For more information, that's 212-209-2814.
Come on out to The F Word.
This is WBAI and this is Fred Eaglesmith for WBAI in New York.
Stick it in your ear.
And this is WBAI New York.
The time is 7 o'clock.
Time, once again, for Off The Hook.
The telephone keeps ringing.
So I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving.
Now I can't make a call.
We couldn't get much worse.
But if they could, they would.
Bum-diddly-bum for the best.
I hope that's understood.
We have a bit of a follow-up to that from the Tokyo Hackerspace over there in Japan.
And this message to all the people on the good planet Earth, the crew of Tokyo Hackerspace
has a message that we would like to send to you.
By now everyone knows of the crisis in northern Japan.
It'll still be a few weeks before life is under control here.
We're looking forward to the day that the power plants are safe and the tremors have
subsided.
Many of our members have been cooped up in our homes waiting out the storm, but not laying
idle.
The Japanese government is doing the best they can to manage the crisis and help people
who have lost loved ones, homes, utilities, and possessions.
Tokyo Hackerspace has already begun to lay plans for projects which we feel can help
the people of Japan, utilizing the best of our abilities and resources.
Our first course of action has been to order up the required parts for 150 solar-powered
LED lanterns.
We'll be assembling them here and shipping them up or delivering by hand to aid organizations.
These lanterns provide just enough light so that people can feel safe at night without
power, find their way in the dark, and maintain the sense of community.
They charge during the day via the sun and will help to light the way for eight hours
each night.
We also have on the way several Geiger counters and Geiger tubes from which we'll be making
community sensors in order to help keep the public in harm's way informed on a minute
by minute and hour by hour basis.
While the initial exposure has been low, our concern is the long-term effects.
The food and water supply, ground, soil conditions over the next several months.
Our longer-term projects include solar cell phone charging stations, low-energy cooking
equipment, internet, Wi-Fi, and laptop loans, and other technical concerns.
We are calling upon hackerspaces all over the world and friends of hackerspaces and
friends of friends of hackerspaces to help out.
Soon we'll be releasing a list of critical equipment and supplies which we may have difficulty
sourcing locally.
If you have access to anything on the list, please contact us to make shipping arrangements.
If not, please do not ship us anything not on the list.
In some cases it may be very specific.
Items not on our list will only crowd our space and waste your shipping money and time.
If you have something specific or unique you think we could use, feel free to send us an
email and inquire.
In the meantime, we ask that anyone who can, please donate to only reputable charities,
or if you prefer, you may donate directly to us and we will utilize it for the above
mentioned projects, or give the money directly to Japanese aid organizations known to be
doing good work in the area.
You can donate via PayPal to the THS store at gmail.com.
That's Tokyo Hackerspace, the THS store at gmail.com, and their website, www.tokyohackerspace.org,
for updates on this and other projects that they're involved in.
I bet you visited these guys.
I'd take it when you were over there.
Oh yeah, of course.
So it's something to see hackerspaces being used in a crisis like this as a way of helping
people who really could use help, and we talk about hackerspaces a lot for the fun and spirit
of it all, but it really can serve a vital need in times of crisis.
Oh yeah, and not just like crisis like these, but also where communication is needed, hackerspaces
filled in void to help people communicate in Egypt and other places recently as well.
Yeah, hackerspaces are basically community centers of hackers, people with a common interest
getting together, and when you have something important like this, a bunch of tech savvy
people in one concentrated area, they can start doing some big good.
I just wanted to mention, since you were throwing out the URLs, they also now have a wiki that's
up, quakes.nulls-systems.jp.
How do you spell quakes.what?
Quake.k-n-o-w-l-e-s-systems.jp.
Okay, all right.
And we have this other announcement, not quite as direct from a different part of the world.
This is from the Germans.
Yes, we were talking about the chaos camp.
I believe Kyle, you found this.
You tracked this down somehow.
Yes, I did.
Well, I'm not sure exactly what they're saying.
I'm going to try and get through as much of this as I can.
Basically, what has happened so far, in the beginning, the universe was created.
Yeah, I know.
This is how it's going to go.
This was widely seen as a step of limited sustainability in its current implementation,
and thus, space hackers on board the spaceship Heart of Gold began with the creation of a
parallel universe, the hackerspace.
Four years after the Big Bang and the hackerspace movement, this parallel universe was mostly completed.
Using a semi-permeable membrane to link the two universes, which were now known as the dual core,
hack value was transferred to the parallel universe.
The precious fluid substance that formed the hack value was called the flow.
With the steady influx of flow, the hackerspace universe began to prosper and adopted the name fluid state.
Henceforth, the old universe was known as the solid state, but a simple coexistence of solid and fluid state
proved to be difficult, and the old saying was heard being murmured again,
who controls the flow, controls the metaverse.
Deprived of the flow, the solid state universe soon began to show signs of erosion and mechanical wear.
Turbulences occurred that could be traced back to the growing instabilities.
Suddenly, everything happened at once.
Thousands of diplomatic sub-ether calls were leaked by an unknown entity.
Julian, several desert planets saw revolutions and insurgencies.
At this point, the powers that be in solid state decided that they couldn't take it any longer.
They called for an all-out attack on the hackerspace parallel universe.
Almost done here.
A sinister plot, dubbed Project Osmosis, the flow was to be retransferred and sucked from the fluid state,
destroying everything of hack value.
This is the menace we're currently faced with.
The space hackers once again turned to their old allies in the Milky Way,
the heart of gold where we turn to Earth.
Your cooperation and help is needed.
Let's build Project Flow Control.
Chaos Communication Camp, 2011, August 10th through August 14th,
in Fienefert, near Berlin, Germany, Europe, Earth, Milky Way.
The Chaos Communication Camp is an international five-day open-air event for hackers and associated lifeforms.
Join workshops and topical tent villages, build your projects, create an international hackerspace program.
You can participate, bring your tent, and join our villages.
The camp has everything you need, power, internet, food, and fun.
The 100,000 square meter features, enough space to camp, cozy places to hang out and hack, tinker, and interact.
Tickets will be available soon.
You may start your travel preparations by booking flights, applying for visas,
charging your transcontinental teleporters, capacitors, et cetera.
We will be there, they say.
Events.ccc.de, and just look for anything having to do with the 2011 camp.
I don't understand why you think that's less direct than the previous announcement.
I think it's very clear what they're saying.
Okay, so hearing this now, what have you done differently than, say, a week ago when this was not out and released to the public?
Just because you don't have to do something, just because you don't have to act on it immediately doesn't mean it's not direct.
Yeah.
I still haven't put forward what I was hoping for, which is an actual call for papers.
Guys, I want to pitch something.
Well, yeah, I imagine that's going to be coming up pretty soon as well, all sorts of things.
Mitch, maybe you've heard something in your travels?
Well, nothing.
They just posted a few days ago that they put a down payment on Finofort, the old airport, ex-Soviet airport.
So it's definitely happening.
They put out a call saying definitely start making your plans.
This is where the camp was held four years ago as well.
I think it's the first time the same site has been used more than once.
Yeah, it worked out so well.
And this time we're going to have a lot of different spaces pitching in on huge like Walmart-sized tents.
One of them is going to be a hardware hacking area with a lot of people that I'm helping organize to bring in to teach people all sorts of cool things.
All right, cool.
Well, that's definitely the hacker event of the year, the CCC camp.
Looking forward to it.
Yeah, and also there's going to be an organized tour to Chaos Camp from North America with Hackers on a Plane again.
Oh, they're doing that again?
Yeah, and I'm helping with that too.
Okay.
And rumor has it that Nick Farr, the organizer, has been struggling with WordPress and getting Hackers on a Plane.info going.
Struggling with WordPress.
And all these things happen.
Yeah, they do.
He should just redirect the flow a bit, and I think it will be fixed.
Yeah, you can explain all that to us after the show, and I'm sure we'll get it right.
I really don't understand what needs to be explained.
Yeah, I don't doubt that.
Okay, we have some other interesting things.
Actually, Kyle, this is something that we were kind of exploring.
You've been away from Seattle for quite some time.
And in that time, actually more than that time, over the last year and a half, you've been getting all kinds of phone calls to your landline out there.
And almost none of them are for you.
They're for other people.
And I think this has happened to all of us, where we get phone calls for, I guess, the person who had the phone number before us.
It's not the person who lived in your place before you, although I understand you had knocks on doors from law enforcement people for that person too.
Yeah, that was a different person, I think, and I didn't match the description.
In Seattle, it's just everyone is constantly on the move from one place to another.
I get the feeling that a lot of people have lived in the place where I currently reside.
And all these stories are kind of echoing and catching up as I've now lived there.
I'm sort of getting the aftermath of other people's life circumstances and stuff.
So there's at least five different people that have had various things, including the police looking for someone one time.
And I was the one living there, so I said, hey, I'm not this guy and showed them my ID.
But another thing that's been happening is people who are having calls from collection agencies, also schools.
I've had schools call about middle schoolers or kids skipping class or teachers calling to inform parents that such and such student is perhaps involved with the wrong crowd or smelled of this or that as far as drugs.
They're going down the wrong path, so they're sort of insinuating to the parents that something's up with their kids.
And that's just one example.
I've had other calls about credit problems and collections agencies.
And it gets to be pretty funny after a while.
Well, we're going to highlight some of these because you have gotten a lot of them.
But I think we've all experienced wrong numbers.
I know back in the old days when we – we still have the 2600 landline.
But when people made – I don't know why they made more wrong number calls then.
But we were 100 numbers away from a theater.
We were 2600.
I think there were 2500 or 2700.
And we constantly get calls wanting to know what time a movie started.
And after a while, you just get tired of telling people it's the wrong number.
And you start telling them movie times and movies that don't exist and various things like that.
We also used to get calls constantly for Random House in New York City because they had the same phone number, different area code.
I have a cell phone that ends in 2600.
And I'm constantly getting calls for a doctor, I think, in Brooklyn.
And the thing is people have to listen to the entire message.
It clearly is not a doctor's message.
And then leave me a message saying that their son just swallowed something at school.
And they really want to know if they should take him to the emergency room.
And I don't get the message until two days later.
I feel terrible.
But what am I supposed to do?
People need to be careful when they dial.
And, of course, this is what my whole dissertation was about too.
Wrong numbers?
Well, yeah.
Wrong numbers on blogs.
And I see them on email too.
But, yeah.
And it's things where there will be a big chunk of text there that you could go back and read.
You could see what was going on.
And yet you still at the end are like, please cancel my AOL account.
Here's my username, my password, and my credit card number.
Or I'm 14 and here's where I go to school.
And here's my name, which is just never good.
Incredible.
Okay.
Well, we have the first of a few appearances by this guy that apparently used to have your phone number.
It has all kinds of automated systems calling.
And I think we've all gotten calls from collection agencies.
Has anyone not gotten a call from a collection agency at some point?
Gus, you've never gotten a call from a collection agency?
No, I don't think so, no.
We can fix that.
And you'll be getting all manner of robots calling you, demanding certain things.
But they do it in a way to try to trick you to call or to try and be as polite as possible.
And it's just kind of funny.
The intimidation tactics they put to make you want to call back and the way sometimes they just get technology completely awkward, I would say.
Well, let's listen to this one.
This is the first call for, I guess, a call back from this particular person of interest.
Kyle.
Please enter your password, then press pound.
You have six new messages and nine saved messages.
Check unheard messages.
Press 1-1.
Listen.
Press.
The following six new messages have not been heard.
First message sent on Monday, February 28 at 1-15 p.m.
This message is for Curtis R. Harris.
By continuing to listen, you are acknowledging that you are Curtis R. Harris.
If you are not Curtis R. Harris,
please hang up.
If you are, please continue to listen, but not in the presence of others as it contains personal information.
This is Donald Wilson, a debt collector with Asset Acceptance.
Please contact me about a personal business matter at 1-877-692-8888.
This is an attempt to collect a debt, and any information obtained will be used for that purpose.
Thank you.
End of message.
Erase.
Press 7.
Save.
Press 9.
Okay, I should point out that we obscured the last part of that phone number.
That wacky tone was not actually in there.
But, boy, Curtis R. Harris is being sought by this guy.
And he sounds really good.
What great sound quality.
He's a silver-tongued debt collector.
Isn't he amazing?
You want to talk to him.
I know.
This guy is calling.
It's an honor to get a call from him.
So, of course, Curtis wants to call back and find out what this is all about.
You know, it's kind of a small world.
I think I went to school with Curtis R. Harris.
And that's the other thing.
Why are they so awkward and clumsy?
Robert Knight was on before between 5 and 6 with 5 O'Clock Shadow.
He was playing Wikileaks pieces read by a robot.
And it sounded great.
It sounded like a human being.
Nothing like this.
Okay, and here's another one.
This is not actually a debt collection.
Something we talked about a couple of weeks ago on the air.
This is an attempt to – and, Bernie, you'll be interested in this because I think the same thing happened to you.
This is an attempt to get Kyle to, I guess, give away his banking information or something like that.
Was that what it was?
Yes.
And this was at a different phone number.
This wasn't the landline.
This was a mobile handset.
Okay.
So, yeah, I have voicemail at both locations.
And, yeah, I decided if I was going to record some of these funny landline ones, I'd also record some straight off the other account.
Okay, so this came directly to your cell phone.
And there's a couple of things wrong with this.
We're going to – and also your voicemail system is kind of bizarre here.
We're going to play some of the commands for that, which I just find to be funny.
Voicemail systems, that's another thing that I just can't understand why they don't do a better job with.
But I guess it's something we have to live with.
Well, I was just going to ask you if you're excited about having this kind of voicemail system in the future.
Yeah.
What do you mean?
Well, you're going to be having a similar voicemail system when you're brought into the fold at AT&T, I believe.
Oh, okay.
You're making a reference to AT&T buying T-Mobile and forcing me to be sucked right back into the Death Star.
You know, we'll talk about that later, okay?
I've got a few things to say about that.
I just never – okay.
But let's – speaking of old corporations, old defunct corporations, let's take a listen to this phone call you got.
Hello.
This is a message from Washington Mutual Bank.
We are sorry to inform you that your debit card has been locked.
To reactivate it, please press 1 now and you will be transferred to our security department.
End of message.
Delete.
Press 7.
Save.
Press 9.
More options.
Press 0.
Sent Wednesday, March 9 at 9.08 a.m.
Saved message from 888-475-5228.
17 seconds.
Delete.
Press 7.
Save.
Press 9.
More options.
Press 0.
Resave.
End of messages.
Listen.
Press 1.
Press 2.
Check receipt.
Press 3.
Personal options.
Press 4.
Disconnect.
Press star.
Goodbye.
Okay.
Resave?
What kind of command is that?
These voicemail systems are just unbelievable.
And the previous one, these were unheard messages.
Of course, you had heard them before, but you were able to skip them and pretend they were unheard.
But the crux of the matter here, Washington Mutual hasn't existed in quite a while,
and somehow you're getting calls from some robot at Washington Mutual wanting you to hit 5
and be connected to a customer service department and, I guess, give away all kinds of information.
Do you know if that phone number that the voicemail was from,
was that an actual Washington or whatever bank Washington Mutual is now?
Probably Chase, right?
They've taken over everything.
Was that a real number?
I don't think that was a real number at all.
I don't think that was a real number at all.
Okay.
Bernie, what do you think about this?
These so-called vishing attacks, starting with a V.
Wait.
Vishing?
Did you just make this up yourself?
No, no.
I don't know who comes up with these terms,
but that's what the industry is referring to as opposed to phishing,
which is like an email spam that would try to get you to give up your personal account information.
The ones that are done via voice or automated voice are called vishing with a V.
Again, I don't make up these terms.
I got one just last week.
I told you guys about.
It seems relatively sophisticated.
The call came in with a caller ID, and I caught it.
I actually answered the call.
It came in with a caller ID from Sprint PCS customer service,
the number of which I have stored in my phone.
It showed up as Sprint PCS.
Those guys haven't been around forever, right?
Well, they have been around forever,
but they may not be around much longer if this AT&T T-Mobile merger happens.
They still exist?
Sprint PCS?
Wow.
I haven't heard it.
Wow.
How about that?
I totally thought they didn't exist anymore.
I'm sorry.
I'm just kidding.
I hear you.
They have about 13 percent market share.
I have some unfinished business with them.
Okay.
Never mind.
Continue, Bernie.
They've got about 13 percent market share, so they're still a player.
Anyway, I got this automated voice message,
and the caller ID identified it as being from Sprint PCS,
which I thought it was initially.
It was an official sounding voice saying there was a security problem with my account
and I needed to hear it just to confirm that they're talking to me,
enter the PIN code for my account.
And right then I thought, this doesn't sound right.
So I hung up,
but I wish I had entered the wrong PIN code to see what would happen.
I wasn't really on my toes.
But after I hung up, I thought, that was a scam.
So I called Sprint PCS's corporate security department.
I bypassed all the menus for the police to do electronic surveillance and so forth.
Wait, that's the number you're not supposed to have.
You called that number?
No, it's the same number for Sprint corporate security,
but in the menu options, in the menu tree,
one of the first options is for law enforcement,
like wiretaps, press 5 or whatever.
But I skipped over that and spoke to a live person,
and I explained what had happened,
and they said, well, you shouldn't have done that.
I said, well, I shouldn't have done what?
Listen, no, you shouldn't have printed your PIN.
I said, no, I didn't enter my PIN code.
It seemed like a scam to me.
Has this happened to a lot of other people?
They said, yes, we're being inundated with customers who are calling
because their accounts were just compromised
because they entered their PIN code as a result of receiving these messages.
So I'm glad I didn't do it,
but I guess most people aren't quite so suspicious
or looking askance at these messages.
What's incredible is that these people call you
and then they ask you to prove that you're who they say you are
when it should be the other way around.
You should be demanding that they prove that they're who they say they are,
and I think people don't think to do that.
Gus?
Yeah, I was going to lead a class the other day on digital literacy
and sort of protect it.
It was going to be called digital self-defense,
but one of the rules I came up with was if you didn't go out looking for it,
don't give away sensitive information.
If you went out looking for it, then, yeah, maybe it's time to do it,
but if you didn't go out looking for it, don't do it ever, no matter what it is.
It's a good thing, Carl, you missed that call
because who knows what you might have done.
It's possible that you might have given away all kinds of information.
I think banks these days have better voices than that,
and also they tend to call themselves the current name of the bank,
although I still get Bell Atlantic recordings when I call Busy Signal on Long Island,
so sometimes they don't update things.
Well, I'm pretty skeptical when it comes to this kind of stuff.
If someone's contacting me on a handset, I scrutinize and think,
but this made me think twice.
I was a little bit caught off guard because I had at one point
had a Washington Mutual bank account, but it didn't make any sense.
It made me think twice, and after I thought about it and saved it,
I realized this wasn't real at all, and again, the robotic voice was really, really bad.
Well, I'm glad you saved it because you probably are saving some people
from falling into this trap by hearing the message that you got,
and I'm sure other people are getting the same message.
Now, here's something that you got which is a bit of a mystery,
and I'm calling upon anybody out there listening
to try and explain just what in God's name this is all about.
Take a listen.
Next message sent on Monday, February 28th at 5.55 p.m.
If you allow us to place a small sign in your yard, we will install a new.
End of message. Erase. Press 7.
Okay, and unfortunately, that's all we heard.
First of all, Kyle, you don't have a yard, but that's neither here nor there.
What do you think? Was it a newt or a new something?
We may never know. Has anyone gotten a call like that?
Bernie, have you gotten something like that?
No, but I know what it was.
It was probably ADT or one of the security alarm companies that say they will give you a,
if you agree to let them put a billboard in your yard,
they'll put a free alarm system in your house, but it's not really free
because you have to pay like $30 to $50 a month for the monitoring
on a multi-year contract, so it's not free at all.
Cell phones aren't free.
And apparently Kyle's voicemail system has been alerted to this
and it defends itself against those kinds of messages being left.
Voltaire, you have arrived. Welcome.
I was going to say maybe he was offering to install the new operating system.
That's possible too. I'll ask Richard Stallman about that.
Okay, moving on, we wind up with somebody else is in trouble at Kyle's phone number.
I don't know how you manage to get so many people with the same phone number
that collection agencies are looking for, but you do.
This one has to do with a civil case.
Just listen to the phrasing.
I think this is actually a human being.
I think it's either a human being or it's a very good recording.
I had to boost the levels incredibly because it was so low
that you could barely hear this person.
At the very beginning of the call, you hear a tone,
and maybe people can help identify what that tone is all about.
This is an older case.
As I said, there's a couple different people that I'm getting
sort of the echoes of their life as they had maybe lived here.
This one has progressed.
It was a lot of these automated messages,
but now, as you'll hear in this one, it's a little bit more serious.
All right, here we go.
Next message sent on Tuesday at 11.13 a.m.
Yes, hello, this is from Ms. LaDonna White.
When you get in, can you please give me a call at area code 1-888-762?
My name is Agent Gary.
I'm a civil claim adjuster for the legal department
at Vandenberg Chase & Associates.
When you get dismissed, I need you to give me a call.
The reason for that, ma'am, is that a civil claim has been filed
against you here in my office.
If you have not received a summons from the King County Court
or King County Sheriff's Department,
you need to get in contact with us as soon as possible.
Once again, my number is 1-888-762.
My extension is 3215.
When you call in, ma'am, just refer to your case number.
Thank you.
End of message.
Okay, three things leap out at me in that particular one.
Agent Gary, really?
Okay, a civil claim has been filed in my office.
You know, we file civil claims here in the studio all the time.
They don't go anywhere,
but we can file them here in the studio, in the office, whatever.
And the other thing,
if you have not received anything from King County Court,
you need to contact us.
You haven't received anything because there isn't anything from them.
They're not interested in this,
and you don't have to contact them because there's really nothing going on.
That's what I read out of this.
I just like how he had to pause before he said who he worked for.
Now, if he'd made lots of calls from this,
you'd think he would know.
Instead, he's like, I work for so-and-so.
Do you think he was human?
Was that a live call or was that a recording?
Well, that was at least a recording of someone.
It could have just been a recording and be like, huh?
What's going on?
Yeah, because if someone had picked up,
I guess I would have expected to talk to them.
Rob?
Also, I like that he called you ma'am.
It's polite.
So, okay.
Now, moving on, we come back to –
are we coming back?
No, we're going somewhere else.
Okay, this I think is a student who let things get out of hand.
And listen to how the name of the college is pronounced.
I think this is priceless and indicative of how technology works
in the hands of people who don't respect it.
Hi, this message is for Vanessa Lewis.
This is the Student Assistance Center at Everest.
We're contacting our former students to inform them of options
that may be available to them.
Please contact our office at 877-290
or stop by the Financial Aid Office.
Thank you, and we look forward to hearing from you.
Goodbye.
End of message.
That was actually rather pleasant.
Very polite.
Nothing's really wrong.
Just, you know, you're a student at Everest,
and you need to work things out.
It's interesting how they didn't give the address.
They just gave the name of the school in that monotone computer voice.
And I guess someone getting this wouldn't be too intimidated.
And options that may be available to you?
Are we talking going in for a student loan that maybe isn't real
or some other kind of options?
Just, I guess, repayment plans that don't involve breaking your knees
or something like that.
Where do you get your sound effects?
Well, these actually, this comes from the program I use to edit sound.
I could have put a 2600 hertz tone there,
but I figured this might be more entertaining.
That's just built into the program?
Well, you can replace things with, it's called the out-of-control tone.
That's what it is.
It's good, isn't it?
It's nice, yeah.
I like it a lot.
I just think we should introduce Vanessa to Curtis R. Harris.
I think they get along.
Well, it's interesting you should bring up Curtis Harris
because we have an encore appearance by Curtis.
I know people have missed him since the first appearance.
Basically, I think this all revolves around a single debt,
but they're trying a different approach.
Now, we heard the first one for Curtis R. Harris.
They're trying something different this time.
Let's take a listen.
Next message sent on Thursday, August 19th at 6.28 p.m.
This is a message for Curtis Harris.
If this is not Curtis Harris, please hang up or disconnect.
If you are Curtis Harris, please continue to listen to this message.
There will now be a three-second pause in this message.
By continuing to listen to this message, you acknowledge that you are Curtis Harris.
This message should be heard in private as it contains personal information.
There will now be a three-second pause to allow you to hear this message in private.
This is Rash Curtis and Associates.
This communication is from a debt collector.
This is an attempt to collect a debt, and any information obtained will be used for that purpose.
Please call us back at 1-707-454-
When calling back, refer to reference number 007.
Thank you.
End of message.
Well, yeah, same basic approach.
By the way, that three-second pause is actually 2.6 seconds unless the voicemail might have clipped it a little bit.
I don't know.
Okay, and then we have the final appearance here because none of this apparently worked.
And when things like this don't work, what's the tactic that you use?
Any ideas?
I just have a question.
Where's the personal information in that?
I was expecting some, like, really juicy details of Curtis's debt, and all we got was a case number.
Yeah, I think – I don't know what happens if you're actually there, if you hit a tone or something like that.
Maybe it's voice response.
I don't know if anyone's ever gotten one of these.
Go into the other room so no one can overhear the secret message just for you, and there's no secret message.
I think it's just to protect – so people don't know that you have a debt to begin with.
Perhaps, you know, that's an embarrassing thing.
I would just hang up.
Well, you know, if you hang up, you miss all the fun, and this is something definitely worth saving
and just celebrating that you get these kinds of calls.
You need to go into a private room because, you know, everyone always picks up their phone on speakerphone,
and everyone will hear over the phones loud speakers that they have debts that are collected.
Rob, also in reference to this, if you continue listening, you're accepting that you are Curtis Harris.
I regret to inform all our listeners that you're all now legally Curtis Harris.
Yeah, we said we were all WikiLeaks a few weeks ago.
Now we're all Curtis Harris.
All right, so none of this has worked, so does anybody have an idea as to what the next tactic should be?
Kneecaps.
No, I mean on the phone.
Virtual kneecaps.
How would you present yourself with maybe more authority?
You might take something a bit more seriously.
Maybe that mosquito town that deafens people.
Okay, they're not going to abuse anyone over the phone lines.
It's basically a different way of speaking.
Mitch, any idea?
How would you get someone's attention?
I'm at a loss, I'm afraid.
Really?
Okay.
German accent.
You're on the right track.
You're on the right track.
I'm not quite sure.
British accent.
British accent.
You got it.
Let's take a listen.
Sent on Monday, August 23rd at 2.59pm.
This is an important business call for Curtis Harris that requires your immediate attention.
I have attempted to get in touch with you many times before.
Due to the sensitive nature of this call, no further information may be given at this time.
Please call us back immediately at 1-866-729-007.
When calling, please refer to case number 007.
And that is it.
End of message.
Thank you very much.
And thank you, Kyle, for sharing all your voicemail with us and with the world.
I think hopefully some more interesting ones will be coming.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think as a way of dealing with this and invading my life and my voicemail box, I'm
just going to continue to record these things because it's quite humorous and it seems to
never end.
And I think it's also good to share the stories that we get with weird phone calls because
everyone gets them.
It's always good to look up a phone number.
You type it into Google and you get a log of all the people who have gotten calls from
this particular number and what it means, who they really are, and it's no end of fun.
Go ahead, Emmanuel.
Yes, go ahead, Bernie.
I just want to point out, if our listeners receive a call which appears to be from a
number that they trust, like a company that they already do business with and they just
see it on their caller ID or their phone or their caller ID display, it doesn't mean it's
from them.
Those numbers are easily spoofed, as the one I received last week.
So just because it's coming from that number doesn't mean it's really coming from that
number.
So now let's say that you got a call from a number that supposedly checked out and you
don't believe it's really that number.
What would it take to convince you that you're actually speaking to those people?
I would have to ask if it was a live person.
I would first want to speak to a live person, and if it was a live person, I would quiz
them about information about my account.
That business entity could only possibly know if it was really them.
But first they'd want to know that you were really you and you'd have to give out your...
I had a call like this, actually, because I had a real collection agency after me because
there was a whole problem with my health insurance.
We eventually worked it out, and they had been calling me a month after I'd actually
paid.
So I was calling them to tell them to lay off already.
I was done, and I got this rather flustered-sounding woman.
I imagine she's barraged constantly with all kinds of angry people, and she asked me,
okay, give me one of the three.
Give me either your social security number or your address or some other bit of information.
And I opted for the last four of the social security number.
No, actually, I asked her to give me the social security number, and then I would give her
one of those other things to prove that I was me.
She only gave me the last four digits, and I said, well, the deal was you're going to
give me the whole thing.
So I'm just going to give you the last four digits of my zip code.
And we got into this weird conversation where we were kind of bargaining for my identity.
And after a while, I realized, you know, they already have this information.
They're sending me mail.
They know my address.
I want to put a stop to this and just clear up the account.
So I was able to just sort of cut through all the nonsense and just have a very civil
conversation with them.
But I imagine a lot of them don't go that way, and their way of verifying your identity
really isn't satisfactory to many people.
Gus?
In the case of what Bernie was talking about, I wouldn't say even test them.
You know, I would just say, OK, well, I've registered that maybe there's a problem with
my credit card.
Hang up.
Go to the website you usually go to.
Like, do the inquiry yourself for the number that you usually know.
And then call that number and say, hey, I just heard there was a problem with my credit
card.
Can you verify that?
Right.
Yeah, that's the best way to do it.
All right, then we're going to move on.
That's a very important thing to point out to people.
Whether you're talking about the phone number or the website, going through the main website
or main phone number, you should be able to find whatever issue they're talking about.
Because if it's legitimate, someone through that organization you're dealing with will
be able to get you to the proper department.
And just a general good rule of thumb is don't be hustled.
Because that's all it is.
It's a hustle.
They want to get you in a frenzy and get you really quick.
So just don't be hustled by it.
Speaking of hustles, Verizon, OK, here's my situation.
I'm hoping you guys can help me with this.
Maybe some listeners can help as well.
We've got a phone line that serves no other purpose than to be forwarded to another phone
line, OK?
We have a cool number.
We want to forward it to a different phone line.
And that's all it does.
It goes from a part of Suffolk County to a different part of Suffolk County.
They're about maybe five miles away from each other.
And we recently changed one of the numbers.
So I contacted Verizon.
And this was really tough to get them to figure out how to do this in the first place.
We wanted them to forward the number for us because, believe it or not, we couldn't
even get access to the phone line itself.
It's a long story involving forests and hazardous places and things like that.
So they installed the right forwarding service on there and forwarded the number.
And wouldn't you know it, a month later, I got a bill and every single call was being
charged for, 12.2 cents to call from eastern Suffolk to western Suffolk, five miles away
from each other.
They have the same billing practices they had in the 1980s.
We live in a society where we can call all around the country for nothing or just one
small flat rate.
And Verizon is still charging you per minute for local calls.
So my question is, can I simply take my phone number, that phone number there, and give
it to a different company that won't charge nearly as much?
Mike?
Yes.
Well, good.
Okay.
That's what I'm going to do then.
That's what I thought it was.
All right.
But don't cancel your account.
You know this.
Call the new company and tell them to take the number.
If you cancel your account, then you lose the number.
Yeah.
And we don't want to lose that number.
But right now, believe it or not, to have a phone line that simply forwards, and if
I don't want to pay for every single call timed, every single call, like something like
three cents a minute for a local call, I have to pay $59 a month just for that.
That's Verizon for you.
That's a company living in the Stone Ages.
So, yeah, this is why certain companies don't survive, because of their business practices.
All right.
Moving on.
We made reference to this last week, the whole WikiLeaks controversy.
Yes, yet another WikiLeaks controversy.
Actually, this is more of a Bradley Manning controversy.
PJ Crowley, the U.S. State Department spokesman, was forced to resign after calling the treatment
of Bradley Manning stupid.
He said he was taking responsibility for the impact of his remarks.
Manning has been held in solitary confinement at a maximum security U.S. military jail.
He's been on suicide watch at Quantico in Virginia.
He's shackled at all times.
He's facing 34 charges relating to the leaking of 720,000 diplomatic and military documents.
Secretary of State Clinton said she accepted Crowley's resignation with regret, but she
didn't say anything about the treatment of Bradley Manning.
I thought this was fascinating, that here you have a guy actually going on record saying
something that he believed to be true, and as a result of pressure from the White House,
this guy has to leave right away.
And instead of looking into the actual treatment of Manning, instead of looking into what was
uncovered as a result of the leaks, this is the way that people are treated.
It's really sickening.
What's really amazing is how mild what Crowley said is.
He didn't say Manning should be released.
In fact, he specifically said that Manning is in the right place, which is jail.
He didn't even really say the treatment is bad per se.
He just said it makes it more difficult to defend the U.S. as a protector of human rights
when it is shown to be abusing human rights.
And that makes perfect sense.
Which is true.
Honest statements.
And he was basically fired for this really mild statement.
And I think this notion that Obama was going to have this team of differing opinions is
really called into question here.
This is what governments do.
They don't like dissent amongst ranks.
But wow, this is really pretty incredible.
By the way, Sunday was Bradley Manning Day, or a series of actions.
Did you notice anything about this, Rob?
Were you a part of any of them?
I didn't get to go, but apparently it was happening the same day all over the world.
Yeah, last Sunday.
I didn't get to go to any of them either, but I heard they were happening.
Mike?
Some of it started on Saturday, and Daniel Ellsberg was among the people at the White
House on Saturday who was arrested for showing their support for Bradley Manning.
Well, he wasn't arrested for showing support.
He was arrested for something, right?
Showing support for Bradley Manning doesn't get you arrested.
At the White House.
Parading without a permit is one of the charges you get down in D.C.
Go ahead, Bernie.
Oh, and it wasn't the first time that the White House tried to have him arrested.
Well, that's certainly true.
A different White House at the time.
You know, here's something interesting, too, concerning WikiLeaks.
This story, which ran a few weeks ago, a former head of Britain's secret intelligence service
crediting WikiLeaks and other secret spilling sites with sparking the revolution sweeping
the Middle East, saying that they helped to launch the Egyptian revolution and events
in Tunisia, which eventually led to other places such as Bahrain, Syria, and yes, Libya.
And as a result of what happened in Libya, now there is military action against Colonel
Qaddafi by the United Nations and NATO.
So, in effect, Julian Assange is responsible for U.S. military action.
Isn't that something?
Wow.
Ain't that a kick in the ass?
It's just the way the world works, though.
It's fascinating.
And he was here in this room.
He was.
Just last year.
He was.
Plotting and scheming for all sorts of interesting things.
Okay, we're going to take some phone calls.
212-209-2900.
We haven't heard from our listeners in a couple of weeks, so I would like to take a couple
of calls before we have to sign off for the night.
Here's a letter sent to OTH at 2600.com, and you can do the same thing.
This is actually from the guy who runs the website here at the radio station, Michael
Horowitz.
I just got around to listening to your March 2nd show, Two Minor Corrections.
The WBAI Al Jazeera Hour airs at 5 a.m., and that's true from 5 a.m. to 6 a.m. every weekday.
We air Al Jazeera right here on WBAI, and you can't get it on any other New York media
outlet or cable system or satellite system.
Not that I'm aware of.
It is available online for streaming from the archives for a day or two, and you don't
need to be up at 5 a.m., basically, is the point there.
Also, Al Jazeera TV is available everywhere in the U.S. with broadband net access and
a Roku box.
Am I saying it right?
R-O-K-U?
In the Roku newscaster channel, they include the Al Jazeera live video stream alongside
ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, etc., etc.
Al Jazeera is the only one with a live stream.
The other channels slash networks only offer recorded stuff.
Thanks, Michael, for that.
The thing is, it's got to be as easy as possible, or it's going to miss a huge amount of people.
That's why, particularly with events that have happened over the past few months, many
people are demanding to have Al Jazeera carried.
If you go to their site, english.aljazeera.net, there's even a box for you to demand, based
on your own satellite company or cable company or whatnot, to send a letter to them.
Sometimes you get a letter back saying why they're not carrying Al Jazeera.
It's a fun thing to do, and I think a lot of people are doing it.
This person writes in, Joe, to ask what our opening song is.
What's the title?
Who wrote it?
I typed it into Google.
All the lyrics that you play.
I cut myself while shaving.
If it could, it would.
All that.
I can't get any information on this song.
Well, Joe, we've mentioned this before, but I guess we have to mention it every now and then.
It's actually a flipside of a single by Big Audio Dynamite, who, by the way, are getting
back together and playing Roseland later next month.
That's going to be interesting.
It's called Much Worse, a flipside of Just Play Music.
Look up Big Audio Dynamite.
The song is called Much Worse, and you will find it that way.
And here's one more letter from GLF.
I was getting late night NHK English, that's a Japanese broadcaster, through a CNN stream
for most of the week.
Most of the coverage was emotional, focused on the suffering of individuals and families.
NHK provided almost no coverage of technology, potential for disaster, and ways to reduce
the chances of disaster.
It's interesting how every country is a bit different in the way they treat stories like this.
But the NHK English service is something that, again, is not really available to us, but
you can probably find that on the web as well.
Go ahead, Rob.
Just for completeness' sake, for all the record collectors, I should point out that it's the
extended mix of Much Worse.
The regular mix of Much Worse is missing some bits and pieces.
That's true.
We did some editing of it ourselves.
All right, 212-209-2900 is our phone number.
Let's see who's out there.
Let's take this call right here.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
Really?
Okay.
They were ringing a long time just to hang up.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
Okay.
Speak up.
You have a bit of a low line.
When you were doing the phone conversations, I can't do it for you right now, but my girlfriend,
Linda Rogala from the post office, tried to poison me.
She left a thing over my cell phone that I recorded about to make sure if I was feeling
okay and everything.
I only wish I could play it for you folks right now, but I have it on another recorder.
Well, I'm sure her attorney will be contacting you soon.
You've said her name over the air and all kinds of things will be played back in court
so you can get to the bottom of this story.
We're certainly all interested in that.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
Yes.
I have an answer to ... I remember the last couple of weeks ago, you said that pay phones
don't work anymore, and the reason for that is-
Well, I think you said that, but okay, fine.
No, no, no.
You did.
You did.
Well, I'm always confusing myself with you.
Okay, go ahead.
Have you ever tried to report a pay phone?
Dial 1-800 ... You can't dial 6-1-1 anymore.
Well, there is no 6-1-1 anymore.
They changed that number to something much more confusing.
Like 8-9-0-6-6-1-1.
Like that, yes.
No, but that doesn't work anymore.
Now it's 1-800-VERIZON.
Now try and report a pay phone with that.
Why don't you call it now?
1-800-VERIZON.
Try and report trouble, like a repair service.
But there is no trouble here, Rebel.
I'd be lying if I tried to report trouble.
No, just get two repair services.
Just try and get two repair services.
Well, we only have nine minutes left,
and I suspect from what you're telling us
that we're going to need a lot more than nine minutes to get to that.
But I will do this.
I will do this.
I will call Verizon, 1-800-VERIZON,
and show you how difficult it is to get a human being.
How about that?
Would that make you happy?
All right, let's just try that real quick.
Let's see if we actually can do this.
1-800-VERIZON.
And I think we're all familiar with this,
where you're trying to get a human,
and the computer keeps trying to convince you that it can help you,
if only you just let it.
Did I miss a digit?
I hate this phone system, you know?
I dialed all the digits.
I think I did.
You know what?
Let's try this in the future,
because we do have callers, and we want to be fair to them.
Good evening.
You're...
Yes, we're calling from Shirley, sir.
Yeah, how are you doing?
Everything okay out there?
Yeah, we're doing great out here.
When the bill collectors, whether it's a scam or not,
when they call me,
I like to ask if I can put them on hold,
and then I sing my own little hold music to them.
I even do that.
Your call is important to us.
They usually get pretty pissed off.
Yeah, I would imagine.
You'll find out their true nature then.
Well, and then when they get really mad,
I tell them, you know,
I'll give you what I have,
but half of nothing is still nothing.
Now I go back to hold music.
There you go.
Thanks for that tip.
I'm sure a lot of people
will be generating their own hold music tonight.
And good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
Speak up.
Take a one-way trip to Cuba.
Yeah, okay.
Well, you know,
it's not the first time we've heard this.
People want us to do this.
He's going for the 140-character approach
to his calls now.
It's just, yeah.
Yeah, we get tweets sent directly to us.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
Hi.
I listened to your show a lot,
and I remember you had a Hope conference
where there was a drink that gave energy.
I was hoping I could get the name
of what that drink was.
Yes, the magical drink.
It's called Club Mate.
You can get more information on that
at clubmate.us,
C-L-U-B-M-A-T-E.us.
And in fact,
there's a story on our website,
our main www.2600 website,
www.2600.com,
with something special that's happening
only this week,
so you might want to go over there.
Oh, okay.
And how do you spell that?
M-O-N-T-E?
No, clubmate,
C-L-U-B-M-A-T-E.us.
Thank you very much.
All right.
And yes, it is the magical drink
that somehow we wound up importing
from Germany
because the hackers there went mad over it.
Isn't that right, Mitch?
We're not making this up.
We are not making this up.
It is incredible but true.
Yeah.
Okay.
Let's take another phone call.
Good evening.
You're on Off The Hook.
Oh, hello.
How are you doing?
Yeah, this is slightly off topic,
but it does have to do with information.
With connection with the Japanese
and the U.S. nuclear plants,
the big sort of unspoken scandal is
because they mixed the storage site in Nevada,
all the nuclear plants are actually storing
the stem fuel rods on site at a density
that's like three or four times higher
than the design density
because they really have no place to send it.
And so they used to have enough space
in between the fuel rods
that even if the water more or less boiled away,
it wouldn't really melt.
But now everything is jammed in just so tight
that there's hardly any room
to put any more.
And now, so if something happens with the water,
it's completely there.
Well, if there's any good to come out of
this whole charade in Japan,
maybe we'll start taking a serious look
at the way we handle things in other countries
and maybe some logic will prevail.
I'm not really hopeful for that,
but seeing the reaction of people in Germany
to what has happened in Japan
as far as demanding that nuclear power plants
be shut down over there,
gives me some hope.
Let's see if we can squeeze in one more phone call.
Good evening, you're on Off The Hook.
Speak up.
Hey, how's it going?
Hi, what's on your mind?
Hi, Manuel.
Did you ever find the Japanese version
of the news live?
You were asking about the NHK, I think it's called?
Yeah, we were talking about that.
NHK World is the service.
I don't think it's carried on anything here.
You can find it online, though.
I am Ustream, live 24-7.
It's the English version.
I enjoy you guys' show.
I'm out of California.
I'm over here in Southern California.
I podcast to you guys.
I listen to you guys all the time
for all the new information and all that.
Thanks a lot for having me on.
Okay, thanks for calling.
And that's going to pretty much do it for us here tonight.
We will be back next week from 7 to 8.
Coming up next, the personal computer show.
Write to us, oth at 2600.com.
We love to hear from our listeners.
Have a good night.
We'll see you next time.
Thank you.