That's right, put the kids to bed early, get some pig feet and a bottle of gin, and we're
gonna hear the blues.
There'll be an exciting mix of Bessie Smith music and tales of her life on the road, plus
an exclusive interview with Coco Taylor, and as much good women's blues as I can find.
That's the Women's Weekend Blues Special, Gut Bucket Women, Saturday night, March 7th,
from 9.30 p.m. to 11 p.m.
Here on WBAI 99.5 FM in New York.
And you're listening to radio station WBAI in New York, where the time is just about
8 o'clock, time once again, 4, off the hook.
And you're listening to radio station WBAI 99.5 FM in New York, where the time is just
about 8 o'clock, time once again, 4, off the hook.
And you're listening to radio station WBAI 99.5 FM in New York, where the time is just
about 8 o'clock, time once again, 4, off the hook.
And you're listening to radio station WBAI 99.5 FM in New York, where the time is just
about 8 o'clock, time once again, 4, off the hook.
And a very good evening to everybody, the program is off the hook, and everything's
broken.
Everything's broken.
If you're listening on the net tonight, well, you're doing something that I think is impossible
because MCI is broken.
That's right, the entire MCI network is down in the area, so there's no net connectivity,
because guess who we get our net connectivity from?
Yeah, it's pretty bad.
So there's, you know, these headphones aren't working either.
I just realized why they're not going to work, because we use delay, and delay is going to
just confuse everybody.
So the headphones that I'm supposed to be using fell apart in my hands only a moment
ago.
Well, you know what?
I'm going to push this button and see what happens, because sometimes unpredictable things
occur, and you just don't know why.
There.
I pushed the button, and I think things are working fine now.
Okay, this is off the hook, where we talk about things that break, and sometimes break
other things live on the air.
We have Bernie S. with us live from Philadelphia.
Bernie, you there?
Good evening.
Real good.
That's good to know.
I've been, you may not know this, to look at me certainly, you might be able to tell
from the crazed sound of my voice that I've been going through a war.
Yeah, a war, a battle, a fight, a struggle, a people's action, if you will.
And it's the kind of thing that, in these civilized times, you no longer need to go
out and, you know, hit people and throw things and be hit and thrown at yourself.
It can happen all in the comfort of your own living room, or whatever room you choose to
use.
I'm talking about the Internet, of course.
Yes, the Internet has brought war home to us in ways that we could never imagine.
I'm sure the founding fathers of the Internet would be turning over in their graves, or
wherever it is they're lying, if they knew the kinds of things that were happening today.
Yeah.
IRC, Internet Relay Chat.
Bernie, you're familiar with it, right?
Yes, I don't use it myself.
And you're wise not to.
I'm very familiar with it.
You're wise not to, because this kind of thing happens all the time, where wars start.
You know, people get involved in all kinds of actions.
And we've had this little struggle going on for a while now.
We have our own channel, which we call the 2600 Channel.
Basically, the way it works is, if you're on a Unix system, you're on any kind of system
including Windows 95, you can get into IRC and start talking to people all over the world
on different networks.
The biggest one is EFNET, E-F-N-E-T.
There's also Downet, Undernet, various other things that aren't quite as big.
But by default, you wind up on EFNET.
And in there, the Pound 2600 Channel, the pound is what you put in front of every channel,
so they all have that little specification.
It used to be the plus sign for those old-timers out there.
It used to be plus.
That's how you know you've been around too long, if you can remember those days.
So the Pound 2600 Channel is sort of the place where we hang out,
talk about the magazine, the radio show, hacking in general, just various other things.
Although, there are people now that are in the channel that think that they're in there
because it has nothing to do with 2600.
They just happen to like the number.
I'm not kidding. I've heard this from people.
It's like, yeah, it's got nothing to do with 2600 or the Atari 2600,
which a few people seem to think it's got something to do with.
We just like the number.
Are they numerologists?
I don't know. I never quite pursued that kind of logic,
and maybe one day I'll have the time to do that.
You know, that's the other thing about the net.
You talk to everybody, everybody that has their own little theories as to how things work.
You know, everyone has an equal say.
And that's great. That's what I believe in.
I believe in people being able to say whatever it is is on their mind.
We should see some of the things people say.
I mean, things we can never say on the radio.
I don't know why we can't say them on the radio,
but that's just the way the FCC has deemed it.
We can't say certain things or even speak of certain things.
On IRC, though, anything goes.
Well, that is unless somebody decides to take control.
Now, on IRC, you have certain modes,
and I guess the most important mode there is is ops.
Yeah, that gives you an operator status.
You get a little at sign in front of your nickname,
and that means that you're an operator on that channel.
And when you're an operator, you can do all kinds of neat things,
like, you know, kick people off the channel
or set the topic unless the topic is set to be switched by anybody.
And you can do all kinds of other things, too,
like change the modes of the channel, make it invite-only
so you have to be invited in to get in,
make it so that only people with operator status
or who have been given permission can speak.
You know, op status is what everybody tries to achieve.
Some of us will go our whole lives without getting opped once.
Other people were born into it as sort of a, you know,
a royal family kind of a thing.
So occasionally this happens,
especially when you print articles in the magazine, you know,
about taking over channels.
Well, people tend to sort of take over channels and do things like that,
and that's sort of what happens.
This one person, I don't want to get into names and personalities
and things like that, so we'll just,
this one person, let's call him Adolf.
Just, you know, it's a good name.
This person decided that they were going to run things their way,
and only people that agreed with that person
would be allowed to, you know,
to have any kind of say in policy whatsoever.
Everybody else was kind of like, you know,
the serfs, the trot upon,
the people that didn't really count for much.
And these people kind of got upset, you know,
slowly at first, but more and more as time went on.
And yesterday, I decided to cause some trouble
because, you know, I haven't caused trouble in a while,
like real trouble, you know,
the trouble where, like, cops get called and things like that.
You know what I'm talking about, right, Bernie?
All too well.
Yeah, well, now, this, I decided to use
kind of the same techniques that I would use
if I was causing trouble in real life.
So the first thing you do when you want to cause trouble,
you conspire.
You bring people together from various, you know, factions,
and you unite them.
You conspire with them against the common enemy.
And so, you know, I kind of talked to all these different people
that had their own little, you know,
problems with the way things were being run, you know.
They felt afraid to speak out.
They felt like if they criticized, they'd be punished in some way,
and their family would be hunted down and shot like dogs.
Well, to be honest, I don't really know any place that shoots dogs,
but it's a term.
So, anyway, no, I don't need headphones.
This guy went to Brooklyn to get me headphones.
No, no, I don't need headphones. I'm fine.
I'm surviving with what I got taped to my head right now.
So, we conspired.
And we said, look, we can take this channel back.
We just have to want to do it.
And so, we decided, we went in there in the channel,
and we started talking, you know, we started, you know,
criticizing the people in charge.
In a democracy, you should be able to do that.
You should be able to, you know, openly criticize.
And, of course, the people in charge didn't like this.
But it didn't stop us anyway.
We decided to just keep talking and keep criticizing
and keep saying, hey, you know, we want it to be this way.
Who are you to take charge in this fashion?
And you could tell, you know, they didn't want to get, you know,
really too pushy about, you know,
taking the power of speech away from us.
But that's what they wanted to do.
That's what anybody in charge wants to do.
They don't like people standing up and saying what's on their minds.
So, we decided, let's organize a little rally.
Yeah, it's never been done before on IRC, on the Internet.
We're going to have a rally right here at whatever time we decided to do it.
It was the next hour that came.
And so, we started getting in touch with people all over the net, you know,
saying, hey, come into this channel at this time.
We're going to have a protest rally in March.
I didn't know how we were going to march, but we said we were going to do it.
And the time came, and all these people were in the channel.
We had about, I guess, 70 people in the channel at that point.
And we just started, you know, chanting.
We started chanting on the Internet,
basically saying free the channel over and over and over again.
You had about 20 people doing this.
And sure enough, you know, after like two minutes doing this,
our friend Adolf decided to plus M the channel,
which means put moderator status on it.
Only he could talk, or people he deemed worthy of talking were able to talk.
And so, we're all still chanting, except, you know, it's not being echoed anywhere
because, you know, it's being ignored because of the status of the channel.
So, we decide to regroup in another channel, 2601.
That's how the IRC Internet Relay Chat works.
You can basically say anything you want.
You can say any kind of...
Didn't I turn that off?
Okay, it's off now.
Basically, any word, any number you choose, you can send somebody to.
And you can just start it up.
You can start up your own channel.
You can do whatever you want.
So, we made 2601, decided that would be our grouping area for, you know, for the rally people.
And so, we decided to bombard them with private messages saying,
look, you have to open up the channel.
You have no right to do this, blah, blah, blah.
And so, eventually, because this guy, you know, Ferdinand Marcos that he is,
wants to be popular to the people, said, okay, I'm going to let the people speak
because I'm not afraid of what the people have to say.
So, he minus M'd the channel, meaning everybody could speak.
And, of course, everyone started chanting again.
And that's when the brutality started.
That's when people started getting kicked and banned.
And the police brutality really started in earnest.
Knicks were flying everywhere.
Accounts were being killed, wiped out.
It was bloodshed.
And this was only in the first 15 minutes.
And so, after a bunch of us got thrown away, thrown out of the channel,
a whole other group of people moved in and started the same thing all over again.
Now, while this was going on, those of us who had been kicked out and banned
were watching from other vantage points
because there are always sympathizers that will relay to you what's going on
inside a place that you're not allowed to be.
And so, we were getting all the messages that were being broadcast,
sent directly to us.
And we were able to message those people and tell them,
hey, this would be a good idea to do this at this point in time.
And so, we weren't there, but we were there at the same time.
And invariably, what happens in these kind of struggles
is that you get a hold of somebody who is sympathetic to your cause,
who has power.
That's right.
We found an operator of the channel that was on our side.
And when the time was right, he struck.
He de-opped everybody on the channel, opened it up again,
kicked out those people that were tyrants, and let everybody back in.
And we had a two-hour party right there on IRC.
What do you think about that story, Bernie?
That's why I don't waste my time on IRC.
No, power to the people.
These kids, a lot of them are kids, 12 or 13 years old, some of them,
are they going to participate in some sort of Wall Street rally action downtown
and get their heads busted in by Giuliani's thugs?
I don't think that's a good idea.
Sounds like a microcosm of life.
It is a microcosm of life because I've been involved in various actions in the past,
anti-nuclear rallies, anti-weapon rallies,
and all kinds of different things over the years.
And these are the same tactics you use.
You let the people speak, you refuse to give up, you keep coming back,
and you just pressure the people who are putting you down.
And what better way to learn this than on the net itself,
you know, just messing around with keystrokes,
saying whatever it is you want to say, seeing what works, what doesn't,
getting allies, conspiring.
I mean, that's a learning experience.
You know, we lost the channel again like less than an hour after we got attacked
because somebody was silly and gave power to somebody who shouldn't have had it,
and then they took the power from us and gave it back to the old people.
But that's not the point.
The point is that, you know, you can learn all kinds of things
and you shouldn't take it too seriously.
Because as you say, it is only IRC, it is only the Internet,
but it does have some reflections on life itself.
There's no question about that.
So what did you learn from all that?
Well, you know, I learned that time really flies when you're fighting a war.
This lasted all night long,
except for that one hour break we all took when Letterman came on.
But other than that, you know, it's fun to, like,
play around and talk to all different people at once.
But, you know, I couldn't do this war thing full time.
There's just no way. You don't have time for it. It's impossible.
Some people apparently do.
Well, some people, you know, are fanatics about it.
But at most I could fight a war like this maybe once every two weeks.
Because I've got other things to do. I've got to pay bills.
You know, I've got to do various administrative tasks.
I've got to, you know, edit the magazine.
I've got to prepare the radio show.
You know, so the war has to sort of move back a little bit sometimes.
Maybe you'd be interested in enlisting, Bernie.
I don't know.
Yeah, well, we'll talk to you. We'll send a recruiter around.
Anyway, so now there have been other things going on on the net.
Oh, much more interesting.
Yeah, well, you could say much more important, much more interesting.
But what is more important and interesting than freedom of speech?
Than the right to assemble peaceably in the channel of your choice, huh?
That depends on where you, well, okay.
Separation of internet and state, you know, all that kind of thing.
All right, but there are other stories.
There was the whole, I guess, Pentagon story.
Correct?
Oh, yeah.
The whole Pentagon thing and various other things that have happened over the last week,
including rewriting of some laws and things like that.
But before we get into that, before we get into that,
I have a song that I'd like to dedicate to all the people who lost their nicknames
on the internet relay chat ward last night.
And the struggle continues, by the way.
We'll be continuing for weeks to come.
To all those brave souls.
I have no idea what this is.
This is Janice K. Bryant.
Oh, I'm sorry. I pushed the wrong button.
Everything is kind of messed up here tonight.
But I'm glad we heard that cheery voice.
But this is what I'd like to dedicate to those freedom fighters out there.
You know, that button doesn't work either.
Isn't that sad?
It was working before.
I tested it.
It doesn't work at all.
Okay, you know what?
Want to try that?
Okay, here we go.
We'll get it right.
It just may take us a little bit of time, but stick with us,
because we're slow, but we're learning.
They obey the general order of battle play.
The generals bow to the government.
Obey the charge.
You must not relent.
What are the neighbors and the province involved?
What are they saying in the bumbling bazaars?
We're tired of the tune.
You must not relent.
At every stroke of the bell in the tower there goes
Another boy from another side.
The bulletins at steady come in say those
Familiar words at the top of the hour.
The jamming city increases its harm
And those terrible words continue to come.
Through brass music of government hear those
Guns tattooed, parole on the drums.
No one mentions the neighboring war.
No one knows what the fighting's for.
We're tired of the tune.
You must not relent.
There's this different kind of chemical system.
Two docks and flushes.
Keeps the water crystal clear.
Keeps the bowls sparkling clean continuously for about four months.
No rains, no strays, no stains.
Just put the container in your tank and forget it.
Every time you flush the chlorine crystals dissolve away rust and minerals
Before dirt rains and stains appear.
Flushing's your beach brushing.
The generals bow to the government.
We're tired of the tune.
You must not relent.
Yeah.
You know, you don't know what I had to go through
to get that particular version of that song today.
It's, they were forced, that's The Clash by the way,
they were forced to cut that last part out of the song
when the 2000 Flushes people got angry.
They didn't want to be on a Clash album apparently.
And so I had to bring the whole, the 12-inch version in.
And I don't know, you ever see the looks you get when you walk around the city
with a 12-inch record these days?
Nobody uses them anymore.
Nobody walks around with records.
They all have CDs.
And they're very cumbersome.
You know, you didn't realize a few years ago how cumbersome they were,
but it's a lot more difficult these days.
Gotta be careful.
So yes, that's Inoculated City by The Clash, the uncensored version.
I wish somebody would put that on CD, make things a little easier for everybody.
You know, we're on a Clash album too.
WBAI was on a Clash album on Sandinista.
They actually sample one of the shows here on this radio station.
You'll have to buy the CD to figure out which one it is.
It's not this one, because we weren't around then.
But it's just kind of interesting how BAI has been here for many, many years
and will be for many years to come.
So Bernie, you there?
Yes, I'm here.
Now, this Pentagon thing, tell us what's up with that.
Well, I don't know a lot about it, but I do know that on Wednesday,
the Pentagon, and I'm reading this,
on Wednesday the Pentagon announced that it had been fending off
the most organized systematic attack against its networks to date.
Yesterday, yesterday, and this was dated on the 27th, which I guess was Friday.
So this was Thursday.
On Thursday, the Pentagon announced it had been fending off
the most organized systematic attack of its networks to date.
The FBI said it had questioned an unidentified Northern California teenager
after catching him in the act of trying to break into the Pentagon.
They caught him in the act?
What, they went into his house and saw him actually doing it?
Is that what they're saying?
Apparently.
However, the youth was not arrested.
Now, computer security experts suggested that the teen was a red herring
designed to bolster public support for Reno's plan
which I'll go into in a minute,
which, while well-meaning, fails to get to the heart of the real problem
facing the government.
Perhaps this is a con game, said Peter Newman,
principal scientist for the computer science lab at SRI International,
a research and consulting company.
You put out a system with miserable protection
and hope that someone tries to break in, Newman said.
Then you can ask for millions and millions of dollars more
to perform further palliative protections
rather than getting to the core of the problem.
Significantly ratcheting up the security of the infrastructure.
Reno's proposed command center,
the National Infrastructure Protection Center.
Wait, Bernie, one question.
When was this command center proposed?
It was proposed last week by Janet Reno.
Well, it was proposed how long after they said
that the Pentagon was being systematically attacked?
That's right.
The same day?
Let's see.
Even Janet Reno can't move that fast, and she's pretty slick.
She can move around pretty quickly,
but I don't think she can organize something that quickly.
This sounds like it was planned.
Perhaps it was a red herring.
This new center, Reno, is asking for $64 million
to staff this center with 125 people,
including six investigative squads
and more federal protectors, prosecutors rather,
not protectors, prosecutors, specializing...
Specializing...
Perhaps they are wearing pocket protectors.
Specializing in cybercrime,
the National Infrastructure Protection Center
will have links to other sensitive government departments
such as defense, state, and treasury,
as well as local police agencies.
Oh, great, so it's all encompassing.
Everybody will have access to this.
Maybe the neighborhood watch can get involved.
It will also seek to link up with private computer security centers
such as those run on university campuses,
and coordinate with other nations.
Without such cooperation, Janet said,
the nation will be at peril.
She was talking to an audience
at the L'Ange Livre National Laboratory.
The nation is in peril,
because you've got lunatics like Janet Reno
running around trying to control everything.
According to Reno, one important role for this center
will be to distinguish genuine threats to national security
from relatively harmless attacks by juvenile computer experts,
such as apparently occurred in the Pentagon case.
It makes no sense whatsoever.
They're using this so-called most organized systematic attack
against this network to date,
and then walk into a teenager
who is trying to break into the Pentagon,
and then use that as justification
for a $64 million expenditure
for this National Infrastructure Protection Center,
one of whose roles will be
to distinguish genuine threats to national security
from relatively harmless attacks by juvenile computer experts.
I wonder how she would categorize Kevin Mitnick, then.
You know, someone who is, obviously,
someone who did not cause genuine harm,
but someone who they have used
as the poster child of enforcing all these crazy laws they want passed.
And you, too, as well.
Would they consider you to have been someone who is harmless?
Well, the Secret Service has stated in court,
on more than one occasion,
that they considered me to be dangerous,
but were unable, when cross-examined,
to come up with a single example
of why they really considered me dangerous.
Well, you had dental putty.
They had dental putty,
which they didn't describe as dental putty.
They said that they believed it to be C4 plastic explosives,
which they said, upon later analysis,
turned out not to be,
but the fact that it might have been concerned them greatly.
Right, well, you know,
they just have to say plastic explosives
with enough time in a sentence
for that to stick in a judge's head.
You know, and say,
oh, plastic explosives and the defendant
are in the same sentence,
so, therefore, they are both evil.
You know, it sounds stupid,
but that is how they work.
It sounds pretty stupid until you're locked up.
And I was just thinking,
last week was my birthday,
and I was thinking that just two years ago
I was in a five-by-eight cell
wondering what my fate would be.
Feeling a bit misty-eyed for those days of the past.
I don't miss them at all.
Although I'll never forget them.
No, we never will either.
Now, let's get back to the present-day evils
of Janet Reno and company.
So, they are planning to, I guess,
define all these crimes somehow.
They're asking for $64 million,
and no one's asking, really,
the $64 million question,
which is, why is this necessary?
I think that they would avoid asking for $64 million
just to avoid that question.
Yeah, it just occurred to me, really.
They should really ask for $65 million or $63 million.
So, nobody asks that $64 million question.
Just not $64.
Boy, these people just don't think, do they?
So, now, okay.
So, this all happens really fast.
Somebody systematically penetrates the Pentagon.
No, he tries to.
Tries to systematically.
Well, I thought they were successful.
They got something.
Well, it said the Pentagon had been fending off
the most organized systematic attack
against its networks to date.
But they don't specify anything.
Well, they said they got into some systems,
but didn't get any classified information.
That's always the standard rap there,
that they got into unclassified computers,
not the classified ones.
That's because the classified ones are all turned off,
and kept away from the public network, supposedly.
So, anyway, you had this.
You had this happen.
You had Janet Reno coming up with her $64 million proposal,
and then you had the same people found and discovered.
It's the same old story.
News in the grapevine,
and I won't say which grapevine it is,
but News in the grapevine has it that
the people were simply routing through their computer
to get to the Pentagon.
What do you think of that?
That's very possible.
It's quite likely, in fact.
If you were going to hack the Pentagon,
would you do it directly from your own home machine?
I don't think so.
I don't think so, either.
I mean, you have to be really stupid to do that,
and if you're really stupid,
you probably wouldn't be that successful
at getting in in the first place.
Although, you know,
the way the Pentagon runs their machines,
who knows?
Who knows?
There's a guy here,
some so-called expert,
Mr. Stafford.
I'm reading this.
He's a so-called lots of things,
but let's humor him for now and call him an expert.
His humorous comment was that
this critical infrastructure problem
won't be solved by allocating funding
to track down computer break-ins.
Rather, he said,
the problem amounts to a lack of public awareness
and trained personnel in the right positions
in industry, government, and law enforcement.
Without the customer demand for tighter security,
without government pressure to enforce it,
it's sort of like the days of Ralph Nader,
when discovering that cars blow up
and don't have seatbelts,
and then the government responds
by making a huge investment
to put officers on the highways to catch speeders.
So, they're not looking at the right direction
to fix these problems.
I think they should bolster their security
rather than just leave it open
and try to prosecute smart teenagers.
Is that what he's saying,
or is that what you're saying?
That's what I'm saying.
Okay, because I was going to say,
I agree with that.
And that would have troubled me
if I agreed with what James Patrick was saying.
You can agree with me any time.
Okay, all right.
I'll stay safe and do that.
There's been some other craziness
going on in Congress.
Okay, yeah.
Let's hear about this.
Well, the Secret Service and the FBI
this week claimed that,
quote, terrorists, end quote,
are operating cell phone rings,
cellular telephone rings,
as a kind of fundraising venture.
These bad guys allegedly sell rewired phones
with stolen service
and use the cash to finance
all kinds of illicit activities.
This is from Senator John Kyle's staff
who sponsored a bill called...
Excuse me, wouldn't the story be
that there are just terrorists out there
doing bad things?
It doesn't matter?
No, now these are terrorists
that are doing bad things with cell phones.
Yeah, but you can make as much money
in computer security.
You can make a lot more money.
Why not just have a band of terrorists
go out and become computer consultants?
They'll make so much more money
and they won't have to do something illegal.
I think just playing around with cellular phones,
that's not very imaginative.
Anybody can do it.
This bill proposed by Senator Kyle
and Representative Billy Towson,
who we're familiar with,
who tried to ban scanners last year,
it's called the Wireless Telephone Protection Act.
And it outlaws possessing
certain types of hardware and software,
including things that can be used
to reprogram cellular phones.
The Justice Department and the Secret Service
pressed Congress for this legislation,
arguing that it's too difficult
to prosecute cell phone thieves.
Currently, the government must show
that someone possesses such contraband
quote, knowingly and with intent to defraud.
But proving intent to commit a crime,
officials now say, is just too tough.
They'd rather just ban the stuff outright.
Now, in late 1994,
and I'm intimately familiar with this law,
because it's still the same Title 18, Section 1029,
which is used to lock me up for well over a year.
This is part of digital telephony?
Part of the digital telephony bill, or CALEA,
the Communications Act for Law Enforcement Assistance,
which not only allocated $500 million of tax money
so that basically all our central telephone,
all our central offices' telephone systems
could be monitored directly by the FBI
without having to traipse warrants
over to the phone company
and have them hook up individual wiretaps.
They can just punch in a phone number
and wiretap your phone when this is all in place.
In addition to that, it amended Section 1029
of the United States Criminal Code.
And the EFF just kind of allowed this to happen, right?
Well, they were supposedly working
on the whole Communications Act fight at that time,
but they didn't really express any interest in this.
Actually, they were fighting the telephony,
digital telephony, the wiretapping proposal
more than they were fighting this other thing,
which they were just kind of...
My recollection is that they accepted this.
That's how I remember it.
They did accept it.
They compromised, and I think they made a bad compromise.
Right.
But anyway, up until late 1994,
to be prosecuted under Section 1029,
you had to possess what's called an access device,
which was something that allows you
to have illicit access to a specific account,
like a credit card or a password or something.
Fiber ran into that sort of thing
with the access device definition.
Well, in late 1994, when CALEA passed,
they added some sections to that statute
so that you didn't need a possession access device anymore.
All you needed to do was possess hardware, software,
for the modification of telecommunications instruments
for the unauthorized access to telecommunications services.
But none of those terms were defined in the statute.
They left it open for interpretation, their interpretation.
And that made an end run around the whole definition of access device.
Before that, a red box or a blue box
didn't qualify as access devices
because they didn't allow specific access to a particular account.
So when this thing passed that I was nailed with
a few weeks later after it was passed,
basically anything that could be used
to generate signals or program a cellular phone, that sort of thing,
to allow you to access a communication system
without somebody's authorization fell under the statute.
But there was a thing before the wording of all this
saying whoever has this stuff with intent to defraud.
Now, that was pretty vague, too.
Basically said that if you knew this stuff
is being used for that purpose, then you're guilty.
That's how they got you, because you knew it could be used for that.
You didn't intend to,
but because you knew of its capabilities, you could have.
I personally was not committing fraud with that,
but I knew that, you know,
give a quartz crystal to a kid in a $10,
you know he's going to be doing this stuff with it.
If you were stupid and you didn't know that, then you would have gotten off.
Exactly. Ignorance would have been a defense.
Well, now it isn't anymore.
Now they've removed the intent to defraud section.
Basically, anybody now, and I can read the actual wording of it now.
It's kind of scary.
It says, I'll read the old and the new.
The old is, whoever knowingly with intent to defraud
uses, produces, traffics in, has control or custody of,
or possesses hardware or software
used for altering or modifying telecommunications instruments
to obtain unauthorized access to telecommunications services.
It doesn't mean you have to use it for any reason.
Again, I wasn't even charged with using any of this stuff for any reason at all.
Just having it.
Now, the new language is,
whoever knowingly uses, produces, traffics in,
has control or custody of,
or possesses hardware or software
knowing it has been configured
for altering or modifying a telecommunications instrument
so that such instrument may be used to obtain unauthorized access
to telecommunications services
is basically guilty of a felony and can spend years in prison.
So, if you have software,
and the government says it's configured to do things a certain way,
not that it's been used this way,
that it's been configured to do this way.
Now, the definition of configured is left open too.
If that means it's been installed on a computer and ready to go,
then it's configured.
The Secret Service has been known to make bigger stretches than that,
even in my case.
So, they've basically taken out the intent to defraud requirement,
meaning that it's even more broad and vague of a statute.
So, if you have anything that can be used,
like a terminal emulation program,
like HyperTerminal that's built into Windows 95,
if it's configured to be used as a regular TTY dial-up thing,
which you could use to hack into a system somewhere,
and you know that it can be used that way,
not that it has been,
but that it can be used that way,
you're guilty of a felony.
Now, I don't think...
A felony?
A felony, which the penalties are up to 15 years in prison
and a $500,000 fine.
That is unbelievable.
Now, those penalties are graded depending on how much money they said was defrauded.
In my case, they said there were no victims,
that there was no money defrauded,
and therefore it was on the lowest part of the scale.
So, it was only like a year or so
I ended up doing time for,
but that still wasn't a very pleasant experience.
So, basically, the Secret Service is behind this,
and they're making it vaguer and vaguer still.
Now, I don't think people all over the country are going to be prosecuted for this,
but what we have is an even more powerful tool in the hands of the Secret Service,
whose responsibility is to enforce this particular statute.
They have a more powerful tool at their disposal now
than they did when they prosecuted me.
So, basically, if they don't like you for any reason,
whether it's for broadcasting undercover photos of their undercover agents
picking their noses and getting them broadcast on television
or some other reason they might not like you,
if they've managed to search your property and find a computer, software,
they could be used this way,
and almost anything could be used this way, even a modem.
They can charge you, and you've got to fight this thing.
Now, it sounds like a stretch,
but they stretched long and hard in my case,
and look where it got them.
Now, what's the status of this particular? Has it been passed?
It has sailed through both the House and the Senate
without any opposition whatsoever.
So it's unanimous, you're saying?
It's unanimous.
How did these things sail through so quickly
without people even getting a chance to say anything about them?
That's a really good question.
You know, the amendments to Section 1029 in late 1994
were tacked on at the last minute, too.
This was probably tacked on to a much larger bill
where somebody had some money to make
as a result of the passage of some much larger bill,
and a lot of times they're tacked on to appropriations bills
where some agency needs to get refunded for the next year,
and they'll put up with these little things in order to get their money.
But I personally think everybody should be...
I think there should be daily referenda
where everybody gets to vote on all this stuff.
Listen, Bernie, we're quickly running out of time.
In a minute or so, tell us about the new things happening
for the micro-broadcasting convention.
Then we're going to take some phone calls, 212-279-3400.
We don't have our net friends with us tonight, I don't think.
So those of you listening in the New York tri-state area,
I guess you're on your own tonight, just like old times.
212-279-3400. So Bernie, what's up with that?
Well, the East Coast Micro-Broadcasters Conference
is going to be held here in Philadelphia April 3rd through 5th,
and I believe I have a telephone number for people interested in attending.
Let me tell you what it's about. I'll give you the phone number first.
2-1-5-4-7-4-3-3-8-6.
Again, 2-1-5-4-7-4-3-3-8-6.
Or you can email WPPR at svaha.com.
Radio Mutiny is sponsoring this conference.
Radio Mutiny is a community pirate radio station here in Philadelphia.
It's been on the air for about a year.
The FCC tried to shut it down, but they didn't bring a search warrant with them,
so they were turned away.
It's a very good station.
There are over 40 programmers who broadcast all kinds of news
and other things of interest to the community here in Philadelphia.
And it covers a good part of the section, or a good section of the city.
Now, there are so many other stations like this springing up all over the country,
a lot of people figured, well, it would be a good time to have a conference.
And April 3rd to 5th, it will be held here in Philadelphia.
Call that information number for details.
And we got an email, I didn't say we, but friends of mine got an email recently
that the chief of compliance of the Federal Communications Commission,
like the top cop at the FCC, wants to come to the conference and address everybody.
He said he's coming as a public servant, not as an enforcer.
I don't know if we should believe him or not,
but he might have some interesting things to say,
and I think a lot of people might have some interesting questions.
Let me just tell you one thing, Bernie, and I learned this from the famous CFP conference in Chicago.
Those people, meaning feds, are never off-duty.
So you've got to be really careful.
That's the time when they tried to bust everybody for being Kevin Mitnick, remember?
That's right.
And at Hopi, he had Kevin Mitnick masks ready for everybody,
just in case they tried to do that again.
That's right. And they almost did.
In addition to the top cop at the Federal Communications Commission
coming to speak at this conference,
one of the lead lawyers with ACLU here in the Philadelphia office,
who had a lot to do with the successful challenge to the Communications Decency Act,
will be also speaking at the conference,
and we hope to get them on the same panel to throw back and forth
some of the First Amendment issues pertaining to micro-broadcasting.
As you know, it takes millions of dollars to get a radio station license these days from the FCC,
and there's simply no reason why low-power, what used to be called Class D stations,
which the FCC did away with over ten years ago,
there's no reason why low-power stations can't be put up to serve the community,
and that's what radio mutiny here is in Philadelphia.
Right.
So I'm involved with the conference, not in the radio station itself, per se,
but I'm involved with the conference, so if anybody has any interest in attending,
please either e-mail the group or call that telephone number.
I'll give it one more time.
It's 215-474-3386.
There's going to be a lot of people there talking about their pirate radio stations.
There'll be people there selling pirate radio transmitters and exchanging technical information
about just how to get a station going,
all the stuff you need to know to put together programming,
how to run a democratic station where you have a lot of people involved.
What's the date of this again?
April 3rd through 5th.
Is that a weekend?
It is, Friday through Sunday.
All right, so maybe people can plan to go to the 2600 meeting down in Philadelphia and walk on over.
It's the same weekend.
Same weekend, so there you go.
Full weekend of activities.
Actually, the 30th Street station where the 2600 meetings go on here in Philadelphia
is just a few blocks from where the conference will be.
All right, maybe afterwards we'll all get together and overthrow an IRC channel or something.
Uh-oh.
It'll be a whole weekend of subversive activities.
All right, speaking of subversive activities, we have this one reminder,
or actually update for people, and then we're going to take some phone calls, 212-279-3400.
If you're a high school journalist who's been censored by a repressive principal,
now there's a place to speak freely.
This is from a current issue of Newsweek.
The Bolt Reporter, found at www.boltreporter.com,
an online high school newspaper written by students across the country,
devotes its Band on Bolt section to controversial stories.
Band on Bolt's first article, a report on a Naperville, Illinois, North High School teacher
accused of sexually abusing a student, was initially nixed by the school's principal
and published in Bolt last fall.
Says senior editor Parker Stenzione,
we empower students around the country not only to know their rights, but to act on them.
And, of course, a couple of weeks ago we were talking about a high school student
who was expelled for writing a story about hacking in his underground high school newspaper.
So, yes, the net is the place to express yourself,
and we're happy to see it prospering like this.
All right, let's take some phone calls, 212-279-3400.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Good evening. Three items first.
Free, free, free at last.
Thank heaven I'm free at last.
Were you imprisoned?
No, sir. I was a customer of MCI.
Oh, boy. Oh, wow.
It can be kind of hard to get out of their clutches.
I switched both my lines to L, as in Larry, C-I,
and I no longer have to spend ten minutes giving people special instructions
about how to use my MCI 1 number.
I no longer have to meet the $5 minimum per month for it.
What about the circles?
Oh, I never was involved with that.
In fact, mine was all on a small business account,
and you can leave messages up to three minutes and seven seconds long,
and you're not expected to pay for them with the small business 1 number
because they consider that an incomplete communication.
It can be a terrific thing, but I just found I could not give them
ten to forty hours a month out of my life
trying to correct all their errors in handling my accounts,
so I freed myself, and anyway.
Item number two, I don't know how many of our listeners
will be able to get a copy of Chicago magazine,
which I found at some midtown place that has out-of-town papers,
but the February issue had what seemed like a very well-researched thing
that covers completely the fact that most conspicuously MCI and AT&T
are stealing your long-distance domestic information operator calls
and why it is that they're doing it,
and I don't have the February issue of Chicago magazine handy.
It's a monthly.
It's their local equivalent of our weekly New York magazine, et cetera.
Okay.
And I imagine it can probably be read on the net somewhere,
but it's a very worthwhile article to look at.
Third item is consumer reports in either the last month
or one of the last four issues, roughly, I would say, if not the last six,
but that thing where you have to have a computer
and you subscribe for $4.95 a month
and it picks the lowest rate at a given moment for a given call.
Yes.
Phone-mizer.
Phone-mizer.
Phone-mizer, thank you.
They did a good research job on that
and their usual very succinct and thorough job on it
and very dispassionate evaluation of how...
Thumbs up or thumbs down?
They came out more or less, I think,
the way some of the people who discussed it with you.
It's just about more nuisance than it's worth, I think, was their overall feeling.
If you could hook it up and get it to work, it will save you money
because it will always route your call the least expensive way,
but it's not simple to set up either.
Well, let me ask you this, Bernie.
When you say it will route it,
doesn't that mean they're using the five or now perhaps seven-digit crossover code
to go to a particular company?
The 10X, yes.
Right.
Well, the companies I have questioned about that,
they say if you don't have us as your dial-one carrier
on the line you're making the call on,
if you're what they call a casual user or a crossover, a 10X user,
they charge you a much higher rate.
Yeah, they discriminate.
I think AT&T even was proposing charging an extra fee for those casual customers.
Well, how can the phone miser, how do they overcome that?
I imagine they take that into account because you'll never get the 10-cent-a-minute rate
by doing 10XXX.
They may have an agreement with some of the companies.
That's possible.
They do. That's what they do.
Right, right.
Okay, thanks for the call.
We're going to move on to some more phone calls.
212-279-3400. Good evening. You're on the air.
That's what they do.
Speak up.
Hello, it's Indigo.
Hey, how are you doing?
What's up? We're on now?
Yes, you're on the air live, even though you don't hear yourself for another seven seconds.
Oh, well, this is, like, cool.
We're glad you find it so cool.
What's on your mind?
I just wanted to say that we will have control back
and that all those little people in there who think they're so cool.
Oh, you're one of the warriors.
You're one of the soldiers of the IRC war of 1998.
Yeah, but not on Adolf's side.
Good, okay, that's good to know.
And I think you were on the side of light from the beginning, correct?
Of course.
Yeah, well, we've gotten a few people that say they're only following orders from our friend over there.
Well, of course, because they're just scared and trying to stay powerful.
Yeah, yeah.
Bernie, you see, this is serious, okay?
People are devoting their lives to this.
You understand?
I already hear that.
Look, would you rather we be, like, you know, throwing Molotov cocktails at various passing people?
Well, it depends on what you're throwing Molotov cocktails at.
Yeah, I suppose.
But you'll notice that's gone way down over the past couple of years, ever since the Net came into being.
Yeah, it's true.
It's a great pacifier, isn't it?
A lot of broken computers, though, but never mind that.
So, Indigo, any updates?
First of all, what's wrong with MCI?
Do you know anything about that?
I have no clue.
I haven't asked about that, so I wouldn't know.
But Adolf's back in power, and not for long.
Yeah, well, you know, this is probably his last hurrah.
But you know how things ended for the other one, so, you know, we'll see what the IRC equivalent of that is.
Anything else going on?
That's about it.
Okay, well, thanks for the update.
All right, talk to you later.
Take care.
Bye.
Yes, a live update from the front, as it were.
Okay, well, we'll be keeping you apprised of the situation in future weeks, too.
Good evening, you're on Off the Hook.
Thank you.
I have a couple of things.
This is Peta from Morrisseye, also from Pirate Radio.
So, I hope everybody will attend the conference in Philadelphia.
It's really, really important to do it, because the FCC and freedom of speech issues are—
they just have all kinds of legislation that they're trying to propose that—
it just creeps in.
It's interesting the way it creeps in by small, little restrictions.
Hey, how was your fundraiser last week?
I'm not sure.
I have not seen the total.
So much money, you haven't had time to count it.
Yeah.
Co-production quarterly, the most recent issue, has a pretty good description of some of the pirate stations that are around
and some of the trials and tribulations they're going through.
But it's really, really good to take a look at that if you don't know about the basics of micro-broadcasting
and see that you, too, can have one in your neighborhood.
Some information on the search.
If you do have a station and the man comes to knock at your door, I would recommend a couple of things.
If they are federal, the problem there is that they don't need a search warrant under Exclusionary Rule 666,
but they must tell you—
It's really 666?
That's right.
Oh, boy.
64 million dollars and now this.
What a coincidence.
But they must have a written paper to say what the charge is.
I mean, what is the purpose of their visit with the charge of what they think they are looking for.
The radio mutiny was able to get away with it because they were not the federal.
They were not.
If it's FCC versus the local DA, that's, for example, Napoleon Williams had that distinction
that made it so that they couldn't lock him up.
They locked up his equipment because it was the local DA, not the feds.
Well, with the radio mutiny case last November, it was the FCC that came with local police department cops.
But they didn't have—
They didn't have a search warrant.
They didn't have the necessary paperwork.
They didn't have the charge.
And they were turned away and they left.
Right.
They had nothing.
Then they sent the people that I know a certified letter saying cease and desist.
And that's when the ACLU said, okay, we will represent you on First Amendment grounds if they come back.
That's great.
Let me ask you guys a question real quick because we do want to move on to one more phone call.
Now, we have two of these stations, one in Philadelphia.
What's the frequency down there, Bernie?
91.3.
Okay.
And then we have Steel Disks Radio in New York, which I believe is 88.7.
88.7.
Are there others in the area, New Jersey, Long Island, Connecticut, that you know of?
I don't know.
I know there were a couple of people operating in Brooklyn, but I know one of them was shut down.
I don't really know.
I've heard about somebody else in Brooklyn.
I don't know where it is.
But I do want to tell people that on shortwave, 5.027 on the International Band, Omega, the Omega Network,
has a really good program on radio and shortwave issues.
It's called Spectrum.
It's at 9 o'clock at night, five days a week, and it's really good.
It crosses over into some of the off-the-hook territory and it's also about shortwave.
Oh, I'll have to fire up the old shortwave and listen to that.
Oh, they're great.
Just crank it up.
Thanks for calling.
Thank you very much.
There's a website called the Free Radio Network, which if you use your search engine, you can find pretty easily.
And there's a directory of pirate radio stations on the Free Radio Network.
But, of course, you know, Bernie, that they're not really pirates.
The real pirates are those corporate commercial people that go out there and take over everything.
I mean, all you have to do, okay, and this is a fun project for anyone out there that's listening to a radio right now.
Don't do it right now.
Wait until, I'm not saying don't listen to the show after me either.
Just whenever you feel like doing it and you have time, go down to 92.
Go down to that area of the dial.
Everything below 92 is noncommercial, like we are here at 99.5.
Don't ask how we got here.
It's a long story.
But every station below 92 is kind of, you know, scrunched in there.
It's like the noncommercial ghetto, they call it.
And they don't have all this bandwidth to stretch out their signal.
Now, go through there one by one.
Listen to all the stations.
See how nice and even they sound.
And then you hit KROQ, right, at 92.3.
And they're screaming at the top of their lungs.
They're just like, you know, spreading out all over the spectrum.
That is the difference between pirate radio and people radio.
Hey, I should give a speech, shouldn't I, at this thing?
You should come to the conference.
Yeah, yeah, that should be fun.
All right, let's see if we can squeeze in one more phone call.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Yes, you, you're on the air.
Hi, Emanuel.
How you doing?
First of all, let me say that the cutoff time for, you know,
when you ring a number that's not picking up,
seems to have gotten a lot longer.
Oh, really?
It's, like, doubled.
It used to be, like, something like two minutes.
Now it's maybe approaching five minutes.
And you haven't moved from out-of-state to in-state, have you?
No.
Same place.
Where are you calling from?
Queens.
From Queens.
That's good.
Maybe Bell Atlantic has better policies than Linux.
Now, did you get the little flyer announcing the new area code 646?
I think, yeah, I did see that.
Yeah, 646 is coming, and it's going to be an overlay.
Right, and it says there that for now, and it emphasizes for now,
dialing within the same area code will still be seven digits.
So that does leave the clear implication that it soon will not be seven digits.
Well, they're trying to get over an FCC regulation that says
in overlay situations you have to dial the full 10 or 11 digits
because otherwise it's unfair to those people that wind up with the inferior area code,
which, in this case, I think we all agree, will be 646.
That's true, of course.
But it's still in dispute, then.
In a year, if we say that, people are going to get angry at us
because they're going to be 646 people.
But now we can say it without any kind of contradiction.
I was very upset with 718 way back.
I'm not over it yet.
Yeah, let's not talk about 718 anymore.
Now, they do have an 800 number where they have a little skit on there
where it's so pathetic.
They have a man and a woman, and the woman is complaining,
oh, it's a new area code.
And the man says, oh, well, you were against microwave ovens
and all these other different...
Do you have the number?
Yeah, it's 800-322-3555.
3-5-5-1.
3-5-5-1.
Let's try to give that a call.
Right.
Thanks for calling.
Roger.
3-2-2-3-5-5-1.
Let's see if we can do this.
What was it?
3-2-2-1?
3-5-5-1?
Did I dial it wrong?
I dialed 3-5-5.
Uh-oh.
OK, hold on.
One more time.
Hold on.
Let's try this again.
Now some fun from Bell Atlantic.
Thank you for calling Bell Atlantic.
If you're wondering about Manhattan's new 646 area code,
you've come to the right place.
Oh, great, another new area code.
And I'm sure you've got an opinion about it.
Absolutely.
Why in tarnation would I want a new area code for Manhattan?
Well, you were against microwave ovens at first, too.
Wasn't 212 good enough?
Is there something more magical about 646?
And you started out hating answering machines.
They were different.
How so?
I don't know.
They were just different.
But once you realized you needed them, you got used to them.
You didn't want a garbage disposal at first, either.
Manhattan got along just fine without them.
Exactly my point.
Which would be what?
We got along fine for years with one area code,
but now we need more phone numbers.
212 is just about tapped out.
By having two area codes, we won't have to carve up the place
like some giant pizza.
I'll have to change my number, I suppose.
No, no, no, no, no.
If you already have a 212 number,
and just about everyone in Manhattan does,
you'll keep it.
It will probably cost more to call a 646 number.
No, no again.
Calling 646 from 212 will cost the same
as if you're calling from a 212 number, and vice versa.
In fact, no matter where you're calling from,
a 646 call will be the same as calling 212.
There will still be a difference.
Name one.
Well, let's say I have a 212 number,
and I call your 646 number.
So?
I'll have to dial 1-646 before your number.
Right. You dial the area code, just like you would
if you were calling someone in Brooklyn.
Okay, well, we get the idea here.
But how will I know what area code to dial?
We're out of time here.
So, Bernie, thank you very much for joining us.
We'll call us again next week and play the whole thing through
if people really want to hear it that much.
But we are late now, so we'll see you next week.
Manuel Goldstein for Off The Hook.
Good night.
ALARM CLOCK BEEPS
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This is Janice K. Bryant.
And, honey, every day I have the blues.
And I'm gonna give them to you Saturday night at 9.30 p.m.
when we listen to gut-bucket women past, present, and future.
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That's right. Put the kids to bed early.