We'll be right back.
July 16th, 7 to 9 p.m. at the New Yorican Poets Cafe, 236 East 3rd Street between Avenues B and C.
All proceeds will go towards Mumia's legal and political defense, featuring poets Jessica Caremore, Sharif Simmons, Tracy Morris, Reggie Kibiko, Ann Elliott, Carl Hancock Rux, Sandra Maria Estevez, Sonia San, groups Universes from the Bronx side, members of Nonfiction and the Arsonists, and others.
That's Wednesday, July 16th at the New Yorican Poets Cafe.
For more information, please call 212-505-8183.
That's 212-505-8183.
This has been a public service announcement on behalf of Refuse and Resist, a non-profit organization.
Okay, and this is radio station WBAI in New York, where the time is just about 8 o'clock on a Tuesday night.
It's time for Off the Hug.
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.
From Billy Bump was the best to expect the worst.
I hope that's understood, but I'm making it more.
I'm making it more.
Thank you.
Tremendous waste of time, the whole thing was.
We knew it wouldn't last.
We knew it wouldn't, you know, be passed into law forever.
At some point, somebody was going to say, hey, you know, this stinks.
This is unconstitutional.
This is sort of not what this country is all about.
Fortunately, it was sooner rather than later.
Even so, it was a long time for a lot of people.
But it's history now.
Although, I'm told that there will be other attempts.
Don't these things always come back?
Like, you know, the clipper chip?
Well, this defeat certainly came at a cost.
Yeah.
We had to give back Hong Kong.
I read about that.
Well, the Chinese went in and took back Hong Kong.
What a bold, defiant move that was.
The end of 156 years of British law.
Surprised everybody.
Just overnight, they just came in and did it.
And, you know, we're just sitting back doing nothing about it.
You know, we're just like business as usual.
That's the difference between the country of today and the country of our glory period,
which was the 1950s, back when subversives were labeled as such and put away as they should be.
I thought it was kind of funny that China was trying to woo Taiwan.
Yeah.
What's that all about?
How do you woo somebody?
Well, apparently, they consider them a renegade province.
Yeah.
And they want to sort of rein them in, you know.
Right.
I don't think they're going to go for that in Taiwan.
Yeah.
Although, I was reading some interesting things about Shanghai and what they're hoping to do.
As far as overtaking not only Hong Kong, they want to overtake the United States.
You know, they want to become, I guess, competition, which is fine, I suppose.
But anyway, getting back to the CDA, because we really sort of veered off topic there.
According to Audrey Krause from IGC, representing a group called NetAction.
NetAction applauded today's, of course, it's not today, but I'm reading it as if it were, applauded today's U.S. Supreme Court decision, rejecting the Communications Decency Act as unconstitutional, but cautioned free speech advocates not to become complacent.
But, this is not the end of it.
Local libraries are increasingly coming under attack by the Christian right for providing Internet access to citizens in their communities.
While today's Supreme Court victory and similar decisions issued recently by state courts in New York and Georgia, in New York it was also turned back.
The state version of the CDA was turned back.
They may put a halt to direct attempts to censor Internet content, but indirect attacks are likely to increase.
Instead of demanding that Internet access be banned outright, would-be censors are now pressuring local public libraries to add filtering software to computers that allow library patrons to go online.
These filters are a far more insidious form of censorship.
In addition to banning access to pornographic websites, most of the filtering software on the market today bans access to sites with information about AIDS and safe sex practices, birth control, and sexuality.
Some even ban sites containing political speech, such as the site hosted by the National Organization for Women.
Many of the proponents of filtering software are intent on denying citizens access to ideas and values that differ from their own.
It is unfortunate that the debate over Internet censorship was framed around the issue of access to pornography.
What is really at issue is whether the Christian right can impose its values on all citizens in cyberspace.
This will become more apparent as the censorship debate moves from legislative arena to the local libraries serving our communities.
You know, it's the local issues that really frighten me, because that's where the real power is.
If you read Charles Platt's book, Anarchy Online, which came out late last year, that point is stressed over and over again, and I think very emphatically.
It's not the feds so much.
I mean, yeah, the feds can really, you know, muck things up quite a bit, but it's the states, it's the local municipalities that come up with the most bizarre laws and are able to enforce them.
And, um, you just got to watch out for that kind of thing.
Everyone has to be vigilant.
So, no, it's not over.
It's definitely not over.
This kind of thing is just going to continue as long as there are people that want to take away freedom of speech in any form.
I don't know what's up with those people, you know?
Why are they so afraid of things?
They must not be standing on very steady ground to start with.
So, that's, uh, that's a deal with the Communications Decency Act.
Um, let's, uh, talk about a couple other issues in the news.
Did you see the headline in the New York Times?
This was yesterday.
I can't believe this is the New York Times.
Swipes gain on plunks as MetroCard takes off.
What, what is this?
Swipes gain on plunks.
They're talking about the MetroCard gaining popularity.
After more than two years of being largely shunned by New York City commuters, the MetroCard is finally replacing the token as the currency of choice for many mass transit riders, with its use doubling in the last six months.
We've got, uh, seven people in the studio right now.
I'd like to see a show of hands for a number of people that have a MetroCard on them right now.
One, two, three, four, and me.
Five.
Five out of seven.
How many people have tokens on them, too?
Two people.
Five out of seven, two, three, four, and me.
And you, five, I have neither.
I don't ride the bus or the subway.
Okay, well, that's, I was actually, I was in a bus.
Yeah, the MetroCard gold.
Wow.
Yeah.
It's, uh, it's got a higher credit line.
Gosh.
You need to walk kind of down a lower interest rate.
Supposedly, supposedly, they're, um, they're going to be, uh, allowing you to make phone calls on them, too.
MCI is entering into some sort of a deal with them that might start as early as, uh, October of this year.
Or, I don't know how it's going to work, but they're, they want the MetroCard to become more of a super card that can do just about anything.
Great.
But, you know, it still, it still can't do what I wanted to do last week, which was, you know, swipe through the token so I can get onto the damn train.
You know, sometimes, I guess if you keep them in your pocket, they sort of, like, wear off a little bit.
And that can be a real problem.
Especially since, and I've seen this happen to more than one person, where, you know, they throw out the card that's, like, worth something.
And they keep the one that's worth nothing because you can't tell the difference.
On the card, it doesn't say how much it is.
You know, like the Washington, D.C. Metro or, uh, the BART system.
You know how much value is on the card because it prints it out.
And I think that's a very nice thing to have.
I don't know who was thinking when they came up with this system that we don't need to know how much the cards are worth in our pockets.
It's, uh, you know, it's a very basic thing.
I don't know how they would do it.
Well, if it's going to print on it, you can't swipe them anymore.
That's true.
Yeah.
It's sort of, uh, I guess a flaw with, you know, the system, the way they designed this particular system.
But, um, I don't know.
I'm sure there's a way to modify it so that they can do things like that.
I use it in a bus.
I don't ride buses very often.
Don't like buses.
I don't know, something about them.
But it's totally different.
When you put it in a bus, it sucks it in.
And it goes ker-chunk somewhere.
I guess it does something with that little hole in the card, which is for buses.
And then it, uh, then it just gives it back to you and it displays.
Displays on the, on the little card, uh, or the little reader thing in front of the bus for everybody to see how much is left on your card.
Wow.
And, uh, then you're told to go on your way.
So much for privacy.
Starting July 4th, these things will be allowed to, uh, to be used for free transfers between buses and subways.
Does that maybe tempt you to, to start using the mass transit system again?
Uh, no.
It doesn't.
What would it take?
What would it take to bring you back underground?
Um, it would have to smell a whole lot better.
Ah, smell.
That's, that's what drives you out.
See, they can't give me, if they had scratch and sniff Metro cards, I could just scratch them and hold them up to my nose while I walk around in the subway.
Yeah, I guess, I guess that's something to consider, city fathers listening out there.
Uh, nearly one out of every three subway trips are now paid for with the electronic fare card, or so they hope, anyway.
Uh, Metropolitan Transit, yeah, we'll be talking about this at Beyond Hope.
We'll be talking about hacking the Metro card and what kinds of things are going on in that department.
Our Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials expect this popularity to increase even more sharply beginning on Friday, when riders can start using the card to make free transfers between subways and buses.
For New Yorkers, their grudging acceptance of the card represents something of a cultural change, as tokens have been an urban necessity since they replaced dimes as subway currency back in 1953.
Remember that?
Oh, yeah.
Now, instead of searching for tokens or a bus change every morning, many riders are instead left to wonder whether their Metro cards have enough money programmed into them for the day's commuting.
It's easier to carry than the tokens, said Grant Miller, a real estate broker, who is one of the recent converts, and now, with the free transfer, that's the best thing that's happened in years.
I think Grant Miller needs to go out and get some fun in his life there.
But, um, apart from that, the surge in the Metro card's use has resulted in part from the fact that all 468 subway stations now accept it.
It's a real pain when you have something that wasn't any good at certain stations.
Uh, for transit officials, the change in the card's fortune comes as a huge relief, as many earlier efforts to encourage commuters to embrace it fell flat.
Riders, it turned out, wanted incentives to use the card and were resistant to buying something that could not be used at all subway stations.
I think it's an historic moment that Christopher Boylan, the MTA's deputy executive director, were actually making good on what really, on what really over the last two or three decades has been a promise.
Uh, in a further promotion of the Metro card starting in January, riders will be able to buy 11 trips for the price of 10.
The first volume discount the system has ever offered.
Uh, Mr. Boylan said criticism that the card was faltering had been premature because many incentives could not be offered until the whole subway and bus system was outfitted to accept it.
Still, transit advocates said that for too long, officials had failed to promote the card adequately and had assumed that the card was so convenient that people would naturally switch to the new technology.
And for a long time, it had been difficult to buy the card.
Something particularly true for elderly bus riders who were reluctant to go down into the subway stations where the card was mostly available.
But more recently, the card has become available at grocery stores, and special vans were dispatched across the city to sell the cards to elderly riders.
Special vans.
They just sit around on corners.
Apparently. I don't know. Sell cards to the elderly.
Um, when the discounts take effect in January, New York will become the last major city in the country to have offered such incentives,
either through a monthly pass or through the purchase of multiple fares.
There's a discount to be offered, however, is still smaller than those available to riders in other cities.
I think it's a good start, though.
You know, I think they need to do a lot more.
Um, I gotta make the system just a little bit better.
And plus, you know, the cards expire.
They wear out. They break. You know, they're brittle.
They don't feel comfortable.
Well, BART and DC Metro are made out of paper.
Yeah, but somehow they last better. I don't know how, but they do.
I guess, you know, you exchange it more.
I think it automatically, like, replaces your card when you put it in the...
When you upgrade it, it gives you a new card.
Really?
It doesn't keep giving you the same old card.
Whereas MetroCard, you can keep going back and giving it to the token booth person,
who won't be called the token booth person anymore, and they keep adding money to it.
But it's amazing, you know, how confused they are.
I mean, go out to a token booth person and ask them for a certain amount on your MetroCard,
and you get stunned silence, you get stares.
Sometimes even worse than that.
Now, why would they even need those people anymore?
Can't you just go up to a machine and buy the thing?
Except the machines I've seen are only machines that sell tokens, not machines that sell MetroCards.
But I imagine that's in the works, too.
Yeah.
Because downsizing and firing people is just the way of the 90s,
and I'm sure it's no exception in the Transit Authority.
Okay, you've got something on Microsoft.
Yeah, actually, I have two things on Microsoft.
What are those clowns up to now?
Well, one thing is kind of funny, and the other thing is horrifyingly scary.
Okay.
Which one do you want first?
The good news or the bad news?
Let's laugh a little bit, then we'll get scared.
Okay.
All right.
The good news is that twice in the past two weeks, on June 20th and June 30th,
Microsoft's very own website was broken into.
No.
Actually, it was attacked.
It wasn't technically broken into.
It was attacked with a denial-of-service attack.
Oh, really?
Yeah, twice.
Wow.
Was it the one we printed last year?
Oh, they don't specify what exactly the people did, but, you know, it's really, take your pick.
Okay.
You know, obviously they exploited one of many.
How could Microsoft be vulnerable to something like that?
Wow.
They're Microsoft.
Yeah.
What are you going to do?
So, you know, of course they claim that, oh, you know, we're fixing this and fixes are in the works.
Uh-huh.
You know, the usual crap.
Yeah.
The scary thing is that Microsoft wants to put their horrible technology in your automobile.
What?
Wait, in my car?
Yeah, yours.
Did you say my name there?
Everyone's.
Okay.
Well, starting with Ford and Mercedes-Benz, but...
All right.
What they want to do is...
This is the scary part, right?
Yeah, this is the scary one.
All right.
They're calling it the Apollo Project.
I'm not exactly sure why.
Never was really able to figure out their naming scheme for projects.
But what they want to do is put a computer that will allow you to read your mail and surf the web.
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
Have we been reading the same newspapers?
Haven't they said that cellular phones cause more accidents than drums?
They aren't drivers.
And now they want to be able to surf the web while they're driving?
Yeah.
Are these people insane?
Obviously.
I mean, what...
We must be misreading this.
What do they really mean?
I'm not reading this properly.
They expect people to surf the web while they're driving.
Yeah.
And read their mail.
Yeah.
That's what they're saying.
Microsoft declined to comment.
Yeah, I would decline to comment, too.
That's a boneheaded idea of the century.
They claim that they have a policy of not discussing future products.
Especially bad ideas that are liable to cause them all kinds of grief.
Yeah.
But this article does go on to mention a number of successful GPS systems with maps and things.
Oh, that's different.
If you're lost.
They're not being made by Microsoft.
They're being made by people like Philips that have brains.
Okay.
But...
Has this been roundly condemned by people with brains?
I don't know if it's been condemned.
The author of this article, he did choose to point out the fact that cellular phones are...
Cellular phone owners, rather, do have a higher incident of traffic accidents.
That is...
So, another dumb idea from the people at Microsoft.
Oh, my webpage was being hacked.
I didn't see him.
I swear.
I swear, Your Honor.
I was trying to patch it at the time, and it just came out of nowhere.
Okay, sure.
Well, you might have heard of the deal between AT&T and SBC.
SBC being SBC Communications, which at one point...
Which used to be SWBT.
It used to be SWBT, which used to stand for Southwestern Bell Telephone, which at one point
was part of the Bell system.
Right.
And it wanted to become part of AT&T yet again, but apparently that's not going to happen.
On Friday, the nation's largest telephone company suspended negotiations to merge with
SBC Communications.
Talks at AT&T never formally acknowledged, though they consumed the company's top executives
and drew fierce fire from Washington regulators.
Now AT&T must regroup and fashion a strategy to compete on its own in a deregulated market.
Poor AT&T all by itself.
Oh, yeah.
What are they going to do without a local telephone company?
But by entering into talks with SBC, analysts and industry executives said AT&T acknowledged
it cannot do it alone.
According to Daniel Reingold, a Merrill Lynch analyst, he said this was a Hail Mary pass.
Do you know what that is?
Um, it's some sort of football term.
AT&T was attempting...
They were attempting to declare peace on one front so it could defend all its other fronts.
whatever.
But the point of this is that there will be no merger.
And I think that's a good thing.
I mean, the 9X by Atlantic is bad enough.
Yeah.
And I'm still not sure 100% that's going to happen.
There's still a little bit of doubt in the air.
I don't think it's been...
I'm surprised AT&T just didn't go after GTE.
They're the biggest local phone company.
Yeah, that's true.
I don't know if GTE would be too up for merging with AT&T.
Probably not.
They have a really bad history.
Oh, yeah.
And they want to maintain that, I'm not sure.
Being that I believe it was employees of AT&T that left AT&T to start GTE.
Is that really true?
I believe so.
Oh, that's interesting.
I could be wrong.
One of the listeners could correct us.
I'm sure I know which listener will call in to confirm or deny that fact.
But, all right.
We have a couple of things that I think are really relevant and scary
and deserve to be consumed by our complete focus.
And they concern sentencing guidelines.
Well, actually, not sentencing guidelines.
The actual sentencing concerning supervised release.
Can you perhaps explain what supervised release is?
Since you are, in fact, on supervised release.
Yeah, I think that kind of makes me an expert at all.
Don't violate anything by telling us.
No, not at all.
All right.
Supervised release, which is also known as supervised probation.
Listen up, kids.
Yeah, listen up.
Because one day, you might be on supervised release.
Yes.
In fact, it's one out of, what, ten Americans now?
One of every ten Americans has been in prison.
Is in prison or on supervised release right now, I think.
One in ten.
So, look around.
Or has it been in prison at one time?
I think it's currently.
I think you're currently on some sort of a program or you're behind some kind of a wall.
Okay.
That's, you know, 1.5 million prisoners in the country.
Right.
So, do the math.
I don't know.
But supervised release is similar to, well, it's not similar.
It's the same thing as saying supervised probation.
Okay.
You're on probation with all the rights and privileges thereof, only you're under supervision,
which basically means that subject to the terms of your probation, you'll at least have
to deal with certain things like having to report to a probation officer on a regular
basis, having to fill out monthly reports stating where you're currently employed, how
much money you've made, and whether you've been in contact with any felons or used a firearm
or all kinds of...
Killed anybody.
Yeah.
All that kind of stuff.
Get a report by that.
Questioned by a law enforcement agent.
Uh-huh.
Fill one of those out every month.
You have to give them fluids and things?
What's that?
You have to give them fluids?
No.
Oh, yeah.
Actually, yeah.
Usually, they do that when you first start on probation and they tend to taper off.
If your case was drug-related, then they will continue to do it probably for the entire
term of supervised release.
But, um...
And other things like needing special permission to travel out of state.
Uh-huh.
And so on and so forth.
Yeah.
Of course, there can be extra terms of supervised release tacked on on top of that.
Yeah, that's...
Those are the default ones.
That's sort of what we're going to be getting into today because it concerns the Kevin Mitnick
story.
It also concerns another story as well.
Um...
But, uh...
I'd like to read this letter that we got back in May from somebody a lot of hackers will
know as Minor Threat.
His real name is Chris Lamprecht.
And he, uh...
He's been in prison since 1995.
He was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison.
That's a long time.
70 months.
And, um...
I'll read this letter.
On May 5th, 1995, I was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison.
The judge ordered that upon my release, I shall not use the internet or any other computer
network.
I became the first person to be banned from the internet.
Additionally, the judge prohibited me from getting a job as a computer programmer, which
has been my hobby since age nine, and my career throughout high school and college.
If I violate his conditions, I could be sent back to prison.
Although hacking was a hobby of mine for several years, I have never had a hacking-related criminal
charge.
And my current crime has nothing to do with computer programming or the internet.
I admit that I have committed undisputed crimes involving theft and sale of telephone equipment
stolen from Southwestern Bell.
And for this, I will spend five years in prison as punishment.
But banning me from the internet and from programming computers when I am out of prison is unjust
and will not help foster my rehabilitation into society.
So on April 22nd, 1997, I filed a federal habeas corpus petition challenging my internet
ban on First Amendment and other grounds.
I claim that banning me from the internet is a free speech violation in light of recent
cases like ACLU versus Reno, which was just resolved with the CDA rejection.
The government has been ordered to respond to my petition by July 11th.
If I do not win in a district court, I will appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals and, if necessary,
to the United States Supreme Court.
I'm writing this letter for two reasons.
One, I need to find an interested lawyer to help me fight my computer restrictions pro bono.
And two, I want to publicize what the government is doing with this absurd internet ban restriction
as a free speech violation.
While I may be the first person banned from the net, I won't be the last.
Recently, I learned through the Freedom of Information Act that the Department of Justice
and the Parole Commission plan to add restrictions to ban parolees from the internet and to prohibit
parolees from using or possessing encryption software like PGP or even PK-Zip since it has
an encryption option.
If you're interested in helping or want more information, visit this website, www.paranoia.com.
Paranoia is spelled P-A-R-A-N-O-I-A.
Follow that with slash tilde M threat, as in minor threat, on the web.
And to contact me in prison, write to this address, and I urge people to do this because
people in prison definitely need to hear from us.
His name is Chris Lamprecht, L-A-M-P-R-E-C-H-T.
His prison number is 6-1-1-5-3-0-8-0.
Houston Unit, P.O. Box 1010.
Bastrop, that's spelled B-A-S-T-R-O-P, Texas.
7-8-6-0-2-1-0-1-0.
Now, it's interesting because this letter came in back in May, and about a week or so
ago, we had, actually it was a week ago that we had Kevin Mitnick officially being sentenced
for the crimes that he committed, he pleaded guilty to, which was possession of an access
device, which could be anything, could be a password, could be a cellular identification
number, could be almost anything.
And to violation of supervised release of a previous sort, which, if you look at the
case, it's really absurd what they charged him with in that regard, because it was totally
unclear whether or not he was ever notified that he was in violation of anything.
And it's, they had no proof.
But, you know, a plea bargain is a plea bargain, and you sometimes have to plead to things like
this.
So those were two small counts.
Keep in mind, he's still facing charges from last August, where he's being charged with
all kinds of phenomenal things for copying files that allegedly are worth millions of
dollars, and getting the Associated Press to say that he engaged in a multi-million dollar
online spree of crime.
That hasn't even come up yet.
So this is after that is resolved.
This is what he will be facing for the two really minor things that he got charged with.
Now listen to this, and keep this in mind as we remember the letter we just heard.
This is what his sentencing is for those two crimes.
The defendant, in addition to the 22 months in prison that he has already served, this
is what happens after he gets out of prison.
The defendant shall not possess or use for any purpose the following.
One, any computer hardware equipment, any computer software programs, any modems, any computer
related peripherals or software, I'm sorry, support equipment, any portable laptop computers,
personal information assistance, and derivatives, any cellular phone, any television, any instruments
of communications equipped with online internet, worldwide web, or other computer network access,
any other electronic equipment presently available or new technology that becomes available that
can be converted to or has as its function the ability to act as a computer system or to access
a computer system, computer network, or telecommunications network, except defendant may possess a landline
telephone.
Number two, the defendant shall not be employed or perform services for any entity engaged in
the computer, computer software, or telecommunications business and shall not be employed in any capacity
while he will have access to computers or computer related equipment or software.
Yeah, good luck.
I don't know, where are you going to find a job that doesn't have, he can be a
garbage collector or something, although there's probably something, I'm sorry?
Might run into a computer in the trash.
That's true, oh boy.
Number three, the defendant shall not access computers, computer networks, or other forms
of wireless communications himself or through third parties.
Number four, the defendant shall not act as a consultant or advisor to individuals or groups
engaged in any computer related activity.
Number five, the defendant shall not acquire or possess any computer codes, including computer
passwords, cellular phone access codes, or other access devices that enable the defendant
to use, acquire, exchange, or alter information in a computer or telecommunications database system.
Number six, the defendant shall not use or possess any data encryption device, program, or technique
for computers or any other purpose.
There it is, right there.
No encryption allowed.
Illegal.
Number seven, the defendant shall not alter or possess any telephone,
shall not alter or possess any altered telephone, telephone equipment, or any other communications
related equipment.
Number eight, the defendant shall not use any telephone or telephone related equipment for
purposes other than to speak directly to another person.
That means he can't have voicemail, he can't call his answering machine to check on it, he
can't do anything involving entering touchstones, he has to only make phone calls.
Does that mean that he can't talk to someone on someone else's three-way?
I guess technically no.
He can only make phone calls to talk directly to another person, and he shall only use his
true name and not use any alias or other false identity.
Now, there's two things that the court did not grant that the government wanted.
And this is kind of interesting in itself.
These are the things that he was able to appeal.
The defendant shall not communicate to or receive from any person or persons any instructions
or information relating to the access, programming, or the use of computer systems, computer networks,
or telecommunications systems or devices.
Okay, he is allowed to do that much.
The defendant shall not participate in any conference, meeting, seminar, class, or discussion
relating to computer hacking, the unauthorized access of telecommunications systems, computer
systems or computer networks, or security issues with respect to such systems or networks.
So that was clearly a freedom of speech issue which the court did not allow the government
to have.
Yeah, but didn't one of the other rules say that he couldn't consult?
Yeah, no, that's just it.
They sort of got it in a different manner.
He can't act as a consultant or advisor.
So that has to be defined in itself as to just what that means.
To individuals or groups engaged in a computer-related activity, we could ask him, well, what kind
of computer do you recommend?
And that would be illegal for him to answer that question.
Or, you know, what's the cheapest long-distance phone company?
Couldn't answer that either.
Now, this is unbelievable what they're doing to people in jail.
In the case of Minor Threat, he wasn't even in jail for a computer-related offense, yet
they still were able to ban him from the Internet for the whole period of his supervised
release.
Now, Kevin Mitnick, I don't see how he can ever get back on the net or be involved in
any form with technology.
And when you realize this is what these people do, this is what they are involved in, this
is what they know.
I mean, when you got out of prison, the first thing you did was get involved again and catch
up to all the things you had missed.
Right.
You can't just take that out of somebody.
You can't suck it out of them.
That's exactly what they seem to be trying to do.
How long is his supervised probation?
Well, I mean...
Have they said?
Seeing as how his prison term has no end in sight, I would imagine a supervised release
probably would be about the same, you know?
Probably going to be three to five years.
Probably even longer than that, I would bet.
The way they're going at it.
Now, this is insane.
I mean, people have to start saying something about this kind of nonsense.
I mean, a lot of people feel like, you know, ignoring it because it's somebody in prison,
so they don't count.
But as we learned with you in prison, as we learned with Bernie S. in prison, the people
there do count.
They do matter.
They're people just like us.
Increasingly, there are more and more of us.
And I think what they are doing to people on supervised release is a good indication
of what they like to do to a lot of us.
And this whole thing with banning encryption, what do you think about that?
Banning encryption.
They're afraid that he'll attempt to do some of the other things that they won't let him
do and then encrypt them.
But, I mean, he's not entitled to any privacy whatsoever.
He can't write something private and encrypt it.
He's not allowed to do that.
That is something suspicious now.
Never was before.
I mean, you're allowed to encrypt things, are you not?
You encrypt things all the time.
Well, actually, I don't, but I could if I wanted to.
Well, every time you use SSH to access 2600, you are encrypting something.
He would not be allowed to do that.
I can't certainly encrypt things, yeah.
Yeah, he would not be allowed to do that.
And as has been said, PK-Zip would be considered encryption because it's got an encryption.
In fact, I guess WordPerfect would be too, right?
Yeah, it's got a feature.
Well, they cracked it on 60 Minutes pretty fast, didn't they?
Well, yeah.
What about an ATM?
He's not allowed to use an ATM machine, is he?
I would not be surprised.
Probably not.
Probably not.
And probably wouldn't be allowed to have credit cards.
No, because he needs a card.
He needs an access code to get the money.
And he uses encryption.
What do you think is going through the judge's mind when they sentence somebody like this?
What do they think this person is?
Are they, like, watching, you know, too many science fiction TV shows?
Do they think this person has all power and they can do anything with their hands?
I think maybe he read too many newspaper articles.
Yeah, that's exactly it.
Newspaper articles.
The media.
What the media defines this as, people believe.
When the Associated Press comes out with a story defining him as a certain type of person, people believe it.
The judges see this kind of stuff.
And it sticks with them.
If I had nothing else to go on except all that media attention, and I was a judge, I would think we've got to prevent this guy from going on another crime spree while he's out of prison.
Right.
In reality, the only crimes he was committing was not being caught when he was out there and checking up on what people were doing as far as catching him or catching up to him.
As far as I understand, that's it.
Didn't sell anything.
Didn't damage anything.
But they so fear his abilities or what he represents to other people that they're willing to completely destroy his life as a result.
He's been in prison for over two years with no hope of getting out.
Even for a million dollars, they would not let him out.
You know, they let terrorists out.
They let murderers out.
But they won't let him out for any reason whatsoever.
It's a scary world.
All right.
Well, I hope people spread the word about this.
We'll be having more information up on our website as soon as we can get it up there and find more information, too.
We'll also have a panel devoted to this at Beyond Hope in August in New York City.
For more information on that, www.hope.net.
And I like to see a lot of people there getting woken up to this kind of abuse taking effect on a lot of us.
All right.
Our phone number is 212-279-3400.
And I guess we're just about ready to take some phone calls on this and other subjects.
Anything exciting happen to you this week?
Oh, um, gee.
Uh, anything exciting happen to me this week?
Oh, not exciting.
That's, you know, of relevance.
Uh, yeah, actually, um, concerning Omnipoint.
Oh, Omnipoint, yes.
It's our favorite, uh, um, mobile phone carrier.
Mobile, uh, GSM, I guess.
GSM.
GSM.
There you go.
The only one in New York City, I think, right?
Yeah, that's true.
Because Sprint PCS and AT&T's PCS are not GSM.
No, uh, Sprint PCS is CDMA.
Okay.
Um.
So what's up with, with Omnipoint?
I've, I've been having, uh, some peculiar problems recently.
And, uh, haven't actually, I have not reported any problems in the past because I hadn't had any.
Mm-hmm.
Well, not any really worth mentioning.
Except when they turned off your service on the air.
Oh, well, yeah, and had a few kinks, you know.
What do you expect the first few weeks when, you know, they go on the air?
Right.
But, um, no, recently, for some reason, my phone has been crashing repeatedly.
How's a phone crash?
Well, I, I call it crashing because, uh, it looks like, basically, you'll be sitting there.
Mm-hmm.
And all of a sudden, you'll hear the phone make a beep noise, and you'll notice that it's acting as if it was first turned on.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Wait a minute, that happened to me today.
I was using someone else's phone.
I didn't know that's what happened.
I was, I was involved in something.
Right.
And I was, I was, you know, talking to a machine someplace.
Right.
I was hitting all the buttons, and all of a sudden, I heard a loud click.
Yeah.
And then three beeps, which indicated that a message was, was waiting or something like that.
Right.
Is that what happens?
Does it say message received and three beeps?
Is that what you're supposed to?
No, no.
Message received?
Well, that's what it said on the phone when I started using it.
No, it means that a message is coming in.
Yeah, but it was, it was the same message.
It was like, gave me three beeps saying that the message was there.
I don't know.
What, what should it do when the phone reboots?
When you first turn it on, it asks you for a pin if you protect your SIM card.
Okay, maybe that's not what happened.
Then maybe it was something, some other problem.
Yeah.
No, but, yeah, it, it acts as if, I haven't heard of this happening on any of the other
phones except the Ericsson's, which makes me kind of concerned.
Hmm.
The only thing I know of that's been different on Omnipoint's network over the past, I don't
know, over the past month or so is that they've, they've increased the resolution of the sampling
so that calls are supposed to be even, even, even clearer if your phone supports it.
But mine does not.
I have one of the first Ericsson GSM phones.
Actually, it was probably the first Ericsson GSM phone that was available in the U.S.
And I don't know what it is, but for whatever reason, it's constantly resetting.
I mean, it's not a lot, but the fact that it happens at all is noticeable.
Right.
It might happen once or twice in a day.
And, um, I don't know if it's related to something faulty in the phone.
It might have absolutely nothing to do with Omnipoint whatsoever.
So, uh, I'm not going to rule out the phone itself as, as the problem.
But, um, that, that's what's been troubling me lately.
I'm not quite sure what to do about it.
You look troubled.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, let's, uh, probe the universe and see if we can find any, any answers.
Oh, yes, we, uh, we got late word that, uh, I don't know if this is happening as we speak,
but, uh, Microsoft is considering the purchase of CBS from Westinghouse.
Now, don't they already have a share in NBC?
Won't that be kind of a conflict of interest?
That's kind of interesting.
I don't know.
Would you be more comfortable with the networks in the hands of something like Microsoft
or something like a defense contractor?
Well, I have to say Microsoft is a little better than a defense contractor because the
movement of information is something that is, uh, that is a lot more important.
Yeah, but if I had to choose who is the more reliable company, if I knew that we, okay, let's
put it this way.
If, if I was, if I had a missile and I was pointing my missile at some really, really
bad dude, and parts in that missile were made by Westinghouse, okay, I'd feel good.
Well, okay.
Because, because I know that Westinghouse is a good, solid name.
Now, on the other hand, though, if I was, if I was pointing a missile at some really bad
guy, and I knew that there were parts in that missile or software in that missile made
by Microsoft, I, I would, I would have a heart attack, I'd run.
Well, that would be, that would be cause of concern to everybody, I think.
Yeah.
Anywhere near the thing.
But, um, do you look upon a TV network as a missile or as a, as a, uh, means of, of
communication?
Well, I look at it as a missile, like a missile because it conveys something, and sometimes
it packs a powerful punch.
When's the last time you used Westinghouse Explorer?
You know?
Well.
Come on, you need, uh, you need somebody who, who doesn't have a vested interest in,
uh, in certain policy.
I mean, yeah, obviously Microsoft has a vested interest, but I think they also have an understanding
of what will happen to them if they censor things or prevent things from, from, from occurring.
Whereas military contractors, I don't think they really are that worried about, you know,
doing nasty things to people.
It's just a thought.
Yeah, but the, I think with Westinghouse, the fact that they know they can do nasty
things to people, they might be less likely to want to do those things because they know
they can do them anyway.
I don't know.
Well, you know, it just worries me when you have, um, you have Westinghouse running CBS,
you have, um, Mobile Oil running PBS, right?
You have, you have, uh, GE running NBC, you have Rupert Murdoch, who's a, who, the scariest
of them all running Fox, and, uh, then you got Disney running ABC, you know?
I mean, whew, it scares me.
So, I don't know.
How bad could Microsoft be?
Pacifica should be getting one of these networks, I think.
That would be kind of fun.
But that's, that's something else.
All right, 212-279-3400 is, um, our telephone number.
Oh, I have something playing on, on CD number two.
Listen to this.
Can't hear it, can you?
Uh, no.
See, I picked up this Gateway 2000 CD-ROM, and I decided to play it on the air, see what
would happen, and, uh, you don't hear anything.
Actually, on old CD players, you'd hear crap.
You would?
Yeah.
Really?
Really old ones.
Oh, I guess, yeah, our, our, our new CD players are showing through their silence that
they're very sophisticated.
But I can tell you that it was exactly 47 minutes long, this Gateway 2000 CD-ROM.
Wow.
Whatever it's doing, it's playing, you know, it's, it's, it's definitely playing something,
but you just don't hear anything.
Kind of cool.
Okay, 212-279-3400, let's take our first phone call.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Well, um, I'd like to know what, um, what, uh, the...
Turn down, turn down your radio.
Okay, hold on.
Turn down your radio, because it's very confusing.
Okay, I just, um, I'd like to know what, um, I heard that Kevin Littner was charged with,
uh, possession of a cellular phone, I mean, like, uh, that he was breaking into, um, like
he was stealing cellular phone calls.
He was charged with possession of a, uh, I believe a pair, an ESN min pair, um, which would enable you to actually use somebody else's cellular phone service to make a phone call.
Oh, wasn't he charged with possession of many pairs?
Well, I think it was reduced to one charge, which is 15 or more.
Okay.
Yeah, so that, that, that's what he was charged with, plus, um, uh, a charge of violating supervised release.
Okay, and, uh, one more question.
Uh, what's the, uh, mailing list for, uh, the Beyond Hope network?
Network.
Okay, if you, if you want information on Beyond Hope, what you do is you send mail to Majordomo, that's M-A-J-O-R-D-O-M-O, at 2600.com,
and in the first line of the, um, of the message, not the title, the first line of the message,
you simply write, subscribe, space, Beyond Hope, Beyond Hope being one word, and send that away,
and you will be subscribed to a lot of, uh, a lot of conversation about, about the Beyond Hope conference.
It, it tends to veer off in many different directions, but, you know, that's, that's, uh, basically the totally non-moderated,
anybody says whatever they want to say, uh, group for, for Beyond Hope.
We have a bunch of other lists that are, uh, working very hard on specific things,
and we have a lot of very interesting things planned for that weekend.
It takes place, uh, August 8th, 9th, and 10th at the Puck Building in New York City,
and, um, if you want more information, visit our website, www.hope.net.
Um, or you can call our voicemail, 516-473-2626,
and I think it's option, uh, number three.
I'm not sure about that, though.
Look around for information on Beyond Hope, and then I'll tell you everything you need to know.
All right, 212-279-3400.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Yes, Emmanuel.
Whoops.
That's pretty loud there.
Okay.
Okay.
I just want to take this time to thank everybody who's been sending me emails.
Did he sound like, like Rebel at first?
He sounded like somebody else.
He sounded like somebody completely different.
Really?
On the first call you mean?
Do you have a secretary?
No, it sounded like somebody was announcing your call, and then you started, you, you,
unless your voice was totally different at first.
Oh.
Well, anyway, I just want to thank everybody who's been emailing me.
I will be giving out my email address, by the way, who's been emailing me.
We were worried that might not happen this week.
Everybody from all over the country I've been getting email from.
I've been getting email from California, West Virginia.
I've been getting email from Chicago, Texas.
I'm surprised it's limited by the borders of our country.
No, it's not, because I've been getting email from Australia, too.
Australia, there you go.
There you go.
Email from Australia.
Yeah, and if anybody wants to email me, they can email me at rebel at escape.com.
That's E-S-C-A-P-E dot com.
What do these people say to you when they email you?
Oh, different things.
I mean, I'm not going to get into it.
I would imagine quite a few different things.
Discussing hacking websites, I have a hack, well, website, instead of people hacking websites
like the Pentagon and the Defense Department, they should hack things like racist websites,
such as, I'll give you a website.
Okay.
That's www.natall.com.
That's natall.com.
That stands for National Alliance.
That's N as in Nancy, A-T-A-L-L, like Larry, dot com.
Or they have another website, natvan.com.
That's all one word, natvan.com.
It's the National Alliance.
I think people should hack that website.
Okay, well, you see, the thing is, you really should not be saying, target this particular
group and cause them grief, because I think that's, you know, that's not really very responsible
to do.
You know, I'm not going to lose any sleep over racist groups having their websites hacked.
I'm not going to lose any sleep over any governmental site having their websites hacked, because,
hey, you know, they're in the public eye already, and it's, you know, people do want to convey
messages sometimes, and if they don't have their security up to speed, then, you know,
they sort of get what's coming to them.
And it's really not something that causes a whole lot of damage if they know what they're
doing.
If they don't, you know, it could be kind of pricey, I guess.
Well, I just want to say also that I think that those people shouldn't be on the internet.
I mean, any, but that's my opinion.
If you want to email me.
It's interesting.
It's interesting because Indonesia, another Indonesian governmental site got hacked yesterday,
in fact, we got some mail on it, I don't have the exact address with me, but they had
a link to us, except it didn't go to us, it went back to them, and they sent us an apology
later saying, we're sorry the link was broken, but next time, next time the link will work,
and, you know, they'll link the 2600 magazine from the hacked Indonesian site, but more
importantly, we want Indonesia out of East Timor, and, you know, we're willing to do whatever
it takes to get them out of there.
You know, I think that's important to convey a political message.
Now, supposing Native Americans conveyed a message and put it right smack on the Department
of the Interior's webpage or something like that, or, you know, the Treasury Department
or the White House, they put something on there telling thousands of people who they could
never have told before about the oppression of Native Americans in this country, and about,
you know, how things should be different, some facts that they never would have an opportunity
to get out to the public.
I mean, I think that would be great.
I think it would be great if gay and lesbian groups got onto the White House and put something
there, and just shocked America, because we're always so afraid of shocking people.
We're always so afraid of offending that farmer in Ohio with, you know, with things that he
might not agree with.
Well, you know, we see things we don't agree with all the time, and we live with it.
Right, Rebel?
Yeah, that's correct.
I agree.
You see things you don't agree with all the time, don't you?
Well, I agree with most of what you're saying.
But did you know that you can make free...
Somehow disturbed by that, but okay, yeah, go ahead.
You can make free phone calls by using the carrier access code 102110, which is Frontier,
and bill it to a third number.
You can do this from pay phones.
They will not call for acceptance.
And you can still make those directory assistance calls from TDD phones.
I see.
Now, of course, if you have third number billing blocked on your phone line, this will
not work, right?
Right.
Okay, so I think that's something that many people need to do.
Well, what if you do get third number calls?
Well, there's really no good reason to do that.
There's really no good reason to have third number billing active on your line.
And if you call 9X and tell them, hey, I don't want this, then it's 9X's responsibility
to take it off.
But also, you can make free directory assistance calls by billing that to another number.
I have the 9X operator call the 800-855-1155-TDD number for AT&T.
All right.
Go to any TDD pay phone.
They're in the Empire State Building.
They're in the Trade Center.
And they're in the 9X Payment Centers.
And just...
All of which are having new cameras installed as of tonight.
Thank you very much.
Okay, listen, we've got to move on to another phone call.
But I'm sure you've given us many handy tips for all kinds of criminal endeavors
that will be taking place from this point on.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hi there.
Hi.
How are you doing?
Very good.
You know, in one second, let me shut my radio.
Yeah, shut your radio down.
Always keep your radio near your phone, too.
I have to say that Rebel is really the most annoying person on the planet.
I hope you guys agree.
I've met many people in my time...
I don't know.
I have to think about that.
I have to think about that.
He's up there, I've got to say.
And I really like the system you had of not taking him as the first phone call.
I wish you could just block him entirely.
9X has invented many interesting things, but they have not invented anything that can
do that yet.
I don't have a Rebel blocker yet.
Yeah.
My question was about 9X.
I was using a payphone today, and I called an 800 number, and I was able to check my voicemail.
And, you know, I had a lot of voicemail messages, and everything was fine.
And then I tried to check another voicemail number I have using an AT&T corporate calling
card.
And said no additional dialing allowed, right?
Yeah, what's up with that?
What's up with that is 9X are a bunch of idiots that, for some reason, have put a restriction
in how many touchstones you can hit on their payphones.
It's so annoying.
If you have to check voicemail, if you have to make a phone call through another company,
or use anything involving touchstones, you'll find yourself cut off.
I don't know what they're trying to do.
They're just trying to make people destroy 9X payphones for them.
Maybe they're trying to get rid of them all or something like that.
But why does it work if I just call a regular 800 number, and it doesn't work if I go through
AT&T?
They have certain limits based on the type of call that you make.
And in there, there might be an answer as to how to defeat it.
I'm sure you'll hit the limit no matter what kind of a phone call you make at some point.
But they might have something where if you call an 800 number, you get an additional
10 digits.
If you call a carrier access code number, you only get an additional 3, or maybe 20 or something.
I guess the best thing to do is come up with some scientific data that is write down what
happens with a certain type of call, how many touchstones you get.
We might be able to figure out this thing from that.
I get so frustrated.
I call the operator immediately, and she immediately says, I have to talk to someone in repair.
This is what you do, and I advise everybody out there to do this.
Call, repair, get a specific phone number, adopt a payphone, okay?
Take a certain payphone that you like on a corner, okay, and call it your payphone.
And do not rest until they fix that payphone.
Call 611 every day if necessary and say, this thing's cutting off touchstones after this amount.
You know, this is not acceptable.
If they say they can't fix it, call back and talk to somebody else.
Eventually, you will get somebody who will admit it's a software setting within the phone
that can be altered, that can be changed.
And every single one of your calls will go on record.
And if they get, you know, 100 phone calls for a certain phone being broken, it's going
to mean something to somebody.
You know, I also noticed that the payphones around Grand Central Station and Port Authority
act differently.
Some won't even take a 1-800-call-ATT type of call.
They just send it back, or you have to call up an operator and actually have a human being
put the call through for you.
Well, what does it do?
These are 9X phones, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
What exactly happens?
I haven't tried it in like a month or two, but last time I was around Penn Station, I would
try and place a call through 1-800-call-ATT, and just wouldn't be connected.
Nothing would happen.
Just silence.
I tried a couple different phones, too.
That's very strange.
That I don't know.
So then I called up, you know, I just hit zero, and I told the operator to put me through
AT&T, and so, you know, she did it, but that cost 9X even more money to have a human being
do that.
You have to also make sure, though, when you get connected in that way that the charge
somehow isn't passed on to you.
Obviously, when you're using a payphone, it's not, but sometimes if you're at your home phone
and you use an operator, they can tack on a charge.
I understand AT&T also is trying to throw, I think they've already done this, a $0.35 surcharge
on top of all their other charges for using a payphone and a calling card at the same
time.
Really?
I don't know what they're thinking.
I mean, I use, I think I use this by every company, but one of the companies that I use
that isn't so bad right now is Sprint, because they have a calling card that's only 25 cents
a minute around the clock.
No surcharge.
And that's not bad for a calling card.
You know, you could do a lot better.
There's really no reason to charge you more.
There's no additional effort involved for them making a phone call when it's 10 cents a
minute from your house or 25 cents a minute from a calling card.
It really isn't any.
So hopefully that will come down.
But as far as AT&T and other companies go, it's very far away from the prices they're
charging.
It's just so frustrating not to be able to make a call.
Oh, I've seen businessmen's suits and ties in fistfights with 9x payphones.
That's probably me.
Well, it's something to see.
I've got a couple of pictures, actually.
A couple of things that you mentioned about Microsoft.
First of all, the CBS story was reported by the New York Post, so I think we have to
really take it easy on, you know, how accurate that story is going to be.
Okay.
And number two is, to their credit, at least the bug that brought down Microsoft.com, the
one like 10 days ago, a patch was posted about six hours later, so it wasn't, you
know, exactly, you know, it's a bad bug, but at least they fixed it within a couple
hours, so can't kill them on that one.
Okay.
But just wanted to give my two cents worth.
All right.
Well, thanks for calling.
Have a good one.
I think in a way, Microsoft is kind of, they're traveling down the same road we are, and we're
sort of hoping.
Well, they are.
They're going down the information superhighway, except they're driving like a tractor and
plowing things up as they go, and we're just sort of walking around, trying not to
get run over.
How's that for an analogy?
But, you know, I don't know, in some way, I just feel that they might listen a little
more to us.
Maybe I'm just being foolishly optimistic here, but I just think, like, for instance,
for instance, like AOL, I think they're, you know, hopeless, gone, totally.
Microsoft, there might still be some chance for redemption.
It's just a thought.
I can't believe you're saying that.
Well, look, I'm just theorizing.
I think it's possible.
What, do you think Apple is completely out of touch with reality?
I'm close to it.
Not as far gone as Microsoft.
No?
Okay.
Pretty far gone.
I agree with that, but you still think there's hope for redemption for Apple, don't you?
A very small one.
I'm in that position.
I'm giving them one more chance.
All right.
I'm at that position with Microsoft.
One more chance for them.
I gave up on them a long time ago.
All right.
Well, we'll see.
We'll see.
All right.
One more call.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Yes, speak up.
Okay.
No foolishness here.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hi.
Earlier you said that people using their cell phones while they're driving causes more access
in DWI.
Was that just an exaggeration?
I've heard that said in newspaper reports, various people that claim to know what they're
talking about.
And I think I saw it in the New York Times.
I can't swear that I did, but I believe, maybe not as far as fatal accidents, but as
far as fender benders, you know, accidents in total, I think things, distractions of that
sort play a bigger role.
Now, what does the insurance companies say about this?
I'm sure they're not too pleased about it, and I'm sure they're, you know, going to pass
through some sort of legislation that says if you're on a cellular phone and get into
an accident, we don't have to pay as much or something like that.
And I'm sure if you're cruising the web, that's not going to do much for you either.
Sure.
Okay.
All right.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks for calling, and we are out of time, so that brings another exciting edition of
Off the Hook to a close.
We'll be keeping track of the Mitnick case and other developments in the freedom of speech
arena in the weeks ahead.
So, until next week, this is Manuel Goldstein for FiberOptic.
Have a good night.
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 if they could, they would.
But the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood, but I'm making it move.
We'll be there.
We'll be right back.