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The time is just about 7 o'clock, and that means, once again, it's time for Off The Hook.
Really.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a cough.
We couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
Bon dilly bon for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood. Bon dilly bon!
Good evening, everybody. The program is Off The Hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
Joined this week by Mike. Hi.
Down in Philadelphia, Bernie S. Greetings from Philadelphia.
Looks like Voltaire over there. Hello there.
Other side of the room we have, not Kevin. Hello.
Rob T. Firefly. Good evening.
And, special surprise, joining us on the middle part of the room, Jim.
Welcome back. How you doing?
Well. Better. Much better. You came here on your own.
And it's not, no need for an all points bulletin.
He's in a better place now. He's in a place where he can actually come and go.
Thanks to the tireless efforts of many people.
Bernie, you certainly not the least.
And advice from some of our listeners.
Bernie, you want to tell us something about Jim's position now,
where he can go and stay and things?
Oh, I understand Jim was successfully moved this morning from the nursing home
in Brooklyn to an adult facility in Brooklyn, Queens.
And, Jim, I hear that there's a computer there that's online.
I don't know, but I don't know.
Yeah, that's what I've been told.
And I hear there's a good library there.
And the most important thing is you have the freedom to come and go.
And the first thing he did was come here.
So he's got his judgment back. That's certainly an important thing.
Congratulations, Jim.
Congratulations, yes. Welcome back.
So good to see you again.
And you're looking better than ever.
Thank you.
So, yeah, and you'll be on the Internet.
So I'll be able to exchange e-mails and various things like that.
It just goes to show that progress is possible and it's happening.
And, wow, for those of you who don't know,
Jim had a stroke about a year ago and was in some really bad places,
like, you know, hospitals and nursing homes and things like that.
And we went to see him.
And I know, Bernie, you did a tremendous amount to just get him back outside.
So thanks to you, Bernie, for helping with that.
A lot of people put an effort into getting Jim to his first big outside adventure,
which was the Hope Conference.
Yes. Oh, yeah, the Hope Conference.
I thought you meant his solo adventure of Atlantic City a few weeks ago.
That was something.
But I think in a way that cry of independence woke a lot of people up
and made them realize that he did not belong where he was,
and now he's in a much better place and we'll be seeing more of him.
I do want to say that the facility where he was did do an over-and-above job
in getting him the resources that enabled him to move to this new facility.
So I just want to give an on-the-air thank you to the people.
They didn't want to mention their names on the air,
but they're basically responsible for getting Jim where he is today.
So congratulations, Jim, and we look forward to seeing you more now.
Okay.
And I also want to thank people here at the station
who have expressed all kinds of concern and interest
and offered advice wherever possible.
So it's good to have a family like this around you in times like this.
So, again, welcome back, Jim.
Now we have some interesting things that we've been up to in the last week or so,
not the least of which something that myself, not Kevin and Voltaire,
along with Junce, who's not here at the moment.
He's currently battling traffic in New Jersey somewhere.
We went to this show.
Now here's the interesting thing.
If you listened to last week's show, you heard that Mark from Negative Land was here.
And Mark from Negative Land dates back.
We've had him at the conferences and been into Negative Land since forever, I guess.
And we went out afterwards, met some friends of his,
and these friends of his were involved in this play that's playing downtown.
It's called Surrender.
And it piqued my interest because it's basically one of these performances
where the audience gets involved.
And what got my attention was when I was told that it's described as
a simulated war deployment experience in three acts.
You go down there, and you're kind of enlisted into the military.
You have to go through basic training.
You have to go through a war scenario.
And then you have to recover from that and come back home.
I just thought that whole idea was fascinating.
So we rounded a few people up from off the hook, and we went down there.
Now there are a bunch of frequently asked questions on their website,
which, by the way, is wowsurrender.org.
That's right, wowsurrender.org.
W-O-W?
W-O-W.
All right.
That's how I spell wow.
How do you spell wow?
You could spell it any way you want.
Well, I don't think there's many other ways to spell wow.
Wowsurrender.org.
Yeah, one of the questions is,
will I get yelled at like in basic training in the movies?
And the answer is no.
That's just in the movies.
Does this involve strenuous physical activity?
No.
There is physical activity, walking quickly and carrying a rifle,
but strenuous physical actions are not required.
The first thing they do when you get there,
and I don't want to spoil it for too many people,
but when you get there, you basically have to sign a little waiver outside
on the street, then you walk in,
and you're basically very quickly handed uniforms
and told in non-certain terms to get dressed,
to basically put on this pair of pants, put on this shirt, put on the boots,
and you are yelled at.
And you do have to go through strenuous activity.
You've got to give them 10 push-ups occasionally.
You have to do certain things.
And they say to you, they say,
if anyone told you that you did not have to go through strenuous activity
or people were not going to yell at you, that you were lied to.
And it's exactly like what happens when you enlist in the military.
You are lied to.
So when you actually wind up in the military,
you're kind of screwed.
And boy, I got that feeling up close and personal.
Now, you go through this.
The show lasts three and a half hours.
Three and a half hours.
And it's so weird what happens to your state of mind
because at first, you're kind of like,
oh my God, what did I just get myself into?
But after it starts to unfold, you're trying.
You're trying hard to like actually fit in and not stand out
so that you're called for attention and you're looking straight ahead.
You're not laughing.
And when it starts to get into the wartime scenarios,
you're actually trying to win their approval
and really relishing any nod of approval that they give you.
And then when it's over, when you're in the third act,
which is where you're kind of watching various performances on stage
of people trying to acclimate back into society, it's very emotional.
In fact, not Kevin, you played a very special role in that recovery process.
What happened to you?
I was killed.
I died in the service.
Yeah, and that's the thing.
It was kind of a shock to me because we were serving side by side.
We were entering rooms.
We learned how to enter rooms as soldiers and find enemies
and call out clearance and things like that.
And you were right next to me, and you seemed fine.
But then on the plane ride home, that's when it was announced that you were dead.
You had to go up on stage and lie inside a casket
and have people give eulogies.
Now, I feel responsible because I was right next to you
throughout the whole mission, and I wasn't even aware that you were dead.
So I guess I should have noticed that.
I should have protected you more, so I'm sorry about that.
Thank you for letting me down.
But now you're part of the show.
I am part of the show now.
How did that happen?
Well, after the show, we got to know the two directors.
They actually were big fans of 2600.
It was amazing.
It was amazing to me because here we are dealing with drill sergeants
and people who are very rough and serious,
and then they break character at the end,
and they're just your normal village theater people,
and that was just so comforting somehow.
And they're big fans of 2600,
and they're probably listening now.
No, they're doing a show right now.
They're doing a show right now.
But maybe they're listening.
And it was just kind of cool to hang out afterwards
and see the real people.
It was actually astounding when the show was over
and we were just milling around
and seeing all the drilled sergeants and the squad leaders come out,
and they're normal people.
Yeah, normal people.
I was still afraid to talk to them, actually.
I didn't want to say, you know, good job
because I thought they'd get in my face and start yelling at me.
And the guy who was behind this, basically, Jason Hartley,
wrote a book basically describing his activity in Iraq.
He actually was in Iraq,
and he had a blog going when he was over there,
got into some trouble for running the blog,
and Josh Fox also involved in the production here in New York.
It was fascinating.
The whole thing was an incredible experience.
Now, Voltaire, you got shot.
I saw you get shot,
so at least that one I was a witness to.
Yeah, I was shot, but I wasn't killed.
You weren't killed.
You recovered.
You made a good recovery.
But somehow, not Kevin was the one who was killed,
even though we didn't see him.
Remind me never to go into war with you.
One person gets shot, the other gets killed.
I mean, Voltaire, to be honest, it was your fault that you got shot.
I mean, you just walked right into that room without looking.
And then Kevin tried to run in front of the bullet and stopped me from getting shot.
Something that Kevin was trying to be a hero.
I was a hero, and my eulogy said so.
The guy who delivered your eulogy,
basically what happens at the end, the third act,
we're all sitting in an auditorium,
and you get called up on stage.
Your name is read on the screen,
and you have to go up on stage,
and you have to perform various functions.
It's not hard because you read your lines off a teleprompter,
but you don't know what you're going to be.
The boyfriend trying to explain to his girlfriend what war was like.
Are you going to be somebody delivering a eulogy?
Are you going to be a corpse?
Are you going to be somebody with no legs?
The horrors of war and the lasting after effects
just are brought home in such a vivid way.
And I just can't think of a way that it would hit home as hard.
So that's what we were doing last Saturday.
And the show runs until when?
Sunday is the last performance.
All right, this Sunday.
So we're just encouraging our listeners out there,
anyone who's local to New York,
to check this out because it's an experience like you'll never experience
unless you're unlucky enough to enlist in the military yourself.
Again, it's wowsurrender.org has all the information.
Playing at the Ohio Theater on Worcester Street.
Might be coming back in January from what I hear.
There are rumors, but I highly suggest you go now while it's still here.
And I should also point out,
this is not the kind of show for people who are going to stand up and say,
no, I will not partake in this.
You have to get into the spirit.
You have to get into the character
and try to understand what's happening around you.
I don't even think that you have to be one of those people
who just get into character.
You just do it subconsciously.
Yeah.
I mean, I went to the show saying, you know,
I don't favor the military that much.
But after 10 minutes, I was afraid to say no.
I said yes repeatedly.
You will come out of this with a much greater understanding
of what it's actually like.
It's like the time I went to the shooting range and shot a gun,
even though I hate guns.
I wanted to see what it was like.
And now I hate guns more than ever.
But at least I know what it's like.
I don't hate them.
I mean, you know, I don't write nasty letters to them,
but I wouldn't want one around me, you see.
And education, you experience something firsthand.
You become a little bit more educated about why you believe something.
So now I can speak out against war and know why.
Yeah, and it's a nice compromise for anti-war people
that don't want to actually enlist,
but they want to be able to say that they experienced something like it.
So it's a good, easy way to do it.
So Bernie, are you going to be coming up for this?
I hope I can get up there, but I'm not sure if I can.
I wanted to ask you if you're not going to study war no more.
Well, I don't know if I'm going to say that,
but I think I'll continue to study war quite a bit more,
just so I know what's going on around me.
I hope you don't get killed in the process.
I've got to say, though, I'm still in pain.
Because you do have to exert yourself a bit,
and these muscles get woken up that haven't been doing things in a while.
But this is open to all age groups.
People in their 70s have done this.
People in their teens have done this.
It's an eye-opening experience.
So I encourage everybody to take part in it.
Again, www.wowsurrender.org.
Okay, now, Bernie, you've had a very interesting adventure
over the past few days involving a threat, actually,
to reveal your personal data.
What's going on here?
Yeah, this is really strange.
I wasn't notified about this by the company who has my information,
but by an article in The New York Times,
and that is there's a company called Express Scripts,
which contracts with a lot of health care insurance companies
like Blue Cross Blue Shield, that sort of thing,
and they're a prescription service provider.
They handle all the prescription stuff at pharmacies
and if you have mail-order prescriptions, that sort of thing.
And they have millions of people's medical records
as far as what medications they take and how often
and their names and addresses and dates of birth and social security numbers,
you know, all the stuff that you have to give a health insurance company.
And apparently last month, in October,
they received an anonymous letter along with a list of 75 profiles of patients
who have their names, addresses, dates of birth, medications they take,
and this was an extortion letter saying,
if you don't pay us X amount of money,
and they won't reveal how much it is, Express Scripts,
we are going to release this information on the Internet.
These millions of personal identifiers and the medical stuff.
And you can learn a lot about somebody from what medications they're taking,
you know, whether they're taking medical marijuana,
maybe they're taking drugs for mental health reasons,
maybe they're taking drugs for cancer.
There's a lot of stuff that is very private about what medications someone takes.
And I'm not personally embarrassed by the medications I take,
but in any case, I'm very upset with the fact that a company
that is entrusted with this information about me
apparently didn't protect it adequately
and is now facing a threat to having my,
along with millions of other people's private information released on the Internet.
So just recently, in the past couple, three days,
this extortionist mailed anonymous letters to several health care insurance companies
like Blue Cross Blue Shield, those kinds of companies,
with a threat that they're going to do this too.
So what Express Scripts has done is not deal with the extortionist
and put up a million-dollar reward for anyone who provides information
leading to the arrest and capture and prosecution of the extortionist.
But this is the first time I've heard where this kind of information
isn't just being used for identity theft,
but is being used as an extortion tool.
Have you heard anything like this before?
I haven't, Bernie, but I'm curious.
Now, health care information is one of the few areas in the United States
where your privacy is actually protected by law.
The HIPAA Act makes it illegal to store data
in a way that it can just go in and be taken like this.
So I'm wondering if there's anyone who's going to press charges
against this company for clearly violating their customer's privacy.
I'm sure Express Scripts lawyers are working on that right now.
Is anyone going to go after Express Scripts?
What I'm saying, I'm sure they're preparing for class-action lawsuits
by a lot of patients whose information they inadvertently released
to this extortionist.
I, for one, am going to explore that myself.
Who knows whether this information is going to get out to the Internet or not.
But the fact is, it's in the hands of a third party.
It did not have authorization to have it.
It's probably a HIPAA violation.
A class-action lawsuit usually is spurred by one of the victims.
I think what Mike's asking is,
is there some kind of government entity that's going to go after these people
for criminal wrongdoing?
That's a good question.
I think I'll investigate that further and find out.
I did get a call from a high-ranking representative at Express Scripts today
in response to an email I sent them yesterday.
I was inquiring as to whether this company is going to provide
a free credit monitoring service for one year,
like this company TD Ameritrade did for me a year ago
when they released my information inadvertently to third parties.
They provided an experience service from Experian,
which would email me the moment any change was made to my credit files
at any of the three major credit reporting agencies.
It worked well for a year.
I did get a few notices, but they weren't related to identity fraud.
But it stopped after a year, so it's kind of useless after that.
This company, Express Scripts, has said that they are not going to do that.
They are going to provide a service for anyone whose identity was stolen.
They're going to provide what they're referring to as
identity restoration services.
Identity restoration services.
What are they, God or something?
How does this work?
I don't know.
They've contracted with a company called Kroll Associates.
I know Kroll Associates.
They're a bunch of private eyes and investigators.
Yeah, they are.
They paid Kroll Associates to deal with any people whose information was in the
database that was an actual victim of identity fraud
to help these people rebuild their identities.
That's kind of after the fact.
I would like to know immediately if there's been any change to my credit file,
which is usually a sort of a red flag or a tip-off that there's been
unauthorized use of your credit information.
But this company, Express Scripts, is not going to do that.
They say that what they're doing with Kroll Associates is enough.
Frankly, I think it's an expense thing because we're talking about millions
and millions of people.
And when they have to pay for credit monitoring service for millions and
millions of people, it could probably run into tens of millions of dollars,
and they probably don't want to spend that much money.
I wish they would.
I've asked them to.
They've refused.
And they're just going to do this after the fact thing with Kroll Associates.
Well, see if a lawsuit might be more expensive for them.
That's entirely possible.
Now, the thing that's interesting about this case, though,
is that this is the first time I've heard of the specific threat being issued.
It seems almost like a fantasy that there's this evil entity out there that's
threatening to release this information unless we do this,
so therefore we're going to do that instead and get all of our customers
slash victims involved.
Do you think there actually is some organization or some group of people
threatening to release this information and wanting something in return?
Well, Express Scripts says they don't know if it's an individual
or a group of people.
They're kind of cagey.
They won't tell me what the demands are of the extortionist.
One of my important questions was, what's the deadline the extortionist gave them?
Like, if you don't meet his demands by a certain date,
when can I expect to have my information spread all over the Internet?
And they wouldn't answer that question either because they say it's an
ongoing investigation.
But I think I have a right to know as long as it was well with millions of
other people.
Of course.
I'd also like to know how the threat was issued.
Was it an email?
Was it a phone call?
Did they come in person?
How do you issue a threat like this?
To their credit, they did contact the FBI immediately when they received this
first threat letter back in October.
They won't say whether it was a snail mail letter or an email.
They say it's part of an ongoing investigation.
But then some other letters, probably not emails,
but mailed letters were received by these different health care insurance
companies, also with the same threat, saying,
we're going to reveal the information that your contractor,
Express Scripts, has inadvertently released to us.
And so my other question is,
how does this anonymous person hope to collect the ransom money,
or however they're doing it, e-gold or whatever?
I mean, how could somebody hope to collect on this?
Well, you know, it could just be a nine-year-old kid somewhere.
Who knows?
Unless they reveal more information, nobody knows exactly what we're dealing
with.
Have you talked directly to the FBI?
Do you encourage people to do that?
Well,
I haven't called the FBI because I don't have any specific evidence that my
information is in the hands of third parties.
All we have is the word of Express Scripts that it's very possible that if
they have a group of names and information that they provided as proof,
kind of like, you know,
when a kidnapper provides like the cutoff finger of the person who was
kidnapped, and then they expect that the proof,
maybe a picture of a proof of life showing that the person holding the
newspaper.
Yeah, traditional, traditional way of doing it.
Yeah.
So that's kind of what this extortionist has done,
but that's not proof that they have my,
I wasn't one of the 75 people who were cited in the letter of having,
they're having my information.
But so there's no reason I should contact the FBI in my opinion,
but I'm very concerned about this.
It would be a real nightmare for me if I had to change my social security
number and change my date of birth.
And I mean this whole identity restoration.
Change your date of birth.
How are you going to do that?
That's part of identity restoration.
Maybe I have to get a new name.
Wait a minute.
Part of identity restoration is changing your information as to when you
were born.
That sounds like information lying to me.
Well,
your date of birth is what's called a personal identifier.
It's one of those key identifiers that's used for,
uh, for,
for credit.
I know,
but it's also something that's,
that's irrevocably true.
It's like saying that,
you know,
you're a Panda bear now instead of a human,
you have to like,
there's certain things you can't just deny.
Well,
maybe I should ask,
uh,
to be changing to a Panda bear.
I don't know.
I mean,
you'd have about as much success changing your Panda bear as changing
something that already happened,
which is you being born.
Well,
I mean,
the whole concept of identity restoration services,
it spooks me.
And,
uh,
we're going to see how this plays out.
It's going to be an ongoing story.
And,
uh,
I hope this turns out to be a hoax by some,
uh,
nine year old kid.
It may well be,
uh,
a serious criminal who's,
uh,
who's going to carry out this threat to reveal millions of people's medical
records and personal identifiers on the internet.
Uh,
you know,
it'd be kind of pointless at that point if they didn't get the money.
Um,
it would just sort of be a,
sort of a revenge tactic for not,
not complying with the demands,
but we'll see how this plays out.
All right.
If you're involved in this threat,
by all means,
email us OTH at 2600.com and explain just what it is you're doing so we can
try and report the facts accurately.
Wow.
Stories just get weirder and weirder by the week.
Um,
okay.
So,
uh,
this week we've seen the launch of the new Obama site.
Everybody seen this?
Change.gov.
Wow.
How about that?
Uh,
so this site just came out of nowhere and already it's causing controversy,
isn't it?
What,
what,
what exactly is happening?
Well,
when it first went up,
uh,
there was all this information about what,
uh,
president elect Obama's plans were when he became president and that went
away a couple of days later.
And what everyone thinks that that's,
that means something ominous is,
uh,
it's not really clear what it means,
but it's kind of a strange thing to do.
Uh,
well,
yeah.
I mean,
sometimes a missing webpage is just a missing webpage,
but,
uh,
yeah,
I see the,
I see the cached pages here and basically it's,
uh,
sounds like a lot of what he was saying during the campaign,
uh,
protect the openness of the internet.
The key reason the internet has been such a success is because it is the
most open network in history.
It needs to stay that way.
Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to
perceive the benefits of open competition on the internet.
That's gone.
That page is no longer there.
Um,
you know,
I don't know.
I think since he said these things already,
if he was going to do a one 80,
it would be very hard,
a lot harder than just erasing a webpage.
I think maybe the admins at change.gov just need to answer some questions
as to why they did this.
It could be one of these situations like,
uh,
George H.W. Bush,
the read my lips,
no new taxes kind of promise.
Right.
So let's hope it's not one of those.
Well,
yeah,
except he said that pretty blatantly and,
uh,
was,
was caught saying that.
And he knew he was lying when he said it too from,
uh,
historical records.
But in any case,
uh,
uh,
I'd like to believe,
uh,
uh,
Barack Obama was not lying about these promises and that they were taken
off his website for,
uh,
for other reasons.
Well,
there,
there are a lot smoother ways to lie than to put up a webpage and then
take down the webpage when everybody notices it.
So I think,
uh,
again,
you would talk to the admins of change.gov and find out just what's
really going on.
Yeah.
I mean,
I,
I gave him a.gov domain when,
uh,
technically he's not on the job for a couple of months yet.
There are a lot of things in.gov that,
uh,
maybe shouldn't be there.
I mean,
um,
the Republican national committee has a,
has a,
yeah.
And ready.gov.
I mean,
is that really part of the government?
It's run by the Homeland security people.
I know.
Are they really part of the government?
They are the government.
They're not really part of it.
The Republican party and probably the democratic party has,
has the same thing.
Maybe other parties.
I don't know,
but I know that the RNC.gov is a,
is a,
is a domain.
And top level domain.
And,
uh,
the Republican party is not technically part of our government.
It's a,
it's a,
you know,
it's a political party.
Who do you talk to,
to get a new.gov,
uh,
domain?
And I heard Barack Obama's people talk to,
to say,
Hey,
we want change.gov.
Is there some registrar that just handles all of this and who had to
approve it?
That's what I'm curious about.
What about 2600.gov?
Well,
I don't think that we're a shadow government or anything like that,
but maybe,
you know,
a site called overthrow the.gov,
you know,
that might be something worth,
you know,
that might be something worth pursuing.
What about,
uh,
more of the same.gov?
More of the same.gov?
Well,
you know,
kind of cynical sites,
I know,
but,
uh,
you know,
corrupt.gov.
All right.
All right.
I think we've made the point here.
And it's,
it's also interesting that they gave him the word change.gov.
I mean,
they basically gave him his own brand name as it were in the.gov
site.
When I usually think of.gov,
you think of things that are still very segmented and very,
uh,
you know,
state.ny.us.
They use subdomains.
They have everything organized.
They gave him change.gov.
What did they not give him?
Hope.gov.
Yeah.
Because we're hope.
Hope.net.
Very interesting.
Yeah.
And soon.
Maybe he realizes that having hope.gov would just confuse a lot of people
and that's why they got changed.
There's no,
there's no hacker conference called change.
Is there?
Hope would be a lot less fun if we were a government conference.
That's true.
That's true.
Well,
maybe we can get hope.gov then for the next conference.
I don't want to run a government conference.
Well,
you can make that point at the,
at the conference when it,
when it opens up.
All right.
More fun out of England.
Apparently,
under government plans to monitor internet traffic,
raw data would be collected and stored by the black boxes before being
transferred to a giant central database.
That's right.
Internet black boxes,
which will be used to record every email and website visit made by
computer users in Britain.
This is according to the telegraph.
This vision was outlined at a meeting between officials from the
Home Office and the Office of the President of the United States.
George Orwell had no idea how far this would have gotten out of control.
they basically found out about it a month ago during one of the lawsuits against the NYPD.
A decision was hailed by lawyers involved in the case as a victory for activist groups,
and New Yorkers would feel strongly about their right to protest without fear of winding up in a police dossier.
The NYPD, however, said it was never in the business of spying.
There was no political surveillance, according to the deputy commissioner.
Well, you know, I think those of us who were wandering around during the RNC
and various other, I guess, high-attention gatherings
were kind of spooked by having cops pointing video cameras directly at us.
And it felt kind of like political surveillance.
It felt like all kinds of things were being held up to microscopes.
So it's good that that's not happening anymore, but I can't say I trust them not to do it again.
I wonder if this is a tactic on their part,
because by voluntarily stopping this sort of filming,
they don't have any court tell them they can't film.
So I wonder if this is just, all right, we're not going to film now, go away, ACLU.
And then next time there's something really big, they'll change their minds again.
They may also be using this to keep people from filming police officers,
which was one of the best ways of countering what they were doing.
They're filming you, you film them right back.
And maybe they'll say, well, you're not allowed to do that because we're not doing it,
and they might make up a law, which would not be the first time.
Maybe they're just doing it to save time and effort
because they have all those cameras around that they don't need.
Yeah, what happened to all the cameras?
What are they going to do with all the cameras?
No, I mean like all the security cameras.
Oh, the security cameras that are around.
But I'm wondering what they're going to do with the camcorders that they were using.
But yeah, the security cameras, are they good enough to zoom in on people's faces at demonstrations
and follow them around and things like that?
I'm pretty sure the article mentions that they'll continue filming,
but only when there is a crime in progress.
Well, wouldn't they try to arrest somebody then if there's a crime in progress
rather than try and film them?
Well, I believe the article stated something to that effect.
If you're throwing bottles, they'll videotape you.
All right, well, that's certainly a threat.
So that's how they know whether to bring their cameras or not.
If there's going to be a crime, they'll load the vans up with cameras.
I just find it very interesting that there's been some high-profile cases lately
where citizens with video cameras have not been the NYPD's best friend.
And I'm wondering, as was said, is this a tactic on the NYPD's part to hold off the argument of,
you know, well, you guys were doing it, so why can't we do it?
Yeah, that's definitely something to look at.
Okay, so there's that development, which caught me a little bit by surprise.
Voltaire, what do you have there about some interesting way of getting connectivity?
Yeah, apparently the FCC has unanimously approved a plan to use, like, the white space
that's not being used when the television bans broadcast television,
and they're going to use that to, like, have Internet access.
Internet access through white space.
Yes.
Bernie, what do you know about this?
Well, I've been reading some of the two-way radio industry trade magazines about this.
It's basically using frequencies in between television channel broadcasts
and using TV broadcast frequencies in markets where those TV channels do not exist.
Like here, there's no Channel 2 here in Philadelphia,
and there's no Channel 3 in New York being broadcast.
But there's been some tests with this technology, this white space technology that the FCC is proposing,
and it's not passing these tests.
What it's supposed to do is it's supposed to use an intelligent transceiver
that will listen to the radio spectrum and figure out where there's clean frequencies
that aren't being used in that area and then start transmitting on those frequencies.
But the tests that were done in a football stadium found out that these receivers were deaf.
They couldn't really tell what was clean spectrum in its area.
So I think this technology has a ways to go,
and it has the potential for causing interference to other services,
and that's what the FCC is supposed to prevent.
So we'll see.
All right.
And, of course, in just, what is it, less than three months now,
we're going to see digital television.
February 18th, I think it is.
It's going to make its fourth debut.
And here's something interesting that I learned through visiting with Jim.
Places that don't get cable TV are places like nursing homes and some hospitals and places like that
and certainly a lot of prisons.
These people are going to be out of luck come February.
They're not going to have any television unless they get some kind of conversion system installed
or subscribe to cable or satellite.
I didn't even think about that.
All the people in various institutions that really don't have much of a choice.
Isn't that kind of dismaying to hear that?
Yeah, especially people that may not be aware of this whole transition.
Basically it was a boondoggle where the government gave all this extra spectrum to the broadcasters
so they could broadcast five times as many ads on five channels
and not be restricted from being over-the-air pay TV.
But, you know, people in nursing homes, prisoners in jails, hospitals that were individuals might just have a,
I think hospitals are pretty much all cable wired.
But there's a lot of people in institutions that aren't aware of this transition
and really have no way to deal with it.
Maybe can't afford another television or converter box.
It's going to be, I predict it's going to be a real disaster come February 18th
when the switch gets thrown and analog television ceases to exist in this country.
It'll be fun to watch the switch get thrown.
I'm going to try and figure out how to receive an over-the-air station again and record it
and see them sign off for the last time.
It should be very interesting.
Another thing that's being discussed now, many years after we talked about it on this radio station,
or this radio show, is the possibility of allocating more of the band for FM
for the channels that are no longer going to be there, channel 6, channel 5, below 88 on the FM band.
You could open up a lot of potential stations down there.
And I've heard discussion, I've seen it in various broadcasting magazines,
hey, why don't we open that up and we can have a lot more radio stations
and there won't be this inaccessibility to broadcasting that currently exists.
You could have micro-broadcasting, perhaps, or you could have more non-commercial stations
or more minority-owned stations.
Or more religious stations.
More religious stations.
Yeah, that's just what we need.
Thank you.
What do you think, Bernie?
I think it's an excellent idea.
We have talked about this before, but the National Association of Broadcasters is against this.
Basically, the TV channel 6 is just below the FM broadcast band.
I think it's 87.7.
In fact, if you tune to 87.7 here in New York, you'll hear what sounds like a radio station.
It's actually a low-power TV station operating out of Queens.
The TV signal doesn't go very far, but the sound signal goes very far.
It's actually a very unique and creative way of making a new radio station.
It's just the audio sub-carrier.
The whole TV signal is actually several megahertz wide.
In Japan, the FM broadcast band starts at 76 megahertz.
In this country, it starts at 88 megahertz and goes up to 108 megahertz.
In Japan, it goes from 76 up to in the high 90s or something.
It's about the same total bandwidth, but it's shifted down lower.
There are already radios on the market that can be tuned.
A lot of import radios can tune from 76 all the way up to 108 because they can work in both U.S. and Japanese markets.
I think it would be great if the FCC allocated a new band from 76 to 88, which won't be used by channel 6 anymore,
for low-power, non-commercial stations, educational stuff.
The whole problem is you're going to get all these religious broadcasters that will jump in on that because they're non-profit as well.
We'll see.
The National Association of Broadcasters is lobbying against this.
That's what I don't get.
Why would the National Association of Broadcasters be lobbying against having more radio stations?
Competition.
I'm sorry, what?
They don't want competition.
But they represent all the broadcasters.
It would be part of the broadcasting family.
It wouldn't be competition.
They mostly represent commercial broadcasters, and they feel apparently like there's enough of them.
All right.
Traditionally, they've been against things like low-power FM initiatives.
Yeah, they do tend to be against certain things that are good that might actually result in more variety.
I guess if the NAB is against it, it must be a good thing.
How about that?
All right.
Let's go to some listener mail, and we'll take some phone calls.
212-209-2900.
Again, our email address, oth at 2600.com, here at Off The Hook.
Dear Off The Hook, when you mentioned, this was a few weeks ago, when you mentioned about not understanding people buying property in virtual worlds, I was so relieved that it was not only me.
However, there is an even bigger scam, and I can't believe what I'm about to read here, where people are buying clothes for their characters in virtual worlds.
Even crazier is that the clothes wear out, and the user has to buy new clothes for their virtual character.
Here is one example.
I.M. Star.
Am I saying that right?
Does anybody know what this is?
I.M. Star?
I.M. Star?
Hails itself as the next generation of instant messaging, including clothing items that have shelf life as they wear out, so you need to pay to repair them.
Another similar crazy idea is Facebook, and other social networking services which enable you to buy your friends virtual beer, virtual flowers, or other virtual gifts.
Okay, you know what?
I've visited Facebook a couple of times, and I see people who have gifts.
I just assume you're moving an icon.
Are people actually paying money for those things?
You know?
Some of them are.
Talk about planned obsolescence.
Well, Rolto, do you know about this?
Some of them are for pay, and some of them are for free.
Okay, you know, I just am so completely removed from the logic of this generation now.
Who would pay to have just something that says this is a gift when it's not really a gift?
It just says it is.
Who would pay for that?
I don't think it's fair.
I've never seen anybody actually pay for things like this.
I don't think it's as widespread as people are making it out to be.
Well, if it even exists anywhere, it's too widespread for me.
And the scary thing, back to the letter here, the scary thing is that young people are growing up in a world where this is considered normal.
I'm sure some would already be quite happy with a virtual present for Christmas.
Anybody here would be virtually happy, I guess.
I'm also certain that lists of people who buy virtual items with real money are now being snapped up by mass marketers.
Thanks.
That's from our friend Stuart in Tokyo.
And, wow.
I mean, I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the depths of naivete that people show.
Paying real money for anything virtual just strikes me as so wrong as to almost be criminal.
Well, the money is virtual.
No, the money is real.
No, it's not.
It's virtual.
It's all electronic.
Yeah, but it's real money that's coming out of your bank account.
It's not that real.
It's pretty real.
I mean, there's people downstairs crying on Wall Street that think it's real.
You pay money for a domain name.
That's virtual.
No, but it does result in information being passed back and forth, email and websites and things like that.
You're passing a gift from one person to another.
That's still information passing.
Is this the logic that I'm going to be countered with?
That anything that's on a computer is, therefore, virtual?
And so it's no different than a computer program, I suppose.
Apparently not.
Having a little flower that somebody sent you but paid for a real flower.
All right, all right.
Dear Emmanuel and crew, I finished listening to the podcast of your October 15th show.
Thank you so much for broadcasting your heroic crossing of the Canadian border into the United States.
Thank you very much.
I'm disappointed that so many listeners advised you not to play the recording,
but I did enjoy hearing everyone's point of views.
Keep making waves.
Signed, Steve.
Steve, thank you very much.
Yes, we were a little bit scared as far as doing that, as far as broadcasting that.
In fact, we were very scared just a few minutes ago when we received a letter from, what was that?
The TSA.
The TSA sent us a letter here at the radio station.
Voltaire, you opened it.
What's in that letter?
It's basically a blank letter with our address on it.
Just an empty sheet of paper.
I think it actually came from Queens because that's where it says for the postmark.
Yeah, the postmark says Queens, so that's a good indication.
So just like an empty TSA envelope that somebody found.
All right.
Well, maybe that's what it is, or maybe it's a warning from the TSA saying that they have their eyes on us
and that they're close by in Queens.
Maybe it's just the listener wants a shout-out.
Yeah, but we don't know who it is, so we're just shouting out to an anonymous person who sent us an envelope.
Thanks.
Thanks for that.
Okay.
I'm just wondering if I should have received the 100 or so Hope DVDs yet.
I pledged back in September, and the charge appeared on my credit card, but I haven't received anything yet.
If DVDs aren't available or created yet, no worries.
I just wanted to know if I need to worry about a missing delivery or not.
Signed, John.
John, yes, they have not yet been sent out.
In fact, we are still in the process of making them.
You can imagine when a lot of people pledge for 100 DVDs, and we have to make 100 DVDs, that takes a bit of time.
And they should be going out pretty soon, pretty soon, within the next couple of weeks.
So thanks for your patience.
Thanks especially for your pledge because it definitely makes a difference, makes a very big difference.
Shall we take some phone calls?
212-209.
You know what?
There's not enough calls on there.
I want to see more calls.
212-209-2900.
Did you even tell the people until just now that they should call?
I think I did.
I think I gave them the phone number.
Yeah, but they're not calling, and we're not even asking for money.
Huh.
Huh.
How about that?
Here's a letter.
You're off the hook.
via the 2600 website via Corey Doctorow's novel, Little Brother.
I must say that I was amazed to learn that there is a program like yours that has been and still is being broadcast not only on the web but on an actual radio station.
I cannot tell you how excited I am to have stumbled upon it.
I listened to three episodes straight last night, went to bed around 2 a.m., and couldn't sleep for another hour because I had all the news and cool concepts from your show swirling around in my head.
So note to listeners, do not listen to us right before going to sleep.
You might not be able to.
I have kept up with Bruce Schneier's Cryptogram newsletter and blog since I first got into high school, so it really is great to see similar news being put out by other folks in other venues.
I have pulled down the last two months of broadcast and was deeply saddened.
I wept openly to hear that the WBAI fundraiser campaign is over, as is my chance to get DVDs of the Last Hope conference, which I would have drowned a litter of puppies in sulfuric acid to have been able to attend.
That's dedication for you, isn't it?
Wait.
Please don't.
Please do not drown puppies in sulfuric acid.
If it's a choice between not doing that and not attending the Hope conference, don't save the puppies.
How would that possibly have helped anyone get to the conference?
I don't know.
I'm currently deployed to Iraq.
I hate to pull the poor soldier card, by the way.
So Internet access is scarce and time and bandwidth is very low.
It is unusually fast to download your programs, though.
I really believe in what you guys are doing and would like it to continue.
I hate to make this seem like some kind of dope deal, but I really want, need, might be more accurate, all the Hope conference DVDs and would also like to contribute to your station regardless of whether or not I can get them.
I've done some math and I can contribute up to $700 to you guys to get them.
Well, that might be what they wind up costing when we actually offer them.
I really enjoy your program as well as Off the Wall and would like to continue enjoying it.
Please get back to me quickly if you can.
We will be moving to a different province in a few days.
No Internet or phone service.
I hope to visit New York and shake hands with you guys someday.
And maybe I shouldn't read people's names who are in Iraq because they might get in trouble for communicating with us.
But he's from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment.
Hopefully that's not too specific information that we're giving out here.
But I want to thank you for your support.
And you can always contribute to WBAI.
Just go to the website, wbai.org.
And when the DVDs are available to the general public as opposed to people just pledging to the radio stations,
then it will be on the website.
And hopefully that will be fairly soon.
Did this person specify if he's going to wash the sulfuric acid off his hands before he shakes our hands?
You know, that's something we should probably check with our lawyers to make sure that's covered.
Or at least put down the puppy.
All right. Let's take some phone calls.
212-209-2900.
And good evening.
You are on Off the Hook.
Hi.
How are you doing?
Good. How are you?
Okay. What's up?
I have a comment about the .gov domain.
It would be pretty awesome for you to get one.
There's a website, strangely enough, named .gov.
Did you say .gov.gov?
.gov.gov.
So you spell out .gov, D-O-T-G-O-V, .gov.
D-O-T-G-O-V, .gov.
And what does that website tell you?
It tells you that it's by the, you know, nicely, vaguely named General Services Administration.
Right.
And, you know, you have to be either a state, a city, a federal government, federal government agency.
Although you can't be an agency of a city.
No, that's not .gov enough for .gov.
Okay.
Well, that's handy information.
I don't think we qualify for any of the others.
Are we an agency?
Are we a government entity?
Not Kevin?
I think we're a government entity.
Are we?
Yes.
Well, we're a government target.
I'm about an entity.
Well, the same thing, right?
Maybe.
Maybe.
I'm wondering where change.gov fits into those, though.
Yeah.
Well, change.gov, it's kind of vague.
It talks about, you know, elected officials.
I mean, it's got like three tabs of .gov, .gov open because I'm a dork.
U.S. governmental departments, programs, and agencies on the federal level.
So maybe the office of the president-elect?
Interesting.
Very interesting.
Yeah, I suppose.
Yeah.
All right.
We'll go look into this.
Thanks for the info.
You're welcome.
And can I say one more thing?
Go right ahead.
I just wanted to wish my favorite panelist, Rob T. Firefly, a happy birthday on the air.
Well, as he turns beet red in front of us, thanks very much for doing that.
Thanks for calling in.
Thank you very much.
And dropping your docs like that.
Speaking of transition and the president-elect and things like that, a lot of people,
I believe, have you read this online that tickets to the inauguration are going for something like $20,000
when they're actually free?
Now, an interesting thing here.
Anybody can contact their elected officials, whether it be your senator or your representatives or both,
and simply ask for tickets.
Now, the odds of you getting tickets are pretty slim, but you might get tickets,
especially if you live in a faraway state where not many people are likely to go.
Now, if you're one of those people who lives in a faraway state and isn't likely to go to the inauguration,
by all means, call your representative, call your senators, get on the list,
and then if you get tickets, send them to me, and then I can go because there's no name on them.
Or you can send them to eBay.
You'll send them to eBay.
That wouldn't be nice.
No, because wouldn't it be great to have off-the-hook people going to the inauguration in D.C.?
I think it would be a lot of fun, and we report from there.
But just contact your elected representatives, and then we can go to D.C. and see what's actually happening.
Support citizen journalism.
There you go.
I went to the inauguration in 2000.
Oh, I remember that.
I wasn't allowed in, of course, but it was kind of interesting.
I know.
Were you standing with me?
I remember I was with Guides.
We were, like, standing on—you know there's going to be trouble if he's around.
He's the guy who does the cooking panel at Hope.
And we were standing on the side of one of the roads that the motorcade was going to drive down,
except all the signs were anti-Bush.
Keep in mind this was in 2001, actually, in January of 2001,
right after that hotly contested election with, quote-unquote, with Gore.
And all these people were standing on the bleachers with very anti-Bush signs.
The motorcade sped up, must have done about 50 miles an hour to get past us.
So that was a bit of fun there in Washington, D.C.
I suspect it won't be quite as volatile this time.
It might be a bit more peaceful, but we'll see.
Yes, go ahead, Bernie.
Well, the fact that they actually have the gall to demand $20,000 or even $10,000
for something that's free and that people are considering buying it
tells you that there is demand and that people are indeed going to put these up on all kinds of sites.
That's why I'd like to do this legitimately.
So, folks, if you simply contact your elected officials and they give you a ticket,
then you send it over to us and then we go and then we thank you very sincerely
and maybe send you something, a gift.
A T-shirt.
But it's not a financial transaction.
Yeah, something like that.
All right, let's take another phone call.
And good evening.
You are on Off The Hook.
Hey, hi.
John here.
John from Flappish.
How are you?
Hi, John.
What's on your mind?
On the radio dial, the FM dial, how close can stations get together?
Back on that question.
In the same city?
In the same city.
For example, I get interference at 99.5, which is WBAI.
The next closest normal station would be 99.1.
Well, that's in New Jersey.
The next station in New York City would be 98.7.
So that's about the distance away in the same city you can be.
That's why I'm asking because 99.3 is stepping on 99.5.
Well, where's 99.3?
Well, I don't know where it is, but it's interfering with 99.5,
thereby justifying that space.
Did you guys call it white space in between the stations?
Wait, is this a Haitian station in Brooklyn again?
I think so.
I'm in Flatbush, and as I'm driving from the junction to the Williamsburg Bridge,
I'm hearing this station on 99.5.
So when I click over one notch, I go to 99.3, and I hear it clearly.
That's the first and only time I've ever heard another station only two-tenths away,
and it interferes permanently with the noise.
What are they playing usually when you tune in?
It might be Haitian, Creole.
I'm just moving in Flatbush.
Bernie, I think we're going to have to pay another visit to the people running a radio station
to encourage them not to run on that frequency.
This could well be a pirate FM station.
I think it very well might be, yes.
I don't think there's any station licensed to be at 99.3 in New York.
To answer the listener's question,
the FCC will only allocate FM broadcast frequencies two adjacent channels away.
Those channels are 200 kHz apart or 0.2 on the FM dial, but they have to be two of those away.
So basically 0.4 MHz or 400 kHz away from one station.
The next one is the closest it can be.
Within the same is called contour.
There's like a radiation pattern from the antenna, and if the contours overlap,
then the stations have to be 400 kHz away from each other.
You might have to track this one down, Emanuel.
You can get all kinds of good information at FCC.gov.
That's another government site there.
Just go into the search tab on the left-hand side,
and you can search by call letters.
You can search by frequencies in certain cities, in certain states,
and you get to see those contour maps, and it's very educational.
Another question on that note, if I may.
I'm sure the FCC would rain down hard on anybody stepping on the wrong frequency,
and they might not be so quick to rain down on somebody stepping on WBAI.
It all depends on if there are complaints.
If there are no complaints, then they won't go after anything.
They tend not to go after noncommercial stations being stepped on as much as commercial stations.
You're right, but if enough people were to complain about it, then yes, they would.
Again, it's always good to try and reach out to the people who are maybe making a mistake
and not realizing who they're stepping on.
Mike?
I was just going to say, in addition to the FCC's website,
you can also go on radio-locator.net, which has a lot of the same information,
but is kind of easier to navigate.
Okay, thanks very much for that call.
Very interesting point brought up there.
Let's take another one.
Good evening. You're on off the hook.
Hi, how are you doing?
Good, how are you?
I have a question, too.
What about digital FM radio?
I mean, what frequencies do they use?
Because I know there's a big thing about when that came in,
and it was going to interfere with adjacent stations.
All right, Bernie, I'll let you take this one.
Well, you're probably talking about HD radio.
Yeah.
Inaccurately being sold as high-definition radio.
It doesn't mean high-definition.
Well, how could it mean high-definition radio?
What does that even mean?
There's no picture.
There's no such thing, but I mean, it could be high-fidelity.
It's more fidelity than analog, despite what the broadcasters say.
It's on the same frequency band.
It's sort of just outside on either side of the analog carrier.
It's part of this digital signal.
It's in the same FM band,
but it can interfere with this digital signal.
It could interfere with analog stations.
In fact, it can interfere with the same station.
If you're listening to a region called hybrid digital,
it's because the station can broadcast in analog and digital at the same time.
If you're listening to an HD radio station,
but the signal quality isn't really good,
your receiver will switch to analog.
It's a very disconcerting sound effect.
It's like it flips in and out between the digital and the analog,
and it just sounds like you're going through a picket fence kind of a thing.
All right, Bernie, we're going to have to end it there.
I take it that you don't recommend HD-FM.
No, I predict it will fail in the marketplace eventually.
All right, well, we'll look forward to that then.
That's going to do it for us here on Off The Hook this week.
Our email address, once again, oth at 2600.com.
Next week, I'll be in Brazil, but Off The Hook will still be here somehow.
I look forward to having a fun show then as well.
Until then, stay free and stay educated,
and write to us and let us know what's going on with technology and hackers
and things like that.
Here we go with another telephone-related song,
this one all about cell phones.
Good night.
Hello?
Is Nikki Click there?
Hi.
Hi.
Okay.
All right.
It's really too bad that I didn't get your call.
You should have left a message or something.
Well.
Oh, well.
Try again next time.
Beep, beep.
Creep, creep.
I already know your secret, so I guess we're in a leak.
Bam, bam.
Meep, meep.
It's time to leave, and that's until I'm going to sleep.
Tick, tock.
Flip, flop.
You're always on my mind, and it just might pop.
Say hi.
Nice try.
I hang up the phone, so it's time to say bye.
I'm on my cell phone.
You better leave me alone.
Get in your car and go home.
I've got a brand new ringtone, and you're on permanent roam.
I'm on my cell phone.
You better leave me alone.
Get in your car and go home.
I've got a brand new ringtone, and you're on permanent roam.
I'm on my cell phone.