And you are listening to WBAI New York.
In case you didn't understand that, it's 7 o'clock.
And once again, we're off the hook.
It's 7 o'clock.
And good evening to everybody in the program.
It is off the hook.
Emanuel Goldstein here with you this week, joined by Mike.
Hi.
Dotret.
Hello.
Voltaire.
Hi.
Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
And Kyle.
Yes.
Hello.
I'm here.
You know, we've had a good one from the revolutionary City of Philadelphia.
I don't know what's so revolutionary about it.
You haven't had a good revolution there in a couple hundred years.
Yeah.
Well, you know, we had one good one and there's another going on around the world now.
Yeah.
There is one going on.
There's a bunch going on overseas and, uh, I've been, I've been glued to Al Jazeera on
TV.
Oh, that's right.
You don't get Al Jazeera on TV here in this country.
We get it online.
He gets online.
Yes.
But if you don't have a line to the Internet, then you're out of luck.
But good news, for those of you who have satellite,
Link TV has announced that they're
offering 12 hours a day of their schedule
to Al Jazeera English, which is pretty amazing.
But still, no cable system around here.
No satellite system carries it directly.
I have to say, actually, it's great
that they're not on cable and satellite,
because it makes their internet service all the better,
which is good for those of us without cable and satellite.
That doesn't make any sense.
Why would their internet service be any worse
if they were on satellite and cable?
Can you watch CNN online?
I don't know.
You can't.
That might just be an American thing, though.
Well, all these channels that you can't watch online,
Al Jazeera gets it right online.
I'm sure I could watch CNN online if I chose to.
I don't know why I would want to do that in the first place.
You can't go to cnn.com slash watch live and expect it
to work.
Can you go to BBC and watch that live?
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
And that's not covered in this country, either.
If you're within the UK, you can watch BBC online.
Really?
OK.
Well, I'll bet if you're in other countries,
you can do things like this.
But that's not really the point.
The point is that other views are not covered nearly as much.
Except if you're listening to WBAI,
as you just heard now with Robert Knight,
you'll hear incredible coverage.
You'll hear it throughout the day.
You'll hear it from 5 to 6 PM.
You'll hear it from 5 to 6 AM, where
we rebroadcast Al Jazeera, the only place in New York
that actually broadcasts Al Jazeera.
Tune into BAI, and you'll hear all kinds of coverage.
I was looking at it earlier today,
and it was just unfolding right in front of me,
the police-inspired riots in the crowd,
attacking the peaceful demonstrators.
Really something to see, kind of tragic.
And we don't know where it's going to go from here.
It's also amazing, because I was talking with Robert
about this right before the show.
And we realized that Julian Assange was in the studio
last March.
And I'm looking at an article right now,
it's an opinion piece, how WikiLeaks
helped fuel the Tunisian revolution.
And a lot of people are saying that WikiLeaks had something
to do with that, because people in Tunisia
were able to see documents showing
how corrupt their government actually was,
and that helped to fuel the Tunisian revolution.
Well, guess what?
The Tunisian revolution helped to fuel other similar type
actions in places like Egypt and throughout the Arab world.
And did you ever think that that mild-mannered guy that
walked through the door in March really could
be responsible for that much?
I think it's overstating the case to say that he is.
Oh, of course, it's definitely overstating the case.
We're in America, that's what we do.
No, I think it's possible to say that the WikiLeaks helped
inspire their revolution without saying,
this is the WikiLeaks revolution.
There's a difference.
Well, I don't think anyone says the WikiLeaks revolution.
That does sound kind of catchy.
There are stupid people that say that.
There are stupid people that say everything.
Stupid people with loud microphones.
Well, let's not quote them.
That's not us.
Let's not quote the stupid people.
I think it does underline that the truth can
hurt people in power.
And if something reveals you to be corrupt or not
being truthful with your people, that
can come back and bite you.
And the hacker world certainly stands
for getting the truth out, getting the actual text
of certain documents out.
So yeah, I think there's kind of a cultural clash,
and it's resulting in some very interesting things.
I think Emmanuel.
Go ahead, Bernie.
I just want to say, I think it's great
that WBAI is off the hook, scooped 60 minutes by 10
months by interviewing Julian Assange.
He held up pretty well on 60 minutes.
Yeah, he was good.
He was good on 60 minutes.
I saw him on that, and it was quite good.
I just think this show really covers
a lot of information about telecommunications technology.
And I think that is really crucial to what's
been going on around the world with these revolutions.
I think primarily, not primarily, but key,
Al Jazeera is now receivable by satellite.
People don't need their state telecommunications
infrastructure to receive Al Jazeera via satellite
to find out what's going on in their region.
Plus, of course, the internet and cell phones, texting,
and all these different telecommunications technology,
I think, played a very key part in making
these revolutions possible.
You know, I have to say that with what
I'm seeing going on in Egypt, this just kind of shows
how the governments really have the reasons why they fear
a lot of these technologies.
That gets the information out there.
Because when the truth comes out,
if you're talking about a lot of these corrupt individuals
where they'll preach one ideology,
but then do something else behind everyone else's backs,
now we're actually seeing what happens when people get
to see what they're really doing.
And the reaction, too, is also very telling.
Egypt trying to turn off the entire internet
and actually succeeding to a degree, but never enough.
Because people always find a way to get the word out somehow.
And it just looks really, really bad
to even make the attempt in the first place.
Well, I think that's why now.
I remember, I think, was it the BBC was reporting
that it seems to have come back online at some point today.
But they-
I think one provider.
But one provider is all that was on for most of the time.
No, the internet came back in Egypt.
All that came back?
All the internet came back?
I mean, I don't know every single DSL line, but it's back.
But yeah, for a while, the CNN anyway
was saying that there was only one ISP that was operating.
Yeah, but then they closed that one down, too.
Yeah.
Yeah, it becomes pointless after a while
to try and shut everything down.
When the whole world sees that, there's no choice
but to restore it and try to reclaim
some dignity for yourself.
I don't think it's pointless.
I think they-
It's pointless for them.
No, look at Burma.
They can do whatever the hell they want.
No, but if Burma had free internet access one day,
and then they turned it off and had none,
there'd be uprisings.
People would be trying to get the word out.
It would mean something.
If you've never had it, like Burma, North Korea, yeah,
they've never had it.
No, they did.
But they shut it down for like a week
during the uprising there.
I don't think they have unfettered access
to the internet.
I don't think it's-
Yeah, but neither did Egypt.
I think a lot more so than Myanmar.
They had Twitter, and they had Facebook.
I don't see very many tweets coming out of Myanmar.
But I could be wrong.
Maybe I'm just not looking in the right place.
Anyway, the point is, you start censoring,
you start cutting off access, and it winds up hurting.
And this is the kind of thing that we see all the time
on the internet when people try and shut up their opponents.
They're the ones that always wind up
being condemned pretty widely.
And Egypt is an interesting test case now,
because now we have this to look back on.
When around the same time as all this was going on,
Joe Lieberman and the Obama administration
were looking at getting an off switch for our side.
That's interesting, because I have a story right here.
This is from a PC magazine.
With reports of Egypt's government completely shutting
down the internet in the country,
talk about an internet kill switch in the US
has reemerged.
The bill in question is the Protecting Cyberspace
as a National Asset Act of 2010, a cybersecurity measure
introduced in June, last June, by Senator Joseph Lieberman.
It was an overarching cybersecurity measure
that, among other things, would create an office of cyberspace
policy within the White House and a new cybersecurity
center within the Homeland Security Department.
A provision that got the most attention,
however, was one that gave the president the power
to authorize emergency measures to protect the nation's
most critical infrastructure if a cyber vulnerability is being
exploited or is about to be exploited.
Now, some have interpreted that to mean that the president
would have the authority to shut off the internet at random.
Lieberman refuted the internet kill switch assertion
as misinformation during a recent appearance on CNN.
And the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee,
which he chairs, later published a myth versus reality fact
sheet on the bill.
So they're coming back swinging on this
as to whether or not this actually is an internet kill
switch, Mike.
Can we get a sound effect like a gong or something
whenever we say Lieberman's name?
I don't want to give him the attention.
Yeah, so go ahead, Bernie.
I just wanted to say, you mentioned earlier
that only one ISP was operating in Egypt,
a company called Nour, N-O-O-R. It just so happens
that that's the one ISP that serves all the major US
corporations, like Caterpillar, Nestle, and a bunch of others.
I don't think that's a coincidence.
But I think it's more telling is that when
Egypt decided to shut down all the ISPs that the general people
use, instead of sitting at home on their computers,
what are they going to do?
They're going to go out in the streets.
And that's exactly what happened.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I mean, if you don't stay home,
you can't be surfing the net online.
Yeah, you'd be going out into the crowds.
Rob?
And the interesting thing about this,
too, was that while their internet was shut off,
there was a lot of hacktivism going on this side
of the curtain to see about getting them back on.
There was a lot of activity coming
from Jacob Appelbaum, who's been on the show before.
His Twitter has basically been a major source of, I think,
information about what's going on there
and how to use things like packet radio and other things
to keep the lines of communication
open where they were needed.
And fax machines.
I heard there was creative use of fax machines.
I don't know if anybody else read about that,
but I thought that was kind of interesting.
Just like in Tiananmen Square, they did that.
Yeah, people find a way.
They get the word out.
Absolutely.
And dial-up.
Sorry, Bernie, go ahead.
Dial-up modems.
There's nothing.
Although, Egypt did try to start shutting down phone lines
as well once they realized people
were using dial-up modem connections to ISPs
in other countries.
And then they started shutting down phone lines.
But as you pointed out, it's futile in the end.
Absolutely.
Go ahead, Mike.
And one thing that's interesting about all this
is that a lot of the censorship and shutting down of services
is being done by Western and US companies.
One of the big cell phone providers in Egypt
which shut down its network is Vodafone,
which is a huge multinational company not headquartered
in Egypt.
The filtering software that Egypt uses,
even when the internet's up, just
to make sure you can't go to subversive websites,
is made by a US company.
And the US and Europe have their hand.
Corporations from these democratic countries
have their hands out to receive money from censors.
And it's kind of shameful.
It is.
It definitely is.
I heard rumors that Google was doing good things.
So they were trying to get the word out,
trying to bypass the restrictions.
Anybody else hear anything about that?
No?
Yeah, they have a service where you can call them up
and they'll transcribe your tweet.
They'll transcribe your tweet?
You can call Google and they transcribe your tweet?
No, they don't even transcribe it.
They just post an audio file.
Volunteers are transcribing it.
So the thought is that somebody in Egypt
is going to call a number there and say
they want to tweet something?
I guess this is from when the internet was blocked.
Right.
Interesting.
I mean, it's an interesting idea, but it doesn't.
I mean, Google could do that with one employee in an hour.
I'm not sure.
Well, anybody could do that.
That's the thing.
Well, but Google has like a billion employees.
And so if one employee spent an hour on this, I don't know.
Interesting idea.
How impressed I should be.
At least they're trying.
That's the important thing.
Now, unfortunately, we can't spend the whole hour
talking about this because we'd like to.
And it's fascinating and very relevant.
But this is the first day of the fundraiser for WBAI,
for the winter fundraiser.
And in order to have these kinds of conversations
and to have programs like the ones that
have been covering this crisis throughout the last few days,
we need to be able to pay the rent.
We need to be able to pay the bills.
And we don't have commercials.
If we had commercials, then we couldn't
be talking about any of this because corporations
get very nervous.
Some of the things we've accused them of in this hour
already have gotten them pretty upset.
So we need you, our listeners, to give a call to 212-209-2950
and pledge whatever you can afford to keep this place going.
What we're offering tonight is something
rather unique and different.
We haven't offered this before.
We've had DVDs from our conferences
available in the past in various forms.
But we've never had DVDs from three different conferences
at the same time.
What we're offering tonight is basically two packages.
For $75, you'll get 20 of the best talks
from Hope No. 6, The Last Hope, and The Next Hope.
The Hope conferences, Hackers on Planet Earth,
took place in 2006, 2008, and 2010, respectively.
For a pledge of $125, you'll get 40 DVDs
from those three conferences from 2006, 2008, and 2010.
212-209-2950.
And we have some excerpts of some of these things
that we're going to be playing tonight.
But I think, yes, go ahead, Mark.
Did you say 40 DVDs?
40, four zero, yes.
40 for $1.5.
They're like an hour each.
That's a lot.
And you can just put them in your DVD player
and press play, and they'll work.
That's the idea, to put them in your DVD player,
put them in your computer, whatever it is you need to do.
40 hours, you can learn some of the insightful things
that our speakers have been saying.
It's history.
It's history, because you have things from four years ago.
You have things from two years ago,
and you have things from last year.
And it's all relevant.
None of it is outdated.
That's what's incredible.
All right, I want to play something right now.
I want to play a piece from our friend Richard Stallman, who
is the founder of Free Software Foundation.
And the whole movement.
And the whole movement.
This guy is major league.
And he spoke to our enthusiastic crowd of hackers
back at Hope No. 6 in 2006.
This is just one of the 40 DVDs you'll get for a pledge of $125.
This is but one of the 20 that you'll get for a pledge of $75.
212-209-2950.
Let's take a listen to what Richard Stallman had
to say four years ago.
So the hacker community and the way we cooperated
taught me to appreciate the free software way of life.
So that when that community died in the early 80s,
I was like the frog that was suddenly
thrown into the hot water and jumped out.
Other people just took it for granted
that when you used computers, you
were under the power of the developers.
How else could it be, they asked.
How could you complain?
What else could there be except lords bullying you?
I guess they must be like most of the commoners in Europe
in the 10th century.
What could there be except lords bullying you?
The idea that there could be any other way of life
never occurred to them.
But I've had the good fortune to experience
a different way of life.
A way of life based on freedom.
And when it was taken away from me, I decided to fight.
I've always been particularly good at saying no.
But when I launched the free software movement,
I didn't realize.
I launched it in a context of more or less democracy
and more or less respect for human rights.
I didn't realize how much those things
could be destroyed globally.
How vulnerable they were.
Using computers is just one area of life.
It's not all of life.
Shocking as that statement might seem coming from me.
And when democracy is made a joke by computers
in voting machines, by expensive requirements for people
to vote, by lying to people, by fraudulently denying them
the right to vote, by throwing away their ballots,
by not letting them get ballots, what
are we going to do?
When human rights are trampled arrogantly
by a government who then gives promotions
to the people who were responsible
as a way of spitting at people who value freedom,
what are we going to do?
I don't know.
I can't see much hope for the United States.
I can't imagine how the United States can recover freedom
and democracy.
I certainly can't see how the Democratic Party would do it.
But I'm used to carrying on despite discouragement,
and that's what I do.
There was always a certain tendency for the US government
to be too subservient to business.
But back in the 60s and 70s, it wasn't that strong.
Very often, laws were passed to restrict businesses
because lots of people wanted that.
And nowadays, though, democracy has become so weak
and the media industrial complex so powerful
that the US government offers very little resistance
to what large companies want.
In particular, antitrust law has been nearly abolished.
Mergers of large companies happen all the time.
And not only that, we see conspiracies
of large companies being formed to restrict and oppress
the public.
Conspiracies such as the one that
controls the format of DVDs, the one that implements
treacherous computing, and then there
is the Axe, A-A-C-S, which is designed to forbid analog
outputs for playing video.
These conspiracies ought to be prosecuted.
All the companies involved with them
ought to be prosecuted for conspiring
to restrict the public.
And such conspiracies should not be allowed
to exist anywhere in the world.
And you're listening to an excerpt from Hope No. 6.
That was the Richard Stallman talk,
which we're offering tonight for a pledge of $75.
You'll get that plus 19 other DVDs
having to do with the last three conferences that
have been held here in New York City with all kinds of hackers,
social activists, cryptologists, anarchists,
even some conservatives.
All kinds of people show up to these things.
And it's fascinating.
It's the discussions, the question and answer sessions
all included there.
20 DVDs for a pledge of $75, 40 DVDs.
You'll get a total of 40 of the highlights of the last three
conferences for a pledge of $125, $212, $209, $295.
I'm told that we must get three calls before we can
move on to the next segment.
And the next segment is a fun segment.
It's actually social engineering from 2006.
And if you don't know what that's all about,
you're about to learn.
That's an incredible bit of fun.
But we do need to get some calls coming in,
especially you new people who have never pledged before.
This is a great opportunity to join the WBAI family.
Those of you who have pledged before,
if you are so inclined to pledge again,
I'm sure it was a positive experience for you
the first time, then give us a call.
This is the first day of the fundraiser.
And we need to do well so that we get off on a good start.
212-209-2950.
Yeah, for those of you that pledged,
you get to help keep the station, to be here for,
you know, so we can continue to bring you
this awesome content.
And if you've never gone to HOPE,
you know, again, here's a good way to see what it's all about.
You know, whether you're deciding whether you're
going to go to the next one, or you just physically
can't ever make it.
This is a great thing.
Yeah, what Dot Red said is absolutely true.
I got introduced to the HOPE conferences by listening.
And with this package, you're going
to actually be able to see some of the talks
and what goes on at these conferences.
And you get to see the fun that's had.
You get to see the visual aids that allow the speakers
to illustrate.
And it's just a great way to see if it
isn't something you might be interested in attending
in the future.
We have no calls on the line.
We, again, as I said, we need to get three calls.
Otherwise, we're just going to be asking for three calls
for the next 40 minutes or so.
And that's not going to be any fun for anybody.
I know there are people out there
that are curious about what hackers are up to.
We were talking before about the incredible effect
that just talking about things and revealing things
can have, not only on your lives,
but on the lives of those around you and on the entire world.
It's all related.
It all ties together one way or another.
And that's what makes this package so fascinating
and interesting, because you see people doing just that.
212-209-2950.
Rob.
And the thing about HOPE is that I've
been going to HOPE for a long time now,
I think, since the third one.
And each and every one of them is
an entirely unique and wonderful experience that will never
be exactly duplicated again.
And if you couldn't be there, or even if you were there,
the DVDs are really the next best thing to being there.
It's the only way that you're going
to get any kind of experience of what went on there
and see what we were talking about
and what we were doing at that point in history.
They all have different themes.
Now, you say your first one was the third HOPE.
What was the name?
HOPE-2K.
H-2K.
Yes, H-2K, yes, back in 2000.
We're talking about the last three HOPEs.
HOPE number six, the last HOPE, which
wasn't the last HOPE, because it was followed by the next HOPE.
And now it's all very confusing.
But three HOPEs in one package.
212-209-2950.
Now, Bernie, you're particularly good at getting
those calls to come in.
I'm hoping that you can pull it off for us this time.
Well, I think it's just people just find me so annoying,
they'd rather call and make me shut up.
So I hope people do call to 212-209-2950
and pledge to support WBAI, this resource where you're
going to hear information and topics and coverage
on material you're just not going to hear
on any other radio station.
And these DVDs we're giving away are a really great gift.
I mean, if you're getting 20 discs for $75 or 40
discs for $125, that's like $3 and change per disc.
You can watch them all.
You can then share them with other people.
You can even copy them.
We don't care.
We just want you to get the information out there.
But more importantly, we want you to support this station
so we can continue to get this information out there.
Go ahead.
No, go ahead.
I was struck by what Richard Stallman was talking about,
how parallel what he was talking about
is to what's going on in the world right now.
You have oppressive powers pushing down consumers.
And it's very similar oppressive powers
in other countries that are pushing down people.
And people are saying enough, just like the free software
movement that he founded and the hacker community saying enough.
And we challenge these powers.
And we bring information to you about what's
going on so that you can get involved and help prevent us
from just being rolled over like steam rollers rolling over us.
It's really important.
Please call 212-209-2950 to support WBAI.
For $75, you get 20 DVDs, great value.
$125, you can get 40 DVDs of fantastic speakers
from various HOPE conferences.
Call now 212-209-2950.
And I think what might make this a little bit more palatable
to people is knowing a little bit more about what
we're offering as far as talks.
I can tell you, Richard Stallman, we just
heard an excerpt of his keynote address back at HOPE No.
6.
As mentioned, we'll be excerpting the social engineering
panel, which is basically an attempt by us,
various panelists, to get information out
of unsuspecting corporations or people over the telephone
and demonstrations as to how exactly that's done.
It's one of the most popular parts of the conference.
And you'll get all three of those social engineering
panels in the 40 DVD set, 212-209-2950.
We also have a Jello Biafra talk,
which is always entertaining.
If you've never heard him speak, we'll
have an excerpt of that a little later on, too time permitting.
We have Robert Steele, who was actually
our first ever speaker at HOPE back in 1994.
We have him giving his assessment
of the world security stage and terrorism
and all that kind of thing.
It's really fascinating.
We have folks from the Graffiti Research Lab demonstrating
what it is they do, and street art and graffiti
and all kinds of fascinating things like that.
Postal hacking, how to hack into the post office
or figure out how the post office is actually working.
We have a talk on warrantless searches of laptops
at borders, all kinds of things like this.
That's only the tip of the iceberg.
This gives you a sense as to the variety, the range of talks
that we have at the HOPE conferences.
They're all yours, all 20 of the highlights of the last three
conferences for a pledge of 75, 40 for a pledge of 125.
But please give a call to 212-209-2950.
And the gifts we give you are one thing,
and they're great on their own.
Ultimately, when you support the station,
the gift you're giving yourself
and all your fellow listeners is this station.
This is the only way we stay alive over here.
This is the only thing we do.
We don't sell anything, we don't accept advertising.
This is it, we just ask for your help.
Absolutely, 212-209-2950.
I'm not sure this thing's plugged in.
I'm not sure this, I haven't seen it light up once
this whole evening.
Now, it would make me happy to see it light up
if people call in and stay on and actually pledge.
212-209-2950, we're not kidding.
This is how we stay on the air.
If we don't do this, you could very well
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That's the unfortunate reality.
And there is no other way that we can continue
bringing you the kind of coverage
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Daret.
And keep in mind, folks, if for some reason
the internet in the US gets shut down
or wherever you might be, you know,
you have these DVDs, you can play them anytime you want.
That's right.
You'll have unfettered access to that information.
They can't turn that off, at least not yet.
212-209-2950, Voltaire.
Yes, by watching the DVDs, you'll start a revolution.
Maybe.
We call it the Hope DVD revolution.
Maybe so, maybe so.
212-209-2950, okay, I'm going to move into
this social engineering excerpt right now
so people can have a sense as to what that's all about.
This is what we do every year.
Every year we have a Hope conference.
We basically try and get people to give information
they're not supposed to give out.
And it's so easy to do this.
If you just ask the right questions,
if you talk to the right people in the right way.
And I think, if memory serves, this is an excerpt
from 2006, the social engineering panel,
where we're trying to, I think we're speaking
to a McDonald's or some chain.
There had been all these power problems in Queens
because of severe heat.
I know, it's great to be playing something
involving severe heat on a day like this.
And basically, we're trying to pass ourselves off
as representatives of the power company
and see what information we can get from these poor people
and if we can get them to perhaps do something silly for us
as a result of us trying to help them.
212-209-2950, please give a call to that number now
and pledge your support to WBAI.
Here's social engineering.
So people are gullible, they'll do what you ask sometimes.
Let's see if we can find one of them here.
Hello, McDonald's, may I help you?
Yeah, hi, I'm calling from Con Edison
to confirm the power problems in your area.
Thank you.
Hello?
Yes, hi, I'm calling from Con Edison.
We've received a trouble report at this location.
I'm sorry?
We received a trouble report at this location, Con Edison.
Hello?
Can you hear me?
Yes.
What is your power situation?
I'm calling from Con Edison.
Sir, no, we're okay, we're fine.
Okay, how long has the power been on?
Well, I'm just the manager,
but I haven't been here for the whole week.
I was on vacation, I just stepped by today.
But I believe that the thing happened on Monday.
I went to today, so we got a whole thing going on.
Okay, because we have been having scattered outages
in your area, and we're trying to check
with the businesses there to see if there's been a problem today.
Can you tell me what your exact location is?
32-55, 31st Street, Long Island City, New York, C code 1106.
Okay, and do you know where your electric meter is located?
It's in the basement.
And will we be able to get access to that today?
Yes.
Okay, and who would we speak to in order to get that access?
Just ask the manager.
Do you have a name?
Well, you got Lois over here.
If you come up to the floor, it's going to be dancing.
Okay, and one other problem we had is that the phone number
does not seem to match the account.
Is there a different phone number there?
Yeah, 718.
I mean, it's the same phone number that you just called.
That number is not showing up as part of the account.
Yeah, I think you got 728, something like that, 9727, right?
No, that's not the number we called.
Can you tell me what that number is?
No, the only number is the one that you just called,
because we used to have two lines before,
but the other line we counted it out.
We only got this one now.
Okay.
Would you happen to have access to your Con Edison record?
Maybe we could do it that way.
I'm sorry?
Would you have access to your Con Edison billing records,
because we might be able to do it that way,
because we can't match your location to the account.
That's the problem.
Well, we also got an office phone number, main office,
and they're the one in charge of paying all the bills and everything.
Okay.
Maybe they could assist you better with that,
because when I got here, we got this phone number,
the one that you just called.
This is the one we're using.
I know before, they also had a previous one,
because this one used to be the fax number only,
and then the other one was to be the operational number,
but I'm not sure.
Do you have that number?
Yes, but they open on Monday.
631-698...
Okay.
And you don't have access to any paperwork, perhaps, from Con Edison,
because that would be very helpful
if we were able to actually have an account number or something.
No, I don't, to tell you the truth.
Okay.
Let's let us know if there's any power problems
or any situations that we should be aware of.
As of right now, everything is fine.
I was just checking my face, and I was trying everything.
As of right now, everything is fine.
Are you using 100% of your power?
Yes.
All right.
Please do us a favor.
If you could possibly cut maybe half of your cash registers
just to save some power,
it might prevent another brownout from occurring.
Would you be able to do that?
There's a cash register? No.
I mean, I'm just using two of them.
I'm sorry?
I'm just using two of them.
I cannot go under that.
Could you maybe turn some lights out?
No, all the lights are off.
The lights are off?
Yeah, the lights are off.
Okay, and how about the air conditioning?
In some of the lobbies, some of them, they're off,
because some of them, they're not working
due to the power problem.
And just in the lobby, it's still on,
and we cannot turn it off,
or the customer, they're going to leave.
Well, what I need you to do is this,
because it is a rather cool day today.
If at all possible,
if you could cut the air conditioning building wide,
that would greatly increase the chances
of another brownout not occurring.
So if you could please try and look into that,
that would be very helpful.
Okay.
All right? All right.
All right, thank you.
And what was your name, sir?
My name is Rafael Peña.
Thank you so much for your help.
All right, thank you.
Good night.
Thank you.
So, if you'd like a warm McDonald's,
you might want to visit 3255 31st Street in Astoria today
and see what they do with the air conditioning.
I would have liked to have gotten
more information out of them,
but I think we're dealing with corporate franchises here
where they don't actually get the bills themselves,
so there's only a limited amount of things you can do,
but you can find out things like,
where's, where's access? Can I get access? Where, who are these people's names? What are
other phone numbers? Uh, and just basically you gotta get them thinking that you're on their
side, that you're working with them. And before you know it, you can, you can be kind of
obnoxious and say things like, well I need you to do this for me. It's like, who the f**k are
you? Why should I do anything for you? But that's what people do. If, if you ever have
somebody say that to you, you are being social engineered. Cops say that all the time. Uh,
the people in, in, in all sorts of positions of semi-authority will say, I need you to do
this. Well, that's too bad cause I'm not gonna do it. Let's try this one. Okay, we're trying
another, uh, another example here of social engineering. 212-209-2950. Hello. Uh, good
afternoon. I'm calling from the National Do Not Call Registry. We understand that your
number is listed as, uh, some, uh, the National Do Not Call Registry, uh, so that you don't
get, uh, telemarketers calling you? Yes. Uh, um, we understand that you're listed with that
service and that it expires at the end of the month. We wanted to verify that you wanted to
continue to be listed. Um, how do I verify that? Uh, just by telling us over the phone and we
will extend for another two years your listings that you don't get telemarketing calls. What
happens to the cost? That's free. It's a free service. Oh, that's fine. Yeah, you had requested
this in the past, hadn't you? Yes. Okay. We'd also like to confirm that you don't want to
receive any mass mailings in the, uh, to your address. Yes. Can you confirm your address for us
so we do not send you anything? No, I can't. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. That's a
smart consumer. If more people were like that, we wouldn't be having this panel, but, um, I'm
happy to say that when we call individual people at their homes, we usually get a better
reaction than when we call corporate offices where they just pretty much give out any
information you ask for. Um, should I try a couple more? We're running short on time. Is, is
Jell-O here? No? Jell-O hasn't set yet. Jell-O what? Jell-O hasn't set yet. Hasn't set yet?
Escort him out, please. So should I keep trying? Yes. Alright. Just let me know when to stop.
The, the real trouble is as the years go by, it's harder and harder to read the damn phone book.
Oh my God. Um, okay. This person has a 9-1-7 number. Hello? Uh, good afternoon. I'm calling from
the National Do Not Call Registry. We understand your number, uh, is listed. Uh, you do not
want to get telemarketing calls? No, I don't. Right. Okay. Uh, the listing expires at the end
of the month. We wanted to verify that you'd want to increase that for another two years.
Please. Okay. And we also wanted to ask if you wanted to have your name added to the Do Not
Mail list. I already have that, I think. Uh, actually the Do Not Mail Registry just began this
month, so we'd need to verify. Oh, yeah, then add it. Right. Can you verify your address so that
we don't send you anything? What, uh, what, what name and address do you have? Actually, we
don't have that information. We just have the phone number. Oh, I see. You just have the phone
number. If you could give us the address, we will make sure that you do not get junk mail.
Okay. It's 205. Thank you. Alright. So, not everybody is educated, as you can see. And this is
somebody who went to the trouble of not putting their address in the, in the phone book. Uh, I
should also point out, you know, a lot of you may, might not realize this, uh, you pay for an
unlisted phone, which is really silly. You're paying not to be in the book. You can simply
change your name, your, your listed name, have a funny name, and then when somebody asks for
Joe Schmo or whatever, you know they're looking in the phone book. Uh, and you can also have
the address not listed, just your name, so that people won't get your address out of the
phone book. Uh, and something else you should be aware of is that even when you do that, when
you don't have an address in the phone book, the information operator does have that
information. In fact, even when you're unlisted, the information operator can see your address.
They cannot tell you, tell the person calling what the address is, but they can answer yes or
no. Is it this? Is it that? Is it greater than this? Is it greater than that? And we've had
many a fun evening tracking down people by, by having yes no chats with, uh, various
operators. Back when information was free, maybe that's why it's not anymore. Um, there are
all sorts of tricks to, uh, protecting your privacy, but the, the, the biggest thing of all is
just to be aware, to not let yourself get scammed. Uh, when people call you on the phone,
don't give out information, uh, call them. And when you know who you're talking to, only give
out the information that you feel comfortable giving out. Um, and that's really, I think
the best advice that we can offer.
All right. That is in fact advice that, uh, that we were offering, uh, throughout the
conference, throughout the last three conferences. I want to apologize to listeners. Uh, this
device here is not working. And in fact, we, we took a trip down to tally and, uh, we are
getting calls down there. In fact, we're up to a, it looks like 620 bucks so far. So that's
great. Bustling. It's bustling down there. And our tally coordinator is here. In fact. Wow.
What do you, good news from that? These are some people that called that we can thank. All
right. Very cool. Very cool. There was a question. There's a question. What's the question?
They want to know if they get an off the hook t-shirt, if they get the DVD. There are no more
off the hook t-shirts. We, we, we told people those are a limited edition. Well, the, the
limitation was reached and no, no, they don't exist anymore. Uh, that, uh, maybe someday in
the future, but not this day. But, um, yeah, 2, 1, 2, 2, 0, 9, 2, 9, 5, 0. Uh, we were, uh,
we're just playing social engineering, which is basically, uh, getting on the telephone and
trying to get information out of people and corporations. Uh, we, what we don't do, and you
might have heard this in that particular excerpt, we don't give out the actual information.
We, we, we cut the audio of someone's giving out, uh, personal information of any sort. In
fact, in that particular case, or that last person foolishly gave out their address to
somebody just calling them. Uh, we, we hung up the phone in fact, so that might make them
think twice about doing that in the future. And in that particular case, that was a lot of fun.
I remember this now. Uh, we were simply going through the phone book, looking for people that
didn't have their address listed next to their name, calling them and, and fooling them into
giving us their address. Obviously it means something to them or they wouldn't have taken
it out in the first place, but they were just giving it out because, uh, someone called them
that sounded like they had some authority and they, they trusted them. Bad idea. Something you
should never do. Now you mentioned a phone book. I, what, what is this? Do they have these anymore?
You know, I see them occasionally. I know they still exist, but about phones, it used to mean
a lot more than it does now. I see piles of them in my, in the lobby of my building all the time.
No one ever takes them anymore. And people try to throw them out all the time too. And they just
keep coming back. Uh, but yeah, okay. Online people can hide their address too, but it doesn't really
work that well if you don't protect the information. And we're trying to teach people
how to protect their privacy, uh, what kinds of things will be done to, to take their privacy
away from them. Oh, I, I, I forgot Steve Rambam. Uh, that's, that's one very good example. Uh,
our, our resident private eye who, uh, will, will give a, uh, a very long lecture on how you can
protect your privacy, uh, in this particular set. 212-209-2950. Again, you'll get 20 DVDs
for a pledge of $75. You'll get 40 DVDs for a pledge of 125. Every single one of these DVDs
from one of our last three conferences having to do with, uh, technology, privacy, consumer issues,
um, hacking of various sorts. It's, it's fascinating stuff. And, uh, we find that so
many people who didn't actually make it to the conference are, are simply, uh, um, riveted to,
uh, to the information. We play it sometimes for friends who have never been there.
And, uh, they vow they're going to go next time, but, uh, the, the information is just incredibly,
uh, uh, captivating, I think. Mike. You know, I was looking through the list of talks, uh,
the other day and as we selected, you know, which ones would be in the package. And I was just
struck by how prescient some of our, our speakers are, you know, from. That's a $20 word. Yeah. I'll
take $20. You can pledge 20 extra dollars for that word if you want. Um, but, but from, you know,
as many as five years ago, the things they were talking about, maybe sort of off on the horizon
at the time, uh, you know, and really in the, in the focus of the mainstream today, uh, and you'll
be able to hear what people were thinking, uh, just a few years ago, but so much has changed
since then. Uh, 212-209-2950 is the number to call. You'll get 20 of these talks, uh, for $75.
You'll get 40 for $125. And really you should get 40 because there's just so much.
There really are 40 DVDs. Think how long that's going to take to, uh, to go through them. Imagine
40 of your favorite movies, all of a sudden showing up at your doorstep. That's the same
feeling you're going to get when you get 40 DVDs from the last three hope conferences,
because, uh, you know, I can say that there are 40 great talks from the most recent hope conference,
but some people might not, uh, go along with that. They might say, man, you'll come on really 40 in
one conference. Okay, fine. Well then we threw together three different conferences and we,
we, we've taken the very best of all three of those. So, you know, you know, that all those
talks are going to be the best that, uh, that you'll hear, that you'll be able to see.
212-209-2950, get yourself tied into the hacker world and, and, and see just what kinds of things
people have been up to that, uh, that affect your life, that affect the lives of people around them,
affect the entire world in various ways. Voltaire. Yeah. The Richard Stallman to talk alone is worth
the price of admission because... He'll be so pleased to hear you say that. Richard,
you're saying Richard Stallman's talk is worth the $125. And you're right, it is. I've seen him
speak many times and he, he has, he repeats what he says a lot. Like he has like a few different
speeches that he repeats, but he doesn't repeat it in the same speech. But this speech was like
a unique one because he's like, he's the, um, prototypical hacker. So he, he brought that into
the speech and it's prototypical, another $20 word there. Yeah. We were, we're full of them here. I
can give a $500,000 word if you want to donate that. You're not allowed to say that word on
the radio. If people are willing to pledge that, I would be. 212. We need it to pay the legal fees.
212-209-2950. It's really frustrating because we can't tell how many calls are coming in.
So there could be a thousand calls coming in. There could be no calls coming in. Well,
we know there's more than zero cause we do have some of the names of the people that... Let's,
let's thank some people. And then I want to play one more excerpt before we sign off.
All right. Well, let's thank Nathaniel who's from Chester, New Hampshire.
Chester, New Hampshire. Boy, you guys are being socked by snow. I'll bet.
Yeah. Well, there's nothing to do, but listen to WBAI and pledge.
That's a lot to do. That's a, yeah.
That's a great thing to do. But if we go off there, you won't be able to do it anymore.
That's right. That's right.
You won't be able to watch the DVDs.
Yeah. Well, he'd be able to do that if we get them to him before we get, uh,
get the eviction notice, but we won't because we know our listeners are going to call in 212-209-2950.
Keep us going. Keep us on the air. David, you're next.
All right. Uh, well, uh, we have a big thank you to Rich from Ontario.
Okay. Let's try to move it a little faster than this because we, uh, time is a premium here.
Uh, it's not the kind of premium we're giving away because we want to play one more excerpt.
Voltaire.
Uh, uh, we have Eric from Las Vegas.
Just name city. Let's go quickly. Go ahead, Rob.
We'd like to thank David from Sleepy Hollow, New York.
That's good. Okay.
We'd like to also thank, uh, Ingrid from New York City, New York.
New York City is in New York. I didn't know that.
Me either.
Uh, we, we want to thank M who's from, uh, Bergen op Zoom in Holland.
M? I saw that movie.
M? Well, they don't give their full name, just M.
Okay.
But thanks.
Thank you, M.
And also a big thanks to Ken from Queens.
Ken from Queens. Are you out, Voltaire? No more?
Oh, you guys are not? Okay. So that's all we have for now.
And a special thanks to the people who don't want us to tell their name.
Yes. The anonymous bunch. And a special thanks to those people who are dialing the phone right now.
We know you're out there. We know it matters to you.
We know you care. 212-209-2950.
Uh, we promised you Jell-O. We're going to give you Jell-O.
In fact, social engineering was referring to Jell-O.
So let's listen to a little bit of what Jell-O had to say.
Again, this will come your way for a pledge of $75.
And, uh, an extra 20 DVDs will come your way, uh, for a total of 40 DVDs.
If you pledge 125, 212-209-2950.
Please get those dialing fingers ready.
212-209-2950. Let's listen to Jell-O.
It's just not having to, it's not having to fear,
always fear that someone who really doesn't like you and knows all your worst secrets
and could break down your door at any time and your life is over,
that is what we fought the Nazis and the communists for to keep from happening.
So privacy or at least dignity and human rights could stay alive.
Whatever the technology, it's important to draw the line in the dirt
via the laws on the books that this sort of total surveillance state,
sabotage, COINTELPRO, police state stuff
on anybody who's against a war is automatically a terrorist.
This is not cool.
And the only people standing in the way of more and more and more of this is us.
There was a lot of discussion at the privacy panel yesterday
on whether or not polygraph tests are any good and how to, how to circumvent those.
But a lot of employers, oh, those are expensive, they're machines,
if you want, they don't need a polygraph test,
they just cut off a lock of your hair to test you for drugs.
They don't need a polygraph test, they just cut off a lock of your hair to test you for drugs.
And if you really want to work here, it's understood we even own your hair here.
You have no rights at all.
And here's the company phone that you will use that has a GPS thing in it
so we can tell where you are at every hour of every day.
Parents use locks of hair too to send away to mail order labs to test their own kids for drugs and all.
But take your Ritalin.
You know, if you start getting belligerent, you must have attention deficit disorder.
And the phones can be tracked and they have the radio frequency IDs in your clothes,
in the passports, even in library books sometimes.
One school district in Sutter, California, wanted to have every kid always have to have an ID badge on
that had one of the tracking things in it.
Well, that way maybe no molester will kidnap you, but we've kidnapped all of you instead, basically.
And then Sony BMG was even selling CDs to people of popular recording artists
without telling anybody.
You put that into your computer, there's some little rootkit spyware that gets installed
that monitors your Windows media software.
And you wonder, where does that info go?
Does it help them determine whether you've been file sharing?
I mean, if anybody has turned file sharing into a scam, it's the major labels.
It's the RIAA.
They've sued over 16,000 people now.
Even told one woman trying to put herself through MIT and didn't have a lot of money,
well, you should just drop out and go to community college
so you can pay blood money to your friendly neighborhood major label, NARCS.
Not cool.
They've gotten 40 million bucks from these lawsuits.
Where has the money gone?
To the artists? No.
Especially not the independent artists.
Boxer shuts down, pays another $50 million blood money to the major labels.
Did the artists get any of that? Doubtful.
And if the Santa Claus at the NSA being the on the present everywhere isn't enough,
you'll love Oprah.
I mean, she reminds me more and more of Kim Jong-il.
Her own picture is on the cover of every single one of Oprah magazines.
We have to have our Oprah picture properly displayed in our home or bad things may happen to us.
I mean, she's even gone beyond Kim Jong-il and marketing herself as a drug now.
A feel-good mood enhancer.
If you're down, you just turn on the TV or a DVD or an Oprah magazine,
Oprah will soothe you with the answers to all the world's problems.
Same time as they claim they're entitled to know more and more and more about us,
we're allowed to know less and less and less about them.
In 2004, the Bush mob spent $7.2 billion
stamping documents top secret.
That's a lot of documents.
Even classifying documents that had been public for years.
So now if you're caught with them and you got it from a library,
oh, you're possessing classified documents.
Off to Gitmo you go.
And they even, in the Pentagon, even censored a video
on how to help citizens navigate Freedom of Information Act requests,
which they all stall on now anyway.
And then a while back, a journalist I'd known for years from the music censorship wars
called me up and said she was trying to write a book on FBI harassment of musicians
and wanted permission to get my FBI file.
I thought, oh, this ought to make interesting reading.
Then the FBI got back to her, oh, we don't have a file on him.
And we don't have a file on the other one you just requested us for either.
And guess who that was?
Rosa Parks.
So something's being blackboxed over there in a very, very, very big way.
Okay, Jell-O Biafra from Hope No. 6,
just one of the 20 or 40 DVDs that you'll get by calling 212-209-2950.
Pledge of $75 gets you 20 DVDs, including that particular Jell-O talk.
And a pledge of $125 gets you 40 DVDs, including that talk and 39 others.
Listening to Jell-O, it's always an incredible experience.
You never know who he's going to attack next.
I wasn't expecting the Oprah thing. That sort of blindsided me.
All of a sudden, imagine Oprah driving in her car, listening to the radio,
as she's been known to do, and all of a sudden she's being compared to Kim Jong-il.
Yeah, that's the kind of thing we get at the Hope Conference.
You never know what's going to happen next.
212-209-2950. Voltaire.
Yeah, and talking about how these things come to pass,
Oprah has her own cable network now.
She does. Didn't she have one before?
No, she just started one.
I thought she had one before or a piece of one or something.
It had an O in it, oxygen or something like that.
Oh, no, that's different.
Well, she was involved in it.
You know what? I don't care. I don't want to talk about Oprah.
We've had enough Oprah talk in the last few minutes.
But the important thing is that people call in and support the station
so we can continue talking about non-Oprah things on the station.
Yeah, Oprah Free Radio.
Oprah Free Radio, yes.
Oh, I don't know. We have so much diversity.
Maybe sometimes people do play bits of Oprah.
We're going to get a letter from her. I know it. I know we are.
We always get letters from people after we say things about them.
But not only do we not have Oprah, who you can love or hate,
but we don't have any of Oprah's sponsors,
and that's really the nefarious bit, and we avoid it all.
That absolutely is.
We don't have the Book of the Month thing,
but we do have a radio show of the day or of the hour.
We have so many different things here on this radio station.
Broadcasting to all the Egyptian coverage alone is worth the price of admission.
Not that there is a price of admission,
but it's worth supporting the radio station and keeping us on the airwaves
because here we are on top of the Empire State Building
broadcasting to four states just from our radio tower alone
and throughout the world on the Internet.
It means something. It matters.
This is radio that makes a difference,
and your call to 212-209-2950 will make a difference to us.
It will help us keep going and keep bringing you the programming
that you value, that you enjoy.
Bernie?
Yes, go ahead.
You read my mind. You just jumped in on me.
I knew you had something to say.
Obviously, Jell-O is one of our very popular and entertaining speakers,
but at each HOPE conference there are dozens and dozens of entertaining speakers.
I just encourage you, if you're listening,
you obviously like this stuff or you wouldn't be tuned in.
Give us a call at 212-209-2950 to get 20 DVDs of this material.
$75 or 40 DVDs of this material for $125,
going back through several HOPE conferences.
It's like $3 and change per DVD.
Watch them, give them away to friends.
This is a great way to support WBAI
and keep yourself entertained for months.
212-209-2950.
And we can't see how many calls are coming in
because that thing is broken.
We're going to get that fixed because it's really important
to know how many calls are coming in.
But I can say we're one call away from going over $1,000 for this hour,
and that means a lot to us.
So please, if you're on the fence on this,
you could make the difference by calling 212-209-2950.
Once again, your call and pledge of $75 gets you 20 DVDs
from the last three HOPE conferences,
Hackers on Planet Earth, including Jell-O-Bee Offer,
including Social Engineering,
including Robert Steele and Richard Stallman and so many others.
Pledge of $125 gets you 40 DVDs.
212-209-2950.
We're out of time, folks.
We're out of time, but you're not.
You can call us still and pledge your support
for the next few minutes to get these DVDs,
and we'll see you next week.
Write to us, OTH at 2600.com.
Remember, 2600 meetings this Friday throughout the world.
Check www.2600.com slash meetings to see if there's one near you.
And once more, that phone number, 212-209-2950.
Good night.
All righty, all righty then.
You're listening to WBAI New York 99.5 FM.