That was the Expert Witness Show with Michael Levine.
He'll be back next Tuesday at 7 p.m.
Coming up next over WBAI is Off the Hook with Emanuel Goldstein.
WBAI will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of Pacifica Radio on Sunday,
May 2nd from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Riverside Church.
Please join us to hear speakers and artists like Gil Noble, Kathleen Cleaver, Odetta,
Edward Herman, Bob Fass, Amy Goodman, Fred Ho, Steve Post, Robert Knight, Juan Gonzalez,
Al Lewis, David Amram, and many, many others.
That's Sunday, May 2nd from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Riverside Church on 120th Street near
Columbia University.
To order tickets for this historic 50th anniversary event, please call area code 212-662-6804.
That's 212-662-6804.
And you're listening to Radio Station WBAI in New York, where it's time once again for
Off the Hook.
Bum-di-li-bum for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
Bum-di-li-bum!
And the program is Off the Hook.
A very good evening.
Oh boy, it's been one of those days, hasn't it, Isaac?
Oh yes, very long, very dark.
It's going to get worse.
How worse?
It's going to get worse, it always does.
Best to sit back, relax, and let it get worse.
We'll have updates on what happened in cyberspace this week, what's going to be happening in
the next few weeks, months, years, you name it.
Stay tuned.
Oi, oi, oi, a clockwork land, in a clockwork land.
Oi, oi, oi, a clockwork land, in a clockwork land.
Out on the street lights, in a subway, in the night.
Troops stand together, on a mission of delight.
Sing in your midst, an outburst of divine.
Standing with the boot, for the guilt is so divine.
Oi, oi, oi, a clockwork land, in a clockwork land.
Now, in the morrow, there's a message to be found
Speed, and a limit, a cause of terror all around
Dark, and a rush on, we need a new task to fulfill
Science on, to the point, in the distance, on the hill
Oi, oi, oi, a global alarm in a global land
Oi, oi, oi, a global alarm in a global land
Fight, in a combat, you end up all pretence
Killing, sick as bitch, as you stomp it on his face
Now, it's the old trick, you're gonna pull the trick
Ignoring, he anguished, the hydrant and the pipe
Oi, oi, oi, a global alarm in a global land
Oi, oi, oi, a global alarm in a global land
I don't think we're on the net. I'm not sure if we were able to get our site rerouted in time.
But, you know, it's kind of pointless talking about it because the people I'd be talking about it to are the ones who can't hear us.
So, if that's the case, then you're probably hearing this through some sort of a rebroadcast or delay or something like that.
It's unfortunate because this is the program where we're going to tell people, well, I guess we can tell people in future programs, too, exactly what's going on.
With the Kevin Mitnick case, with the demonstrations that are coming up, and various other things
that are on the burner, so to say.
Basically, let's update a couple of news items, first of all.
You may have heard this in various newspapers, that Mitnick's so-called hacker accomplice has also pleaded guilty.
Louis Depayne, the accomplice to notorious hacker Kevin Mitnick...
I'm reading the story as it appears, okay, so, you know, the sarcasm is me.
The accomplice to notorious hacker Kevin Mitnick today pleaded guilty.
This actually was the 26th. Today is, what, the 27th?
Yes, that would be yesterday.
Pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud for his role in a series of computer break-ins that took place over a three-year period.
Now, again, it's kind of nutsy because what they're being charged with isn't computer break-ins.
What Kevin is being charged with has nothing to do with computer break-ins.
It has to do with obtaining something by saying he was somebody he wasn't.
That's what it's all about, and we'll have more on that in just a moment, too.
Depayne admitted that he took part in a plan to obtain sensitive software from cellular telephone maker Nokia by posing as a company employee.
The count was one of 14 brought against him in a 1996 criminal complaint.
Depayne entered his plea in federal court in Los Angeles before Judge Mariana Fowlter,
the same judge that is hearing Kevin, or not hearing Kevin.
I'm not sure how you want to say that.
Last month, Mitnick pleaded guilty to five of 25 counts in the same court.
Depayne is scheduled to be sentenced on July 12th.
Under a plea agreement, U.S. attorneys will recommend that he receive six months' detention,
which basically means six months' imprisonment,
five years of probation, and up to $3,000 in fines.
He also will have to tell investigators and the companies he is accused of defrauding
exactly how he and Mitnick were able to penetrate security systems.
Now, does this make any sense at all to you?
It happened five years ago.
Anything he tells them now is going to be so outdated, it's not going to be relevant.
Or what could be even more frightening is that it's not outdated,
and these companies have never even thought of increasing their security.
Probably a very realistic scenario there.
Oh, boy.
Depayne, unlike Mitnick, has been free on bail the whole time,
so that's an interesting parallel there.
Depayne and Mitnick are known for their ability to hack computer systems
and to social engineer employees responsible for security at high-tech companies.
This is according to this newspaper article from CNET.
When Mitnick was trying to use cell phones to break into computer systems,
he called Nokia, posing as an employee, and asked that software be sent to him.
When that didn't work, Depayne posed as the fictitious employee's supervisor.
Suspecting the request were a hoax, Nokia recorded the call and provided investigators with tapes.
So according to this, they never even got anything.
They never even got anything in the first place.
Mitnick's exploits made national headlines after his capture was reported in the New York Times
and later in the book Takedown,
and there's a lot of nuance over all the controversy that went around with that,
which we won't get into yet again here.
It was reported in the book, but that's an interesting verb to use.
Yeah, yeah.
U.S. attorneys fighting high-tech crime appear to be on a roll.
Here's something interesting.
Two weeks ago, investigators tracked down the man they say posted a bogus Bloomberg story
that caused a publicly traded company's stock to surge more than 30 points.
Of course, no other details are given.
Last week, they identified the suspect in a case in which anonymous e-mail
that threatened the lives of court officials was posted on the Internet.
Again, no details.
Our offices and other offices around the country will be investigating
when people cause damage to companies' infrastructure and proprietary data,
said Chris Painter, who is the assistant district attorney, I believe,
that's prosecuting both Mitnick and DePayne.
And he said these companies ought to have protection.
Well, you know, these companies ought to have brains too,
but that's something they'll just skip over.
Allow them to be completely wide open,
and when someone does figure out a way around their security system,
make it as if they invented it in the first place.
Well, speaking of wild concoctions and inventions,
first I want to welcome Bernie S. to the conversation.
Bernie, are you there?
Yeah, I am. Good evening.
How are you doing?
Very good.
Not that you're a wild concoction or a fantasy.
Yeah, I was about to say that's an interesting introduction.
No, I didn't mean it that way.
What I do mean to do, however, is get some federal documents.
So Bernie, why don't you say hi to the folks while I go get the federal documents.
Hi to the folks.
Okay, I've gotten the federal documents.
No, back now.
I've gotten the federal documents.
I have them here in an envelope.
And for those of you who visited the 2600 website when it was up,
and hopefully it will be up again soon,
as soon as they figure out what's going on with, I don't know,
a cable cut or something blowing up somewhere,
we'll have it up there again.
But the site is, again, I'm telling people that can't hear me,
so it's kind of pointless.
The site's there, it's just not connected to anything.
These are documents that we obtained having to do with the losses,
the quote-unquote losses that Kevin Mitnick was responsible for.
These were from many years ago.
This is something that was only recently released,
and thus we are now pursuing it and trying to find out how true this is.
Bernie, I'm going to read these,
and maybe you can tell me your impressions as I read them,
keeping it clean, of course.
It's very important.
This is dated February 23, 1995.
Remember, Mitnick was arrested on February 15 of that same year,
so it was shortly thereafter.
It comes from Novell.
As addressed to Kathleen Carson, the special agent of the FBI,
who apparently requested these letters from these companies,
Dear Special Agent Carson,
Novell is greatly relieved that Kevin Mitnick has been apprehended.
As you know, several types of source code were taken by Mitnick.
To attach a value of the source code taken is a very difficult thing to do,
given that Novell's revenues exceed $2 billion a year.
However, the cost associated with the development of the source code
is well in excess of $75 million.
A more precise number would require additional research.
If you have any questions, please contact me, blah, blah, blah.
Signed, Edward Morin, Corporate Security.
Any impressions of that, either Isaac or Bernie?
It sounded like a dart board and a couple of sticky notes on it.
Just, you know, throw a dart and, ooh, $75 million, woo-hoo!
Well, how do you think they arrived at that figure?
It was above $100 million and below $50 million.
Bernie, what do you think?
I think they probably used a similar formula that was used in the development
of the cost to create that 9-1-1 Bell South document several years ago,
where they factored in the annual salary of an employee
whose job was to write this one document
and apparently do nothing else all year.
The cost of the entire computer system and other things
that were involved in the creation of this one short document,
which was, I don't know, was that $75,000 or something or $100,000?
Well, in the Neidorf case, and again, for those of you who can't hear us on the website,
you might want to check the shows back then in 1990.
You'll see for yourself that we were talking to Craig back then,
and he was going through his own version of hell,
being charged with what seemed like an immense amount of money at the time,
$80,000 worth of damage by printing a document in Frack magazine,
and of course the media thinking that that meant that he was breaking into 9-1-1
and threatening lives.
On top of all that, after it was proven that the document was only worth $13
and was publicly available,
the expenses of fighting the government did not go away,
and I believe they last to this very day.
We thought back then that $80,000 was a lot of money.
Yeah, and now we're talking in the millions.
In fact, we're talking well beyond the millions.
A million here, a million there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.
That's right.
Let's continue with the assessment here.
This is a confidential letter from Nokia Mobile Phones,
and it's not confidential anymore, folks, because it's been released.
So I'm just saying it's confidential because that's what they said at the time.
It's not confidential anymore.
Was it printed on the letter?
Well, it sort of scrawled in handwriting, confidential.
It was an afterthought.
It's like, by the way, FBI, don't tell anybody about this.
And you have to wonder, why don't they want anybody to know?
If he really did cause that kind of damage, why do they want to keep it secret?
You know what's interesting about all this is that all these companies,
without fail, seem to have done just that.
It is required.
I believe, Bernie, you might know the exact law, or at least what it's called,
but it's required for a company to report to its stockholders a loss like this.
I think it's some regulation promulgated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Yeah, and they're nearby.
It's just down the road.
So if anybody down there is listening to us, run up to the studio
and tell us exactly what law it is that these people are breaking
by not reporting to their stockholders.
Okay, this is from Nokia.
Dear Ms. Carson, date of February 23rd, 1995,
regarding your telephone request, this tells us something about the request,
regarding your telephone request of February 21st,
asking for Nokia to put a value on the cost of the software stolen
together with an estimate of the cost of the disruption,
I have provided initial estimates of them for you as detailed below.
A rough estimate of the development cost of stolen software and tools,
including testing, is $7.5 million.
He stole the testing too?
I'm sorry?
He stole the testing?
He stole the testing.
He managed to do that.
The disruption to the Nokia mobile phones development community caused by the incidents
resulted in our local networks being completely closed for a week,
and the external networks closed for one month.
How do you like that?
Wow.
Lost development time is estimated to have cost the company $7.5 million.
That's another $7.5 million.
On top of it.
They like that number.
Yeah, that's not bad.
And probably a further $120 million in lost revenue
due to new developments being delayed in reaching the market.
There are some costs of disruption to our other divisions,
Nokia Research and Nokia Telecommunications.
I have not yet been able to ascertain estimates for those divisions.
These could be provided in due course.
This would lead to a minimum loss estimated to total $135 million.
I hope this information satisfies your needs.
I'm sure it does.
Sincerely, John Talbot, Vice President of Engineering Support Center.
So right away, we're in the hundreds of millions of dollars here
just from somebody getting a hold of software they're not supposed to see,
just having it, just looking at it.
Was Mitnick ever accused of actually removing the only copy
of any of these pieces of software?
No, but that's a very interesting lead-in to this next bit of documentation
from Sun Microsystems dated March 9, 1995.
Listen to how they phrase things here.
As you are aware, Sun Microsystems, Inc. experienced a break-in
of its computer systems located in our Los Angeles office
on or about June 30, 1993.
During the break-in, a substantial portion of the source code
of Sun's Solaris 2.x software product was apparently copied and removed.
Copied and removed?
That's what they say.
Now, there is no evidence anyplace that I've ever seen in any court document
that backs this up that says that anything was erased.
I don't know what they mean by removed.
It sounds to me like they're saying the copy was removed.
That's what I think.
Oh, so they copied the file and then, okay.
Removed the copy.
Then you could do that forever.
They continuously remove things because of the way they decide to mangle the language.
Solaris software is a Unix-based product originally licensed by Sun from AT&T.
In March of 1994, Sun bought out its original license with AT&T
with a lump-sum payment of more than $80 million.
In addition, Sun has invested very heavily for more than 10 years
in the continued development of the Solaris software
and values the current product in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Wait a second.
They're claiming that Kevin Mitnick stole 10 years' worth of development
in a Unix environment.
And he somehow stole them buying the original license of AT&T.
I don't understand the logic at all.
They're just throwing numbers out here.
And, you know, at the top of everything else,
somebody showed me an interesting website,
which unfortunately I don't have on me right now,
that says that you can get Solaris source code for nothing
because they encourage people to look at it in educational settings.
I think that's the ultimate irony right there.
So that's just one indication of how these people are lying through their teeth.
Emanuel, do you have a copy of any of the correspondence
from the FBI to these companies?
Not in this room at the present time.
Have you seen it?
I cannot say on the air, but I will tell you off-air.
Okay.
It might be interesting to see in what way the FBI
encouraged these companies to come up with these large figures.
Well, I do know that in at least some of the instances
it was a phone call that was made.
But it's pretty obvious that they wanted them to pump up the numbers quite a bit
just to make a case.
And they certainly succeeded, didn't they?
I should say, Phil, I got an email from a reporter the other day
asking me for some comments about these letters,
which apparently have been getting widely distributed.
And he was asking for some kind of an analogy
to compare this to for a layman,
so a layman could make sense of this.
And the best analogy I could come up with is
if I went into a movie theater with a new digital camcorder
that was really, really good,
it was so good that it could make an exact copy of a movie.
And say I went into a movie theater
and watched and made a copy of George Lucas's new $300 million extravaganza.
Of course, the cost of this movie,
a large part of it is their promotional and advertising costs.
That sort of thing.
I made an exact copy of this movie.
And in doing so,
all of the ushers and security folks at the movie theater
were just goofing off, sleeping, etc.
And then I left with this tape.
I took it home and I watched it, had fun with it,
watched it forwards, backwards, whatever.
Invited a few friends over to watch it.
Didn't sell any copies of this tape to anybody.
Didn't take any original copies of the movie from any theaters.
Didn't affect Lucasfilm's profits in any way.
And somebody ratted me out.
A snitch said, hey, I heard this guy had a copy of this movie.
And so I'm raided.
And the FBI charges me with stealing the movie.
And various counts of how many times I watched the movie
or showed it to other people, that sort of thing.
And not only am I convicted,
but I'm found to have caused damages
in the area of about $300 million for stealing the movie.
Mercy me.
And this is the type of thinking
that we're dealing with with the federal government.
They don't think these losses occurred.
Well, you know, Bernie, I think maybe even went too far here
because, you know, I think what Kevin had
was not as good as the original
because he didn't have the same computer system to run it on.
He didn't have the staff behind the whole thing.
He basically, I think he had the equivalent
of if you walked into that theater
with just a regular Hi-8 camcorder
and recorded it for your own personal enjoyment
so you could learn something about, you know,
all the different shots in the film.
Or he was watching it at home on a black and white TV set or something.
Sure.
But not only do I have to pay for the $300 for the movie,
but I have to pay for the training
of new ushers at the movie theater.
Right.
And pay their salaries on top of that
because they weren't doing their job when I went in there.
And that's the only analogy I could come up with
for a layman that kind of showed how ludicrous this is.
The real crime here is that it took four years
for these documents to surface,
for us to see exactly what they were saying.
And now that we've seen it, now that it's in front of us,
we know it's as ridiculous as we've been saying all along,
that hundreds of millions of dollars of damage
were caused by somebody looking at software.
Now here's the final letter.
This comes from Fujitsu.
Am I pronouncing that right?
I have no idea.
Okay, well, we all know the name of the company.
Don't look at me.
Congratulations on the arrest of Kevin Mitnick.
Pursuant to your request, I asked our cellular group
to assess the damages caused to Fujitsu Network Transmission Systems, Inc.
by Mitnick's theft of the source code for the PCX telephone.
If anybody out there has a PCX telephone
or knows what a PCX telephone is,
I'd like to hear about it.
I'd like to know exactly how this affected you.
The information provided to me is as follows.
Software development expenses, $1,100,000.
Research and development expenses, let's just say $1,000,000.
Total of $2,100,000.
Additionally, attached is a worksheet
showing what it would, and then in parentheses will,
cost FNTS to recall the PCX phones in the marketplace
if the source code has been compromised or is not safe.
And they attach a little worksheet here.
Basically, they itemize it.
Each phone, shipping, $17.31.
A pre-check, $4.00.
Labor to upgrade software, $8.50.
QC cost, $4.00.
Tracking and handling labor, $6.40.
Customer handling, $15.00.
PCX admin overhead, $2.00.
A total of $57.21 per unit, 96,441 units.
Grand total, $5,517,389.61
for recalling the PCX phones.
No fractions of cents?
Probably nobody has anymore.
Probably was completely useless back then as well.
But I'd like to know.
I'm keeping an open mind on this.
Yeah, you're a phone person.
Have you ever heard of the PCX phone?
I've not.
I did a search on the Internet,
and all I could find was some Dutch reference to it,
which I couldn't read, unfortunately,
because I don't know Flemish.
But I don't think it's a current model.
And it would be interesting, though,
to see if anybody who owns one of these
actually had their phone recalled.
And from reading a letter from Nokia,
I think the word safety was brought up here.
Wasn't it something to the owner?
This is the one that had the recall.
Let me find it here.
Something to do with the...
Here we go.
Here we go.
Recall the PCX phones in the marketplace
if the source code has been compromised or is not safe.
So what are they saying?
Are they saying that Dmitnik altered the source code
that was then programmed into the firmware of these phones,
and the phones became unsafe to handle?
What were they saying,
that the source code has been compromised or is not safe?
I don't know if it's a pretty scary thought
that somebody could make the phone into a dangerous object.
Sure.
It's really pretty frightening.
I have a theory about why these documents
were not released until after Kevin pled guilty.
And why is that?
Well, once you plead guilty,
the ball is completely in the Fed's court
as far as sentencing goes.
Unlike in a trial situation
where evidentiary rules apply,
where you have to actually prove what you're claiming.
Okay.
Where you have to actually prove what you're claiming.
In a sentencing hearing,
they don't have to prove what they're saying.
They can just come up with estimates.
They tried to do that in my case as well.
Estimate, like, you know,
I made 2,000 crystals available to people
which could have been used in red boxes
to create so much fraud, that sort of thing.
Even though they admitted there were no victims,
they said that they could estimate
that there could have been that many.
Anyway, these letters surfaced after he pled guilty,
which indicates to me that it doesn't matter
what anybody says about them now
because they don't have to prove these actual losses.
Had it gone to a trial,
they would have actually had to itemize these losses.
The company representatives would have had to
actually document and testify under oath
that these losses were true and actual.
So it's interesting these were only released
until after the guilty plea was made.
Well, they may be able to get away with that in court.
You know, they may be able to not have to justify it,
but there's still the people outside the court
that are getting pretty angry by all this
and I think are demanding some answers,
and that's what the next step of this whole thing is going to be.
Kevin's sentencing is on June 14th,
and we have to prepare for the next step.
And before we take the next step,
I want to add somebody into the mix here.
Let's get a dial tone.
Hopefully, Bernie, I won't lose you,
but if I do, I'll call you right back.
Do we have a dial tone?
Okay, I'm going to dial this off the air,
and hopefully we'll go right through.
Okay, we should have a phone ringing now.
I don't hear any ringing.
I don't either, but I think it's a Sprint phone.
That's probably why it takes so long.
I've noticed that.
It takes like several seconds for me to get a ring back.
It does.
Hello?
Hey, it's Pam.
Hey, it is Pam.
How are you doing, Pam?
Welcome to the radio show.
Hey, thank you.
Bernie is with us as well.
Hi, Bernie.
And Isaac is over there in the far corner of the room.
I'm over yonder.
Hello.
Hey, Isaac.
We are just at the point where we've gone over
all the tainted evidence, in our opinion,
and we're about to launch into what the future actions will be
as far as the whole Free Kevin movement,
what the next step is.
And it's basically going to be a nationwide thing,
unlike where we were planning demonstrations,
in your case, Bernie,
where we were going to march right outside the prison,
where you were,
and demand that you be broken out immediately.
They beat us to it.
How brief a period of time was there
between where we were going to go down
and where you actually got released?
Was it a week?
I think it was a couple days and a weekend.
That's it.
I think it was only a couple three actual business days.
They saw this thing was coming,
and they decided that my theory is
that the prison officials decided
they didn't want a big incident.
And in conjunction with my attorney
arguing before the judge,
a very strange order was issued to just release me.
It wasn't like there was no case law on this sort of thing.
They just sort of signed this emergency order
that I may release.
It was very unusual.
It was very spacey, yeah.
The guards were stunned.
They were like,
this has never happened before sort of thing.
So I have to say that I think the threat of this protest
really carried some weight in my case.
Now, granted, I was already locked up several months
past what my release date could have been.
I mean, I should have been paroled,
and I hadn't even been interviewed by parole
for the parole board for months.
There was some mysterious delay.
It kept getting delayed.
I don't know why.
But in any case,
I think the threat of busloads of off-the-hook listeners
coming to surround the prison
might have had something to do with my release.
It was a pretty scary thought for everybody.
We were very scared people.
Yeah, well, you know,
we had gotten to the point of calling the bus companies
and getting an estimate.
Hey, I got estimates!
Oh, you got estimates?
Yeah.
And they were pretty reasonable, weren't they?
They weren't that bad.
Yeah.
So yeah, we meant it.
We were going to do it.
We would have done it,
but they had to let you out beforehand,
so we never found out for sure.
I was pretty upset about it, actually.
I was concerned.
I almost didn't want the thing to happen,
because I was afraid some other people
were going to get locked up,
and I didn't want anybody else to get locked up.
Yeah, that's true.
So I really breathed a sigh of relief for several reasons.
So anyway, go ahead.
Well, what we're planning now
is something a little bit different
with the same basic idea
as the Miramax protest last summer.
This involves federal courthouses.
Federal courthouses are, of course,
where this kind of justice is handed down,
and they tend to be in just about every major city.
Now, interestingly enough,
also in every major city are, guess what?
2,600 meetings.
So we decided to merge the two,
and on June 4th, which is the first Friday of June,
before the 2,600 meeting
of whatever city you happen to be in,
there will be a demonstration
or a leaflet handout
or whatever you want to call it,
and that will take place
outside your local federal courthouse.
We're going to be providing
all kinds of literature, pamphlets,
things to hand out,
and basically the idea is
to educate people on the Mitnick case.
Yes, he's pleaded guilty,
but that does not mean
that he has to go back to prison
and spend another year there.
It does not mean that he has to,
for the next three years of his life,
have every single movement of his scrutinized
and not be allowed to even talk about computers,
which is one of the many conditions
that he's being threatened with.
The judge has some leeway here.
She can recommend that he be sent
to a halfway house immediately.
That's on June 14th.
She can say that he served enough time,
put him in a halfway house,
and when you're in a halfway house,
you're still locked up,
but at least you can walk around.
You can see the outdoors.
You can talk to people.
There's some degree of freedom there,
and I think that's a very reasonable thing
to be pushing for,
and I think anything less
is tantamount to torture,
and that is what we're out there for.
That is what we're protesting.
That's what we're trying to educate people on,
so basically from the period of time
between now and then,
we're going to be getting the word out about that.
We're going to be organizing
in all these different cities,
and we'll have a full list up on the website
when the website does come back,
and that's pretty much where it stands.
Is that this coming Friday?
No, it's the first Friday of June.
Okay.
So we have a full six weeks or so to organize.
The first Friday of May, though,
we're going to be sort of having meetings
in various parts of the country
talking about this
and getting our act together
and starting to plan.
That's great.
So that's where things stand.
Can I mention what I think we should do tomorrow?
Yes, go ahead.
In advance of all this stuff in May and June,
I'm holding a protest tomorrow
at the e-commerce convention at Javits Center.
Anybody who'd like to show up, has free time,
should probably show up around 10 a.m.
across the street from Javits Center
at the Concrete Garden.
The first eight people that show up
can wear Free Kevin T-shirts.
Wait, but there's nine letters in a space in Free Kevin.
That's right.
Two of the T-shirts are already taken.
Oh, okay, all right.
Just wanted to clarify that.
In fact, the T-shirts that are taken
are one of the letter E's and the letter V.
We did this at the last 2600 meeting,
but somehow we lost an R.
The R is back.
The R is back.
It's still in my laundry room.
We found the R,
and we're going to, I think, try that again
also at the next 2600 meeting in New York,
but tomorrow at the Javits Center.
Want to give that information one more time, Pam?
Yes, 10 a.m. at Javits Center.
Actually, the Javits Center exposition opens at 11,
so 10 a.m. is to set up, put on T-shirts,
take some external photographs in front of Javits,
which I actually have from Internet World
where we had five people show up,
looking for a little bit better response
even with this late notice.
And anybody else who shows up besides the first eight,
wear black or gold,
because the Free Kevin shirts are gold with black letters
just like the bumper stickers.
Okay.
That sounds like a worthwhile endeavor,
and we'll give out the information
a little bit later on in the show as well.
Going to take some phone calls.
Eric?
Yes, go ahead.
One last thing is that I think we'll come back out
to that concrete pavilion around 1 o'clock,
so if anyone wants to join the protest later,
like during their lunch,
they could come at 1 o'clock in the concrete garden,
and they'd be done by 2.
Okay.
Our phone number is 212-209-2900,
so if you have any questions
about the upcoming demonstrations
or the documentation that we read out over the air
just a little while ago or anything else,
please give us a call.
That's what we're here for.
Let's take the first phone call.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
I have two questions.
Hi, Bernie.
How are you doing?
Hi.
Hi.
Cito.
Hi.
The e-commerce,
is the person that's still on
who mentioned the e-commerce convention?
Yes.
I was just curious about that.
Has there been a decision made
about the taxation of e-commerce?
I'm sorry?
Has there been any decision made
about taxation of e-commerce,
or is that something that's going to happen
at this convention, possibly?
I have no idea.
Oh.
Are you going to the convention?
No, I'm protesting at the convention.
Oh, okay, okay.
I'm just curious about it
because it's a really important issue
that there should not be any kind of money taxation
imposed on any net or web activities
because once you start one,
the government will begin to look for charging fees.
Are you going to the convention?
I didn't even know about it.
Oh.
Well, now you do.
Now that you know about it,
are you going to go?
Now, if I can get some sort of comp ticket, I will.
Free passes will be available to anybody who shows up.
Free passes.
Okay.
I've got free passes.
The other question was,
do you happen to know what the judge's name is?
Yeah, Marianna Falzer.
Say the surname?
Falzer.
You want me to spell that?
I'll have to look up a piece of documentation for that.
Okay, I'll get it.
From Los Angeles?
Yeah.
We talked about something about a year ago
where the only government that has recognized the hacker
as someone that might possibly be a source of genius
was Netanyahu having pardoned a couple of people.
Do you remember that case?
I don't think he pardoned them,
but he did refer to them as very good.
Damn good.
And he's got a great name.
I just wondered if, I mean,
before he might be out of office on May 14th,
I think their election is, or 16th,
I forget the day of their election,
that if there's any use,
if he has any way of liaising with the judge
or sort of comparing surnames.
But I have his phone number, and I will fax it to you.
I remember trying to do that last time,
and I don't think I had your fax.
Okay, first of all,
you're talking about the judge's phone number?
No, Netanyahu's.
Oh, well, I don't mean Netanyahu's phone number, do I?
Last time you had asked,
we were talking something about this,
and you had asked me
if I knew how to get in touch with him.
Oh, okay, well,
pass a message on for me, you know,
to endorse Kevin and, you know.
It might have been more prominent at the time.
Yeah.
Well, anyway, if you need my fax number,
it's 516-474-2677.
That's actually the 2600 fax number.
And feel free to fax those sensitive documents
and anything else you might find right over to us,
and we'll do what's appropriate.
Thanks for calling.
Hi, Emmanuel.
How did I know?
Make it quicker than I can possibly imagine.
I wanted to mention the following things.
Yes.
Dell Atlantic phones are becoming very annoying.
You know what the new ones do now?
What's that?
They go, when you dial your number,
you know how we used to say
thank you for using a Dell Atlantic pay phone?
They say all kinds of different things.
No, no, it still says that,
but it still says it in a different voice,
and now it just dials the number that you dialed.
Okay.
So it takes an extra amount of time
to say thank you for using a Dell Atlantic pay phone.
Then it just dials what you've dialed.
Uh-huh.
So it redials, in other words.
Yeah.
Like a cold call does.
And, Bernie, thank you for the e-mail on AT&T
that puts through third-number calls without asking.
Okay.
And the fact that hotels charge
the number that you've called.
I've mentioned this before.
I just thought, Bernie,
you'd be interested in that.
I thought you didn't know about that, did you?
Well, I think it's been going on for years.
Yes, it has been going on for years,
and I think it's a practice that I think they should stop.
Well, why don't you tell them to?
Well, I think I don't know who to tell.
I guess the only way to do it is, like Emmanuel said,
for people to do it and then, you know, just like Dell Atlantic.
It's an FCC issue.
Go down there in person and tell them to stop.
They'll stop.
All right, let's move on to our next phone call.
Good evening.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Yes, well, I'd like to say a few things.
First of all, about the protest tomorrow on e-commerce.
Okay.
The BAI board has hit us again.
I'm sorry, you want to repeat that sentence?
Yeah.
I just want to say a few things.
The first one about the protest tomorrow at the Javits Center.
First of all, I mean, as far as I believe,
most of the listeners of this radio station are teenagers
who basically go to school at that time.
So wouldn't 10 a.m. be a little inappropriate?
Well, we didn't say 10 a.m.
I think we're thinking more like around 2 or so, 1 or 2.
Oh, I said 10 a.m. if you can make it then.
That's when we're going to start.
Oh, you're talking about tomorrow.
Yeah.
Okay, I thought you were talking about the protest in June.
The reason it's 10 a.m. tomorrow is because that's when the show is.
Right.
How long does this go for?
It goes until 5.
If somebody shows up at 2 to take my bag of T-shirts,
they can continue protesting until 5.
I need to leave at 3.
All right, and also I just want to say that about the whole Kevin thing
is even if he does get freed by the authorities,
I mean, basically that's only part of the battle
because we still have to fight so this won't ever happen again.
I mean, this already happened to numerous people.
I mean, with the 9-1-1 thing with Bernie and Kevin right now.
And it's happening to other people, too,
cases that I can't talk about right now because they're very volatile
but is happening all over the place.
It will keep happening until people say something,
until people show that they're not going to put up with this anymore,
that these people are being treated unfairly.
They're being tortured for things that are at most minor offenses.
And you have to ask why.
Why are they being dealt with so savagely?
Why do the big corporations have so much of a pull
to imprison some of our smartest people for such a long period of time
with some really evil criminals?
And is it just to send a message to the rest of us to stop asking questions?
Oh, yeah, I guess they do it out of fear.
They're afraid that since there's somebody who knows more than them,
it could be a threat.
But also, one last thing.
The whole tone of your show today about also how the $18 million charges
against Mitnick were brought up,
I didn't really like the tone of it because as far as I think,
it seemed like, I mean, I knew you didn't mean this,
but it seemed to me like the tone was that Mitnick has actually been proven
of breaking into the computers of those companies
when it wasn't even proven that he actually accessed the computers
of Novell and Fujitsu and all those companies.
Well, no, I certainly didn't mean that kind of a tone, definitely not.
Kevin has not been proven to have broken into any computer,
any place what he has admitted to.
And again, we have to stress that when you admit guilt to something,
it does not always mean the same thing as being guilty,
and Bernie can definitely attest to that.
But basically, he has admitted to having access,
having source code that did not belong to him
and pretending he was somebody that he was not.
It's interesting to note that the whole case with Shimomura,
with his computer system, the whole thing that got Kevin arrested
in the first place, there was no charge ever made of that.
There was no charge ever made of his having the credit card numbers
from Netcom.
There was no charge made for any kind of computer break-in
that has been widely spread by the media.
So you have to ask yourself, five years in prison
and two years on the run and three years more of hell afterwards
for having copies of software and for lying on the telephone?
How is that right?
Well, I guess we can all agree that it sucks.
Yeah.
So good luck.
That's definitely true.
And bye.
Okay, thanks for calling.
Bye.
And let's hold on.
212-209-2900.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Yeah, I just wanted to mention about the camera.
No, listen, listen, listen.
You have to stop hogging the phone lines.
It's really annoying.
Manuel?
Yes, I just took another phone call.
About Trenton Computer Festival at all?
Yeah, well, we're going to mention that in a second.
Let's take this call here.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Hello.
I just wanted to comment that I must be your only real audio listener
because if you went to Open Recent and went to last week's show,
it connected you to the show.
Okay, there are some people.
In fact, maybe if the coordinator could beep me,
since I have another whole thing with my phone that didn't work today,
could beep me with the number of people that they know to be on right now
along with your prefix so I know that it's you
versus one of the thousands of other people that beeped me with various numbers.
That way we know how many people are actually listening with real audio today
and we'll know how much of a disaster this outage has been to us.
But, yeah, if you were smart enough to do that, yes, you could get through,
but it's hard to tell people how to do that, especially when they can't hear you.
Yeah, you might want to set up a mirror and maybe like tripod
in one of those free Internet places that you can.
Well, we have to start flexing our muscles a little bit
and putting up mirrors all over the place.
Yeah, it's about time we pay attention to that.
We were kind of lazy, and I guess we just sort of let ourselves be victimized by an outage.
But we'll work on it.
Where are you calling from, by the way?
Cleveland, Ohio.
Cleveland, okay.
Well, do they have meetings in Cleveland?
Yeah, they do.
All right, so you have to find out where your federal courthouse is in Cleveland
and start organizing for the demonstration there.
Yeah, I tried to hand out flyers.
Are there still a lot of pirate FM radio stations in Cleveland?
I don't know. I haven't really been into radio lately.
There were quite a few there just a year or two ago,
and if there still are any, this would be a great opportunity to get this
Mitnick thing talked about on some of those stations
since they're not restricted by corporate whims.
Right, and not every city has a 50,000-watt radio station in the middle of it
that is devoted to freedom of speech.
Fortunately, we are here, and we can talk about this kind of thing.
Other cities, you've got to resort to other tactics to get the word out,
and that's what we're hoping to help people with.
If you want help doing this, and you are listening to us from any part of the world,
actually, because this is an international thing,
email us, oth at 2600.com.
We'll help you as best we can getting the word out to your neighborhood,
to your community, so that people show up on June 4th.
And if you're afraid, if you're afraid to actually go to a demonstration,
let me tell you, I've been to a lot of demonstrations,
never been scared going to even some of the most strident ones.
They're fun.
They're a lot of fun.
How many demonstrations have you been to, Isaac?
I went to the Miramax one.
Okay, you went to the Miramax one.
In fact, I was carrying your very expensive video camera at the Miramax one.
All right, yeah.
With my life.
You were going to slug a cop with it, right?
Well, that is an interesting example.
Anybody come near me, I'll take care of them.
But this is something that if your parents are paranoid about you going,
basically, it's an informational thing.
We're not planning on standing there with picket signs
and bashing the heads of people walking to the federal courthouse.
That's not our style.
Our way of doing things is to let people know, you know,
if somebody walks by us, give them the chance to take a pamphlet
and learn something.
And if they don't want to learn something, fine, have a nice day.
It's like the people on the street that are very polite.
So hopefully you'll go to the Cleveland one out there.
I'm planning to.
Okay, great.
Take care.
Now, Pam, you had something to say about Trenton.
Well, actually, first I had something to say
about the Internet World Protest in the fall,
which was very similar to the one we're holding tomorrow.
All we did was wear T-shirts, hand out flyers,
and actually take pictures in the conference,
which you're not really supposed to do.
And you got a lot of stares, too.
What?
A lot of people were staring, right?
Oh, absolutely.
It generated tons of interest among people that are computer people
or advertisers for computer people.
And people really paid attention, and we got to get the word out
from people who might actually understand the case.
Okay.
Great.
Yeah, Bernie.
Yeah.
Yes, you were saying something?
I just think it's great.
I mean, the more exposure you can give to this case, the better.
I mean, it may be somewhat of a lost cause in Kevin's case
because there never was a trial, as there probably should have been,
but because of the way the federal justice system works,
trials rarely even happen.
That's true.
But the more people become aware of this,
the more likely it is to prevent this from happening to anybody else.
I think that the government thrives on working in darkness,
and the more they're exposed by protests and educational projects like this,
the more people are going to take what they say with a grain of salt.
And that's a good thing.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
By the way, we have been notified that we have 67 online listeners,
which I think is pretty good
because I think every one of those listeners had to figure it out for themselves
how to get to the show this week.
So congratulations to all of you who actually made it.
It's about half what our usual audience is.
And we'll get this show up online as soon as possible
so people can hear the information.
And, of course, in the weeks ahead,
we'll be talking about this with increasing urgency.
212-209-2900 is our telephone number.
Let's take some more listener phone calls.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Yeah.
Are the weekend protests off?
Well, this pretty much is going to be the protest, as far as I know,
unless we plan something else.
Originally, we were thinking of doing something on the weekend.
But after talking to a lot of people,
it makes more sense to hit the places where the people that pass this kind of policy,
namely judges, lawyers, district attorneys,
the places where they're walking in and out of.
We were originally going to do this outside of prison,
which is fine in Los Angeles because that's where Kevin is.
It doesn't make a whole lot of sense in other cities because, well, he's not there.
And the people walking in and out, you know, what are they going to say?
They're basically people visiting prisoners
and maybe a couple of wardens or something like that.
But that's about it.
I think this is our best shot at getting the word out,
getting some media coverage, maybe influencing some opinion.
To add to that,
we do plan on being informational at this weekend's Trenton Computer Festival,
which is this year in Edison, New Jersey.
And that's this weekend, the 1st and 2nd of May.
The website address is tcf, as in Trenton Computer Festival, 99.
It's tcf99.com.
Bernie, how will they find your table?
There will be a 2600 van there, I believe,
and we're going to try to erect a huge red weather balloon.
Oh, we have the weather balloon.
Yeah.
Tickets to Trenton Computer Festival are purchasable for $10.
And if anybody wants the caravan down from Brooklyn,
they can email me at esoteric, E-S-O-T-E-R-I-C, at inch.com,
because we're having a caravan from Brooklyn both days, actually,
Saturday and Sunday,
as well as probably a little bit of a pre-event party on Friday night.
Okay.
And, Bernie, I should point out, for that weather balloon,
let's get some really strong rope this time.
Yeah.
All right?
Because we don't want a repeat of that.
It ended happily.
It ended happily, fortunately.
And I think we have the winds to thank for that.
And the parents of that little kid that went up for the little ride were pretty understanding.
But we just have to be careful.
Yeah, go ahead, caller.
The Trenton Computer Fair, the information is also available at nj.tcf.com,
or nj-tcf.com.
Okay, great.
Thanks for the info.
Also, also, I will have a new version of the screen saver there.
I'm going to try and get enough disks to hand it out to people,
and it will actually be with Rodden's pictures of Kevin.
Oh, great.
Great.
That's something to look forward to.
Wow.
Yeah, it's the ones of him and NBC,
so hopefully it will have more of an effect on people.
Yeah.
Well, when you put a face to what this is all about, it does have an effect.
It does make a big difference.
Yeah.
Hey, thanks for the call.
We're going to move on to another phone call here.
And very good evening.
You're on the air.
Hi, Manuel.
I just wanted to, I know this might be overkill,
but I just wanted to get your opinions on what happened in Colorado.
I expected you might at least say something small about it.
I just wondered how you felt about that type of thing.
Interesting thing.
There's been a lot of Internet play off the events in Littleton.
And as usual, you know, we see people saying, well, the problem here is speech.
The problem here is the fact that people read something
or communicated with the wrong people.
And, you know, to make it brief, I just think that that's missing the point.
That's missing the point.
You have a bunch of people that go around killing people.
They're not doing it with speech.
They're doing it with guns.
They're doing it because somehow they've gotten screwed up.
And that's what you have to look at.
You have to look at what happened to the people in their lives,
not what it was they were reading, not what it was they were accessing on the Net.
But you have to look at how they were brought up, how they were treated in school,
how they were treated at home.
And what they had access to that enabled them to kill people.
You know, those are very important questions.
And it's going to keep happening.
It'll keep happening until those questions are resolved.
So I suspect we'll, you know, we'll deal with this for a few weeks
and we'll move on to something else.
And it'll just happen again in a few months.
And we'll say, hey, why does this keep happening here?
I'll tell you this.
I'm in touch with a lot of people in other parts of the world.
And they're amazed.
They're amazed at the United States because it doesn't happen anywhere else.
And you have to wonder about that.
Senator Feinstein recently blamed the Internet for what happened in Littleton, Colorado.
She blames the Internet for everything.
You know that.
This follows very interestingly because if you recall a few weeks ago
or maybe a month ago we were discussing that Al Gore invented the Internet.
Yeah.
So perhaps this is a means by rationalizing the arrest of Vice President Al Gore
for providing these students with the ability to access the information
to build these pipe bombs and cause such havoc.
You know, Bernie, we should email Dianne Feinstein.
Actually, no, she'll freak out.
She doesn't like email.
She's afraid of it.
Okay.
Send her a nice postal letter and suggest that.
I hope that that somewhat answers your question.
Thank you very much.
All right.
Interesting thing, though.
There have been all kinds of Internet references here.
People have registered all kinds of sites.
Trenchcoat.org is one of them.
People have gone nuts.
And, of course, everybody falls for it.
Everybody believes that something posted on the Net had something to do with it,
even though it's clearly put on the Net afterwards.
People believe what they want to believe, and the Net is just a big playground.
All right.
Let's see if we can squeeze in one more phone call.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Okay.
Well, you didn't talk fast enough, so you blew it.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
All right.
Let's try one more person, I guess.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Well, we're three in a row here, three in a row.
Let's see if we can go for four.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hi again.
That's the only other response that I would not accept.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Yes, hi.
In all due respect to Kevin, I think he was given draconian punishment.
But wasn't he a second-time offender?
I mean, he knew what he was doing.
I don't think we can pretend he was an X here.
That's all I'm saying.
He's a second-time offender, a third-time offender, a fifth-time offender, whatever.
No, but I'm just saying federal laws are strict.
You know, he's stealing a pen from the post office.
He will buy up to a year in prison and a $1,000 fine.
So, I mean, I'm not justifying the draconian laws.
And I think they're absurd for, you know, what he did.
But I'm just saying that based on the fact that it almost comes across like he was framed,
and that's not the case.
Well, a lot of times what happens –
He knew what he was doing, didn't he?
He was doing something illegal.
I think he knew that.
He wasn't a knife is what I'm saying.
But with selective prosecution, you can indict people for all kinds of petty crimes,
make them seem like they're really, really big crimes.
And I think Kevin realized that towards the beginning of this,
and that's probably one of the reasons why he didn't rush into the open arms of the feds,
and that this made things worse.
He was on probation.
Well, actually, he wasn't on probation when he left.
And that has been proven.
If you look at the court transcripts,
that has actually been admitted to that he was not really a fugitive.
So a lot of this is called into question.
Just why was it?
Why was he being hunted in the first place?
Unfortunately, we don't have time.
They're making an example, of course.
That's basically it.
Two can play that game.
We can make examples, too.
It's wrong to use draconian rules like that.
But I'm just saying it almost sounds like he was framed, and that's not the case.
But just be careful not to fall into the trap of, you know,
he broke the law, therefore this is justified.
I mean, it doesn't justify that kind of punishment.
I absolutely agree with that.
But I'm just saying there are times it almost sounds like he was framed,
and that's not true.
He knew what he was doing.
We don't necessarily are saying he was framed,
but when you look at the damage figures.
What about the damage figures?
The damage figures, I think, pretty much show the game that they're playing.
They want to keep him in prison as long as possible,
and they'll make things up if they have to in order to do that.
Now, the question we have to ask is why.
Why is it so important to them to do this to him?
Unfortunately, we don't have time to really address that question
because we're out of time.
Pam, I want to give you one more chance to give out the information for tomorrow.
10 a.m. at Javits Center, which is in Midtown Manhattan, 34th Street,
and I think 10th Avenue.
It's only a couple of miles away from the nearest subway station.
It's like two miles from the nearest subway, yeah.
And, again, if you can't make it at 10, show up at 1.
We'll be back out in the concrete garden to get more people involved if you're there.
All right, it'll be fun.
Fun for everybody.
It's a serious subject.
And if anybody wants details, email me.
Esoteric, E-S-O-T-E-R-I-C, at inch.com.
All right.
Bernie S., thank you for coming.
We'll see you at the Trenton Computer Fair next Saturday.
We'll be there.
Yeah, it'll be a lot of fun.
Everybody should come.
I'm only going to be there on Saturday
because I have to attend the 50th anniversary of Pacifica on Sunday here in New York,
and I urge all the listeners to show up to that as well
because that's going to be a lot of fun.
Isaac, thanks very much for coming in.
I'll be at the protest tomorrow and at Trenton and everywhere else.
Goodbye.
All right.
Thanks for coming in.
We'll be back again next week,
and I'll be 100% on the net as well.
Until then, Emmanuel Goldstein.
Have a good night.
This has been a production of WGBH.
Thank you for joining us.
Black love, love black.
A Mother's Day feast of spoken word with Sonia Sanchez,
Amiri Baraka, Jessica Caremore, Reg E. Gaines,
Abby O'Doon, and Asha Bendeli,
plus 25 other poets.
When?
Mother's Day, Sunday, May 9th at 7 o'clock p.m.
Where?
Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at 95th Street.
For more information, please call 212-340-1196.
That's 212-340-1196.
And if you have Internet access, our web address is www.nightdrums.com.
This announcement is brought to you by Adam & Wire,
a not-for-profit organization on behalf of WBAI.