It just sort of carries you away, doesn't it?
Well, it's just about 8 o'clock, which means you're listening to WBAI New York.
And it's time for another fun-packed edition of Off the Hook.
And if you want to put titles to the shows, I guess tonight's title will be Revenge.
We'll be right back.
Yeah, well, we went to the Science Fiction Convention.
Actually, I think we all caught some sort of allergy out there.
It was the same flu that sort of traveled out east that we had here about a month or two ago.
Well, I think all the people coming to the Science Fiction Convention made it travel out east.
And now the entire island is, well, it's just best not to talk about it.
But it's been a fun-packed week as always, but this week especially.
So let's, well, we had a fun time at the conference, first of all.
We always have fun times at conferences.
And a lot of interesting people came to our sessions and listened to us talk about the various worlds of hacking and things that have happened in the past.
Just serious things, comical things, all sorts of things.
But throughout the conference, something was happening to us.
And I guess it was sort of a progression of realizing what exactly was going on.
It started on Friday, and that's the day that I said to myself, Bernie S. must have lost his mind.
He must have lost his mind totally.
And, well, what exactly does that mean?
It means that my phone was ringing incessantly all day long on Friday.
And, you know, I know that there's this phone system in the prison that he's in.
And it doesn't always allow you to make a call in a timely fashion.
So you have to keep trying over and over again.
But this was kind of ridiculous, you know.
From 8 o'clock in the morning until 10 o'clock at night, it seemed.
Every few seconds, the phone would ring and hang up, ring, hang up, ring, hang up.
And it's like, you know, come on already.
Obviously, it's not working.
Poor guy, he's going stir-crazy in there.
He's got this manic look on his face.
He's holding a phone to his ear, and he keeps dialing over and over again.
I was scared, you know.
I was wondering what's happening, what's happening to our friend out there.
And then someone picked up the phone on Friday, and they said,
Hey, Emanuel, you know that MCI's been pranking you?
I said, No, you know, you must be mistaken.
I think that's Bernie S. He's trying to get a hold of us.
Then Saturday came, and someone else knocked on my door and said,
Hey, Emanuel, MCI's pranking you. Did you know that?
And I said, That's interesting.
You're the second person to say that in two days.
I wonder if it could be true.
And so, the third day, Sunday came, and guess what?
The phone started ringing early in the morning.
This time, though, this time, I decided to check it out myself.
And I picked up the phone, and I said, Hello.
Which I never do.
You know, usually the answer machine gets.
I picked it up, and I said, Hello.
And there was nothing there.
Silence.
Total silence.
Silence.
And so, I just sort of stayed there.
I wanted to see what would happen.
You know, would the silence just result in a dial tone, or what?
After about 30 seconds, I heard a click, and then this voice came on and said,
Hello, I want to talk to you about friends and family.
I'm like, Yeah.
Are you aware that you guys are calling me every 30 seconds for the last three days?
And at that point, I don't know exactly what it was I said, but it's the first time I've
made a threat of that magnitude since fourth grade, where, you know, I basically threatened
total decimation of an entire group of people.
And the three-letter organization that was threatened in this particular case was MCI.
The calls stopped.
There were no more calls since that fateful one on Sunday.
But, you know, I was thinking ever since, and I've talked to a lot of people since that
day, and they've told me, Yeah, you know, this kind of thing happens when you have a very
antiquated automation system.
In fact, what would you say causes this?
They call you, they get a machine, and then, what, your number goes back to the top of the
queue or something?
I can't even imagine what they were doing, but considering that I was one of the people
trying to sleep at your house over the weekend, when the calls started, it was extremely irritating.
And I want to ask you what happened in fourth grade, but I don't blame you for getting equally
as angry.
I mean, most of the events of that period have been forgotten anyway, but it's best just not
to bring it up in case there are some people left that remember exactly what was going on.
But regardless, I figured it was probably a good idea to not let this rest.
You know, it's probably, is that me?
All right, who's beeping?
Who's the person who can't figure out how to press a button on their beeper?
Okay, so, I figured it'd probably be a good idea to, you know, to push this a little further,
to find out just what in God's name was going on.
You know, this is unacceptable behavior.
You know, if we did this to MCI, can you imagine what the reaction would be?
Can you just imagine?
And you know what?
I did imagine.
I imagined what would happen.
And friends, tonight, tonight, the little people get revenge against the big people.
And we'll probably get in a lot of trouble for it, too.
Okay, do we have dial tone?
Do we have dial tone?
No, we have static.
Let's try over here.
There, we have dial tone there.
Now, let's see if we can make it do what we want to do.
Now, let's see if we can actually, uh...
Thank you for calling MCI.
Press 1 now.
If you're an existing MCI customer, press 2 now.
If you're calling from a rotary telephone, please hold for assistance.
Oh, I'll hold.
Thank you.
One moment, please.
Thank you.
One moment, please.
In an ongoing effort to improve our quality customer service,
your call may be recorded for coaching and development of our associates.
It may also be broadcast over a 50,000-watt radio station, but that's something else.
Thank you for calling MCI.
Currently, all of our customer service professionals are assisting other customers.
We apologize for this difficulty.
Please have your telephone number ready so we can assist you.
Well, we're waiting on hold here.
And, you know, the music faded away.
Ah, here we go.
This is pretty dramatic, isn't it?
Sounds like the psycho theme.
Now, you see, I didn't keep them waiting like this.
You know, I was nice.
I picked up right away, and the machine picked up,
and we were able to, you know, have machines talking to each other.
But this is, well, this is something.
You've got to really work to annoy these guys.
Well, I suppose we can get on with the show while we're on hold,
since this is a pleasant musical background.
Faber, have you looked over what I've given to you over there?
Yes, in fact, I have.
It's another shocking instance of what can possibly be ahead for us as far as the Internet goes.
I've got a couple of things here concerning something that's happening out in the wonderful state of Iowa.
Iowa?
Iowa, yeah.
Well, we just started having 2600 meetings, and guess what?
They got in trouble before they even got published.
It's amazing.
I don't know how this happened, but apparently something untoward happened,
and we'll be getting into detail on that as well.
And I guess that's pretty much it as far as stories go.
We can tentatively move into what you have to say,
but keep in mind, as soon as an MCI representative picks up,
we have to stop what we're doing and deal with them.
Okay.
So go ahead.
What do you have there?
Basically, it's a message mentioning the fact that the Next Generation Internet Protocol,
which is going to be version 6,
they're proposing that a decency status flag be built into the protocol,
the actual protocol itself,
which one particular replier calls absolutely outrageous disgrace,
which I guess is probably not too far from the truth.
Absolutely outrageous.
I don't see any reason why technically something couldn't be done to the Internet Protocol right now.
Of course, it would obviously be too late to integrate it into the current protocol,
but the Next Generation one, they certainly could.
But by the same token, anyone with the know-how can still just ignore that flag, I guess,
or unless they make it illegal to ignore.
So everybody who sends something out on the net is going to...
Hi, this is Sarah.
This is just the area code and phone number.
Yes, hi.
Can I speak to you about long distance, please?
Yes, please.
Okay, I'm calling from 2600 Long Distance Service,
and we believe we can save you up to 20% each month over your current carrier.
May I ask how much you're currently paying for your long distance service?
Do you know who you've called?
No, actually, let me get your name now.
Okay, well, you've called MCI.
MCI, how are you this evening?
We have a new program we believe is better than any other currently being offered.
It's called Random Target, and it works like this.
You call a random person anywhere in the United States more than 75 times a day,
and your 76th call is free.
The only criteria is that this person must be a complete stranger.
Do you have any questions?
Okay, I am MCI, the long distance telephone company, customer service.
You are a telephone company yourself.
We are a telephone company.
You cannot give me rates because I have my own rates.
Well, no, I think we can beat those rates, and we'd be happy to go over them with you.
You're telling me that MCI is going to give up their own rates to go with your company?
Well, I believe we can provide better service and save you up to 20% each month,
especially with our Random Target program.
May I ask how much you pay each month for long distance?
Sir, I think this call needs to be ended because we have our own rates.
This is a long distance company.
You don't wish to give out that information as to how much you spend?
Because we can save you a significant amount.
Thank you, sir. You have a good day.
Okay, we'll just keep calling back then every 30 seconds.
Thank you so much for being a part of this.
And...
Well, I think maybe the point has been made, eh?
Okay, that's...
Call back.
Oh, I will call back.
No, I have a machine at home that's going to deal with this now.
All right, so that's the first installment in the Revenge series here on our radio station WBAI.
And I want to thank everybody for participating in that MCI.
Ho-ho.
Imagine if we were able to get them to switch, you know?
I think they could use another company.
How are we getting feedback?
All right, continue with your story.
Okay.
Anyway, like I was saying,
they want to actually build in to the Internet protocol itself,
which, I mean, I'm sure you're aware of, at least to some degree,
that they're talking about every single solitary packet,
every single datagram that goes across the Internet,
whether it has anything at all to do with text or the web or anything like that.
They want to build in this decency flag,
which just shows a total and complete ignorance of what the Internet protocol is.
Right.
It just doesn't make any sense.
It's obviously made by people that have absolutely no knowledge of what the Internet is all about,
you know, what it is that we've been doing all these years.
They think they can just regulate everything with a V-chip and a rating system.
And it's absurd, obviously,
but imagine the craziness of having to label everything that we say, you know,
is this for people under 17 or under 18 or whatnot?
But, I mean, besides that, there's a lot of datagrams that go across the net
that are between two computers that have nothing to do with people.
Absolutely.
Are we making sure that two computers talking to each other have decent enough material?
We don't want the computers to be offended now, do we?
I guess not.
Well, you know, we could have certain computers that are easily offended
and we could label them in a certain way.
I don't know if that would be what they want.
But, yeah, I mean, these rules, these regulations are just so ridiculous
that you can almost have a lot of fun with them as far as implementing them.
You know, because what does it mean?
You know, how are these labels applied?
You're probably the person that's going to have to wind up applying them,
so how's it going to work?
What, as far as labeling whether something's decent or not?
Yeah, how are you going to do that?
Your guess is as good as mine.
It sounds like something totally ridiculous.
I mean, yeah, you waste a couple of bits in the header of the IP datagram
for a decency flag.
Right.
And then how many different statuses are there, 10, 20, 30?
Or do we make it nice round figures so they fit in a single bit field?
So we say that there's 8 or 16 or 32 decency flags.
Right.
It's, I don't know, it's something I, in a way, it's sort of like two-sided.
There are some bits of it I think are funny and can be played with.
Other parts are just stupid and a big waste of everybody's time.
Um, anything else from there?
I think we've wasted enough time on this particular subject.
Yeah, we probably have.
Okay, well, let's waste some time on this.
This is something out of Iowa, and it's just one of those things that you see happening,
and you just can't believe it.
The headline in the newspaper, the Daily Iowan,
is hacker may be fined more than $2 million.
A UI freshman, University of Iowa,
a freshman suspected of breaking into thousands of electronic mail accounts
faces charges this morning that could result in fines of more than $2 million.
Joseph Henzel, 17, allegedly broke into 2,389 email accounts,
one of which belongs to University of Iowa President Mary Sue Coleman
from a computer in his Washington Street apartment.
And, according to Coleman, she doesn't have a lot of details yet, she says.
This is clearly very serious.
Certainly, I think every person should have the right to have a private email account.
Henzel will be charged with 3 counts of criminal trespassing,
3 counts of criminal mischief,
and 2,389 counts of electronic eavesdropping.
Oh, boy.
That's according to the University of Iowa Department of Public Safety.
Police discovered marijuana while searching Henzel's apartment.
He will be charged with possession of a Schedule I controlled substance today.
I'm not sure if it's a Schedule I or a Schedule I.
Schedule I?
Well, it's an I here, okay?
All of a sudden, they go to Roman numerals for drugs.
The electronic eavesdropping charges are the most serious ones Henzel will face,
according to Lieutenant Richard Gordon, a detective with Public Safety.
They're considered serious misdemeanors, he said.
A charge of electronic eavesdropping can bring a punishment of one year in jail
and or a $1,000 fine.
So, that punishment is applicable for a single count of electronic eavesdropping.
Since Henzel faces 2,389 counts,
it would be within the law to fine him more than $2.3 million.
He allegedly broke into the e-mail accounts, removed the contents of the account,
and stored them in a different account.
What does that mean?
He read your mail, he copied it somewhere else, and he deleted it, I think.
It's a 2,300?
What, did this guy have no life whatsoever?
I guess he was very bored.
It was a manic mail machine of some sort?
Going and reading everyone?
I mean, this sounds crazy.
All right, we have to try and translate what actually happened,
because obviously this newspaper isn't going to get it right.
Well, maybe there were 2,000 people on a system,
and he went into the directory that had the entire mail spool in it,
copied everyone's mail in one fell swoop, and then removed it.
Yeah, probably one fell swoop is what we're talking about here,
but that one fell swoop is going to cost him a couple million bucks,
and probably put him in prison for the rest of his life.
What was he going to do with this mail?
You know what's interesting, though?
The same exact newspaper had a story that says something almost entirely different.
They say UI police arrested a UI freshman Friday
after he allegedly broke into thousands of e-mail accounts at the UI from his home computer.
Do you realize that sentence has UI in it three times?
We won't focus on that.
Now, if tried as an adult, the 17-year-old student faces up to one year in jail
and a $1,000 fine on electronic eavesdropping charges.
Same paper, and they're saying something completely different.
That's $1,000 and up to a year.
And also, they say that they are not releasing the student's name because he's a juvenile.
And then they go and release his name later, apparently because they feel like it.
Now, there are a couple of interesting things here.
There's a 2600 tie-in, and we get to that.
Uh-oh.
It took a month-long investigation and several anonymous tips to link Hensel to the crimes.
Uh, the most helpful information came by way of an obscure national hackers club called the 2600 club.
That'd be us.
2600 club?
Well, we're an obscure club that broadcasts on a 50,000-watt radio station in New York City.
Well, club is a lot more upscale than gang, which we used to be.
Yeah, that's true.
That's true.
We used to be the 2600 gang.
We have bake sales now.
We found out that someone, this is according to the public safety detective over there at UI,
we found out that someone had been putting out flyers for a group meeting of this 2600 club.
The flyers were being distributed outside the Papa John building.
That's what it's called.
It's actually called the Papa John building.
What is that?
I don't know.
It's some sort of an administration building.
Joker, do you know what that means?
It's outside.
Wait, get a microphone on.
Try it now.
It's outside a Papa John building?
The only Papa John I've ever heard referred to, especially around campuses, is a pizza chain
that runs all throughout the Midwest and the South.
You know, Stony Brook had one of those.
Yeah, it's a big thing at the school.
It was run out of town on a rail.
Yeah, Papa John's Pizza is the only one that I've ever heard of.
Wow.
Well, okay.
I don't know if that's...
No, I think this Papa John is an administration building.
Yes, the Papa John Business Administration Building.
That's what it's called?
Yeah, it's a pretty ridiculous name.
And, you know, when we got the mail from the guy that wanted to organize the meetings,
I remember saying, you know, this is a really funny name.
And I wonder if this is a joke.
And we looked into it, and we found out that's really what it's called.
Now, listen to the flyer here, okay?
Iowa City's first 2600 meeting.
Anyone with interest or experience in hacking, freaking, security-related issues.
That's under the subtopic of who.
Topics likely to be discussed include Unix and VMS security, networking, telephone switches,
and cellular cloning.
All people are welcome, but must keep in mind that this is not to be considered a forum on illegal activities
and are encouraged to understand and respect the laws of the city of Iowa City, the state of Iowa,
the United States, and all applicable University of Iowa guidelines.
A bunch of anarchists.
Now, according to this, the meeting is by the U.S. West payphone and University public phone
on the fourth floor of PBAB, Papa John Business Administration Building.
There are two sets of payphone and public phones on the fourth floor,
but we will be meeting at the south set, which is between the Eleanor Birch Conference Room
and the Tenneco Colloquium Suite.
You can take the south elevator next to the large open area in the south wing of PBAB
up to the fourth floor, and you'll be there.
2600 meetings by convention are the first Friday of each month from 5 p.m. until 8 p.m.
We'll be conforming to this for the most part, so the next meeting will be Friday, February 2nd.
That's, of course, this was taken from January.
Future dates would be March 1st, April 5th, May 3rd.
Let's hope so.
And so on.
PBAB is locked at 6 p.m. on Fridays.
So if you want to come later, call us at the number listed below, and we'll let you in.
And then he gives us email and gives a phone number for the U.S. West public phone there.
Of course, it doesn't take incoming calls anyway.
It doesn't really matter.
Now, according to the newspaper story, public safety officials learned the meeting had taken place
on March 1st in room S-404 of the Papa John Business Administration Building,
which had been broken into for that purpose.
We started looking into it.
We used video surveillance, and he was seen handing out flyers for another meeting.
Oh, boy.
Eventually, Gordon said, Hensel's name turned up as someone who was very involved in the 2600 Club.
Later, the investigation revealed he had invaded the email accounts.
When members of the 2600 Club again broke into room S-404 for a meeting,
public safety was waiting for them.
The members entered the room through an air vent.
Through an air vent?
Well, look, it's my opinion that your college years are not complete unless you travel through
at least one air vent somewhere during those years.
Now, you know, you can say that that's wrong, but it's, you know, let's treat it for what it is.
These people broke into a room to have a meeting?
You know, it's not the same thing as breaking into a room to steal something.
Now, I don't know exactly what the circumstances were.
I've only seen the newspaper story, but it appears from what I'm hearing that they were
trying to have a regular meeting in a hallway someplace, and maybe somebody said,
oh, let's see if we can get into this room.
I mean, come on.
We've all done things like this where we've tried to get into places we're not supposed to be.
It's, you know, it's inside an office building.
It's a conference room.
It's not an office.
It's not somebody's private domain.
It's a place where people have meetings.
I could see it happening.
I'm not saying it's right, but come on.
Let's not make these people into some sort of, you know, terrible criminals who are conspiring
to do something.
Let's see what we have here.
Public safety had enough video and other evidence that showed Hensel was the primary leader for
the local branch of the Underground National Club.
What do they think of us, you know?
What's an Underground National Club?
Apparently that's what we are.
Really?
Yeah, and you know what?
I think we're going to be one of those 1,500 terrorist groups revealed next week when
this anti-terrorism bill gets passed.
Wait, so let's look at the evolution.
Did you know that?
Did you listen to the show before?
This is 1,500 terrorist groups in this country.
1,500.
Well, 1,501 now.
Well, no, I think we're within the 1,500.
I think we're probably in the top 25.
Who knows?
So wait, first we were a gang, then we're a club, now we're next going to be the 2600 militia.
Well, yeah, I guess so.
It has yet to be determined whether Hensel will be tried as an adult or if his case will be kept down in juvenile probation since he is legally a minor.
According to this public safety, this is a quote from the public safety guy, it's my opinion, but he's going up.
Oh, yeah.
Take that for what it's worth.
Along with the criminal charges, Hensel may also face some serious repercussions from
UI administrators if found guilty.
Once the outcome is known, it will be considered whether he violated university policy.
There's a wide range of possibilities.
Now, according to this second story, this is from UI Director of Information and Services
Bill Decker.
He said, hacking happens more often than people think.
It happens quite a bit, he said.
There are people who are intrigued by the technology.
For some, it is a game or a pastime.
Decker said, hackers can break into email accounts through the back door.
By finding, not just a back door, the back door, there's a back door and everything.
By finding an unintentional bug in the system that allows the hacker to gain the privileges only special administrators have access to.
In addition, they can replace software with a similar one, I guess I put a big sick after
that, they can replace software with a similar one that captures logins and passwords, or the hacker can gain access to an account through the front door by guessing the password of the person.
Hacking happens despite your best efforts to protect yourself, he said, or to protect yourselves, he said.
People who are hackers become very clever at finding these things.
Gordon said, evidence from the break-ins and the students' large knowledge of computers led officials to believe he committed the crimes.
Now we are starting to lump these together as this person's actions, he said.
In addition, Gordon said he believes they've now started a local 2600 club, hung up the flyers that led officials to the unauthorized conference room.
The unauthorized conference room?
The conference room should not have been there.
Well, I guess the conference room will now be charged as well, as the net widens.
Okay, and we believe he is a designated leader of the so-called computer club, so-called computer club.
They're the ones so-calling it, a computer club in the first place.
Officials received a search warrant, and this is where it becomes kind of interesting.
They received a search warrant prior to the arrest, and after searching his home, officers
found truckloads of evidence, including computers, records, and electronic equipment.
Truckloads.
Truckloads.
We're looking into the possibility of stolen equipment, Gordon said.
There is equipment there that normal people don't have.
Whoa.
Oh, boy.
Now, this is also something funny.
The only thing students can do to decrease their chances of having their accounts tapped
into is change their passwords frequently and choose passwords that don't show traits
about themselves that hackers can guess.
Now, are they saying that this person sat down and was able to figure out 2,389 different
people's traits so that he was able to get into all these accounts and, you know...
He's in the wrong business.
He should be a psychologist.
I'd say so.
So that's what's happening out in Iowa.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the public safety people at universities just
like one step above mall cops?
Well, sometimes, sometimes, yeah, I'm getting other signals.
Sometimes they're below mall cops, but it depends.
You know, it depends.
They're usually peace officers, which means they're the same as regular police, except
lots of times they don't have guns, which is a good thing, I think, in most cases.
Yeah.
I don't know.
You know, I don't know.
I'm not familiar with the University of Iowa.
When I was there at Stony Brook over the weekend, I noticed some of these so-called public
safety people...
Who are within the listening area.
They're within the listening area, so be careful, all right?
But they looked about 15 years old.
They gave them guns, too, so be very careful.
Yeah, they did.
They did.
But, yeah, some of them are, you know, there's different kinds.
There's, like, the junior militia, and then there's the...
The Hitler Youth.
I don't know if it's still actually called that, but, yeah, there's different levels.
Yeah, university cops come up with the darndest quotes sometimes, so we'll be scouring the
net for that, and hopefully this person won't get screwed too badly, but we'll just have
to see.
Haven't heard from Bernie S., so there must be something up down there.
What do you got?
You got a book there?
A book.
Actually, I was browsing around in Barnes & Noble right before coming to the station.
Let me just take this opportunity to give out the phone number, which is 212-279-3400,
and if you dial that number, you stand a chance of getting through to us.
So we'll be taking calls in a few minutes.
Go ahead.
It's a sleek-looking black and slate-gray paperback book called Rules of the Net, and it's by two
friends of ours, Thomas Mandel and Gerard Vanderloin, and I thought that was very interesting since
I hadn't heard from Gerard in quite some time.
And, of course, we both know that Tom had passed away from cancer.
That was about a year ago, I think.
Yeah.
So I was actually curious when I saw this on the stand.
Apparently, it's a book about how...
Feedback?
Getting feedback.
Well, stop it, then, if you're getting feedback.
Was that it?
Well, if you put your headphones next to the microphone, you'll get feedback.
I don't know if it's me.
Is it that one?
Okay.
Well, okay.
Anyway.
I'm talking about our technical gaps in the air.
Just judging by the back cover, it seems like a guide that explains how to survive on
the net, basically.
It talks about etiquette and interacting with other people and so on.
Okay.
So it may prove an interesting read.
Interesting.
So Gerard...
Who publishes it?
This is Hyperion Books.
Gerard used to work at EFF.
He was actually involved in my legal case early on.
And it's good to see that now he's turned himself around, and he's now the cyberspace editor
for Penthouse.
What's that?
Well, now that you ask, that's a statesman model of British telecom domestic phones.
I suspect we'll be hearing about ten rings, and it's going to pick up.
There's a CD I've just been given of various phone sound effects, and this is one of them.
Pretty neat, huh?
Yeah.
Well, you know, we have about two seconds of this left, and then it's going...
Ah, see, it's picked up.
Now, uh, there's all kinds of, uh, want to hear a phone being dialed?
Let's see if this, uh...
Okay, those are the pips, they call it, on a dial telephone.
You know, there's a song by Clock DVA that uses this.
I think they had the same record.
It's pretty neat.
How about some local line noise?
You want to hear some local line noise?
Okay, let's, uh, let's play some of that.
That's local line noise.
This sounds like static.
This is the sound of a receiver being replaced normally, all right?
All right, that's, that's normally.
Now, we're going to play forceful.
Oh, that's, that's, that's more force, forcefully.
And, um, let's see.
Well, how about the sound of money being inserted?
This is kind of neat, because this is all foreign, you know, so it sounds different.
Yes, money being inserted.
Very nice.
Number unobtainable.
I could play this all day, you know?
This is, this is, this is lots of fun.
This is the kind of CD any, uh, any hacker would want.
Okay, number unobtainable.
We have, uh, about 20 seconds of this left.
I think we get the idea, though.
Can you imagine getting that every time you, you dial a number?
It's unobtainable.
Um, okay.
Let's listen to some telephone operators.
I think this will be fun.
Telephone operators in a Jackfield switch room?
Do you know what that is?
Jackfield.
I guess it's a place.
No, it's in lowercase, so it can't be a place.
I think it's a term.
Oh, it's a place.
I think it's a term.
Jackfield switch, oh, maybe it is a place, but they, they should have capitalized the J.
Okay.
It was a place.
But if somebody knows, then, uh, they'll tell us.
I'm sure.
Okay.
There's the sound of many operators.
There's the sound of many operators.
I don't want to see you, cause I don't miss you that much.
I'm not a telephone champion.
I told you that we would just be friends.
But when I heard you like, I heard that bass like in my hands.
There's no action, there's no action, there's no action, there's no action.
Every time I phone you, I just want to put you down.
He's got the keys to the target, all the keys to the kingdom.
He's got everything in me.
He's got everything in me.
It's a shame that he didn't win.
I'm not a telephone champion.
If I'm taking my heart out, you would just mind.
And the things in my head start hurting my mind.
And I think about the way things used to be.
Knowing you would feel this driving me crazy.
Sometimes I phone you, and I know you're not doing it, but I always disconnect it in time.
There's no action.
There's no action.
There's no action.
Every time I phone you, I just want to put you down.
There's no action.
There's no action.
There's no action.
Every time I phone you, I just want to put you down.
Well, I don't know what this business is of having Elvis Costello in the operator room,
but I guess that's what they do over there.
That was some interesting international line noise with metering.
And this is STD line noise with faint crosstalk.
This is almost as much fun as the CD that has trains on it.
What year is all this from?
This is dated, the CD is dated 1987, but I imagine a lot of this equipment probably was
in use recently, if not, you know, currently.
I would think maybe on the English countryside or something.
Well, yeah.
I mean, you know, it's all part of the country, so it could be anywhere.
Okay, so that's pretty much, we'll just keep this on in the background.
It's kind of neat noise there.
212-279-3400.
We won't be hearing from Bernie S. today because it's past the 8.30 cutoff, so I don't think
we'll hear from him.
But I talked to him over the past week.
His spirits are up.
Of course, we could always use, you know, some additional letters, additional words of
encouragement.
And you can write to him on the internet, Bernie S. at 2600.com, B-E-R-N-I-E-S at 2600.com.
And we'll forward the mail to him.
Joker, what do you have?
Track 26, crossbar electromechanical exchange.
You want to hear that one?
That's one of your requests.
Okay.
I just want to stop that one.
Crossbar exchange.
That's going to be kind of noisy, you know.
Oh, boy.
Hey, you know, we could do some background noise for our own recordings.
That's true.
We could make it sound like we're inside a telephone switch.
Yeah.
We're sorry.
Your call did not go through.
About, congratulations, you've reached the Kenmore DMS.
Serving exchanges, whatever.
Okay, well.
A Stroger, uh, um, electromechanical exchange.
You're going to have to talk up.
Track 28.
Making some long-distance calls here.
You know, these days, of course, uh, it's all silent.
There's no noise of a...
No noise.
Computers making, uh, little humming noises there.
Boy.
Unbelievable.
Let's see if we can take our first phone call.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
You're going to have to speak up over the, uh, electromechanical noise here.
I can't hear you.
I have two things.
Ah, there we go, there we go.
Okay, yeah.
I'm glad you guys are in good spirits.
You remind me of Monty Python tonight.
Anyway, about the, um...
How should we take that?
In a, in the way it was intended, in like a droll, academic, funny way.
But anyway, about the, um, MTI harassment of you, Emanuel.
Yes.
I was under the impression that, um, those sort of phone calls, including calls from collection agencies or telemarketing, if they do it more than one time a day during normal business hours, that's illegal, and you can take, like, legitimate legal action against them?
Have you, do you have any knowledge of that?
Well, yeah, you know, that, that is a very good point, and, uh, you are probably right.
The thing is, I kind of jumped the gun by, by threatening them with utter decimation.
Uh, I didn't get a chance to find out where they were calling from.
You know, I just sort of, I shot from the, uh, I shot from the hip instead of, uh, actually...
Was it really MTI or, like, one of your, you know, fellow friends fooling you?
Uh, no, no.
You're sure, you're sure?
Yes, uh, I mean, nobody I know has, I mean, I know a lot of insane people.
I really do.
Well, you're talking to one now, but...
But nobody, nobody would sit there for three days, every 30 seconds.
Well, a computer can do that.
That's true, computers can, but it, it, it would connect you to a human after about 30 seconds.
A different human each time.
Well, maybe...
And you can, you can tell by the sound of the voice if they're a real salesperson or not.
I don't know, I mean, people take acting lessons, but maybe, um, this is possible.
If the hacker calls you, you know it.
You can tell by the tone.
Well, this is possible.
Maybe there was, like, some sort of failure with their software.
I mean, that's been known to happen.
Remember, there was that giant AT&T computer, uh, problem a few years ago?
Well, what I'd like to do is, I'd like to ask if other people have had similar, uh, instances happen to them.
Okay, so one more short thing, and then I'll let you get going.
Do you or Fiber know anything about using P-I-N-S, and in this case stands for a person in need of supervision, in terms of a legal defense, in terms of getting out of, like, um, credit card fraud and collection agencies and owing bills and anything about the legality of that status in New York City or state?
Well, I'd never even heard of it.
What constitutes someone as a P-I-N-S?
I don't know.
My friend, uh, I mentioned him before, goes under the handle, Louis XIV, um, talked that to me, um, you know, as totally a hypothetical case.
But I believe that sort of a court can appoint you that, and then you're not financially responsible for your obligations because you weren't in your right mind, or, you know, that's what I'm trying to find out.
You don't know anything about that?
No, I, I was in my right mind when I got into legal trouble, so, uh, I didn't hear about any of this.
Uh, listen, I'm just curious.
If I write you a letter at BAI, this may sound like an oxymoron, but how would you like a chapter of 2600 in the Bronx?
Uh, well, you mean a meeting?
Well, you know, with, you know, sort of, because I know where I live there are some Russian immigrants who are into it, and...
Well, you see, the thing is, the thing is, we don't like to have meetings too close to other meetings.
I, I know, I know.
The only reason is because, you know, the meetings happen once a month, and that's a time to meet people from other areas.
And if you just have it, you know, in a certain square block radius, you're just going to see the same people over and over again.
Are you still doing their city core building routine?
Yeah, well, we're kind of huddled into a hallway now because the whole building seems to be, yeah...
Okay, the last thing, I'll go, like, on the Monty Python...
Reconstruction era.
I'll go on the Monty Python notes.
Um, if I were, like, to meet you in public, and I said to you, pass the sweet and sour shrimp, would that be, like, a giveaway, or...
Uh, no, it would definitely, it would definitely put an impression into my head as to the type of person you are.
Okay, but keep up your revenge on MCI, and remember, you have to do the same with AT&T because you're an equal opportunity genius.
Take care, guys.
Okay, thanks for calling.
And, yes, I guess that's a fair warning to all the corporate giants out there.
If you call us, we'll call you back, and then some.
But, you know, we haven't even started to get even with them for the harassment campaign.
I just want to hear from them what it is they think they're doing.
I don't even subscribe to MCI, you know?
I had never expressed an interest at all.
Oh, that's what we started out with.
It's actually really odd that you should mention that you never had an interest, because I was the one who picked up the phone the first time.
The first and the second time.
No, you picked up the phone the second and the third time.
Someone else picked up the phone the first time.
Okay, so...
Because you weren't even there the first time.
It rang and rang and rang, and we were in the office working on stuff, and it just annoyed me, and I thought, you know, normally people would leave a message.
So I picked up the phone, and I went, what?
And they came on the line, and they're like, hi, this is MCI.
Is Emmanuel Goldstein available?
And I said, no, he's not here right now.
Is there something I can help you with?
And they're like, we're calling to inquire about his request for long-distance service.
Well, do you suppose I requested it 100,000 times or something?
Is that why they called so many times?
Well, I figured, and of course, I didn't know whether you had requested MCI service, and having been slammed by them myself last month, I didn't say anything.
This is clock TVA, because they used this sound, too.
They definitely had this CD.
Now, I'm going to bring that song in.
It's called, it was taken from Bits of the Conversation, which is a film that came out in 1974.
Yeah, and then there's the, you said that you think it's the same thing as on the Space Hog sound?
No, that's something else.
Okay.
That's a different sound effect, but it's similar.
They had some sort of British telco noise.
Yeah, I mean, we've been deluged with calls from other companies of the time, so nothing as methodical as this.
Right, this wasn't, well, it didn't appear to be a solicitation call.
They were implying that you had called them requesting service, and they were calling back.
Well, I guess now I'm calling them back, because they called me.
Then, now I got somebody almost right away, that call.
But then the next time I called back, I said, I said, what?
Again, and there was silence for a few seconds, and then I was like, hello, and there was nobody there, so I hung up.
Yeah, they, I guess they're so busy sometimes when they make outgoing calls that they don't have enough people to actually talk to the people they call.
So, you have to wait for them.
It doesn't say wait, it's just a silence.
That in itself is rude.
You know, it's possible that this isn't MCI, but a company that they contract to, you know, like Amway or something.
Who knows?
I think we had a connection with them a few weeks ago, right?
So, it's quite possible it could be any number of telemarketers.
But we just want to find out what the story is.
And by telling people what's going on, I guess we're that much closer to finding out the true story.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Hello, I'm back.
Yeah, speak up, please.
Oh, yeah, I'm fantastic.
All right, well, we have the sound of STD line noise with faint crosstalk.
Yeah, you sound like the faint crosstalk, actually.
Hello?
Yes, go ahead.
Would you happen to have things such as R2 forward and R2 reverse signaling?
On the CD?
I don't see that.
You know, they don't get into that specific a nature of call routing.
Besides that, they don't use R2 signaling in England.
Yeah, he's right about that.
That's unusual because I was on IRC a while back, and I was told that there was some R2B.
Well, I don't know.
If somebody on IRC said it, that's likely that...
Not a wealth of information on IRC.
Well, IRC definitely has more credentials than fiber optic here.
No, there's no R2 signaling in England, within England, unless England is talking to a country that does use R2.
However, isn't it true that they can't use it over satellites because there's a signal element in R2 forward 1860 cycles,
which interferes with taxi locking frequency of 1850?
Well, that may well be true, yes.
This guy knows his material.
Yes, he does.
Wow.
Yeah, speaking of telemarketing, I've been getting bombarded less than right by calls from walled working assets long distance.
No kidding.
Yeah, I'm just getting very annoyed again.
There are more and more numbers coming in on my caller ID, but there's still those few that are probably slipping directly onto long distance services that are coming in as unavailable.
Well, since the Bergen record, which is rather close to me, is still coming up as unavailable, I just find it very annoying.
What I have to do is, I have one of these digital voice announcers, and as soon as I have to put something on there,
as soon as I get a call like that, I just bang the switch and give them an error message.
Well, I don't know if that'll stop them, but, you know, if you tell them to just not call you anymore,
and they continue to do that, you can definitely file some sort of a charge against them.
A couple weeks ago, I just had a phone service installed.
You want to talk about some...
I'm sorry about this.
Oh, I love this part.
Isn't that the best noise?
Yes.
It's a great...
Can I call Mr. Flying, calling Mr. Flying, is that the charges from the United States?
Yes, that's...
Click, click.
I don't know if they have the tweets, but they have everything else down.
Oh, they didn't?
What about, uh, key pulse, zero, four, four, one, cut, eight, three, one, start?
You actually wrote down the numbers, eh?
Well, uh, it took me for a while to, uh, interpret it, then I found one of these, uh, we call boxes
that decode MF, touch, tone, uh, SF, and dial pulse, and you can just throw anything at it
and spit it up on the screen.
Wow.
Well, now that I think we've lost just about all of our audience with all this technical
talk, is there anything else, uh, you have for us?
Uh, no, just have a good week, and I'd definitely like to get the CD.
Pity I don't have old, uh, American sounds there, like the old, brrr, 9X ringback, the
old low-pitched Jersey ringback.
Well, I'm sure there are CDs like this, and for the benefit of our listeners, I'll give out
the information.
Thanks for calling.
All right, bye.
Uh, Films for the Humanities and, what was that?
That was a weird noise.
Sounded like somebody, uh, hit the phone on a, on a bell or something.
Um, Films...
There's a machine that goes ping.
Yeah, apparently they have that over there.
Uh, Films for the, I don't know why it's Films, because it's a CD.
Films for the Humanities and Sciences.
Uh, you know, it's a good thing Bernie S isn't on, because all these clicks and rings would
get him knocked off right away from the prison phones.
Oh, that was an answer.
That was nice.
I like that.
Uh, Films for the Humanities and Sciences, P.O. Box 2053, Princeton, New Jersey, 08543-2053.
You know, Bill SF would love this.
I think I'll get him a copy.
And this is called the BBC CD SFX 010 Communications.
Um, so if you can remember all that, uh, you'll probably get a copy of, uh, of that CD.
Really neat.
I hope they have others in that series as well.
Uh, what's that?
That's, uh, that's a local dial tone, I think.
It's defined as caller rings off local line with 35-inch tone.
35-inch?
Well, it's 35 and a quote.
35-second quote, maybe.
I mean, 35-second tone.
That's what it must be.
Very interesting.
Hey, did you see, uh, Deadly Web last night?
Uh, I, uh, opted on missing it.
Well, you know, you opted wrong because it was the Rocky Horror of, of, of, of the year,
I think, as far as, uh, as far as things you want to yell things at.
I, I could not, it seemed like some sort of a cheap imitation of the net, uh, where somebody
was, uh, somebody found, um, found this, this, this person and was stalking them and was
evil and was, was all-encompassing on the net.
And, you know, when they, when they typed communications back and forth, it was, uh, you know, they
would type and every letter would have a different beat to it.
And they would, and, and when the person typed back, it would go at about 110 baud.
And then, of course, instantly he could, like, make a picture appear on the screen.
So they had sort of a mixture of the old and the new there, uh, and, and, you know, the
utterly fantastic that doesn't exist and probably never will.
But in the end, all the good people survived and all the bad people died and that's all
that matters.
But there were some, there were some classic quotes there about, uh, you know, where's the
technology to stop people from using this technology?
And, uh, I guess it was just sort of a cry for, uh, for the Exxon bill or whatever.
All right, let's take another phone call.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Uh, that's your, uh, cranking problem?
Yes, my cranking problem.
I'm just curious, uh, this may seem too simplistic, but did you first try, uh, Star
6, 9-ing it to establish contact and failing that, uh, Star 5, 7-ing it?
Well, that's a very interesting, uh, point there.
But you see, the thing is, we subscribe to a 9X service that is in conflict with that
particular feature.
So even if we had tried that, it wouldn't have worked.
We use, uh, something known as IntelliDial.
And IntelliDial is not compatible with Star 6, 9 or Star 5, 7.
And, uh, even if it, even if it was compatible, I don't think for something of that nature,
they probably, probably would have had it disabled somehow, some other way.
At MCI's nature?
Uh, because maybe there's, maybe that's a cause for legislation, because you should be protecting
everybody in similar situations.
That's true.
To be able to Star 5, 7, anybody who's cranking you.
Okay.
All right.
Well, thanks, thanks for calling.
But, you know, there's, there's another side to that, in that Star 5, 7 is utterly worthless
and a big waste of money.
It's a way, basically, for, uh, the phone company to make money by you being harassed.
You know?
If you're being harassed, I'll Star 5, 7.
We'll pick up $1.50, and, uh, you know, if you keep calling it, maybe we'll do something
about it.
But we won't tell you who's harassing you, we'll tell the other people that you complained
about them, and that's it, and maybe that'll stop it.
And if not, well, tough.
That's, uh, that's what it would say, if it were uncensored.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Hello.
Yes, go ahead.
All right.
MCI happens to be a very important company in the opening up of the long-distance lines.
I happen to work for a company that did a book on MCI, and in the Wiley, it says that,
led by the feisty, charismatic, and visionary chairman, William G. McGowan, MCI shattered
ATF's monopoly on long-distance telephone service in the United States, battling the bell
system before the Federal Communications Commission in Congress.
And in the court, MCI established once and for all the principle of competition in the
telecommunications industry, period.
Now, I hope the message has gone out that while you may be bothered a little, MCI shouldn't
be misrepresented to the public.
Okay?
Okay.
Now, the next thing, the next thing is, why haven't you investigated the number of rings
in to the station and found out, as I tried to do, that it's the station's decision to get
the 20 or 30 rings?
Well, no, that's not true at all.
If we could just tone it down a little bit.
Okay.
That's not actually true.
Fiber, maybe you could explain it better than I could as to why we have absolutely no control
over how many rings there are before 9X time's out.
Uh, because it's this, it's that way everywhere.
Well, there's, it didn't used to be.
No, it didn't used to be because it used to be on an old analog switch.
Yeah.
Which worked much better than the new digital ones.
In the new digital age, they believe in, uh, conserving traffic.
And if, uh, you're just gonna call somebody and let the phone ring for half an hour, then
you're, you're, you're clogging up the network.
That's right.
Well, speaking of clogging up the network, we're clogging up the airwaves and we're just
about out of here because it's time to go.
Um, we'll be back again next week.
Who knows?
Might have another CD by then.
And hopefully we'll hear from Bernie S too.
We can update you as to, as to what, uh, his particular, oh, it's all gone now.
As to what his case is, uh, is, is bringing us.
And, um, you can reach us on the net, O-T-H at 2600.com.
We'll see you again next week here on radio station WBAI.
Good night.
We'll be right back.