Come closer.
I want to talk to you.
I'm going to tell you an astounding story.
The bold, the adventurous, the lovers, the schemers, the valiant and the villainous.
And now, it's stupendous, it's colossal, it's bigger than life.
Yeah, but what's the story about?
Every story has the same ending.
The salty story of a two-fisted guy who wanted to own his own boat more than anything in the world.
Against this fascinating background is woven the story of an imperishable love
and the enthralling saga of six desperate people.
All mixed up with Peter Boshan.
Monday mornings at 9.30, here on WBAI.
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 they could, they would
Bondi-li-li-bomper the best expect the worst
I hope that's understood
Bondi-li-li-bo!
Don't know!
I'm so broken!
I'm so broken!
I'm so broken!
All right, let's do it, aren't you?
Thanks a lot of everything!
And they're a littleue of
I'm so broken!
Noel What if you!
Let's do it!
Let's do it!
That will be perfect.
What if you werevit?
Oh my little Oklahoma!
I wanna love you!
Dogs michael, verse 1!
And a very good evening
to everybody. The program is
Off the Hook. This is
Emanuel Goldstein here with you
on this Wednesday night
where we have all kinds of
fun things lined up.
It's just about two minutes
after 10 o'clock and
we have with us in the studio
today, we have FiberOptik
over there. Say hi.
We have Sarlo over here from Chicago.
Hola. How you doing?
What's new in the hacker world in Chicago these days?
Not a whole heck of a lot.
Another interesting
thing that I noticed
that you
brought up in the last show was
the 9X billing information.
Yes, and I don't mean to cut you off. I think
Bernie S. is calling in right now. Let's see if he is.
Good evening.
Good evening.
You have a collect call from
Bernie S.
To accept the call,
please dial 9 now.
If you do not want to accept this call,
please go ahead.
You are now connected.
Bernie S., this is Emanuel. Are you there?
Yes, Emanuel. I am here
in federal prison.
Okay.
Well, apart from that, it's good to hear your voice.
Say hello to
Sarlo and also to
Fiber Optic, who are both here.
Hello, Fiber.
Hey.
Hey.
I guess I'm going through what you went through
not much more than a year ago.
Actually, about a year and a half ago.
Well, now, first of all, is there an update you have for us this week?
Well, the update is my attorney has filed a motion for the court to observe something
called the Speedy Trial Act, which requires the federal government to indict anyone that they
arrest within 30 days of their arrest. And I have been in jail for well over 30 days and
have yet to indict me. And we're trying to get them to drop the charge based on their denial
of my rights to due process.
Now, it seems pretty clear they've denied that right. Now, why is it they're allowed to get away
with it?
Well, the government seems to find all these loopholes around the Speedy Trial Act. If
they file for a delay, or if my attorney files for a delay, or if they order, for instance,
they ordered a psychological evaluation of me to determine whether I'm a dangerous person
or not to society, and also to determine whether I'm competent to stand trial. And that took about
a month to get the evaluation done and get the report written. And their standpoint is that
that time that it took to get that report done should not count towards the 30 days that they're
supposed to have.
So since I was originally arrested on Pennsylvania state charges, and then about a month or so
after that, those charges were dropped, and the federal government picked it up. And if you
subtract the month that they used for the psychological evaluation, it has been only just about a month
at this time that they've kept me here as far as they're concerned.
Okay. Well, then, even if you do play by those rules, they should do something in a matter of days,
right?
Next week.
Next week.
But I'll be honest with you, I have learned here from frequent false starts not to get
my hopes up too much, because they always seem to find some other reason to prevent my release.
Now, last Thursday, there was supposed to be a grand jury hearing involving two of your
friends. How did that go?
Well, from my understanding, only one of them was permitted to testify in front of the grand jury.
Neither of them had anything derogatory to say about me, obviously. They're my friends.
The one they talked to for about an hour, the Secret Service talked to for about an hour,
and the other one, the Secret Service talked to him, and they let him speak to the grand jury
for a few minutes. But when they realized that they weren't going to be able to get anything
negative about me out of him, they dismissed him. So they're not interested in hearing,
they're not interested in having anything positive presented about me to the grand jury,
obviously, because that could hurt their case.
So they're just looking for dirt. So I guess anybody interested in this point at, you know,
exposing any dirt on you should contact the grand jury. Is that how it works?
I would think so. All those grand jury proceedings are held in secret in this country.
Secret trial only. Not only is it a secret trial, only the prosecuting side of the legal world
gets to talk to the jury. The defendant nor the defendant's counsel is permitted to be there
or know anything about what goes on at the grand jury proceeding. So it's a very one-sided presentation
to a group of 12 laymen or laywomen, as it may be, of the government's position.
Now, Bernie, let me ask you one thing. Did you get any mail from last week?
I got a lot of mail. I want to thank everyone who took the time out to write me a letter or a card
or to send me some magazines. This place is like one of these sensory deprivation chambers
because there's really nothing here to stimulate my mind. So that really lifted me out of my depression
for a while. I appreciate that. And there are probably eight or ten people. I can't name them all,
but I just want to give a generic thank you for everyone. That's great. And I want to thank them,
too, because that makes so much of a difference. It really does. It's hard to convey how isolating
an experience this is, although I'm sure Mark can relate to it.
And, of course, we'll give you a chance to give out the address again in a little bit.
I'd like you to tell Fiber, because he didn't hear this last week, or actually he wasn't here last week
to hear it, but the law that supposedly they think they have you on, that federal statute,
I have a copy of it here in front of me, as a matter of fact.
Oh, great.
Would you like me to read it?
Do you want me to explain to Fiber there?
How long is it?
It's short.
Okay, go ahead.
It's under Section 1029 of the United States Criminal Code. Title 18 is a federal criminal
code, and Section 1029 is Fraud and Related Activity in Connection with Access Devices.
Now, as people out there listening may know, an access device can be almost anything.
A telephone calling card code could be an access device.
A computer could be an access device.
A telephone could be an access device.
Anything used to – a credit card could be an access device.
Anything used to enter an access device, such as someone's index finger, could be considered
an access device, theoretically.
But anyhow, they added – Congress last year, October 21st, added a couple of additional
subsections to Section 1029, namely Subsection A, 6, A, and B.
And Subsection A, 6, I will read.
It is whoever, knowingly and with intent to defraud, uses, produces, traffics in, has control
or custody of, or possesses a scanning receiver, is – let's see.
Shall, if the offense affects interstate or foreign commerce, be punished as provided
in Subsection C of this section.
And that goes on to say, a fine under this title, or twice the value obtained by the
offense, whichever is greater, or imprisonment for not more than 15 years, or both.
Ah.
Well, Fiber, I'd like to ask you, does that surprise you?
No, it doesn't, actually.
I was charged with Title 18, Section 1029, specifically with the access device fraud.
And the way they tried to apply it to me was possession of passwords.
Ah.
Let me see here.
That's – it looks like A, 6, Sub 2, A.
That is – let's see here.
Offering an access device, or selling information regarding, or an application to obtain an
access device.
Is that what –
No, actually, it was along the lines of possession of 15 or more access devices.
Okay.
Yeah, I seem to remember reading that somewhere.
That must be on the next page.
I didn't bring that one with me.
But, yeah, there's a whole bunch of stuff here related to access devices.
I didn't read Subsection B of this, and that is whoever, knowingly and with intent to defraud,
uses, produces, traffics in, has control, or custody of, or possesses hardware or software
used for altering or modifying telecommunications instruments to obtain unauthorized access to
telecommunications services is also guilty of the same statute.
And that's what the original complaint against me from the federal government was worded for
that particular statute.
And whether they're going to throw that out and charge me with another thing after the
grand jury proceedings, I don't know.
But that's what is standing as the only standing charge against me at this time.
Well, it would seem to me that there should be a limit on how many things they can hold
in their hand here.
So they can't charge you with one thing, so they hold you for 30 days and charge you
with something else.
That's what they can do with impunity, it seems.
There's really no defense against that.
I guess the fiber didn't run into that.
But I talked to one gentleman here about a week ago.
I don't recall exactly what I was.
He was charged with some sort of white-collar fraud thing.
And they didn't have enough evidence on him.
So what they did is after 30 days, he filed this motion to have the charge dismissed, which
it was.
And about an hour later, before he was released from jail, the U.S.
marshals came and charged him again with the same offense.
And that happened over a year's period of time, seven different occasions.
They dropped the charge and recharged him with the same crime seven times.
And then finally, he went to trial, I believe.
He was found guilty, and he's spending time here now.
But the fact is, his due process rights were denied for nearly a year by just misapplying
this Speedy Trial Act rule that they're supposed to follow.
Now, as far as comparisons between the prison that Farber was in and the prison you're in,
obviously, your prison is a lot worse.
As far as classes, is there a particular rank?
Yeah.
Well, informally, according to one of the guards I spoke to here, or correctional officers,
as they're called, he thought this was probably one of the top five most secure federal institutions
in the country.
They're changing it from medium-high security.
I'm sorry.
They're changing it now from medium security to medium-high security.
And I don't know what the conditions were where Fiber was, although I was up there.
In fact, as you probably remember, Emmanuel, a bunch of us went up there in the dead of winter.
We dropped them off there.
And at that time, it certainly wasn't a very friendly place in the dead of night.
Very foreboding looking.
And this place, even though I got here at the end of April, it looked equally imposing,
although there wasn't high snow drifts all over the place.
There were very imposing-looking razor wire fences all around the place.
Movement here is restricted to 10 minutes on the hour.
You are permitted to move from the main housing unit.
There are eight main housing units in a compound.
Actually, there's four main housing units, and each one is split into a left and a right section.
There's a recreation department, which consists of a great big yard with a track.
You can walk or run around a weightlifting area.
And there's an education department, which consists of a library with a small law library
and some television sets with videotapes you can watch.
You can't watch broadcasts, only pre-approved tapes that they have on the shelf there.
So if you want to move from one section to another, you have to get a permission from a correctional officer
and get a pass and move within that 10-minute period on the hour.
And then several times during the day, they have head counts, which you must go back to your housing unit
and stand in your cell and wait to be counted so they can get an accurate count
to make sure people haven't escaped, although I can't see how anybody could possibly escape from this place.
Right. Well, the head counts are something that you're familiar with, right, Bob?
Yeah, I'm familiar with that.
What about this 10-minute thing?
No, the controlled movement I didn't have to deal with.
Were you in the camp or the FCI?
Yeah, I was in the camp.
What you're describing sounds like an FCI.
Yes, I am in the FCI.
There is a camp.
A lot of these institutions have what's called an FCI, a federal correctional institution,
and an FCP, or FP, what is it?
FPC.
FPC, a federal prison camp.
The camps, they don't have fences around them, do they?
No, no, they don't.
Okay.
So you can theoretically just walk off the place,
although I'm sure they'll catch up with you pretty quickly if you're in one of the camps.
Yeah.
This place is surrounded by 20-foot-high razor-wire entangled fences,
and then inside of that, about 20 feet inside of that,
there's another 20-foot-high razor-wire ensconced fence.
And between the fences, they have these towers with large birdhouses on them.
And I wondered, why are there birdhouses perched all the way around this perimeter of this compound?
And after talking to people here, after I was here two or three weeks,
I realized these were surveillance cameras designed to look like they're birdhouses.
So they're Purple Mountain, Purple Martin birdhouses, people familiar with birdhouses.
The Purple Martins can enjoy birdhouses that have maybe 20 different little apartments in them.
Wasn't there a birdhouse right next to the visiting area in your prison, Purple?
Yeah, there was.
You think that was a camera?
Probably was.
Well, you know, I might go over there again and just take a look at it,
because I can go over there and I don't have to visit anybody.
It's also, this place is very well equipped with remote-controlled colored zoom video cameras
in most parts of the compound.
I happened to get a peek through the windows into the control center the other day,
and it's just a wall, actually several walls of color monitors.
And some of them look like they had been zoomed in to maximum position,
because it looked like you could virtually read a newspaper over someone's shoulder.
It was a very high-resolution surveillance.
That's unbelievable.
Now, the Ferriton Complex, do they have a camp as well?
Yes, they do.
But they didn't see fit to put you there?
Oh, no, they wouldn't put me there.
I guess they consider me much too dangerous to put anywhere else but inside here.
Although I haven't been accused of doing anything dangerous.
So, as far as we can tell, the only reason they think you're dangerous is why?
Well, we may be cut off in a minute, but if we are, I'll try to call right back.
Okay.
Phones here are limited to 15 minutes.
Yeah, I remember that.
The reason they think I'm dangerous is that when the Secret Service searched my house,
I have an extensive library of books, maybe 1,500 or 2,000 volumes of all kinds of esoteric subjects.
And I had two or three, actually three books on how fireworks and explosives are manufactured.
There were no explosive-making materials or bombs or fuses or anything like that found in my home.
However, just the possession of a few books alone seemed to concern the government enough to make them say,
I'm a danger to the community.
That's unbelievable.
Just that books can do this.
Books can put you in prison these days.
And it seems to have no bearing anymore.
So, that's why they consider me a big danger.
Also, I had a press card with my pen name, Bernie S.
Right.
I remember that.
Which was actually sort of a novelty press card.
Yeah, I remember.
It was a novelty.
Okay, he's gone.
Hopefully, he'll be able to call back.
Bernie S. talking to us live from federal prison.
This is an incredible case.
He's in there basically because he had software that could be used to modify cellular phones.
And there's certainly legitimate reasons to want to do that.
I don't know, Fiber, if you're familiar with the actual software he had.
It was basically a way of making an extension out of your cellular phone.
Well, a lot of it is straight out of Motorola.
I don't know if you remember a couple years back.
Motorola actually got visited by a couple hackers.
Their computers did.
Their software was taken.
It's all done up in GW Basic.
They, I mean, it's really pathetic.
It's on a plant right outside of Chicago.
They sit there in like a sweatshop kind of area.
And with a camera, a friend of mine used to work there.
There's actually a small pocket camera about the size of a cigarette carton or a cigarette pack sitting up there on the wall where you can't really see it.
And they watch everything that you do.
Okay, I think he's calling back now.
Oh, great.
So let's listen carefully as they say this is Locktel.
Hello?
This is Locktel.
You have a collect call from...
There you go.
To accept the call, please dial 9 now.
If you do not want to accept this call, hang up now.
Please go ahead.
You are now connected.
How much of that do you hear, Bernie S.?
I don't hear any of it.
You don't hear any of it.
Well, basically she's saying you have a...
This is Locktel.
You have a collect call from, and then we hear your voice saying your name.
And then to accept this call, press 9.
Otherwise, hang up.
And then when we press 9, she says, you are now connected.
Go ahead or something.
Locktel is one of these long-distance resellers.
Evidently, from what I heard through the grapevine, it's actually U.S. Sprint, but they're reselling U.S. Sprint at three times U.S. Sprint's rates.
I believe it was GTE-related.
Actually, the phone system, Locktel is a division of GTE business systems.
Okay.
And yes, they are, in fact, reselling U.S. Sprint at least three times the cost.
Unbelievable.
Well, they have a very captive customer base, you might say.
Yeah.
Let's give out your address so that people can write to you.
Oh, certainly.
Make sure that people take this down because, as Bernie mentioned, getting mail is probably the most important thing.
It's certainly the simplest thing we can do right now.
There's all kinds of other more complicated things we should be doing on the legal front, but this is something we can all do right now.
The address starts with the name of the institution.
That's F-C-I-Fereton.
That's F as in Fox, A-I-R-T-O-N.
Then after that, it has the letter A, capital A, then the word left, L-E-F-T.
The second line is my name, which is Ed Cummings, C-U-M-M-I-N-G-S, with my inmate number, which is 48919-066.
And the third line is P.O. Box 420.
And the last line is in Fairton, New Jersey, 08320.
The government reads everything that comes in here.
They open the envelope and read the entire contents.
One person sent me a copy of Prison Life magazine, which is a magazine that's available at bookstands.
And by subscription, it's written for prisoners, and a lot of the articles are written by prisoners.
One of those was not allowed to be sent, be delivered to me, because they said there was an article in there that could have incited me to violence.
So I didn't get a chance to read that magazine.
You know, what you're going through would incite most people to violence, I think.
But I think they're permitting that anyway.
Who know me, I think they're sure that I'm not liable to act out anything in any violent way.
But this is a pretty depressing situation.
I am angry, but I'm not to the point where I want to do anything violent.
How are they treating you as far as guards and things like that?
Actually, they seem to be pretty professional.
I haven't gotten any unprofessional treatment for the most part, although they follow the rules to the book.
So if you ask for something, then if it's within the rules, if you go through the right procedures and paperwork, you'll get it.
Unless they find some reason to not give it to you, like a magazine that has an article that they don't like.
But generally, that's not too bad.
The county prison I was in before being sent here, when I was being held on charges of selling 6.5 megahertz crystals, which was then later dropped.
The county prison was a very unprofessional people.
The guards there were literally vicious.
I mean, they would scream at you and slap you, right?
It was just terrible.
They did that to us, the visitors.
Really?
Oh, they weren't very nice, I'll say that.
It was very depressing being there, and even more depressing having to leave and realize that you were still there.
Fiber, maybe you have some tips or handy hints on how to get through the day-to-day life of prison in a federal institution?
Well, uh...
Things to do, things not to do?
Well, I guess things not to do would probably depend on the institution you were in.
But I noticed, at least from my experiences, that if you get really aggravated about something and you're kind of compelled to file a complaint about it...
I'm sure, Ed, that you may have heard about the forms BP-9, 10, and 11.
Yes.
Uh, I found more often than not that, uh, strange things begin to happen to people who have a habit of filing those forms in, uh, in large quantities.
Hmm.
What kinds of strange things?
Well, I mean, uh...
Like, uh, people that tend to raise a lot of complaints are people that are most likely to be, uh, to have their property shook down all the time, or people that would tend to be hassled all the time, people that would, uh, you know, tend to have, uh, cop-outs rejected, and so on.
Hmm.
Well, I'll keep that in mind.
I did file a BP-8 1⁄2, I think it's called, to request that this Prison Life magazine actually be, the situation be reviewed, so I can take a look at the magazine.
But that hasn't been, uh, hasn't gone through yet, so I don't know what's going to happen from that.
But maybe I'll try to, uh, reserve, uh, my, uh, official, uh, request like that to keep them to a minimum.
Yeah.
Uh, the 8 1⁄2s are the administrative remedies.
That's, uh, what they consider to, uh, to be, uh, solving a problem or actually doing away with a problem without filing the BP-9, which is to the warden.
Sounds like you're really familiar with this whole procedure.
Yeah, actually, I am.
I have a feeling a lot of us are going to be...
I hope I don't, uh, end up, uh, experiencing the same familiarity, but one never knows.
Mm-hmm.
Um, any, any quick tips you can give me as far as dealing with the government, as far as the prosecution?
Uh, I haven't told them anything, uh, one way or the other.
They asked to, to speak with me, and, uh, my attorney advised me not to tell anything to them, even though I really don't have anything incriminating to tell them.
Um, I feel like they're at a real loss in dealing with these people, because they seem to have a, uh, almost a vendetta against anybody they charge.
Yeah. Well, the thing that I found really aggravating in, in dealing with the whole legal process is that, uh, little nuances and things that I thought were completely incorrect in the government's arguments were kind of glossed over at various points by my attorneys who told me that it wasn't necessarily so important that every nuance of what they were saying was exactly correct.
Yeah. Because they've already made several false statements to me, uh, in, in, uh, sworn testimony, and, uh, it's very frustrating when you sit there and you hear them say something that's blatantly false, and, and, uh, they seem to be able to do with impunity.
Yeah. Well, I mean, we had, uh, Secret Service agents completely flat-out lie on, on the, uh, witness stand.
Yeah, it's already happened to me so far, a couple of my bail hearings. Uh, one agent said that the, uh, the press card, which is a novelty item, it said press on one side and pull on the other, and it had references to the Three Stooges on it as well.
Um, he said it was, uh, definitely an illegal form of identification that could be used to commit all types of fraud.
It says...
Just having that in my possession could, uh, could, uh, make me a risk of flight, and that would, meaning I could use that to travel all around the country under this assumed name, which is my pen name, and known to thousands of people who read 2600 magazine.
So it says press on one side and pull on the other, and they think that's a fake press pass.
Yes.
That's, that's just so unbelievable. It's, it's almost funny.
Yeah. Um, wow.
So right now we're looking at, uh, maybe in the next week or so, something will happen.
Yeah, I may, uh, I may have some positive news, or not so positive news, uh, by next Thursday.
If you'd like me to call in then, I can try.
Uh, it's hard to get a hold of the telephones here, but, uh, how was it getting on a phone, uh, at, uh, Schuylkill?
Uh, it was, it was pretty bad. I mean, uh, it, it tended to get really crowded at times, and there were arguments and fights over the phones.
Hmm. Well, right now there are several people, uh, circled around me, uh, uh, looking, uh, pretty, uh, with imposing looks on their face.
Well, is there only one phone there?
Well, there's four here. Uh-huh.
Uh, 120 people in this particular part of the housing unit.
Right.
You can imagine that, uh, uh, there's some conflict.
Right.
Well, I don't think any of us, any of them are competing with us right now as far as, uh, on other places on the dial, but, uh, let's, let's hope not.
Okay.
Uh, I think you're the most interesting one right now.
Well, in light of, uh, that situation I just mentioned a minute ago, I think it might be wise for me to, uh, get off the phone and let some of these other inmates, uh, use them.
They're not all in here for, uh, uh, such things as I'm here for.
Okay. Well, keep trying to, uh, get a hold of us, uh, throughout the week. I know it's kind of hard sometimes, uh, but...
I'll do that.
...but just keep trying. If you don't get us, uh, one hour, you'll probably get us the next hour.
Okay. Well, Emanuel, Viper, uh, I appreciate your, uh, uh, being there. Uh, uh, just, just knowing the people out there are concerned about me is, uh, is a great help.
Yeah, and, uh, you know, we're, we're looking into all kinds of things, and...
By the way, if anybody can look up that particular statute on Westlaw or Lexus, if they have access to those services, um, if there's any case, since it's a new statute, if there's any case law anybody can find on it, it's only going to be available on those networks. It's not in the books yet.
Really?
Yeah, so...
Okay. Well, we'll have some people look into that. If anyone can help out, please, uh, let us know.
I'll call you next week.
Okay. You take care.
Thanks a lot.
All right. So long.
Bye-bye.
And that's, uh, Bernie S. live from, uh, federal prison. Let's give out his address one more time. Please, uh, write to him, send him clippings, send him whatever you can. Remember, you can't... What's the rules again? You can't send, uh, paperback books?
No, you can't send hardcover books unless they come directly from the publisher or directly from the bookstore, wrapped.
But you can send paperbacks?
No, you can't send paperbacks. In my case, it was only, I believe, three at a time.
Uh-huh. Okay.
And if you're going to send a card or something, it can't be anything with, uh, more than two dimensions.
Okay.
Because they think someone's going to hide something in it.
Right.
All right. Well, let's give out his address. Uh, please send him, uh, whatever you can.
Um, Ed Cummings. That's C-U-M-M-I-N-G-S. Prisoner number 48919-066. And that's, uh, Fairton, F-A-I-R-T-O-N-F-C-I. It's Federal Correctional Institute.
Institute. Uh, A-Left. And post office box 420. Fairton, New Jersey, 08320. Uh, his prisoner number. Now, yours was, let me see if I remember this.
3-2-1-0-9-0-5-4? That's right.
God, I can't believe I still remember your prisoner. I don't know.
And not to the address, but to any address you want. You leave a voicemail message and a copy of your, that person's bill will be mailed to whatever address that you deem appropriate.
Um, what's more is the, uh, uh, pretty much everything has become automated over there.
Uh, everything is, uh, entering a touch tone for something, including the customer service center.
Uh, you can call it up the business, the actual business office, enter in a few things and you can put in disconnect orders.
You can put in change orders. You can put in forwarding orders, et cetera, et cetera.
And there's no verification on this.
Well, I mean, who's going to go in and disconnect someone else's phone line?
I mean, that's, no one's going to do that, right?
That would be horrible. I mean, that'd be an awful thing to do.
There's too many checks and balances in place, you know.
There's too many, uh, um, verification things and, and, and authentication.
It's like they don't trust us, you know.
I was complaining last week about the, you know, the bank cards and the pins on the bank cards, you know.
Why the pin, first of all?
I mean, if I have the bank card, obviously I'm, I'm who I say I am.
And then I, I, I got to thinking, why the card?
I mean, come on, I should be able to just walk up to a machine and say, hey, I need money.
This is, I'm Emanuel Goldstein.
Please take money from my account.
Now, am, am I missing something here?
Yeah, well, what's more, I think if they're going to...
Wouldn't it be nice if they didn't not trust us so much?
Yeah, what I think would be really nice, too, is if they took it one step further and trusted us enough to log into their switches, perhaps.
Well, then things might work a little better.
Yeah, perhaps so.
I think that there's some people around the cities and, and, uh, you know, the cities who actually might do a really good job.
And, hey, let the NYNEX employees and Ameritech employees take a break off once in a while after working so hard.
Well, maybe try some other line of work.
Yeah, perhaps maybe street cleaning or the house cleaning industries.
Well, we have, we have an update on the NYNEX situation.
If you recall, last week we, uh, we, we called up this 800 number.
It was 1-800-698-3545.
And we found that we could enter, um, anyone's phone number within NYNEX territory and find out what it was they, they, their last payment, uh, was.
We found out, uh, how much, uh, uh, BAI's last payment was on, on the main phone line here.
Now, I should point out, it was, it was something like 500 bucks, but, and it was paid on time, too, also, which was, uh, something a lot of other people didn't do.
Uh, but that was only one of our many phone lines, and it was not the line that we make most of our calls on.
So, in case people think that our phone bill isn't as high as we claim it is, it's, it's, it's pretty high, believe me.
I've, uh, I've, I've witnessed, uh, some staggering numbers.
Now, we then called, um, NBC and found that they had not yet paid their bill except, uh, there was no, uh, record as to how much it was.
When we called CBS, however, that was the real shocker because they were $12,000 overdue.
And they, uh, they received a very stern warning from 9x, uh, when, um, when we entered their phone number.
Again, no authorization needed.
We just entered their 10-digit phone number, and we were warned that we were $12,000 overdue.
We, we made a $1, uh, contribution.
We said we made a payment of $1, and, um, I hope that helped.
I don't know.
Well, let's find out now.
Let's see if anything has changed.
We, we, we showed people how to do this last week, and we advised them if they cared about their privacy.
Maybe they should, um, maybe they should say something about this.
Let's see if it made a difference.
We have a, uh, dial tone.
Okay, let's get a dial tone.
That always helps.
That line does not work.
Let's try this one.
There we go.
Calling 9x Automated Service.
Thank you for calling the 9x Account Information Line.
If you are calling from a touch-tone phone, press 1.
This is a touch-tone phone.
Please have your 9x phone bill handy.
To repeat a message, press the star key on your phone.
If you need help, press 0, and your call will be transferred to a service representative.
Please enter your area code and telephone number.
Let's, uh, go for CBS again.
Please hold while we check your account.
Sorry, we cannot process your transaction.
Sorry, service representatives are not available at this time.
Please call your service center Monday through Friday between 9, 8...
Well, that's interesting.
Uh, that's not what he was doing a few minutes ago.
Let's, uh, let's try one other number and see if that's true of everybody.
Or maybe CBS just, uh, had a problem themselves.
Maybe they actually blocked access.
You can do that.
They don't tell you you can do that, but you can do that.
Thank you for calling the 9x Account Information Line Line.
Okay, let's skip ahead and hit 1.
Please have your 9x phone bill handy.
All right, we're just going to enter the number for 2600 Magazine, see what happens.
On your phone.
So far, nothing's happening.
Sorry, we did not understand your last response.
What's not to understand?
Please enter your area code and telephone number.
Well, I thought I did that, but let's try it again.
Please hold while we check your account.
For billing and payment information, press 1.
To order 9x products and services, press 2.
For a copy of your bill, press 5.
Okay, we want 1.
For the amount you owe and the last amount billed, press 1.
To report a payment, press 2.
To make payment arrangements, press 3.
To verify your last payment, press 4.
Now, that was the one that did not require a PIN.
Verify your last payment.
So we're going to press 4.
Here we go.
Please enter your three-digit customer code from your 9x phone bill.
Well, what do you know?
The number code is the three numbers that immediately follow your phone number.
They now require you to put in a three-digit PIN, just like they used to.
They went back.
And I don't doubt it's because many of us, hundreds of us, maybe thousands of us, after the show last week,
started exploring and finding out how much people and companies owed on their phone bills.
Pretty funny, huh?
A little bit of common sense taught to 9x there.
Free of charge.
That's what we do here.
What do you think?
Is anybody surprised by this?
Not at all.
Not at all, no.
Okay, so we can teach the phone company things.
All right, what shall we teach them next?
Hmm.
We'll think of something.
All right, so that's where that stands.
We're now a little bit more secure.
212-279-3400 is our phone number.
If you have some comments or questions or things like that, please pass them along.
You know, in this society where we're trusting people more and more,
did you hear about this latest one where they want to equip supermarkets with handheld scanners?
Basically, you would go into the supermarket, and they're trying this in a couple of European places,
and they think it might work here in the United States.
They give people a handheld scanner when they walk into the store,
and you're supposed to go through the aisles, and when you take something off the shelf, you scan it,
and then you put it in your basket, and then you walk out of the store and give the scanner back, hopefully.
Now, the thing here is it's based on the honor system, and if you, say, take something off the shelf,
and then you decide to put it back, you can unscan it.
But you have to remember to do that, otherwise you'll get billed for it.
And I'm just wondering, what's going to happen?
You know, all these people, they're pushing their carts through the stores.
I mean, we've all seen this, and little kids are throwing things into the basket,
and your parents don't see it.
They're going to have spot checks occasionally.
And some of these people could wind up with lengthy prison terms when they find that they have all these boxes of kicks or whatever
that they haven't signed out for.
It could be a rather messy situation.
Have I heard of this?
Yeah, a friend of mine back in Chicago, she actually did that not for something like the honor system where they pay for it,
but more for market research.
That's a little handheld device with a laser reader on it, and it was one of the more bizarre things I've seen,
that people actually will submit to something like this to show what their buying habits are.
That's true, you might have to give you a name or something.
Right, and I mean, this is for all these different stores.
I mean, do you really want someone to know in a database, oh, yeah, you bought, like, 52 packs of Trojans on Christmas Eve,
especially if you have a wife, I'm sure.
Yeah, things like that could be rather sticky.
What about...
Who are you?
Hi, it's Joker.
What about barcode fraud?
I mean, what about going in and having, you know, laser-printed barcodes for things that's only 39 cents,
having it in your wallet and scanning that and putting, you know, a nice filet mignon steak in your basket or, you know...
You see, the spot checks, and I guess these spot checks will be pretty lengthy because it'll be sort of like, you know, an IRS audit.
They're going to have to go through everything in your basket and see if it matches up.
I don't know.
There are going to be a lot of people doing things like that.
There already are a lot of people doing things.
I've seen it happen when people stick price tags over other price tags
and actually stick barcodes over other barcodes and get a lower price.
And it's going to be interesting when they try doing things like this.
Another...
I don't know if this is actually even technically possible,
but I've heard people talking about it as if it were.
When you just push your whole cart through the scanner,
and the whole cart at once is just all added up.
Yeah, that's like one of those AT&T commercials.
Like, you know, have you ever received a phone call on your wrist?
You will, and the company will bring it to you.
Yeah, in fact, I know what it is.
Have you ever checked out a supermarket one basket at a time?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that's...
What are you supposed to do with the basket?
I mean, you have no bags.
They don't address that issue.
Anyway, so that's our little technology update as far as things to look forward to.
Let's take some phone calls.
We've taken up so much time with all these people and prisoners and technological things.
So let's see who's out there.
Good evening.
You're on.
Hey.
Hi, Emmanuel.
How are you doing?
Um, I had a question about, uh, pay telephones.
I was talking to a couple people on a small network, and, uh, there's a payphone in Illinois,
a couple payphones, actually, that charge 50 cents to dial an 800 number.
That's not good.
Is this legitimate?
No, that's totally illegal.
You should report them.
Okay, I have an address and everything.
It's a company called USCI.
Uh-huh.
What you want to do is you want to contact your state public utilities commission and
make sure you report that and keep reporting it.
You know, if they don't fix it, report it every day if you have to.
But that kind of thing just is wrong.
And what I do, what I do, and, you know, I don't suggest other people do this, but this
is my personal way of dealing with it, so I feel a little bit better.
If I see a payphone, whether it be a co-cut or a non-co-cut, one of those stupid yellow
phones that 9X is planting everywhere, if it doesn't do something that I want it to do that
I think it should be able to do, like call a toll-free number for free, I just leave
it off the hook.
You know, and that drives them crazy sometimes because their computer reports that there's
a problem with the phone because it's off the hook and people assume it's broken.
Or you put a big sign on it that says this phone does not work.
Things like that, little things like that, they add up.
Right.
The funniest thing is that they have an 800 number to make it easier for their customers
to call.
I'll bet.
Right.
What are you going to do?
I don't know.
All right.
Well, thanks for calling.
So, that's something you've got to look out for, those evil payphones.
Yeah, I know that company from Chicago.
They have quite a few lawsuits, actually, against them, brought up by the FCC, but they keep
on putting out these payphones.
What's more, I don't know if anyone has heard about this, with payphones in Chicago and the
northern Illinois area, they have, a while ago, they said, oh, well, we're temporarily
changing our payphone rates to 30 cents per call.
Well, I mean, it was temporary, and they moved it up to 35 cents per call.
Now, we lead the country in the most expensive payphones in the world.
I think the biggest, the most flagrant abuse is local here, where there's a phone company,
an actual coca company called, I don't know what it stands for, but it's called PSC.
So, it's, to contact PSC, call this number.
Not the PSC, which is what you call to complain about us.
You know, it's a good way to mix people up, so they think, you know, it's like AT&D, you
know, or trying to do something like that.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hello.
Yes, go ahead.
I have a little bit of phone fun for you guys.
Okay.
Someone beeped me with this number a couple of days ago, and it's a good goof to play on
your friends who's got beepers, and we all know, you know, lots of people with beepers.
It's 1-800-545-6969.
Okay.
What you're going to get is a recording that's a little bit insulting.
Can it be played on the air?
I don't know.
That's a gray area, or I guess, you know, you're going to have to decide that.
Well, I think we'll just let our listeners decide since we don't have much time, but
tell us, what, you get beat with this number, and what?
Someone beat me with this number.
I'm assuming somebody played a goof on me.
I called it, and you get a very short recording that gives you a bad, you know, calls you a
bad name and tells you never, never to call this number again.
And, of course, it gets you a phone number when you do that.
I'm sure, I guess it does.
It does.
It's an 800 number.
They get your phone number.
They get your phone number that way.
So, if you're going to call that call from a pay phone, unless you know who these people
are, do you, in fact, know who these people are?
No, I have no clue.
Okay.
Well, I don't suggest calling 800 numbers that you don't know who they are unless you, you
know, are prepared for all kinds of weird calls back.
I'm assuming that it's probably some kind of a survey, or maybe it's some kind of mailing
list or something like that.
But, you know, it's a good goof if you want to play on your friends.
Right.
Okay, listen.
I have a quick challenge for you guys.
Yeah.
Something you said a couple of weeks ago about the red boxes and the pay phones.
Right.
If you were home on your phone, and I called you from a pay phone, and the time came for
me to drop more money into the phone, and you made the tones on your side through your
private phone, would the pay phone that I'm on hear it and recognize it as if I had done
it from the pay phone?
That's the question we were asking.
No, it won't.
Why is that?
The line is specifically set up to ignore the tones on there.
The actual, what the telephone is hearing on the caller's end is a signaling type of,
I believe it's signaling, or it's called automated coin toll system.
It's the actual thing that reads it on that line.
So if you're sending it through your line, it's not going to read it at all.
Even the most primitive systems way back 20 years ago?
Possibly on crossbar, maybe step-by-step, no.
I've never heard of it working from the other direction, no.
Well, for example, if I'm talking to someone from my house and they're on a pay phone, and
they drop money in even before the recording comes on, you hear the tone from my side.
Right.
Okay?
But his side wouldn't hear the phone if I did from my end.
Well, I mean...
He might hear the tones himself, but...
Right.
Is the actual computer going to hear it?
Right.
But the thing is, the telephone line on the pay phone is specifically geared to only listen
for those tones on that pair.
Right.
So...
An old trick that a lot of people used to do was simply take a neighboring pay phone with
a long cord and hold the mouthpiece...
Or rather, hold the earpiece up to the mouthpiece and drop a quarter into that one.
And since you weren't actually making a call on that one, it would come back.
But the one that you were making a call on would hear those quarters going through.
Right.
And it was using a red box without using a red box, really.
Does that work anymore?
I don't know.
I've actually found...
Take a try.
Yeah.
Yeah, I found a couple of pay phones in Chicago that don't mute the earpiece.
Those are mostly in the subway, though, so the noise is a little bit too much, so you
can't really get a clear tone on it.
That's true.
Listen, thanks for the call.
Well, speaking of interesting numbers, I was just on an airplane this past week, and it
was Delta Airlines.
They all had these what are known as air phones.
I think we used one of those, didn't we?
Yeah, the GTE air phones.
Yeah, those were kind of fun.
We figured out ways of making them make local calls.
But this particular one, it was a digital one.
Okay, they have two different kinds, the analog and the digital.
The digital ones say that you can be called back, which is really kind of neat.
So what you do is you dial this special star code, and the operator takes down your name
and address and all that kind of thing, and assigns you a special PIN, and asks you also
to give them a 10-digit number that you want people to enter when they call this 800 number.
And when they do that, you have told the computer at your seat where you're sitting.
You basically say what row you're in, what seat you're at.
And when they enter this 10-digit number, it rings your seat.
I thought that was really pretty neat.
And then I started, you know, I left a message from somebody saying,
hey, call me at this number, you know, call this 800 number,
then enter the 10-digit number, and it'll ring at my seat.
I was reading the instructions preparing to get this call,
and it said when you see the number, you can either accept it or not accept it.
And I'm saying to myself, how does it know what number they're calling from?
Does it use A and I on the 800 number and transmit that to the seat?
It seems kind of weird.
What turns out, and this is very deceptive,
what it actually does, it simply allows the person to enter their phone number.
And then you see the phone number on there, and you press a button,
and then it calls that phone number.
So since the person's left the voicemail number that I had left the message on in the first place,
what happened was I called them, they got the message,
then they called the 800 number and transmitted their number,
which I already had to me, and then I hit a button,
and I called that number again and got their answering machine again.
They got their voicemail.
So I basically wound up spending about $10 for all that,
because each one is $2.50 per call,
and there's a $2.50 setup charge and a $2 registration fee.
And I'll tell you, I'm not going to pay for that,
because that's a bit much.
You know, they said I could receive a call,
and by receiving a call, to me that means, you know,
you pick up the receiver and someone's on the other end.
You don't pick up and press a button and make a call yourself and double the charges.
What I'd like to do, though, is call this 800 number,
which is 1-800-AIR-PHONE,
and see if I have any messages pending.
I'm not quite sure what they get when they call this.
Thank you for calling GTE Airphone.
To call an air traveler, press 1.
To reach a customer care representative, press 0.
Let's call someone in the air.
Please enter the 10-digit air call number of the person you're calling.
Okay, let's do that.
Please enter the 10-digit telephone number you're calling from,
followed by the pound key.
Aha!
Okay, let's enter a random number.
1, 2, 3...
4, 5, 6...
7, 8, 9...
0...
Pound sign.
If you have an extension number, please enter it,
followed by the pound key.
If not, press the pound key now.
Let's just press the pound key and get it over with.
Your phone number is now being forwarded to the aircraft.
If the passenger accepts your call and a line is available,
you should receive a callback within a couple of minutes.
However, if the phone is in use or the passenger is away from his or her seat,
your phone number will be stored as a message
and the passenger may call you back later.
Thank you for using GTE Airphone.
Well, no, I don't know what's going to happen
because I don't know how they're going to find me
to tell me that I have a call coming in from 1, 2, 3, whatever.
That's fun.
It'll be a lot of fun there.
And if you can figure out what someone's 10-digit number is,
you can make them pay a lot of money on an airplane.
Yeah.
Kind of a captive audience.
I noticed that you brought up something about the phone company
or whatever getting your telephone number whenever you dial zero
or whenever you call an 800 number.
Well, what you can do is induce, at least in Chicago,
you can induce what's called ANI failure by calling through the operator.
That way you can call up and your telephone number won't be transmitted to these people.
It won't show up on the bill.
The only thing that will show up is your area code.
Now, one thing you can do to test if this works is call up your operator
and ask her to connect you to 1-800-CALL-ATT.
From there, if they ask you what number you're dialing from,
then you know it works.
Or if you make a collect call and the phony number is passed on to the bill
of the person who accepts the collect call, then you'll know that it works too.
Right.
Or it doesn't work, rather.
Something I should point out, though,
something that Bernie S. told us a few weeks ago,
he was making O-plus calls to people in the local area,
and that's the only way you can make calls from the Delaware County Prison.
And on caller ID boxes, the number showed up,
even though he was dialing through an operator.
So we are reaching the point where that's no longer going to work.
Right.
Okay, we're out of time.
I want to thank you, Sarlo, for stopping in from Chicago.
No problem.
And say hi to everybody out there for us.
Hi.
And Fiverr, thanks for coming by
and providing us with more expertise and things like that.
Now, as far as Bernie S., here's his address one more time.
That's Ed Cummings, C-U-M-M-I-N-G-S.
His prisoner number is 48919-066.
And that's at Fairton, F-A-I-R-T-O-N-F-C-I, A-Dash-Left,
Post Office Box 420, Fairton, New Jersey, 08320.
Please write to him and express your concern
and keep his brain working
because that's the most important thing to have in prison.
We'll see you again next week from 10 to 11.
Stay tuned for the WBAI Evening News rebroadcast
here on WBAI in New York.
Good night.
And we'll be right back.
We'll be right back.