members to make it successful. Wow, are we going to sing Sister Slip? Uh, no. We're going to pitch,
bring you great premiums, and talk hot topics. So come on down. July 10th is when we start.
Wake Up Call really needs you. Call 212-209-2800 after 9 30 a.m. so we can put your name in the
system or email volunteers at WBAI.org. I'm Ife Danci. I'm Esther Alma. We approve this message.
And hopefully you approve this radio station, which is WBAI New York,
seven o'clock. Time once again for Off The Hook.
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, expect the worst. I hope that's understood. Bum diddly bum!
Bum diddly bum bum bum diddly bum bum diddly bum bum diddly bum bum diddly bum bum diddly
bum bum diddly bum bum diddly bum bum diddly bum bum diddly bum bum diddly bum bum diddly
And a very good interview by the program is Off The Hook. Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this
Wednesday evening joined tonight by Mike. Hello. Rob T. Firefly. Good evening. Kyle. Hi. And Jim.
Yes. Yeah. Welcome, Jim. And down in Philadelphia or somewhere in Pennsylvania, Bernie S.
Greetings from Pennsylvania. Well, anybody have anything this week to talk about?
Anything at all? Emmanuel. Yeah, go ahead, Bernie. It sounds like you have something.
I like this kid from Manchester who's 11 years old who hacked his way onto a flight to, I think
it was Paris. Was it Manchester United, Manchester City or Manchester, New Hampshire? You know,
it was in the UK. That's all I know. Okay. And now he's down in bed.
So yeah, this kid, he was a plane freak. He's always been fascinated by airplanes,
according to the news reports. And he desperately wanted to fly. And he snuck away from his mom at
the supermarket and made his way to the airport. He's 11 years old. And he got onto a plane. He
just sort of snuck on and, you know, like mingled in with a family. You know, there's got to be all
kinds of Homeland Security kind of stuff. And I guess it's Heathrow. But he still managed to get
through without a boarding pass. It's not Homeland Security. It's not Homeland Security. It's
something else over there. They have some equivalent nonsensical organization like that
in the UK, I'm sure. Right. Well, when you're a kid, you can get away with things like that. You
can just walk past and people assume that, you know, you're nice and innocent. But he was just
having a good old time on the plane, apparently. And the flight attendants didn't catch him,
like, doing a headcount like they're supposed to do. There were all kinds of screw ups.
But until a few people on the plane started wondering, like, whose kid is this? Because
he's walking around the plane. Finally, the gig was up and he got sent home. But I think the kid's
brilliant. How far did he make it? Well, I guess he made it to the destination, but then they had
to send him right back. So he got a seat, in other words. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It was like the
flight was well on underway for quite a while before people started wondering who this kid
belonged to. Well, it wasn't so long ago that you could go all the way to the gate without a
ticket. Now, of course, you have to have a ticket to get past the TSA people. Yes. But this kid,
this kid clearly had to have thought this out. This didn't happen by accident. And I got to hand
it to him. Brilliant. Wow. OK, well, that's certainly the hack of the week. Anyone have
anything to top that? I got bad news. OK, go ahead. Or I mean, not even news, but the NSA has
admitted publicly that they have violated the Constitution, the Fourth Amendment, to be exact.
But they say, don't worry, we won't do it again. There's going to be no consequences for anyone.
Maybe you can give us some more details than just that.
There's really not a whole lot of details, unfortunately.
The NSA just came on the television and said, by the way, you violated the Constitution,
we're not going to do it again. Obviously, there's more to this story.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the ruling was revealed Friday in a declassified document.
OK. And it represents the first time that the government has acknowledged that U.S. spy
activities violated the Constitution since 2008. So they went a good, you know, four years without
admitting it. And they're spying on Americans. It sounds like they're basically confirming what
William Binney said to our attendees at Hope, that they violated the Constitution and now
they're being called on it. And they promised not to do it again. And they say we should just
believe them because, you know, they're honest people.
Did you hear who DEFCON, the hacker conference in Vegas, has as their keynote speaker?
I did hear. Yeah.
We had an NSA whistleblower. They have the head of the NSA.
I'm trying to understand what he's going to say to hackers,
you know, or are they going to lock the doors or what?
What he's going to say is come work for us.
Yeah.
And people will take him up on it.
That worries me. But I'll hear the guy out. But keep in mind who he is.
And he'll probably be photographing all your faces with his eyes.
Okay. We want to thank everybody for calling in last week and supporting us.
We had the special limited edition DVDs. They're all gone. We're not giving them away this week.
This is the last week of the fundraiser. We're doing something completely different this week,
as we threatened we do. This week we're focusing on a special book, which we'll be announcing just
a little bit, but also some history, some more history, history of Off the Hook, pretty much.
For a pledge of $75 to 212-209-2950, you'll get the entire archive of Off the Hook, 22 DVDs,
22 DVDs filled with MP3s, broadcast quality of our radio show since it began back in 1988.
Now, why, you may ask, why would this be of interest to me or to anyone?
Well, throughout the years on Off the Hook, we've talked about a number of different subjects.
We've covered all sorts of history, all sorts of technology that has developed.
And basically it's kind of like a time capsule of world events. And to demonstrate that,
I'd like to go back to the year 1999, shortly before Y2K, if you might recall.
There was a big hubbub about that, but maybe you don't recall because it's 12 years later
and we just move on to the next thing. We don't even remember what happened a year ago,
let alone 12 years ago. So let's listen to a little snippet from 1999 when Off the Hook was
preparing for Y2K or perhaps the end of the world. We had in the studio at that time, Isaac,
who I would get into frequent debates with about just about anything, and Y2K was certainly
no exception. Remember that phone number, 212-209-2950, pledge of $75, gets you the full
DVD set, 22 DVDs with every program we've done from 1988 to the end of 2011. Let's listen to 1999.
And with under, what is it, eight weeks to go now until...
40-something days.
The year 2000? It's really coming up fast. I'm sick of these morons on TV that say,
oh, this is the last World Series of the century. This is not the end of the century. No, it's not.
Next year is the end of the century. The years did not begin with the year zero, they began with
the year one. So 2000 is part of the 20th century. So next World Series will be the last World Series
of the century. And I keep hearing, this is the last time we'll be doing this this century. It's
the last tree in Rockefeller Center this century. Well, unless you have plans not to live next
century. I mean next year rather. Well, we may not survive. We may not survive. So that's the
only way they can possibly redeem themselves. I get much more upset with people claiming that
January 1st, 2000 is the next millennium. Well, it's the same thing. It's the same stupidity.
Foam at the mouth. But it's the exact same mistake they're making. It really is,
because the millennium begins on January 1st, 2001. So that's the situation. Anyway,
you wanted to announce that everything is okay and everything's going to be all right?
Well, no. Actually, President Clinton did that. Did I misunderstand? Okay. You're not saying
everything is going to be okay. Oh, I'm not saying everything's going to be okay by a long shot. I
think we're going to have some problems. But President Clinton did recently decide to tell
us that it's all going to be all right. Everything's going to be safe and there's not going to be any
problem. Have you noticed, though, that there aren't as many stories about Y2K as there were,
say, six months ago? Yes. Why is that? Well, I have no idea. Why do you think? I think people
are finally getting fed up with it and realizing that, hey, this is not going to be a big deal
after all. That's what I think. You think there's a darker conspiracy? I hope you're right.
What's your dark conspiracy theory here? Well, we won't go into my dark conspiracy theory.
Why not? Let's put it this way. You're afraid to be proven wrong. That's why.
The President's own Y2K Advisory Council recently put out a paper talking about how 911 systems may
not be fully operational, how a lot of these different little pieces of infrastructure
may or may not be completely ready. They're estimating, like, 50 percent of medium-sized
businesses and, like, 20 percent at large. They have all these interesting little numbers,
which you can go on, like, look at Thomas.Locke.gov. If you have never been to Thomas.Locke.gov,
go there. I demand it of you, just for your own, you know, education and so on and so forth. But
anyway. So there's all kinds of facts and figures up there. Yeah, there's all kinds of facts and
figures up there. But it's somewhat interesting that the President basically has this report in
his hands and ignores it and says, you know, everything's going to be OK. Everybody's going
to be safe and secure and we don't got to worry. It's all solved. But meanwhile, there are a lot
of other things around the world that tell us what's wrong, what's wrong, what's what's not
working. I don't know. It's not after 2000 yet. So you have no idea what's going to happen.
I have no idea what's going to happen. And anybody who claims that they know what's going to happen
is probably kidding themselves. I know. I know people are going to panic and act crazy. All
right. Yes. In general, people are going to there's going to be some social unrest as there is,
you know, all the time, some kind of silly thing is impending doom.
There'll be occasional airliners plunging into the Atlantic.
I don't think that's going to happen at all. I really don't think that's going to happen.
But I mean, you know, you can you can reasonably say there you can outline certain problem spots.
For instance, people have been going nuts about micro microcontrollers and things like that,
you know, embedded, embedded. What what are your plans?
What are my plans? Just for the record. So we we know for the archives.
Well, I was originally planning a vacation in December in the great American Southwest.
And what happened? I fell through. No, it didn't fall through. I decided to move it back a bit,
like maybe spend New Year's out in the desert, which may or may not be the greatest idea.
But I have a feeling my mother is going to guilt trip me into spending the holidays at home.
So, you know, I'll be right there in Times Square where it's going to hit the fan.
Well, they say that's where terrorists will strike. But, you know,
terrorists can strike anywhere. Why would they pick the biggest place?
Why would they pick the capital of the world on the most important date when everybody in
the world is watching? I think Trenton, New Jersey, much better target because
no one's going to be guarding anything there. You know, the point is to incite terror.
And there's really no better time.
Terror is incited by us talking about it like there's going to be terror.
You know, I'm watching this TV newscast where they're saying someone could stand up on a roof
and start shooting everybody. And of course, it scares everybody to death. But, you know,
that that could happen at any time. Yeah. Why wait until, you know, a particular date?
Just because I surprise the professional terrorist is trying to make a point above
and beyond killing people. They're trying to get attention. And the police,
they're getting the attention just by making people worry about it.
Well, if you have the more cameras that you have pointed at one thing at one time is the
ultimate scenario that they could dream for. If you have like 14 angles on one incident
and it can be talked about for months and years on end, all of a sudden,
but look at your history, look at your history of terrorism. How many times has it happened that way?
It usually happens where you least expect it. It doesn't happen in the place where all the
cameras are focused. You think it's going to happen there, but it doesn't actually happen
there. It's the paranoia that, that, that makes us terror more. Oh, okay. Yeah. Sir, if you had
something. Yes. Well, you have to strike a compromise between the cameras that will give
you news attention and the cameras that will have your face on the FBI wanted posters. Yeah. That
could generally be bad. So you have to, you have to choose your cameras carefully. But what I was
going to say, because I think brought up the topic of microcontrollers and embedded systems and things
like that. Uh, what scares me more than anything are all of the embedded ships that control little
municipal functions that are handled by little towns that really just don't think much about Y2K.
Water mains, the gas mains, electricity, things like that. It would be a lot of fun. If for
instance, uh, the, the department of water and sewage here in the beautiful city of New York
were to, Oh, say have their PDP 11s, which are controlling the sewage gates. They have PDP 11,
still controlling the sewage. Cool. You think there'll be throwing them out anytime soon?
Uh, well, after 2000, they may very well do that after somebody like kicks them over.
That's going to be cool. But for instance, uh, they're supposed to,
they open gates in relation to lunar cycles. So think about that for a second.
You have to release sewage into the river in regards to the tides, because if you release
it while the tide is coming back in, you have this very nasty stench going up the East river.
Nasty. I think there must be a clock involved in that, isn't it?
Yeah, I think there would be. Well, what do you know?
And imagine what would happen if for instance, the computer were to suddenly think it was the year
1900, uh, which I have no idea where that would be in the lunar cycle compared to the January 1st
of 2000. And, uh, there were two open, say the sewage gates at the wrong time.
All right. So you get some raw sewage dumped out into, you know, onto land.
How about onto the streets?
Onto the streets, but it only lasts a day. We clean it up and then we move on.
It's the end of civilization.
It's a serious health risk.
It's just a bad day, you know?
It's going to be a bit. I'm not saying it's going to be the end of civilization.
I think people are overreacting.
This already happened once in California.
See, it's already happening. We lived.
Yeah.
All right. Patrice, what's going on in Europe as far as Y2K panic?
Well, no, no, no. But, uh, it's quite funny. In fact, um,
for a long time that the Americans were talking about Y2K, nobody was talking about that in Europe.
And then suddenly it came up and then there was some, some kind of panic.
And there was a lot of interest and, uh, and it became kind of hype.
And, uh, all kinds of Y2K experts sprung out out of, of nothingness.
Right, because they can make so much money.
They can make so much money scaring people and, and, and selling their products.
Well, that happens all the time.
I was on it for some time. I didn't make any money.
But anyway, then the government.
All right. We're going to have to stop that right there.
That was an excerpt from Off the Hook back in 1999.
As we were looking forward to Y2K.
What do you guys think of all that?
It was interesting, wasn't it?
What's going to happen on Y2K? I want to know.
Yeah, well, if you listen to the next episode, maybe you'll, you'll get more inklings.
But, uh, I don't know.
What do you think of the predictions?
Like, uh, were any of us on track or, uh, completely off track, Rob?
I'm kind of interested in those PDPs myself now.
I'm wondering if they're still there.
But it's the funniest thing.
I actually remember listening to that very episode and, uh, where I worked back then.
I used to put it on for public hearing, um, during broadcast.
And so, like, yeah, it's, uh, it's a nice little flashback.
For public hearing. That sounds kind of interesting.
You want to tell us where that was?
It was in a retail establishment, uh, in which I worked at the time.
So you basically forced all the customers to listen to Off the Hook.
Oh, yeah.
If there are any retail establishments right now that are playing Off the Hook,
we'd like to know about them.
Give us a call or actually write to us, oth at 2600.com.
And let us know where you heard us.
Yes, Kyle.
I think a lot of the predictions were pretty dead on.
Specifically, though, one about like, I don't know who was talking.
I think it was Seraph or somebody was talking about microcontrollers and, like,
small municipalities who don't really understand what's going on.
They're just installing these things.
That actually tracks with some of the things that were spoken about at Hope.
I know one of the presentations was about, um, Zigbee.
I think Travis Goodspeed and a couple other people spoke about it.
Basically about, um, the wireless systems that are used in, like,
gas meters and different devices that sense and, um, you know,
send signals out to, you know, companies controlling their, um,
their customer, you know, their, uh, customer premise equipment, like, uh,
you know, a valve or, um, the temperature sensor, this, this kind of stuff.
So that's definitely like a reality these days.
And, um, we had some really interesting talks about that at Hope last week.
It's amazing to see the things that we talk about in the theoretical perspective back then.
And, and now it's, um, it's something that we're faced with every single day.
So it's, it's really kind of cool to see, um, to see it developing,
to hear from our callers too, because when, when you get this set,
uh, you also get all the phone calls that have come in over the years.
And boy, we had some great phone calls from many, many listeners.
You know, when we started out, it was, it was local because WBAI
reached four states, but still that's all it reached.
It was a broadcast station.
And now, of course, with the internet, we can talk globally all around the world.
And we get calls from, from all four corners of the planet.
So it's, uh, it's interesting to see that change, um, just by itself.
But, uh, yeah, you'll see the entire world change, uh, politically, uh, technologically,
ideologically, all kinds of different ways.
So it's, it's a fascinating time capsule.
And again, it's yours for a pledge of $75, 212-209-2950.
You'll get 22 DVDs.
And how many?
22.
How much space?
That takes up a lot of space.
It does.
It does.
Which is why, uh, you, you need some, some medium that can handle all that.
Uh, I mean, you can copy them to your hard drive.
You can, you can put them wherever you want, actually.
Uh, we encourage people to copy them.
There's no DRM on, on any of these.
You can listen to them anywhere in the world on any device that can play an MP3.
And, um, and, and you'll learn a lot.
It's 22 DVDs though, filled with, um, let's say about maybe 49, 50 weeks a year we're
on the air.
So that's, uh, that's close to 50 hours per DVD.
Multiply that by 22.
It's a lot of hours.
Isn't that, that's like 100 gigabytes, right?
I, you know, I, I haven't even tried to calculate that, but it's a lot.
I did a rough multiplication in my head.
That's like, that's a lot of gigabytes.
You might have to buy a new hard drive.
Uh-huh.
And it's 128K.
Oh, wow.
44.1 megahertz, I believe.
Which, uh, basically is sound quality that you would get, uh, listening to the radio.
Not what we have online because, uh, if you listen on the stream, it's not quite that
high because of bandwidth concern.
But this is as high as it can, it can get, uh, as far as, uh, what we offer.
Again, 212-209-2950, pledge of $75, gets you, uh, uh, the full set, 22 DVDs.
You know, we can't tell how many people are calling in because the machine is broken that
shows us how many, uh, how many, uh, calls there are.
Uh, it's, you know, it's sad because we used to have, um, well, we have a camera now, but
we used to have a, uh, more of an analog type system that just had flashing lights.
And that worked all the time.
Then we moved on to something on, on, on the internet or on the computer that, uh, uh,
that showed us more intelligently.
And of course that doesn't work most of the time.
Reminds me of so many things that we talk about over the years, technology that, uh,
you know, implemented badly, doesn't work nearly as well as the old fashioned non-technological
means of doing things.
We still have the blinky thing.
It just isn't hooked up.
It's not hooked up, so it's useless.
It's just a piece of plastic.
It doesn't have any lights lighting up.
So we could have all the lights lit up for all we know.
We don't know.
There's no way to really tell.
Unless somebody knows how to, how to fix the machine in here, we're, we're gonna, we're
gonna be flying blind.
212-209-2950, uh, Bernie, any thoughts on, on the Y2K debacle?
It was, uh, I thought everything was so exaggerated and off the mark that it, uh, it was amusing
to, it was so, it was, I thought it was very anti-climactic when Y2K finally arrived.
And, uh, none of the predictions seemed to really come true.
And there was only, in fact, I'm the only person I know that experienced anything.
I made a rather sizable bank deposit the day before and the bank lost it.
And I, I investigated and tracked it down to a failed multiplexer, which did have a
Y2K problem in getting, transferring the funds from their branch to where we're supposed
to go.
And they sent me a giant fruit basket to the bank after, after I called the newspaper
and said, Hey, this is what I found out happened as a Y2K problem.
But I've heard a very few of any real Y2K problems.
Well, I think more, more, uh, groundbreaking than any Y2K incident.
You got a bank to send you a basket.
I didn't even ask them to.
I mean, I, I called them, I verified the problem and the story.
And then I called the newspaper because all the new receivers were like desperate for
any real Y2K story.
So I told them what happened.
They called the bank, they verified it.
The bank was horrified that it ended up being published, that they, that they screwed up.
The name of the bank was Commerce Bank, but they're, they've since sold off to TD Bank,
I think.
And, uh, at my workplace, like a giant hundred dollar fruit basket showed up.
So I, you know, I gave it to all my coworkers and we enjoyed lots of delicious, fresh fruit.
It was fun.
Well, uh, that's, that's a great Y2K memory, uh, from the past.
I don't think you ever related it before on the radio, but, uh, I think I might have.
All right.
Well then, you know, it's a challenge to people that, that get this package to find
Bernie telling this story in the past and to see how many times we, we tell the same
stories and maybe we change the stories over the years.
Things do, uh, progress and get more and more exaggerated.
Maybe when he told it originally, it was a box of chocolates.
Yeah, exactly.
And it's changing to a basket of fruit.
You can find out if you pledge and get this DVD set.
Maybe it was a firm handshake and a sincere thank you.
But then it sort of, uh, evolved over the, over the year.
And next year, who knows?
It'll be a brand new car that, uh, he will have gotten.
You know, you could help us pretty much psychologically analyze ourselves and maybe
we have conditions that can be treated with your help.
Uh, but only if you listen to 22 years of, uh, of, of off the hook.
It's more than 22 years actually, because the first three years, I believe are on the
first DVD because we didn't have that many shows back then.
Uh, so it's 1988 until the end of 2011.
Yes, Rob.
So, um, I'm sorry, but, um, yes, if you, uh, call 212-209-2950, you can be the recipient
of over 22 years of off the hook history of broadcast history on hard media, non-volatile.
Um, you can put this DVD in, in a hundred years and most likely you'll still be able
to listen to this.
It's more like 24 years because we started in 88.
So, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's something like that.
Uh, you'll learn math.
You'll learn all kinds of things by listening to the radio show.
And Kyle, you're over here now, uh, playing with the computer and you're not getting anywhere
on it.
I mean, it's, uh.
No, it's still having connection problems.
It's not connected to the internet at all, is it?
No, it, it faked me out.
It said it was.
It said something right there.
It says new, new something, new callback for group fun drive has been received.
Well, that sounds good.
I don't know what that means.
Yeah, it keeps thinking it's back on and then it's like disconnected.
I'll play with it, but I don't know if there's any hope for this one.
Well, apparently not.
Okay.
Well, you know, we keep running into issues with technology.
I don't want to dwell on this, but we just had a really funny incident today.
In fact, involving our favorite bit of technology, the smart car, which we're trying to get up
to Canada.
We're trying to get this car up to Canada to get service because it's got some sort of
gear issue where it lurches all the time or just feels really, really rough.
Well, it's an electric clutch.
The clutch is like a solenoid and apparently it's out of adjustment and you need the Canadian
dealer to have it relearn the correct set distance so it engages properly because right
now it's not engaging very gracefully.
So it has to be done by a dealer because anybody else doing it would break the licensing agreement
for the vehicle computer.
Okay.
So that's known.
We finally figured out why that's...
Even the same car manufacturer is not allowed to do this.
You have to go to Canada and get their particular computer codes.
So we have to somehow hobble the thing up there, even though every gear shift sound,
it feels like someone's hitting you from behind.
Yeah, it's really violent.
But it got a little bit more complicated because I noticed this a couple of weeks ago.
When I turned the car on, immediately two little dots showed up indicating temperature.
Well, explain what the dots are.
They're not...
It's not like a typical temperature gauge is where it's a needle.
It's five dots total.
It's five dots.
It's supposed to be three lit.
That's normal.
Four is getting warm.
Five is overheating.
Well, the thing starts off at two.
Right away, before I even turn the car on, it's at two.
So very quickly, it gets to four and then five.
And then 15 seconds after it gets to five, it does an auto shutdown.
Everything flashes and there's beeping and things like that.
And it just stops, dead stop.
Thing is, the car isn't really overheating.
It just thinks it's overheating.
The computer is saying, I'm overheating.
There is no way to bypass this computer.
You have to basically go maybe a couple of miles, shut down, wait for it to cool down,
even though it's not overheated.
And try again.
It's going to be very, very hard to get to Canada.
What we're trying to do now is find a way to fool it into thinking that it's not overheating
because it really isn't overheating.
This is what technology can do to you if you let it.
And that's what we've been trying to teach people over the years is that technology can
be a good thing or it can be a really stupid thing if implemented stupidly.
Have you tried asking your car to open the pod bay doors?
Yeah, I would not want my car to be responsible for any human lives, really.
I would not want it to be making those kinds of decisions.
Cars generally are responsible for human lives if you drive them at a high rate of speed
in an area with people.
People behind them are the ones responsible.
The cars simply do what the people tell them to do.
Wait, you just spent a whole five minutes telling me that your car didn't do that.
Well, the car now is being told by a computer what to do.
The car itself is just following orders.
So it's bad programming.
Programming by a human, yes.
I'm not blaming the computer.
So I don't want computers to take offense.
I don't want programmers to take offense because I know they will.
But humans tend to screw things up quite a bit.
And in this particular case, and this is happening to cars everywhere.
And we can go on for hours and hours about this.
In fact, we had a couple of talks about this at Hope.
It basically winds up restricting you in ways that you've never been restricted before.
And it ties into a lot of the other things we've talked about with regards to copyright
protection and DRM and things like that.
When you have all these restrictions and ways that you artificially control how people can
use technology, there are all sorts of side effects.
And we see that every day.
Kyle, you did not succeed in fixing the computer here, did you?
No.
But I figured out that the actual machine, its internet connection is plugged in through
that IP handset, the control room phone that's connected to the rest of the phones.
Does that do us any good, that knowledge?
I mean, maybe that phone is somehow blocking.
There's a red light blinking on that phone.
Maybe the phone is blocking the rest of the connection to the computer.
But I traced the ethernet from that machine to that handset.
And so, that handset has a line going in and then it has a line that says PC.
Did you try reversing the polarity with a tachyon burst?
No?
That's the first thing you should have tried.
Yeah.
You know, we don't really have time for this.
Let's hope calls are coming in.
212-209-2950, 24 years of off the hook for a pledge of $75.
But now, we have something else.
We have something else to add to all this.
Because we've got here in the studio a hardcover book, brand new hardcover book.
And this hardcover book comes from someone that we've had on the program before.
And in fact, we've talked about this book as it was being developed over the years.
It's called WYSIWYG, Portrait of a Serial Hacker.
And the author of WYSIWYG, Ed Piskor, joins us on the telephone.
Ed, are you with us?
Yeah.
Hi, Emmanuel.
Hi, how you doing?
Hi, Rob.
Hi.
Are you going to get all our names or...
Okay.
Am I coming through clear?
Because we're getting a weird robotic kind of...
Well, we sound kind of robotic usually.
But you sound a little low.
But hey, check it out.
That light's flashing over there on the old system.
The old system has suddenly activated itself.
And now it's flashing.
Did somebody plug that in?
Or it's just coming to life on its own?
And we get two flashing lights.
Wow.
I don't know that their lines ring.
There's two flashing lights.
No, there's one flashing light.
But that's interesting.
Okay.
Sorry, Ed, we're learning about technology here by the minute.
So congratulations, first of all, on finishing this.
This is all four volumes of WYSIWYG now are in one hardcover book.
Is that correct?
Yeah, it took about five years to put together.
But I do have to say that I'm almost jealous of the people
who are going to be pledging for that 24-year archive of Off the Hook.
Because I'm jealous that they're going to get to have this first experience
with all those shows.
You know, your show is the major inspiration for the work and everything.
And it's awesome that people are going to get the chance
to experience that in that awesome format.
Well, that's interesting, too.
Because I remember when we first had you on,
you told us that you spent a lot of time listening to Off the Hook.
And you were actually putting this book together
while listening to back copies of the radio program.
Is that correct?
Yeah, I think if people are diligent listeners who grab that archive from you guys,
they'll be able to listen to it all in about 14 months
if they listen to at least eight shows per day.
Okay, wow.
That's something.
Can I share one of my favorite moments?
It's a very small moment,
but it just illustrates the time capsule element of the Off the Hook program.
Yes, please.
There's this one show where you sort of implored your listeners
to just take a simple college course anywhere,
at a community college,
just so that they could have access to this wonderful network called the internet.
And, you know, listening to that in 2007 or something like that,
it was quaint.
Wow.
Well, imagine how quaint it is now in 2012 to listen to that.
And it's incredible because there are a lot of outdated things.
We're talking about world leaders who are no longer leaders,
and we're talking about these events that have long since passed.
But you learn from history.
And if you don't learn from history,
you have to take it over again and repeat it, I'm told.
So this is a great way to learn,
to share the information,
and to have it for all time yourself
in case something happens to our website,
and it goes down,
or something happens to the radio station,
it goes away.
You have this audio archive to take with you.
Maybe you'll be one of the 10 people selected to go to Mars in 2023,
and you can bring this with you
and share it over there to whoever might be interested.
I think these people would be very lucky.
Please call in.
It's 209-2950 in the 212 area code.
I pledged and got a lifetime, I think,
of all of these packages once,
and I think I got stopped at 2006.
So I wasn't able to continue,
but I did a similar thing.
And that's interesting that you calculated it,
that it's eight shows per day,
and it takes about 14 months.
I hadn't really done the math,
but I think I spent the better part of a year
trying to catch up from the very beginning.
And I had listened to all the brain damage shows online before that.
That was a predecessor to this program.
It was, yeah, but very interesting nonetheless.
Now, let me just say that we're offering this book,
WYSIWYG, which is, as I said,
a really thick hardcover book
with all kinds of great storylines.
We'll get into it in a moment.
And yeah, I can't stop looking at it.
I don't want to disparage the content,
but just for a moment,
the book itself is really well put together.
It's got a cover with cutouts.
It's a 3D cover.
It makes that noise when you drop it.
It's a really quality publication.
Yeah, absolutely.
A graphic novel, if you will,
of many different characters.
Anyway, you will get this book,
which has just come out,
for a pledge of $75.
$212.209.2950.
And you'll recognize some characters in there.
Let Ed speak to that in just a moment.
But there's all kinds of history
and kind of parallel worlds
to the things that we talk about here.
And again, that's a pledge of $75.
$212.209.2950.
A different pledge of $75
to the same phone number
gets you the 24 years of Off the Hook
on 22 DVDs.
And a pledge of $125 gets you both.
Gets you both the 22 DVDs
and the hardcover edition of WYSIWYG.
And if you do your mathematics,
you'll notice that 75 plus 75
does not equal 125.
It equals something higher.
So that's a bargain.
If you call 212.209.2950 and pledge 125,
you get something that's already a good deal,
but you get for an even better deal.
Yeah, 212.209.2950.
And just to dispel any false information
that people might assume
hearing that this is a comic book,
this is a thick book.
This contains, what,
five years worth of comic strips in it.
And how many pages do you know
off the top of your head, Ed?
It's 288 pages.
288 pages of a solid storyline
start to finish,
all the chapters of it
that were originally serialized.
And it's a hell of a read.
It's a great book.
And it's really well put together.
I love, I absolutely love the cover.
Now, Ed, tell us something about the storylines,
about the characters.
Yeah, sort of the way that I describe
the main character,
and I don't compare, you know,
the work quality wise,
but the main character in Citizen Kane
is akin to William Randolph Hearst.
And the main character of Whizzy Wig
is kind of an analog to
maybe the most notorious hackers,
quote-unquote,
of the past 30 years or so.
But, you know, other inspirations
are certainly your show,
you in particular, Emanuel,
and just all the trials and tribulations
that, you know,
have unfolded on Off the Hook.
You know, that's...
You have a different radio show in there, right?
It's got sort of a different title.
Sure, sure.
But I mean, you know,
I'm very unoriginal
and any discerning
aficionado of hacker culture
is going to know that
it's an homage to Off the Hook.
And what's the title of that radio show?
Off the Rocker.
Off the Rocker, yeah.
You know, I should have called the show
Off the Rocker.
I think that makes a lot more sense.
I sort of like that idea of, you know,
there was the radio show of Brain Damage
and Off the Hook,
so it kind of married the two in a way.
Really?
So you were a Brain Damage listener, too, then?
Right, yeah.
I mean, I certainly list...
I didn't listen to them all,
but yeah, I do have some of those.
Well, those Saturday nights
were not wasted after all.
That's good to know.
So, OK, so you have the storyline.
How many characters,
regular characters, would you say,
are in this book?
Well, it's really focusing
on one main character
and maybe some weird media
sorts of people,
but it's hard to explain.
There are a lot of different...
Like, a big part of the story
is just media's interpretation
of what a hacker is,
and that includes what, you know,
a regular civilian thinks
about hackers and hacker culture,
which, you know,
initially my interest in the culture
was to just learn verboten
and, you know, nebulous information,
because all that I knew
about hacking culture
was from what major media sources told me.
And so I found your show
and just absolutely fell in love
with everything
and got a really good picture
of what it means to be a hacker.
And I just wanted to kind of
do my own love story about,
you know, about this very cool culture.
Well, you certainly succeeded
in putting together this novel here,
and I know it's been coming out
for quite some time.
When did the first volume get released?
Maybe 2009.
I was just self-publishing
little chapters here and there,
just so that, you know,
I've been a cartoonist
for maybe eight years,
and I just didn't want
to completely disappear
from the public.
You know, I wanted people
to kind of know I'm still alive.
So just on these very small print runs
of, you know,
maybe a thousand copies each,
you know, starting from 2009,
I was doling out these books.
OK, it's definitely an effort of the heart
and something that's very unique
and something you'll value
for many, many years.
Again, a pledge of $75
gets you the brand-new
hardcover edition of WYSIWYG,
Portrait of a Serial Hacker
by Ed Pisker,
who joins us tonight
on the telephone,
212-209-2950.
A pledge of $75,
a different pledge of $75
will get you the full archive
of Off the Hook,
the radio show that you're listening
to right now.
And that's 22 DVDs,
truck full of MP3s
at full broadcast quality.
And a pledge of $125
gets you both of these premiums,
22 DVDs
and the hardcover WYSIWYG collection.
This is only being offered tonight.
So, and this is the last night
that we'll be doing fundraising here
this summer.
212-209-2950.
We'd like to see a strong showing,
even though we can't see it from here.
We'd like to know
that there's a strong showing.
Well, they're not updating
the little calculator thing
because maybe they're so busy
taking phone calls.
We don't know.
It's like,
it's like a different country over there.
We can't even get to it.
We don't know what's going on.
I just went to visit that other country
and I have to say
they were not as busy
as I hoped they would be.
All right.
Then I say, Mike,
you get another phone call coming in.
I mean, I don't know what I can say.
That hasn't already been said.
You call 212-209-2950.
You'll talk to the volunteers.
They're very nice.
I just said hello to them.
And you'll get this amazing book
or you'll get the 25 years
of radio history
or you'll get both.
And what's amazing about your pledge
is that you'll not only get these things,
you'll help us to continue
to make more years of radio history
and you'll help everyone else
on this station continue
to make more years of radio history.
And that is something
that you cannot get anywhere else.
And it is history too.
I mean, encapsulated in this book,
it is fiction.
It's a fictional story.
But like you've seen
so many books and comics
and films and everything
that are their own constructed stories
that are based on,
inspired by periods of history.
It was great following the story
from the start
and like realizing that,
OK, this is our turn,
that our hacker history
and our digital history
gets its own sort of treatment.
And it's a really well done
and a really good,
a really well constructed story.
And, yeah.
Again, a pledge of $75
gets you the WYSIWYG book
or another pledge of $75
gets you the 22 DVD collection
of Off the Hook,
a pledge of $125 gets you both.
These packages are something
we work really hard to put together.
And even if maybe you can't afford it
or whatever,
any kind of donation to the station
is really helpful.
And it is a vote for our show
to stay here
and keep going and thriving.
So please donate whatever you can,
212-209-2950
and support the station,
support Off the Hook.
But, you know, it's really,
you know, we work really hard
to get people like Ed
to, you know, help us out
and we want to come up
with creative and fun stuff.
We really are proud of this kind of work
and putting together the audio.
And, I mean, you can't get that audio
any faster.
I mean, getting all of them
all at once on disc is,
that's incredible.
You'd spend a long time
downloading,
trying to get everything.
And at such high quality,
I don't think it's offered.
But you can't download that.
The resolution of the audio
is incredible.
Yeah, exactly.
So, I mean, this is a really,
really good package.
Please call now and support the station
and get one of these packages
or donate anything you can.
That would be really,
really good for BAI
and for Off the Hook.
212-209-2950.
And we do take credit cards
to make it even easier.
Yeah, and we're only offering this
for another 18 minutes or so.
After that, for those of you
who listen to us on podcasts
and MP3s and all sorts of
things like that,
we can only offer these
during our live shows.
So if you'd like to support us
during any other time,
you still can.
If you go to wbai.org
and donate in the name
of your favorite show,
which is Off the Hook.
Of course.
And we can't give you
your premiums for that.
But, I mean, we can't give you
our premiums for that, but...
Yeah, it's only during this hour
that we can do that.
Yeah, it's only during this hour,
but your funds still go
as a vote for our show
and our station to sell.
And if you're hearing this show
at any time other than
between 7 and 8 p.m.
on Wednesday night,
we cannot offer these premiums,
no matter what you might hear.
It can only be offered
between our live radio time,
Wednesday between 7 and 8,
because otherwise
we'd just be constantly
making things for the station
and donating things.
And, you know, we love donating things.
We can't do it 24 hours a day,
unfortunately.
All right.
Now, speaking of history,
speaking of the DVD set,
let's go back in history again,
this time to 1995.
Yeah, a little bit earlier
than the last time.
This is an example of just
one of the things that you'll hear
on this massive 22 DVD set
of every episode of Off the Hook
from 1988 to 2011.
2-1-2-2-0-9-2-9-5-0.
Let's listen.
And a good evening, everybody.
This is Off the Hook,
the program that deals
with the dreaded term of cyberspace
and all kinds of other fun things
going on in the net community,
the telephone world,
the hacker world,
the big brother Orwellian future
that lies ahead for all of us.
And tonight we have
some rather sad news
in the world of cyberspace,
as it were,
in the world of hackers.
This is something that has not yet
gone out over the wires
because I don't think the wires
know about it yet,
but after tonight they will.
Early this morning,
Kevin Mitnick was apprehended.
Kevin Mitnick being the hacker
who was on the run
for at least a year.
And this happened as a result,
starting with a parole violation,
probation violation last year.
If you recall,
we had a show focusing
on what happened in Chicago
at a convention called
Computers, Freedom and Privacy,
where the Federal Bureau
of Investigation investigated
three wrong people,
including a former CIA operative,
thinking that they were on the trail
of both Kevin Mitnick
and Agent Steele,
Justin Peterson,
who was someone
working for the FBI at one point,
who was trying to entrap hackers,
and then went on the run himself
and was committing
all kinds of crimes.
They caught up with Agent Steele
not too long after that,
but Kevin Mitnick always remained
one step ahead,
sometimes two steps ahead,
up until this morning
when he was apprehended
in, from what I hear,
North Carolina,
our favorite state.
And that's really
all we know right now.
We know this happened
at about, I think,
three in the morning our time.
And what's funny about all this
is that I just talked to him
only a couple of days ago.
Actually, I was talking to him
fairly recently
before he actually got apprehended.
And it's kind of a sad thing
when you're talking to somebody
that's on the run like that
because, you know,
there are so many things
that they want to do
that it just can't do.
They can't hang out publicly.
They can't go to meetings
or see anybody
that they might be expected to see.
They pretty much have to
live a rented car motel
fast food life.
And that's sort of
what Kevin was doing.
I never asked him where he was.
I didn't want to know.
I only hoped deep down within me
that he had left the country.
Obviously, he didn't.
I know a few weeks ago,
a couple of weeks ago,
there was a very close call in Seattle
where he almost got picked up.
And I think he somehow found out
about it a half hour afterwards.
He basically missed them
by about a half hour.
And they were very frustrated by that.
One thing I tried to tell Kevin
was that these people
are very, very good at what they do.
You have to keep that in mind.
Somehow, they're able to find people
if they grow facial hair
or get a nose job or something.
If you get your picture in the paper
on America's Most Wanted,
they somehow figure out
that it's you anyway.
You know, when's the last time
you heard of the FBI
not finding somebody?
Well, there was Abby Hoffman, of course.
But I think he was the only person
that was able to do it
and pull it off successfully.
Everybody, especially today,
with cameras all over the place.
You know, you never know
when you're being looked at.
Actually, you never know
when you're not being looked at these days
because most of the time
you're being looked at somewhere.
And that's the kind of world
that Kevin Mitnick had to live in
and not be recognized.
It could only last for so long.
I think we all knew
it was going to end at some point.
And I had this gut feeling
that it was going to be soon
because it just seemed like
things were reaching a crescendo.
And when you're on the run for so long,
you kind of get sloppy after a while.
You kind of don't think
to cover your trail
quite as neatly.
And I was worried that he was calling
and that I was talking to him.
You know, if my phone was tapped,
maybe they could do a trace.
If he was talking to me,
maybe he was talking to other people.
It was rather sad
to think of it in that way.
Now, you might ask,
well, this guy is a criminal.
You know, how can you
talk to someone like that?
How can you harbor a fugitive?
Well, of course, that's nonsense.
Kevin is as much a criminal
as any of us, I think.
Basically, his crime is knowledge.
And I think that's something
that really, really frightens people
and certainly frightens
governments, agencies, people in power.
Because here's a guy
that can do virtually anything
on a network involving computers,
involving the phone system.
Admittedly, he's very good at what he does.
Admittedly, he's very good
at getting information.
And that makes people
in high places very, very nervous.
No question about that.
But is the guy a criminal
worthy of being locked up?
I don't think so.
And when you think of
what is in store for him,
you really, really have to wonder
if playing by the rules
makes any sense at all these days.
Now, let me bring up another story,
the story of Kevin Paulson.
Kevin Paulson is this other
former hacker from years ago
who was also quite good
at getting into things.
And in fact, he really did
lead a life of crime.
He actually stole things.
He stole equipment
from a central office.
I don't know how many of you
have seen Unsolved Mysteries,
but Kevin Paulson was featured
on that once
when he was still wanted.
It seems they found
various phone equipment
in his locker,
a locker that he was renting.
And they used that
to charge him with a crime.
And this, I think,
was the second time
that he had been charged
with a felony.
Now, what happened
in this particular case
was that the evidence
was ruled inadmissible
because they did not have a warrant.
They went into a locker
that he was still paying for.
It was illegally searched
and the evidence
did not hold up in court.
Well, a few months ago,
the government appealed that.
And unlike most appeals,
the government won.
And so Kevin Paulson
will be sentenced
on February 27th.
Now, the good news in this
is that Kevin Paulson
has been in prison for four years
and there's no way
he could get any more
than four years for that crime.
Bad news is that
there are other crimes
that he's accused of,
one of which is espionage.
I don't know if you saw this,
if you saw the thing on
Unsolved Mysteries.
And I really thought
they'd present a stronger case
against him on a program like that.
But basically, they said
because he had
an unlisted phone number
of some embassy on him
and because he was believed
to have tapped into
a phone conversation at one point,
that made him a spy.
And so they were going to charge him
with espionage
and a whole host of other things
that they were able to come up with
after a night of brainstorming
with a box of Dunkin' Donuts
or something.
You know, when you want to charge
somebody with a crime,
it just takes a bit of imagination
to figure out what to charge them with.
And so if Kevin is not
sent to prison for longer
than four years,
the time he's already served
will have counted
and then he'll go straight
to Northern California
where he'll face these new charges.
What does that mean?
Well, California has this wonderful
three strikes, you're out rule.
That the crime wave
of this country
has forced us to implement.
And that means the guy could get
life imprisonment for this
with no hope of parole.
And that is the kind of society
that we are living in now.
All right, we're going to have to
put an end to this.
This could go on for quite some time.
We do have a bit more
left of this clip,
but that's from 1995.
Not the very beginning
of the Kevin Mitnick saga,
but the beginning of that phase of it
where he was captured,
he was captured that very day.
And in fact, we had the exclusive
on that story,
had not yet even been released.
We found out about it
through our own sources.
And those questions were being asked
long before the Free Kevin movement
had even started.
So as you can see,
it was an issue back then
and all kinds of things
were being considered.
So that's part of the whole history,
the whole history package that you get
when you get the 22 DVDs
of Off the Hook
throughout the years,
from 1988 to 2011,
for a pledge of $212,209,2950,
pledge of $75.
And another pledge of $75,
you will get the WYSIWYG graphic novel.
And that's a hardcover book
that encompasses
much of the same history
in fictitious form.
Again, for a pledge of $75,
$212,209,2950,
you'll get that book.
And if you want both,
if you want both the DVD collection
and the book,
a pledge of $125,
$212,209,2950.
There have been some calls coming in,
which is great.
We need more calls coming in, though.
We don't really have that many.
And this is the last couple of minutes
that we've got for tonight.
Go ahead, Bernie.
Oh, yeah.
I was just reading
this amazing book, WYSIWYG,
which, by the way,
for our listeners who don't know,
WYSIWYG is the spelled out acronym
for what you see is what you get.
And I think that's a great title
for this book
because it's not just
a comic book.
It is an amazing, unsettling novel
about agriculture
and with a lot of composite characters
of people we know,
some people on this show,
and what has happened to them
over the years.
Some very thinly veiled,
true-to-life stories
are very well and accurately documented
in this book
with some dramatic liberties thrown in.
It's just an amazing volume
that should be on your shelf
right next to classics
like Stephen Levy's Hackers.
This is an amazing five-year labor of love
by Ed Piskor,
and I want to congratulate him
for putting this together.
It's a real piece of work.
So listeners,
you should really take this advantage
of getting a signed copy of this book
by calling 212-209-2950.
You're going to be supporting a station
that inspired Ed Piskor
to engage in this five-year project
to document hacker culture and history.
This is really all-encompassing.
The book, the DVD collection
of the complete off-the-hook archives,
and this radio station, WBAI,
they're all interconnected.
212-209-2950.
Yeah, you touch on a very good point, Bernie,
in that there is so much history here
and it kind of lends itself
to more history being created.
The book was inspired by the radio show.
The radio show was able to get word out
of all sorts of things,
including the Kevin Mitnick story,
your own personal story,
when you were going through
all kinds of legal problems,
so many advances
and regressions of technology,
the change of our culture
over the last few decades,
so many things that have been documented
in audio format
that you can now have
at your disposal anytime.
You want to look something up?
Just go check out the summary
that comes with the DVD set.
Go to any particular date
and listen to what happened
on that particular day.
It's really pretty incredible.
I find myself doing that occasionally.
In fact, to get these clips,
I was doing that,
and it's really, it's interesting.
It makes you late for appointments sometimes
because you just find yourself
captivated by it all.
But you can copy these MP3s
onto any kind of device you want.
Listen to it while you're exercising
or driving or whatnot.
212-209-2950.
In the last couple of minutes now,
and again, a pledge of $125
gets you everything,
gets you the book
and gets you all the DVDs.
And a pledge of $75
gets you either the book or the DVDs.
212-209-2950.
Now, Ed Piskor, author of WYSIWYG,
I just want to give you the final word here.
Now that you've printed
this incredible volume
of hacker history of a sense,
what's next for you?
Well, right now,
I'm working with Boing Boing
and Cory Doctorow
and Mark Frauenfelder,
and I'm doing a weekly comic strip
on that site.
That's sort of a,
it's a more straightforward history
of hip hop and rap music.
Nice.
Which is quite different
from this project, but...
What's it called?
I just call it the Hip Hop Family Tree.
Wow.
And where can people see that?
It's on boingboing.net.
On a regular basis?
It shows up on a particular day or...
Yeah, new ones appear every Tuesday.
Okay, that's great.
Wow, that's incredible.
Of course, Cory, a good friend of ours,
we've talked to over the years.
It's just incredible to see this community
shaping and evolving.
And I don't think there's no better way
than for someone to pledge for this
and get this
so they can have it in their collection
and continuously learn from it.
And of course, Ed's a really accomplished
comics artist.
He's worked with the late great Harvey Picar
and Adult Swim
and just all these awesome projects of his.
And I remain flattered and touched
that our piece of history
is brought to the public by him.
So thank you, Ed.
Yeah, no problem.
You know what?
Just listening to that
Mitnick is captured clip,
like it gave me chills
and I'm going to absolutely have to go back
and re-listen to a lot of that stuff now.
Absolutely.
Well, again, one more time,
212-209-2950.
Pledge for the 22 full DVD set,
22 DVDs of Off The Hook from 1988 to 2011.
Or the book, Whizzy Wig, four volumes,
212-209-2950.
Pledge of $75.
Pledge of 125 gets you everything.
212-209-2950.
That's it for our fundraiser.
We'll be back next week with a normal show.
Yes, remember those?
Until then, write to us, oth at 2600.com.
It's a manual for everybody else.
Have a good night.
I might have a change of luck
Before my day is done
Couldn't get much worse
But if they could, they would
Bum diddly bum for the best
Expect the worst
I hope the sun is good
Bum diddly bum!
Bum diddly bum!