For three consecutive years, the General Assembly of the United Nations has voted to condemn
the U.S. economic blockade of Cuba.
On October 21st, as heads of state from around the world gather in New York to celebrate
the U.N.'s 50th anniversary, and on the eve of President Clinton's address to the U.N.
General Assembly, we will march for an end to Washington's economic war against our neighbor.
Speakers will include Angela Davis, Dennis Rivera, Ramsey Clark, and Lucius Walker.
March to end the economic war against Cuba, Saturday, October 21st, 12 noon.
Assemble across from the United Nations at 42nd Street and 1st Avenue.
That's Saturday, October 21st, 12 noon.
This has been a public service announcement by WBAI on behalf of the October 21st Cuba Coalition.
For more information, call 212-227-3422.
212-227-3422.
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Okay, this is Joe Franklin broadcasting on radio station WBAI.
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WBAI-FM in New York.
I love this radio station.
And a very good evening to everybody.
It's 8 o'clock.
It's a Tuesday night.
And in case you don't know what this is,
it's the program that has moved from Wednesday nights off the hook.
Stay tuned.
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
Bum-Ding-Ding-Bong
But the best, expect the worst
I hope that's understood
Bum-Ding-Ding-Bong
Can't make a cough
Bum-Ding-Bong
And the best, expect the worst
You can only find the worst
I hope you commissioned
A voice.
I changed my WBAI-FM
That was very good
I don't understand
You can not both
And there's this program that
I could, but you could
You can get a cough
It's a Pum-Ding-Bong
That was a willingness
Coz
And when it was going
Well, it was a Golf
I did
Coz
Broadcasting live from the Empire State Building in New York City, this is Off the Hook,
the program about all kinds of computer hacker-related issues, internet, the telephone company,
consumer issues, Big Brother, and the future.
This is Emmanuel Goldstein, and FiberOptik is over there on the other side of the room.
How you doing?
Hi.
And yes, we were just mentioning off-air that there is a new intro on the way for this show.
What you're listening to right now is the old intro.
Well, it just faded away, actually, but we do have a new intro that's in construction right now.
It's actually being made overseas.
It's cheaper to make intros overseas.
I don't know if you know that.
And so we're having it built over there, and it's going to make its way over here at some point.
So you're keeping a pretty tight lid on what exactly this new intro is.
Well, yeah, in fact, to make things even safer, I don't even know what's going to be on it.
Somehow I was able to work that out with myself where I don't even remember what I'm doing.
So, yeah, the new intro has some interesting things on it, but I don't even know what they are.
So you can torture me, but I won't be able to say anything.
It's kind of like the SAT answers, hermetically sealed in a safe in Albany.
That's right.
That's right.
You know, you never find out in the SATs just what the answers really are.
No.
You're just told that you got something wrong or that you, you know, you're this smart or this dumb or whatever, but you never know what you got wrong.
It bothers you for the rest of your life, and that's the way it's supposed to be.
Anyway, we're here tonight with a special two-hour debut at our new time slot, Tuesday night at 8 o'clock.
It feels different, doesn't it?
Yeah, it feels earlier.
I'm up much earlier than I usually am.
Yeah.
It's 26 hours earlier, we figured this out last week, 26 hours earlier than the usual time slot, which was Wednesdays at 10.
And tonight we're on for two hours, sort of a special kickoff edition.
And, of course, we'll be taking phone calls with all kinds of questions, input, adventures, stories, whatever people might have as far as net-related stuff and telephone company things.
We've been following over, I guess maybe for all the new people out there that perhaps have been tuning in for the first time,
and we might want to do like a sort of a wrap-up of the last few years because we've been on the air now for several years.
I don't know exactly when the first show was.
I seem to recall we started doing this back in 1989.
I'm sure there's people out there that are diligently keeping records as to what exactly we're doing,
so maybe they can help us out as far as when the first show was.
But we've been, over the years, covering quite a few interesting stories.
I remember back at the very beginning, the story, the big story was the FRAC magazine, the emergency 911 quote-unquote program,
which actually was a document that anybody could obtain for about $10.
Craig Neidorf was taken to court for that for about, I think that was the summer of 1990 he was taken to court.
And he was facing prison time.
It was unheard of at the time.
He was facing prison time for publishing this document, which was referred to in the media as a program that could disrupt the 911 mechanism of phone companies around the country.
That gave us a taste of how the media would distort things over the years.
Fortunately, the government dropped the case against him, but he still had to pay all this money for court costs,
which is a phrase I've always had trouble with.
So that was the first major thing that we dealt with.
Then, of course, Fyber, there was your story, which I guess sort of unwound over the air throughout a couple of years here
and culminated in you being sentenced to a prison term last year, a period from January to around November,
where you were sent to federal prison in Pennsylvania.
We covered the whole thing on the radio, and we talked to you live from prison there.
Have we ever even figured out what it was you were sent to prison for after all this time?
Yeah, it was something along the lines of conspiracy and computer trespass.
Yeah.
But, again, as far as the actual specifics, that was always so nebulous and vague.
Yeah, it was rather vague notions, as long as they were certain I did something.
Uh-huh.
I'm sorry, that was me.
So, yeah, now we basically, I guess we brought a lot of people into the fold in that particular adventure.
You know, a lot of people sort of went to prison with you in some regard, both online and over the air.
You got lots of mail from BAI listeners, and, of course, when you came back, it was a big festive occasion.
Then, earlier this year, another one of our friends and writers for 2600 Magazine,
which is the hacker magazine that we all kind of do stuff for,
Bernie S. was apprehended.
I guess in a parking lot of a 7-Eleven, he was making some sort of a transaction with other people.
Actually, it was a van filled with black people is the way that it was described.
And so the cops down there in Pennsylvania figured it had to be a drug deal because, you know,
people just don't do anything else in that situation.
So they went over and they questioned him.
What they found was that Bernie S. was selling these people in the van some chips.
There's nothing wrong with selling chips to people, at least not last I heard.
Actually, that could very well be different now.
Well, he was selling chips that could be implanted into a Radio Shack tone dialer,
which would turn that Radio Shack tone dialer into a Redbox,
Redbox being the device which makes the phone company think that you put a quarter in the phone.
Using that device, it was our understanding, is what is illegal.
You know, using the device to make free phone calls, making the free phone call,
that is when you break the law.
However, the government has recently, by recently I mean about a year ago,
expanded the laws to include having the device, having equipment that could be used in any way to do something fraudulent.
That's illegal, too.
Having information, having software, having hardware.
And this is what the Secret Service kicked in Bernie S.'s door for shortly after the local police searched his car.
They went through his house, they went through his person, they found software and hardware and things that,
if used in the proper manner or improper manner, could defraud phone companies, could clone cellular phones, say, things like that.
There has never been any evidence or any allegation that Bernie S. did anything with this information except share it.
However, that is now enough to put somebody in federal prison.
Bernie S. has been in federal prison now since March, and he is scheduled to be sentenced a week from today.
He has pleaded guilty because the way he described it, technically he did break that law.
The law is crazy.
The law says that if you possess this particular instrument that can make a beep, you're in violation.
You've committed a felony.
Just possessing it, having software which can do that, is also a violation.
So, crazy as it sounds, he was forced to plead guilty because had he pleaded innocent and then been found guilty of that particular crime,
he could have gone to prison for a lot longer.
The way it stands now, he has already served the maximum amount of time he could have been sentenced for, having pled guilty.
So, I believe next week, a week from today, Bernie S. will finally be out of prison.
He has been calling us live on the radio.
However, we won't be hearing from him tonight because we just want to wait until the sentencing is over just so that there's no, nothing else to complicate his life.
I do know the Secret Service was very upset with the fact that he was on the air here, and they tried many different ways to get him off the air, but none of them worked.
But in this particular case, I think that's probably the smartest thing.
Farber, what do you think of the whole Bernie S. saga?
Well, I think, in light of recent events, he was probably better off if he committed murder.
Uh-huh.
Yes, yes, I guess that could be.
Allegedly, though.
Oh, sure, allegedly.
To respect our question.
And a double murder at that.
By the way, let me just issue a warning at this point.
Any callers that call in and mention a certain subject that's being mentioned everywhere else in the world will be cut off.
Okay, this show is not about that.
We're not even going to say what that is.
We all know what that is, but we're not going to mention it, right?
Because we're better than that.
We have our own, like, you know, little world here that we stay focused upon.
There's no need to bring in these outside influences and act like everybody else.
So, this is off the hook.
A program that deals with hackers, technology, and the future, and Big Brother, and surveillance, and all that kind of thing.
You know?
All right.
So, we just talked to Bernie S. today, in fact.
Yes, we did.
He sounded pretty good, didn't he?
He sounded to be in good spirits, yeah.
And what do you think is going to happen next time?
I'm hoping that he gets time served based on what his sentencing guidelines are.
I think he said two to eight months, I believe.
I think so, yeah.
Now, maybe you can explain.
We all become experts on sentencing guidelines.
This is something that hackers didn't used to know about, but now we all know about this whole point system.
Could you explain the point system?
Well, vaguely, from what I remember, there's various points are given or taken away.
Obviously, you want as many points taken away as possible to put you in the lowest level of the sentencing guidelines.
So, most people listening right now would probably be, what, point zero?
Well, if you're not charged with anything, you don't have any points at all.
Okay, we have no points.
So, the average citizen has zero points.
Yeah, you want to have zero points throughout your life.
All right, that's the goal.
Keep the clock at zero.
All right.
But if you were charged with a particular crime in the federal system, then you would accumulate points based on what it is you're accused of.
For example, more than minimal planning, having committed the crime is worth a certain number of points.
And all these points basically add up.
And points can be taken away based on things such as, what was it, that thing that everybody does.
If you acknowledge responsibility.
That's it, yeah.
The acknowledgement of responsibility.
I.e., pleading guilty.
Well, I mean, you can plead guilty and not really.
So, they consider it if you're remorseful.
If you're remorseful, even if you plead guilty, if you're remorseful and you acknowledge that you did something wrong and you accept responsibility,
that acceptance of responsibility, if I recall, is worth having two points deducted.
Okay.
So, you get two points off if you're remorseful.
That's the most you can get off.
For acceptance of responsibility, yeah.
Okay.
And those points are not transferable?
Uh, no.
Okay.
If you have some points left over, you can't give them to another person.
No, you don't gain interest or anything like that.
Okay.
It's important that we get this straightened out because a lot of people are new to this, you know.
Yeah.
We're going to be thought of as federal criminals.
I think we should all know how the system works, you know.
That way we can figure out ways to get as little points as possible.
Yeah.
There's a nice little booklet that lots of lawyers have.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
That's the Sentencing Guidelines booklet.
That's only federal, though.
Yeah.
I don't believe it works that way in state.
Okay.
Now, how many points did you have?
Um, gosh.
I forget exactly how many points it was.
I remember I was level 12, however it added up.
Maybe the level is the sum of the number of points.
I forget exactly how it worked out.
Okay.
But you were sentenced to a year and a day because of that.
Yeah.
Level 12 is 10 to 16 months, which means that if the judge would go below 10 months, then
he would probably get a lot of arguing from the prosecution.
And if the judge would go beyond the 16 months and go actually above and beyond the Sentencing
Guidelines, then, of course, you would have the option to appeal, I suppose, provided that
you didn't agree to, that you wouldn't appeal.
Well, a lot of the power seems to be taken out of the judge's hands.
He has to stick to certain guidelines.
Well, I mean, he doesn't really have to do anything.
He can give you more or less, but he's sort of bound to stick between the range of the
guidelines.
Now, as far as Bernie S goes, I think he's got between six and eight points.
Is that right?
Yeah.
I think that's what he said.
It sounds to me almost like the points equate to months because you were 12 points, so you
got 12 months.
Well, not necessarily.
We're looking at six months for him and he's got six points.
It doesn't necessarily come out that way.
All right.
But so far, it seems to.
Yeah.
Well, if he was, I think he said two to eight or whatever it was, and he's already been
there for almost six.
He's been there over six.
Over seven months.
He's been there.
And I should point out to those people who aren't familiar with this case, he's been
held in federal prison with no bail as if he were some sort of a terrorist.
And this is for carrying around some, or not even carrying around, it was in his house
someplace, an instrument that can make beeps.
You know, that's what we're talking about here.
Now, if you're listening for the first time, you think that we're crazy for talking about
this.
We're talking about point systems and, you know, we don't sound like the kind of people
that should be dealing with prisons and things like that.
And, you know, sending people away with no bail for having little boxes that make beeps.
Yeah, it is crazy.
That's the whole point.
That's the whole point that we're trying to bring across here, that we've been bringing
across for the last few years.
And you know what?
It's getting crazier.
It really is.
Things like the clipper chip and the digital telephony bill that we've been watching over
the years are really quite frightening.
And this latest push to control encryption is something that I think we all need to keep
an eye upon.
That's what we're going to be doing in this show in the weeks, months, years ahead.
And let's hope we have some good news because there's been a lot of bad news over the past
year or so.
A lot of movement backwards, you know, where we feel like we just have no power.
But that's where a place like BAI comes in because we do have power here in numbers by
listening together, by, you know, focusing our resources on particular objects and things
like that.
We have some more bad news.
I mean, I don't want to get people really upset here, but you do need to know what's
going on.
I don't know if many people listening now were listening a couple of weeks ago, but we had
a guest on who was dropping by from Holland who goes by the name of Bill SF.
Bill SF is probably one of the most knowledgeable people as far as the phone systems of the world
that I can imagine.
You can drop Bill SF in a country that doesn't even have a name someplace.
He'll go to a phone and he'll figure out how to make that phone call wherever he wants
to make it call.
He'll know what kind of switching technology there is, what kind of signaling they use,
and he'll know how to build things.
And, you know, this is not something that is bad.
A lot of people will say, oh, someone can build things, they're dangerous.
Yeah, you can use it for bad purposes, but what Bill has been doing over the past few
years has been some very good things in Holland, helping out the Holland internet providers'
access for all.
And basically what transpired a couple of weeks ago was that Bill came back to this country
because he had been away for quite some time.
Bill was involved in something that some of you may have heard of back in, I think, the
late 80s.
It was called the BART scandal.
And BART is the Bay Area Rapid Transit System.
We've written that, haven't we?
Sure.
Yeah, it's, it's, they have that little, it's not like the one they're trying to do here,
which I think is, is, is falling apart.
Maybe we'll have some info on that later.
But the Bay Area Rapid Transit System uses a little magnetic strip.
So you, you put it into the, into the turnstile, sucks it in, and then immediately makes it
go out the, on the top, and prints out on the ticket how much you have left, which is
always nice to know how much you have left.
Unlike the New York system, which you're supposed to look at the magnetic strip and somehow know.
So what happened was he and, I believe it was Captain Crunch, that maybe one other person.
Well, they were, they were at his house.
Yeah.
He wasn't really involved with it.
Captain Crunch being the, the grandfather of phone freaks, I guess.
They had figured out a way to duplicate the cards, and of course they, as, as most phone
freaks and computer hackers, they didn't make very good criminals.
They weren't able to keep it quiet for very long, and, and pretty soon the whole world
knew that they had figured out a way to make fake bar cards, and so they all got in trouble
for that and were sentenced to various, various times in, in, in various prisons.
So what happened was Bill was out on probation, and he really wasn't very comfortable.
He was, uh, a lot of, uh, a lot of restrictions.
I mean, you're on probation right now, Fiverr.
Yeah.
Um, and I know that a lot of people that are on probation, not saying that you are, but
a lot of people tend to be hassled in various ways.
A lot of restrictions, a lot of, uh, checking up.
Some people have to have drug tests all the time.
Some people are always, uh, having their location checked out and their employers visited
and things like that.
And I think Bill was in a situation like that, where he just didn't, uh, didn't feel like
his life was his own anymore.
So he decided, and it was a very big decision to make, to move to Holland, where things are
a lot more open and free, and where he could actually, um, play with technology without fear
of repercussions, and where he would be welcomed, not only by, by computer hackers over there,
but by ordinary people as well, because Holland just tends to be like that.
People tend to, to listen to, um, uh, to what phone freaks and computer hackers have to
say, because sometimes we're the first ones to, uh, to get there.
So Bill moved over to Holland in 1989, and he's been living there ever since.
And, uh, I visited him a couple of times.
It's, uh, it's really quite amazing the kinds of things that he does.
You know, he builds, uh, phone systems and sort of hooks the whole, uh, office network
together and things like that.
And he's, he's very, he's revered over there, let's just put it that way.
So he came back a few weeks ago to visit his parents because,
he had not, uh, seen them ever since he left back in 1989.
And, um, well, he went out to California shortly after appearing on this show two weeks ago.
And, um, he was in Berkeley.
And he had some sort of a, um, some sort of a run-in with cops over there.
I don't really have many more details than that.
But, uh, what it boils down to is that they ran his name,
they found out he was technically a probation violator,
and now he's in, he's in jail too.
And we don't know if he's going to get out anytime soon.
He, he should have been back in Holland by now.
He's being held here instead.
That's a, it's a very sad situation.
What I'd like to do now is, uh, just so people can, uh, can hear,
in case they didn't hear the first time,
uh, the last things that he had to say on this radio station.
That way, uh, you know, you'll know what the voice of Bill SF sounds like.
And also the kinds of things that, that he was into.
This is, um, his commentary on the recent Church of Scientology raids in Holland.
You may have heard of this.
The Church of Scientology, uh, were able to orchestrate a raid on the Access for All headquarters
because they had been serving as an anonymous re-mailer.
And they had passed through some information that the Church of Scientology thought was,
um, was copywritten or restricted in some way.
And so, in this way that they seem to be doing recently,
they, they sought to, uh, uh, to, to shut them down somehow.
Uh, they've, they've been trying to do this to the whole internet in various ways.
Uh, Usenet News Groups, Netcom, uh, the anonymous re-mailer in Finland,
and now the anonymous re-mailer in, in, in Holland.
And, uh, this is something that really angered Bill SF
because, uh, I guess any time you step on someone's freedom, freedom of speech,
it's something that we should be indignant about, and Bill certainly was.
Anyway, let's listen to the, uh, the last words he had to say on the subject.
Where it stands. Let's tell us where it stands.
Where it stands, uh, I talked to, uh, Niels, who is, uh, one of my housemates out there,
and, uh, he said that, uh, that basically Scientology is, uh,
I can't say the word here in the States, it can in Holland,
but, uh, Scientology has been totally, uh, made to look like dirt.
Okay.
The Dutch government is going to make moves
and is moving rapidly to revoke them of their status of being a church
and forcing them to pay all back taxes.
Wow.
Watch out, Scientology.
That is something, and I also...
You are about to be had.
I also heard that, that, that was it, the Fisher affidavit,
that, that document they were after, uh, that's all over the net now.
It's all over.
They can't stop it.
You're all over, Scientology.
Wow.
Okay, well, I guess that's...
You better not touch me.
That's what happens when, uh...
All right, those are the last, uh, last words from Bill SF.
Hopefully Scientology will stay out of this, but, uh, you never know.
So, we'll keep you updated when we hear more from, uh, from him and his situation.
Okay, let's, uh, let's take a look now at some of the things that are happening around the globe.
There's always all kinds of, uh, technical mess-ups and foul-ups and blunders and things like that.
We've experienced a few, and there have been quite a few over the past few weeks.
You hear about the thing that happened with pagers?
No, what thing is that?
Where all the pagers...
Well, uh, when I say all the pagers went off, I don't mean they beeped.
I mean they didn't go off.
You know, they, they shut them down.
For some reason, the pagers stopped working.
Okay, you didn't hear about this.
A lot of people didn't.
Um, basically, according to, uh, according to the, the news item, uh, the Houston Chronicles.
Look at that one.
Uh, the shutdowns were caused when a data entry clerk mistakenly forgot to enter a carriage return
when he was entering in the receiver codes into several paging company satellite uplinks.
So, uh, according to this person who works, uh, I believe in a hospital,
our page net pagers were out of service from around, uh, 1130 p.m. Tuesday night to 1130 a.m. Wednesday.
This is, uh, this is last week.
According to an Associated Press news article today, uh, this was actually about a week ago,
a technician at Spacecom, the satellite carrier, accidentally disabled thousands of satellite receivers.
Apparently, the receivers had to be restored individually.
The story indicates that five of the national paging companies use Spacecom.
And, um, the way it works, this is how it's, it was described on, um, on Telecom Digest over the internet.
When you send a page, the signal gets relayed to a large number of local sites,
which then feed it into local transmitters.
While this is designed for the semi-national coverage,
it's often the way your neighborhood paging system works as well.
Your satellite pager does not get a signal directly from orbit,
but rather via a terrestrial relay.
So they shut down the local receivers by remote control.
The problem was they couldn't restart them the same way.
This could be due to two reasons.
A, there was a complete shutdown, so the receivers didn't get the turn-on signal.
After all, they were off.
And the second reason is pager transmitters are designed
so that a group of them spaced perhaps ten miles apart
all go off simultaneously.
Although it flies in the face of everything I know about radio,
they can and do set off multiple transmitters
to ensure usually that the signal covers the wanted area.
This requires ultra-precise synchronization.
It's quite possible they were able to turn the units back on
but did not have remote sync capability.
And that comes from some contributors to the Telecom Digest.
Did you ever hear of anything like this happening?
Uh, no, but I'm kind of shady on how this could possibly affect people
that don't have satellite pagers.
Yeah, well, I imagine it probably only affected them.
Yeah, that's what it sounds like.
But, again, how do you know?
I mean, how do you know if your pager wasn't working?
It's not always going off, you know?
You don't know when it's not going off
because it's just impossible to tell.
You can't pick it up and listen and see if it's there.
Unless you hear from somebody that, uh...
I'm always hearing people saying,
Oh, yeah, I was beeping all day yesterday.
I'm like, yeah, right.
Yeah, but then again, if the transmitters were off,
most intelligent pagers say, out of range.
That's true, some do.
Some do, but not all.
Yeah.
Okay, the London Underground is fighting to clean up its computer systems
after one of its own trainees hacked in
and posted an offensive message on the digital displays
located above two platforms around the capital.
How many of you have been to London?
Okay, in London, they have this system,
and I think they should have this in New York,
but of course they never will,
where they have a little digital display
over by the platform.
It says,
Next train going to this location will arrive in three minutes.
And I guess they have sensors or something
that tell it how many minutes away this train is
because as it gets down to zero minutes,
sure enough, you hear the roar of the train,
and there it is.
So you always know how long you're going to have to wait for a train
and where it's going.
So, computing can reveal that on August 16th,
a message appeared on displays at Piccadilly, Elephant and Castle,
and Regent's Park Underground stations
declaring all signalmen are...
Is that a word I can't say?
It's a British term that begins with W.
Wanker?
Yeah.
Well, you just said it.
Oh, you can say that.
I can say wanker, okay,
because that might be the most horrible word that I've ever...
I've asked around a few people,
and I've said,
Hey, you're a wanker,
and they didn't hit me,
so I figured it's not a bad term in this country.
Well, it's not here, no.
Over there.
Over there it's a cruise.
It would be the equivalent of saying jerk-off in this country.
You can't say that.
You can't say jerk-off?
Yeah.
Well, I know what wanker means,
but I'm not going to go into the details after that.
Anyway, okay,
so basically the message was
that was instead of saying
the next train to Elephant and Castle in three minutes,
it said all signalmen are wankers.
The message went unnoticed by tube staff
for more than 12 hours before being removed.
There were no complaints from the thousands of commuters,
but despite being clear,
the message reappeared on tube station displays
on August 29th.
Full, uh, what is that?
Thirteen days later.
Two days later,
London Underground's staff were called in
to locate the problem.
The message had apparently been saved onto the system
and was randomly generated at the later date.
A London Underground spokesperson told Computing Magazine,
when we train people,
we usually take them around on an induction course.
It seems one of the trainees
obviously had more experience than the others.
He managed to hack into the computer,
bypass the input codes,
and put a message on the dot matrix displays.
He added,
the reappearance of the message
was due to a technical glitch
and not a deliberate action.
The trainee is no longer an employee.
So, uh,
they take swift action over there in London.
That can never happen here
because we don't have displays like that.
All right.
Uh, what else has been going on?
Well, there was a, uh,
a problem with Netscape.
Now, perhaps, uh,
Fiber, you can tell us what,
what was going on with that.
Which problem?
Okay, there are actually two.
I'll go over them one,
one by one.
Uh, two Berkeley computer science graduate students
interested in cryptography
identified a serious security flaw
in the Netscape software
for browsing the World Wide Web.
Uh, Netscape says a repaired version,
uh, was,
was sent out almost immediately afterwards.
That was according to the New York Times.
It involved the weakness
in the use of a,
a pseudo-random number generator
to create the crypto seed.
Knowledge of the weakness
enables the key
to be reverse-engineered
with significantly less
than exhaustive effort.
That's according to the Risk Digest.
Um, is that one of the ones
you're playing with?
Yeah, well, there's actually
three things.
The, uh, original thing was, um,
the, uh, initial discovery
and weakness
and the fact that, uh,
the, uh, public domain version
in Netscape
that most everyone uses,
the, uh, the key that was used
in supposed secure transactions,
that's when the little key closes
on the bottom,
on the bottom left corner
in Netscape.
Um,
Why would you be using that?
I mean, uh,
Well, lots of companies
want to actually
get into commerce
on the net,
allowing people
to feel secure
about buying, uh,
items,
doing shopping on the net
and, uh,
supplying credit cards,
which, uh,
otherwise would get
transmitted in the clear.
So, uh,
if, uh,
if the key in Netscape
closes,
in theory,
using something called
the, uh,
secure socket layers,
which is, uh,
an implementation
of, uh,
secure communications
in Netscape
between, uh,
the browser
and the web server,
that the transactions
would actually be
encrypted.
And the problem,
the initial,
the first problem
was that in the, uh,
the browser everyone
was using,
this key was only
40 bits long,
whereas in the commercial
version,
it was 128 bits.
And, uh,
this key could be, uh,
predictively, uh,
and exhaustively searched
in, uh,
not a very long
amount of time.
Uh-huh.
And that would,
that was the,
the first thing
that was done.
The, uh,
second thing that was
done, as you mentioned,
was that these,
these, uh,
two people from Berkeley
figured out that the,
uh, the random number
that was chosen
to, uh,
generate the key
for these transactions
was not so random.
All right.
And, uh,
that would,
that was strike two.
Strike three,
most recently,
was, uh,
not anything having
to do with encryption,
but that, uh,
if a URL,
that, that's the, uh,
the uniform resource
locator,
which actually is
the address of, uh,
something on the web.
We call them Earl's.
Yeah, Earl's.
If, uh,
Earl was made
purposefully very long,
Mm-hmm.
then, uh,
two things, uh,
could be made to happen.
First thing that could
be made to happen,
most obviously,
is that someone could
create a link on a web page
with a URL that's
extremely long
that would crash
the person's browser.
Okay.
That in and of itself
is obviously annoying.
The second problem, uh,
related to that,
is that, uh,
what's really happening
is, um,
you're overflowing the stack.
Mm-hmm.
And, uh,
time and time again,
this, uh,
keeps coming up.
If you can, uh,
overflow the stack
in a particular application,
you can cause the machine
that's running the application
to execute commands
against its own will.
Now, we've seen that
in Mail.
We've seen that
in Netscape.
We've seen that
in the Internet Worm.
Just overflowing the stack.
That seems to be
the secret.
It's, it's the key
to everything.
Isn't there a way
to stop that?
Uh, well, yeah,
it's called balance checking,
but, um,
it's, it's usually,
usually the, uh,
culprit is, uh,
sloppy programming.
Yeah.
And, uh,
I grabbed the newest version
of Netscape
that came out,
which was, I think,
called, uh,
1.22.
And, uh,
the, uh,
the, uh,
the URL that everyone
was using to test
that was just a really,
really long one,
you, you can't actually
type one that long.
You have to actually
click on a link
so that the URL
is sent directly
to your browser
to look up.
But, um,
the, uh,
the URL in question
that previously
crashed Netscape
no longer does.
So, either the,
uh, the bug was fixed
or they simply
made the buffer bigger.
So, you just have
to send a longer URL.
But, uh,
I didn't actually
test that myself.
Okay.
Well, that,
that does seem
to be what the,
what the problem was.
So, uh,
Netscape users,
beware.
Yeah.
All kinds of, uh,
weirdness is happening
on the net.
But, you know,
that's, that's part
of the growing pains
of the internet.
We see things like this
all the time
and we have to
kind of deal with it.
One thing, though,
that, uh,
I'm kind of leery
about dealing with,
that's, uh,
the whole encryption issue
which we mentioned before.
And this is very disturbing.
I don't know if people
have heard about this.
According to an article
in Communications Week
International,
the 34 Nation Council
of Europe
has agreed to outlaw
strong encryption products
which do not make keys
available to governments.
The article is called
Euro Clipper Chip Scheme
Proposed.
It's on the front page
of the magazine's
September 18th edition.
Uh, it says that
the policy was approved
on the 8th of September
at Strasbourg
by the Council
and coincides with
an attempt by the
European Commission
to propose a
pan-European
encryption standard.
The Council,
unlike the Commission,
has no statutory powers
to enforce its
recommendations.
However, according
to the chairman
of the committee
that drafted the
document,
it is rare for
countries to reject
Council of Europe
recommendations.
The proposal would
make telecom operators
responsible for
decrypting traffic
and supplying it
to governments
when asked.
It would also
change national laws
to enable
judicial authorities
to chase hackers
across borders.
It's pretty scary,
don't you think?
I mean,
this is not just
about hackers.
This isn't about
chasing...
I mean,
they throw that in there
to make it seem like
they're just trying
to catch computer hackers.
But when you outlaw
encryption,
you're basically saying,
you know,
the government
reserves the right
to invade your privacy
whenever they want.
You know,
it's...
If somebody opens
your mail,
you know,
the mail that goes
to your home address,
to your P.O. box,
you can generally tell.
You see that it's been opened.
And you can get angry.
You can do something about it.
You can at least be aware of it.
However, on the net,
that's not really possible,
is it?
So it's a lot more difficult.
And it's just very easy
for something like this
to be abused,
where...
I mean,
you wouldn't give your...
I hate to bring up
house analogies,
but in this particular case,
I think it does hold,
because we're talking
about private information.
You know,
and if you have
private information,
personal things
about yourself,
you don't want
someone to have
the ability to read that
unless you trust them.
If the government
went around and said,
hey,
we need keys
to everyone's home
so that,
you know,
we can just come in
and if something's wrong,
we can take care of it.
I don't think
very many people,
Republican,
Democrat,
whatnot,
would agree to that
because we all have
a sense of privacy.
And that's why
this whole clipper chip
proposal kind of
fell on its face
a couple years ago.
But what's disturbing
is that we're seeing it
being adopted
in other countries.
The first was Russia
a couple of months ago.
And the funny thing was,
it happened in Russia
shortly after the FBI
had done a little
presentation over there
to try and convince them.
And yeah,
they were convinced.
They did it.
It's now in place there.
Now apparently
other European governments
are following.
So pretty soon,
most of the world
will be outlawing encryption.
So what's going to
stop us from doing it?
It's very scary,
very sad,
and something that I think
is really unenforceable.
How do you do that?
How do you enforce
something like that?
How do you tell somebody?
It's pretty hard.
Yeah, I mean,
if you have strong encryption
that the government
does not have a key to,
are they just going to
assume you're a criminal?
They'll probably just
draft some law
where it states that
mere usage is illegal.
Or mere possession,
like with the Bernie S. case.
The encryption itself
will be like having
a device that makes beeps.
It'll be as dangerous as that.
Possession of encryption tools.
It's almost like
I'm living science fiction here.
I don't know what's
going to happen next.
All right.
How about one more story?
And then we'll
maybe take some phone calls?
Yeah.
Okay.
Because we want to
hear from some new
listeners out there.
Our number is
212-279-3400.
This is off the hook.
This is our new time slot
between 8 and 9.
However, tonight
we're doing a special
two-hour season premiere.
So feel free to give us a call
if you have any questions
or feedback
or things like that.
And just remember,
we're not talking about
you-know-what.
All right.
This is something
which I think
is incredibly silly
but happened nonetheless.
New methods of voting
designed to replace
the traditional polling place
and ballot box
are a regular topic
of discussion
in various forms.
The method being discussed
usually involves
voting by phone
or by computer.
Now, get this.
The state of Oregon
is experimenting
with a new voting method
but is using a technology
that may be older
than the voting booth itself.
And that technology
is the mail.
Yeah.
Senator Packard's replacement
who will be elected
on January 30th
will be the first member
of the U.S. Congress
ever elected
in an all-mail election.
Well, that's a phrase
I wouldn't want to say
too many times.
All-mail election.
Yeah.
Okay.
Ballots will be mailed out
to all registered voters
a few weeks
before the election date.
Voters fill out the ballots
in their own home
at their leisure.
You can do it
at 4 o'clock in the morning
if you want to.
That's the beauty of this.
They can then
either send them back
through the mail
or take them in person
to a designated drop-off point.
All completed ballots
must arrive
by January 30th.
Oregon has used
all-mail elections
before for local elections
with pretty good success
but this will be
the first time
it has been tried
in a statewide election.
No one claims
to fully understand
the risks involved
so people will be watching
this election
very carefully.
Election officials
like all-mail elections
because they don't have
to set up any polling places
or find people to run them.
Most think that
voter participation
will increase.
The potential for fraud
is greater
but most officials
seem to have enough faith
in the general public
that they are not
worrying about it.
The timing of campaigns
will definitely change.
Any last-minute media blitz
is useless
because most people
will have already voted.
Now, I don't understand
how anybody can say
that they don't fully understand
the risks involved.
I mean,
this is a piece of paper.
There is no way
of checking
to make sure
that you haven't
already voted.
I mean,
what safeguards
do they have in place
for that?
You could run off
your own copies.
You could duplicate
pretty easily
unless they're doing
something like
American currency
which is also duplicated
but if they're going
to that much trouble
maybe that's how
they're preventing fraud.
Or, what's that?
Unless they're using
some sort of punch card
or scantron device.
Okay, well,
if they're doing
something like that
then all of a sudden
anonymous elections
are gone out the window
because they can figure out
who it is that voted
for who?
True.
Alright, so that's
you have an opinion there.
Yeah, I'm probably
the only person
in the room
who's voted both
by affidavit ballot
and absentee ballot
in the state of New York.
In the same election?
No, different elections.
Okay, that's good.
What an affidavit ballot is
is if you insist
that you've registered
and they have no record
of it at your polling place
they give you
a paper ballot
and an envelope
and what you do
is you fill out
the paper ballot
which is relatively
simple example
of printing.
It's very easy
to counterfeit
that's nowhere near
as complicated
as paper money.
But they give it
to you there.
They give it to you there.
You don't take it home.
You don't take it home.
Right.
And you sign
the back of the
they give you
a blank envelope
you put the affidavit ballot
in the
regular envelope
in the blank envelope
put that inside
another envelope
you sign the back of it.
Right.
They only open this
if the election is tight
if the number of
affidavit and absentee ballots
is larger than the gap
between the two
and supposedly
they're supposed to
compare the signature
to your signature
on the rolls
if and when they find it
to make sure
it's you.
Well now this is a situation
though where 100%
of the votes
are going to be done
in this way
so obviously
it makes a bit
of a difference.
I just wish we had
some listeners in Oregon
because I'd like to get
one of these ballots
and figure out ways
of making our own.
And that's not to say
that that's what we want
to do
but you see
this is where
this is where
the difference
of thinking like a hacker
and being treated
like a criminal
comes into play
because obviously
everybody is curious
as to how it's done.
Everybody wants to know
how you can possibly
make this whole system
fall apart
and it seems to me
this is relatively easy
to do.
All you have to do is
I mean even if you go around
to all your friends
who don't want to vote
and collect their papers
or you simply get it
out of the mailbox
or whatnot
it's very simple
very simple to vote
many many times
nobody will ever find out
so it seems to me
that that's pretty apparent
what the risks are
in this case.
I hope there's no
mail voting
around here
anytime soon
but we'll keep our eye
on things like that.
Okay our phone number
is 212-279-3400
and this is our first show
in our new time slot
so let's see who's out there
see what kind of
new listeners we have
or if any of the
same listeners
have made the switch
do you think the first call
will be Rebel again?
I hope not.
It probably will be
because he always
manages to be the first call
so let's see if he's
going to be the first call
this time.
Good evening
you're on the air.
Oh!
I'm magical!
I don't believe it
how does he do it?
How do you do this?
For one thing
the central office
times out
after a certain amount
of time
so you would have
to have been hung up on
if you were calling
all this time.
I don't know how you do it.
No I'm just kidding.
I don't understand
I think he's like
sitting out in the hallway
somehow and he's just
taking over the phone line.
Well
I'm going to give out
my new email address.
You're going to give out
your email address
over the radio.
But while people are
getting their pens and
papers out and
Yeah I'm sure there's a
mad rush to stationary
stores right now
for people that want
your address.
While I'm going to
give out my new
email address
but before I do
I just want to make
a correction that I
the last time I called
a couple of weeks ago
I had mentioned that
you can dial
10999
and then zero
the area code number
which will connect you
with LDD
as Metro Media.
Right.
I had mentioned that
you can make free phone calls
by going to a
call card
and telling them
to bill it to the
phone you're at.
As of last week
they do not do
that anymore
from any phone.
Well probably because
you announced it
on a 50,000 watt
radio station
in New York City.
And I saw the movie
Hackers twice
and when I saw the movie
the second time
there was only three
people in the theater.
Uh huh.
Well I can offer
various theories
as to why everybody
else might have left
but.
What do you mean left?
Oh you mean you didn't
stay for two showings?
No no no
I saw two different
Oh okay okay
I thought you stayed
for a second time
and people saw you there
and said no let's go
to the other theater
and okay no
my mistake.
It's not doing very well
that movie
but I still liked it.
Well I don't know
if you know this
but most movies
aren't doing very well
most people are
you know
a crowd of like
ten people
in a theater
these days
is considered a lot
for a film
that's been out
more than a week.
Well all right
let's give out
our new email address.
Yes let's do that.
Okay it is
rebel
at
escape
dot
com
Okay
rebel
at escape
dot com
and what should
people be sending you?
Just anything
you could finger me.
You'd like that
wouldn't you?
Well you know
what I mean.
I think I do.
All right well
And I'm having trouble
with Netscape
when I try and
browse a web page
it doesn't work.
Well Fiber
why don't you
help rebel?
Oh gee thanks.
Well what's the problem?
Well all right
let me just
tell you
when I
go and
let me
go into
the sound of rebel
hacking live
on the air
let me go into
escape internet tools
and I go to a thing
called TCP man
which is the
trumpet
windsock
wait a minute
wait a minute
all right
here it is
windsock
now I go into
windsock
windsock
windsock
not windsock
windsock
okay
it dials
now
is it supposed to be
logging me in as
ppp
dot rebel
perhaps we should
have one of the
escape
staffers
we have an
escape
staff person
that just
flew by
to answer this
question
let's just field
this one
yeah the way
it's set up
at escape
is ppp
dot the
username
in order to
tell it
it doesn't
work
I tried it
look at
setup command
I'm going to
setup command
what you should
do is call
the escape
office
during their
hours from
10 to 6
Monday through
Friday and
talk to one
of the nice
people there
yeah because
your problem
is with
the escape
service
not with
WBAI
and off
the hook
and all
the people
that are
listening
right now
but good
luck
we wish you
the best
of luck
with your
endeavors
on the
internet
you know
I guess
that's part
of the
trade-off
of you
know
allowing
access to
the world
is that
the world
sometimes
you know
comes by
and asks
you all kinds
of questions
and things
like that
okay
somebody's
got to
provide
customer service
to the world
yeah
customer service
might as
well be
us
yeah
all right
212-279-3400
good old
rebel
good evening
you're on
the air
I'm sorry
go ahead
you're on
the air
yeah
I was just
wondering
how you guys
feel about
the current
state of
all 2600
news group
all 2600
news group
well I don't
know how many
people actually
read that
but actually
okay
interestingly enough
just this
evening
or last
evening
I noticed
that somebody
had spammed
it again
and made
something like
a thousand
messages appear
in the course
of a couple
of hours
all 2600
seems to be
one of the
most highly
trafficked
news groups
ever to have
existed on the
net
which is kind
of funny
because when
it first
started
about a year
and a half
ago
a lot of
administrators
said oh
there's not
enough interest
for this kind
of thing
the way
I look at
all 2600
that's how
information is
when it's
unfiltered
basically everybody
says whatever
they want to
say and
probably 80%
of it is
nonsense or
is untrue
in some way
and then
if you piece
it together
in some form
like with
2600 itself
or with the
Risk Digest
or Telecom
Digest
or whatever
then you have
some semblance
of information
which at least
is a little bit
more structural
and I think
that's what
we see
with this
all 2600
really is
just a typical
use net
and use group
that's not
moderated
how do you
feel about it
when I first
started
about six
months ago
it was the
only information
that I knew
how to get
and it was
a good source
of information
for me
but now
a little bit
later
it's just
become more
of a hassle
and I don't
know I felt
that six
months ago
it was pretty
good and it
kind of irked
me that it's
what it's like
now
well what do
you think
are the main
problems
mostly
like people
like everyone
complained after
they saw war
games that
all these new
guys wanted to
become hackers
for no reason
and they just
wanted answers
they didn't want
to research
problems for
themselves
and now people
are saying
with the movie
Hackers coming
out that we're
getting the same
problem but
yeah it's a
generational type
of a thing
you know hacking
is never the same
as it used to be
exactly I mean
it's a shame
though that people
have to be so rude
to other people
because there is
people out there
that want to learn
and want to learn
the correct way
have you ever been
on IRC
what's that
have you ever been
on IRC
internet relay chat
I think there's
the same problem
in IRC
yeah because if
you're talking
about rude
and people
that just want
information
and people
getting kicked
off because
they ask
questions
and things
like that
that happens
all the time
but the advice
that I can give
you is that
you should never
take anything
that happens
on the net
seriously
or it's
certainly not
the same
as real life
you know
if somebody
slaps you around
in real life
that's a lot
worse than
if they do
it on the net
you know
the net is
you don't know
if you're talking
to you know
to an 80 year old
grandmother
or a 12 year old
kid
you know
it's basically
everybody is equal
and everybody
can act like an
idiot if they feel
like it
exactly
I agree with you
totally
alright
thanks a lot
sure
take care
I guess you know
part of the problem
is the net
is just
it's expanding
so much
that all these
people that
weren't part of
the beginning
you know
the building
of the net
are just jumping
in midstream
and they expect
it all to
you know
to follow them
well
one big problem
I see
with news groups
like Alt.2600
is that
federal government
specifically law enforcement
is probably going to believe
every single thing
they read on there
oh I'm sure they do
yeah
I'm sure they do
because
they've come after people
asking questions
about all kinds
of bizarre things
that couldn't possibly
be true
moving satellites
and building explosives
and things that people
you know
make up
but they don't know
they take it too seriously
which is exactly
what I
I stress
that should not be done
212-279-3400
the program is
off the hook
we're on the air
at our new time slot
from 8 to 9 p.m.
on Tuesdays
however tonight
we're going extra long
we're going from 8 to 10
so if you have any comments
questions
stories to tell
or anything else
212-279-3400
good evening
you're on the air
yeah
I have three questions
one is
what do you think
of Wired Magazine
which I
which I subscribe to
and the other one
is I'm interested
do you have tapes
of your shows
I'm really interested
in the legal questions
that you've been raising
about people being arrested
for what would seem
to be you know
rather
I don't know
I don't I want to use
the word trivial
but it seems sort of wild
that a guy's arrested
for something he has
in his house
and he's not using it
and I'm interested in
re-listening to what
you've been saying
or finding out more
about this issue
and the other
the other third thing
is you had mentioned
that there's censorship
on America Online
and I wish you would
you would talk about
that a little bit more
so I'm waiting
to hear your answers
and thank you very much
okay thanks for calling
to start with
Wired Magazine
well you know
Wired is not anything
like a hacker
type of magazine
it's kind of trendy
kind of into the
the whole cyber scene
as it is
and I have no real problem
with Wired
it's kind of fun
to experience
except when you
start turning the pages
well when you start
turning the pages
that's when some
problems begin
because it's kind of
hard to follow the text
because they have to be
so snazzy with it
and sometimes that
sort of outdoes
the article in the first place
but there's a lot of people
that like that
so you know
to each their own
so I have no problem
with Wired in that regard
second as far as the
what was the second one
AOL
AOL right
AOL was a thorough
second one was the
was the tapes of the show
was the tapes of the show
okay yeah
we are working something out
we do have all the shows
on tape
going back from
wherever they started
we just have to
organize them
and come up with
some sort of
duplication service
and hopefully we'll have
some nice historical records
of all the things
that have happened
in the computer
underground
in the past
past five or so years
AOL
is there censorship
on AOL
yes
well there is
not in mail
from what I understand
is that correct
there's no censorship
in mail
but there is
because they're not
supposed to be reading
mail
however there's an
interesting story
about that too
which I'll get to
in a second
in the forums
that they have
on AOL
the conferences
if you use
nasty language
of any sort
and maybe
who knows
try using the word
wanker
and see what happens
if you do that
you're warned
I think once or twice
I think probably only once
not to do that
or you'll be thrown off
well never mind
nasty language
if somebody posts
something really obnoxious
and you respond to it
and get into an argument
with the person
AOL will delete
the messages
and give you a warning
that's real nice
revisionism there
that's kind of how
never mind nasty language
you could just simply
argue with someone
about a point
and if the AOL staff
didn't like your tone of voice
then they'll delete
your messages
now we were told
a couple of weeks ago
somebody had read
this to us
that an AOL moderator
had said
if you don't hear it
on Saturday morning cartoons
then you can't hear it here
if that language
would not be acceptable there
it's not acceptable here
so basically
we can refer to AOL
as a Saturday morning cartoon
of the internet
I guess
David you have a
I just spoke with people
from Delphi
and Internet MCI
and apparently
when they start up
their brand new service
they're going to
immediately start filtering
messages and content
and not allowing
certain things through
isn't that amazing
how there's this need
to control information
apparently
it's a paranoia
about pornography
and they have
their definition
of pornography
gets wider and wider
so
yeah that's
that's the whole thing
now the interesting thing
with AOL
involving the raids
a couple of weeks ago
supposedly for child
pornography
AOL let the
federal government
read the mail
of suspects
before the raids
even took place
they just opened it
wide open to them
and that's
a pretty scary thing
in itself
Jim you have something
yeah
from CNN
yesterday or the day
before
unfortunately
I didn't catch
all of it
apparently someone
who runs a scuba resort
is suing AOL
to learn subscriber names
on the forum
dealing with scuba diving
people essentially
disparaged his resort
and he's going to sue them
and in order to do this
he's suing AOL first
to get the names
of subscribers
okay
well there's millions
of AOL subscribers
well he wants
particularly the ones
that post that
he's got the copies
of the usernames
he's got copies
of the messages
all he needs
is AOL to match them
to a real person
an address
why doesn't he just
email them
well
he can email them
and ask them
who they are
they may lie
and say
oh that's true
but the whole point
of being on the net
is that you can be anonymous
you know
being anonymous
is not a bad thing
I'm not quite sure
why people can't see that
I mean I am sure
why people can't see that
being anonymous
is something that
you know
the control freaks
are very upset about
because they want to know
where everybody is
at all times
we're moving into
some rather
scary times
well speaking of
control freaks
let's not mention
the situation
with the internet
that's like
yeah
that's a good thing
to mention now
the internic
is that agency
that pretty much
controls all the names
on the network
2600.com
netcom.com
you know
all of them
right
you know
the edus
and the nets
and the govs
and the mils
they're all controlled
by the internic
which up until now
was what
well just a little
brief history
on the NIC
as it was originally
known as
the network
information center
the NIC
was originally
well not
originally
but for a very
long time
was maintained
by the Stanford
Research Institute
SRI
in Menlo Park
California
and after
they saw fit
that it was growing
at such a substantial
rate
what they did
was they
separated
the NIC
as it was
originally
on the ARPANET
and they took
it off
the defense
data network
and sort of
put it in charge
of the private sector
and the company
that was
it was originally
handed over
to AT&T
if I remember
correctly
only temporarily
and that was
when it first
became the internic
then it was
actually
for a while
now
it was being
taken care of
by a company
called NSI
which I believe
stood for
Network Solutions
Incorporated
right
that company
was fairly
recently
over the past
few weeks
acquired by
a rather spooky
company
known as
SIAC
S-I-A-C
and
SIAC
is
it's
S-A-I-C
okay
S-A-I-C
that'd be
C
I don't know
but
whatever you want
to call it
S-A-I-C
the
the people
who actually
make up
this company
incidentally
and strangely
enough
are actually
people like
the head
of the CIA
the former
head of the
CIA
various
former
deputy
directors
and employees
of the NSA
better people
to be dealing
with
as well as
various military
people
okay
and
a lot
of people
see this
as
first
really
vile
attempt
by
the
powers
that
be
to
take
control
of the
net
by
seizing
control
of
the
very
entity
that's
in
charge
of
domain
registration
and
another
thing
that's
interesting
is that
just
before
this
happened
the
Nick
announced
that
volume
of
domain
registration
was
so
high
that
they
were
going
to
start
charging
so
I
don't
know
how
they're
actually
going
to
organize
this
but
in
theory
they
claim
they
want
to
charge
everyone
who
has
registered
a
domain
$50
a year
subscription
now
where
this
money
is
going
to
be
going
if
the
NSA
and
the
CIA
are
now
in
charge
of
the
NIC
along
with
the
military
I
don't
know
if
they
really
need
$50
from
every
person
that
has
registered
a
domain
now
we
recently
got
a
listing
of
all
the
.com
was
the
biggest
top
level
domain
is
.com
add
all
that
together
and put
$50
on each
one
of
those
you
have
to
track
down
the
address
that
was
given
the
actual
physical
address
of
the
person
who
registered
the
domain
and
a lot
of
them
are
fake
addresses
so
they
have
to
hire
some
staff
to
go
through
hundreds
of
thousands
of
registered
domains
to
see
which
ones
are
real
and
I
suppose
they
would
attempt
to
cancel
the
ones
that
weren't
registered
with
real
info
where do you think
this is going to
wind up going
are they going to
put an iron clamp
on the net
somehow
sounds like it
could get really
ugly
but the only solution
I could see
happening is
maybe in the future
there will be all these
islands of
root name
servers
and maybe there
just won't be one
anymore
and I mean
lots of things
could happen
there could be
people running
around as they
are now
with just
phantom IP
numbers that
don't translate
to any
name address
well one thing
I think is
certain and
that's that
we've gone
too far
at this stage
individuals have
been running
things for quite
some time
we have a sense
of what real
freedom is
through the
network
where millions
of people are
able to talk
uncensored to
each other
and not have
big brother
looking over
their shoulder
this of course
is very upsetting
to the people
that want to be
able to control
things
but I think
in the end
the individual
will win out
that's the most
important thing
that we can all
hope for
otherwise we wind
up with a society
like Singapore
and I think
that's where
a lot of us
are heading
we'll be back
in a minute or
two and we'll
take some more
phone calls
then
but in the
meantime
might be a
good idea
to think
about this
and what
we can do
to prevent
it
one two
three
four
does it
have a
good idea
on
can
fill
in
out
and
you
them
house
the
in
a
the
end
the
event
and
with
the
et
the
back
and
the
good
I
could
Stoke walkers and spray the car
They say give him the game
Sovereignty always goes too far
And it causes too much pain
Stoke fall out from Singapore
They beat him too strong
Stoke fall out from Singapore
Don't do it no more
Stoke to cause his hair's too long
They beat him too strong
It's obvious that this is wrong
And it does no good
Stoke fall out from Singapore
They beat him too strong
Stoke fall out from Singapore
Don't do it no more
Stoke three cars and chewed some gum
And left it on the ground
This struck me as really dumb
There's still some roots around
Stoke fall out from Singapore
And they beat him too strong
And they beat him too strong
Stoke fall out from Singapore
Don't do it no more
Don't do it no more
Thinking of the other 999
I'm sorry it had to happen
And there will come a time
For the other 999
I'm sorry for moving it at home
I'm sorry for the other 999
T-10
I'm sorry!
Strip for life from Singapore
Beating is wrong
Strip for life from Singapore
Don't do it no more
Strip for life from Singapore
Left to women's scar
Strip for life from Singapore
You know who you are
If the future looks like anything
It looks like Singapore
There are no homeless
There are no tourists
And you're listening to WBAI New York
That's a new from Big Audio Dynamite song about Singapore
If the future looks like anything
It looks like Singapore
There are no homeless
There are no poor
And there are very few free thinkers as well
You know I know someone just came back from Singapore a couple of months ago
And there's this shirt that they have that says all the things you can't do
You can't urinate in an elevator
I hear rumors that if you do
There's a sensor that closes the door in the elevator and calls the police
And so you're trapped there in the elevator
So there's a urination sensor
Something like that
And of course you can't throw gum in the street
Right
You can't chew gum in the street
You can't chew gum in the street
Which is what leads to throwing it in the street
But I think you can have gum in Singapore
Yeah
I think there is some gum allowance
But you can't do certain things like that
You can't smoke in public
There's all kinds of things
There's all kinds of things
And you can just bet what they do on the net
You know what kinds of controls they have over there
So yeah if you're into control look to Singapore
And I'm sure you'll find all kinds of neat things
Ideas
Alright let's take a look at the newest 9x thing
We got our 9x extra with all our phone bills
And apparently they're not making nearly as much money
As they want to make with the dial it service number
So they're offering it for free
On like a free sample type of a thing
So if you call 1-800-INFO-PHONE
You can sample a wide variety of programs
In each of the following categories
Exciting
Weather
Sports
Finance
Lottery
Racing
Horoscopes
News
Traffic
Time
Wow
Okay
Let's call 1-800-INFO-PHONE
Is that what it is?
Yes
Of course there's an extra digit in there
And the phone is spelled with an F
And I'm not going to dial the final three there
Let's see what we have
Hello, thank you for calling the 9x Info-PHONE information and free samples line
This call will enable you to hear samples of New York area 976 programs
Or be transferred to a live operator for more information
Please be advised that these sample programs are for demonstration purposes only
And may not reflect timely information
Please press 1 to hear samples of 976 programs
Please press 2 to be transferred to a live operator for more information
Or to receive a free 976 program guide listing all of the current 976 programs
Wow
Rotary callers remain on the line for an operator
Okay, let's get a sample
One
For finance programs, press 1
For horoscopes, press 2
For lottery programs, press 3
For racing programs, press 4
For sports, press 5
For wrestling, press 6
For time, press 7
For traffic and mass transit, press 8
For weather, press 9
Para programas en español, apresure 1
All right, let's press 7 to get the time
For exact time online, press 1
For time, press 2
What does that mean?
Exact time online?
Let's try that
For exact time online, press 1
For time, press 2
I'll do it again
The correct time is
1
56
And
10
Seconds
PM
Yeah
Okay, thank you 9X
The correct time is
1
56
And
20
Seconds
PM
Wow
The correct time
Okay, we get the point, you don't know what you're talking about
6
Seconds
Okay, so that's a sample of the time
I guess he's just going to keep doing that
This has been a recorded sample of 976-1000
The exact time, online
When you need the exact time, all the time
Call 976-1000
That's 976-1000
The exact time, online
All right, we got it
If you would like to hear another sample from this category, press 1
To return to the main menu, press 2
Um
Find out how to receive written information on 976 programs or
Let's try another time thing
For exact time, online, press 1
For time, press 2
Okay, let's do time
We'll press 2
Don't be late
Call 540-Wake
Oh boy
Daylight time
4
50
And 30 seconds
You know, how hard would it be for them to have the real time there, you know?
I guess, I guess 9X doesn't want us to get the real time because, you know, you have to pay for that
Yeah, time costs
If they give you the real time, we're just going to let you hear what it sounds like
540-Wake
Do you think this time advances?
Daylight time
4
50
And 50 seconds
Okay, it's 4.50 now on this particular time thing
New York temperature
What we're going to do is
We're going to call back in a few minutes
Alright, it's 4.50 now
So, we'll call back later and we'll see if it's advancing
And if it's advancing
I'd like to know why the Dickens, they can't make the thing have the real time
And make that advance too, you know?
It would be good for the people of New York
To get free time
Used to be able to get the time, you know?
Call the operator, ask what time it is
She'd be happy to tell you
Now they want you to pay 40 cents for it
Okay, that's the free sample there
212-279-3400
That's just a local phone call
Give us a call
Good evening, you're on
Hi again, it's me
Oh no
Now wait a minute
You're on the same line again
I think you've canceled all the other lines
And somehow you've made this your own
Alright, alright, what is it?
First of all, when I was on the net
I do Alt.2600
How come there are a thousand things?
Why is it, does it like...
Well, the thing is, if you had listened before
You would have heard that somebody spammed the news group last night
And there's about a thousand worthless topics in there
So what I think you should do
Is go through each and every one of them
And look at them to make sure that they're all the same
Once you've determined that
You should delete them one by one, not all at once
And by that time, you know, you should be old enough to collect retirement
Okay, now how do you post onto the Alt.2600?
You want to post a message?
What news reader are you using?
Tin?
I think Elm or something
No, Elm is your mail reader
Oh
Tin is your news reader
You're probably using Tin
Okay, in which case there is a follow-up
If you hit F, that will allow you to follow up to a message that's already there
That's probably the easiest thing to do
And you can say W to post a new message
Yes, say W to post a new message
And they'll ask you what news groups to put it on
You can post on any news group you want
You can make the name rebel.escape.com
Be a part of every news group if you want
And you can just make your own news group called rebel.escape.com
Well, no, you can make your own news group
To make, what do you have to do?
You have to be a news administrator to create a news group
Yeah, and I don't think you're a news administrator, are you, Rebel?
I don't think so
No, I don't think so either
Thanks for calling
Good evening, you're on the air
Hello
You okay?
Yeah, hi
Hi
My name is Mike, I live in Brooklyn
Hey Mike from Brooklyn, how are you?
Well, I'm just coming back to normal now
I am recently a survivor of the conspiracy between 9X and AT&T to drive you nuts when you order ISDN
Oh, that conspiracy, let's talk about this
I made it, I made it, it's done, it took one month
But I lost the dial tone for nine days out of the month, they couldn't find it
But now at the end of the month, I have it all hooked up, I went with PSI, and it's working pretty well
You went with PSI, huh?
Yeah, well that was, the confusion was that 9X and AT&T would not agree that it was available in this area
And there was a lot of buck passing
Yeah, I know, well 9X has been having some problems recently, we'll talk about that in a minute
But tell me, the kind of service you're getting from PSI, now you're not taking advantage of the 56K thing, are you?
Yes, that's what I'm doing, I'm taking advantage of everything
Alright, tell us exactly what it is you're doing
I use their configuration manager, and there's a little problem with that
This software for PSI came with Chameleon, which comes with the BitSurfer
And there's a book that comes with it
So after I'm banging on it, and I'm following the instructions, but I mean to the letter
I give up and I call support, and the first thing they tell me at support is that when you go to set up for ISDN
You don't set it for ISDN, you set it for PPP, regardless of what the book tells you
So that kind of like left me lost for a couple of hours and forced me to call for help, which I didn't want to do, but I did
And they told me like, ignore the book, it's a version behind the software
Now when you use the BitSurfer, you can't set for ISDN because it's not a card, the software looks for a card
So you have to set for the PPP, but once you set for the PPP, it goes in
And once you're in, you can do the bonding, anything that you want
But you have to understand that even though you're setting up for ISDN, you mustn't, you must set for PPP
Now wait a minute, what speed are you connecting at?
Right now I'm going in at 57.6
57.6, that's a speedy setting, a serial point
Okay, but you're not, you're not, you have to pay that penny a minute to 9X, right?
Yeah, right, I'm giving it to them for this month, until I can figure out how to take advantage of everything
Well, the problem is, you're not going to be able to figure that out, because if you'd listened last week, you would have heard our horror story with PSI
Where they told us that it was possible to do that, to connect at 56k and not pay the penny a minute with 9X
And what, that, that, that trick is basically what?
Um, the, uh, the trick is basically that you could, uh, you complete a call as either a speech or an audio call
And, uh, pass 56 kilobit data over the connection, and, uh, thereby avoiding the penny a minute surcharge
But, uh, PSI does not support this
Right, but they didn't tell us this until after we had signed up with them
Well, I'm glad to hear about this, but I gotta tell you something
I, I really feel emotionally shattered after this month with these people
And I'm so afraid to touch anything at this point
I can imagine
I'm just so glad that the thing is working
I feel like I've been tortured
Uh huh
I've learned, uh, I've relearned the fear, uh, of the mechanism
Again, because of all the disappointments over the month
Uh, I think that it's gonna take probably a week or so before I calm down
And can really be relaxed with this thing so I can explore it
But right now, I'm so afraid to touch anything
It's, it's been a nightmare
I, I'm, I'm telling you, it's been a nightmare
It's something to hear you on, on this end of the spectrum
Having gone through all this and kind of, kind of shattered by it
And then on the other end of the spectrum is Rebel
There with his internet account, uh, posting a thousand messages onto the Usenet
I don't know, between the two of you, I guess, is everybody else
Well, I, I, I want to tell you, it's beautiful once, once it's working
Once I calm down, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go in there and really have a good time with it
But it's been a nightmare
They, they just, they don't have any service people who understand anything
And all that they do is they keep coming over and saying, listen
When we're done here, could you write a letter to this person and say that we were wonderful?
But they never, like, get out fixing anything
They just sent supervisors to my house, like, for two weeks in a row
Supervisors, like, were sitting here eating lunch with me
And nothing was getting done
Amazing
There was an argument of whether or not an ISDN signal can coexist with a regular, um, analog signal
And because the dial-up number for PSI, uh, here in New York is just a 212 number
When they listened to it, they were telling me, no, that's not the ISDN number
And they wouldn't bring over a guy with it, with the Tektronic ISDN reader
Until I changed the number that I wanted to use
Oh boy
But in fact, that number that they have for the dial-up, you can use it for analog or ISDN
The thing is, yeah, you can, but with PSI, with the service you have now
You will not be able to take advantage of that analog, or I guess, uh, audio calls
Yeah, audio calls
That's the right way to say it
Um, they, they don't support that, so you might want to consider that
The other thing that they don't, uh, support is the alias
Um, they give you this really hard to do, uh, US, uh, they give you a number for an identification
For an identifier, and if you want to change that, you have to get a third party, um, piece of software
To, uh, to, to change it to an alias, so you can get, like, a real username, or a regular username
Uh, there, there are some things to be desired, but I guess they're coming along
Anyway, I'm sure I've held you guys up enough
Uh, thank you for your time
I, I feel better just telling somebody that
Okay
Well, we're here for you
Thank you very much
Thanks for sharing
Take care
Oh, we're like a support group here
Now, uh, why don't you update us on your ISDN, uh
Oh yeah, my, my current situation is that, uh,
Is that, uh, I've sort of, uh, graduated into the, uh, the category of wanting more features
And, uh, fortunately or unfortunately, 9x is, uh, sort of, has graduated into this, uh, category
Along with me
Where, uh, obviously one would hope that they would have been ahead
But, uh, unfortunately they're figuring out how these features are added at the same time I am
Right
So, uh, for the past couple of weeks I've been trying to order, uh, features such as call appearances
Call appearances and three-party conferencing and so on and so forth
What's call appearances?
Call appearances, uh, basically allow you through, uh, simulating what's known as, uh, electronic key telephone service
What it allows you to do is, uh, if you have an ISDN telephone
Or if you have a, uh, an ISDN terminal adapter that you connect to your computer that supports, uh, custom calling features
Which are known as supplementary services in ISDN lingo
Call appearances would basically, uh, let you make or receive up to a certain number of calls
Say if you ordered ten call appearances
You would be able to make or receive a combination of up to ten calls simultaneously
By, uh, putting people on hold
And obviously you could only ever talk to one person at a time
Only one person?
Yeah
If you had three-way, then that's a separate feature
Okay
Then you could talk to the person on the call appearance that you're talking to
And then conference someone else in
Now, why is it that you can't bond them all together?
Because they each one...
Because you can only actually talk on one B channel at any one time
The call appearances are actually managed at the switch
So you can only actually talk to one person on a B channel at the same time
When you put them on hold, they're not still there on your line
No, they're back at the switch
They're back at the switch, yeah
Right
And, uh, you could have, uh, either three-party or six-party conferencing on ISDN
Okay, so you can have six-way
Yeah, there is such thing as six-way
Is that very expensive?
Uh, I don't remember what the tariff was on six-way
I wonder how you would manage that
Because you hit flash now to go to three-way
What, would you hit flash four more times?
Uh, no, actually, it's, uh...
You'd have to do something else
You'd probably get, you'd probably flash and, uh...
Dial some sort of a code
Yeah, most likely
Or, um, that's a really good question
I think you should order that, too
And be in for another six months of hell
But, um, now, uh, the last word that I heard is, uh, tomorrow
Uh-huh
I actually had somebody from Northern Telecom, uh, give them a ring
Northern Telecom's getting into the fray, huh?
Yeah, because I happen to be served by a Northern Telecom switch
AMS-100
Yeah
Now, David, you had something on, uh, on 9X and ISDN
Right, um, a while ago in the comp-de-comp.ISDN newsgroup
I posted a message asking people to send me email
About anecdotes about their installations of ISDN with 9X
Um, just recently, uh, a couple of my friends had ordered ISDN
And they spoke to 9X business office personnel
And, for some reason, they were directed to a third-party company
Out, out in Long Island, um, to manage their ISDN orders
And, from the two people I've spoken to so far
This has been a total nightmare, as our last, uh, caller had alluded to
Yeah
Um, what I would like is, if, if you're out there
And you've, um, ordered ISDN from 9X in the last couple of months
I would like to get some reports
Because I'm speaking regularly now to executives at 9X about this
Um, please, uh, send me messages, uh, to my personal address
David at david.com
And, if you could just make the subject 9X underscore ISDN
You got david.com
Yes
Unbelievable
So all the other Davids in the world, uh, won't be able to get that
Because you took it
You got it
Wow
Oh, I got it, actually
Alright
But, uh, so please send me the mail
Because, um, I am speaking to these people on a regular basis
And they actually are acting upon some of the issues that I'm bringing up to them
Okay, thanks for the input
Um, here's a nightmare story from, uh, Telecom Digest
And, uh, Fiber, maybe, maybe you can, uh, maybe you can, uh, lend some insight on this particular problem
This person says, um, they have, uh, I believe they are on the west coast
They use Pac Bell
We have 26 lines
26 lines, residential pots
And one ISDN line into our house
Uh, for the curious, we have an internet cooperative amongst 20 people
ISDN carries internet to my house
And then 20 modems take it all over town to the members
Pac Bell told us when we ordered our last three lines that we could only have one of them
And that we were then maxed out
Their story is that we've used all the pairs up on my street
Except for the spares to each other house
Um, and the allocation is from one to five pairs per house
I called the office on Monday to inquire as to the cost to get two more lines
I told them that engineering had told me no more unless I pay for trenching, et cetera
Uh, the lady told me there are nine pairs to your area available
And three available to your house
I found this hard to believe but decided to test it and order the line
Um, and she assigned me a number and date for install
And then an engineer came out and was rather rude with me
Telling me that there's been a blocked place to my address
And that we can have no more lines
He said we can pay upwards of $10,000 to have the area rewired
Even though I got a firm commitment from the business office
Kind of interesting
Have you ever heard of that kind of, uh, situation
Where they say you can't have any more lines
Not in New York I haven't
In fact, uh, 9X, uh, it might not be the quickest thing in the world
Obviously Manhattan is really bogged down with orders
Being the busy city that it is
But 9X is constantly running new lines
And, uh, the company that I used to work for
We, uh, ran out of phone lines
Uh-huh
And, uh, 9X came and chopped up the street
And ran some more pairs
Well, I know with a business you can, uh, you can always get more lines
Well, this was at a residence though
It was a residential line?
Yeah, it was actually a business run at a residence
Or was it a business line?
Uh
At the residence
They treat it differently
I believe they were business lines
Yeah, because you have to pay more for business lines
So I think they give you more preferential treatment
Well, they certainly didn't tell us that we have to pay for chopping up the street
Yeah
Well, the thing is when you're in a residence
I mean there are residential uses for many phone lines
The way I understood it
You can get as many lines as you want as long as you pay for them
Mm-hmm
I'm not sure if there are any, uh, any kinds of restrictions on that
Twenty-six seems like a pretty high number for a residence
But, uh, who knows?
There might be a good reason for that
I mean, like you're running a BBS or something
This has long been a point of contention
You know, a BBS is not considered a business
It's basically just for receiving incoming phone calls
There's no money exchanging hands in most cases
Well, if these people in question are charging subscribers to connect to their BBS
Then it is a business
Yeah, it is a business
But really, what business is that of the phone company?
What do you use your phone line for?
Yeah
I mean, maybe there are some advantages to having a business line
If you want to take advantage of that, then you do
And if you don't want to take advantage of that, then you don't
And there's certain areas of town that are offices where you have to have business lines
That's understood
You don't live there, so you can't have a residential line
But I don't think that the phone company should be deciding for people
Well, this is a business line because you do this on it
You know, it's really, uh, in your own home, I think you can do whatever you want
Jim, you have something?
Yeah, back in 1993, when Esoteric Resources was trying to get some lines
Uh, we didn't want to pay for business lines
And we were told by the phone company NYNEX here in New York
That, uh, per person you could only get three lines without paying for
If you wanted more than three
Even if you had them, uh, registered or whatever you like to call it
In the individual's name, you'd have to pay as if it was a business
Well, I think that might be that representative's interpretation
Perhaps
Because I hear all different stories from all different people
And one representative told me very firmly that NYNEX doesn't care if you run a business out of your home
Uh, it's really your choice
You know, if you're in a home, you can do whatever you want
You can have as many phone lines as you want
Okay, uh, 212-279-3400
This is off the hook, a special expanded edition
Our new time is from 8 to 9 on Tuesdays
And tonight we're on until 10 o'clock
And here's a little story
Talking about irresponsible behavior
McMaster University in Canada
The computer services group continues to use the student number as logon ID and email address
In spite of the fact that many professors post grades quote-unquote anonymously using student numbers
It's the equivalent of the social security number
Imagine having that as your logon ID
People just, uh, keep extending the boundaries for privacy invasion
It's 25 minutes after 9 o'clock
Let's take some phone calls
Good evening, you're on the air
Hey, hi
I'm so glad to get through
How are you doing?
Pretty good, pretty good
Okay, I have a question for you
I sent you a letter a few weeks ago
Uh huh?
But I guess it got lost in the, uh, shuffle
Um, I'm trying to dial like, um, like we have 900 numbers
I'm trying to dial some, uh, 0891 numbers in, uh, England
Oh, that's, that's gonna be difficult
Yeah, it's the equivalent of a, uh, of a toll service over there, right?
Yeah, but I'm willing to, like, pay for the cost of the call
And lots of people over there are willing to pay to get to an 800 number
You know, a lot of people over in England or France or somewhere
Want to call an 800 number over here
They have no translation for it
But, uh, many times there's just no way to do it
Because they can't figure out how to bill you
You know?
Um, so you don't know any tricks?
Well, the only trick I can think of is to find somebody in England
That has a two-line phone and is willing to, uh, you know, to front it for you
And will simply connect you and will dial for you
So you don't know any access codes or anything that I could do with directly?
As far as I know, that's blocked from all countries except that particular country
You would have to do it from within there
And certainly there are ways of tricking the system and forwarding it
Of course, if you have a blue box and you figure out ways of routing
I'm sure Bill SF could go on for, uh, for hours about that
But, uh, fortunately he's not available
Okay, thanks for your time, man
All right, good luck
Bye-bye
You ever call an 0891 number?
No, I've never even heard of them
Well, it's like 900 numbers in England
Oh, okay
You can't call a 900 number from England
Yeah, what would happen if, uh, somebody here called the, uh, England direct number?
You'd get a British operator
Yeah, and she wouldn't be able to connect you to those numbers?
You know, maybe she could
Maybe she could
Um, do you have the number for the UK direct?
Uh, no
Let's see if, uh,
800 information, yeah
Let's see if that actually works
800 information, one of my favorite numbers
800 directory saying
Hello, I'm trying to find the number for, uh, I believe it's called UK direct
It might be England direct
A moment
Thank you
Nothing either way, sir
Really?
It's the service that allows you to call, uh, England direct and get an operator over there?
You've never heard of it?
It's through AT&T
Yeah
Might be AT&T UK direct or something
Okay, let me try that
Okay, let me try that
Alright
No, I don't show it, so let me give you a service assistant, maybe she knows how it is
Okay, thank you
Service assistant, Mrs. Christopher
Hello, uh, we're trying to find the number for, uh, a service called UK direct
It's, uh, it allows you to call an operator in England
UK direct
No, I don't find anything under that name, sir
Really?
It's, uh, you don't know of a service run by AT&T that, uh...
Ukraine
Sorry?
It's like USA direct, except it's, it's not
That's the name of it, or is it actually called the Ukraine direct?
Uh, no, I don't think it's called that
Um, alright, I'll, I'll just, I'll look it up somehow, I'll find it
Thank you
Ah, well, I guess that's, that's pretty much what we should have expected
Yeah
Um
I mean, I don't know what it's really called, but I thought they were all familiar with those numbers
I have a whole list at home, actually
I have that list, too
Yeah
We all have that list, we don't have that list here, that's the problem
Yeah
Um
Maybe one of our trusty listeners
Yeah, a listener might want to try calling AT&T customer service
Yeah
They most definitely have it
Yeah, there's a special number that they have
That, you know, where they're knowledgeable people from AT&T
Yeah
And they, uh, you know, they have all those numbers
And they can talk intelligently about it
But, unfortunately, I don't have that number either
Isn't that a 800-FIND-ATT?
No
No?
I don't know what that number is, FIND-ATT
Yeah
Why would you have to find them?
They're always there
To get various information
I don't think so
Do you want me to try that?
Try that?
Well, I mean, I'd tell you to try customer service
Before I told you to try that
I'll try that
I'll try that
1-800-FIND-ATT
Yeah, that number sticks in my head
Let's see where this takes us
Thank you for calling the FIND AT&T Center
An easy-to-do business with initiative
And service for AT&T employees only
Our hours of operation are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
It's illegal for us to call this
Good Friday
Must have been from one of my past adventures
If you'd like to leave a message at the tone
Uh-oh
We'll return your call on the following business day
Please leave your name, area code, telephone number, and details of your request
The FIND AT&T Center is not equipped to handle external customer referrals or callbacks
That's us
And it's not an employee locator service
Please refer to your regional intercompany directory
Or the employee locator office telephone numbers
Thank you
Well, I think that's about enough rejection for one night
Yeah
Alright, let's take some phone calls
Good evening, you're on the air
Hi, I'm calling back and just asking if I gave you one of these 0891 numbers or another type
Would you be willing to give it a try?
We'll give it a try
Sure
Do you know what we're talking about when we say UK direct?
I know, I know
For a second there I thought, well, yes
Well, what is a typical number?
I could give you two numbers
Alright, give us one or two numbers
Are you on the net, by the way?
No
Okay, if you were on the net, you could post this question to CompDcomTelecom
And you'd get an answer in a shot
You would
You'd give me a computer and I'll do it
Well, that's a mighty tempting offer there, but I'm not sure
Alright, let me give you two numbers
Here's, both of these are for nightclubs in England
The first one is 891-919-621
Yeah
And the other is the famous club, the Hacienda in Manchester
And that's a different code
It's 336-404-960
So that last one is not a 891
It's a 336
But they're both billed at what they call 39 pence a minute cheap rate
And 49 pence a minute at all other time
So wait, 336 is another premium service?
Yes
I wasn't aware of that one
I know about 891, but not 336
Yeah, it's a new one
Okay, well, we'll see what we can do
Okay
Alright, good luck
I don't know
I don't know
If we had that number, we could try it
Yeah
Well, we can still call AT&T customer service, you know
Yeah, and waste a lot more time with them
Oh, okay
If someone wants to go outside into the hallway and call them
That's fine with me
But I think, you know, we put our listeners through enough
Trying to get through AT&T
They can do that, you know, anytime
You know, we've all called AT&T and put on hold for 10 minutes
We don't need to hear that on the radio
In fact, a listener should call us with the information
That's right
Well, if he was able to call us right back like that
I'm sure, you know, people can get through with the information
Good evening, you're on Off the Hook
Hi, how are you?
Pretty good, how are you?
Alright
Am I on the air?
Yes, you are
Right now, you're on the air
Oh, hi
Yeah, I've been listening with great interest to your discussions of ISDN
And I just wanted to ask if you could to sort of step back from your own experiences
And perhaps give some insight on the options that people looking for internet service providers
With ISDN service might be choosing from
And on the equipment, the hardware that we might be choosing from
Well, the equipment we've been experimenting with is the Motorola BitSurfer
That's one of the things that we've been playing with
And are you located in New York?
Yes, I am
Okay, there's lots and lots of service providers in New York
And quite a few of them offer ISDN
I know Escape has ISDN
Do you know others?
Yeah, Escape does, the internet channel does
Are you familiar with an outfit called walrus.com?
Walrus.com
No, I haven't heard of them
Can't say I've heard of them though
No, I have not heard of them
Why are they in the city?
Yeah, they're down in the financial district
Okay
And do you know if they have ISDN?
Yeah, they do
And it was
And I'm just going on the resources that are on the web
Do you have more to say about PSI?
Well, I mean, just to sum up
Our problems with PSI stem from the fact that they told us one thing
And then it turned out something else was true
The thing that you really want to do
Unless you're a mega corporation and can afford all kinds of things
You want to be able to avoid that ridiculous penny a minute surcharge
That 9X puts on ISDN connections
And you do that by simply having what's known as an audio call
Where you're able to push up to 56k on a single line
I just read that PSI is offering $29 a month
Up to 2 channel connections
With their usual
At the same rate as their usual 28.8 or lower
You know, this is something kind of funny
We had signed up with them
And I think we paid something like $500 installation fee
And we're paying $250 a month
They send us this little advertisement right after we do that
Saying, hey, there's never been a better time to sign up for ISDN
Our rates are cut in half
And, you know, you've already signed up for a year's contract
You can't take those rates
So they're sort of like mocking you and rubbing your face in it
And saying, if you had only waited a couple more weeks
You could have saved all this money
But doesn't that indicate that this is the coming thing
And over the next year you'll see a lot more competition
And, you know, if you're paying through the nose for a 28.8 connection now
I hope so
And I also hope that a lot of the smaller companies get into this
Because they're the ones that can really offer you good deals
I mean, as far as what we were trying to do
With the 56k connection
You know, the people at PSI
When they finally figured out what it was we wanted
They were acting like we were asking for something bizarre
And this is something that
I mean, Fiber, you've been doing this for months now
Yeah, months and months
It's not a problem
It's not a big deal
And anybody that knows what they're doing can provide you that service
So you can connect, you know, to internet via ISDN
And not pay the penny a minute surcharge
And be connected to 56k
It's not illegal
You're not cheating anyone
You are using the resources in the way they're supposed to be used
So another note on that is if you actually live close enough to an internet service provider
That, say for example, you're served by the same switch
You could actually, if the company is smart, if they offer ISDN
What they could do is set up their ISDN dial-up lines to be on Centrex
And they could add your ISDN line as part of their Centrex group
That's a really good deal
And if that's the case, you can actually connect it
64 kilobits, 128 kilobits
Because then it's considered an internal call
Yeah, it's considered an internal call
And there's no penny a minute charges
Is that something you think will be likely to
You'll be likely to see providers go into the trouble of doing
If they're smart, they will because they're getting business that way
And it's a minor thing for them to do
But it's kind of innovative
But if they're smart, they will offer that
Yeah
Thanks so much
Okay, take care
These are definitely interesting times
We're sort of forging ahead through unexplored territory here
With this whole ISDN business
212-279-3400
Good evening, you're on Off the Hook
Hey Gunn, I have one question
Listen, listen, listen, listen
You've exceeded your maximum time on this show, I'm sorry
Maybe for all time
Good evening, you're on the air
Hello?
Yes
Yes, my question is
What are the three-digit numbers that when you dial on the phone
You get the recording what phone number you are calling from?
Oh, you mean your automatic number announcement thing?
Yes, it starts with 9
Yeah
What are those two other digits?
958 should do it
Are you in New York?
In New York, yes
Yeah, 958 works from just about everywhere
958?
Thank you very much
Okay, hang up now and find out your phone number
Good evening, you're on the air
Hello?
Yes, go ahead
Yeah, hi, I called before
I forgot to ask you, I was so excited
Uh-huh
I'm interested in getting an ISDN phone
Since the BitSurfer doesn't allow the caller ID
The caller ID
Actually
Ah, interesting you should mention that
Funny you should mention
We just had an adventure with the caller ID and ISDN
Uh-huh
In fact, if you're serviced by a DMS-100 switch
And if you don't know this
And if you don't know this, you can find out from
Unational
Well, you can also find out by probably calling your exchange plus 9901
They usually tell you
Yeah, but in a lot of cases they only say that it's digital
Yeah
By saying DS0 or DS1
Okay
Well, in 100% of all cases, you're going to be a national ISDN1
Uh-huh
What you want to find out is if you're on a 5ESS or a DMS-100 switch
Which are the two most prevalent switches
If you are served by a DMS-100, you'll have caller ID as part of your basic service
This is a perk of being on that particular brand of switch
If you're served by a 5ESS, you'll have to subscribe to caller ID separately
Well, I have the service, but the BitSurfer in its present state
I hear that Motorola's putting out the BitSurfer Pro at the end of the month
Which will acknowledge the caller ID
Well, this guy knows his stuff, doesn't he?
Yes and no
I am very impressed
Okay, what you will get is that if you have a stock BitSurfer
Right
Out of the box, you can receive caller ID for data calls
If you get a lot of data calls
I don't
If you want to receive caller ID for voice calls
Right
It'll actually log it
And it'll store it, which you can recall with an AT command
Oh, okay
And that AT command being?
You won't be able to do it
What you need to do is upgrade your firmware
Right
And I just got this brand new firmware today myself
Wow
And among other things, it supports caller ID for voice calls
Caller ID blocking and screening
So you can reject calls from numbers you don't like
Right
And various other things including asynchronous bonding
Which you could use to connect at 112 or 128 kilobits to another BitSurfer
Right
And various other features, as well as support for custom calling features
Including the simulation of three-way and call waiting
Which is extremely handy
The simulation?
Yeah, because in ISDN it's not actually known as three-way and call waiting
Call waiting is actually simulated through call appearances
Okay
And three-way is actually accomplished by ordering a three-party conference calling
And where did you update
Where did you get your hands on?
What you want to do is call Motorola tech support
800 if you have a pen
The number is 800
And the tech support number next from what?
Yeah, 221-4380
What you want to do is ask them
Tell them that you want the latest revision of the firmware for the BitSurfer
It's revision 1F
1F
Yeah, F is in Frank
And they'll just send it out to me?
They'll send it out to me?
Yeah, they'll send it out to you
If you're well-versed in taking things apart and putting them back together
Then you shouldn't have a problem
Otherwise you might be concerned about breaking the BitSurfer's case
Because it has invisible snaps
Great
And it's not hard to open at all once you know how
Once you know how?
Yeah, there's no screws
It actually snaps open
Okay, so now I've got it open and what do I do?
Is this just a plug-in module?
Yeah, there's two proms
What you want to do is pop out the two old ones
Right
And bearing in mind that the one on the left is even
And the one on the right is odd
Right
Okay
And what you want to do is keep the proper orientation
Like it's left and right
Depends on which way you hold the thing up
Right
But you'll see a label on the two chips
One will say Z7 and one will say Z8 typically
Right
Keep track of which socket the Z7 one is in
And make sure that when the two new ones that you get
You keep the same orientation
Okay
Basically you can pop out those two old chips
They're in sockets
And they're small square surface mount chips
You can pop them out with a paper clip
Just by leveraging it out
Right
You pop in the two new ones keeping the proper orientation
Which isn't hard to do because there's a little slit in the corner of the chip
So you can't put them in backwards
Good
And pop the lid back on and you'll be up and running
The problem is that in documentation
If you're a tinkerer you might be able to figure out a lot of these features
Otherwise what they basically are are a lot of the BitSurfer Pro features
Condensed to work on the BitSurfer
And the BitSurfer Pro is not officially out yet
And neither is the manual
Now the only features that really differ on the BitSurfer Pro that are important is
There's two phone jacks
You can plug in two telephones not just one like on the BitSurfer
It supports multi-link PPP
Right
Which is a more universal means of asynchronous bonding
And I use the term bonding loosely not referring to the bonding protocol
But the ability to use multiple B channels for one connection
And the supported one more thing that was important
Oh the upgradability
You won't have to be popping the thing open all the time
You can actually upgrade it through software
Excellent
So these things are coming fairly soon I hear in only a couple of weeks
In fact the technicians at Motorola just got the BitSurfer Pros
Well you know the idea is I'm trying to avoid putting out another near 400 bucks
Right
Just to get the call ID
If I had to do that I would have just went for an IFDN phone
Right well here you can get your BitSurfer upgraded for free if you do it yourself
Okay well let's
And it'll log the numbers
One other thing
When I do connect to a PSI
Right
It's giving me a connect message of connect 576
Right
I suppose I should be happy with that
If you're connecting at a
You're using a PC or a Mac
PC
What you want to do is if your computer is fairly new you should have a higher speed serial port
You should be setting your serial port to 115200
Alright
To get the best use of the throughput of the connection
Okay
Thank you very much for your time gentlemen
Okay
Oh by the way could somebody give me the number to Northern Telecom
You have that number in your head?
Is that number in your head?
Uh
Oh boy
Off the top of my head
Where are they located?
Uh
You can call Northern Telecom in Valhalla, New York upstate
Funny that they're not in the 800 directory
What's the area code up there?
800
There's an 800 number
Well
They give you an answer
Oh no actually I'm sorry
It's a 914 number
We can get a request but
It doesn't
It's to another company
Right here
I found a number for Northern Telecom in Valhalla
It's uh
914
773
2772
Okay
Good luck with that
Thank you very much
Alright
I think that's probably the most advanced discussion ever to take place on ISDN on these airwaves
While the two of you were going at it
I just hope everybody else didn't fade away there
But um
I think he's getting to where he wants to be
Yeah
I think once people actually get over the initial frustration of actually getting the service
And they actually get the chance to play with their hardware a little bit
Uh huh
I find that people are really eager to figure out this whole new service
Yeah but hopefully it'll be made easier for people in the future
Right
So they don't have to worry about all this
They just know what they want in the end
Right
They want a fast connection
And you know we've already done the work for them to make it work just the way they want it to
Have caller ID
Have six call appearances or whatever we call it
Right
You know that's I guess what we're figuring out now
It is worth mentioning as far as ordering vanilla ISDN service
It is no longer very complicated
The only problem is that the uh
The representatives at the
Average run-of-the-mill business office
Don't really know much about this
But uh 9x actually has an ISDN tech center
In downtown Manhattan
Who uh is trained and specializes in taking ISDN orders
Now I don't want to give out their number over the air without checking with them
Because they're extremely helpful and I wouldn't want them to be deluged with phone calls
Right
But um
I will just tell you they're there
Yeah they're there
And uh
You have to find them
Yeah I'm sure you can find them
Ask them and if they want their number given out we'll give it out next week
Yeah
All right
Let's take some more phone calls
212-279-3400
We don't have to just talk about ISDN
Um
But I I do want to say that I'm very impressed with all of our callers so far
For not talking about the one thing that none of us want to talk about today
What is that you're drinking over there?
No I'm not going to say it
I'm drinking fruit juice
I I I
And that's all I'm going to say it is
I'm not going to say what kind it is or anything like that
And I'm not going to say that name or anything
And I I hope none of our callers do either
212-279-3400
You're listening to an extended edition of Off the Hook on WBAI
Normally we'll be on from Tuesday nights
Tuesday nights from 8 to 9 p.m.
Good evening you're on the air
Um hello
Hi how you doing
Hi um
After such a wonderful advanced discussion about ISDN
I hate to bring the conversation down a peg
But I was going to ask if you guys had any pointers for those of us out there
Who are um interested but maybe don't actually know anything about ISDN yet
Are there any good um references for those of us who would
Yes there is
ISDN for dummies
ISDN for dummies
ISDN for dummies
ISDN for dummies
No offense but I mean
Yeah
Fiber even bought this book for himself
Yeah I bought the book basically because I wanted to review it
To see if it was comprehensive and understandable to the layperson
So I could recommend it to people and I am recommending it
It's uh it's very easy to grasp and it's very easy to read
It's a quick read
And it provides a lot of information that will be extremely useful
In understanding what ISDN is
Why you'd want it
And how you can order it
As well as reviews of various products that are available
If you read that book I think you'll be in much better shape
Great thanks a lot
Okay take care
Good night
I should read that book shouldn't I
I think you should
Alright
I think everyone should
Yeah of all the dummy series I think that's probably one of the most helpful
It should be in the drawers of every night table at every hotel
Well yeah that would certainly be what's there now
Good evening you're on the air
Hello
Yeah go ahead
Yeah this is another ISDN question
I live in New Jersey
Yeah
And I hear with Bell Atlantic it's a lot easier to get to service or something like that
But the question I want to know is
Is there any local providers in New Jersey
And also I would like to be able to use both channels
Okay
What can you tell him?
I don't know about really any local providers
I know about the national providers
I mean all the major providers or most of them that offer ISDN obviously cover New Jersey
I think Panix is in New Jersey
Oh yeah that's true
Although Panix doesn't have ISDN yet
Do they have a local access system or would it be like a long distance call
Where are you in New Jersey?
In Central Jersey I guess Westfield
201?
Excuse me?
Are you in 201?
908
908
I'm not really sure what the calling patterns are over there
You'd have to check
If you call a system like Panix
See if they have a dial up in your area or if it's a local call for you
Otherwise it's not really a secret
I'm sure there is a service in your area
What city are you near?
As far as a big city or?
Yeah what's the biggest city you're near?
Newark or?
I guess Newark yeah
Okay so look for something
Is Newark a local call for you?
No
Okay well you need a city that's in your local calling area
Are there any?
I'm not sure
Okay well you need to find out about that
That's the most important thing
There are providers here but I don't know if any have ISDN
Well they will if you call them and pester them to have it
You know because ISDN is the future
We've known that for a while but it's only this year that we've started actually doing something
Well do you have net access right now?
Well I'm a consultant so I have it at my job
Well what you might want to do is do you have a use net access on your net
Can you read newsgroup?
Yeah yeah
Oh then the easiest thing you could do is post a message on the newsgroup comp.dcom.isdn
Okay
And if you post a message asking about service providers in Jersey that have ISDN you'll definitely get responses
Yeah you'll get them fast and furious
Yeah
Alright
My job has I have an ISD phone at my job and it has like eight lines coming in but they're like
It's kind of like a um it has buttons for each line
Right
What is it a ROM phone?
It's AT&T
Oh
Was that Meridian?
No AT&T
Is it the uh was it one of the 8520s or is it an older one?
I'm not sure of the model number it's pretty big it's got like several uh soft touch buttons on it
Is it uh black or white?
It's kind of like brown
Oh
Brown
Uh brown
Caller ID that comes up when people call you
I think that's one of the newer ones I think it's the 8500 series
Do you get caller ID for outside calls or just inside calls?
Yeah and outside and when it's inside I actually see the person's name
Wow
Which you will do uh you'll see people's names soon when caller name uh service comes around
Yeah caller name delivery sure
The outside lines I see this as uh
Uh huh
Okay
Alright well thanks for the call
One other question
Yes
Between BRI and PRI
I'll hang up
Okay
BRI and BRI
BRI is uh what 9x terms as basic exchange service
BRI actually stands for basic rate ISDN
And is uh uh basically uh what a normal subscriber would order not a business
It's more geared towards residences you get two B channels no frills
A PRI is actually ISDN provided over a T1 line
Uh T1 line being uh approximately one and a half uh million bits per second bandwidth
And uh it actually provides uh 23 B channels
And a T1 obviously uh for people out there that are aware actually has 24 channels
The uh 24th being used for signaling as your D channel
And that's used for uh usually corporate high volume ISDN service
And is uh obviously more expensive
Okay
Good evening you're on the air
Hello
Yes go ahead
Um I'm actually calling concerning a couple things
Uh first of all thank god you guys are on the air
Second of all uh I'm a service provider in New Jersey
Oh
And actually we're just going to start doing ISDN
This is incredible
Wow
So you're a service provider in New Jersey and you're about to provide ISDN
What's the name of your uh your service?
Uh we're crusoe.net and we're in the 201 area code
How do you spell that?
That's C-R-U-S-O-E dot N-E-T
Okay
Like Robinson
You got it
Alright
Okay uh basically I was listening to your conversation earlier about Centrix etc etc
And I wanted to know since we're ordering our PRI right now anyway
Uh are there any special features I should look for on it?
Uh
Cause they're going to give us the laundry list of order what you want on your PRI
Yeah
The thing is um
To get the best service
If you want to get it as quickly as possible it might not be a great idea to order Centrix right off the bat
It's something you could always order later
Okay
Like that right now you should just be concerned with getting set up as quickly as possible in which case you uh basically want a vanilla PRI
Okay
And uh obviously you wanna uh
If I were you I would want to have a directory number uh at least as many directory numbers as B channels in which case it would be 23
Yeah
Yeah we're getting that
Yeah
But uh other than that you shouldn't uh have to worry about anything
Obviously what you should do depending on what switch you service by
Is uh make sure that you have uh audio or uh speech bearer capability available on your B channels
Okay
So that subscribers can connect uh on a speech or an audio call at 56 kilobits
Okay and that's what uh you guys were talking about earlier
Yeah
Yeah and you'll get a lot more customers that way
Yeah
Yeah a lot of happy people
A lot of happy customers
Yeah
Alright good luck let us know how you do
Okay the other question I have for you is uh what's your feelings on Java and uh eyeing up
I just don't know what you know I haven't heard anything about this yet
Okay
Well uh it hasn't really exploded yet
But uh
No I don't suppose it has
No but as far as Java goes uh I would expect to see and hear a lot more about Hot Java
Once the uh newer version of Netscape comes out Netscape 2.0 which is supposed to have uh Hot Java support
And I think once that happens you'll see uh a lot more organized effort in uh developing uh Java
You know web-based Java applications
For the benefit of our listeners who have no idea what Hot Java is
Uh Hot Java is basically a uh a really advanced uh web uh presentation uh language as well as browser
That was developed at Sun Microsystems in California
And uh Hot Java goes uh well above and beyond what uh typical web page can do now
Which is basically an over glorified uh magazine page
Hot Java brings uh various things like uh like uh animation and uh
And uh all kinds of really uh powerful tools in the hands of uh web developers
Simply because uh it's not just taking a page and marking it up and making it you know and sprue
It's basically uh an actual programming language that allows people to uh do really powerful and creative things and artistic things
Okay let's take a few more calls
Good evening you're on the air
On the air?
Yes you are
Do you want to be on the air?
Okay well you're no longer on the air there you go
Good evening you're on the air
Hello?
Yes go ahead
Yes you're on the air
Okay you're off the air now too
What's with people out there?
What's going on?
I don't know what's
It's like
They're being beeped with our number or something
They think
They think that they're supposed to be uh talking to somebody
Good evening you're on the air
Hi it's Pam guys
I'm calling with more information on 800 number direct to England
Oh I wonder if we still have time for that
Okay well let's uh see if we do
What do you got?
Well I'll give you the short sweet version
British Telecom uh call direct is 1-800-445-5667
But unfortunately they won't allow you to call 891 or 336 now
Oh you've already checked into that
Yes sir
Oh well great you've done all our work for us
I tried
Uh now they said that uh even with a um even with uh the right kind of card or
Yeah they didn't care they will not bill anything to any
They won't allow a call to go through to 891 or 336
Okay well hopefully our our listener is out there and he's heard the bad news
Yeah and um I they
AT&T really couldn't find UK direct or anything like that
So uh this was the best they could do I don't know if that's the number you guys were talking about
No that's it that is it yeah
That's definitely it
Okay cool
All right thanks for the call
Good night
Take care
All right that's uh an indication of the AI listeners coming through
I think we have time for one more call
Good evening you're on
Yes uh could you tell me if there's any sites for uh finding information on Bernie S's case
Because I'm interested in uh presenting it in a law class
Uh huh
You know just uh with fellow students for discussion
Right
Uh you know a listener called earlier and asked about maybe you had tapes for the show
I'm wondering if there's any hard information on the net
Yeah in fact I'm very glad you mentioned that because I forgot to mention it before
Uh if you finger Bernie S B-E-R-N-I-E-S at 2600.com
It'll give you all the information all the updated information on his case
If you email that address you'll be sending him a letter that will be forwarded to him in prison
Uh which hopefully he won't be in past next week
Uh we have the same service set up for Kevin Mitnick
The address there is K Mitnick K-M-I-T-N-I-C-K at 2600.com
Okay
Thank you
Thanks a lot
And also this reminder there's a 2600 meeting this Friday coming up at the CityCorps Center
Right there in the lobby by the pay phones
Where you can meet and talk with computer hackers and learn all kinds of things like this
And who knows maybe somebody will bring a bit surfer with them
And you can see what that looks like
Anyway that's going to do it for us on this our first Tuesday night of the expanded edition
We'll be back again next Tuesday from 8 to 9 o'clock
So hopefully we'll hear from most of you then and keep in touch
This is Emmanuel Goldstein for Fiber Optic and everybody else
Have a good night
The telephone keeps ringing
So I ripped it off the wall
I cut myself while shaving
Now I can't make a call
It couldn't get much worse
But if they could they would
Bum diddly bum for the best expect the worst
I hope that's understood
Bum diddly bum
Be sure when they came to mind
See them now
Can't found to be way more
But the KnTOR has determined
To make sure people can て you through
Do it
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
C-U-C is the illest.
C-U-C-U-C is the illest.
The Creative Unity Collective Show, alternating Friday nights from midnight to three.
On listener-sponsored WPAI 99.5 FM in New York, boy.
And if you don't know, now you know, you know, you know.
Hello, this is Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mongo Street.
And this is listener-sponsored radio, 99.5 FM, WBAI New York.