Thank you.
This is a public service announcement.
Whiskey time!
Resist 96, third national conference of Refuse and Resist, a national assembly against the politics of cruelty.
It's all one attack.
Saturday and Sunday, April 27th and 28th from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at City College of New York in Erano Hall.
Come work with Darius James, Ramona Africa, Margarita Rosario, Brenda Joyner, La Resistencia, Center for Constitutional Rights, Gay, Lesbian, Straight, Teachers Network, Four Wind Student Association, and many more.
Come join us at the Courageous Resister Awards, a tribute to ordinary people who have resisted in extraordinary ways at 8 p.m. at the Cathedral of St. John and Divine.
That's Saturday, April 27th with performances by Reggie Gaines, Danny Hawk, and the Reconstructions.
Register now and for information, call us at Refuse and Resist at 212-713-5657.
And that's 212-713-5657.
Humiliation!
And if you cross the finger...
Seized at the California-Mexico border in February, four IFCO Friendshipmen Caravanistas transporting the aid are in the eighth week of a hunker fast protesting the seizures.
Support them by calling President Clinton at 202-456-1111 or Treasury Secretary Rubin at 202-622-0190 and demand release of the computers.
For more information, call 212-926-5757.
That's 212-926-5757.
And a very good evening to everybody.
The program is off the hook, and you may notice that we don't have our theme music tonight.
And the reason for that is because there's a machine that has taken our theme music and will not release it to us.
The cart machine just keeps playing around, so it might come up on its own.
It's possible that the theme music might...
There's something else, but that has nothing to do with that.
That's another machine malfunctioning.
It's quite possible that theme music will just come up unannounced, but we can't take it out of the machine.
It will not let us have it.
Never happened before.
So, yes, good evening.
This is off the hook without the theme music, but we do have other mood music.
You can't talk to the ways it can be.
Here you are.
This is off, though.
We have persistent in life.
We have it.
Let was have deploy.
There we go.
That's on valentine.
This is off.
I will walk forward.
We have it.
This is off the hook because we give you up.
We'll be right back.
Yes.
Tonight, well, last week, of course, we had our fun with MCI.
We found out they were not interested in getting long-distance service from us, even though they were very interested in selling it to us.
Tonight, we kind of mess around a little bit with a new service that AT&T is offering.
And I can't really, for the life of me, understand what they have in mind for this kind of thing.
Let's see if we can get a dial tone.
Dial tone?
Okay.
What we're going to do, we're going to reach out and call AT&T Customer Service.
Thank you for calling the AT&T Account Servicing Center.
If you have a touch-tone phone and have questions about your AT&T bill, please press 1.
For questions about true reach savings or true rewards, press 2.
If you do not have a touch-tone phone, please hold for further assistance.
Okay, we do have a touch-tone phone, so let's hit 1.
I see you're calling from 2-1-2-2-7-9-3-4-0-8.
If this is your home phone number, press 1.
Okay, so it's not.
Press 2.
We're going to press 2.
Using your touch-tone cue pad, please enter your home area code and phone number.
Okay, I'm going to enter the phone number for 2600 Magazine.
Only because I don't want anybody else to be victimized.
Sorry about the static.
Thank you.
You just told me 5-1-6-7-5-1-2-6-0-0.
If that's right, press 1.
Yeah, that's correct.
Please wait while we access your records.
If you're calling about AT&T Long Distance Service or Charges, press 1.
Here are your four AT&T Customer Service choices.
For billing questions or problems, press 1.
For rates and dialing instructions, press 2.
Okay, that's what we want.
Problems.
Please have your AT&T bill ready.
We got it.
So I can help you.
Okay, let's go.
If there's a call on your bill you don't recognize, press 1.
Okay, I don't recognize this call.
Please enter the area code and phone number of the call you don't recognize.
Okay, let's come up with a number.
808.
And I state 555, like they do on TV, 1, 2, 3, 4.
Thank you.
The phone number you want me to check is 808-555-1234.
If that's right, press 1.
Please wait while we access your records.
We are still processing your request.
Please hold.
I'm losing patience.
I'm sorry.
I can't find information on a call to 808-555-1234.
But I can help you with a credit.
If you'd like credit for this call, press 1.
Yes, yes, I'd like credit.
If you're requesting a credit on your April bill, press 1.
Okay.
Please enter the amount you would like credited in dollars and cents.
Um, what do you think?
For example, for $1.25, you need to press in 1.
That's a lot.
That's a lot of money.
We have to make this realistic.
So let's, uh, let's try, uh, 56 cents.
Thank you.
You'd like a credit for 50.
Six cents.
If that's right, press 1.
If not, press 2.
Please wait while we access your records.
All right.
A credit, including tax, of 60 cents will be made to your account.
The credit will appear on your bill within 30 to 60 days.
You may subtract this amount from your next payment.
This is very interesting.
If you'd like help with something else, press 1.
Okay, you want to get credit for an outrageous amount to see what happens?
Here are your four AT&T customer service choices.
For billing, questions, or problems.
Okay, by the way, AT&T, um, does owe me about that amount of money for some unrelated things,
but we'll get into that later.
If there's a call on your bill you don't recognize, press 1.
To get credit for a call...
Okay, we can skip right ahead and get the credit right away.
If you're requesting a credit on your April bill, press 1.
If not, press 2.
Okay, yes, 1.
Please enter the amount you would like credited in dollars and cents.
Okay, um...
For example, for $1.25, you would need to press in 1, 2, 5.
Let's do $651.25.
Thank you.
You'd like a credit for...
$65.10.12.
I guess they have a limit.
If that's right...
Press 1.
If not, press 2.
Now, you see, I don't want that kind of credit, but let's see if it's that easy to get.
I'll uncredit myself.
Please wait while we access your record.
I promise I'll uncredit myself.
We are unable to process your request.
Please hold for an AT&T representative.
No, no, anything but that, okay.
Now, you see, the funny thing about this is I didn't have to enter any kind of verification whatsoever.
I can just go out and wantonly give anybody I want credit for all kinds of phone calls.
I mean, is that the most amazing thing?
I think AT&T just doesn't want to deal with people anymore,
and they're just willing to take the risk that, you know, we won't nickel and dime them to death.
So we know that they have some sort of upper limit.
But, you know, there's something else here, too,
and I'd like to demonstrate this in a line that maybe doesn't have any static,
so let's see if we can get one of those.
Of course, they do have your phone number when you call.
It mentions that fact.
If you're calling the AT&T Account Servicing Center.
If you have a touch-tone phone and have questions about your AT&T bill, please press 1.
For questions about true...
I see you're calling from...
If this is your home phone number, press 1.
If this is not, we will press 2.
Using your touch-tone keypad, please enter your home area code and phone number.
Okay, let's enter this number here.
I'm trying to enter this number secretly, so...
Thank you.
You just told me...
Okay, now we're going to have to approximate the time when she takes to say the number,
so I don't give that number out over the air, and hit a 1 at the appropriate time.
Okay.
Please wait while we access your records.
Now, what we're going to do this time...
If you're calling about AT&T Long Beach...
If you're calling about AT&T Long Beach...
Is look up a number.
Charges...
You can do this, too.
If you're calling about your local services...
Here are your four AT&T customer service choices.
For billing questions or problems, press 1.
For rates and...
Please have your AT&T bill ready, so I can help you.
If there's a call on your bill you don't recognize, press 1.
Please enter the area code and phone number of the call you don't recognize.
Okay, I'm going to now enter a telephone number that I know I called,
and I know it belongs to somebody, and it's listed.
Thank you.
The phone number you want me to check...
Is not going to be played over the radio.
But we're just going to talk for a few seconds while it plays it out, silently, hopefully,
and then we'll press 1 at the appropriate time.
Okay.
If that's right...
Press 1.
Here we go.
Please wait while we access your records.
The phone number...
7.
Okay, we've got to keep that.
Okay.
1-8-0.
Belongs to...
Sherman Jerome.
If you recognize this call, press 1.
Yes, I recognize that.
If you'd like to check another phone number on...
No, that's okay.
So now you can check people's phone numbers as well,
and hear that funny little voice giving out the information.
And it's...
What's the question?
Ask a question to the microphone.
What if you didn't call them?
Can you get it to check that anymore?
No.
Like you know the phone number exists.
I've done this extensively, and you cannot check a number that you did not call.
Also, if you check a number that you called that's not a person, that's like a business,
it doesn't show up either.
It seems to only be for residences that are listed.
So it's kind of a limited service, but it's a fun service, too.
So if you know somebody, call somebody else, you can enter their phone number and find out what name it's listed under
and try to translate what that voice says.
But more importantly, though, you can keep giving them credit.
You know, even if they don't want any credit, there's nothing you can do to stop it.
People can be giving you credit all the time, and you can't do anything about it.
At the very least, you could use it for A&I.
That's true.
Yeah, we've actually demonstrated that before.
So, Fiber, I can go out and give you credit for lots of calls.
It's almost like the long-distance version of dialing 2-1-1 over and over again.
I guess so, yeah, yeah.
So I'll be looking for that 56 cents on my phone bill.
Now, AT&T owes us for quite a few calls.
We found out that Bernie S., who hopefully is on the phone here, let's see if he is.
Good evening.
No, that's not Bernie S., it's the bell tone.
I think Bernie S. is trying to reach us today.
We didn't hear from him last week, so hopefully we'll hear from him tonight.
It turns out that every single one of those phone calls that he makes to us, even if we don't pick up, we get billed for.
If an answering machine picks up, if it just rings and rings, it shows up.
I only got one day's worth of phone calls from him because that's the day that he moved to the new prison.
So we're going to have quite a fight with AT&T on our hands on that one.
Let's see if he's there now.
Good evening.
There he is.
Hello, Bernie S., how are you?
I'm here.
I'm hanging in here.
Okay.
How is prison life tonight?
You see, every time we start talking to you, you get cut off for a second.
I don't know why that is.
That's me putting my hand over the mouthpiece.
It's so noisy here with all the other yelling and screaming, and I've got to do that so I can hear what you're saying.
Uh-huh.
Tell me, do you ever yell and scream there yourself?
I feel like it sometimes.
But you never do.
I restrain myself.
You just, you're not like all the other prisoners that are always yelling and screaming about something.
We don't know what.
But when I was there visiting you a couple of weeks ago, they were yelling and screaming then, too.
I guess what you do in prison, I don't know.
I guess when you're here long enough, it becomes involuntary.
Uh-huh.
Well, okay, now, we didn't hear from you last week.
We just mentioned that we're going to have a bit of a tussle with AT&T over the phone calls
because they seem to want to charge us every time you dial instead of every time we accept a call.
Yeah, I'm sure they make a lot of money doing that.
They probably make a fortune.
It's unbelievable.
We just demonstrated a new system AT&T has where you can call them up and, using automation,
get yourself credit without ever talking to a person.
Basically, you enter the amount of money you want for the phone number that presumably belongs to you,
and they just grant you credit right there on the spot.
Wow.
Yeah.
I'd be interested in finding out how well that works.
Well, I haven't actually gotten a bill yet that has credit on it based on that system.
I do know, though, that they have two different recordings when they grant you credit.
One says, all right, and the other says, okay.
I don't know why they alternate between the two.
But we tried getting credit for about $62, and that didn't fly.
They kind of wanted us to talk to a service representative.
Yeah, well, good luck.
I wouldn't lope my breath.
Yeah.
They also have a system where you can check the listings.
You can see what number somebody is listed to if you call that number.
Oh, in other words, if the number shows up on your bill, you can enter the number.
It'll tell you who it's registered to?
In most cases, usually it seems to be when the person is listed or when it's not a business.
So if it fits those two criterium, then...
Well, it'd be interesting if you enter the numbers that you're billed for my calls to see who it comes back to.
That's true.
Well, actually, I think I did enter your numbers, and it came up as they didn't know what it was.
So I don't know.
So anything you need to report on your end?
Well, uh, some semi-good news.
Okay.
I'm still waiting for the Third Circuit Federal Court of Appeals to grant me an extension for filing changes to my appellant brief.
No response yet from them.
My attorney says that no news is good news, but he said that there's maybe a 51% chance that it'll be approved.
Uh, he has that reservation because, uh, in the past he's filed a similar request and had them turned down for his trivial reasons.
That the, uh, the cardboard cover of the brief was a slightly different color shade of blue on the back cover as it was on the front cover.
And the, uh, the court rejected the, uh, appeal in its entirety on that ground.
Because the color was a different shade of blue, they rejected the appeal.
Can, can you maybe just explain that kind of logic that us humans aren't really accustomed to?
They've silenced him.
Uh, we, we missed everything you just said, so try, try that again.
I said I've, uh, I've given up trying to understand the, the rationale behind the, uh, criminal justice system in this country.
Over the past year I've, I've come to the conclusion that it's a, it's a strange cross between Alice in Wonderland and, uh, a Costa tale.
Uh-huh.
Well, um, anything else, anything else new in, um, in the world of prison?
Well, uh, theoretically my earliest release date would be May 30th of this year.
Um, still no word on that yet.
It's really up to the Pennsylvania State Pro Bowl.
It might.
Sentence of six to 24 months for this, uh, misdemeanor violation.
It should make me eligible for release on, uh, on May 30th, but there's, there's some possible problems I can prevent that.
Um, first being that, uh, the, the credit, the, the sentence was to include 41 days of, days of credit for time I'd spent last year in Delaware County, Pennsylvania,
for the initial charge, which was then later dropped, which was then picked up by the Secret Service.
And that still hasn't been applied to, uh, applied to my, uh, my inmate account yet, apparently.
They still show my minimum release date to be, uh, sometime in July.
So, uh, they're still trying to get that straightened out, and it's, it's very frustrating battling the bureaucracy to get that done.
The other, uh, problem is that, uh, even though virtually all non-violent, uh, offenders have traditionally been released on their minimum parole date
to make room for violent offenders, um, in my case, any interference or pressure from the Secret Service
could seem to be here until November of 1997.
They, uh, if you remember, they successfully used that, it was intimidation tactics earlier this year
by implying I was somehow dangerous because of the kinds of books that I read
and electronic equipment I had in my home.
And that resulted in a, uh, a six- to 24-month sentence for something the state guidelines recommended a zero- to three-month sentence for.
Well, well, I know we've, uh, we've talked about this many weeks, and, uh, for you, the hell just keeps going on.
Um, I hope, uh, you're getting a lot of mail, I hope, from our listeners.
I am. I want to thank everybody who's, uh, who sent me things.
I've been remiss the past couple of weeks I've been working on this federal appeal
and have not had as much time as I wanted to to reply to everybody who's written me,
but I am in the process of doing that now.
So, everybody who's out there who's waiting, please be patient.
I will get back to you.
Thank you, everyone, for sending me the books, the magazines, the cards, letters, um, everything.
It's been a tremendous amount of help.
I can't imagine what it's like being in a cage 24 hours a day
and, uh, having no contact, very little contact with the outside world.
And, uh, to get any piece of mail is, uh, is a big help, believe me.
Okay, and the address, uh, there's two addresses you can send mail to Bernie S.
One is through the internet, and, um, a few people have asked this.
How, how does Bernie S. reply over the internet?
Well, you see, Bernie S. does not have internet access.
What we do is we print it out and send it to him.
So, uh, if you include an email address as a return address, it's virtually worthless.
However, if you include a real address, Bernie S. will write to you
as we will forward him pieces of paper with that mail on it.
Uh, the address is Bernie S. B-E-R-N-I-E-S, at 2600.com.
That's 2600.com.
And, um, you also have a real mail address, which I, I guess you should give out, Bernie.
Okay, people can hear me all right.
It's, uh, uh, Ed Cummings, my real name, C-U-M-M-I-N-G-S, and it's to Bucs, that's B as in boy,
Bucs County Prison, at 1730 South Easton Road, that's E-A-S-T-O-N, number D13, D as in dog,
that's my cell number, D13, and that's in Doylestown, D as in dog, O-Y-L-E-S-T-O-W-N-T-A,
and the zip code is 18901.
Anyone sending me anything, it has to be just written materials.
You can't send me, uh, uh, any food or, like, cakes with files in them or anything like that.
No, uh, no weapons, nothing, no saws, nothing like that.
Just, uh, just written materials.
And it must say on the envelope, uh, reading materials.
If it doesn't say that, they'll reject it, thinking that it might be something else.
Also, any books or magazines that can't, the number of books or magazines cannot exceed five in the same package.
So, people have sent me, like, a box of 20 magazines, and they won't let me have any of them because it exceeded five.
So, whoever sent them, thank you, but I won't get them unless you send five or less at a time.
Okay, that's just one of many, uh, bureaucratic things that, uh, you have to deal with.
Um, okay, Bernie, you're going to stay with us, hopefully, for the hour.
Sure, I have a couple of amusing anecdotes in this place if there's time, but, uh, go ahead and take some calls.
Okay, we're going to be, uh, talking, uh, a lot about the, uh, the proposed merger between Bell Atlantic and 9X.
Uh, we have some information on that.
Also, the new issue of 2600 is out.
Um, not much really we can say about it except that we tried to make it as timely as possible.
And we'll just have to leave it at that for now.
Um, it is kind of late, though, I'll say that.
Um, okay, uh, Fiber, you've got some, you've got some information for us on this, this, now, we talked about this several, uh, several weeks ago, maybe even a few months ago, uh, about Atlantic and 9X looking to merge.
And, uh, there was a proposal then, it's still really a proposal now, because it's not written in stone, it's got to be approved by all these states, it's got to be approved by the feds, and, you know, the communication workers are not too happy with the prospect of losing 30,000 jobs.
Yeah.
So, with all that going on, I don't know if this is ever going to happen.
If it does happen, though, we here in New York will be writing our checks to Bell Atlantic, not 9X.
There will be no more 9X.
Yeah.
First, no more New York telephone, then no more 9X.
Now, Bell, I mean, what's going on here?
Well, the name Bell Atlantic is still technically correct, because we are considered Eastern Seaboard.
Mm-hmm.
Well, I have no problem with the name.
What I have no problem with is this huge company, you know, being built by linking two other huge companies together, and, uh, it just seems like the old Bell system is just piecing itself back, you know, it's reforming, like that thing in Terminator 2, you know.
Yeah, Skynet.
Yeah, it's basically, you shoot it, and then it, like, comes back together again.
It's going to realize its own existence in another couple of years.
I think it's realized its own existence.
That's, uh, I think it's beyond that right now.
Okay, so what does this mean to us?
Uh, well, so far, really, all that's been done is that the, the chairman of both 9X and Bell Atlantic have, uh, have agreed to the merger.
Like you said, nothing else, like the, uh, the actual, there has to be, uh, I guess it has to be passed by the respective, uh, public utilities commissions and public service commissions and so on before it's actually finalized.
And, uh, I heard the latest, which I think you heard as well, is that MCI was challenging the, the merger.
MCI is challenging, I also heard 9X today wants to go into the, uh...
Long distance business.
Long distance.
Now, if they're not going to exist anymore, how can they do that?
Uh, maybe they'll exist under that name only for long distance.
It would be kind of strange.
Hmm.
We'd be, I'm, now, this is 3,000 administrative jobs that are scheduled to be cut, is what we're told.
But that's what they say, uh, experts are saying up to 30,000 total jobs.
Yeah, the, uh, the union workers, the people from the, uh, CWA, Communication Workers of America, are saying that, uh, they fear there's going to be tens of thousands of jobs cut because when the two companies merge, there's simply going to be a lot of redundant jobs left over.
Because you don't need two different people in two different places doing the exact same thing.
And both companies have been engaged in, uh, quite a bit of downsizing over the past, uh, couple of years.
So, already, they've lost quite a few, quite a few jobs, and now, even more, once they merge these two companies, they're going to be serving 36 million residential and business customers all the way from Maine to Virginia.
Yeah, 13 states.
That's a lot.
Yeah, that's quite a bit.
So, um, let's see.
Okay, now, according to this here, NYNEX, um, employed 94,000 people in 1990.
Now they have 66,000.
That's, uh, practically 30,000 jobs right there they cut.
And Bell Atlantic, in the meantime, has cut its workforce from 82,000 to 62,000.
That's 20,000 more.
So, practically 50,000 jobs already have been lost, and now we're talking about possibly another 30,000.
I mean, I've never known that many people worked in the phone industry in the first place.
Um, it's, um, I don't know.
What do you think about this?
Is this a good move, a bad move?
And we'll be opening up our phone lines to listeners if they want to comment on this, if they're affected by it in any way.
212-279-3400.
Well, it might be a good move for them from a business standpoint, but for us, I'm personally, I'm worried about what's going to happen to our ISDN rates.
Because the ISDN is more expensive in Bell Atlantic than it is in NYNEX.
Already, it's not a good deal here in NYNEX land, because they don't offer flat rate like other Arborgs do.
And that's something we've been trying to get them to do.
Now, if Bell Atlantic moves in and they have already a rate five times as much as our rates here,
then that's going to make it a little bit more difficult to bargain for something that's acceptable to us.
There's all kinds of other conflicts as far as billing practices and ways of customers getting a better deal,
which I think will be made a lot harder by having this huge monolithic company.
For one thing, Bell Atlantic was in a position to compete with NYNEX.
You know, and that would sort of drive down the rates, maybe.
You know, the reason why NYNEX is offering these new calling plans is because of competition.
No other reason, otherwise it would have done it years ago.
So, now Bell Atlantic won't be competing because they'll be the same company.
So, I don't see how that could be good for us.
Yeah, I keep hearing, oh, yeah, cable TV, they're going to have all these services,
internet access, wires going into your house or everywhere.
It's like, yeah, so what?
You know, what exactly are we talking about here?
You know, we don't need 5,000 channels of garbage.
Well, if nothing else, Bell Atlantic has the advantage of always offering the newest custom calling features first,
simply because Bell Labs and Bell Corp are both in Bell Atlantic territory.
So, if there's going to be a regional Bell that's going to get those services first and test them first,
it's going to be Bell Atlantic.
Well, I mean, you can see how thrilled I am by that.
But apart from my, you know, joy at knowing that we're going to get, what,
custom calling double reject or whatever they come up with next, you know,
to counter a phone call that's made illicitly to you by somebody who dialed the wrong number.
Or, I don't know, you know, what kind of custom services could possibly justify it?
Well, just bear in mind now that we're going to be part of the Bell Atlantic Intelligent Network.
Yeah, okay.
And what exactly does that mean?
All manner of things are possible.
Bernie S., what do you make of all this?
Have you heard anything?
Well, it's pretty interesting.
I think their business strategy has tried to eliminate the possibility of much competition.
The larger the entity, the business entity is, the deeper the pockets they're going to have to fight off competitors.
I've worked for both Bell Atlantic and 9X in the past.
Frankly, 9X seemed to be a little more poorly managed than Bell Atlantic.
So this could be a good thing from the standpoint of how well they're managed.
But I think for the consumer, this is a bad thing.
Already this year, we've had two major Bell operating company mergers.
We've merged with the Pacific Telesis and Paxel.
So we started this year with seven regional Bell operating companies.
Now we're down to five.
So I don't know whether it's going to end, but I can see us in the next couple of years being down to maybe two or three with even less competition going on.
Well, it's less than five if you count the proposed merger between Pacific Telesis and Southwestern.
That makes it five.
Oh, that makes it five.
That makes it five, yeah.
How does it make it five?
Um, Pacific Telesis.
How many do you have to start with?
Seven.
Yeah, it's seven.
So if two become, okay, you lose two.
Hold on.
My arithmetic's maybe a little bit rusty here.
Okay, seven, oh, yeah, I guess it becomes five.
Yeah.
Okay, yeah, it becomes five.
All right, but we're slowly losing our box.
They're turning into big monolithic national companies.
Yep.
Okay, so that would leave, let's say this is called Bell Atlantic.
Let's say the other one is called SBC, was it?
SBC, it would be.
Okay, and that leaves Ameritech?
Yep.
And that leaves?
U.S. West.
U.S. West.
And Bell South.
Bell South.
Okay, well, let's take some phone calls.
It's 212-279-3400 is our telephone number, and we're talking about the merger between Bell
Atlantic and NYNEX, how it will affect consumers, and whether or not it will be a good deal for
us, whether it will be a good deal for the communication workers, and what it will mean
for technology.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Okay, good evening.
You're on the air.
Hello?
Yes, go ahead.
Hi.
I have several points.
First, on the call you made earlier to AT&T on credit.
Oh, yes.
I think MCI has a similar system.
Do they?
Yeah.
Will you describe it to us?
You dial a 800-888-7737 number, and then punch in your phone number, and there's several
options.
You can see in whatever you want, credit, a copy of your bill, whatever, and you do whatever
you can.
Is there any kind of verification as to who you really are?
No, just punch in your zip number, or zip code.
Your zip code.
That's the verification.
If you have someone's phone number, there's no way you're going to get their zip code.
Yeah, well, what you do is you punch in the phone number, and then a zip code, and you
can find out virtually, because I've done it, other people's info.
No kidding.
Stuff like that.
It'll actually give you information on their bill.
Yeah.
Like, what kind of information?
How much?
Well, yeah, basically, how much it is, and how much has been paid, if anything's due.
You see, NYNEX just went through that, with that 1-800-698 number that they have, where
they were giving out information about your bill, how much you owed, when your last payment
was.
Things that, you know, I remember we called CBS, and we discovered that they were way behind
their phone bill, and they owed something like $6,000.
And shortly thereafter, they turned that off, because I guess somebody was angry about it.
Which company did this?
That was NYNEX, did they?
Ah, New York.
Yeah, so you would think that these companies would talk to each other and learn from their
stupidity.
And they also have a similar system in Jersey, Bell Atlanic.
Uh-huh.
Bell Atlanic does the same thing?
Well, I guess stupidity is worldwide.
No, Ameritech does the same thing, too.
Yeah.
Also, on the calls that appear, you know, even if you don't answer the phone, that happens
here also.
I call people, they are not home, and I always get billed for it.
So, that's probably...
Well, yeah, okay, but are you calling collect?
No, no, it's a widespread practice.
Like, if I call anybody and they're not home, I still get charged.
Yeah, you see, the collect thing is, it implies, you know, some sort of a permission
being granted to start the billing.
Now, Bernie, you left a message on my machine yesterday, and, you know, I wasn't home, yet
somehow you were able to leave a message on my machine, call and collect.
How did you do that?
I'm not really sure.
I thought perhaps you had recorded a touch-tone, too, on your outgoing message, which is what
you have to press to accept the collect call.
But for some reason, the call was just collected without any true authorization by you or anyone.
So, I don't know, I would contest the charge for that call.
Oh, I will.
I will.
Let me tell you, I've called the phone company on several occasions.
You know, to contest my bill on calls that I, you know, they haven't picked up.
And they insist that someone answer that there's an entry machine, that, you know, that there
was a connection made.
So, I was charged for the call.
I had no choice.
You would think, I mean, that's just bogus that they would do that.
You would think, though, that AT&T would have a better system in place.
You know, we've been to a lot of prisons now in the past year, County Fiber the past two
years.
And, you know, they tend to know when you accept the call and when you don't accept the call.
AT&T would expect to have a little bit more experience.
Yeah.
Yeah, but in the past year, I've been in four, unfortunately, four different penal institutions.
And of the four, this is the worst system by far.
And it's run by Bell Atlantic and AT&T.
It's not a very good omen when you look at what's happening with this merger.
Well, I'm certain the rates are going to go up.
So, that's bad for the consumers.
Well, I don't really see how the rates can go down when something merges like this.
I mean, look, I just don't see where the impetus is for them to lower rates.
There's not going to be anything remotely resembling competition on that scale.
You know, something that covers all these states and can do things like Bell Atlantic will
be able to do.
Yeah.
So, okay, should we count your call as a vote against the merger?
Against it.
Okay.
Definitely against it.
So, we have one vote against.
Okay.
Thanks for calling.
Bye.
I think if they're smart, they should listen to what BAI listeners have to say.
Because, as Jerry Brown says, we are the people.
Well, he doesn't say that.
We the people or whatever.
But we have a voice of some sort.
Bernie, what do you think?
Do you think this merger should go through or not?
No, I don't.
I think that we should have the still small amount of competition that we had with this
set in our box.
And the less companies there are, obviously, there should be less competition.
So, I don't see how this could possibly be good for the consumer.
Okay.
All right.
Well, you don't count, though, because you're not a caller.
So, we have to take votes from the callers.
But I agree with you.
I called in.
That's true.
You did.
You did.
But technically, you're not a caller.
Technically, you're like a...
Can I call back and vote against the merger?
Yeah.
I guess technically, you could do that.
But let's see what our BAI listeners have to say.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Okay.
Bernie, you're still there.
I am.
Okay.
I'm happy you survived the dial tone, because that sometimes cuts you off.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hello.
Yes.
Go ahead.
Oh, hi.
This is Sandra from New Jersey.
I'm calling to say that I'm against the merger, simply because I believe that 9X has got horrible
service, Bell Atlantic's got horrible service, and the two combined.
You're going to get no service whatsoever.
Well, I heard Bell Atlantic had better service than 9X.
9X had lousy service.
Bell Atlantic was a little better as far as the service providing goes.
9X's strength, though, was in providing corporate customers because they have New York
City to deal with.
That's true.
Although, there's a lot of corporate customers, I think, that would take umbrage of that.
If you have a corporate account with 9X, you're all set.
But if you have a residential account with New Jersey like I do, it's ridiculous.
You can't get anything.
You can't get service.
You can't get another line in, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
But the real reason why I called is the following.
I'm having a dispute with my ISP over some activities that took place with my account.
And I just want to run it by you.
And I find it quite amusing myself.
Basically, what happened two weeks ago was that I got a voicemail saying that my account
had been terminated on their system because of hacking activities, right?
So I called them up and I said, you know, can you explain to me what hacking activities are?
And the tech guy I was talking to hemmed and hawed and went back and forth for like 20 minutes.
And finally, he goes, well, Remote Domain contacted us and said that they were being probed
from the outside, and they traced it back to the intact domain, and we, in turn, traced it back to your account.
And I said, well, what's a probe?
And he wouldn't tell me.
He wouldn't tell me.
And finally, I got out of him.
He said that it was an RPCinfo-P command, which, if you're familiar with that,
just lists ports and what's running on the ports, right?
So he said that constituted hacking activity.
He then went through my account and the contents of my home directory,
and I do a little bit of security work for my company.
And I had copies of such programs as Cops and Satan in there.
And he decided that I was an evil, vile hacker and terminated the account.
And thus getting rid of all my mail, about 15 meg of C code that I need for a client,
and, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
And no other explanation, no proof that this happened wouldn't tell me what the domain was,
so, you know, I could contact them and say, you know, hey, I wasn't doing anything illegal.
He had never proved that anything legal was done to the domain.
Just the very fact that I used the command was apparently implication enough of my, you know, guilt.
And he hasn't changed the permissions on the command on the system.
It's still publicly accessible.
It's a fairly standard command on any Unix box.
I mean, you probably have it over there with the 2600.com system.
And I'd just like to get your thoughts as to what you think about this.
Are you in New York or New Jersey?
I'm in New Jersey, actually.
And this can't be, by far, the only Internet service provider that you have access to.
No, but the main problem is I have clients there.
And, you know, once you have an account somewhere, right, I've had the account for about two years now,
you sort of, you know, become that identity.
And it's just a, it became a major hassle to find another ISP that would give me the same level of access.
You know, I have to transfer all the domains, I have to transfer all the web accounts, et cetera, et cetera, over there.
And plus, they're not even going to give me any of my source code back, and I can't get any of my mail.
So, you know, that's a major problem.
Well, what choice do you have?
I mean, is any of it worth this much trouble?
I believe so.
I mean, the 15 meg of code is irreplaceable, as far as I'm concerned.
You know, I made the mistake of not having it locally, you know, and it's all sitting on the ISP,
and I have no way to get to it.
And plus, I believe that he's completely wrong in his assessment of the situation.
Well, is your plan just to be sufficiently nice to them so they give the program back?
Well, what had happened was there was a big hue and cry in one of the local news groups
by a bunch of customers and some of my friends that were on the ISP.
And this, he, the guy has acted on his own.
I know the owners, and I had contacted the owners, and they said basically that it was his call
and that he was given, you know, full reign in the situation, which I didn't understand.
He said that he had contacted CERT, and CERT had told them that RPC Info was a, quote-unquote,
hacking utility and used for no other purpose.
Yeah.
So, actually, I ended up calling CERT, and I got some ridiculous voicemail system that bounced me around for four days.
Oh, really? What number?
Their hotline that I got off their...
Your voicemail, huh? You can transfer yourself?
Yeah.
Boy, okay, I'll have to, I'll check into that.
But, you know, what you described is so incredibly common.
Anybody can do this.
Anybody can do an RPC scan.
Yeah.
RPC Info is a standard command.
That's part of any unit.
It's any box. You'll have it, yeah.
Yeah.
And I think it's publicly accessible information.
I'll tell you, there's one site.
It's called all.net, A-L-L-D-N-E-T.
I remember that.
If you tell that to that site...
That's got a great login message.
Your system administrator gets a message saying that you're trying to hack them, just if you tell that to them.
And since we're both system administrators and users, we're able to see both messages.
You know, it's kind of funny to see them saying that this person's attempting to hack our site, when all you're doing is tell-netting.
Yeah, it's ridiculous.
And the way these people come across, to someone who doesn't know what they're talking about, sounds like you're a real threat.
Right.
We get RPC scans all the time. It's not a big deal.
Actually, Emmanuel, I sent you the... I cc'd the message to you.
Mm-hmm.
It will be coming from the... I think it came from the necronomy.com domain, so you might have it sitting in your mailbox there.
It's full details.
I just think that it's so funny that just possessing the information and possessing a copy of any type of program like that will, you know, imply guilt and, you know, evil intent on my part.
Well, I have two suggestions for you.
Mm-hmm.
The first suggestion is do whatever you can, within reason, to get your source code back, which obviously seems to be of the utmost importance to you.
Sure it is.
Once you succeed in doing that, change service providers. There's nothing worth this much trouble and punishment.
I mean, for all I know, you know, I'm not going to... I would... Even if I got the mail and the source code back, I wouldn't stay here. Because, you know, this guy will have it out for me.
Oh, yeah. There's no sense in staying.
Is this a one-man operation you're talking about?
No, it's actually not. It's a very large corporation in New Jersey, and we think they changed hands a few months ago.
Uh-huh.
Are you willing to say what the name of this company is on the air so other people can avoid them?
Absolutely. The company is Intac Access Corporation in Palisades Park, New Jersey.
Uh-huh.
Actually, very shortly, I'm going to have a web page up detailing this whole information. Do you mind if I give out the URL?
Sure, go ahead.
It'll be www.l0pht.com slash TilbaSandTrip, and it'll be detailing the whole information and have all the voicemails on there from this guy.
Because, you know, when I got the message, you know, my heart stopped. I'm like, what is he talking about?
Right.
You know, and then it all goes back, I think, to an incident that happened two months ago where this guy was yelling at a user in a public forum that the terminal servers aren't open by finger and you can't find out who's logged in to Slip and PPP and what their IP address is.
I'm just like, you know, get a clue. You're absolutely wrong.
You know, I said I have a little thing on my web page that lets people get my IP address if they wanted to see you see me or, you know, web phone to me or anything like that.
And he goes, well, you know, it's semantics and I'm really right and go away and stop posting in public forums.
And then guess what he did? He went and he canceled all the posts about the topic in the news group.
So there was no record of any, you know, anything that he got wrong.
Well, you know, I mean, this is what system administrators do sometimes.
He's two months old. He's been there two months.
Okay, but the thing is, I mean, that's not what your problem is. Your problem isn't infantile behavior.
It's not getting access to things that you have a right to get access to.
It's being accused of things that you didn't do and had no intention of doing.
So that's really what I think we need to get across here is what the difference is between something that's, you know, a crime and something that's simply, you know, I guess fingering or telnetting or the equivalent thereof.
Well, what it all boils down to is what happens when you have stupid people in positions of authority.
I agree.
Not that we're saying this guy is stupid.
No, not at all. I mean, you know, he might be very knowledgeable, but, you know, to have a personal vendetta against a user who's brought a company business and quite a bit of business and there's no history of any problems with the account, you know.
Right.
I've been there two years and then he makes a snap.
You know, there's a lot of suspicion on the net these days, you know.
Yeah, everyone's like, you know, doing illegal things, saying illegal things, you know, up to something and everyone's looking over their shoulders.
My other suggestion, just to do a little psychological experiment, if you're going to store Satan somewhere, try changing the name of it to Jesus.
So you see if it attracts as much attention.
Because Satan obviously sounds evil.
Yeah, of course.
I hope some people were searching for family radio and just stopped long enough to hear that.
There's a quick discussion of Satan and Jesus on the radio, people.
Oh, man.
Okay.
Can I make a suggestion?
Yes, go ahead, Danny.
Sure, go ahead.
I'm wondering if this guy might possibly be eligible for financial awards or financial damages.
If this guy's email was seized.
He seized everything.
Then under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which was passed in 1986, he may be eligible for financial damages for that.
And that's what the Secret Service lost their case on with Steve Jackson Games, as violation of the ECPA.
So he's right.
You do have a cause to pursue that.
Right.
One last final amusing note.
Guess what the guy's email address is.
Okay, what?
SS.
Are you kidding?
No.
Wow.
Yeah.
That sounds too familiar.
It's his initials.
Yeah, that's the guy's email address.
Well, we'll keep updated on this story.
Yeah, I'll send you some mail and check the webpage.
Okay.
Thanks for calling.
No problem.
Bye-bye.
You know, that kind of thing is happening all too often.
Yeah.
Don't you think?
I mean, suspicion and people accusing others of things when, you know, we understand exactly what's going on.
And we know what's right and what's not right.
But, you know, to the uninformed masses, you can make it sound like somebody is up to something.
You know, like, I finger a site in, you know, in Latvia or something.
And all of a sudden, the Latvian secret police are after me because I supposedly hacked into their site.
You know, but we know what a finger is.
We know what telnetting is.
We know what accessing the system is.
And it's totally different concepts.
But, you know, to the uninformed, it sounds like you're up to something.
I think the only way to prevent this kind of abuse from happening is to hit these people where it hurts.
And that is in their pocketbooks.
If you file a lawsuit for civil damages, I mean, he apparently has lost business as a result of this.
And he could also use the ECPA, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, just as Steve Jackson did.
Yeah, but, you know, Bernie, I'd like to use that as a last resort when nothing else has worked.
Because I think the most important thing is to try and get through to somebody and show them they're wrong,
explain to them why what they're doing is dangerous and a bad precedent.
And if they refuse to listen to that, yeah, go after them using legal means.
But I just don't, I'm not into this litigation everything, you know.
I'm not either, but apparently this guy doesn't seem to be willing to be reasonable.
I think everything should be, every attempt should be made first and settled amicably.
But if that doesn't work, then you have to go the other route.
Right.
Okay, let's continue.
212-279-3400.
We have two votes against the Bell Atlantic 9X merger.
So let's go to what we're talking about here tonight.
But the floor is open as usual.
Good evening, you're on.
Good evening, you're on.
Go ahead.
Hi, I wanted to know what means are available for finding an unlisted number when you know a name and an address.
I spoke with some private investigation services, and they charge quite a bit, like $300 to $400.
That's true.
There are ways.
You have a name, you have an address.
Yeah.
Okay.
And I don't really have any friends in low places.
Uh-huh.
How much do you know about this person?
Just that, basically.
Name and address.
I don't really know.
Well, is this a name and address given to you at random?
Do you know anything at all about the person?
No, not really.
I'm actually doing it as a favor for somebody else.
Uh-huh.
Well, I mean, if you have some kind of, like, information about them, what their interests are, something about their habits, if they go to school, for instance, if they work someplace, that information is stored not just with the phone company, but with all kinds of other agencies.
Right.
You know, if, let's say, cable TV, for instance.
Right.
You know, they have your phone number.
Now, you give them your address, and you say, hey, what phone number do you have for me?
Lots of times, they're stupid enough to give it out.
Right.
Right.
Any utility like that will gladly give that information out if they don't think there's some sort of a threat.
It's not hard.
Being unlisted, you're only unlisted with the phone company.
Right.
What means do these private investigation services use?
Do they have it streamlined down to just one phone call, or do they also have to do a lot of footwork?
Well, if they have a name and address, they're going to look it up in TRW, which they all have subscriptions to.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, and that's, you know, most of the time, that's easy enough to do.
Yeah.
Sure, Dad.
Can you first hear me?
Yes, go ahead.
If it's an unlisted number, it's not going to be in TIW.
Is that right, Fiverr?
Well, it depends.
It depends if you gave your phone number to TRW.
Lots of times people don't think, hey, my phone number's unlisted, so I'm not going to give it to anyone.
You know, TRW's not going to only list your number if it's listed with phone companies.
Oh, that's right.
I mean, it's not necessarily going to be, it's less likely to be there if it's unlisted.
They're not going to get, TRW's database does not automatically link to unlisted phone numbers that are in different Rbox computers for their list.
No, this is true, but I mean, that's one of many places that a private investigator may look.
I mean, there's various online services that have skip-trace and people-finder type things, like Information America.
Right.
I found out this happened to me once.
I had an unlisted telephone number, and I found out that someone got it.
An insurance salesman got it.
Uh-huh.
Well, I won't go into detail about it, but in any case, I found out that they got that information from an inside contact at the telephone company and paid that person for the information.
Well, that happens all the time, people inside the, I mean, that's totally illegal to do that, obviously.
I was talking about fairly legal ways of getting this information, even though calling someone up and saying to someone you're not, I guess, technically isn't really legal,
but certainly paying somebody in the phone company to give you that information is definitely not legal.
Apparently, private investigators regularly establish contacts within the different telephone companies to illegally purchase this information.
Well, Atlantic was pled guilty about eight years ago to doing just that on a massive scale in Philadelphia.
They were selling information to private investigator firms, to corporations.
They bought private customer information.
They admitted that they were doing it.
They front-page news in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Right.
You know, another thing that is very simple, you have a name, you have an address.
You know, what people can do is just go to the house and, you know, I mean, this is totally wrong and illegal, but it's what people do.
It's what happens.
If, you know, and you can look upon this as someone trying to protect your privacy as well.
If your name and address is out there, all someone has to do is go to the side of your house, clip on a, you know, a lineman's handset, and see what phone number you are.
Simple as that.
It's not hard.
So this unlisted phone number, you know, business is, I don't know, it's a veil at best.
It's not really something that's safe.
The most common excuse in the case of the cable companies is calling the cable company and saying that your pay-per-view service isn't working because in areas where they don't have one-touch ordering, you would call an 800 number and it gets you a number from A&I.
It has to match the number in their records.
Right.
So if you tell them your pay-per-view service isn't working, what number do you have on file?
That's usually the best excuse to use.
Of course, if they show you it's coming from Texas when your cable system is in New York.
Oh, sure.
They might suspect something, but keep in mind, you know, they're not really used to, you know, to tracking down criminals and figuring out that something's not right.
So they'll just, you know, wantonly give out information.
Anytime there's a database with your info in it, some moron somewhere is going to give it to somebody they're not supposed to give it to.
All right?
Does that answer your question?
Yeah, it does.
Okay, and one question for you.
9X Ballot Atlantic, what's your vote?
No, no way.
Okay, we have three no's so far.
I don't know, you think this is a trend?
Sounds like the no's have it.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Hello?
Hello, how are you?
Hi, great.
Manuel?
Yes.
And Fiber Heights, Jeremy, calling your fan from the cafe.
Okay.
And hi, Bernie.
Bernie there?
Hi, Jeremy.
Hi.
I have a question about something that appeared on my bill.
Well, before you ask your question, we must have your vote.
Oh, of course I would not want that merger.
Who would?
Well, I don't know.
Apparently nobody wants it.
Don't I remember?
Somewhere within my lifetime, I thought that the whole point of the, what do you call it?
The divestiture?
Yeah, of the, to counter the monopoly of the phone company.
Didn't they break it down for that reason?
To promote competition.
Right.
I mean, didn't that all happen within somewhere in the last 20 years?
Well, instead it's promoted mega, giant, multinational corporations.
I guess they were in danger, so we had to have, you know, an influx of them.
It broke it down, and now it's all coming back together.
I think it's crazy.
Okay, the question is, I got something that showed up on my bill a couple of months ago
that was billed by an independent company called Intel.
I think...
Intel?
Yeah, I think Bernie mentioned...
Phone company?
Phone company called Intel?
Yeah.
The chip people?
I-N-T-E-L.
Bernie asked, didn't you mention at your previous location that your telephone was an Intel piece of equipment?
Actually, that was Wachtel.
Wachtel, yes.
Oh.
I think we're getting our Tels mixed up here, because, Fiber, have you ever heard of Intel, the phone company?
The only thing I know of, begins with an in, ends in a tell, is Integra-Tel.
Well, this is definitely Intel.
I mean, it's in print and, you know, on my bill.
It was one or two L's?
One L.
And what the charges were, three charges from an airplane.
And, of course, when I started to refute this, they told me I had to prove that I was not the person making the call.
At first, I didn't think that would be very difficult, because right on my bill, from my other long-distance service,
there's a charge of a phone call that I made during that time period from New York.
Well, they wouldn't accept that, because I have to have proof, evidently, from another source, an independent source, than their own, than a phone company on their bill.
That's utter nonsense.
Is this what the other company is telling you?
Yeah.
Okay.
Where are you, in New York?
Mm-hmm.
Okay, there is a phone number that 9X has.
It's an 890 number.
I think it's 890-0163, but don't quote me on that.
It might be a number similar to that.
Mm-hmm.
You call that number, and that is where you go to dispute anything that a company like that tells you.
You just say that you're not going to pay those charges.
They'll take it off your bill.
What you might have to do is fight with that company directly, but at least it'll get off your 9X part of the bill.
You mean the Intel company?
That's right.
Yeah.
So they'll have to pursue this on their own terms, but you won't have to worry about showing up on your phone, though.
It's weird.
What they were saying was that they had to write a letter to, and the phone company told me that the Intel had to write a letter to 9X saying that it wasn't, that it was a mistake.
And, of course, they're not going to write it.
They want to collect the money.
Right.
Well, the thing is, I think you've alerted enough people to those devious practices, and it happens all the time.
Listen, we're out of time.
Thanks very much for calling.
Yeah.
Thanks for calling.
Thank you.
Bye.
Okay.
And, Bernie, best of luck to you in the week ahead.
I guess we'll hear from you next week.
Thank you.
All right.
And please send mail to Bernie S. if you have not done so already.
And, Fiber, thanks for coming by.
We'll be keeping an eagle eye on this Bell Atlantic 9X merger as Bell Atlantic moves into New York.
Boy, it's kind of scary.
We'll just have to see what happens with that.
This is Emmanuel Goldstein.
The program is off the hook.
I think, I think we may actually have our theme music.
We'll just have to see.
Oh, good.
Well, we'll be back again next week.
Same time, same place.
This is WBAI New York.
The phone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving.
Now I can't make a cough.
It could be yet much worse.
But if they could, they would.
Bumbin' it bombed for the best expect of birth.
I hope that's understood.
Bumbin' it bom!
Bumbin' it bom!
Bumbin' it bom!
Bumbin' it bom!
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how I really feel
Get the cameras rolling
Get the action going
Paint peeling off the wall
Dirt piling in the hall
Ice on the pipes
But no steam at all
Landlord, landlord
No doubt rotten
Good for nothing
Gonna raise your oil rich someday
Kick you out if you can't pay
You and the goddamn OPA
Landlord