You know, the leaders of the world's richest countries, plus artists and activists have
been meeting and putting on programs to discuss and educate citizens of the world about poverty,
the lack of resources, the environment, et cetera.
Yeah, I know.
WBAI and 99.5 FM has given me the clearest insight on the matter.
I hear that WBAI was among the listener-supported stations slated to lose some of its funding
from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The only way to stop the forces of ill will from taking away the public's right to know
is for the listeners to support this important radio station.
There's a fun drive the station will be doing on Monday, July 18th.
It will last till Saturday, July 30th.
Volunteers should come down throughout the day, and WBAI especially needs help in the
early morning.
Or they can pledge for premiums and become a member by phone during the drive or on the
website, www.wbai.org, anytime, day or night, and they can fulfill the pledges that they
previously made.
People need to realize freedom ain't free.
WBAI, committed to communities, dedicated to saving the planet.
Volunteers, for further information, call 212-209-2869, that's 212-209-2869, or come
to 120 Wall Street, 10th floor, in Manhattan.
And you're listening to 99.5 FM, WBAI, New York.
It's 7pm, time for Off The Hook.
Or maybe...
One second, bear with me.
No...
Well, I'll start talking and I'll get the theme song going in a second.
Um...
Red Hacked here, first time alone at the board, and as you can see, that's already going wrong.
Yeah.
But I'm joined by a decidedly empty studio here in New York.
I've got Jim here.
Hello.
I've got Mike here.
Hi there.
We have Bernie S. and Emmanuel on the phone.
Hi, Bernie.
Bernie?
Whoa.
Okay, well, we have Emmanuel, live via satellite, from who knows where.
Hello?
Uh, yes, hi, uh, I hear the theme very well.
What?
There.
I don't hear the theme, but okay.
Now I hear it.
You're using player number three, aren't you?
Hmm?
You're using player number three, aren't you?
Alright, well, alright, well.
I don't quite know what's going on.
Well, I don't quite know what's going on, but hi.
I can't hear you over the theme.
The theme is playing very loudly.
Alright.
Can you hear me now?
I hear you now, yes.
That's very strange.
We couldn't hear the theme in the studio, but go ahead.
If you're using CD deck number three, which I assume you are, that will play...
I'm using the recorder.
Using the recorder.
Okay, well, then that's a new bug on me.
Yeah.
But anyway, well, I'm glad to know that the AI is doing just the same as it always is,
technically.
Yeah.
It's nothing personal, RedHack.
It's just how it all works.
That's fine.
But yeah, can you hear me okay?
Oh, we can hear you just fine.
Can you hear me?
I'm just fine, what's...
I don't know, we can hear Bernie just fine.
I hear Bernie in Philadelphia.
Yeah, I hear him too.
Yeah, well, I don't think Bernie can hear us, though.
I can hear you guys.
We hear Bernie here in the studio.
Okay, great.
You can hear me.
Is there anybody who can't hear anybody?
They're called deaf people.
All right, good.
I should point out, I'm on a satellite phone, so there might be a slight delay.
So we should try to avoid the Ted Koppel effect whenever possible.
But let me just say where I am.
I'm actually on the boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, as I promised I would be.
The Queen Mary II sailed from New York on Sunday afternoon.
It arrives in Southampton, England.
Not Southampton, Long Island, mind you.
Southampton, England.
A lot of people make that mistake.
It arrives there on Saturday morning.
And right now, we passed the halfway point around noon today.
And I should also qualify.
Time is a very strange thing out here.
Every night we lose an hour.
So what time is it now?
That's a good question.
I think, and don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure it's 10.03 p.m.
Oh, wow.
But people tell me to meet them at certain times.
And I'm always getting it wrong because every night you have to set your clock back.
And I just keep forgetting to do that.
Let me ask a question.
Are there clocks obvious on the bulkheads of the ship?
Or does everybody have a watch that they have to set?
The only clock that I've been able to find with regularity is the one on the television set
on the home page of the TV channels.
We stopped getting regular television yesterday, which I think is a good thing.
We were getting CNN's stupid feed, which is also known as a domestic feed.
And that was now replaced with a banner saying,
because of our position, live TV is no longer possible.
I imagine sometime tomorrow we'll be able to cross in and get European channels,
which would be kind of nice, I guess.
But for the most part, it's just been fascinating wandering around,
meeting people, talking to all sorts of folks from different backgrounds.
And just exploring the vastness of this ship.
It's 14 decks, each one the size of a city block.
It's staggering.
And there are just so many things to do and see and experience.
And plus, fortunately, they have internet on board.
In fact, I could cruise the net from here.
I'm sitting on top of it right now.
I'm one of the open decks, because using a satellite phone, I have to have a view of the sky.
Of course, it's not raining.
In fact, it seems almost clear tonight.
But if you decide to take advantage of their Wi-Fi network, it will cost about $25 an hour.
And unfortunately for me, I had a bit of a crisis where I had to be logged in
almost for an entire night.
So that's going to cost me a pretty penny.
But that's, I guess, just the nature of fate.
Now, you sound like a robot.
You realize that?
Well, excuse me.
You know, I have to like my voice.
I was going to ask if possibly some Russian crew member was interrupting for a word
every two or three sentences.
Because that's what it sounded like to me, rather than a robot.
Well, I guess this is the satellite phone technology, maybe.
I'm using an Iridium satellite, or an Iridium phone, that uses the Iridium satellite network.
Bernie, maybe you could explain to the folks more about the Iridium network.
Well, it's a pretty amazing network that was put up, I believe, in the early 90s.
It was a big joint venture between Motorola and a bunch of investors.
And it was before cell phone service was really affordable.
And affordable to, you know, for a lot of international roaming kind of calls.
And by the time they built the network, with dozens of satellites that are in low-Earth orbit,
people found out that there were cell phones available in more markets around the world.
And there just wasn't as much market.
So they lost billions and billions of dollars and went bankrupt.
And they were going to decommission the whole network and just crash all the satellites
into the ocean.
And then the military, U.S. military, came in and said, hey, we could use these satellites.
So basically, some other investors bought it for, like, pennies on the dollar.
And the biggest user of the Iridium satellite network is now the United States military,
probably mostly around Iraq and the Middle East now.
But there's dozens of satellites in low-Earth orbit, a few hundred miles up,
circling the sky as we speak.
And you're talking through one of them right now.
And you sound pretty good.
Well, thank you.
I'm glad somebody appreciated my voice.
But I should point out, these satellites are not geostationary.
They're moving around.
And occasionally, they will disappear.
And I might get cut off as a result of that.
In fact, I was talking to Mike yesterday to test out the system.
And I was speaking from the balcony of my room.
I have a balcony, but it's sort of a misnomer, because there's no view.
There's a lifeboat directly in front of me.
There's a lifeboat directly in front of it.
So it's known as a 100% obscured balcony.
But I do have a view of the sky.
But it wasn't apparently enough of a view of the sky,
because within a couple of minutes, I lost the signal.
Here, I'm on the very top of the boat.
So I have the whole sky on top of me.
So hopefully, I won't lose signal during this hour.
You know how they get the name Iridium for the system.
The atomic number of Iridium is, if I recall correctly, somewhere in the 40s.
And it happens to be the exact number of satellites that they have up.
Well, they don't have that many now.
Some of them sort of crashed and burned.
But yeah, that was the original idea, to have that's how they got the name.
Well, interesting.
Learning a lot tonight.
But we do have some business to take care of,
and a couple of things that we need to cover.
First of all, Mike, I think you have information for us on just where
the program stands for next week.
Do you know anything about this yet?
Yes, I have that information.
The information is that we will not be on WBAI next week,
due to a national labor special that will be taking place at that time from 7 to 8.30.
And I just darted in here as the show started
to make sure you have the latest information in that regard.
Well, that is bad news, then, because that was our special program
that was going to be coming from the What the Hack conference.
We put a lot of time and effort into making a special broadcast there,
and we found out at the last minute that BAI had other plans.
Also, tonight is a fundraiser, and our original idea was to
raise funds for the first few minutes of the show.
And if a strong showing came in, we wouldn't have to do that anymore for this hour,
and we would do the same thing next week.
Well, since there isn't going to be a next week,
obviously that changes our strategy a bit.
We still, though, would like people to call in,
because you might be feeling anger and frustration at the moment
for the fact that we're not going to be on next week.
There's no reason to withhold your support,
because this radio station exists as sort of a miracle for people like us.
It allows us to speak forth on the FM dial in the middle of New York City.
Do we have premiums for the folks that we can announce,
and hopefully get a strong showing so we can go on the special program tonight?
Yeah, we have a wide variety of options.
First of all, anyone who pledges $25 or more gets an off-the-hook t-shirt,
which we are talking about all the time, because they're really so stunning.
They're a black t-shirt.
They give the name of the program and the time and the radio station,
and really, if you don't already have one, it's time to get one.
So that's for everyone who pledges $25 or more.
And in case people are wondering how to pledge,
the number here is 212-209-2950,
and there's volunteers in there who really have nothing to do unless you call.
So please, please call up.
If you pledge $50, you get a choice of an off-the-hook,
of a 2600 sweatshirt or a signed DVD of Freedom Downtime.
So that is at $50, you get a choice between the two items.
If you pledge $100, you get both items.
You get the sweatshirt and the DVD signed of Freedom Downtime.
And if you pledge $150, you not only get the sweatshirt and the DVD of Freedom Downtime,
but you get two additional 2600 t-shirts, which are sure to be wonderful.
Well, that's a lot of stuff that we're offering, and it's a bit complicated,
but our pledge coordinators at 212-209-2950 can answer all your questions.
Now, our plan here, hopefully this will work for tonight at least,
and maybe a strong showing tonight will help the folks reconsider the decision
to grant this next week.
But the idea is, in the first few minutes of the show, if we can reach $1,000,
then that's going to be it for the show.
We're just going to continue doing radio from that point without interrupting
and asking for money the whole hour.
It's kind of not what we usually do, but these are special circumstances.
This is, after all, an emergency fundraiser.
The reason for that is because VAI has a real financial crisis
that threatens the existence of the radio station,
and that's why this has been mandated for this time.
So that's why we really, really would appreciate as many phone calls as possible
in the first few minutes of the program.
212-209-2950, I just realized the absurdity of the situation,
me sitting here on top of a boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean
begging for money for a radio station over 1,000 miles away.
But it's a necessary thing to do.
I don't think it's absurd at all.
I think it's crucial that people keep this radio station going.
It's not absurd for the station.
It's absurd for me, sitting here on a windy deck just begging for money
for a station far, far away.
Well, you know, that's what you like to do.
It's what I like to do, and if it was pouring rain, I would be doing it too,
because it's the only place I can talk to you from.
And we know we have a lot of new listeners,
because they're always emailing us to say that they're listening
on the podcast version of the show, and we encourage them also to pledge,
although I guess they're not listening live,
but they were notified in advance of this fundraiser,
so they really have no excuse.
And, you know, even if you're only listening to Off the Hook
and you're not listening to any other BII programs,
first of all, you're missing out on all the other wonderful programming,
but it's really important to keep this station going,
because there's really no other station that would let a show
like Off the Hook exist on its airwaves.
That's absolutely true, because that's what non-commercial radio can do,
and allow people to express themselves, say all kinds of controversial things,
and just do radio that is non-formulaic,
you know, something that does not fit the mold of commercial radio,
and of lots of other non-commercial stations too,
which describe a certain theory of broadcasting.
At BAI, we're pretty much left to our own devices,
and that's why we can do crazy things like broadcast from ships in the middle of the sea,
or foreign countries, or just do things the way we would like to experiment and do them.
And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work,
but at least we give it the effort.
But one thing that we do not have, and one thing we will never have,
is a commercial on this radio station.
But, because we don't have commercials, we have to pay the bills somehow,
and that's where our sponsors come in, our investors, that's where you come in.
212-209-2950, purchase levels all the way from $25 to $150,
or beyond, even less than $25 is accepted for many things.
212-209-2950, if we can make $1,000 in the first few minutes,
you'll be sending a very strong message off to us,
to the radio station, and I think to the whole listening community.
212-209-2950, Mike, have we made our goal yet?
Not yet, but the lines are ringing so much, in fact,
that the people who operate the calculator,
so that we know how much we've raised, are not operating at the moment.
But there's still more volunteers in there who can take your call, if you call now.
Okay, 212-209-2950, keep those phone lines ringing,
and again, once we reach that $1,000 mark,
we can do the rest of the show, and not interrupt with any more fundraising.
And, you know, let's not stop there.
If people call in, and we raise a couple of thousand dollars
in the first few minutes of the show,
that sends a very strong message to the radio station,
and maybe they will reconsider preempting us next week,
or in future weeks, or whatever, it matters.
It matters to know that you're out there.
It matters to know that our listeners feel strongly.
We've had calls since the beginning of the show.
We've had four or five calls constantly since the beginning of the show,
but there's plenty more volunteers there than just four or five,
so you can call in and not worry about them, you know, being unable to take your call.
That's right, 212-209-2950.
Redhack, why should we be calling in?
To get people like me to be here.
Oh, no, sorry, didn't I?
Yeah, no, I mean, it's definitely a great cause.
It's great to support radio shows like this,
and it allows all different kinds of people to get involved.
Even on our show, we've had so many different people come in
and contribute their opinions and contribute their viewpoints over time,
and our callers, and it just opens this whole...
It's like Speaker's Corner for a candidate,
that people can come and talk and say what they want to say,
and people will hear.
I just want to say that it looks like all our lines are actually full at the moment,
so if you're calling and getting a busy signal,
then I am in awe of that fact,
but please call back in a minute,
and the number again is 212-209-2950.
I'm sitting here in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean,
halfway between America and Europe.
I have to say that I am certainly in awe of that kind of a response,
and I've said this many times,
but it's the feedback that makes me want to continue doing what we do.
If you don't hear anything, if you don't get the feedback,
if you don't get a response from the listening audience,
you don't know they're there.
You don't know that what you're saying really matters.
You don't know if your efforts are really being counted by anybody,
but seeing a response like this,
that gives me tremendous motivation to do even more,
and that's something that I really hope that we see continue,
because we're here for you, and if you're there for us,
there's nothing that can really stop us.
It's a strong force, the combination of listeners and radio.
212-209-2950, let's see how well we can do in the opening minutes of the show,
because we have a whole lot of things to talk about.
All right, well, should we get started talking about them now?
Well, the deal is we have to get up to a thousand,
so we'll see how the counting goes.
I guess we can delve into subject matter for a little bit
and then go look at the calculator and see if it gets up there.
Again, Mike, could you just run down the premiums one more time?
212-209-2950.
Sure, first of all, everyone who pledges at the membership level,
which is $25 or more, will receive a stunning off-the-hook t-shirt.
If you pledge $50, you will get, in addition to that off-the-hook t-shirt,
your choice of a sweatshirt or a signed DVD of Freedom Downtime,
the film about Kevin Mitnick's story,
and I believe it is signed multiple times by multiple people.
It's really quite the item.
If you pledge $100, you'll get the sweatshirt and the DVD of Freedom Downtime,
and if you pledge $150 or more,
you will get not only that DVD and that sweatshirt,
but in addition, two 2600 t-shirts.
In addition to...
212-209...
I'm sorry, 212-209-2950.
Let's just demonstrate the satellite delay here
because it's kind of tough sometimes to not talk over each other.
I'm going to count down from three,
and you say one the same time that you think I'm going to say one, all right?
All right.
Three, two, one.
Well, what did that sound like on your end?
You sounded silent.
Well, why don't...
I sounded silent?
Yes.
Maybe you should be counting down.
Why don't we count down and when we get to zero, you say something, okay?
Well, why do you have to make it zero?
Why not make it one like I just did?
Okay, we'll go down from three to one,
and when we get to one, you then say something, okay?
I'll say one the same time you're supposed to say one.
Okay.
Three, two, one.
One.
There we have it.
That's a delay.
How much of a delay was that?
A second or so.
I would say about, yeah, a second and a fraction, perhaps.
Okay, well, we're doing pretty good considering that's a pretty long delay.
Ted Koppel can never seem to master that, but I think we're doing all right.
But let me just point out one other thing,
as folks hopefully are still calling 202-209-2950 and pledging support
for this amazing radio station and for Off The Hook.
Financial problems seem to be the theme of just about everybody I'm talking to.
And I realize, again, the absurdity of talking about financial issues while on the Queen Mary 2.
But let me just say, my getting onto this thing is a bit of a hack in itself.
I certainly don't fit in with all the tuxedo-wearing people that are walking around here.
And it's kind of amazing just to see literally how the other half lives,
if they even are a half.
But we've been receiving all kinds of disturbing news at 2600 about distributor woes.
And I don't know if people can remember, all the way back in 1997,
a major problem we had with a distributor who went bankrupt.
The same thing has happened yet again, if you can believe that.
A distributor known as Desert Moon went out of business late last year.
And one of the people who worked—and this is one of the absurdities of bankruptcy—
one of the people who worked for Desert Moon decided to pick up the reins of that company
and continue doing business.
He was allowed to do this, and he ran off with the money.
So basically, for a year's worth of issues, we have not been paid for that company.
It's a rather hard blow, not a crippling one, not like last time,
but bad enough, enough to cause a crisis.
Add to that another problem that we had with the winter issue,
making it very late to the stands, and the spring issue being on time.
What that means is, when the winter issue got onto the stands,
a month had gone by where it should have been on the stands,
and the spring issue came out on time, which meant that we had one month less of shelf time.
So that means that we had basically a 33 percent drop in sales.
So we're facing a bit of a crisis ourselves.
I appeal to people out there who want to support the magazine,
as well as the radio station.
Please go to our internet store, and if you missed an issue,
just pick it up on the internet store,
and you'll do a lot to help that crisis resolve itself as well.
It seems to be the theme in a lot of organizations I'm involved in—
I think maybe in all the organizations I'm involved in—
that financial problems are an almost constant reality.
The thing is, we can overcome all the financial issues if we band together,
help each other out.
We're here for you.
We're here to spread information and talk about various things and give you a voice,
and we just hope that you're there for us to make sure that we're able to continue doing that.
Two ways you can do that, help 2600 out by picking up whatever you might have missed
at the internet store.
That's www.2600.com.
You can go directly to the store, store.2600.com,
and certainly by helping the radio station,
because that's a vital voice that we have access to.
And calling 212-209-2950, pledging any of the amounts that Mike just gave,
that will go an extremely long way to keeping this voice going.
212-209-2950.
I'd like to mention, Emmanuel, that I just pledged myself on my other line here,
and the phone room is swamped with callers,
and they need more volunteers to answer the phone right now.
So maybe some people from the studio can go tearing down the hallway like we do sometimes.
There are three of us in the studio, Emmanuel.
It's just the three of us.
Walter is already there.
Walter's already there, that's good.
We believe so.
That's good.
We'll have to read the address without him somehow.
Okay, well, if they need more, maybe, Jim,
you'll actually move in the studio, move to a different place.
One of our RSS feed listeners, Brandon Gunn,
just emailed to say he just pledged just now
as a result of the RSS feeds or podcasts.
So I think they're helping out a lot, these new listeners.
We greatly appreciate it.
And that will send quite a message to the radio station, too,
to see this response so quickly from our listeners who are always there for us.
I also want to point out, for the people who pledged last time,
we have gotten some pieces of mail.
I know there have been some problems with the delivery of premiums,
particularly with the Kevin Mitnick book.
We haven't been able to reach Kevin.
I think he's traveling someplace in the world.
And we're waiting for delivery of those books, the signed books of his new work.
The Art of Intrusion?
The Art of Intrusion, that was the latest one.
So we're waiting for those.
And I know there are a couple of other issues as well.
Let me just be clear on this, because most of the letters, I'd say 95% of the letters,
I've been completely understanding.
Yeah, we know you're busy.
We know you're volunteers.
But there are occasional ones that say things like this one,
where I'm about to issue a chargeback on my credit card
because I have not gotten the premiums that I ordered.
Well, let me just say one thing, okay?
We appreciate your support.
We really do.
But if you're simply calling to receive an item, you're not calling for the right reasons.
You probably should not be calling us for just that reason alone.
You should be calling to support the radio station, to keep this going,
to keep this mode of communication going.
Yes, I understand things might be delayed.
Maybe you'll even get the wrong premium, and there'll be a little bit of confusion.
It happens.
We're volunteers.
We're trying as hard as we possibly can.
And nobody, as far as I know, has ever not gotten what they wanted in the end.
So all we ask is a little bit of patience.
We're sorry if there is any confusion.
It does happen in the kind of situation that we're in.
We're just amazed we're able to pull it off at all.
But if you write to us, if there's a problem, we will get back to you.
You can always write to us at oth at 2600.com if there are any issues.
And again, we're sorry for anybody who missed the delay getting premiums that they were
supposed to get in return for their pledge.
But again, the most important thing is that you leave in the place that you want to be.
Hello?
Are you there?
I guess not.
I guess not.
All right.
Well, why don't we jump into some stories while I try to get Emmanuel back on the line.
Oh, the Queen Mary is slowly sinking.
Okay.
We have a bit of news about Tommy Thompson, the former governor of Wisconsin and the
Health and Human Services Secretary for the first term of President Bush.
He has in him an RFID chip, which is kind of strange.
He's joined the board of Applied Digital, which owns Verichip,
the company that specializes in subcutaneous RFID tags for humans and pets.
So to help promote the concepts behind the technology,
Thompson himself will get an RFID tag implanted under his skin.
Human RFID tags, the article says,
have emerged as one of the more controversial technologies in years.
Civil libertarians theorize that the chips will allow governments or
corporations to track people's movements and behavior.
Some Christians apparently have said that the chips are so evil,
they fulfill a biblical prophecy about satanic influences.
Advocates, on the other hand, and I guess Tommy Thompson is among them,
say the chips will contain personal information that will help medical
professionals and others provide emergency treatment.
So I guess Tommy Thompson is so fascinated by this RFID technology that he wants one in him.
It's the mark of the beast.
I remember an interesting story.
I think it might have actually been a few years ago involving RFID technology that was implanted.
And it was used very interestingly to, the person used it so that when they were in a room,
and you can do this with tags that you hang around your neck and whatnot,
but when he was in a room, the computer in that room would detect the RFID tag and bring up his
session and he could use it.
And then when he left, it would log him out automatically.
But of course, this could be done much less intrusively with something like a USB,
you know, key chain or something.
What if you cut off the person's hand and waved it around?
Well, then I suppose you could get their session back.
You see, this is very insecure technology.
I believe we have a manual back on the line.
Are you there?
Yeah.
And as my face ever read, I gave this impassioned speech.
I even stood up and was looking around because I was so emotionally into it.
Did you hear anything about what I said to those people who might not have gotten their premium?
Yes, we got most of it.
We think we lost you at the very end.
So.
Okay.
Well, the part where I actually broke out in tears, was that lost?
I think so.
Yeah, we didn't hear King of the World either.
Well, you can't fake that.
You know, I can't really reproduce that.
But let's just say that, you know, we're sorry for anybody who might not have gotten what they
pledged for.
You will get it.
Please be patient.
Remember the reason for calling in.
212-209-2950.
Hopefully, Mike, do we have an actual tally figure yet?
We don't because they're so busy.
So many of our listeners are calling.
We have 15 lines here and there's now about 10 of them with calls on them.
So your patience is really appreciated.
I'm going to express faith in our listeners that with that amount of response that we
will have reached the goal and hopefully exceeded it by far.
Again, your calls are welcome throughout the hour.
212-209-2950.
And maybe we can send a finding mission down to the tally room to find out what the actual
number is.
We can announce it at some point during the show.
I would like to mention that one of our listeners, Jim Cooper, just emailed in and said that
the pledge line was busy and they couldn't answer the phone.
They hung up on him, but he's still trying.
So I hope we get enough volunteers to answer the phone calls.
And with the pledge line this busy, just bear with us and your pledge will get taken if
you're patient.
All right, let's continue with the show then because our listeners certainly have come
through for us.
Now we must come through for them.
Right.
I'd like to go into a story about the MTA installing new closed-circuit television cameras
in some of the subway tunnels.
This is from the Daily News and it says, the MTA's first wave of major anti-terrorism
projects will include installing high-tech surveillance systems to protect its underwater
tunnels, the Daily News has learned.
The systems will be able to detect intruders entering the 14 subway and commuter rail tunnels
leading into Manhattan, sending alarms and images to Metropolitan Transit Authority police
and anti-terror staff in command centers, sources said.
Cops would be dispatched immediately to thwart any possible attack.
So there...
Um...
Go ahead.
Rick, I have a question about this.
Um, it sounds like they're just putting cameras at the entrances to subway tunnels.
Is that all they're doing?
I think they're putting them...
Yeah, the entrances are in the subway tunnels so that basically...
I think it's for the tunnels so that people can't go into the tunnels.
So it wouldn't be like in the station monitoring people.
It would just be so that anyone trying to walk around in the tunnels for whatever reason
would be caught on camera and the anti-terrorism task force would be informed.
I mean, how hard is it to do that?
That doesn't sound like something that's all that difficult.
It sounds like something you could do with, you know, a motion sensing or an infrared camera to
see when someone's there.
And I'm actually kind of surprised they don't already have that.
Yeah.
Kind of curious whether they'll catch more terrorists or just homeless people seeking
shelter, but it'll be interesting to find out.
But that's the start, but, you know, next it might be, well, we need them in the stations,
we need them outside the stations, who knows.
But they're starting to put the cameras in the stations or at least in the tunnels at
the stations.
In Moscow, though, they're planning to put cameras in every subway car.
Right here.
Which is apparently a part of stepped up security measures following the London transit bombings.
And it's very strange.
The one thing that I didn't know, and I feel silly for not knowing, is that last year there
were two terrorist attacks on, and terrorist is the AP's word, on Moscow's subway last year.
In August, there was a female suicide bomber who blew herself up outside a station, killing
10 people.
And in February, 41 people were killed in a rush hour blast in a subway car.
And I don't know if I just missed it or if these bombings didn't make it to the Western
media at all.
I know why you might not have heard about that, because that happened to occur.
The August one happened to occur at the same time as the subway bombing.
There was also two airplanes that were bombed and the passenger airlines that crashed within
moments of each other.
And the school had the hostage crisis as well, which ended up in so much bloodshed and carnage.
So yeah, they are very familiar with terrorist actions.
It was the equivalent of 9-11 for them, just like July 7th was similar to the people of
London.
And yeah, we don't hear a lot about what's going on in the rest of the world, because
we're focused constantly on who is missing this week from some suburban home or something
like that.
We don't focus on the rest of the world nearly enough.
Yeah, again, if you go to CNN.com and just look at their US versus their international
page, it's always totally different and focusing on totally different aspects of what's going
on in the world.
And we're very self-centered in what is displayed on that page.
And the international page is far more broad in what it covers.
One thing I gleaned from the article, though, that kind of we were discussing this last
week was a quote from one of the directors there saying, this won't guarantee that nothing
will ever happen, but it will make things more difficult for terrorists about the cameras
in the Moscow subway cars.
And I don't quite understand.
I mean, I understand that they'll be surveilling the people in the car.
But if they're already in the car, how are they going to be able to stop them?
Yeah, there's absolutely no way to prevent something like this.
You can have all the bomb-sniffing dogs you want, but if the bomb's in there, the person
can simply blow it up at a moment's notice.
Yeah, and also, I mean, it's always as good as the people monitoring your entrance.
The other day, for example, I was filming something, and I went to the pier at the Intrepid
Pier.
And I had to go through a metal detector and all the security, and I had a camera tripod
with me, which was in a very long, kind of rifle bag-looking bag.
And he just put it on the table, pushed it through, and let me through, and didn't think
twice.
He had to look through my backpack, but the big, oblong bag was left untouched.
Well, I discovered a couple of security issues on boarding the QM-2.
Well, security is fairly tight, but it's a lot more pleasant.
People are friendlier.
There aren't as many people barking orders at you.
But one thing I noticed, people get onto the boat in wedding gowns.
You know, people get married on the QM-2.
And I discovered that, apparently, a bouquet of flowers is never passed through the machine.
You hand the bouquet of flowers to the person in security, and they simply take them, and
they don't ever actually check them.
So that might be something they'd want to look into in the future.
It's also a favorite place for hiding microphones.
That's certainly true.
All right, looks like we have a few people to thank.
We have a few people to thank.
I fought my way into the tally room, and it's a madhouse in there.
But you can call now.
We're down to just a few, and we'll get it organized.
I'd like to thank Cubix in San Clemente, California, for pledging.
Bernice in Plainfield in New Jersey.
I've been there.
Gregory in Montclair, New Jersey.
And Alan in, and I have to read this city, Seafort Cumbernauld in Scotland.
Thank you very much.
I have to say, Jim, that you mentioned Scotland.
I've been hanging out with some people from Scotland.
What happens on these boats, you sign a table, and you basically wind up having dinner and
lunch with various people that you're assigned to.
And I met this great couple from Scotland.
They actually did a round trip on the boat.
They went to New York, spent a day in New York, ran around Chinatown, took the subway,
and now they're heading back to Scotland.
And it's great because just having the conversations about all sorts of different aspects of life,
politics, that kind of thing, you realize nobody here is really the typical cruise passenger
that you might expect.
And I'm sure there are a ton of rich people that don't really care about anybody else,
but there are so many nice people as well.
And I've learned a lot about Scotland in the last couple of days.
It sounds like a really cool place, a place I'd like to go to.
All right.
Were they just not interested in New York?
Or had they been there before?
Well, they had to catch the boat because the boat docked on Sunday and then it left again
on Sunday.
And they had a special deal with a round trip.
That's the other thing.
People assume this is very expensive.
It is for the most part, but you can find no real bargains.
I think they found a bargain.
Obviously, it's his turn to row, but we'll try to get him back before his shift starts.
All right.
Oh, he's still there in spirit.
Oh, I'm still kicking.
All right.
Oh, wow.
Switch satellites.
That might be good.
Robot stuff.
I don't think the satellite, unlike cell phones, the satellite handoffs with iridium are not
quite as smooth.
So when you drop out, you're probably changing from one satellite to the other as they pass
overhead.
I'm standing on top with a better satellite signal.
You're standing on top of what with a better satellite signal?
Well, there's a railing on the deck.
And I figure if I hold my arm up straight, I'll be able to...
Boy, this boat is certainly moving from left to right.
Yeah, don't do something stupid like get on the railing.
Well, Jim, the show is very important to me.
And I want to make sure that the reception holds because making a phone call can be very
difficult.
Well, we'd like to see you at a future show.
Well, there's always repeats.
Speaking of new shows, a friend of our show has got a new show.
Aaron Magruder, the creator and illustrator and writer of Boondocks, has signed a deal
with the Cartoon Network to be part of Adult Swim.
Starring in October.
Excellent.
Will it be Boondocks?
It will be Boondocks.
And we will drop the NBOM as the article that I've read states.
It will be uncensored.
So hopefully people who support us will support that show.
Well, congratulations to Aaron.
Aaron, of course, being our keynote speaker for H2K2 and opened up a lot of eyes during
that conference.
You can listen to his speech on our website someplace, look for the 2K2 section.
And by the way, I want to thank all of you who worked on the website.
Red Hat, Jim's, Mike, all kinds of people pitched in and redid the front page.
We have the world tour that I'm embarked in right now.
That's on the front page as well.
If you click on the globe, you'll see where I am and what I'm up to.
We have all kinds of little nifty features and added attractions.
And have you been keeping up to date with the blog then?
With the what?
With the weblog.
I'm sorry.
Did you use the B word on me?
Yes, I guess I did.
No, you see, I don't like that word.
The reason I don't like that word is because everybody feels that every little detail of
their life is so important that the whole world needs to know about it.
And I'm embarrassed enough writing about what I'm doing because I don't really think anybody
cares that much.
But it's kind of therapeutic to write.
But, you know, I just it's just kind of like, you know, a public diary type of a thing,
a log of what I'm doing.
But I just keep that word blog.
I think it's been destroyed before it was ever created.
That would be hard, but we can try.
If anyone can destroy words, it would be you.
Please give up your tired notions of causality, Mike.
Any other items in the news?
I have a few on my laptop here.
I actually have a laptop here on the top of the boat.
I have one bit of news from Australia where I guess you're not going.
In Australia, a man and his ISP were found guilty of piracy.
Maybe you'll meet some pirates on your boats.
I haven't seen any yet.
But major record labels in Australia have won a legal battle against a man, his ISP
for alleged music piracy.
Stephen Cooper, a operator of a website called MP3sforfree.net, was found guilty on Thursday
of copyright infringement by Australia federal court justice Brian Tamberlin.
And now what's interesting is that Cooper didn't host the pirated recordings per se,
but the court found him guilty anyway by because he had created hyperlinks to sites that had
infringing sound recordings.
And this is the first such judgment against hyperlinking in Australia.
Hyperlinking in the United States, of course, has been illegal for quite some time.
Now, I have a question relating to that.
If you've ever done a Google search for something, you know, a music file that may be popular,
and it comes up sometimes with links to various sites where people have put them in the public
by accident, and so they're hyperlinking essentially to this content, would Google
be liable for that?
Maybe in Australia they would be.
It's very hard to say.
Or is it that he did he have an active role in choosing the links?
Or was it like a piece of software that was written to find these kinds of files?
Well, it is called MP3sforfree.net.
Well, I'm just curious if it would apply to other situations like search engines, which
might inadvertently list copyrighted material.
You can be sure that there are lawyers gathered around in a boardroom someplace trying to
figure out a way to make it applicable.
Right.
What is also interesting...
It always happens.
Sorry, what is also interesting is that the internet service provider was also found guilty,
which is kind of strange.
It is kind of strange.
It doesn't really explain in this article why, but the music industry piracy investigation
general manager, Michael Caron, was very pleased by this news.
He said, this is a very significant blow in the war against piracy.
The court has found against all the respondents.
It sends the message that ISPs who involve themselves in copyright infringement can be
found guilty.
The verdict showed that employees of ISPs who engage in piracy can be seen in the eyes
of the court as guilty.
So it's really a wide-ranging decision there.
It certainly is.
On a side note, too, we mentioned Google.
I just wanted to point this out before I forgot.
I've been hopping onto the net a couple of times.
Well, actually, more than a couple of times on this boat.
I'm afraid to see what the bill is going to be.
But at one point, I was searching on Google.
I guess it was about, oh, I don't know, maybe a little less than a day after we left.
And all of a sudden, I was connected to Bolivian Google.
So apparently, I was closer to Bolivia at that point.
It was about D.O.
And I just thought that was awfully odd.
Or maybe the ISP is based in Bolivia.
So the IP address you were connected from was a Bolivian allocation.
Well, I connected to Google only a couple of hours earlier, and it was a normal one.
But all kinds of weird things happen out here.
I'd like to read a letter.
And then maybe we can try to...
Red Hat, do you think we can try to take phone calls tonight?
I'm sure.
I don't see why not.
Well, it's a bit of a challenge.
It's a bit of a challenge.
And again, people are still welcome to call the pledge line, 212-209-2950.
We're not going to do any pitching because of the strong response that we got.
And hopefully, we'll have a number for you in a matter of moments.
I'm a listener from the UK, this listener writes.
I live just outside London.
And I'd like to thank you for your even-minded coverage of the London bombings.
It surprised me that a U.S. show would spend so much time on the subject.
And compared to the coverage in the general media, yours was a breath of fresh air.
Always nice to hear that.
So far, coverage over here has been a kind of quiet hysteria,
where nobody's shouting and screaming.
But I do find some of the implications concerning.
He goes on to talk about some of the new laws that are being proposed.
And this has been a topic that I've talked about on the boat with some people on a number of occasions.
Listen to this.
Three different new potential laws that make it illegal to indirectly incite terrorism.
Now, who knows what that could mean.
It makes also things involving terrorist training.
Not quite sure how they would actually describe that.
And acts preparatory to terrorism.
Very vague concepts that they want to make illegal.
Basically, if you say something that could be taken as encouraging somebody somewhere
to do something that is of a terroristic nature by their definition,
then you could be locked away and probably without charges being filed.
Because they're working to negate those laws as well.
Well, ironically, last night I was watching Channel 13 here in New York, public broadcasting.
And they had a block of a show I had never seen before,
done in conjunction with the BBC, a show called Warrior Challenge,
where they took various English policemen and American armed forces personnel
and trained them as if they were ancient warriors,
Roman soldiers or gladiators, medieval knights or Vikings.
And I watched this and I said to myself,
you know, under the correct draconian law, this would be a terrorist training camp.
There is very little difference.
The only difference is these people are getting no explosives training.
Aside from that, you could lock these people up tonight.
Maybe we should.
Unbelievable.
Well, yeah, if you'd like to call us, our phone number is 212-209-2900.
And the pledge line again, 212, yes.
The pledge line is 212-209-2950.
We have two calls on that line.
So if you didn't get through before, you can try now and you'll probably get through.
All right.
So let's take a call.
Good evening.
You're...
Oh, no.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hi, I'd like to turn on the chat.
Hello?
Hi.
Turn your radio down, please.
Wait a minute.
Sorry about that.
My speaker was on.
We're forgiven.
What's on your mind?
I'd like to mention how annoying using a payphone is these days.
Well, you've mentioned it.
Yes, I just...
I can't begin to even start talking about how annoying it is.
Right.
Oh, no.
I hung up on a manual, I think.
I think you did.
Uh-oh.
Well, let's take another phone call then.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Ah, this phone system is...
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hello?
Hello.
Yes, I'm on the air.
Yes, you are.
Hello.
I have a question about Verizon.
Okay.
I have a business, and last Thursday, my line was down, and I had no telephone,
and I couldn't do any business.
I have a store, and I need the line to call out to get approvals on credit cards.
I called them up.
They said they'll be there tomorrow.
They came in the next day.
They did a couple of things.
Nothing worked.
They said it's going to work by 6 o'clock.
It didn't work.
I called them again.
They said they'll come on Saturday to fix it.
The same thing.
Somebody came in.
They switched the line to a different position on the box.
They said within an hour, it's going to work.
It didn't work.
Bottom line is, I found out on Monday when they actually fixed the line,
four and a half days later, that it was negligent.
My question is, can I sue them?
You could try, but you probably won't win.
I lost the...
Verizon, what you described, sounds like a pretty typical Verizon story.
Their lines are always going out, and they're always taking days to repair them,
and they never seem to feel bad about it.
I haven't heard the word Verizon in a long time.
You can probably guess what we were discussing.
Verizon.
Oh, I can guess.
I can guess.
Believe me.
That's why I'm heading away from there as quickly as I possibly can,
which isn't very quickly right now.
The gentleman who called, he should be advised that, unfortunately,
Verizon and other telephone companies across the country
have lobbied to get legislation in place to limit their own liability,
in such cases, to the cost of this service
that you were not able to use for a day or two or whatever, however long it was,
which is probably just a dollar or two and doesn't even come close to what you suffered.
You can thank your legislators for bowing down to Verizon
and allowing them to get away with that.
Right.
We have a listener who emailed us with a correction to something we said on last week's show.
I had said in jest that there were only five people nicknamed Dean.
The listener wants us to know that there's actually 33,717.
So to the 33,712 people who I exaggerated out of existence,
I want to formally apologize.
All right.
All right, let's take another one as well.
You're way off on that, Mike.
Yes, indeed.
Well, I looked up online that still fewer people than exist
on all of Long Beach Island, New York, on Long Island.
All right.
Well, good evening.
You're on the air.
Hi, this is Ben Beeler from Dallas, Texas.
And I just wanted to put my two cents in on what the video games rating system
on what's happening with Grand Theft Auto.
I think that was a game Emanuel was in, actually.
That's right.
That's right, it was.
Yeah, but anyway, apparently they've released this mod for it
that, like, reveals some inappropriate things.
And this was actually in the code of the game.
But then you can't access it in the game.
Right.
Rockstar.
It was supposedly in the game.
And then somebody figured out a way to get it out of the game.
And then the people who put out the game decided to blame hackers for the whole thing.
Yeah, Rockstar had actually been denying it, that they put it there.
But now there's actually cheat codes to unlock it in the PS2 version of the game,
which wouldn't be introducing any new code.
So it makes their claim a little less true, or it would seem that way, anyway.
Yeah.
Well, what's amazing to me is that they actually blamed hackers for something like this.
I don't know.
I don't know if I want to work with those people again,
if they're going to be that narrow-minded about things.
The thing is, Hillary Clinton is trying to out-Republican the Republicans
and say, this is terrible.
They lied.
They're corrupting our youth.
But suppose that you write a book and that every...
You write it so that the first letter of every paragraph spells out obscene words.
All right?
If no one notices it, but then they submit a hack that you put the
electronic version of the book in your computer and it spews this out.
Even though it was there beforehand, the fact that no one could easily get it out, I think,
absolves you of the blame.
And I think the same thing here with Rockstar Games.
I think that the game itself is sleazy because of its violence,
but I don't think it's sleazy because of its sex that can be released by this mod.
Because you had to.
Naughty, naughty you.
Naughty, naughty owner of the game.
Naughty person who downloaded the mod.
You had to go and do this to make it, quote, obscene, unquote.
It's not them to blame, it's you.
Well, there's one thing that concerns me about the game, and I'm not a prude.
I'm not somebody who generally objects to things on moral grounds.
But I do notice, the few times that I have actually played the game myself,
that if you play for a very long time, occasionally, and this is not always the case,
but occasionally, the only way to achieve a goal
is to actually cross the double yellow line on a highway while you're driving.
And I think that's reprehensible.
That kind of thing is encouraged in our youth.
Amazing.
Amazing that they would put such a thing in the game.
I feel very strongly about that.
Should we take another phone call?
I want to point out also that we need that tally figure,
so if anybody can get it in the next few minutes, it's very important.
Tally as it stands, the listeners came through, is one...
Oh, it's updating.
One second.
No, $1,915.
So we've gotten more than, almost double,
almost more than double what we asked for from our listeners.
And that is unbelievable.
In a few minutes of pitching at the very beginning of the show, I'm speechless.
Yeah.
So if you would like to pledge $100 more to put us over the top,
or if several of you would to put us up to $2,600,
which is always a number we like to shoot for,
please call in soon because there's only about seven minutes left in the show.
We'd like to hit one of those magic numbers,
hopefully both of them, at 212-209-2950.
And if the radio station changes its mind about next week,
and actually does allow us to be on live from Holland,
from the Hacker Conference,
where the Hackers takes place in just about 10 days,
it will be because of this.
I am confident of that.
So thank you very much to those people who called in.
And again, you can still call in 212-209-2950.
Let me also give out the email address for the program,
if you want to write to us.
It's off the hook.
And that email address is oth at 2600.com.
And you can also send us snail mail, if you are so inclined.
Off the hook, care of WBAI, 120 Wall Street.
10th floor.
Was that Walter?
No, that was myself and Jim.
You spoke Walter's line.
Yeah.
Walter's busy.
He's sacrificing.
He's not going to be happy to hear about that.
Okay, let's continue with the address now.
New York, New York.
1-000-5.
We just handed a giant stack of cards of folks to thank.
I don't know if we can even get them all.
This may take the rest of the show.
Why don't we do it quickly, Walter?
In the time remaining.
Make the time to thank these people.
But I just want to say, also, I was by the person who was handling the pledge room.
He asked me to ask you, our listeners, to please come down,
if you have some time in the next week and a half, as this drive continues,
to please help answer the phones so that for other shows,
you can help them avoid the situation we were in,
where the volunteers couldn't keep up with the calls.
And in fact, if you'd like to meet someone from the show,
I plan to volunteer Friday night into Saturday morning.
So if you want to meet Jeopardy! Jim, Friday night into Saturday morning here at WBAI.
Or that could also be considered a warning.
That's true.
We'd like to thank Steve from Woodbridge.
And Joseph from Tullahoma, Tennessee.
Jose from Houston, Texas.
Kathleen from West Milford, New Jersey.
Carol from Whitestone, Queens.
Brandon from Seattle.
Jennifer from Redford Falls, New York.
Adam from New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Mark from Robbins, Iowa.
Charles from Greentown, Pennsylvania.
Dustin from Bloomington, Illinois.
Michael from Beatrice, Nebraska.
Jean, Z-H-A-N, from Brooklyn.
Bernice from Planfield, New Jersey.
Ian from Queens Village.
Jeff from Brooklyn.
Jim from Paramus, New Jersey.
Alan from, we already thanked Alan, from C for Cumberland, Scotland.
Curtis from New Brunswick.
Um, some of these people we already thanked.
Mike from Antioch, Illinois.
Arsony from Woodcliffe Lake, New Jersey.
And our very own...
He's in Switzerland.
Oh, that's not what this says.
And our very own Bernie S from Philadelphia.
Thank you all.
I gotta say, guys, I really like that ping pong effect you initiated just now.
We'll have to do it again sometime.
We were trying to make you seasick.
Yeah, well, from the deck of the Queen Mary 2,
I want to thank everyone for calling in.
And maybe it'll be on next week, maybe not.
But check the weblog.
All right.
Pledge is just the same.
All right.
Thanks very much.
Everyone have a good night.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.