And it's just about 8 o'clock on a Tuesday night,
which means it's time for another edition of Off the Hook.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself off shaving, now I can't make a call.
It can't be as much worse, but if they could, they would.
And they would bomb for the best to stand for birth.
I hope that's understood.
But they would move!
Big time, guys.
is going all about histograms.
So housed the Easterropol
and we'll be sure to find a creepy place for now.
Again, there's no dressing room that's better.
Let's watch.
I'm great at it!
But it's green, this is normal.
This is what's beautiful.
Here we go,
Let's do everything.
Let's stick around here.
It sure is.
For what's going on from the house to the
Tamatoi?
Ingao!
Yes, me and Sam, come to the bed.
What's that?
Like what?
And a very warm welcome to everybody.
Tuning in to Off the Hook this evening, this fine Tuesday night in the middle of July.
If you think it's hot outside, you should be in the WBAI studios.
This is Emmanuel Goldstein, Fiber Optics, here with us.
Yes, I am.
How are you doing?
Hi.
We have some interesting things this week, including a newsflash, which just sort of came over.
Actually, it came over yesterday, but I'm sure a lot of people have not heard about it yet.
We've got some other things to play around with, to test out, and stories to share, phone
calls to take, things like that.
You know, when I walked into the studio, I found this note, and look what it says.
It says, Emmanuel, read other side.
Whoever wrote this was very thoughtful, because they knew I'd pick it up from the wrong way
and read the wrong side first.
So it says, Emmanuel, read other side.
So I turned it over, and it's a note from Rebel.
And Rebel sends us this little note.
It says Tuesday, 7-16, which is today, which means he was here today.
If you want to be scared, he was here.
He was at the studio.
And he left this note.
It says, Emmanuel, the reason for payphones in Queens being converted to charge phones temporarily
is for July 4th, so no one uses fireworks on the phone.
What?
Well, I don't know exactly what he means by that, but I think what he's trying to say
is that people stick firecrackers in the coin return slots, maybe.
And so they took out the coin return slots simply to prevent that, and they're not going
to put them back, because nobody would think of putting firecrackers in the phone.
They actually blocked off the slot.
I don't know.
I don't know exactly what it is that they did out there in Queens, but I'm sure Rich the
Rebel is listening someplace, and he'll call up to verify, or maybe even burst through
the doors.
Who knows?
Okay, so we have that.
I brought back a couple of stories from England, where I was a couple of weeks ago, including
this newsflash from the Evening Standard, which is one of their tabloids.
In England, they have all these national papers.
They have papers that look like the New York Times, that are fairly respectable, like the
Guardian, the Independent Times.
And they have the Evening Standard, the Mirror, the Sun.
They're all tabloids, and they're the ones that people kind of look down on.
So one of these, the headline was, children earning 5,000 pounds a day in card fraud.
That's right.
Teenagers are using the new supermarket loyalty cards to earn up to 5,000 pounds a day in
a widespread swipe card fraud, which police are struggling to contain.
And there may be some words or mannerisms of speech here which don't seem to make sense,
but that's because it's England, you know, so you just gotta get used to it.
By reprogramming the magnetic strip on the back of the cards recently launched by superstores
like Sainsbury, Tesco, and Safeway, schoolchildren can use them in card phones, petrol stations,
and some shops.
The teenagers are forging credit cards by using information available on the internet, which
details how to counterfeit cards and buy expensive goods by mail, order, or telephone.
Detective Sergeant Peter Rowan from West Midlands Police said some teenagers were earning up to
5,000 pounds a day.
He said, you sign your own name, and most shops don't even bother checking the information
or looking at the numbers.
As long as it's authorized by the shop's computer, that's that.
Criminals are moving into this line as it is relatively low risk.
The supermarket cards available to any shoppers over 18 can be reprogrammed with a card encoding
machine available for about 700 pounds.
In a few seconds, the information on the magnetic strip can be altered, and someone's genuine
account number and expiry date put on.
Although the card cannot be used legitimately in a shop, police say some shopkeepers are
colluding with the fraudsters, authorizing sales and splitting the proceeds.
Detective Sergeant Rowan said police were worried the crime was becoming difficult to contain
with the rise of information on the internet.
Speaking on Radio 4's Today program, Detective Sergeant Rowan said about 95% of the numbers available
on the internet were genuine, some of which had not yet been issued by banks.
So we see who the culprit is, again, from this tabloid's point of view, is the internet.
It's a free flow of information.
And basically what these people are doing is duplicating credit cards.
It's something that I don't think is anything really new.
Maybe the manner in which they're using them is a little bit different because technology
has changed, but it's hardly something you can say is hacking.
At least they didn't say the word hacking in there anywhere.
But it's certainly information on the internet doesn't lead to this kind of thing.
I think you'll find if you actually do just a little bit of poking around that the majority
of all this credit card hoopla on the so-called internet is actually on AOL.
Well, that's true.
That is probably very true.
There's a large contingency of maladjusted youngsters that are trafficking in credit card numbers.
Now, I take it from your remarks that you do not consider AOL to be one and the same
with the internet.
No, it's connected to the internet, but it's not the internet.
And a show that we'll get into, I suppose we'll get into later, that you yourself appeared on.
This is unavoidable.
In one of the first things that they had on the program, it was on the Learning Channel
on Sunday.
Fortunately, nobody watches the Learning Channel, but if anybody did watch it, all right, most
people don't watch it.
I watch the Learning Channel sometimes.
Well, how can they call it the Learning Channel when they're spreading so much misinformation?
That's true.
I mean, I don't think, the only thing I learned about that was that the people who put these
things together are a bunch of idiots.
Well, for me, it was a learning experience.
They don't call it the Teaching Channel.
No, I guess not.
They're still learning.
Well, I think they need to be learned a few things.
Yeah, yeah.
So, yeah, basically, all right, let's set the record straight on that.
First of all, when I did that interview, first of all, they only took you as like a sentence
of what I said.
Right.
I was sitting in a stairwell in Las Vegas last year.
I had a temperature of like 103 degrees Celsius, and I was really, really feeling bad just
answering these questions from this person.
I had no idea who he was, what he was putting something together for.
I don't think this person even knew what he was doing it for.
And I just, you know, they asked me what a hacker was, and I told them what a hacker
was, and then I, you know, got sick or something along those lines.
I forget exactly how it transpired, but they used like one sentence, and apparently they
talked to other people.
You know, Winn Schwartow is on there spreading his premonitions of doom and his various catch
phrases that only he knows, but Congress listens to.
You know, the CIA now has a department called Information Warfare, which is a term that he
coined.
He coins these terms, you know, like Herfgon and Information Warfare and things like that,
and people believe it, even though there's no basis of reality.
Um, so, yeah, that's, that was the general tone of the program, was to get people panicking.
But yeah, they had some AOL kiddies there.
Yeah, they had the AOL kids at the beginning, uh, they called themselves Speedy and Gonzales.
Yeah.
And, uh, they, they were running, uh, credit card generating programs and explaining how
they were logging into AOL and services like AOL and signing up, uh, falsified accounts and
setting up websites.
Tell us something about their intelligence level, if they have, they can buy anything
in the world, they have credit cards that they can, like, generate at will, and what
do they use it on?
AOL.
AOL, yeah.
I don't get that.
It's got to tell you something right there.
But, okay, so, now this was presented as hacking.
This is part of the hacker culture.
Yeah.
These were, these were hacker criminals in the making.
Uh-huh.
And the whole focus of the program was computer terrorism.
Now, you notice, this is something I've always wondered about.
Why is it kids like that are the ones that are wandering around doing these little television
documentaries, right?
And the people that are sitting, vegetating in jail, like Bernie S. and Kevin Mitnick
and all the others, are people that never use credit cards in their lives.
And yet, they're locked up for years at a time.
I mean, you were in prison, you never used credit cards.
These people never seem to be, I'm not saying they should be locked up, because I think
there's probably other ways to deal with them.
Um, but, I mean, it's something, you've got to wonder what the agenda of the federal government
is when they don't even care about that kind of thing.
They only care about people who have the knowledge, you know, and are willing to teach people
how to, how to use their phones or, or how their phones could be used against them.
Maybe it's the handle.
Maybe I should just change my, should have called myself Speedy or Gonzalez.
Yeah.
Yeah, there you go.
Something cute like that, you know.
Anything else in this program worth mentioning?
Um...
Lasted an hour.
Oh, yeah, it was, it was a pretty long program for, for the degree of crap that they had on
it.
Yeah.
But, um, I, I don't know.
Uh, they even had the guy from the University of Toronto who, uh, had fielded some live hacker
break-ins in his time.
Uh-huh.
And he proceeded to explain how it's just like breaking into a house.
Yeah, you know, I saw that, and I could see his eyes light up when he made that analogy.
He's like, you know, it's just like breaking into someone's house.
Yeah.
You leave a door open, and all of a sudden this person comes in and starts rummaging around
and going through all your papers and things like that, and, you know, wouldn't you be
upset?
I remember us repeating the very same thing year after year.
Uh-huh.
And, you know, it's like, has this guy not been listening for the past 20 or so years
where this house analogy, he's not the first one to come up with it, A, and B, you know,
I think there's been some fairly good arguments against why that doesn't apply at all, why
it's totally different to have someone break into your home and be physically present than
to have somebody access an account you leave wide open and, you know, just be in there
for a split second or whatever, you know, it depends.
It's different for every situation.
You know, we need a good alien invasion to unify everybody together.
Yeah, you know, I think that was a good message, a good message that was brought out this summer.
Let's put aside all our petty differences and hatred so we can unite in common hatred against
the enemy from some other planet.
Yeah, that's something.
It's a good film, though.
I was amazed how, at the end, it turned out to be Us from the Future.
I guess I probably shouldn't say that for those people that haven't seen it yet.
Oh, really?
The fact that it, yeah, that it was really us from the future.
Oh, that's a really common New Age alien theme.
You didn't see it yet, did you?
No, I didn't see the movie.
I'm sorry, I ruined it for you.
No, that's all right.
Yeah, well, Independence Day.
If you haven't seen it yet, either, don't worry about it.
I'm sorry I ruined it, all right?
What, you fell asleep at the end?
No, I just thought...
Okay, you didn't get it, did you?
I just thought the entire preface, cheese factor, world peace uniting in the United States
will lead us to freedom.
On July 4th.
And the political correctness of the African American and the Jewish guy saving the world
was just too much crap for me to take.
How did you get that they were people from the future?
Was I, like, that...
It was very clearly spelled out in the end.
You didn't see the end?
You must have left early.
Oh, you left when all the words came on the screen, right?
You walked out when all the words came over.
Those were, like, the fake credits, and then there was, like, a whole, like, 20 minutes
afterwards.
You didn't...
I always tell people, stay through the credits, because you never know what's going to happen
afterwards.
And I thought this was, like, you know, advertised enough.
It was all I could do, like, not to leave in the middle of the film.
That's all.
It was long, two hours and 30 minutes.
It felt like the Learning Channel thing was longer, but...
Yeah.
But, okay, speaking of TV, new network yesterday, MSNBC.
Now, we knew this was coming.
We knew this was coming for a long time.
July 15th, 1996, Microsoft and NBC would be joining forces.
I didn't know, though, they were going to make the logo so cool-looking, where it says
MSN going down one side and NBC going over the other.
So, it looks like they're all the same.
So, you have this network now, which is heavily based on the Internet.
They're always pointing to webpages.
They're always mentioning how the net is involved and things like that.
I think that's kind of cool.
And vice versa.
Yeah.
You can hook up to the webpage and see things.
You can make your own personal headline page.
There's all kinds of neat things you can do.
Now, I watched it for a good amount of time yesterday.
You know, I don't seem to have any sponsors yet, because I saw the same commercial, like,
three times in five minutes, and sometimes they even run the same commercial back-to-back,
which I don't understand.
There's got to be a computer making that decision, because no human in their right mind would
do that.
It's very annoying.
And they do repeat news programs occasionally.
They have a show called The Sight, which is on every night at 10, I think.
And last night, guess what they focused on?
Kevin Mitnick.
Wow.
Yeah.
I'd like to say that it was a good story.
I would.
But it sucked.
It was awful.
It was the same old crap.
In fact, it was like they regurgitated that Dateline NBC story that they ran a few months
ago.
And basically, they interviewed Markov.
They interviewed Satomo Shimomura.
They interviewed John Littman, which was kind of cool.
You know, he said some interesting things.
But they just regurgitated all the same old mistruths and factoids that didn't make any
sense.
They still don't make any sense.
And they didn't really ask any of the hard questions.
They just portrayed Kevin Mitnick as this major threat to society.
And now he's in prison.
And we're all safe.
And you know, at the end of the story, they had this little McFact, you know, these little
things that they show on the screen, a little factoid that they just like show on the screen
for about 10 seconds.
And because it's there on the screen, that means it's unattributed.
It's just like a fact.
You know, this is true.
And the fact was that in 1995, computer hackers cost American corporations $800 million.
Wow.
And I'm like, where did they get this figure from?
Computer hackers doing what?
You know, are they counting everybody who worked in a bank that stole money?
Is that computer hacker?
Are they counting everybody who makes a free phone call?
Is that computer hacking?
No attribution whatsoever.
No documentation as to what exactly that means.
Because so while they're using new gizmos and new technology and things like that, they're
doing the same old thing, reporting the same old mistruths and not backing up their facts,
whatever they are.
I don't want to play devil's advocate or anything, but I don't know if we really need another
site on the net wasting bandwidth telling you to watch TV.
Then when you're watching TV, telling you to look on the web.
Yeah.
I want to see what's on TV.
I turn my head.
Plus, you have to wonder how much is this widening the gap between the haves and the have
nots?
I mean, a lot of people still don't even have cable TV.
If they even have a TV set at all.
That's definitely true.
And then if you do have cable TV, you have to have some pretty impressive bandwidth to
be able to connect to all the things that they want you to connect to.
You know, they had you connecting to sites in Cuba and sites all over the world.
It's neat for people like us, I guess.
But as far as as reaching out to to most people, it's just not going to do it, obviously.
Let's face it.
It's going to be a lot of people behind.
MSN, the original Microsoft network, failed miserably.
It did, didn't it?
And they got NBC to bail them out.
And this is their new project.
It's an interesting merger, I'll say that.
But it's very, very full of hype.
They had President Clinton on yesterday.
They interviewed him live at 8 o'clock.
I couldn't believe it.
They actually got him to be, and he was taking questions from the Internet.
Of course, you know, when you have 20,000 people submitting a question at the same time,
I doubt very much they're actually taking questions from the Internet.
I'd like to see him, you know, go into pound hack on IRC or something, you know, for real.
So, you know, if he answers any questions there, I don't think that's ever going to happen, though.
So, you didn't actually watch any of the program?
No, I stayed away from it.
Uh-huh.
What, you're afraid?
Well, I don't think it's so much a fear as it is.
I knew what I was about to see.
Uh-huh.
I knew what to expect.
Uh-huh.
And you did play with the website, though?
Yeah, I played around with the website.
What did you think of that?
It was, uh...
It's best viewed in Microsoft's...
Yeah, it's best viewed in the Internet Explorer.
Yes.
Yeah, so you should bear that in mind.
Yeah.
And they mention that at every opportunity.
Oh, of course.
Of course, whenever they show a website on TV, they're always using the Explorer.
Yeah, that's their product.
Yeah.
I don't know anyone that uses it.
The whole thing is just selling a product.
You realize that.
Yeah.
You know, they're constantly saying Microsoft, NBC.
You know, they didn't mention GE too much, but of course...
Actually, no, you know, come to think of it, I saw about 50,000 GE commercials.
So, yeah, I guess GE gets a big break on commercials there, because they own NBC.
So, you have to wonder, all these things are merging, you know?
Warner Brothers is merging with Turner, so there goes CNN out the window as far as, you
know, being fairly independent.
It's just, radio stations are being bought up by...
You know, the two all-news stations in this city are owned by the same people.
WI&S and WCBS are both owned by Westinghouse CBS because they merged.
Hmm.
Westinghouse and CBS are the same organization now.
So, where is your competition?
You know, Hot 97 and Kiss FM, they're both owned by the same people.
Did you know that?
No.
You'd think they're competing against each other.
But it's WBAI and WABC, both owned by the same people.
No, I'm not kidding.
But imagine, imagine that.
Imagine the craziness involved.
So, yeah, you have this situation where media is just being taken over by bigger and bigger
entities, and the smaller voices are being drowned out.
And, you know, you think that the smaller voices are having more of a say, but it's
really not like that.
I mean, on the net, yeah, on the net you do have a say.
You can make your own webpage, but you've got to watch out for these big guys that are
moving in, trying to take things over.
So, I tried to make a personal headline page on MSNBC.com, and it let me do everything,
but it didn't recognize me when I came back.
So, I don't understand what I did wrong.
You know, first of all, there's no submit button when you enter all the information.
You say what you want headlines from, what stories you're interested in, and then I
guess you click on this button that says, view personal page.
And that takes about a half hour for it to come across.
It just sort of freezes there.
I tried it like four different times.
Everything else works fast, but that works really slow.
And so, it worked once, and then when I exited Netscape and came back in, it didn't
remember me at all.
So, I don't know what the point of it is.
So, I don't really understand if I'm...
Maybe it's written only to work with the Internet Explorer.
I was wondering about that, but, you know, I will not put that on my machine.
So, I just will not do it.
I won't either.
All right.
So, if anybody saw MSNBC or played around with their net, you know, net connections a
bit, I'd like to know about it.
I did send them some feedback.
In fact, you can view this right now if you want to go over to, I think it's the
site.nbc...
No, the site.msnbc.com.
They said, you know, send us feedback, but they didn't say how to send feedback, and
there was no feedback button in that site.
You had to move around all over the place to actually find a place where you could leave
feedback.
There was this one story that said the merger between NBC and Microsoft, is it heaven or
hell?
And I just sort of put my comments there, and I don't know if they actually registered.
So, that's one place I was able to leave feedback.
But the way they were showing the address on TV, they didn't say anything about the
web.
They just said, leave us feedback at thesite.msnbc.com.
So, I telneted over to it, and I got this big login prompt.
And so, I tried all kinds of different things, but, you know, I didn't like it at all.
And then I fingered the site, and there were only three people on, and two of them were
system administrators.
So, I don't really know if they wanted my feedback in that manner.
I was going to maybe send some fake mail or something from themselves, to themselves,
saying, I'll pull that program at 10 o'clock, because it's factually incorrect.
But, I thought better of it.
All right.
We have some 9x news.
9x is waking up to reality to some degree, although not in all aspects.
Minor reality.
Minor reality.
Now, you know, we've been talking about this thing that they offer called Call ID.
And a lot of you say, what do you mean, Call ID?
You mean Caller ID?
Why do you have to say Call ID?
Why are you saying Call ID?
Well, folks, it wasn't our fault.
We said it because that's what they told us to say.
Call ID is what 9x calls it.
But, guess what?
Thanks to input from customers like you, we've changed the names of some 9x phone smart services.
It's still a very stupid name, I think.
Phone smart services to help better describe just what they do.
Only the names have changed.
You still can use the services to manage your calls the same way you have in the past.
So, 9x Call ID is now known as 9x Caller ID.
It displays the telephone number of an incoming call on a box attached to your phone.
Okay, now, I'm going to ask you some questions here.
Okay.
And you'll have to know the answer.
What is 9x Call ID Deluxe?
Call ID Deluxe?
Yes.
What is that now?
Caller ID with name delivery.
No, Caller ID with name service.
Oh, come on.
It's the same thing.
Totally different.
You are wrong.
Displays the telephone number and name associated with an incoming call.
Yes.
Does anybody have that?
I don't know that.
No, I don't think it's available in the city yet.
Well, they seem to be saying it's available, but I get to see it.
It's available in some places.
Not in the city, though.
Okay.
9x Per Call Restrict.
That's where you dial star 6-7, is it?
Yeah.
Beforehand?
Yeah.
Okay, and it's only good for the duration of that call.
9x Per Call Restrict, now known as?
Oh, now known as call blocking.
Close.
9x Per Call Blocking Service.
Blocks display of your number and name on a caller ID box for a single call when you dial
star 6-7 before dialing a number.
And finally, 9x All Call Restrict is now known as All Call Blocking.
9x All Call Blocking Service.
Yes, I'll allow that one.
An optional service that...
It's funny how they say it's optional.
It's optional for you to have privacy.
An optional service that automatically blocks display of your number and name on a caller
ID box for every call.
Well, that optional service is what we recommend everybody get.
Now, you know, the one thing that really bugs me about 9x, you know that I was sort of
conned into getting the service known as IntelliDial, which they no longer offer, I don't think,
because it's so inept and it doesn't work at all with lots of things.
We have the new voicemail system at 2600, which we're trying to inaugurate.
And one of the features that we have on there, we're going to have on there, is caller ID
identification, where you can hit a button and it'll tell you what your phone number
is based on caller ID.
It'll tell you if your caller ID box is being blocked or if nationwide caller ID is working
or things like that.
So that's kind of cool.
We have that feature all installed.
The other feature is that if you want to transfer over to 2600 to, say, leave a message for
somebody in the office, you can do that.
Now, here's the problem.
IntelliDial allows you to have call transferring.
You know, you can transfer a call from phone A to phone B.
However, caller ID is broken.
Caller ID does not work on IntelliDial.
Well, actually, you said it originally worked.
It sort of worked for like about maybe 25 miles around the office.
Then we complained about it and they fixed it so it works between five miles around the
office.
So they turned the dial the wrong way or whatever.
So now, if we got rid of IntelliDial, okay, we'd be able to get caller ID working, but we
would not be able to get call transfer.
They don't offer it.
They don't allow people to get call transfer, even though the service obviously exists.
And in fact, we took IntelliDial off one of our phones and they messed up the class of
service because they took IntelliDial off, but they kept call transfer on.
Really?
So they can do it.
Oh, yeah.
But they have to do it by accident because they don't know how to do it on purpose.
Well, I have call transfer.
Yeah, but you have ISDN.
Yeah.
So for me to get ISDN on, say, four or five voicemail lines, I'd have to get BitSurface
for all those, wouldn't I?
Well, or the hardware of your choice, but yeah.
Yeah.
It's not worth it.
It's not worth it.
Joker, what do you have?
Yeah, talking about very bizarre 9x messaging and things like that, their services, you're familiar
with 9x messaging, you can have 9x voicemail.
Yeah, that's a thing that Fiber and I disagreed bitterly on because I think it's a big rip-off
and I don't trust it for a second.
Yeah, I have voicemail too.
Right.
No, I don't have it.
And yet, when I got home, I was away for a couple days, I get home and there is a recorded
message on my answering machine that it was not that I played all the messages, end of
the tape, then I come back and there's a message that somebody has left on 9x messaging
that has then been forwarded to my answering machine.
So, I get this message from my friend, hi, I like your new 9x messaging service, that's
really great, blah, blah, blah, give me a call back.
Then, at the end of the message, it says, if you would like more information on 9x messaging,
please call the 800 number.
They had accidentally given me some sort of bizarre trial and when I called the number
back, nobody had a clue as to what was going on with them.
Was this, first of all, the person that left the message was somebody you knew?
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
So, it wasn't like they were just giving you a fake message saying, hey, you could get
happy messages like this.
Okay.
So, they transferred that message, the incoming message they transferred to?
Well, I don't know what it is because what happens is my answering machine is a digital
answering machine and at the end of the digital time, if you call it, it won't pick up.
It'll keep ringing rings.
So, what I'm assuming happened is 9x set this thing up, they left the message and as soon
as I played all the messages, left the room and came back, it was then there, it had kept
trying to call and leave the number.
No, you know what it sounds like?
They wouldn't call it messaging because voicemail is call answering.
What that probably is, is it might be one of those things where you call somebody at
a payphone and the phone rings a really long time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's what I think it is.
And then it says there's no answer, would you like to leave a message for your party
and then it tries to deliver it later.
That's what it sounds like.
9x might be introducing something like that.
You should ask that person if they paid an extra 75 cents or whatever to leave a message
at a payphone.
Right.
That could have happened.
Yeah.
No, it wasn't coming from a payphone.
I know that for a fact.
Really?
Well, you know, they might offer that service from other phones too now.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What city was this person in?
Were they local?
D.C.
Okay.
So, they probably used a long distance company.
Right.
And it probably was used through that long distance company.
Interesting.
Well, you know, you have no idea what to expect on your answering machine these days.
You get all kinds of bizarre, weird messages.
Here's the bulletin I was mentioning earlier, the thing that came in just yesterday.
Okay.
U.S.
Fearing terror attack tightens security.
You know what that means, right?
Oh, yeah.
Every week is something new.
Last week we talked about the CIA getting involved.
Well, now we've got this.
U.S. authorities are stepping up efforts to protect infrastructure nationwide from such
threats as truck bombs to computer viruses aimed at crippling the economy.
Isn't it great how they can equate a truck bomb to a computer virus?
You know, it's amazing.
In the latest show of concern over the perceived threat from guerrillas, hostile countries,
criminals, or other disgruntled elements, President Clinton signed an order Monday setting
up a blue-ribbon panel.
Blue-ribbon panel.
Is it one of those bogus EFF things?
Blue-ribbon.
I don't know.
To recommend ways to safeguard telecommunications, electrical power grids, and other infrastructure
from attack.
Clinton's executive order cited the potential threat from bombings or other physical assaults
and property, as well as computer-based attacks on the communications networks that underpin
banking, industry, and commerce.
Future terrorist attacks may not be limited to bombs or other conventional weapons, Attorney
General Janet Reno, who recommended creation of the panel, said.
Terrorists could use more sophisticated cyber attacks to disrupt the functions of the nation's
critical infrastructures.
Cyber attacks.
And no doubt she'll be leading cyber-weight belt raids, as well.
Oh, yeah.
All these cyber attacks.
The report by the panel to be drawn from government and industry is due in one year.
In the meantime, Clinton ordered an interagency task force, led by the FBI, to boost coordination
of anti-terror efforts.
As part of a drive to boost security for the more than one million civilian federal workers,
the government has increased surveillance in and around its offices around the country
and tightened procedures for entry to its buildings.
In the Washington area, the General Services Administration, the federal agency that provides
office space for civilian workers in more than 200 buildings, is wrapping up details
of an anti-vehicle bomb plan to, that sounds really ridiculous, an anti-vehicle bomb plan
to remove about 360-metered parking spaces around 19 prime terror target buildings.
Yeah, they have to be labeled now.
Attention, this is a prime terror target building you're entering.
Enter at your own risk.
Including the Commerce Department, the Internal Revenue Service, and the State Department.
William Lawson, the assistant GSA administrator for the Washington region, said in a telephone
interview, that there was an urgency to move forward to protect the 19 buildings from potential
guerrilla attack.
Then they go into how the World Trade Center blew up, and Oklahoma City, and its current
sense of urgency was heightened by the truck bomb June 25th in Saudi Arabia, an attack that
Defense Secretary William Perry told Congress would not be the last on U.S. interests.
It sounds like he's threatening us, doesn't it?
This will not be the last.
Well, I think we should look into what William Perry is threatening there.
Two weeks ago, Clinton said the country may have been spared a burst of homegrown terrorism
with the disarming and arrest of 12 alleged members of a well-armed anti-government paramilitary
cell called the Viper Militia.
Brian Jenkins, an expert on terrorism with Kroll Associates, an investigative and consulting
firm that always likes to be quoted in cases like this, said anti-government extremists
on the fringe of the so-called militia movement may pose a greater threat domestically than threats
arising from Middle East conflicts.
The March 20th, 1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway by a religious cult is a reminder
that spectacular terrorist attacks can occur anywhere and may be carried out by groups
not previously identified as terrorist organizations.
Well, I guess that's why.
Well, I can't help notice, but how many of the actual attacks that you read in there were
actually done with a computer?
None.
Yeah.
Zero.
It's kind of strange.
Yeah.
But, uh, I guess they just want to open up their arms to envelop all of us.
Yep.
Now, they, somebody on Jerry Brown's show a few weeks ago said that there are 5,000 terrorist
groups that the government considers to be operating in this country, you know?
They take a survey?
Something like 1 in 10 people are terrorists by that definition.
One clear indication, now this is interesting, we're going to have some fun with this.
One clear indication of U.S. concern about potential terrorist attack is the largest peacetime
security operation for a public event now being mounted to protect the Olympic Games
opening in Atlanta, Georgia on Friday.
That's this Friday coming up.
Yeah.
I hear the city is like, it's like an occupied city.
It's, it's, you know, that, like in V, you know, where the visitors are there and they're
walking around all over the place with guns?
Well, it's like that now.
You know, trust us, we're your friends.
The central, the central fear for the scores of federal and state agencies using high-tech
protective systems is that the Olympics will be a tempting target for domestic or international
foes of the U.S. government.
Planning has covered the possibilities of bombs, kidnappings, and a poison gas attack like
the one on the Tokyo subway system that killed 12 people and hurt 5,000.
They're also very concerned with Cuba winning a large amount of medals, which would embarrass
us no end.
All right, so, uh, that's happening this, uh, this Friday.
And I hear that there's cameras being put up everywhere in Atlanta.
Do you think they're going to take these cameras down after the Olympics?
Nah.
I don't think so.
Um, what do you say?
Let's go to the Olympics.
Let's, uh, let's get ourselves a nice friendly phone line here and make ourselves a reservation.
I don't know the, uh, the number of hand.
I think we'll get, we'll get a chance to, um, actually use that AT&T feature that, uh, Rebel
was talking about last week.
AT&T Directory Link Service can dial your call automatically after you receive directory assistance
for an extra 50 cents.
To accept, press 1 any time during this announcement.
To decline, press 2.
Well, I guess I can do it any time while I'm talking even.
There, I accepted.
Except I haven't asked for a number yet.
What city?
Atlanta.
What listing?
Howard Johnson Hotel.
Well, is that such an interesting stuff?
Thank you.
Please, please.
Your face sounds like a computer.
I should, too.
They didn't say a word.
The number is area code 404-875-551-1.
Connecting the call.
Please wait.
I've not spoken to a human yet.
I heard some furious tapping on a keyboard.
Thank you for calling the 870-Peach-Tree-N.
If you know the extension number, the person you want to talk to, dial 7 plus the extension
number.
If you don't know, dial 0, and an operator will assist you.
Thank you for calling the 870-Peach-Tree-N.
Thank you.
Wow.
I don't know.
Hopefully they'll connect me.
Does that sound like they're connecting me?
Okay, good.
870-Peach-Tree-N, I may help you.
Yes, hi.
I'd like to make some reservations for this Friday, please.
Okay.
One moment.
Thank you.
Okay, so the representative from the sales department is gone for the evening.
Okay, but you do have lots of rooms, right?
Yes.
You do?
Yes.
What you need to do is call back tomorrow during before 5.
Tomorrow before 5?
Correct.
Okay, great.
Thank you very much.
Now, either he's lying, or everybody else is lying, because I was told there wasn't a hotel
room to be found anywhere in the state of Georgia, and he's telling me that there's
plenty of rooms in Atlanta.
What do you think?
What do you think?
You know, you call one of the hotels that they're actually having, like, Olympic stuff
at is the Swiss Hotel.
The Swiss Hotel?
Yeah.
Is that what they call it?
The Swiss Hotel?
That's what it's called, yeah.
The Swiss Hotel.
Swiss Hotel.
So let's try to get a room there.
Yeah.
All right, let's try that, and let's see if we can get them not to talk again.
That was kind of cool.
AT&T Directory Link Service can dial your call automatically.
Yeah, okay, I'll hit one now.
There, see, I cut to the chase.
What city?
Atlanta.
What listing?
Swiss Hotel.
Thank you.
Please wait.
An operator will assist you with that information.
Okay, yeah.
Whatever.
Whatever.
The number is area code 404-365-0065.
Connecting the call.
Please wait.
I'm going to make like I don't even know about this Olympic thing.
Swiss Hotel Atlanta.
Good evening.
This is Claudia.
How are you, sir?
Hello?
Swiss Hotel Atlanta, sir.
Is this a Swiss hotel?
Yes, sir.
Hi.
I'd like to know if you have any rooms available this Friday.
Let me try.
No, sir.
We don't.
You don't?
No, sir.
How about for Saturday?
No, sir.
We're all booked.
Sunday?
No, sir.
We're booked for the Olympics.
We're booked.
For the what?
We're booked now.
We don't have any vacancies.
What's the occasion?
The Olympics, sir.
Olympics?
Yes.
How long are they going to be there for?
For three weeks, sir.
Three weeks?
But you hope mom can depend on the sweat.
I don't want to hold.
I'm doing a radio show.
It's people.
People are so rude.
Put me on hold like that.
Olympics.
What's with the Olympics?
All right.
212-279-3400.
See, you don't have to go to Atlanta to have fun with the Olympics.
It's the safety of your own home.
Okay.
So if you have any comments on Microsoft, NBC, or the Olympics, or 9X, Secret Service, CIA,
federal government, or any other fun things like that, do give us a call.
212-279-3400.
And we'll be more than happy to share experiences, I guess.
Anything else that happened to you this week, Fyber?
Oh, um, it's only Tuesday.
Yeah, it's only Tuesday.
Well, I mean, since last week.
Oh, oh.
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, all that kind of thing.
No, actually, um, hmm.
Oh, new, uh, I heard about some new internet security holes.
Internet security holes?
Yeah.
Do tell.
Um, let's see.
There is a problem with a utility known as RDIST, R-D-I-S-T.
Okay.
Which is used to distribute files from one particular machine to a bunch of other machines.
It's not really used much anymore, because in the past, it has traditionally been insecure.
But, uh, recently it's come to light that, uh, even after supposedly it's been fixed,
this, this, uh, RDIST utility runs with, uh, root permissions.
And what one can do is use a, uh, an overflowing the stack, uh, type of attack.
Which, uh, we've, we kind of, kind of mentioned before.
There was, uh, something similar with, uh, with SendMail, uh, last year.
But, um, basically, uh, if your system has R-DIST on it, which most every Unix machine
has R-DIST, uh, just turn off the permissions if you're not planning on using it.
If you are planning on using it, just remove the set UID root permissions.
Now, has anybody actually exploited this?
Yeah, actually, it was, um, at least one known exploit is floating around the net for, uh,
Berkeley Unix.
Okay.
Running on Intel machines.
So, uh, at least that much is known.
So, I mean, it obviously works.
It's beyond the theory stage.
So, uh, it can, it can be written to, to work on most any Unix, uh, operating system on
any machine that happens to have R-DIST installed.
System administrators, take heed.
And you've heard it here first.
Okay, 212-279-3400.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook.
Uh, good evening.
How you doing?
Hi.
I caught a little bit of the, uh, Microsoft, uh, premiere, and also an interesting, uh,
promo for it, uh, I don't know if you caught it on the radio.
Uh, something to the effect of, uh, um, want to see if the flat tax will pay off for you?
Just enter your annual income to see if it will benefit you.
Now, this, could this be some kind of very, uh, sophisticated yet subtle way of gathering demographics
on people?
It could be.
Assuming that people don't lie or do it repeatedly?
Right.
Is this data entered, though, or can you do this anonymously?
Well, when you, you're doing this by connecting to the website.
When you connect to the website, your address is recorded.
That's what I assume, yeah.
And the data, anything else that follows also.
I mean, it depends on what they're doing with it, but certainly the technology exists
for them to capture everything you do.
I wonder what the next question will be.
You know, uh, what, what is your blood type, uh, et cetera?
What is your medical history?
I don't know.
I just...
I like to see if people get unsolicited mail back.
I think so.
Well, I guess the way to test that is enter some kind of slightly, um, miss, uh, miss,
uh, miss, uh, spelled, uh, name, a variant of your regular one and see how many of that
version you get.
Uh-huh.
Uh, that's, you know, that's how you can test for junk mail, uh, you know, misspell
your name slightly and see how many it'll generate.
Well, the problem is if you misspell your name slightly on, uh, on the net, it won't
get to you.
Oh.
Probably, um, you know, um, what a reverse trap is?
That was in the days before caller ID was around.
Right.
That's how they would get people, they would get their numbers, right?
Right.
Is that the same thing as either caller ID or ANI or is it something totally independent
of that?
Uh, reverse trap is, well, I never necessarily heard it called reverse, but, um, it's,
uh, it's really, um, it's not a technical term.
It's a term that you would use for, uh, for when the phone company is actually performing
a trace and they hold somebody's line open and then, uh, once they verify that it's the
actual person talking to the, the party on the other end, what they would do is that they
would release the line and disconnect the person and then they know that if the person
on the far end is no longer connected with the person that called them, they know that
they have the right person.
So that's all done in real time, in other words?
Yeah, the actual, the actual, um, trap itself, uh, um, I mean, in most cases I've heard the
term used, it's not a switching term, so if anything, it's kind of a, it's kind of a
vague, uh, nickname for, I mean.
It's more of an enforcement term, isn't it?
Yeah, it's, it's like, it's like saying pen register versus DNR.
But that involves people running around sweating in central offices, doesn't it?
Um, just one of a, um, would that work, uh, the Star 5-7 thing, rather, uh, would that
work on a multi-system such as that at the station?
Uh, probably not.
No.
The Star 5, I mean, the call trace, which I think is a total ripoff.
Right.
Of course, whether or not they succeed and it's no guarantee anyway.
Yeah, I'm just wondering about that, because you can't, you'll have to immediately call
back, you can't get any, get any other incoming calls.
You see, the problem is, if you use it on a switchboard or something like that, and
your switchboard is the type that just grabs an outgoing line and actually permits something
like, say, Star 6-9 to work.
If you use Star 6-9, it'll just dial back the last number that called that particular line as
an incoming call, and you won't know who you're getting.
Uh, yeah, that was, that's what I was afraid of.
Okay, by the way, I don't think you had 103 Celsius, you'd be above boiling.
I think it was fair.
I felt pretty bad.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
All right.
Thanks for calling.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Yes, um, I have had caller ID with name here in Brooklyn since, um, it would have been
about the fourth week of, uh, May.
It began to be offered in New York City on, uh, well, one 9X rep told me Tuesday, May 14th,
another Wednesday, May 15th, and then I've had it since a week, um, after that on an ES-5
in Brooklyn.
Uh-huh.
How is it working for you?
Uh, perfectly.
Yeah, now, do you get the, uh, the listing name?
Is that what you get?
Right.
The listing name, not the billing name, where there's a difference.
Okay, interesting.
By the way, I'm trying to think, what was it?
Something, uh, Fiber said there, um, that was so, um, uh, miss, he had misinterpreted something,
um, uh, I can't remember what it was about now, but.
All right, well, just tell him he misinterpreted something.
Um, now, when you get, when, when it's an interstate one, and all it says is the name
of the state, instead of the, the party's name, I think, apparently, in most cases, a carrier
is AT&T.
It just says the name of the state?
In, uh, right, uh, interlata, and it just says the name of the state.
I think that's mostly where the carrier, as far as I can determine, seems to be, in most
cases, a carrier.
Now, you get that instead of the name, or?
Instead of the listing party name, not right, uh.
But you get the number, then.
Area code number, and then instead of, um, uh, listing party name, it will just show the,
uh, name of the state the call is originating from, or DC, or whatever.
Right, but you could pretty much get that information from the number anyway.
Right, right, sure.
In fact, it's, it occurs to me, uh, what they should be doing is having a, a four-line display
and, um, uh, have it show the, uh, city and state.
Right.
In addition to the listing party name, since that's automatically in there, you, you dial
your long-distance operator, you say, location, please, um, 201 plus 622, and with any of the
big three long-distance companies, their operator says, just a moment, please.
So that's Newark, New Jersey, sir.
Right, well, that would be more useful, obviously.
But, you know, you might want to try this as a test.
Uh, get somebody who's using, uh, call blocking, or whatever the terminology is, and they, you
know, they're sending you a number that, that's actually blocked.
See if you get the actual state as well.
Do you think you will?
Well, wait a minute.
Wait, wait, wait.
You're, you're never gonna, if it's showing the state, oh, I see what you mean.
Yeah.
Well, wait a minute.
Now, I always have, um, anonymous call rejection turned on on my lines.
Uh-huh.
So anyone who calls me has to unblock, and what are you asking if it would show?
If, um, if, if they're calling you from a blocked line, let's say you call somebody in
another state, uh-huh, they would, and you used AT&T, they would see as the number that
it's a private call, but would they see on that other screen the state that you're calling
from?
Wait a minute.
You're putting an extra line in there somewhere.
No, no, no.
You have, you have, you have the number, and you have the name.
Right.
No, you only see the state.
Yeah, the state obviously is blocking out either the word private or the word, uh, or
the listing name.
When you see that state name there.
Right.
Um, suppose it's North Carolina.
That's gonna fill up that whole line.
Okay, yeah, but you still get the word private, don't you?
No.
You don't?
Okay.
No.
Now, the question becomes, what is it if it's a local call and it's private?
Well, here's the story.
Um, I have the tariffs from 9X.
Um, they changed the tariff.
They took out the thing that says, if you are all call blocked, when you unblock for an
individual call, um, it will still not show the listing party name.
It will still say private and show only the area code and the number.
Or, well, under the guise or excuse or just careless, uh, uncaring about the privacy aspect
of it, um, the public service commission apparently at 9X is, or well, apparently to comply with
the thing from the, uh, FCC, if you unblock now and you are calling via, let's say not
via A&T, you are calling via a, um, carrier who will leave that line open and transmit either
private or, or a blank if it's not shown, uh, instead of the state.
And then now when you unblock, you no longer have that promise that 9X gave in their original
instructional material, uh, in the Poughkeepsie, Lada, Upstate and so forth.
That is, uh, that if you're all call blocked and you do a star 82 or 1182 to unblock, your
name would never appear.
It is showing the listing party name now.
You can know now when you unblock, you unblock both your name.
So that, that agreement, that agreement only holds for, uh, for, for you and 9X, in other
words, it doesn't necessarily pass to any other companies, what you're saying.
No, this is, this is uniform.
This has become uniform across the country, apparently at the behest of, um, and the FCC sent
me hundreds of pages and the, and the SPSC, um, sent me quite a few, including the old
December one, which had paragraphs on page 112 revised page 112.2 on the fourth revised
page 112.2.
It had paragraphs sub, sub, sub H one and two, and then they deleted, um, paragraph H one.
Um, and, um, that was the one that said, this will apply even if the caller unblocks.
Okay.
Um, I, I fear we're losing most of our audience here.
Right.
I saw paragraphs.
I think basically we could sum it up by saying you either now have the choice to send all the
information or none.
That is, that is right.
Though, depending on your carrier, if you're calling interstate, you may still sort of accidentally
end up, especially if it's AT&T, apparently sort of accidentally end up, um, being protected
anyway.
I, I have both, I have it with name on both lot, my lines, so I can call back and forth
between the two and using various carriers, uh, crossover codes and so forth to see how
it works.
Okay.
Well, actually, what I'd like you to do, you seem like a good person to maybe pursue this
a little bit.
If you can figure out a way I can get call transferring without IntelliDial, I'd be really happy.
Uh, I have, I have never had IntelliDial, but you're right.
They don't offer it any longer.
Yeah, so you can't get that, but what I would like to get is call transferring because that's
something that's really useful.
By, by the way, this is what it was that Fiber Optics said.
He's not going to do it, is he?
Uh, voice, I cannot help you with that at all.
Voice messaging and voice answering, 9X representatives use the term, uh, interchangeably and they
have changed the name that they call the service by at, uh, once or, or more times.
So voice answering and voice messaging, they, they, they, that's just one service.
They don't make any distinctions.
What is it?
4.95 or 5.95 a month?
Okay.
I think, I think the thing, and we're going to go to another call, but I think the thing
here is that, um, uh, we're probably dealing with another company like maybe AT&T and they
might be calling it voice messaging or voice answering or God knows what because they,
you know, they're not using 9X's definition.
But anyway, thanks for the call.
We're going to move on.
They've always called the call answering.
In fact, on, on your phone bill, it says call answering.
Yeah.
They, they do call that one call answering.
Yeah.
But as far as representatives, they could be calling it all kinds of different things.
Oh, yeah, sure.
You'd never really know.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hi.
Um, yeah, my question is, is pertinent to, uh, this, all this, this whole discussion.
Um, I called, uh, my roommate and I have a phone.
It's in her name, thank God, because when I move, I'm not having a phone.
Uh, but I had call blocking put on a month or two months ago.
Her brother called during the week, left a message on the machine.
And when she called him back, she got a message that she can't get through to him because he
has, I guess, the box or a caller ID or something.
Uh, uh, what can she, how can, you know, what can, what can we do so that she's able to
call him if, if, if there is anything where we can still keep the, the blocking and he
can still, I guess, have his ID, his caller ID.
Are you saying that the, that he has, um, anonymous caller rejection?
Well, yeah, there was a, you know, there was a, uh, a, a phone company, you know, recording
saying, uh, you know, we can't get through because he can't have this number because he
can't get this number in effect.
I don't remember.
That's an anonymous call rejection.
There, you can't do anything about that, uh, based on the number.
It's either all on or all off.
So then, so there's no way if we both stay the same, there's no way that she could ever
call him.
He would have to disable the feature.
It's a anonymous call rejection.
You can enable or disable.
Oh, but he, see, I can't control, you know, our situation because it's the phone company
does it, but he can, he can discontrol, he can discombobulate it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The problem is that there's still a number of places that don't have phone smart features
available that can't send caller ID that are going to come up as, uh, that aren't going
to be able to deliver a number and are going to have their calls rejected without, you know,
and there's nothing the person can do about it.
The only thing that, um, that you could do in your scenario that I could see if, if, uh,
you have no way of sending your number is, um, is if he disables anonymous call rejection.
The only problem is that he'll receive calls from anybody that doesn't send their number,
not just you.
He can't control which anonymous numbers he's going to receive calls.
But if she says she's going to call him at a certain time, he could just, he could.
Oh, sure.
Yeah.
He could disconnect then and then, and put it, hook it back up again.
Yeah.
It's just, it's a star code that you dial.
He dials star and then two digits and then to enable it or disable it.
Oh, so it's not, I mean, yeah.
So that's really easily taken care of.
Yeah.
It's something relatively easily done.
One of the things now, when I called to get, uh, to get the blocking, uh, the guy was telling
me he had worked, I forget for another phone system or something, because I asked him if
you call like 800 numbers, uh, or if you call even businesses, just regular, their regular
numbers, not even 800 numbers, uh, are they, are they going to be able to get your number?
And he said, yeah, he said a lot of businesses can get, will have your number anyway, even if
you do have call blocking.
Uh, 800 numbers, of course.
Well, no, he said even non-800 numbers.
Well, 700 and 900, no, but if you're just calling a regular telephone number.
If you just call a regular number or with an area code and a regular number.
Yeah, no, the only way that they could get your phone number is through caller ID.
If you're calling a 700, 800, or 900 number.
Well, wait a minute, no, how could they, if they have caller ID and I have call blocking,
that's what I mean, they can still get my number.
No, then they're not going to get your number.
It's that simple.
If it's working properly.
Yeah.
All right.
If you call a 700, 800, or 900 number, that's a different story.
Well, no, I make all my 800 calls from pay phones.
Oh, okay.
But the question now, the question I have about that is, I have a feeling, this is, I really
think that eventually, if more people start doing that, will they at some point cut us off from being able to call 800 numbers from public phones?
Not if you raise a stink.
Not if you raise a stink if they try.
I mean, the thing is, you know, there are people that want every call to be accounted for, want every number to be recorded someplace.
But, you know, making anonymous calls is a good thing, not a bad thing.
No, I agree.
No, I agree.
Okay.
The other thing is, again, would you repeat, Emanuel, what the number is if you're in a pay phone, and there's no number on it, and you want to get the number to give to the party you're calling?
Well, there's a number of ways.
I mean, you can...
I wasn't near a pen when you put it on the show before.
If you add a 9X pay phone, you can probably dial 958 in New York, and it'll work.
It works in New Jersey, too.
Sometimes you'll get a reorder, just try it a few times, and you'll eventually get through.
If you add a co-cut, obviously, that's not going to work, because they usually block it.
Well, I don't use 9X phones.
Okay, then that should work for you.
However, there are a number of 800 numbers that do give you your phone number, and those usually work just as well.
One of them is AT&T, if you call their billing number, 1-800-222-0300, it will tell you what your phone number is.
As a matter of course, it'll say, I see you're calling from this number.
Is this the number you want to talk about?
Oh, that's great.
Okay, that's the one I didn't get to.
Okay, terrific.
But the other thing is, well, okay.
Do you think people are going to get to the point where they want to stop having phones?
Because I'm really at the point...
I don't know about that.
Once I move, I'm not going to get a phone.
Why not?
Because I...
You wouldn't be able to talk to us now.
Because I'm so...
I am so anti...
You know, first of all, I'm a neoludite.
All right, but the thing is, what you have to realize is that you can design a phone to meet your needs.
You don't have to live by 9X's rules.
You can adjust them the other way around.
Well, the point is, but they're...
Remember, they can tape your...
Our conversations can be taped in our apartments, even if we don't have a phone, just through the cable, just through the phone wires that come to the apartment.
No.
Not quite.
Not quite.
I mean...
What?
Not really.
That would not...
That would not...
I mean, if you're...
What do you mean they can't?
You're saying regular phone lines, they can use those to tape...
My understanding from everything that I've read and heard in the last couple of years is that the whole thing of privacy around the phone, that we don't even really have to have a phone because they can plug into the cables, the phone cables, and tape your conversations in your apartment.
And they don't... You don't even have to be on a phone or have a phone in the apartment, as long as there's a phone cable, you know, going to...
That's a common myth. It's really... I mean, to do that, Fiber, what would you need to do to do that technically?
Well, you'd need a bit more than a wild-eyed conspiracy theory like that. You'd need... To actually bug somebody's apartment, you would break into their apartment and place a bug somewhere in the room.
It doesn't require phone wires. You can bug apartments, but a simple phone line in a wall is not going to be what you need to do it.
No, of course not.
It is done. I'm not saying it's not done or that's not possible.
No, phones are tapped, sure.
But just the phone wire there, that is not enough to do it.
No, of course not.
So all these things that they're talking about, that they're writing about privacy, this stuff isn't true?
If they're saying that, that part is not true.
No, but the phone, having a phone, it is. I mean, any of us who are not living, you know, to the middle life, anybody who's living a left-type life in the city, I mean, I would think if they have a phone is being...
Well, let me just... We're out of time, but let me just close by saying this, that I think it would be far more effective for them to make you believe that that's possible rather than for them to be able to do it themselves,
because then you'll impose restrictions on your life that they could never hope to impose on their own.
Anyway, listen, I want to thank you for the interesting topic.
We've got to take this up some other time because it is something I think we should talk about.
We are out of time, though. We'll be back again next week with another exciting edition of Off the Hook.
So until then, have yourselves a good week and let us know if anything weird happens in the technological world.
It's Emmanuel Goldstein for Phiber Optik. Good night.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
It could be as much worse, but if it could, it would.
I hope the thunder's good, but I'm going to move.
I'm going to move.
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Paint peeling off the wall, dirt piling in the hall, ice on the pipes, but no steam at all.
Landlord, landlord, low-down riding.
Thank you.