they didn't check the uh
vswr when they set the antennas all i know is i've been through that thing more than i've been
billed for it oh well hey you're ahead of the game i think i am somehow and maybe we all are in some way
but uh well they may be photographing your play at the same time and they'll check the records later
and back bill you yeah well we'll just see what happens it'll be i know you were disassembling
one i was wondering how you how far you guys got well we disassembled it basically and we left it
lying around and it's just uh we look at it occasionally and say hey that's what's inside
it and this must be how it works okay but what would you suggest we we do maybe we could try
doing something i don't know you have uh rf generators audio generators uh a couple of
spectra analyzers in the 915 band and you can pong it with a strong enough yeah bring it friday and we'll
take a look at it you know we could bring it friday all right you know we will bring it friday how's that
all right you can take a look at it there and figure the whole thing out and we'll we'll have
all kinds of fun and we'll talk about this at hope too of course we'll we'll have a panel on this
thanks very much for uh for calling okay do you remember those old cordless phones the really old
ones that were like in the am dial yeah they were right above the am uh spectrum it's like 1800
or something somewhere's around i forget exactly and they didn't use any kind of encryption
whatsoever no scrambling nothing just broadcast to everybody yep those are the good old days
all right let's see if we can fit in one more good evening you're on the air hello yeah speak
up i'm manuel i'm just calling about the economic situation of a monopoly okay of a monopoly yes and
that sometimes you have a natural monopoly that exists this happens when you have gas companies such
as lilco right or some like that where it's high initial cost to get into the field right but cable
companies and phone companies they're open to competition now and it's they're starting to uh to
get competition it's still a tough place right but it's even tougher when you have this huge monster
that you know is in charge everywhere how do you compete with something like that you don't yeah
that's exactly it and i don't think there's going to be very much competition well the best thing
to do usually is to have a regulation of the monopoly so that the monopoly the monopolist isn't
bilking the consumers for everything right but those regulators have just doubled the size of the
monopoly so you have to wonder you know how good is the regulation well anyway it happens sometimes
where are you calling from uh on long island 516 okay so you're one of the people that will be taken
over i guess so yeah bell atlantic will uh will be sending you bills within a year i guess okay all
right thanks for calling sure good night good night then we are out of time so um we're back
again next week seeing how this bell atlantic thing affects us all and of course talking about
whatever else happens between now and then which probably will be something that we don't know about
yet
the telephone keeps ringing so i ripped it up
the telephone keeps ringing so i don't know about it but i don't know about it but if they could they would
're not know about it but they can go well i mean we don't know about it
none
is
n
Greetings, this is Raven
Inviting you to the Bring Peltier Home Campaign
Sponsored by the Leonard Peltier Support Groups
Of Brooklyn, New York and New Jersey
Speakers will include
Dennis Banks, National Field Director
Of the American Indian Movement
Heath St. John
Star Nyea and Anthony Redjacket
Performances by the Colorado Sisters
Inti, Derek Deskins
Drum Circle Singers
Full River Native American Drum Circle
And Shank
Wednesday, April 30th from 7 to 11pm
At the Catholic Center
58 Washington Square South, New York City
For more information
You can call
718-934-5504
Thank you.