Is this actually working? Are we actually broadcasting over the radio? This is amazing.
Okay, we're down here at the Puck Building, which is downtown Manhattan on the corner of Houston Street and Lafayette,
with a special edition of Off the Hook.
Off the Hook is a radio show that comes your way every Tuesday night at 8 o'clock on WBAI 99.5 FM.
The only kind of radio station I think that would broadcast is this kind of material,
and I'm very glad to be in the same city with such a station,
and I hope a lot of people come away from this conference with a sense that radio can be a very interesting medium if done properly.
We've got a really interesting show tonight.
We're on for two hours talking about hacking, technology, telephones, computers, all kinds of neat things like that.
But the conference here goes for another day after this one.
We're sort of going through the night doing all kinds of fun things.
And if you have a chance to come down to the conference, please do, because we'll be here tomorrow as well.
I'd like to introduce our co-host for tonight, a hacker who has been around for many years,
who has been sent to prison for his crime of hacking, Mr. FiberOptik.
Good evening, Fiber.
Good evening, Emanuel.
Oh, this is different than our usual radio show where we're sitting in a studio with a couple of people.
We have several hundred people here now.
Yeah, we actually have an audience.
Yeah, they're all here.
We're actually going to try to take phone calls, too.
We have a special telephone number.
So those of you who are listening on the radio tonight, don't call the usual number because it won't work.
Well, it won't work, but it won't go here.
We can only do so many things, and routing the phones to go over here was one of the things we couldn't do.
Well, not anymore, anyway.
Why don't we give the folks here an idea of what we usually talk about during the radio show,
why this radio show is different than most other ones.
I'll pretend I didn't hear that.
This microphone sounds terrible, doesn't it?
Okay.
I'm going to get rid of this microphone.
Is this any better?
All right.
Okay.
You know, that microphone would sound a lot better if we put one of these little things on top of it.
That would be very nice.
So maybe the microphone maintenance people can take care of that.
Now, Fiverr, we're usually here every Tuesday night, and we talk about computer hacking.
We talk about the latest exploits, who's been sent to prison recently, and, I don't know, we just have a lot of fun.
A lot of non-hackers take part in the show, too.
They call up, and they ask all kinds of questions, and I think there's a real interest there about the things that we do.
I think you're right.
I kind of think of ourselves as the Ralph Nader's of hacker radio, but then again, there really isn't any other hacker radio, is there?
Well, not really, not to speak of.
We've tended to wander into the realm of consumer advocacy.
We started doing a radio show just about, you know, how to play around with telephones, what a red box can do, what a blue box can do, that kind of thing.
And we sort of wound up venturing into the world of phone company rip-offs, the things that 9X does that wind up cheating consumers.
And we have a very large following of people that really don't know that much about computers or phones, but do know a lot about consumer issues.
And I think it's interesting that hackers can actually provide that kind of a service to people who don't really have that much of an interest in the technology themselves.
So I think that's kind of cool.
Something about the conference, we've had quite a few interesting talks already.
We have a lot more to go.
We're not even at the halfway point yet.
We've got a rave going on later tonight that a lot of people are going to wander over to.
All kinds of other activities in New York City.
So if you see weird stuff going on in New York City, it's probably us.
There have been all kinds of signs up about this thing, stickers all over the city.
So people know about this.
I think this is probably the biggest hacker event ever.
And considering that we're linked to another hacker conference that's taking place at the exact same time over in Holland,
known as the Hacking in Progress Conference, or HIP,
they're going on the exact same time as us right now.
Hopefully they're hearing this program right now, too, over real audio,
or maybe over the special setup that we have with PictureTel.
PictureTel is allowing us to use ISDM lines to transmit a video signal and audio signal to them and from them.
It hasn't quite worked totally yet, but they have gotten some panels of ours.
We've been able to see them moving around over there in Holland.
And it's new technology, and it's fascinating, and one day I'm sure it'll be a lot easier to use.
But if they're over there listening to us now, let's extend a big hearty welcome to our friends in Holland.
Thank you.
And if you go to that website, you'll see a link to listen to this on real audio, so you can try that as well.
Okay, we've got a star-studded lineup tonight of all kinds of people from the hacker world.
And we ran a little late before.
We had Brock Meeks give a really dynamite speech at the beginning of the conference.
We had Bruce Schneier with his cryptography session.
We had The Loft.
We had some other really interesting people, Steve Rombon, a private investigator.
And the result of all that fascinating stuff was that we wound up moving later and later than we wanted to be.
And so one of the panels that we were really looking forward to, the media panel, where we have some people from the media up on stage and hackers wind up asking them questions.
Well, that's sort of been moved into this show.
So we're going to be having those people on the show in just a little bit.
And you can ask them questions as well as the listeners will be able to ask them questions in addition.
First, though, I'd like to introduce a very special guest.
How many of you out there have had some of those major hacking cookies?
Aren't they amazing?
We found these cookies in a 7-Eleven out on the east end of Long Island, and it was just amazing.
We looked at them.
We said, wow, you know, we're hackers, and this is major hacking, like a major hack.
It's like really kind of cosmic.
And then we had the cookies, and they were really good.
So we said, what a great combination.
We can bring these cookies to a hacker convention, and everybody's going to love them.
But what we never thought we'd be able to pull off was to get Major Hacking himself to come to this conference.
Major Hacking is here.
Let's give a round of applause for Mr. Major Hacking.
Now, you are an actual major, which is why you're referred to as Major Hacking, correct?
Oh, yes.
During the war, you mean?
Yes.
Yes, yes, I joined the service in, oh, what, 1938?
1938.
And came out.
I was in the service for 10 years.
And then I came over to Long Island in 1972 or thereabouts.
And my wife and I had been in the restaurant business all those years after the war.
And until three years ago, we had two restaurants.
And finally, it became too much for me to operate two restaurants.
So we came out of it.
And we now went into the wholesale business.
So I got some recipes from my mother and her grandfather and all sorts of people.
And we started making these large cookies.
And we've now been doing it for two and a half years.
And I'm happy to say that the ball is beginning to roll very fast indeed.
I think now that the hacking community has discovered you, I think the ball is going to roll a lot faster.
Now, your last name is Hacking.
Can you tell us something about the lineage of Hacking as a name?
No, it's a Lancashire name, an English name, of course.
Just outside Liverpool, it's quite a common name, Hacking, I-N-G.
Did you guys know that?
Yeah.
That Hacking is a common name in England?
Yeah.
I don't think anybody here knew that.
So it's a common name in England, Lancashire?
No, in the north of England, in the north of England only.
It's quite a common name there.
Now, does it have a meaning?
Does the name itself have a meaning?
Well, no.
I always think of it as a hacking cock or a hacking jacket or something like that.
Now, tell us something about the war.
How did you become a major?
Well, I went off to Dunkirk, of course, in Europe, and then came back again, went to North Africa.
I was slowly upgraded to a subaltern and then became a captain, went to North Africa to fight
Rommel, then went over to India and worked with Mountbatten in Trincomalee, in Ceylon,
and then I finished building a pipeline over the Himalayas into China.
And then, eventually, I came home.
I was tired.
I only got wounded once.
Yeah.
So, we now, after retiring and working pretty hard, we now start work at about four or five
o'clock in the morning, and we finish about eight o'clock at night baking cookies and packing
them and selling them and delivering them.
And so, it's quite fun.
But, I feel rather privileged to be in this conference, and I think the thing that's most
impressive, apart from the fact that the technology is way, way, way above my head, is the informality
and the camaraderie that goes on between everybody.
And, I feel, my wife and I both feel very privileged to have been asked to join you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Well, it's a real privilege to have had you here, and we wish you most success in your business
ventures ahead, and hopefully, major hacking cookies pretty much are a Long Island phenomenon
now.
Maybe, after this conference, it could be a national phenomenon, or international.
Well, if we could find the right sort of people and the right distributor.
I think you have.
I think you have.
We'd like to find somebody who could handle the western end of Long Island, in other words,
New York City.
Yes.
It's very hard to find reliable people.
We still consider New York City to be the western part of Long Island, so.
As far as the cookie business, is there any plans for expansion?
How many different flavors do you have?
We have three of them here.
Well, the cookie, as such, is very, very commonplace, but 99% of those cookies that one sees in the
stores, I think, are commercially made, whereas ours are the original recipes, and they're still
handmade.
They're not made by machinery at all.
They're mixed, obviously, by machine, but they're handmade, hand-pressed, hand-packed.
We've got several thousand of them.
That's a lot of hands where I work over the last week.
It's a product totally apart from an internationally known name like Nabisco or something like
that.
It's a home product as opposed to a big commercial operation, but it's growing pretty fast, so
we probably need more bodies to help us.
Were you aware of computer hackers at any time?
A little bit further down the road.
We're too young to do that yet.
Yeah.
And I don't think it would be pretty good if we could get together in one way or another.
It would be quite something, really, to join a very complex industry like yours is with
a relatively simple one like mine is.
Well, again, thank you very much for being here, and best of luck to you with Major Hackney.
Not a joy.
It's been a great day to be here.
Thank you.
Major John Hackney.
Our next guest comes also from overseas, and he's come here more recently from overseas, as in a couple of days ago.
You may have heard the name Cyber Junkie whispered in fear in many highly placed government agencies.
Cyber Junkie is one of Britain's most notorious hackers, I guess.
It's very easy to become a notorious hacker these days.
Ladies and gentlemen, Cyber Junkie.
Hi, it's great to be here.
So what do you think of this conference here?
So far, it's been pretty good.
We've got one conference in the UK, but it's pretty small.
It's a pretty small conference, the one in the UK, but this is, like, huge.
It's great.
Everyone I've met here has been really good.
Everything I've seen going on here has been really good, and everything I've taken part in has been good and strange.
Sorry, I was distracted for a moment.
All kinds of weird things are going on here.
So now, you've been to this country before, correct?
Yeah, I only came over when I was really young.
It's the first time I've been here when I've been able to participate in everything that this country's got to offer.
Is there a different kind of mood that you see with regards to computer hackers here, overseas?
Are people more paranoid there?
Are we more paranoid here?
Yeah, it's a lot more laid back over here.
Computer hackers tend to stick together a lot more.
We've got a fairly cohesive society over in the UK, but everyone tends to keep their heads down pretty well
and do things by themselves, really.
What is the hacker scene like over there?
Has it been growing by leaps and bounds over the last few years with your hacker conferences?
Yeah, it has been.
Two 600 meetings have really sort of increased quite a lot.
I don't know how many more you've received and got in your magazine for the UK, but there's certainly quite a lot.
There's two main ones in Manchester and London, and we're seeing now like 20, 30 people in some of those,
which is quite nice to talk to and quite nice to see.
A few conferences have been starting up.
Access to all areas is the main one, but it's still pretty small scale.
I can really see why everyone says the UK is just a couple of years behind the US.
Okay, sorry, I was distracted again.
A lot of distractions going on when you have hundreds of people around.
Now, we were together over the winter in Manchester.
There was a special 2,600 meeting there.
There has been access to all areas.
Right now there's the HIP conference overseas.
This is the second HOPE conference.
Hacking seems to become more of a worldwide phenomenon.
It's spreading.
Yeah, I think hacking has always been a worldwide phenomenon.
I mean, certainly you tend to sort of like skip countries when you go through machines,
but we're just starting to come together.
People are starting to recognize that hackers are actually useful people to know.
We can actually do things with computers that university trained people can only dream of.
What is your expertise?
What do you like playing with the most?
I guess you could say I'm the jack of all trades,
but I tend to prefer playing with Unix systems.
I've doubled with the phones.
I've doubled with NT.
I hate NT.
It's good to see a lot of people agree with me.
Thank you.
Okay, how many other people came here from England for this conference?
There's a couple of others.
There's Zap, there's Gorf, and there's Tom.
All of whom are fairly well-known and fairly well-respected hackers from the UK.
Talents sort of range fairly widely.
Tom's a bit more into the phone system.
Although he has talents in other areas as well,
Zap's a fairly good hacker, as is Gorf.
Tom is one of the most knowledgeable hackers I've met on the subject of GSM phones,
which is something that Fiverr and he will be doing a panel on later tonight.
And, you know, if there are two people that know more about GSM phones,
I'd like to meet them because I think we're getting them both together here tonight.
There's a lot of knowledge to be spread around.
You guys have had GSM over there for a long time.
Yeah, it's been around, but due to the tariffs that GSM charges
and due to the crap service they provide, no one tends to stick with them.
What are the phone companies like over there, British Telecom?
I mean, I know you haven't had much of a chance to check out 9X or AT&T or Bell Atlantic
or any of those companies, but, well, the overall attitude towards the phone company there,
do you think it's similar to our, I don't know,
how would you describe the way we think of phone companies here?
Or we don't really like them that much.
We think they're big, blotting idiots.
I don't know.
Is that the same over there?
I think our attitude towards British Telecom is sort of the same as everybody's attitude towards Microsoft.
British Telecom until recently had a pretty large monopoly over everything.
And as a result, their tariffs were, like, huge.
I mean, in the U.S., everyone takes for granted things like free local off-peak phone calls.
In the U.K., we had it for about, ooh, a couple of weeks
until the providers had decided that there was too many people calling ISPs
and so they should stop it.
It's the way it's been.
It's starting to change now.
There's more companies popping up.
My telco, actually, at the moment is 9X.
And they're a hell of a lot cheaper than BT.
It's easy to see why everyone's moving to them.
Well, speaking firsthand as someone who's been prosecuted by British Telecom,
I think they're a bunch of stupid wankers.
Yeah, yeah.
How hard is it to get on the net over there?
I mean, are there a lot of providers that will just, you know, allow you to get on?
When I was over there, everybody was having trouble maintaining a connection.
You had to pay for every minute, and it was a real, real hardship.
How hard is it to get on to the net over here?
I mean, it's not that hard to make an international telephone call these days, is it?
But, you know, we've got quite a few providers.
They're popping up all over the place.
I guess the average price is probably about 8 or 9 bucks a month, plus your local phone call.
So, 8 or 9 pounds, that is, which is about, what, 12, 13 bucks.
It's online charges for, like, per minute.
The only people who do that are things like CompuServe, and everyone stays clear of them anyway.
Well, it's good to know some things transcend the Atlantic Ocean.
Do you have AOL over there?
Yeah, we also have UK online.
And everyone stays clear of them, too.
Wow.
Okay, we have Bernie S. with us, who has worked on the stage without me even seeing him.
Welcome, Bernie S.
Thank you.
Bernie, you are actually in New York.
This is the first time in years that we've talked to you face-to-face.
We've heard the hell you've gone through.
It went out over this radio station, and I think a lot of what happened on this radio station
helped to get the Secret Service to eventually back off.
It's good to have you here in New York City.
Thanks.
I think the people listening to this show played a big part in my eventual release,
and I might have saved my life without being too exaggerating what's going on.
Very briefly, for those people that were in a coma for the last couple of years
may not have known what happened to you.
If you could tell people over the course of those two years what happened and how it turned out.
Well, during my, I guess it was a total of 14 months I spent in prison for possessing ordinary hardware and software.
Without any allocation, I'd misused it in any way.
I went through five maximum security prisons, and off the hook, it was with me all the way.
One of the worst parts of the prison experience is the isolation, and I'm sure Fiber can relate to that also.
You feel very constrained, and you are constrained, and for someone who's used to being able to have access
to all kinds of communications resources, to have virtually none except an occasional collect phone call,
having access to Off the Hook and its listeners and the support that its listeners provided me
by writing and calling in and writing me a lot of letters while I was incarcerated.
It was a godsend.
It really kept me going to know that there were a lot of people out there who gave a damn about what was going on.
And I owe a lot of people a lot of gratitude for following it and supporting me,
because I don't know if I could have done it by myself.
It was a tough road to hoe.
I just want to say I think it's amazing that you were able to stay sane after all of that,
after them putting you in the hole with murderers, rapists, people like that.
You know, when they were accusing you of having technology that could be used in a fraudulent way
to make a free phone call, and that's enough to throw somebody in jail for a year.
Obviously, selective prosecution, somebody with a grudge that wanted to lock you away,
someone very powerful in the Secret Service that was able to do this.
I don't know many people that could have come out of this and not feel completely bitter
to be totally screwed up in one way or another.
I think in that sense, you're a real inspiration to all of us,
and I want to thank you for celebrating your head off.
We should probably talk a little bit about Fiverr's experience, too.
His was no picnic, either.
Yeah, Fiverr, briefly, you can tell us the experience he went through,
because that also, this radio show also followed you into prison back in 1994.
In fact, during the first H.O.P. conference, Fiverr Opnick was in jail.
We weren't able to have him here.
This is his first conference, the first time he's ever been to a hacker conference.
And we actually heard from him live on the phone on the second day of that conference.
And it was really thrilling to be able to have him converse with people who were at a particular seminar then.
So, it's good to welcome you to New York as well, even though you live here.
The funny thing I remember about that point in time was I had actually typed up a really short speech
because I was really nervous about what I was going to say.
And then it turned out that we pre-recorded my speech anyway.
Yeah.
And the funny thing was that I had to sneak into the library to use a typewriter,
which is only meant to be used for typing up legal documents.
You just can't use a typewriter if you wanted to.
So, I snuck in the library and I managed to type up this little note of a speech
and read it to a manual while he was recording it.
And the whole thing is just really ridiculous.
It's really hard to describe or explain to people so that they can understand
the really insane rules that actually are enforced in prison.
It's not like you see on television.
It's not like you see in the movies.
It's just really peculiar.
It's a very strange place and I really hope that nobody in the audience ever has to go through
an experience like me or Bernie went through.
And if you have, you know what I'm talking about.
We're going to have a special prisoner panel tomorrow night that will have Fiber Optic, Bernie S.,
and a confirmed guest that we just found out about, Lynn Rose.
Who was through living hell as well a few years ago.
He was sent to prison for having a copy of a computer program that AT&T said was there.
It's very valuable.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's really, I mean, when you know what it is that we're talking about, it's funny.
For those people out there that have no conception of what this means,
it might sound like, you know, somebody who has a computer program,
they're preventing AT&T from using it.
And it's not that at all.
You know, having a file does not mean that they don't have to file.
You know, files are meant to be copied.
That's always how I've looked at it.
And people should not go to prison for having a copy of a file.
Maybe I'm just weird.
I don't know.
This is a special edition of Off the Hook.
You're listening to WBAI in New York.
We're going to take a very brief break.
And when we return, we'll be talking with a private investigator
who scared a lot of people earlier today with his knowledge.
And we'll be back with all kinds of other special guests as well.
Stay tuned.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Studio engineer, are you there?
I think we have studio engineers.
I don't know.
Maybe we're coasting on momentum.
But we needed that break anyway.
Okay.
This is a special edition of Off the Hook on WBAI.
We're broadcasting this program throughout the New York metropolitan area.
We have a large group of people here in the Puck building downtown.
From the corner of Houston and Lafayette, you're welcome to come down and join us.
We'll be here all night tonight and into tomorrow, late into tomorrow, talking about all kinds of other hacking issues.
We have a huge network that we've set up here with a 10 megabit connection to the Internet.
Now, Fiverr, maybe you could tell us, what does that mean?
That means you have a kick-ass, slamming, fast connection.
That's good.
Considering the last time we had one of these things, we had a 28-8 connection, how much faster would you say we are now?
Well, let's see.
If we were to do the math, we'd have to divide 28,800 into 10 million.
You can do that, can't you?
A lot.
It's a lot faster.
Okay, is everybody happy with the network out there?
Well, that's a first for a hacker convention, isn't it?
Usually, we can't keep the connection up at all.
So, let's give a hand to Marco, who helped organize the whole network.
Well, this person who has just ventured onto the stage has quite a history in the hacker world.
Veggie, welcome to New York.
Hello.
And where are you living these days?
Santa Francisco.
You used to be in Boston, though.
Yes.
But now you've moved out to the West Coast to establish a presence there.
Magic.
What kinds of things?
You're in a hacker group known as CBC.
The Cult of the Dead Cow.
Cult of the Dead Cow.
Tell us something about the Cult of the Dead Cow.
The Cult of the Dead Cow is the oldest active hacker group.
We've been around since 1984.
1984.
Celebrating 13 years of the candle in the darkness.
Wow.
What kinds of things have you done in those 13 years?
Global domination.
Sorry?
Global domination.
Global domination.
Global domination.
We invented the e-zine.
The guy invented the e-zine.
335 issues so far.
So, right now in San Francisco, we're working on starting up New Hack City West.
Tell us something about what New Hack City is.
New Hack City was a house, actually, with a computer lab in the basement that we worked on.
And since a lot of us have ended up moving out to the West Coast, we're starting to sum up similar.
We're not going to live there.
We're feeling like a loft area type of place.
Uh-huh.
You have a panel tomorrow.
Is there anything you want to tell us about what's upcoming, or is that going to be a surprise?
Uh, it'll be a surprise.
Okay.
It's going to be a big surprise, because I know what it is.
And, uh, that's, uh, tomorrow, what time did we say that was?
3 o'clock.
3 o'clock p.m.
So, those of you who go out to the rave tonight, don't cancel.
Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, 3 p.m.
Oh, boy.
This is fun.
We have more people, lots of people that want to be on the radio show tonight.
We only have two hours.
It sounds like a lot of time, but it goes pretty fast.
We're almost at the one-hour point.
We're on until 8.30, and we have more things going on tonight.
So, I want to bring on our next guest from Hackers.org.
Mike Roaddance, who's involved in all kinds of legal issues.
Welcome to Off the Hook.
Thanks.
So, tell us something about, uh, about your organization and what you've been involved in over the years.
Hackers.org, uh, actually, I have, uh, these two illustrious gentlemen to, uh, thank for, uh, actually, all three of them to thank for, uh, giving me the idea.
They didn't give it to me personally.
It was what they went through at the hands of the, uh, injustice system that, uh, kind of brought the, uh, the issue to head about, uh, legal defense for people who are basically not able to pay for it.
And, um, what, what we usually find is that most of these cases, the government agency comes in, intimidates other people into either signing confessions or, or whatever.
They just basically bully them.
And the only reason that they get away with it is because the person doesn't have the means to come back and put together a proper defense.
So, what we're doing is we're creating a pool of people who want, or, actually, of lawyers who want to cut into this new tech, into the laws.
Um, just basically create precedence out there.
And we say, fine, we'll do, we'll, we'll give you cases.
You just have to do it pro bono.
Most of them agree on that.
And if they don't, well, you just don't use them.
Have you had much, uh, much response from groups like ACLU, EFF, EPIC?
Uh, we won't get into, uh.
Oh, come on, you can get into it.
Our friends at EFF.
Uh, yeah.
We'd like to know.
Let's, let's, let's not talk about non-response here.
Really.
Um, if, if there was a response from these organizations, then we wouldn't need to exist, actually.
It's really sorry to say that.
If you don't have anything nice to say.
Why do these organizations exist, then?
Are these organizations there to protect our rights?
On, on, you know.
They are, in theory.
It's a great idea.
It's just whether or not it's actually in practice.
That's, that's the big question right now.
I, I think the ACLU and the EFF have done a lot.
But it seems like, especially with the EFF, that they've changed very much from when they first started out.
You know, they, they started out as very much a grassroots organization.
They've become more, it's the popular law, okay?
It's a popular case.
If it's a big case, they'll take it.
If it's not such a big case, um, there was a gentleman who was in a wheelchair out in Colorado, okay?
The, uh, department, or the police department out there basically walked in and confiscated all of his equipment without so much, I mean, barely, pretty much a bogus search warrant.
Okay, this guy doesn't have, this isn't one of those big cases that you'll see on CNN or anything like that with a lot of media coverage.
So, who wants to cover it?
Well, that's the reason we're around.
And it's not, it's not one of those deals where, where we're walking up and going, okay, now, you know, we're, we're going to take on boatloads worth of cases.
Our resources right now are very limited.
I have to do most of the, uh, walking around and, and trying to enroll the legal help into this.
But, the cases that we do take on, they're the smaller cases.
They're the ones that you don't probably hear about.
You won't read about them in a paper.
You won't see me on CNN unless they do it without my permission again like they did, uh, a couple months ago.
But, they're cases nonetheless.
And they're, they're people nonetheless.
They're people that have been basically wrongly, wrongly accused, shoved around by the system because the system says, okay, we've got the backing of either the federal or state
government, lots of money, and you don't have jack.
Aren't you concerned about being overwhelmed with, uh, with people who have such cases?
How do you decide who to take, who not to take?
Uh, yeah, right now we're pretty, we've got a number of cases that, uh, we don't have legal help for.
And it's one of those things that, that weighs really heavy on me because of the fact that, at that, when that comes up, it's, it's, I'm starting to beat the bushes out there.
Um, I've been, I just came off of traveling basically across the United States about three or four times during my regular job.
And while I was doing that, I was also beating the bushes for HDF.
And, um, some cases, I mean, we, we've managed to secure the legal, the legal assistance.
In some cases, we haven't.
Uh, and it's unfortunate right now that some cases we, we just can't help with.
Manuel, who's that, uh, that guy, uh, in prison in Texas who keeps getting into trouble and writing in from jail?
Minor Threat.
Yeah, maybe we should, uh, hook Minor Threat up with this guy.
Well, you've heard of the Minor Threat case.
Yes.
Yeah.
Minor Threat actually is one of the, he's one of the first people to have gotten this, uh, restriction on the internet as part of his sentencing guidelines, uh, for his, um, his supervised release.
When he gets out of prison, whenever that is, sometime, I think in 2001, uh, even though his crime had nothing to do with computers, I think it had to do with, uh, do you know what it was?
It was, uh, I wasn't, it wasn't totally brief.
It was breaking and entering, I think.
Right.
And, and stealing phone equipment or something like that.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Uh, but because it's got some, some nebulous connection to technology, when he gets out of prison, he is not allowed to use a computer or be on the internet or anything like that.
Is it not a use a computer or not use internet?
I think, I think the internet was mentioned specifically.
I'm not sure if he's completely restricted using a computer.
What I've, what I've seen in a lot of these cases is that the, either the state, the state, local or federal government comes in,
they've got somebody who, in the prosecution, that goes and throws out a whole bunch of technical terms that soars right over the head of the judge,
but the judge does comprehend that, oh, this guy is somehow a threat.
Okay?
That's about all he sees.
And they dish out this insane, as I refer to it, is injustice.
Uh, we have a lot of legal help, a lot of judges out there who just don't understand how computers work.
Most of them don't even know where the on switch is on some of these things, you know.
And we need to educate them.
But at the same time, uh, when you have people in power who are somewhat educated about computers,
you have things like the clipper chip that come up, where they want to control it.
They want to close off access to encryption.
I mean, I felt a lot safer, crazy as this may sound, under Reagan-Bush,
when they didn't know anything about computers, and they didn't try to legislate computers.
Now, when Clinton came along, all of a sudden, everything has to be restricted, rated, regulated in some way.
And, you know, I just wish he'd leave it alone, you know.
That's the ignorance in action there.
As far as judges' ignorance, I think nobody is more qualified than Bernie has to speak about that a little bit.
What kind of, uh, what kind of ignorant things have you heard judges say when sentencing you?
I tried to put most of that out of my mind, Manuel.
But, uh, what, what, what I've seen happen, and not just my case, but other cases,
where the crime itself is, uh, pretty, uh, inconsequential,
where there might be no victims involved, um, certainly no one is harmed, those sorts of things,
uh, what, what federal agents, or in some cases, state or local law enforcement officials will do,
is instead of address the specifics of the crime, quote, crime, end quote, at hand,
is they'll bring in all this other extraneous stuff that, that really has nothing to do with the,
what's referred to as the instant offense, uh, in order to demonize the, the defendant.
Uh, in my case, uh, I mentioned this last night, uh, they, you know, I was charged with, uh,
with possession of, uh, a touchtone dialer that had been modified with a different crystal in it,
and I was charged with possession of a IBM laptop computer you can buy at any computer store,
uh, and a copy of, uh, computer software, which was purchased commercially,
that allowed someone to program, that would allow you to program a cellular phone.
The software, by the way, did not allow you to change,
did not allow you to obtain someone else's electronic serial number to,
to steal someone else's service.
The software had no ability to do that, but that got lost in the, in the translation.
In any case, uh, uh, Secret Service, in my case,
trotted out, uh, a list of, uh, book titles that I had.
I had a library of about 2,000 books I collect over the years,
some really unusual and some ominous-sounding titles,
and some of them are pretty, you know, ambiguous, or not ambiguous,
but just harmless stuff.
Uh, when they brought up the fact that I had, uh,
I had some titles on, uh, how explosives were, were, are made,
um, I thought I was just, I was just curious about, you know, that topic.
I had more books on birdwatching than I did about building bombs,
but in any case, titles like that were, were read off to the judge.
In fact, I was held, I was held without bail in federal court
by a, by a rude, or really a, it's a strange coincidence.
I was, uh, brought to federal court just a week,
exactly a week after the Oklahoma City bombing.
And, uh, the, uh, Secret Service, uh,
drove me to the, uh, to the federal courthouse.
And just as we started to pull in the building, uh,
there was a bomb threat,
because there were a lot of copycat bomb threats,
um, right after the bombing.
And, uh, two hours, for two hours,
the whole federal court building had been,
had to be evacuated in Philadelphia.
So two hours later, we, they got me in there,
handcuffs and shackles, um, before the judge.
And, uh, what's that?
Very dangerous.
Oh, yeah.
And, and, and as, as stated by the Secret Service,
I was a danger in that I had, uh,
I had books about, uh, bombs and explosives in my house.
And, uh, you know, maybe two or three out of 2,000 copies
of, of different books.
Uh, uh, with that, the judge,
who had just finished coming back into his courtroom
after evacuating it for two hours
because of, uh, uh, a bomb threat,
a week after, uh, another federal building was,
was obliterated, uh, he looked,
he took his glasses off, looked at me,
and said, no bail.
So, and that had nothing to do with the charge at hand.
So, you see this, another instance was, uh,
the Secret Service said they found a material in my home
they believe was C-4 plastic explosives,
um, which turned out to be dental punty.
The, uh, the owner of the house I was renting,
who was deceased, his father was deceased,
he owned the house previously,
he was a dentist,
and he had all these dental supplies in the basement.
Well, the Secret Service twice in, in, uh,
sentencing hearings said,
well, Your Honor, uh,
the Secret Service found a material
we believe to be C-4 plastic explosives in his house.
Pause, you know.
And, uh, while upon analysis
it turned out not to be C-4,
the fact that it might have been
concerns us greatly.
And, you know,
these are the kinds of exaggerations
and things that are brought into
these kinds of cases
that don't involve any victims at all
that are used to demonize the,
the defendant,
and it has nothing to do with the case at all.
If the government had to stick
to just the facts about the case alone,
um, they'd be,
they'd look like fools
that they're bringing these things to attention.
So, um, there's nothing you can do about it.
They're allowed to bring this stuff in
to attract,
to attack the, uh,
the, to bring up the dangerousness
of, of the defendant.
And they will lie
and exaggerate
to their heart's content.
Um, I just want to, uh,
say at this point
that we're going to try
to take, uh,
phone calls here
at the Buck Building.
We have a special phone number
for those people out there
listening that want to call in.
But we only have one phone line,
so it's not going to be like,
uh, like the usual thing.
But I know Rebel's not going to call in
this time because he's here.
Those of you who listen to the radio show,
you'll, you'll know what I mean by that.
Uh, the number,
well, actually, let's do this.
I'm going to pick up this phone.
Will I be able to get a dial tone
if I do that?
Okay.
We're going to pick this up.
Does this dial sound great?
This is an ISDN line, by the way.
And we're going to dial 958
and hear what number we have.
3, 4, 3, 8, 2, 6, 8.
What do you know?
Oh, she was in a hurry.
She was in a hurry.
Wonderful technique.
So if you heard that number out there,
dial that number, call us,
and we should see a little flashing light here,
and we'll see if anybody
is actually listening.
Yeah, the lights are on.
Hey, look at that.
Wow.
Okay, let's take our first phone call.
Why do I hear it dials on?
I haven't picked up the phone yet.
Um, okay.
I'm going to pick it up.
Hello?
You're off the hook.
Okay, yeah, we are.
Okay, I think I understand
how the phone works now.
Okay, let's give that number out again.
It's a block by the federal government.
8, 2, 6, 8.
Somebody was calling, though,
because I saw that little light flashing.
That's 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 8, 2, 6, 8.
If there's any listeners out there.
We usually have 10 phone lines,
and they all light up at once.
Now, we're hot here.
Wow.
Whoa.
That's really cool.
That's ring voltage.
Answer the phone.
That's what it's all about, folks.
Quick, get out the blue box.
I like that.
Okay, let's see who's here.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Hello.
How are you?
Okay, can we hear them?
Okay.
What's on your mind?
Sorry?
What's on your mind?
Um, I just wasn't stoked with you.
Okay, well, here I am.
Right.
Okay.
We have another call.
We have another call, I believe.
Yes, I think I hear the phone.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Yeah, hi there, Emanuel.
Yes, you're on off.
Yeah, hi there.
My name is Mark.
So you've turned down your voice a little bit.
Okay, I've been having some problems recently with, um,
you know when you dial the number of, um,
you know, the people who've been calling you?
Uh-huh.
You know what I'm talking about,
the number you dial up on the phone?
Uh, yes, I think I do.
Well, what's that call?
I'm sorry?
Well, what's that call?
What's that call when?
Well, you know,
if someone calls you
and you ain't there to get the call.
If someone calls you
and you're not there to get the call.
And then you dial it
and they tell you their number.
It tells you that's called caller ID.
That's right.
That's what it is.
Yeah.
Pride Rapids knows all about it.
Oh, you can dial Star 69.
Well, you can dial Star 69 too
and also hear the last person that called you.
In fact, we won't do that to you
after this phone call.
Now, when I was doing that the other day,
it came up all nines.
All nines, huh?
It's Monty.
All nines.
There you go.
Okay, well, if you get the CD-ROM,
you'll hear Monty calling us a few months ago.
I'm going to, uh...
No, no, this is what happens right now, Star 69.
Actually, I don't think you're going to be able to do it.
Well, let's try it.
Okay.
That's what hacking is all about.
Trying and failing.
Oh.
Might be his phone ringing.
The numbers you're trying to call
may not be reached by this message.
If you know the telephone number,
please dial it direct.
Well, I guess we can't call him back on this phone,
but let's see if we can take another phone call.
At, uh...
I just may get one of these in my house.
Oh, I love that.
That's so cool.
Now, you can hear that through the house.
Hello?
Okay, that person was just belching into the phone.
It's weird.
I don't know.
The soonest you don't seem to have the speed dialers.
Okay, shall we try one more?
212-343-8268.
See if we can get a sensible person on the line.
Anyone out there that's going to call us
with a sensible question?
I'd like to send it to this one.
Let's see who's there.
Good evening.
You're on.
Hello?
Hello?
Okay, we'll go to the phones later.
Well, uh...
How do we turn this off?
We're kidding.
We can always just yank the thing out.
Okay.
It's off.
Thank you.
All right.
So, we have an interesting panel of people here.
We have more people to bring on.
Special Investigator Steve Rombon gave a talk earlier.
How many of you saw that?
Well, guess what?
He's back.
And he's ready to go on the radio
with a brief synopsis of what we were talking about earlier
as far as investigating people,
learning all kinds of information
that I guess we don't realize is out there.
This guy's been on 60 Minutes.
He's been investigating war criminals in Canada,
Hamas, you name it.
He's been out there digging into people's lives
and finding out all kinds of interesting factual information.
And there's only room for...
We can share a microphone with him, I guess.
Is he here?
Okay.
That's fine.
Steve Rombon, ladies and gentlemen.
Got all the T-shirts, right?
Got my free T-shirt.
Good.
Yeah, but he wouldn't buy a CDC T-shirt.
Who said that?
So, tell us something about the private eye business.
What is it exactly that you do?
Why were you on 60 Minutes?
I was on 60 Minutes, too, you know.
Did you meet Mike Wallace?
Yes, I do.
Isn't he, like, weird?
I think he's just getting old.
What is that thing on his chin?
You know, he scared me.
He really did.
You're going to get me in trouble here.
He's always looking for a...
Well, actually, he must have given you good press.
He gave us bad press.
He wanted something bad to say about us.
At first, he was asking us about, you know,
bestiality on the net, as if we invented it.
I remember him telling me,
I saw donkeys.
I saw them.
And it was...
How can you defend this?
And I'm like, I'm not...
I don't care what your interests are.
You know?
If you're looking for something on the net,
you will find it.
It's the nature of free speech.
And he didn't seem to be able to grasp that.
But he never went with that story.
He just went with the story of hackers out there
meeting publicly.
How can you conceive of something like this?
Meeting out in the open.
And reading your credit report.
That's what they always come at you with.
They can be reading your credit report
and logging into your PC
and all that kind of stuff.
I've got to go for those ratings.
He actually was pretty good on our episode.
He went up to Canada
and a Nazi's dog bit his trench coat,
his CBS-issued trench coat.
How did you find Nazis in Canada?
How do you do that?
Stop shining those lights.
He knows what they're all about.
The vast majority of them
we found through public access databases.
What did you do?
Look under Nazi?
How does that work?
In the yellow pages
under war criminal coming out.
No, I mean, we had a list of names
that were compiled by groups of Holocaust survivors
of people that for 40 or 50 years
they had suspected
were welcomed with open arms into Canada.
Canada was a pretty anti-Semitic country
at the end of the war
and they kept Jews out
and they allowed war criminals in
because they were good white,
you know, Christian stock.
There were actually two years
at the end of World War II
that they brought in more
former members of the SS
than survivors of concentration camps.
And for about 40 years
the Canadian Jewish community
was asking the Canadian government
for an accounting
and they refused.
So now, fast forward to the modern day
when there are computer accessible databases
and phone numbers on disk
and property records,
we were able to do
a fairly simple investigation
to find 161 of these guys up there.
Were they summarily executed?
No, but that's not my choice.
They nailed their hands.
What other countries
do you know of that
that are guilty of this?
Primarily the former
Commonwealth countries.
The UK, Australia, whatever.
What about South America?
South America has the
has the reputation
as being a haven for war criminals.
Argentina.
But frankly,
there's more
former members of the SS
there's 2,300 of them
in Canada
than in all of
South America combined.
Shouldn't these people
be dying by now?
You know,
dying of old age?
I mean,
SS people,
they last forever?
The war was,
you know...
They definitely,
it's an amazing thing,
they definitely beat
the actuarial tables.
It's an amazing thing.
I think maybe 10%
of the people
we looked for
were deceased.
Now,
give us,
give us an example
of how you would
find somebody.
What would you go through?
You try the easiest
databases first.
First,
you look at the phone book
and about a third...
You have to understand,
Canada has been
so hospitable
to these people
that they were making
almost no effort
to hide.
They feel comfortable
and at home
and unafraid.
And, of course,
the proof of that
is after I found them,
we put together
an undercover operation
and we actually went
and interviewed them.
And out of
160-some odd people
we tried to interview,
only four of them
refused to speak to us.
We found them
in the phone books.
We found them
under their own names
in driving records.
We found them
owning vehicles
under their own names,
property,
credit reports,
which really ties
into what I was
speaking about earlier.
Keeping these databases
open is to the overall
benefit of the community
as opposed to
closing everything.
Once you track them down,
what happened after that?
Are they still
welcome in Canada?
Or did the rules change?
It's a real shame
what Canada's done.
You know,
the United States
in 1979
formed the Office
of Special Investigations,
a part of the Department
of Justice
that has only one task,
finding these people,
prosecuting them,
booting them out.
Since 79,
the U.S.
has thrown out
or chased out
over 100 war criminals.
Canada's brought
three to trial
and deported one.
They really don't care.
What kind of public
support have you gotten?
Enormous.
Of course,
the organized
groups up there
were a little hesitant
because their attitude
was,
you know,
if this is true,
how come we didn't know
about it?
How come if all these
people were here
and they're so easily found,
how come the RCMP
didn't find them?
When we pointed out
that about a third
of them were
in the phone book,
they were stunned.
There have been
massive rallies up there.
I was invited
by 45 members
of the Canadian Parliament
to address them
in the Parliament building
and legislation
has been introduced.
But as you point out,
these are pretty old people
and most of them
are going to cheat
the hangman,
so to speak.
What are the kinds
of investigations
that have been involved
in?
How did you get
into this whole line
of work?
Well,
I'm not a Nazi hunter
for a living.
That's more of a hobby
as opposed to bungee jumping.
I'm primarily involved
in missing persons
investigations
and what's known
as multi-jurisdictional
investigations.
Very sophisticated
financial frauds,
for example,
where the victim
will be in one jurisdiction
and the crook
in another
and the phony papers
will supposedly
originate from another
and the money
will be sent off
yet to another jurisdiction.
And, of course,
law enforcement
being law enforcement,
they're not fighting
for the privilege
of putting another case
on their caseload.
In fact,
everybody in each jurisdiction
is guaranteed
to be pointing
at another jurisdiction
and say,
no, no,
it's theirs.
So we pick
the most logical jurisdiction
and we build
the criminal case
and essentially
force it upon
law enforcement.
Steve,
we're going to take a break
because we're at
the halfway point.
This is a special edition
of Off the Hope
coming to you live
from the Puck Building,
the Beyond Hope Conference
here in the corner
of Houston and Lafayette.
You're listening to WBAI
in New York.
We'll be right back.
Thank you.
On Saturday,
August 9th
at 6.30 p.m.,
tune in for a special edition
of the radio show
Buying About Hackers
Off the Hook
as we broadcast live
from the Beyond Hope Conference.
We'll have all kinds
of special guests
and presentations.
For the first time ever,
we'll have a live audience.
You can join us
now at the conference
which will be taking place
downtown at the Puck Building
on Houston and Lafayette
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday,
August 8th, 9th, and 10th.
It's expected to be
the largest gathering
of hackers in history.
If you can't make it down,
you can still listen in.
That's Off the Hook,
live at the Beyond Hope
on Saturday,
August 9th
at 6.30 p.m.
on listener-supported
WBAI 99.5 FM,
New York.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Claude.
And Claude is our engineer
back at WBAI.
Let's all say hi to Claude.
Hi, Claude.
He's really bummed out
that he has to be up there
and not down here,
so hopefully he'll be able
to come down later.
This is a special live edition.
Well, it's always live,
but we don't usually do this.
A special two-hour
unpacked edition
of Off the Hook
coming to you live
from the Beyond Hope conference.
The second Hackers
on Planet Earth event
taking place
this weekend
in conjunction
with the Hacking
in Progress conference
over there in Holland.
Now, is that them
on the screen
or is that just us?
That's just us
looking at ourselves.
Okay, because we were
looking at ourselves
from Holland before
and we were all delayed
and jerky
and that kind of thing.
Are they looking at us
now at all?
They're not.
They're not asleep?
Okay.
Well, we're still
being broadcasted
all around the world
via real audio.
If you connect
to www.notwork.net
N-O-T-W-O-R-K.net
you will be able
to connect
via real audio
and listen to the show
that way.
Of course,
if you're listening
to me say that
then you probably
can listen on the radio
and you shouldn't
tie up the bandwidth
by listening on the computer
as well.
But maybe you could
call your aunt
in Teoria or something
and tell her
and show up
the thrill of a lifetime.
Yes, we are talking
with Bernie S. here
Fiber Optic
and Steve Rombon
from I mean
is there a company
name we can say
you're from
or you're just
pretty much
on your own?
There's a company.
But you don't want us
to say the name?
Sorry?
Polarium.
Okay.
And tell us
how can we keep
our privacy
with people
like you out there?
I'm not too sure
you can.
Really?
We take advantage
of databases
that are built
by powers
much greater
than ourselves.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.


We take advantage of databases that are built by powers much greater than ourselves.
It's estimated that the average American has 26 records maintained on them by the time that they're 25.
Everything from credit records, motor vehicle, driver's license, passport, social security, marketing databases, voter registration, or what have you.
And most of these are databases that have a legitimate reason to exist, and most of those databases are publicly accessible.
And frankly, I think that's the way it should be.
If you are hiring someone or associating with someone or have a need to know about someone, you should be able to find out that information.
Do you think hackers make good private eyes?
The ones I work with do.
What do you think of the hacker community in general?
Do you think hackers are a threat to privacy, or can we enhance privacy?
I think hackers are essentially interested in the same thing that private investigators and public investigators are interested in,
which is democratization of information, keeping information open and accessible and usable by the masses.
As far as a threat of some sort, I think that's ridiculous.
I think the word hacker is probably almost as overused as the word internet.
Okay, I'd like to point out, if people want to ask questions in the audience, they can line up by the microphone, which is in the center of the room, where that person is flailing their arms.
Well, look who's there.
Look who's the first question.
Welcome to Beyond Hope, rebel.
Guess who the first person is.
Let me just point out to everybody here, and people listening who don't usually listen to the show at this time.
This guy, for the last maybe five years, has more times than not always managed to be the first phone caller.
I don't know how he does it.
We've taken to picking up random lines, trying to get somebody else's the first call, but he always manages to be the first caller.
Wait, before he actually talks, can I do my rebel impersonation?
Is it okay with you, Rebel?
Is that all right?
Yes.
Okay.
Hi, Emmanuel.
Rebel, you have to say hi, Emmanuel now, too, so we can tell.
Hi, Emmanuel.
What do you think?
It's not bad.
Okay, what's your question?
Well, before my question, a little sales pitch for $2,600 and Off the Hook.
Remember, it's not a commercial station, so you can't mention prices.
Wait a minute.
Okay.
There is Off the Hook CDs for sale.
Have you listened to those?
You're on most of them, you know.
Yes, I know that.
They're CD-ROMs.
We want to sell them.
Yeah, we're going to sell them.
All right.
And I like that thing, by the way, that computer.
Put that computer thing on again, that attack thing.
Do you have a question?
Yeah, about the...
Radio time is valuable.
Yeah.
Now, you see, now I'm forgetting what I was going to say.
It was about the thing about hackers and...
Next caller.
I can't push your button.
See, you can't hang up on me now.
I can't push your button.
No, my question is this.
I noticed that these days there's a lot of things about, you know, bombings and terrorists.
The Bernie S case with the dental putty and the paranoia of the media, not the media, of the government.
In this day and age, because of things like the Trade Center bombing and the bombing of the federal building, and more recently, the conspiracy to bomb in New York City, I think that, I guess I should understand that, I guess the federal government is being...
I wouldn't put it over paranoid because, yeah, they're going a little too far with arresting people and putting, you know, making more bail for hackers and people who don't do anything more than, you know, play with a computer than drug dealers or terrorists or something.
And I think that that's a point that really needs to be addressed to the federal government, and they really need to understand things.
The answer to your question is yes.
Thank you.
Let's take our next listener phone call.
Another question, please.
By the way, I'll be speaking...
Another question from a different person.
Rebel will be demonstrating some things later on, maybe at the open mic session, which will be...
Yeah, about after this...
At 8.30.
Whenever we're at the open mic session at about 8.30, I'll be doing it.
Me and Bernie S will be doing some phone demonstrations, and I'll be doing some different things.
Next caller, please.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Just grab the microphone from his hand.
Yeah, okay.
Security.
There.
No.
Go ahead.
Love that man down.
Hi there.
First, I would like to ask, is there a WBAI affiliate in Buffalo?
That you know of?
Well, okay.
WBAI.
WBAI is part of the Pacifica network.
There are five Pacifica-owned stations.
Berkeley, Los Angeles, Houston, Washington, D.C., and New York.
There are other stations throughout the country that carry some Pacifica programs.
Off the Hook is only aired in New York, but we've managed to get the show out on real audio through our website and now through CD-ROMs.
If you want a station in your area to carry Pacifica programming, you have to tell them.
And you have to make your voice heard.
And I hope that by making these programs...
Do you have a lizard on your shirt?
It's D.Frag's iguana.
Is it iguana?
Okay.
I just noticed.
I figured you should know that.
Oh, I did.
Okay.
Also on set.
Now, the thing is, through the real audio, we've managed to show people what a station like WBAI can do.
And I'm hoping that stations like WBAI pop up all over the country because there's just...
When I drive in my car anywhere, there's always this big gap between New York and, I guess, San Francisco, where there's really nothing on the radio.
And I'd like to change that, you know?
I'd like to help change that in some way.
And you guys can help, too.
Civilize the Midwest.
Another question.
This is Uzi.
I want to say to Stephen Siege in Buffalo, I really hope you're listening.
Next caller, please.
Hi, you're on the air.
Oh, boy.
Emmanuel.
How are you doing?
I know I've talked to you about this before.
And something I discovered while working on a voicemail.
It's called the Amos Protocol.
I wonder if Bernie or Fiber maybe heard about this.
It's really cool.
What it does is it allows two voicemails, voicemail boxes from different companies to talk to each other.
I think it's audio messaging interchange specification.
It's going to be replaced by VPIM, which is voice protocol for internet mail.
But right now they...
Excuse me.
You didn't just say Amos Protocol, did you?
Oh, no, no, no, no.
That would be the Amos Protocol.
Maybe we should spell that out.
A-I...
Wait, no.
Sorry.
A-M-I-S.
Okay.
It's really not talked about much, but I went to EMA.org, and they're like this telecommunications standard.
If I could just translate this a little bit.
Basically, a voicemail system calls out to another voicemail system, and they know that it's...
They're not just talking to each other without listening.
They both know their voicemail systems, and they speak in some kind of special way.
Correct.
But they use...
I know to initialize, they use extended DTMF.
I think it's the C key tells it that it's using Amos, and the D is sent by the second voicemail to say, okay, we know that you're using Amos.
There's two versions, too.
There's analog and digital.
And I got the specifications somewhere, but I was, I mean, I'm surprised somebody hasn't talked about this before, because it could be pretty fun.
Have you guys heard of this?
I never have.
I think I want to remember that.
I think I read about six or seven years ago that some of the voicemail equipment providers were trying to establish some kind of interoperability between their systems.
But they were all fighting amongst themselves as to who would make the standards, and Octel Communications, who manufactures the Aspen system, which a lot of regional bell operating companies use for their answer call service, seemed to be leading the way as far as standards go.
But then that got shot down by some other equipment and system providers.
So, yeah, I think it's a good idea.
I know if somebody sent you a voicemail from, and they were calling from a system where they had voicemail, it would, you know, the systems would be able to talk to each other, and it would make things a little bit easier.
But, frankly, I don't think it's going to happen.
No, it's being used.
The Octel VMX has a built-in.
I know a couple of PC voicemails have it built-in.
So it actually is being used.
I got the specifications from someone at an unnamed PBX.
Well, there's one thing we can do.
We can call voicemail systems and hit the C key and see what happens.
There you go.
As long as it's, you have to enable it in the configuration.
But, I mean, VMX, I mean, that's a quick hack.
Well, I mean, it's something we'll look into now that we know that it exists.
Okay, thank you.
Thanks for the question.
Let's give a hand to Veggie and Mike Rodeancer for being on the panel.
In a couple of minutes, we're going to start the media panel, which actually sort of got pushed into Off the Hook.
And that's basically where we have a bunch of media people who actually are pretty cool.
So we can't really attack them with the venom that we were reserving for CBS and ABC and those people.
These guys kind of understand what's going on as far as media coverage of hackers.
But it's a chance for you, the hackers, to ask them questions.
And we'll be getting to that in just a couple of minutes.
Now, Fiber, you've got something here you want to mention.
Yeah, I actually have a shout-out for PG Media.
PG Media is a company who is challenging the Internet and their monopoly on domain name registration.
If anyone in the audience or anyone listening to this show has ever registered a domain on the Internet,
in the United States, they've had to deal with the Internet and the Internet's way of doing things.
Well, PG Media is trying to do away with the Internet and challenging them directly.
And their service is called Namespace or Name.Space.
And the president of Name.Space is here, and he's actually handing out these petitions,
which I think everyone should sign, anyone who agrees that in no way, shape, or form should accompany Network Solutions,
which is actually made up of a bunch of former CIA and NSA employees.
These people should not be in charge of registering domain names for all the United States.
I believe that things will be changing next year.
Did you hear about this?
There are going to be many different network solution equivalents,
and they'll be having all kinds of top-level domains made available, I think, as early as March.
Yeah, I've heard something to that effect, but I've also heard that the companies need to go through some sort of stringent approval process.
You have to make a filing fee.
I think it's about $10,000.
Yeah, that's what it is.
$10,000.
That's dead?
Okay, that's dead.
Well, it's not easy, from what I understand.
I think you have to have full-time employees.
Is that dead, too?
Why don't you step up to the microphone?
Yeah, get on the mic.
This is the guy, by the way.
Thanks.
Hi.
Paul Guerin here from Namespace PG Media.
I want to thank Emanuel and Fiverr for giving me the opportunity to bring this on the show.
Just a very quick update on what's happening.
Back in March, my company, PG Media, sent a letter to Network Solutions Incorporated requesting that they add, at the time, around 360 new top-level names that were suggested by the public, international public, to the RootZone file so they would be globally recognized on the Internet.
Well, Network Solutions refused, and by their refusal, had actually broken the antitrust laws of the United States because under the antitrust laws of the United States, that RootZone file, the directory of directories of domains on the Internet, is an essential facility.
So, well, we filed the case in federal court, and it is now pending in the courts.
We are going full blast and seeking an injunction that the court order Network Solutions to comply with our request to add the now over 400 top-level domains to the RootZone file, which will then enable other companies also to compete on an equal footing with Network Solutions.
To enable this, my company and our development team has designed and coded a program called IDSD, spelled I-D-S-D.
That's an acronym for the Integral Database Synchronizer Daemon.
And what that does is it decentralizes the top-level namespace or the ability to register names to any registries, and it makes dynamic updates on demand.
Any time a name is registered, the name registration database is instantly updated and the names are available.
This system will also, aside from opening it up to competition for local registries internationally, will also, number one, drop the price.
We're currently charging $10 now to register your name in namespace.
But in addition to that, it will also eliminate the single point of failure which caused the blackout on the Internet a couple of weeks ago when some incompetents at Network Solutions uploaded empty databases to CommaNet, causing millions of bounced emails and dead ends.
And the reason that happened, for those who don't know, is that every night the root zone servers are updated with a complete brute force update.
So if there's any corruption in those databases, it will just basically black out the net because they screw up the whole thing.
With the IDSD system, the database is updated on demand line by line as it occurs, so it's always up to date.
And this kind of catastrophic failure won't happen.
So please go to the Internet, namespace.xs2.net, and hit the link, and you can submit the petition to the Department of Commerce who's soliciting public comments.
If you don't agree with our petition, we also have a blank form.
You can write what you like and also submit that.
And the deadline for submissions is August 18th, so we have just about nine days left.
But please act quickly and tell your friends.
And thanks for your time.
Thanks a lot.
Okay.
At this point, I want to thank Steve Romba for being here.
Steve, do you have any parting words for us as far as how we can protect our privacy or where the hacking world should go from here?
I said, okay.
Well, thanks very much for being here.
Let's give Steve a hand.
Thank you.
I want to welcome our media people now.
Get them on stage.
We're going to take some more questions as well.
But we have a lot of media people here, so we want to put them all on stage.
And they're going to have to introduce themselves because I've lost track.
I've lost track of who they are.
Just all come on board and take your seats.
And I guess we can take a question while they're settling in.
Go ahead.
Bernie and Fiber, your story has moved a lot of people, and a lot of those people are here.
A lot of them couldn't afford to be here or couldn't arrange to be here.
Bernie, especially for you, has anyone approached you about writing up the story?
And the media folks can comment, too.
Writing up the story into a possible screenplay format?
I'm sorry.
I heard part of your question.
I'm sorry.
Okay.
Essentially what I'm saying is your story is a whole lot more engaging and moving than the net or a number of technology-based screenplays that we've seen.
Has anyone approached you about bringing your story to the screen?
Not to the screen.
A couple people said that they were considering or thought it would be a very good, a couple publishers told me it would be a good book idea.
I don't want to write the book because it would, you know, it would not look very objective if I wrote it myself.
And writing a book is a humongous project that just takes over your life for a couple of years, which I had my life already taken over for a couple of years.
Really thinking about the case, looking back over it, a lot of it's very painful, just reliving all that by reading over things.
It's empowering in some way.
Like the other day I was reading over a lot of the news group postings that Emanuel had set up this news group during my incarceration.
Reading over that stuff, I was really touched by all the support people were lending.
And still, though, looking back at it all, it would be really tough for me to try to encourage anybody to write that because I really don't want to relive this whole thing over again.
It was, it really sucked.
So, no, no one's encouraged me for a screenplay or whether I wanted to participate in writing a book.
If anybody wants to write a book, you know, knock yourself out.
I'll give them all the materials from my case and, you know, I'll answer any questions they might have.
But it's, it reaches a point where you just become emotionally drained of dealing with the case and you just want to get on with your life.
So, no, besides if Hollywood did anything with it, they'd probably screw it up like they do with every other movie that they try to cover a real event.
So, to answer your question, no, nobody's approached me about a movie.
In books, people said it was a good idea, but that's about as far as it went.
Okay, I'd like for our press people who are now on stage to introduce themselves.
Let's start over here and go down and tell us who you are and where you're from.
Hi, my name's Michael.
I'm with Paper Tiger Television, which is a non-profit video collective here in New York.
Hi, my name is Jamie McClelland.
I'm a producer with Paper Tiger Television as well, and I also work for an organization called Libraries for the Future.
My name's Lou Cook.
I do occasional columns for Brock Meeks' Cyber Wire Dispatch, and I've been freelance writing since 1972, and before that, investigative reporting for NBC News.
My name is Noah Robichon.
I created the Netly News.
My name is Rika Kasahara.
I work for Japanese Media.
I have a column in PC Computing in Japan and also a contributing writer for Wired Japan.
Hi, I'm Rob Bernstein.
I work with Ziff Davis and formerly with Internet Underground, which unfortunately is defunct now.
That's the first question I'd like to ask.
What happened to Internet Underground?
Internet Underground.
Such a cool magazine.
Thanks.
Well, thank you.
I'm glad to see some people are reading it.
Yeah, but it's no more.
It's gone out of business.
It's no more.
I guess it's, you know, I've got to be politic here.
I like my job.
But I guess it comes down to bottom line, profitability, and, you know, the hacking group is a small group of people.
And as far as you know, as you know, with publishing, paper is expensive.
And hopefully we'll get this information out there in one form or another in the future, though.
Rob, you got into the hacking world as a newbie, pretty much, with the Bernie S. case.
You reported a story about him, and before you knew it, you were right in the thick of the story yourself.
And you were getting him into even more trouble just by doing things that you didn't think were anything important.
Tell us briefly what happened.
Wow.
I don't know if it really happened that way.
But what happened was that Bernie and I were closely together in this story.
And I actually saw the story in your site.
And I took a real interest in it.
And it kind of fascinated me.
And, you know, reporters are always looking for good stories.
And I think among hackers, there are only lawyers and politicians that are held in lower esteem.
But I wanted to do a good job with it.
And I wanted to get in touch with Bernie and get his point of view.
And so it really meant getting in contact with his lawyers and having him call me collect because in prison, really, you don't have any rights.
And he had to contact me, which he did.
And we had many great conversations.
And, you know, in the process, I really got to know Bernie and find out about his case.
And I think we got to the point.
And there were other people I interviewed as well, Tom Varney of the Secret Service and various other people who were involved in the case.
I really wanted to hear everyone's point of view.
But by the end of the story, I really wanted to make sure that the facts were all right.
And I wanted to get Bernie the story.
And I think Bernie also wanted the story.
And we wanted to make sure that we did this right if we were going to do it at all.
And, you know, an unfortunate fax for me got to Bernie.
We both agreed that he needed to get the story.
And upon his receiving the fax, of course, there's no due process in prison.
And they don't take kindly to any kind of communication with prisoners whatsoever.
From the media, that is.
Especially the media.
Yeah, and, yeah, they got very unhappy.
And eventually they said it wasn't the fax that caused Bernie more trouble.
I think they, Bernie, you'll have to step in.
I don't know exactly what it was they ended up accusing you of.
But I think the fax really prompted a lot of the trouble that you had in prison at that point.
Yeah, I want to first clarify or dispel any rumor that Rob in any way did anything to get me into trouble,
either wittingly or unwittingly.
And he sent me a fax, and I don't think he thought anything was wrong with that.
And I was, at the time, I'd gone through, I think, three maximum security prisons.
And finally, after my parole date had already come and gone and hadn't been interviewed,
I was transferred briefly to a minimum security facility and told that in exchange for being in the minimum security facility,
I'd have to do community service, which wasn't part of my sentence at all.
But this was the institution, Bucks County Prison in Doyleston, Pennsylvania, that said, well, it's voluntary.
Community service.
And if you don't want to volunteer, you'll go back to maximum security.
So I was out on the chain gang pulling stumps out of the side of the road, that sort of thing,
at a local county conservancy where there was an office that I'd be in part of the day to clean up, wash, that sort of thing.
And there was a fax in the office.
I told Rob where I was doing this kind of work, and we both agreed that I needed to read the final draft or next to final draft of the story.
And I saw nothing really wrong with that.
And it certainly wasn't against any of the rules in the prison handbook.
So I think it was the three independent people in your office were able to call and get the fax number at that.
Yeah, I mean, the fax number, I mean, it wasn't any mystery to the public.
We had three people call up, and we all got the fax number to where Bernie was working.
And we want to get this information in his hands.
So the fax was sent, and before I knew it, I was in shackles and handcuffs, again, back in maximum security,
with a new charge, an internal prison charge for violating one of the rules, which was, quote,
there's all these rules in the prison handbook.
And one of them is you will not, when doing community service work while a prisoner,
you will not use a telephone to contact friends or family members.
Well, there was no allegation that I had used a telephone or even touched a telephone.
A fax was sent to me, and that really bent them out of shape.
They thought it should fall under that rule.
I challenged that, my point was that I was not guilty of that.
And I was not allowed to bring the only witness in, who was the secretary at the office,
who saw that I did not use a telephone to contact anybody there.
And I was not permitted to allow that secretary to be a witness,
which was a violation of my due process rights.
So basically receiving a fax while you're in prison can get you in a world of trouble,
something we didn't know beforehand and something I guess most people wouldn't even consider
to be something bad or a crime of any sort.
And it went downhill from there.
Now, I'd like to ask any of the other people on the panel if they have any perceptions of hackers
that they'd like to share, any myths they've encountered, tried to dispel.
And then we'll take some more questions.
Anyone?
Well, I think I come to this late, and I come to this with a lot of gray hair.
But I also come to this with a little perspective, and that's the troubling part,
what's happening and how the media stereotypes and caricaturizes the hacker community is very much like what happened decades ago to students for a democratic society during the 1960s,
and how they were demonized as commies and the people who were going to turn over the country to the North Vietnamese.
I saw the same thing happen to the civil rights movement and how they were charged with being communists.
And in the late 60s and 70s, some of this became a disaster because students were shot down and murdered at Kent State and Black Panthers were murdered.
And the problem is when you start demonizing, as I see the mass media doing to hackers,
it builds in a possible permission for government to start extending the boundaries of what they can and what they can't do.
And that, for me, is the most troubling element of the distortion, is where it might end.
It ended very badly for the student protesters in the 60s.
It ended very badly for the Panthers.
I'm hoping that it doesn't wind up the same way for the hacker community.
Yeah, actually, I really like that analogy.
I think you also have to consider, too, who the media is in this country, at least the mainstream media,
and they're, by and large, large corporations.
So who is most afraid of hackers, you know, by and large, large corporations, unless you happen to be working for them?
So it seems natural that the media would criminalize hacking, you know, or would want to see hacking, you know,
become more of a criminalized activity, not only to protect themselves, but, as he said,
to really create a public perception that hackers have nothing, you know, useful to offer society.
So the legislation can be enacted.
It's stricter.
I think we've seen that happen.
Well, let me differ one thing.
I see the media as basically being lazy.
And so they don't really take the time to understand.
And so stories are fed to them by the authorities, by the FBI, by the Justice Department,
that Kevin Mitnick is going to start World War III.
And when you've got the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, Jamie Gorelick, calling for a Manhattan project to combat hackers,
I mean, what, are you going to nuke the hackers?
Are we going to nuke Kevin Mitnick?
I mean, that's the kind of exaggeration that, in a sense, the media doesn't take the time to challenge,
to say, is Kevin Mitnick going to start World War III?
I don't think so.
And furthermore, on top of it, I don't think this is something that's going to change anytime soon.
I don't think you're going to see, what I think you're going to see is an increasing corporatization of media and globalization of media.
And the one message that I can offer from Paper Tiger Television to all hackers who feel like they're not represented well by the mainstream media,
it's a motto that Paper Tiger Television has.
It says, don't just watch TV, make it.
And one of the means by which Paper Tiger is able to get our words out is through cable access television,
which is, by law, something that the cable companies have to provide to the public.
In Manhattan, we have four television stations that anyone can provide their own television programming on,
free of charge, on a first-come, first-served basis.
On top of it, you can get trained for free on how to use the equipment,
and you can have free editing time and free use of the studio at Manhattan Neighborhood Network.
It's really very much in the spirit of WBAI radio, of making sure that everyone has access to produce their own media.
And as a corollary in the telecommunications world, there's a provision,
and perhaps one of the only good things to come out of the Telecom Act of 1996,
is the universal service provision.
And the universal service provision ensures that everyone has access to telecommunications service.
In particular, it says that public libraries and schools will be receiving between 20% and 90% discounts on all telecommunications service.
This is your phone installation charge.
This is even the internet access.
This is even routers and hubs and Ethernet networking will be available for 20% to 90% off.
But this is also cable refranchising and universal service that we have to constantly fight for to make sure that we maintain it.
SPC is currently suing the FCC in order to stop universal service from happening.
So it's something that we really have to be vigilant about.
Excellent points.
I think we have to, at some point, stop complaining about the media and start becoming the media ourselves
and starting to fix things in that way.
And I think there's a very good example of that coming up on a panel here at 9 o'clock.
Some folks on the Lower East Side are running a radio station called Steal This Radio.
And I think they're doing a great job of showing us just what community radio is all about.
You can find them at 88.7.
Now, the thing about them is that the FCC hasn't said that they can be at 88.7.
So they'll be answering some questions about that, about how they're running their operation.
That's coming up at 9 o'clock.
And you folks listening on the radio right now, well, you won't be able to hear that because we stop at 8.30.
So you'll have to hightail it on down to the PUC building if you want to see that panel.
So, Cheshire Catalyst from TAP Magazine.
Hello.
What's all this about you getting back together?
About what?
You're getting back together.
Well, we are having a reunion of sorts this evening.
One of the restaurants we used to meet in is Eddie's at 14 Waverly Place.
And just a couple of us guys are getting together over there.
And the banquet room's been closed off already.
So, you know, please, we can't have a big mob down there now.
I was just in the back room starting to herd cats to get our little group up there in time for the 9 o'clock reception we're having up there.
Just a bunch of the guys having some beer and burgers.
Seeing each other again.
Because I've been living in Florida for the past 10 years.
I saw a couple of them three years ago at the first HOPE conference.
And all of us hackers on planet Earth first got together.
And I like to remind people when I tell them about HOPE as hackers on planet Earth, not necessarily of planet Earth.
And so the people who do already have the reservations in for the TAP reunion, if they please meet out in the front foyer near the front door after this, I'd appreciate it.
So we can start moving out.
So this reunion is obviously for people that were part of the TAP thing, which happened back in the 70s and 80s.
If there are people listening on the radio that suddenly realized that they were part of that, they should come on down to Eddie's over on Waverly Place in New York City.
It starts at 9 o'clock?
It starts at 9 o'clock.
And they close the place down at 11.
Tonight they might do it a little earlier just, you know, because if we don't piss them off too badly.
But we'll see what happens.
It should be a good get-together.
And we're good to see all those guys again.
It's good to see you again.
Thank you.
Thanks for coming by.
Treasure Catalyst.
From TAP Magazine.
Okay, we can take some more questions now for our media panel.
Go ahead.
This isn't exactly for the media panel, but I heard that one of the items encoded on a MetroCard's magnetic strip is the amount of money left on the card.
And that would mean that when you swipe, not only is it reading, but it's also writing.
I didn't think that was possible on a magnetic strip.
Well, that's actually one of the questions we asked in 1994 at the first Hope Conference.
It appears that maybe they're using laser technology to do this.
Again, that's going to be addressed tomorrow at noon.
So any questions you have about that should be saved for that.
Okay.
Thank you.
Next question?
Actually, can I respond to that right there?
Okay.
Well, it would be nice if somebody had a question for the media panel.
Oh, I see somebody way in the back that does.
Okay.
Go ahead.
No, give us your response.
Give us your response.
As far as I can tell...
Rebel, sit down.
Sit down, Rebel.
Go ahead.
As far as I can tell with the MetroCards, I seem to think it's similar to the MO discs, where you have to put a heat on it before you can demagnetize it.
We've tried using commercial demagnetizers and degaussing coils.
I have enough trouble just getting it to work in the first place by swiping it.
So I haven't been experimenting with heating it up and doing all those kinds of things.
Well, we haven't been able to...
But there are people that have been doing that.
I'd like to hear from them.
Right.
We haven't been able to remove information from the MetroCard.
But one of the things we're going to try doing is adding a current through the strip and also heating it up to check its other properties.
Okay.
We have a question for the media.
Yes, a very specific question for the media.
Go ahead.
I'm curious what the media thinks about the role of John Markoff in the Metnick case.
Because in some ways, I think that what Markoff did, this is my opinion, was quite unethical as a journalist, getting involved in the case and actually setting up a situation that became more dangerous because he was trying to profit by selling a book and a Hollywood movie.
What do you think about that?
Just to give people some background here, John Markoff had co-written a book called Cyberpunk with his now ex-wife Katie Hefner.
One of the chapters was about Kevin Mitnick.
They never spoke to Kevin Mitnick.
However, they wrote a third of a book about him.
Then on July 4th of 1994, I believe, there was a front-page story about Kevin Mitnick being on the run, being a fugitive.
It's kind of strange for that to be on the front page of the New York Times about a computer hacker that was on the run.
Nevertheless, it was, and it made the whole Kevin Mitnick saga that much more public.
Then in December, Shytomo Shimomura's machine was broken into allegedly by Kevin Mitnick, and Shytomo Shimomura happened to be a friend of John Markoff.
John Markoff then helped Shytomo Shimomura track down Kevin Mitnick.
And the day that Kevin Mitnick was caught had another huge front-page story, and many, many stories after that.
There was a lot of questions raised as to his participation in the trackdown of Kevin Mitnick.
And shortly thereafter, let's say within a week, he signed a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar book deal for the Kevin Mitnick story.
And to this day, he still has not said a word to Kevin Mitnick.
So, yeah, I'd like to ask the media people what they think about that.
Anybody?
I have to say that I think there are a lot of problems with that, and it's not just Markoff.
I mean, Markoff, I don't think, is a particularly bad example.
It's much worse in the industry.
People are taking a lot of bribes in the way of equipment and information that, you know, they've agreed to write a story about.
That I think is a huge problem.
And I think it has a lot to do with the corporatization of media, especially print media and TV, that says that you have to have a huge salary
and that you have to back up your huge salary with certain kinds of stories and make it look that way.
Make it look, like, sensational, basically.
And I think that's a lot of what Markoff was doing, which is unfortunate.
But I would also say that this is a hugely empowering time where you can fight against that, that we have a chance to let the Internet not grow up to be like radio and television,
where you don't have that control or where you have to fight for public access channels, as we do in Manhattan,
but where you are able to, you know, you're able to print anything you want and people will actually read it, amazingly enough.
So I would encourage you all to start writing.
Start reporting.
Speaking of Kevin Mitnick, tomorrow we will have Kevin Mitnick's lawyer.
telling us the latest on his case and the things that have happened over the years.
Kevin's been in prison now for two and a half years.
He has not yet even gone to trial.
I'd like to ask Rika, you know, from the Japanese media,
and I'd like to know what the Japanese culture is with regards to hackers,
what kind of reaction they have towards hackers, how are things different there?
It's almost exactly like the United States a couple of years ago.
And especially in Japan, there are two kinds of people that can exist.
Either contributing member to the society or criminal.
Therefore, hackers are criminal.
So, a couple, many, say, computer literate people, engineers trying to change that image
by quoting Stephen Levy and Richard Stallman.
And they are trying to define hackers and crackers in different ways.
That's what's happening right now.
And I published a book, which I wrote about Bernie, only in the first article in Japan.
And I got lots of hate mail saying, Bernie's not hacker, he's cracker.
So, I am going to start like a discussion group in English.
And if any of you want to participate and exchange information or teach them
what's actually going on in the United States, I kind of appreciate that.
I have a question.
I'm actually curious if any, you mentioned criminals in Japan.
I'm actually curious if any organized crime rings like Yakuza
have become more technologically oriented.
You are totally, you are totally right.
Yeah.
Japanese hackers or the crackers, whatever, started from doing prepaid phone cards
because they have, they used to have up to $300.
So, it's a big major money.
Now, they have 10 bucks.
And then, Yakuza find out, ooh, it makes lots of money.
So, give me the equipment.
Otherwise, we want to pull over a bunch of guys and attack you.
That's what's happening.
And so, now that prepaid card, phone card is sort of Yakuza's island to fight over.
Okay.
Do we have a question?
Is that microphone on?
Actually, that's a great segue into my question for her
because I've personally been to Japan and I can vouch for the fact that it's
the ultimate hack with access-friendly pay phones and ISDN ports
on almost all the pay phones that I saw there.
Yeah, right.
The primary method of payment, however, is the prepaid phone card.
And I had the opportunity to talk to some people who could have been considered hackers there.
They were a little reluctant, to say the least, to divulge any information to me about their methods
or how they actually got away with free, you know, calling, free long distance, etc.
And it seemed to me that there was a definite fear of NTT, which is Nippon Telephone Telegraph,
sort of the equivalent of AT&T here.
And when he mentioned organized crime, I almost said that would be NTT
because talking to these guys, it sounded like the prosecution from NTT could be very harsh.
I know we've had stories here about what happens to Americans.
I also have a second part to that question.
There was an American in 1996 who got busted in Japan for accessing and doing that same thing,
fraudulently creating prepaid phone cards.
Could you tell us what happened to him, if you know?
Is that three people with a French guy in it?
There may have been a French person.
The only thing I actually remember was an American.
He was probably in his 20s and he was a tourist there
and decided to start a lucrative career for himself, prepaid phone cards.
No, I don't know what happened because I've been in San Francisco the last eight years,
but they definitely made the news.
And that was very big news back in Japan
because no one back then thought about doing it in Japan.
And they said it was so easy.
The problem is, as an American,
and that sets a bad taste in people's mouths there for how hacking got started in Japan.
But do you know what actually happens when somebody gets busted?
What NTT does or the government there?
No, I'm sorry, I don't.
Do you want to give the telephone one more try?
Let's see if there's any nice people out there.
Numbers 212-343-8268.
For our listeners, if they want to call in, a special prompt number.
Oh, there it is.
Oh, they're out there, aren't they?
Let's hear that ring one more time.
I love this.
Yeah.
Okay, let's hope this is an intelligent person.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hi, I was wondering what happened to a Bernie S, like, totally, overall.
You want to hear the entire Bernie S story?
Well, the entire Bernie S story is part of the prisoner panel tomorrow.
It's an extremely detailed...
Oh, yeah, I disconnected that person.
An extremely detailed account of living hell for the last two years.
And if you want to hear the full story, come to the prisoner panel tomorrow,
and we'll be getting into that in some detail, as well as Fiber's story.
Let's take one more phone call and we'll have some more questions.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Yes, hello.
How are you doing?
Yeah, I'm interested in finding an Internet service provider that's cheaper than a direct PC.
Can we hear this guy?
Can we bring him up?
You can't hear what he's saying.
I hear what he's saying, but you can't.
Why is that?
What changed?
Hello?
Can you repeat your question?
Yeah, I'm interested in satellite Internet service providers, and I'm looking for a cheap one.
He's looking for a cheap Internet provider.
A cheap satellite Internet service provider.
A cheap what?
Using satellite technology.
Has anybody here used direct PC?
Is it any good?
Getting a lot of blank stares.
I think maybe we're not ready for this question yet, technologically.
Bernie, do you have any suggestion on that?
I was looking into it recently, but they charge a fairly high price.
They sell it in blocks of minutes, your access.
It's a 400 kilobits per second download, and there's a lot of latency.
I don't know what it may be.
You know what that is, fiber.
Things are changing.
I mean, there's new technology being developed almost every day.
ADSL technology, fiber.
Maybe you could say something about that.
That's supposedly going to be the next high-speed way of connecting two things, that and cable modems.
Anybody here have a cable modem?
Nobody?
Okay.
Are you happy with it?
Not really.
Okay.
Farber, do you have anything to say about ADSL?
What's that?
ADSL.
ADSL is a new technology.
It actually stands for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line.
And it's actually going to be the thing that's going to be obsolete by the time we get it, just like ISDN, because that's usually how 9X does things.
But anyway, ADSL is going to be far above and beyond the speed of ISDN presently.
And in the places that are already offering ADSL, which are pretty scarce, we really don't know what we're missing, because nobody here, and I don't know if anybody in this room actually has a good...
I don't know if they're actually going to roll out 6 megabit lines at first, but I think we're really being cut short with our ISDN that we think is really so great.
It's really not, especially provided the fact that ISDN technology has been around since the mid-80s, and ADSL isn't exactly new, and we still don't have it yet.
But we will.
And the company that will bring it to you is AT&T, yes.
Okay, question for the media.
Go ahead.
Actually, I have a question.
The gentleman from PG Media brought up the topic of a single point of failure with InterNIC, and I was wondering if he knew or if any of you knew to what extent they took security measures and had potentially redundancy built into this top-level database of domain names,
so that there isn't a tremendous failure if that machine gets hacked.
Do you have any information on that?
Yeah.
The problem with that is in root-servers.net, you have A, B, C, D, E, F, G.
You have over a dozen machines that serve as the root name servers.
And the good part of that is that if A goes down, you have all the rest that could kick in and take over.
The problem in this particular circumstance is that A was not down.
A was up and running, except it was advertising garbage to the rest of the Internet.
When you actually try to connect to a site on the Internet that isn't currently being cached by your own local DNS server, your DNS server is going to go to the root server, whichever one answers first, which is usually A,
and it's going to ask that root server who are the authoritative DNS servers that carry the zone maps for the particular site that you're trying to connect to.
And as you well know from the whole media incident, that machine was responding with garbage in most cases,
which all the local name servers all over the place were caching, and in essence, you weren't able to really reach anywhere.
So how do we guard against something like that, which is human error, and how do we guard against people hacking the root name servers?
Well, we really can't, because as things stand, even in the latest version of Bind, Paul Vixie's Bind, which is 8.1.1,
there is a mechanism in it to support DNS, domain name service authentication,
but it's not currently used because the only way it could possibly work is if everyone used it, and everyone is not using it.
And the other problem is that there's really no reason to hack the root name servers because it's already too easy to spoof DNS in general.
And there's plenty of resources on the Internet and all the security mailing lists that talk about how to do things like that.
It's a relatively simple-minded protocol as it stands today.
Does that answer your question?
Yeah, but if so...
You look a little puzzled.
If a malicious hacker decided that they wanted to try to force the system into failure by taking down machines,
there are a set of redundant servers so that that would be really difficult to do?
Yes, there is.
If one of them went down, there are over a dozen that could take over.
Okay, thank you.
Okay, we're winding down.
We're listening to a special edition of Off the Hook on WBAI, New York, 99.5 FM.
We're on the air every Tuesday night from 8 to 9 p.m. on this radio station.
Not in front of 500 people, though.
And a couple of things that I'd like to share with people in these final minutes.
First of all, did you know today is Senator Jim Exxon's birthday?
Did you know that?
Boo!
Well, we all know who Senator Exxon is.
But, you know, we thought that that could actually be used to our advantage.
You see, we tried to do something really, really cool for this conference.
You've seen the Beyond Hope stickers everywhere, right?
You've seen the Beyond Hope signs.
You see the Beyond Hope flag outside and the banners.
Well, we thought, wouldn't it be really cool if we could get the Empire State Building to light blue and white for the hackers of America and the world?
So we called them and we said, hey, you know, you guys lit up for Microsoft and Disney and all those people.
Do you think you'd do this for hackers?
And they said, no, we don't do things like that anymore.
We only light up for, you know, for special occasions, national holidays, things like that.
So we said, I don't suppose you're going to light up for Senator Jim Exxon's birthday, will you?
Blue and white are his favorite colors, after all.
No, they wouldn't do that either.
So we set about looking for a country whose national holiday falls on August 9th, which is today.
We even bought an almanac to look this up.
And after going through all the countries, we found the country whose national holiday is today, Singapore.
That's when I knew there was a god, because if there was ever a perfect country, it's that country where, I mean, technology reigns supreme and fascist minds control everything and you can't chew gum and all those crazy rules they have over there.
So we figured, okay, great, you know, it's Singapore's national holiday.
Let's tell the Empire State Building to light up, you know, the Empire State Building blue and white for Singapore.
The only trouble was Singapore's national colors aren't blue and white.
They're like red and gold or something.
So we were in a quandary trying to figure out what are we going to do, you know.
Then suddenly we realized, hey, we're dealing with Singapore here, you know, revisionism central.
Let's revise their history a little bit.
So we just made their national colors, blue and white, formed a little company called the Singapore Cultural Center.
We even got a phone and an address.
In fact, if you call information, look up the Singapore Cultural Center, you'll get us.
Then we connected to their website, got all kinds of information out of them,
and finally came up with a reason to make our colors blue and white.
Blue for the blue-collar workers, white for the white-collar workers.
We're all joined together in harmony and bliss.
So light the damn building for us.
It's our day of independence.
And we asked them to do that, and we called them.
We made up several Singaporean names.
But in the end, they said, well, we just don't have the capability of doing it anyway.
So the whole thing was, it doesn't matter.
Unless somebody was able to, you know, to backdoor the system and light the building,
I think it's just going to be white again tonight, which is, I guess, their salute to white power or something.
I don't know.
But anyone over there listening that has access to the Empire State Building's lights, you know, blue and white is our color.
It would be nice to see that.
We tried.
It was kind of fun.
We wasted a bit of time.
Okay, we're in the last couple of minutes.
I just want to give our panelists a chance to say something.
We have an open mic session coming up in about five minutes, and I see Rebel standing there.
So he's going to be the first person on open mic, and that will be coming up in about five or six minutes.
Hi, I see you.
You're waving at me.
Yes, I can see you.
So in about six minutes, you'll have a chance to say what it is you want to say.
Any last words from our panelists?
Yeah, I just want to say a quick thing, if I can.
And for people in New York City who are, you know, interested in fighting back against big media, there is a new group called the New York Free Media Alliance.
And there's a voicemail, and it's 212-969-8636.
So if you're interested in working with independent media folks, you know, turn out.
Yeah, I would encourage you to do that as well.
And if you're interested in working on cable refranchising and universal service, you might want to check out Access for All, which is a local coalition here in New York that works on those issues.
You can reach us on the web at www.accessforall.org, all in one word.
Thank you.
Thank you all for your insights.
I understand that somebody hacked the Netly News homepage, so I'd like to write about it.
So if you could please come find me, I'd really like to know about it.
Have we been hacked yet?
Has anyone hacked us?
No?
Well, come on.
You only have a day left.
So I would like to start mailing this, which the American hackers and the Japanese hackers or the people who define it,
or wannabes or whatever, can exchange their opinion and information.
So if you're interested in helping me or participating in it, please drop me a line, rica at will.com.
Appreciate it.
Yeah, I just want to thank everyone for reading Internet Underground.
If you have any complaints that it's no longer a newsstand, feel free to contact Ziff Davis.
I'm sure they'd be more than glad to hear from you guys.
And please come up to me afterward if you guys have any interesting stories, kind of like Bernie S.
So I'd be happy to get your story out there.
Okay, coming up after the open mic session at 8.30 p.m., at 9 o'clock, we're going to have Steal This Radio.
The folks who are doing radio down on the Lower East Side, they'll be explaining what they're doing,
how you can get involved, and maybe bring this knowledge back to your hometown.
10 o'clock, we have Ira Winkler giving a talk on where hackers and criminals collide.
And at 11, Fiber and Tom from England will be giving a talk on GSM phones and their security and privacy issues.
I want to thank everybody for being a part of the radio show tonight.
Thank the panelists, Bernie S., Fiber.
I want to also thank Veggie for stopping in, Mike Rodancer, Steve Rombon, and Cyber Junkie.
And, of course, Major Hacking.
Thank you very much for coming by.
I thank all of you for listening, for being in the audience, and, of course, the good folks back at WBAI.
We'll be back again on Tuesday night at 8 p.m.
Until then, this is Emmanuel Goldstein for Off the Hook.
Have a good night.
And this is back to WBAI New York.
Next up will be...
What is the name?
The Underground Railroad.
Underground Railroad, and you can find the webpage at hiphopmusic.com.
Now we're going to have a message.
Oh, and by the way, Off the Hook, the next broadcast will be in 71 1⁄2 hours, 8 p.m. on Tuesday, every Tuesday.
And now we have a message about Monday morning, and we're on to real radio.
WBAI-FN, listener-supported non-commercial radio in New York.
Spock, find the radio station.
Uhura's monitoring the broadcast.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
The great aunt has spoken.
Who are you?
Well, I'm all mixed...
I'm all mixed...
I'm all mixed like this...
I'm all mixed in.
I'm not von.
I'm all mixed in.