We're going to see potatoes, we're going to see broccoli and cauliflowers, and so some
of the actually the most nutritionally dense vegetables come out of the ground in the winter
and yeah, they're still going to be available there for food banks.
For Free Speech Radio News, this is Martha Baskin.
And that will do it for today's newscast.
From Pacifica Station KPFA in Berkeley, I'm Rose Kitabji sitting in for Aura Bogado.
And you're listening to radio station WBAI in New York, where the time is exactly 7 o'clock.
And once again for Off the Hook.
And given to everybody, the program is Off the Hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday night.
Sorry, I was dealing with an uncooperative browser.
It seems like there's a lot of things that we can't do with this particular version.
Good evening.
It's Off the Hook, as I said.
Red Hacked is here.
Hello.
And we've got Jim.
Hello.
And we've got Voltaire.
Hey there.
Bernie Estein in Philadelphia.
Welcome back.
Thank you.
And a special guest, Mitch Altman is here.
Hello.
And you got back from Berlin too as well.
Yeah.
You were both there at the same time at the CCC Congress.
Great place to be.
It really is.
And those of you who didn't go, shame.
You missed another good one.
And I don't know how many times we have to convince people to go to these things,
but it's really worth it.
It's a lot of fun.
It's an event to be remembered.
Any highlights that you'd like to go over, Mitch?
You were one of the highlights, I know.
I was sort of trapped in my workshop.
It was a great place to be trapped.
It was totally hopping 24-7 for the whole time.
But the main thing for me is not only the talks, which are really fascinating,
but just the people and hanging out with them
and meeting all these really interesting creative people
who are doing a lot of interesting projects.
What kinds of projects were you involved in this time?
Personally?
Yeah.
Well, I was teaching people how to solder
and make TV-B-Gons and brain machines
and all sorts of blinky light projects.
Very simple things.
Germans and blinky lights.
What's the fascination?
I'm not sure, but I concur.
One of the things that convinced me to go to Chaos Event the first time
was when I looked online and saw a Der Blinken Lights project.
And they turned a building into something you can call in on your phone
and play Pong on.
Any group of people that does that, I figured, would put on a good show.
And that was in a main square, too.
That was near the Congress Center.
Yeah, it's a city building.
And hackers in Germany are actually well-respected,
which is pretty interesting.
And the city gave them this building to set this up on.
Which they just turned into a big display.
Yeah, a big open-source display.
That's cool.
Barney, are you okay?
I'm hearing strange noises.
I'm here.
I was stumbling over some things here.
Okay, I just heard some strange noises over the phone there.
Barney, I noticed that you weren't there in Berlin this year.
I, unfortunately, had some holiday obligations here in the States.
I've been to the CCC Conference more than once before,
and it was quite scary.
Year after year, I find that the powers that be
schedule the holidays for the same time that the CCC Congress takes place.
Yeah, why do they do that?
I don't know, but it's very annoying.
New Year's and Christmas and Kwanzaa and Hanukkah.
Well, not to say New Year's somewhere else is a bad thing.
So it's nice to get away.
It is, it is.
Living in Berlin is something to be experienced.
You have a knowing laugh there, Mitch.
Were you on the roof with us?
I wasn't on the roof with you.
I was on another roof.
Maybe people on my roof are pointing things at people on your roof and vice versa.
It really is like that.
You see little rockets and missiles going from one building to another,
and people sort of launch things in good-natured fun across various.
Good-natured drunk fun.
Yeah, it really is.
A lot of drinking going on, a lot of fireworks,
and they get through it somehow.
I mentioned this on the radio show yesterday that on my way to the airport,
I noticed, with a little bit of horror,
that in my pocket were all these unexploded fireworks that I hadn't used the night before.
It's probably not good for me to try to go through security with that,
although I don't know what would happen if I tried.
They actually have signs in the airport that says you can't bring fireworks on the plane,
at least in this country, but I assume in most.
I would assume so, but I left them at the bus stop,
and I know I made some kid happy, and that's all that matters.
Voltaire.
I was just going to say that I think it would be even more dangerous
if you brought a blinking LED display to the airport than fireworks.
Only if you're in Boston.
Yeah, yeah, there's that.
Because I've brought many, many, many LEDs,
many kilograms of LEDs that are blinking in my suitcase,
and the only thing I ever get is a little announcement from either the TSA
or the German government saying they've inspected them.
Well, I had the little blinking RFID tag from the Congress on my jacket
the whole time I was traveling, and it didn't raise any issues until—
actually, let me tell the story now.
I might as well get it over with.
Mitch, I assume you made it back into the country without incident.
I did.
Well, I did have an incident, and in fact, this—
I don't know what it is.
I really don't understand it, but all the people getting off my plane—
basically, okay, what happened was this.
You go through the first line of bureaucracy,
and that's where you have to show your passport
and get stamped for admission back into the country,
and you have that little piece of paper that says all the things
that you're not supposed to be carrying, like insects and livestock and things like that.
It's funny because they ask if you've been around livestock.
I went to the zoo the day before.
Does that count?
I mean, it sure seemed like livestock to me.
I saw cows.
I saw goats and sheep.
Well, they were worrying about farms.
Well, how's that any different?
I petted a goat.
So you said yes.
It doesn't get any more close than that.
You're supposed to say no on everything.
I did say no on everything.
I mean, you know, I'm just wondering now in retrospect.
So, okay, I said no to everything, did all the right things,
and here's what happened.
I went up to the booth, and the guy looks at my form where I said where I was.
I was in Holland, and I was in Germany, and you know what he said to me?
Something that I've never heard anyone say to me before when I come back into this country.
He said, welcome back.
It was so nice.
I was very happy.
I was like, wow.
You know, a little thing like that makes a big difference.
Considering I've been traveling all night long or all day long.
I think I started at 8 in the morning and arrived at noon, but that's really an 8-hour flight.
It was just a very nice thing, and I was pleased as punch that someone would actually be so nice as to say that.
I thought, you know what?
It's good to be back in this country.
Obama's coming into power.
It's a new day, all that kind of thing.
Then I got up to the point where you go through the luggage area where everyone's fighting to get their luggage back.
Now, I don't check luggage, so I don't have to worry about that.
So I just zip right through that whole area.
So I get to this checkout area where this guy is yelling at this couple saying that they have to get their bags.
They're saying, no, we're going to Panama.
We're not coming here.
They're saying that in broken English.
They're German.
He just kept telling them that, no, you have to get your bag anyway.
They didn't understand.
He just kept saying it over and over again, louder and louder, angrier and angrier, and they were more and more perplexed.
I just kept thinking of all the times I've been in Germany not knowing the language there that people were helpful to me
and didn't yell at me for not knowing the language.
It was just such a nasty way to treat these people.
I still thought that somehow my understanding the language would put me in a good standing with this idiot that was telling them these things.
So when he took my card, I expected to just be sort of waved through.
Instead, he said, oh, go all the way down to the last line there and talk to the man at the end of the corridor.
It's like, oh, great.
So now I got to go through this again.
This is a wonderful start to my day.
I was the only person on the whole airplane that had to do that.
And when I got there, when I got there, basically I was met with all this stupidity from these people going through every single aspect of my luggage,
going through everything, looking at every single piece of equipment, looking at all my clothes, and just asking me the most inane questions.
Where did I go?
Who did I talk to?
What did I see?
What do I do for a living?
The usual nonsense that I have to go through each and every time this happens, and it happens far too often.
But I found out something very interesting this time.
That was that they have a file on me.
I know for sure now they have a file on me because they made reference to another time that I went through the border crossing in Canada.
I talked about this on the radio years ago where they were perplexed by the fact that I had a credit card in a different name.
I had a credit card under a writer's name.
I had various funny names.
I had Roger Waters, for instance, from Pink Floyd.
It's just funny to carry credit cards with other names.
I explained it to them then.
They didn't get it then, but eventually they got it when they realized there's no fraud involved.
This is basically you can go to your credit card company and ask for additional names.
Any names you want, they don't have to have a credit rating or anything.
You can get credit cards in the name of your dog if you want.
People do this all the time.
All right, so they were asking me about this.
They were asking me about this incident that happened years ago.
I'm like, I can't believe this is still an issue.
I explained it way back then.
Why do I have to explain the same thing again a second time when it's not even applicable this time because I didn't have those cards?
I made sure I didn't bring those cards with me this time so that this wouldn't happen.
And thank God I left my Michael Chertoff card at home.
I have one, yes.
You can get one in political names as well.
You've seen it, right, Bernie?
Yes, I saw your Michael Chertoff credit card.
In fact, I checked into a hotel under that name once.
That caused a bit of a stir.
Now, didn't you have to show ID also when you checked into the hotel?
No, I didn't.
Wow.
When you're director of Homeland Security, you don't have to show ID.
It's not.
That's one of the advantages.
So anyway, so I'm talking to these people, and they keep doing these things to try and get me to be uneasy.
Like when I'm just waiting for them to finish rifling through my bags, they say,
Sir, could you please keep your hands in front of you for your protection and ours?
I'm like, what?
I just got off an airplane.
What in God's name do you think I have on me?
And you're behind a barricade in the first place.
What am I going to do, whip out an Uzi that I've somehow smuggled onto the plane?
You could be a kung fu master and your hands could be your weapons.
Well, if I was a kung fu master, I wouldn't need to have my hands in back of me to get set up.
I could do it in a second.
So I had to do that.
And basically I had these two guys that were talking to me most of the time.
This youngish guy was kind of friendly.
Actually, I got into a nice conversation with him about what's wrong with the U.S. and mass transit and things like that.
He brought it up.
He was like, you know, mass transit in this country really needs to be improved.
Seemed like a nice guy.
And he served in Okinawa.
We were talking about that.
And I realized, you know, it's strange.
I'm talking to this guy whose only experience overseas was serving in an occupying army.
But he still was a nice guy.
The other guy, though, was this really – you ever see the show The Honeymooners?
The guy named Harvey?
The guy with the funny name.
He's a really big guy in a pool hall.
He had that face.
Looked like he had been punched a bunch of times.
And he just kept asking the same, like, inane questions over and over again and not really understanding anything I was saying about what I was doing, where I was going, why I was doing certain things.
He saw my tag.
He saw the tag from the CCC.
He wanted to know what that was all about.
I tried to explain to him what computer enthusiasts do with, you know, flashing lights and RFID.
And he obviously didn't approve of that.
He looked at all the books I brought back with me, all the things in German, all the things from Austria, basically just going through it all.
And it just felt like such a violation, not being able to just pass through freely and having to have every single ounce of everything that I had.
I had to empty my pockets, go through all that stuff.
I'd just like to know what is it they thought I was going to bring into the country, you know, because you could have a drug-sniffing dog come up to you and say, if you have any drugs, you could do that.
And, you know, you could have all kinds of ways of detecting if you're bringing something illegal in.
So what was it they were looking for?
So you're on a list?
Well, I have a file.
You should file a Freedom of Information Act.
Yeah.
Believe me, I will now.
I know that there's a file, and they pretty much confirmed that.
I want to see what's written in that file.
Well, if you filed it two years ago, you would have probably gotten the papers about now, but good luck.
That's true.
Emmanuel?
Yes, go ahead, Bernie.
I think what they were looking for is to find out if you had any golden nematodes on you.
Uh-huh.
Well, I didn't.
Well, I was asked if I had any golden nematodes.
Actually, when I was bringing back some tulip bulbs from the Netherlands a while ago, they wanted to inspect the bulbs.
And I said, well, what are you looking for?
And they said, what do you think I have in these bags?
And they said, we're looking for golden nematodes.
And apparently it's some sort of agricultural pest that they're worried about coming into the U.S.
And I asked, well, how do you spot these?
They said, well, they have a certain appearance.
They're very small.
And they said they even have agents from the U.S. in other countries' tulip patches looking for the golden nematodes to make sure they don't get here.
So that's probably what they were looking for, golden nematodes.
I don't think these guys would know what a nematode was if it bit them on the ass.
I really don't.
I don't think I would either, to be honest.
But here's a thing that really kind of did me in, almost did me in.
When I was on the plane, I was listening to some old radio shows.
And basically my battery was running down, and we were starting to land at about the same time.
So basically, and we were getting breakfast, too.
So all those three things were happening at once.
And it got very confusing as all that started to converge.
And I was getting my little roll, and the battery was warning me with all kinds of beeps and buzzes that it was about to run out.
And so I just basically closed the computer, thinking that I'd be able to still listen to the radio show while I was landing.
And, in fact, the audio just cut out when I did that.
So I figured, okay, I opened it again, and there was nothing on the screen.
So I figured, okay, the battery must have just died.
So I closed it, put it back in my case.
And then they started going through my things and looking at my laptop.
They opened up my laptop, and what happens?
The radio show starts playing right there in front of them.
And they're like, what's this?
I'm like, well, it's a radio show I was listening to.
I didn't tell them I was on the radio show.
And by the same time, I was cursing to myself.
My computer is doing me in here.
My computer is supposed to ask for a password.
And it basically had skipped over that stage and had just started playing the audio.
When you close a laptop, I just assumed it went into suspend mode or something,
especially if the battery had run out.
It had been a good half hour since that had happened.
And if you don't touch anything on the keyboard, you have to enter a password after 10 minutes.
So I have no idea what happened with that.
But it was very frustrating knowing that they had my computer there in front of them,
and they could get access to it.
And I was just waiting for the show to keep playing and for the battery to finally die
so that they wouldn't have any access.
At one point, they asked me what was on this flash drive.
I didn't even know I had a flash drive.
They found it.
It was one from maybe five years ago.
And I said, I honestly don't know.
And I was very concerned that they were going to take it and start reading it, but they didn't.
I was also very concerned that they would start reading from the computer.
If they had asked me for a password, I would not have given it to them.
And I would have physically intervened if they had tried to do things to my computer.
Well, they could have taken it, though.
They would have, yes.
But that's the line I told myself I'm not going to allow them to cross
is basically examining all the data on my computer.
I'm not going to give that to them.
And I don't think anybody should, regardless of what we're told we have to do now.
That is extremely private, extremely invasive.
And it's one thing to go through somebody's bags and to look at all their personal stuff,
but to actually go into their computer and start perusing all their private files and e-mails and pictures
and God knows what else, no, I'm not going to allow that.
Never.
Full drive encryption.
Well, yeah, there's that too.
And the irony is that there's nothing really sensitive on my computer.
It's just the point of the thing.
It's just not something that I believe they have the right to at all.
So fortunately I didn't get to that stage, though, because I think the battery died.
And they just kept asking me all these questions about what this device is, what that device is.
The funny thing is when I emptied my pockets, I had two passports.
I had one password for this country, one password for another country.
And that didn't concern them.
They didn't even look at that.
You would think if you're looking for something suspicious, two passports would be something kind of suspicious.
But no, they didn't even open them.
I think that's more common, though, than you would think.
Well, I don't know.
They seem pretty perplexed by books and other things that were kind of common too.
I mean, if you were to look at my passport, considering that I'm, you know, when I go back and forth to Europe,
it would probably seem very strange that there's no stamps in it,
but that's because I'm also traveling on another passport.
Well, they also perused my American passport pretty thoroughly, but they never found Cuba.
I mean, they obviously really didn't look that carefully, or they would have found something really interesting.
But you went to Cuba illegally.
They don't know that.
Well, yeah, but...
But seeing Cuba, that's...
One would assume that if you went illegally, you wouldn't have gotten your passport stamped.
The Cubans are pretty good about that.
When Americans come in, they kind of forget to stamp your passport.
Yeah, I asked especially for them to stamp it.
Right.
But, I mean, these guys were looking for anything,
so finding a Cuban stamp in my passport would certainly be something to warrant further questioning,
and they just love further questioning.
Well, it seems like they question you pretty thoroughly.
Who knows what they're actually looking for?
Is it just to harass you because you have a radio show that talks about...
I don't think it was that.
I don't think they knew anything about the radio show.
I just think...
I don't know if my name showed up as being on some kind of a list,
or maybe I just looked a little too weird for them.
Since you referred to the...
Well, I don't know about why the initial guy sent you to them,
but since they referred to the previous incident,
one could imagine that if you do have some file and it marks you as some sort of person of interest,
bullying you and harassing you in this way
might be a way that they think that you would end self-incriminating yourself
and saying that you did do something.
That could be a reason that I could see.
Well, I mean, the situation, what happens...
I don't know how many of our listeners have actually been through something like this
where you're questioned by law enforcement,
there comes a stage where you just want to be friendly
and you want to converse and you want to level with them
and make sure that everything is okay.
And I was so tired that I really didn't have the energy to fight.
And not that fighting would have done any good in that situation.
It probably would have just prolonged it anyway.
Like I said, I would have fought that one thing if they tried to get to my data.
That's something I just consider to be way out of bounds.
But as far as the actual going back and forth,
I was as pleasant as I could possibly be.
I even warned the guy when he was going through my bag,
careful, there's a razor there.
Didn't want him to cut himself.
And things like that.
I had a nice conversation with the other guy about mass transit
and about traveling in foreign countries and things like that.
Good cop, bad cop.
Yeah, maybe it was.
Maybe there was a degree of that going on.
I think it was mostly dumb cop, dumber cop because they just basically...
But what a taste of the country.
This is the first time, again, that I got searched in my whole travel,
leaving, coming back.
In fact, it's the first time I've been searched in a while.
I haven't been searched recently.
And in fact, I haven't set off the metal detector, I think, in over a year.
I'm good at that.
I'm good at getting everything out of my pockets and in the right place
and making sure I don't set it off.
So I've got that on my side as well.
Oh, but get this.
I almost forgot.
I realized this when I got home and I unpacked.
They didn't look at the passport.
Okay, fine.
That wasn't suspicious to them.
But there's one thing.
I have it right here.
There's one thing that I had on me that I wasn't even thinking of at the time.
And thank God I wasn't.
And they apparently overlooked it or never found it.
Take a look at this.
Can you imagine?
I guess I should mention for the sake of the listeners what that is.
Oh, no.
Yeah, it's perfectly legal.
But from Amsterdam, my friends gave me a nice packet of cannabis tea.
With pictures of cannabis leaves on it.
Yeah.
But they would have had a field day with that if they had seen it.
It was right in my bag, too, and I totally forgot about it.
Yeah, it says THC-free, which would be why it's legal.
THC-free.
I'm not an idiot.
But when I got it, when I got it from my friends, I said,
Boy, this will be a good conversation piece for the customs people.
Unfortunately, it wasn't because they never found it.
Well, I'm glad it wasn't.
Well, I totally forgot about it.
That would have ensured me being there for another half hour at least.
I've gone back and forth through customs countless,
more than I can count over the last few years.
I always have my TVB Gone Pro in my pocket.
And this was the first time where anyone questioned that.
They looked at it and said, What's this?
Who questioned you?
It was actually the German people on the way out through customs at Frankfurt.
And so I was like, Well, it's a remote control.
It's actually kind of a toy.
It turns off TVs.
And he's going, It looks like an iPhone.
Yeah, I made it look like an iPhone.
And they looked at it a little bit, passed it around.
There were three of them that came over, and then they just gave it back to me.
I also had a TVB Gone kit built into my hoodie.
And the Frankfurt person on the way in,
it was the first time someone actually looked at that.
It was the guy in the x-ray.
He looked totally bored.
There weren't many people there, so he had some time.
So he zoomed in on it, had to go back and forth a little bit,
zoomed in again, looked at the wires, and then just let it go through.
So it wasn't too interesting.
And I could see his face and the screen,
but he probably didn't even know it was mine as I was looking at him.
His facial expression didn't change at all, ever.
Yeah, they get him grafted into a particular expression that never changes.
Yeah, yeah.
That's part of the job.
Can I have my cannabis tea back, please?
Thank you very much.
I want to make sure I don't lose this.
But the very last thing that happened as I was finally cleared
and allowed to reenter my own country,
this guy, the big guy, said to me,
stop using other people's credit cards as a word of advice.
He just didn't get it after all of that,
after two different times going through the borders
and explaining to these people they just don't get it.
But if they really thought that, that's illegal.
I don't know what he thought or if he thought or anything like that.
And if I had been more awake, I would have challenged that
because that's a real insult.
But regardless, I am going to get that paperwork, though.
Now that I know there's a file, I'm going to find out what's in it.
And I advise other people to do the same.
So more on that later on.
Now, Mitch, I understand you're appearing in a new TV show.
You want to tell us something about this?
Yeah, the ironies of our modern world.
I invented something that turns TVs off.
It's a little gadget that people can use to turn TVs off everywhere they go.
And because of that, I appear on TV all the time.
Isn't that something? The irony of that.
In fact, in Germany, a major French network followed me around
and media mocked us.
We turned off TVs until they told us we couldn't.
So yeah, Make Magazine, who I've written articles for,
like the Brain Machine article,
and a couple articles about TV Gone, making it open source and such,
they have a TV show that is premiering this week all around the country.
And it's on makezine.tv if anyone wants to check it out.
I just saw it yesterday, downloaded it.
They have a legal torrent that you can download.
It's pretty interesting.
High production values and all.
And I'm featured at the very end as the troublemaker.
Oh, really?
Yeah, they have a troublemaker category.
So if there are any troublemakers out there that want to be on TV,
you can maybe get your own little slot on Make TV.
Yeah, it's all DRM-free.
It's made by O'Reilly, who's kind of at the forefront of getting rid of DRM.
So they walk their talk there.
Anyone can download it and share it and do what they will with it.
I'm looking it up now on the website
to see if it's airing on TV stations in the area.
Do you know anything about that?
Yeah, there's a link on the website, I noticed,
that gives a list of all the cities that it will be broadcast in around the world.
I didn't check New York and San Francisco.
It's airing on Channel 21, WLIW here.
So that much I do know.
It's airing on Wednesday, 11.30 p.m., starting tonight.
So it's on tonight, 11.30 p.m., on Channel 21,
if you get that station here in New York.
I think it's on 13 also, isn't it?
No, 13 says it's airing on sister station, Channel 21.
Ah, there you go.
Yeah, I looked at that.
It's apparently appearing also on New Jersey network,
over public television network in New Jersey,
Saturday, 5.30 p.m., starting on the 10th.
So that's great.
It's showing up all over the place.
Makezine.tv is the website to look up information about that.
Yeah, and I should say also for people who don't know Make Magazine,
it's a do-it-yourself magazine.
They have projects and the TV show interviews about a lot of people that make things.
And in the first episode, there's a bunch of interesting things,
including a woman from MIT who makes a bag that you can scream into
when it's inappropriate to scream out in public.
Oh, I want that.
So you're not hurt at all when you scream into the bag.
Right, and you can let it out later when it's safe to do so.
That might have come in handy at the concert.
What, to scream a saved inside the bag?
Yeah.
It comes out when they open the bag.
Oh, that's brilliant.
I like that.
So there's a lot of creative stuff like that.
And, of course, there's things that help you shoot things like burritos many yards away.
That's always been something that I've wanted to do,
shoot burritos many yards away.
Well, Mitch, it sounds great.
You have a show called Makezine TV?
MakeTV.
MakeTV.
MakeTV, okay.
And it airs again tonight on Channel 21 and all around the country in various places
and on the website makezine.tv.
So great, good luck with that,
and we'll be updating people on what's appearing on that TV show in weeks ahead.
But for now, it's the return of one of our newest features.
Yes, I'm referring, of course, to .gov of the week.
Our mail servers have been overloaded with people sending suggestions
as to exciting .gov sites to go to.
.gov is not one of these dry, boring domains anymore.
There's all kinds of fun things out there.
You just have to know where to look.
oth at 2600.com.
That's our email address to send your suggestions.
oth at 2600.com.
That's our email address to send your suggestions.
And this week, this week we go to the website www.moneyfactory.gov.
That's right.
There's a website all about how to make money.
Well, actually, okay, it's not really about how to manufacture money.
In fact, there's a little piece about that, about the anti-counterfeiting section,
but it's put out by the people who do make the money.
And they answer all kinds of questions concerning things like
why U.S. currency is being changed,
and the answer, United States paper money is being changed
to stay ahead of savvy counterfeiters.
Not the stupid counterfeiters, the savvy ones.
Will the old bills be recalled, demonetized, or devalued, Voltaire?
No.
No. Oh, you're right.
Okay, you know something about this.
No, new bills and old bills will maintain their full face value.
The United States has never, never devalued its paper money,
and will not do so now.
Right.
All right.
The stuff that's in circulation.
But anything they get in the banks that's old,
they're going to be shredding, I'm sure.
Well, fine, but they're not going to devalue paper money.
You can have a bill from 1912 and they'll honor it.
Will they be devaluing old counterfeit money?
You know, I think the jury might still be out on that.
Okay, the question of which denominations are going to be redesigned.
The first denomination to be redesigned was the $20 bill
that was issued in 2003.
The redesign effort continued with the $50 bill issued in 2004,
the issue of the $10 bill in 2006, and the $5 bill in 2008.
A new $100 bill is on the way,
and the $1 and $2 bills will not be redesigned.
Aw.
Yeah, that's too bad.
There's all kinds of-
Nobody counterfeits them.
Apparently not, and nobody uses the $2 bills.
Sure they do.
Steve Wozniak uses them.
I know.
Troublemakers use them.
I use them.
He walks around with the sheets of them.
Yeah, it's true.
He tears them off and pays with them.
What does he do?
He hands them out?
He pulls a sheet of $2 bills out and tears the bill out and pays with it.
Uh-huh.
Or I guess he strips it.
Okay.
Because you can get them as perforated sheets from the treasury.
That's true.
You can.
In fact, somebody just gave me a roll of them.
They're really kind of cool.
I wouldn't pay a bill with that, though.
That might be asking for trouble.
All right.
What aspects of the design are not being changed?
The new bills still have a very American look and feel.
The size of the bills, the historical figures, and the national symbols on the back of the
bills will be maintained in the new designs.
The bills in this series are still printed on cotton and linen rag paper with the traditional
red and blue fibers.
This unique paper has a strong, pliable, and familiar feel.
Other features, including microprinting, the high-contrast numeral in the lower right corner
on the back of the bills, and Federal Reserve indicators and serial numbers have also been
retained because these have proven helpful to consumers and especially cash handling
in industries such as financial institutions, vending, and retail businesses in effectively
verifying currency as genuine.
Now, the question I always ask is why aren't the sizes of the bill and portrait subject
being changed?
Wait.
Why aren't the sizes of the bill and portrait subject?
Why aren't the sizes of the bill being changed is the question I ask.
I don't know what they're asking here.
Changing the size or portrait figures—oh, changing the figures, changing who's on the
bills, I see—would not improve security, but it would contribute to potential confusion
for the millions of people around the world who recognize the traditional overall appearance
of U.S. paper money, including the portraits that are linked to specific denominations.
So I guess that means we're always going to have George Washington on a $1 bill and
Abraham Lincoln on a $5 bill.
Who do you want to put on it, George Bush?
Well, I don't want to put—no, certainly not.
Let's see if we have all these memorized.
On the $20 bill, it's Hamilton?
Jackson.
Jackson.
Okay.
All right, Bernie, wise guy.
Who's on the $2 bill?
I think it's either Hamilton or—Jefferson, because Hamilton is on the $10, isn't he?
So I think—is it Jefferson on the $2?
It's Jefferson.
It's Jefferson?
Okay.
All right.
You got lucky there.
$50 is who?
Is that Grant?
I think Grant.
And then the $100 bill is Ben Franklin.
Yes, and he wasn't a president.
Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it?
So you couldn't change that portrait, because people will call $100 bills Franklin's.
Okay, but you could—that's true.
You could have a $200 bill introduced.
You could.
Or a $500 bill.
There used to be higher denominations, and they stopped using them.
You know something about this, Mitch?
Yeah, there used to be $100,000 bills.
$100,000 bills.
Those in the days of great inflation, or when did they use those?
The days of great prosperity, I suppose.
Wow.
Way more those days.
Yeah, way more those days.
I miss them.
Oh, maybe the 60s.
It's hard to tell.
Well, we have a little game here that I'm going to try and make work.
Wait, so you didn't answer the size question.
Why aren't they changing?
Because that would cause confusion.
The size also?
Yeah.
Because I think the size thing—I mean, the euro has different sizes for different denominations.
What kind of bill is this you just handed me, Mitch?
Those are counterfeit garlic bills.
Counterfeit garlic bills?
Yeah, a friend of mine—actually, a friend of a friend—
It's a picture of a garlic plant.
A friend of a friend makes these in Paris.
Okay.
Well, I don't know what you can possibly get from that.
It's made on the same paper that layers used to be printed on.
Well, let's not take too much time with this.
Berlta, you had a quick point?
Yeah.
As the size of paper changing, the government was actually recently sued by, I guess, organizations
representing blind people because they're not able to tell the value of the currency.
Right.
So changing the size would be good for them.
Yeah.
Well, the government lost the lawsuit, so I think they're trying to appeal it or trying to—
Well, I mean, that's how the euro is done.
The euro gets bigger and bigger with value.
I've never seen a 500-euro note.
I've seen a 100-euro note.
Is it a 500 or is it a 200?
Yeah, it's a 500.
Is it both a 200 and a 500?
Yeah.
I've never seen a 200 or a 500.
It takes two people to carry the 500 right here.
But the five is really small, and that's one way to do it.
The government did lose the lawsuit, though, so once we get our rule of law back, you should
be seeing the size of the real thing.
Okay.
They'll have to change this back on the site.
Let's see if we can get this game going.
It's a—oh, there we go.
Okay.
That's a treasure chest.
That's a treasure chest.
As you can see, there's all kinds of little sound effects and things.
We have to pick a player.
It's either going to be Kitty Cash, Dollar Dog, or Bill Bunny.
Redhect, I'll let you choose.
I'm going to go with the bunny.
Bunny?
Bill Bunny?
Is that what you want?
Sure.
Okay.
Here we go.
That's the sound of a rabbit being tortured.
What?
Okay.
How can you tell which Federal Reserve Bank issued a particular bill?
Four choices here.
You get to answer the first one.
Check the letter and numeral below the serial number on the left side of the bill.
It's written below the treasurer's signature.
It depends on the color, or you can't tell.
It's written below the signature.
It's written below the treasurer's signature, is what you're saying.
Sorry.
The letter and number beneath the left serial number are called the Federal Reserve Indicator.
Boy, you don't know—
I don't know anything about our money.
Yeah.
But it works.
Question two.
How many letters and numerals are in the serial number?
Depends on the denomination.
20, 11, or 1?
Bernie, you answer this one.
11.
11.
Let's see if that's correct.
You must be good with numbers, too.
11 is the correct answer.
Very good.
All right.
This next one is from—
Sorry.
The rabbit's getting excited.
This next one is for Mitch.
What shape appears around the portrait of President Lincoln and the image of the Great Seal on
the new $5 bill?
Squares, diamonds, circles, or stars?
I can't remember the circles.
Answer quickly.
Circles.
Lucky charm serial.
Sorry.
Circles, diamonds, circles, or stars that surround the portrait of President Lincoln
and the image of the Great Seal?
Okay.
Now, let's see.
The $50 bill features microprinting on the front of the bill in three areas.
Which area is not correct?
Jim, I'm going to ask you this one.
Raise your hand when you hear the ones not correct about the $50 bill.
Microprinting.
In two of the blue stars to the left of the portrait, repeated within both side borders
of the bill, on President Ulysses S. Grant's collar under his beard, or in President Grant's
mustache?
I don't know.
He doesn't know.
I think it's the collar.
You think it's the collar?
Yeah.
All right.
No.
How bad is this?
The word 50 cannot be found in President Grant's mustache.
I didn't say mustache.
Even the food can.
Yeah.
Okay, number five.
What should you do if you think you have been given a counterfeit bill?
Voltaire, this is yours.
Tell your parents so they can call the police.
Are they assuming only kids are playing?
What if you're like 60 years old?
Do you still call your parents as 60 years old?
I guess.
But if you get a counterfeit bill, that's the first thing you're going to do.
Throw it in the garbage, spend it as quickly as possible, or pass it on to a friend?
Actually, I don't think any of those are right.
I would spend it as quickly as possible.
You're definitely not supposed to spend it.
I'm not supposed to, but I want to get the value.
I think you're supposed to tell your parents so they can call the police.
Really?
That's your response, Voltaire.
What's the right answer?
I don't know.
How about send it to your friend?
Pass it on to a friend?
Pass the buck.
All right.
I know that's wrong, but I'm going to answer it that way.
Good try.
Take it to your parents right away so they can alert the police or U.S. Secret Service.
I'll tell that to my grandparents.
Thanks for playing.
You got one question right.
Try to reach the treasure again.
No, we're not going to try.
Did you click mustache because I said color?
I clicked whatever I was told to click.
I don't know.
That's it for this week as .gov of the week.
Again, if you have suggestions as to exciting .gov sites, please email them to us.
OTH at 2600.com.
There's a lot out there, a lot of .gov sites.
They all seem to be a ton of fun so far.
This goes to show the Internet is not what it seems.
Again, OTH at 2600.com.
On a more serious note, we have the digital television conversion coming up.
It's almost at our throats.
Wow, so much confusion.
What I heard recently, and Bernie, maybe you can give us some information on this.
Apparently, the converter program has run out of money.
Yeah, the FCC arranged, I think, to the Department of Commerce to set up a fund by which people could request up to two $40 vouchers,
which they could buy converters with that typically cost $50 and more.
You have to pay at least $10 and your voucher to get one or two maximum digital converter boxes
so your analog TV could receive the digital broadcast.
The FCC's fund for this just ran out of money six weeks before D-Day,
and people can't get their coupons now, and so this is a big problem.
Well, it is a big problem.
I mean, I don't need a coupon.
I'd like to be able to use a coupon.
I actually had one sent to me, and I was remiss in actually using it, and it expired.
I don't know why they have to expire, but they did.
Yes, RedHack, do you know?
You mentioned the reason why they have to expire is so that then they can take that $40
and put it back into this big pool of money and send more coupons out because they don't have
They didn't allocate $40 for every person or every household in the United States.
Well, they should have.
Well, not every household needs it.
If you have any semblance of a modern television, it's got built-in tuning.
Okay, but if you're going to do something like this, why not force the companies that benefit from this to fund it
so that the consumer isn't screwed in the end?
Now, there are a lot of people that can afford $40, that can afford to get new TVs or converters
or whatever else they need to get in order to actually watch TV from February 17th on.
Why should they be the ones left out in the cold while everyone else is enjoying, you know,
high-fidelity sound and picture?
It just doesn't seem right.
If you're going to do something like this, especially in such bad economic times,
to expect people to have to buy more electronic equipment just doesn't seem right.
I mean, imagine if all DVDs stopped working on February 17th.
You had to go out and buy Blu-ray.
You know, you had to replace your entire library.
That wouldn't be very fair, would it?
But that's sort of what's happening here because on a much more basic level,
people can't even watch analog television anymore after February 17th.
You know, Bernie, what do you think is going to happen after that date?
Do you think it's going to be mass pandemonium?
I think it's going to be a big fiasco come February 18th next year.
No, this year.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
I'll keep saying next year, but now we are in next year.
Yeah, it's next month.
It's six weeks from now.
What day of the week is that?
Does anybody know?
I don't have my calendar in front of me.
The 17th.
All right, we're working on it.
No, no, I did look it up.
It's on a Tuesday.
So we will be on the air the day after D-Day.
Oh, my God.
So, wait, February 18th we're on the air?
Yes, that's a Wednesday, I believe.
Wow, it's probably a fundraiser too, so that's going to be an interesting one.
They'll probably be riding in the streets.
They will be riding in the streets, for sure.
You know who it's going to be bad for, though?
The people who currently, for whatever reason, in their house or apartment or whatever, have
bad reception, because analog is a lot more forgiving.
You can sit there and watch a fuzzy signal and still at least see it or hear it, but
with digital, I don't know how many people watch digital TV, but if you have a bad signal,
it will cut out over and over and over again.
Yeah, that's definitely true.
Mitch?
Well, I actually can't wait for this date.
No, you can't wait.
But think of it this way.
If less people are watching TV, you won't be able to turn them off as much.
I'm perfectly happy with that, but the thing is, we have a country full of addicts, and
this is going to be a country full of people going through withdrawal on that date, because
people don't necessarily even know that they need a converter box, and suddenly they're
not going to be able to get their shows.
I make a device, TV-B-Gone, with one button, and I have to have customer support for this.
Americans are not really well known around the world for having the most vast quantity
of intelligence stored, so when it comes to something as complex as a converter box, I'm
not sure people are going to be able to, you know, the mass consumers are going to be able
to figure it out, and even knowing that they need it, so what's going to happen?
Well, you know, it's also interesting, too.
They've made things about as difficult as possible for these people that don't have
cable or satellite, that want to continue watching television.
Apparently, you not only have to know the virtual channel number, which is basically
the channel number that we're familiar with.
Channel 2 is CBS.
Channel 4 is NBC in New York, but apparently, you also have to know the actual channel number,
which could be anything from 2 to 51, and my understanding, this is really—I hear
all different explanations for this.
The converter boxes won't necessarily be receiving on the virtual channel.
You'll have to go to the actual channel, or sometimes it'll be receiving on that,
and sometimes it won't be receiving on that.
Bernie, do you have a better understanding of this than I do?
I think it depends on the converter box and how it displays on the menu, the virtual channel
or the real channel, or both, but I think you can put these receivers, these converter
boxes, and have them go into auto-scan mode, or it'll scan the radio spectrum or electromagnetic
spectrum for all the TV channels, and it'll store in a memory location all the channels
and sub-channels it finds.
Unless you're in an area where some stations are in some directions and others are maybe
in an opposite direction from you and you have a directional antenna, you're not going
to be able to have it receive and store all these memory locations, because in any given
time, your antennas are going to be pointed one way and it's not going to pick up the
stations in the other area, so that's a problem.
When I was in Finland, they had the switchover.
While I was there, one day, our TV stopped working, which we knew.
We hadn't bothered to get a box until a week later, but it was pretty much exactly the
same.
I think it really will depend on what converter box you get in terms of this, but the stations
were in the same order.
I had a receiver that I bought for my computer that showed me the virtual channel, and then
it showed me the old channel numbers, too, so it didn't – I think it really depends
on the box and how it –
In Finland, things work a lot smoother than they do here, though, as a rule, so I don't
know.
It's a different standard.
I'm sorry?
It's a different standard.
Yeah.
They use DVB.
Right.
The US has to always go with some crazy standard that doesn't – it's not compatible with
anything else in the world.
It's just like they did with cellular here, with CDMA and other things.
Mitch?
Well, I think this is just great because here's a bunch of total geeks who don't know how
this is going to work.
How are people who aren't geeks all over the country going to figure this out?
Yeah.
It's amazing because I'm learning things every day about this.
For one thing, do you know they're going to continue using the old channel frequencies?
I was under the impression that they were going to get rid of everything below the FM
They're still going to be using channel 2 through channel 6, just not in very many places
because apparently the upper VHF channels aren't as reliable or are more prone to interference
digitally, so there's only going to be a handful of channels 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.
There's going to be channel 6 in Connecticut.
Connecticut Public Television will be using channel 6 for digital broadcasts, and that's
going to interfere with any potential FM stations at 87.5.
A lot more of these digital stations are going to be on UHF 14 and above, but there will
be a handful from 7 to 13 as well.
I thought the frequencies were going to be done away with or changed.
Bernie, is this how you understood it?
I initially thought that, and that was the original plan, but the TV stations that were
on the low-band VHF channels, that is channels 6, 5, 4, 3, and 2, got the NAB, the National
Association of Broadcasters, their lobby arm, to argue to the FCC that, no, no, no, no,
don't take the low-band VHF channels away because we need them because they have longer range.
There's also something about power efficiency, too.
I think the lower-band VHF channels don't require as much power for the RF transmitters
to get the signal out.
The problem is, here in Philadelphia, there's a TV channel 6, and the audio subcarrier is
on 87.7 MHz, which most people can pick up on the bottom end of their FM radio dial.
Channel 6 has been advertising this for decades.
Hey, tune in during drive time to our news.
Listen to it on 87.7.
Now the local news station here, KYW, is advertising, well, you're not going to get your news on
87.7 anymore, so now you have to listen to KYW 1060.
So I thought that's a really interesting thing that's going on here in Philly.
Jim actually handed me one of these coupons.
I've never seen one before.
I assume you've seen one.
Yeah, it's a card.
It's a card.
It looks like a credit card.
It's got a long number.
It basically looks like a credit card.
It's got a little security area.
I thought it was a piece of paper, but it's really like a serious business.
I don't know what will happen if I try to use the one they sent me that's expired.
It probably won't work.
I guess it can't hurt to try, though.
Let's get back to some oddities in this whole digital TV.
This is actually something that goes beyond digital TV, and analog TV is affected by this
as well.
Do you know that there's a channel that has never been given out?
Do you know what channel that is?
Not Channel 1.
I mean, Channel 1 was given out once, but there's some reason why that's not given out.
We'll get into that some other time.
Voltaire, do you know?
Channel 0.
Channel 0.
That's very good, but no, this is not a public enemy song.
This is real life.
Now, Bernie, do you know?
No.
They used to go up to Channel 84.
Channel 83.
83, right.
You're right.
Then they used the top few channels for cellular television.
Yeah.
They've been whittling away at that, and now I think everything above 51 won't be used
anymore.
Yeah.
It's not Channel 1.
I mean, it is Channel 1, but that's not what I'm referring to.
Channel 37.
If you look all over the place, you will never find a Channel 37.
Apparently, the FCC has a big problem with Channel 37.
Apparently, the FCC has a big problem with Channel 37.
Apparently, the FCC has a big problem with Channel 37.
Apparently, the FCC has a big problem with Channel 37.
Apparently, the FCC has a big problem with Channel 37.
Channel 37, that took effect in the beginning of 1974.
Its UHF frequencies from 608 to 614 megahertz.
Channel 37 has been reserved since 1963 for radio astronomy.
Yeah.
Did you know this?
I had no idea.
There's no Channel 37 anywhere.
So that's just one of the things I learned from researching the digital television cutover.
I learned something from this.
There must be, you know, there must be some special property of those frequencies that
they need them for radio astronomy, which is why they can't be...
Otherwise, I wouldn't, you know, why not use some other set of frequencies?
I mean, there must be something special about them.
Yeah.
I'm surprised I haven't seen in TV movies that, you know, this is so-and-so reporting
for Channel 37.
You know, it's a fictitious station, so they can say it and not confuse anybody.
So yeah.
And also, one other thing.
You know, Canada is not cutting over.
Canada is going to remain analog for another two and a half years.
So what's going to happen?
I wonder when all of these VHF stations go off the air, and most of them will be going
off the air.
There's only a handful of channels, two through six, that will remain.
Will we be able to pick up distant stations from Canada, do you think?
Probably.
That would be interesting.
Good TV DXing will come back.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now, one other question on this, and then we'll move on.
Antennas.
Antennas on rooftops.
Will they still be effective for this?
Well, it depends on whether it's a UHF or a VHF signal.
Yes, they're not exactly going to be in the same frequency, but they're close enough.
The problem is that there's still going to be VHF and UHF TV stations, and those types
of antennas are completely different.
VHF antennas, because of the lower frequency, need larger antennas, and UHF antennas are
smaller and even more directional.
So really, to take advantage of all the channels that are out your area, if you have VHF and
UHF, you need two antennas or some big combo antenna, which is a pain.
Okay.
We'll be following this.
It's just more of the mayhem coming your way in the 21st century.
Let's look at a couple of letters that we've gotten.
OTH at 2600.com is our email address.
Anybody can write to us, ask whatever they want.
Guys, I hate to be one of the masses that bug you for an update on premiums, and I wouldn't
do so if you hadn't stayed on and off the hook about a month ago.
The premiums should all be out within a couple of weeks, but I was a $250 contributor, and
I just wanted to make sure my name hasn't been lost in the shuffle for the 100 DVDs.
Thanks.
Signed, Rich from Bellevue, Washington.
And Rich, yes, you know, here's what happened.
We have our robot worked tirelessly, literally for months, making all these DVDs.
When a bunch of people pledged for 100 DVDs each, boy, that's a lot of work.
And here's the weird thing is we thought we could fit these in the boxes that we were
using for the previous premiums, which only had about, I think, 80 DVDs, yeah, only 80,
but they didn't fit.
So we had to order new boxes.
So actually, we've been waiting to get the new boxes to fit all the DVDs in so we could
send them out.
So we're sorry for the delay.
They will be going out very soon, and this is for the, I believe, the fall fundraiser.
This is not for the emergency December fundraiser.
So yeah, it takes a little bit of time, folks, but we do get them out.
We do get them out, and it takes some effort and a lot of fun on our part, but we will
get them to you.
So thanks for your patience.
Here's another letter.
My wife refuses to leave the house without some form of ID.
She says that it is the sensible, prudent, and responsible thing to do.
This may be true.
However, I believe she really thinks that it is some kind of law.
I'm looking for an official online source of information.
My wife would trust any site ending in .gov, yeah, maybe .gov of the week will point this
out to her, which clearly states in no uncertain terms that there is no such requirement.
Where is it written that there is no requirement for U.S. citizens to carry any kind of official
document?
Signed, Andrew.
Go ahead.
I think the fact that it's not written would be the indication that it's not a requirement,
but no, it's not.
You don't have to carry ID around.
It makes your life easier in a lot of cases because a lot of places will request it, but
there's nothing.
Well, you can't get into this building without ID.
You can't drive without a driver's license, obviously.
Limited places don't have to let you in, for example, bars.
Right, bars and buildings like this one.
Federal courthouses.
Federal courthouses, things like that.
Mitch?
Yeah, places I've lived, they can arrest you for vagrancy if you don't have an ID.
Now what places are these?
Illinois.
So there are places in the United States that require you to have ID.
Yeah, I don't know if it's the state law that you must have an ID, but the police can use
their discretion to arrest you for vagrancy if you don't have one.
But they're not arresting you for not having an ID.
They're arresting you for vagrancy, which means you don't have any money, right?
So wait, it's a requirement that you have-
It costs at least a dollar in your pocket or something.
You have to have money on you to not be harassed.
Is that the-
Well, I doubt that's ever been challenged because people that don't have any money generally
can't afford a lawyer, so I think it's unconstitutional.
That does sound kind of crazy, but well, does everybody here have ID on them?
Obviously, we do because we got into this building, but as a rule, do you walk around
with ID?
Yeah.
Jim, you don't?
Good.
Well, I know a lot of people feel they have to, and if you go to school, right, you have
to have ID to go to school these days?
Technically.
Technically, you do?
Well, a lot of schools will issue you IDs that you use to access buildings, et cetera.
Don't kids have to walk around with them hung around their necks now or something like their-
I don't know about-
Hospital employees?
I don't know about high schools.
Well, it's-
Manual.
Manual.
In crazy times.
Yes, Bernie?
I do like to show, in places where I do have to show a government photo ID, I like to show
my passport, a U.S. passport, instead of a driver's license because a driver's license
has more information on it that you'd be giving up, like your address, but your passport doesn't
have your address on it, and it always stymies people when I give them the passport because
they need to enter the address, and it's nowhere on there, but the requirements say you must
be government photo ID, and I'm giving that to them, so that's one way to preserve a little
bit of privacy is show your passport instead of your driver's license.
I walk around with my ID from the transnational republic that I got at the CCC camp a couple
years ago.
It looks like a German ID card, but it's from a fictitious country, and in fact, those buffoons
at customs were looking at this, and that didn't raise any red flags either, just a
completely fake ID.
Well, it's a fake ID with my real name and an odd expression on my face, but yeah, it's
fun.
Voltaire?
The podcast, Hacker Public Radio, did a great episode on, two-part episode on ID and how
it works and how to get around it and stuff like that.
It's on HackerPublicRadio.org.
Okay.
So go there and check that out on that subject as well.
Okay, we're just about out of time, but this rather disturbing bit of news came to us.
Apparently, Vornado has filed an application with the city to rezone the site of the 90-year-old
Hotel Pennsylvania, home of the Hope Conferences, clearing hurdles for the real estate firm
to demolish the hotel and build an office tower of up to 2.85 million square feet in
its place.
No.
Yes.
Well, this may just be a formality.
We don't really know, but basically, the paperwork was filed with the Department of City Planning.
Vornado indicates it wants to rezone the site on 33rd Street and 7th Avenue to allow for
the development of a skyscraper of up to 1,198 feet, one that could hold one major
tenant with a large set of trading floors or a multi-tenant building with a large base
of retail.
It doesn't make any sense in these economic times to be doing something like this, but
it's something we need to keep an eye on as well.
Again, it could just be formalities that they're going through with.
It could also be a real threat, but we'll be keeping updates on that.
We're out of time, but I want to thank people for listening and invite you to call in, or
I'm sorry, write in.
We'll try to take phone calls next week.
OTH at 2600.com, that's our email address.
Stay tuned for the Personal Computer Show, and here's another song about phones.
Good night.
Ruby is the operator for the mobile phone.
Every time I call to her, I got the busy tone.
She left me on hold right from the start.
All I need's a direct line to get right to her heart.
Hello operator, I want you to be mine.
Please deposit all your love and put me on the line.
I'm Mr. Dundalone.
I ain't lost from feeling small.
This telephone rejection I just can't afford, was when I spoke those tender words, you punched
me off the board.
She's broken our connection, left me hanging on the line.
She's keeping her long distance, and I'm down to my last dime.
Hello operator, I want you to be mine.
Please deposit all your love and put me on the line.
I'm Mr. Dundalone.
I ain't lost from feeling small.
I'm Mr. Dundalone.