For all of the above, press 4.
You have selected option 4, all of the above.
All of our unprincipled collaborators with Western business interests are busy right now.
Please wait until the regime has had time to consolidate its power and try your call again.
Well, if you've been having difficulty with your telephone, your prayers have been answered because it's 10 o'clock on a Wednesday, and that means it's time for Off the Hook.
I hope that's understood.
I hope that's understood.
And this is Off the Hook.
My name's Manuel Goldstein.
We're together for an hour every Wednesday night talking about high tech and all the wonderful things that go with it.
Stay tuned.
All that word grow.
Won't make it no more.
You can wake up in a doorway.
London's brilliant when it's raining.
Everybody's moaning and complaining.
London's dismal and divine.
And I know one day, one day
One day, one day
It's gonna be
Mine eyes have seen the gory faces
Of those bitter men
And they're body tall
And that's not all
Every night before I close my eyes
I say a prayer to my desires
Hung up on a poster on the wall
Don't let me grow up so bitter
If I must grow up at all
Well, the night's got chilly
And he swore he loved me silly
But he couldn't raise a spark
In the dark and hard part
With a bite and a bark
He tried to make his mark
Now he's getting fucked silly
Somewhere in Piccadilly
He said I could be a little mad at me maybe
But I'd rather wake up in a doorway somewhere
Cause in the long run
I'll probably be someone
London's brilliant when it's raining
Everybody's moaning and complaining
London's dismal and divine
And I know one day, one day
One day, one day
It's gonna be mine
One day, one day
It's gonna be mine
One day, one day
London's brilliant
Well, it's more than I can say for, uh, well, let's say the phone company, for instance.
They're not exactly brilliant.
And I'm sorry to have to jump right in with a shot at the phone company, but, uh, it's been one of those weeks, you know?
You ever have one of those weeks where the phone company is just at your throat?
Ah, unbelievable
But I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna get into my, uh, personal problems with them
Because there's so many other problems I could be getting into here
Like your problems with the phone companies and various other things like that
Let's first of all take a look at what's been going on
By the way, that was, uh, Wendy James doing a, uh, sort of a clash imitation there
Written by Elvis Costello, of all people
I just thought that might be interesting
But, um, apart from that, we have this news here
About, uh, Brazilian computer snarls
Congressional committee investigating massive fraud in Brazil
Was, uh, held up about a week or so ago
When the computers froze in response to a command to cross-reference data on thousands of checks
Bank accounts and budget amendments between 1990 and 1992
Yeah
The article from, uh, United Press International explains that the
Network ran out of processing resources, including memory, when trying to track down corruption in the government
Or maybe
It was just a, uh, a little logic bomb there
Here's something on digitized photos
Which are making, uh, inroads
Virtually everywhere you look
Fourteen states and two Canadian provinces are planning to use digitized photographs of drivers on licenses
Adding people's faces to their already vast computer files
Once a photo is scanned into a computer to be stored digitally
The image can easily be altered, matched with similar images, or even transmitted around the world
Privacy experts worry that the information will be misused by people with bad intentions or
By overzealous police
Nah
The article goes on to explain that privacy advocates are already worried about the potential for abuse
Would you like to know what some of that potential is?
Okay
Some possible abuses include
Release of the pictures to the direct marketing industry
Now that's the worst of all, I think
And, uh, that could target specific categories of people, such as, uh, bald people
Those in need of dental care
And they could be, uh, targets of relentless campaigns
Of direct marketing
Probably one of the scariest things ever invented in Western civilization is direct marketing
One of the other, uh, possible abuses of this is, uh, well
Illegal use by criminals to stalk, harass, or intimidate victims
And you can probably use, uh, your imagination for some others
The FBI is claiming to be interested in nationwide picture files
And is currently upgrading its databases to handle pictures such as those from motor vehicle licenses
Even in police work, however, such files could be misused
For example
Courts have frowned on police roundups of all young black men near a crime scene
But
Police could use the computer to scan the pictures of every driver living in the area
Police could greatly increase the number of pictures shown to witnesses of crimes
By including thousands of photos of innocent people
With
A likely increase in the number of false positive misidentifications
Whew
And because the pictures will be stored in digital fashion
Changing them will be very easy
Of course, privacy watchdogs are urging caution
And thought
As the systems are implemented
I suppose that's what we're urging here tonight
Is
Caution
And thought
Digitized photos can be dangerous
Play things
And
In the never-ending saga of
Computerized voting
Voting by phone
This, uh, latest chapter
During the recent elections
The people of Boulder, Colorado
Voted 11,731 to 7,926
Not
To implement a voting by phone system
Provided constitutional questions were satisfied
And, uh, no, they didn't do it by phone
The Colorado Constitution requires that ballots not be individually identifiable
The proposal to print telephone ballots and voter IDs may violate this requirement
If this information is published
It can be cross-referenced with public records of registered voters and voting patterns
And a statistical attack on the anonymity of voters
But
Not publishing this information removes one of the strongest arguments for voting by phone
The ratio is quite consistent as the election results were announced
So
It appeared that there was widespread distrust of this system
Despite
Substantial favorable press
In various newspapers
And finally
This, uh, interesting piece from the Risks Digest
Concerning charge cards from mail-order houses
From Ted Wobber
My wife obtained a credit card from a local branch office of a clothing retailer
Called Talbots
Who also happens to be in the mail-order business
Recently I had an opportunity to place an order using one of their catalogs that was mailed to our home
The phone sales agent was able to look up my wife's account from a five-digit number printed on the catalog
Now
My wife and I don't share last names
Nonetheless
The sales agent was willing to accept an order in my name
Send it to a location of my choosing
And charge it to my wife's account
Seems like
Anyone who picked up the catalog from the trash
Could have made such an order
I'll be more wary of accepting new credit cards in the future
And, uh, the moderator to the Risks Digest, uh, commented on this particular story
Worse yet, just pick five digits at random
Anything's possible
Alright, we have something interesting to, uh, to play with today
Something that
A lot of you
Have access to
You may not know you have access to this
But you do
We're talking about people
Right now
In the 212 and 718 area codes
And, um
If, in fact, you call us
And ask us
To tell you the number
That you can call locally
To access this particular service
We can do that
We'll be, uh, more than happy to do that
But what we're going to do right now is
Is call one of these, um
One of these services
Live on the radio
Just to, uh, increase the
Dramatic aspect of this
And, uh
What we're talking about is
Something rather new
Not brand new
But rather new
It's called 9x Voicemail
And, uh, Fiber Optic has just stepped in
Have you ever heard of 9x Voicemail?
9x Voicemail
I'm familiar with the voicemail
That you subscribe to as a service
Yeah
Which they call call answering
Well, they call it all different things
In different places
Yeah
But, uh, it's
It's run by 9x
It's, it's
Basically supposed to be a substitute
For an answering machine
Right
No more having to worry
About, about
What do people have to worry about
When they have an answering machine?
I don't really know
Uh, I guess it could fall on the floor
Or something
Um, but apart from that
There's, there's really nothing
I can think of to worry about
Oh, sure, there's a worry
Like what?
There's a worry about someone calling up
And, while the greeting is playing
Uh, scanning out that simple
One, two, or three digit code
In order to change the greeting
Or read all your messages
Well, how complex is the code
On, on, on 9x Voicemail?
I would think it's substantially more digits
Well, I don't know
I don't know about that
Maybe on the order of
Even six or seven
Well, it's a possibility
But, uh, I don't know anything
About the default passwords
Perhaps our listeners can help us
With that particular, um, um, bit of information there
Now, I don't think we have, um, we have a number
For our local area here
Because we just recently cut over to a 5ESS
As our listeners are painfully aware
Um, and I don't think the, um, the previous system
Had access to this
I don't have a phone number for our local area
So, um, Fiber, you want to pick an exchange in New York City at random?
Just completely at random?
Completely at random
Anywhere?
I have a list here
But there are some gaps in the list
So it's possible that, uh
It should be an exchange that you know
Not just three digits at random
Okay, an exchange that I know
And you've studied exchanges quite a bit
Quite a bit, sure
You have them all in your head
You could probably tell me what kind of a switch it is
Just by, uh
What if I picked my own?
If you picked your
What, you mean created an exchange?
No, I mean, what if I picked my home exchange?
Well, you could
But, um, I'd like to
Do you really want to give your home exchange?
Well, okay
I'll give an exchange in Queens then
Okay
How about
Oh, how about 335 and 718?
335, that's, uh
That's, uh, one of the Newtown number 5 ESS's
Alright, hold on
That's, uh, that's definitely Queens, right?
That's Queens, yes
Okay
Hang on a second
I have to access this, uh
This list here, which is on paper
Now, what was the, uh, exchange again?
718-335
335
335
Alright
Must be on this page over here
335
No, they don't have a number, I'm sorry
I'm sorry, they don't
They don't have access to it, apparently
Great
According to this list
This list might be a little bit outdated
But, uh, please pick another one
Okay, um
How about
Leave it to you to pick the one exchange
It doesn't work
Okay, how about
212-989
989
Alright
The West 18th Street 5 ESS
Alright, don't get cocky here
Uh, I can tell you what that is
Um
Let's see here
Okay
Okay, that's New York City
989, you said
Yes, I do
989 is West 18th Street
Yes, it is
Okay
And, uh
Well, I'm sorry
It's a number 5 ESS, right?
Yes, it is
Okay
Fine, we do have a number for them
Let's, uh, get our trusty dial tone on the air
There we go
And, uh, we're gonna call
The 9X voicemail number
For the 989 exchange
And we're doing this live
On the radio
Listen carefully
Welcome to the 9X voice messaging service
If you wish to leave a message for the person you called
Please enter their 7-digit telephone number now
If you have a mailbox on the system
And wish to access it
Please press pound
Just to be a wise guy
I'm gonna enter their phone number
As, uh, the 7-digit number
Let's see what it says
I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you pressed
Please try again
For some helpful information
Press 0
Now, the helpful information is funny
Because it's just
Messaging service
It's just the exact same thing
We're gonna hit a 0
If you have a mailbox on the service
Dial pound or star
If you want to leave a message for someone
Dial the number again
If you're not calling from a touch-tone telephone
Please hang up and try your call again later
Welcome to the 9X voice messaging service
Alright, we're gonna hit a pound sign this time
If you have a person you called
Please enter their 7-digit telephone number now
Alright, here we go
Pound sign
Please dial your mailbox number
Oh, gosh
Um
1, 2, 3
I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you dialed
I guess you can't put a 1
Please dial your mailbox
You can't put a 1 as the first number
Any suggestions here?
Pick a phone number
Um
What
You see, I don't know a phone number in that
Oh, 989 anything
Uh, okay
I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you dialed
She doesn't understand that
Wow
Please try again
Please dial your mailbox number
Let's see how many attempts we get
Sorry you were having trouble
I am too
Please try again later
Goodbye
Bye
Bye
Alright
Well, that's the end of that
Uh
Now, they're all different
They're all different little, uh
Computers and voices and things like that
Let's try, um
Let's go out to the, uh
Well, well, hold on now
I want to see how many digits the code is
Well, how can you tell if we don't have an account?
Yeah, see, we need to know someone who has the service
Now, obviously, there's somebody out there, I'm sure
That can call in and tell us this information
Now, I want to go all the way out to, um
To the, um
Barren fields of, um
Of Queens
All the way out to maybe, uh
Rockaway
Let's say
Let's do that
Uh
Oh, sure
They have it in Rockaway
They don't have it in Newtown
Far Rockaway, okay
Mysterious Far Rockaway
And, uh
We're going to call
We're going to call the, uh
Voicemail number
For the
868 exchange
See if it sounds any different
Welcome to the 9X Voice Messaging Service
If you wish to leave a message for the person you called
Please enter their 7-digit telephone number now
If you have a mailbox on this system
And wish to access it
Please press pound
All right, I'm going to pull the same stunt
And, uh
Enter their phone number
I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you pressed
Please try again
All right, she doesn't understand
So I'm just going to drop her there
All right, so that's basically it
If, um
If anyone out there is curious about this system
Or can shed some light on it
Please give us a call
212-279-3400
Um
And we can
We can learn together
Live on the radio
Uh, that's our
That's our phone number here
And we have
A list of all the numbers for, uh
For
212 area code
And 718 area code
So
I just want to note that
Yeah
When someone
Does get a message
Uh-huh
Then when they pick up the phone
They get a pulsating dial tone
Yes, they do
And also, what's interesting about this system
Is that, um
Once you have this particular phone number
You can call that number
And enter the person you're trying to reach
You enter their phone number
And you can leave a message for them
Without even ringing their phone
I mean, isn't that neat?
You don't have to bother them
You don't have to bother talking to them
You just
Leave a message
And then
They get the message
And maybe they'll leave you a message in return
And you never have to speak
See, that's
That's the thing you have to worry about
With an answering machine
You have to worry about the person
Picking up
Or listening in
Or what have you
All right
We're going to, um
I guess
Go to the telephone call
Since we seem to have a
A jam-packed full line here
Uh, 212
279
3400
Is our phone number
And we'll be, um
Talking about this
And other things
Throughout the next few minutes
Good evening
You're on
Good evening
As soon as you said
9X voice messaging
I ran to my phone
And I've been patiently waiting
Thanks for making me first
Okay
Well, I didn't make you first
Uh, some other
I guess the 5ESS
Has made you first
Okay, well, whatever
Anyhow, uh, I have the service
And I've been playing with it
For as long as I've had it
Uh, I like it
And I don't like it
Uh-huh
Uh, I like it for its convenience
I don't like it
Because, uh, I'm a computer person
And deep dark down inside
I know that there's somebody
Sitting behind a desk
In an office somewhere
Who has access
To the digitally encoded messages
That get left on my line
And when he has
Nothing better to do
I'm sure he's listening to them
No
No
You sound so distrusting
Of, of the integrity
Of the phone company employees
How cynical
How could, how have you arrived
At such a, such a
A low point in life
That you'd actually think
People would do things like this
I've got 25 years of history
With a telephone company
To, to, uh, to quote for you
If you had the time
Have you worked for the phone company?
No, I work against them
Okay, that's good
Um, well
That's, that's something
That we didn't bring up
Which is a very good point
Uh, yes
When you, um
Allow somebody else
To run your answering machine
For you
Of course the possibility
Always exists
That they can listen to it
For you as well
Oh, sure
Or accidentally erase
All of your messages
Or give you the wrong messages
Or who knows what
Oh, it's happened
Uh-huh
It happened on my
Octel voice processing system
At work
I think that the people
Who run that
Were probably garbage collectors
Yesterday
And Octel voice
Administrators today
Uh, I've gotten
Other people's messages
I'm sure other people
Have gotten mine
Because I've gotten
Some rather strange
Replies from people
I didn't send mail to
But anyway
I wanted to let you know
Uh, in case
Nobody else on the
Uh, program
Has, uh
Known about it yet
Uh-huh
They've made some
Significant improvements
In the forwarding options
That you get
Uh, it used to be
That if you had
Call waiting
Uh, you were in trouble
But apparently
They've come up
With some updates
To the software
Uh, thanks to
A friend of mine
In Flushing
Who put me onto this
What do you mean
If you had call waiting
You were in trouble
Okay, the way it used to work
If you had call waiting
And you received a call
While you were on the phone
You know, you get the little
Courtesy beep
And you, you click over
Right
Uh, if you didn't click over
That call would just
Stay there
And never get forwarded
To the voice messaging machine
I see, okay
That's still the way
It is unfortunately
However
If you have
Two calls in progress
Either, uh, uh
One call in progress
And a call waiting
Comes in
Uh, which would
Effectively make
Your line busy
You now have
The capability
Of having the
Telephone company
Forward, uh
Busy signal condition
Over to the
Voice messaging machine
Well, that's not
Really new
Is it, Fiber?
No, call forward
On a busy line
Is certainly not new
And if they can
Ah, but with call waiting
It is
Hmm, I never thought
Of that actually
It used to not
Work correctly
With call waiting
Well, didn't you just
Say that it doesn't
Work with call waiting
It does now
It works
Well, no
It doesn't work
In that
If you're on the phone
And you get a second call
The call will be
Forwarded to the
Message machine
You'll have to
Either pick it up
Or ignore it
It'll never go to
The machine
But if you have
Two calls in progress
Either, uh
A three
You know, uh
Yeah, a three-way
Or a call
But that has nothing
To do with call waiting
It's just
If the phone is busy
It will forward
Well, it didn't used to
But it does now
Okay
Wait, you've succeeded
In confusing me
Now, I don't
I don't really know
What we're talking about
Anymore
Okay
Now, you have a situation
Where you have
Two calls in progress
And then you get
A call waiting
Well, no
You can't do that
No, you can't do that
It's not on DMS
Actually, you can do that
On a 1A
And you can also
And you can also
That's true
Also do it on a 5E
If you have the
IntelliDial service
If you don't
You can't
That's true too
Okay, how do you do it
With IntelliDial?
Well, it works
The way it should
Oh, really?
That's unusual
Okay
If you have IntelliDial
Which I used to have
Because I used to have
Three lines
On a 5E
Now I have three lines
On a BMS
You can
You know, if you have
Two calls
Outgoing
You know, if you have
A three-way in progress
Either two outgoing
Or an incoming
And an outgoing
And you get a call
Waiting
You will get the beep
Just like you do
On a 1A
Boy
Okay
I sense a large part
Of the city
Is being left behind
With this conversation here
So is there any other
Kind of observation
You want to make
On this particular system?
Oh, yeah
If you have
Call waiting
And you want to get
Your service upgraded
You should call
Their helpline
Believe it or not
You get a techie guy
You don't get one of their
Key punch administrators
You actually get somebody
Who knows what they're doing
Really?
Yes, and that's
The help 986 number
That they give you
When you sign up
For the service
And you give them a call
And you'll get somebody
As a matter of fact
You get somebody
Over at Bridge Street
Bridge Street?
Yes
Bridge Street
That's
And
Perhaps you can tell
It's the significance
Of Bridge Street
Not very much significance
Only that it's
By the bridge
Well, it's a big
Phone company installation
Over there
Yeah, it's a
It's a large central office
I work at the
Metrotek facility
Not at the phone
Company
But in that complex
And they have a whole
Building devoted
Just to the phone company
Great
Alright, well thanks
Very much for your call
You've been very enlightening
Oh, thanks
Alright, take care
Take care, guys
It's great when people
Think about how their phone works
And the things that it doesn't do
But, you know, we mentioned
That the 1A is able
To do certain things
And I've noticed this
Over the past few weeks
1As can do things
That 5ESSs and DMSs can
Such as, I believe
You call it 4-way
They have a 4-way capability
4-way
Well, not really 4-way
But let's say
You're on 3-way
Right
I'm talking to you
On the phone
And we conference
Somebody else in
Well, call waiting still works
Right
And you can't 3-way that person in
Because that would be 4-way
But you get call waiting
On 3-way
You can't do that
On a DMS or a 5ESS
Yeah
Annoyingly enough
Yeah
And maybe that's
Never what they intended
But
That's what's wrong
With this town
Yeah
Well, that's what's wrong
With the industry
Alright, 279-3400
Good evening, you're on
Hello
Okay
Check your mouthpieces, folks
Make sure that the mouthpiece
Is screwed in
Alright, sometimes
Make sure the receiver
Is properly oriented
Yeah
Fasten to the phone
Sometimes people let
That little modular thing
Fall out
And bad things happen
Good evening, you're on
Hi, Emmanuel
Hi
How are you?
Long time
It's been too long
It's been too long
Yeah
What was I going to say?
The thing about the message thing
What is the difference
Between that and the message thing
That they were previously advertising?
The difference between what?
The previous message thing
That they were advertising
And the thing that you're talking about?
The previous message
Service
Which one is that?
Yeah, which one is the previous message service?
Same
Anyway, what problems were you having
With the phone company
When you mentioned it first?
Oh, just, you know
The typical bureaucratic nonsense
Where you're trying to get them
To do one thing
And they just do the opposite consistently
It's
You wonder, you know
What is wrong with these people?
How come they can't figure out
They're the phone company?
They're supposed to
Know what they're doing with phones
For instance
I call the phone company
To have a certain service switched
On two different lines
You know
It's the privacy function
That allows you to block your caller ID
I like to experiment with it on some lines
I don't like to experiment with it on others
Oh, by the way
Speaking of that
Well, let me finish
So, basically
What we did was
We told the phone company
To swap the two lines
They had gotten it completely opposite
And we wanted them to get it right
So, it took maybe three phone calls
To get to a human in the first place
If you call during the daytime
You get a recording saying
We can't pick up the phone now
Call back later
If you call back later
You get three different recordings
And then
After about 20 minutes
Of hanging on
After the last recording
They hang up on you
And that happened to me
Maybe two or three times
And when I confronted them
With this
When I finally got a human being
And I asked them
Why they keep disconnecting people
They said
There's something wrong
With the phones
And I said to them
You know
You're the phone company
Don't you think
Maybe you can get this fixed
A little faster
Than the rest of us
It's been like a week now
And they still are having trouble
With their phones
And also
When you tell them something
At least when I told them
What I wanted
With my particular lines
They took a very
Very, very long time
To get it all down
And the guy explained it to me
He said
I don't have access to the computer
Because the computer is broken
And I have to write
All of this down
And it's going to take over
A week for it to get processed
Because I have to write it all down
And it took him about 20 minutes
To write it all down
So yeah
You know
At times like that
The guy before you mentioned
That it sounds like
Garbage men are running
The phone company
I would welcome the opportunity
For garbage men
To run the phone company
Believe me
I think they have more common sense
Than the people running
The phone company
12 year olds can run
The phone company
Better than what
Well I think there have been
Instances where 12 year olds
Have been running
The phone company
And it has been
A lot smoother
Anyway
What I was going to say
About your caller ID thing
I remember that experiment
You were trying
With trying
To call
From out of state
Now I
Well we figured that out
Did you get the answer to that
No no no
I recently went to New England
And I called your voicemail
I don't know if you still
Have it hooked up
To your caller ID
But
No the voicemail
Is never hooked up
To the caller ID
Not your voicemail
Your 2600 line
Well we have to forward it
To get that hooked up
It's not ordinarily hooked up
Well I left a message
And just asked her
If you would
Yeah we only use the caller ID
For experimental purposes
And sometimes we find
Interesting things
I'm calling from an air phone
And why is the air phone
Phones
The GTE air phone
Phones hooked up
To a number in
Illinois
Well it's not
Necessarily hooked up
To a number in Illinois
It's hooked up
To whatever
It routes the calls
Through
And when you're up
There in the sky
You're actually a lot
Closer to things
That you don't think
You're closer to
I'm in New York
Going to Massachusetts
Well when you're in the air
It doesn't really matter
You know
They just route it
From whatever phone
They
Try to call the phone number
It says it's not in service
Right
Well I mean
That's just a recording
They just stick a recording on there
You do the same thing on Amtrak
If you use the phones
In Amtrak
And let's say
You call an 800 number
And you look at
And see what number
Shows up
It'll usually wind up
As a number in Philadelphia
As something that
Doesn't really exist
Same
And Fiber
Do you have any clue
As to why
They give numbers
That don't exist
Well it's not that
They don't exist
They're numbers
That are probably
Actually switched
Through the cell site
And they don't want them
To be directly dialable
So they're not
Yeah so you get a recording
Saying they're not in service
But they're actually
Being used for something
I mean you won't be able
To get those numbers
For any other purpose
Oh do you have any pictures
Of Bell Canada phones
In your 2600 magazine
Because I went there
Over the weekend
I mean I've seen them
Plenty of times
I don't know if we've ever
Actually published a picture
Of that
I was thinking of
Taking a picture
And sending it to you
But um
Well did you
I don't know
I didn't
Because I didn't have a camera
Then you lost an opportunity
Yes
And I had much trouble
Coming back from the border
Did you
What did you say
You knew me
Yeah because
That'll definitely do it
They thought I was
Smuggling something
Somebody into the country
And they stopped me
At Maine
And
Well did you have
Somebody with you
No I didn't
What made them think
You were smuggling
Someone with you
I don't know
They searched my car
And
Uh huh
I don't know
Okay
Well maybe you had
Somebody chopped up
Into little bits
Or something
And they were looking
For that
I don't know
But um
You know by the way
Why is this like
Some phone companies
Like Alltel upstate
Go through New York
Telephone
Like it'll be an
Alltel pay phone
But when you dollar zero
It's a New York
Telephone operator
Oh lots of
Co-cats go to
Local operators
It's not a co-cat
You mean an independent
I guess it's an independent
Yeah
Perhaps they don't
Have their own operators
You know they might
Just be a company
That provides phone service
But doesn't have
Operators of their own
So in other words
Alltel really works
On New York Telephone
Or something
Uh I don't know
Anything about Alltel
But uh
I've seen that
In Maine too
An independent
Sort of phone company
That goes to New England
Telephone
Well you know what's neat
It's uh
Many phones in New England
Only cost 10 cents
Oh yes
They still do
Yeah
I think that's really
I don't know
How they managed
To do this
And by the way
This is something
That is just taking place
Now
AT&T has raised
The rates
Of long distance
Information to 75 cents
And get this
Overseas information
$3.95
I mean
Who would ever
Want to make
An overseas call again
When you have to
Pay that much money
Just to find out
What the phone number is
Yeah just like
You said one time
Call somebody at random
And ask them
To look in the phone
Exactly
You're better off
Doing that
Thanks for your call
Okay
Alright
And uh
That's our
World traveler
Checking in
Good evening
You're on
Hi Emmanuel
Let me just lower
My radio
Okay
Last week you guys
Were talking about
Manhattan Cable
And the converter box
And trying to
Order like a
Pay per view show
Without having
Converter box
Yeah
One of the phone numbers
You could try
Is 1-800-379-6262
Okay
Now if I did that
From my phone
I would definitely
Get an automatic
Billing to whatever
Is on
Be it a
Whatever movie
Or whatever this thing is
Now you were saying
You don't know
You don't know
If you could try
From a regular phone
If you would
Work or not
So you could try
That number
Okay we'll try that
Now when you call
From your particular
Line though
What exactly
Does it say to you
Well it says like
Thank you
Your order has been
Received
Or something like that
And like somebody
Else said last week
A couple of seconds
Later I'll turn to
Channel 62
And whatever is
Playing
Be it commercials
Or the preview
Before the actual movie
I'll get on
And I'll see it
And then I'll get
Like a bill
For $4.95
Or whatever it is
How neat
On my next
Cable bill
So I don't know
If it would work
Like you said
Without a converter box
But that's definitely
One of the numbers
You could try
Okay so when you call
You don't have to
Enter any information
Other than what it is
You want to see
It must be tied
To my phone number
Somehow
I really don't understand
How it reads
That it's my phone number
Calling them
We can explain that
Five you want to
Take that one
Yeah it's just
Receiving your phone number
Through what's called
A&I
Okay
Which is just a service
That they're subscribing to
From the phone company
Whoever their 800
Provider is
And they have some
Equipment
That basically
What it's probably doing
Is receiving your phone number
From the phone company
Right
And cross referencing it
With a database
Of subscribers
Oh alrighty
So then like you were saying
That it would make
I mean and how could
They possibly know
If you're calling
From a phone
Without a converter box then
Well if
We're going to find out
We're going to find out
What they say
When they get a
Strange number
They've never heard of before
Yeah I'll listen in
See if you get through
Or you might get that
If you play it over the air
You'd get that recording
Like thank you
Your order's been placed
Or thank you for ordering
Whatever the movie name is
Okay we'll see what happens
And also good luck
Fiber with everything
You're dealing with
And hopefully your appeals
Are going through okay
Well there's no appeals
Oh it's a done deal
At this point
Yeah it's finalized
You can't really appeal
Something like that
Best wishes on all that
Thanks
Give that number a try
And I'll listen
And see what happens
Alright thanks for the info
Taking the call
Alright
So we're going to try this
We're going to do this
Live on the air again
We're going to call
A
Cable TV company here
Pay per view
But it's not going to know
Who we are
Well it will know
Who we are
But it's not going to
Recognize our number
The call is going through
We are unable to process
Your order
Please call
674-9100
There you go
That's what happens
They're unable to place
Place the order
Because they don't know
Our phone number
And they can't
Match it to the database
I can't say I'm surprised
I mean
I didn't think
They'd allow us
To order something
That we wouldn't be able
To see in the first place
But it was worth a shot
Good evening
You're on
Hi
Let me kill this radio here
Kill the radio
Kill the radio
Here's the deal
You were talking
With somebody
About the problems
You were having
With installations
Changes
Stuff like that
Not just one time
Every time you call
You get problems like this
Last
A couple of months ago
We installed a new phone system
At work
And I went through
A lot of the same things
Six times
Getting this recording
And then getting cut off
All that jazz
I did a little
Human engineering
Made friends
With one of the installers
That was moving
Some of our lines
And got my local
Dispatcher's office number
And after that
All my calls
Went to the local
Dispatcher's office
The stuff was taken care of
In a timely manner
And they were very friendly
And helpful
Well now
Do they mine
Every time you want
Something you call
The local dispatcher
I explained to them
That the system
Was screwing up
And they called the system
And it screwed up
On them
Because you know
Those calls
All the calls
For Metro New York
Are routed up
To some place
In Albany
You call the 890
Whatever number
890-1100
For billing
And 1350
For installation
Right right
All those 890 numbers
Get routed to a central office
In Albany somewhere
And then they call
The local dispatcher's office
To dispatch
The actual service calls
You know what I had to do
This past week
When they hung up on me
I think this was only
The second time
They hung up
But it was within
The same attempt
Period
It was getting close
To closing time
And that's why
I was getting kind of anxious
So I called them again
And a full 20 minutes
Before closing time
I got a recording
Saying we're now closed
Oh yeah absolutely
They'll do that every time
So what I did was
I got every single
Phone line I could get
Which was about
Maybe six of them
And I called the same number
All at the same time
And of that
I think two of them
Went through
And got a real recording
And I was able to actually
Ride one of those
All the way through
To a human being
But those are the kind of
Tactics you have to
You have to
You know
Take up
To get service
It's like guerrilla tactics here
So that's why
I tell you that
Local dispatcher's office
And the name of that
Local dispatcher lady
Has a valued place
In my Rolodex
Uh huh
Well that's a good
Suggestion
But it's just a shame
You can never find a way
To wheedle it out
Of an installer
When he's coming in
To make an installation for you
Uh huh
It will serve you well
Yeah it's a shame
We have to resort to that
But that's exactly
What we have to do
Anyway thanks
And I enjoyed listening
To my friend Steve
As your first caller
Okay
Thanks for calling
Bye bye
I'm sure your friend Steve
And I liked having his voice
Read over the air
Or his name
Read over the air
Like that
Who knows
Um
Now
I want to also
Demonstrate something here
Uh just so that
You can see
I'm not being unfair here
I'm picking on
New York Telephone
All that much
I'll pick another
Phone company as well
Let's pick a long distance
Company this time
Um
MCI
Alright
They have this service
Called
1-800-COLLECT
Now I don't know why
They don't want anybody
To know that that's them
But you know
We know it's them
It is them right
Yeah
It's definitely them
I mean if you look
At all their uh
Their recordings
Uh or or you know
Advertisements or
Newspaper billboards
Or what have you
You just see
1-800-COLLECT
You don't see
Any mention of MCI
Anyplace
And when you call them
They don't answer
With MCI
They answer with
1-800-COLLECT
Um
Anyway
My point is
That's their service
But have you ever
Tried to find out
How much it cost
To use
Well
I mean I went
Through this
Because I was curious
I wanted to know
What it cost
To use the service
You know
I figure that's
A valid question
And
Say what you will
About the local phone company
And about AT&T
And all that
At least they know
The rates
It might take them
A few minutes
To figure it out
But they do know
The rates
Let's uh
Listen to what happens
When we try to uh
Find out
That information
That we really should know
By calling
1-800-COLLECT
By the way
This picks up
With a machine now
Not a human being anymore
Calling
1-800-COLLECT
Please enter the number
You wish to call
Area code first
Or press
Zero for assistance
Or person to person call
Alright
We're going to press
Zero
For assistance
Please hold
For operator assistance
Here we go
May I have your area code
And number calling please
Uh the number I'm calling
Yes
Yeah I just need to know
How much it's going to cost
I'm calling to
Area code 518
The 474 exchange
Okay I wouldn't know that
I would have to transfer
To customer service
For rates
You don't know
Okay well
Okay
Would you like
Customer service
I guess so
Yeah why not
Please help the customer
Thank you
Customer service
MCI customer service
This is Paula
How may I help you
Yes hi
I just need to know
How much it costs
To call
Uh collect
To uh the
518-474 exchange
This is using
1-800-COLLECT
Yes
Station to station
Yes
One moment
You need to wait
For calling at this time
Or at this time
Period
Uh just this time
You're calling from
The 212-279 area
That's right
Okay right now
It's doing the
Discount rate
Which is from
5 o'clock p.m.
Until 10-59 p.m.
And that call
Would be $1.60
For the first minute
Which includes
The $1.45
Operator surcharge
And each additional
Minute would be
16 cents
Okay
Thank you very much
Is there a call
I can place for you
Uh not right now
Thank you for
You're saying MCI
Thank you
Well that's
She did say MCI
Well you see
When you get
Transferred to
Customer service
They don't know
Not to say MCI
Because they're
Customer service
For MCI
But the 1-800-COLLECT
People never say MCI
Now I should say
That was very good
Actually
We did get
Transferred
We did have to
Wait a while
But we got the rate
I've tried this
Over the past few days
And it takes up to
10 minutes sometimes
To find out that
Information
So even though
This might appear
To be bad
To most people
It's really not
That bad
That's what we
Have to deal with
With the new
Phone companies
The new technology
Is how bad
It could really be
And is it really
That bad in the end
212-279-3400
This is off the hook
We're here for another
Almost 20 minutes
More like 15 minutes
Now if you have
Any questions about
9x voicemail
Long distance companies
Customer owned
Coin operated telephones
Computer databases
Or anything else like that
Give us a call
Good evening
Hi Manuel
How you doing
I'm fine thanks
Can you speak up a bit
Oh yeah
I got a few
Quick things to say
I hope you won't
Quick me off
As long as you
Speak louder
I won't
I have a few
Quick things to say
Okay I heard that part
Go ahead
First of all
As far as
The first caller
Said where he's
Worried about
Some employee
Tapping into his phone
You know
Getting his messages
Right
I have to say
I would be worried
About the exact
Same thing
Because of this
I got a tour
Of the phone company
And this was in Canada
But I still got a tour
Of the phone company
Of the switching office
And I asked the guy
You know
Have you ever
Tapped a phone line
Or anything
And he said
Yeah sure
And not only did he
Say he tapped
The phone line
He let me tap
Two of them
He just plugged the things
And I listened
To the whole conversation
Well when you have
The ability
It's very tempting
To do things like that
The next thing is
This ties in
With the 1-800-COLLECT
New York Telephone
Won't connect your
800 calls
Being an operator anymore
The reason because of this
Is because
In a lot of areas
They're still on
What is it
ESS-1A I think
Or ESS
Switching system 1A
And it won't send
ANI to the 800 numbers
They try and read
Your number
They get 203-555-5555
So what they've
Replaced it with now
And you can give this a try
Is you can call up
800-698-0000
You can enter a telephone number
An 800 number
And the nice thing is
It'll tell you
What phone company
Owns it basically
Because New York Telephone
Can't check
An 800 number
Owned by AT&T
So it says
Please call AT&T Communications
And gives you
The number for it
You're saying
Calling that 800 number
And then entering
Another 800 number
Will tell you
Who owns that 800 number
Basically
If it's owned
By New York Telephone
It'll say
Please wait
For a New York
Telephone operator
If it's not
It'll say
Please call AT&T
Telecommunications
Or whoever owns it
At and then
It'll give you the number
To call them
You know
It's for if the 800 number
Doesn't work
Or whatever
I see
This took effect
I think November 9th
Or something
And can you repeat
Fiber Optics
Internet address
Oh I think he can probably
Do that better than me
Go ahead
My internet address
Is Fiber
P-H-I-B-E-R
At
Echo NYC
Dot com
Echo NYC
Dot com
Yeah
Okay
There's a big article
About Echo
In the paper yesterday
Yeah
Newsday
Yeah
And the last thing is
A quick little tip
That's kind of
To make a like
Free local access area
It's an old trick
With call forwarding
Let's say
Stanford is local
To Greenwich
And Stanford is local
To Norwalk
Right
Gee are you in Connecticut
I suspect he is
Norwalk isn't
But let's say
Norwalk isn't local
To Greenwich
And you live in Greenwich
And want to call
Someone in Norwalk
Call someone in Stanford
Ask them to forward
Your calls to the person
In Norwalk
Call them back
After they forward
Their calls
You'll be forwarded
To Norwalk for free
Since they're local
Calls both ways
Best part is
That the person
Who forwarded
Their calls
Can then pick up
The phone
Turn off call forwarding
And use the phone
To call whoever they want
While you're still
Talking to the person
In Norwalk
Now you see
If I try something
Like that
My phone remains busy
Until the person
Hangs up
It will remain busy
Yeah
It's all programming
It depends how you
Switch this program
But theoretically
It's a good idea
And hello
Yeah
Last thing is
Is this
Is this standard
Because it's weird
One of my friends
Can't get this
And he lives
In the same exchange
And I can
If I'm on a conference call
You know three way calling
I can get a call
Waiting beep
During my three way call
No you
On a digital switch
You will not get
Call waiting on a three way
However on a 1A
You will
Or a 1
Or a 1
If there are any left
It doesn't do it
For my friend though
And he's in the exact
Same exchange
In fact same prefix
That's weird
I don't know why that is
That's awfully odd
Do you know if you're
Digital or electronic
We're SS1A
You're 1A ESS
Okay
So you get
You get like a
A loud click
When you get
Call waiting
Not a beep
Yeah real loud
Okay yeah
So that's definitely
Not electronic
Not digital
I don't know
It's a fluke of some sort
Yeah
Alright thanks a lot
Alright thanks for calling
I'd like to
To try
A couple of things
He just mentioned
First of all
I want to see if
What he says about
An operator not connecting
To an 800 number
Is true
Let's get a trusting
Operator on the line
And see if
If they won't connect us
To
The number we called
Before
The cable TV number
New York telephone
Hello
Hi I'm having trouble
Reaching an 800 number
I was wondering if you
Could connect me
800 and what's the rest of it
800-379-6262
Did you get anything at all
I mean was it just a blank
Or did you
What happened when you down
I just wasn't getting
Oh wait wait
What was that
We're sorry
Due to network difficulties
Your call cannot be completed
At this time
Please
Did you get that
No I never got that before
Okay well
Wait a few seconds
I'll try it again
Okay
I don't know
Exactly what they mean
By network
Unless it's a lot of calls
Going through it
At this time
Yeah it's a possibility
Yeah it's a possibility
I saw all kinds of strange things
Happening on the phone tonight
Yeah how about that
Yeah
They had a cable for you
In the 212 area
Earlier
I don't know
You experienced it
Oh they did
No I didn't know about that
It happened early
Huh
I'm sorry
Due to network
Okay I'll tell you what
Wait about 5 minutes
And then you're going to have
The operator to try it for you again
It's a toll free number anyway
Don't cost you anything
Okay
So let the operator
Try it for you
In about 5 minutes
But you don't have any trouble
Reaching 800 numbers yourself
Do you
No not at all
I've been calling 800 numbers
All doing my tour here tonight
Okay
I haven't had any problems
Okay great
Thank you very much
Sure bye bye
Bye bye
I think that can serve
As a verification
That operators still complete
800 calls
Even though they don't
Always go through
Alright the other thing
I wanted to try
Was this other 800 number
That he mentioned
Which would be very useful
If it
If it does in fact exist
Welcome to New York Telephone's
Automated 800 help desk
Ooh
If you are calling
From a touchtone phone
Enter 1 now
Okay
We can do that
By the rotary phone
Please stay on the line
And an agent
Will be with you shortly
Please enter the 10 digit number
That you are having
Problems reaching
Followed by the
Pound key
Alright I'm going to enter
Cable and wireless
A number that I know
Belongs to them
Let's see what happens here
The number you have entered is
800
I don't want to give out
The actual number there
Because
The person who owns it
Will kill me
Correct
2 if you wish to re-enter
Or 0 if you wish
To speak with an agent
Okay I'm going to assume
He said 1 for correct
So I'm going to press 1
Please wait while we process
Your request
Alright
As long as the wait
Is not too long
I'm sorry
This is not a New York
Telephone 800 number
Please contact
Cable and wireless
Communication
And they may be reached at
800 4-8-6-8-6-8-6
800 4-8-6-8-6-8-6-8-6-8-6-8-6-8-6-8-6-8-6-8-6-9-8-6-8-6-8-6 thank you for calling New York Telephone
Thank you. That is very nice. That is a very useful bit of information there. Thanks to the caller for bringing that to our attention. What do you think, Fiber?
I think that's a very useful piece of information.
Especially in this day and age of portability where you don't know one 800 number is completely different from its neighbor as far as who owns the number.
And now you can tell right away. I mean, when you had your companies, your 800 long-distance companies change, like the customer now can say, I want MCI to handle my 800 calls, not AT&T, but you keep the same number.
Well, how do you really know? How do you know who's handling your 800 calls? There's no way to tell. And now there is.
So I don't know if your telephone really intended it that way, but it's a very useful service. 1-800-698-0000. Not too hard to remember there.
Okay, let's see if we can take a couple more phone calls. Good evening.
Oh, hi. I had a question. I'm sure you guys heard about the AT&T ad that they put out a while back. It was offensive to African Americans.
Did you guys hear about that?
I heard about something in a newsletter. Do you want to describe it for us?
Well, from what I heard, I haven't seen the ad, but it's like this map of the world, and each country in the world has a human being on the phone, you know, speaking on the phone.
Right.
In Africa, they had a monkey speaking on the phone.
Right.
And it was very offensive. I was wondering, is there any way I can, you know, get a copy of, you know, I haven't seen it. I'd like to see what it looks like.
Well, believe me, if anybody were to send the copy here to the radio station, they'd probably see it printed in 2600 Magazine, and that's how you could probably see a copy of it.
So if anybody has access to that, please, or anything else of that nature, you know, that would be interesting to our listeners or readers of 2600, please send it in to us, and, you know, we'll be happy to share it with as many people as possible.
Okay. Thanks a lot. And, Fiber, we're with you, man.
Thanks a lot.
All right. Take care.
And, uh, if you do want to send something in, the address here is off the hook, care of WBAI, 505 8th Avenue, New York, New York, 10018.
Let's take another phone call. Good evening. You're on.
Hello?
Yes, go ahead.
Hello?
Yeah, go ahead. You're on.
Is this BAI?
Yes, it is. You're on the air.
Yeah, great. I have a question. Oh, let me lower the radio.
Yeah, lower the radio.
Great.
Oh, he's causing pandemonium. Yes.
Yeah, my question is this. It's a reference of a cellular phone.
Uh-huh.
I'm curious to know, how do people intercept the transmission, and what sort of equipment is used to identify your identification number?
Fiber, you want to try that one?
Well, simply to intercept a cellular conversation, all one needs is a scanner.
I assume, I think he means actually getting the information on the phone number and the billing data. Is that what you mean?
Right. Yeah, I've heard of scanners with, what is it, 900 megahertz or something like that?
800.
800, yeah.
But, I mean, what sort of scanning device do you use to intercept the transmission, the identification codes and all that?
I think a simple scanner will intercept that, won't it?
Yeah, a simple scanner would, but you'd need some sort of equipment that can demodulate that data.
Right.
But if you turn to, I think it's in the 870s, high 870s, 870 megahertz, that is, you will hear data being sent over the airwaves.
I mean, you'll hear all kinds of voice conversations around those frequencies, but you'll hear data, and if you can read that data, it'll provide you with all kinds of information as to who's calling who and billing information and serial numbers.
Yeah, basically the cell sites communicate with the cellular phones on separate carrier frequencies and the conversations.
Uh-huh.
And it's all unencrypted, and nobody can figure out why there's so much fraud going on.
It's really something.
I guess, what they call the NAM number and all that other stuff?
Yeah, the ESN is the main number.
The ESN number?
Yeah, ESN.
That's the serial number?
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
So on 870 megahertz, that can be picked up?
Roughly, yeah.
In fact, every cellular phone is, in fact, a modem, which can modulate and demodulate this data.
So if you had a good knowledge of electronics, you may be able to tinker with your cellular phone and do things that it wasn't originally intended to do.
Uh-huh.
But, I mean, is there any other equipment on the market that picks up those signals?
Legally, no.
Huh?
Not legally.
Well, no, I mean, you can buy scanners legally that will do that, that will pick up the frequencies.
But not actually decode the data.
Yeah, decoding the data is something, I don't know if it's illegal to have something that decodes the data, but it certainly is illegal to use that information.
Uh-huh.
Okay, thanks for your call.
Thank you.
All right.
See if we can squeeze in another one.
Good evening, you're on.
Yes, sir.
Good evening.
Two times.
I'd like you to tell me where I can obtain Risk Digest.
Okay.
Do you have access to the Internet?
No, I've been meaning to call, what is it, Panic?
Well, there's all kinds of services in New York, Panics, Echo, MindVox, other ones as well.
Oh.
Um, and any one of those, you can get access to the Internet, and on that, you would subscribe to a Usenet news group called, uh, comp.risks, that's C-O-M-P dot R-I-S-K-S.
And, uh, once you figure out how the mail reader works, or the newsreader works, um, it'll become very easy.
Initially, it's a little bit tricky, but, uh, once, once you get that down, you'll have it.
I have a radio mail, um, but is that quite similar to getting on the Internet?
You have what?
Radio mail.
Radio mail.
Yeah, it's a little packet, the electronic data modem.
Right, I don't think that's hooked directly up to the Internet, though, is it?
It's not, but you can access it.
Uh-huh.
Through CompuServe.
Uh, well, I know through CompuServe, I'm pretty sure you can get Usenet feeds, although...
No, I don't think, I don't think CompuServe carries Usenet.
They don't carry any Usenet?
I don't think so.
All right, well, it's just as well, then, because why pay that amount of money just to
access something you can probably get for free, or very cheap?
Uh, what I would recommend is, is getting access to one of those, uh, Unix systems,
public access Unix systems we mentioned, and, uh, you know, taking it from there.
Okay.
All right, thanks for calling.
All right.
And, uh, on that note, uh, we have a news group on now.
Uh, thanks to Len Rose, uh, out there in California land, for setting this up for us.
Um, Alt.2600, that's right, if you can, uh, somehow read that.
It might not, it might not make it to your system just now, because it only got created
a few hours ago, but, uh, on Usenet, there is a group now called Alt.2600, and no, we're
not talking about the Atari 2600, we're talking about the magazine, and that's hopefully what
we're going to keep the subject matter at.
All right, that's, uh, going to do it for us here tonight on Off the Hook.
Another week has gone by.
And we'll be back next week, talking about various other things.
Um, Fiber, your time is starting to get kind of, uh, well, you don't have much left before
they send you away.
The windowing away.
Yeah, sending you to prison in, uh, in, uh, January.
January 7th, I believe, is the fateful day, right?
That's right.
All right, well, we still have a month to, uh, to answer more questions, and, uh, talk
to more people on the phone, and do other things like that, so, um, we'll see you next
week, and, uh, we'll see the rest of you next week as well.
Manuel Goldstein for Off the Hook, good night.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
It could be yet much worse, but if they could, they would.
Bum-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding.
Bum-Ding-Ding-Ding.
Let them talk with Paul DiRienzo, keeping an eye on the New World Order.
1.30 Wednesday night, Thursday morning, following Robert Knight.
Let them talk on WBAI 99.5 FM.
Love you so, let them whisper, for they know not what's between you and I.
I'll keep on loving you until the day I die.
Good evening.
In the news tonight, a special Pacifica report on World AIDS Awareness Day.
Violence once again flares in the Gaza Strip.
And from New York, an exclusive interview with the United Nations Observer in Haiti.
With these and other stories, I'm Jose Santiago in New York with Verna Avery Brown in Washington.
And this is the news for Wednesday, December 1st, 1993.
First to Washington and these headlines topping the news.
More violence in the Israeli-occupied territories today is threatening the Middle East peace plan.
Two Palestinian groups opposed to the accord opened fire on a car,
killing one Israeli teacher and wounding three Jewish settlers.
Hamas said it was the first of five attacks planned to avenge the latest killing of a guerrilla leader by the Israeli army.
Some Jewish settlers vowed reprisals for the attack.
Settlers planned to put up roadblocks throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a protest tomorrow.
Several ceremonies and events today in Washington and around the nation marking World AIDS Day.
President Clinton visited AIDS patients and spoke to researchers and doctors at Georgetown Medical Center.
President Clinton's remarks were interrupted by an AIDS activist who called the president Slick Willy and accused him of lots of talk, no action.
After the man was ushered out by security guards, Clinton said he preferred to be screamed at than to see people give up.
All of us, all of us, all of us have something.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Thank you.