You
Oh
Oh
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And a good evening to everybody here
On WBA on New York
Just a bit hectic tonight things aren't going quite as planned, but we have quite a lot of
Really cool plans that we're going to get into in just a couple of moments
Have a special guest on
We'll have some information on
New calling plans and whether or not they really work
All kinds of other fun things to the program is off the hook. It's manual Goldstein here with you for the next hour
Stay tuned
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Okay, first thing we're going to do tonight is something we're not supposed to do I'm not supposed to have access to a certain
Authorization code yeah, I know we've all been there before we all know what it's like
But this is something that I carry with me all the time
it's my phone and there are certain codes on your phone that you're not supposed to know and
we sort of
Found out some of these codes and one of them lets you do something really cool
Yeah, it really does. So what you have to do is you have to enter
Enter your special code
Okay, I've done that on the phone I've committed fraud right on the air on my own phone and
Right now we are in a special test menu that allows me to make test phone calls
and I'm about to make a
test phone call to myself and
You will hear
Just how weird and bizarre this really is
Okay, we've placed the call now
The phone is ringing and we're about to pick up the phone
About to pick up the phone and see just what it is. You hear when you make this test call. Take a listen
I'm gonna hit a touchtone now
Now I'm gonna try talking but you won't hear me hello test one two hello
This is a sprint PCS feature a lot of people might mistake it for the service, but it's
Now the interesting thing is the access code works on a lot of different phones, but this little feature
Only works on I believe the model I have which is the Samsung that the cheap-ass one you get a RadioShack
And
Basically what happens is when you make a certain type of test call which believe it or not is called a Markov call
Yeah, a 13k Markov call. They call it spelled differently mar ko v
It will call the last person you called with this
So if you're going around playing with with these features and you happen to hit that button
You won't know you're calling that person. It doesn't say that you're calling them
The person gets a phone call from you though. They see your number if they have caller ID and
They hear this
Until you hang up
Pretty fascinating, isn't it?
Well, that's just one of many things we're going to be experimenting with tonight we have
I'm gonna hang up. I have to
Okay, I'm gonna click the end button right now
There it's gone. All right, we have to call Bernie s now
I just signed up with a new phone service today brand new phone server
Well, not really brand new but something that I've been hearing a lot of advertisements for and they they got to the point where they
Annoyed me so much that I decided to sign up
It's the IDT five cent a minute plan, that's right fives you heard right five cents a minute not ten cents not nine cents
Not even eight but five cents. I heard these advertisements on the radio and I said, wow, you know five cents
That's that's that's nothing. How does it work? What's the catch? There's always a catch somewhere
so I called up and I asked them all about this and
They didn't mention the first time I called they didn't mention the catch the second time
I already knew what the catch was so I asked him and they they went into detail about what the catch is
The catch is that when you make these phone calls, you're not actually making it over the telephone network
You're making the phone calls over the Internet, but you're using a telephone. It's kind of kind of interesting
I've never used it before don't know idea what it's gonna sound like could be really cool could be really bad
And we're gonna use that to talk to Bernie s now the other little caveat here is that you can't just dial one plus
You have to sign up a line to be a one plus
Service you have to go through WorldCom on that one plus line
You switch a phone line over to to their service and then you use a calling card type of thing
But you don't call an 800 number you call a local number. That's right
You call a local number, which is fine
If you have untimed service, you know unlimited message rate all that kind of thing
Not so good if you have to pay per minute
So because you have to make two phone calls then to complete a single call
So you have that that phone number that you call up and you enter your access code and you
You're on your way. So we're gonna do that right now
See if we can find a phone line that works. Actually a lot of our phone lines are broken tonight. That's too bad. Let's try
Let's try over here. Oh
Good. Okay, we have a phone line
And we're going to call the local number
Never done this before
You
Welcome to net to phone direct
Please enter the account number
Okay, I'm gonna turn down the speaker for that only because I don't want that going out
Please enter your personal identification number and that's something else. I think I'm gonna keep to myself. Oh
Yeah, I can hear the tones way off in the distance. How about that? Here we go
You
Takes a while to process. I'm sorry. That is an invalid entry. No, it's not. Goodbye
Oh, you know, this is not right. This isn't right at all. That was exactly what they told me to dial
I guess this is why I should call first to uh, I think it would be fun to try something for the first time
Let's try it one more time
You
Welcome to net to phone direct
Please enter the account number
Okay, here we go into the account number again. It could be that our touch tones are a bit screwy
Wouldn't be the first time
Yeah, you see there's a pause here it's not it's not hearing I'm sorry that is an invalid entry
You know, I really wish somebody would get a decent phone system in here
Okay, we're gonna have to keep trying until it understands all of our touch tones
Okay
So if we had a real phone system we'd be talking to Bernie S. Welcome to net to phone direct
Please enter the account number. Okay, here we go
We are entering the account number now
Please enter your personal identification number. Okay so far so good
You have
$25 remaining in your account
Please enter the number you wish to dial. Okay again, I have to bring that down those tones. They don't sound healthy
They don't sound healthy at all
Okay, let's hope they go through
You have 500 minutes of call time remaining. Oh good. Thank you for using net to phone direct
Yeah, just get off the phone. Let me talk to to Bernie here. See how bad this really sounds I
Can I can make that out? It's a ring
Hello Bernie s
Yes, Bernie s can you can you make out who this is I
Can make it out but it's kind of
It's kind of choppy. Sounds like it's going over the internet
that or you're using a
Really vocoder. Well, you just went digital there for a second
well
this this is the pioneering age of telephony here and you're the first victim of it at least on this front and
No, we just we just placed our first clash. We replaced three calls through IDT so far
but finally understood our touch tones and
This is it. This is the result five cents a minute. I have 500 minutes. I can talk to you for 500 minutes straight now
It's actually not that bad. It's not bad at all. I can I can understand you perfectly. I know who you are
I know what you're saying. I
Mean, yeah, it's it's as good as as a sprint phone. I would say and you're on a sprint phone, too
So we have two things against us right now
Considering that we have two things against this. I'm I'm impressed how good it sounds and I'm only paying five cents a minute on my spring
You're paying the same as I'm paying except I'm making the call
How about that? Yeah, I don't like I don't like the fact that I have to pay just to receive a call
But well, I should also point out that WB AI has to pay a local call
And I think since it's a business line
We have to pay per minute
So that kind of sucks right there and we have to make a local phone call to to get the IDT dial tone as it is
So have you explained to people to listeners how this works IDT?
All I know is they routed over the net I don't know exactly
How they routed over that or you know one it has to at some point
I have to jump off the net to make it up to the public switch telephone network. That's true
I just I'm curious as to where it's jumping off. I don't know. I don't know
I imagine it's jumping off somewhere in your vicinity and
Jumping on someplace around here
I'd like to know what what route it's taking to get to you though
Yeah, kind of interesting to do a trace route on this phone call
Can you do that? Uh, well, I'd have to get access to their switch. We got people working on it. I'll let you know good
Sure, you have some of the best people working on it. We haven't talked to you in a while
It's been it's been quite a while. So what do you know?
It's been a few months actually. Uh-huh
Just very recently a couple weeks or so ago. I
celebrated my
second anniversary from at least from the
Clutches of the United States Secret Service been been free for two years
Freedom for two whole years. It doesn't seem like it's been that long
I'm glad you called me tonight. As a matter of fact, is that you I want to thank all the listeners who?
Held with me during that whole ordeal because that really kept me going
Well, it's very important that often it's an important time to stick with somebody in a time of crisis like that
That's that's why we're sticking with Kevin and his time of crisis
Which has been for quite some time almost double the amount of time you spend in prison
Uh, yeah a good a good twice that and it's it's
Inconceivable to me that it's that he's still going through that and it hasn't even had a trial yet
It's just like something you hear from
You know some third world
Country or something. Uh-huh. Well, if you check the website and we mentioned this last week, we have a bunch of
penalties for certain crimes all the way up to and including manslaughter and you'll see that all of them are
They result in less time than what Kevin Mitnick is serving or has so I believe it before his trial even
So I think I think a lot of the stems a lot of this stems
Unfortunately out of ignorance people are afraid of things. They don't understand and if they understood what exactly was being
Alleged that he's done. Hey, they would realize that this is no big deal. I mean, you know
Certainly not as serious as a lot of other crimes that
That really most people would consider very serious. That's true. And that's that's what it boils down to his ignorance on many levels
that's why those people going around, you know spreading the word sticking stickers various places and
Confronting their teachers and schools and colleges. They're the ones that are really making some headway
I'd like to read a letter from one of our listeners
After a lot of controversy and a few teachers getting quite pissed off at me and two of my friends
We actually convinced my English last history teacher could be English and a history teacher
Maybe it's English history or the history of the English language or something
I don't know but they convinced him to hang a free Kevin sign up in his room
I thought that it was really interesting that when he was alerted to what the government is doing to Kevin
He said that is scary and sad that our government can actually do that to someone. I just thought you'd like to know about that
Oh, yeah, he really liked your zine
I also took pictures of this and spread it out over the the internet
But it's it's an indication that sometimes you actually get through to somebody
We've gotten countless letters from people saying how their teachers are, you know
Getting them into trouble for putting up signs and how to get into debates with various people in school about this
And good thing he wasn't wearing a Pepsi t-shirt. Yeah in a coke school. That would be bad. That could be really bad
So yeah, the battle continues people are getting the word out in all different kinds of ways
Some people are hacking web pages. And again, we don't condone that kind of a thing
but
Hopefully the the message that is spread is that hackers are not
Vandals and not evil people that are bent on destroying things
I mean, I think you know hackers have done a pretty good job of spreading that message as it is
But a lot of people they they listen to what they see in the media
You know what they hear in the media and what they read in newspapers
And it's it's sad what they what they read the newspapers is almost entirely a regurgitation of what?
what government
Officials are
spouting forth
Because too many reporters are too lazy to
To investigate something on themselves. They'll just take a press release and or take verbatim what a government
Law enforcement official might say and just then report that as the gospel truth. These people actually lie
Believe it or not
Yes constantly a lot of times and there's indications of this both in your case in Kevin's case and all the other cases
We reported over the years
Unfortunately, unfortunately, all the cases will be reporting in the years to come
We have the latest script which is dated. I believe it's dated August 15th. I might be wrong on that but
there are some changes in the takedown movie not enough obviously, but there are some and
The biggest of course as they change it
Sorry changes for the better. I hope well some of the changes for the better
Yeah, when they took out the garbage can scene, you know, we're Kevin smashes super more over the head with a garbage can lid
They took that out
But again, the the impression is still there that that Kevin is somewhat of an evil person
You know, it's it's making progress, of course, they finished shooting so it's kind of hard to say how much more progress they can make
Until until I hear from Kevin that this is acceptable, you know, I'm still going to be saying this is not acceptable
How does this work? If someone makes a movie about you? Are you entitled to to?
to
Have any say in what's said about you?
I don't know this you have to be considered a public figure before they can make a movie about you without your permission
Well, you know, it's interesting. I would certainly say LJ Simpson is a public figure wouldn't you yet?
I haven't seen I haven't seen a single movie about him. I
Always there was a couple of TV movies. I think I didn't see any was there a TV movie?
I did not see it. I figured that would have been hyped
Maybe I just ignoring it, but I just have a you know a hunch and I know it's crazy to say something like this
but I think that the amount of justice that you get is
Dependent on the amount of money you have now
I know that's that's a controversial thing to say and I know lots of people agree with me
Where would you get such an impression? Well, here's the thing. Here's how I reach this conclusion
Lawyers, right?
They they take money
right the same kind of money that you get in your bank account or you know through whatever and nefarious means that you might go
through and
It's by by by transferring that money back and forth that I know
I think that's where some of the injustice might arise. I
Think you found a connection. Well, you notice that all the people that wind up in the in the state
They're in aren't rich. Have you noticed that you weren't you weren't yeah, I
Certainly isn't wealthy. I would say that well over 99% of the people that I I met in the five different
Maximum security facilities that I had the pleasure of living in
over 99% of them were of
Little means had very little money
I'd say a less than 1% of them had any money at all and those were the ones whose lawyers visit him
Frequently and we're really fighting for them. So it's a you know
That money you just don't get much justice just the way it is. That is the way it is
That's that's what people need to realize because you know when when things happen a lot of people will forget about you
they really will no matter how innocent you are and
It really just boils down to how much you can cough up and you know when you when you prove yourself to be innocent or
Whatever, it doesn't end there
No doesn't end there at all
Remember the case of Craig Nidoff, which is one of the first cases
We reported on these airwaves when we started doing this show back in the late 80s
Someone was actually
charged with with publishing something illegal found to be completely not guilty the government wound up dropping the case was so bad and
He still had to pay for all the legal fees, which was about a hundred thousand dollars
And he's still still in debt. I
Don't know if he's still in debt
I've talked to him in a while, but it's quite possible if I had to spend a hundred thousand dollars ten years ago
I'd still be in debt now. So yeah, I guess it's
It's quite likely
So that's something people have to remember and you know, I'm fed up with people who say oh, well Kevin was a criminal
He you know, he deserves to be in prison because he he did the crime
He should be prepared to do the time and all that garbage, you know
First of all, even if he did do the crime how much how much of a penalty?
Do you want this person to serve?
I mean four years now for basically making a few free phone calls and and
Logging into some things he wasn't supposed to log into and maybe copying a few files
We're not talking about somebody who sold anything did any damage or profited in any way
So they're fairly minor crimes compared to the crimes that are really out there, you know, like, you know
I think you throw your baby in a garbage pail you throw your baby in a garbage pail and you get two years
You know, that's that's what happened to those kids in New Jersey
Not that I'm criticizing them in any way, you know, that's that's a lifestyle choice, I guess
But come on two years for that and Kevin's in for almost four now. There's something wrong with it
When the government starts making outlandish claims and saying how this person is extremely dangerous that sort of thing
For them to come clean and say well
They really wasn't as serious as we said it is would be very embarrassing and would affect their credibility
So they have to justify all their statements with keeping him locked up
And if they don't keep him locked up, then it'll look like they were just
You know blowing smoke back in the beginning of this case
Well, you see there there's also another another thing coming up here, which is the trial in January
The government has to have a good case by then if they don't have a good case
You see I think what they're counting on they're counting on him reaching some sort of an agreement right before the trial as
As happens with most cases when people are charged with crimes almost always they wind up pleading to something only to stop the nightmare
You know, that's I remember you had to make a deal with the devil as you called it because I was I was basically told
it's a
I would be
That in from edge. It's a complicated thing
But bottom line is if I didn't plead guilty, I'd be looking at additional years of being locked up, right?
That's
Well
Stand your ground hold in there
But when you've been locked up for for months and months on end with no no light at the end of the tunnel
You're desperate to get it over with. Absolutely. It's just it's a situation that I
Unfortunately people can't relate to but on the other hand
I think it's fortunate most people don't have to ever relate to it because I
Wouldn't wish it on anybody. Now. Here's another aspect of this whole case. There are nine point seven five gigs of data
that is said to be evidence against Kevin Mitnick and
They have so far not let him look at any of that and as we've learned his lawyer has not even begun the process
Of looking at it. It's now October. The trial is set for three months from now
There is no way you can prepare yourself with that amount of information in that amount of time
So my theory on this is that his lawyer is counting on the same thing
That some sort of a deal will be struck and they won't have to look through nine point seven five gigs
What I don't think they're counting on is
Kevin's resilience here and the fact that he's been in jail three and a half years now
It's a ridiculous amount of time. The the free Kevin movement is is bigger than than anyone ever imagined. It would be at this point
Someone's going to have to blink and I don't think it's going to be Kevin
Well, don't think so. I'm hopeful. He's a
He's court dates are
covered
Appropriately by the press because if people need to know what's going on
And in my case, I was I was just given printouts of the contents of my hard drive
You can imagine what reams and reams of paper
How easy it is to do search for a particular keyword that you're looking for?
So the government has unlimited tools and money at their disposal to
To put together an effect case and they deny you the same tools as they're doing to Kevin
It's a pretty
Pretty uneven balance. Well, it's also they're abusing that authority quite a bit because let's say they find a piece of
Information that they consider to be evidence. They have to provide that to the defense as well
However, what they're doing is taking the entire system that they found and saying yeah, the evidence is in here
Here's here's the evidence and giving them a couple of gigs of information
You know, it's like finding a needle right finding a needle in a haystack
throwing that exculpatory needle
In a haystack and saying yeah, there it is
It's all the discovery that discoveries in that haystack somewhere go find it
So they know where it is, but nobody else knows where it is
It's an abuse of power and because it involves computers a lot of people don't see that they don't realize that and that's what we're trying
to
To wake people up on we're gonna take some phone calls one thing. I think real quick
I just say and I don't want to get go off into a tangent
But I see I hear a lot of people making a lot of noise and complaining about this Ken star investigation
and how unfair and how much money they wasted on this ludicrous stupid case and
What most people fail to realize is this is standard operating procedure for federal prosecutors?
They always do this kind of stuff. This isn't like an exceptional situation with
with
These cases just federal prosecutors just they have an unlimited budget and they will say whatever they have to say to
To get what they want and it's it's it's the same in in all these cases
It's really disgusting, but now people I think waking up to do this
But I think it's peculiar they think okay, it's the president that it's a it's so much effort
We spent they did this way all the time. So I wanted to get that out there
I don't know if I'm the only one who feels more comfortable knowing that that we have a president who openly admits to lying
You know, I just think that's something refreshing, you know, if he had admitted to inhaling
I would have made me feel even better actually
But I just I'm so fed up with these people who act holier-than-thou saying oh, but he lied doesn't matter what he lied about
I mean, I'd have to wonder what kind of you know of
Exhibitionist you would have to be if he didn't lie about having an affair, you know, it's like yeah, I had an affair
Oh, let me brag about it a bit. Of course. He's trying to lie about that. That's like, you know, that makes sense
I don't know. Anyway, I mean if he lies on his golf game, right if he exaggerates that are you gonna impeach him for that?
Seriously
Let's let's talk about something important here. He adds a couple of strokes or what takes him away has golf work
You take him away. Okay, he does that and he's questioned about it and all of a sudden his numbers aren't quite adding up
He's got to appear before Kenneth Starr on this issue and and before the whole Congress and the American people has to apologize
You know, it's silly. That's what it boils down to. It's really silly. So I
Guess it's something to talk about when there's not much else to talk about
All right
Well before we take the callers which will be in a moment or two two one two two oh nine two nine hundred
I just want to quickly mention a couple of phone items and
Bernie perhaps you've heard of some of these AT&T is now offering what they call
Chat and talk. Have you heard about this one?
What talk chat and talk?
I didn't chat as in as in chat and talk. Basically, it's the same word twice
I don't know why they they say it chat and talk
With the confidentiality. Yeah now you can call people in a chat room without exchanging phone numbers
Have you ever wanted to talk over the telephone to someone you met in a chat room?
But didn't want to reveal your phone number with AT&T chat and talk
It's easy to make a telephone call to anyone in a chat room without exchanging phone numbers
Simply browse to our website and let AT&T chat and talk place a call to you and a call to the person from the chat
Room, both phone numbers will be kept confidential even to people with caller ID. What do you think about that? I
Think it's pretty silly AT&T zero. Yeah
Wasting their time. Well, basically, it's it's a it's a form of conference calling it
well, it's not really conference calling because it's it's it's just two people but cost 15 cents a minute per party and
a 50 cent a
50 cent. Oh, it's only a promotion. Okay, 15 cents per minute during the promotion period 25 cents per minute after November 1st and a 50 cent
Yeah per call per person rather
so you'd be paying 50 cents a minute because you'd be the one initiating it and
You have to use a major credit card and all that kind of thing
I'm sure there's a way to find to find the phone number. Somebody's using when they do that. I'm sure there's a way
Hmm
Any other new things? Yeah sprint has something. I don't know if you've seen this one short calls are free. Have you heard this?
Short calls. Yeah, they they have these advertisers on TV now where they say that if you make a short call
It's free a call under 30 seconds
It's not going to be that way
Well, it used to be if you made a call there like three seconds the the switch wouldn't catch it and it would be free
But these are 30 second calls and I said, you know, that's not bad. That's not a bad deal
That's actually kind of cool because you could make some calls and you know
Wouldn't have to spend money on them and get the message out quick
It's it's a lot more efficient than trying to squeeze everything into that collect call name thing that you have to like say your name
And have that delivered
That's that's right, by the way
Sorry, how about if you get to two phone lines?
at each end and
and you
Have some sort of switching arrangements
So it's each every 30 seconds it switches over the other line and back and forth or you do between three lines
It could be like a handoff kind of a thing
So then you're like continuously switching over from line to line every 30 seconds
While the other way the next line is already dialing and getting ready to connect at the next time
You could build a box at each end and just take advantage of that and all day long and all night you could talk
Well, you know, they've they've thought of people like you and there there is a little
Exception to this and I was able to if you're careful and you see one of these ads come across the TV and you record
You got a freeze frame right you freeze frame and there's only I think like two frames where it shows up and you need you
Need to have the the auto zoom focus on your TV as well so that you can zoom into the words that are on the bottom
Of the screen, but it says in tiny print
Oh and also make sure that it's not white on white you got to get rid of the white background on the white lettering
And then using the the filter focus and all that kind of thing
You can see the words that basically say that this is limited to 30 calls per month
Which is basically one call a day big deal and you know what that that amounts to what?
What do you say are you saving like three bucks a minute that's 15 minutes no, it's under 30 seconds. It's under 30 seconds
Well, yeah, but it's but 15 with 30 calls. You're allowed to do this way. Uh-huh
That's uh, that's three dollars 15. It's only 15 minutes of total total usage
Yeah, but it's $3 right 10 cents a minute
30
Okay, the the fee for using this service is four dollars and fifty cents. Oh, man, so you're not gaining anything
You're not gaining a thing
It's a gimmick, all right, so that's that's the latest on that one that I only found out about a couple of days ago
Bell Atlantic on Monday while you're on that while you're on the sprint thing. Yes
It was sprint
I think last week
Qualcomm the manufacturer of a CDMA handset that sprint BCS uses has announced that they have
Melded a palm pilot or a palm three the latest palm pilot incarnation with a CDMA handset
So it's a it's a complete handheld
Information appliance that's wireless and what's interesting about it is it will allow direct native
IP connectivity between
this handset and
the internet service that
Sprint PCS will provide so eventually you'll come January when it's marketing these things
You'll be able to carry around you can put the internet in your pocket. Oh boy. What a lot of fun. That's going to be
Well continuing with with Bell Atlantic they on Monday launched their long-awaited digital subscriber line service in Washington and Pittsburgh
Making its commercial entry into the high-speed internet access business, of course, we're talking about DSL
They're calling it Bell Atlantic info speed. They pay people to come up with these names
They'll be offering the service really soon to Philadelphia, New York City, Boston and New Jersey by early
1999 it hopes to target small and medium businesses as well as home users
So that's basically what we've been waiting for as we learn more
They have not not as of yet
But I do know from being out in California that it goes for about 150 bucks a month
But that's for really high t1 type speeds
Uh-huh. I think we could have something to say about this. You're not gonna chicken out this week. You're gonna actually
Say something go ahead
When they announced it, I think they said it would be uh, 70 bucks a month in New York, what kind of speed that on here
We're just you know, it's just the you know
Business announcement. Well, that would be good. That would be good. But again, it's dependent on what kind of speed they offer and
the availability and all that kind of thing
Somebody wrote in to complain about cable modems
If I have that that letter here
Ah, yes media one media one is a company out in the Midwest. I believe that offers cable modems
Thing that bugs me most about their service agreement is that they don't allow you to run a server
They don't say this right out, but it's pretty much implied
The service is a cable programming service for personal use you agree not to resell or redistribute access to the service in any manner
The prohibition on resale or redistribution of access includes but is not limited to the provision of email and FTP
So I guess you could interpret that to mean that you can't access your own files
Basically, it's
Yeah, the cable company's running the show. That's what you have to worry about
The cable company is controlling the whole thing and they don't want you to be able to control any aspect of it
So yeah, they can spy on you and they can tell you what not to do and it's it's not really the way to go
DSL
DSL on the other hand goes through
the phone company but also
Independent providers offer the service through them so you can basically shop around and that's that's kind of good
Someone else I wrote in to comment on the value cards we were talking about I believe that was last week
I've got a deck of them that I have dissected from the Atlanta Olympics. They were stored value cards
They stored a value with an RSA style signature from the bank
When you make a purchase it would verify the signature and place a new value on the card
The new signature was produced via a phone line
I didn't care for them because most clerks didn't know how to accept them
You also can't tell how much is on the card
If you lose the card you lose and there was no advantage of using one over a credit card
So, yeah, I guess that makes a lot of sense
Speaking of things not being accepted. I was at a train station recently just last week and
Needed to buy a ticket and all I had was a $20 bill. It was one of these funky new $20 bills
Yeah, see those red stickers
There were these red stickers all over the ticket machine saying this machine a ticket machine does not accept the new $20 bills
Great
That's terrible if they don't accept the new $20 bills, you know, it's bad enough those those ticket machines
They they don't give you change over $20, you know
So if you have to buy a ticket and and you know, it's it's a lot of times
They don't even accept $20 bills at all. But if you don't buy a ticket through them somehow you get charged extra on the train
It's not fair. There's no humans to argue with except on the train when you're stuck
It's really really kind of sucks there and finally our last letter before we take some phone calls
Yesterday was a very interesting day for telephone services in the state of Oklahoma yesterday being Monday
I woke up at 1230 or so and attempted to use my dial-up ISP when I tried to dial out I got nothing
No dial tone. No busy signal nothing
Thinking it was my modem that was causing the problem. I picked up my phone and got the same whole lot of nothing
Come to find out that a major
Switching station at Southwestern Bell and Tulsa, Oklahoma had been damaged
It rendered all calls useless for a good part of the day
most phones were out of service at one point the 9-1-1 system was out for almost two hours and
Some of the other problems that came from this outage almost all credit card verification systems were down bank branches were down
ATMs were down
Paging and cellulose systems were down and of course the Internet was unavailable at about 5 30 p.m. Central Time the switch came back on
But it was interesting to see how vulnerable we really are to something we take for granted like telephone systems
And Southwestern Bell blamed the switch outage on a heavy storm that came through
No, not this time not this time, but you know something else that's equivalent to a heavy storm, which is heading our way
Oh in about a year or so is the year the year 2000 and you know, I've been hearing nothing but
Hysteria about this for the last few months
I think it's probably about time for us to start mentioning it since after all we are all doomed and probably the planets gonna
Burn out in another 18 months or however long it takes for the effects to be felt
Have you heard much about this Bernie?
I've been reading a lot on the internet about it. Of course everything you believe you read on the internet must be true
So I believe that
Yeah, so it's pretty interesting. I
Didn't know
Reading newspaper articles and internet and television shows and so forth and a lot of people are very very afraid of what's going to happen
Well, basically the year is going to change and the only difference is that instead of two digits changing or even three digits four digits
Of the year are going to change. That's really it
Now the problem is that computer programmers of the past mainly the 60s 70s. I don't know what they were thinking
I don't know what they were smoking, but they somehow didn't think that entering more than two digits of a year was necessary
So obviously that's gonna run into a problem when 99 turns over and computers think it's 1900
I don't know what computers are gonna do when they think it's 1900. They're gonna say hey, I'm not supposed to be here
I'm not you know, I'm not invented yet. So therefore I must shut down
You know, I don't I don't get it
There's going to be some sort of a problem
But it's a problem that we know about something that we've had plenty of time to prepare for
Rewrite operating systems rewrite programs, you know work around it somehow
Yeah, there's gonna be unpredictable results
But I'm getting mail every day from people and these are people that are reasonably minded saying I'd better start stockpiling food now
I have to buy a gun, you know
I have to start making a checklist of the people I'm gonna allow in the shelter
Not that I even have a shelter, but that's what I have to start building as of next week
You know, this isn't a Twilight Zone episode. This is real life. What do I?
There's something that's going to affect everybody in the world
I don't see why everything is going to grind to a halt even if the phone stopped working even if computers stop working
You know, we'll stumble through it somehow
But I don't think we're gonna probably what's going to happen. This is my prediction
We are going to see significant financial problems and all kinds of panic
But it's going to be because of people acting like this pulling all their money out of banks
You know shooting each other for minor infractions things like that
Yeah, you're gonna see a breakdown in society, but it's going to be because of society and and not because of technology
What do you think? I think once one senator already said in one of one of these year 2000 hearings about a month ago. That's it
That's a martial law. It was not out of the question
This is a senator. I wish I wish I had in front of me
I tell you law that's you know martial law does not work well with people like me
I can tell you that right now and we were in North Carolina
We had we had the we had the the curfew in North Carolina in the day after the hurricane
And we were just looking for reasons to be outside so what you know that you do martial law
You're gonna have all kinds of disobedience and some people just don't go for it
I think you're allowed to wear a baseball cap backwards during martial law you yeah
I did that in st. Louis got in a lot of trouble for that, but that's another another story there all right
Let's take some phone calls two one two two zero nine two nine hundred
Now I should warn you first of all we're speaking to Bernie s in Philadelphia
but we're speaking to him in an unusual way over the internet using a company called IDT and
Paying only five cents a minute. I don't know I can't really tell a difference
You know I'm impressed. I think it's a pretty good service. You seem pretty clear liable, but of course
Maybe nobody else is using the service right now. You know maybe it when it gets a little overloaded
They'll have the sprint syndrome where all of a sudden you can't get lines or access or everybody sounds terrible
So it's something that we'll we'll keep an eye on
But the other thing is our phone lines are all messed up here at the radio station
So the lines you're normally on is not available you're over here on
Line number eight so that line does not
Stay on all the time, so I'm gonna have to put you on hold whenever I hang up on somebody and hopefully I won't disconnect
You if I do disconnect you it's gonna be a real pain to get a hold of you again through this IDT thing but
Yeah, maybe maybe that's a wise move so we're gonna take another phone call now. Hopefully we won't lose you when we do this
Good evening, you're on the air. Hi Emmanuel. How you doing? Make it quick. All right
I just wanted to ask Bernie s question go ahead
It's you know how you talk about access devices like calling cards and stuff
Yes, rebel. I think phone book considered an access device like with telephone numbers
No, why is that the reason I asked is because of the following AT&T you can make
A
Rebel let me tell you what I know from reading the United States
criminal code title 18
An access device is defined as any card code plate or account
account number or other means of account access
Okay, but it's other stuff too, okay, but you know how AT&T puts third number calls through without asking
Gee really good back. You could just take a phone book and just you know, put you know
Use that as like an access device to make fraudulent calls and the phone book is really or phone numbers
They're considered like an access device. So basically what you're saying is that the phone book is a big access device
I see that's an interesting point. What do you think Bernie?
I got rid of him and I kept you without anybody realize what was happening. That's pretty good
Yeah, let's uh, you want to answer that question when I go on to another phone calls
Well, I'm sure some federal prosecutor could argue
Could argue that I remember a little stretch as much as they can
I remember briefly there was a one case while I was locked up an alleged arsonist was a
Was charged federally and I'm wondering what's the what's the interstate commerce connection, you know, no federal according Constitution
No federal law could be no Congress can pass no law that does not affect interstate commerce
I'm trying to think how does arson affect interstate commerce? He said the prosecutor argued in his case that
Because there were telephones in the building that he was alleged and burned down and the telephones were connected to the interstate
Telephone network, therefore it affected interstate commerce. So, you know, well if they have to stretch they will they can get away with anything
Involving the internet because matter what computer you're connected to it's connected to the net and that's interstate
But you know, they also have kidnapping is a federal crime carjackings a federal crime
I don't quite understand why they're all always has to be an interstate commerce connection
That if you read the fine print in all these laws, there's always says whoever in interstate commerce does blah blah blah blah blah
Uh-huh. So, uh, but they really stretch on that thing
But that's the only thing they can use to justify a federal law. Otherwise, it's not constitutional. Let's take another phone call
Good evening. You're on the air
Speak up, please
Sorry. Okay is Philip there with you? No, he is not. Oh, okay
He but he still is on at times right at times. I believe so maybe get him some other time
You I was so amused IDT you remember the earlier experience you had had with them, but they tried to defraud you
I don't remember this IDT. Yeah, you didn't have it put in writing. No, no, no PSI
Oh PSI, but aren't they sort of connected? I don't think so
Well, anyway, but what was so funny is this is one to really want to go to but just for saying since you but you
Know IDT. Okay. I heard the same five-cent a minute thing that you did, right?
Right and I got the basic thing about having to to call a local number and blah blah blah on the first call
But what was so amusing was?
Instead of the smooth carefully rehearsed
IDT how may we help you please or whatever? It was like, yeah, can I help you do it? Yeah
Yeah, you know, I don't know quite how they run their their business
But I always get the sense of speaking of somebody in a trailer
So, uh-huh. Okay for one thing when when when I finally signed my line over
They basically said that law required them to switch me to somebody's that would verify this so that they could prove that they didn't you know
Intimidate me into doing this and basically what they did was they they transferred the call over to this other guy
And he picked up the phone and it sounded like he was he was making this up on the spur of the moment
He said hello American verification corporation
American verification. I mean where they come with this one. I looked them up. They don't exist anywhere
I've never heard of this company. I don't know. I don't know if that's necessarily fraudulent MCI has done that
With me several times. No, it's this meant not to be fraudulent. But have you heard of that company American verification corporation?
They usually I can't remember with MCI. They did tell you what the name of the company was
I don't know if that was one but it's to assure the FCC that they're not slamming people, right? Okay now
minor thing
25 cents 30 seconds free you may remember I don't know if these are still in place
What 9x when that was still they're doing business as name, of course, the legal name is still New York Telephone Company, right?
Well, you remember they had phones at Grand Central and Penn Station and so forth
The 30-second phones 25 cents anywhere in New York State or at least anywhere in New York State
That was where they were the local monopoly carrier. Are those phones still there? I don't know
I think they are interesting. Anyway final comment
I
Would disagree with the advice you gave to the caller whose mother lives in Puerto Rico a few weeks ago
Remember that he couldn't figure out why he wasn't able to get through to her
I think we determined that it was she was calling. That's right, right
But she may have an important reason for using that. In other words, you should have put the shoe on the other foot
Well, I assumed he had asked her I assume that they talk somehow
She may be subjected to to take it to the farthest possible exaggeration, right?
She may be subjecting herself to some kind of stalking or something if she if she stops using that instead
Simply have him do star eight to know
Yeah, that does make sense because obviously he won't be trying to hide his identity from his own mother
So yeah, that makes perfect sense. Let you go. All right. Thanks for calling
Bernie is still there
There you are don't scare me like yeah, all right
More weirdness to the audio. Oh really? He sounded fine on this end
Yeah, well, yeah, he sounded really weird to me. Maybe he was just a really weird guy
Okay. Well, let's move on to the next weird caller. Good evening. You're on the air. Yeah. How you doing speak up, please? Okay
about
Atlantic and Long Island telephone
Apparently what they do is because I now have LIT
They give you the same service, but they give you 10% off your current
Atlantic bill, so why would anybody not want to switch?
Well, another thing that they do is I had called them up about the three-way
That Bell Atlantic had, you know secretly thrown on everybody's phones without telling them except not in New York yet
Not New York City, but I think that's coming but they know nothing about it. They swear up and down
They that there's no three-way on anybody's line. They they will look into it
This is Long Island telephone saying this Long Island telephone is saying that so it sounds as if Long Island telephone doesn't really know what's
Going on with their own phone lines and Bell Atlantic is still controlling them. That's what it sounds like to me
I have this like sticky feeling that you know, Long Island telephone is like somehow owned or operated by
By BA and nobody just knows it yet. Have you noticed any other differences in your phone service?
No, just that you know, the annoying three-way stutter tone. That's it
Yeah, but you would have gotten that with Bell Atlantic anyway, exactly but 10% off the bill same rate if you're getting what happens
What happens if he dials zero?
It says welcome to Bell Atlantic. Well, then you're not you're not on Long Island telephone. That's my point exactly. That doesn't make any sense
Are you sure they switched you over? Yes. Oh, no, the bill comes in. It says Long Island telephone
So basically what you're doing is you're simply signing up for a change in letterhead pretty much and getting 10% off 10% off
So hey for a change in letterhead 10% off. You can't beat that. That's not
secondly and finally
If your switchboard is having some problems over there with the with the touchtones. I mean
Why don't you guys just whistle the touchtones into the phone?
I mean because all of Kevin can do it. Well, Kevin's the only person who can do it and he's in prison right now
Okay. Yeah, that's that's why they put him in prison so that we can't be whistling touchtones whenever we want
Well, that was it take care, thank you very much
Bernie are you there?
You haven't gotten rid of me yet. Okay
Well, do you have a local phone companies down there that are different from Bell Atlantic similar to our Long Island telephone? Oh, yeah
yeah, a whole lot of
Competitive local exchange carriers are getting into the act here in Philadelphia
for residential service as well
Well, I'm only aware of business right actually, yeah, there are they're just resellers though there's one called
Called us telecom
I believe is her name or American telecom or something and there they seem to be marketing their TV ads
Aiming their TV ads towards the credit challenge or people who've had their Bell Atlantic local phone service shut off for nine payment
And they'll say on this TV ad it doesn't matter if your phone's been shut off for non-payment
We'll take you anyway kind of thing. So they probably charge twice as much just to people who don't pay their regular phone bills
I don't think they'll stay in business very long though
Interesting though because this particular phone company
There doesn't seem to be any difference at all between Bell Atlantic and Long Island telephone you dial zero you get Bell Atlantic operator
You know, you'd think that that would change at least but I don't know. I'll check into that a little bit more
All right. Let's take one more phone call or maybe two more. Good evening. You're on the air
Speak up, please
Okay, guess what? We're gonna take three more phone calls because someone fell asleep on the line. Good evening. You're on the air
Oh good. Thank you. Hi, Bernie. It's T. Dub. Hi. How you doing?
T-dub in New York
That's okay. You many many people made calls. So, um, I'm whatever. Yeah
Anyway, uh the year 2000 computer problem in the government
I'm reading the US government hard copy budget not the Internet and there's a description that says that the agencies of the government have identified
8,000
589 mission-critical systems within the federal government
26% of which are compliant and at a cost about the other 74% at a cost of 3.9 billion dollars
They are addressing the problem
Maybe the computer they used to do that is wrong
Also, uh, there's a fee of 93 cents
That's going to be that's you should see on all of your Bell Antic phone bills as a surcharge and
That is it's part. It'll be 93 cents added to your tax your taxable of 93 cents
You should consider not paying that because that was a that
Bell Antic got a grant from the government to go in with whatever
I think Microsoft to provide computers for the education system and they're supposed to be getting this out of their out of their
tax
What the tax incentives and special tax deductions that the corporation gets but they've added it to the phone bills to pay for the computers
Yeah, you see I don't understand how they get away with things like this
They basically they have to do things because they make so much money
So the government says because you made all this money, you've got to buy these things then the company says, okay
We're gonna buy these things then they build the consumers for it. So they're not doing anything
Well, they threatened to move out of New York. So the government says well, you know, we'll save you taxes
We'll give you this tax write-off. And so we end up with our phone bill
I have the article on that. I'll try to find it. Okay. Thanks for the info. Thank you. Bye
Bernie is still there
Okay, great. So this year 2000 thing, I don't know you see it's it's it's still October
1998. All right, if 26% are compliant. I imagine they're working on the rest of them, right?
Would that make sense? I get they might get up to 40 or even 50 but they might actually get almost half of them ready
Well, what's what's gonna be flying I'm not gonna be flying on any airplanes
December 31st. No, that's that's one thing. That's one thing. I won't do
Okay, I won't fly on an airplane during that period of time because I don't know exactly what's gonna happen there
It'd be kind of fun, you know to see things on the ground messing up
But up in the air you sort of want everything to be working just right
You know, can't they just?
Rewrite operating systems or redesign new systems. We have enough time. We've known that the year is gonna change now for a long long time
You know
People are just very short-sighted they didn't take a hit
I you know, I wonder if these engineers back in the 60s wanted to make years represented by one digit, you know
It's like didn't they have any faith? What's I know Reagan was, you know
elected and everybody thought we're gonna survive that but
There was a chance that we were gonna make it through into the 21st century and now it looks like our worst fears are being realized
All right. I'm kind of excited and looking forward to this. Actually, we're out of time Bernie
Already yes, but we're not out of time yet as far as the century goes
So we'll have plenty of time to you know
To theorize on this and to see just what it is that gets all messed up to consider this the first show in a series
countdown to doom the year 2000 bug and you'll hear it here on
off the hook as we as we watch things fall apart slowly and
See civilization unravel before our eyes
Hey, what are you gonna do?
All right, Bernie. It's good hearing from you. It's good hearing you on this on this almost almost great phone line
But for the price, it wasn't bad. It wasn't bad at all. I
Just hope more people do things like this on the Internet that you know doesn't cost that much at all
Maybe maybe has video connections as well at the same time though not tying things up for the rest of the people
More bandwidth man. That's what it's all about. I Bernie
Stay free and have a lot of fun down there. We'll talk to you again real soon
Thanks for having me on the air. All right, take care. That's Emmanuel Goldstein for off the hook
We'll be back again next week with another exciting edition until then. Have a good night
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