spring is here and the wbai spring membership drive is starting on monday april 27th once
again we'll be needing your help answering phones and taking pledges of support for your radio
station if you can spare an hour or more anytime between the hours of 7 a.m and 12 midnight
please come to our studios at 505 8th avenue on the corner of 35th street on the 19th floor
before the drive begins on wednesday april 22nd we'll be having an orientation and training
meeting for volunteers to help prepare you for the drive in advance so please come to our meeting
we look forward to seeing you here at the station on wednesday april 22nd at 5 30 p.m 505 8th avenue
on the 19th floor and keep listening to wbai radio 99.5 fm in new york if you're interested in
volunteering please give us a call at 212-279-0707 extension 122 that's 212-279-0707 extension 122
and you're listening to radio station wbai in new york time is eight o'clock
it's time 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 cost
it couldn't get much worse
but if they could they would
but the best expect the worst
i hope that's understood
but i'm making it go
and i want to make a cost
but it's easier than they would
because they've made
and you're actually gonna
so they've been able to
look at them
and you're into
especially people
so just going
to look into
and you're out of there
you're going into
and you're not going to
you're gonna JULN
you're not going to
祭に
you're not going to
look at
and if you're gonna
look at
there
and I'll
show you
and if you're
you're
there
in
that
where
you'll
you can
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And about an hour later, MTV said, you can no longer vote online.
So, obviously, somebody hacked it, and they found out about it.
Here's a letter.
Anyway, that letter came from someone named Overload.
Yeah, it's Overload.
Thank you very much for sending that in.
Um, another letter to off the hook, and this comes from...
I believe it's...
I'm a person, a person, a person, a soon-to-be Bell Atlantic employee.
I lived in Vermont for 19 years, since I was about 12, and the payphone rates there were a steady 10 cents, which was fine with everyone there.
Bell Atlantic comes in, and bam, not 15 cents, not 20 cents, not 25 cents, not 30 cents, 35 cents for a local call.
Let's be fair, though, corporations need the money.
Said, uh...
You have to understand, this is kind of formatted weird, so I have to read it very, uh, strangely.
Their spokesperson said that they can't talk about ongoing enforcement.
I have no reason to doubt the report, but I cannot confirm it.
That's the usual Fed way of talking.
Now, here's an interesting piece, uh, that was posted on the, uh, Kevin Mitnick, uh, mailing list.
For those who don't know, the Kevin Mitnick mailing list, um, has been ongoing now for quite some time, and, uh, people talk about, uh, various things in the news, various ideas as far as what we can do to help, uh, help Kevin Mitnick out.
Uh, who's been in prison now for over three years with no trial and no bail.
And it appears that, uh, well, the judge in this case, it seems like she has this thing against Kevin.
It really, you know, it feels that way, that, uh, she just doesn't like him.
She doesn't trust him in any sense whatsoever, and she really believes that he needs to be locked away and never let out, or just, you know, locked away until the trial anyway, with absolutely no hope of, uh, of bail or looking at the evidence if it involves a computer or things like that.
In other words, she seems a little clueless as far as how the technology works.
You know, somebody can't start a war by using a phone or, or, you know, can't hack, uh, the defense department by looking at the evidence for his own case.
The interesting thing about this is that, um, if you look back, someone actually, uh, went back into, uh, the Los Angeles Times archives, went to November 22nd, 1995.
As an attorney, Marianna Faltzer, I think I'm saying it right, once said that an effective lawyer had to think as deeply and widely as possible about a case.
You keep testing to see how far the ripples go.
As the federal judge who Monday declared key portions of Proposition 187 unconstitutional,
Now, Faltzer has set off a shockwave that may well ripple the legal, political, and social fabric of California for years to come.
Her bold judicial action, based on her contention that federal authority over immigration supersedes many elements of Proposition 187,
dealt a sharp blow to proponents of the popular voter-approved immigration control measure.
Now, I find that fascinating, that, um, obviously she's, you know, she's got enough there to realize when something is completely wrong
and needs to be, uh, you know, corrected even though it flies in the face of popular sentiment.
But, uh, I don't know. Where is it when it comes to dealing with matters of technology?
This goes to show that we can say, you know, these people are stupid idiots that don't understand anything,
but they're not stupid idiots. They're smart people who just don't get it because they've been instructed by the wrong people,
because they've had bad experiences in some way, and I think that's the majority of, um, what we wind up facing,
are people that are otherwise rather nice, but just don't get it as far as this particular subject matter goes.
And that's what our real task is, is reaching these people somehow, getting through to them, getting them to, uh, to see.
That's part of what the whole Free Kevin campaign is all about.
Uh, the bumper stickers are being spread around far and near.
In fact, there's, there's many different people now making the same bumper stickers, which is really great,
uh, because they'll be popping up everywhere.
I see them now, myself, on cars that I did not put on, you know.
They're, they're on other people's cars willingly, I assume.
So, um, there'll be more information about that on the 2600 website and in the new issue of 2600,
which will be out in about three weeks.
Uh, that is the, uh, the latest on the, uh, Kevin Mitnick situation.
I believe there's a new trial date, or not trial date, a court date coming up in a couple of weeks.
We'll have information on that as soon as we learn what happens.
A privacy expert has challenged the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to produce evidence
of its recent claim that computer-related security breaches have risen by 250% in the last two years.
The increase in computer attacks was announced, uh, about a week and a half ago by Dick Watson,
assistant special agent in charge of the white-collar crime program,
at the Secure Enterprise Management Seminar in Boston.
Shortly beforehand, the FBI asked the FCC to make it compulsory for computer and telecommunications manufacturers
to build wiretapping capability into all of their equipment.
Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, said the FBI was crying wolf with its latest figures.
Based in London with offices in Washington, D.C.,
Privacy International is a human rights group formed in 1990
as a watchdog on surveillance by governments and corporations.
Davies has accused the agency of overstating the problem
to garner support for continuing controls on the export of encryption keys.
The FBI statistics have no credibility.
Congress makes the mistake of accepting FBI director Louis Frey's figures without question.
Sound familiar?
The problem is Brussels is no better, Davies said,
alluding to the European Commission's passing a memo of understanding on encryption control.
It's obscene the way these issues are being discussed in a democracy.
And, oh, we have someone who just flew in from...
Actually, let me get this microphone to turn on.
Tell us where you flew in from, because I'm not really sure where you flew in from.
From London.
From London.
And your mic still isn't on, so I'm just going to turn them all on.
Go ahead.
From London?
From London, okay.
And you have something to add about the encryption.
Well, before we get to that,
there was an article posted at CNN, the CNN's website, two days ago,
about how the NSA had organized people to try to break into the Pentagon's computers again
to really test the volatility of the system.
Yeah, in fact, that's my next story here.
How do you think these different government organizations
differentiate between people who are not sanctioned to try and hack into the system
and the people who do try to hack into the system?
Well, I think they must tell them at some point,
they say, oh, you know, those people that were, you know, ping-flooding you before,
that was us.
That was us at the NSA, you know, trying to get into your system there.
But, you know, sometimes I think they might forget to tell them
and then they just blame the hackers for everything else.
Or maybe they just keep the total and forget to subtract
all the attempts that the NSA makes on their computers, and who knows.
But whatever it is, I just don't think the figures are accurate.
I never have, I just don't believe these things at face value.
I believe they should be questioned.
And so now tell us about the encryption.
The British government has had a second reading of a bill for public key encryption.
I don't know exactly what the contents of the bill actually says,
but there's a weekly email journal called NTK Need to Know.
And they've been trying to get people to rouse support
around the fact that this is not a good thing for people to have in England.
And it's gone for a second reading, which means now it's gone to some kind of committee
and they're supposed to schedule a public hearing about it.
But people, for the vast majority of people who just use the internet in England,
they have no idea what this is about.
And they don't understand why it's a significant turn of events for them
or what it could mean to their privacy or their own ability to authenticate themselves.
And I'm sure that's the way that the people in charge want it to be.
Could be.
A clueless public is a public that won't cause any problems.
Yeah, that's true.
Except maybe in the bars or something.
You know those English things.
Have an uprising every couple hundred years or so.
Things are definitely taking some interesting turns, I'll just say that.
Okay, computer hackers.
This is the story.
Computer hackers could disable military, system compromised, and secret exercise.
Senior Pentagon leaders were stunned by a military exercise
showing how easy it is for hackers to cripple U.S. military and civilian computer networks
according to new details of the secret exercise.
Amazing, you know.
This is how easy it is for hackers to do.
The hackers have never done this, but this is how easy it is for them to do it.
So next time someone even tries to do anything,
people will remember that hackers could cripple the nation's defense.
Yeah.
Using software obtained easily from hacker sites on the internet,
a group of National Security Agency officials could have shut down
the U.S. electric power grid within days
and rendered impotent the command and control elements of the U.S. Pacific Command,
said officials familiar with the war game known as Eligible Receiver.
The attack was actually run in a two-week period
and the results were frightening, said a defense official involved in the game.
This attack, run by a set of people using standard internet techniques,
would have basically shut down the command and control capability in the Pacific Theater
for some considerable period of time.
Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said,
Eligible Receiver was an important and revealing exercise
that taught us that we must be better organized to deal with potential attacks
against our computer systems and information infrastructure.
The secret exercise began last June after months of preparation
by the NSA computer specialists who, without warning,
targeted computers used by U.S. military forces in the Pacific and in the United States.
The game was simple, conduct information warfare attacks, or Info War,
on the Pacific Command and ultimately force the United States to soften its policies
toward the crumbling communist regime in Pyongyang.
The hackers posed as paid surrogates for North Korea.
The NSA red team of make-believe hackers showed how easy it is
for foreign nations to wreak electronic havoc using computers, modems, and software technology
widely available on the darker regions of the internet, network scanning software,
intrusion tools, and password-breaking login scripts.
According to U.S. officials who took part in the exercise, within days,
the team of 50 to 75 NSA officials had inflicted crippling damage.
They broke into computer networks and gained access to the systems
that controlled the electrical power grid for the entire country.
If they had wanted to, the hackers could have disabled the grid,
leaving the United States in the dark.
You know, they say that sentence now, and, you know,
they make it seem as if it's, you know, regular hackers again.
Before it was make-believe hackers, showing how easy it was,
but now it's, the hackers could have disabled the grid, you know,
it's just, they fall into that pattern.
Group.
Sorry?
There was a scene like that from the movie Sneakers.
Uh-huh.
Remember, they, one of the places that they got into was the national program.
I'm sure they thought that was playing out right in front of them.
Uh, groups of NSA hackers based in Hawaii and other parts of the United States
floated effortlessly through global cyberspace.
Oh, boy.
Breaking into unclassified military computer networks in Hawaii,
the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Command,
as well as in Washington, Chicago, St. Louis, and parts of Colorado.
The attacks were not actually run against the infrastructure components
because we didn't want to do things like shut down the power grid,
said a defense official involved in the exercise.
But the referees were shown the attacks
and shown the structure of the power grid control,
and they agreed, yeah, this attack could have shut down the power grid.
Knocking out the electrical power throughout the United States
was just a sideline for the NSA cyber warriors.
I'm having trouble finishing this.
Their main target was the U.S. Pacific Command,
which is in charge of the 100,000 troops
that would be called on to deal with wars in Korea or China.
The most telling thing for the Department of Defense,
when all was said and done,
is that basically for a two-week period,
the command and control capability in the Pacific Theater
would have been denied by the Infowar attacks,
and that was the period of the exercise.
Would have been.
Wasn't really, but it could have been.
Right.
The attackers also foiled virtually all efforts to trace them.
FBI agents joined the Pentagon in trying to find the hackers,
but for the most part, they failed.
I guess they didn't know either, did they?
They just were chasing these people
that they had no idea who they were.
They thought they were hackers.
I'll bet they're mad now.
Only one of the several NSA groups,
a unit based in the United States, was uncovered.
The rest operated without being located or identified.
So, how did they know that there weren't real hackers involved
that, you know, during the same period of time?
They could just say, oh, the others were never identified.
But how did they know if they don't identify them
how many there were?
The attackers breached the Pentagon's
unclassified global computer network
using Internet service providers and dial-in connections
that allowed them to hop around the world.
It's a very, very difficult security environment
when you go through different hosts in different countries
and then pop up on the doorstep of
Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi
and then go from there into SINGPAC,
using the acronym for Commander-in-Chief Pacific.
The targets of the network attacks also made it easy.
They just were not security aware, said the official.
In other words, they were complete morons.
A second official found that many military computers,
take notes, everybody,
many military computers used the word password
for their password.
Yeah.
Things haven't changed.
And Kevin Mitnick's in prison for over three years.
Yeah.
These guys did far worse than anything he ever did.
But, of course, they were doing it for purposes of good.
A 22-year-old man faces dozens of charges
in a case involving the cracking of the computer security codes
at top aerospace facilities in the United States.
And he doesn't work for the NSA.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police,
which conducted a 14-month investigation,
say a hacker broke into the computer systems
at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Center.
It's just like a rite of passage for any hacker
just to break into NASA.
Also, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association
and Hughes STC, an aerospace firm.
So that's another person rounded up
for being mischievous, I guess.
And an addendum to last week's show,
where we were talking about GSM being cracked.
And that person hasn't been imprisoned yet, I don't think.
Bethesda, Maryland-based Omnipoint Corporation
said it plans to change the mathematical formulas
used in its wireless phone service
after two UC Berkeley researchers
discovered a way to break the code that protects it.
This is after they said that it wasn't a problem.
Well, apparently, it is a problem.
Um, Omnipoint Executive Vice President George Schmidt.
You know, last week he was the president.
I don't know what happened here.
Okay, Omnipoint Executive Vice President George Schmidt
said he's going to personalize Omnipoint's formula
for identifying phones
rather than using the general formulas
of the Global System for Mobile Communications,
or GSM, Digital Wireless Standard.
It's expected that most GSM operators
will follow Omnipoint's lead digital phone services,
for which GSM is the world's most popular standard.
Give users clearer sound, longer battery life,
and greater security.
That security lies in the long-encrypted digital codes
through which the signal is transferred,
and which were cracked a couple of weeks ago.
Well, Seth is back from London.
Now, you've been listening to this show
in real audio over there, haven't you?
Yeah.
It was really great.
It was really clear.
There were no burps.
The servers didn't disconnect.
Uh-huh.
It was great.
It was good to feel a part of it.
I mean, BT is far too expensive
to have two telephone lines in there.
Yeah, hopefully people are listening
all throughout the world tonight as well.
This is our last show for at least three weeks,
maybe four.
They should.
I mean, the servers do rather well through Europe.
Uh-huh.
I mean, I've listened in Paris and in Prague,
Berlin and Budapest,
and I never had a problem.
Sometimes there were some problems in Prague
because the phone system is...
Are these internet cafes or...
Yeah, there's a great internet cafe in Prague.
It actually has its feed via satellite.
Do crowds gather around
when you listen to Off the Hook?
Uh, they really didn't understand it.
You know, they speak Czech,
so they didn't...
Right, yeah, that would be a disadvantage, I guess.
By and large, they didn't understand it.
And it was hard to have to...
Well, not hard, but, I mean,
it took a moment to, like, reconfigure the browser
so that I could actually read
an English character set
versus a Czech character font and stuff like that.
That you have to change.
But it was pretty cool, you know?
I mean, they have a T1 via a satellite through...
I don't know.
I think UUNet is the one who provides the service,
but I don't know who actually owns the satellite.
And it's a really funky place.
They have gold glitter walls and tile floors
and trees coming out of ceramic tiles,
which are...
It's kind of weird, but they serve great coffee.
Okay, that's what matters.
And hopefully people are listening to us
in internet cafes throughout the world.
And feel free to give us a call.
Country code 1...
Area code 516...
No, not 516.
Where are we?
212.
279-3400.
I've been moving around a lot.
So, actually, I was at the Trenton Computer Show
this past weekend, and that was something.
That was something.
Met a lot of people there.
I had no idea how many people were into hacking.
I mean, yeah, I sort of had an idea,
but these are a lot of, you know,
just computer people that are fascinated by the whole thing
and aren't really, you know, on the front lines.
I mean, I see entire families.
We brought some back issues and shirts down there,
and they were just thumbing through them all.
I mean, I couldn't tell who was more into it,
you know, fathers or sons, you know?
They were...
I don't know what our audience is anymore,
but so many people were just so enthusiastic
and met a lot of really, really cool people
and saw a lot of, you know,
neat machines for sale for really cheap prices.
Oh, I'm sure.
Yeah, so that was definitely fun,
and I'll have to do that again next year.
We have a letter from Australia.
That's right.
Isn't technology great?
It allows someone thousands of miles away
to be part of a group or listen to a program
or add constructive ideas
where before they could have done nothing.
Like most writers, I have to say,
I quite enjoy the program and topics covered.
I thought I'd write to give you
an Australian perspective on things.
I'm guessing you don't get too many letters from Australia.
Actually, this was a written letter,
actually handwritten on a piece of paper
that got sent to us, not on the net,
which is nice.
I like seeing letters like that.
I'm not a, quote, hacker, unquote,
nor do I really plan to be,
but your site is one of my favorites
because it gives a different perspective on things
and tells me things.
I should say informs me about issues
which receive very little coverage
in the mainstream press.
Even if an issue is covered,
often basic facts are wrong
or the person reporting does not understand the issue.
Things are the same all around the world, aren't they?
Over Christmas, I spend most of my time
listening to Beyond Hope.
We have the panels up on the net
so you can listen to them in real audio format.
Very interesting.
I love the social engineering session,
particularly the call to Kmart.
I'm trying to find out if major Sydney stores
have similar PA systems.
It appears that Australia
is about to become victim to AOL.
Oh, boy.
Recently, an ad appeared
for a free two-month trial subscription with them,
so I figure they'll launch in about six months.
One thing that will please you, though,
is the fact that an Australian
has already registered the address
AOL.com.au.
AOL must have paid a substantial sum
to get it from him.
Oh, they got it.
That's too bad.
AOL competitors were also interested in it
for obvious reasons.
I've been trying to tell as many people
as possible to be wary of them.
In Australia, ISP fees range
from between $25 and $40 a month.
Cable connections cost around $120 a month,
and it's not very good at the moment.
Most experts say that people who need the speech
should stick with ISDN
because cable is too expensive.
One ISP is advertising $500
for a lifetime connection.
I'm very skeptical, though.
I think they'll take the $500 and leave.
Australia's telecommunications system
is being deregulated.
Presently, the telecom monopoly
is slowly being eroded.
Telstra is the old telecom
and is slowly being privatized.
Unfortunately, Telstra's level of service
sounds just like that in America.
Recently, complaints have increased dramatically.
Phone calls cost around $0.25,
public phones $0.40.
Timed local calls in Australia are illegal.
Optus.
A new competitor wants to charge $0.20 per call,
but Telstra will not sell access
for less than this,
even though Optus argues
that they can afford to sell access
at $0.12 a call.
Long-distance charges have fallen dramatically
with competition.
Interstate calls after 7 p.m.
now cost $3 for unlimited time.
Only in the last six months
has caller ID come in,
and awareness is not very high.
Many people are unaware
that companies now know their phone numbers.
I'm not sure how big
the hacker-freaker community in Australia is,
but I figure the percentage
of computer users who are hackers
is similar to the U.S.
It's a tragedy to read
of Kevin Mitnick's plight.
I think I'll write him a letter,
which is always a good idea to do.
Recently, an Australian hacker
got three years for the theft
of credit card numbers from an ISP.
Like America, Australian press
doesn't distinguish between hackers
and computer criminals.
There was an article recently
about a group who were using
music artists' songs without permission
and making their own mixes,
recording it and selling it
on the Internet.
Since computers were involved,
these people were called hackers.
I'm no expert,
but I don't think they were hackers.
It annoys me when people
comment on issues
of which they are not
fully informed about
or have a poor understanding of.
My mother, age 48,
took her first Internet training
last week.
I gave her the 2600
and Kevin Mitnick's site addresses,
a good introduction to the Internet.
I also managed to get my grandmother,
age 84,
to start a computer course.
Now I'm trying to get her
onto the Internet.
Imagine an 84-year-old hacker.
That letter comes from Gavin
of Caringbaugh, Australia.
And we also,
we've got a lot of letters
this week for some reason.
We've got a letter from Argentina,
a whole other part of the world.
And it's going to be
a very small bit of this.
The other day I was able
to hear your radio show
for the first time
from the 2600.com archives.
It was a rather strange thing.
Let me tell you,
the Internet,
it's such a strange
and wonderful thing.
In that program,
you talked with yourself
in the future,
which was also interesting.
And now you have this letter
with a photo from the past.
Yeah, they sent me a photo
of myself from the past,
which is kind of scary.
And various other things
going on in Argentina as well.
If you want to write to us,
off the hook,
care of WBAI,
505 8th Avenue,
New York,
New York,
10018.
If you're too lazy
to actually write something
on a piece of paper,
then send us email,
O-T-H
at 2600.com.
We'll be taking phone calls
in just a moment,
but before we do,
I want to share something
that happened over the weekend.
This is,
it's kind of scary actually,
because I don't understand it.
And when I don't understand something,
it's troublesome.
Let's get us a dial tone here.
Okay, we're going to give a call
to a special number
and check into something,
because this is,
this is something I think
that affects everybody.
Let's turn down the music here
so we can actually,
what we're going to be doing
is accessing a,
accessing a special voicemail account.
Yeah, leave a message.
Yeah, that's,
that's the voice.
Please enter your password.
Okay, here we go.
Oops,
don't want to give out
too many digits over the air.
All right,
and hopefully that's it.
You have three messages.
Three are saved.
To listen to your messages,
press one.
Okay, we're going to listen
to these messages.
Now, I'd like you to pay
special attention
to the phone numbers
on the messages,
because there really aren't
any messages,
they're just silence.
But listen to these phone numbers.
Press one.
Saved messages.
Monday,
4,
44,
P.M.
Telephone number,
2,
0,
2,
4,
5,
6,
1,
6,
9,
8.
Uh, yeah,
you're right.
To erase this message.
That is the White House.
To reply,
press 8.
We can't really reply.
I don't know why
they even give you that option.
Uh, let's skip to the next message.
To erase this message,
press 7.
To reply,
press 8.
Nobody knows.
To skip to the next message,
press pound.
Okay.
Listen to this one now.
Saved message.
Monday,
9,
0,
7,
P.M.
Telephone number,
7,
1,
0,
0,
8,
2,
4,
1,
0,
0.
Now,
you can't have a phone number
beginning with a zero.
This message,
press 7.
And besides,
press 8.
The 710 area code?
Press pound.
All right,
listen to this next one.
This is the last one.
Saved message.
Sunday,
2,
0,
7,
AM.
Telephone number,
7,
1,
0,
6,
2,
7,
4,
3,
8,
7.
Now,
that number,
that number translates to 710 NCS gets,
which is something we've talked about in the past.
It's, um,
it's the emergency telecommunications system that the federal government has set up for all kinds of disasters.
I'll read you a little bit of, uh, a pamphlet that they put out.
Uh,
economic pressures and technological advances have made telephone services increasingly more vulnerable to disruption by natural or man-made disasters.
Recent events have shown that fires, power failures, fiber cable cuts, and software problems can cripple the telephone services of entire regions.
Congestion in the public switch networks, uh, such as the, uh, well-documented Mother's Day phenomenon, can also prevent circuits from being accessed.
Getz is designed and maintained in a constant state of readiness to make maximum use of all available telephone resources should outages occur during an emergency, crisis, or war.
Yes.
Getz uses three types of networks, and they go into all kinds of technical detail here, which, uh, if you read the latest 2600, you'll see all this printed in, uh, in full detail.
Well, but basically, you're supposed to call into this number and enter, I guess, your PIN.
You know, some sort of a, uh, a code to signal that you're who you're supposed to be.
Now, how is it that on my voicemail, I'm getting calls from the 710 area?
Because it's kind of scary.
It's also kind of scary that I'm getting calls from the White House, but, uh, we'll deal with that later.
That just came in now.
So somebody, somebody's playing games with something.
They've either, they've either figured out a way to, uh, to send fake numbers on caller ID,
or they've actually managed to crack the 710 system.
Now, let us see just what's involved in cracking the 710 system, the NCS-GETS number.
What we're going to do, it's interesting because I've learned this over the weekend because I was experimenting with it myself.
There are three different long-distance carriers that you can use to get to this thing,
and every single one that you use will get you something different.
Let's, uh, first listen to AT&T.
We're going to, uh, use the AT&T carrier access code,
and then dial 1710-NCS-GETS.
Listen to what we hear.
Strange little tone.
Please enter your destination number now.
Now, I have no idea what a destination number is.
Probably it's the phone number you're calling.
Okay, I guess that's our second chance.
Please re-enter your PIN now.
Okay, now they're calling it a PIN.
So either they didn't hear the first one and didn't care.
Please re-enter your PIN now.
Okay, I'm going to continue to refuse to enter my PIN.
Let's see what happens.
Your call cannot be completed as dialed.
Please check the number and dial again.
1-2-0-3.
Okay, so, no hope of getting an actual human being.
Now, if you go through Sprint, you get something completely different.
However, for some reason,
listen to what happens when we try to go through Sprint.
We're dialing the same exact phone number,
except we're using the Sprint carrier access code.
Your long-distance service has been temporarily discontinued.
Oh, well.
So we can't use Sprint,
and that's too bad because I think they're the most entertaining.
But, fortunately, MCI also offers this service.
Now, keep in mind that this is supposed to be for,
I believe, military, federal, government employee types.
So this person who we wind up talking to
is going to think we're one of them.
Let's see how much information we can get
as far as just, you know,
how long the PIN is, for one thing.
Okay, that was them.
That's their dial tone.
Same number, different sound.
May I have your card number, please?
Yeah, okay.
I have a 14-digit code here.
I've got a 7-digit code here.
I've got a...
Let's try the 14-digit.
Okay, it's a 14-digit...
Is this the same as my Sprint card?
Because that's a 14-digit card, too.
No, I don't think the Sprint card will work.
Okay, because they told me this was run by Sprint.
Is this Sprint?
No, this is MCI.
Oh, boy.
I'm just...
I'm completely confused by this whole system.
This is the first time I've ever actually used it.
I give you a 14-digit PIN,
and that's what you need right now.
See, this is a Sprint card I'm looking at.
Well, I would have to use a different kind of card then.
Okay, so I need to get the MCI version of that code.
Is that right?
You were saying you had another number you could give me.
I have a 7-digit number.
Okay, tell me that number, and I'll see what comes up.
Okay, that would be 279-3400.
Okay, there's no additional numbers.
Well, you see, I don't know for sure that that's the number
that I'm supposed to be using for this.
There's a code to get into the compound.
There's a code to get into my office.
There's a code to do just about everything around here now,
and I don't know which code is for which.
Okay, on that card, does it have a different number anywhere?
No, you see, this is just something that's written down on a piece of paper.
Oh, okay.
That's the whole problem.
Probably you need to dial the right 800 number
to use this 7-digit card number.
Right.
Oh, for that 7-digit.
So this would not be a 7-digit number, in other words.
No, I'm in a different department.
Uh-huh.
So it's not going to come up.
Okay, I have the code someplace around here.
It's just I'm a slob, and I don't know exactly which one is which.
Yeah, but it takes an 800 number to get you in the right department
to use the different cards.
Okay, so you're saying I have to dial an 800 number now.
Right.
Well, the only thing I could, I don't have any 800 numbers to give you
to get you into the right department, but for the Sprint card,
you usually dial 10-33-30, and that'll get you into a Sprint operator.
Yeah, I know how to use that.
Okay.
This is the 7-1-0, the 7-1-0 service?
The 7-1-0 NCS GETS service, right?
Yes.
That's the one I'm trying to use right now.
It's just I'm not sure which of these codes is the right one to use for that service.
Well, I have a 14-digit slot here to put, so I'll try any number you want me to
that's about that length.
14-digit slot.
Okay.
Well, you see, I don't think it's my Sprint card.
It wouldn't be that, would it?
Okay.
Shouldn't be.
Yeah, so I don't really want to give that out.
I mean, you know, I'm not generally a non-trusting person, but I just...
Well, I don't have a clue what the numbers go to.
Yeah.
I don't have any way of keeping any numbers.
It goes in the computer, and then the call goes through.
Do you know, the first 10 digits, would that be my phone number?
Sometimes, yes.
Okay, because then I just would have to find a 4-digit PIN, right?
Right.
Okay, now I'm starting to understand it.
I can do this with touchstones, too, right?
Yes, sir.
Okay, so I would enter my 14-digit PIN when I call up the number, and then at what point
do I enter the number I'm calling?
Usually, after you dial your 800 number, the computer prompts you as to whether to enter
the number you're calling or the card number first.
You mean 710 number, right, not 800?
Yeah, whatever.
Okay, great.
Okay, well, let me dig around, and you're here 24 hours, right?
Yes, we are.
Okay, great.
Thanks very much for your help.
You're welcome.
I can try to put you through to customer service, if that would help.
Sure, go ahead.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Just need to see where we wind up.
Do not do this at home, by the way.
I'm giving you two more rings.
Okay, well, that's about enough of that.
But we did find out that it's a 14-digit code, which I think is rather interesting.
So it seems like they use a standard way of passing information around, the standard way
being 14 digits, which is what MCI Sprint use.
Might be an interesting idea to try a regular MCI calling card or a regular Sprint calling
card if you call through the right companies.
And who knows?
Somebody apparently, and I say this because it's possible something else happened, but
somebody apparently figured out a way to get through this system.
I think it's our duty to inform the people in charge of this system that maybe it's cracked,
you know, or maybe someone is just messing around with caller ID.
Let's call that White House number, see who that goes to, and then we'll take some phone
calls, 212-279-3400.
We'll do this one through AT&T.
You have reached a non-working number.
If you need further assistance, please call area code 202-456-1414.
Recording number N7.
Wow, that's an official White House recording.
Have you ever heard anything like that before?
I haven't heard that before.
You have?
No, I haven't.
Oh, okay.
Didn't think so.
I've never heard that before.
I didn't know you, there were special recordings for the White House, but that was the main
White House number they gave out.
So apparently that number they called me is just a weird number.
Anyway, we'll play around with this some more and let you know what we find out.
212-279-3400.
Let's take our first phone call.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Hello?
Yes, go ahead.
Yes, hello.
Okay.
I'm just curious.
Hello?
Yes, you're still on the air.
Yeah, okay.
I'm just curious to know what kind of security, say, an internet user has.
Say, if they go on the web, how much information can the other site know about your system?
Okay.
In other words, if you download files, do they know who you are, what your address is?
I'm going to give you an address right now, and this is going to answer all of your questions,
all right?
Right.
www.anonymizer, that's A-N-O-N-Y-M-I-Z-E-R dot com, and click on, there's a section there
to give information about you.
You will be scared to see how much they find out about you just by you visiting them.
So just go over there and check it out, and that should answer all your questions.
Thanks for calling.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Speak up, please.
Hello.
Yes, go ahead.
Where are you calling from?
I'm calling from New York.
New York.
Okay, great.
And what's on your mind?
Well, I'm going out of the country, and I need a cellular phone that can keep me in touch.
I'm going to be in Greece and Turkey.
I would suggest GSM then, right?
I mean, that's really the only thing that I think they use over there.
And the local GSM...
Short term.
Yeah, well, you might want to just get an Omnipoint phone then,
and get one of those phones that allow you to, you know, use it both here and over there.
Some phones only work in one country or another.
Well, are you sure that there are phones that let you use it here and there?
Yes, there are.
There most definitely are.
You could also just take the SIM out of the back of the phone and stick it into another phone if you needed to.
But there are phones that will work in both areas.
Okay, and that's by Omnipoint?
Yeah, what I would do is give them a call or, you know, drop by one of their stores and ask them about this,
because that's supposedly the whole selling point of GSM is the fact that you can do this.
You can go from one country to another.
Let us know how you do that, because, you know, while everybody says...
You're shaking your head.
Why are you shaking your head?
A GSM phone here won't work on the GSM network.
Well, no, a standard one won't, but there are phones that...
I was told this.
There are phones that work both.
Yeah, they work on both frequencies, the frequency here and the frequency over there.
I came back and forth a lot.
I asked on both sides.
I don't think you got the right phone.
No, definitely not.
Yeah, well, ask around.
You know, in any event, you can use the little card in the back, and that will work, and a different phone over there.
All right, thanks for calling.
212-279-3400.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
Hi.
I called in last week about the kid who sued his school.
Yeah, the band director or whatever, right?
Yeah.
I found out he won $30,000.
$30,000, huh?
From the school board.
Wow.
And his lawyer did it pro bono, but he got $15,000.
Yeah, he'd be kicking himself if he didn't.
And let's recap again, for the benefit of the listeners, this is somebody who got suspended
from school because he said something nasty about the band director on a webpage or something?
And he took it down, and then the school board suspended him, and the band director did
not do a thing, you know?
And the general opinion was, if anyone should do anything, it should be the band director,
and I don't think he really cared.
So he took no action himself?
No.
It was the school board that did this?
It was all the school board.
Amazing.
And another thing, there's a game called Ultima Online.
Yeah.
And 10 players filed a class action suit against the company because they were complaining about
the lag, and they said 24, and Ultima Online said that they could have, you know, 24 hours
continuous action.
Mm-hmm.
And all they want is for them to drop the $10 a month fee that they make them pay after
buying a $50 product.
Uh-huh.
You know?
And I was wondering what you thought about that.
I don't really know enough about it to say much, but it sounds like you have an opinion.
Well, I think that what they did is they had a press release, and they said that all this
does is make it harder for us to make games, and I say that's a load, because, you know,
if this will help them make better games, because they should think, you know, before
releasing a game and having the players beta test the games, because I understand that
they already released, like, 10 patches for the game, you know, that supposedly came
out, and they made them pay $50 for it, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
No, I see the point.
That's a problem with a lot of software.
Uh-huh.
That people have.
So, yeah, that's a good point, definitely.
Okay.
Where are you calling from again?
Cleveland, Ohio.
Okay, great.
Thanks for calling.
Okay.
212-279-3400.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
Hello.
Yes, speak up.
Hey, how are you doing?
This is Zapp in Dallas.
How are you doing?
I'm good.
I'm calling about Ultima Online.
That game kind of rubs me the wrong way.
It didn't cost me $50 when I purchased it.
It was $60.
Uh-huh.
And several of my friends also purchased it because, you know, we like to play games together
online, some of my internet friends.
It's interesting that in the 10 years or so this show has been on the air, no one has ever
talked about this before in two calls in a row, talk about the exact same thing.
I just think it's fascinating.
Yeah, well, you know, I'm listening.
Uh-huh.
But, uh, anyway, the problem with the game, I don't know anybody, or hardly anybody, who
has played past the first free month.
You pay $60 to get the thing.
You play for one month, and then after that it's $10 a month.
But the problem is that the game does not deliver what it claims to deliver.
Uh-huh.
Uh, on the box, it tells you, you know, you're going to have all these cool adventures and
all these monsters, and, you know, it's sort of like an online RPG that you play with other
people.
In reality, you get into the game, and there are hardly any monsters.
The world has been basically picked clean, and all there is to do is kill other players,
or you can actually get a job.
Like, you can be a tailor and make shirts.
Uh-huh.
That's a lot of fun, you know?
I have a job.
Oh, wait a minute.
I don't need a fake job as a game.
Wait, wait, wait.
What kind of game allows you to be a tailor?
How does that work?
I just want to know how that...
Well, that's the thing.
You start out with nothing, and you can do practically nothing, and the first thing you
need to do is get a job.
You pick a vocation of some sort.
Okay.
And, you know, you can be a blacksmith, you can be a tailor, et cetera.
Can you be whatever you want, or do you have to be certain things?
You can be whatever you want.
There's many choices, and, you know...
Can you be a computer hacker for hire?
No, they didn't have those back in the medieval days, unfortunately.
Yeah, I guess you're right.
But, yeah, I mean, it's just basically not fun, and I would caution anyone out there
who is considering purchasing Ultima online to try it at a friend's house or talk to some
people on IRC and some of the channels and get some opinions before you invest $60 in it.
Are you sure it's a problem with the game you're having and not a problem with the medieval
period, because that was kind of a dull period?
Oh, well, yeah, and I would agree, because I'm into technology myself, but the problem is
there's just... the primary crux of the game is just building up your guy and having a
job.
There is very little to do in terms of...
Well, that's what mattered to people back then.
It was a good, you know, good-paying job, you know?
Yeah, well...
That's what people were into.
Yeah, well, I suppose you're right, but...
Those medieval values that exist today, too.
Well, you look at something like Diablo, I don't know if you've ever played that, but
that game was really fun.
I mean, that game, and it obviously suffered from all the cheating problems, but other than
that, it was a really good game, and it was a lot of fun.
You went through dungeons, you killed monsters, you achieved goals, and on this thing, you're
led to believe you get to do those things, but you don't.
I see.
So, it's a big disappointment.
I was really, you know, sometimes you buy a game and you like it, sometimes you buy it
and you're kind of so-so, and sometimes you really wish you didn't.
Right.
And that's one of those titles.
Yeah, and sometimes...
Pretty strong feelings about UO.
Sometimes people just, you know, copy the game and check it out to see if it's what they
want to buy.
Well, you couldn't do that with UO.
Right.
Because it has a serial number, and when you purchase it, you put the serial number in
and you log in and get an account on their website.
Which is, you know, it's a great system for combating piracy, and, you know, hats off to
them for that, because it's probably the only game I've ever seen that has not been wares.
Right.
But, unfortunately, that also means you don't get to see that it sucks before you buy it.
Well, word gets out in other ways, and I imagine people won't be buying it as much.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, Doom probably did better, or Myst will certainly do better, you know.
Or, you know, a lot of the games that are available on the net anyway probably will do
better financially than something like this that gets bad reviews.
Sure.
Assuming it gets bad reviews from other people as well.
Oh, yeah.
If you do some web searches or Usenet searches, you'll just see people complaining left and right
about the game, and the reason that it really rubs people so badly is that it could be something
really neat.
Uh-huh.
I mean, it has enormous potential.
It's a fascinating concept.
I mean, a world filled with, you know, literally thousands of other players all live.
Yeah.
I mean, that's a really neat idea, but it's just such a flawed execution, and, you know,
there's not anything to do in this world.
Well, I mean, the main problem I have with most of these games is that they're basically,
you know, the graphics change a little bit, the characters change a little bit, but basically
you're running around shooting a gun at a monster and, you know, doing little flips and things
like that.
You're talking about all the Quake-flavored games.
Well, you know, every game seems to be basically that.
Yeah.
And, you know, I realize some people's lives are basically that, but, you know, not everybody.
Not everybody.
And, you know, even a game, like, where you get on the New York City subway and just, like,
explore different stations because they've all been cataloged somehow.
Or you drive on a freeway and actually go places, you know, and have little mini-adventures
in the various towns you go to.
That would be interesting to me.
Maybe it won't be interesting to anybody else, but I'm just tired of all the games where
you have to just, you know, shoot the monster and, you know, eventually die yourself because
you can't shoot the super monster.
I totally agree.
I completely agree.
It's been a long time since there's been any real innovation in the game industry.
I mean, if you look back at Pac-Man and Donkey Kong days, you had a ton of games, and
almost everyone that came out was a totally different concept than the other
Right, and people still play those today.
Sure, they're terrific games.
I mean, they've got the arcade emulators where you can play them now on your PC.
Right.
And they're terrific.
But you look at the new games, and, you know, we had, like, the Mario era where everything
was a platform game.
Right.
And now we've got the Doom and Quake era where everything is a 3D maze, push the button,
shoot the monster game.
Yeah, I mean, the 3D thing could be good.
Except why do you always have to be shooting a monster?
There must be something else you can think of to do in a maze.
I totally agree.
I would love to see somebody take that to another level.
And, you know, the 3D engine is great.
We love the ability to explore, you know, a place like that.
But let's do something with it.
Like, an RPG of that sort would be really neat.
Uh-huh.
Okay, let's hope somebody is inspired to do something.
Thanks very much for calling.
Hey, you're welcome.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
Calls from Cleveland and Dallas.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
Speak up, please.
Yeah.
Yeah, where are you calling from?
Um, yeah, Long Island.
Long Island.
Great.
What's on your mind?
Yeah, I just wanted to know.
Just, um, I was just asking, I was just asking about, um, this, you press 311 on the phone?
You got to sort of turn down your volume, though, because you're going to get very confused
hearing me twice.
Yeah, hold on.
Okay.
Not to mention what it does to me.
Okay.
Always keep the radio near the phone, too.
That way you don't have to go on a long trip.
Yeah, I know.
Is there a delay between the radio?
Yes, there is a delay, and if you're on the net, it's a super delay.
But regardless, what about 311?
All right.
When you press 311 on the telephone line...
You get this weird beeping noise.
Yeah, I just wanted to know what it is.
That's a teletype device for the hearing impaired, and it hooks you up to the New York
State Police, which is something I don't really understand why hearing impaired people
need to reach the New York State Police, not the local police.
But supposedly, that's not going to be lasting much longer.
311 is going to be the non-emergency number for the real police for everybody.
Well, except for hearing impaired people won't be able to hear them, obviously.
But that's one of Clinton's ideas, is that 311 will be the national standard for non-emergency
use, and 911 will be the emergency number.
However, I just think everybody's going to be confused, and a lot of people will be dialing
411 and getting information.
Oh, what a great guy.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay, thanks for calling.
All right, thank you, Prof.
And that's yet another weird number that we'll have to get used to in the future.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
Hmm.
You're having audio problems.
This person must be calling from a portable phone.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
Hello?
Yes, go ahead.
Yeah, I have a question for the host of the show.
Okay, well, you're on the air right now, so this would be a good time to ask.
Well, actually, you know, my question is about the Anonymizer, the website you told the kid
about.
Anonymizer, yes.
Yeah, could you spell that again for me?
I'll spell it again.
Okay, ready?
The www part is obvious.
A-N.
A-N-O-N-Y-M-I-Z-E-R dot com.
Right, and um.
Anonymizer dot com.
And if you click on a certain, uh, a certain button there, it'll give you all the information
about your site.
And do you have a website or, um, an address that I can use to get all this information
you talked about tonight?
Uh, which information do you mean?
About the, about the, um, computers, the, the White House, the, the voicemail.
Uh, well, uh, there's no one site that contains all that.
I mean.
The N-C-S-G-E-T-S.
Yeah.
Can you give me the 2600 website?
Well, that's www.2600.com.
Um, the, the information about N-C-S, I mentioned it was in 2600.
It's in the physical magazine 2600.
We, uh, have some memos that, uh.
Right, and do you know if the federal government, if they offer any directories or anything that
I can get this information from?
Well, the federal government does actually give out a lot of information, and, uh, most people
don't know about it.
If you, if you ask around, um, for instance, what we were doing tonight, calling up that
number and just asking some questions, they'll, you know, they'll eventually transfer you
to a number that may ring a long time, but, uh, might get you connected to somebody who
has the answers.
Oh.
Okay?
All right.
Thanks very much for calling.
Let's try to squeeze in one more call.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hi.
Uh, I'm calling with a question, uh, as regards to value with cellular phones and the like,
uh, I have an Omnipoint phone now, which, uh, when I bought it last year, was maybe valued
at, uh, oh, gee, I guess they started out with like a hundred something for it, and then
suddenly it ended up being like about $50.
It's an Ericsson.
You couldn't get rid of it for about 20 now, I don't think.
Well, you know, what I'm trying to figure out is just to, you know, like to have some
sort of like concrete idea of like when I walk into a store and someone is telling me,
you know, like, uh, they're going to sell me a phone for 200 bucks.
Uh-huh.
If I'm really getting 200 bucks worth of anything, or is this just, you know, like a thing,
you know, like, hey, if you want.
Well, at the time you probably are.
At the time this phone can do amazing things that you've never seen before, but within six months,
every other phone's doing the same thing, and there are more phones that do it
better, so obviously it decreases in value, and, uh, that's, that's just going to happen.
Uh-huh.
You can always wait, but then the thing is they disconnect, they discontinue making
the phones.
Yeah.
So you can't get them anyway.
Um, it's just something, it's, it's the same thing in the computer industry.
Things just come way down in price.
I know it well.
Second part of my question is that I have.
You've got to make it really quick, because we're out of time.
Okay, I have a Mac laptop, and I'm wondering if they have any, uh, really decent cellular,
uh, I'm not cellular, I mean, but internet phone, uh, software that would work well with
it.
Oh, yeah, there's, there's all kinds of, uh, of, of companies offering things like that.
For Macintosh?
Uh, I don't, I'm not sure.
Does, yeah, yeah, I'm told that they do.
Um, companies like IDT, I believe, do that, and, uh, and, and other, other companies.
Just do a, do a web search for, uh, for that kind of thing.
Okay, thank you very much.
And you should find quite a lot.
Okay, thanks, uh, thanks so much for calling.
We're out of time once again, and, uh, in fact, we're out of time for the next, well, we're
not going to be on next week, we're not going to be on the week after that, and they have
not told us yet if we're going to do a marathon show the week after that.
So it might be a while before we're back.
Check our website, www.2600.com slash offthehook, one word, and, uh, we'll be updating people
as to when the next show is there, since we can't do it here, obviously.
Until whenever that is, this is Emmanuel Goldstein for Off the Hook.
Have a good night.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself off shaving, now I can't make a cut.
It couldn't get much worse, but if it could, they would.
From Billy Bomber, the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
From Billy Bomber!
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
On April 22nd, we'll be having an orientation and training meeting for volunteers to help prepare you for the drive in advance.
So please come to our meeting.
We look forward to seeing you here at the station on Wednesday, April 22nd at 5.30 p.m.