But his main concern is that the school district and bus company are trying to place the blame on the children.
We are very concerned because you're talking about children's safety in jeopardy here.
And you're having a school board and a bus company trying to create some kind of diversion away from who should be held responsible.
So at this point, we are really looking into legal litigation.
We are discussing some issues with some attorneys to see what's the best course of action to take.
According to the investigator at the State Attorney General's Office Civil Rights Division,
their office is investigating the matter as a serious one.
For Free Speech Radio News, I'm Randi Zimmerman.
Free Speech Radio News is produced at Pacifica Station's WBAI in New York and KPFA in Berkeley.
And that's all you're going to say tonight because we're late. It's 7.02. Time for Off the Hook.
Off the Hook
And a good evening to everybody. The program is Off the Hook.
Emanuel Goldstein here with you for the next hour or so.
We're on this week, but we're not on next week.
So we have a lot of material to try to cram into this hour.
Jeff, welcome back.
Thank you.
You were on assignment.
Yes.
How did it go?
It went wonderfully.
Yeah, well, we sent Jeff out actually on assignment to cover the eclipse.
But it turned out that this is the first time that the radio station didn't have live coverage of the eclipse, of the lunar eclipse.
My phone was ready. I was waiting for the call.
Well, apparently it's a programming change.
We used to always cover those things, the solar eclipses, of course, and the lunar eclipse.
And, you know, I don't know. They just don't happen anymore.
How about that? My phone turned itself back on.
Very nice.
See, this is what Rebel does.
He always likes to make the phone ring.
That's all the noise you're going to get on the air tonight, Rebel.
Okay, it's another Wednesday night.
Bernie S. joins us from Philadelphia.
Bernie, are you there?
Yes, I'm tooling around in a taxi cab with a bad transmission.
You've hired a cab to get you through the hour tonight.
That's awfully classy.
We have all kinds of letters that we've gotten from last week's show.
And, of course, we invite people to write in, OTH at 2600.com, if they have any feedback, information, things that we should know about.
One listener actually sent in an answer to a question that we raised last week, which I guess nobody else has really talked about.
It might seem kind of trivial, but it's interesting.
Why is the Empire State Building on all night long?
Why is the light on?
Have you noticed that?
Jim, that's the kind of thing you'd notice.
I have noticed that.
Wait, I didn't notice.
Wait, the microphone, there it is.
Okay, say that again.
I have noticed that.
But you don't know why, do you?
Well, yeah, but I did notice that it had been on a while, and I did notice that it was not all white, even though you insisted that it was.
I still do.
I haven't seen it any other color than white in the last couple of months.
Okay.
And the rumor that was starting to spread was that the guy in charge of that had died, and he took the keys with him, and then you had to turn the lights off.
That's why I didn't correct it.
I figured it was an excellent urban legend to start.
Well, we're going to dash that urban legend tonight, because, well, at least if this listener is correct.
It's a new urban legend.
Yeah, yeah, one that didn't last very long, though.
This person actually called the Empire State Building Public Relations Department.
Did you know they had one?
Yes, I did.
Well, the reason that the lights are on, the tower lights have been on after midnight, in fact, until dawn, because of the major project involving reinforcement of the broadcast tower to accommodate broadcasters who have relocated here after September 11th.
And you also know from time to time they will be white instead of a previously scheduled color.
That's what they say over there.
So they're using it as a work light.
Yeah, in fact, you know, I've listened on this radio station.
There's all kinds of maintenance going on.
We occasionally lose the signal after midnight because of the maintenance they're doing over there.
Because I guess you have to turn a transmitter off if somebody is walking in front of it.
I don't have cable.
I have over-the-air reception.
And I notice quite a lot of 10-second, 30-second losses in transmission.
And they tend to be all broadcast channel-wide.
In other words, it's not just channel 2 or channel 7 in New York that goes out.
It's everything, all 7 or 9 channels.
Yeah, I think Bernie's paying us fair.
Yeah.
Okay, give the guy a good tip.
I did.
He's going to need it to pay for the transmission.
You don't have to cover the whole transmission.
I thought we got rear-ended.
He was just switching gears.
Well, we have news items as well.
Anything anyone want to bring up?
Any adventures, stories, things like that that happen to people?
Mike, you're leaning forward.
I have news.
You have news.
What's the news?
There was a vote in Boone County near Indianapolis.
Okay.
And they were running the...
They had a computer displaying onto the wall the number of votes.
And it said 144,000 votes forecast,
which is odd because in this county there's only 19,000 registered voters.
Wow.
So people were pretty enthusiastic about what they were voting for.
They voted 10 times, it looks like.
Yeah.
This was the micro-vote software that made the mistake.
So even if you don't use dbold, as we were discussing last week,
you can still get errors.
So there are other companies involved in electronic voting.
Where was this again?
This was Indiana?
Indiana, yeah.
Okay.
Boone County.
Lebanon is the name of the town.
What exactly did they do in the end?
Does it say?
Well, it says there was a lengthy collaboration
between the county's information technology director
and the advisors from the micro-vote software producer,
and they fixed the problem.
Did they fix the election too?
Well, that I don't know.
How hard is it?
I mean, all they're doing is counting.
It's actually very hard.
Okay.
Tell me why it's hard.
It's hard to get all the security features right
so that when you come up with 144,000,
you actually can find out the correct number,
which in this case was 5,300.
Uh-huh.
But it's not that hard.
It's hard, but it's not that hard.
Someone from Germany wrote into the other program.
I was talking about elections
because that was broadcast on Election Day,
and he asked,
why don't you guys simply have them on paper?
You just write down yes, no, whatever,
and they can be counted very quickly afterwards.
And also, why don't you have your election day
on the weekend
when people can vote probably more easily?
I thought that was the best suggestion,
to be able to do it on a day when people are available.
They don't have to worry about getting out of work
and running home
and getting back to their local area.
You can combine the two,
have the paper ballot,
which is very hard to go astray with,
and you would have volunteers
that would be free on the weekends
to assist with the paper ballots.
You have a number of each party,
so there would be no collusion,
or at least less,
if you have a Republican, a Democrat,
and some sort of third party guy
watching every paper ballot,
which is blatantly marked.
But you know, every time I vote,
I have to use the machine,
and I still have to sign my name twice,
once in a book,
another time on a piece of paper.
Really?
Yes.
Only once for me.
I've got to do it twice in New Jersey.
Well, I do it the second time I vote,
but the first time,
it's just you sign it,
your signature is already there,
somehow they've gotten your signature
and you sign next to it,
and you do a pretty good job,
you know, imitating it,
and then you go into the little booth
and play with the levers.
How do you do a write-in vote?
I've never done that.
Oh, in a machine?
Yeah.
There's a little, in New York,
there's a little...
Stylus.
No, not a stylus,
a little lever and slot
in the upper right of the machine,
and actually they tell you
to call the attendant over.
Oh, so they know you're doing
a write-in vote then.
Well, yeah.
They can all point at you.
Too much for anonymity.
Yeah, and also the other thing
I'd like to know is
how do you get the full results,
the full results of everybody
who has, you know, been voted for
and what parties?
That's an interesting question.
The Board of Elections
actually makes that data available
on their website,
at least in New York City.
If you want it,
so it will give you the results
by assembly district
on their website.
If you want it,
if you want it
finer grain detail
by election district,
that's by each machine,
you have to pay for that
some copying fee.
Interesting.
Well, those are some
of the little facts
about elections
that most people
don't talk about.
But if you know
of an electronic system
that actually works
or maybe one that works
as badly as the one in Indiana,
please let us know about it.
Or if you know
where the software
is residing this week,
we'd certainly like
to take a look at that as well.
I happen to think
that open source
is the only way to go
that's as important
as an election.
And there must be
other countries
experimenting with this too.
Countries that maybe
are getting it right,
although there's probably
countries that are
getting it wrong too.
Brazil I hear
has electronic voting.
Do they?
Brazil, yeah.
They have voting?
They have voting.
Okay, that's good too.
I don't know
how many candidates
they have.
It's funny,
one of the elections
that I was voting in,
the same candidate
was running
for every party,
Democrat, Republican,
right to life,
anti-right to life,
usually that's the case.
I didn't vote for him.
I just didn't vote for him
out of spite.
There was no way
I could figure out
how to make this person lose,
which is what I really
wanted to do in the end.
Leo, you're motioning.
Yes?
I just want to say that
is the mic on?
Yeah, Leo,
the mic's on.
Come on.
I just want to say
that there's a way
to make electronic voting safe
which is basically
have like a button
that's electronic
that automatically
counts the vote
on the computer
that also punches
a hole or something
in the paper.
So you get an electronic vote
and a paper vote.
Yeah, but how do you know
they're the same?
Well, you could just
test it.
In other words,
the software's not going
to be in charge
of keeping track
of all the individual votes
and all the averages
out the...
In other words,
why not have both
paper and electronic?
Well, you could have
three or four
different systems
but again,
knowing that they're
the same,
that's the real test.
And of course,
you can't really
print out a receipt.
I know people are thinking
of printing out a receipt
for electronic voting.
Why, Jim?
I've got a solution.
Do it so that
at home or at
like an internet cafe
or something,
you have a ballot
and you have
all the candidates
and you can sit there
and type out
what you want.
Okay?
And it gives you
two copies.
All right?
And what it is,
it's like a barcode,
say.
All right?
There are ways to do this.
And then you go
to the polling place,
you've decided
on your candidates,
you stick that
in the machine
and it eats
one of those copies.
You've got the other one
to take home
to prove you voted.
It's a receipt.
And also to prove
to the person paying you off
how you voted.
Well, that too.
And that's why
it doesn't work.
All right.
Red Hat.
Well, one thing
with in terms
of also having it,
you know,
have the paper
or punch it
like they said.
I think what he was saying
was when you actually
physically push the button,
not only would it
register
with the electronic system
but would actually
have something behind it
that would go through,
say, a punch card
or something
and the only,
you know,
electromechanical part
of it would be to feed
the, keep feeding
the punch cards
versus having it
punch the same one.
For every system
I'm sure we can
figure out a way
to defeat it.
Of course.
And I think we have
the obligation
to figure out
how to defeat it.
I really do.
My point is that,
you know,
none of us in this room
are smart enough
to like right now
on the spot
come up with a voting
system that works.
However,
there are people
that are smart enough
to punch holes
in each other's arguments
not their punch cards
but their arguments.
You know,
then eventually
you'll come up
with something
but the way
it's being done now
where they just
people like come up
with some ideas
that are almost
as bad as the ones
that we're coming up
with here
and then they implement
them because they
work for Diebold
and we don't
that's where
you get the problems.
Okay,
well moving on
to what's going on
in other countries.
Some rather nasty
things are happening.
In the UK
for ID cards
mandatory ID cards
all UK citizens
could be forced
to have some form
of identity card
by 2013.
Sounds kind of far away
but it really isn't
that's 10 years from now.
Up until 2007,
2008
all new passports
and driving licenses
will include details
such as eye recognition
fingerprints
things like that.
Most people
will have one
of the voluntary
documents by 2013
and then
it could be made
compulsory.
That's how it works.
The scheme
according to
a guy named
David Blunkett
I got this from BBC
but they don't say
who David Blunkett is
I guess if you're
in the UK
you know who
David Blunkett is.
I certainly would
but Mr. Blunkett
says the scheme
is vital for fighting
benefit fraud
immigration abuse
and terrorism.
New Tory Home Affairs
spokesman
David Davis
said the time scale
for the introduction
of the cards
was a 10 year deferral
forced by cabinet
splits over the issue.
He also raised fears
about the way
personal information
could be used
to get benefits
or get a job
would have to
produce a valid card.
Prime Minister
Tony Blair
you've heard of him
said the public
understood the need
to contemplate such schemes
he told reporters
it is important
to realize
that we live
in a quite different
world today
there is a real
security threat.
What I'd like to know
is how does having
an ID card
prevent someone
from blowing
themselves up
in a bus
or you know
anything else
that they might
It doesn't.
You hand them
the ID that says
hi I'm Saddam Hussein
and you walk in
and then you
detonate the explosives
that are around
your chest
and down your pants
and whatever
and you kill
30 40 people
or more.
Yeah and you
don't do it
anonymously.
No exactly.
Anyway basically
Mr. Blunkett
goes on to say
an ID card
is not a luxury
or a whim
it is a necessity
I know some
people believe
there is a sinister
motive behind the cards
hey you must listen
this is wrong
this is wrong
only basic information
will be held on the
ID card database
such as your name
address
birthday
and sex
how do you like
the government
knowing your address
at all times
if you move
you have to tell them
that's how it is
in a bunch of countries
Gee wouldn't that
have been useful
in Nazi Germany
It will not
very much so
it will not have
details of religion
political beliefs
marital status
or your health records
that will be on
the health card
Do you have a smile
on the picture
for your ID card
Oh yes
the Canadian passport
is not allowed to smile
I don't think you are
allowed to smile
on American ones
either
if anyone out there
is planning on
getting a passport
give them a big
toothy grin
and see if they
say something
because I would
like to know
if they raise
the same objections
for some reason
you are supposed
to have a neutral
expression on these
ID cards
I smile on my
passport
it's not
a big toothy grin
on mine
Really
I mean you take
the picture
and you attach it
to the application
they are not
going to send it
back and say
I'm sorry
you're smiling
Well they do
in Canada apparently
I have a smirk
on mine
It matches
your natural
expression
Anyway Mr. Blunket
goes on to say
that independent
research showed
8 out of 10
members of the
public backed
ID cards
that's right
8 out of 10
OTEN
suggested that
5,000 unfavorable
consultation responses
had not
been counted
as they had
been submitted
through an
anti-ID card
website
yeah they've
got the election
thing down
over there
too don't
they
the money
earmarked
for the ID card
scheme
would be
better spent
on more
police
that's great
you know
one thing
or another
I believe in the
Netherlands
and France
they're
voluntary
Germany
they're
mandatory
I know
Spain
they have
them too
and they're
mandatory
but
it's
something
that I
think
the whole
EU
could probably
wind up
doing
if
people
close
their eyes
for a
you are
required
to have
it
if
you
want
to
do
many
things
though
it's
pretty much
the
only
form
of
identification
that
most
places
will
accept
to
identify
you
when
you're
if you're
stopped
for cause
say you
exactly
or very
closely
match
a suspects
description
alright
and you
don't have
ID
yeah
you'll
be
hauled
down
you won't
be
charged
with
not
having
ID
no
you'll
be
hauled
down
you'll
be
hauled
down
you'll
be
hauled
down
you'll
be
hauled
down
you'll
be
hauled
down
you'll
be
hauled
down
you'll
be
hauled
down
you'll
be
hauled
down
you'll
be
hauled
down
you'll
be
hauled
down
you'll
be
hauled
down
you'll
be
hauled
down
you'll
be
hauled
down
you'll
be
hauled
down
you'll
be
hauled
down
you'll
be
hauled
down
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be
hauled
down
you'll
be
hauled
down
you'll
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hauled
down
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hauled
down
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hauled
down
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hauled
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up with where this would not be a good idea and Bernie you think this is good
what they did well people seem to think these chip these RFID things can be read
from a satellite or from long distances they only work like a few feet away
they're not long-range devices they can't work any reasonable distance so if
they were outside of somebody's house it's highly especially if they're
inside a refrigerator it's it's inconceivable to me that they could have
detected the fish inside this house the chips inside these fish inside the house
from outside of the house okay fine fine these guys undoubtedly are guilty you
know of stealing fish so they got what they deserved I guess but let's look at
this you know and a more imaginative light like let's say let's say one of us
one day were to smoke marijuana okay it's a bit of a reach I know but let's
say we did that and let's say you'll say somehow they managed to get these chips
into that you know and you somehow were able to ingest these you know these
chips into you and then you walk by say an airport security thing you know you
have to go through this you know check your bags and all that kind of thing
well they also have a little sensor there that detects those particular
chips and then you get pulled aside and questioned and interrogated and analyzed
as if you're you know a drug smuggler of some sort because they have evidence
that you have ingested marijuana you see how this thing can be abused but sorry
headphones that microphones are all on okay don't worry about it go ahead well
I mean the thing is to do that the government or whoever is doing this would
have to have access to said plant in the first place and if they think they
don't probably it's yeah the idea is they're supposed to stop it at the
source so if it's gotten to you then they probably haven't had access to it
along the way I mean it could be used in some sort of high-tech sting of all
marijuana users all they have to do is is just you know do it to a small supply
you know it's true they can spray it like they spray paraquat in the 70s you
know which hurt a lot of people but you know I just see that as a way that it
can really be abused and people's privacy can be I'm sure I'm sure we can
come up with a lot more scenarios a lot more imaginative scenarios and if you
have one please email it to us we'd like to like to hear about it let's see what
else Bernie you sent us something about AT&T and the do not call list
apparently they're being fined oh yeah this was a couple three weeks ago I
think was it how many millions of dollars the FCC has announced they're
going to they're gonna try to find AT&T seven hundred eighty thousand dollars
actually yeah which they make in about two seconds anyway so apparently and
it's really ironic because AT&T was the was awarded the contract by the FCC to
administer the do not call list and I remember saying on the show when we were
discussing this weeks ago that it was ironic that AT&T one of the biggest
abusers of telemarketing was administering the do not call list and
sure enough here they are abusing callers who asked not to be called
according to the FCC now of course AT&T is gonna fight this in court and who
knows how many years it'll drag out but it just goes to show what you were
saying Emanuel that this list will get out and it will be abused and it's a
ready-made list of live people who who are good targets for telemarketing it's
odd how would they be a good target if you you don't want to get the call
because they're there you know they're live people yeah I understand that that
part of it but if you already know that these people went through the trouble to
register because they don't want to be bothered I know myself I mean I have a
bad thing if you're gonna call me on the phone with an offer it's obviously not a
good thing mm-hmm but if you if you the normal way these lists are gotten
doesn't it there's a higher there's a high failure rate and there's there's
there's a lot of errors in in in mailing lists and then the methods that are used
to call people with sequential dialing or whatever methods that are used so
there's a high failure rate in reaching actual live people but this is this is
not just a list of phone numbers this is a list of people's names their email
address if you register online and the phone number all linked together in in
one database it's a it's a goldmine for telemarketers yeah but the telemarketers
don't get that what the telemarketers get I know because I got this is just a
list of the phone numbers and in fact you don't even have to be a telemarketer
to do this go to go to the telemarketing section of the of the do not call that
gov site and you can you can just download those those numbers you have to
pay a fee if it's over a certain amount but you don't have to pay a fee if it's
under a certain amount and it's pretty easy to get that was the water paper you
know it's a lot of paper I smacked you with a few weeks ago yeah and I couldn't
believe it I don't know if it's still as easy maybe people can let us know but
yeah I mean a list of people that don't want to be called that's a good list to
have you don't have their names you don't have the email addresses that's in
there somewhere I guess the people running do not call that gov have that
but still having that list of numbers I mean imagine if that got out and it
doesn't seem like it's it's it's too difficult we have a listener listener
mail concerning this concerning telemarketing because there's always a
way around this kind of thing you can you can have the call emanate from from
Canada or even overseas and it's you know they're not covered by that how can
how can you prosecute somebody in another country and it will show up as
unavailable on your caller ID so you won't know where they're calling from
this person said I recently received a call from a telemarketer and my caller ID
reported the number as all zeros I know it was a telemarketer because the call
was a recorded message that my voicemail picked up my voicemail also logged the
number as zeros I've seen private or unknown many times if the caller ID isn't
available but never zeros have you guys ever heard of this if so do you know how
they do it if zeros can be spoofed and it seems like the same could be done
with any number sign Scott well Scott yes in fact we had a panel at at last
year's conference h2k to where we demonstrated spoofing caller ID it's
very easy to do it really is especially if you own your own PBX you know your
own phone system in a small business you can program that you can even do it on
an ISDN line to send whatever number you want it's really a trivial thing
I've gotten all kinds of wacky calls from people that are playing around with
these things with all kinds of different nonsensical numbers so that's that's one
way to certainly get around it but I guess probably the best way to catch
these people since they want you to buy something is say that you're interested
in buying it and find out who they are then you got them you know then you
doesn't matter if they send a fake number if you're interested in what
they're selling you can probably figure out who they are from that once you
express an interest in doing business with them they're allowed to contact you
but they already have contacted you see that the offense occurred before that
it was a chicken or the egg situation sort of yeah so it's um I just ask them
to hold wind up with egg on your face all right enough about that okay and
this person writes him I'll take some phone calls now two one two two zero nine
two nine hundred off the hook I don't know if you've seen any recent broadcast
of war games try to see it every time I can but about a month ago I saw it on
UPN you probably saw it on a local channel I don't think the whole UPN
network broadcast it was on UPN I did happen to flip through that well you was
on channel 9 but I don't think the whole UPN I don't think UPN even has a movie
of the week or something like that anyway they deleted the scene where he
freaks the payphone with a pop-top pretty weird don't you think no I didn't
watch it I just passed by it well that's why I don't watch things on commercial
TV because they're always editing and cutting things so I don't think they
they cut that scene for any reason other than to sell more commercials I'm not
sure if that's a particularly controversial thing these days
especially since you can't even do it anymore that particular method worked
on phones we didn't get a dial tone before you picked it up you know pay
phone does the chopping of the tape or video probably wasn't aware that you
can't do that anymore and maybe they were afraid that oh we can't let this
knowledge into the hands of kids everywhere well that that might be true
that might be true maybe my vote I mean actually it was a it was a pretty good
team of depicting how that could be done back in the day mm-hmm
with an accuracy and it was refreshing to see that everyone in the movie first
came out who did the kid approach the phone booth I had an idea when he's
looking on the ground for something I knew what he was gonna do yeah but you
know that that particular action that he did as far as from the most
controversial thing he did in the film Oh hardly yeah but I mean it's it was
it's just sometimes refreshing it's so rare to see an actual tech
technologically accurate representation of hacking or freaking in a major motion
picture that it was refreshing yeah well I know I know one thing I tell you one
thing from the movie hackers which I was a consultant on they were going to
use real red box tones during the closing credits that was one of the
things I was pushing for and somebody in the studio killed that someone's killed
that idea that they wouldn't use real red box tones because you know it's a
simple thing play these tones and it's like a quarter they just have to hear
those tones in the payphone it was that simple that's stupid a system that they
operated back then and that that didn't make it past whatever whatever sensors
or they replaced them with touch tones yeah something really stupid that of
course wouldn't work there was actually some a bit of it wasn't really an
accurate movie but in the Matrix revolutions and map did appear while
they were attempting to shut down the power grid it shows up they use secure
shell and end map in that scene if you look carefully uh-huh yeah I made so
many people that was a second film right yeah who's in the second third film was
terrible well I haven't seen it yet so don't don't worry for me but so many
people caught that SSH exploit how how long was on the screen for you know they
not very long but people caught it it's amazing what else here about the phone
where you can you can put your forefinger in your ear oh yes the
vibration just Japan's largest mobile telecom company NTT docomo is developing
a wearable mobile phone that uses the human body to make calls it's called
finger whisper device device is built I'm not making this up the device is
built into a narrow strap worn on the wrist like a watch to answer a ringing
obscene well to answer a ringing finger whisper phone or to initiate and end
phone calls the user simply touches their forefinger to their thumb and then
puts their forefinger into their ear so if you've seen people walking around
like that from uh-huh yeah that's that's that's an interesting symbol there
electronics in the wristband converts sound waves into vibrations which are
carried through the bones of the hand to the ear so that the finger whisperer
user can hear the other caller with bones transmitting sound vibrations
better than air the sound quality is expected to surpass a conventional cell
phone and should easily drown out noisy surroundings you think this is gonna be
outlawed in cars you must use a detachable I just I worry about you know
here they want to talk to you oh my goodness how do you talk for you yeah
yeah if you put your finger in your ear your wrist is somewhat near your your
mouth so that you could theoretically speak into your wrist where that that
would destroy all the extra sound quality I mean all the background well
one of us are gonna have to go over to Japan and play with these things that
you have to hold your finger in the air the whole time I imagine so if you want
to hear the person otherwise how else so people are gonna be walking around in
Japan with their finger in their ear well they already are except they have
yes phones attached to them every other person around here is doing that now now
Bernie when does when is the cutover for portability for cell phones that's
coming up pretty soon isn't it 24th November 24th and this week the FCC
announced that what the wired wired carriers like you know your local
exchange carrier like Verizon or whoever where you are must now provide
ability of their numbers to wireless carriers if you decide so if you have a
home phone line that number can be transferred to your mobile phone after
November 24th unless the local exchange carrier can make a good case to the FCC
that it's not technically feasible so that's going to be interesting to see
so this means that the next show we do which will be in two weeks that will be
after number portability and it's gonna be interesting to see how that actually
plays out because a lot of people when they switch their carriers they want to
keep their phone numbers for their cellular phone numbers and change
carriers and and now it can be extended to home phones as well but a lot of
times people who are already using cell phones won't be able to use those same
cell phones anymore and I've actually seen concern expressed over what's gonna
happen in the landfills when all these phones start to show up in them useless
phones that have equipment inside them that they don't want to wind up in
landfills like exploding batteries things like that you know there's all
kinds of hazardous things that are inside landmines watch where you step
yeah so I'm wondering maybe we should start collecting all these phones maybe
people can send them to us instead and we can you know hand them out them
exactly well hand them out to the to the indigent or so that they can throw them
in the landfill I don't know I'm sure they're there forget the FCC has
required and they haven't lifted this requiring yet that all wireless carriers
must switch 9-1-1 calls or carry 9-1-1 calls even if the phone has not been
activated hey so everybody can have a phone on them that can call 9-1-1
exactly everyone who wants this service already got a phone they can get one of
these used phones not register it with any with the carrier don't you don't
have to pay a dime and you can call 9-1-1 whenever you feel like it but a
lot of people keep phones only for emergencies well why pay anybody just
have a so you can use like a ten-year-old bag phone you know and call
my in fact they're better because they're three watts and they have far
more range on the analog system than any of these digital phones and I know
several people I've told them hey just keep a phone in your car and for
emergencies you can still call 9-1-1 and they do it and it works there there
are organizations I know that the battered women's services are accepting
these phones and getting the charges and things and giving them to women that are
in situations where they might need to call 9-1-1 okay so they do have a
purpose and a use so don't throw out that old cell phone there's probably
somebody who needs it and donated I wonder how many people are thinking of
changing I know I'm thinking of change but I have to wait till my contract runs
out with Sprint and believe me the day it does the day it does I'm out of there
and I'm over to someplace else if you pay $150 penalty which I'm not gonna do
yeah I'm not gonna do that I know it may even be worth paying under $50 to get
rid of Sprint PCS yeah I don't know it's a real quandary there a lot of sprint
and a lot of other carriers are doing their darndest to lock people into
long-term contracts now as number portability approaches mm-hmm yeah so
be very careful of that because you know Sprint is one of the companies you
can't even change a phone without them charging you a fee that's one of the
reasons I'm leaving them I get around that how do you get around that if you
pay their $4 a month insurance fee yeah yeah it's extortion that's what it is
it is extortion however I frequently change my ESN I have several phones and
from time to time I switch to different phones on my same account mm-hmm and I
can do that without ever being charged because I pay $4 a month so I actually
it's a protection racket they sell you phones that that are guaranteed to break
down in a short amount of time and if you don't pay them there $4 a month you
have to not only pay for a new phone but pay them a fee to connect that new phone
their activation fee is $36 oh it went up a dollar yeah 35 when I did the last
I was 36 I know that fee you didn't pay the fee how'd you get around it I didn't
pay it they didn't ask me for it well how do you have ways of slipping through
the cracks I don't know I was I was with Bernie one night when we were
driving I think out to Ohio or something and he was actually on the phone telling
them yeah I'm gonna switch this and it was it was fun to watch you see I still
prefer the GSM system where you just take you a little you know you ship out
yeah a little yeah card and and you just put in another phone and it works you
know they don't have to know what phone you're using so I don't know I like to
hear feedback from people on that two one two two zero nine two nine hundred
here's our phone number let's let's see who's out there I pick a number Jeff
yeah sure here all right go ahead and good evening you're on the air it wasn't
a very good choice was it you want to try one more time all right and good
evening you're on the air
I'm batting a thousand good evening you're on the air
Danny Dave's brother from PC hey PC show which comes on afterwards you got it
computer show that did about a cell phones and 9-1-1 mostly correct and of
course it's a good idea but one minor issue well maybe not so minor while the
phone will make 9-1-1 calls it has to be on a network that or you physically can
work with the phone so for example if you have a 1900 megahertz GSM phone and
you're in I don't know East Cupcakeville that has next L and has
sprint and a few other things right your phone will physically not work if you're
in the subway of course it's not going to work either but we're working on that
we hope we hope to have that going food is there actually plans to have the
phones work inside so because in Berlin you can you can travel everywhere in the
subway and I have a five bar signal looking at doing a partial setup in that
some of the stations will be lit which will give you coverage in the station
itself and you know some amount into the tunnel but the full tunnel links it'll
come after the next presidential election you know I'm actually kind of
glad that I don't have to be on the subway with people like yammering into
their cell phone yeah you know the way people talk on cellular phones in this
country is very different from in other countries in Germany when when I was on
the subway and people were on their phones they were talking quietly of
course the trains are quiet there too but you couldn't tell they're on cell
phone here you can hear people a block away on their cell phones you might want
to check out how the people in Washington DC are doing because you have
the subway there the Metro is rubber tired and so it's quieter and also they
do have more cellular service inside of it just you know take a look or Quebec
Montreal okay interesting to see what's going on there yeah we'll check into it
thanks there's another thing that was you travel into the tunnel they tell you
Verizon that they're they're wired in there my calls drop out every time I'm
on Verizon I can't keep a call in the tunnel really yeah you must be doing
something wrong I'm using the phone okay you want to pick another one I saw with
cellular services the Lehigh Tunnel on the Pennsylvania Turnpike because
Allentown when you go under that mountain this was back in the 80s you
could actually use your analog amp cell phone in that tunnel it was one of the
first tunnels I know of that actually implemented that and it worked pretty
well I went clear through the Midtown Tunnel once on my Sprint phone and you
know it wasn't till I got halfway to Suffolk County that I realized that hey
I didn't get disconnected when I was talking to somebody and in the tunnel
there that only happened one microcells uh-huh but it's not there anymore
because it used to work but it didn't it didn't work after that one thing that
does work in the tunnels though is the FM and AM spectrum where you can get
every radio station all the way through the tunnels but not every not the
stations that aren't I guess registered somewhere because there was a pirate
station I was listening to I think at 91.9 and they faded right away as soon
as I got into the tunnel and they were just as powerful as any other signal
that was out there but something prevented them from being carried into
the into the tunnel there are repeaters in the tunnel to repeat them which means
they have to have a repeater for every signal it's a leaky coax system they have
a coaxial hardline cable running through the tunnel that basically picks up the
FM spectrum outside and retransmits it inside the tunnel so my guess is at the
pirate station were you listening to the pirate station just outside the tunnel
and then when you went in the tunnel you couldn't pick it up yeah and when I got
out of the tunnel it was back it could be wherever they had the receiver that
feeds the leaky amplifier and the leaky coax wherever they have the
receiver may not have been picking up the pirate station but I doubt very much
that they actually register certain radio stations and only trans that would
actually be a pretty difficult system to manage well considering that's the
New York City doing it they probably would pick the most difficult system to
manage but could be if someone knows about that please let us know we got
answered the Empire State Building question so someone out there must have
the answer to this what authority would probably yeah and we know they listen
OTH at 2600 comm Jeff you wanna pick another one yeah okay go ahead you're on
the air good evening gentlemen hello how are you good um I have a computer
question I recently loaded down at work the Morpheus program and I'm getting
something that says the exec file is not a valid win32 application I have no idea
what that means I mean it worked it it sounds to me like this is more a
question for the personal computer show Oh comes on after us oh it's okay no
it's it's a good question I don't want to take up your time then all right but
they're on after eight o'clock so thank you give them a call all right okay go
ahead on that subject there's a lot of ISPs are now announcing they're gonna
charge much higher rates for people who are using programs like Morpheus and
Kazaa peer-to-peer programs because of all the extra bandwidth that those users
are using so look look pretty soon for your you're having a tiered broadband
rate well Bernie are they charging people for using those programs or for
using more bandwidth which is all the articles I've read here they're using
they're charging people are using those programs but they there's no way to
really check that they're they're probably gonna meter the bandwidth
somehow it's amazing how they they give the impression that they can they can
keep track of everything you're doing and in some cases they are able to keep
track of things they really shouldn't be able to keep track of it's actually it's
not that difficult to keep track of I mean you can tell what services and what
things are running on on on someone's machine but you can also hide those
things you can you can try it if you're if you're going to be uploading if
you're going to be on one of these file sharing networks generally it's gonna be
pretty obvious that you're doing so I mean because you have to provide some
means for the other systems to connect to you mm-hmm the whole the whole
problem is with uploading really that's what kills the band well the thing I saw
last week which was really kind of funny was in all the all the media had this
story of how most people are deleting all the music on their computer systems
now how would they know that people are deleting music on their computer systems
they didn't talk about shared music they were talking about people who store
music you know that they copy legally or illegally they were most people are
deleting it and you know they had no scientific evidence to back this up at
all but people believe it no there isn't but it's funny I talked to students
about this all the time and the kids are saying why I've deleted all the files I
burn them to CDs and they're not on my computer anymore so that I'm not gonna
get a letter right I'm not nice well guys it doesn't quite work that way it
has to do with the the logs and the files that you were downloading but it
brings up another important issue and I think this is something that the
recording industry of America has to address there are a lot of people out
there I'm sorry I have to I have to talk about this because this is something
that has been bothering me and I think it should be something that's you know
revealed and we all know it's true but there are people out there who are
copying music from CDs that they buy and then making copies for their friends and
handing them to them like on the street no yeah no now I don't quite know how we
can stop this how the recording industry can can monitor these kinds of
transactions but they are going on quite frequently now maybe if we have some of
those tracking devices on the CDs you know we can we can know who has what
music and you know if the serial numbers don't match as they walk by the
monitoring posts they can be you know interrogated further but you know you
don't need the internet to trade digital music you can trade it in all kinds of
different ways and when you have the CD you just put it on your mp3 player and
no more chip yeah I know it's it's scary it's scary it's taking money from the
artist's mouth to do is create a chip that when you copy the CD the chip gets
copied too yeah well there's all kinds of technical things that we can probably
think of to help out the industry but I just thought I'd bring that to people's
attention because it's how about an RFID chip you can stick in your ear and play
music yeah you know we need to bring one of these chips in I want to see one
I really do need a microscope to good evening you're on the air oh great
write-in votes and basically in New York City the machines there's the button is
in the upper left hand corner and if you want to do write-in vote you have to
write in all the candidates you know you can't do some with the lever and some
with the write-in oh really you have to do one or the other so if you want to do
write-in you know and you want to write in someone who is an actual candidate
you know if you want to vote for someone who's an actual candidate you have to do
them via write-in also so just you'll know and then also with the AT&T one
question one question they provide the pencil yes it's in the in the voting
booth right there look wait Jim has something there are you are you sure
you're not talking about what's known as an affidavit ballot I'm talking about in
the voting machine you go in there's a button in the upper left-hand corner if
you want to vote for a writing candidate you push the button and you
open the window there's like a little metal slide thing and you write in the
vote but once you press that button you can't start flipping levers for the
remaining remaining candidate interesting and if you start voting for a
candidate via the levers you're not allowed to push the button it's like
mutually exclusive I mean once you throw the lever even though you can put the
lever back you've already said it so you can't you can flip the lever back and
then push the button okay I see now what's your second point oh the second
AT&T do not call this thing that what is in play here is not the do not call
registry this is for customers or people who got a solicitation call and when
someone calls you you can say to them at that time you can say please do not call
me again put me on your do not call it right that's what is it play here this
is not a federal do not call list there are two separate things and AT&T
violated the individual saying do not call me I say okay thanks for that
clarification yep all right and that's that's pretty much gonna do it for us as
far as I kind of think that's one thing I would like to do I'd like to inspect
these these voting machines and figure where they keep them when they're not
having elections because they take up a lot of space there's a warehouse on the
west side in like the 20s you know I as a as a party hack I know these things
it's scary the kind of information you can get at this I bought one you bought
a voting machine not and not the machine I have the the voting booth from
Florida and with with the the Chad ballots everything how about that okay
that's that's a good souvenir to have I guess okay that's it for us off the hook
this week right to us OTH at 2600 calm we won't be here next week but we will
be here in two weeks have yourselves a good couple of weeks good night
Oh
now
It's a waste of day
Yeah, it's a radio
Yeah, it's a radio
Yeah, it's a radio
Yeah, it's a radio
Hey, hey you guys
Jonesy?
Yeah, what?
Hey listen, I've been thinking
We'll never get on the radio like this
You know that?
Nah, I've been studying the charts
Using my mind and my imagination
And I can see it all now
The drummer's in the box office
And he's counting all the money
Yeah, you guys know just what to do
Are y'all ready?
Alright, on the count of four
Four!
Hey, get that sky
Move it up
Wow
You go, hey
Yeah, get that DJ on the line
Wow
And they send me down
I'm the one that I want
I'll fight it
Slow me down
Slow me down
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