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Oh, not this again.
All right. All right. I'm reporting it again. That's the Denon player, D-E-N-O-N, model DN-961FA.
If you want to enjoy music at twice the speed, this is the model for you.
All right, enough of that. Well, okay, here we are. Off the Hook is on the air, and hopefully
it will sound better than our theme this week. We have an assorted cast of characters
again tonight. Bernie joins us from down there in Philadelphia. Bernie, how are you doing?
Good evening.
And Jim.
Doing better than I was last week.
That's good. Yes, you were sick last week. That's why you weren't on the air. And Jim
and Mike and Redbird and Arseny and Walter are all here as well. And we have some interesting
bits of information. Some of them might be very revealing. Some of them might be very
controversial. Let's see just what it is that we have. To start off on a transit note,
we do talk about transit a lot on this show because that's kind of of interest. A lot
of computerized things going on, a lot of homeland security type things dealing with
mass transit. But something that has been making the rounds lately is this new, I guess,
train that we have now. It's not really a new train, but it's a new step in a direction
towards automation on the L train where they're installing a system. They've been doing this
for the last couple of years, in fact. That's why everybody has been so inconvenienced getting
to and from Brooklyn on the L line because they've been installing things on the track.
But it's a new type of switching system that basically will allow for you to be standing
on the platform and know when the next train is showing up like so many other cities in
the world already have. They'll say next train in 10 minutes or something like that. But
what apparently is going along with this, and it's something that I don't quite understand,
they will be eliminating the guy who opens and closes the door. The guy who stands in
the middle of the train and opens and closes the door, they're going to get rid of that
guy. They're only going to have somebody in the front. I'm not even going to call that
person a driver because that person won't be driving. He'll simply be monitoring the
computer that will be driving the train. Now, this has never been done in New York City
before, and I feel that this is a dramatic step in a weird direction for a mass transit
here.
You say this has never been done in New York City, but I believe the Airtrain at JFK does
this.
Okay, fine. I'm talking about within the subway system.
I hate to tell you, but the Times Square Shuttle, up until a serious fire in 1964, actually
was automated.
Well, the Times Square Shuttle is really not that much more complicated than the Airtrain
because-
It's much less complicated.
Basically going back and forth, one stop each direction. This is a line, though, that has
many stops and many cars. I think, what, 10 cars, 11 cars?
Generally 10 cars a train.
Okay, so you have a whole lot of people there that you're responsible for on one train.
Now, I just think of all the times that guy in the middle of the train has been helpful
in one way or another. For instance, someone's blocking the door, he's the one that's going
to say, get out of the way, stop blocking the door. If something happens on the train
that needs attention, he's the person generally that will do something about it, either notify
inappropriate authority or help somebody with directions. People run up to this guy
and say, is this the train to Canarsie or something, and he'll be the person to answer.
Now, with nobody there, it just seems like there's going to be all kinds of potential
problems that will be resulting from this, right?
Yes.
I mean, other cities do it, though. Bernie, what do they do in Philadelphia with their
trains?
Well, they just upgraded the L cars here about four years ago to these spiffy new computerized
models, and they do have drivers on them, but the one thing I've noticed where automation
or computerization or electronicizing some parts of that process has been bad is that
instead of we have two employees on the train looking out the windows of the front of the
train and the back to see if everyone has boarded the train, now there's a video camera
on the platform that transmits a wireless video signal to the train through an antenna
that's embedded between the tracks, and it's picked up by a receiver in the front of the
train where there's a monitor, and the drivers just can see who's on the platform, but they
don't ever look at it.
I have seen countless people get guillotined by these doors. I literally had to save an
80-year-old man from being dragged away by his neck or by his head a couple years ago,
and those doors, you can't just push them and they just fly open again. You have to
struggle with these doors. The doors literally closed on his neck. He had a cane, so I called
SEPTA and raised hell, and apparently it never solved the problem because they still closed.
I've had a door close on me, and they give you like two seconds after the doors actually
start closing before the announcement says, doors are closing. It's crazy.
Well, it's the way here, too. If you notice, the train goes bing-bong, but it doesn't go
bing-bong until after the door starts to close. So, yeah, there's not much warning at all.
And there are a number of things that I'm surprised that there wasn't much of a fuss
raised over an incident like that. I know if something like that were to happen here,
I think people would be pretty upset. I would hope so, anyway.
But just blocking the door, for instance, if you stick something in the door and it
doesn't close, and there's nobody around to check the door, how is that ever going to
be resolved? Is the driver or whoever it is watching the monitor, are they going to get
out of the cab and walk through every single car and figure out where the blockage is?
I mean, who is going to be watching over these things?
I've never seen it happen. I've heard them make announcements on SEPTA, please
stop messing around with the doors, because kids sometimes do that.
Right.
And it wasn't me, honest.
And they just sit there and say, hey, stop messing with the doors. And then sometimes
I've seen them pull out with the doors still open partway with some kid that was
messing with it. So that tells me that if someone were stuck on the door and they
weren't looking at the video monitor, they could pull that person away. And that's scary.
It is. And I know a lot of people feel safer being in the car with the guy, you know,
with the guy that opens the door. People gravitate towards the middle car, especially
late at night, because they know somebody is there in case they get attacked or
something like that. That guy's not going to be there anymore. So, you know, are you
going to feel safe knowing that there's a computer watching over you, that there may
be a camera in the car? I don't know. Do these cars now have cameras in them?
No.
People are being replaced with cameras a lot of times. Redbirds?
They haven't really released any details about how these trains are going to work,
as far as I've seen anyway. They just kind of, just very brief news articles.
Well, it's called CBTC, which stands for Communications Based Train Control. And
basically, it's the automated way of doing things. Now, this is only happening on the
L train. For some reason, a story was released last week on the Associated
Press, and everybody's jumped on it like it's news. And this really is something
that has been on for a while. I think it's happening this month. I don't believe
it's happened yet. I think we'll know when it happens. Jim, do you know something
about this?
Yeah, the TA has said that they're starting to really install it this month. And
in fact, the L train will be shut down the weekend of June the 4th and 5th.
Oh, it's shut down every weekend.
Well, that's been for this. But it will be shut down that week, and that will be
the last week that they install things. And after that, it's going.
So I want to be on the first train. Maybe I don't want to be on the first train. I
want to be on one of the first trains that is automated. We went to the Airtrain
debut, remember? That's an automated train. And it was all broken the first time we
went there. They couldn't figure out how to get the door closed or something like
that. So it's kind of wacky. It really is.
In New York, Emmanuel, in New York, with the subway there, do they still have a
transit worker in the front of the train and in the back of the train look out the
windows and blow whistles at each other when the coast is clear to pull away?
They've never had it. You say in New York?
Whistles?
They've never had that in New York.
All right. They've always done that here except in Philadelphia up until about
three years ago when they got the new cars. And I thought that was quaint, but it
always worked.
Well, in New York, sorry. In New York, what you have is the motorman in the
beginning of the train, front of the train, and the conductor in the back of the
train, middle rather. And what happens is the doors, if the doors stay ajar, a
light is on in the conductor's cab. And there's also a light on in the
motorman's cab. And the conductor should buzz the motorman when he has
indication. If he doesn't have indication, he buzzes them a different signal and
don't move the damn train.
Now, the motorman, that's the guy that's really going to be just watching the
computer.
Right.
And do you even call them motorman at that point?
I think they're doing something about changing the title, believe it or not.
Anyway, that's a job that I could see somebody sort of like not taking very
seriously. Because if all they're doing is watching a machine all the time,
they're going to want to kick back and rest. And you're going to see trains
pulling into stations with people fast asleep in the front cab, and that's not
really going to do much to inspire confidence, I don't think.
Why do they even...
Sorry, Walter.
Why do they even let the train move if they know the door is open?
I don't think they will.
They try not to, currently.
Well, but why are they...
Because there's no cutout switch that, you know, there's no switch connected
to the doors that stops the motor from going.
Why not?
Yeah, there should be.
I think it's because they've used so many trains in work circumstances where
that's not necessarily something you want. It's an extra layer of protection.
You like to have the doors open if you're cleaning the walls in between
stations or if you're wiring signals.
Why don't they just have a loud noise go off in the motorman's cab every time
they pull into a station?
I guess I would make that job even more fun.
I don't know.
I don't understand what the problem is, though.
What is wrong with having the guy stay there and have all this technology
at work?
You know, it seems to me like you need human beings in addition.
And, you know, what I heard one person theorizing on was that they're simply
going to hire more cops to replace the door...
What do they call those guys?
The conductors?
And, you know, I don't think that's the solution, to have more cops around.
I think the solution is to have people doing their job.
And to me, that's been an important job.
Somebody who watches over the train who's not necessarily in the front.
Somebody who's in the middle, who can see things the other guy can't see.
So hopefully some sense will be made out of this.
Now, Arseny, you got a letter from the Transit Authority this week.
Yeah.
We were having a debate last week about the flags placed on buses and trains
and things, and I convinced them to send me a letter.
Well, wait.
When you say the flags, did we talk about this on the air, about the flags?
I don't think we did, no.
Okay.
So what was your question?
Well, I wanted to know why the American flags, they're called decals by the MTA,
why they were, I guess, reversed.
On the buses.
On the buses, in the subway, trains, even ferries.
You're saying reversed because the stars are on the what side?
What side should they be on?
I guess they're always on the right.
They're always on the right?
No, I thought they were on the left.
Well, they're reversed.
Yeah, they're definitely reversed in some, not all of them.
Well, it depends.
Are the stripes going horizontal, parallel to the floor, or are they going vertical?
Yeah, they're parallel.
They're parallel to the floor.
Yeah, that's always going the right way.
So in that case, the field, the blue field should be in the upper right.
No, it's the left.
Oh, sorry.
You're right.
I can't.
My other right.
Okay, but what we've noticed on trains and buses is that often it's facing the other way.
You actually wrote a letter to the transit authority?
No, I called them and gave them a very strange story.
And that convinced them, I guess, to send me a letter.
What strange story did you give them?
Okay, well, I told them that I was walking around with my grandfather,
and he interpreted the reversal of the flags as an offense to him as a veteran,
and that because of his heart condition, he was getting all uppity about it,
and he was about to go berserk or something.
So I said I would like it if they wrote me a letter, well, wrote him a letter,
explaining this in writing.
You didn't think you could just ask them what this was all about?
Well, I did ask them.
I mean, at first they told me, oh, you know, probably someone glued it on backwards.
And then, of course, I asked for the supervisor's opinion,
and she said the same thing, that they probably glued them on backwards.
And then I got transferred to a different department, and they gave me a more precise answer.
Okay, why don't you read that to us?
Well, it's, Dear Mr. My Fake Name,
this is your response to your recent telephone call regarding the placement of American flag decals
on the New York City transit buses.
Yours was one of many similar inquiries on the subject.
New York City Transit researched the rules of etiquette concerning the display of the American flag.
According to these rules, the blue field of stars should always be in the observer's left,
except when the flag is displayed on a casket, when the flag is worn as a patch on the right arm,
or when the flag is displayed as a decal on the right side of a vehicle.
In short, on the right side of a vehicle, the blue flag should be on the observer's right,
and on the left side of a vehicle, the blue field should be on the observer's left.
A very prominent example of this can be seen on Air Force One, the President's airplane,
as well as on the NASA Space Shuttle.
We hope that clears up any misunderstandings.
Sincerely, Christopher R. Lake, who is the Assistant Chief Transportation Officer, and he actually signed it.
Wow.
That opens up a whole kettle of fish as far as misunderstandings, though.
I mean, first of all, what's this thing about caskets?
They somehow say—
I mean, then it would be vertical on the casket.
It would be going lengthwise along the casket.
Well, I think the whole issue here is that if there were a real flag on the bus,
it would be blowing in the direction that they pasted on to the side of the bus.
But they're saying on the left side, it goes one way, and the right side—
Well, I mean, that—
Because it's like the flag goes through the bus.
It would be on the same—
So if you were on the left side of the bus, you're going to see it normally,
and if you're looking at the right side of the bus,
it would be reversed as though you were looking at the other side of the flag.
Ah.
Just think of it as if you were flying two real flags on the side of the bus.
That's the direction that they would be pointing in,
and that's their explanation, basically.
Or just one flag on top of the bus.
That would be much easier.
But why would it be facing on the left side of the bus?
Why would it be facing a different way than on the right side of the bus?
Well, just think of the way that you would be looking at it on the actual bus.
Yeah.
Like if you were flying a flag, it would be attached to a flagpole, right?
Right.
And so if you were looking at it from the left side, you'd see it flying behind—
it would be going behind the bus because of the direction the bus is moving.
Uh-huh.
And on the right side, it would be also going behind the bus,
but the flagpole would be attached to where the fields are, where the field of stars is.
Right.
So it would be—you would see it going—
I'm going to have to do some experimentation with this.
All right.
I'm going to have some flagpoles onto buses and see what—
If you have a red and black anarchist flag, in which direction should the diagonal go?
Oh, now you're really getting complicated.
I don't know.
Is there a proper way to fly the anarchist flag?
I don't know, but maybe someone else knows.
Bernie, look.
Did I—
No, I don't have an anarchist flag.
But I did—I was told by Laszlo on our trip to Prague.
He mentioned that—he read in a magazine, I think it was in The Nation,
that there's a protocol for having a flag with the blue on the left versus on the right.
The protocol varies depending on whether we're a nation at wartime or not.
He said that he'd read in this article—I think it was The Nation, but I could be wrong—
that the U.S. military has ordered tons of uniforms with the flag in this direction,
more uniforms than they're going to need for the next few years.
I don't know.
Maybe one of our listeners knows something about that protocol
as to whether the flag should be positioned on a uniform one way when we're at war
and another way when we're not at war.
That's interesting.
And whether that has any bearing on how MTA is displaying their flags.
Well, of course, all these flags were put on the trains and buses after 9-11.
There were no flags on trains and buses before then.
So in a sense, I guess, it is sort of something like that.
But it's kind of weird.
I'd like to look at these things a little bit closer and see if they actually did get it right.
So the consensus here is that it makes sense?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yes.
This would all be a lot simpler if we all moved to Libya, which just has a plain green flag.
Really? Nothing on it?
Nothing on it.
Plain green.
Or Japan.
Japan would be easy, too.
France.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
All right.
How many symmetrical flags are there?
A lot.
It's just amazing to me how there haven't been wars over the fact
that certain flags look too much like other flags.
There probably have been.
Maybe.
Maybe.
Now, speaking of the media defining the story, we saw something in the New York Times yesterday
that I've gotten so much mail over this, it's really not even funny.
This is a story about the arrests at the Republican convention
and about how all of these video documents, these videotapes that people have made,
are resulting in people's cases being dropped.
Now, this is old news.
This is very old news.
And it made the front page of the Times.
Did it make the front page of the Paper Times?
Yes.
Okay.
And all of a sudden, it's news again.
I mean, maybe it's news for the first time.
But everybody's talking about this.
Wow, did you hear about this?
All these people are getting their cases dropped because of the evidence showing that the cops were lying.
In fact, one case is cited where the city is shown to have actually edited the tape
to extract the part that shows a person behaving peacefully
so that they could accuse him of behaving non-peacefully.
Very condemning, very condemning evidence.
The question is never raised, though, as to what kind of charges the police officers
and their superiors will be facing as a result of lying like this.
Well, it's a very easy question to answer.
None at all.
Yeah.
Well, then the question is, the question is why.
Why is it that they don't face anything?
You know, that's the question.
Well, not only was the tape, was the police version of the tape edited to have the exculpatory information
excised from the tape, but the police officer falsely testified that, you know,
under oath that this person was behaving in a way that this was not at all consistent with the tape,
like he was kicking and screaming and all that kind of stuff.
So my point is that police are almost never prosecuted for perjury, which this clearly is,
because the officer in question would never be, well, first of all, they might have to go to jail,
and second of all, they'd be useless to the government, and third, they could never,
even if they remained on the force, they could never be a witness again in anything
because they'd have this perjury saying, well, this obviously is not a credible witness.
So that's why they're not prosecuted.
My interpretation of what's been going on is, as one of the defendants and having witnessed the behavior
of the police on the stands and behind the scenes as well, they're being told what to say by the prosecutors.
The prosecutors are basically telling them what their testimony is, and they recite it.
Lots of times they were not even there.
I've seen them say things that were completely untrue, and they seem just as puzzled at what they're saying as anybody.
That doesn't get them off the hook, but it certainly should point the finger at who these people are
who are telling them what to say.
Under oath.
Under oath, absolutely.
They should still be held responsible for what they're saying, regardless of who's telling them to say that,
just as anyone else would have been.
But they're not the ones that are generating these false stories, I don't think.
They're under oath.
They're under oath, okay.
The people telling them what to say, they're not under oath, but I still think they bear some culpability for this, a lot.
Total culpability.
It doesn't matter what anybody told you to say.
When you're under oath in a court of law, you have to tell the truth.
You can't say, well, you can't say something different than the truth because the prosecutor told you to say that.
It's still perjury.
Unless you're a police officer, though.
Well, apparently.
You've got to read the rules.
Those are the rules that are unwritten that seem to be ones that everybody goes by.
I think they've actually written them down now.
They're so cocky at this point.
I just want to return to how this got on to page A1 of the Times.
I mean, there's absolutely nothing new in this article.
I mean, Indy Media had an article in January which had not only the same general thrust but many of the same examples.
And even that was well after.
It was known by so many people because this was known in October.
There's no news here.
Right.
But the Times put it on page A1.
Usually stories get on the front page of the Times either because they're like world news, like the pope dying, or because it was like an in-depth analysis and they're very proud of it.
The pope died?
Yeah.
I heard that.
Oh, dear.
So, you know, I'm really wondering which category this falls into.
I mean, did the Times really spend months researching the story that the cops lie?
You know what's funny?
It was written by Jim Dwyer who used to write the subway column in Newsday, which I think sort of brings our two stories we've talked about so far together in a weird kind of a way.
But, yeah, I understand exactly what you're saying, and I feel the same way.
But at the same time, I also feel we should take advantage of this because it has generated a lot of publicity.
Maybe people will start asking questions now.
And, yeah, I don't know why it took so long to get into the paper in the first place, but it's there now, and we should run with the publicity that it's generating.
Maybe next month they'll have an expose that cops sometimes run red lights.
No, I think they have something about Bush not really being elected in 2000.
Oh.
Jim, yes.
We're talking about the pope dying.
The pope is about to perform a miracle posthumously right here, right now.
Hang on.
I got pope news.
Oh, okay.
I do have pope news, but I want to finish with this first because we do have a couple of other things related to it.
First of all, the National Lawyers Guild, these are the people responsible for everybody's defense.
All the people who were arrested for the RNC have gotten marvelous support network from the National Lawyers Guild New York City chapter.
They're having a benefit next Wednesday, April 20th, and, you know, it's the customary.
You have to schedule these things during our show.
I know.
Don't want us around.
You don't have to say it, but it's true.
From 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., and it's at a place called Galapagos.
It's on 70 North 6th Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
So, yes, you'll have to take the L train to get there or maybe the Jay-Z you can take.
It's basically a donation at the door, and there will be all kinds of DJs and dancing and things like that,
but it's a fundraiser for the RNC mass defense slash offense team of the National Lawyers Guild.
And, you know, there's no website there, but the address again, 70 North 6th Street, a place called Galapagos,
and it's Wednesday, April 20th, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., fundraiser for good folks at the National Lawyers Guild.
There was another story that broke yesterday having to do with the Citigroup building and various other financial institutions.
Remember this?
Some guy was caught with photos of the building, and now several people have been indicted in England, I believe.
Well, they've been indicted here.
They're still in England.
The indictment was unveiled yesterday in U.S. District Court here in Manhattan,
charging three men with conspiring to bomb financial institutions in New York City, Washington, and New Jersey in a scheme between 1988 and 2004.
The case caused federal authorities to raise the terror alert too high for specific institutions, which the defendants had identified.
It also caused all kinds of problems for us going to the 2600 meeting because we had to, well, we were blocked from entering the building for a while.
And to this day, they have metal detectors for people's packages.
Now, the thing that I'm wondering about here, what exactly are these people being accused of doing?
All I've heard so far, all I've heard as far as concrete evidence is that they had pictures of various buildings and that they were conspiring in some way.
But conspiracy is a very nebulous term.
You know, just by hanging out with somebody, you can be accused of conspiring with them.
They have all kinds of bits of evidence here.
Listen to this.
This guy named Barrett made repeated trips back and forth between the United Kingdom and the United States on flights, each time arriving at JFK and traveling with two men, either Tamahad or Shafi.
The defendants traveled on the same flights and stayed at the same hotels.
The indictment charges.
That's one of the charges, apparently.
Harrod and Tamahad traveled to Washington in late August 2000.
The indictment charges that Barrett was in the U.S. until April 8th, 2001, when he left for the U.K.
The indictment notes that the trio conspired with others, known and unknown.
A hint that officials have co-conspirators who are cooperating with the case.
They are charged with conspiring in a plot to maliciously damage and destroy by means of fire and an explosive, buildings, vehicles, and other real and personal property used in interstate and foreign commerce and its activities affecting interstate and foreign commerce.
I don't know what any of that means.
They travel and they have friends.
That's, you know, that's what I read out of that as far as specific evidence.
Now, the conspiracy, okay, they have not given any information as far as what are they saying, who are they talking to, what specifically were they planning.
The only specific things we've seen are photographs of buildings and the fact that they travel together and stay in the same hotels and are Middle Eastern.
Now, I'm not saying these guys weren't up to something.
Maybe they are.
But based on the lies I've seen from the NYPD, based on the way the media concocts stories at its convenience, I have to look at this with a real grain of salt, a lot of them.
Weren't those photos, like, three or four years old at the time that all the security, like, was put in place?
Like, it was way after the fact.
I mean, this was done in 2000.
They were making these trips and taking pictures.
I can see.
I mean, Bernie, you've seen evidence fabricated.
You've seen how the authorities can lie and make things out of nothing.
I'm just wondering.
Is that what's happening here?
Oftentimes, there's a shred of truth to the evidence as far as, yes, there was a picture.
But how it's represented is something completely different, you know, whether it's a hardware or software or videotape.
This stuff can be twisted, and the government is really a master and wrote the book at twisting evidence to make it appear completely different than what really happened.
So who knows if that's what happened?
One thing I do find encouraging in this is that these defendants were actually charged in the normal criminal procedure way as opposed to just being renditioned to Egypt or somewhere where they could be tortured.
Well, you know, they have a reason.
They have a much better choice in the matter.
Well, because they're in another country right now.
Yeah, they're in England right now.
That's why.
And England is not going to extradite them here because we have the death penalty.
Exactly.
So that's, you know.
And I'm just wondering, the death penalty for what exactly?
What exactly are we talking about?
There's one piece here that reminded me so much of your case, Bernie.
This guy, Deren Barrow, the main antagonist here, I guess, 32 years old.
He was charged with possessing reconnaissance plans for the U.S. institutions and notebooks containing information on explosives, poisons, chemicals, and related matters, quote, of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, unquote.
You just described the Internet, you know.
If he has links on his computer or even just access to the Internet, they could say that there's stuff on that laptop.
Yeah.
Now, this other guy, however, now I'm mangling the name, Tamahad or whatever, he was charged, along with Barrow, with possessing plans of the Prudential Building.
You know, I've seen blueprints of a lot of interesting buildings.
I don't know what that makes me.
Terrorist?
Probably.
He was charged in Britain with possessing an extract from the Terrorist Handbook on the preparation of chemicals, explosive recipes, and other information.
First of all, what is this Terrorist Handbook?
Is that someone's tongue-in-cheek title or is there actually a handbook for terrorists?
I think they're screwing up the Anarchist's Handbook, the classic…
Anarchist Cookbook?
Anarchist Cookbook, sorry.
It could be a sequel or it could be just something else.
Yeah, it could be.
Anyway, so, you know, I'm trying to make light of the situation here.
Maybe these are dangerous people, but in light of the way I've seen cases be concocted in the past, the way I've seen people lie on the stand, I really have to doubt what we're seeing in the newspapers.
I'd like to hear other insights.
Speaking of…
Go ahead.
I have another issue, so I'll bring it up.
Go ahead, bring it up.
Just speaking of other cases, the RIAA and MPAA are going on a whole new slew of…
Oh, I know.
They're going after college kids again.
Yeah.
Easy target.
But this time, the difference is that the network they targeted or that they snooped around on was Internet 2, which is only accessible from university networks at certain universities.
And so the question comes up, how did they actually get into it short of either sitting down at a university and maybe, like, jumping on their wireless network or potentially conspiring with students to get, you know, information maybe in exchange for immunity?
Oh, I'm sure.
I'm sure it's the latter.
I really am sure.
Yeah.
And we were just talking about this the other week.
I think maybe after the show we were talking about Internet 2 and how it's being used by maybe somebody who's listening to us.
It could have been it.
We do talk kind of loudly sometimes.
Yeah.
No, it was – I mean, it wasn't something that was secret.
There was a whole – I think i2hub.com or .info or something was about – these people had set up a hub using the Internet 2 network to share files.
And, you know, everyone said, oh, well, it's so safe because they can't get on it.
But in the end, where there's a will, there's a way, and especially since it was so heavily advertised as being a place that trade files.
Now, Jim, you had some pope news, I believe.
Yeah.
The miracle that the pope is about to perform is he's going to be mentioned in conjunction with hacking.
And this is a story that illustrates the true definition of hacking.
It's not something necessarily related to computers or telephones or electronics.
It's something that illustrates that it's the human mind finding another solution to a problem.
Twelve-year-old Stephanie – boy – Chaskovich of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, was on a trip to Rome in October 2003 with a religious organization that her family belongs to.
She was set to meet the pope but wasn't able to.
And a priest who was with this group suggested that the next day she wear a krakowski, which is the dancing costume worn by girls from Krakow, Poland.
You've probably seen it.
Essentially, it's a white dress with a black apron and vest on top of it.
The apron and vest are embroidered with colorful embroidery.
So the next day she shows up after missing a chance to see the pope the first day and notices that there's a dance troupe of girls her own age waiting to see the pope.
Stephanie, having been tipped off to wear the krakowski, ducked under a fence and ran a couple of dozen yards to mingle with this group and surreptitiously meet the pope, complete with photographs, rosary, blessing, the whole bit.
Now, if that isn't social engineering and hacking of the highest, I don't know what is.
So they shot her?
Well, imagine that was the White House, you know.
You saw what they did to the guy yesterday.
He was just standing there.
That was the Capitol anyway.
Was it the Capitol?
Yeah.
He said he wanted to talk to Bush.
I think – well, yeah, but he didn't.
I thought it was the White House.
No, it was the Capitol.
I always thought they're more dangerous around the Capitol than the White House, but they're dangerous either way.
No, that also shows the difference between government and religion.
They're a little gentler in religious circles.
Now, as I'm sure we've all heard by now, they're going to be selecting a new pope, and they do that with all kinds of bizarre ceremonies and things like that.
But one of the things that struck me in this story I read about the cardinals maintaining silence before they start this election process, Vatican security – this is a paragraph buried deep inside the story.
Vatican security, meanwhile, was preparing the Sistine Chapel for the papal election.
Right.
They have to sweep it for bugs.
Taking undisclosed measures to thwart would-be hackers or electronic eavesdroppers from listening in on the cardinals' private deliberations and getting early word of who the next pope might be.
How in the world are hackers being blamed for listening in on the pope election, for God's sake?
I mean, yeah, okay, fine.
Maybe somebody can bug the Sistine Chapel.
But hackers?
This is what we do?
I feel like it would be the news media, if anyone, who would want to get the inside scoop.
Aren't you all anxious to find out who the new pope is going to be?
I don't think the hacker community is going to really lose much sleep over having to wait.
It's only five days at the most, right?
The 15th through the 20th.
No, it's not five.
It could take forever.
18th or something.
They start next week.
What kills me is how much time do you save, even if you know Latin and Italian and put a microphone in there, okay?
They ballot, all right?
You know a couple minutes ahead of time.
They say, we've just voted for Cardinal whoever.
And then ten minutes later, they come out in the announcement anyway.
What does this profit you?
Yeah, is there any deliberation?
I mean, there's probably deliberation, though.
No, no.
In the Sistine Chapel, they're supposed to be silent.
And when the Holy Spirit moves them, they go up and vote.
Right.
It's all very mysterious.
And if it doesn't work out, they get to burn the ballots and start over.
Right.
Yeah.
I'm waiting for someone to throw the wrong colored smoke grenade up on the roof.
Now, that's thinking like a hacker.
That's absolutely thinking like a hacker.
Yeah, because all this colored smoke, who knows?
Now, Bernie, you found a story this week, I think, that didn't blame hackers for something, and that's a rarity.
Yes, and unfortunately, I don't have it in front of me right now.
But it was – remind me of what the issue was.
And then I can – well, basically, I can say that I think this was –
Identity theft.
Yes, identity theft.
Is this India?
It was the latest – today's story about more identity theft caused by carelessness by corporations.
In this case, LexisNexis apparently had really insecure computers
and several hundred thousand records of people's sensitive identity information were copied by criminals.
Quote, criminals.
Thank you.
Look at this straight.
Criminals.
And this was on an AP story, which was being reported by ABC News.
So it was really refreshing to see these people refer – these alleged perpetrators described as criminals and not hackers.
You know what, Bernie?
I would go so far as to describe the people at LexisNexis as criminals, too, for allowing something like this to be available so easily.
Three hundred and ten thousand people have had their private information just given away to people who have no right whatsoever to have it.
What do you call people who are that – they're either extremely stupid and should not be running a corporation like this, or they are criminals themselves.
It's criminal negligence.
Absolutely.
And I think this latest thing is actually waking up some senators because a lot of people are really upset about this,
and I think the ball is rolling towards some federal legislation so that instead of having this patchwork of state legislation –
like California, for instance, has a state law that says any company whose information about private individuals has been compromised,
they have to notify these people if they know whose information was compromised.
They have to – the company has to notify them and say, hey, your information was compromised,
so check your credit records to see that there isn't weird stuff going on in there.
Well, California is one of the few states where companies have to do this,
and the only reason we even heard about this choice point situation, which was all choice points,
Paul, they actually sold this information to people who just lied about who they were without bothering to check them out.
They wouldn't have ever revealed this information if there wasn't a state law requiring them to notify the victims.
I think there should be federal legislation standardizing this across the country
so at least people know when their information has been purloined.
Now supposedly LexisNexis is notifying the 310,000 people that their identities may have been stolen,
that their information may have been compromised.
Now interesting in this particular news story here that was on CNN,
letters were sent on Monday to people who may have been affected by the security breach.
So check your mailbox.
You may have a letter from LexisNexis saying that your identity has been stolen.
But to date, none of the individuals who were notified that some of their information was accessed last month
have experienced any form of identity theft according to the company.
Now –
How can they tell?
Yeah, look at that for a second.
They sent the letter on Monday.
Today is Wednesday and the company knows of no instances of the people who they sent letters to complaining yet according to CNN.
I mean how easy are we going to make it for them to squirm their way out of this?
Obviously they can't ask every single one of these 310,000 people
and they haven't really given them much time to respond, have they?
Let us not forget that LexisNexis is in the very business of compromising people's identities
but usually they just do it to rich people
and lawyers and others who have access to the full LexisNexis database.
I mean you can go to any law library and get this information
and it doesn't get reported because it's the intended use of the product.
And that's another thing.
College students have access to LexisNexis in many cases and they can do this.
Why is that?
There's two or more sets of LexisNexis.
Most college students have access only to the so-called academic universe
which does not contain people's personal information.
But law students generally have access to the full deal.
Do they call it the academic universe?
If you go on the LexisNexis thing that college students have access to,
it says academic universe on the top.
Oh my god.
This tells you the story.
Apparently there's other products.
I think it's owned by Mead Data Central or it used to be.
Apparently LexisNexis also offers products and services to other groups of customers,
specifically government and law enforcement.
So perhaps with these records,
they have a lot of different database products that aren't made available
to everyone who has access to LexisNexis.
So we don't know what body of data was purlined here,
but I don't think it was the stuff that law students have access to.
Okay.
Well, we'll just have to learn more about this.
And if anybody has more information, please let us know.
You can email us at oth at 2600.com for any letters to Off The Hook.
You can also write to us here at the radio station.
Off The Hook, care of WBAI, 120 Wall Street.
1005?
No, actually we rehearsed this before the show, Walter, and I'm sorry.
Walter was going to take another part of the address there.
New York, New York.
Go ahead.
1005.
You just got to be careful who you hire these days to do things.
All right.
Our phone number is 212-209-2900.
We are sorry, but this program has ended and no further calls are being taken.
Thank you for calling.
Uh-oh.
Is that generated whenever I say the phone number?
Well, because that's not true.
That's definitely not true.
We've been hacked.
Yeah, maybe we've been hacked.
Well, you know, the only way to get around that, the only way to defeat the hackers is to dial 212-209-2900
and call in defiance of that announcement because we can't accept that kind of a thing.
Show them.
We'll show them.
We absolutely will.
I'm not going to be intimidated like that.
Now, Bernie, down there in Philadelphia, I understand that 2600 is appearing in some kind of art exhibit.
Have you seen this?
What?
Yeah.
I haven't been to it yet, but this is an article.
I was eating lunch a couple days ago and flipping through the city paper, which is a free weekly here.
Pretty good.
And there was an article about an art exhibit of zine art, you know, zine being short for magazines,
the homemade kind of zines from back in the 70s and 80s era before the Internet was popular.
And it prominently mentioned 2600, the hacker quarterly, and it said there was a 1989 issue of 2600 in this exhibit,
complete with staples holding it together.
What a novel concept.
Wow.
Yeah, I have this here from the city paper.
Some publications presented as zines later evolved into full-on glossy mags like the hackers quarterly 2600.
A 1989 issue measures about five inches by seven inches.
It's held together by staples and mostly contains phone numbers for every central office in New York State.
This appears at DIY Revolution.
The opening reception was Thursday, April 7th, but it's running through June 10th.
It's free.
Design Center at Philadelphia University, 4200 Henry Avenue.
And you can get more information at www.designphiladelphia.org.
How far the magazine has come now that it's no longer five by seven inches or held together with staples.
But it is held together by staples, and it's also five by seven.
Wait, what?
No, can't be.
Yeah.
Well, it certainly is.
Oh, Arsene, you have a question concerning a New York City landmark or a future landmark or something like that that we discovered?
There's an apartment building, I guess, in Houston.
Houston Street.
Right, Houston Street.
And it has a statue of someone that looks like Lennon.
And we were wondering if anyone knew what that was.
The building has a big clock on it.
John Lennon.
No.
No?
V.I. Lennon.
Oh, that one.
He's got his arm up to the sky.
Well, he's looking onward.
Uh-huh.
He's looking onward, like he looked onward in the Soviet Union.
Now, is it possible that—and this is a big statue, too.
It's like two stories high.
Is it possible somebody tore down a statue in the Soviet Union and shipped it over to Houston Street and erected it on top of a high-rise building?
That's entirely possible.
That would be so cool.
Okay.
It's that building, in case anybody wants to know, it's that building on Houston Street that has the huge clocks facing in all directions that never tell the right time, except maybe twice a day.
All right.
I don't understand.
If you have a clock that big, shouldn't you do everything possible to make it tell the time?
I mean, the Statue of Lennon is great.
It really is.
I like looking up at the sky and seeing Lennon up there because I don't expect to see him, but I would like to see the right time, too.
I have two explanations, and I know one of them is right.
The only problem is I don't know which one.
That's about how you present things, isn't it?
See, I don't have to parse things down.
I can remember twice as much.
Okay, fine.
Give us 50% of the accurate truth.
It's like Fox News.
I'll give you 200% of the truth.
All right.
Go ahead.
Only 100% is true, though.
It's either the old Daily Worker magazine building, and, yes, they converted it into apartments and they got a statue from the former Soviet Union.
But it's a really, really big building.
In which case, it was apartments built for a left-leaning labor union years ago.
And I know one of them is true because I've read both stories in The Times.
It looks like they have street signs up there as well.
Really?
Yeah, like little arrows and one-way signs and things like that.
It's really cool.
It's the kind of thing I'd like to see more of.
I know I've seen this, but not lately.
I'm not saying I want to see statues of Lenin everywhere.
What I'm saying is I like seeing people expressing themselves in various ways, and I like seeing statues of all different sorts, and I think it's kind of cool.
And hopefully there aren't right-wing people signing petitions to get it destroyed, but there probably are.
All right.
Our phone number, 212-209-2900.
I think we've worked out the difficulties.
And, again, if you're at a pay phone, you can call us.
Please deposit $9,999,999,000,000.
I'm sorry about that because that was supposed to play much better, and apparently our computer has caught the BAI virus because I've never heard an MP3 play like that before.
Let's do that one more time.
Please deposit $9,999,999,999,999,999.
You see, it starts off well, it really does.
What I'm going to try to do is close a bunch of windows here and hopefully get that to play properly.
I can also tell you the site that we're getting these nifty little recordings from that sound a lot better than the way they're playing over the air is artofhacking.com.
That's right.
Artofhacking.com.
these files in slash files slash sounds
so art of hacking dot com slash files
slash sounds you'll hear all kinds of
cool things and let's take some phone
calls while I try to fix this mess
good evening you're on the air go ahead
speak
ok well hung up on her I did not hang up
on her she hung up on herself and the
fast busy signal proves that all right
good evening you're on the air hey how
you doing
ok how are you sorry about that I like
to ask you guys a quick question has
anybody ever heard of free-to-air
satellite I know every once in a while
Emanuel you mentioned your Canadian
satellite dish and I thought that might
be the same thing no it's not the same
thing Mike why don't you explain that
while I try to reboot this machine
ok free-to-air is a system that used to
be more popular than it is now in which
you can just buy a dish it's not the
not the little dish usually but a more
you know traditional satellite dish and
you can just pick up without subscribing
to any service you can just pick up
broadcasts that are literally free-to-air
which means that anyone can get them for
free if they have the proper equipment
ok I see them now on the internet
sometimes about the 30-inch dish and I
said yes not too big
yeah it's not too bad I was wondering
if you know if it works if it's worth it
or not but I have dish network now but
I'm just curious to see if it's worth it
or not yes
Bernie seems emphatic in that that it is
worth it I agree with him I think it is
worth it
it's all worth it here's an example I
was at a conference of radio
enthusiasts radio and communications
enthusiasts a couple years ago and my
friend Tracy Woods was demonstrating
free-to-air system I helped him set up
the dish on the roof took us about 10 to
15 minutes and it was the dish was
probably about two and a half feet in
diameter and in about half an hour we
were watching live live television from
Iraq this was this was Iraqi government
television broadcasts we are watching
this is a March to a little over two
years ago but just not long before the
invasion and it was amazing watching
live Iraqi television the government
broadcast just pick it up for free and
there's a lot of other stations and tons
of audio programming you can get
absolutely free you don't have to pay
direct TV you don't have to pay dish
network to watch dozens of free satellite
channels some a lot of them are not in
English but some of them are there's a
lot of Canadian channels you can watch
for free it's you can spend about
$300 for a whole setup and you never
have to pay anything a month and that's
less you're gonna spend a month for
you know in one year's of subscription
with some pay satellite network so it's
worth checking out yeah I'm thinking
very very sure that Manuel I heard you
say you went to Ward Melville is that
correct? Ward Melville High School yes in
Easton, Talcott, New York. Yeah me too I'm
83, what year did you graduate? Let's not get into
details here just let's say a while ago
but thanks thanks for your call also in
in response to that we had some some
listener mail concerning my aggravation
at losing News World International which
is one of those channels that you do get
on on some satellite systems pay
satellite systems mostly CBC and things
like that but it was bought by Al Gore
and he's turning it into more of an MTV
type of a thing anyway this person
writes in to say that the best news
program on TV is the French telecast
which runs nightly on WNYE TV here in
New York at 7 p.m. and then he says
something that's completely wrong
unfortunately WNYE is the New Jersey
public television station no I'm sorry
it belongs to the Board of Education
here in New York City and it runs out
of Brooklyn what you're thinking of
maybe is WNJN yeah and all their various
stations channel 50 which is twice 25
Montclair yeah Montclair and a bunch of
others too but we'll get into that
anyway channel 25 comes in on cable
vision where I live so I assume it's
available throughout the metropolitan
area it is and it's available and that
old-fashioned broadcast television way
of getting TV stations that's from
Michael and Warwick thanks very much for
that information incidentally I'm
getting a new channel now because I got
my cable fix now I get something called
Eurovision which is kind of a cool
channel it's all European news they
don't have any news anchors they just
have these disembodied voices and they
have better international news coverage
and I think even BBC sometimes so it's
it's kind of strange very strange
channel you see it when you're traveling
in Europe too sometimes in various
languages and they have the time in the
upper right-hand corner all the time in
New York Brussels and Moscow don't know
why those three cities but that's that's
kind of cool to get that and you can
only get that on cable and not in New
York City so it's kind of strange you
know all right all right I tried to fix
it and thus will not work I'm sorry
let's take another phone call good
evening you're on the air no yes go
ahead hi I didn't hang up on you the dog
steps on the phone but oh you got
through a second time that's great
sorry I'm wondering I started a new job
where they use a hand scanner so every
time you come in leave whatever I'm
wondering what kind of technology that
is because all they do is put my hand on
it and it logs me in it has a flat metal
plate so that your hand rests on it is
and there's like two or three prongs
stick up that go in between my thumb and
my pointer finger and I think my middle
finger well you're getting good
practice if you ever end up on probation
they use the same technology we believe
that it's a galvanometric response the
conductivity that your your hand has
because that seems to be the only thing
that makes sense there there seems to be
no no optical element to it and it's not
sniffing the air around your hand it's
not measuring anything no lasers scan
your hand it works in the dark in
various light conditions we were so
we're very sure it's galvanometric
response. Bernie do you agree with this?
There's a way to test that theory which
is that is if it truly is a galvanic
in response system you could while you
have your just before you place your
hand on it if you take your other hand
and hold someone else's hand preferably
if your hands are moist contacting this
other person then you put your hand on
the sensor if it passes you through then
it's not galvanic skin response because
it would completely throw it off if you
were holding someone else's hand at the
same time. Okay I'm willing to experiment
but I don't think I could really do that
when I report to the Department of
Probation because you wouldn't have to
hold someone else's hand you could be
holding some other part of their body.
No Bernie Bernie we're getting into even
worse possibilities up at the probation
office. As long as it's moist. We're getting
way worse. All right let's let's move on
thanks thanks for your question and we
yeah we're here to answer your questions
good evening you're on the air. Emmanuel
good evening this is Bob from Brooklyn
how are you? How you doing? Fine I live in
Sheepshead Bay and I parked last Sunday
a week ago I parked my car on a side
street actually on East 21st Street in
Sheepshead Bay where I normally park one
of the streets I normally park on and
Tuesday night I went over to get it and
I see there are very few cars on the
block and they're preparing the block
for repaving and my car was not on the
block so what do I do the first thing I
do is I call 3-1-1 and they are
completely useless they say well did
your car have any outstanding I told
them exactly what I told you and they
said does your car have any outstanding
summons or tickets and I said no they
said well we're going to put you through
the automated system type in your
license plate number and you know maybe
we'll find out when your car is that way
so they do that I have to type in the
license plate takes a long time to do
because you have to press one for a and
blah blah blah blah long story short
that system says they don't have the car
3-1-1 had no idea where my car was or
who to tell me to call I called they
said maybe it was stolen call 9-1-1 which
was a total joke 9-1-1 said oh you
shouldn't be calling me for this
obviously something when you know
something happened with the paving we
don't know what to tell you call your
local precinct I called the local
precinct likewise they said we have no
idea there are private contractors we
don't know where your car is at all none
of these people could help me they said
the best thing to do is go there
tomorrow if the trucks are still there
and ask them what they did with you
where your car is long story short I'm
short anymore I found my car three
blocks away they picked it up and they
moved it that's what I thought they
might have done it's like the movie
companies they put up these signs all
over the city when they're filming Law
and Order or whatever they're filming
this week and they say if you look at it
carefully they say your car will be
relocated to the nearest parking spot if
you're still parked here by a certain
time yeah so I had if I had to go walk
around obviously I didn't have my car so
I had to walk around until I found my
car no one knew they didn't leave any
notes by the truck the trucks are still
there they were preparing to pay the
next day no note they could have easily
just left a sign saying oh by the way
your car is at blah blah blah no
indication no nothing it was just one
big mystery and no one knew how to help
me well this shows the the problem with
American jurisprudence you're supposed
to know the laws and in this case you're
supposed to know the rules and one of
the rules is when they pave they tow the
cars to the nearest available parking
space a couple blocks away what if there
isn't a parking space a couple blocks
away where they tow it then further
well what Nassau County where are they
gonna put it they'll find us and you
know I could swear this happened to be
once where I left my car where they were
filming some movie and I just didn't
feel like moving it I think they took my
car and they brought it back because it
seemed to be in a different part of the
block when I actually retrieved it and
it was like the only car in that street
possible that it was it was good for the
background but they were filming right
where your car was it wasn't good for
the foreground I'm not sure if anybody
has experience with this if they
actually do bring it back after they're
done but they didn't they didn't in your
case they did that in my case but I was
happy to find it they weren't inside the
car they must have picked it up just on
the front and towed it it's a it's a
front-wheel drive car so the rear wheels
been free right the message is dropped
it off now they dropped it off there
were signs they were going to repave the
street where they dropped it off which
said no part there were those temporary
signs that said no parking Wednesday
which means that the next day they would
have had to have moved it again if I
hadn't gone to pick it up there's no
alternate parking in my neighborhood so
I could leave my car in one spot for
weeks at a time well that seems to be
the limit weeks at a time but after that
they're going to play hide-and-seek with
your car listen we're out of time we'd
like to get into this further but we
have to go now and want to thank
everybody for for calling in reminder
we'll be at the Trenton computer
festival festival affair Bernie festival
it's a festival I never get that right
and we're speaking at 1225 what we're
doing is a special edition of off the
hook down there at Trenton on Saturday
1225 p.m. and we'll try very hard to be
festive we'll try to be as festive as
possible and this edition of off the
hook will not be aired it's not that I'm
aware of so that's especially special so
we'll see you down there and we'll see
you back here next week and yes we're
playing the same song that we played
last week because so many people wanted
to hear it again it's David Bowie I'm
afraid of Americans and know the line
that you think it says is not saying
what it really is saying or something
like that see you next week