For historians William Lauren Katz and Gerald Horne, Judge Margaret Burnham, publisher Esther
Jackson and close friend and Robeson confidant Lloyd Brown.
All these extraordinary guests will be part of this historic centennial anniversary of
Paul Robeson.
That's Sunday, April 5th from 11am to 3pm.
For ticket information call WBAI at area code 212-279-0707 extension 132 or 146.
That's 212-279-0707 extension 132 or 146.
Hi, hi, hi everybody.
This is Angelique Kidjo.
Whenever I'm in New York, I listen to Berna White and Amy Goodman on Wake Up Call.
We might do the same, it's great.
And this is radio station WBAI in New York.
Time once again for Off The Hook.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving.
Now I can't make a call.
It could be much worse.
But if they could, they would.
For Billy Bone, for the best, expect the worst.
For Billy Bone, for the best, expect the worst.
For Billy Bone, for the best, expect the worst.
Several weeks ago, we regrettably were unable to hear an entire dramatic production that
we had started playing on this particular radio show, which is Off The Hook, here at
every Tuesday night at 8 o'clock here on radio station WBAI in New York.
And of course, we regret all the people who were inconvenienced by the fact that we had
to cut off the dramatic presentation so soon, so early.
And for that reason tonight, we are proud and privileged to present in its entirety
the entire dramatic production all over again, live via telephone.
This production, which was prerecorded, has to do with the future arrival of the brand
new area code known as 646.
Stay tuned.
This is not appropriate for young children.
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 one 646 before your number.
Right.
You dial the area code, just like you would if you were calling someone in Brooklyn.
You dial 718.
Big deal.
But how will I know what area code to dial?
How do you know what their number is?
I ask.
So ask.
If you ask for someone's number, they'll tell you.
212, 646, 718, 516, whatever.
Oh, this all reminds me of something Mark Twain said.
He said a lot of things.
Fighting progress is like fighting the sunrise.
He's a tough act to follow.
South Atlantic will introduce the 646 area code in Manhattan.
If you currently have a 212 number, your number will remain the same.
Manhattan customers requesting new service or additional lines will be assigned either
a 212 or 646 number depending on availability.
There are no additional costs associated with dialing a 646 number.
Check your Bell Atlantic extras, the brochures that come in your bill, for more information.
And thank you for choosing Bell Atlantic.
Run, run!
Run, run!
Run, run!
Run, run!
And of course, if you want to personally catch that production before it closes,
give a call to 1-800-322-3551
and experience the thrill of the first time you heard the 646 vignette.
It's not so much fun in other cities where they've changed area codes.
Here's a letter from Boston.
What's going on guys?
The customer service wait in the 978 area is disgusting.
That's not exactly the word he used. 978?
They just added a new area code in the Boston area
and now when we dial 411 and it's a good 20 second wait
before I hear that big man's voice
I get the what city please and all that.
So, 978, there's problems there.
Bernie S, you with us?
Greetings from Philadelphia.
Have you heard of 978 before?
That's a new one on me.
That's a new one on me too.
Sounds like they're running out of numbers.
You know, they should start using letters or something.
I don't know, they weren't counting on this.
You notice how so much of the problems that we face now is because people didn't think ahead?
You know, or the 2,000 year bug.
People didn't think, hey, maybe years won't be, you know, just two digits.
You know, especially when you invent something in like the 70s and 80s.
You know, it's like we're never gonna make it to past 9-9.
It's really, really silly.
And this whole phone number fiasco is a whole other thing too.
So, I can't believe people didn't plan in advance.
Okay, we have a couple of other letters here.
Uh, Bernie, maybe you can help us with this one.
Because this is kind of like a puzzle.
Hmm.
You good with puzzles?
Depends on the puzzle.
Alright, well, this is like a family type of situation.
Alright.
A 12 year old calls my son.
This is a letter to us.
Is this one of these things where there's all these relatives involved?
No, there is no one right answer though, I can tell you that.
You know, there's no one right answer.
There's many different ways of looking at the same problem.
Okay.
So, we won't be grading you based on the, uh, you know, your particular solution.
Alright.
A 12 year old calls my son.
And somehow the calls all appeared on my bill as calls made from our phone.
I answered the phone myself many times.
And they were just normal calls.
The phone company said there is no way he could transfer charges like that.
Being only 12 years old.
The AT&T operator checked and there were no charges on his account.
It's kind of cool how they can just do that.
Check someone else's account like that.
Over $100 this bill, maybe more next month.
The kid's father says he doesn't let him make long distance calls.
Um, I was going to ask you over the air, but I've been out, so I wrote instead.
So, any ideas?
What kind of bills are showing up on her, on her, what kind of charges are showing up on her bill?
How do you know it's a her?
I assumed it was a him.
Or him.
No, you could be right.
It could be a her.
I could have gotten something wrong.
The person who wrote you.
Uh huh.
It's interesting that you assumed it was a her and I assumed it was a him.
I think that says a lot about us.
Maybe.
Well, anyway.
Regardless about that.
Okay.
So, I don't know.
I've read you everything that I have.
So, um.
Well.
Apparently it's AT&T because they contacted the AT&T operator.
And there weren't any charges on their account from AT&T.
Maybe the guy made MCI calls.
But I would imagine that the calls showed up on this person's bill as an AT&T call.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have called or she wouldn't have called AT&T operators.
Well, that makes sense.
So, can we assume then that these charges are showing up on this person's bill at the same time that this 12-year-old is calling that number?
Well, that's the other thing.
This person is assuming that this 12-year-old is billing the calls the exact same time that they're picking up the phone and saying hello.
Um.
So, they say hello.
Maybe that's a normal call.
Maybe it's some other time where this 12-year-old is doing something weird and figuring out a way to bill it to the other person.
How do they know that the person.
Is this 12-year-old calling the person who wrote you?
No, the 12-year-old is calling the son of the parent who is writing to us.
I think the son needs a good questioning.
I think the son is in on it.
I think so, too.
Yeah.
I think the son is probably just making the calls and saying that his friend made them.
But how could the son be making calls.
Oh, I see what you're saying.
You think the 12-year-old is calling the son and the son is just simply calling him back.
Yeah, or it's like one of these one ring things or something.
I'll call you back or at a certain time.
I think the son is definitely in on it and needs to be questioned.
Yeah.
That could be.
I hate to think what we're setting up here, but, uh.
Yeah, I mean, I don't see any other way around it.
You gotta lean on the kid because he knows something.
He knows something and you gotta get out of him.
They could beat it out of him.
Well, no, I wouldn't suggest that.
But what I would suggest.
Well, actually, they don't sell these anymore.
The Radio Shack pen register things.
That would be perfect for a situation like that.
Oh, that's a great thing.
There are other companies that sell.
You see it go off and you run into the kid's room and you say,
Aha, you just dialed this number, didn't you?
That was the best thing.
I've always wondered why Radio Shack took that off the market about six months after they sold it.
It was because of federal pressure, I presume.
That's what I always assumed because it was such a powerful tool.
Bernie, why would the feds not want us to know what numbers we're dialing?
Well, I think they were afraid people were going to use it surreptitiously on all kinds of things.
Like they do all the time.
They don't want any competition.
But what this device was for callers who aren't familiar with the pen register,
was a little thing about the size of a desk calculator, even smaller.
It would print out on a paper tape all the phone numbers that you dialed from a particular number.
You just plug this in like a phone.
You could conceal it in a closet or a basement or something or outside in a sealed weatherproof box.
And it ran on batteries, too many batteries, as I remember, or plugged in the wall.
And it would just print out all the numbers you dialed, the time and date that you made the calls.
It would give you the time and date of calls that were incoming, tell you how long the call was,
print out any touch tones or other digits that you dialed during the call, complete with pauses.
It was great.
And you could just print out yards and yards of this paper tape as far as what was going on.
You could get a very good picture of what was happening on the phone line.
There are other companies that sell such a thing, but this was like a hundred bucks.
It was a great, great gadget.
Don't they have similar devices, though, that now go directly into computers?
Yes.
In fact, there's shareware out there that lets certain modems keep track of what's going on in your phone line.
In fact, this device that was touted as being able to save you money in long distance, the PhoneMizer,
which you can now buy for 50 bucks, you can write software for it pretty easily.
I did.
That lets you just use this thing as a computer-based pen register.
It will keep track of all the outgoing phone calls on your phone line with this $50 device.
It just stores it in a text file.
That kind of a device would definitely help this parent here, who is obviously trying to figure out
what in tarnation is going on in the phone line.
Yep.
You know, there's a possibility of all different kinds of phone companies being used.
Maybe this 12-year-old is calling using MCI, and you assumed it was AT&T,
because your son is using AT&T to call them back.
You know, it's entirely possible.
And the other thing, you know, I don't know if Star 69 works coast-to-coast.
You know, if somebody calls you from California, can you Star 69 them?
They can.
Okay, well, if it does work, that might be what the person is dialing,
and if that's the case, that wouldn't show up in the pen register, now, would it?
Um, yeah, sure, it would.
No, you'd just see Star 69 show up, because that's what they dial.
You wouldn't see the number that actually went through.
Oh, not on a pen register, but it would show up on the bill.
It would show up on the bill, right.
But they're not having problems reading the bill.
They're having problems figuring out when these calls are happening and why.
So, um, alright.
This is a parental thing.
It's a parental thing.
You know, you gotta control your kids out there.
I mean, they're running crazy on the phone lines.
So, I don't know.
I don't know.
Alright, here's another puzzle.
That was a good answer, by the way, Bernie.
Well, it was a guess.
Well, it was a good answer, regardless.
We'll get back to you with your score later.
I have a problem that I hope you can solve.
I have been getting a strange set of phone calls on my house line for a few days now,
and they all go the same way.
The answering machine picks up.
There's a pause.
Two rings.
A pickup.
Then, a pre-recorded voice says,
If you want to make a phone call, hang up and try again.
Then, it repeats the message.
I have caller ID, and it reads out no data when this call comes in.
I am not at the point yet of being annoyed,
but I am very curious as to how they are doing this.
Do you have any ideas on how they are doing this,
and how can I stop it from happening?
I live in central New Jersey and use Bell Atlantic.
Well, I have a pretty good theory,
but I imagine, Bernie, you will probably have the same theory,
so why don't you go first?
It sounds like his answering machine is,
it sounds like the person calling, leaving,
or trying to leave messages, or not leaving messages,
is hanging up right away,
and their answering machine is just not hanging up soon enough,
and keeping the line past the point where,
you know, supervision tells it that the other person is hung up.
Most answering machines will figure out pretty quickly when someone is hung up,
but sometimes, you know, it misses a few times,
and some answering machines miss all the time.
And this may be one of them,
and then after a while it starts recording the telco message
that you got to hang up your phone.
And then you get that off hook tone.
The screamer.
Yeah, we all know what it sounds like.
Like that.
That's it.
How did I do that?
But what you might want to try,
if you are really interested in pursuing this,
is hang up your phone, leave it off the hook,
and just listen to the dial tone go away,
and then after the dial tone goes away,
I'll bet you'll get two rings,
and you'll get the exact same recording.
And that tells you that that's what's happening
when the answering machine records that.
Now, why are they always getting no data
when the call comes in?
That I'm not sure about.
I'm not sure exactly how this is happening.
It's possible that you have some sort of a three-way situation
where your phone is ringing back to you,
in which case you would get no data,
and if there's nobody on the line,
then you'll get that recording.
Or, if their answering machine
is set to answer on the first ring,
caller ID data doesn't get sent
until the first complete ring.
Yeah, the beginning of the second ring, actually.
Right.
The beginning of the second ring is when it gets sent.
I thought it was between the first full one
and the beginning of the second one.
Well, that's before the second one.
We're more or less saying the same thing.
So that is true.
So that might be happening.
Caller ID device, wherever that might be,
might be malfunctioning.
I had one of those once that just,
it would get garbled data lots of times.
So there's all kinds of possible reasons.
But, you know, I don't think anything really bad is happening.
I think you should count your blessings
that you don't have some 12-year-old
calling your son if you have a son
and figuring out ways to make your phone bills skyrocket.
Speaking of skyrocketing phone bills
or supposedly not skyrocketing,
I got mail from the Binary Brothers.
Have you seen this one, Bernie?
No.
They're from Lancaster, Texas.
I just found that out right now.
They have a dimeline guarantee.
All right.
Now, this is the first one I've ever seen.
You know the whole, like, you know,
10-centimeter things that they send to everybody
saying just dial this carrier access code.
Well, this one, this is the first one
I've ever seen a seven-digit carrier access code.
Just dial 1010811.
It's getting pretty silly now.
I mean, that's as long as a phone,
a regular phone number now.
So they all started with 1010 now for the time being?
Yeah, they started with those
and then they're going to do 1011, I guess,
or something like that.
1010811 plus one plus area code
plus the number you wish to call.
And they do this with a straight face.
You know, I just think it's pretty,
it's pretty humorous.
So now here's their deal.
If for any reason you are ever charged
more than 10 cents a minute
using the dimeline registered trademark service.
This is any time?
Yes, any time.
Day or night?
You want me to say it that way?
I'll say it that way.
I'm trying to do it like they do it
on the MCI commercial.
Yeah.
Is that it?
No, it's MCI.
I thought there was Sprint.
I thought it was MCI.
You see, advertising is lost on me.
I don't know who's who.
Sprint is like Mary Tyler Moore
or whatever that is.
Yeah.
Okay.
I got it.
Okay.
That tells me right away
minimum of three minutes per call.
So that means every call
costs you at least 30 cents.
Right?
Okay.
Yes.
Or if you ever pay more than
seven cents a minute for calls
of three minutes or longer
within the state of New York,
Vartech Telecom will refund to you
the entire cost of the affected call.
That's a,
that's quite a statement there.
But I mean,
so if you want more information
on them, call 1-800-544-1510.
If it's true,
it doesn't sound like too bad a deal.
Well, no, it doesn't.
But you know, AT&T also has a deal
now where you pay 10 cents a minute
around the clock for a monthly fee
of something like $3,
maybe it's $3.50.
And in addition to that,
they finally have addressed
one of our pet peeves,
which is the surcharges
that cost 25 cents
for you to be out there
using your calling card
and have to pay an extra dollar
just for the privilege of using it.
I'm like, no,
it doesn't make any sense.
And you guys were the biggest defenders
and now you're talking
like you never did it.
But anyway,
so they at least are using
that as a marketing gimmick now
and they only charge
25 cents a minute,
no surcharge,
do they have to
or they're allowed to now charge
for 800 calls?
Yeah, the 35 cent charge
for 800 numbers,
which I think is preposterous,
ridiculous and insane.
I don't know how that ever came about,
but if people keep complaining,
hopefully it'll go away at some point.
The payphone providers
were arguing that the phones
are being used for free
and they weren't being compensated
for the use of those phones
to provide services.
And they've got a point,
people are using their phones
all the time for free
and that's wear and tear,
but 35 cents, come on.
No, it's not right.
And it makes people afraid
to make phone calls,
which I don't know why
they want to do that to people.
Let me just read a couple more
things on the dime line here
and then we'll move on.
It sounds like a snitch line
but this is the latest thing.
Dime line offers 5 cent
a minute long distance calling.
5 cents a minute long distance
calling for every other
U.S. call of 10 minutes or less.
Every other?
No.
So I make really short calls
every other call?
No, wait a minute.
Now you have to keep track
of which call gives you
the 5 cents a minute
and make a bogus call
because how in the world
are people supposed to know
what call is 5 cents a minute
and what call is twice the price
and 10 minutes or less.
So you can't really start.
As soon as you start saving big
money, they cut you off
or they say no more.
And what happens if your call
goes 11 minutes?
Do you pay 10 cents a minute
or you pay 5 cents a minute
for the first 10 minutes
and then 10 cents a minute?
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
Earlier at this time we were talking about the 10 cent a minute rate and how it seemed
to be almost like, you know, the standard or what people were shooting for.
Now it's dipping below that, as it should, and, you know, maybe we'll see even more reasonable
rates someday where people aren't, you know, afraid to make phone calls or have to use
calculators to figure out what company to use.
Eventually, I think it'll just be a flat rate kind of thing.
What I'd like to try, I'd like to try this, I'm not sure, I hope I won't lose you, I want
to try calling 1010-811 and see what kind of message you get on their carrier access
confirmation number.
You usually lose me when you try something like this.
Yeah, I realize that, but, you know, it's worth the risk if we get a cool recording.
And if we do lose you, we'll call you right back.
Okay.
Hang on.
We have a dial tone?
Okay, we do.
1010-811.
And then we'll dial the 700 number.
It confirms your long-distance carrier.
Quiet on the set here.
We're sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed.
Please check the number and dial again.
That wasn't what we wanted to hear, was it?
No.
Okay, well, I got rid of it and I didn't get rid of you.
If I were calling from prison, I would have gotten knocked off then.
That's true.
That's true.
Don't try that with somebody from prison on the phone.
Speaking of prison...
Oh, no, don't even speak of it.
No, I'm afraid we have to because Kevin Mitnick is still there.
Boy, that's horrendous.
He is scheduled...
He hasn't even had a trial yet.
He's been locked up for, what, three years now?
Over three years.
He is scheduled to have a hearing next Monday, the 30th, I believe, of March.
Now, we have this very important announcement to pass along to people.
And that concerns the need of a computer expert witness.
A computer expert is needed immediately to testify as an expert witness
in an ongoing criminal matter in Federal District Court in Los Angeles.
Kevin Mitnick is seeking a highly credentialed expert in computer security,
telecommunications system, and network administration
to testify in this highly publicized computer hacking case.
This will be a groundbreaking case
and is expected to attract significant media coverage.
Testimony will be required as early as March 30th, next Monday, in Los Angeles.
Further testimony will be needed at trial later this year.
And, of course, expert witness fees will be paid by the Federal Court.
And, of course, I realize people in New York might not be able to, you know,
participate in this since it's taking place in Los Angeles,
but I know we have listeners in Los Angeles and other parts of the country
via Real Audio that might be able to help out here.
Qualified candidates must have an advanced degree
and be knowledgeable in DOS, Windows 3.11.
It's amazing. You know, he's been in prison so long,
they don't even mention Windows 95.
That's how long he's been in prison.
I didn't know you could get an advanced degree in Windows 3.11.
You'd be amazed what you can do.
Unix, specifically Sunos and Solaris, Vax, VMS, and Internet Operations,
experience with cellular telephone networks is a plus.
Previous expert testimony and or publication are preferred.
Qualified candidates should contact Mr. Mitnick
through his appointed defense counsel, who is Donald Randolph.
And the phone number there is Erica310-395-7900.
Or you can write to him, but you better, you know,
overnight it if you want to help out before the 30th.
The address, Donald Randolph, that's Randolph, R-A-N-D-O-L-P-H,
Randolph and Levanus, 1717 4th Street, 3rd Floor,
Santa Monica, California, 90401-3319.
Or if you want to send email, the email address is randlev,
that's R-A-N-D-L-E-V, at worldnet.att.net.
And Bernie, you had experience trying to get an expert witness.
It didn't quite work out though, right?
No, it turns out it wasn't necessary,
because I didn't end up going to trial, unfortunately.
As much as I would have liked to,
it didn't look like it was going to be a fair one anyway,
as these usually don't turn out to be fair trials.
One thing I should point out,
anybody who's thinking about doing this could be very helpful.
However, the person who does this has to be,
beyond a shadow of a doubt, 100% credible.
If you've ever had any conviction for anything misdemeanor-like...
If you've ever smoked anything or fondled somebody,
God knows who else they're going to bring up.
They will bring that up.
The government will try to tear your complete testimony down
by attacking your credibility.
It has nothing to do with how qualified you are to speak on the subject.
They'll try to attack that too,
but more importantly, they'll try to attack your credibility.
Credibility is everything.
They'll drag up stuff from...
They interviewed 20 people who knew me,
trying to get somebody to say that I was dangerous or something.
They couldn't come up with any way to do that,
but they will try very hard to do that.
If you have any scholars in your closet,
don't even think of doing this.
You'd be wasting Mr. Mitnick's lawyer's time,
which would be very bad.
What if the person just is in the hacker community?
Should everybody in the hacker community just assume
that they just won't be able to do this?
Well, it depends how involved you are with the hacker community.
If it's something the government could bring up,
like, are you involved in the hacker community,
they have to define what that means.
If you've ever written an article for 2600 Magazine,
that would probably be used against you to attack your credibility.
You'd be on the blacklist, I guess.
Yep.
That's what I said.
An unafformed jury was like,
oh, okay, this guy is sympathetic to hackers
and has written articles for Hacker Magazine,
which the government will equate with a criminal magazine.
Unfair, that is.
So you've got to be lily-white and very boring
to qualify as an expert witness.
That sounds insane, but yes, what you say is definitely the truth,
because think of what you are doing.
You are speaking before a judge.
You are speaking before a jury
and people who believe the kinds of things they see in Inside Edition.
So you have to keep that in mind.
You're not talking to people on WBAI.
I wish we could be the people, the peers that try Kevin Mitnick.
That would be interesting.
Yeah, because we'd be moving on to trying some other people pretty quickly,
I can tell you that right now.
Now here's a letter from somebody who's looking to be on trial pretty soon.
Dear OffTheHook, I admire what you're able to do.
I'd really appreciate it if you could do something
to expose the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a.k.a. Mormons.
From everything I know,
they're among the most abusive groups in power in the U.S.
They've achieved a state of invulnerability by owning the state of Utah.
They have sold this state to be the greatest U.S. depository of toxic waste,
and the citizens of Utah pay for it with their health.
If you question any of this, please study anything you can about 2L.
It's T-O-E-L-L-E, although he says he's not sure about that spelling.
But it's the location of all the toxic dumps in Utah,
the town that the Mormon Church has sold out as the biggest toxic waste dump in America.
And he would like us to hack their website and get these facts out there.
Well, I don't know.
I can't advise people to go around hacking websites,
and I certainly can't dispatch a crew of people to do this for you.
But what I will say is that I don't think very many people have a problem
with getting a political message out,
especially if it's something that's being suppressed
and using whatever means you need to do it.
That involves painting on the side of a building,
something as horrible as that,
dropping leaflets out of an airplane or something,
or even taking a publicly available webpage,
using a security vulnerability to transmit a message
exactly the opposite of what the people that you are opposing would want to say.
That, to me, is a form of speech.
But it quickly evolves beyond speech
if you go around destroying computer systems, erasing files,
causing other kinds of mayhem.
So it's a very fine line.
A lot of people don't know when to stop.
And that's why people get into lots and lots of trouble sometimes.
The people in East Timor who have been hacking the Indonesian websites there
have gotten a lot of publicity for it,
have gotten a lot of attention to what's going on in that part of the world,
to the torture and suppression of people.
And that would not be happening if they weren't taking these actions.
So, on the one hand, we can condemn this kind of thing,
but on the other hand, maybe it's the only way to get the word out
on something that's important to get the issues addressed.
One of the best websites that I ever saw hacked was a fur company
that was hacked by anti-fur activists.
And I can think of very few people that would not admire that kind of guts,
to go out there and get the message out on your biggest enemy's dime.
They basically were transmitting all this anti-fur literature
for a good 12 hours or so.
And I think that's one of the ones that's up on our website,
so if you want to look at that, feel free.
But, again, we can't advise you to do this.
All we can do is say what we believe is speech,
what we believe is vandalism,
and how you may be treated by certain people who we really don't have a say in.
Make sense, Bernie?
Makes perfect sense to me. Just be careful.
Yeah, you've got to be really careful with these things.
You're dealing with people who are probably a lot more powerful than you are.
Almost definitely.
They carry guns.
Yeah.
They point them at you.
One final thing having to do with hackers and the Pentagon and things like that.
This is from the Associated Press.
Prime Minister...
Although this is interesting. I think you saw this, Bernie.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today praised an 18-year-old Israeli master hacker
accused of having launched the most organized attack ever on the Pentagon's computer system.
This is a guy who right away has done more than Kevin Mitnick ever did,
and you have the Prime Minister of Israel standing up and saying,
good job. In fact, his exact words were, damn good.
Netanyahu said this when he was asked what he thought of the hacker
who was put under house arrest Wednesday, had his computer taken away.
He wasn't charged with anything.
And then Netanyahu quickly added, very dangerous, too.
The suspect who calls himself the Analyzer
and has been identified by the U.S. Justice Department as Ehud Tenenbaum
was questioned by a special police anti-hacker unit.
The suspect allegedly is cooperating with investigators
who don't think he was seeking personal gain.
This guy didn't act for what we call criminal motives, only for his curiosity,
his ego, or any other motive, not for money.
He's not so proud now of what he's done.
The Pentagon has said the intrusions appeared to have been aimed
at systems that contained unclassified personnel and payroll records.
A spokesman described the Israeli hacker's work as the most organized
and systematic attack the Pentagon has seen to date.
The Analyzer and two teams from Cloverdale, California,
apparently penetrated computers in February using a weakness
that already had been identified by computer security teams.
The Analyzer was arrested along with two Israeli friends from the neighborhood
at the request of U.S. officials. He has not been charged.
He was not surprised because the story was allegedly in the press,
already in the press that is, and he knew that someday somebody would knock on his door.
He's described by his high school principal as a high achiever,
and the principal says, we are sorry about what happened.
On the other hand, he didn't exploit this for a bad cause.
Since when does that keep you out of jail?
Well, you know, maybe, maybe this is like, you know, some sort of a trend
that they're actually, I mean, we had the Croatian hackers of last year
where their principal said pretty much the same thing.
Now you have Israeli principals saying the same, and prime ministers, you know,
saying that this person is not a criminal.
Why can't we have that in this country?
Why are we locking people up who we could be learning so much from,
people who did not steal money, people who did not have any criminal motives,
who didn't profit in any way?
And, you know, look around with the Kevin Mitnick case
and find one person who said that he profited in any way.
Not even the prosecutors are saying this.
So what is the big difference here?
What is going to happen?
Is Israel going to fall apart now because they didn't imprison this hacker
for three years without a trial?
Or are they maybe going to learn something from this guy and, you know,
get ahead a little bit?
I'll bet you a weak salary, Emanuel, that this kid will not be extradited
to the U.S. to face charges.
No, I think he has friends in powerful places,
and I'd say having the Israeli prime minister come out on your side
is probably, you know, a good thing for him anyway.
It would be nice, you know, if somebody had access
to maybe Benjamin Netanyahu's phone number,
that we'd call him and say,
what do you think about Kevin Mitnick then?
You know, this is a guy that did so-and-so,
who didn't profit in any way.
Would you say that, you know, he's damn good too?
Is Kevin Mitnick Jewish?
Well, I don't like to comment on people's religious beliefs or backgrounds,
but I'm not sure.
I think he could be.
It could help.
But I don't know if that's going to do any good for anybody.
I really don't.
If he was an Israeli, and he did it from Israel,
he'd probably still be there, and he wouldn't be in jail.
Well, that's certainly true.
You can say what if, you know, all day long.
It doesn't change the current situation,
and the current situation is pretty bad.
Remind me to give out that information later on too,
about, you know, people who want to be expert witnesses
or who want to ask more information about that.
We'll do that at the end of the show.
Also, if you just want to go to the web page,
www.2600.com slash Kevin,
you can see a printed transcript of that.
Now, Bernie S.,
we have the micro-broadcasting convention coming up in two weeks.
Actually, we have, before that comes up,
we have the science fiction convention
at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
There'll be some hacker panels there,
I think on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
That's coming up right now.
I don't have their website handy.
I don't know what it is, but if you're any good at all,
you can get on AltaVista and find it.
It takes place at the State University of New York at Stony Brook,
which is on Long Island,
and they have an annual science fiction convention called ICON,
where they talk to all kinds of weird people,
and hackers just happen to be one of them.
So...
Do people dress up in strange costumes at this con?
You wouldn't believe some of the things you see wandering around.
I mean, people with long capes and canes and things like that, you know.
Literally people from other planets.
So, hopefully we'll see people at that,
but the week after is the micro-broadcasting convention in Philadelphia,
so give us an update on that.
Oh, micro-broadcasters are what is the term that's been used
to describe pirate radio broadcasters,
people who don't believe that they should have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars
to get on the FM band and voice their opinion
or play the kind of music they want to play,
since corporate powers have pretty much taken over,
or have totally taken over, the FM broadcast band.
There's no diversity of opinion or taste, for that matter.
So, some people have taken it upon themselves
to set up very low-power stations, like 10 watts, 20 watts, that sort of thing,
which don't pose any threat to anyone, despite what the FCC might say.
And there's a lot of controversy about this now.
The FCC is trying to shut these stations down.
A couple of weeks ago, they tried to shut down
Steel Dis Radio in New York.
That's interesting, because I had heard that they had gotten a cease and desist order,
and in fact, when I tried listening to them over the weekend,
I did not hear them.
So, I'm not sure if they were, in fact, taken off the air.
They were not physically taken off the air.
They voluntarily shut down to reevaluate their options.
So, they're not on right now?
I don't know if they're on right now.
I don't live in New York, so I can't tell.
I knew that they voluntarily switched off their transmitter
and decided about whether they were going to move to another location in New York
or possibly change frequencies.
The whole thing about micro-broadcasters is you want to be ethical about it.
You don't want to interfere with any other licensed station.
Absolutely, right.
And that was what the FCC was apparently claiming,
but that might have been an empty claim.
They've been known to make empty claims before.
Well, they've actually gone so far as to claim that people broadcasting on the FM band,
I'm talking about, you know, like 92 megahertz there,
are somehow interfering with airplanes.
Now, how can that be?
Well, the FM broadcast band covers from 88 to 108 megahertz.
Those numbers on your dial are not arbitrary numbers.
They actually mean something.
Just above the 108 megahertz frequency, or just a few megahertz above that,
is the band that the aircraft use to communicate with the towers.
And I think that starts at about 113 or 116 megahertz
and goes up to 130-some megahertz.
Right. I can see if you broadcast over there, you could interfere with airplanes.
So how do you interfere with them in the commercial band?
Well, if you had a really very poorly designed transmitter
that had a lot of what's called splatter,
if it was over-modulating and operating out of frequency,
conceivably that's possible.
But it's very unlikely.
If you have a decent transmitter like the ones that Radio Free Berkeley sells kits for,
it's a good place to get a transmitter, Radio Free Berkeley.
They sell good kits.
I say it's Free Radio Berkeley.
Did I say that?
Yeah.
Free Radio Berkeley. Thank you.
They have well-designed transmitters.
Or if you consciously design a transmitter
or have someone who knows what they're doing design one for you,
you will not interfere with aircraft communication.
Every time they say that that's been going on,
they fail to offer any kind of forensic evidence that that was really happening.
So it's just a boogeyman kind of scare tactic.
I had heard something, though, from the FCC,
and this is from a publication called Radio World,
that the FCC is actually considering licensing some of these low-power stations.
The thing that I've seen, though,
is that they're thinking of making it no more than a single watt.
One watt.
Now, how in the world?
I mean, that would get you about a block, wouldn't it?
If you had a really efficient antenna,
and no doubt there will also be restrictions on what kind of antenna you can have as well,
you might get two or three blocks if you were lucky.
That's like licensing somebody that shot out their window.
You could probably do better with a megaphone out your window.
In fact, you definitely could do better with a megaphone out your window.
Well, that's just supposed to show that this is definitely an issue.
This is something the FCC is talking about.
So it's gotten attention.
That's a red herring bone that they're throwing out
to just try to appear that they're being conciliatory towards the free radio movement.
A lot of people involved in this movement are converging in Philadelphia weekend after next,
starting Friday night, April 3rd,
for the first East Coast Microbroadcasters Conference.
There was one some time ago on the West Coast, and it was very well attended.
Here in Philadelphia, we're hoping to have the Chief of Compliance and Enforcement
of the Federal Communications, Mr. Richard Lee,
who has offered to attend the panel discussion entitled
The Bust, What to Do When the FCC Comes a-Knockin'.
He would like to expand upon his opinions as far as what's illegal and what you shouldn't do.
We're planning to, if we can get this guy to come, which he's offered to come.
We're trying to work out an agreement so he doesn't come in an enforcement role.
If he agrees to this, we'll have some other people to rebut his statements
from both a legal standpoint with a lawyer from the ACLU,
who was also very involved with successfully fighting the Communications Decency Act,
and also a station engineer who could rebut these inevitable public safety claims
that are always brought up by the FCC saying that pirate radio stations are dangerous
and will cause airplanes to fall out of the sky, which has never happened, by the way.
So it should be quite interesting.
It will be broadcast live in Philadelphia at 91.3 megahertz.
But we have yet to get this on the net,
and that's something I was hoping people tonight might be able to help out with.
If we can figure out a way to have this whole conference broadcast over the Internet,
that would be really, really cool and interesting.
And, well, is there somebody that maybe they should contact
if they have an idea as to how they might be able to help out?
Sure. You could call our conference information line.
That's area code 215-474-3386.
Or send us e-mail at WPPR, that's West Philly Pirate Radio,
at svaha.com, S-V-A-H-A.com.
The phone number again is 215-474-3386.
And the e-mail address is WPPR at svaha, S-V-A-H-A.com.
And if that shot by too fast for you, if you can find a pen in time,
you can always write to us at offthehook, O-T-H, at 26kona.com,
and we'll forward it to the appropriate people.
We want to take some phone calls because we're running out of time.
We really have a lot to talk about tonight.
212-279-3400 is our telephone number, as always,
and we welcome calls from all around the planet
because we're broadcast over the Internet,
as well as over 99.5 FM in New York City.
And we are more powerful than pirate radio.
Very much more powerful.
It's incredible.
Radio Mutiny here in Philadelphia is a mere 20 watts,
which covers part of the city, but not outside that,
and we don't interfere with any license stations.
The amazing thing is that here at BAI,
we are just as powerful as all those mean, nasty commercial stations
that pump out music all the time and don't really care about anybody.
We're just as powerful as they are,
and we get to just as many places as they do.
And I think the people who listen listen a lot more intently
That's what's important with radio,
is whether you actually listen or whether you just have it on in the background.
That's the big difference.
All right, let's see if we can get some phone calls squeezed in.
212-279-3400.
We have Bernie S. on the line.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Yeah. Let me ask you,
have you seen these new intercom systems
that people are getting in their apartment houses,
whether they like it or not,
which use the phone lines like a little PBX system?
Okay, let me stop you right there.
Those are not new.
They've had those in California for ages.
They are the dumbest thing I think I've ever seen.
Somebody called me once, right?
And their phone number had been forwarded to me by some evil person.
And they were asking that when the phone rings,
could I please hit 7 to let the UPS man in?
Imagine this.
I'm in a different city,
and I'm letting a UPS man into their apartment.
Well, that's weird.
That's weirder than mine.
But what gets me is this thing was popularized
just in time to throw you off the Internet
whenever you have a half-decent connection.
And apparently, and I went to the phone company.
They said it's not their problem.
I went to the Public Service Commission.
It's not their problem.
I don't know whose problem it is.
How did they find out your phone number?
Well, it has nothing to do with your phone number.
The way this system works is that
there's a panel in the lobby of my building,
and in order to ring my doorbell or ring the phone,
you punch in a number.
But it's not my phone number.
It's just a series of digits,
like 1-2-3-4 or something like that.
And then it'll ring the phone in a distinctive way.
It uses that European dual-ring business.
And then I know that it's the doorbell,
and I've got to make a touch tone.
But at some point, it has to be hooked into your phone line.
Yes, it does.
Where is that?
It's down in the basement where the box is.
And it's like a little PBX system.
It overrides the phone line.
So if you happen to be surfing the World Wide Web,
they pull the plug on the ocean
as soon as they ring the doorbell.
Who is running this system?
It's...
It's not Bell Atlantic, is it?
No, it's a private thing.
The landlord sticks on the building.
Well, I can tell you, sir,
this is probably illegal as heck.
Well, actually, it's not.
So far, I'm in New York City public housing,
and they got some big deals for security systems,
and they put this thing in the building.
Nobody is responsible for this.
I called everybody.
So you're telling me if you're talking to somebody on the phone,
this thing's going to disconnect you?
Well, no, it'll override.
It'll beep.
And that's not a problem.
When you're on the net,
it just chokes the modem right away.
So it doesn't actually disconnect.
It just makes a noise.
Yeah, it'll interrupt the call and let you talk to it.
And it doesn't matter if you don't have call waiting.
It's just going to do this anyway.
That's right, because it's like a PBX system.
Well, it's still something that has to be, you know,
licensed in some way,
and the tenants have to approve of it.
They can't just do this to you.
They can't.
They can do anything they want to you.
Without your permission,
they cannot connect anything to your telephone line.
Well, guess what?
I talked to 9-X and Bell Atlantic
and the Public Service Commission.
Nobody's responsible for this.
And I went round and round and round in circles.
Can you tell us,
without giving out your address, obviously,
where this is located?
Yeah, it's in Chinatown area.
Uh-huh.
And if you want, off the air,
I'll tell you where I'm at.
You can come out and look at it and hack it.
What do the controls look like in the front of the building?
It's just a stainless steel panel.
If you hold on a second,
I can tell you who makes the thing.
Okay, that would be helpful.
While you're looking that up,
it sounds similar to one of these Entregard systems
that I had in the apartment building I lived in.
That was just simply an auto-dialer.
You just looked up like a three-digit code,
depending on the apartment.
Okay, hold on.
I got it.
It's the Sentex Ovation System.
The company's name is Sentex,
which I thought was pretty funny.
And it's out of Chatsworth, California.
I called them,
and they said that there was no way the management...
Well, there's apparently a way to program this system
from some secure location.
It may be that you could hack the system
if you can get in through a phone number,
but it may be some secure line.
And what did they say?
They said there's no way what?
Well, they said that there...
Actually, what they said was that
if I could get the management to change the system
and ignore my setting,
then it wouldn't do that.
Uh-huh.
So I said, I don't get that many guests.
I don't want people ringing my doorbell.
Yeah, well, there's somebody coming up to the apartment
and just putting their hand on all the buttons at once.
You disconnect everybody's phone number.
Well, no, you have to ring a code.
But, I mean, the fact is,
if some dimwit wants to be let in at 3 in the morning,
he can ring my phone,
so I've got to turn the phone off at night now.
Uh-huh.
And there's apparently nothing I can do about it.
I thought you guys would find this extremely amusing.
Oh, yeah.
It's amusing and upsetting.
Yeah.
There is something you can do about it.
There's a legal way you can do something about it,
and then there's a way that gets around
having to go through a lot of the legal hassles.
Which is?
You can have an extra pair of wires
run down to this thing from your place
and have that connected instead of your phone line.
Have that connected to this thing
and just put 48 volts across it,
which is the voltage that the phone company generates
on a phone line.
Right.
And you can just throw an old phone,
an old dial, whatever,
an old touch-tone phone,
throw that on there.
That'll just be a dedicated phone,
not connected with any phone number.
Yeah, that's nice, except they won't do it.
I mean, they've gone down in the basement
and they've gotten across my phone line,
so this thing has control over it.
Well, they have illegally connected to your telephone line.
There's just no way.
Yeah, but who do I complain to?
Well, complain to the phone company for one thing.
I did.
I think the Public Service Commission
would take an interest in this as well
because they are tampering with phone lines.
They said that the landlord had precedence or something.
I talked to both of them.
If that doesn't work,
I suggest going to an assemblyman or something
who will take this up, hopefully,
for political gain of their own.
I assume that it didn't work
because it was New York City Housing Authority
and they have a lot of clout.
Well, if it's New York City Housing Authority,
then there's all kinds of political implications
for them doing this to people without their okay.
Well, that's how they pretty much treat
the tenants in these buildings anyway.
They basically make decisions,
don't ask for any tenant input or token input,
and then they just do what they damn please
and everybody can go, you know, themselves.
I'd be willing to bet that there's a law in New York State
that says as part of the Public Utilities Commission...
I wish I knew what it was.
The PSC guys don't seem to know what it is.
Nobody can connect anything to your phone line
without your permission.
Really? I always thought that.
I said to the phone company,
I am paying for service.
I am not paying to have my doorbell rung
by some idiot, you know, or anybody else
to throw me off the Internet or whatever.
Bernie, what do you think of this idea?
How about calling the FBI
and saying that someone's doing an illegal wiretap?
You could do that.
One of our in-studio people.
Or you could...
Here's another trick you could do.
You could have the phone company disconnect your line.
Ask them to disconnect it temporarily,
like you're going on vacation.
Right.
I don't recommend this,
but this is something that would work.
Then you could plug your phone line,
disconnect all your phones,
unplug all your phones,
and plug your phone line right into the AC wall outlet.
It would fry their whole system.
I wouldn't suggest that either,
but it's something that could happen
if they're not careful.
That's an interesting thought.
Sir, I wish you luck.
We've got to try to move on to another phone call.
I don't suggest you do that, but that might work.
You never know.
All right, good luck.
Let us know what happens, all right?
All right.
I don't believe it.
They're doing this to some people out there.
It's horrible.
I mean, if somebody did that to me,
I'd be, you know,
I'd be beside myself with rage.
But regardless,
let's see if we can squeeze in two phone calls
for the entire hour.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hello?
Yes, go ahead.
Hi.
I had a question regarding ADSL systems.
Hello?
Good evening.
Yes, go ahead.
Turn down your radio.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Now, ADSL systems,
they supposedly have the two-mile range?
From the central office.
That's what we're hearing
to get the maximum throughput, yes.
Okay.
So, now,
one time I was talking to a 9X technician
back when they were 9X,
and they said,
they mentioned something about a device
called a load pot.
And what it was supposed to do
was amplify the signal on your line
to cut out line noise,
like for runs over two miles.
Okay.
And I was wondering
if there was any connection
between the ADSL two-mile range
and perhaps the load pot's amplification.
I would imagine
there's going to be something like that introduced
if that itself won't be the,
you know,
the actual technology
because ADSL is fairly new in this country,
and not everybody lives
within two miles of a central office.
They're going to have to do something
to provide service to people outside that area.
They'll need some sort of amplification,
whether or not it works efficiently.
I don't know if it's too early to tell.
Bernie, have you heard anything about this?
Well, these load pots
don't really necessarily amplify the signals.
I think they,
it's a big inductive,
a big, huge inductive loop
in a potted can
hanging off a pole or somewhere
that compensates for the capacitive,
inductive, whatever,
on the phone line
that runs two miles or more.
So it sort of makes the phone line
appear electrically
that it's shorter than it really is.
There's got to be some amplification
somewhere in there too,
but it's not,
that's what the load pot does.
So that's all I know about it.
Okay.
Listen, we're out of time.
Thanks so much for calling.
Hope that helped.
And we want to give out that information
on the expert witness for Kevin Mitnick
one more time.
If you're interested
in being a part of that,
first of all,
if you didn't hear
the whole little spiel there,
connect to our website,
www.twentysixhundred.com
slash Kevin,
and it'll give you the whole,
the whole rundown there.
People who are interested
in being an expert witness,
and it could be as early
as next Monday, March 30th,
when a hearing is scheduled,
contact his lawyer,
Donald Randolph,
310-395-7900.
Email address,
randolph at worldnet.att.net.
Again, you can write to us,
oth at twentysixhundred.com,
or if you're more traditional
and you want to send us mail
through the U.S. Postal Service,
off the hook,
care of WBAI,
505 8th Avenue,
New York, New York, 10018.
Bernie S.,
thanks very much for being with us tonight.
Thank you.
Let me get that phone number
in for the Pirate Radio Conference
two weeks from now,
215-474-3386.
It's going to be
a really interesting three-day weekend.
You can even learn
everything you need to know
to set up your own pirate radio station.
And those of you interested
in science fiction,
come to the ICON convention
this weekend
at the State University of New York
at Stony Brook.
We don't have the exact web address,
but if you just show up on campus
any time Friday,
Saturday, or Sunday,
you can't miss it,
and there'll be all kinds of hackers there
doing all kinds of things.
So, without further ado,
that's it for this week.
We'll be back again next week
with another edition of
Off the Hook.
Till then,
Emmanuel Goldstein.
Good night.
The telephone keeps ringing
So I ripped it off the wall
I cut myself while shaving
Now I can't make a cost
It could be that much worse
But if it could, then would
For Billy Bond
For the best, expect the worst
I hope that's understood
From Billy Bo
For the best, expect the worst
From Billy
For the best, expect the worst
From Billy
For the best, expect the worst
For Billy
For the best, expect the worst
Get on the bus for Jericho 98.
On March 23rd at 8 am,
waitin' at the train station
for Atlanta's special
Jericho 98. On March 27th, join us in Washington to demand freedom and amnesty for all political
prisoners in the United States. Bus tickets are now available in Harlem at Creative Visions
125 Mark and Liberation Books. Also in Manhattan at the Brecht Forum, Revolution Books, the
International Action Center and Blackout Books. In Brooklyn at Sister's Place and in Queens
at D&J Bookstore in Laurelton. For reservations or information on Jericho 98, call area code
212-473-4257 or 212-330-8362. On to Jericho 98. Free all political prisoners. This has
been a WBAI PSA on behalf of Jericho 98, a non-profit organization.
WBAI, WBAI
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It's the time now. Exactly 9 p.m. coming up next, Arab Voice Crescent Rising, with Barbara
and Auzize. Stay tuned.
This is Barbara Nimri Aziz welcoming you to Arab Voices Crescent Rising on WBAI for Tuesday
March 24th.
Arab Voices Crescent Rising is heard every week at this time from 9 to 10 p.m. on Tuesdays
where we look at the Arab and Muslim community here and abroad.