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It's time for Off the Hook.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a cost.
It couldn't get much worse, but if I could, they would.
I'm going to be born for the best, it's best, it's best, it's best.
I hope that's understood, but I'm going to be born.
I'm going to be born for the best at home.
I'll be come to be born for the best again.
And a very good evening to everybody.
This is Off the Hook with Emanuel Goldstein, Fiber Optic,
over on the other side of the room.
Hello there.
How you doing?
Hi.
Well, it's been a busy week.
No sooner do we get the Bernie S. case out of the way
than the Kevin Mitnick case rears its ugly head and begins all over again.
We'll be getting to that in just a moment.
First, a couple of news items.
Actually, you have a pretty big news item over there,
a full-page ad in the New York Times.
What's that all about?
Yeah, Lucent Technologies has gone public.
Lucent Technologies.
What in the world is that?
Yeah, it's a really funny name for Bell Labs.
Really?
Wow.
Why don't they want to call themselves Bell Labs anymore?
Because they want to disassociate themselves from AT&T.
Well, I can understand that.
But what took them so long?
Who's to say?
I don't know.
Okay, so they're disassociating themselves.
They're going to be Lucent?
Yeah.
Well, they've been Lucent for some time now.
Right.
But as of today, they...
Yeah, they've gone public,
and they're looking like they're not holding any ill will towards AT&T.
Okay.
But I guess they want to take their 125-year-old reputation out on their own.
125 years?
That's what they say.
They've been doing this 125 years?
A long time.
That's amazing.
Well, how about this?
The Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority says it's refunding $98,000 to motorists
who were apparently overcharged while they were using E-ZPass.
You know what E-ZPass is?
That's the thing where you have the car and you drive right through.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know how fast you can go when you do that.
I don't know either.
The authority said about 24,500 motorists were recently charged twice the fare to cross
the bridge for $7 instead of $3.50 because of faulty computer software.
In the E-ZPass system instituted more than a year ago, a beam of light zaps a plastic tag
placed on the windshield to charge a vehicle for a ride.
Then motorists pay their bill by monthly checks.
Apparently, some machines were charging some cars the price of a truck, leading to overcharges.
The software problems, according to a spokesperson, have been corrected.
What do you think?
I think I won't be using E-ZPass.
How do they know if you're a truck or a car?
Is this based on your ID number?
That's what it sounds like, yeah.
So why don't people simply take the ID numbers from cars and stick them on trucks?
Do you have an answer for this?
Hold on.
Joker is here, and he's got an answer.
Yeah.
You've tried this.
The D.C. metro area is something called FastToll, and I got to take a look at it.
It's basically the same thing.
As you go through, there's a scanner that sits there, and the plate is either stuck to the
window or hanging on the back of your rearview mirror.
And what it is is inside the casing is some sort of chip.
I didn't take it apart.
But what it is, and it reads back.
So what it has to be is, for each type of car, you have to register with the thing so they
know who you are, where to send the bill, that they know you're going to pay the bill, that
sort of thing.
And they know whether you're going to have a car or a truck or whatever.
So it's personalized.
Yeah.
I assume if you had a truck and said you had a car, there would be some sort of check
mechanism so that they can check the bus you on it.
Wow.
That sounds like they're really, they're doing some tracking there.
You can drive through at about 35 miles an hour.
35 miles an hour.
But they're doing some serious tracking there where they can pretty much know where you
are and who's to say when else they're scanning, you know.
They're scanning and charging you, but they could just scan you to see where you are at
some point.
I don't know if you heard recently, there's been a move by the feds to track people by
cellular phone.
You been hearing that story recently?
I've heard rumors like that circulating for a number of years, actually.
Supposedly, they want to be able to, the instant somebody turns on a phone, be able to know
where they are.
And, of course, the companies are crying foul because they don't want to be, you know,
people tracking other people.
They're pretty much, you know, satisfied selling cellular service.
Right.
So, that's, it just shows you, though, where the priorities are with certain aspects of
the government, where they want to always know where people are and what they're doing,
who they're talking to.
It's a pretty frightening scenario.
Here's something else.
This is kind of an interesting story.
This was in today's paper.
A former Adelphi University student, who police said used the school's computer system
to retrieve and send electronic images of boys having sex, was sentenced yesterday to
three years probation and ordered to undergo therapy.
Now, I'm looking at this, at this story here.
And, according to this, he, uh, he logged into a system.
He fetched the pornographic pictures from the internet and then sent them to at least one
other internet user in Indianapolis.
Now, the federal agency, uh, took over the case, um, which, uh, which, U.S. Customs?
I guess U.S. Customs took it over for some reason, uh, because it involves people from
more than one state.
I don't know how U.S. Customs gets involved in more than one state, but, uh, according to
this, they did.
Um, and they plan to file charges against the Indianapolis person as well.
Now, it's kind of weird.
I mean, I have, I have mixed feelings about this.
You know, pornography is, is something that, uh, affects people in a, in a bad way, but
some, this guy, let's, let's think about what he did.
He goes into a system, say, like, Netcom or something.
He grabs an image and then he sends it to somebody else.
Now, should someone go to jail for that?
I mean, why not shut down Netcom for having the images in the first place?
I agree.
You're not supposed to agree.
We're supposed to have a discussion about it.
I mean, this is...
I agree with shutting down Netcom for, for, for various reasons.
Well, yes, I think we all would, but, um, it just seems like we're living in a very scary
age where people can be prosecuted for, for copying a file, you know?
Not, not even, not even copying a file that they don't have access to.
Copying a file that's just there and then mailing it to somebody.
I mean, this is not the person that made their pornography.
This is not the person that, uh, that, you know, created the situation.
This is the person that simply logged in and saw a file, copied it, and sent it to somebody else.
Well, you know what's going to happen.
You know how people are always talking about, uh, hiding, uh, files and information inside images.
Uh-huh.
So now people are going to start hiding images inside regular files.
I think you're just giving people an idea there.
I don't know.
You know, I just, I think this whole thing is, is getting a little crazy.
Yeah.
It really is.
We're, we're judging people.
I mean, you would not prosecute somebody for reading a story, right, in a book 20 years ago
that involved some sort of sexual activity you didn't approve of.
Here you have something which could, in the same sense, be fiction because images can be,
can be, uh, altered.
Right, they can be doctored.
In fact, there are some prosecutors that say even if the images were altered that they're still
going to prosecute because the intent was there.
They have people going out there now prosecuting people who, who, uh, apparently intended to
meet somebody who doesn't exist.
You know, the first, there was no child to meet, but yet they're charging them with endangering
the welfare of a child because they intended to meet a child who turned out to be fictitious.
So, you know, while, while I can see the, the issues and the concerns, it seems like law
enforcement is, is kind of cheating a little bit.
What if it was a cartoon that depicted pornography with young children?
Well, I mean...
Is it still considered child pornography?
That's something that I think they would definitely, yeah, they, they would consider it that.
I mean, did you hear the case about the guy in Florida who was a cartoonist?
No.
Basically, he was sentenced not to draw his own cartoons anymore because, because the judge
found them so offensive and, and basically he, he almost wound up in prison because of this.
He can be inspected at any time of the day or night, and if they find any of his drawings
in his house, he'll be sentenced to jail.
I mean, this is the kind of society we're living in.
They're absolutely insane, and, and we have to stand up and say something about this.
Yeah, you know, you can say, I don't want to defend somebody who downloads pornographic
pictures, but the thing is, if you don't protect them, who knows where it's going to go to next?
All kinds of, like, subversive ideas will be on the list next.
You know, when there are victims, when there are clear victims, yes, you prosecute for the
clear victim's sake, but in this particular case, I don't see the victims.
No.
I don't know.
That's just, I'd like to know people's feelings on that, though, because that's kind of a
controversial thing.
Joker.
I got a question.
Yes.
You said they're prosecuting the guy in Indianapolis as well?
Apparently, the guy that, that got sent the mail.
What, how do you, how do they know?
I mean, I guess they can figure out, what if he didn't want to receive it?
I don't know.
What if you get a spam?
What if some guy sends you kiddie porn?
Well, remember the case of, you know, you receive it.
The case of the Thomases from San Jose, they, they ran the Amateur Action Bulletin Board.
They were prosecuted for receiving child pornography, which was sent to them by the post office
in an attempt to get them to be charged with receiving child pornography.
It was, I believe, even unopened on their dining room table when they, when they came
to, uh, to arrest him.
And they're in, uh, I don't know if they're still in prison.
I think they are.
I think at least one of them is.
And all they did was run a board that had images on it.
They restricted access to people under 18 years old.
They had no child pornography.
But because in Memphis that violated community standards, they were sent to prison, even though
they lived in California.
We live in a very scary society.
And, uh, I don't know how many times I can keep saying that, but unless we, we, uh, keep
in touch with these things, they'll just keep happening.
And I think we have, we have a means of communicating here.
We have a means of communicating over the, uh, internet, but we have to use it.
If we don't use it, it's just going to, uh, be wasted.
Now, on to our main story, which, uh, has to do with Kevin Mitnick on, uh, what day did
this happen?
When was he indicted?
He was indicted last week or was it this week?
Monday, September 30th.
Okay, there we go.
Um, one of America, this is the story as it reads from, uh, I guess the Associated Press.
One of America's most notorious computer hackers, let's just love that intro.
Yeah.
They always start that way.
Has been indicted on charges of carrying out a two and a half year spree of software thefts
that cost big corporations millions of dollars, authorities say.
Kevin Mitnick, a 33-year-old computer wizard, was charged with 25 counts under an indictment
that accused him of breaking into the systems of software companies and attacking computers
of internet service providers.
Mitnick, already awaiting sentencing on an earlier charge of cellular phone fraud, could
face up to 200 years of jail time if convicted.
Does that, does that make our society a safer place?
For years, Mitnick has been an expert at writing hacking programs that allow him to gain access
to even the most heavily guarded computer systems.
I don't know about that.
Using the code name Condor, Mitnick eluded investigators for two and a half years and was eventually caught
in February in Raleigh, North Carolina, after authorities enlisted the help of computer
security expert Tsutomu Shimomura.
Shimomura, who employed high-tech methods to track the fugitive, later wrote a book with
New York Times reporter John Markoff about his role in the manhunt titled,
Takedown, the Pursuit and Capture of Kevin Mitnick, America's Most Wanted Computer Outlaw,
by the man who did it.
It was voted the year's most stretched out title, and most stretched out book, too.
The interstate investigation involved a multi-agency task force that included the FBI, the Internal
Revenue Service, and the Department of Justice.
How did we get the IRS involved in this?
Lewis, now this is interesting, Lewis DePene, 36, was also charged in the indictment.
I don't know how many of you know Lewis.
He also goes by the name of Roscoe in the past, and he was one of the most outspoken critics
of the governmental actions against Mitnick.
He's one of the people that has always been a friend of Kevin's and stuck by him in times
of trouble, unlike many others.
And the interesting thing that happened fairly recently was that Lewis was able to find Kevin
a really, really good lawyer.
It was a lawyer that Lewis used as well.
And the government did not want Kevin to have this lawyer because this guy is, you know,
he understands the law, and he can actually put up a fight, as opposed to the court-appointed
lawyers that would be assigned to Kevin.
I always thought it was kind of weird that you get somebody to defend you who's being
paid by the same people who are prosecuting you.
You know, it just seems to me like, yeah, you know, it's supposed to be a good system,
but maybe, just maybe, somewhere, something could get tarnished.
It's like the whole Freedom of Information Act thing, where you ask the people that you
think are lying to tell you that they're not lying, and they say, no, we're not lying,
and you have to believe that.
You know, that's how the law is written.
There's no oversight committee.
But in any event, he got this lawyer that was really good for Kevin, and the government
fought it.
This was in August.
And they lost.
You know, the judge said that Kevin had every right to have that particular lawyer, so they
indicted Lewis.
They indicted Lewis to pain, and by doing so, this lawyer can no longer represent Kevin,
because it would be a conflict of interest to represent two different accused parties.
In the same case.
In the same case.
So, that's one way of getting around it, I guess.
The two were indicted on charges that include wire fraud, impersonating company employees
to gain access to computers and using cloned cellular phones, and damaging computers at
the University of Southern California.
The statutes provide for sentences in excess of 200 years, said Assistant U.S. Attorney David
Schindler.
Now, remember this name, okay?
Because this guy is like, I don't know, the next Mussolini of the computer age.
I mean, he wants to lock people away until even their remains don't exist anymore.
I mean, makes Tom Barney look like Cinderella.
Dave Schindler, Assistant U.S. Attorney out there in Los Angeles, he's been after Mitnick
for quite some time, and after all kinds of other hackers, continues, a judge will have
to decide what criteria apply, and ultimately, that sentence will be a matter of years, but
it's impossible to calculate.
What they don't mention is that Kevin has been in prison for a number of years already,
without even being charged.
Now, that's a whole other thing.
The problem of, quote-unquote, hacking has mushroomed in recent years, as the Internet
has brought more and more computers online.
It's a growing problem, and the Department of Justice is willing to go to extraordinary
measures to combat the problem, Schindler said.
Mitnick pleaded guilty in April to one federal count of cellular phone fraud, and violating
his parole from an earlier computer fraud conviction.
That case concerns activities between January and February of 1995 in North Carolina, while
the latest set of indictments alleged a set of crimes committed between June 92 and February
95.
And, of course, they say that more indictments could always follow, so if they don't get
him on this, they'll get him on something.
The goal is to keep him in prison for as long as possible, and it's a game they certainly
seem to be winning.
Anyway, yesterday, here's the other story from the AP, the notorious computer hacker
Kevin Mitnick pleaded, just add that to his name, you know, the notorious Kevin Mitnick,
pleaded innocent Monday to charges.
He mounted a multi-million dollar crime wave in cyberspace during two and a half years
as a fugitive.
Yeah, I wonder, what are these people thinking?
Where are the multi-million dollars?
You know, who has the multi-million dollars?
When you have a multi-million dollar crime wave, somebody should have the multi-million
dollars, don't you think?
Isn't that fair?
He was, you know, buying food at Burger King and working at minimum wage when he was caught.
He wasn't making any profit from anything he was doing.
He was living as a fugitive.
He didn't want to go back to prison, but yet he somehow managed to do this without stealing,
you know, without actually physically going out and stealing things.
Yeah, he was able to log into accounts and things like that.
It's not the same thing.
Anyway, he was held without bail on a fraud conviction.
He told the judge not to bother reading the indictment.
Good for him.
Which includes 25 new counts of computer and wire fraud, possessing unlawful access devices,
damaging computers, and intercepting electronic messages.
Not guilty, Mitnick said.
Basically, is there any other new...
Yeah, he got a new lawyer Monday, Donald C. Randolph, who represented Charles Keating Jr.'s
top aide, Judy Wichler, in the Lincoln Savings Swindle.
So, wish him all the best of luck there.
I don't know if that's really relevant to the case, but we'll have to see.
Now, we've got the indictment here.
We managed to get a hold of the actual indictment.
It's, what, 25 counts?
You say this thing is very similar to your indictment.
Well, some of the wording is, and even some of the elements of the indictment are.
Like the wording, beginning in or around.
They're not sure when it happened.
Well, now, the thing is, the victim companies...
Right, yeah.
...are what we should look at.
These are the people that actually are charging that Mitnick did damage to them or caused them grief.
Uh, Motorola.
Yep.
Uh, Nokia Mobile Phones?
Nokia.
Nokia.
Is that how you pronounce it?
I never did pronounce them right.
Nokia Mobile Phones Limited.
They're two cellular phone companies.
Right.
Uh, Fujitsu.
Right.
Which I guess is another cellular phone company.
Or is it just computer software?
No, that's, uh...
They're a really big company, but it's related to cell phones.
Okay.
In this instance.
Uh, Novell.
Novell.
From Provo, Utah.
Yep.
Uh, NEC Limited.
Yep.
Sun Microsystems.
And then you have these internet service providers.
Colorado Supernet.
Netcom.
The University of Southern California.
So those are all the people that, uh, that are claiming to have been hurt by Kevin in one way or another.
Now, these cellular companies are, are interesting because, well, they don't really want to give out much detail as to what exactly he got of theirs.
I mean, what, what's your understanding of this case so far?
Were they copied a file?
Well, uh, my understanding is that various, uh, various software that was, uh, highly valued by some of these companies, uh, that had to do with, uh, cellular phones, was, uh, was copied off some of their development systems.
Which they left wide open.
Probably.
Probably.
Yeah.
Well, well, as your article stated, Kevin is an expert at writing security tools to penetrate systems.
He's notorious, too.
Well, did he, according to this indictment, do anything with that software?
Did he sell it?
No, there's nothing in here that says he, uh, tried to further himself in any way with any of this stuff.
I've looked this over a few times and I don't see anything in there other than the fact that, uh, they say he copied a program.
No, in fact, they, they stretched the gravy real thin when they, uh, actually outlined the counts, which they do in the nice little boxes on page 11.
Okay, let's get to that, but first I want to tell you about the scheme.
The scheme.
The scheme to obtain the victim company's proprietary computer software.
There we go.
Between June 1992 and February 1995, defendant Mitnick, aided and abetted by defendant DePayne and others known and unknown to the grand jury.
What does that mean?
That means that there were other people involved that they're certain of, but they don't know who they are.
Well, wait a minute, the, the ones that are known to the grand jury, what about them?
Oh.
They know who they are, but they're not going to do anything.
They're probably people that, uh, the prosecutors may have mentioned by name, but they didn't name in the indictment.
Or maybe, or the unknown people could be people that are cooperating with the feds.
So there's people cooperating here, you think?
There, there could be.
Okay, and then the unknown people, nobody knows who they are.
All right, in the Central District of California and elsewhere, carried out a scheme to fraudulently obtain proprietary computer software belonging to the victim companies.
Defendant Mitnick, aided and abetted by defendant DePayne and others known and unknown, carried out the scheme as follows.
During the time relevant to this indictment, the victim companies developed computer software that they maintained as highly confidential proprietary information.
They sure didn't keep it that way, though, did they?
The proprietary computer software was stored in computers belonging to the victim companies.
In order to circumvent computer security measures employed by the victim companies to safeguard their proprietary computer software,
defendant Mitnick needed to obtain user accounts and corresponding passwords on the victim companies' computers.
So he could then access these computers as part of the scheme to obtain the victim companies' proprietary software.
The term victim companies, I love that term.
Yeah.
It's like, you know, victim governments, things like that.
Defendant Mitnick, aided and abetted, blah, blah, blah, obtained confidential computer user accounts and corresponding secret passwords on victim companies' computers
by using aliases, deceiving employees of the victim companies into providing them with user accounts and corresponding passwords
by falsely representing that they were employees of the victim companies.
In other words, victim companies didn't check to see that they were employees.
They just gave out passwords and accounts.
In some instances, defendant Mitnick, using aliases, called the computer department of a victim company, posed
as an employee of the victim company working on a special project, and then deceived computer
department personnel into creating a new user account on the victim company's computers.
Often he asked the computer department personnel for a user account which he could access remote
locations by dialing into the victim company's computers using a telephone and a computer modem, in quotes.
Other occasions, he impersonated computer department personnel, then deceived the unsuspecting employees
into providing them with their secret computer passwords.
It just goes on like this for quite some time about how easy it is to get all this information,
but it kind of stops short there, you know.
Basically, it says,
By running unauthorized hacking programs, defendant Mitnick was able to obtain undetected superuser status
on the computers of the victim companies.
Superuser status permits a user to access all areas of a computer.
He used his superuser status to, A, obtain access to proprietary computer software and other confidential information
stored in otherwise inaccessible areas of the computers of the victim companies,
and copy, misappropriate, and transfer proprietary computer software, email passwords,
and personal information about victim company personnel.
That's pretty much it.
I mean, that's pretty much what they are accusing him of.
What do you have in the indictments there?
In the actual accounts?
The actual accounts?
The thing that I find that's really peculiar is rather than just charging him with,
I don't know what the actual wording of the law would be,
misrepresenting yourself to a company or posing as a company employee
to gain passwords or information or whatever,
each individual time that he placed a telephone call to a company, that's a count.
They're spreading it really thin.
A phone call is a count.
How does that work?
How's a phone...
You mean, if you make a phone call and you misrepresent yourself
and you say you're somebody you're not, that's a count?
That's listed as a count.
Numerous times.
So if I call somebody random and say my name is John Smith when it isn't,
I could be indicted for that?
Well, I guess it depends on what information you're trying to get from the other person, but yeah.
Wow.
I better watch who I'm being sarcastic to.
You'd really get in trouble for that.
So, okay, how many accounts, 25 altogether?
Yeah, 25.
How many of them are phone calls?
Uh, let's see.
One.
Uh, well, it's kind of, it's not in any real order.
It's kind of just all mixed in.
Um, he calls, he calls Novell as, uh, oh, and the names are really funny.
They list all the, the aliases that he used while on the telephone.
Gabe Nalt.
Gabe Nalt.
Yeah.
All right.
All right.
He called, uh, Novell.
Then, uh, there was the unauthorized transfer of software from Nokia, uh, in Finland to,
uh, um, a computer at the University of Southern California.
Do you think when they say in Finland, they're referring to the company or maybe the anonymous
re-mailer in Finland?
No, no, because, no, Nokia is based in Finland.
Okay.
And because, um, I don't know if he actually, they don't make it clear whether, um, they
just picked up the phone and called Finland directly or whether they're just saying in
Finland because that's where it's based.
They make it sound like, uh, in all the accounts that they actually called somebody in Finland
and socially engineered somebody in Finland.
What this boils down to in the very end, what are we talking about if he is guilty?
If he is guilty, and that's assuming a lot.
What, what, what it boils down to is that, uh, they're alleging that he tricked various
companies into giving out passwords over the phone to computers that he simply just logged
into and transferred software off of.
That's, that's the bulk of it.
The bulk of the accounts.
In other words, he made them look like boneheads.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's it.
I mean, he didn't use the software.
He didn't, uh, he didn't break things.
No, they're not even alleging he used any of the software.
And what could he use the software for if he did use it?
Uh.
It's basically like, like, that, that kid, uh, Shadowhawk, remember?
Yeah, that was a long time ago, yeah.
He got, he, what was he, downloading some, some part of Unix?
It was, no, actually, I think it was some part of, of, uh, VMS, actually.
It was a VMS?
Yeah.
He, he downloaded this, and then the judge sentences him like he stole millions of dollars
of, of, of property.
Yeah.
All he did was copy something which he couldn't even use.
Right.
And he wound up in prison because of that.
It seems like the same train of thought.
Same type of thing, only, I mean, this, we're talking about entire software packages in
this case, not like, uh, fragments.
Okay.
But, um, but even so, these are, I, I don't, I don't know that they didn't actually differentiate
in, in any of these counts whether he was downloading source code.
They don't say that at all.
I think he was downloading programs that are actually used for a specific purpose.
Like, maybe you program that, program cellular phones or something, he would download off
one of their machines.
So, this is a case of, of, an individual doing something against a corporate entity, and the
corporate entity showing its power as a, quote unquote, victim, by banding together and putting
this guy in prison for an indefinite amount of time.
I mean, he's been in prison now since, since February of 1995.
Yeah.
Non-stop, no bail, nothing.
And he, he can't have normal visitors, he can't call people, there's all kinds of things
he cannot do.
I mean, people who commit violent acts are in prison for much less than that.
You have to ask yourself, is this humane treatment?
Is this something that, uh, that is, is right?
You know, what, what is, what, what are we proving by this?
And, you know, looking at, at what it is he's accused of and what it is he could have possibly
done, if you put that all into perspective, it just doesn't seem like something that,
uh, that should be done.
I don't know.
I'd like to know what other people think about that.
So, we'll take some phone calls.
212-279-3400 is our phone number here at WBAI, off the hook.
By the way, we're not on next week.
We're preempted next week, but the week after that, we have a, uh, three and a half hour star-studded
extravaganza during the, uh, fundraising, uh, drive.
So, make sure you tune in for that starting at 7.30.
That's, not next Tuesday, the Tuesday after that, whatever the date is.
Our phone number, 212-279-3400.
Let's, uh, see who's out there, see if they have thoughts on computer pornography or Kevin
Mitnick or Bernie S. or any of the things that are going on lately.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Go ahead.
Hi, Emmanuel.
How are you doing?
Okay.
How did I know this was going to be you?
Hello.
Listen, I'll make a deal with you.
You can be the first caller this week, but you have to say something that has to do
with what we're talking about.
Oh, okay.
But before I do that, can I ask you?
No, no, no, no.
That has to be the first thing you do.
Okay.
Then can I ask you a question?
You see, right away, you're straying from the subject.
I'm waiting to hear something on the subject.
Okay.
Getting on the subject of people that are in jail, that get released from jail all the
time, like repeat offenders that do more violent acts, or people like that driver without driver's
licenses.
They let people out like that out of jail.
And they're keeping people like Kevin Mitnick in jail.
Well, now they could say that Kevin Mitnick is a repeat offender.
He got in trouble before.
My question is, is this the kind of thing that you imprison people for?
You know, I mean, you do something that's a physical threat to somebody, you actually
are hurting people, you're a danger to society.
That is why you are kept from society.
How is Kevin Mitnick a danger to us?
I'm not talking about the corporations.
I'm not talking about the big, huge multinationals.
I'm talking about us people.
Why are we being protected from him?
There's no reason, actually.
All right, you may speak on another thing.
Okay.
What is the program Homer, the sound voice program on the internet?
The Macintosh program?
I don't know.
You mentioned when you were on IRC one time, you said, oh, we're not using Homer, that's
a sound program, or something like that.
No, Homer is...
Homer is an IRC client.
Yeah, it's an IRC client for Macintosh.
Oh, what does it do, voice or sound?
No, it's an IRC client for the Macintosh.
That's all it is.
Oh, it's only for the Macintosh?
Yes.
Oh, okay.
And, um, when, did you know that people are removing payphones?
I actually, I saw people that are removing...
Maybe they're removing payphones.
I mean, not removing payphones, but like the payphones, like, go, the top of the payphone,
the actual where the buttons are and the, um, the, um, the, um, handset is, they're removing
that.
I mean, I don't know if people are removing it or it's just maybe a person just, I don't
know, a technician just forgot to put it back.
Well, payphones are being, you know, moved all the time.
Sometimes they take them away.
Sometimes they, they don't bring them back.
Sometimes they just break down.
And I saw a payphone in the, up west 42nd Street in Manhattan, in the 221 exchange.
When I dialed 958, it was 221 something.
But on the payphone, it said 212638 or something like that.
Okay.
Your point being?
My point being is, is that why, on the, um, number, uh, thing, you know, where you see
the number, is a different phone number than the actual payphone when you dialed 958?
Um, the number was changed?
Yeah, they can do that.
They can change numbers.
Right.
Um, what else?
Um, did you try the, uh, well, 1-0216 does not work anymore.
Yeah, well, that's because you reported it last week, right?
Well, it only works in Manhattan.
Uh-huh.
And, um, the 1-0-NYT thing still gives you AT&T.
Well, we did verify last week that I gave you AT&T, but we, we do not know why.
You know, I, I discovered something.
Okay, here I was.
I was riding on the subway, and I was upset that I had to call New Jersey and pay all this
money, you know, because I didn't have a calling card.
My 950s were being blocked.
I didn't have a red box.
So, I was forced to consider putting $2.85 into the phone for three minutes.
Then, I dialed 10698 plus the number, and it asked for $1.65 for the first minute.
So, that's more expensive, but still, it's cheaper if you're on for a little bit of, uh,
a little bit of time.
Also, weird things happen when you put in carrier access codes.
Like, the recording got messed up.
You know, it, it, it said different, it, it gave, like, a three-letter code in place
of a word in, in one particular case.
So, I'll have to, like, write this one down, but it was, it was pretty strange.
And, you know, those commercials that say, that have, say, oh, you're going to use an
alien pay phone?
Will it take your calling card?
What kind of voice are you getting?
That's obviously talking about a call card.
And it says, well, just whip out your 9X calling card and dial 1-800-54-9X.
But, guess what some call cards are doing?
They're blocking that number.
They're blocking that number, or they're charging, like...
But, you know, whipping out that card doesn't do you a whole lot of good, because your
pin is not, and the only thing that's on it is your phone number.
Right, but...
Unless you don't remember your phone number, whipping out that card doesn't get you anything.
My point is that they, you know, they just, like, blocked 800 numbers, and they, or they're
charged to call them.
Well, don't forget, those yellow phones blocked 800 numbers for quite some time.
They still blocked 950s.
Yes, they did.
But they blocked 900.
Well, now they, now they don't block them anymore, but they still, they still have that
10-minute time limit, don't they?
Yeah, 10-minute time limit.
I mean, why did they do that?
That, that doesn't seem right.
Really?
They don't take incoming phone calls, you know?
You see, we've seen, we've seen 9X respond after a lot of pressure has been put on.
I think it's time we put some pressure on 9X to allow incoming calls and pay phones again.
Because I can't tell you how many times somebody beeps me from a pay phone, and they don't
know that it can't be called.
And how do I tell them the phone you're calling from can't be called back?
And then they think I don't call them, and it's just at least all kinds of misunderstandings.
A good way to test that is...
How does it hurt 9X to have a pay phone ring, you know?
Put a quarter in and dial the number.
If it's busy, that means it gets incoming calls, but...
Well, yes, you see, you're technically adept enough to know that, but a lot of the people
I know are not.
A lot of, a lot of phones will take incoming calls, but the ringer has been removed.
That's what I was just going to say.
If you got to find out about that.
Uh-huh.
Uh, no, I have not seen this.
Actually, I'm told that there's a website called www.9xsucks.com.
I went to that website.
You went there?
Somebody at 9X actually told me about it.
Oh, really?
Someone at 9X?
What's on there?
It's a, it's a, actually, it's a, um, it's a thing where you could just voice your opinion
on, on your experiences and, and, and, you know, things like that.
Is that really all it is?
Uh, yeah.
Okay.
And if anybody wants to go to my website, which is being, um, remodeled because we just
got today...
Yes, give that to your webpage, but then we're going to take some more phone calls.
Okay, it's www.escape.com, that's escape, E-S-C-A-P-E.com, slash Tildy Rebel.
And, um, being that I got this new Pentium 166, two gigabyte, 32 megabyte of RAM computer
system, I'm going to be, uh, once I get it up and right, you know, Windows 95 is interesting
because I can't find anything.
I was having trouble looking for the sound recording program that, that records sound.
It was in another file or, I don't know, I don't understand the Windows 95 thing.
Yeah, well, nobody, nobody really understands the Windows 95 thing.
Listen, thanks very much for sharing that with us.
Thanks very much for being a part of the show.
Ah, yes.
Uh, 212-279-3400.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Yes, uh, I'm actually calling to speak with Fiber Optic.
Oh, there he is over there on the other side of the room.
There I am.
Um, yes, I recently read a book, uh, Masters of Deception, The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace,
and it talked a lot about you, and, uh, I guess what you, what you guys did once upon
a time.
And, uh, it's just, I haven't really read anything in the papers about how you feel about
that.
Just curious if you had any opinion on it.
So now, for the first time, Fiber Optics Retort to Masters of Deception.
Um, well, this isn't really the first time, like...
Well, I was just trying to be dramatic, all right?
Oh, okay.
Actually, we talked about the book at length when it came out.
That's true, we did.
We had a whole show about it.
But, um...
For the benefit of this guy.
For the benefit of this guy.
Um, it was, um, well, I've read far worse books about similar subjects, and, uh, I don't
really consider it...
I guess I consider it a decent treatment of, um, as best as could be in about, you know,
in the 200 or so pages that it was, on, uh, issues and people and places and events that,
uh, were probably a bit more complex than were depicted in the book.
But, uh, but I don't necessarily hold that against the book.
It was, uh, you know, it was certainly a good read.
I enjoyed reading it.
Okay, well, any other questions?
Um, I'm just wondering when I'm going to see you again at New York 2600 meeting, because
you haven't been around.
Oh, yeah, well, you see, the thing with 2600 in New York, it kind of has gone way downhill
because of, of the building construction, but that building construction is going to
be finished, uh, early next year, and, uh, that's when the meeting should, should get
good again.
In the meantime, I'm just sort of wandering around the country.
I'm going to Ottawa this, uh, this week.
I mean, they have 2600 meetings in Ottawa.
I'd sort of like to see what those are like.
So it's a good opportunity to sort of wander around and meet other people.
But, uh, I haven't forgotten about New York.
Okay, um, other than that, I just, I love the magazine, and I love the show.
Okay, thanks for calling.
Thanks a lot, guys.
Take care.
Okay, bye.
Yes, the old New York meetings.
I remember when we started those things back in 1987, almost 10 years ago, and, um...
There was a bunch of people sitting around a table, whispering in your ear.
Actually, there was a whole bunch of people sitting around a few tables.
Nah, I remember one of the first meetings that I was at.
Yeah, well, the very first meeting.
The very first meeting was, uh, that's when they were weekly.
We had weekly meetings.
Yeah, every Friday.
Yeah, and then we realized that was, like, too much of a strain in our lives, so we went
back to monthly.
Um, but yeah, there were a lot of, a lot of agents of various sorts peering around corners
and, you know, playing spy games with us.
Number six.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hi.
Uh, okay, four brief things.
I thought I would just start off with a, uh, witticism or a riddle, if you will, just
to break the tension.
Okay, yeah, there's a lot of tension around here.
What, what do you call it when you substitute four nickels for two dimes?
Um, okay, let's hear it.
A paradigm shift.
What do you think?
Well, I think, uh, I think, I think maybe, uh, maybe we should get on to the second point.
Okay.
Oh, well, three other things, actually.
About Kevin, um, if he's guilty of anything, I think it would fall into the realm of, say,
either, um, intellectual plagiarism or some sort of, um, I don't know, access, illegal
access to, um, potentially profit-making material.
How about, how about just curiosity?
I mean, it seems to me if he was, if he was really probing into this software, he was doing
it for the reason of, of figuring out how it works.
I mean, that's really what this is all about, isn't it?
Oh, yeah, I would agree, because in terms of just intellectual plagiarism, I mean, look
at the way Clinton is handling China, who everyone knows is ripping, like, all the corporations
who offer CDs and records and all of that.
Uh-huh.
I think it is selective, uh, prosecution.
But you see, the difference is, you're saying plagiarism, but where is the plagiarism part?
What is, what is Kevin getting out of it?
Well, the intellectual plagiarism, he's, he's copying, uh, software that either the corporations
feel, or the law feels, uh, he has no right to see or...
Right, but has he, has he traded it to, uh, Chinese CD manufacturers, or has he kept it
inside his head?
No, I, I'm on your side, I agree with you, but I'm saying that, if anything, it's the
worst he's guilty of.
Uh, two more brief things.
Um, if I were to, or anyone were to go to a payphone, and for, um, you know, living
in this post-modern city, give it a good spritz of Lysol, uh, could you be prosecuted for
vandalism?
Uh, well, you'd certainly be messing with, uh, with its original state.
Well, unless Lysol leaves any offensive marks on the payphone, then no.
Well, I'm thinking, because it's liquid, and, you know, it's corrosive, it might short
something out, but, and the last thing is, um, the way 9X operates, you know, blocks
just 900, and teleport numbers, and all of that, I'll hang up, and fire, but could you
briefly explain how that works, and if there's any way from home, by using a telephone, that
you can bypass, uh, a 9X-imposed block?
Okay, bye-bye.
Thanks for going.
A block on 900 numbers, and that sort of thing?
Yeah, I think that's what he meant.
Yeah, um, is there any way to use, so, so essentially, uh, the answer's, um, usually no.
I mean, if you're, if, uh, on, on a home telephone, that's actually programmed into
the switch, they actually have alternate line class codes, like, for example, um, if your
line class code is, um, 1MR, which is, uh, single-party message rate residential, there
could be, um, sort of, uh, a macro of sorts that could be created as, uh, a valid line class
code that would, uh, include the, uh, the type of service that 1MR is, with the addition
of the fact that it would block access to 900 and 976 numbers, and so on and so forth.
I mean, it's, it's kind of straightforward.
There's no, usually aren't any dialing tricks to get around or defeat something like that.
Now, I saw something interesting when I was in California.
Uh, GTE offered this service where you could block 900 and 800 calls.
Now, why would anybody want to block toll-free numbers?
But it was a feature that they offered, you know?
Well, there are certain, uh, certain, uh, sex chat lines where...
Okay, yeah.
...commercials where you call the 800 number.
But how could that be legal where you call an 800 number and you get charged for it?
You know?
That, that, that, that shouldn't be legal.
Yeah, well, yeah, they, well, they bill, they usually bill to your credit card.
Right, okay.
But in the instances where they try to bill you for calling an 800 number, those aren't legal.
Right.
But, I mean, you, you're trying to regulate a particular...
I mean, that type of call can take place on any kind of number.
It doesn't have to be an 800 number to bill a credit card.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
That's true.
So, okay, let's take another call.
212-279-3400.
Good evening.
Go ahead.
Uh, yeah, uh, what was the original topic?
Uh, the original topic was, uh, well, we're talking about Kevin Mitnick and computer porn
and various other things like that.
Yeah, I think, you know, that the government is just afraid.
They want to set an example, so they're taking him, you know, saying, be afraid, be very afraid.
What do you think they're afraid of?
They're afraid of hackers, because, you know, in the future, that's all there's going to be,
is hackers and, uh, you know, computer law enforcement officers.
So you think there's going to be a showdown between those two forces?
Exactly.
So now they're trying to set an example now.
Uh-huh.
And, uh, I have another question, uh, what can you tell me about PVCs and DLCIs?
As in, uh, like, clouds and all that?
As in frame relay?
Yeah.
As, uh, PVCs and, uh, DLCIs?
Yeah.
Do you have a specific question?
It's a pretty broad subject.
No, just, uh, give me a basic, uh, outview of how, how it works and what, you know.
Wait, 30 words or less how frame relay works?
Yeah.
Well, I think this might be a good opportunity to discuss for the people that don't have any idea what frame relay means.
Okay.
What exactly are we talking about?
We have ISDN.
What's the difference?
ISDN, yeah.
Regular pots and frame relay.
Frame relay.
Um, frame relay is meant to be, uh, an inexpensive way of accessing a high-speed data service
where, um, you're actually, uh, paying for bandwidth on demand for, as an example.
For example, say, uh, say you as an individual, you can get T1 service or you could get frame relay service.
T1 service would give you roughly one and a half million bits per second of bandwidth.
But, um, with, uh, frame relay, you might have access to the same amount of bandwidth only in shorter and smaller spurts.
And you wouldn't expect to ever use or ever need all that bandwidth at once, except maybe occasionally.
Okay.
So you would be charged accordingly.
And the actual relaying of frames, the frame is actually the packet of data that's being, uh, transferred.
The frame cloud is actually a connect, uh, collection of these circuits, the PVC that he mentions.
What you, what you're describing sounds a little like a fractional T1, though.
Well, yeah, it's similar to that type of service.
In fact, a lot of the times fractional T1 is set up, configured internally, as point-to-point frame relay,
where the only, there's only two nodes in, in the actual frame, it's not really a frame cloud.
I guess you could say it's a, it's just, I don't know.
Yeah, frame line.
It's not really much of a cloud.
Okay.
But, um, that, that's, uh, not uncommon.
In fact, that's extremely common.
In the case of an actual frame relay network, it wouldn't be point-to-point.
There would be numerous nodes on this network.
And, um, the actual, um, the actual connections between any two nodes on a frame relay network
would be considered virtual circuits.
A PVC is a permanent virtual circuit.
That just means that it's a connection that's always up between two nodes on the frame relay network,
on the frame cloud.
A, uh, a DLCI, uh, if I remember correctly, is, is, uh, a data link controller ID.
And that identifies a particular connection on, um, uh, or rather identifies a particular node
on the frame relay network.
Okay.
And, uh, frame relay, the underlying protocol used by frame relay, um, is known as, uh, link access protocol F,
which is, uh, for frame relay, um, which is contrasted, which, with, um, modems.
For, for example, uh, V42, when you use V42 error correction with your 28.8 modem,
uses, um, uses, uh, LAP-M, which is link access procedure for modems.
And if anybody remembers, uh, Telenet, the packet switch network, which is now known as SprintNet.
Uh, it still says Telenet when you call it.
Yeah.
They never bothered changing the hardware.
Yeah.
But, uh, X25 uses, uh, LAP-B, which is link access procedure or protocol, uh, balanced,
is what the B stands for.
So, um, they're all, uh, they're all related in a similar way as far as what the underlying
protocol is.
Now, on top of that underlying protocol, within a frame cloud, you could run something like,
say, for example, Internet Protocol, which would be, uh, encapsulated within these frames.
And it would be totally transparent to the user.
Say, say, for example, you dial up into, um, say, something like AT&T's WorldNet.
Uh, that's a perfect example of something that probably is set up in a frame relay, frame
cloud kind of structure.
Mm-hmm.
Which, uh, is totally transparent to you, the user.
You're just connecting to the Internet as far as you know.
But from AT&T's perspective, they might have a whole frame cloud, a whole network of routers
and terminal servers and so on and so forth, which allow dial-up users controlled access
to the rest of the Internet while having easier and better management over their bandwidth
resources for such a large volume of users.
Now, who would want to get frame relay?
What kind of listener out there should go into this?
Well, a person, typically, wouldn't really have anything to benefit from frame relay.
Um, a corporation, or even, even a small corporation, would benefit from a frame relay just by, um,
typically by cheaper rates.
Mm-hmm.
As far as, um, again, if they wanted a connection to the Internet, they, uh, wouldn't necessarily
have to pay for the entire bandwidth.
Mm-hmm.
And, like you said, it's, it's extremely, it's very similar to a fractional type service,
fractional T1.
And, in fact, most of that service is set up as frame relay.
Anyway, but, um, as far as, um, setting up a whole frame cloud, that's not something
that, uh, an individual would do.
That's something that a corporation would do to take advantage of the benefits of frame
relay in bandwidth management when bandwidth is a limited resource.
And you have, uh, a really large corporation, a large number of users that need to share
this bandwidth.
Okay, I think that's about everything that we need to know about frame relay for the
moment, anyway.
Hopefully that answered, uh, the caller's question.
Let's see if we have another caller on the line.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hello.
How are you doing, guys?
How are you?
It's good.
Listen, I called a couple weeks ago.
I want to tell you something about 9X.
So you guys know what they're doing to everybody.
They're ripping people off lately.
No.
Really?
Yeah.
And guess what?
You know when you use star 69 or star 60?
Yeah, I remember.
You're the caller that tells us that every time you use star 69, you get charged, even
if it's a busy signal?
Sure.
Yes, and even if they call, you hit star 69 and it says, we cannot make this call because
the phone is unlisted or blocked.
Right.
I'm actually going to the commission.
I'm filing a, I might file a lawsuit saying that, hey, how can you charge me something that
I haven't got connected for?
Well, they're charging you for the feature and for the call.
Yeah, but they're charging you 75 cents.
They don't change any price if you get connected or don't get connected.
No, because they're charging you for the use of the feature, regardless of whether or not
you get through.
I'm not saying that that's right or wrong, but they have to make the money back somehow.
Well, I don't know.
I mean, 75 cents every time you dial star 69 seems a bit much to me.
Well, if you dial, well, here's the thing.
9X is different from lots of other regional bells because they charge you per usage.
They don't charge you a subscription.
No, you can subscribe.
You can subscribe if you use it a lot.
Right.
But in most other regional bells, it's not an issue because you pay one flat rate.
I believe there's also a maximum number of times that they can charge you per month,
even if you don't subscribe.
I don't think I can go over a certain number.
No, they can charge you whatever they want to charge you.
You make 10 and then, I'll charge you 750.
There's a cap.
There's got to be a cap.
That's illegal for them to charge you any more than that.
I'll check in with the public service if there's no cap because I looked into that.
Because what's happening, let's say you get a call and you run to the phone and you
hit star 69.
Everybody's got their phone blocked.
So what could it happen to star 69 then?
Exactly, yeah.
You know, they also have this anonymous call rejection, and I got this pamphlet in the
mail telling me how to use it, but the one thing it didn't say was how much it costs.
You know, when you read this thing, you think it's free.
You know, you can turn on a recording on your phone that will block everybody who's private
from calling you.
They don't tell you.
I still don't know how much it costs.
$3 a month.
$3.
But what if you just do it once?
What happens then?
No, no.
You've got to call up and get it connected.
Yeah, you've got to subscribe to it.
Oh, really?
You have to subscribe?
They didn't say that either.
I don't know if they're offering it on a per-call basis.
No, they're not.
You can turn it off if somebody's going to call you and their phone is blocked.
You can turn it off for one or two calls.
That's the purpose.
But it looks like 9X is just trying to, with people off left to right, and guess what?
There's a new thing about their pay phones.
They're now playing something else.
You know, you call MCI or Sprint, and you want to make a call, and you use touchtone,
the phone's shut off.
Try calling 549X.
It'll go through now.
They're playing games with their competitors.
If you can prove that, that's a very good case against them.
If you can actually stand there and demonstrate how the tones work on one and not on the other,
that's something you definitely should do.
Oh, you know when you call, like, a beeper or something?
Right.
And you want to use a beeper.
And now, what's happening in downtown Manhattan, a lot of people are complaining to people
who work on Wall Street.
They say, listen, we can't call up and get our quotes.
The phone's shut off.
Right, right.
It's stupid.
I don't understand what they're hoping to achieve by this.
They're just getting people to hate them.
I can tell you this much, a patient that just came out with something, they should be trying
it very shortly, where you're just talking to the phone, you know, voice recognition.
So they're going to screw everybody and say, well, we're going to have voice recognition
because they don't want to lose revenue.
Yeah, that's true.
But then you've got to speak out your numbers and your codes to everybody listening.
No, if you want someone to call you, just say call.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, but from a pay phone, I'm saying, you know, that's...
Well, they can have voice recognition.
Say, call John, and the thing will just come up on your little screen.
Call John.
The pay phone's not going to know who John is, though.
Well, that's true.
It's one smart pay phone if it knows that.
Well, I'm just trying to tell you that 9X is...
I'm pretty pissed off about it because I think any charge for these calls, they have to call
phone call through.
I would say 7 out of 10 times when I make a call using star 69, like if I'm in a tub or
something, or when I get back to someone, you get calls.
It says, we can't complete this call.
Right.
No, they should never charge you for that.
That's insane.
I mean, you know, we live in a society that charges you for things that you get, not things
that you don't get.
And the idea is, it doesn't cost them anymore.
You know what the biggest joke is?
They charge you 35 cents if you say, please connect me extra on a 411 call?
Yeah, you know, we just experimented with that the other day, in fact.
This is for directory assistants, right?
Right.
Yeah.
That's an interesting one.
I mean, what are they getting?
What are they doing?
Just a little slothware out there?
There's no extra time in there.
No, there's no extra time.
There's no people either.
You don't wind up talking to any humans anymore, and they charge you more for it.
It's crazy.
I agree with you.
But my advice, sir, is to just simply call the Public Service Commission and stay on their
case, because that's the only way you really get results.
We've got to move on to another phone call.
Thanks again for calling.
You know, you have something to say?
Yeah, I just wanted to say about, as far as complaints for custom calling features go,
I still say that if anybody out there is lucky enough to already have ISDN, I wouldn't wish
it upon anyone to have to go through the ordering process, but you should just order your custom
calling features for ISDN, because they're a lot cheaper, for whatever reason.
You could get a custom, like, you know, the features that I have.
I have a custom calling feature package of three-way and, you know, call waiting type services
and call transfer.
Give us an idea of what it costs.
$2.50 a month.
For what?
For all those features.
All those features?
All of them.
All of them together?
All of them together.
Surely you just...
No.
You can't be serious.
No, and if you're on a DMS-100, you get caller ID for free on ISDN.
Let's hear those features again.
Three-way?
Three-way.
Yeah.
Call waiting.
Call waiting.
The equivalent of call waiting.
Uh-huh.
Call transfer.
Call transfer, which we don't even have.
Right.
If you don't have ISDN.
Yeah.
And that's about it.
If you have an ISDN telephone, you'd also get five call appearances.
You'd pay thousands of dollars for something like that.
That's amazing.
Yeah, it's only two and change.
That's incredible.
You also have this other feature, which I'm not too fond of.
Call answering?
No, it's no hang-up on directory assistance.
What's that all about?
Oh, there's still some bugs here.
A couple of bugs need to be ironed out.
Yeah, no, but I've had that happen on phones without ISDN.
How does it work?
No, well, there's essentially a problem where if I three-way 411, we can't hang up on it.
Uh-huh.
So, now, we were calling this number the other day, and we three-wayed to directory assistance,
and you were forced to go on there and say you wanted to connect for an additional 35 cents.
Right.
And we connected, we talked to the person, and then that person hung up.
We couldn't hang up on them either because it was still directory assistance.
Yeah, they hung up, and then somehow or another we got transferred to their fax machine.
Someone's fax machine.
Someone's.
I don't know if it was the number we were calling or 9X or what.
You know, it might have been just something at random, but we have to try that again.
Yeah.
Try to connect the fax machine to it and see just what's going on.
All right, let's take another phone call.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hello?
Yes.
Yeah, how you doing?
I got a question concerning harassing calls.
Okay.
My problem is I'm getting a bunch of them coming from the same prefix.
Apparently, it's a pay phone.
Now, are you getting caller ID on this?
I mean, I'm getting caller ID, and my PC's logging all the calls.
They're coming from a 224 prefix.
Uh-huh.
I've star 69 some.
I wouldn't hear a ring, but it would be like someone picks up on it.
Right.
And then click.
Other times, I'm getting this phone is not taking incoming calls or this phone is out of service,
but they're all originating from the same prefix in 718.
Okay.
My problem is what is NICE going to do about this, especially if it's coming from a pay phone?
Well, yeah, if it's coming from a pay phone, that's kind of, you know, there's not a whole lot they can do, you know,
other than just tell you where it's coming from.
So they would actually give me the location of the phone?
Here's my, when you say.
They should be able to give you the location of the phone.
Yeah, that's not a problem, but, I mean, seriously, what are you going to do about this?
You know, you got to.
Well, I would like to find out who's doing this because it's been happening for quite a while now, and, like, um.
Are they just calling and hanging up?
Calling and hanging up.
And when I call to check my messages, using the toll saver feature, I'm getting a bunch of messages that turns out to just be hang-ups.
Uh-huh.
And just a minute before I called you, I got a call again.
I picked up the phone.
The one is there.
Now, that's annoying when you have to actually pay for it.
Yeah.
You know, that's a feature of call answering, though, where you have to actually, you know, pay to get messages lots of times.
So all Nikes is going to do is, and let's just assume that Nikes contacts the person.
Uh-huh.
What are you going to do?
Tell them that don't stop calling.
I bet they'll never let me know who it was.
Well, the thing is, no, they won't let you know who it was, but I don't see how they're going to tell them to stop calling if they're calling from different places.
Yeah.
And all the numbers are.
My advice is when you see a call coming in from that exchange, don't answer it.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, that's what I've been doing.
Are there any kind of programs out there that allow you to route calls differently?
Like, if something is coming from a certain area code, you send it someplace else?
Yeah, there's Yo-Yo.
Well, that's something you get for a Mac, which is a call management software and hardware.
Yeah.
Something similar on the PC?
They probably have similar things for the PC.
But that's only going to last as long as they stay in that exchange.
Yeah.
Once they move someplace else.
Even so, it's costing you extra money to transfer the call somewhere else every time they call.
And just like it will, of course, make some money if I put that soft 57 on it, right?
Exactly.
It's probably, I mean, are you fairly certain this is a person and not a computer calling you?
It's not a PC.
And here's the odd thing.
A couple years ago, I worked for 9X.
Uh-huh.
When I was in training, odd things started happening to my phone.
Right now, I'm being processed by 9X again as a prospective employee.
Again, weird things happen to my phone.
Nobody knows what 9X is really up to, but...
Yeah, but it seems kind of odd and too much of a coincidence.
Uh-huh.
Two years apart, the same thing happened.
Do you only have one phone line?
Yeah, I share it for voice and data.
Uh-huh.
At least on my PC, the phone number is on one line.
There's another line downstairs, but it's causing them to come to that line.
Yeah.
I don't know.
You might want to try tricking them in various ways, you know, forwarding to a fax machine,
see if they, like, want to connect to that or a modem or, you know, ways of making them reveal more about themselves.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, you know, I wouldn't take it all that seriously, even though it is a pain,
because it's probably costing them a lot more time and effort to wander around from payphone to payphone,
calling you and just hanging up, you know.
These phones, there must be a bank of them, because it's like 224, and the suffix is like the 2,000,
so it's 2,800, 2,816.
That doesn't sound like a payphone.
Well, nowadays, payphone could be any number.
Yeah, it's true.
If you call that number, and it shows up on your local itemization, you have to get local itemization,
call that number, wait for it to show up on the bill, call 9X, say,
what's this number doing on my bill?
They'll tell you where it is.
Okay, great.
One last question.
We're out of time.
Sorry, we don't have any time.
Okay, next week.
All right, take care.
That's our show for this week, and actually, we won't be on next week.
We'll be on in two weeks with that star-studded extravaganza that runs for three and a half hours from 7.30 to 11.
So be sure and tune in for that special fundraising, special bargain, I guess.
Until then, this is Emmanuel Goldstein for Off the Hook.
Have a good night.
We'll be on for the best.
We'll be on for the best.
We'll be on for the best.
I hope that's understood.
A little bit more.
Thank you.
Good evening. It is 9 o'clock here in New York City.
You're tuned to listening to sponsor WBAIFM in New York.
And coming up next for your whatever pleasure that you'd like to take of it is Housing Notebook.
And if there's somebody out there with a Yankees score, give me a call.
And stay tuned now for Housing Notebook.
October 28, 1948. Israeli soldiers captured.
Big peeling off the wall.
Dirt piling in the hall.
Ice on the pipes but no steam at all.
Landlord, landlord, landlord.
Bill dolores.
Dirt piling in the hall.