If you have any information or other information, call 642-2826.
This has been a public service announcement of WBAI on behalf of the Democratic Socialists of America.
See you at the conference.
On the next Beyond the Pale, the Progressive Jewish Radio Hour, on April 12th, Wednesday, from 2 to 3 p.m.,
we will feature a Passover show, where you'll hear Rabbi Sam Barth and Brad Lander discuss the Passover launching of a Jewish campaign to confront the city's moral and fiscal crisis.
We'll also feature Arthur Wazkow, who will talk about the origins of the Freedom Seders in the 1970s
and report from the latest feminist seders created by Mayan, plus Passover songs.
That's Wednesday, April 12th, 2 to 3 p.m., on WBAI 99.5 FM.
It's 10 o'clock.
Time for Off the Hook.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
It couldn't get much worse, but if it could, it would.
Bum-dilly-bum, but the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood, but bing-dilly-bum!
Let's go!
And a good evening, everybody.
This is Emanuel Goldstein here with another edition of Off the Hook, where we update you
on the latest happenings in cyberspace and all kinds of other things going on on the
net, in the phone networks, and just possibly affecting you in your day-to-day average life.
But first, it's time for another in our installment of The Quest for ISDN.
Day 15.
Well, FiberOptic, it's been 15 days now, two weeks ago this Wednesday, where we started
our humble quest to get ISDN lines installed.
And, well, I had a very good week last week.
I was looking forward to Friday.
You know, Friday was the day when the phone company man was going to come by and install
my ISDN line.
Friday morning, I set my alarm clock.
And I was up at 8.55 a.m. waiting for the ISDN man to come.
I had never seen one before.
I didn't know what they looked like.
But I was prepared for anything.
But you know what I wasn't prepared for?
It's a 12 noon.
12 noon came, and it went.
And no ISDN man in sight.
So I figured, you know, maybe they're a little delayed.
You know, sometimes they say they'll come in the morning and they actually come in the
afternoon.
You know, I'm an understanding kind of guy.
I realize sometimes the phone company doesn't quite get a handle on things.
But around 2 o'clock or so, I figured I'd call just to make sure they weren't having
problems.
You know, real bad problems.
And I called them up, and they transferred me all over the place.
And finally, they found somebody that understood what this ISDN business was.
And they said, no, sir, you never had an appointment.
Now, what's funny about this is I remember distinctly having a conversation with somebody
where we were asking, you know, is morning better, afternoon better?
What in the world were we talking about if we weren't talking about an appointment, just
when we're at our peak mood or what?
Obviously, we made an appointment.
They're now saying that they never made the appointment in the first place.
So we had a bit of a disagreement on that.
Then the ISDN person, and there really is only one that I seem to reach, started complaining
to me about how the engineering department never calls them back.
The engineering department has to analyze each line.
And when they do that, they get back to the person that gets back to the customer.
And this representative was saying to me, they just never call back.
So I don't know, you know, what I can do.
And I'm like, you're the phone company.
You're complaining to me that people within the phone company aren't calling you back.
I am the customer, and I can't even get an ISDN line installed, much less have somebody
even tell me that it's possible to do it in the first place.
So they promised this week some time to get back to me when the engineering people got
back to them.
So basically, I'm even further back than I was two weeks ago because there's no promise
on the horizon of anybody coming by to install an ISDN line.
We've already been through this a couple of times.
They've changed their rates.
They flip-flopped on a couple of major issues as to surcharges or no surcharges.
So right now, I'd have to say, I don't know what's going on.
How about you?
Are you doing any better?
Well, actually, I'm in a similar boat.
I don't exactly know what's going on.
Only when they said that they were going to have an installation done, they canceled it
immediately.
And I was told that the person that took the information was going about the whole thing
the wrong way.
You can't just order a normal phone line for ISDN service.
There's all this provisioning done.
They have to install.
Just like you have to go and buy ISDN equipment, they have to provision for ISDN equipment in
the central office for the other end of your line.
But your central office is different.
Your central office has this virtual ISDN business.
No, actually, from what I've been told, I'm actually able to get direct ISDN.
You are?
Okay.
That's what I was told.
Well, not according to 1-800-GET-ISDN.
No, I don't even go by then anymore.
It seems like nobody updates that.
We should tell 1-800-ISDN to 1-800-GET-BENT.
Yes.
I don't think they know what's going on themselves.
So now the latest was that I talked to my representative yesterday who said that there was supposed
to be a meeting with the product manager for residential ISDN.
And mind you, there's one product manager for residential ISDN who's like the head of basic
rate ISDN.
And then they have another product manager who's head of primary rate ISDN.
And there's one each of these people who do whatever it is that they do at 9X at 1095
on 6th Avenue.
And so my representative said that she had to wait to hear back from whatever the result
of this meeting was today, which I have no idea why they're having a meeting or why
they need to have a meeting.
And to make matters even worse...
They have to have a meeting because two people have ordered ISDN and they don't know what
to do.
That's true.
To make matters even worse, she came back and told me something that didn't make me
rest very easily, but that she was told by the product manager that she wasn't really
certain, but that X25 access, that is low-speed packet access on the D channel, may not
be accessible.
It may not be available to me.
And I thought that that was pretty ridiculous because...
Why?
It doesn't make any sense.
It makes no sense at all, no.
Let's come up with an analogy as to real phone service, what they're saying to you.
It's kind of like saying that...
Let's think of something.
Can't think of anything?
Wait, I'm trying to.
I'm tempted to say...
It's like saying you can order touchtone service, but your touchtones won't work.
That doesn't make any sense.
No, well, neither does this.
I get it.
Okay.
Well, continue with your saga here.
So, as the saga goes, we're pretty much left at the point where I didn't want to call
back today just to find out that they didn't really find out anything new.
So, I was going to wait until tomorrow.
So, I'm going to call my representative again tomorrow.
And if things still seem kind of confused, I was thinking maybe of having her let the
product manager in on the fact that we're doing this live every Wednesday night on a
radio show.
No, we can't do that because if we do that, that's giving us an unfair advantage.
I'd rather just sort of do this quietly to all of New York until 9X gets its act together
because everyone out there wants to know how this is going to turn out.
They want to order this.
There is a flip side.
It's a two-edged sword.
I mean, the obvious flip side is that I want ISDN now.
Well, yes.
I wanted it months ago.
I realize that.
But the fact of the matter is that we cannot use our public celebrity status here as a
bargaining chip.
Well.
It's just not right.
I don't know how long I could hold out on that before I...
If things start getting really ridiculous, I don't think we all have any choice.
I'm not going to resort to that.
However, I may resort to my Neanderthal, you know, barbaric, violent techniques and go
down to the central office with a sledgehammer.
That's a possibility.
I just might do that and install ISDN for them.
Well, at the very least, what I was considering doing, if they seem to be pig-headed about this
whole low-speed package...
It's not that they're pig-headed.
It's that they're, I guess, brain-reduced or something.
They just don't seem to be able to think in ISDN terms.
Yeah.
That could be it.
I mean, people hear us talking about this.
They don't even know what ISDN is.
And we don't really know what it is because we haven't really used it yet.
We want to use it.
I mean, you know what it is.
Well, actually, I have used it.
But you don't really know what it is until you have it for days at a time.
Yeah, until I'm actually used to it.
And I could actually say it's become a fixture in my household.
Uh-huh.
Then you can actually know it.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, what I was thinking of doing, if they insist on being ridiculous about the whole thing,
is fax them an actual service order that they would enter into their computer just in
case they...
One of their own service orders?
Yeah.
How would you get a hold of one of those?
Oh, don't worry.
Actually, we already have some of those in our position.
Uh-huh.
But I thought it might be useful because, in fact...
Oh, we should mention, if we haven't already, that the ISDN training course for the telephone
companies is held in Bell Atlantic.
Now, wait a minute.
That's a competing...
Well, it's not a competing company, but it's a totally...
It's one of the other regional Bells.
A totally different company.
They don't even train their own people?
Well, the interesting thing is that Bell Atlantic, from what I've heard, has the largest
installed base of ISDN subscribers than any other place in the country.
I believe Pacific Telesis is second.
And because of this fact, they've sort of been delegated as being the ISDN training people.
Well, it's all kind of developed in New Jersey anyway, isn't it?
Yeah, because they're so close to Bell Core, so it's very convenient.
But I've actually seen the training manual, which is specifically put together and geared
towards each of the specific regional Bells.
I'd like to ask some of our New Jersey listeners if residential ISDN over there carries that
one penny a minute digital surcharge.
Actually, I was told that in Bell Atlantic, and I don't know if this is all throughout Bell
Atlantic, but at least in the area that used to be C&P, Chesapeake and Potomac, that
they're charging up to a nickel a minute.
A nickel a minute?
Yeah.
You mean things can get actually worse than nine minutes?
That's what I've been told.
That's a scary thought.
Let's hope you were told wrong.
I don't know.
It was a pretty reliable source, and he only stressed the fact that everyone should stop
making data calls as soon as possible and start doing the whole ISDN spoofing thing.
Which?
Of actually making a voice call and actually sending data.
Sending data over the voice channel.
Yeah, data over the voice channel.
I see.
Well, if they can figure out a way to tax that, I'm sure they will.
The thing is, they're kicking themselves by doing this.
They're shooting themselves in the feet because by crippling the data industry, people are going
to use their services all the less.
And when competition springs up, as it will, well, it's going to be bad for them.
Well, we have an interesting article sent to us.
This is from the Upper West Side resident.
How many of you have ever heard of this magazine?
Wow.
Okay.
We have some New Yorkers here.
I want to read you a couple of things about the information in the superhighway as they
describe it.
And it seems like a fairly good article for the most part, but I'm sure there are some
misconceptions here.
Okay.
And I'd like to tackle these one by one.
At present, to become an officially connected computer or a node on the internet, you need
a powerful computer.
Yes or no?
I would say not.
Okay.
A data line with a 56K or greater connection.
No.
No.
No.
Okay.
Uh-uh.
No.
An approved and registered domain name.
Uh, no.
You don't need that either.
And at least $10,000 invested in hardware, software, and phone line connections.
No.
No.
Strike four.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, explain to us quickly, then, what you do need.
Uh, quickly to...
Well, what's the exact phrasing they used at the opening?
Uh, well, to become an officially connected computer or a node on the internet, you need
a powerful computer.
You don't need a powerful computer.
You don't know.
You can use almost any PC or Mac.
All right.
A data line with a 56K or greater connection.
No.
In fact, you could use, uh, I know people that are even, God forbid, using 9600 BPS modems,
but you could use, uh, 14.4 or 288.
All right.
This is the one that, uh, I'm curious about.
An approved and registered domain name.
You don't even need that?
No, actually, because, uh, most places find it just a lot more convenient to assign you
a static address on the internet.
Just, uh, it might not be what you want, and it might cost you slightly extra to register
something that you want, but, um, you can actually do that yourself, and it's free to register
a domain on the net.
And at least $10,000 invested in hardware, software, and phone line connectors.
Uh, no.
In fact, uh, this goes back to the first question.
Mm-hmm.
You can use most any computer with a high-speed modem.
So, a couple hundred bucks.
Uh, yeah, I mean, uh, modem is going to run you about $200, a 14.4 modem, a 288, slightly
more, and, uh, if you, uh, I mean, if you're already on a Mac or a PC, you're halfway there,
you're more than halfway there, and, uh, you'll probably end up, uh, paying about $25 a month
on time, typically for a slipper PPP connection, which, as long as you stay connected, makes you
a note on the internet.
The basic tools or hardware for your online adventures are a computer, preferably a 386
or higher, with at least 4 megs of RAM and a motor.
Yeah, you could say that.
It is preferable to have at least a 386 on the PC side.
Think of this process as working something like your fax machine, but you are transferring
bytes of data, text, graphics, sound, video, directly from your computer through a regular
household phone line.
Well, when I think of a fax machine, it makes me really bored, so I think that's a pretty
bad analogy.
Well, I mean, the net is supposed to be boring if we think of it in too exciting a term.
You've come up with things like hackers, and that's bad.
Oh, yeah, that's true.
You can't be too creative on the net.
It's illegal.
You can't be too creative, no.
Uh, you don't necessarily need a dedicated phone line and can use one line if you don't
anticipate that your online time will interfere with your phone calls.
Most callers would get a busy signal, but you can have your phone company install a voice
messaging service on your line so you can then retrieve messages that were left while
you were surfing around cyberspace.
Wonderful.
So it's, uh, it's more money for the phone companies.
There are lots more alternatives than that.
Why don't you just get another, uh, a line that, that hunts over, you know, and, and that
way you can have the phone ring and pick it up while you're on the line.
Or, or basically have one line as a modem line and, and don't take phone calls on it.
Because once you're online, it's, you know, it's not something you want to get offline to
take a phone call.
They're two totally different things.
It's like, imagine if, if every time you had to speak, you had to hang up your modem.
You know, that's, it would be inconvenient.
And the two are as different as, as that voice call and a data call really are two totally
different things.
Right.
You should just get ISDN.
Yeah, that would be nice.
Now with ISDN, you wouldn't have to get a second line, right?
No, you could have one line with voice and data over that same line.
See, that's the magic right there.
Okay.
Uh, just one other brief thing in this article, which I think we should, uh, we should point
to.
I don't know how many people get this, uh, this uptown Westside resident.
I guess uptown Westside residents probably get it.
Uh, it would be pretty funny though to put out a magazine for the downtown Eastside people
and call it uptown Westside resident.
You know, make it, make it seem like you're, uh, you know, you're trespassing on their territory.
And you'd really annoy them too, because they wouldn't be able to get one.
Uh, subscribing to a commercial online service such as one of the biggies, Prodigy, America
Online, or CompuServe, or a smaller one such as Echo, The Well, or Women's Wire.
Remember, however, when you are on these services, you are not on the internet itself, but are
in a completely separate place.
They're a private computer system.
Some of these services may give you a gateway to the internet, but only a few give you complete
internet access.
Uh, yeah, actually the biggies that they mention don't really give you any internet access.
The biggies are the ones that don't give you internet access.
Maybe email, uh, and maybe, uh, Usenet News, but that's about it.
But I think those other, those other ones, Echo, The Well, things like that, they give you
real internet access if that's what you want.
That's true, yeah.
You don't have to become a node on the net to get real internet access.
Nope.
And for those systems that are in New York, um, the average price is about between $15
and $20 a month.
Yeah.
And you get virtually everything.
Yeah, and again, if you want to get slip in, uh, or PPP, the, the going rate on most reasonably
priced services is, uh, $25 a month on time.
Right, that's...
If you, if you, if they say anything more than that, you should look elsewhere.
True.
So that's, uh, that's where the net stands.
Again, thanks to the, uh, person sending that in, and our address to send other articles
in is WBAI, 505 8th Avenue, New York, New York, 10018.
Attention off the hook.
We'll be taking phone calls in just a, a couple of minutes.
You know, I've got another phone company story, which I, I guess I should have mentioned before,
but it's not really related to ISDN.
It's related to good old-fashioned incompetence of the analog sort.
Now, this is particularly annoying.
You know why?
Why?
I made a very, very simple request.
I had, I had one of these phone lines that was, um, it was kind of paired up, you know?
You have two phone lines, one phone bill.
Did you understand how that works?
Right.
Back in the days when they had these things called auxiliary phone lines, it made sense
to do it this way because you had one bill, a, a, a reduced rate on the second phone
line and you saved some money and you saved some accounting too because you only had one
phone bill to thumb through.
Now, I figured since they did away with that, uh, discount for auxiliary lines, what's the
point of having, you know, one phone, uh, two phone lines showing up on one phone bill?
Why not just have two different phone bills?
That way accounting is actually easier because you can, you can look at one, see what calls
were made, look at the other, see what calls were made, et cetera.
So I told the phone company, this was a couple of months ago, actually, please split up these
lines and the, uh, you know, one phone bill over here, one phone bill over there for this
line.
Great.
You know, how hard could that be for the phone company to master?
You're making a face.
You really think, you really think it could be that hard?
I'm skeptical.
Well, the first thing they did, the first thing they did was mail me this nice little piece
of paper that you could see through a window envelope that, that announced to the world
what my secret authorization code was.
Now, for those of you that don't know, anybody can get a secret authorization code on your
phone bill, all right?
It allows only you to call up and get information about your phone bill.
Which I'm never asked for.
Really?
Never.
Well, you're supposed to be.
I'm supposed to ask you for it every single time.
It can be two, two kinds of passwords.
One can be a word, which they don't ask you for all the time.
And the other can be, I think it's a three, a three digit number, which, according to
the representative I spoke to, they described their screen to me.
It pops up in the middle of the screen and it's really hard to avoid.
But apparently it is possible to avoid.
I guess so, yeah.
Yeah, because I'm not asked for it all the time either.
But I used this system for a couple of years.
It was nice.
You know, it tended to work until they sent me this, this blaring announcement in the
mail.
Well, apparently since I separated the two lines, they felt compelled to tell me what
my authorization code was in case I forgot it.
And there it was.
And of course I had to call them up and say, look, you guys, now I have to change it because
your people are morons.
You know, I don't talk this rudely to them.
But that's the tone that's in the background when I'm speaking to them.
Why did you send me a piece of paper notifying me of my code when I knew what it was?
You knew I knew what it was.
I've had it for years.
Now we've got to change it.
And the representative said to me, well, you know, if we change it, it's simply going
to, it's going to happen again.
You know, they're going to send you another form.
And it's this like Kafka-ish nightmare of someone in a bureaucratic office someplace constantly
sending out these memos announcing to the world what my code is when I just want to have
a secret code that nobody knows except me and the phone company, maybe.
Although I don't know if they even know it at this point.
So after a long time arguing, going back and forth, I managed to get them to agree to give
me a new code and not send it out.
We'll see if that happens.
Probably get about 50 of them in the mail.
But that was not the worst of it.
The worst of it was when I got my phone bill.
Yeah, they managed to do it.
They split up to two lines.
One line was over on one bill.
One line was over on the other.
But you know, on the second line, guess what was on it?
A charge to do this.
Well, yeah, there was a charge.
And I knew there was a charge.
$10.
$10 to do that simple push button or whatever to separate the two phone bills.
Fine.
Okay.
$10, I guess.
You know, I don't have a choice in the matter.
But no, not only was there a $10 charge, they charged me for a premise visit.
They charged me for a new phone jack.
They charged me for a network interface.
They charged me as if they had come and installed a brand new phone line for a line that's
existed for over a year.
Now, I cannot believe this.
So I just called them up and I just sort of said to them, you know, I was very nonchalant
about it.
I just said, you know, I split up these two lines and you guys charged me for a visit
and a jack and a network interface.
I don't understand this.
All I did was separate the two lines.
What's going on here?
And they went through this whole big thing, putting me on hold, transferring me to music
and all that kind of thing.
And finally, they came back and just said, oh, the amount of your credit is this.
Okay.
Thank you.
Bye.
Bye.
As if, okay, he found out about it.
He's too smart for us.
Let's just give him the credit and hope he doesn't tell anybody.
Well, guess what?
I did tell somebody.
So watch your phone bills, folks.
When you do anything on your phone bill, who knows what they're going to do to you?
I mean, imagine there should be some sort of a safeguard to prevent that from happening.
This means they can just, you know, hit a button and charge somebody for a phone line
that got installed that doesn't even exist.
Just, you know, I always thought that they'd have to, you know, install a phone line before
they did this.
But no, they don't have to do anything.
They just, some incompetent person someplace or some malicious person someplace just has
to hit the right keys and whammo, you're charged.
So that was, it was a hundred bucks.
Yeah.
You know, I mean, most people notice a hundred dollar increase in their phone bill, but I
guess there's a fair number that don't.
And I hasten to say that a lot of people out there, a lot of our listeners have probably
been victimized one way or the other.
Whether it's maliciousness or just incompetence, who's to say, but there's no reason not to
get angry about the whole thing.
And speaking of getting angry, one other thing that we need to get angry about, we talked about
Bernie S in prison over the past few weeks.
Bernie S being one of our correspondents who was apprehended by law enforcement authorities
and basically imprisoned on $100,000 bail because he had in his possession a red box, a red box
being that device that, uh, that has five tones emulating a quarter, you know, the sound
that it makes at a payphone when you drop in a quarter.
If you hold up the box to a payphone and emit those five tones or actually that one tone
five times, you can actually make free phone calls that way.
He was not caught making free phone calls.
He was not accused of making free phone calls.
He was accused of having a device that could be used to do that $100,000 bail.
So, uh, the other day I, uh, drove down with a friend to, uh, to Philadelphia to see him
in prison there.
I was told what the visiting hours were.
And first of all, the directions were, were reprehensible.
They, uh, they basically gave you directions from Philadelphia.
They didn't know how to get there from New York.
That's, that's a quote.
We don't know how to get there from New York, but here's how you get there from Philadelphia.
So I had to figure out how to get to the point that they started from in Philadelphia.
So that took a lot of time.
The visiting hours were from seven to 10.
And we got there at about, I guess, five after nine or so.
And that's when we found out that they have a policy that nobody gets in after nine o'clock
to visit.
Even though they're visiting out.
I mean, what's the point of telling people your visiting hours are seven to 10 if you have
to be in by nine, you know?
Or at least tell somebody, by the way, be here by nine or you won't get in at all.
So the thing is, after driving all the way from New York to see him and, and, and, you
know, meeting with this, uh, a bullet headed guy that, uh, that, that said, this is, this
is the way it is.
You just know, and you should know this more than anybody.
There are no exceptions.
There's no sympathy.
There's, there's nothing that you can't like prey on their conscience or anything like
that.
They won't say, oh, okay, you drove all the way from New York.
You can go in.
It's pointless.
They have their rules and that's it, you know?
So, uh, better chance getting a PC to cry.
Ooh, that's a good one.
Yeah, that's probably true.
So we wasted the, uh, the entire trip.
Bernie S did not get to see us.
We have no idea what's going on with him.
We have yet to be in contact with him and I'm sorry to everybody out there that was looking
forward to hearing about this next week though.
Well, you know, I'd like to say definitely, but who knows?
They may have some other regulation, you know, student ties only.
I don't know.
Who knows what they're going to come up with?
So we'll have his story next week as far as what's going on there.
It's sad, you know, this kind of thing is happening all over the place and for ridiculous
reasons too.
Bernie S is one of the people that, uh, told lots of folks at Hope, uh, this past summer
what the holes were, you know, how, how it all worked.
A lot of security people got some, uh, some really good information from him.
Speaking of security, today is the day Satan has been released and, uh, Fiber, why don't
you tell us something about what Satan is and what it means to us?
Well, Satan is a security tool, which we commented on last week.
What does Satan stand for?
Satan actually stands for the security analysis tool for auditing networks.
It has nothing to do with, uh, with the great beast in hell.
No, it has nothing to do with, uh, Lucifer or...
I don't know why people made that assumption.
Because that's what it spells out, you know?
Yeah.
It's not his fault, not Dan Farmer's fault that it happened to spell that.
Well, as, as the, uh, authors of the tool pointed out, you're, if it bothers you to, you're
free to call it Santa.
Yeah, but then it doesn't make any sense.
No.
You'd have to say, what would you have to say then to make that?
Then you'd call it the, uh, security analysis network, uh, tool for auditing.
Okay, maybe it does something different when you do that.
Yeah.
All right, so tell us more about it and how it works.
Well, uh, we should start off by, uh, by saying that people could die.
That's, that's an actual quote from somebody.
It's an actual quote about Satan, yeah.
That was an America Online user that, that somehow commented on, on the program before
it was released.
People could die.
What are some of the other quotes that have come out?
Uh, some of the other quotes are, it's like, randomly mailing automatic rifles to 5,000
addresses.
I hope some crazy teen doesn't get a hold of one.
That was from the Oakland Tribune.
We have, Satan is like a gun, and this is like handing a gun to a 12-year-old.
L.A. Times.
Uh, let's see.
All these gun analogies.
Oh, yeah.
It's like distributing high-powered rocket launchers throughout the world, free of charge,
available at your local library or school, and inviting people to try them out by shooting
at somebody.
Do you know, there are, there are many countries in the world where newspapers have been described
the same way as, as handing out weapons to people because it's, it's freedom of speech.
It gives people ideas.
You know, these, these idiots at newspapers ought to think twice before they say stupid
things like that.
The, the most down-to-earth statement was from the New York Times.
It discovers vulnerabilities for which we have no solutions.
Well, that might be so for one or two vulnerabilities, but most of the vulnerabilities it discovers,
there are very easy fixes for it.
In fact, uh, all of them are.
I mean, it knows send mail technique, it knows, uh, it knows, uh, any number of techniques,
and, uh, if you don't know those techniques, you will be defeated.
That's right.
So, with all that out of the way, tell us some more of the things, some of the, uh, frequently
asked questions, perhaps.
Uh, well, basically, Satan, for those of, uh, those of you out there who don't know,
is, um, an auditing tool for network-based security, as opposed to a program like, say,
COPS, which is meant for host-based security.
Host-based security being, for example, checking for the security of passwords, checking for
the permissions on various important system files, and so forth.
Network security is basically banging on all the system services that that machine is running
from the outside, and just seeing how secure that machine would be, as far as whether it
would be susceptible to problems with send mail, problems with remote procedure calls,
which would allow, uh, an intruder to spoof the machine into getting in through something
like, say, the remote login daemon, just as an example, or the remote execution daemon, which,
uh, is usually at the heart of the whole, let's spoof this trusted host, and get it to execute
a command without ever being on the machine.
So by checking for the fact that these programs are running, it's, uh, you can think of Satan
as sort of an all-in-one, one-stop shopping security, uh, network auditing tool.
You think it's more beneficial to hackers or to system administrators?
I think it's, uh, it's beneficial to everyone.
In fact, um, someone who's the casual 12-year-old who was just handed a handgun isn't going to
get, uh, as much use out of it as an adept system administrator would, because Satan doesn't
just do what, what it does the way it's shipped to do.
It also, it's, it's, uh, basically open-ended, and it provides a, uh, an actual scripting
language, which is interfaced through Perl.
Perl is a really popular scripting language on, uh, Unix-based machines, and I've actually
seen versions for, for Macs and PCs as well.
So it's, uh, it's, it's the scripting language of, of choice for, uh, web users.
And, uh, as, as people know, Satan is accessible with, uh, Mosaic or Netscape.
And I think that's, that's really the only way you can use it.
Yeah, the only way you can use it is, is by interfacing to it from Mosaic or Netscape.
You can't just type Satan at a prompt and have it work that way.
No, no.
Okay.
But, um, the, uh, the open-endedness makes it extremely useful as, as a security tool,
because, uh, if you find that Satan doesn't check for some bug that you're aware of, or
some new bug that comes to light, it can be added to Satan to actually check for that bug.
Uh-huh. So it's, it's, it's user-definable then.
Yeah, it's, it's, besides all the, all the, the bugs that it checks for out of, out of
the box, or rather out of the, the tar file when you FTP it off the net, it's, uh, it's
very flexible.
Very interesting.
And, uh, do you have a site where Satan can be obtained?
Yeah, uh, Satan can actually be obtained, to my knowledge, from, uh, fish.com, which is
where it originated from.
At 4 p.m. today.
At, at 4 p.m.? Was it 4 p.m.?
I think 4 p.m. was the time I was told.
4 p.m. Greenwich.
Oh, is it Greenwich time?
Yeah, so it was available from 10 o'clock this morning.
I see.
Okay.
Well, we've been running it a few times on a few systems, and we've got some, some
interesting results.
I know a lot of systems decided to go off the net today, thinking that that's, it's
like the Michelangelo virus, you know.
Just turn your computer off and go outside today.
As if tomorrow everything is going to be fine, you know, it's, it's, it's not going to
go away, and you do well to get a copy of this and run it, or have your system
administrator run it and, and decide if there are any vulnerabilities or not.
Well, in some ways, I guess then Satan was, was useful.
You can say, uh, Satan's coming out today, turn it off, go to the park.
Maybe, maybe.
But I do think people need to have a fire lit under them sometimes to, to actually, uh,
confront the issues.
Yeah.
And if there are security problems, this is the only way you're going to actually, ever
actually fix them.
Yeah, you can, you can really only run away from evil for so long.
That's right.
Well, Satan is here now, and we must all deal with it.
Yep.
So, I'd like to know how, how that turns out.
By the way, we both have, uh, new email addresses as of, uh, this week.
That's right.
Our, our site has finally gone up.
2600.com is reality, and we're still constructing it.
We're in the process of putting up FTP and, uh, worldwide websites.
Uh, but you can actually now mail us, um, your mail address would be Fiber at 2600.com.
That's correct.
That's P-H-I-B-E-R.
Yep.
And, or the Emanuel at 2600.com.
That is our address from now on.
E-M-M-A-N-U-E-L.
And, uh, what a lot of fun that was, setting that system up.
I think it's very secure, too.
I think, uh, considering some of the, I, I don't want to be issuing a challenge here,
but I just, I think it's secure.
I mean, maybe it's not.
The thing is, you know, with the net, you can never be surprised when something proves to be,
um, uh, to be insufficiently secured.
I've, I've had it happen many, many times over the past few years,
and it's, it's always been a learning experience.
So, by all means, I'm open to more learning experiences.
Yeah, there's, there's always some new bug yet to be discovered.
Mm-hmm.
All right.
Well, we'll probably discover it, uh, very quickly if that, if there is a bug out there right now.
Okay, our phone number is 212-279-3400.
The program is off the hook, and we're talking about all kinds of, uh, neat things today,
including the release of Satan and ISDN, people in prison, and whatever else is going on in the world of,
God, I hate to say the word cyberspace, but speaking of cyberspace, there was another program on tonight on, on Discovery.
It was called Cyberspace, I think.
What an imaginative name that was.
Uh, what'd you think of that one?
I think it could have been a lot worse, but then again, they didn't really do anything different.
No, it didn't really drive any point home.
Well, at least we can be thankful for that.
They could have drove the point home that hackers are evil, but they didn't do that.
Well, they certainly left it in people's minds that hackers could be evil.
Could be.
You had that, that, that artist guy, you know, that wanted to put paintings on the net, but he was worried about hackers.
I don't understand.
You want to put your paintings on the net.
What, what are hackers going to do?
What, are they going to draw graffiti on your paintings or something?
He, he never really, you know, completed the thought.
Yeah.
He just said he was worried about hackers, but not how.
What, are they going to steal the paintings?
Yeah.
Keep a copy on your Macintosh or something.
I don't know.
Well, likewise, though, I mean, on the flip side, at the beginning of the show, they did comment on how hackers actually built the internet at major universities.
Yeah, those black and white photos.
Yeah.
Of hackers of days gone by.
That was, that was something.
All stills, too.
No, they didn't move back then.
Well, it's, it's another look at the net, but, uh, and then you got a good look at BAI again.
But, you know, they never thank BAI.
They always thank NBC News Archives and all these other, you know, weird organizations, but, uh, they never thank, uh, this radio station here.
And, and they should, because if it wasn't for this place, a lot of what we say would never be heard by anybody.
And, you know, all of our listeners out there, I don't know, you'd have to hobble along with, with the likes of CompuServe and, and, uh, America Online and people like that, that, uh, have their own experience.
This way, at least, you know, you actually have a chance to say something yourself and to ask questions.
But enough talking about it, let's actually do it.
Let's take some questions and comments.
Good evening, you're on the radio.
Hey, good evening.
It stinks you drove all the way to Philadelphia and you didn't get to see Bernie?
We drove past Philadelphia, in fact.
We went past the airport and everything.
Yeah, we had a, quite a tour of the whole place.
But, uh, yeah, it was, it was pretty annoying.
Yeah, you should have clobbered that guy.
Well, you know, while there may be some advantages to clobbering a guy inside a little Checkpoint Charlie thing that works for a prison, I couldn't help but think of all the repercussions that might follow such an event.
So, yeah, I clobbered him in my mind.
Well, that's probably for the best.
It's nice to hear you give a plug for BAI there.
You guys are into radio.
You guys are into, um, telephones.
I was wondering if you could give me any pointers on, um, equipment that would be beneficial in trying to win radio station contests.
Say I pay attention to the rules for maybe five or ten different contests on different radio stations, and I flip around the dial during the afternoon if I'm free, and I want to be that first caller, that 95th caller, whatever it takes.
What are some good approaches or good equipment that you could recommend?
Can we patch Agent Steel in?
Yeah, Agent Steel and Dark Dante might be the proper people.
Well, now, how did they do it back in California?
Keep in mind, though, they got caught.
Yeah.
So, that's something you don't want to have happen if, uh, if you do something like that.
These guys actually managed to get Porsches out of the deal.
Yeah.
Which, um...
Well, actually, if we, uh, look at the, uh, example of equipment needed as, from that West Side newspaper, it's pretty much the same.
Um, normal PC and, uh, normal...
Well, you need some knowledge, too.
Oh, yeah, well, forgetting that part of it, but...
I think that's what the caller is after, is the knowledge part of it.
Now, basically, most people are given one of these, what, 955 numbers whenever they give a contest out?
Uh, I don't think they use those anymore.
They don't use those anymore?
No, more and more, I see radio stations using 800 numbers.
Really?
Yeah, so they can have callers pull over on the road and call them toll-free.
Wow.
And, of course, they don't stay on for long.
No.
So, it's not much of an expense.
Yeah.
I guess, yeah, they can do that.
Okay, now, the 955 exchange, though, was kind of a choke exchange.
Yeah, right.
It only allowed, say, two calls from one central office to go through.
Right, that was to keep the whole telephone network from clogging up.
So, what, how does this keep the phone network from clogging up?
Uh, well, it doesn't, but I guess nowadays they don't care about those kinds of things anymore
because, uh, you know, we have the intelligent network.
Well, I guess one way around it would be to find out what the real phone numbers are.
That's always, you know, a way to get by certain restrictions.
If you can somehow engineer your way into the radio station and figure out what all the phone numbers are
and how they correspond, for instance, um, okay, give you an example.
We give out 279-3400.
If we were to say we're going to take the, uh, uh, the 20th caller,
well, maybe you dial 279-3420, and that would be line 20,
and, of course, that line would light up before all the others
because you would hop in on that one, and all the others would jump one by one.
Um, that's one possible way of doing it, a very simplistic way of doing it.
Yeah.
Okay.
Or you could pay, uh, one of 9X's computers a visit
and, uh, disable everyone else from reaching the station
so that only you can get through,
which is, uh, basically what, uh, Agent Steele and Dark Dante did in California.
If you, say, install call forwarding on one of their lines
and have the, have the, all the calls forward someplace else to, say, a busy signal,
nobody would know any better.
They would hear a busy signal.
They'd assume they didn't get through, uh, to the people at the radio station.
Who knows?
Maybe all the lights light up anyway, and they don't know what, uh, what it means.
Uh, but you come in on the one line that is not forwarded,
and you know the phone number for that one.
And everybody else calls in on the regular number, and they get forwarded,
but you know the, the, the line one step above.
Uh, this is all things I'm coming up with off the top of my head right now.
You think along those lines, and I'm sure one day you'll figure out a way
to get into a whole lot of trouble.
Well, uh, they gave me a whole bunch of stuff to work with, uh,
and I'm gonna, I'm gonna get cracking.
Okay. Well, good luck there.
Thanks.
Thank God we never have contests here.
All the, uh, ammunition we, we feed to our listeners.
All right.
Um, do you think we should issue some sort of a challenge somehow?
For, uh, radio concerts?
All right. Let's see if anybody can be, uh, the same caller, like, uh, twice in a row.
All right? That's a nice, simple thing.
Oh, people do that all the time, don't they?
Not twice in a row.
We have, we have sometimes, you know, Rebel gets on twice in a show.
Yeah.
But, uh, I want to see someone get on twice in a row.
Oh, okay.
That's a simple thing.
Okay.
All right. Let's see if anybody can do that.
212-279-3400.
And if they do what?
Um, then.
They'll win, uh.
Then we praise them somehow.
Yeah, they'll win praise.
They'll win praise over the air.
Sure. That's the highest thing you can attain.
Good evening. You're on the radio.
Emmanuel. Jeopardy! Jim here. How are you?
Hi. How are you?
Uh, I was home watching the, uh, 10 o'clock news on Channel 5.
They had a thing that spy shops across the country got busted today.
Yes, I heard that myself.
Something about, about selling eavesdropping equipment.
Do you know more?
Uh, not tremendously much.
Uh, what they, uh, were, uh, selling were apparently, uh, small, hidden, uh, cameras and microphones.
Uh, seemed illegal, if a bit underhanded to me, but then again, isn't most of life like that.
Uh, and, uh, and that was it.
Uh, and, but the interesting thing is supposedly customs is involved.
I don't really understand why.
They were, they were supposedly illegally smuggled in.
I don't know why you'd have to illegally smuggle microphones and, and, and chandeliers and whatever else they used, uh, into this country.
You could easily make those devices here.
Yeah, I'm surprised that this stuff is illegal.
I had never heard that, uh, the use of it was illegal, but the ownership, possession?
I mean, what if you want to, uh, monitor your babysitter and make sure she's not beating up on little Emanuel, uh, if slash what is it?
Right.
Uh, yeah, um, the thing that, that bothered me was at the end of the reporter, Penny Krohn from Fox News, said that if you've left the paper trail from purchasing these, customs will be knocking on your door.
Wowee.
So, uh, a word of advice to all the listeners, uh, tell them that you bought this for a friend in God knows where and come up with a fake address for your friend.
And maybe join him there.
Maybe what?
Maybe join him at that fake address.
That might be good if you've bought a lot.
The way things are going.
Okay, thanks for the info.
Okay, check your email later.
All right.
Bye.
My email at 2600.com.
Wow, how exciting.
It's, it's really neat to be able to look at a machine and know that that's where your mail actually is, you know?
It's in this machine.
It's not somewhere in California.
So that's, uh, that's something.
Yeah, the, uh, the spy shop, uh, scandal.
Who knows?
I'll be in all the papers tomorrow, I'm sure.
But supposedly it happened at spy shops all over the country at the same time.
Hmm.
All raided for selling, uh, illegal monitoring devices.
Well, speaking of, uh, of monitoring devices, I've been playing with that, uh, frequency counter I brought in last week.
Uh, that's a device that allows you to walk up to a transmitter and it will read off onto the, uh, onto the frequency counter what the frequency is.
So if I walk up to the BAI transmitter on top of the Empire State Building somehow, uh, it'll say 99.5 FM on it and I'll be able to figure out that's what's transmitting off here.
Well, I've been driving all over the place and walking all over the place and I found some pretty interesting things.
One of the most interesting things I've found, well, apart from baby monitors and things like that, they're kind of neat.
You know, you, you, you see a frequency for a baby monitor, you tune to it and you hear a baby crying.
It's like they know what it's for.
That's, this is a baby monitor, it means I gotta make baby noises here.
I mean, people leave them on all the time so you hear all kinds of, of noises going on inside someone's home.
And they don't realize how powerful these things are.
The whole neighborhood can be listening in.
But apart from that, the thing I noticed that I thought was really interesting was driving down the expressway, Long Island Expressway, right at the Nassau-Suffolk border.
I picked up this weird frequency.
Comes over as 513.24 megahertz.
And I tuned to it on the scanner and it's a very, very powerful signal of absolute silence.
Absolute silence.
And you know what?
I'm able to receive that signal throughout Long Island, well into New York City.
And it's extremely powerful, never makes a noise, and nobody knows what it's for.
So if there's any radio people out there, please, turn your scanners to 513.24 and tell us what that is.
Don't you love mysteries?
Sure.
That's the kind of thing you have, when you play with devices like this, you constantly are finding things.
You know, you find, if you're next to a police car and he happens to speak into his radio, you'll get the frequency.
In a second, you'll get it.
So it's neat for those people that want to know what's going on.
All right, let's take another phone call.
212-279-3400.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
Okay, let me turn.
Going to turn down the radio.
Okay, hello?
Yes.
I'm a little nervous.
I'm a first-time caller.
Oh, that's okay.
Nothing to be nervous about.
I have a question.
It's going to sound a little bizarre.
All right.
How much can someone find out about you if they just have your first and last name?
Well, with a first and last name, let me give you an example.
I've got a CD-ROM database.
Uh-huh.
Now, with a first and last name, I can look up everybody in the country with that first and last name and narrow it down from there.
I can then say, okay, everybody in this state, everybody in this city, everybody in this area code.
Yeah, I can find the person eventually using those methods.
Once I find the person, then I have an address.
I can look up the address in various other databases.
You know, a lot of our lives are on computer now.
What about financial records, all that kind of stuff?
If it's in a bank someplace, if it's registered somewhere under that name, and if you can get somebody's Social Security number, you can find out an awful lot.
So you need the Social Security number, though.
But that's not too hard to get?
It's not too hard to get because you give it to so many different people.
I mean, you might give it to your cable TV company.
You might give it to your newspaper deliverers.
You might give it to the phone company.
Well, you don't need a Social Security number to look up a credit history.
All you need is a name and address.
Oh, great.
Yeah, our lives are pretty conspicuous.
Because I think somebody might be doing that to me.
That's all.
But what are the indications you have that someone might be doing that?
Things that were said.
I can't really say.
There were some things that were said.
That's all I can say.
That only I would know.
Bits of information, like something paid late, maybe?
Actually, it was more about...
See, I subscribe to a sports magazine.
And I was sent, you know, they wanted me to, you know, to get a credit card.
And it's, I mean, the sports organization wants me to get a credit card with their, you know, name on it or whatever.
Okay.
Because they got my name off of the mailing list from, you know, my subscription to this magazine.
Okay.
So, I sent something to somebody and they, and somebody else found out about it.
That's all I can say.
Uh-huh.
But I just wanted to know that.
Uh-huh.
Well, you know, they share mailing lists.
You don't have to, um, uh, to put up with this kind of thing.
You can tell them, don't, uh, you know, don't share my name with anybody.
Keep the, uh, you know, the mailing list private.
And they really do have to do that.
If you catch them not doing that, they can be in a lot of trouble.
Oh, okay.
But the thing is, there are so many.
Oh, it's already out now.
Yeah, there are so many different places that have your name and address that it's, uh,
you know, what I always do is I always give a slight variation on the name and address.
That way I know exactly who's talking to who.
So, if I see the, if I see the name spelled a certain way, then I know, hey, these people
get, you know, got it from, from these people here.
And that way I know who's talking to who.
And I think that's, that's at least the first step.
Um, I mean, these are all realities, but I, I wouldn't stay up nights worrying about it.
Because it's really, uh, it's almost like a no-win situation.
It's, you know, you, you, you could, they could find out your, uh, driving history and
everything else.
Yeah, that's actually, your driving history is actually something anybody can find out
by writing to the motor vehicle department.
Okay.
Okay.
I think it costs $1.50 or something, and, and anybody can find out, if I'm not mistaken.
I know that was, that was, uh, outlawed in California, but I believe it's still legal
here in New York.
Oh, that's terrible.
I didn't know that somebody could find, okay.
Yeah.
I thought that you needed a social security number, but, okay.
All right, we wish you luck.
Thanks a lot.
All right, take care.
Bye.
It's, um, something when people realize how vulnerable they are, and this is not because
of hackers that it's like this.
This is the way the world is being built, and we just happen to be playing around and
figuring these things out.
It's really something.
Anything, uh, you've discovered in the, uh, over the years that surprised you?
Um, I think too many things have surprised me.
Uh-huh.
As far as tying together different databases and things like that, you know, computers
talking to other computers and building this, this vast source of knowledge on individual
people.
Well, it's, it's, it's, it's obviously extremely dangerous.
The fact that, uh, things are getting more and more integrated and digitized or, or whatever
you want to call it.
Mm-hmm.
But, um, obviously the more things get online, the bigger the threats are.
And I think that, uh, people aren't really stopping to think how often their personal
information is collected and stored and bought and sold and, and so on.
And that, uh, you, you can't necessarily hide behind your social security number.
In fact, uh, that shouldn't even be used as a form of ID in the first place.
That's supposed to be illegal.
According to the, uh, social security act of, what is it?
1936.
1934, I think.
I'm not sure.
But, uh, that's been, that's been changed.
I think it's, that's been for so long now it's been used as, as your, your name in many,
many, many instances.
I think, you know, the best, the best defense is education.
A strong offense.
Well, that too.
I was going to say that.
But, you know, what, what is wrong with using aliases, different names, different social
security numbers, even as long as you don't use it to, uh, uh, you know, to, to steal,
to pilfer in various ways.
Keep your, your, your address private.
Use a P.O. box.
You know, there's no reason for people to know exactly where you are.
There's no reason for you to have your, your phone number listed under your name.
You can have it listed under somebody else's name.
There's all kinds of ways to protect your privacy.
You just have to use your imagination a little bit.
That's really what it boils down to.
It's certainly not going to be done for you.
All right.
Let's take another phone call.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Yeah.
Good evening, Emmanuel.
How are you?
Let me show up my phone.
Finally got through.
Bell Atlantic IQ card.
Yeah.
I had gotten one last year.
My wife's name was spelled wrong.
Uh-huh.
The password, the four-digit code, I'm not going to say anything.
When I called up to get a new card with the right name, the same password is on the new
card.
Really?
I'm surprised they didn't change it.
And then I'm using the card for the first time.
I mixed up two digits.
The operator will say, gave it to me and told me the right combination.
That's all.
The operator told you the right password?
Basically, yeah.
Wow.
Did she at least say, well, guess again?
Or that's real close or anything like that?
Pretty close.
She actually finished a sentence for you, though.
She said, this is what the password...
That's incredible.
It's just...
It never seems to amaze me how helpful they are.
These phone company people.
Okay.
Okay.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks for calling.
That's something.
Yeah.
Interestingly, the trend that they're going to with calling cards,
is kind of funny.
If you remember, calling cards started out as your 10-digit phone number
with a four-digit pin at the end.
This was shown to be insecure, because if someone knew that you had
a calling card, and they already knew your phone number,
all they had to do was find out what just four more digits were.
Right.
So they came out with calling cards that were all just a scrambled 14 digits.
Now they're going back and they're saying, no more scrambled 14 digits.
Make it something easy.
Make it something simple and easy to remember.
You can remember, like your phone number.
Yeah, your phone number.
There you go.
That's something new.
So we've come full circle.
Yep.
We're back to where we started.
But you know, there's something else even more interesting,
and that's the new calling cards that are actually words.
You seen those ones?
No.
You can spell out your own calling card.
Wow.
Yeah.
So, you know, your calling card could be, say, the word doghouse.
All right?
That's your calling card, plus a pin.
Hmm.
Now, I was on the phone with AT&T.
They're the ones that offer this.
And I was asking, well, what if someone else has doghouse, you know?
And then, you know what they told me?
They said, well, if that's the case, we'll tell you that that's already in use.
And I'm like, wait a minute.
All of a sudden, now I can find out other people's calling card numbers thanks to you.
That's really handy.
All we need is the pin now.
It's not too hard to do.
Okay.
212-279-3400.
Good evening.
You're on.
Yes, hello.
How are you?
Yes, go ahead.
Okay, well, we require people to say more than just that.
That's nice, but we do require a little more than that.
Good evening.
You're on.
Yes, good evening.
Just two bits of information.
The caller just before who was complaining about people possibly snooping, she can, among other things,
it won't cure it, but she can write to the Direct Mail Marketing Association, I believe.
I don't know the number.
They might even have an 800 number.
That might help cut down on the problem to be inundated by junk mail.
Now, you were saying a little while ago, I think, that you needed two lines because you
had trouble, you know, you wanted one for, let's say, email, another one for voice, another
one for data.
Yeah, you know, you want to separate them, one for voice, one for database.
Well, I don't even own anything resembling hardware except my little Casio, little notebook,
but there's a Mac user magazine, May 95, that talks about a bit of hardware for Apple users
that enables you to distinguish whether an incoming call is a voice, fax, or modem, enabling
you to use a single line for all three functions.
And I have the information.
They have an 800 number, et cetera, if you want to pick it up.
Sure, go ahead.
Oh, okay, let's see now.
Maybe I would have, all right, write to you this, let's see.
Well, it's under GeoPort Technology.
It emulates a modem and software, blah, blah, blah.
Apple, it costs about $130, and you need to spend a little more.
Let's see now, 800 number, okay, adapt your kit.
Anyway, the Cypress, this might be correct, 408 area code.
This is for an adapter kit, GeoPort Telecom adapter kit.
This is an upgrade for the above.
They can give you information on the whole thing.
It's 408 area code, 752-2700.
And if you want to read about the whole article, because I don't want to take up the time,
it's the Mac user magazine, May 95, page 102.
There may be more software like that.
All right.
Well, thanks for updating us.
Okay.
By the way, did you ever find out about the false information being given out
as to what kind of line you had when you tried that experiment about two weeks ago?
The, what are you referring to?
Oh, to find out whether I think you had a certain grade of phone line
enabling you to upgrade your own line to the fiber type of technology.
You mean the ISDN?
Yeah, the ISDN, yes.
Well, we do know that it's not entirely correct.
When you call 1-800-GET-ISDN and you enter your phone number,
sometimes they'll say it's not available when it is.
Yes.
And actually, we have yet to actually get it.
Oh, I know.
Oh, it was about whether the caller ID would show up on your line,
whether you were transmitting it or not.
Right.
That was totally erroneous.
Yeah, there are.
It seems to be getting that wrong, too,
where it's saying that your area does not yet have caller ID when, in fact, it does.
Yeah.
Would the Public Service Commission maybe try to help them get their act together,
or shame on you, or what can be done?
Well, it would be nice, but let's be realistic here.
The Public Service Commission really can barely figure out how to work a phone themselves.
Okay.
Oh, man, good program.
All right.
Thanks for calling.
Yeah, I think the caller kind of missed the point.
We don't care what type of call is coming in.
Right.
We want to be able to use voice and data at the same time.
Mm-hmm.
I can usually tell whether an incoming call is voice or data
because I don't get incoming data calls.
Yeah, and usually the incoming voice calls respond when you say hello.
Yeah, and the other thing just...
Most of them.
Yeah.
Word to the wise, stay away from GeoPort adapters.
Why is that?
Because it's a product that is...
Well, GeoPort adapters are kind of big with PowerPC, PowerMac users,
and it's just a particular product that has all kinds of nightmare stories associated with it
as far as getting it to operate properly to the point that people that I know,
at least PowerMac users, don't use it and avoid it with a passion.
All right.
Let's take one more phone call.
Good evening.
You're on.
Hi, Emmanuel.
I'm just turning down my radio.
I got two phone lines here, and I was trying to do what you asked someone to do before,
try to call in two times in a row, but...
Couldn't do it, huh?
It aligned.
Now, I had it a couple of times, but it cut off.
But you didn't know for sure that you were two in a row, though.
Yeah.
There's no way to know until you pick it up.
That's true.
Like, right now, you're the last call in the sequence,
so I don't think that you're the next call because there is no next call.
I was probably blocking myself then.
Maybe.
The call from calling in on the second line.
That's possible.
All right, well, let me just take one more second and tell you that
my father knows Morse code, and you probably already know this,
but when you turn on the Scout, it spells out S-C-O-U-T.
That's what I thought it was doing.
That's the frequency counter.
It plays itself in Morse code.
Well, that's good that somebody was able to figure that out for sure, though.
Okay.
All right, thanks for the info.
Take care.
Take care.
Well, that's our show for this week.
Next week, do you think we'll get anywhere with ISDN?
Somehow, I don't think we will.
Is this ever going to happen?
We might have to move to another state to get it to work.
We might have to turn to the cable companies sometime in the future.
There you go.
They're coming to town in a couple of months, I think.
Really?
Yeah.
All kinds of competitions on the horizon.
So beware, 9X.
Your days are numbered.
All right, that's our show.
On that ominous note, we're going to leave it.
Thank you.
We'll see you again next week for another edition of 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 cough.
It couldn't get much worse, but if it could, it would.
Bumbin' it bombed for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
Bumbin' it bombed!
Bumbin' it bombed!
Thank you.
Good evening.
In the news tonight, the circus arrives in Washington and some Democrats liken the big show to the acrobatics and sleights of hand
being performed by Congressional Republicans.
The CIA and State Department are taken to task for their roles in Guatemala,
and in our region, a look at the imminent decline of health care for the elderly,
and concern over the planned reopening of one of the world's most poorly run nuclear power plants.
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, April 5, 1995.
First to Washington for the Pacifica National News.
The final peg of the GOP contract with America is being hammered down in the House.
The five-year, $189 billion tax cut measure offers a $500 per child tax credit for many families
and a reduction in taxes for many corporations.
It's expected to pass later tonight.
President Clinton commented to reporters on the Republican plan.
I do not believe that it's wise to have a tax cut of this magnitude where, with the deficit we've got
and with our need to invest in our future and our children,
where 1% of the people get 20% of the benefits and 12% of the people get half of the benefits.
House Budget Chair John Kasich says by voting for the Republican tax cut plan,
the Congress will be shifting power away from Washington and back to their communities.
The beauty of what we do today, we not only give you tax relief,
but we also have more deficit reduction, $60 billion more in deficit reduction
than the entire president's budget.
And you know what?
When it comes to deficit reduction and balancing the budget,
you ain't seen nothing yet.
The GOP plans to celebrate the end of the first 100 days of Congress later this week.
The acting head of the CIA today denied allegations that the spy agency
took part in or covered up the murders of American Michael Devine
and Guatemalan rebel leader Efraín Bamaka Velázquez.
Senator Alphonse D'Amato says he's sorry if he offended anyone
when he used a mock Japanese accent while criticizing O.J. Simpson trial judge Lance Ito,
a Japanese-American.
The New York Republican says he was just making fun of the pomposity of the judge
and the manner in which he's dragging the trial out.
But Japanese-American groups are charging D'Amato's pigeon English
is exactly the kind of attitude that allowed Japanese-Americans
to be put away in concentration camps in World War II.
A coalition of environmental groups today launched a $1.8 million ad campaign
against the Republican contract with America.
Now, the polluters are back.
Jack Pope of the Sierra Club says the spots are designed to inform the public
about efforts to roll back environmental regulations
and on the link between the current Congress and those who pollute.
The 1994 election was a multibillion-dollar leveraged buyout of American democracy.
It's not only the campaign contributions you see up here.
It is the hundreds of millions of dollars that were poured into advertising campaigns,
think tanks, bogus stories, the whole paraphernalia of corporate America
trying to stop 25 years of environmental progress in its tracks.
...conservatives have argued that regulations need to be eased
because they cost businesses far more than they are worth.
Egyptian president...