From 7 to 10 p.m. at the Metropolitan Pavilion, 110 West 19th Street at 6th Avenue.
Friday, December 12th at midnight, tune in to WBAI for a special we are calling Recordings
and Theories.
Join Violet the Organ Grinder, What Time Is It?, Anastasia, myself, Tief and the Pattersons
taking a train to Tibet, and Jay Smooth at the Radio Controls.
Oh yeah, the Creative Unity Collective might even be stopping by, we'll see.
That's midnight, Friday, December 12th, only on 99.5 FM, always rocking to the envelope.
And you're listening to one of the many things that Rudy definitely will not take credit
for, WBAI, New York.
Time now for Off The Hook.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall, I cut myself while shaving,
so I can't make a call, it couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would,
probably won't, but I'll best expect the worst, I hope that's understood, probably won't.
I hope that's understood, I hope that's understood, I hope that's understood, I hope that's understood,
Oh boy, okay, well, ever since you got off probation, you've been a lot, you know, less concentrated, let's put it that way
Alright, well, yeah, former Fed, former agent for all different types of agencies
Who, FBI?
Oh yeah, DEA, FBI, NSA, CBS, everything, you name it
And a couple of programming notes for people who listen to shows other than this one, and hopefully there are a lot of you
Housing Notebook with Scott Sommer, who usually follows us, will not be following us, well, will be following us, but just a long time after us
Thursday night at 7pm, Arab Voices will follow us from now on Tuesdays at 9, so expert witness at 7, off the hook at 8, Arab Voices at 9
Quite a lineup here on WBAI, and anything new in your exciting world there, Fiber, besides unwittingly talking to Feds?
There's so many things, it's hard to know where to begin
There was, somebody sent us information on ADSL coming from Birmingham, Alabama
Yeah, I saw that, I didn't get a chance to print that out though, because that just came in as I was flying out the door
But, I don't know, did you read it?
Everyone's sending us ADSL information from all over the country
Yeah, we've turned into a regular repository for where people can get ADSL, knowing full well that we can't
A conduit of information, if you will
A veritable well of knowledge
Anyway, this individual in Birmingham, which is handled by BellSouth, aka BellSouth.net
And he was happy to find that he could get ADSL in his area, although he wasn't as pleased with the throughput
Which I guess is understandable, considering it's still in trial stage
But the local advertisements were boasting T1 speeds, 1.5 megabits
And he saw approximately 300 kilobits incoming, and 150, about half that, outgoing
Which he said was still a hell of a lot faster
We can say hell on the air, right?
Yeah, we can
Okay, good
There's a shorter list of words we can say, and that's on that list
Right, okay
There's a lot of words we can't say
Yeah, so it's a hell of a lot faster
We're not supposed to talk about this either, I'm told
Okay, so it's a heck of a lot faster than, say, obviously a modem or ISDN
So he was pleased with that much
Obviously the other benefit is that it's only $29.95 a month in his area
But there was an added benefit
Okay
Can you guess what the added benefit was?
Health insurance
No
He found out when the BellSouth employee was there to hook him up to ADSL
All the guy really did was come over, pop a card in his computer, and plug him into an ADSL jack
That's it
He didn't contact BellSouth
He didn't disconnect it from something else that he needed
That's kind of like standard procedure for Bell Atlantic
Oh, well, that's a different story
All right
But the interesting part is that with a little further poking, this person found out that everyone in his area automatically had ADSL
Oh, really?
Yeah
And this is in Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham, Alabama
If you're in the ADSL trial area, you have ADSL right now
Don't pay the $29.95 a month
All you have to do is possibly run a line and just jack into it
Of course, you need some ADSL hardware, which can be rather pricey in excess of $1,000
Really?
Yeah, currently
I'm sure that'll change
But I thought that was pretty funny
The other thing, and a lot of people have been saying this, is the stupid way that the local providers have been setting up ADSL
And this person told the same story we've been hearing over and over again about all the people that are using Windows 95 or Windows NT
And people are simply double-clicking on Network Neighborhood in 95 or NT and seeing everyone's computer
That's kind of neat
That's connected to ADSL in the local area, which seems to be...
It's cause for concern, I guess
It's cause for concern
It seems like these little trial areas for ADSL are being treated as if they're one big bridged Ethernet LAN, it would seem
So everyone can see everyone else
And there's also the obvious problem of sniffing traffic
You can simply see where everyone's connecting to and what their passwords are simply by sniffing the wire from your very own computer
Well, I guess then we really need to ask ourselves if we have something to hide, are we really innocent?
Only those of us who are guilty will want to hide
Well, or we can...
Didn't a great government official say that once?
Only those who have something to hide have something to fear
Yeah, who said that?
It was one of those attorney general type people
Yeah, you know, it was...
Oh, what's that guy's name from the 50s? Oh, forget it
No, it wasn't McCarthy, it was some guy from like Reagan
Really?
Yeah, yeah
I'm sure one of our listeners can help us out with that
Somebody will have to fill us in
I don't remember the names, I just remember the quotes
The quotes
Lots of good quotes coming around these days
Yeah
ADSL info, can I read something from the listener mailbox?
Sure
Okay, this is from Nova Scotia
ADSL info, I thought you might like to hear in Canada
Halifax, Nova Scotia, the local telco is offering ADSL to the public as of November 17th
If you have filled out an info sheet at a show and tell showing of the ADSL modems
You'll be contacted if you're in the 3.5 kilometer area
And your computer meets the requirements of 100 pentium
100 megahertz pentium, 16 megs RAM, 100 megs free hard drive space
They use Windows 95 support only because they use Novell servers
And you need the client and support for the IP Novell gateway
Does that make any sense to you?
Yeah, it does, although it sounds rather crummy
Yeah
It's $45 Canadian if you have the local telco for service and long distance from the telco
$55 if you use another carrier
$65 if you have no phone service
A $150 setup fee
And there's no agreement package
They're taking only 500 users this fall
The installation includes an ADSL modem, a choice of PCI ISA net card
And the whole setup takes two hours, they say
Should be faster than that
I'd be happy, you know, waiting two hours to get ADSL if it actually worked
Well, actually, if it's an external ADSL device
There's no reason why you couldn't connect it to most anything
I mean, at least in that particular scenario where you're kind of trapped using Novell and IPX
There are extensions to Mac OS that allow you to call
It's called Mac IPX that allow you to access Novell servers
Right
And there's also similar IPX support in various flavors of Unix
Such as the Berkeley flavors
And so that would
And of course Linux
So that would certainly be an option
This word out of New Brunswick
New Brunswick, New Brunswick Telephone, NBTel
Has launched the world's first ATM residential broadband network
Dubbed the Video Active Network
Using Nortel technology
4,300 households in the
Oh boy
See, now that they're listening over there
I have to worry about pronouncing it properly
I could make fun of it with just New York listening
But there's somebody in New Brunswick probably listening to us right now
And I got to get this right
All right, so I'm going to try
Okay, I'm going to say it again
See, it's good to say when you can't write
Kennebacassas Valley are being offered VIBE
The first ever commercial service to provide
Two-way high-speed video, audio, and more
Using a home computer
VIBE enables customers to send and receive
Multimedia content at speeds up to 150 times faster
Than those normally available through a 28.8 modem
When combined with internet service
VIBE offers the fastest internet access on the market
Now I'm confused, Barbara
Barbara, what should people go for here?
ATM now?
ADSL?
ATM?
ISDN?
What's going on here?
Well, I could easily see them perhaps switching
I mean, ATM
ATM asynchronous transfer mode is basically
A switched protocol
I can see them at some point possibly
Switching ADSL
I don't know what they're calling it in the current terminology
An ADSL LAN perhaps
Where everyone appears to be on the same physical Ethernet
Although I'm sure it's probably bridged together
But for all practical intents and purposes
I can see them possibly bridging together
Various ADSL LANs
And switching them with ATM switches
But as far as using ATM to actually provide services
Right now it seems like it's a rather costly solution
I know in the former 9X
I know that they had one or two ATM switches
That they were doing trials with downtown
But I don't know if anything ever came of that
I don't know
I wouldn't bank on it right now
Since, again, ATM is really an expensive solution
Since you're literally purchasing a switch
And it's more geared towards the corporate mindset
Right, but they're actually marketing it for residential
That's the unusual thing
That's odd
I'm wondering
Well, actually it's probably not so odd
If they have any kind of relationship with Northern Telecom
Which I'm sure they do
Yes
Nortel technology
Yeah, Nortel makes one of the top ATM switches
But we'll see what happens
That we will, definitely
Now some word about privacy
Concerns about people's privacy
And how it's being, I guess
Well, there was all this talk on Capitol Hill
I've been following this the last couple of days
About keeping children from seeing pornography
It's, you know
Vice President Gore is down there
Clinton is giving his support
For all these programs like cyber patrol
And various other methods to
At all costs
Keep our kids from seeing pornography
It's like that is the worst possible thing
That could happen to your child
Is that they catch a glimpse of something
From a magazine or a website
Or something that they're not ready for
You know what
People shoot up their high schools
That's not even front page news anymore
You know, that's sort of like to be expected
That's just like, oh well
It's a mistaken judgment or something like that
But the really, really bad thing
The horrible thing
Is that somebody gets a
You know, a glimpse of a naked person
Doing something that they might not understand
It's like, wow, that's it
That's, you know, it's over
When that thing happens
I saw in the news
I think it was yesterday
Where the biggest horror was
That when the teacher left the room
The kids would access a website
With naked people on it, you know
Unbelievable
And I was like, that was the most
That made national news
That these kids were actually doing this
I mean, I hate to break it to them
But we didn't exactly, you know
Grow up and leave it to beaver land
You know
Apparently these people on Capitol Hill did
I don't know where they grew up
It's like they grew up on another planet
Or something
They have no conception of what
You know, human mentality is like
And curiosity and things like that
I think by Clinton and Gore
Making these statements
And supporting these views
Well, they've got no guts whatsoever
They just want to be voted for
That's all they care about
Well, yeah, but I think
I think that indirectly
They're admitting that young children
Are always ready for plenty of death and violence
Uh-huh
I can never get too much death and violence
I guess so
It's all over television
You're not looking to do anything about that
And that's the other thing
TV, all right
Did you see Pulp Fiction was on
A couple of nights ago
On Channel 11
I actually
I heard about that
Channel 11
Showing Pulp Fiction
I skipped that
Now I thought
Okay, you know, great
We have this like
New rating system now
You know
It's rated TVMA
Oh, and by the way
What is the TV for?
You know, I mean
You're watching television
It's a waste of space
Of course it's going to be TV
Is there ever an occasion where
There won't be a TV there
Or you'll be doing something else?
I mean, come on
That's like, you know
TV space is valuable
And I think that's, you know
A gigantic waste of resources
So maybe they should rethink that
You know, too many letters up there
The L, S, V
Well, the T and V
Are too many letters as well
Anyway, so they rate this thing TVMA
And I think that means
That they're going to
Actually show the thing
The way it was supposed to be shown
But instead it's like, you know
It's like tuning into
A shortwave station
And missing every other word
You know
It's like, well
Every word is censored
Or changed, you know
I heard cuss words there
That have never been, you know
Made up before
Brand new made up cuss words?
Yeah, like, you know
Shut your flag in head
Or whatever, you know
Words that they just make up
For TV
And it's the same actors
Reading it, too
Really?
They just sort of come up with
These, like, alternative languages
So that people in Iowa
And Ohio
And wherever
Aren't offended by it
Even though it's only shown in New York
I don't know why
TV has to be so
Completely bland
I mean, someone out there
Maybe there's someone out there
That owns a TV station
That has some guts
Challenge these things
You know, start
You know, start airing things
The way they're supposed to be
People talking the way
That they're supposed to talk
You know, you can always
Turn the dial
And with that little V-chip thing
You can always just
Program your TV
Although I understand
The V-chips won't be ready
Until January
But when they are
I see no reason whatsoever
For a TVMA rating
To have any censorship whatsoever
I agree
It's like our rating
That's the whole point of it
Okay, speaking of censorship
Before we move on
Into the privacy aspect
There is, um
Oh, I had it before
There's a pirate station
Somewhere in Philadelphia
I believe
Well, if you see
That piece of paper around
Somebody left this
In my mailbox
There's a pirate station
Yesterday
Decided to have
A press conference
And turn on their station
Down in Philadelphia
Is that it?
Thank you very much
Okay, here we go
Radio Pirates Protest
FCC Harassment
Radio Mutiny
Radio Mutiny
An unlicensed low-watt station
For West Philadelphia
Is returning to the airwaves
At noon on Monday, December 1st
Following a five-day
Reorganization period
After the Federal
Communications Commission
Demanded that they cease
And desist broadcasting
We had the right to use
The airwaves before
And, uh
I imagine they mean airwaves
Not airways
And we have the right
To use them now
Uh, we will not be silenced
By government thugs
That said, uh
Millie Watt
Well, when you suppose
A name like that
The odds of getting involved
In a radio station
Millie Watt of Radio Mutiny
That's a
That's a
Real coincidence there
The station will flip the
And keep in mind
This happened yesterday
The station will flip
The transmitter switch
Once again at a press conference
And demonstration
Monday at Franklin Court
Speakers will include
DJs and Radio Mutiny listeners
A giant silver switch
Will be thrown
To turn on the transmitter
Banned by the government
So, uh
I don't know
What exactly happened there
You know
If they made it
If they're still on the air
I don't know, uh
I don't see a frequency
Oh, here it is
88.3 is their frequency
Down there in Philadelphia
Um
The Radio Mutiny
Collective demands
The FCC must immediately
Cease its harassment
Of micro-radio stations
Including WPPR
And the FCC must reinstitute
An affordable license
For community radio stations
That's something that's, uh
Definitely a topic of interest
Among many people
In the broadcasting community
We have, uh
At least one micro-power station
In New York
Uh, down I think
88.7 is it?
But you have to be
On the, uh
Lower east side to hear it
Yeah
But it's kind of cool
Hearing lower east side radio
And there's no censorship
Or anything like that
Yeah, it's
It's kind of cool
Yeah, that's
That's what it's all about
You can hear some
God-awful stuff too
But you know
That's sort of what radio
Is all about
You know
Mixing things around
Anyway, uh
So that's
That's the story
With broadcasting
And privacy
And, uh
Things like that
Um
At the University of Illinois
Computer lab instructors
Are keeping students
From using their systems
Anonymously
To send sexually harassing
Email, death threats
And even slander
Against professors
Uh, Jason Wessel
A system administrator
Said that last year
He got as many as
30 complaints a month
Students had figured out
How to use their
Web browsing software
To send untraceable email
And they
They don't give us
Any information
On how to do that though
Uh, this is a direct quote
Before a new login
Procedure was created
The school expelled
About
What?
About
About
About
About
About
About
About
About
About
What?
My mic is off
That's because I'm talking
Oh, okay
I thought you might
Uh, uh
Do you want to talk
While I'm talking?
No, no
Not at all
Feel free to just
Barge in anytime
Alright
It's a cocktail party here
There's people dancing
On the tables
Trying to get my attention
I know the mic's off
I turned it off
Okay
Alright
Students had figured out
How to
Okay
Send anonymous
Can you believe that?
They expelled them
They completely
Expelled them
You know
It's, uh
It's nuts
Just for going into
Uh
Netscape preferences
And changing
That's basically what
Mail and news preferences
You're going to tell them
How to do that
Actually, it's Netscape
Options
On the options menu
And you choose
Mail and news preferences
I need to send something
Well, you
You set what you want
Your return address to be
Uh-huh
Uh, students are required
To, uh
To trace
Most anonymous
Students are required
Now to type in
Their full names
And passwords
To log in
Which allows the school
To trace
Most anonymous email
Uh, they now can identify
Ninety percent of
Anonymous email
And they say that
Complaints are decreasing
As warnings increase
The university had
Forbidden anonymous email
For years
But without the new
Login procedure
It was very difficult
To enforce
And that was sent to us
By Daniel
A listener
Somewhere
Out there
And, uh
More on privacy
How about this?
This comes from
comp.risks
I received a spam mail today
That was rather sinister
Most spam requests
That I receive
Request that you click
On the hyperlink
To go to their site
This one, however
Was much different
I'm running
Internet Explorer 4.0
And I simply highlighted
The new message
In my mailbox
And clicked on the subject
To read it
It immediately downloaded
And initialized
A Java applet
That took control
Of my browser
Opened a session
I sat in amazement
I then quickly
Out of fear
Stopped the connection
To that site
Went back to the mail message
And viewed the source
To see what was in it
And then he gives out the source
Which I'm really not going to do
Over the air
Because it's kind of dull
And boring
But the person goes on
To say I never really
Cared much about the spam
I received
Because it was really
Non-intrusive for the most part
This, however, was scary
It took control
Of my browser
Forced me to their site
Who knows what the site
Web pages do
If you let it run its course
Net users, beware
The risks of simply
Receiving spam
I just skyrocketed
Turn off auto preview mode
And look at the source
Of the message
Prior to opening
The mail item
I never cared about
This before
But I really feel
Violated
In some weird
Electronic sense
He's just discovered
ActiveX controls
Yeah
That's, uh
Tell us
Tell the uninitiated
Out there
ActiveX
Protect themselves
ActiveX
Is a feature
Of Windows 95
And Windows NT
Specifically
Uh-huh
So you're saying
This person should not
Have, uh
Had that feature enabled
Well, um
Not necessarily
But I mean
There's been
Quite a number
Of, uh
Complaints
Of, uh
Concerning pranks
That people have
Pulled on
On their websites
Or in email
That, uh
Would cause
Somebody's
Somebody's browser
To do something adverse
Uh-huh
Um
And ActiveX
ActiveX is supposed
To be a powerful means
Of, uh
Controlling, uh
Audio
Video
Um
And various
Other things
Um
It's, uh
I guess it was
Microsoft's answer
To, uh
Java before Java
But, um
But, uh
It's, um
I don't
I'm not exactly
Shocked
I mean
People
If they really
Sit down
And think about it
They can
Think up all kinds
Of obnoxious things
To do with
With ActiveX
And the good thing
About ActiveX
Is that you could
Even write ActiveX
So even the dumbest
Person out there
Can cause havoc
You know
That's something
That's, uh
That's awe-inspiring
In fact
Of course
The only people
Affected are
Internet Explorer users
Yeah
That's unfortunate
Okay
Um
Speaking of, um
Of Cyber Patrol
And, uh
You know
Other such programs
To protect our children
On the internet
Um
Who's gonna protect us
From the children
That's what I wanna know
You know
I mean
There's a force
Out there
That's seeking to, uh
You know
To water everything down
And make it so we can't
Like, act like adults anymore
We have to do everything
As if we're children
And I don't know
I want some senators
Speaking out against that
But I don't think
I'm gonna hear that
Any time soon
Listen to this
Cyber Patrol
Blocked these sites
In addition to all the porno
That they
Try to block
Don't always do that
They blocked
The flag burning page
Um
One of the most intelligent
And funny resources
On the web
Examines the unconstitutionality
Of burning the flag
Um
They blocked
The Second Amendment
Foundation
A large collection
Of resources
And Second Amendment
Right to bear arms
Issues
Um
While the blocking
Of this site
Is questionable
Under any theory
It is also
A nice illustration
Of the inconsistency
Of Cyber Patrol
And of all
Blocking software
This product
Has not blocked
The National Rifle
Association
Or numerous other sites
On both sides
Of the gun control
Issue
This product
Is not
Blocked
On the web
But Cyber Patrol
Blocks it
At its former URL
Funded by the
Democratic Party
Newt Watch
Was a combination
Of devastating
Political reportage
And satire
Aimed at Speaker
Of the House
Newt Gingrich
It contained
Nothing that was
Offensive to children
By any stretch
Of the imagination
Unless they were
Republican children
With no sense
Of humor
Another
Vanished webpage
That is still blocked
Long removed
From the web
Raises questions
About the frequency
With which the Cyber Patrol
Database is updated
A third
Blocked page
Which is no longer
On the web
Contained nothing
But a copy
Of the U.S. Constitution
Huh
Yeah
Um
So that gives you
An idea
You know
And this comes
Also from the
Risk Digest
It gives you
An idea
Of just
You know
How ridiculous
These programs
Can be
And
You know
And
So this can be a feature of sorts.
Very interesting.
Yes, Shynix is here.
If you, for some reason, had a website
that you wanted people to go to, like a website of your own,
you could probably hit one of these pages that showed you
what people were looking for.
And if you saw some kind of trends,
you could make your web page conform to that trend,
if you know what I mean.
Yeah, you sort of give the people what they want.
You could title your web page Tommy Hillyfinger,
or whatever it was.
If people want that, you can provide it.
Exactly.
And there might be some reason to do that.
But I think what this points out is that people
can't spell to save their lives.
That's true.
In a sense, this is a way to learn about how
to hack the search engines.
Looking at this is not hacking.
This is a service that these search engines are
providing to people.
So you are not doing anything.
Figuring out how to find that URL, that's hacking.
That's hacking.
Figuring out how to match someone's query,
that is hacking.
That's trying to decipher the criteria
that the search engines use.
Right.
Now, would there be another service in there, perhaps,
that would give the email address of the person doing
this?
That's something to be concerned with.
I think that would generate a lot of complaints.
Oh, that certainly would.
Yes, absolutely.
And rightfully so.
Because that's not the kind of thing you really
want to be giving out.
Yeah, besides which, they're selling that information.
They're not going to give it away freely.
Yeah, that's true as well.
But this is fun for the whole family.
You can sit around and just see what kinds of things
people are looking for.
Once again, and this is the last time I'm going to give this out,
av.yahoo.com slash bin slash query probably won't be working
later tonight.
Turn that off or whatever.
We'll see.
If it's still working, then we know that they don't mind.
Yeah.
And what, we got a good one there?
Can we say that on the air?
No, we can't say that on the air.
I don't think we should say that on the air.
All right, let's see if we can open up the telephones
and go to some listener phone calls here on radio station
WBAI in New York.
The program is off the hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein here with FiberOptic and friends
who are talking about all kinds of privacy issues
and technology advances and fun on the net.
All right, line five is out.
So if you're calling on line five, well, you won't know it.
You're not there.
You're definitely not there.
All right, you'll just be ringing forever.
So let's take our first listener phone call again.
If you're listening on the radio,
please turn down your radio.
If you're listening on the internet,
please turn down your computer.
And keep in mind that it'll take about 20 seconds
for that warning to get to you.
So I guess I can, the first person who calls on the computer
will be a little bit confused.
I can understand that.
Good evening, you're on the air.
See, this is exactly what I was talking about.
See, see, they're waiting to hear the warning.
And eventually, they'll figure out
that the warning was intended for them,
and they're on the air right now.
Hello?
Yes, where are you calling from?
Louisville, Kentucky.
Louisville, Kentucky.
How about that?
And how are things down there?
Fine, I just got a question for you.
Go ahead.
Some of the payphones down here, if you dial an 800 number,
it gives you a dial tone, and you
call free long distance and local calls for free.
Really?
What kind of payphones are they?
Bell South.
How about that?
Really?
Good old Bell South.
Wow, they come through again, yeah.
So now, do you have to wait for the 800 number to disconnect?
Yeah.
OK, and when it drops down to a dial tone,
then you have, that's sort of like an old-fashioned cold-caught
trick, isn't it?
Actually, is this possibly Bell South
getting some of their first cold-caughts, like we are here?
Are these plain old-fashioned payphones,
or do they have like newfangled technology in them?
I don't know, but they send Bell South all the time.
Well, when they place a call, do they
say thank you for using Bell South, or anything like that?
Yeah.
They do.
Oh, so those are the new cold-caughts.
Those are the new cold-caughts, and they're probably
all messed up.
Yeah, sounds like it.
Wow, so you can call anywhere?
Overseas, too?
No, I haven't tried that yet.
Oh, OK, well, you know, I'm not suggesting you do,
but it's something to consider that maybe these dial tones are
completely wide open, and that's certainly
not going to last very much longer if they figure it out.
All right, well, good call there.
All right, thank you.
All right, take care.
How about that?
Yeah.
Some free calls to make in Louisville, Kentucky.
I wouldn't be shocked if you couldn't.
Driving down there, yeah.
Actually, there's other places down there, too,
in Bell South land.
Bell South.
Bell South starts at Carolina, right?
Virginia is Bell Atlantic.
Yeah.
And Washington, DC is Bell Atlantic, so I guess Carolina.
That's right, all the way down to Florida.
Yeah.
And all the way over to Louisiana.
Georgia, all those places.
Yeah.
How about that?
Speaking of those places, by the way,
this Friday is a 2,600 meeting in various cities
around the country.
So I'm certainly not going to list all of them
because it's too many of them, but just a reminder
to people listening that it's the first Friday of the month,
and generally, they meet in various cities between 5 PM
and 8 PM, although the time may vary.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Hi.
How are you doing?
I have a couple of questions.
Where are you calling from, first of all?
Alabama.
Alabama?
Yeah.
Where's all the New York callers?
I guess all New York listeners are gone or something.
Our station could go off the air and we'd never know it.
Yeah, well, we have the internet,
so you don't even need a tower anymore.
Actually, we do need the station to get it on the internet.
Yeah, to get it to the people we're coding.
So what's up in Alabama?
You're Bell South, too, aren't you?
I just heard that.
And just to kind of stay on the subject, I had a question.
It wasn't until about a year ago that the Bell South payphones
went to where they did the mic muting,
so you couldn't use red box tones or anything on them.
Is that an actual physical, were the phones physically updated,
or was it a software update that would do that,
or did they have to actually change out
hardware in the phone to make the mic muting possible?
The phones are physically updated.
If you're talking about the payphones
that the previous caller was talking about.
Wait, he's talking about the red box muting?
Yeah, the old flavor.
Yeah, the old flavor phones where the red box tones are
muted, yeah, that is something physical on the phone also.
Because up until about a year ago,
but you know the phones, of course.
Well, you see, that's why it happens phone by phone.
You may notice that sometimes certain things work on one
phone, and then they don't work on the phone next to it.
It's because when they're called in to service a phone,
they also update it with the latest revision or security
hardware that they have to install.
That's why if you go inside lots of buildings
to phones that aren't serviced very often,
you'll find all kinds.
I mean, I found a rotary payphone in one place.
It still said $0.10 on it.
Well, I could give you a surefire tip.
I'm not enforcing red boxing.
I think everyone should pay for their calls.
You mean endorsing, not enforcing.
Well, I'm not doing either.
Who's going to enforce red boxing?
Well, somebody who firmly believes in it.
But I'm not endorsing or enforcing.
OK, just advising.
Just advising.
A surefire way to find a quote unquote old payphone,
at least here in 9x slash Bell Atlantic land,
and your mileage may vary elsewhere,
is to turn the coin release.
If the coin release gives you a clangity clang instead
of nothing, then you know you're using an older
electromechanical payphone.
And the, uh.
And what's the other one?
What's that?
If it goes clangity clang, it's one.
And if it does, what's the other one?
What?
Oh, if it doesn't do anything.
Oh, if it doesn't make any noise.
Yeah, you'll just hear it turn clean.
You won't hear, like, really anything at all.
I have a potentially very embarrassing question
to ask you.
What's that?
Was that not something that Rebel told you?
No, it's not, actually.
It's something I told him.
Oh, you told him?
Yeah.
OK, you told him that.
Yeah, it was probably.
I thought I remembered him showing us something like that.
No, he showed us some other thing that probably
didn't make much sense.
OK, all right.
No, that was something I told him a number of years ago.
And it still holds true today?
I wouldn't know, but I'd be willing to bet it does.
OK, any more questions?
Alabama caller.
Yeah, the $0.35, the local call that they upped it,
was that an FCC cap that was changed?
The FCC basically deregulated payphone prices,
which meant that all of a sudden, everybody said,
hey, you know what?
We need more money, and we're going to raise it.
Here in New York, 9x had made an agreement
not to raise payphone rates through, I think,
the year 2002 or something like that.
And since 9x was taken over by Bell Atlantic,
Bell Atlantic is being held to that agreement.
So payphone rates, for now, are safe in New York.
New Jersey, I think they just bounced up to $0.35.
So theoretically, if there's a payphone that was,
their phone was at a premium, say, at hotels.
You know, you pay $10 for a Coke at a Coke machine at a hotel.
Yeah, they could charge you $1 for a local call.
So they could do that now.
Yeah, they could.
And if people are dumb enough to use it,
they'll just keep doing it.
One other thing about ADSL.
When they're testing these trial areas,
is this a test of the ADSL system,
or is it a local test of the equipment
kind of acceptance of ADSL?
So essentially, would every area that
will be getting ADSL go through a trial period
prior to it being released to the consumer?
Well, whenever some new feature, no matter what it is,
is going to be released or unveiled by a phone company,
there's always a trial area.
I see.
I mean, like in Birmingham.
It may be.
Unfortunately, here in the former 9x land.
It's Poughkeepsie.
What's that?
Yeah.
No, it's Poughkeepsie, New York.
New York City was never the trial area
for any new technology.
Because we're atypical.
We don't represent the masses.
They would always start off in Poughkeepsie, which
is in upstate New York.
Then they would move way the heck out to Long Island.
And then they would gradually move into Manhattan
and the outer boroughs.
But you'd actually get the service
without it being tested in the area.
Yeah, by the time it got to us, it was already being sold
as like a tried and true service.
New York City, for what it's worth,
has never been part of any trial period.
It's like when they say, we've redesigned your bill
to make it completely illegible because of what you told us.
Yeah.
And it's like, it's your fault if it doesn't work.
And you never said anything to them.
It's some idiot someplace that gave them advice that was bad.
We're not saying that Birmingham won't be a test area.
In fact, highly likely it will, since one of Motorola's product
sectors is in Birmingham.
It is now.
It is being, I think, the earlier message you read.
It's being tested in Birmingham.
Oh, OK.
And I was wondering if I would have
to notice a trial period here locally before I'm in Auburn.
So I'm not really, my closest major metropolitan area,
if you can call it, really, is in Montgomery.
So I was just wondering if I would have to see a test
period within the locality before it would be, you know.
They're probably going to have to test it in Birmingham
before they offer it in your area.
However, you might just call them and ask them, you know.
Yeah.
They wouldn't really talk about it.
They said if I wasn't involved in the test,
they really couldn't give me any information about it.
So I was just wondering if I could wake up tomorrow,
you know, and ADSL would be available,
because the testing, quote unquote, would be.
Well, what you got to do, you got to do,
you got to be kind of a pest.
Just keep calling them and talk to different people.
Eventually, you'll find somebody who'll
talk about it a little bit more than that.
But never accept, you know, just don't ask us
questions as an answer.
Yeah.
Well, by that time, I'd called about six different numbers
before.
I've only got some business.
I'm sure we'll be hearing more about this in future weeks.
And we'll update people as that happens.
Hey, thanks very much for calling.
We're going to move on to another phone call.
You know, it's interesting how we're getting calls
from all over the place.
Yeah.
We don't get any New York City calls anymore.
But you know, this person was talking about pay phones.
And something that really, really annoys me
is this new fee for 800 numbers.
Have you heard about this?
We talked about it a couple of weeks ago.
The FCC, I don't know what these people have been smoking.
But they somehow conclude that it costs $0.25, or no,
actually, I think it's more like $0.30.
Yeah, $0.30 per call to an 800 number for a pay phone.
They determined that that's what it costs the pay phone
owner to call an 800 number.
So guess what?
That cost is being passed along to the 800 customer, which
means that if you have an 800 number,
and I happen to have an 800 number with cable and wireless.
That's one company.
They have this service that they now
say if somebody calls you from a pay phone,
it's going to cost $0.30 more.
Really?
Yeah.
And it's insane.
You know, why should someone pay more money because of where
somebody is calling from?
Doesn't make any sense.
So of course, I'm disconnecting that number now.
You know, it's pointless to have.
You know, it makes it unaffordable.
You know, if enough people call, it just keeps adding up.
And it's not worthwhile.
Now, there's other people have blocked pay phones.
Now, this makes a lot of sense.
You know, certain companies have blocked pay phones
from calling their 800 numbers.
I know at least one person who has a beeper.
That's an 800 number.
You can't beep him from a pay phone anymore.
What good is that?
You know, it's stupid.
I just want to know, where is this money going?
You know, this extra $0.30 that I'm paying, all right?
Somebody gets that.
Does it go to the pay phone owner?
If so, I want to get a pay phone, all right?
I want to get my own pay phone and have
people call nothing but 800 numbers on it.
Because I'm not going to be paying
anybody for an 800 number.
And I'm just going to keep getting
all these little $0.30 checks from the phone company
for every time somebody does.
It doesn't make any sense.
So, you know, I beg of people, please, think about this
and figure out what's going on here, because it's wrong.
And it needs to be repealed.
All right, that's my speech for tonight.
Let's go back to the phones.
212-279-3400, good evening.
You're on the air, where are you calling from?
Yeah, Long Island, Suffolk County.
Ah, OK, way out there.
No, no, there's no Suffolk border.
All right, that's fine.
How's route 110?
How is it?
Yeah.
I'll look.
Getting clogged up, right?
OK.
Probably.
All right, so what's up?
What's on your mind?
I'm not on the air.
Yes, you are.
I have my radio on.
Well, then you're tuned to the wrong station,
because you are on the air.
Oh, anyway, oh, OK, there's quite a delay.
There's a delay, yes.
So please turn on your radio, or you'll
continue to be confused.
Yes, let me ask you a question.
I had, back in the 9x days, just recently, I had a phone,
and someone was making a lot of long distance calls,
and it was getting to be too much.
So I asked them to give me a security code.
I had AT&T, long distance.
And I asked, I'm sorry, I switched from AT&T to MCI.
And I asked them to give me a security code,
and they said it's just 1,000.
And that was it, that was their standard number, I guess.
They gave you a security code, default security code?
You know, you had to dial an access code
to get to long distance.
OK.
But they have a standard number, 1,000.
It's like public knowledge, and they know that.
Wait a minute, so you're saying to use long distance,
you have to dial a special access code.
At what point do you dial this code?
While you're dialing the number.
After you dial the number, do you get another tone
or something like that?
I don't think so, I don't recall.
And it's just a four digit code, and the default is 1,000?
Yeah, let me move on.
OK.
I was, yeah, four digit, I think it was four digit.
Anyway, you could still pick up the phone
and just call long distance.
And I asked them, you know, that my bill
continued to be higher than I wanted it to be.
And I asked them about it.
And they said, oh yes, we do have the date
that you requested that.
I said, yes, but since then, there
have been long distance calls.
I didn't make any of them.
And the other person that would be making them
does not know the code.
I mean, does not know.
I don't mean can't figure it out.
I mean, doesn't know anything about it.
Right, OK.
They said, well, that's not our problem.
I said, you are the people who I asked
to put some kind of security measure on.
And nobody has dialed this 1,000 access code number.
And that's one point.
And yet still was able to make calls.
And the other point is, why would you give me
a number that's public knowledge?
OK.
So I, you know, in a sense, like in law,
you shift the burden of proof.
I said, wouldn't they shift the burden of proof,
not necessarily shift the burden of proof,
but shift the burden onto you?
I asked you to make my line secure for making
long distance calls.
Well, have you tested it?
Do you have to dial the four digits?
I don't have it anymore.
OK.
My point is with them is, you know, they want more money now.
And I said, I'm not going to pay you.
I want you to show me, you know, what date.
And he said, OK, this is the date you asked for this.
I said, fine.
And after this date, because I still
have my phone bill, after this date, these calls were made.
And I feel I should not have to pay for them.
Right.
And then I said, can you prove to me that the 1,000 access
code was dialed?
And then they don't want to hear any of this.
They don't want to participate.
They're not, you know, they're not working with me at all.
They just want their money.
And I don't see it that way.
Yeah, no, I can understand that.
Do you have a question?
Do I have a question?
Yes.
Oh, what could I do about that?
Maybe the Public Service Commission?
This is AT&T?
It was AT&T or MCI, I believe.
OK, well, it would be the FCC, Common Carrier Bureau,
that you would need to contact in Washington, DC.
The ironic thing is, you'll probably
have to use AT&T to get to them.
But once you do that, you'll be able to tell the story to them.
First of all, giving out a default code
is a very, very bad move on their part.
Second off, it doesn't sound like the system really
may have worked all that well.
Perhaps there's some kind of a hole in it.
Perhaps there's some way of getting around it.
How do you mean there's a default code?
If 1,000 is the same code they're giving to everybody,
that's what's known as a default.
You can't pick a code of your own, apparently.
Right, right.
So that's something that they need to fix right away.
Or even if they gave you a code, this is your number,
you remember it, or here, we send it
to you in a private little letter.
Right.
As for the problems you're having with numbers,
there's all kinds of ways that could be happening.
Somebody could be tapping into your line
at any one of a number of points.
The thing is, find out.
I haven't made this clear.
It's only one other person using the phone,
and they don't know phone tricks.
Right.
But the thing is, you think only one person can
use your phone line.
You're wrong, because lots of people
can access it at many different points.
And that could be what's happening to you now.
It could be somebody using a cordless phone,
if you have one.
No, no, no.
I know who it was, and I know who they called.
You know who made the calls, then?
Yeah.
OK, all right.
So you're saying there's no way they
could have known about the code.
Yeah, and I'm not necessarily saying
that they didn't ring up the price of a phone call.
Right.
What I'm saying, on my phone, in my name,
when I contracted with the company
and asked them to put a security code on.
Yeah, they didn't do that.
And I don't think I am.
Is it possible you weren't speaking terms
of the person who made the calls?
Am I?
Yes.
Can you just ask them what they did?
You know, if they say, hey, I didn't dial any code,
you know, you do have some proof, then.
This is what I'm saying.
They didn't.
They are ignorant to anything but dialing seven numbers.
Right.
Or maybe seven and an area code.
And then what we're saying is the code didn't work.
That too.
And that's what you need to get across,
is that they say they provide the security and they don't.
Right.
Listen, good luck, sir.
We're going to move on to another call.
Thanks a lot.
Great show.
All right, take care.
Bye.
That kind of thing happens a lot, you know.
I've never actually encountered a regular long distance
OnePlus service that asked you to enter a code.
It's a good idea, except how do you get around, you know,
the 10XXX, or as of next month, 1010XXX.
Yeah.
You know, that's the carrier access code
way of getting around things.
So it's, you know, there's always
going to be a way to make phone calls.
People have to have to realize that.
Let's see if we can squeeze in one more phone call.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Where are you calling from?
Well, I guess we'll never know, because they hung up.
Let's go all the way over here.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Where are you calling from?
New York City.
New York City.
We've heard of that.
OK, what's up?
What's on your mind?
Well, this is Rother.
I just wanted to know if I could buy or sell your phone
with Coke bottle caps.
He wants to buy a cellular phone with Coke bottle caps.
I have no idea what he's talking about.
Well, I don't know.
Every time I look at those Coke bottle caps, it says,
sorry, try again.
You're a loser, you know?
I mean, I just want to drink soda, OK?
I don't care about these personal attacks
or anything like that.
I don't know what's under those caps.
I don't know what you can win.
All I know is I've never won anything.
And it's just getting a little bit annoying.
The only thing I've ever won from soda is more soda.
And I had absolutely no idea where to cash it in.
Really?
I don't know any stores that take bottle caps that
would allow me to say, OK, here's a bottle cap.
I'll go get a bottle of soda now,
and I'll just be walking out, thanks.
You ever get those ones that make you pay double?
No.
You're lucky.
Wow.
You're really lucky.
All right.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Where are you calling from?
Birmingham.
Again?
Again?
Look at this.
Is this the same person?
This is a guy that wrote the ADSL report.
Oh, OK.
This is the original starter of all the talk.
Right, right.
You have about a minute and a half, so make it quick.
All right.
The network neighborhood thing, it doesn't work anymore.
Apparently, they disabled NetBuoy.
Really?
Wow.
Or something like that.
That's a sobering fact.
What about NetBIOS over TCPIP?
That doesn't work, apparently, because two days
after they installed mine, that function was gone.
You couldn't see anybody else on the NetBuoy
anymore or on the network neighborhood anymore.
What about IPX, for that matter?
What if there's people that are on your network
that are using network?
I don't think that works.
Really?
No, it doesn't work.
I couldn't see anything else on network neighborhood
or anything else.
All I know is you can sniff other boxes that
are on your same subnet, just like a cable modem you can.
I can't wait till they get this here
so we could screw around with all kinds of these things.
Yeah, it's pretty smooth, except for you
don't get the bandwidth that they promised you.
They said between 1.6 and 10 megs
with a mean of 6 megs a second, and I'm
getting nowhere near that.
This is part of the whole test period thing,
because they're going to be changing things,
and people are going to be finding little tricks,
and they're going to be fixing them.
So by the time it gets to us, there won't be anything left.
Oh, yeah, it's worlds faster than ISDN, even.
Well, it's worth it just for that.
It's that much faster than ISDN.
Yeah, it's really weird, because apparently every line
in the area here has ADSL running to it,
because I got a friend that's got like three lines,
and he took his box, and he plugged it into each one of
them, and it still made a connection with the network.
That's really weird.
So you could take it to somebody else's house and plug it in,
and you could use their line.
Are they actually paying for it?
No, see, the thing is about the security on it,
you could plug it into anything.
The tech came over here and plugged it in,
and it logged on the network, got on with DHCP,
and he said, all right, this is absolutely free,
but you gotta pay for it, otherwise I get fired.
So we had to get an account with BellSouth.net.
They're using a regular dial-up account to charge us.
We heard a similar thing going on in, where was it?
Nova Scotia?
No, wasn't there something else in BellSouth?
Where you could, where did I mention earlier?
Where was it?
Birmingham, Alabama.
It was the same place.
I was the one that sent that email in.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, it's the same person.
Listen, we're out of time.
Is there a pricing scheme yet, though, for ADSL down there?
It's just $29.95.
They say it's $49.95, but we're only getting charged $29.95
for it.
And that's unlimited?
Right.
Okay, great.
$24.70.
Thanks for the info.
We're gonna definitely apply it up here.
No problem.
All right, take care.
All right, bye.
And we're out of time.
We got more calls from Alabama this week
than from anywhere else, which is kind of funny.
Programming note, housing notebook,
which usually comes on after us,
will never be coming on after us again,
because it's now on Thursday at 7 p.m.
It's Housing Notebook with Scott Sommer,
but coming up next is Arab Voices.
So that will be the new program following us
every Tuesday night at nine.
We'll be back again next Tuesday night at eight
for another action-packed edition of Off the Hook.
Until then, this is Emanuel Goldstein for FiberOptic.
Have a good night.
Thank you.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a cut
It couldn't get much worse, but if they could they would
I hope they understood, but they didn't know 
This is Anissa Bouzian, Reem Katkhoda, and Barbara Nimri-Aziz.
You've been listening to us on Saturday Afternoons.
Now join us at our new time, Tuesday evening at 9.
Make a note of it, Arab Voices Crescent Rising has a new airtime.
Tuesdays from 9 to 10 p.m., hear the progressive voice of the Arab and Muslim communities here and abroad.
So, Reem, what's planned for our new show?
Poet Lisa Muhammad is coming in, so is the author of Ramadan sonnets, Abdul Haymour.
We're interviewing painters and musicians.
Hussein Ibish will give us his insightful political commentaries,
and Ibrahim Gonzalez weaves in his tapestry of Sufi sounds.
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And that's only in December. Wait until Ramadan starts at the end of the year.
So come on over.
For Arab Voices Crescent Rising.
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And good evening.
This is Barbara Nimri-Aziz inviting you to stay tuned for a very different kind of show,
but still part of the WBAI progressive voice.
And this is called Arab Voices Crescent Rising.
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We're usually on on Saturday afternoons from 3 to 4.
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And so stay tuned and tell your friends who may be looking for us on Saturdays
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And we're here until just about 10 o'clock.
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But I'm here with a lot of material for you.
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