Radio Free Aaron will be extended another half hour so we'll be on from
1.30 to 3 o'clock. Back to back. Siamese twins. And John, why do you think they
picked the first week in December? Well the Japanese went to Pearl Harbor and
we're gonna be coming at you. And so we'll see you in December.
And as promised 8 o'clock time for off the hook.
But if they could, they would. For Billy Bo, the best expect of us.
I hope that's understood. For Billy Bo!
This is our special Freedom Edition of Off the Hook. Let's start off with the
Freedom Anthem.
All right well we'll be getting into some more details on the
special Freedom Edition of this radio show. This is Off the Hook. Emmanuel
Goldstein with you here on WBAI in New York and all around the world on the
Internet. And we have a lot of important features to get into this week. Fiber
Optic is on his way up here. He's on assignment and he's bringing something
with him which I understand is of interest tonight. And we have a special
guest who will be joining us in just a couple of moments. First though, a couple
of bits of news. A computer hacker charged with breaking into United States
Air Force computers causing damage estimated at 300,000 pounds, that's
British sterling, walked free from court yesterday. Yes, Matthew Bevan smiled as he
left Belmarsh Crown Court, southeast London, with representatives of a
tabloid newspaper six months after a London teenager, Richard Price, was fined
1,200 pounds for admitting similar offenses. Prosecutors decided it was not
in the public interest to pursue a costly case expected to last up to three
months, involving witnesses flown from America to give evidence against Bevan,
the son of a fraud squad detective. Of course that had nothing to do with it.
The decision comes three and a half years after two hackers codenamed Coogee
and Datastream Cowboy used the internet to penetrate Rome laboratories, the US
Air Force's premier command and control research facility at Griffiss Base in
New York. Sources close to the US investigation said the intrusions had
serious implications, but did not involve national security. According to a report
to the US Senate Affairs Committee, the intruders gained access in March 1994 to
unclassified files held at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and
computers belonging to Lockheed. Price, then 16, from Colindale, North London,
who went on to win a scholarship to study the double bass at the Royal
College of Music. The double bass, yes, to all you bass players out there, one up
on you. At the Royal College of Music was fined after he admitted 12 charges of
gaining unauthorized access under the Computer Misuse Act. Magistrates were
told he caused more harm than the KGB. But of course, how much harm did the KGB
really cause? Another institution allegedly penetrated by the pair was
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, where wilder elements among UFO
conspiracy theorists believe alien spacecraft are secretly held. Bevin, who
cheerfully acknowledges being obsessed with aliens, nevertheless denied three
charges of gaining unwarranted access to USAF and Lockheed computers between
March and May 1994. The charges related to the alteration of data by the alleged
insertion of a sniffer program designed to gain access to systems. I think he was
just ordered to keep quiet about what he found, and that's why he's walking away.
The investigation was carried out by Scotland Yard's Computer Crime Unit in
the US Air Force's Office of Special Investigations, known as OSI, for all you
people being charged by them and things. Initial charges of conspiracy against
the pair were dropped at an earlier hearing. Ponytail Bevin, an X-Files addict
obsessed with UFOs, lived a twin existence and saw himself as the Nick
Leeson of the hacking world. An Admiral Insurance computer operated by day, at
night he sat beneath posters of his fictional FBI heroes, Mulder and Scully,
hacking around the world as real-life American investigators on his electronic
trail suspected him of being one of the most sophisticated and dangerous hackers
they had ever encountered. In an interview with the Times, Bevin admitted
gaining access to computers belonging to the US Air Force, NASA, and the defense
contractors Lockheed, but adamantly denied ever altering data. He insists his
motive was curiosity, not personal gain. I was after information about UFOs. I just
wanted to find evidence of all the conspiracy theories, alien abductions, the
1947 Roswell landings, and NASA faking the moon landings, and where better to
look than their computer files. The US Air Force posts details of its personnel
and network addresses on the Internet, so anything you want, you can get if you
know how. It was a challenge. One source close to the American investigation
however, said at one stage they were connected to Latvia and the South
Korean Atomic Research Institute, which raised serious concerns about the former
Eastern Bloc and information warfare. Bevin was 12 when he was given a
Sinclair ZX-81 for Christmas from his parents, Elaine, a nurse, and Thomas, a
detective sergeant with the South Wales Fraud Squad. Despite spending up to 36
hours at a time on the keyboard, the family telephone bills never exceeded 60
pounds because he mastered the technique of blue boxing, gaining free calls by
sending electronic pulses down the line to trick BT software into thinking a
call was over. Yes, sort of like that. His holy grail was to prove that alien
spacecraft are stored in conditions of strict secrecy at Area 51 of Wright
Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, as suggested in the film Independence Day.
Like that was the first film to suggest that. Although he claims to have seen
convincing evidence of their presence, no evidence is forthcoming because he's
been told to keep his mouth shut. Ah, this is so frustrating. Price was arrested at
his parents' home in Colindale in May 1994 and Bevin in June last year. All his
equipment was seized, leading, he admits, to withdrawal symptoms. It is all about
control, really. I'm in my little room with my little computer, breaking into
the biggest computers in the world, and suddenly I have more control over this
machine than them. That is where the buzz comes from. Anyone who says they are a
reformed hacker is talking rubbish. You are a hacker. You are always a hacker. It
is a state of mind. It should be kicking in by now.
It is a state of mind. It should be kicking in by now.
It is a state of mind. It should be kicking in by now.
Oh, free, to be what I will. Oh, free, I'll keep it up till I'm free. Or I won't have nothing at all.
Oh, free, to be what I will. Oh, free, I'll keep it up till I'm free. Or I won't have nothing at all.
Oh, free, to be what I will. Oh, free, I'll keep it up till I'm free. Or I won't have nothing at all.
And we're here on the special Freedom Edition of Off The Hook, as FiberOptic
settles in to freedom. Yeah, you know, this is the first show that we're doing
that in the past eight years that I have not been in some kind of legal quandary.
Yeah, some kind of legal conundrum. Yeah. So now your probation ended on Friday?
It ended on Friday, yeah. Just like that?
And anything you might have read in the papers about what happened on Friday night
is totally, totally wrong and misguided. All right. The reporters never understand.
So now that you're off probation, now that there are no ramifications for anything you might say
or do, other than, you know, starting fresh, is there anything you want to say or do right now?
Well, there's there's things I'd like to tell a lot of people.
We're on a radio station in the middle of New York City. So actually, there's a lot of people
there's things I'd like to tell a lot of people that I don't particularly like.
Oh, but sort of like shout outs, but not really. Yeah, kind of like
shout downs. Inverse shout outs. Yeah. Shout outs. Yeah. OK, that's cool.
But then we'd have to give them equal time. Yeah, that's true. Actually, I don't know if we have to
do that because they're not running for office, but they might, you know, sue us or something
like that. We don't want that either. I don't want to mention any name. They know who they are.
Yeah, they know who they are. They know who they are. I just want to I want to thank the
Secret Service for having the decency to call me and ask me if I wanted all my really dangerous
hardware back right before they were going to throw it away because they were cleaning up
their warehouse. That's that's nice of them to call. Yeah. I don't think they asked Bernie S.
No. They just broke his stuff. I thought that was that was really. Yeah. You know, that was
mighty white of them. And then I'd like to thank the the FBI trainee who was at my parents house,
who was allergic to cats at which time we had to. So he had him shot. No, I know it was a she and
she was allergic and it was provided some some comic relief. The cats, I mean, what happened
to the cats? Oh, they just they just ran all over the place. OK, but she was allergic. She kept
having to go outside. But it was very, very amusing. Watching someone else suffer. You found
humor in that. Well, given the circumstances, prison has hardened you. Yeah. You know, prison
prisons really hardened me. I use four letter words. You know, what's the world coming to?
You learned how to smoke in prison, too. Actually, I smoked before I went to prison. Yeah, OK.
But you learned how to do it right. Oh, actually, I learned how to smuggle good
cigarettes into prison, which if anybody is going to go to prison, you have to know how
to do so. Anybody has smuggled those cigarettes out of prison, the ones that you get there.
Actually, I gave them to people. Some people, some people still have packs of those prime
cigarettes. Yeah. And you know who you are. You do. Yeah. Because it's probably the pack
of cigarettes that you've never smoked or you might have smoked one and realized that
it's a really big mistake. Well, horrible, horrible cigarettes certainly sounds that way.
Yeah, I'm sure I could ramble on and on and on about all the all the government people that I'd
love to thank, but I think we should probably get on to business. Yes. Yes. We do have a special
guest holding on who is maybe facing the same road that you're facing. We're going to get to
that in a second. First front page of today's New York Times front page. And of course, everybody's
talking about this now because it's on the front page of New York Times, I guess. And that makes
it that makes it news, even though we've been talking about this now for months. Manhattan,
short on two one twos, will get a second area code. Wow. All right. It may not be the Dodgers
leaving Brooklyn for Los Angeles or the impending demise of the subway token. But you hear that
that little hint there, the impending demise of the subway token, you know, something.
Well, the state's Public Service Commission is expected to approve a plan on Tuesday,
adding a secondary code 646 for any new phone connections in Manhattan beginning in mid 1998.
People and businesses who now have the two and two codes will be able to keep them,
ending fears among many Manhattanites that the borough will be divided geographically with half
keeping the two on two and everyone else getting the new code. But the change will require all
telephone users in Manhattan to dial 11 digits, one plus the area code plus the phone number for
all calls, even within the borough, even within the same building. And the transition to the new
system is certain to create confusion for callers throughout the city as they discover that in some
cases, even next door neighbors in Manhattan have different area codes. But, you know,
what's really amazing about this is that even if you dial in the same area code, you're going to
dial 11 digits. I mean, I've heard that they actually do that. They are the dumbest people
in the world. Why is that? Well, because in everywhere else, well almost everywhere else,
you can still dial a seven digit phone number. I kind of like being able to do that right now.
Well, yes, but if you have what's known as an overlay where you have two area codes in the same
place, how is the switch going to know what you're dialing? You're going to have to dial 1646
to reach somebody in 646. Right. Now, if you're dialing locally. Yeah.
Why couldn't you just dial that? I see what you're saying. I don't know. There's got to be
a reason why they have to do that. I think they're doing it out of fairness. I think they're trying
to say that the 646 people, in order to be fair, we got to make everybody dial 11 digits. Yeah,
I don't know. It seems awfully fair of them. Also, because of a similar depletion of numbers
in the 718 area code, the 11 digits all the time system might also be making its way to the rest
of the city. You know, they're going to be getting three, four, seven,
and that's going to be happening pretty soon. I think this one is scheduled for April 1st, 1998,
and three, four, seven is scheduled to be implemented January 1st, 1999.
Scanning this article, I just saw this for the first time in a few seconds ago.
So I don't think there's any other real details here. It's a huge article. I mean,
they really go into a lot of detail here, but among the biggest opponents to the so-called
overlay plan are companies like MCI, AT&T, Sprint, and the RCN Corporation, which are trying to
battle the industry giant, Bell Atlantic, for the local telephone market. I guess that means every
new phone number they get is going to be in a new area code. Those companies have argued that phasing
in the 646 area code among new customers gives Bell Atlantic an unfair advantage by leaving that
company with the bulk of the 212 numbers, while Bell Atlantic's rivals only get 646. It's very
helpful to the incumbent telephone company because it has a stockpile of old phone numbers, said a
spokesman for RCN, who signed up 50,000 business customers in Manhattan. So yeah, that is an
argument. But you know, I think this is the best deal. I wouldn't want to have to dial...
What are you looking at? It's been handed something that's making me angry. Okay.
Put it down. Put it down first. Okay. It's a piece of plastic. Looks like, judging by the
shape, the type of plastic you'd see inside one of the windows on a payphone, you know, on the
actual payphone itself. And on one side, it says, Bell Atlantic, coin local calls, 20 cents.
And I'm sure somewhere in Bell Atlantic, a payphone call is still 20 cents. Yeah, well, they just
raised them to 35 cents. Yeah, I know. And I flipped the thing over and it looks like they're
all ready and planned ahead. Uh-huh. Because all you got to do is come and flip the plastic over
and it says 35 cents. Well, the question is, where is the 20 cents? Yeah, I know. That's, that's,
that is a good question. Well, where'd this thing come from? I was just handed to me. Newark. Oh,
okay. Newark. So in New Jersey, it's only 20 cents and now it's 35 cents or... Huh. That's kind of
strange. I didn't know that. Me either. I'm told that the, uh, that Bell Atlantic and the, uh,
New York City, I'm sorry, the New York Public Service Commission are appealing the requirement.
Apparently, it's a federal requirement that, uh, you dial all 11 digits in an overlay situation.
So our Public Service Commission doesn't want to do that either. The phone company doesn't want to
do that. The people don't want to do that. The PSC doesn't want to do that. So apparently,
some sort of stupid federal law that says if you have an overlay situation, you have to dial all
11 digits, even if it's the same area code. So, um, also in answer to the question, can I get a
212 number in the future? The answer is possibly. Next spring, something called number portability
is expected to be in place in Bell Atlantic's computers. It means that customers with 212
numbers, when they switch phone companies, can keep the numbers as long as the customers stay
in the 212 area code. It also means that when someone moves out of the 212 area code, it will
free up that number for assignment to another customer. So, uh, you know, it'll get pretty
confusing. And 646, I don't think, is going to be, uh, as, as prized as 212. But what do you...
Doesn't have that, doesn't have that flow to it. No, but it is sort of a similar type of number,
you know? It's a big number, little number, the same big number again. Yeah. I think that's what
they were trying to do. They were trying to make us happy. So we should appreciate that.
Small consolation. Yes. Now, do you have anything there that you want to share? Let's see. Well,
actually, I did want to mention, we've been meaning to mention this for, for weeks now,
and I think you know what I'm talking about. Oh, the DVD thing. Okay. Let's mention that and
move on to our guest. Okay. Because he's been waiting very patiently. Um, we meant to mention
it two weeks ago and we ran out of time and then we kind of slipped, kind of slipped our minds
last week. Yeah. But, uh, basically, uh, a way to copy DVDs has, uh, has, has been discovered.
That's right. If you will. Throwing the industry into chaos. Well, they don't, the problem is the
industry doesn't really seem to be reacting at all. Um, I think they have bigger problems,
like certain companies coming out with DVD formats that aren't supported by anybody else.
So the fact that people can copy them might be a fairly low on their list. Um, they just want
people to buy them first. Yeah. I think they want people to buy them first and know that they're
going to work in the player they have. Yeah. Uh, which is currently a problem. But anyway, um,
a, uh, company by the name of, I believe it was Zoran, Z-O-R-A-N, makes, um, a piece of software
called SoftDVD. And SoftDVD is, um, well, it's basically, um, a software implementation. It's,
you know, if you will, the drivers for, uh, for say, a computer, for a PC that would allow you
to have a DVD-ROM drive. Um, the problem with SoftDVD specifically and its implementation
is that the main workhorse of the actual, uh, DVD, uh, protocols is, uh, implemented in software,
uh, as opposed to hardware. And, uh, if you recall when, uh, just a similar thing is when
DES first came out, it was actually, um, it was considered, uh, bad with a capital B
if DES was implemented in software, but that was relaxed and it was eventually changed.
Originally, you were only meant to implement DES in hardware. Well, um, I had thought according
to the things that I had, I had been reading, um, is that the, uh, the DVD engine itself was
supposed to only be implemented in hardware specifically, uh, for the very reason of making
it difficult to copy DVDs because of the encryption they use. Well, uh, guess what?
Uh, this, this whole encryption engine and everything else was implemented in software.
Now, one would think, okay, so now all I have to do is, is figure out what kind of algorithm
they're using. No, they actually don't even have to do that because all this, this guy really did
was he took the device driver for the DVD drive and he wrote a little C program that compiles under
Windows 95 and Windows NT. What it does is it basically, uh, hooks into the DVD device driver
and intercepts calls for when the DVD is being read so that what you can do conveniently is as
blocks are being read off the DVD and conveniently decrypted by the DVD device driver in software,
you can simply shunt those blocks directly to disk. Completely free and clear, unencrypted,
and do whatever you want with the data. Burn it onto a CD, do whatever you want. Another DVD ROM.
Well, actually, um, DVD, writable DVD ROMs, I think right now are about $10,000. So I think
they're out of the price range of most people. But what a lot of people have been doing is taking,
uh, DVDs, reading them using this method, and then just writing the information, burning it
onto a CD ROM. So do we say this was impossible a couple months ago? We never said that. No,
we never said that. I'm sure it was going to happen. In this case, I wasn't, I wasn't thinking
that, that they were going to be so dumb as to have such poor controls over the technology.
I mean, I could have seen one day somebody getting a DVD ROM drive and, you know,
setting up some kind of like jumper somewhere and figuring out a way to, uh, read the information
off a DVD while it was running, like basically with the guts hanging out. That was what I was
envisioning. Who did this? Um, actually, the, uh, I don't remember what the guy's name was,
but, um, he probably prefers it that way. Yeah. I mean, originally it was on, uh, our, our favorite,
uh, hard to remember site, uh, GeoCities. Right. With some completely impossible mangled URL to
get to the information, which I still can't figure out why, what these people are doing.
But, uh, apparently the guy who put up that info had to take it down for some reason that he did
not disclose. And, uh, it was, it was actually reported in, uh, in one of the, uh, online,
uh, computer things. It might've been CNET. Uh, basically if you want you, I'm sure you could
find the story. Uh, if you do a search in Yahoo or AltaVista. There's been no reaction whatsoever
from the DVD. I haven't seen any response whatsoever from the industry. Okay. Basically,
if you do a search for soft DVD, one word, capital S, capital D, capital V, capital D,
uh, I'm sure you will turn up lots of useless information, but somewhere in there,
uh, you're bound to find the little C program. Well, I'd like to know what people
are able to do with this. Yeah. They're able to actually use this, uh, this technology to
their advantage. Yeah. And actually one more note about that is, uh, if you've recently purchased a
compact, uh, one of the options for a lot of the newer compacts, uh, includes a DVD ROM drive.
And in many cases, whether you specify the DVD ROM drive or not,
uh, you end up getting the DVD ROM drive device driver. Um, whether you do or not, that's great.
What you basically do is, uh, you know, whip up that C program. If you're a windows 95 or NT user
and a copy away, uh, some, some DVDs, or, uh, if you know somebody that has one of these drives,
then, uh, you can basically, uh, convince him that it's a good idea to do this or, or, or something.
But, um, it's, it sounds like, uh, it sounds like the encryption was really just a great big
waste of time. Interesting. Well, speaking of great big waste of time we have, uh, on the phone
with us, not that this person's a big waste of time, but what he's been through is a big waste
of time. Uh, I don't know if you heard about this a few, um, I guess it was months ago. Maybe it was
more than a year ago. Uh, a NASA website was hacked. Well, I mean, that happens all the time,
I guess, but, uh, this was a particularly interesting one and, uh, it got a lot of publicity
and the, the person who did it is from Delaware and he's only 14 years old. Joins us now on the
telephone from an undisclosed location. Are you there? Yes, I am. And what name are we going to
call you again? Um, Arhos. Arhos. Okay. Uh, which is a very insecure thing to have on your system,
but, uh, but you're not insecure thing to have. You're, uh, you're something that actually
finds security holes. Now tell us what is it that you did on, on this system and when was it?
Um, it was sometime around January. January of this year? Uh, yes, 97. Okay. And I, uh, I used
PHF, you know, and I got, uh, the password file and I cracked an account, which was the password
as the same password was the login. So I logged in and it was like running like an old, old sun,
it was an old sun system. Uh-huh. And I, uh, I got root with one of the many available exploits.
And, um, what kind of OS were they running? Um, it was like sun four. Uh-huh. And I just,
um, I didn't even delete their HTML files. I, uh, renamed them and uploaded my own.
And, um, I just, I did it cause I, uh, I was trying to get a point across about what they're
doing with Mitnick. And, um, well, what did, what'd you change the site to say? What did the
site say? First of all, it was a NASA site. Yes. It was, it was a NASA page and the main NASA page
or was it? It wasn't the main one. Okay. It was, it was Marshall space flight center. Marshall
space flight center. Okay. Yeah. And, um, I changed the webpage and I was just, uh, I don't
know, giving them my opinion on what they're doing with Kevin and not just what they're doing with
Kevin, but what they're doing with everything. Um, this being NASA, the federal government or who?
The government. Uh-huh. Them. So now basically, basically you, you, you gave them, uh, an
alternate view about, well, I guess you drew attention to Mitnick. A lot of people probably
visiting the NASA website didn't realize who Mitnick was and now they do. Right. Uh, so what
happened? What was the response? Um, well, I didn't, I thought I got, I was successful with
it. I deleted the log files and it turned out that, uh, two months down the road, they would
show up at my door. Took them two months. Yeah. And then they claimed it took a week, but you
know, so they show up at first of all, how long did the site stay in the altered position? Like
two days, two days over the weekend or during the week over the weekend. Okay. All right. And
then they, they, well, first of all, when you changed the site, uh, did, did you delete everything
or no, I didn't believe it. I didn't believe a single thing except the files or not the files.
Yeah. The, the logs, I, I, I deleted the logs. Okay. So what happened to their files that had
their webpage on it? Um, I renamed them. Okay. So all they had to do really was copy back what it
was that, that you renamed and your site would be back. Well, it took them two days to do that.
Okay. Um, so they, uh, they found that they changed it back. They tracked you down after two months.
What happened then? Um, well, I was in school when they showed up at the door. So the only person
that was in was my, my father and he called my mom and had her pick me up from school. And
my mom had told me then that NASA wanted to speak with me. So when I got home, they already had,
that's an unusual kind of message to get at school, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I got it. Everybody
kind of just looked at me when I walked out, but, um, you know, it was scary cause I knew what it
was about right when it happened. And I, uh, on the way there, I used my mom's cell phone and I
was calling some of my friends cause I had files on their Linux machines that they shouldn't really
have. So I made sure they took care of those. And I got home and they already had been in my room,
my attic. They had taken all my, uh, any computer related book. Um, my computer was already in their
car. Um, I mean, it wasn't like a lot of people showed up at my house. It was someone with the
inspector general's office, um, and, uh, Huntsville, Alabama and two state police detectives
and another federal investigator. They probably made all kinds of wisecracks too, while they were
there. Um, but how they used to play with baseball cards when they were your age or something like
that. Yeah, exactly. That went exactly. Oh boy. I could be a fed. Wow. That's, uh, that's cool.
Well, Manuel, you know what NASA stands for? What? Need a smarter administrator. Ah, yes,
of course. Exactly. It would certainly seem to be the case now. Okay. So you got dragged
through the court system though? Um, no, I, I made a, um, not, not say deal with the devil, but,
um, I don't want to say right here. You basically pleaded something. Well, yeah, I didn't have to
go through the court system. Okay. So what, what was the outcome of it? And when did this take place?
Um, I don't know, in August, uh, I signed an agreement with them and I, uh, I signed that and
everything was going fine until a couple of sites got compromised here in Delaware.
Now this is, this is something that, that has recently happened. Yeah. Over the past, uh,
month, the state police have, uh, have been investigating like two, uh, systems that have
been compromised. Uh-huh. And of course, who do they think it is, but me. So you're, you're the
prime suspect for anything that happens in Delaware. Right now it seems that way. Uh-huh. I'm sure it's
not, but that's the way it seems to me. Well, how do you know that you're a suspect? Um, I had to go
see, uh, they actually had a, um, meeting with me. They had contacted my parents and when I, when I
went in there with my lawyer, they had told me, we know you're involved. I mean, they watch NYPD
blue. They know how to use those tactics. You know, uh, after we talked about it and they told
me that they were investigating, they were investigating two things in Delaware. And then
they said somewhere in, uh, in England got hacked and they were investigating that somewhere like
really off the wall. I didn't know what it was. Uh-huh. And, um, I don't know, after about a half
hour, they, one of them asked if they could speak with me alone without my lawyer. And I said, sure.
And he tried to get me to say a whole bunch of things that I really didn't do. He wanted me to
admit the things. How did your lawyer take that when he asked if he could speak to you without
your lawyer? Well, he asked me if, if, you know, I thought it was okay. And well, it was, I mean,
I already knew what he was going to try to do. So in the future, you know what you do when somebody
asks you to do that? You say no. Well, the thing is I get the feeling that, that you don't have
anything to hide. No. So basically you see, he believes that since he has nothing to hide,
telling the truth is the right thing to do. Now, Fiber, you're more jaded. You've come
out of prison, three years of probation. Tell us how it really is. Telling the truth is the
right thing to do. Only your attorney should be the voice box for this telling of the truth,
not you yourself. Because in this kind of particular situation, you might not really
be thinking in your own best interest. Yeah. Well, now you're 14. Have they ever actually
said that they're going to, uh, to imprison you for anything? Uh, no, they make it seem that way
though. They said, well, if you're honest now, we might be able to cut you a deal in the future. And
if you lie to us, well, you know, so they kind of, they tried to instill that fear in me, but
it looks that way to me. Well, I mean, have 14 year olds ever been sent to federal prison?
Not to my knowledge. I wouldn't know. Yeah. They would get sent to juvie hall. Have they,
have they brought that up to you? Yeah. Was it a federal boot camp or something? They want to
send to a federal boot camp. Yeah. I see. Now, uh, this is all based on these recent allegations,
which, uh, you say you're not involved in. Right. Uh, so where do things stand now?
Um, right now they're still investigating and they're reading my email. Uh, I mean,
they read everything that comes by my way. How do you know this? Um, they had shown me email
printouts from one of my, uh, now former friends that he had forwarded. Wait, one of your friends
forwarded your email. How did your friend get your email? Well, no, not my files in my directory,
but I had emailed him about what happened. Cause I knew the person that did it. Right. And they
had printout for that. Interesting. Yeah. So, uh, they, they had to have gotten that from him.
Yeah. Cause if, if they didn't get it from him, they would have to bring a subpoena to the
place where my email is at. Could I give this man some, some advice? Go ahead. Okay. When,
when you're in a particular situation like this, you don't send anybody email.
You don't know. I didn't know I was being investigated. That's okay. Once, once,
once you get raided by the government, you stop sending email. You stop reading email.
You stop talking to people on the telephone. And if somebody calls and wants to talk to you,
you're not home. What about on the phone to a radio station? Well, I'm not home though. That's
a different story. Okay. Yeah. Uh, well that's interesting. Um, because anything and everything
could be misconstrued. Right. Especially if they're looking for something, they can,
they can twist it. That's one of the reasons Kevin can't speak to anybody because anything he says
will be twisted against him and used in all kinds of ways by the government. Uh, and unfortunately
that's kept him in prison for years. Um, so do you regret what you've done? I mean, would you have,
uh, you know, gone down a different path if you'd known it was going to turn out this way?
Well, I don't regret what I did, but I had a big mouth when I did it and that's what got me in
trouble. Uh-huh. So you get bragged about it at a local pub or something? Um, on IRC. Ah, yes.
Oh. So I had one of those nice IRC ops, uh, send that to NASA.
There you go. IRC is the downfall of the entire room just frowned in disdain. Yeah. Uh, now you
say that they're, they're monitoring your email. Are they doing anything else? Uh,
tapping your phone lines, following you around, things like that. Um, actually my, my friend that
was, um, one of the places that you got hacked, he actually knows one of the people that work
there and he had told him that they had my phone tapped. And I noticed like when I'm, when I go to,
uh, well, when I go to the university, I have, uh, people following me around that really,
well, first of all, first of all, why do you go to university? Uh, for computer science courses.
You take classes at a university? Yeah. Okay. And, uh, you didn't do that when you were 14,
did you Fiber? No, I was too busy using other people's computers. Ah, there you go.
Okay. So you're, you're taking courses at a university and you say people are following
you around there. Yeah. They really don't look, you know, like people that are actually at a
university, uh, probably paranoid, but I don't think people will walk around with earplugs,
you know? I mean, I don't know this, but you know, normal people don't walk around with earplugs.
Right. They use headphones usually. Yeah. Interesting. Um, now you had mentioned before
the show that, uh, you had a special, um, restriction that had been placed on you,
uh, since August. Do you want to tell us what that was? Uh, that I wasn't allowed on the internet.
You weren't allowed to use the internet at all? Right. Okay. So, uh, have you been able to, uh,
to stick to that and no. Okay. Um, okay. Why not? Um, I don't know. It's something,
it's my daily life. It's like part of my life. You know, it's everything that you do is so much
easier to do and so much quicker to use the internet as, you know, if someone was on,
like you wanted to email somebody and they're always there and you can, they can get their
email quicker than you can call them. It's school projects, everything. It's just right there.
Uh huh. So you're saying it's, it's almost impossible to live your life in, in, in school
without using the net at some point. Exactly. I mean, we use it in high school and it's like,
you have to, well, would you be comfortable with the restrictions saying just don't hack
any more government websites? Yeah, that would, that would have surprised. Okay. So, um, so maybe
we can work out some sort of a compromise deal. Well, did they actually say that as that part of
your, your, your sentencing guidelines or was it more of an informal thing? Uh, it was informal.
I never signed anything that said, you know, I had to stick by that, but that was said to me.
Uh huh. Farber, does he have to stick to that if it wasn't, it wasn't written down on paper?
Oh, all they did was, was voice their opinion that he shouldn't do this.
He didn't voice my opinion or his opinion rather, but. This is your probation officer. Yes. Okay.
Oh yeah. If they, if they, if they told you to do that, you know,
you know, if they find out that, that you are, despite what they told you not to do. Yeah. Um,
it's not really going to be very good because, uh, the probation officer is the one who makes
the recommendation to the judge on, uh, your character as far as, uh, how you should be
dealt with. And you want to piss this person off as least as possible. Sometimes it's completely
unavoidable, but, uh, this is something where you obviously have a choice. Well,
now this person has found out, I assume. Yes. He found out when I went to meet with the detectives
and he was quite angry. How did he find out? Well, they told me to be honest and well,
I was honest. Okay. So you basically told him that you were using the internet. Yeah.
Well, don't look so mystified, Farber. People are honest, you know, and it's like they,
they believe honesty is the best way. It doesn't always work. Well, yeah, but it reminds me of that
scene from Monty Python where they're waiting online with crucifixes and, uh, and the guy says,
uh, crucifixion. And the guy online says, no, actually they said I could go live off on some
Island somewhere. It's like, Oh, okay. You know, there are some things you just shouldn't say.
Well, they told me if I, if I was, uh, honest, they would, you know, they could be able to cut
a break in the future. If, you know, something had, you know, they found something out or whatnot.
Yeah. But you could say absolutely nothing to them ever and still cut the same deal.
Well, I mean, the important thing is that what they're accusing you of, you're innocent of.
And, uh, I think that's what you have to, you know, come back to, you know, if there's evidence
against you in a certain case, then they have to present that evidence. They can't just go and say,
well, somebody hacked something in Delaware. So it's gotta be you, you know? And I think that's,
that's the most important thing. Yeah. All this other, you know, whether you use the net or not,
or, you know, who you're sending email to, that's just, you know, it's, it, there's nothing
that will, uh, that will result in anything really major. I don't think. No. All right. Well, uh,
what kind of, uh, what kind of reaction you've been getting from, uh, friends, relatives,
has, has the media gotten ahold of this? Uh, no, they haven't gotten a hold of my name.
I'm pretty happy about that. Well, legally they can't print your name cause you're a minor.
Right. Well, I think they would if they could, but, uh, let's, uh, let's, let's hope they don't.
All right. Well, um, our host, if you want to stay on the line, maybe some of our listeners
have some advice. And, um, are you okay wherever you are right now? Yeah. Okay. Fine. Our number
is 212-279-3400. We're speaking with our host, 14 year old hacker from Delaware,
hacked the NASA webpage, and now is finding that he's being suspected of every criminal
computer act that takes place within a hundred miles. And actually over in England too, somehow.
Yeah. All right. 212-279-3400 and that we welcome calls from all around the world.
If you're listening on the internet, as well as in New York city. Good evening. You're on the radio.
Well, I don't know you, but I'm proud of you. I think you'd do whatever you did. Uh, you know,
it's, you just did what you believed in. I have to say one thing about what they're,
when they tell you about cutting your deal. Yeah. Uh, the basically the first time I was
ever picked up the, um, they told me, don't worry. You'll be out of jail enough time to
see Saturday night live. And then I realized, of course, that wasn't on for a few years.
And then the second time, another precinct entirely said the same thing. I'll be home
in a couple hours. I'll be home sitting back watching Saturday night live. And then I thought,
you know, it's not even Saturday. So they tell you, you know, we'll cut your deal, cut your deal.
It's best to not talk. You're not entitled to say anything, but your name and address
without legal advice. You know, if you don't have the advice of an attorney,
you don't have to have an attorney either. You're not forced to, but you don't have to
do anything, but say your name and address. And, um, the thing about the one telephone call,
unfortunately that's not written anywhere, you know? So, but you have to really, uh, insist that,
that, uh, you, you want an attorney, if you, if you want to do it that way, or,
or someone that you want to speak for you, but you're not, you're not required to,
and I think Farber is right to not say anything at all.
Yeah. Cooperating with the authorities has resulted in a lot of people going to prison.
It's the nicest, the nicest, you know, the cops, they're just, they just doing it mostly because,
uh, they want to go home and they want to go home to see Saturday night live themselves.
That seems to be the theme here, Saturday night live, where they learn their interrogation
tactics too. All right. Thanks for calling. Thank you. Bye. If you had a, if you had some
advice to give to somebody who was contemplating hacking a website, what would you give them? Would
you tell them not to do it or, uh, or would you tell them to do it in a certain way or things not
to do? What? Uh, just keep your mouth shut. Uh-huh. Don't, uh, mention it, you know? I mean, as far
as the actual hack itself, like what's considered, uh, proper, what's not? Well, uh, I mean, I'm not
entitled to say what's proper and what's not. I mean. Well, in your opinion, not, you're not
speaking for anybody else. Well. As somebody who has hacked a site, who has, who has actually
changed the governmental website. And there are a lot of people out there. In fact, this past, uh,
this past weekend, I think 25 Indonesian sites were hacked and wiped. They, they erased them.
And the reason they did that was because of the situation in East Timor. It's a lot more, you know,
uh, intense there. And I guess erasing files is, uh, is seen as justified. Uh, would you ever do
something like that? Do you, do you see that as something that's justified? Um, I, I wouldn't,
uh, really delete anything. Um, I don't like really believe in just, uh, getting in the system
and just erasing every file there is. It'd be much more interesting to actually, you know,
see what, see what the system's about, what, what goes through it, you know, um, poke around in
people's directories and look for things. I mean, don't make yourself known that you're there,
like changing a webpage or whatever, you know, what you want to do. It's
when you, when you hack a webpage, they're going to spend money to try to track you down.
Right. Especially if it's NASA. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, of course they, and then when they, uh,
find you, if you're an adult or they want to charge you, they can, you know,
pin that bill right on you. Right. Well, I mean, do you think people should,
should use this ability just to, you know, boast about their greatness at hacking web pages? Or
do you think it's, it's a worthwhile way to communicate messages that the American public
otherwise would never have heard about things like Kevin Mitnick? Yeah. Not, not, uh, they
shouldn't hack just to boast, you know, I can do this, I can do that. If they don't get a point
across, it's, uh, I don't know. It's a better way to get your point across that actually it'll meet
the news and you can't just call up the news and say, Hey, you know, I found something out and I
want to, I want to say to the public, if you hack a page though, they have a chance to get it
themselves and the government really can't cover it up that quick. Right. Right. It's, it's kind of
an opportunity to, uh, to reach an audience that you ordinarily would not reach. So those people
who do this kind of thing should, should consider that, you know, that, uh, you actually have an
opportunity to, you know, to hit people over the head with something and make them think
rather than just make them think that, uh, you know, you're some evil person that needs to be
locked up. Maybe there's a chance if you're going to go down this road to do something constructive.
Yeah. All right. By the way, you should turn down your audio a little bit because we're
streaming. Yes. And it's about a 20 seconds delayed, I think, because you're listening
to us over the internet. Uh, our phone number is two on two, two, seven, nine, three, 400.
Good evening. You're on the air. Hey, Emmanuel. How are you doing? Hey, is Fiber there? Fiber is
right here. Where are you calling? Where are you calling from? I'm calling from Toronto,
Toronto. Are you listening to us right now? Yeah, but I can't hear you on real audio.
So how could you be listening to us then if you're not hearing us? I'm not actually listening. I'm
kind of guessing because something's messed up with the real audio here. Really? Well, I don't
know. I got some real bad news about your, about your site, the, about the 2,600 and the financial
problems and stuff. Oh, that's, that's something unrelated, but I mean, tell us about the real
audio right now. Oh, I tried to access the site and I don't get that little button that says live
connect. It's the link just isn't there. Really? Do you try refreshing? No, it doesn't. You have
to go to the main page. It's cause I had that problem too. And I couldn't get it started.
I couldn't get the audio going through. So what did you have to do? Um, hold on. I got to bring
up. I don't remember what I did. Is he calling from Toronto too? No, he's in Delaware. He's,
he's our guest. Uh, so basically you connect it to the main page and you don't have the button
saying to do live streaming? No, not really. But, um, actually, uh, do we have a call? You guys had
a caller from Toronto last week, right? And, uh, he was talking about 2,600 meetings. Uh-huh. And
if he could call me and get in touch with me, I'd like somebody to contact somebody I can meet at
the, at the meetings. So I wouldn't be going blindly. Right. So if I can just give out my
number to him, that's a really, really bad idea. I don't think you should do that. Don't give it
out over the air. No, I think he wants to give it out to, uh, you are going to give it out. No,
don't give it out of the air. We can't, we can't really do that. Anyway. I just want to talk about
a cable modem flaw that, uh, that I've experienced. Hang on, before you do that,
our house, did you figure out what was supposed to do with the, um, go to the main index and
just click on live net broadcast and it takes you right to it. So isn't that what it's supposed to
do? Yeah. But instead of going to like off, off the hook without, there's supposed to be, there's
usually an icon there and it's not there. So if you go to the main off the hook section, yeah. Uh,
what happens? Then I just get the, it says real in the background and stuff like that. Uh-huh. But
I don't get that little box that's in the left side. It's the page that says off the hook on
sale. Yeah. Yeah. That's all it has. It has the off hooks on sale. So where do you have to go to
get the actual rodeo park? Well, go, go to 2600.com and then go to our main page and then click right
on live net broadcast and it takes you right to all the different streams. Okay. Well, I thought
that's the way we were doing it by clicking on that, that particular button. Well, people are
figuring it out. I think that's the important thing. Oh, my IP is screwed in the bumps. So,
okay. Well, I think you can now join us on the net, sir, since you now know how to do that.
So what, you have a, you have a point about cable modems. Yeah. Um, over here in Toronto,
we have something called, uh, Rogers. Uh, they make the cable modem access here. It's called
the wave. Okay. And, uh, apparently when I was at my friend's house, we were experimenting with it
and I said, Hey, click on network neighborhood. And I'm not sure if this works in other places
or just hits PC. But, uh, when we clicked on it, we had a list of every single person who was using
the wave and their computer in the network neighborhood now. Wow. Um, that's handy
information. Some unfortunate individual, uh, I don't know, possess them to put file and printer
sharing on. You would theoretically have access to their hard drives. Oh my goodness. Well,
actually the original release of windows 95 had that on by default. Yeah, exactly. So some of
these, uh, newbies who are using, uh, who are just getting computers for, for, for, for school
or something like that may have some, uh, some thinking to do. Yes. They may have quite a lot
of thinking to do. That's, that's, has Bernie S been on? Not this week. No. Oh, he's not been on?
No. Okay. Uh, last week I sent an email asking about, uh, uh, sending you guys about the smart
cards and the 10 pictures of the closeup smart cards. Okay. The one who sent that email and,
uh, my real audio cut out right at the part when you were about to answer my question about the,
the intro song. Now I asked if it was sung by Atari teenage riot and well, you know, we played
Atari teenage riot tonight, but no, the intro song is not Atari teenage riot. Uh, the intro song is,
is, uh, Don let's have a big audio dynamite, but you know, you can click on last week's show and
listen to it and, uh, you'll hear your answer to your question then too. Ah, but what's the
name of the song? It's called much worse, much worse. Yes. It's a flip side of a single called
just play music, which you won't find. So don't bother trying. All right. Um, what was one more
thing? Yes. Um, you know, when a fiber was on a, I think discovery channel or NBC, ABC or whatever
that was one of those. Yeah, actually I was on both NBC and discovery. There was that nationwide
address. We were on all the networks at once. Yeah. Yeah. What about it? All right. Oh, when
he was talking about the white house security and stuff like that was NBC. Yeah. Yeah. Um,
how would I get, uh, get access to the, could I get a copy of the tape from ABC or do you have
any kind of information? It's NBC. If you call the NBC newsroom and you tell them the date and what
it was, there should be no reason why they couldn't send you a copy of the tape. There might
be a fee because you're so far away. I think there'd be a fee if he was outside the door. I
think I got to hand out tapes to people. Yeah. Um, geez, off the top of my head, I don't remember
what date it was. It was aired on Friday. It was a Friday. And if a way to find out, if you listen
to our show, you find the show where we were talking about it. And it was the Friday before
that show. Anyway, thanks so much for calling. We've got to move on to another, uh, another phone
call. By the way, speaking of media that you notice Harper's this week, Harper's magazine
reprinted some of the white house pager traffic that, uh, that we kind of released to some media
people. Wow. What a coincidence. That's kind of funny. I only printed a little bit of it. Just
like the really funny stuff. Yeah. I thought that was kind of cool. All right. Let's take
another phone call. Good evening. You're on the air. Hello? Yes. You're on the air. Oh,
hi. Where are you going from? Um, Minnesota, Minnesota. Yeah. I'll bet it's snowy out there.
Well, yeah, kind of. And it's cold. I'm just, I'm just, uh, this real audio leg is screwing me up.
Yeah. But anyway, it's, it's, it's pretty long lag because we're on delay as it is. And then
there's the real audio delay on top of that. So it's probably about 20 seconds. You know,
Minnesota is the home of two major federal prisons. Is it really? Yeah. Sandstone and
Rochester. Did you know that? I didn't know that. Wow. Yeah. I just hope I don't have to
go there or anything. They send you to another state usually when, when, yeah. So Emmanuel,
I'm on IRC and we're wondering what's with the financial situation with 2600. You've been
avoiding the topic. Well, no, it's not that I'm avoiding it. It's just that there's better things
to talk about than, uh, you know, uh, than, than problems. Uh, it's all explained on the website.
Basically, uh, the nutshell is that, uh, we had a problem with our distributor, uh, that distributed,
um, practically all of our issues. They sort of went bankrupt on us while owing us for three issues.
So we sort of, we, you know, we know that people are interested in the magazine.
It's not a problem getting it out there. We just have to go through another distributor
and it'll be probably about half a year before we're back on our feet again. But we have every
intention of, uh, you know, of dealing with this. And, um, we just want people to know, you know,
that's the reason why the autumn issue isn't out yet. It will be out. Uh, it's at the printer. It
just won't be called the autumn issue because when you call something the autumn issue and it's
winter, some stores like to take it off the shelves. Yeah. So it's going to be called, uh,
well, just like in the, it's kind of funny, just like the subway sign said it will be volume 14,
number three. Okay. Damn this thing that they, they knew that. Um, anyway, uh, thanks for the
concern though. Yeah. Any other questions? Uh, well, yeah, one quick, um, it's off topic, but
I noticed that you're always talking about your OmniPoint phone and how it has email and all that.
Right. Do you know, is PCS supposed to have that anytime soon? Because like here in Minnesota,
we don't have GSM, you know, we're stuck with PCS. Well, PCS, PCS is, uh, it encompasses GSM.
Yeah. Well, PCS is, is the band. It's 1900 megahertz band, which GSM uses. What service
do you get in Minnesota? Uh, well, there's Sprint PCS and then there's like AirTouch.
Right. If you get Sprint PCS, there's no reason why OmniPoint can't come in there as well,
because you know, the transmission range is about the same. I'll have to double check. I thought
there's, uh, there was some kind of coverage in, uh, Minneapolis or, or Duluth or something with,
uh, might've been West Cell. Yeah. It wouldn't be OmniPoint. It would probably be another GSM
company. Yeah. Uh, what you do is direct them to the webpage. Yeah, actually you can just,
you can just go to www.omnipoint.com and, uh, you can find your way to the coverage maps
and there's a map of the U.S. and you can click on Minnesota and see if there's anything there.
It tells you whatever provider is, is covering that area. Right. It's a very
helpful, uh, thing to have. Hey, thanks for calling. We are out of time, unfortunately.
Um, want to thank, uh, our guest, our host, uh, best of luck to you and, uh, please keep us updated,
uh, on your, uh, on your trials and tribulations. Right. And, um, you know, we wish you the best
of luck and hopefully, uh, some people heard some of the things you had to say today. All right,
man. All right, good luck. All right, thanks. Take care. Later. Fiber, I guess we'll see you
next week. Yes. Uh, welcome back to the world of freedom where, uh, you no longer have to report
or do anything that you don't travel. It will. First time in eight years, huh? You don't have
to worry about these things. Great. All right. Well, that's good news. Thanks everybody for
listening. We'll be back again next week with another edition of Off the Hook. Emmanuel
Goldstein. Have a good night.