Representative Burton should be made aware of this because his committee, his committee
is hearing evidence.
Do you believe in this?
I mean, I can't say one way or the other, but my tendency is I've never seen it.
His committee is hearing limited evidence to what went on or how informants are handled.
Why does the evidence have to be limited?
I don't understand that.
Well, it's kind of like when I'll ignore it.
In a different location and it shows the same thing just continues.
I don't understand why everything has to be prescribed.
Why is that?
Good question.
You know, if there's evidence, there's evidence.
They count on the stupidity of the American people.
You go back to Iran-Contra.
Every time drugs came up, the whole session was moved into secret session.
This is Valerie Van Ness, the general manager of WBAI.
We did it.
With your help, we made our goal for the winter 2000 membership drive by raising over $1 million.
This is the highest amount in years and was done in record time.
Your generosity and your concern for the station helped us do this.
Thanks to everyone who helped us achieve our goal.
Congratulations and many, many thanks for all the great work of the staff, the producers
and the hundreds of dedicated volunteers who came day after day, morning after morning
and made this possible.
Your contribution to this historic effort is deeply appreciated as we all work together
to rebuild our beloved WBAI and the network.
Again, thanks a million.
And even better than reaching the goal for winter 2000, we reached the goal for winter
2002 as well, which I imagine is probably a little bit more.
It certainly would need to be.
This is WBAI New York.
It's Tuesday night.
It's eight o'clock and guess what?
We're not preempted.
Off The Hook is on the air.
Well, we've been, uh, we've been off the air for just so, uh, so long, it's, uh, it's
almost hard to figure out how to, uh, how to use the machinery around here.
Not that it's changed, not that it's been upgraded or anything like that, but it's,
uh, it's just been so, so long and we have so much material, so many things we have to
talk about tonight.
It's, uh, it's going to be very frustrating, especially since we want to take phone calls
as well.
Uh, this is Off The Hook, uh, Emanuel Goldstein here with you for the next hour or so.
Uh, and, uh, we have a lot of people here with us, um, that, um, have a couple of things
to, uh, to say and hopefully, as I said, we'll, uh, we'll take some phone calls.
Mike's here.
How you doing, Mike?
I'm doing all right.
Yeah.
Survived the last couple of weeks.
Okay.
I have survived.
That's good.
That's good.
And, uh, AutoJack, you're still here from, from San Diego in New York.
Just can't get away.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm still here.
It's, it's, it's great being in New York, isn't it?
Yeah.
And Claude?
You actually haven't left since the last time we were here.
You, you, you've sort of pitched a tent in the studio and you haven't left.
Yeah.
Okay.
Was I not supposed to mention that?
I guess.
Okay.
No, you shouldn't have mentioned that.
All right.
I guess I shouldn't mention the petition to have you put outside in Wall Street.
No.
It's part of the new, the new way of things.
Yeah.
We're more tolerant now.
We're more tolerant to people, you know, camping out here at the station.
But no, it's good.
It's good to see you and, uh, good to have all these, uh, friendly faces here.
And, uh, we have a couple other special surprise guests that we'll be, uh, dropping in in a
moment.
Let's, uh, take a look at some, uh, you guys have any, any updates you want to give?
Because I have a lot of updates here.
A lot of, a lot of things that have been going on.
I'm just looking at your pile of updates and I don't, I don't want to delay it.
Big pile.
I mean, I don't know how we're going to get even, even start to get through this.
A lot of news has been going on.
Some of you may have heard of, and some of you may not have heard of.
Let's, uh, let's see what we can, what we can do.
Uh, Microsoft's new version of its popular media player, which you, uh, may have heard
of, uh, media player software.
It's logging songs and movies that customers play.
Now, I don't think anybody can really say they're surprised by this, but, uh, that's,
that's the way it is.
Uh, the system creates a list on each computer that could be a goldmine for marketing companies.
Marketing companies, what the internet was created for.
Uh, also lawyers or all kinds of other people that want to know exactly what it is you're doing.
Microsoft says it has no plans to sell the data collected by media player eight, which
comes free with the Windows XP operating system.
Now, they did say they would change their privacy statement to notify customers about
the technology after they've already given it out.
Because everyone reads privacy statements.
Yeah, of course.
You have to read every single word of those things.
When a CD is played, the player downloads the disc name and titles for each song from
a website licensed by Microsoft.
I'm not sure what website that is.
I know when I use, um, uh, my particular player, which is on, uh, uh, Macintosh, it accesses
CDDB, which is a, uh, a database of virtually every CD out there.
And it gets the, uh, the information.
Now, if anybody out there understands how that is actually collected, I'd like to know.
I'd like to know if it's something, a serial number on the CD itself.
Is it, uh, a check sum of some sort based on, uh, on data that's on the CD?
If anyone understands how that works, that's, uh, that's something that, uh, I'd certainly
like to know.
And Autojack, actually, uh, since you're involved in, uh, one of the other projects that 2600
is embarking upon, namely our, uh, our, our musical selections.
We have, we're putting out films, we're putting out CDs, all kinds of things that will be
happening this year.
It's going to be a very interesting kind of weird year.
But, um, that's one thing we want to learn more about is how the actual encoding works
in CDs as far as that kind of data.
Because it's really cool when you can take a CD, imagine a CD that you don't have any
idea what it is.
Just falls out of, uh, you know, your player.
It doesn't have, you know, a name of the band because it's cool these days not to put the
name of the band on the CD to make it as hard as possible to figure out what the thing is.
In the first place.
So the only way to find out is to listen to it.
But if you don't know who it is, you know, you're really up the creek.
So you plug it into your Macintosh and, uh, all of a sudden this nifty little program
called iTunes, which is what I use, accesses the internet, goes out, goes to the CDDB database
or other databases too, which are also out there.
And it calls it up immediately.
It says what album it is and what songs and everything like that.
It's really kind of cool.
Anyway, going back to Microsoft, there's no easy way to clear out the log, uh, that, uh,
is, is created because when a CD is played, the player downloads the disc name and titles
for each song from that website.
Um, there's no easy way to clear it out without crippling media player.
That's according to Microsoft.
The only way to keep media player from going to the Microsoft site is to make the player
think it is working without an internet connection, which can be tedious if the user switches
between watching DVDs and listening to internet radio stations like this one.
And, uh, U.S. digital copyright law under attack.
This story coming directly from Reuters.
The U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which has been used to jail a Russian software
programmer and stifle websites, some of which we run right here, uh, is threatening the
free flow of information civil libertarians say.
They've been saying this actually for a number of years.
Uh, their struggle, which will eventually determine the course of how people view movies,
read books, and use other material over the internet has attracted luminaries like Grateful
Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow.
Um, we've known John for quite some time and, uh, we know that he's been opposed to this
because he's one of the founding members of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Um, Barlow, a co-founder, as I said, of the San Francisco based EFF has been at the forefront
of protecting individual freedoms online as the internet matured from the anarchistic
electronic playground of a decade ago to the pervasive regulated marketplace it is today.
Yes, Mike, uh, that, that, that pain you see in your face, uh, I see in your face.
That's, uh.
I wish it were true.
I really do.
You will.
No, you think that's maturity right there?
No, no.
I wish it were true that the internet used to be run by anarchists.
Well, I imagine if you went back to say, you know, the late seventies, early eighties or
whatever.
It was run by the Department of Defense.
I really wish that weren't the case, but it is.
Yeah, but as far as actually the people who actually used it, I mean, yeah, it was, it
was, it was paid for by the Department of Defense, but it wasn't run by, by the corporations.
There wasn't advertising every place.
It was anarchistic to a degree and, and freedom of speech seemed to be the norm.
And I, I miss those days, even though I never really participated in them because, you know,
I wasn't around back then, but, uh, I really wish it would go back to something like that.
I, I, I don't see it as maturity when it goes from an anarchistic electronic playground
to a pervasive regulated marketplace.
I also don't know if it's really that, uh, regulated yet.
I think there's a lot of regulation that's in the works, but.
They're starting.
They're starting, of course.
Scary.
Um, uh, John Perry Barlow says information does want to be free.
That's how the human mind works.
Um, he also said he, he, he's got the greatest quotes.
He always does.
Uh, he said the DMCA would turn what has become a natural rainforest into a desert.
Let's see what other, uh, what other soundbites I can get here.
Uh, it sucks, Barlow said when asked to summarize.
That's a good one.
That's a good soundbite.
Uh, when asked to summarize what he thinks of the law, it's unconstitutional.
Society has certain rights, like the right to know what supersedes the rights of content distributors.
All right.
And, uh, actually we have, uh, interesting event that's coming up, uh, in Philadelphia.
Uh, actually it's coming up next, um, next Monday, I believe.
Um, I'm thumbing through in case you can't tell all the, uh, pieces of paper that I have here.
Uh, it's, um, a debate on the digital millennium copyright act.
Um, that's being sponsored by national public radio.
Uh, here we go.
It's called Justice Talking and it's taped before a live audience at the, uh, I'm going to pronounce this wrong,
Wistar Institute.
So I'll, I'll pronounce it twice.
Wistar Institute.
Because I have no idea how you're supposed to pronounce that.
It's spelled W-I-S-T-A-R.
It's at the University of Pennsylvania's campus on 3601 Spruce Street.
And, uh, for reservations, all you have to do is simply fill out the form below.
Uh, which, uh, if you don't have the form below, you have to go to this website,
www.justicetalking.org
slash web slash tickets dot ASP.
Um, and here's, here's what they're saying about it.
And, uh, okay.
If you don't have the internet, then all you have to do is use the telephone.
If you don't have the telephone, I don't know what to say.
Uh, but the telephone number is, um, geographical code 215
and exchange 898 extension 7757.
Who will be the, uh, panelists for this debate?
Um, I'm getting to that.
Oh, sorry.
Boy, you're impatient.
I'm still going to read the summary of what it's about.
Um, Monday, March 4th, 2002, 4.30pm to 6pm.
DVD code breakers, copyright in a high-tech world.
Andrew Bunner cracked the computer code blocking people from copying material off protected DVDs.
After sharing that information over the internet,
the makers of DVDs sued him in court,
saying he is guilty of stealing and distributing unlicensed material.
But Bunner claims he only found the code
and is not distributing anything he has not created himself.
From Napster's file swapping to Bunner's unlocking DVD sounds and pictures,
what does the future hold for intellectual property in a digital world?
And, uh, yes, the, uh, panelists, you know what?
I don't have the panelists in front of me.
But, uh, I do understand, uh, that the NYU professor that, um,
that participated at H2K, whose name I can never say,
and I'm sorry about that,
is going to be debating one of the members of the MPAA.
So it's going to be pretty lively.
Uh, so there are free tickets to this.
Again, it's, um, it's next Monday, March 4th, 2002, 4.30pm,
in the city of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania campus, 3601 Spruce Street.
Uh, call 215-898-7757 or go to www.justicetalking.org for ticket information.
And hopefully we can make it down there.
And, uh, actually the guy, uh, one of the people working on the story
was up here at the radio station a few weeks ago.
Last time we were on the air.
Yeah, last time we were on the air, so long ago.
But it was one of the, um, background pieces for what they're going to air at NPR.
I don't know when it's going to air at NPR.
It's not a live thing.
They tape it.
So, uh, we'll see how that goes.
Oh, yes, ICANN.
The president of the Internet's top standard-setting body
proposed a radical restructuring of the organization on Sunday,
hoping to settle questions of legitimacy that have dogged it from the start.
M. Stuart Lynn, president of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers,
otherwise known as ICANN, and a few obscenities as well,
uh, suggested at a closed-door board meeting, and that's why,
that the group abandon the practice of allowing Internet users to elect some board members.
At our request, I guess, right?
I mean, that's always cause for concern when people elect board members,
and instead appoint government representatives to represent everyday users.
You know what the ICANN really needs?
It needs to be more like the WTO.
And this is, I think this is a positive first step towards that.
Well, it's definitely on the way.
Yeah, it's, uh, maybe they'll have demonstrations in the street as well,
you know, greeting them when they come to a city.
All right, well, anyway, the move would amount to a fundamental change in the nature of ICANN,
which was created in 1998 in order to transfer technical management of the Internet
from the U.S. government to an independent international body.
And this is one of the few times I can say that it was better off, you know,
in the hands of the U.S. government.
Lynn said the overhaul would create a more efficient, stable organization
that could focus on managing the system that guides web browsers and email around cyberspace,
rather than one preoccupied with its own internal workings.
Everyday Internet users would be better represented through their national governments
and through expensive global elections that may not attract a representative constituency.
You know, I'll bet Andy from Chaos is, like, the reason they're doing this.
Remember our friend Andy who got elected to the ICANN board?
Yeah.
Through a popular election?
Yeah.
Yeah, well, uh, now they want to bypass that.
They just want to appoint people that are already part of the government.
The move would also provide more stable funding, he said.
We would use the notions of agility and strength of a private corporation
with the notion that only governments can represent the public interest.
Yeah, let me say that again.
We would use the notions of agility and strength of a private corporation
with the notion that only governments can represent the public interest.
Yes, that's M. Stuart Lynn, president of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers,
the people that run the show.
The plan drew immediate cries of protest from some board members
who were elected directly by Internet users.
We've just had the equivalent of the president of the United States abolishing Congress.
That's according to Carl Auerbach, who represents North American Internet users.
Unbelievable, the crap these people are pulling and getting away with.
It just never seems to stop.
Okay, as far as those agencies go,
here's a notification of a new incident from Bernie S., actually.
Bernie S. sent us a mail a few weeks ago.
Almost 150 years ago, President Lincoln found it necessary to hire a private investigator,
Mr. Alan Pinkerton.
He was actually the beginning of the Secret Service.
Since that time, federal police authority has grown to a large number of agencies,
all with their own little acronyms.
FBI, CIA, INS, IRS, DEA, BATF, SSATF.
The list goes on and on.
Now Congress is considering a proposal for another agency,
the Federal Air Transportation Airport Security Service.
Who does that spell?
What's the acronym for that?
I'm not sure. I don't really have a lot of time tonight.
But I imagine it will be printed in big letters on the back of their jackets
Federal Air Transportation Airport Security Services.
Here's a letter.
We're mixing in the letters with the news stories right now.
As a listener to your show from England,
it can be difficult to give money to the radio station,
but thankfully the WBI.org website now accepts online transactions,
making it really easy to donate online.
That's true.
$125 to help keep a radio station on the air,
and advert free is a small price to pay.
That's Matt from Exeter in England.
Thank you so much, Matt, for your generous words of support.
And thanks to everybody who supported us.
I want to say that first week, I thought we were going to be on again.
I really did.
I was kind of surprised when we weren't.
But that's okay.
The important thing is that the station raised over $1 million.
During that first week, though, we were only on for an hour,
and in that hour we raised over $6,000.
We usually raise about $5,000 in three hours,
but we raised $6,000 in one hour.
So I think that says something to the enthusiasm of people
that the radio station is back
and the radio station is important.
And if that's not enough,
there have been some developments in the world of Clear Channel.
Clear Channel, you say?
Yes.
You remember, we've been talking about them for years.
They just keep buying up radio stations
and they just keep taking more and more power.
It's gone beyond that.
I mean, they not only buy radio stations,
they buy the rights to musicians.
It's horrible what's going on out there.
Basically, if you're a musician
and you want to play a concert someplace,
well, you kind of have to go through Clear Channel to do this
because they control the venues,
like Irving Plaza, for instance, here in New York,
controlled totally by Clear Channel.
So you can't have a concert there unless Clear Channel okays it.
Now, what do you think happens to those artists
who refuse to go along with this,
who decide that they don't want to use Clear Channel
to perform in public,
that they want to be independent or use somebody else?
Well, all of a sudden,
they'll find that their music
isn't being played on Clear Channel stations.
Isn't that weird?
And, you know, isn't that also kind of illegal?
It reminds me of payola,
where DJs or radio stations will get paid
in exchange for having their acts put on the radio.
It's a clear, to me anyway,
and not to the FCC apparently,
a clear violation of what a license holder
should be fulfilling when running a radio station.
But it gets even better than that.
I mean, these people own everything.
They own the venues.
They own the rights to musicians.
They own 300,000 billboards all throughout the country.
You can imagine what they do with those.
They own XM.
Okay, that's another thing.
XM, which everybody is saying,
oh, wow, this is a great alternative to FM.
It's not an alternative at all.
It's one corporation basically force-feeding you
its version of what it thinks radio should be
with no local inserts whatsoever.
UVAC for the masses.
Exactly.
Now, you know, some of the things there are good.
They do have some BBC news and some other things,
but it's not being created by anybody involved in radio here
in a local area, local market.
In fact, they had to get permission to put up towers
because while it's delivered by satellite,
it's bounced by towers, by regular transmitter towers.
But they had to swear, they had to promise
that they would not commit the cardinal sin
of emanating any local broadcasting
because to do that, they would be competing
with all the other stations out there
that aren't really providing any local broadcasting anyway.
A lot of them are owned by Clear Channel,
but yes, as you said, XM is,
I'm not sure if it's 50% owned by
or a majority owned by Clear Channel as well.
No, not 100% sure either.
It's pervasive all throughout.
But here's something that's even worse.
It gets even worse, and I just can't believe it.
But they do this thing called voice tracking.
And we got this information through Scott
over at WUSB in Stony Brook
where this has been a topic for quite some time.
This is the horrors of what's going on with radio.
Here's an example.
WRDU evening disc jockey Big Rig
is taking a call from a listener.
Can you imagine if we had somebody
on this radio station named Big Rig?
I can't even imagine.
Bill, out in Goldsboro tonight, the DJ says,
how you doing?
Doing all right, answers Bill before requesting a song.
It sounds like a typical moment
on one of the Triangle's commercial radio stations.
It's not.
Big Rig doesn't live in North Carolina.
Big Rig is actually the live afternoon host at WXTB,
a rock station in Tampa, Florida.
He recently started doubling as a virtual DJ
every weekday evening at WRDU in Raleigh, North Carolina.
After finishing his live afternoon shifts in Tampa,
he begins to prep for Raleigh.
Using announcements, music logs, news stories,
and more sent to him by WRDU's program director,
Big Rig records a few hours worth of spoken breaks
and transfers them via email or satellite
to the Triangle rock station.
Through the magic of digital technology,
the station is able to insert the bits
into its automated mix of music and commercials,
resulting in a show that sounds as if
Big Rig is here in the Triangle,
when in fact he lives 650 miles away.
Welcome to the world of long distance
or point-to-point voice tracking,
also known as cyberjocking.
The controversial radio practice creates the illusion
that faraway DJs live and work in the same market
as the listeners who are tuning in.
And as you might expect,
maintaining the illusion involves quite a bit of deception.
There's been a few articles about this.
Another case in Indiana, Indianapolis, I believe,
turned on the alternative rock station WRZX-FM 103.3
from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. weeknights,
and you might hear a new disc jockey
who calls himself Fletch,
talking about getting lost while driving around Indianapolis
or hanging around with the station staff at Hooters.
From listening to him, you'd guess Fletch
was sitting behind the control board
at 6161 Fall Creek Road where WRZX is located.
You'd be mistaken.
In fact, there is no announcer in the WRZX studio
from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. weekdays.
The truth is Fletch is in West Palm Beach, Florida,
where he does a 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. show
as well as the night shift for X-103
and in Dallas at KEGL-FM,
all owned by Clear Channel Communications.
Fletch is able to do this through a process
called voice tracking, digital technology
that pieces together his prerecorded between-song remarks
with music and commercials to produce a seamless show.
Voice tracking enables him to record
an entire five-hour shift in less than an hour.
This technology also enabled WRZX to do something else,
fire its two nighttime disc jockeys,
the top-rated Nigel Laskowski
and nine-year employee Pete Kilmer.
Now it's just Fletch and Christopher Giesen
who works in production at the station
with voice tracks of the overnight shift
from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.
It was very difficult to do, a very tough decision to make
because these guys have been with me for a long time,
said program director Scott Jamison.
They were good workers.
It wasn't anything that they did bad
or that they didn't perform.
It's strictly a budgetary decision
that is happening company-wide and industry-wide.
I'm not going to pretend I'm the only one who's lost his job.
This is happening all over the country, said Laskowski,
known to WRZX listeners simply as Nigel,
but personally, I think it stinks.
Now the interesting thing is
that the dismissal of these two employees
saved the station roughly $35,000 a year,
which is, God, they're not really being paid all that much anyway,
minus an undisclosed sum it pays Fletch,
which I believe was later disclosed to be about $4,000
or something like that, $6,000, something in that area.
Spread that kind of savings over the 1,170 radio stations
that Clear Channel owns or operates,
and the technology could mean millions of additional dollars
for the company's bottom line.
Well, this story has a postscript dated January 21.
Alternative rock station WRZX
is searching for a new nighttime voice after firing Fletch,
the Florida-based disc jockey who was heard in this market
by a method called voice tracking
during a 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift.
His on-air career in Indianapolis lasted all of two weeks.
He'd been hired as part of a cost-cutting move
that also resulted in the firing of top-rated DJs.
Apparently, there was some controversy
when people found out about this,
so this person was let go.
But there's been controversy, you know,
directed right back towards the radio station.
Basically, the person known as Fletch,
he was being paid $6,000 a year, I found out,
according to the story.
Fletch said Jamison told him he planned to hire someone
in Indianapolis to voice track the show.
Said Fletch,
I said, good luck getting somebody local for six grand,
unless it's some dumbass kid just coming out of college.
What I say is they should just take the license to that station
and give it to the community people
who will do it for nothing,
and you'll have a station like WBAI there
that's got much better programming.
It's just unbelievable how they completely abuse what they have.
They've got radio stations everywhere,
but instead of using them,
they just duplicate the programming,
and now they duplicate the people,
and yet they're allowed to hold on to it.
The airways belong to the people.
I read that someplace.
I heard that someplace.
It's true, right?
That wasn't a dream.
They belong to the people.
So how is it that these corporations
are able to get away with this?
It's shocking to me.
Okay, what else?
We've got a few other pieces of news,
and then we have some other things to get into as well,
and hopefully some phone calls.
This is interesting from New Zealand,
the New Zealand News.
Hefty bill with added insult shocks telecom customer.
The company there is called Telecom.
Telecom has ordered an investigation
after a customer received a phone bill
that had an extra fee on it,
and on that extra fee,
on the actual phone bill,
was printed,
penalty for being an arrogant bastard.
Oh, I like these people already.
Auckland businessman James Story
discovered the $337.50 charge
printed under product or service
when he opened his mobile phone bill on Monday.
He said he complained to Telecom last week
that his phone had been disconnected.
He was told it was cut off after being reported stolen,
although it had not been.
He was unaware of having any enemies within Telecom
or any friends who might have sent the account
as a practical joke.
Three years ago, he made a complaint
because of a problem with Yellow Pages advertisement
for his company,
but that was settled last year.
How can they speak to their clients like this?
He said, it's downright rude.
The wording appeared as a normal piece of information
under the rental and activity section
of Mr. Story's monthly bill.
Telecom spokesman Andrew Bristol said
the company was absolutely aghast by what had happened
and had apologized.
Mr. Story has said he will accept
the confidential compensation package
and will keep his account with Telecom.
Mr. Bristol said the company had launched
an internal investigation into the unusual penalty
and the mobile disconnection that Mr. Story had questioned.
Telecom could not explain how such a penalty
could have been printed on the account.
A reference number, this is great,
a reference number which preceded the $337.50 amount
did not mean anything.
That's what those reference numbers are for.
As far as we were concerned, it couldn't happen, he said.
Consumers Institute Chief Executive David Russell said
there was no consumer law that protected a customer
from being called an arrogant bastard.
Okay, well, they have fun over there.
Can you imagine that, getting a phone bill?
I'd frame that one, I certainly would.
This is an interesting case.
God, there's just so much to talk about here.
At a meeting during Comic-Con International,
the comic book legal defense fund board of directors
voted to support cartoonist Kieran Dwyer's defense
of a suit brought against him by the Starbucks Corporation.
Starbucks is suing Dwyer for copyright
and trademark infringement of its mermaid logo,
a parody of which appeared on the cover of Dwyer's
lowest common denominator number zero.
Dwyer contends that his drawing is a legitimate parody
and as such protected by the First Amendment.
And basically, instead of saying Starbucks coffee,
as I'm sure we've all seen with the little mermaid there,
there's a picture of a similar-looking mermaid
holding cash, holding a dollar bill,
and I'm not sure what the other thing she's holding,
but there's a big dollar sign above her head
instead of a star.
And instead of saying Starbucks coffee,
it says consumer whore.
I'm going to pass this around,
so if anybody is confused by that,
please let me know and I'll try to straighten you out.
But apparently that kind of mockery
is not permitted in the eyes of Starbucks.
What is Starbucks so afraid of all the time?
I don't know.
I think they're afraid of criticism,
like all these big corporations are.
You have to wonder.
It's not like they're going to lose business.
They must have such guilty consciences at these places
that they have to resort to lawsuits
whenever somebody criticizes them.
It just gives them something to do.
I don't see what the problem is.
Every time I look at the Starbucks logo,
I always thought it said consumer whore.
Mike, what's the actual website
so people can see it for themselves?
This is at cbldf.org.
That stands for comic book legal defense fund.
Okay, and on there you'll see something
that is not permitted on the person's
lowest common denominator website
because a court order made him take it down,
but it is printed on their website.
Apparently you can click to enlarge,
but it doesn't work on the printout I have.
Nah, nah.
You should stop doing that, in fact.
This is kind of scary.
This comes from the state of Utah,
which is where the Olympics just took place.
Oh, but you repeat yourself.
Yeah.
Okay, well, this is called
the Criminal Code Definition Amendment,
the 2002 General Session, state of Utah.
This act modifies the criminal code provisions
regarding commercial terrorism
by amending a definition in response
to a federal court ruling.
This act affects sections of Utah code
annotated 1953 as follows, blah, blah, blah.
Basically, as used in this part,
building, in addition to its commonly accepted meaning,
means any watercraft, aircraft, trailer,
sleeping car, or other structure or vehicle
adapted for overnight accommodations of persons
or for carrying on business,
and includes, A, each separately secured
or occupied portion of the building or vehicle,
and, B, each structure appurtenant,
never used that word in my life before,
and probably never will again,
or connected to the building or vehicle.
Business means a retail business
dealing in tangible personal property.
Enter, enter means, A, an intrusion
of any part of the body, or, B,
the intrusion of any physical object
under the control of the actor.
I guess actor means something different
than what we think it means usually.
A person is guilty of misdemeanor commercial terrorism
if he enters or remains unlawfully
on the premises of or in a building or any business
with the intent to interfere with the employees,
customers, personnel, or operations of a business
through any conduct that does not constitute
an offense listed under subsection 2.
A violation of this subsection 1 is a misdemeanor.
Now, here's 2.
A person is guilty of felony commercial terrorism
if he enters or remains unlawfully
on the premises or in a building of any business
with the intent to interfere with the employees,
customers, personnel, or operations of a business
and also with the intent to, A,
obtain unauthorized control over any merchandise,
property, records, data,
or proprietary information on the business,
B, alter, eradicate, or remove any merchandise,
records, data, or proprietary information of the business,
C, damage, deface, or destroy any property
on the premises of the business,
D, commit an assault on any person,
or C, or rather E, commit any other felony.
A person who violates any provision in subsection 2
is guilty of a felony in the second degree.
And this section does not,
does not apply to a person's exercise of the rights
under the First Amendment
to the Constitution of the United States.
Now, Mike, I want to ask you,
is that last sentence enough?
I mean...
I don't understand what this law does.
I certainly don't understand what it has to do with terrorism.
Well, basically, they're saying,
and my understanding is that somebody who
enters into a business
and causes any kind of disruption,
such as a protester,
is guilty of commercial terrorism.
Now, that last sentence saying that it's,
you know, it doesn't apply to people who
are exercising their First Amendment rights.
Well, are people who are engaging in civil disobedience,
are they widely seen as exercising First Amendment rights
by the U.S. government, by the Utah government?
You know, that's something that
I'm very concerned about
because basically they're widening the scope of terrorism
to include demonstrators now
in a very quiet kind of a way.
So, you know, demonstrators must be terrorists.
Well, that's what I'm worried about
as far as that kind of thing.
You may recall a few years ago
we talked about various commercial boot camps.
These are places that kids are sent
when they've misbehaved,
except instead of it being some kind of
place that's run by a law enforcement agency,
a government or something like that,
it's run by corporations.
And apparently they're having some problems.
Charles Long II, the director of a Tough Love boot camp
where a 14-year-old boy died last summer,
remained in jail Monday evening.
Long is 56.
He's the director of the Buffalo Soldiers boot camp.
He was indicted by a grand jury
and arrested at his home on Friday.
He's being held in lieu of a $100,000 bond.
Tony Haynes of Phoenix died on July 1st
after being forced to stand for hours
in a 111-degree heat in the camp near Buckeye
and almost drowned in a motel bathtub
about 10 miles away.
I imagine the order of that was reversed.
Also arrested were two camp sergeants,
Raymond Burr Anderson.
Raymond Burr Anderson.
I can't believe they named him after Raymond Burr.
And he was released from jail on Friday night.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio
has said at least two more arrests were imminent.
Basically, we talked about this,
where computer hackers were being sent to these boot camps
and they were being run by corporations
and they were being exposed
to all kinds of intolerable conditions.
And these people, they're not trained.
The people who run these camps are not trained.
They're not under any kind of watchful eye
and they don't really have to answer to anybody.
If the kid hadn't died,
they probably never would have done anything to this place.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Okay, what else?
So much here.
So much here and we have so much to cover,
so I'm going to start weeding things out.
Well, if you heard some of the controversy about PayPal now,
all of a sudden it's big news.
Remember we talked about this in early September,
that PayPal was a big rip-off.
And in fact, it was because
I tried using it once to wire money to somebody
and they wound up saying, on the website it said that
you could wire money instantly.
But once you did it, they said,
oh, it actually takes about four days to get to the person.
So I couldn't figure out what the difference was
between doing that and sending a money order,
which would have been probably a lot faster.
But the real thing that got me annoyed
was the fact, A, I couldn't contact them at all,
and B, I couldn't get the money back.
I wanted to get it back,
but it was being held in some kind of limbo someplace.
So basically they took the money and kept it someplace.
And then they actually had the nerve to say
that if I did want to transfer it to somebody else,
I could only do a certain amount per month.
They were limiting money that I actually gave them
and saying that I could not give more than this amount of money.
It just struck me as being so incredibly deceptive
and potentially problematic for lots of people.
It seems that there's a lot more of this going on than I thought.
Actually, I'm going to make a phone call here
because there's a phone number that was given out for PayPal.
I actually found the phone number,
which you only get under certain conditions on their website.
For instance, if your account is suspended,
you don't get the phone number.
That number, of course, is...
Oh, I'm sorry, I dialed the wrong number.
A victim of the multiple toll-free number exchange thing is going on.
It's 1-888-221-1161.
Let's see what this sounds like.
Thank you for calling PayPal's automated customer response system.
To ensure quality and for training purposes,
your call may be recorded.
Or broadcast.
If you are calling about a payment made between PayPal accounts,
press 1.
If you would like help with a bank transfer,
credit card, or check transaction, press 2.
If you would like to increase your spending limit
or verify your bank account, press 3.
If you are calling about problems with your password
or if you are having technical problems, press 4.
If you are calling about logos or your email address, press 5.
For additional information, press 6.
How about to speak to a person? What do I do then?
Nothing?
We did not recognize your response. Please try again.
If you are calling about a payment made between PayPal accounts...
I'll tell you what, I'll just hit 0
because that's the widely known way of getting an operator.
Hang on.
Is it?
If you are calling about a payment made between PayPal accounts...
Let's hit the pound sign.
Please hold while we transfer you to a customer service representative.
How about that?
Amazing.
Pound sign.
Never would have guessed.
Of course, I don't know if we're ever going to get a...
Oh, it's ringing, it's ringing.
This could be a miracle.
Hello?
Thank you for calling PayPal.
Hello.
You will be answered by the next available representative.
It's not a person.
Your estimated wait time is 16 minutes.
Okay.
It takes us to the end of the show.
Yeah, that's what takes us to the end of the show.
And considering we don't have much time to start with,
we'll keep you here, alright?
Because we don't want, you know, to hang up on you guys.
And since you're paying for the call,
we certainly don't want to hang up on you guys.
So we'll just keep you on the line.
And if you come back while we're talking about other things,
we'll gladly talk to you.
But, boy, it seems like they're really in trouble
because everybody's complaining about them now.
If you...
There's all kinds of websites now.
www.paypalsucks.com
www.paypalwarning.com
Just go on Google and type PayPal and rip off
and you'll get all kinds of sites.
It's unbelievable.
Here's a warning on one of them.
Your PayPal account can be frozen at any time
without advance notice,
leaving you without your money for weeks, if not forever.
And there isn't much you can do about it.
PayPal is currently being investigated
by regulatory authorities in four states.
Well, hopefully it'll be 50 states soon.
Basically, you know, the concept was simple.
It involved an easy way for you to transfer money
from one person to another without using credit cards.
But to do this, you have to give PayPal access
to your bank account.
And you have to give them a credit card number
and things like that.
So you could forward money to them
and they would forward it to somebody else.
But if they suspected anything was weird anywhere,
they would suspend not only the person
that was selling you something,
but the person who was buying it.
And all the money that you had put into their system
would be completely frozen.
And as you can see,
it's not very easy to get through to a person.
I don't know what happens after 16 minutes,
but there's been a lot of complaints.
So we're going to see what happens with that.
All right.
Let's see.
What should we do next?
Let's bring in one of our guests.
Adam is here.
How you doing, Adam?
Hi there.
Well, Adam is the person that you may not know right now,
but you will know pretty soon
because he's the person coordinating the network
at H2K2, which is our next conference
taking place July 12th through 14th
at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City.
The fourth HOPE Conference.
We had the first HOPE,
Hackers on Planet Earth,
Beyond HOPE,
H2K,
and now H2K2.
So basically, we have a lot more space now, don't we?
Yeah, it's pretty intimidating how much more space we have.
It's an understatement.
I mean, we have 35,000 additional square feet
downstairs at the Hotel Pennsylvania.
And what that means is
we're putting the network in that area.
It means basically you'll be able to walk in off the street
and participate.
Go up an escalator.
It's where the sports authority used to be
next to the Hotel Pennsylvania.
So imagine an entire retail store
filled with people playing with computers.
That's what we're going to have.
Now, what are some of the ideas
that have been shot around so far?
Anything good?
Well, one of the biggest things is that
in order to get so many people on the network,
obviously we're going to have to have
a lot more wireless capabilities.
So one thing that will be pretty interesting
is being on 7th Avenue at Madison Square Garden
and hopefully, you know, jack on to the signal.
So that's pretty interesting.
But we want to keep people inside the convention, obviously,
and attending the convention itself.
So it's going to be a big challenge
to get 35,000 square feet of space networked
as well as the 18th floor,
which is where all the speakers will be speaking.
Yeah, now, for those people who have been there,
actually, you coordinated the network last time as well.
People who were at H2K, we had the 18th floor.
Now, just forget about the other floor we had
with the tiny rooms.
That's not even going to enter into it this time.
We had the 18th floor for the speakers and the network.
Well, this is just going to be for speakers now,
the 18th floor,
and maybe a couple other events
that are taking place up there.
But the downstairs, the extra 35,000 square feet,
is going to be completely technological in nature,
and it affords us a lot of possibilities
for things to do as far as space.
I mean, basically, there are no limitations
as far as what you can bring into this thing.
First off, it's got a loading zone,
so it's very easy to bring a Cray or a Univac or something
to the site and offload it and set it up.
It's very easy to do that.
We've never had that kind of capability before.
What do you think has changed since 2000
as far as technology that will change
the way the network is set up this time?
Well, a lot of the network equipment
is a lot less expensive these days,
so people who had gigabit switches,
like Rhodey, who brought his switches last time,
we can get a lot of bandwidth going around.
Granted, we don't have that much as an uplink to the Internet.
I think right now we have 1T1,
and we're going to be working on getting
some other ISPs into the picture, hopefully.
But, you know, just the local area networking
is going to be, you know,
we can get a lot of technology in there.
I'm not good on the radio. I'm sorry.
That's okay. You're fine.
We're all kind of, you know,
we don't know what's going to happen next, basically,
both in the immediate future and in the long term.
But the biggest thing that I wanted to say
is that is what we call the wireless networking.
That's what, I mean, everybody has,
I mean, nobody wants to really jack into anything.
Everybody has a PDA.
Everybody has, you know, digital cameras.
Everybody has, you know,
the last HOPE conference was pretty interesting
where everybody had something streaming out to the Internet,
and that was pretty interesting and a lot of fun.
You know, we wanted to get our own
officially endorsed HTK streams bounced off by NAC,
but that never happened.
But a lot of these offshoots,
people bringing their video cameras,
they were streaming from the conference itself,
and that was pretty interesting.
Well, we had a lot of contention last time with Bell Atlantic.
It's rumored they were driven right out of business after that
because of what they did to us,
and that's when Verizon moved in.
By the way, just as a side note,
I don't know if people notice this,
but I think since the last time we were on the air
that the building on Pearl Street with the big bell on it
has been replaced.
We were on the air last week.
Well, we were on the air for a few minutes.
Well, we just dropped by as a guest spot,
but the last time we did the radio show.
I don't know. I didn't look then.
I don't know.
That's what I want to ask people
because there wasn't anything about it in the newspapers.
Basically, there's a big bell on the building.
In fact, it was on the cover of 2600 a couple of issues ago.
That bell is gone now, replaced by a big Verizon logo.
Sick.
Yeah, it's horrible because that bell dates back to the 60s
and maybe even beyond that.
If anyone out there knows
of them taking down the bell,
I'd sure like to know about that.
Contact us, LTH at 2600.com
or write to us here at the station.
Continuing with Adam here,
as far as the network goes,
what can people do to get involved?
Because we do need a lot of help.
Yeah, what's important is that people
who are strongly interested in working on the networking,
first off, you should contact me,
and I'll get you subscribed
to the networking coordinator list.
My email address is arp at metachar.net.
That's M-E-T-A-C-H-A-R.net.
And just get in touch with me,
and we'll get you onto the networking list.
And it's not a particularly active list,
but we're trying to change that.
And if you want to lurk on the list, that's fine,
but we could really use some people
who are committed to helping out with the network.
Last year, I think we were pretty lucky
in the fact that we got the network in such good shape
in a short amount of time.
But granted, that was a bit of luck.
A bunch of people dropped out on us at the last minute,
and we really wanted to do some things
we weren't able to do, such as the streaming.
But we could really use anybody
who's strongly committed to making the networking happen.
Just get in touch with me, and we'll get you on the list,
and we'll start making things happen.
As far as I see it, the streaming is great.
It's a great idea, but my concern is the conference itself.
Making the conference as interesting as possible
and having it be as much fun for the people
that actually show up as is imaginable.
And with all this space, I see all kinds of things
that we really just need ideas.
We need people to come forth.
We have as much space as a trade show,
except we're sure as hell not going to be running a trade show.
We're going to be doing something that basically
is a presentation by hackers all around the world
where they can set up whatever it is that they do
and show the world.
If you need a lot of space to do something, we'll have it.
You'll be able to have robots going around
and demonstrating certain things.
Not robot wars, because someone already does that,
but something different.
Everyone will have a chance to do something,
but we need those ideas.
We had a meeting last month at the 2600 meeting.
Actually, February 1st.
We had a network meeting as well,
but I think of all the people that showed up there,
only one person has gotten back to you since, right?
Yeah, that's true.
That happens a lot. I don't know why that happens a lot.
People get distracted, I guess.
But like I said, if you're interested in helping out
with the networking, and I don't mean just,
I'm looking for people who will do the grunt work
of pulling cables.
If you have an idea that you want to see something happen
on the network, or if you have some time to help out
with the webpage that we need to coordinate,
or if you have some equipment you want to donate,
or just whatever ideas you have,
just get on the list.
Hopefully we'll keep it not as active
as the main H2K2 list,
but we could use anybody who has any good ideas
of what they want done on the network.
Okay, your email address one more time?
ARP at metachar.net.
That's M-E-T-A-C-H-A-R dot net.
And you can also write to us at off the hook,
O-T-H at 2600 dot com,
if you have any suggestions or ideas or things like that.
But come to the meeting this Friday,
2600 meeting this Friday,
at the City Group Center.
I still can't say it, I still keep saying City Court,
but City Group Center, 53rd and Lex.
We run the meeting from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
in the lobby area.
And we'll be having a network sub-meeting
this week as well.
And in fact, what we're going to be doing
is having H2K2 coordinating meetings
on the, what did we say, third Friday of the month?
At the same location.
That will also be taking place.
And you can visit the H2K2 developing site
as we start to assemble this thing
at www.h2k2.net
or www.hope.net.
And we'll be updating people as far as that goes.
But I'm really looking forward to this.
It's more space than any hacker convention has ever gotten before,
with the exception of the Dutch ones,
because they're outside.
They have entire college campuses.
But hopefully we can do something similar
in the middle of New York City.
That would be really cool.
Speaking of other things that are really, really cool,
there was one of these weird perfect symmetry things
that happened recently.
This was on Wednesday, February 20th.
I got this email about 14 times from different sources.
Basically, a mathematical palindromic rarity
will occur today.
Not today, last week you missed it,
so I'm just going to read it the way it came across.
It will occur today at 8.02 p.m. on February 20th.
It will be an historic moment in time.
It will not be marked by the chiming of any clocks
or the ringing of bells,
but at that precise time, on that specific date,
something will happen
which has not occurred for 1,001 years
and will never happen again.
As the clock ticks over time,
obviously over time,
as the clock ticks over from 8.01 p.m.
on Wednesday, February 20th,
time will, for 60 seconds only,
read in perfect symmetry
2002, 2002, 2002.
Or, to be more precise,
20 colon 02 for 8.02,
20 slash 02 for the 20th of February,
and 2002 for the year 2002.
The last occasion that time read in such a symmetrical pattern
was long before the days of the digital watch
and the 24-hour clock
at 10.01 a.m. on January 10th, 1001.
But I couldn't find anything,
any posts from that era remarking on that.
And because the clock only goes up to 2359,
it is something that will never happen again.
Well, my friends,
and Adam here already, Adam here is already...
It's erroneous.
You know, let the thought play through here.
Adam already has figured it out,
and I figured it out too,
and I can prove it because I wrote it down.
Now, Jim, you seem to have figured it out as well,
so since you haven't written down anything yet,
why don't you say what you think it is?
What about 11.11 a.m.
on the 11th of November,
the year 11.11?
Oh, yeah, OK, that's a good one.
But how about in the future?
Are we done?
Will this ever happen again?
Yeah, will this ever happen again?
OK, palindromic.
So, 21.12?
And that's what Adam said too,
and that's also what I came up with.
December 21st, 21.12, 9.12 p.m.,
21 colon 12,
21 slash 12, 21.12.
All right, so let's put that to rest.
And there's the deeper philosophical question.
If we change the calendar that we use,
if we suddenly are taken over by Al-Qaeda
and use the Mohammedan calendar
or something else that is yet uninvented.
All right, a couple of other really quick things,
and I really hope we have time for phone calls,
because I'm beginning to doubt that we will.
There's a new top-level domain out there
called .coop, or as it looks, .coop.
And there's some rather disturbing things
going on with it.
Basically, it's for cooperatives,
cooperative organizations, things like that.
As is the case with every top-level domain
that goes out, I do some investigation on it
and I try to obtain a few.
And one that I managed to get,
one that I actually have paid for,
cost $160, but I paid for it,
media.coop.
Now, what better media cooperative
can you think of than the Indy Media Center,
which basically spans the globe
with cooperative media endeavors?
Well, after registering for the site
and after filling out all the appropriate forms
and that kind of a thing,
I received mail from the .coop people.
And actually, all you have to do is type .coop
on a browser and it will go right to them.
And they basically sent mail saying
that we have selected media.coop for review.
As a sponsored domain, only organizations
meeting the eligibility criteria can register
for .coop domain names.
Our investigation shows that your organization
does not meet the eligibility criteria
and your .coop domain name has been inactivated
and is no longer available for use
by the Independent Media Center on the Internet,
effective at the time this message was created.
And what they want from us now
is all this paperwork proving that we're
a registered co-op by their definition
and all kinds of nonsense.
But I have to wonder, why?
What are they going to do?
What are they going to do with this media.coop?
Who are they going to give it to?
Some registered cooperative
that has paid a fee to a certain organization
and it has been registered.
The way that they're doing this
has made it pretty clear that they have no intention
of considering us because they've already
determined that we're ineligible.
So it's not like they're asking for more information.
They've determined we're ineligible
and they're not going to give it to us.
And get this.
If we don't hear from you, your .coop domain name
will be permanently revoked
and your entire registration fee forfeited.
So you won't get your money back.
Can you believe that nonsense?
Because right there, right there on their webpage,
on their webpage, under the frequently asked questions,
what happens to the name I have purchased
if my cooperative is determined
to be ineligible for registration?
And basically, let's see.
What does it say?
I thought it said it here.
Ah, here we go.
Okay.
If you are deemed ineligible,
the registration fee less an administrative fee
will be refunded.
So they basically contradict themselves
and have all this control.
So what do you do with that for breach of contract?
Well, yeah.
I still want to get into all this.
I thought, you know, media.coop
would be a great thing to have
for the independent media center.
But apparently, you know,
somebody else more powerful is destined to get it.
What exactly is their criteria?
It's complicated.
I looked into it some more.
They have to provide budgetary information
and minutes for meetings and things like that.
And you also have to be a member
of a particular organization that they deem acceptable.
So even if you have all this information,
if you're not part of an elite group of people,
you're not deemed a cooperative.
Even though there is nothing more cooperative
that I can see than the Indian Media Center.
Okay.
And let's see.
That's pretty much all we have time for
except for one last thing from Jim,
who has come in with a startling bit of news.
Jim, why don't you tell us quickly
in the last two minutes of the show.
And again, apologies to all the listeners
for not being able to take phone calls.
We will do that next week and catch up, hopefully.
Go ahead, Jim.
Well, to quickly give you a little history,
the second worst kept secret in hacking
is the fact that I, Jeopardy! Jim,
am also Red Balaclava.
And some of you may remember me from
Hope in 1994 and Beyond Hope in 1997.
Suffice it to say that I've been indicted and arrested.
And consequently,
I'm going to need some assistance
from the hacking community.
I'm currently jobless.
I need to find a criminal lawyer.
And there are some other things that
people even not in the immediate New York area could do
that would take very little effort on their part
and be very useful.
Can you tell us what they're charging you with?
They're charging me with grand larceny in the fourth degree,
as I like to call it for MetroCard funnies.
Essentially, I've been a railroad clerk
slash station agent for the Transit Authority for some time.
I spoke about MetroCards at the Two Hopes,
wrote a couple of articles for 2600 Magazine.
Some people have noticed that I have not given
any concrete advice on how to hack MetroCards,
just a general overview.
I was very careful to just disseminate
what I had picked up from the newspapers,
nothing I had picked up in-house.
But apparently, they're gunning for me because of that.
It took them a long time.
They never did it directly, but that's the cause.
It was 1994.
Yeah.
You did this the first time.
Hey, they have long memories.
And among other things, I want volunteers
who are willing to go and listen to old off-the-hooks
since roughly April or May, June of 94.
And I have a fairly distinctive voice.
And if you can find anything I've said on MetroCards
or anything I've said at all and write it down,
this will be organized.
I'll be at the 2600 meeting this Friday in New York
and eventually get a website mailing list going.
To coordinate this, my trial date is the 22nd of April.
If you want to email me, don't just email me with best wishes.
If you know a criminal lawyer,
if you can do transcription of this stuff,
red underscore balaclava at hotmail.com.
Okay, and we'll be at the 2600 meeting on Friday.
I think all of us will be at the 2600 meeting on Friday.
So we can talk about these issues in further detail.
And again, if you're not in New York City,
there are 2600 meetings going on all over the place
this Friday, March 1st.
That's going to do it for us this week.
Again, sorry for not taking any phone calls.
We'll be back next week,
and we'll try to make up for lost time.
Until then, Emmanuel Goldstein for Off The Hook.
Have yourselves a good night.
We say goodbye before we say hello
I hardly even like you, I shouldn't care at all
We met just six hours ago, the music was too loud
From your bell I gained a day and lost a bloody ear
And I would like to know
How do you feel, how do you feel
How do you feel, how do you feel
How do you feel, how do you feel
How do you feel, how do you feel
How do you feel, how do you feel
How do you feel, how do you feel
How do you feel, how do you feel
How do you feel, how do you feel
This is Valerie Van Ness, the general manager of WBAI.
We did it.
With your help, we made our goal
for the Winter 2000 membership drive
by raising over $1 million.
This is the highest amount in years
and was done in record time.
Your generosity and your concern for the station
helped us do this.
Thanks to everyone who helped us achieve our goal.
Congratulations and many, many thanks for all.