The Party. I'm Bill Weinberg of the Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade, and when I have insomnia on Wednesday nights, I listen to Let Em Talk with Paul DiRienzo and Joan Mussi. I'm Paul DiRienzo from Let Em Talk, and when I'm unemployed, I listen to Sidney Smith's Carrier Wave on Sunday nights. I'm Janet Coleman of Cat Radio Café, and when I feel obsessive compulsive on Thursday nights, I dial Bob Fass on Radio Unnameable from midnight on. I'm David Dozer. I like to listen to Robert Knight, R. Paul Martin, Brother Shine, Tony Short, Max Schmied, Tom Whisker, Hoppy Selassie. Late nights on WBAI. Embrace your insomnia. Keep your radio on. I'm Emanuel Goldstein, and I just keep my radio tuned to WBAI, New York, all the time. And if I'm lucky enough to be listening now, I can hear myself on Off The Hook. That's understood. One minute more. I'm Emanuel Goldstein, and I just keep my radio tuned to WBAI, New York, all the time. All right, are we all together? Are we all here? Everybody knows what microphone they're at? Yes. All right. I'm still with the red one. It takes us 20 minutes to set up the show, because you have to have your red microphone. I'm at the red mic. That's what I do. And we have to drag a cable in from the other room to get the red microphone to work. Tradition. Yeah, I know. Exactly. You're big on tradition. It's Off The Hook. We've got you, Isaac, over on the other side of the room. On a red microphone. And we've got Carl Alex and Chris as well, and Bernie S on the phone from Philadelphia. I'm looking for the cough button on my microphone. Yeah, well, you're going to need one up here, that's for sure. But we've got all kinds of things to cough about this week. Isaac, you haven't even seen this yet, have you? What haven't I seen yet? Is it the meth bill? Is it RIP? Is it what? Nothing so innocuous, no. It's some really crazy stuff. Crazy stuff? Yeah. You see that fan behind you? The one jumping up and down? I'm going to throw something at it, and when it hits, that's what's happened to us. Oh, the spinning fan. Yeah. I thought you meant, like, the people who, of course, adore me. Careful, duck. All right, here we go. What is this now? This is a court order. Well, not really a court order, but more like a legal order. Guess who's being deposed next? Jack? Jack was deposed a week ago. Jack was deposed. Yeah, in fact, we're supposed to have the testimony from Jack Vellante up on our website. We're still waiting for it. We expect it to be up later tonight. And as soon as it gets up, as soon as it gets to us, it will be on the website. You can see just what Jack said. I know what Jack said. I read the whole thing, but I can't talk about it because it might be, you know, said to be secret. I can say that. I didn't see anything in there that I thought was secret. Well, I thought it was supposed to be out three days after it was. It was. I don't know. I don't know how these things work. That's strange. Okay. It's not out. We're still waiting for it. So, who's next? Uncle Walt? I think what happens is that it goes to the place that has to, like, blackout everything. Right. And they were short on the blackout stuff. So. I see. They have to wait until they finish, which I think will be tonight. That's what I'm told. No. So, Jack was deposed already. All right. I'm going to guess Uncle Walt. Uncle Walt? Walt Disney is in a freezer somewhere. What do you mean? All right. Well, who's that guy who's running his company now? Michael Eisner? Michael Eisner? That's him. Mikey. Yeah. Mikey. No, it's not Mikey. Not Mikey? No. Who's next? You got me stumped. Rupert Murdoch? You're barking up the wrong tree. That's a big hint. The wrong tree. Yeah. The wrong tree. Go to a different tree. All right. So, not the plaintiff. The defense. Go to a different tree and bark up that one. Sarah, are you next? Yes. You're next. You're being deposed. Isn't that nice? I've always wanted to be deposed. You're being deposed. It sounds really horrible. It sounds like you're being executed or something. It does sound that way. And it kind of feels that way, too. He's being thrown from the crown. See, here's the problem. Okay? Now, I don't mind. I don't mind, you know, this nonsense, having to go into court and testify, you know, as to just what it was that the ECSS was meant to do and why this whole thing is a big, silly waste of time. I have no problem with any of that. It's just that there are so many other things that we have to be doing now. We have a conference. Did you know our conference starts a month from tomorrow? Yes. H2K is a month from tomorrow, July 14th through 16th, and we released the preliminary list of speakers. It's on the site right now, and I should caution, that is only a preliminary list. It's going to get bigger, probably significantly bigger, and the scheduling, well, the scheduling is going to be done in a bit because we have to pretty much iron out where everybody's going to be, what time they're going to do what they want to do, but it's really coming together. We have a lot of interesting people, nice panels to talk about, and we're still open to suggestions. We'll try to fit some other things in if people have ideas, and also there are some panels that are open to other people as well. There's one on there in particular, the high school horror story one. Did you see that one? Yes. Basically, people who have gone, we see the letters in the magazine all the time. People go through these horrible tales of woe because they figure out how to get to a DOS prompt on a machine in their high school, and all of a sudden, they're being expelled, charged with crimes, accused of all kinds of horrible things. Well, we want to get those people up there on stage telling their stories, topping each other with the tales of the unbelievable, and maybe some of the media people will actually rub off on them and say, hey, this isn't right, this shouldn't be happening. Another panel we're going to have, which I think is going to be very interesting, parents of hackers. That'll be kind of interesting. Parents of hackers. If you have a kid who's a hacker, you can get up there and tell us some of the things. You're going to make them stand up and say, hi, my name's Eddie, and my child's a hacker? We're not going to make anybody do anything. People have to want to do this, and then they can come forward to us and say they want to do this. If they do, I'm sure we'll hear all kinds of interesting stories about what it's like to have a kid who's a hacker, get phone calls for the Sultan of Death or whatever his name happens to be. I'm sure the things we don't think about, things that parents have to go through. True. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, I'm being deposed. It's supposed to happen next Tuesday. I don't know if that's actually going to happen next Tuesday. It's possible it might be rescheduled. Like next Tuesday before the show? Yeah. Isn't that something? They figure it out. What could be most inconvenient? They couldn't do three in the morning. Well, you're going to be down here anyway, over by the courthouse. Not at 10 a.m. in the morning, I won't. Well, it might take a long time to throw you from your phone. Well, that's what they say. They say it'll go on for as many days as necessary. It'll be just like Clinton. And they can videotape it, too. It's going to be videotaped. Is that edition going to be videotaped? Yeah, it's going to be videotaped and aired live on C-SPAN. Woo-hoo! Yeah. I'm joking about the air live on C-SPAN. Oh. It'll be aired on tape delay. But we certainly want to get it out as quickly as possible. I don't know, though, last week, of course, the court ruling said that you had to wait three days or 10 days, depending on the person. So I'm not sure if we'll be bound by that or if we'll be able to release it immediately. I'd like to go right now. I want to get this thing over with. I want to answer these questions. You know, I'm ready for the trial. But, of course, the trial is the day after the conference, because that's what's most inconvenient to us, because we have to worry about a trial while we're doing the conference and the film, which will be debuting at the conference. It's just everything's coming together. Oh, boy. Unbelievable. So, anyway, they want all kinds of things that we've got to scramble to prepare. Although, you know, a lot of this, a lot of what they're asking for, it's like they don't really seem to understand what we're all about. The other lawyers, the lawyers that want all this paperwork from us, including all kinds of corporate papers that simply don't exist, because we're not that kind of corporation. You know, they want minutes. They want minutes from 2600 meetings. Can you imagine what that's like? Minutes from 2600 meetings? If anyone has ever gone to a 2600 meeting, you know we don't have minutes. We don't keep minutes. We don't keep hours. We don't keep anything. It's informal. The whole thing is informal. It should take minutes at the next meeting. Well, it's too late for this. Next meeting won't be until July. That's right. It'll be July. Yeah. So, yeah, it's basically a motion to go to this place for dinner, you know. That's what it comes down to. That's really it. And even then, it's like, you know, I'm leaving for food, and then a whole bunch of people go along. But there are other things in here that I guess we should all be concerned with because they want... They're not asking for any encryption keys or anything, are they? Not per se. They're asking for all email having to do with the ECSS and things like that. That's interesting. Well, fortunately, I could see that coming, and I haven't been keeping any email of that sort. But, yeah, they want everything. A corporate organizational chart for 2600. Yeah, they want to know about the board of directors. That's going to be nice and simple. EG. I don't know. And they're going to want to talk to everybody involved. That means you guys. What do you think about that? Really? Yeah. That's fine with me. I have nothing to hide from them. I mean, they can talk to me. I'll tell it just like it is. I'm fine with them. In fact, I'd like to talk to them. Bernie, I know you're raring to go. Oh, I can't wait to get to them. Carl, how about you? Sounds pretty groovy. I just want to give Jack a hug. Jack's not going to be there. Just lawyers and a stenographer. And they're going to grill you for everything you know. The funny thing is, you know, I'll say this now, I don't really know a whole lot about the intricacies of DVD encryption. All I know is that this program basically figured out how to get around the encryption, and that is good enough for me. That's what it's all about. Figuring things out. You know, showing how technology works. You can't suppress that. And you don't have to have an intimate knowledge of how exactly the algorithms work in order to stand up and put that up on a website. I think you're going to find that to be some of the most boring few hours of your life. You think so? Oh, yeah. Really? Being grilled? Well, you're not going to be grilled in the beginning anyway. You're basically going to sit in a room with a stenographer at the end of a table. Your lawyer is on one side with you. The other lawyer is on the other side with them. I want to see how that stenography machine works. Does anybody out there understand how the stenography machine works? They are really cool. I have a stenography machine. All right, Bernie, you can tell us. And how do they do it? I mean, they type? What is it that comes out on the paper? It's actually automated. Not automated. It's shorthand. You've seen shorthand. People write shorthand. I've heard of it. I don't know what it looks like. It's actually a bunch of strange symbols. It looks like hieroglyphics. It basically consolidates whole phrases and words that are common in the English language into single symbols. Really? Yeah. Now, you know, in the old movies, like Miss Jones, please take a letter. She'd sit down and she'd write this stuff down, but she wouldn't be spending a lot of time writing it down. Well, she was taking shorthand. There's different styles of shorthand that are approved by the American Stenography Association and all this kind of stuff. What I don't get, what I don't get, Bernie. A stenography machine is a typewriter, and each key pertains to one of these symbols. So as you hit this, and by the way, the keys are extremely quiet. They don't make a clacking sound like a typewriter would. I noticed. They're dead silent, because you don't want to disrupt the proceedings, obviously. And it's printed very silently, and the paper advances. It's very eerie, the thing is so quiet. Now, more recently, the one I have is mechanical. I just got it to play with it. But more recently, they have electronic ones. It just stores this shorthand on a disk. But Bernie, why is the paper so nice? It's like a roll of toilet paper going by. It's really, you know. Because you could have a whole sentence or two on like two or three inches of text. Usually less. I wonder if you could stick a roll of Scots in there, and it would actually work. I doubt it. In this particular case, they might as well replace the roll with the roll of toilet paper. Well, now you're showing contempt of court there, Bernie. I have the utmost of contempt for this judge and the court. But in any case, well, it's actually not the court. The judge, you know, he's trying to look fair. Well, I don't think he's trying that hard to look fair, even though we don't think he is being that fair. But I have most contempt for the plaintiffs in this case. Here's the thing. I think if we present the case and explain things in an illegible manner, I think, you know, the judge has no choice but to be fair because he's a judge. It has to be presented in the right way. I think one of the hardest things to explain to this judge might be that it's not about trying to profit from this thing. Most people have, most lawyers have, I mean, they're very money-oriented. Many of them. Our lawyer doesn't happen to be. But many lawyers, they just look at everything as money. You know, you sue someone. The only thing you can sue them for is for financial damages. Well, there's no, this whole distribution of DCSS had nothing to do with money. And that's the angle they're going to be getting at. And we're going to have to show them it just had nothing to do with financial gain or money. And they're going to be baffled because they'll say, like, why else would anybody do anything like this except to make money? That's where they're coming from. So I think that's going to be one of the hurdles to try to convince people that the whole hacker community who developed this thing and distributed it is not about trying to make a dime off of it. So I think that'll be tough. Absolutely. The other thing is just basically explaining the technology so that it's, you know, it's not about copying and pirating, as we've said a hundred times here. And it's something that just doesn't seem to rub off on people in the case. So that's the major challenge there is to get that word out. Bernie, anything new going on down there? I've been doing a lot of behind-the-scenes organizing for the H2K conference coming up. It's amazing how much work is involved. I think there's definitely more involved in this one than the previous two conferences. Absolutely. It's going for longer. There's more things going on. A lot more people are involved. And certainly a lot more people have pre-registered. So we're looking at record crowds and record all kinds of things, I guess. We're going to be having volunteer meetings in the weeks before. And check the H2K website for announcements of that as we plan that out. And probably in a couple of weeks we'll have the final volunteer meetings. And all the other committees are pretty much already together as far as organizing the network. The network's going to be really cool. We're just walking over there today and planning the whole thing out. So by all means, bring your computer, bring your laptop. We'll be running around the clock. We'll keep the net up. We'll have all kinds of challenges and games and fun things. Hey, Emmanuel, I've got a question. For the people who are bringing their computers, will they need to bring long Ethernet cables and or extension cords, power extension cords? It can't hurt. It's a good chance we'll have a lot of that. But it can't hurt to bring more cords. The more cords, the better. You can always use a cable somewhere. So, yes, by all means. Got a bit of interesting news, which I'm sure you guys are going to like. Antivirus vendor Computer Associates International Inc. is warning e-businesses and home users of VBS slash plan A. Plan A from outer space? Apparently. I don't think so. No. VBS slash plan A. It's a worm, a new VBS-based e-mail worm that spreads by sending itself to all entries in a, guess what, Microsoft Outlook address book. Oh, how unique. Whoa. This worm is similar to the dangerous I love you worm and has the potential to overload mail servers, which can result in denial of service. It has been seen, quote, in the field, unquote, and is being watched closely. Now, here's the thing that's a little different about this one. The worm arrives with the subject line, U.S. President and FBI secrets. Please visit www.2600.com. Really? I only, I knew it was a matter of time before some imbecile out there did this and put our name on it. So, yeah, I guess the website's getting all kinds of hits now. Where are they? It contains the message text, very joke. I don't know. English apparently isn't even this person's third language. Very joke. Very joke. See President and FBI top secret pictures. That's it. You don't have any FBI secret President stuff? We'll have to get them now. Now we've got to put the FBI secrets up, otherwise people will be disappointed. No, but this is stupidity. Of course, it doesn't come close to the stupidity that Microsoft demonstrates by continuing to put out products that are susceptible to this kind of thing. It was supposed to put out a patch like a month and a half ago now. Has anyone seen it yet? How about last year after Melissa? Oh. It came out with a very effective patch recently. Which is? It just basically disallowed any kind of attachments. Well, that's productive. It was very effective. I don't know. Please, people, whoever's out there sending these things. I mean, it's very simple. Isaac, how easy is it to send one of these things out? You simply send it out. Email? Yeah, I mean, the source is already there. All you have to do is mail it. It's easy. This is not the work of a hacker. A hacker can write it. That's what they're trying to make illegal is even writing the thing. But a hacker can figure out how something will work. But to actually send it out, that's an act of maliciousness and any idiot can do that. And obviously, idiots are doing it all over the place. That's how it propagates. Most things propagate through idiocy. It thrives on the ignorance of lowly users. Let's have a contest, Emmanuel. Yes. Let's have a contest to see when viruses are not the top news story on the evening news. I mean, the past few weeks, every few days you hear it's like a leading story. When will this stop being a leading story? Eventually, people will get bored or some new threat will come along and they'll move on to that. I think it will turn into general computer security with the target of hackers as the evil demon. That bone in my leg, which makes me very afraid, is starting to act up again. Yeah. The Lovebug case was dropped. Did you hear about this? No. Yeah. The Philippines authorities have dropped the case against a bank worker suspected of involvement in the damaging Lovebug virus. Senior State Prosecutor Jafar de Mampal said there was no law which could be used to prosecute 27-year-old Rinaldo Ramones. Ooh, the missing Ramones brother. He was arrested after investigation into the origin of the Lovebug led to a flat which he shared with his girlfriend. Mr. Ramones claimed it was a case of mistaken identity. Officials did not say if they would bring any charges against other suspects. The prosecutor said the country's National Bureau of Investigation could not produce the extra evidence ordered by a court to allow a case against Mr. Ramones to proceed under the Access Device Act. The Act deals with illegal use of passwords for credit cards or bank accounts for money. Meaning that it didn't have anything to do with those. I might add, I looked at their particular law. It was closely modeled, copied after United States Criminal Code, Title 18, Section 1029. It keeps coming up, I'm familiar with it. Yeah, it keeps coming up. So they basically took some of the good parts out of that, or bad parts out of that. But they failed to include some of the stuff that's in Section 1030 of our U.S. Criminal Code which pertains to this sort of thing, unauthorized access to computers. So I'm sure before this show is over, they'll have some updates to their criminal statutes. So the next person who sends an I love you virus from the Philippines won't be so free right now. They say, his lawyers say he may have accidentally sent out the virus. Accidentally sent it out by mistake. Whoops. Which I guess is doubly accidental. The bug was spread via an email bearing the line, I love you is believed to have affected at least 45 million computer users. I don't know a single one of them, do you? No one loves me. Alex, you know somebody? Since you said it propagated through idiots, I believe that we had quite a few cases in my office. Oh really? Yeah. I think it's people like that that spread these sort of things. They seem to be doubly contagious. It caused billions of dollars in damage, they say. Did it cause any damage to you guys? Billions of dollars. Well, I think our damage was actually in the trillions. We have a civil suit against this guy pending right now. Do you mind if I join that? You can join that, that's fine. Never sent to me, but I had to hear about it. I think the damage is already existing when you're susceptible to things like that. You can't blame anybody for that. It's a stupid thing to do, sending out something like that, but come on. You've got to wake up and fix these things, you really do. You know what I think is interesting is where most of the viruses came from in the 80s and early 90s. Do you know where most of them came from? You mean physically, where they came from? Yeah, physically. Geographically. Geographically? Well, I know a lot came from Bulgaria. Bulgaria. Yeah, I know these things. That's right, he does know something. He can't hack his way out of a paper bag. No, I can't hack my way into a paper bag. Once I'm in there, I can get out. No problem there. Are we online? We're on the net, aren't we? Well, he's downloading drivers. How did you do that? How did you plug into the net on the console? There's a phone under the thing there. I stole one of the cables from the headphones. We plugged it in using my account, and we're online. Well, we're using a phone. We don't know what phone we're using. Someone could pick up at any time. It could be this red light. Oh, no, that's Bernie. That's you. All right. So we are plugged into the net. So get onto the net. I'm on the net. You're on the net? He's downloading drivers for your new computer. Go onto the official IRC channel for this show, which is on irc.2600.net. Channel, if I'm not mistaken, OTH. I don't believe I have an IRC client on this machine. Well, you're going to have to work on that. You have 35 minutes. This is something I've been wanting to do for years. Everyone's gathering around to help Carl with the IRC client. All right. You're going to get us on IRC, and join the channel, and say hi to everybody. Oh, come on. This is something I've wanted to do for years. What? Now all of a sudden people want to get me. Get on IRC? No, like be online while we're live on the air. But you don't have a computer. Well, yes. That would be a major hurdle. But, you know, I've been wanting to do this for years. Now all of a sudden he's downloading drivers for your computer, and you want him to hop on IRC? Yes, absolutely. What's the point of having a computer if you can't hop on to IRC? All right. I'm not even going to touch that one. Anyway, we have this mail from a listener. I was wondering if you ever considered posting MP3 files of the show, that it would be more convenient to listen to your show with MP3 disc players, like the Apex AD600A. I guess there are units also available for vehicular use. Then I could listen to your show on my way to work in my car. Actually, one could also download the show into a portable MP3 Walkman. MP3 is an open standard, not controlled or owned by a corporation like Real Audio. I know that I can stream MP3 files if I'm able to catch the show live, but this rarely happens. To the contrary, you have to spend large amounts of money to get the standard out of ISO. Sure you do. Keep shaking your head. I mean, admittedly, you could go down to a local library or a university library, but, you know, it's just not published out there. It's from the MPEG Standards Committee. But continue, I'm sorry. You always have to ruin everything, don't you? I'm sorry, you know, I'm just correcting you. So now you're saying MP3 is not open source? No, it's an open standard, but you're going to have to shell out some bucks to get a copy of it. Unless, of course, you go to a school that has a full ISO library or ISO access, or you have a company that has the ISO publications. Email a comment on this, oth2600.com, attention, Isaac. But we've gotten a lot of pieces of the mail like this, people that want to hear the show in MP3. And I've got some good news. Finally, finally we found a program that will convert Real Audio files into MP3. And it sounds just as good. Sounds just as good. There's no signal degradation at all. It just takes time to actually plug them in. We've got to figure out a way to do them en masse, where we get every single show and convert them all. So are you going to just move to MP3 totally, or are you going to support Real Audio as well? We'll continue to support both, I think. Just get a bigger hard drive. That was the discussion we were having a while back. But, you know, if it can be done, you know, quickly, then it's okay. We can do it that way. Yeah. That's after all this other garbage gets out of the way. You know, after the conference, after the trial, after the film, then we'll work on this. So, yeah, we'll get there. We will. Sounds good. Anyone have advice on how to do it quickly, we're up for it. Here's a question, and I'm sure Bernie or Isaac, you probably know the answer to this. This person says he was reading in the manual for his modem, and under regulatory information it reads, The FCC requires us to provide you with the following information. If it is determined that the equipment still fails to operate properly, the FCC requires that the unit be disconnected from the telephone line until the problem has been corrected. Repair to this equipment can only be made by the manufacturer, its authorized agents, or others who are authorized by the FCC. Does that imply that if my modem somehow breaks, that I can't try to fix it lawfully? Yes and no. Well, tell us the no part first. Well, if you fix it personally, you void the FCC certification. Basically what they're saying is the manufacturer, an authorized agent of the manufacturer, an authorized agent of the FCC, is only allowed to crack the thing open, perform repairs, for it to retain its FCC classification and certification. So if you do that on your own, it basically no longer becomes an FCC Class B device or whatever it is. It may work, and it may work well. It will work well. That doesn't mean you're illegal. Correct. It is no longer classified by the FCC as a device that can be used. And you're not permitted to attach anything, I believe. Correct me if I'm wrong on this, Isaac. You're not legally permitted to attach anything that's not FCC, what is that, Part 68 or something? I forget what it is. I think it's Part 68. You're not permitted to attach any hardware to the public switch telephone network. You can't plug anything in your phone jack. It's not FCC certified as not being able to cause damage to the network. Now, you can buy a thing called a DAA, a data access arrangement, which is sort of like a buffer interface, and you can connect whatever the hell you want to that thing. To that, which connects to the PST, yeah. In fact, all modems, if you look at them carefully, they all have a DAA, or data access arrangement. It's usually shrunk down into a little chip or module. So, anyhow, that's how that works. Have you guys heard about this latest story of hacker attacks, with the usual lack of information and overall sense of impending doom? It's called Hackers Poised for Attack. Well, gee, what reputable source does this come from? This comes from the Associated Press. In a dark, musty office, ominously called the Attack Lab, a bunch of former government sleuths worked through the night to discover a major new threat to Internet users. Yes, Bernie? Is this the NetSec people? Yes, it is. Okay, there's a good quote at the end of that article. Well, let me get to it. Okay. Prompted by an attack on one of their own computers, network security technologies investigators unraveled a possible future attack on major websites and some 2,000 compromised computers, mostly belonging to home users. Oh, my God. Someone's going to turn them off? Well, that way it gets to the people this time. It's not just the corporations. It's you. It's you at home. Did they say anything about stealing identity in that? I'm sure they'll get to that. The hackers had access to all the computers' secrets, passwords, personal files, and all, and can at any point launch a crippling assault similar to February's attacks that included CNN's news site, the Yahoo! Internet directory, and Amazon.com. The hackers, who used the nicknames Serbian and Badman, just in case you thought these were nice people, no, Serbian and Badman, tested their network of infected computers Wednesday night, said NETSEC. They tested it Wednesday night somehow. And that alerted the Justice Department. NETSEC alerted the Justice Department on Thursday. The firm, which does work for the department, gave the government a list of the computers that had been infected with the malicious program, which cloaks itself as a movie file. Even large computer companies were penetrated by the hackers. The problem demonstrates the growing vulnerability that home computer users face as they purchase permanent high-speed connections to the Internet and download movies that they're not supposed to be looking at. I think you should point out, Emanuel, who the people at NETSEC are or where they came from. Get in there. Without special software to protect them, Internet surfers using cable modem and digital subscriber lines are easy prey. Anybody who is directly connected to the Internet through cable modems or DSL is extremely susceptible to these backdoor programs. We have seen many, many attacks coming onto these people's machines, said Vincent Weefer, director of Symantec Corporation's Antivirus Research Center in Cupertino, California. The security firm watched the hackers add to their numbers daily. They're gathering up their armies, and as that number increases, so will their testosterone level, said Todd Waskeles, a vice president at NETSEC. Yes, armies, Isaac. By the way, you weren't at the last meeting. What meeting? The last meeting of your local... Oh, chapter, I'm sorry. Yes. Yeah. Did they just rip that line straight out of the movie Hackers? They're ripping it all straight out of the movie Hackers. And they said testosterone level. Well, that wasn't in the movie Hackers. That's a sexist remark. That's right. We have female hackers. That's right. ABC has been reporting recently. That's absolutely right, yeah. Serbian could very well be female. So could Batman. That's very true. Just be throwing them off. That's what it's like to be the Batman. Well, if you're female, you're Batman, I guess, because you're not a man. Yeah. You're a very poor excuse for it. The Herndon, Virginia-based company first learned of the hackers' plans when the vandals tried to penetrate one of NETSEC's computers and protective software detected it. Maybe it was defective software that detected it, too. NETSEC was founded by two alumni... ...of the National Security Agency. Hey, you know this. The National Security Agency and the Defense Department. Well, being that one is part of the other, I'd imagine that it's fairly accurate. Their office, located in suburban Washington, resembles an electronic fortress. Cameras line the hallways, and most of the company's employees aren't authorized to access secured rooms. The attack lab with its scattered computers resembles an abandoned office in a university computer science department. Here, firm engineers track computer vandals worldwide. As opposed to soft engineers. No, we're all hackers in the traditional sense of the word, where Scala said, if we find something like this, we want to pick it apart and see what it's doing. So why don't you say that again, Emanuel? What, we're all hackers in the traditional sense of the word? This is former NSA and Defense Department people admitting that they are hackers. If we find something like this, we want to pick it apart and see what it's doing. So he's implying that that's what hackers do. They pick something apart to see what it's doing. That's right. As long as they're picking apart something that comes from an individual, not something that's corporate, I guess it's okay. One attack lab engineer calls himself a grey hat hacker. One who keeps within the law, but still keeps close to the hacker underground. I've done some of my own penetration testing, he said with a wink. Oh my God. I think the reporter just had the wool pulled over his eyes. Testosterone levels going up. That's right. Yet another was in the U.S. Army doing counterintelligence work and information warfare. You know, information warfare is not just a commonly used phrase. Oh, wonderful. And terrorism. That's right. He worked in Yugoslavia protecting the U.S. computer infrastructure against hack attempts. An interesting coincidence since the hackers call themselves the Serbian Intelligence Agency, though NETSEC investigators don't believe they are in Serbia. The hackers planted a file that looks like a movie clip on home and commercial computers across the world. The file essentially turns the infected computer into a zombie machine that the hackers can control. The computer has dubbed the file Serbian Badman Trojan. Sounds like a kindergarten kid named it. Sounds like a porn movie. Serbian Badman Trojan. Stay away from me. You're bad. You notice how they don't tell you what the file is so that you can't protect yourself? You know? They don't tell you any details. I have a feeling it's a hoax. There is no file. There is no Serbian. There is no Badman. There's nothing. Until I see some evidence. I just can't believe this. If you look at articles that came out in the few days after that, a bunch of groups, the FBI's group and also CERT came out and said this is even on our horizon. It's been totally blown out of proportion. Yep. They basically just denounced the whole thing. I'm not surprised. This happens all the time. Remember the Hacker Congress a couple of years ago where supposedly there was this tremendous lobbying group that hackers had and these little kids were making corporate America run scared and demanding cars and payment for taking a virus off their system. It's just utter nonsense. These reputable magazines print it without question. The Associated Press prints this without question. But there's no evidence. Just like the Kevin Mitnick story all over again. You say all these things but there's no evidence to actually point out the details. There was one. Hackers controlling UK satellites. Right. That was a favorite of mine. UK satellites. Nonsense like that. That was reported as a major real story, a genuine story by major U.S. media outlets. Absolutely. Well, the M.O.D. was kind of standing there like, Huh? What? Yeah, shouldn't we know about this? Anyway, armed with information gleaned from the infected computers, the hackers can then use the infected computer as a permanent gateway to access personal and corporate files or to launch massive denial of service attacks on websites. Right away, that paragraph gets everybody upset. Gets, you know, Grandma upset with her computer back home because someone could be reading her mail permanently. It's permanent. There's no cure. They own you from that point on. You're going to have to torch the machine, throw it in the dumpster. And corporate files, every corporation in America now is scrambling, saying, Oh my God, what are we going to do? They could destroy us. Back to paper! You know, I wish they would go back to paper. I really do. Well, they never really left paper. Don't you remember the promise of a paperless office? Yeah. At this point, we're using more paper than ever. Isn't that fun? Anyway, NETSEC officials said they uncovered computers across the world that were penetrated by the hackers, including Austria, Greece, Canada, Russia, France, and the United States. Let's throw in a few more. Name a country. India. Okay. If anybody has real information, please pass it on to us. LTH2600.com. Let's see. Here's a letter concerning Freedom Downtime. Interested, excited about seeing Freedom Downtime. Was wondering if it will be shown at DEFCON 8 in Las Vegas. It will be shown at DEFCON 8 in Las Vegas. It will be shown at DEFCON 8 in Las Vegas. Right now, it's being shown only at H2K, only on Friday night, 8 p.m. Aw, come on. Hey, it hasn't even been released yet. We're just hoping we get it done in time. Come on. And we have no idea what we're going to do with it after then, so ask us after we... I mean, you know... Come on. We have to see how people react to it. If people start jumping out the windows, you know, it's not something we're going to want to show again. Well... We'll have to see. So we can't say anything about that just yet. Okay, we have... You know you want to. No, I don't. We have a story here, and we'll start taking some phone calls. 212-209-2900. Isaac, the current issue of Playboy, which you probably have, there's an interesting story. That's for the articles. Yeah, well, this is a good article. I don't subscribe to Playboy. This is a good article. I want to look at this picture. Your current issue. I've never seen one of those before. Yeah. Hey, that's not a Playboy picture. That's not a Playboy picture. That's not a Playboy picture. That's not a Playboy picture. Hey, that's not a Playboy. That's a printout. It's a 2001 model. July 2000 issue. Actually, I'm looking at the webpage. Oh, okay. There's nothing other than articles on the webpage. At least, nothing I know of. I'm a private person. I'm going to read this article here. The Invisible Man Lying Low in the Global Village. I'm a private person, a very private person. This article's for you, Isaac. The other day, I bought new eyeglass frames. The clerk retrieved the form. Address, she asked? I live in Spain. She gave me a puzzled look then wrote down the address of the store. Telephone number? Sorry, no telephone. Date of birth? Why on earth do you need my date of birth? It's what we use to identify our customers. I do not wish to be identified. Long pause. She left it blank. The next item asked for a social security number. The clerk didn't bother to ask. Good plan. I've been facing these challenges head on since 1959 when I closed down my outdoor advertising business in the Midwest and moved my family to the Canary Islands. Less than a year later, I was arrested by Franco's secret police. After I spent a sleepless night in an unheated cell, they admitted they had made a mistake. A friendly officer walked me out apologizing. I asked him how he could avoid similar problems in the future. That's what I've been doing ever since. There are five levels of relative invisibility. Most Americans are at level zero. Yes, at level one, you're... Is that a programmer? No, no. At level one, your phone number is unlisted and your mail doesn't come to your home address. At level two, your utilities and phone are in another name. The license plates on your cars cannot be traced. You shred your trash. At level three, your home or rental property is in the name of a trust. Your bank account is in the name of a nominee. You travel under other names. This is my level. At level four, you are duplicating the methods used by the government to protect witnesses. When the feds do it for a mobster, it's legal. When you do it for yourself, it's illegal. Forget level four, Isaac. Forget it. Forget it. It's not necessarily illegal. If you're serious about privacy, as I am, your life becomes a series of hassles. When I get a prescription, for example, I ask the doctor to record only my first initial and last name. At the pharmacy, I answer only the questions required by state law. Last name, first name, address, and date of birth. I fudge the year. Fifteen minutes later, I have my prescription. Another example. I am stopped for speeding. My car is legally registered in three states. I am using my Washington plates. I hand the officer my license, which is from a state that does not require a social security number, as our state does not. I also give him the registration, which is in the name of a limited liability company with an Illinois address. Where do you live? I give the cop the address and my license. Do you work for this company I say no. I own the company. I don't tell him that all the company owns is the car. And what is your social security number? With all due respect, officer, I do not give that number to anyone. We track all fines by social security number. May I have that number, sir? If it's not a law, I regret to say I cannot provide it. Now you see, I wasn't able to do that. You know, I don't know. Well, you're going to be asked for it in your deposition. But I think they already have my SSN. Okay. I'll mouth off to them at your request. No, I'm not saying mouth off. I'm just telling you what to expect. The cop stares at me then hands me the ticket to sign. The box for my number is left blank. People occasionally ask me what I have to hide. Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko answered that question well in 1975 when a caller asked him if people don't have anything to hide, why should they care if somebody investigates them? Royko asked What the hell is that to you? Do you own stocks, bonds or real estate? And how is your relationship with your wife? My wife? How much income tax did you pay last year? And on how much income? Let's have the facts. You're a nut, said the caller and hung up. Royko had made his point even if the caller didn't comprehend it. You don't have to be a fugitive or a tax scofflaw I'm neither to value your personal space. My wife once wondered aloud if I were drifting towards paranoia but the world would be a better place than here. Whatever the news we sleep soundly. That's a really good article from the current edition of Playboy. I suggest people check that out. I don't know how good it is. It's a great article. What do you mean how good it is? It tells you everything you need to know. Who is it by? Yeah. Who is it by? Do you think it's a pseudonym? JJ Luna is the name. JJ Luna. Go ahead. Track him down. I'm not going to track him down. It's not worth my time. It's not illegal to go under a presumed or rather an assumed name. In fact, the only time it becomes illegal is when you're trying to defraud someone. If you're not defrauding anyone you can call yourself whatever the hell you want to call yourself. Yeah, but I think the methods used to protect mobsters are slightly higher than people just using pseudonyms. They have to file all kinds of fake paperwork. The Federal Witness Protection Program? Federal Witness Protection Program, yeah. Well, that's because they have access to the databases and they put in the extra records and do all the nifty switch-o-tune stuff. It's an interesting point though. Remember, it's not paranoia if they really are after you. And they really are. Yes. Bernie, you know that, right? Hey, if everybody's out to get you, paranoia is just good thinking. Exactly. So, Carlo, we're on IRC. All right. You're on the LTH channel? How many people are there? I don't know. You forgot to join the channel, didn't you? Okay, this person logging in now, folks who are on the IRC channel is representative of us. I don't think there's anyone on here. Maybe it's off the hook. You have to be on IRC.net. If you're not, well, then, it's not going to work. That's the only server it's going to work on. All right. Oh, wow, Carlo's figuring that out. Let's take some phone calls. 212-209-2900. Country code is 1 if you're calling from outside the... That's because we're number 1. ...immediate country, not counting Canada or the Virgin Islands or places like that. Good evening. You're on the air. Hi there. I've got a suggestion about Dapster and interested in hearing your opinion. Mm-hmm. Since the, whatever it is, Motion Picture Society or whatever the... MPAA, Motion Picture Association of America. Right. Since they're claiming that Napster is responsible for so much money being lost... That would be the recording industry of America. Yeah. It's RIA. You know, whatever it is. You know, why don't they just spend the money and just buy Napster? I mean, I think the problem is that a lot of people don't want to break the law and, you know, download copyrighted information, but there's no legal way to do it. Mm-hmm. So why don't they just buy the technology, you know, put whatever, you know, fees they want and people will either go there or not. I mean, wouldn't that solve the problem? Well, you know, that problem was addressed, if it even is a problem, with when cassette tapes were an issue. And what they did, and I think this is completely fraudulent on the part of the recording industry, but they put a fee onto every blank cassette that people buy with the assumption that every blank cassette is going to be used to sell a product or every blank cassette is going to be used to pirate music somehow. So they were able to quell their hurt feelings by giving them money from that when there's, you know, no indication at all that it hurts them in any way. And in fact, you know, record sales are at an all-time high, so I don't think it has in any way. But what I suspect they may try to do is add some sort of surcharge to technology like computers or, you know, maybe they will try to sell Napster. I don't see how that could work. I really don't. I think what they're trying to do is try to establish a precedent. If they establish a precedent in a court, a court of law, then they can use that, they can use that legal precedent against anybody else who comes out with a program that works similarly to Napster. So that wouldn't put the genie in the bottle if they just bought Napster. That's the danger with court precedents because that's exactly what happens. You know, you're establishing law and if it's a bad law, then a lot of people are going to suffer as a result. And that's the weight that's on our shoulders as a court. Well, you're establishing a precedent, right? They should do what the print media is doing and they're putting e-books out there and stuff before the equivalent of Napster for books happens. You know, the book publishing company is actually doing something and allowing you to test it and make small purchases. They're a lot smarter than the music industry. See, I don't know a single person who would download a book on the net and print it out or do whatever to read. It's a pain in the ass. You know, I've tried it and it's okay if you have a palm device or a PD or something. Well, yeah. Reference books are nice because you can actually search them with a search feature and things like that. There's a Michael Crichton book you can get which is cool. I mean, it doesn't replace paper. It's nice, too. It doesn't replace paper and I think people are always going to want to buy a book and have it on their shelves. You're not going to have a bunch of little computer devices on a bookshelf saying, you know, CDs, DVDs, whatever, whatever it is people figure out how to copy in the future. You know, you're always going to want the original. It's going to be worth something. They have some rights suing people if they don't allow a legal way of getting it. You know, it's a customer demand in search of a business model that they haven't figured out yet. It's bogus. Right. Hey, thanks for the call. Thank you. Alex, you heard something interesting on the radio the other day. I can't remember the name of it, but I was traveling to the bank and I was listening to it and there was this man from NYU. He was a professor there and he was talking about Napster and he knew about the MPAA case as well. He was a very learned guy. He spoke very well and he called the flourishing of Napster a rational revolution of the young people. Rational revolution. Meaning a revolution of rationality. Using your reason to revolt and I think that was brilliant. I think that was wonderful. And he said, you know, young people who don't make that much money, they know that CDs don't cost $18 or $20. They know that they're a couple bucks and nobody can really afford them and this is their revolt. It's sort of like an oblique act of civil disobedience. Interesting. And I think that's what he said. He said, you know, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, you know, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, you know, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, you know, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, you know, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're a couple bucks. And he said, young people who don't make that much money, they know that they're go to like any computers that they're like they have little terminals and you start like exploring the network around there and you go to one of these security guards and you tell them like they're like you have a security problem they'll actually give you ten bucks for telling them that it's actually pretty interesting yeah well is that their official policy I don't their policy just think that they're really nice there well I would tend to think that's just the right thing to do in general yeah it's like hey I've noticed something that you can probably change in configuration to make this whole system a lot more secure it's a ten bucks thing I think it's kind of weird the ten bucks thing is but I wouldn't be reporting these things just to get ten bucks I mean you know when you talk to the to the curator and say hey listen I think I can help you out yeah and also I just wondering have they selected the members for the jury on the MPA case it's not gonna be a jury trial it's gonna be a judge trial I believe I don't know you know to be honest I don't know when that decision was made I'd like to have a jury trial I don't know if they took away the jury jury rights for Kevin or anybody because maybe you'll be able them to kill anyone convicted of a crime especially a felony yeah likely to be disqualified from jury jury in fact our own Carl was recently disqualified from jury duty isn't that right Emmanuel that's right that's right Carl's sitting here could have been on a jury but he was rejected for some reason that he won't tell us but yeah you know you'll be rejected for all kinds of reasons if you know something about technology I think that's good enough for the prosecution to want to reject you because you'll just be a smart aleck and you'll understand too much I mean they won't say that obviously but they don't want people who understand the nuances of the case to actually be on the jury of course there isn't a jury but if that were the case I'm sure they would be objecting the people that actually knew what the ECSS was and how the whole encryption thing works prosecutors definitely do not want people on the jury who who understand how law enforcement officials really work mm-hmm yeah you know it's interesting thing one thing Carl did tell me about when he was being selected what they were asking people do you know anybody who is who has a drug problem I know you know I could not believe how unfair a question that was you know if you tell somebody the drug problem that means you're gonna be biased in favor of you know of you know the person who allegedly committed the crime how about asking do you know anybody who's a cop you know won't that bias you in the other direction just as much and it's it's totally unfair you know maybe you'll have some greater sense of justice if you know somebody who's been through some hard times I don't know maybe you won't be so quick to you know indict people for frivolous crimes if if you know how how minor it really is let's take one more phone call good evening you're on the air oh amazing make it really quick yes this is Daniel C and basically last week you were talking about the 800 number to report like facilities where they make lots and lots of copies of the piracy hotline exactly 30 or more machines yes you should report like Michael Eisner's office or you know Jack go Jack's office and just just for kicks well do you know for sure they're pirating videos I think they might get a clue wait a minute that's on this floor it's a it's a suggestion well we'll take it into advisement thanks thanks for the call to figure out what proof they want to see that there's 30 machines there yeah we should just get a stack of 30 machines just pile them up on the trains on the trains in Philadelphia they're these trying signs that have a an animated an animated be yes well you have to make it quick okay it says hey worker B use that stinger from the software piracy Association maybe those are great oh boy or your kids or your parents or anything like that folks we're out of time I'll say goodbye to people on IRC Carl and we'll see you next week Isaac tonight Chris nice stopping by have a good one it's WB I New York manual ghosting goodnight