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And you're listening to radio station WBAI in New York.
It's 8 o'clock, which means it's time for Off the Hook.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
It couldn't be yet much worse, but if they could, they would.
Bumbittly Bump was the best expect of us.
I hope that's understood.
Bumbittly Bump!
In the east, came for the great light, shedding rays of divine love.
Bumpass my today
Oh, my God.
I hope that's okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Let the light pour into it.
Let the light pour into it.
Let the light pour into it.
Did you just use the word cyberspace?
Well, yeah, but you didn't see the quotes around it and the sarcasm I used.
Sorry.
It doesn't translate well over the radio, I know, but it doesn't translate well over the net either.
No.
Try to be sarcastic to somebody over the net and they just don't get it.
You know, I think people believe almost anything they read on the net.
It's quite possible.
Well, I think you're pretty elite.
Yeah, thank you.
Speaking of eliteness and all kinds of power and stuff like that, you flexed your muscles this week, I understand, from the terror reports that I've been hearing from around the world.
They were horrible.
Horrible reports.
People are afraid.
People are staying indoors.
Actually, no, they're going outdoors because they don't want to be near their computers.
Yeah.
What did you do?
I was doing a security penetration study, as they're called.
And you penetrated a lot of us.
Yeah, actually, rather inadvertently.
For a certain nonprofit client of mine, I found that their news server, and we reported on this, their news server software.
Some weeks ago, we did report on this.
Some weeks ago, their news server software, they were running a dated version.
In fact, it wasn't the latest version.
The latest version is safe from this particular exploit.
Anyway, I posted a message, which I crafted by hand, to this particular news server that I was attempting to penetrate.
And the news server itself, it turns out, was slightly misconfigured in that it completely ignored my distribution header.
And the way I crafted my header, I set the distribution to be local, which means it never should have left that machine.
Well, wouldn't you know it?
The exploit that I proceeded to type in got distributed by this vulnerable news server to every news server in the world.
Wow.
And that meant what?
Well, let me tell you.
One of the first things that I had it do was, in the exploit itself, basically, you stick some stuff in the header that forces the header itself to be stripped out.
And it gets the body of the message of the post piped into a shell and executed as shell commands.
The body of the message, the first one that I did was to cat Etsy password, the password file on a Unix machine, and pipe that into mail and mail it to me on another system.
But you could have mailed it to anybody.
I could have mailed it to anybody, yeah.
Yeah, and they would have been inadvertently flooded with thousands of password files.
Thousands?
Thousands.
This isn't an exaggeration here.
You really don't have an exaggeration.
Not an exaggeration.
I got over, before I knew what was going on, within a few hours, my mailbox was flooded with over, well over 100 megs worth of password files.
100 megs of just password files.
Just password files.
And mind you, there were a lot of duplicates in there, because I was trying different exploits before I actually went back to my home system and noticed that all this mail was flooding in.
Now, since we are hackers, by the media definition, we should now be selling those password files or distributing them to everybody and logging in as other people.
Now, I should note, causing wanton destruction left and right, and terror.
A large majority of those password files weren't even shadowed.
So that means that, I mean, if you had a shadowed password file, all it would do is get you the list of users, which in itself is something.
But the unshadowed ones get you the users and their encrypted password, which can then be run through a password cracker, and there you go.
Yeah.
And you say most of them weren't shadowed?
Better than, I'd say more than half.
I don't know anybody that runs a system with unshadowed passwords.
And I know a lot of stupid people, too.
Well, now we have a whole list of stupid people.
But no, this goes beyond stupid.
I mean, this is, like, you know, aggressively dumb.
This is, like, trying to be stupid.
Well, aggressive, yes, because they proceeded to call both the internet service provider I was doing the security review for, and the address of the email account I was mailing it to.
And both of those places were deluged with angry phone calls.
Really?
Not missing a beat, I proceeded to post an explanation on Usenet in a few news groups like comp.security.unix.
Did you get flamed?
News.admin.technical.
No, but some moron...
Always get flamed when you post it.
Some moron saw fit to join me to various cyber promo mailing lists.
Oh, my goodness.
Which I quickly filtered with my send mail technique.
Wow.
So the cyber promo menace was no more.
But, um...
Yeah, the other funny thing...
The cyber promo menace is still sending you things, but it's just being ignored now, right?
It's totally being ignored.
But it's just a waste of bandwidth.
Yeah, but I'm losing no sleep over it.
Boy.
And wasting no disk space.
Uh-huh.
The other funny thing about it is...
Most of the traffic on the internet today is being ignored.
You know that.
Well, most of the traffic on the internet probably comes from cyber promo.
I think so.
I think so.
Which is why I don't lose any sleep when somebody takes them down or hacks their web page or whatnot.
Yeah.
Because I consider their existence to be an abuse.
Yeah.
And I mean that as human beings as well, but never mind.
Yeah.
Yeah, one of the other things that I told the news machine to do was run Xterm.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, using my display as the display of my, my, uh, my sun machine at home.
And, um, nothing happened.
And I was kind of bummed.
I, I, uh, X-hosted the particular site in question.
Right.
So that my display would allow connections to it.
Um, the, uh, when, when I noticed nothing was happening from that particular site, I wasn't
getting any Xterm windows.
I was kind of bummed.
And then I did a little more poking around and I realized that they didn't have X installed
on their new server.
Ah.
Um, the problem though was that my bandwidth was being flooded by parts unknown and, uh,
I was trying to figure out why.
So, um, on my, on my same machine, I looked at a net stat of all the incoming and outgoing
net connections.
And I saw that there were a great many connection attempts to my X display from servers I had
never heard of.
Really?
And, um, then again, I put two and two together and realized that my post had gone out despite
the fact that I said distribution local.
Really?
And, um, I proceeded to disable access control on my X display, on my X server momentarily
to see what would happen.
And wouldn't you know it, I was bombarded with shell windows from numerous different systems
all over the world.
You got shell windows?
Shell windows, yeah.
On your screen?
On my, yeah, on my display, X terms from those machines.
And with those, what could you have done?
I could have reeked, holy hell, let me tell you, but, but I'm a responsible person and
I didn't.
I, I, the first thing I did when I realized what was going on.
How many windows?
Oh, by the time I stopped it, about half a dozen came through and I immediately stopped
it.
Wow.
I, I turned off, uh, sorry, I re-enabled access control.
I did an X host minus and put things back the way they were supposed to be.
So even if they were trying to connect to me, they wouldn't be able to display an X term.
Uh-huh.
And I proceeded to go into those, uh, windows that had already opened and typed exit.
And it was a race against time because even after I typed X host minus, there were still
windows in the process of opening.
So I was hurriedly going around my desktop and typing exit in each one of these windows.
But you were, each time a window opened, you were on a different system.
Yeah.
They were coming to you.
They were coming to me.
They were landing on your, on your screen.
Landing right on my X display.
That is something.
It was madness.
Yeah.
Invasion of, uh, of the internet on your.
They, they were just screaming, hack us.
Yeah.
It was unbelievable.
I mean, you don't even have to log in.
It's just right there.
It was horrible.
Well, suffice to say, uh, we, we, uh, we got a hold of the situation.
Any, any root shells in there?
No, I didn't, didn't, didn't do anything funny.
All right.
No, I mean, did you get any, any root shells?
Any, any pound signs?
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.
The, uh, the ones that I did see that opened were, uh, they, they, they ran with the news
user permissions as, as they should have been.
Okay.
Not, not to say that somebody couldn't use that to leverage their access.
As they say in, in the, uh, security releases, you know, leverage.
Hacker may use this to leverage his access.
So now, what do you consider to be crossing the line?
At what point would, uh, would you have done something which would have been wrong?
Crossing the line would have, would have allowed all those X terms to open and systematically
and determined, what's, what's the word, determinedly?
Yeah.
With determination.
With determination.
There you go.
That's, that's, that's a better way of saying it.
Um, gone through each of these, uh, systems and gotten root on each one of them.
That would have been crossing the line.
Um, yeah, I think so.
Doing anything in any of those, uh, X terms, I think would have been crossing the line.
Um, I clearly had permission.
Uh, within the scope of the job that I was doing for that particular internet service provider
to play with their new server and, frankly, any, any other of their machines.
Um.
Now, I should point out, um, because a lot of people have been asking questions about this
concerning, uh, what we're going to be doing at Beyond Hope and as far as hacking and things
like that, um, you know, we, we don't expect people to go out breaking into systems, obviously,
on the, on the internet, but on the internal network, anything goes.
So, if you bring a system to Hope, expect it to be probed by people like Fiber.
And, um, while we encourage them not to do evil things to you, um, we also want to show you how to
protect yourself.
In other words, um, you can use Telnet to get from machine A to machine B, but your session could be
sniffed then.
However, if you use SSH, it won't be sniffed unless you use Telnet someplace beforehand and then use SSH.
You know, all kinds of things like that.
So, we're, we're encouraging people to hack other machines on the network.
We're encouraging people to, uh, to be good sports when they get hacked.
But, uh, obviously, because the real world isn't playing the same games, uh, we, we don't want to
cause any problems for, for us or for them.
But, uh, there's, there's an awful lot you can learn.
I, I think that, that pretty much covers the idea that we have, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
And it's not crossing any, any legal lines if everybody knows that going into it.
Uh, and there's, there's an awful lot you can learn as a result.
But now, as far as your particular situation, uh, is this the end of it?
Or, um, are you going to reach out and grab some more people somehow?
No, no, uh, unfortunately, um, still receiving password files.
They just keep coming in, huh?
They just keep coming in.
Why, why does it take so long?
Because news propagates slowly?
Yeah, apparently some people are really, really downstream as far as news feeds go.
What, what are the most amazing ones you've gotten?
Um, I've, I've gotten some from, uh, there were a couple, not very many.
There were a couple of .mil sites.
.mil?
A couple.
You got .mil.
Come on.
.mil, they're, they're good.
They know what they're doing.
And at least one that I looked at.
The United States military.
They weren't even shadowing their password files.
You're telling me the United States military just sent you their password files?
Yeah, and I didn't even ask for it.
Well, this is, uh, this is something, this is something that I think we need to take a
And the Australian military.
Australian military.
Yeah, the Australian.
What's, what's their scheme?
I think it was the Australian Navy or something.
What does, what does their address look like?
Oh, I don't know.
It was, I think, uh, navy.au or something to that effect.
Really?
Yeah.
I don't, I don't remember.
But, um, I contacted CERT.
Mm-hmm.
Because it was the responsible thing to do.
Contacting CERT?
I don't know about that, but.
You know, it's the, it's the politically correct thing to do.
Why don't you contact the, uh, the, um, 8LGM people?
Well, you could do that.
I think they have more responses.
But, I mean, this is a known published bug.
Mm-hmm.
I wasn't contacting CERT to tell them about this hole.
They already reported on this hole.
So has everyone.
Mm-hmm.
I was contacting CERT to let them know that the hole was still a hole.
Mm-hmm.
And still very much a hole in a really big way.
Um, initially I was well-received.
I described the situation.
And I told them that, uh, you know, here I have this, all these, uh, password files.
And the guy told me it was great that I saved them for two reasons.
Because, number one, typically in the case of, uh, them hearing about a system intruder secondhand, obviously they don't have access to whatever that person collected.
In the case of a professional like myself, um, if the person did something like that during the course of a job and inadvertently started getting password files or some such,
then, uh, they typically would have, you know, got nervous or whatever and deleted them.
Mm-hmm.
And, um, CERT would be left with absolutely no record of just exactly how many new servers out there in the world are still vulnerable.
Mm-hmm.
Well, I have that list.
And they want it.
And, yeah, and, uh, I'm...
Don't you see what's happening here?
CERT is going around collecting passwords.
Yeah, right.
They're aiming to, uh, to hack everybody in a couple of years.
You're gonna see they've been working for the other side the whole time.
They're still playing the game.
We just remember where you heard it first.
Yeah.
So, so anyway, so, uh, I'm gonna send them, uh, this list.
The problem was that, um, somebody from CERT, this person's boss, called me back.
Mm-hmm.
And said that, you know, that it was good that, you know, you have this list.
That, you know, that, uh, now we have a concise list of every vulnerable news server.
There's a but coming there.
Uh, but...
Ah.
And it's a big but.
Yeah.
They're claiming that they don't have the manpower.
To deal with the response they would get if they went and contacted all of those servers by email.
Mm-hmm.
And they wanted me to do it.
Oh.
I'm like, wait a second.
Where's your patriotic spirit?
Yeah.
And I just said, wait a second.
I, I, I can't, I can't accept a liability as, as an individual independent security contractor to, to go out on a limb and send a form letter to over, you know, a thousand plus sites and not expect any of them to try to bring some kind of legal ramifications against me.
That's what CERT's for.
Yeah.
They're government funded.
They're government backed.
They're supposed to do this sort of thing.
And they, they wouldn't do it, huh?
I didn't understand where they were coming from because CERT, mind you, puts out CERT.
Advisories.
Advisories.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's, that's right.
Yeah.
And the CERT advisories go out to probably better than a few thousand people.
I know.
Let's get their mailing list.
Yeah.
And then we'll make a little advisory of our own about CERT.
Yeah.
Yes.
Well, um.
CERT wants you to do their job for them.
It seems that way.
It seems that way.
Well.
So, I didn't understand because.
Where does it stand now?
Are they going to do anything or not?
I'm going to send them the list, but they, they're still coming from the direction that they want me and the internet service provider I was doing the job for to contact all these people.
And I was not pleased.
To say the least.
Yeah.
And neither was the internet service provider.
Because, uh, neither I nor they is going to go out on a limb to contact these people.
It's CERT's job.
We're willfully going to the people that are supposed to be helping.
And we're saying, here's a list of all the vulnerable news sites in the world.
Well, if there's anyone else out there that wishes to take over CERT's responsibilities, then I guess they can contact us.
I was seriously thinking of going to one of CERT's competitors, like CYAC or one of the other lists.
Mm-hmm.
And saying, you know, here's a list of all the vulnerable news servers.
You know, go at them.
Send mail to them, contact them, whatever.
Wow.
So, I didn't understand, uh, CERT's, uh, stance on the whole thing.
I was very disappointed.
Well, on behalf of Off the Hook, congratulations on getting through and showing us just how vulnerable the internet still is.
Why, thank you.
I think we'll, we'll see some ramifications, repercussions, all kinds of things happening as a result of this.
And, of course, we'll be reporting on it in future shows and things like that.
If you have any questions, of course, they can call in.
Um.
Now, we should add.
Yes.
Just in closing.
That if you're a news, a news administrator and you're listening to this show.
Yeah, if you haven't fainted already.
Yeah.
Or you're a news administrator and you're listening to the show with real audio.
Mm-hmm.
When it goes up on the website.
How you doing?
Don't our voices sound weird under real audio?
Yeah.
No, they used to sound like that.
They sound much better now.
They do sound much better.
If you're having problems, it's your fault, not ours.
Yeah, we fixed everything.
Everything's cool now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
But, um.
Yeah, if you're a news administrator and you're listening to this show, make sure you're running the latest, greatest version of INN.
That is, if you're running INN.
Uh.
The latest version of INN as of this show is INN version 1.5.1.
And if you're running anything older than that, well, guess what?
You're vulnerable and you probably mailed me your password file.
Wow.
That is something.
Remember INN, the network on Channel 11?
Yeah, that's right.
It used to be a news network.
Independent network news.
Yeah.
Whatever happened to that?
They went out with the hula hoop.
I don't know.
It just sort of disappeared.
Anyway, okay.
Moving on now.
We have some MetroCard news.
Also, first of all, concerning Beyond Hope, which is happening August 8th, 9th, and 10th.
I know a lot of people have expressed interest in helping us with that.
We're having a meeting this Friday with volunteers.
If you are interested, please send us some email.
You can send it to OTH at 2600.com.
Tentatively, the meeting is supposed to be at Citicorp, but we're not 100% certain about that.
So it's best that you be on the list to find out the exact time and find out any other changes that might take place.
It's tentatively taking place this Friday, possibly Saturday, depending on the response we get.
These are people that want to volunteer to help out with all kinds of different things,
from security to network operations to helping out at the door with registration and all kinds of neat things like that.
It's going to be quite an interesting experience, and we have some surprises coming up.
But we'll be letting people know about that as time goes on.
If you have any other questions, you can also give us a call tonight.
Now, here's a letter we got concerning MetroCard, and I've got an experience about MetroCard I'd like to share as well.
I read the June 8th Newsday article on July 1st and listened to your July 1st show.
I thought you might be interested to know that a few days before the start of One City, One Fair...
Don't you like that? One City, One Fair?
One Riker, one bridge.
My MetroCard gold failed. I may have touched it with a wet finger.
The turnstiles repeatedly told me to swipe again, and the other card readers said,
See Agent.
The clerk in the booth told me it had $18 on it.
At first, he had a hard time believing that it wasn't working.
I told him he probably had a more sensitive card reader in the booth.
And he said, I must be an electrical engineer.
Which I guess is their word for wise-ass.
When the card reader not connected to the booth also said, See Agent, he asked me what I wanted him to do about it.
That always happens, you know?
Every time I deal with one of these people behind the bulletproof glass there, and I seem to know why,
it's always, what do you want me to do about it?
It doesn't work. What am I supposed to do about it?
I gave them money. Say, I want a MetroCard.
And I also got the, what do you want me to do about it thing?
I want you to make a MetroCard for this amount of money.
It's like every time I get this insolence, you know?
And it's just, I do not appreciate it, all right?
I'm just letting people know that.
Right now, I do not appreciate the insolence of the Metropolitan Transit Authority.
And something must be done about this.
Anyway, continuing with the letter.
I asked him to replace my card with a new one.
He said he couldn't do that.
He gave me an envelope in which I could mail the card without postage.
Meaning, it would need postage.
They weren't giving you the postage.
I took the envelope, left the station, and pondered what to do.
I had read that you could have your balance transferred to a new card.
Was that now only allowed with cards approaching the expiration date?
I considered going to another booth clerk and requesting such a transfer, but I decided
to mail the card.
At least this way, the MTA would know there had been a problem.
Meanwhile, I assumed the risk for the card while it's in transit.
To send the card, I had to fill out a little form on a card that came in the envelope.
One piece of information needed is the card's serial number.
Aside from the expiration date, two numbers are printed on the back of the card.
One's six digits.
The other, ten.
Six digits isn't enough, but at the time, I had stuff in my mind about how not many
people were using the MetroCard, and I wasn't sure which one of them was the serial number.
But anyway, this whole thing indicates the confusion that you go through when you get
these things.
Now, I've seen so many people struggling with this, and it happened to me again.
You know if you bend these things, they don't work?
It was in my pocket, and it got bent.
And, you know, I showed it to the guys.
Yeah, you bent it.
It's no good anymore.
You know?
Like, oh, that's just wonderful.
Now, what are we supposed to do with this thing?
You know?
I mean, if I send it in, they're going to say, oh, it's not worth anything either, unless
they're able to read it from the computer somehow.
But it's an incredible inconvenience to have these things that get damaged so easily.
You know, if you keep it in your pocket too long, they just don't swipe.
It's madness.
And plus, you can't tell how much is on the card by looking at it.
So, it's not a very good system.
I mean, more people are using it now, but there are still so many problems with it,
and I don't see them being addressed.
I saw somebody today swiping their card over and over and over again, you know, just so
patiently, you know, just waiting for it to work, waiting for that one magic instance where
the thing works, and it just didn't happen, you know?
It just didn't happen.
I don't know if you were here with the show that I jumped the turnstile.
I had to do it because I was, you know, the train was there, and I had to get on it,
and I had to be someplace, and there was just no other way, you know?
I couldn't get another card.
I already had plenty of money on the card.
I wonder how many people are going to turn to a life of crime because of this.
You know, with a token, it was always so simple.
You dropped it in, it worked.
Right.
If they're going to have this system, why not have it so that it's dependable, you know,
so you don't have to keep swiping?
How about a system that sucks in the card?
You know, like on the buses, they suck in the card and they read it, you know,
and they deal with it if there's a problem somehow.
I know.
What about a card with a token implanted in the middle?
For emergencies.
Yeah.
Something like that.
So you can, like, break the token out?
The thing is supposed to be a replacement for tokens, so it has to be at least as good as tokens, you know?
And if technology is not yet at a stage where that can happen, then maybe we're not ready for this yet.
In any event, you know, banning the tokens is a bad idea,
which is what they're thinking of doing as of next year.
So if you've had an experience, we want to hear about it.
And, of course, we'll be talking about this at Beyond Hope as well.
Something else I tried doing yesterday that involves high technology
and what I should have had low expectations for.
I've used FedEx many times.
I'm amazed, you know, when I call them up and I say where I am,
they sometimes are at the door before I even hang up the phone.
These people are amazing.
They're just fast, they're speedy, they know where every place is.
Well, I thought it would be really nifty cool to actually arrange for a pickup
without ever making a phone call.
In other words, on the World Wide Web.
So I went to www.fedex.com and I entered all this information.
Now, to get a pickup, you obviously need an account number, which I had.
I had an account number.
But I had to enter this little form to tell them that I wanted an account number,
an ID number, rather, an ID number so that I could arrange for a pickup on the web.
Did the little key close on Netscape?
I don't remember.
So many things happened.
It wasn't secure?
I don't know.
It definitely was not secure.
It definitely was not secure.
But, so I mailed them or I went to that website.
I got my little ID number and then I entered the information as to who I was,
company address, that kind of thing.
And then I went through the whole big thing of filling out the form as to, you know,
where I was now, where I wanted the package sent, how much the package was worth,
what my ID number was, what my account number was.
And then I put the thing in and sent it away.
It came back a couple of times because of silly things.
Like, you know, I'd spelled out somebody's phone number with a word because, you know,
that's just what I know it as.
And they said, letters are not allowed in phone numbers.
Please retry.
So I did that.
I retried it.
And then it sent it away.
It mailed me a little receipt.
But then it sent back something else saying, you're not at the same place that you're registered to.
And I'm like, yeah, I know that.
That was the whole point.
I'm not there.
If I was there, I could pick up a phone and, you know, and call in.
So I had to get a second ID number to register to the place where I was now,
even though that's not the same place my account number is registered to.
So then I went through the whole big thing again.
I sent that out.
Um, it came back for some other reason because I had done something stupid.
But then I sent it out again and they sent, um, they sent me mails with a tracking number
and everything like that.
And they said they would be there by 11 a.m.
Well, actually, I said that.
They asked what time I would be there until.
And I said until 11 a.m.
So I sat around and I waited and waited and waited.
11 a.m. came.
11.30 came.
12 o'clock came.
I said, well, you know, this is wrong.
This isn't the way it's supposed to be.
So I went downstairs to a pay phone because, you know, where I was did not have a phone.
Um, and I called them and I said, look, uh, I was expecting a pickup by a certain amount
of time, uh, what, what, what happened here?
And, uh, they asked for my, um, my courier number.
And so I give them the tracking number.
I said, no, no, not the tracking number.
You can't, you can't use the tracking number because it's not in our system yet.
You have to give me the courier number, the pickup number.
And I'm like, uh, you mean the ID number?
He said, no, no, not the ID number.
The, the number that, that we give you to indicate when the courier is going to be there.
And I said, I don't have that number.
That's, uh, I wrote down all these numbers.
I guess I must have missed that one.
They said, okay, well then give us your, your, uh, your account number then.
Well, five, four or five different numbers I'm dealing with here.
It's, it's, it's driving me crazy.
I finally give that to them and they see all the garbage I had gone through before and
they find the one that actually went through and, and was successful.
And I said, oh yeah, um, the time you specified was too early.
So we tried to call you and we couldn't get you.
So we just sort of gave up.
They didn't mail me to tell me they gave up.
They just, they called a number I wasn't at, which was obvious because I was in 212 and
the number was in a different area code.
They called that number, got a machine and, uh, left a message, which, uh, you know, I
could not have gotten because I wasn't there.
I was here.
So after all of that, after putting in all that, uh, you know, that, uh, that type of
information and things like that, I wound up going to a Dropbox and just dropping
it in.
So it doesn't always work faster or better.
This is a valuable lesson.
All right.
212-279-3400 is our, our phone number if anyone wants to call in with, uh, their stories and
adventures and things that they've been through.
Um, did you see the ad in the New York Times yesterday?
Half page ad.
Do you know what a half page ad costs in the New York Times?
Do you have any idea?
Probably pretty expensive.
What do you think it costs?
Oh, uh, $20 a word.
They don't do it by the word.
It's a half page.
Oh, you can just print one big word and they pay 20 bucks.
They charge by the half page.
Oh, really?
Don't be difficult.
Just a half page in the New York Times.
Um, $3,000 a day.
That's a lot of money.
You really think it's that much?
I just guessed.
I don't know.
Okay.
What, what, what, what, let's go around the room.
What do you, what do you think?
$10,000.
$10,000?
Yeah.
Okay.
What, what, what?
$10,000 over there?
What do you think?
$10,000.
$10,000 or $20.
You can't have both.
$20,000 for $10,000.
$10,000 for a half page.
$10,000 for a half page.
All right.
I'll go in between.
I'll take eight.
Eight.
All right.
Do we win a prize?
Well, no, you don't win a prize because you're all wrong.
It cost $36,000 for a half page ad.
Holy moly.
That's why you guys aren't taking out a half page ad in the New York Times.
Anyway, there was this ad there yesterday about, about the phone company.
It was published yesterday in the New York Times and other area publications as well, probably
with cheaper rates.
The half page ad, which contended that 9X had the lowest, I'm sorry, the highest local rates
in the country.
9X had the highest local rates in the country.
That ad was sponsored by a consumer group, New York Consumers for Economic Competition.
What, you never heard of New York Consumers for Economic Competition before?
I don't know.
No, I haven't heard of them either.
But the problem is, here's where the problem comes in.
The group and the ad were financed entirely by AT&T.
Unbelievable.
Isn't that something?
And AT&T is lobbying against 9X in a rate proceeding before the New York State Public Service
Commission, and one of the most astounding coincidences I think I've ever seen.
Since 1-800-COLLECT.
That's MCI.
Yeah, I know, but they didn't say that they were MCI.
Yeah, but this is different because they're putting out ads, you know, that seem to be
from consumer groups, you know, and they're really not.
AT&T's name does not appear anywhere in the ad, an omission that has prompted protests from
consumer groups and has drawn the scrutiny of New York State's Attorney General, Dennis
Vacco.
You don't want to be on his bad side.
Oh, no.
Dennis Vacco is obviously concerned if there is any misleading of consumers, said Jennifer
Farina, a spokeswoman for the much feared Mr. Vacco.
So, we are looking...
Who did say that?
I'm reading the New York Times here.
It says much feared.
Please do not interrupt.
They report the facts as they see them.
So, we are looking into it.
The ad, which also appeared in the Albany Times Union and Crain's New York business, urged
the PSC to reject a proposal by 9X to impose a variety of surcharges on local phone calls
carried by new competitors in the New York market.
9X, the ad said, was trying to preserve its monopoly over local phone service.
The ad's readers are encouraged to fill out an attached coupon and mail it to the group's
headquarters in Albany.
They can also dial a toll-free number for more information.
The group has scheduled radio and television commercials to run later this week in the
Albany area.
Let's see if they have a listing with toll-free information.
We can get a dial tone here.
Thank you very much.
We're going to call...
Let's call 888-information, see if that works.
I've told it doesn't.
Sounds like it's going through.
Listen to that.
We're sorry.
Your call cannot be completed as dialed.
Please check the number and dial again or call your operator to help you.
1-3-2-A-2.
Don't you think that's silly?
They have 888 numbers.
Right.
But they don't have 888 information.
That's silly.
That's not right.
Okay, so we're going to have to call 800-information.
Let's find out.
This is toll-free directory, Tandy.
Yes, hi.
Do you also handle 888 numbers?
Mm-hmm.
Okay, that's good.
I'm looking for the toll-free number for the New York Consumers for Economic Competition,
please.
Okay.
Sorry, sir.
I don't have anything listed, New York Consumers.
You don't have that.
Okay.
Well, thanks anyway.
You're welcome.
Bye-bye.
They're an unlisted 800 number, apparently.
Well, if anybody has that newspaper, maybe they could read it to us because I don't have
it in front of me.
I'd like to call them and see what they say on their little...
And what they represent.
Yeah.
Hey, the Mars website is a hit for NASA.
Have you been following this Mars business?
Oh, yeah.
What's with the guy's sex window session on national TV?
What's up with that?
Did you see that?
He's an ex-Windows user, yeah.
But there's been this computer...
Describe what's been on the screen for people.
It's an ex-Windows session?
An ex-Windows session of the...
Of the...
They were showing pictures of the...
Right.
Of the landscape.
Of the landscape, right.
But why not just show pictures of the landscape?
Why show some guy's computer screen?
I don't know.
I guess they were trying to look techie.
Well, they sure did.
Now, you know, no one has hacked this site.
Imagine if you had come barging in at that point.
What could you have done?
It'd be horrible.
Yeah, you could...
I would have the attention of millions.
That's right.
The captive audience.
So, I don't know.
That was kind of weird.
Yeah.
So, let's see what they say about this.
This comes from Newsday.
It says,
Rich Pavlovsky isn't getting much sleep.
He's too busy coping with the roughly 120 million hits received in the last four days by the websites broadcasting the greatest show on Mars.
I've been working 17 or 18 hours a day, said Pavlovsky, one of the programmers of the NASA site at http colon slash slash www.jpl.nasa.gov, which provides updates and news of the Mars Pathfinder mission.
I get sleep when I can.
Although no independent body exists to provide Nielsen-type ratings of net audiences, Pavlovsky was wondering yesterday if he and two colleagues coordinating the internet coverage of the Pathfinder mission were in charge of the most popular event in the short history of the internet.
Even more popular than the OJ verdict.
I believe it's close to some record, he said.
Being so popular has its drawbacks, of course.
We've had tons of problems.
We've had so many hits, the website is slow as molasses.
We've had several mirror sites that have had so many hits, they just crashed.
Now, here are some alternative websites that you can use.
And these all have http colon slash slash in front of them, so I'm not going to say that all these times.
Mars.sgi.com, Mars.compuserve.com, Mars.compuserve.com?
That sounds pretty cheesy.
www.sun.com slash mars.mpfww.arc.nasa.gov, mpfww.jpl.nasa.gov, www.ncsa.uiuc.edu slash mars, and mars.tc.cornell.edu, and finally, www.mars.ucar.edu.
Now, wouldn't it be great if they hooked up mission control to the web?
So you could, like, drive around the little thing?
I heard a rumor they were going to do something like that in the future.
Oh, give me a point.
In the future, people will be able to actually control the rover.
Actually, they were talking about a moon lander.
Yeah, it was supposed to raise funds for sending somebody to the moon or something.
I don't know.
But, yeah, that's...
It could be in some guy's garage filled with styrofoam.
How do you know it's the moon?
You know, that's the beauty of it.
That's how they can do this.
Okay, and finally, for the past four months, there has been a link to the seamy side of the World Wide Web that state officials actually encouraged the public to use, the state Senate's homepage.
That's right.
Through what officials call the combination of naivete to the waste of the Internet and some good old-fashioned human error, the Republican-controlled Senate inadvertently linked its website to graphic adult language and pornography.
It was a mistake.
It should not have been put there, period, said John McArdle, red-faced spokesman for the Senate majority, who said the link was removed yesterday.
Our Senate website is limited to government information.
The Senate's embarrassing episode is a reminder of the opportunities the Internet provides and the pitfalls that consumers must be alert to.
When the Senate was offered the chance to link with a commercial site, it jumped at the opportunity without checking what it was getting into.
This obviously is something that was careless, said Patrick Keene, an analysis with Jupiter Communications, a Manhattan-based consulting company.
In February, a Manhattan-based company that publishes an online magazine called New York Now notified the Senate that it had declared the Senate webpage one of the 50 most useful in New York.
There are hundreds of companies worldwide that issue best-of lists, experts said.
Anybody can build their own top ten.
In a statement released at the time, the Senate said, in recognition of the achievement, the Senate will be able to display the most useful logo on the site.
That's where the trouble started.
Clicking on that logo sent viewers to the magazine's homepage, which provided access to adult sites.
New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, the City Council, and other officials also won the most useful awards, but only the Senate was stupid enough to put the logo on its page.
We get that all the time.
People contact us and say, your site is one of the most useful sites.
Just link to us, you know, at the Nazi party, and we'll be happy to spread your fame around.
Unbelievable.
212-279-3400 is our phone number.
You ready to go for some phone calls here?
Sure.
Okay, well, in that case, let's go to the magic telephone machine and see who our first caller is.
Hi, Eric.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Yes, Emmanuel.
Yeah, yes.
How are you doing?
Yeah.
How are you doing there?
All right.
Well, I'd like to mention...
Got a little crystal ball here, apparently.
Yeah.
Well, I'd just like to mention the following thing.
Sounds like he wants a piece of you now.
I'd like to mention the following thing.
Remember when I used to tell you that the homeless people are stuffing payphones and paper towels and stuff?
And I would always ask how you knew they were homeless.
Well, wait a minute.
How are you able to tell what someone's economic condition is just by looking at them?
Just a second.
How do you know they're paper towels?
Wait a minute.
Maybe they're not homeless.
You know why?
Because they're awfully smart.
You know why?
Because...
So you're saying homeless people aren't smart.
Well, guess what they do now?
Instead of putting paper towels...
Oh, the smart people, the homeless people, or the dumb people?
Wait a minute.
They now figure...
Now we have to wait.
They now figure that people are taking their paper towels out themselves.
So now guess what they do?
They stick a screw in the coin return flap.
That's because of the shortage of paper towels.
Well, guess what?
What?
I carry now not only a hanger in my bag...
But a screwdriver.
Right.
Okay.
And also, you know what?
I want to give you the 800 number for coin refund, which is very annoying.
I mean, actually, I don't have a whisper.
I'm sure that's reason enough to give it to us now.
But anyway, I'd just like to ask you, the no addition of dialing allowed, because, you
know, I think people should call and ask for refunds many times.
You know, I called about that.
I complained.
And they said I would have to contact their main office.
Now, I'm on this.
I'm pursuing this.
I'm going to find a phone number that everybody can call and complain about the cutting off
of touchstones, because it's annoying.
You know, I was trying to see a film the other night, all right?
And they have that movie service phone thing that you call to find out.
But how do you call that thing from a pay phone when it cuts off your touchstones?
You can't.
Just keep calling for refund.
That's all.
And then when they...
Yeah, but you never get through.
So it doesn't matter if you call for a refund.
I want a three-way U2 and operator.
I have to go home and watch TV.
I want a three-way U2, this coin refund service.
But before I do, I just wanted to mention that there's a long-distance carrier called Frontier
10211.
Uh-huh.
And then zero there.
They'll put their number of calls through to blocked phones.
They won't put it through the pay phone, but they'll put it through the blocked phones.
Really?
If their phone's blocked, they'll put third-number calls through anyway.
Uh-huh.
You can just sit at, like, let's say, a hotel with a PBX.
You'll call from a pay phone, bill to a third number, and they'll bill to the DID telephone
next time.
They'll just bill to any phone number you give them.
Right.
Except pay phones.
They seem to know that pay phones are blocked for some reason, but they don't understand
that regular phones are blocked.
So they must have a database of pay phones, but they don't have a database of people who
don't want third-number billing to their number.
Right.
Is that right?
And AT&T puts their calls, too, to bill, like, you know, third-number calls.
And how do people make these calls?
10211 plus...
Zero the area code and number.
They'll get Frontier.
And do you enter it on a touchtone?
No, no, no.
You just, when it says, welcome to Frontier, just press zero.
It's an operator-assisted thing, and then you tell the operator, bill to this number,
bill to the number, and then a lot of the times, it'll be blocked.
But if, you know, they sometimes could put it through if they don't know that.
I mean, they won't put through calls to pay phones.
I've tried this.
What else?
I'd like to also, AT&T puts through third-number calls without asking on regular phones.
Well, in that case, I'd like to try something.
I'd like to try a little experiment, but it's going to involve you finishing what you're
saying, so we can do this.
Oh.
Do you have anything else on your mind?
Well, I just, they put through third-number calls, and you could go also to a TDD pay phone.
They're in Empire State Building in the Trade Center.
Dial, have the 9X operator, dial 1-800-855-1155.
I believe that's the number.
855-1155.
That's the TDD for directory assistance, and you could just bill it to any number.
Oh, that's real constructive, too.
Right.
Do you want me to do my experiment, my demonstration, or do you want to do yours first?
Why don't you go first?
I'll do the 800 number for information.
Okay.
Hold on, please.
All right.
Yeah, now that we're done exploiting the deaf, we might as well do this.
Okay.
Getting a 9X operator.
9X operator coming.
9X, Amy.
Hi, um, could you just give me the 800 number for coin refund?
Sure, one moment.
It's 800.
Right.
675.
Right.
8495.
And can you connect me, please?
I sure can.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Now, they'll connect you with this 800 number, but they won't connect you with any other 800 number.
You have a way with the operators.
They like butter and hands.
You have reached 9X Payphone Services coin refund hotline.
If you are calling from a touch-tone phone, please press 1 now.
Now, who is calling from a touch-tone phone?
Unless you're on one of those dial phones.
Okay, we'll touch 1.
We'll press 1.
If you lost coins when making a local or regional call, or were disconnected before completing a long-distance call, please press 1.
In order to process your refund, all of the following information must be complete.
At the tone, please say your first name, followed by its spelling.
Finish by pressing the pound key.
Now, you don't have to say your name.
You can just hit the pound key.
At the tone, please say your...
And they just keep hitting the pound key.
Using the keypad, please enter your home telephone number, including area code.
If the phone number is not available, please press the star key.
Finish by pressing the pound key.
Let's get the number of the radio station.
Give another number.
Any other number.
That is an invalid response.
Why don't you shut up and let us think of a number?
Using the keypad.
The number you entered was...
7-1-8-2-2-2-3.
It's a payphone that I know of.
5-9-8-7-2.
Press 1.
It's correct.
When you press 1, it doesn't...
It doesn't let you...
Using the keypad, please enter the telephone number, including area code of the payphone.
Oops, I did it backwards.
If the phone number is not available, please...
There, I get a payphone.
The number you entered was...
2-1-2-8-9-0-1.
She's speaking.
Yeah, but usually it...
The block usually cuts them off and...
Press 1 if correct.
It's correct.
Using the keypad, please enter the amount of money lost in dollars and cents without the decimal.
Finish by pressing the pound key.
We'll say a quarter.
Let's be a little more...
No, I'm not going to say anything.
Just do what you have to do.
All right.
That is an invalid response.
See?
How much of a pain this is?
Yeah, it's a real pain.
The amount you entered was...
Yes.
I know what you're saying.
Oh, God.
See?
Press 1 if correct or start.
No, it's not correct.
Using the key...
The amount you entered was...
0 dollars and 50 cents.
Press 1 if...
Your refund or credit to your account will be processed.
There.
Thank you for calling my next.
Well, that's just peachy.
Let me ask you one other thing concerning the frontier people, because we're going to try that now.
Do you know if you can third-number bill to an 890 number?
I believe you can.
All right.
Well, we're going to find out for sure just by testing it out as we speak.
First of all, we're going to try to make a third-number billing call to...
What should we call?
Let's call BAI.
Actually, I have to dial zero area code number.
Is that how it works now?
Okay.
Zero area code number.
I still don't understand why I have to dial the area code, but...
Okay.
Okay, we're going to try and third-number bill this to the phone company and see if it gets accepted.
This is just with 9X, right?
It shouldn't get accepted.
Yes.
Okay.
9X.
For collect calls, press 1-1.
To charge this call to another number, enter the area code and number now.
Here we go.
For person-to-person and other calls, press 0 for the operator.
We're going to leave off the last four digits just in case it works.
Let's see what happens.
At the customer's request...
There you go.
...calls may not be charged to this number.
If you want to place a collect call, dial 1-1.
To charge this call to your calling card, dial your calling card number.
To charge this call to another number, dial 1-2.
To speak to the operator, dial 0.
Okay, now I'm going to try the actual phone company number of 890...
I think 1,300 is one of their numbers?
Um...
Well, it's one of their numbers.
Yeah, it's got to be.
That should not go through.
At the tone, please say your name.
Uh...
Um...
Yeah, um...
Your response was too long.
At the tone, please state just your name.
Fred.
Yeah, that'll do.
Please wait to see if the charges for this call will be accepted.
So they go and they verify.
Yeah.
Well...
What does that mean?
You gave a busy number.
Well, you know, what's funny is that, uh...
Forget this frontier nonsense.
I just figured out how to do a third number billing to the phone company just by entering their number.
Well, they have to accept.
They didn't accept.
What, that was the number you were calling was busy?
I called us.
Oh.
We're busy because everyone's calling in.
I called us.
Then I called the phone company to say, hey, you want to pay for the call I'm making from me to me?
And they said, hold on while we check to make sure that we can do this.
They called what must have been a recording.
Right.
And I don't think the recording said, yes, go ahead and do this.
So, basically, I just showed everybody worse things than Rebel ever said.
So, basically...
By accident.
I was trying to show how the other company did it, and Ninex does it.
They trust everybody on the honor system to do third-party billing with no verification.
I'm going to try to call them right now and warn them.
See, I'm trying.
It was 8901300.
I mean...
I've gone and said it again, haven't I?
Oh.
Thank you for calling Ninex.
To expedite your call, respond by pressing the keys on your telephone.
Now, this is what...
Rotary callers must wait for Ninex representative.
So, the computer...
Please enter the area code and phone number you're calling about.
The computer was saying...
If you don't have a number and want to order new service...
Do you want to accept this call?
Pound.
Rotary callers, please hold for assistance.
Okay.
So, we're rotary, so we hold for assistance.
What do we get?
Same thing.
Please enter the area code and phone number you're calling about.
If you don't have a number and want to order new service...
Press pound.
Rotary callers, please hold for assistance.
Okay.
Well, we're still holding for assistance.
I think it was accepted quicker than this, though.
I think it didn't take this...
Sorry.
Service representatives aren't available now.
Please call your service center at 8...
Why don't you start calling my phone or my pager or something like that?
But then we'd have to actually complete a call.
Well...
No, if it rings, I'll know it went through.
Okay.
All right.
We'll do that, then.
We'll call your secret number on your Omnipoint PCS phone.
Yeah.
The bad phone.
Okay.
Alfred.
So what I'm going to do is dial 9, 0, and then turn down the volume so people can't hear
what number I'm dialing.
And let's see what happens.
Let's see if this works again.
This is accidental live hacking on the air.
9X.
For collect calls, press 1-1.
To charge this call to another number, enter the area code and number now.
At the tone, please say your name.
I'm so sorry.
Please wait to see if the charges for this call will be accepted.
Don't pick up whatever happens, all right?
Ah, see?
Busy 2.
See?
Ha-ha.
Never called me.
So you just get a busy signal when they...
They're on to your scheme.
Ah, okay.
All right.
Well, then let's go back to the original plan and get Frontier involved in this.
10211.
And we'll call, uh...
I guess we can't call the radio station.
No, call my number.
We'll call you again.
Yeah.
Turn down the volume there.
It's kind of confusing for 9X to do it that way.
At least 9X is off the hook now.
Yeah.
A brand new company we've never dealt with before.
Isn't this exciting?
They don't seem to answer their phones either.
There's nothing there.
Do you hear anything?
Oh, my God.
Holy moly.
Oh, that hurt a lot.
What a nasty company this is.
We're sorry.
Your call did not go through.
Well, you know...
Please try your call again.
That guy only comes on when you don't dial enough digits.
So I'm wondering if maybe this thing didn't work.
Let's try again.
It's hard to dial when you can't hear the numbers.
All right.
I think that...
Welcome to Frontier.
There we go.
Yeah, what do I do now?
You said zero.
I wasn't supposed to hit zero.
Yeah, you can tell her.
Now I'm going to get an operator.
Yeah, tell her.
I don't want to tell her.
I don't want to tell her.
Didn't Rebel say you had to tell her?
Oh, I do have to tell her?
Yeah.
Okay.
Everyone stay quiet and no laughing.
Hey.
You know, we've only taken one phone call tonight.
Yeah.
I don't believe that.
They're not answering.
Frontier operator, Diamond speaking.
May I help you?
Yes.
Hi.
Can I do a third number billing on this?
Sure.
Okay.
Your number is 212-890-1300, please.
890-1300.
That's right.
And your name?
My name is Emmanuel.
Okay, Emmanuel.
I'm sorry.
That number you just gave me to bill is not accepting third-party billing.
Oh, you know, I wonder what could be causing that.
Is that the customer's request type of thing?
Yes.
I see.
Okay.
Well, I'll just have to figure out something else then.
Okay.
Thank you.
I love it.
I think they're pretty sharp over there at Frontier.
Yeah.
They seem to know exactly what they're doing.
They knew what I was up to.
Yep.
Don't know, Rebel.
It didn't work this time.
Let's take another phone call.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Yes.
Hello.
I just wanted to know about the token.
Yeah.
I was going to the train station on July 4th, and this lady was complaining that the transfer
didn't work.
So I heard the clerk say that, I said, like, how do I transfer?
He said that there's no papers, all computerized.
And, like, they started fighting about what could be happening, and then the lady left
and stuff.
And sometimes, also, near my house, the station, once, the whole machine broke down, so they
didn't set much records at all.
It doesn't take time.
There are all kinds of problems with this system.
I think that's pretty obvious.
But, yeah, if you see something like that, let us know, because we want to compile all these
stories and tell people things that are going on.
Look at that.
Look at the time.
The time is gone.
I'm sorry we didn't get to any more phone calls.
Wasted a whole lot of time trying to commit telephone fraud for demonstration purposes.
But, fortunately, it didn't work, and we're in the clear.
But there's somebody out there.
There's at least one person wandering around trying to do this, so watch out for them.
Maybe two.
Maybe.
Are you counting yourself?
No, not at all.
Okay.
Well, who's the second one?
There's only one person I know of.
The other listener.
What?
Oh.
Which one?
What other listener?
There's only one listener that called in, except for the MetroCard one.
Oh, yeah, that's true.
And there are other people, because I can tell by the lights that aren't going unanswered.
All right, well, we'll be back again next week, and I promise we'll take more phone
calls then.
Remember to email us, OTH at 2600.com, if you're interested in taking part in Beyond
Hope and being at the meeting this weekend.
Until then, it's Manuel Goldstein for FiberOptic.
Have yourselves 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 cough.
It couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
From Big Leap Bom, for the best, it's back from the worst.
I hope that's understood.
From Big Leap Bom!
Big Leap Bom!
I love you!
I love you!
I love you!
We'll be right back.