[00:01.980 --> 00:06.940]  And the thing is that you remember that you were there, have somebody else tell that story, boy, it'll sound pretty much different than the way it really happened.
[00:07.300 --> 00:08.660]  Yeah, you're right about that, Bobby.
[00:08.800 --> 00:09.740]  Anyway, we're out of time.
[00:09.840 --> 00:10.660]  I can't believe this.
[00:10.900 --> 00:15.480]  You know, Bob Lucy's book, by the way, ladies and gentlemen, is Blaze.
[00:15.840 --> 00:17.020]  And where can people get it?
[00:17.400 --> 00:18.140]  Get it at any bookstore.
[00:18.460 --> 00:27.000]  You know, it's Blaze, like you said, and it's by HarperCollins, Avon, and, you know, it's in the bookstores or on Amazon.com.
[00:27.160 --> 00:29.980]  And here's a picture of Bobby looking like a college professor on the back.
[00:42.140 --> 00:52.980]  On Thursday, from 12 to 2 p.m., join Armand DeMille and Dr. Deborah Hillman in a special two-hour mix of music and grace, specifically for the WBAI family.
[00:53.320 --> 00:58.240]  That's Thanksgiving Day, Thursday at noon, here on WBAI.
[01:06.740 --> 01:14.940]  That's Armand DeMille and Dr. Deborah Hillman and The Positive Mind, Thursday at noon, here on WBAI.
[01:14.940 --> 01:17.980]  99.5 on your FM dial.
[01:21.580 --> 01:23.300]  And this is WBAI in New York.
[01:23.420 --> 01:25.840]  Time is 8 o'clock on a Tuesday night.
[01:26.020 --> 01:26.900]  Time for Off the Hook.
[01:33.180 --> 01:37.740]  The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
[01:38.600 --> 01:43.240]  I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a cough.
[01:43.840 --> 01:48.540]  It couldn't get much worse, but if it could, they would.
[01:48.800 --> 01:51.440]  Bumbly Bump, but the best, expect the worst.
[01:51.960 --> 01:53.920]  I hope that's understood.
[01:54.280 --> 01:54.980]  Bumbly Bump!
[02:51.940 --> 02:53.320]  Yes, very good evening to everybody.
[02:53.480 --> 02:59.520]  The program is off the hook as we struggle through our technical difficulties, as we almost always have, here at the radio station.
[03:01.280 --> 03:02.560]  And Isaac, how are you today?
[03:02.740 --> 03:04.100]  Wait a minute, I've got to find your microphone first.
[03:04.240 --> 03:04.400]  There you are.
[03:04.560 --> 03:05.440]  Yeah, that would be helpful.
[03:05.540 --> 03:06.820]  Oh boy, what a catastrophe.
[03:08.380 --> 03:11.160]  So, yes, it's been a fun and exciting week.
[03:11.280 --> 03:11.740]  We have Bernie S.
[03:11.820 --> 03:12.340]  on the phone with us.
[03:12.400 --> 03:12.860]  Bernie, are you there?
[03:13.320 --> 03:13.820]  I'm here.
[03:14.000 --> 03:15.020]  Okay, at least that worked.
[03:15.860 --> 03:17.360]  A lot of things going on at the same time.
[03:18.320 --> 03:19.220]  This is Off the Hook.
[03:19.380 --> 03:25.300]  The program talks about high technology and various other things that are going on in the world.
[03:25.420 --> 03:26.440]  Bernie, anything new on your end?
[03:27.980 --> 03:33.660]  This is the first night for quite a while I've been on Off the Hook, and I'm pleased to be with you folks again.
[03:34.280 --> 03:35.600]  Okay, well, I guess that's pretty new.
[03:36.080 --> 03:36.800]  Isaac, how about you?
[03:37.340 --> 03:37.720]  Oh, me?
[03:37.800 --> 03:39.860]  No, I lead a very boring life.
[03:40.440 --> 03:43.040]  Oh, yeah, that's nothing new, but anything new is what I'm saying.
[03:43.280 --> 03:43.920]  Anything new?
[03:44.440 --> 03:45.620]  Honestly, not all that much.
[03:45.800 --> 03:46.100]  Okay.
[03:46.680 --> 03:54.020]  Well, then, let's get right into some reader mail and news items and things like that, and then we've got some stories to pursue.
[03:55.160 --> 03:56.720]  And we'll take listener phone calls.
[03:57.040 --> 03:59.800]  That'll be in just a little while.
[04:03.660 --> 04:10.300]  We've started archiving shows on the internet in a new method that actually sounds better.
[04:10.400 --> 04:11.740]  It takes less space and sounds better.
[04:11.940 --> 04:12.600]  You can believe that.
[04:13.040 --> 04:19.240]  So check out the beginning with the week before last show, which is the last one that's on there.
[04:19.740 --> 04:26.800]  If you click on both of them, you'll see the difference between the actual sound quality.
[04:27.500 --> 04:29.320]  So I think that's kind of cool.
[04:30.600 --> 04:35.960]  And we're continuing to look for better ways of streaming the show live.
[04:36.200 --> 04:40.540]  Right now we're streaming, I believe, on Real Audio and G2 and I believe MP3 as well.
[04:40.880 --> 04:46.320]  We're still looking for people to stream using QuickTime, which I believe will sound better than anything.
[04:46.540 --> 04:50.420]  So we continue to try and push the limit.
[04:50.620 --> 04:53.800]  Are we going to grandfather in all the old shows to the new format?
[04:54.240 --> 04:56.040]  Well, it's all compatible.
[04:56.320 --> 04:57.220]  It's all Real Audio still.
[04:57.940 --> 04:59.740]  Okay, so the new archives of G2.
[05:00.480 --> 05:01.580]  The new archives...
[05:01.580 --> 05:04.640]  Actually, you know, I'm not sure if it's G2 because the G2 thing doesn't actually light up.
[05:04.740 --> 05:06.660]  It's compatible with Real Audio 5, that much I do know.
[05:07.100 --> 05:08.460]  It just sounds a whole lot better.
[05:08.540 --> 05:10.480]  It's encoded using a G2 encoder.
[05:10.660 --> 05:12.960]  But I believe it can play back using Real Audio 5.
[05:12.960 --> 05:13.920]  Real Audio 5 code it.
[05:13.980 --> 05:14.580]  I believe so.
[05:14.760 --> 05:15.420]  That's kind of interesting.
[05:15.580 --> 05:16.440]  It's kind of weird, yeah.
[05:16.700 --> 05:17.940]  But that's just the nature of things.
[05:17.940 --> 05:19.780]  But we're not going to do that to the already existing shows.
[05:20.060 --> 05:21.160]  You mean re-record all of them?
[05:21.160 --> 05:21.760]  I don't think so.
[05:22.040 --> 05:23.380]  I don't think there's much of a demand for that.
[05:23.680 --> 05:24.560]  Certainly on this end.
[05:25.880 --> 05:29.160]  Here's a listener, one of quite a few pieces of mail that we got.
[05:29.260 --> 05:31.900]  The quality is definitely better, referring to what we're talking about here.
[05:32.000 --> 05:35.280]  CRISPR, more definition between voices, less cracking when volume rises.
[05:35.660 --> 05:36.520]  It's very nice.
[05:37.120 --> 05:39.680]  Has off the hook thought about doing a quick-time TV broadcast.
[05:39.980 --> 05:41.880]  The quality is nice and the software is free, I think.
[05:41.880 --> 05:44.920]  You can do a nice long hour show and it doesn't take forever to download.
[05:45.100 --> 05:46.040]  If we had the bandwidth.
[05:46.280 --> 05:48.360]  Plus, I could finally see what Emmanuel and Isaac look like.
[05:48.360 --> 05:49.360]  Well, you see, here's the thing.
[05:49.860 --> 05:57.060]  There are certain FCC regulations that still apply, even though this is a radio station, and we'd be violating those if we showed you what we look like.
[05:57.320 --> 05:59.500]  That would be just frightening to so many people.
[05:59.580 --> 06:00.020]  It would be horrible.
[06:01.120 --> 06:02.180]  You'd lose all the kids.
[06:02.440 --> 06:05.300]  You'd lose a large part of the audience.
[06:06.480 --> 06:06.860]  All right.
[06:07.020 --> 06:07.660]  Continuing along.
[06:08.580 --> 06:12.180]  That was our really good coverage on the MTV True Life thing.
[06:12.260 --> 06:13.600]  We get so much mail about this.
[06:14.100 --> 06:17.280]  But you forgot to mention how it all turns out like scared straight.
[06:17.280 --> 06:24.260]  It all shows the hackers finally stopping and then going to big corporations and helping out to create software that can adapt to the computer and fix holes.
[06:24.700 --> 06:30.460]  The funny thing is that I think MTV wanted to use big computer talk to somehow make them look smarter and a step ahead of the programmers.
[06:31.000 --> 06:33.680]  They're using big words that I doubt they know the meaning of.
[06:34.500 --> 06:39.940]  Well, that's kind of typical of the media in general, but we certainly did see it illustrated rather nicely there.
[06:40.400 --> 06:41.960]  You know, they repeated that show.
[06:41.960 --> 06:43.540]  That shows how much they care about the accuracy of it.
[06:43.600 --> 06:45.040]  They repeated it again, I think, last week.
[06:45.180 --> 06:45.720]  Why wouldn't they?
[06:46.060 --> 06:50.060]  Well, because if something is blatantly wrong...
[06:50.060 --> 06:50.860]  No, listen, listen, listen.
[06:51.460 --> 06:59.200]  When Seinfeld ran the episode that had the Puerto Rican Day Parade where they burned the flag, they didn't realize that that might offend people burning the Puerto Rican flag.
[06:59.560 --> 07:02.120]  They vowed never to run that episode again.
[07:02.120 --> 07:08.420]  When Sinead O'Connor ripped up the picture of the Pope, they vowed never to run that episode again in all the repeats of Saturday Night Live.
[07:08.940 --> 07:14.280]  So, when something is bad in the eyes of the people that made the program, they stop it.
[07:14.420 --> 07:17.300]  If it's controversial in a bad way, they won't do it again.
[07:18.180 --> 07:19.860]  MTV liked this controversy.
[07:20.100 --> 07:21.040]  They don't care.
[07:21.200 --> 07:26.580]  They don't care that people are upset that they're saying it's wrong, that they portrayed things in a very bad way.
[07:26.680 --> 07:27.800]  And this surprises you?
[07:28.020 --> 07:28.600]  Well, not at all.
[07:28.620 --> 07:34.200]  But I just want to make sure that it's clear that their true light was shown here, that they're not interested in getting the story right.
[07:34.200 --> 07:38.820]  They're interested in sending out these false stories.
[07:39.000 --> 07:40.060]  Because that's really what they are.
[07:40.200 --> 07:40.780]  Complete lies.
[07:43.780 --> 07:44.260]  I don't know.
[07:44.280 --> 07:45.060]  I want to hear you say it.
[07:45.160 --> 07:45.980]  Say it's a complete lie.
[07:46.860 --> 07:47.860]  I'm not going to say it's a complete lie.
[07:47.860 --> 07:50.620]  You're not going to say MTV is lying about this, are you?
[07:51.160 --> 07:52.580]  I'm going to say that they confirmed it.
[07:52.580 --> 07:54.880]  You want to hold out for your MTV watch, don't you?
[07:55.840 --> 07:56.480]  That's what they do.
[07:56.640 --> 07:57.660]  Yes, I'm the only one that didn't get nicknacks.
[07:57.660 --> 07:58.140]  They give things out.
[07:58.140 --> 07:59.640]  They give things out to people.
[07:59.920 --> 08:05.040]  They're like the neighborhood child molester handing out candy.
[08:05.300 --> 08:06.460]  That's what these people do.
[08:06.580 --> 08:06.980]  I would not go that far.
[08:07.040 --> 08:08.380]  They hand out candy.
[08:08.500 --> 08:10.620]  They hand out little nicknacks and toys and things like that.
[08:10.680 --> 08:12.020]  They get everybody to flock around them.
[08:12.060 --> 08:14.360]  And then they put it to them.
[08:14.420 --> 08:16.840]  I never got any nicknacks or toys or anything.
[08:16.920 --> 08:18.440]  Yeah, but you're still hoping to get that, aren't you?
[08:18.500 --> 08:19.160]  No, I'm not.
[08:19.240 --> 08:23.000]  I honestly would not really accept such items.
[08:23.000 --> 08:24.440]  I know I'm not going to get any nicknacks.
[08:25.040 --> 08:26.940]  I've blown all chances for nicknacks.
[08:26.940 --> 08:27.240]  Okay.
[08:27.520 --> 08:28.760]  No nicknacks for me.
[08:28.840 --> 08:30.320]  Now, I just want to make sure that you don't get any.
[08:30.400 --> 08:31.880]  I have no intention of getting any.
[08:32.000 --> 08:39.600]  And if they were given to me, I would probably hand them back simply because it would be a poor waste of resources on me as I don't really watch the station.
[08:40.040 --> 08:41.900]  I don't have cable, but that's another story.
[08:42.160 --> 08:43.200]  But you saw the show.
[08:43.320 --> 08:44.000]  I saw the show.
[08:44.120 --> 08:45.060]  Somebody taped it for me.
[08:45.140 --> 08:46.140]  And I...
[08:46.720 --> 08:47.440]  It was...
[08:47.440 --> 08:47.700]  Garbage.
[08:47.820 --> 08:49.000]  Just say it's garbage and we can move on.
[08:50.420 --> 08:51.140]  It was...
[08:51.140 --> 08:51.760]  Garbage.
[08:51.900 --> 08:52.500]  It was garbage.
[08:52.940 --> 08:53.720]  Just say the word.
[08:53.720 --> 08:57.460]  It was designed for a particular audience to attract a certain kind of attention.
[08:57.640 --> 08:58.960]  What is this doublespeak here?
[08:59.080 --> 08:59.280]  Come on.
[08:59.340 --> 09:00.120]  What, do you work for Microsoft?
[09:00.120 --> 09:01.500]  Just say it's garbage, all right?
[09:01.680 --> 09:02.080]  Come on.
[09:02.160 --> 09:02.720]  We can move on.
[09:03.280 --> 09:04.420]  I think there were...
[09:04.420 --> 09:05.560]  It could have been far worse.
[09:05.580 --> 09:06.300]  Let's put it that way.
[09:06.920 --> 09:07.980]  You should run for office.
[09:08.000 --> 09:08.640]  You really should.
[09:09.680 --> 09:10.280]  Which one?
[09:11.840 --> 09:12.200]  Man.
[09:12.420 --> 09:14.440]  I've never seen so much ducking of issues.
[09:14.480 --> 09:14.900]  No, I...
[09:14.900 --> 09:15.240]  All right.
[09:15.340 --> 09:16.420]  I didn't appreciate it.
[09:16.900 --> 09:18.280]  Oh, you didn't appreciate it.
[09:18.340 --> 09:18.520]  Yeah.
[09:18.520 --> 09:19.280]  Isaac didn't appreciate it.
[09:19.320 --> 09:19.780]  You hear that, MTV?
[09:19.960 --> 09:20.300]  Yeah, it was.
[09:20.400 --> 09:20.760]  All right.
[09:21.120 --> 09:22.140]  That sent a message.
[09:24.160 --> 09:24.560]  Okay.
[09:24.720 --> 09:25.500]  Let's continue here.
[09:25.660 --> 09:26.740]  We want to spend the whole show on this.
[09:26.820 --> 09:27.500]  We certainly could.
[09:28.500 --> 09:28.900]  Hello.
[09:29.060 --> 09:34.860]  I was listening to your November 2nd archive and you touched on EAS, emergency alert system.
[09:35.680 --> 09:37.240]  I work at a TV station.
[09:37.500 --> 09:39.380]  I told you we'd get lots of response from this.
[09:39.560 --> 09:41.980]  We ask for information and it comes right to us.
[09:42.600 --> 09:44.720]  I do know something about the system at our station.
[09:44.840 --> 09:49.640]  Our techs have put in a switch that makes it so any incoming EAS signal will not override what goes out over the air.
[09:49.760 --> 09:50.760]  I don't think they can do that.
[09:50.980 --> 09:53.120]  Well, I mean, you can physically do that.
[09:53.260 --> 09:53.780]  Well, yes, it is possible.
[09:53.780 --> 10:00.500]  From what I understand, what you can have is a switch that allows you to postpone it for, say, maybe 10 minutes.
[10:00.620 --> 10:02.500]  But then you have to send a test out.
[10:02.600 --> 10:05.740]  And if you don't send that test out within the 10 minutes, it will override your signal.
[10:06.000 --> 10:06.180]  Ooh.
[10:06.780 --> 10:07.100]  That's...
[10:07.100 --> 10:08.660]  I think it's pretty damn scary.
[10:08.920 --> 10:11.820]  Because, you know, it looks nice and safe now.
[10:11.820 --> 10:12.760]  They're just sending out a test.
[10:12.880 --> 10:13.680]  What if it's not a test?
[10:13.760 --> 10:14.620]  What if it's a real thing?
[10:14.740 --> 10:17.300]  What if it's an hour-long propaganda show of some sort?
[10:17.380 --> 10:17.780]  Well, no.
[10:17.840 --> 10:20.200]  I would assume that it would be an emergency where...
[10:20.200 --> 10:21.020]  You would assume that, yes.
[10:21.020 --> 10:25.300]  If this were an actual emergency, the tone you just heard would be followed by instructions.
[10:25.600 --> 10:26.000]  Oh, I'm sorry.
[10:26.160 --> 10:26.380]  Yeah.
[10:26.540 --> 10:27.120]  But what...
[10:27.120 --> 10:29.220]  Who defines what an emergency is?
[10:29.280 --> 10:30.000]  Civil unrest.
[10:30.140 --> 10:30.900]  Is that an emergency?
[10:31.140 --> 10:34.640]  You know, telling people what to do, where to go, what not to do, where not to go.
[10:35.220 --> 10:35.780]  Things like that.
[10:35.900 --> 10:39.560]  You know, I think, ultimately, the radio station is where the control must be.
[10:40.100 --> 10:41.760]  That's where the person has to make the final decision.
[10:41.920 --> 10:46.640]  You can't have some person throwing a switch in some other place saying, you will broadcast this.
[10:47.300 --> 10:48.080]  I agree with you.
[10:48.220 --> 10:48.400]  I mean, yeah.
[10:48.760 --> 10:49.820]  It goes against...
[10:49.820 --> 10:49.860]  In part...
[10:49.860 --> 10:51.520]  What part don't you agree with?
[10:53.000 --> 10:57.140]  I mean, it goes against everything that a radio broadcaster is about, that freedom of speech is about.
[10:57.520 --> 11:04.420]  Well, in a time of emergency, freedom of speech kind of takes a backseat to trying to the attempt to save people's lives.
[11:04.420 --> 11:11.160]  Well, yeah, but you see, martial law is a state of emergency that's always declared when freedom of speech becomes inconvenient.
[11:12.460 --> 11:19.200]  And I'm just here to tell you that freedom of speech is something that we need to defend above and beyond the inconvenience factor.
[11:19.340 --> 11:19.640]  I'm not saying it doesn't need to be defended.
[11:19.640 --> 11:22.800]  I'm saying that if there's a tidal wave heading for the, you know, south shore of Long Island...
[11:22.800 --> 11:24.080]  I don't think anyone's going to...
[11:24.080 --> 11:27.060]  Yeah, but nobody's going to argue about warning people about a tidal wave.
[11:27.120 --> 11:28.120]  I don't think anyone's going to do that.
[11:28.120 --> 11:35.520]  And if the guy sitting at Walk.fm doesn't get the notification that there's a tidal wave, I mean, it's... we'll just say that it's helpful.
[11:35.800 --> 11:42.940]  Well, yeah, but you see, what you're saying is that the people at the stations aren't competent enough to actually send out the warnings themselves.
[11:43.060 --> 11:44.440]  They have to have somebody standing over them.
[11:44.460 --> 11:51.800]  If I were to implement EAS, I would have a display come up and say, there is an emergency, this is what it is, you want to air this now.
[11:51.800 --> 11:57.020]  If you don't air this, we'll air it in 10 minutes for you because something evidently happened to you.
[11:57.640 --> 12:01.220]  Well, that's pretty much the way it works now from what I understand.
[12:01.400 --> 12:02.940]  Well, then that would be how I would design it.
[12:03.460 --> 12:07.420]  But I still would like a way to override it because sometimes they may send something that...
[12:07.900 --> 12:09.080]  Sure, you rip the thing out of the control room.
[12:09.080 --> 12:10.540]  Yeah, there should be a way to do that.
[12:10.540 --> 12:11.040]  Rode around it.
[12:11.080 --> 12:13.320]  Anyway, let's continue with this letter before we run out of time altogether.
[12:14.180 --> 12:20.400]  Although I believe that most stations, even without that switch, would not automatically go out over the air without the board operator pressing the appropriate buttons.
[12:20.440 --> 12:21.240]  That's actually not true.
[12:21.480 --> 12:23.480]  It does go out over the air without you pressing any buttons.
[12:24.100 --> 12:28.060]  An EAS test is usually received and we make a decision if we should run it or not.
[12:28.700 --> 12:31.540]  It works this way with non-tests, too.
[12:31.680 --> 12:33.740]  We get our EAS signal from a local radio station.
[12:34.020 --> 12:35.440]  Where they get theirs, I don't know.
[12:37.000 --> 12:46.120]  The tones contain data, which is a small stream of text, usually stating who issued the test or the EAS and when and why.
[12:46.280 --> 12:47.460]  Yeah, that's the chirp that you hear.
[12:48.680 --> 12:51.420]  Some setups may automatically take EAS signals to air.
[12:51.540 --> 12:56.860]  However, the first part of the signal is just a carrier tone and nothing will go to air until some data is received.
[12:56.860 --> 13:03.340]  If someone were to call up a radio talk show and send the tone, the host of the show would most likely kick the caller off before the data was sent.
[13:03.460 --> 13:06.320]  And if the carrier wasn't there before the data, the EAS system would ignore it.
[13:06.480 --> 13:10.580]  So unless the host was an idiot, it would be very difficult to get an EAS test or alert on the air.
[13:10.640 --> 13:11.660]  Well, we're not idiots here.
[13:11.840 --> 13:12.080]  No.
[13:19.500 --> 13:20.780]  I knew that was coming.
[13:22.020 --> 13:23.940]  Is it illegal to even talk about this?
[13:24.000 --> 13:24.600]  I'm sure.
[13:25.080 --> 13:42.260]  I'm not certain, but I'd be very surprised if there was not some FCC regulation stating that it was in violation of something or other to broadcast those tones in a spoofing manner.
[13:42.980 --> 13:44.800]  Well, we wouldn't do it in a spoofing manner.
[13:44.800 --> 13:46.880]  We'd say we're trying to figure out what these tones do.
[13:46.880 --> 13:55.980]  Well, in any manner, it's spoofing from the definition of anything other than the powers that be.
[13:56.520 --> 14:00.260]  Well, yeah, but to see, the thing is, our callers, we have no control over them.
[14:00.380 --> 14:06.040]  If they call us and decide to play a tone for 35 seconds, how can we stop that?
[14:06.420 --> 14:09.680]  Has anyone, have any of our listeners tried to decode these tones?
[14:09.920 --> 14:10.540]  I don't know.
[14:10.720 --> 14:11.100]  I don't know.
[14:11.140 --> 14:12.100]  We're trying to find out.
[14:12.100 --> 14:23.760]  As a ham radio operator, the data bursts sound identical to packet radio bursts that I hear on the local 2-meter packet repeater.
[14:24.300 --> 14:29.920]  So, maybe I'll pull out my terminal node controller and see what comes of it.
[14:30.240 --> 14:40.660]  Yeah, I would imagine that there has to be some unique identifier for the station that is at least sending it, if not the station receiving it.
[14:42.080 --> 14:43.740]  I don't know if they're sent to certain stations.
[14:43.860 --> 14:44.060]  I don't know.
[14:44.160 --> 14:45.180]  There's a lot we have to learn about this.
[14:45.280 --> 14:46.860]  But the thing is, we have to know about this.
[14:47.100 --> 14:47.260]  Sorry?
[14:47.820 --> 14:48.680]  Requires further research.
[14:48.800 --> 14:48.980]  Oh, definitely.
[14:49.100 --> 14:51.080]  And how do you research it if you don't play around with it?
[14:51.420 --> 14:51.640]  Yep.
[14:51.740 --> 14:52.020]  Very true.
[14:52.480 --> 14:52.660]  All right.
[14:52.660 --> 14:53.060]  It's called hacking.
[14:53.300 --> 14:54.540]  Yes, that's what hacking's all about.
[14:55.600 --> 14:56.220]  Another letter here.
[14:56.220 --> 15:01.100]  I keep hearing on 2600 broadcasts that you guys are worried about the government having too much information on everyone.
[15:01.820 --> 15:02.560]  Have you guys...
[15:02.560 --> 15:04.620]  And the government's very worried about us having too much information on it.
[15:04.700 --> 15:05.100]  On them, yes.
[15:05.140 --> 15:05.320]  Yeah.
[15:05.460 --> 15:08.620]  Have you guys heard about the black boxes being put in cars slowly?
[15:09.000 --> 15:13.960]  The same kind of black boxes that are currently required for the airlines are now slowly being placed into cars.
[15:14.440 --> 15:19.620]  This is total crap because, like everything else, this will slowly go from being not needed to required by federal law.
[15:20.480 --> 15:21.900]  It's not a conspiracy theory.
[15:22.020 --> 15:25.300]  I kind of figured this was going to happen, like SSNs, things like that.
[15:25.320 --> 15:25.640]  I guess.
[15:25.640 --> 15:27.140]  What's wrong with conspiracy theory?
[15:27.840 --> 15:28.620]  Well, I don't know.
[15:28.780 --> 15:30.860]  Is it a conspiracy or is it just stupidity?
[15:31.440 --> 15:36.720]  My guess is these will not be required by federal law, but they'll be required by the private sector, i.e.
[15:36.740 --> 15:37.540]  insurance companies.
[15:37.560 --> 15:47.060]  Like, if you don't want to pay twice as much for insurance, you put one of these things in your car so that we can figure out this claim after there's an accident.
[15:47.440 --> 15:50.380]  I see that as the way it's probably going to come down.
[15:50.380 --> 15:55.800]  Well, Bernie, why would somebody not want something like that in their car?
[15:55.960 --> 15:56.600]  I mean, come on.
[15:56.720 --> 15:57.880]  It's a safety thing.
[15:59.580 --> 16:04.080]  I just don't like anybody looking over my shoulder.
[16:04.080 --> 16:20.220]  If I go 56 miles an hour and there's some log of that, I don't want anybody to go back and say, hey, here's proof positive you broke the law and, bam, you're guilty.
[16:20.220 --> 16:26.120]  Well, I would imagine it would only be used in cases of accidents where the car is completely destroyed or things like that, like a black box.
[16:26.220 --> 16:28.560]  That slippery slope, the first it'll only be used for that.
[16:28.900 --> 16:35.240]  It'll be still sugar-coated to, you know, it'll be marketed as a safety thing, you know, like this OnStar thing, this insipid television ads.
[16:35.240 --> 16:35.660]  Oh, yeah.
[16:36.220 --> 16:44.240]  These insipid television ads where, you know, the ground is crawling with snakes and the OnStar woman rescued us by calling us a limousine.
[16:45.320 --> 16:46.120]  It's ridiculous.
[16:46.560 --> 16:47.680]  I haven't seen that commercial.
[16:47.700 --> 16:49.340]  I've got to watch TV more, I guess.
[16:49.340 --> 16:50.240]  It's stupid.
[16:50.560 --> 16:50.720]  Wow.
[16:51.160 --> 16:51.780]  Snakes, you say.
[16:52.520 --> 17:00.640]  But, needless to say, the folks at the OnStar network can easily determine your whereabouts anytime they feel like it.
[17:00.880 --> 17:02.980]  And, personally, I don't like that.
[17:03.080 --> 17:06.560]  Now, I'm not saying that the OnStar folks are spying on you.
[17:06.640 --> 17:17.820]  However, once that technology is in place, all any law enforcement officer has to do is hand them a warrant, say, hand this information over.
[17:18.580 --> 17:19.780]  And, they got it.
[17:19.980 --> 17:20.220]  Yeah.
[17:20.360 --> 17:20.960]  Easy pass syndrome.
[17:20.980 --> 17:27.300]  I'm not worried about OnStar so much as I am about overzealous law enforcement agents.
[17:27.700 --> 17:27.920]  Mm-hmm.
[17:28.160 --> 17:28.360]  Yeah.
[17:28.400 --> 17:31.420]  Once you put the technology in place, it's very difficult to get rid of it.
[17:31.420 --> 17:33.300]  Jim, you have something here?
[17:33.440 --> 17:36.700]  Well, these black boxes are not exactly a new phenomenon.
[17:36.820 --> 17:39.240]  We've been on the slippery slope for at least 20 years.
[17:39.240 --> 17:41.960]  They first arose in truck fleets.
[17:42.590 --> 17:54.040]  And, as you mentioned, for the insurance purposes, you could determine where a truck, what direction a truck had taken, how far it traveled in that direction, its mileage and such.
[17:54.040 --> 17:58.760]  Uh, so the time to let the genie, uh, out of the bottle, uh, is long past.
[17:59.120 --> 18:16.380]  What's more insidious is the, uh, the thing that they're talking about lately, uh, among all the manufacturers of cars, at least in this country, is to install a, uh, radio-activated device that would shut your, uh, car off if it was in pursuit by law enforcement.
[18:16.580 --> 18:17.180]  That was fun.
[18:17.440 --> 18:17.740]  Yeah.
[18:18.020 --> 18:18.900]  And, uh...
[18:18.900 --> 18:19.760]  I was wondering about that.
[18:19.840 --> 18:21.980]  Your power steering locks up and, uh, you know...
[18:21.980 --> 18:23.040]  Supposedly, it would...
[18:23.580 --> 18:30.020]  Supposedly, what it would do is, is just figure out what speed you're at and just lower it, uh, over a period of time.
[18:30.400 --> 18:30.480]  Uh-huh.
[18:30.480 --> 18:38.720]  You wouldn't come to a screeching halt, but if you're going 100, you'd then be going 99, 98, et cetera, et cetera, until you ended up going zero.
[18:39.000 --> 18:40.760]  So it would be applying the brake, is that what...
[18:40.760 --> 18:47.680]  It would essentially be, uh, keeping you from accelerating and slowly applying the brake, perhaps, or at least lowering the acceleration.
[18:48.020 --> 18:51.300]  Now, what if these guys were chasing you and they were evil and you were good, like, you know, in a movie?
[18:51.300 --> 18:52.520]  That's the flaw in the plan.
[18:52.680 --> 18:53.360]  That's a big flaw.
[18:53.620 --> 18:56.920]  Yeah, I wonder how long it would take to grab that signal and send it...
[18:56.920 --> 19:02.540]  Send the thing a code, you know, your neighbor's driving down the street, all of a sudden the thing just stops before it hits you into the block.
[19:03.140 --> 19:04.460]  That's, uh, pretty interesting.
[19:04.580 --> 19:06.180]  Now, Jimmy, add another story over there for us.
[19:06.320 --> 19:09.400]  Oh, well, this is, uh, this is kind of interesting.
[19:09.800 --> 19:18.720]  Um, I figured out on the way over here that probably 90% of our listeners are breaking the law, and it's not for the reason that the feds would think.
[19:18.720 --> 19:37.040]  Uh, for those of you who get, uh, the interesting little magazine called Web Techniques, which, of course, is on the web at webtechniques.com, uh, Lincoln Stein, whose name you may note if you, uh, read the O'Reilly catalog or, uh, book, any books he's written,
[19:37.720 --> 19:39.180]  uh, has an interesting article.
[19:39.180 --> 19:52.500]  Uh, you may remember that GIFs, a few years back, uh, Unisys cracked down because it wasn't, uh, they, they aren't manufactured by something that's in the public domain.
[19:53.140 --> 20:15.960]  Uh, there's a big stink about CompuServe and GIFs and, uh, well, essentially, uh, it had been that, uh, if you had a, um, uh, an image processing, uh, program that, dealt with them, uh, you couldn't continue doing that, but GIFs were allowed to, uh, continue to be on websites.
[20:16.220 --> 20:18.100]  Well, now Unisys is cracking down.
[20:18.120 --> 20:27.020]  If you have a non-commercial website, sooner or later, Unisys will send you an email or give you a phone call saying, uh, we'd like you to pay $5,000, please.
[20:27.360 --> 20:33.100]  And if you have a commercial website, you have to negotiate with them independently, and it should probably be much more.
[20:33.100 --> 20:33.100]  Sure.
[20:33.480 --> 20:36.220]  This, if you, if you have a single GIF on your phone, if you have a GIF, yeah.
[20:36.480 --> 20:37.780]  Or if you just convert it to a JPEG.
[20:38.060 --> 20:39.460]  Uh, well, you're off the hook.
[20:39.680 --> 20:46.700]  But apparently any GIF that's, uh, been touched by an open source, uh, program, uh, is suspect.
[20:47.440 --> 20:49.920]  Uh, it's sort of rendered tainted.
[20:50.200 --> 20:51.080]  And this, this is real.
[20:51.200 --> 20:52.560]  This is, this is not a fake story.
[20:52.740 --> 20:53.180]  It's a big article.
[20:53.180 --> 20:54.120]  Yeah.
[20:54.500 --> 20:56.920]  I think we all need to tell Unisys where to go collectively.
[20:57.700 --> 20:58.640]  Isn't that right, Bernie?
[20:59.560 --> 21:02.320]  Well, at what point does something like that become public domain?
[21:02.660 --> 21:04.820]  Is it a copyrighted file format?
[21:05.100 --> 21:17.880]  Yeah, the, uh, uh, GIF, GIFs are generated, uh, uh, originally by encoders that used something called the Lempel-Ziv-Welch compression algorithm.
[21:18.520 --> 21:19.020]  LZW.
[21:19.300 --> 21:19.860]  LZW.
[21:20.160 --> 21:21.580]  Yes, Isaac, I knew you'd know.
[21:21.580 --> 21:33.160]  Uh, and apparently even, uh, encoders that avoid this are using tricks that you would know only if you know the LZW algorithm.
[21:33.420 --> 21:38.200]  So technically they're using the LZW algorithm by knowing what to avoid.
[21:38.940 --> 21:46.120]  So any GIF that's been generated by any program in widespread use is tainted.
[21:46.440 --> 21:48.840]  Yeah, I, I just wish these people would stay away from the net.
[21:48.840 --> 21:54.560]  I mean, they, they just ruin everything with their copyrights and, and, you know, algorithms they think they own.
[21:55.160 --> 21:59.720]  You know, imagine telling somebody that because you've made a picture in a certain way, you owe them $5,000.
[21:59.820 --> 22:00.840]  What kind of lunacy is that?
[22:00.900 --> 22:03.540]  That might work in the corporate world, but it's, this is the real world here.
[22:03.640 --> 22:09.160]  Well, they're going to be battling it out in the corporate world because you or I are too small a target for them to go against.
[22:09.400 --> 22:10.440]  What are you, what are they going to do?
[22:10.540 --> 22:11.580]  Sue you for $5,000?
[22:11.920 --> 22:14.600]  They're going to spend 20 times that legal cost.
[22:14.600 --> 22:15.820]  Yeah, tell it to satellite watch news.
[22:16.000 --> 22:18.120]  They're, you know, sometimes they go after the small targets.
[22:18.340 --> 22:20.740]  Well, that, in that case, it was the only target.
[22:21.140 --> 22:27.380]  But it depends, you know, selective prosecution is a, is a good, uh, you know, possibility here where they just, they want to shut somebody up.
[22:27.500 --> 22:35.120]  So they take something like this and instantly, but to prosecute someone like you or me for $5,000, all right, well, your commercial.
[22:35.120 --> 22:37.280]  So maybe they would try to figure something out.
[22:37.380 --> 22:37.860]  Thanks a lot.
[22:37.960 --> 22:38.040]  Yeah.
[22:38.140 --> 22:38.600]  Give them ideas.
[22:38.600 --> 22:47.960]  I'm sorry, but, yeah, well, anyway, the, the, the point is that the amount of money and time they're going to be spending in legal fees just doesn't make it worthwhile to go after you.
[22:48.100 --> 22:53.140]  If they were going to go after someone like Alta Vista or Yahoo or one of these...
[22:53.140 --> 22:53.260]  Corvus.
[22:53.440 --> 23:06.320]  Or Corvus or Microsoft, then there's a case involved because these things are all over the place and they have the deep pockets and they're probably going to be, uh, figuring out some larger amount that they could be coming from.
[23:06.320 --> 23:11.840]  Don't these people have anything better to do and try to extract as much money as they possibly can out of a stone?
[23:11.980 --> 23:16.760]  You know, it's, it's, it's so, it's so sleazy and, and, and waste of everybody's time.
[23:17.300 --> 23:18.800]  But let's not waste any more time on this.
[23:18.800 --> 23:20.340]  Let's move on to, uh, some of the letters.
[23:20.920 --> 23:23.380]  Um, this is from another listener, do 2600.
[23:23.440 --> 23:24.960]  I tried to call into the show, but couldn't.
[23:25.220 --> 23:25.980]  Sorry to hear that.
[23:26.600 --> 23:27.640]  Um, two things.
[23:27.880 --> 23:31.960]  In our school, they, uh, they won't let us write free Kevin in our yearbook profile.
[23:32.160 --> 23:34.820]  This is really unfair to the students that would like to do this.
[23:35.420 --> 23:39.220]  Uh, the school administration says it's, you know, like this, unsocial.
[23:40.260 --> 23:40.980]  Yeah, unsocial.
[23:41.160 --> 23:43.580]  Basically, uh, it's negative towards the school.
[23:43.680 --> 23:44.760]  How's it negative towards the school?
[23:44.840 --> 23:45.860]  The school didn't imprison him.
[23:46.240 --> 23:47.320]  It's, uh, I don't know.
[23:47.680 --> 23:51.380]  Even with, uh, complete, uh, parental consent, this will not be allowed.
[23:51.660 --> 23:53.660]  Uh, first of all, many people don't know who Kevin is.
[23:53.780 --> 23:54.660]  It would draw attention to it.
[23:54.700 --> 23:55.920]  Maybe people would ask some questions.
[23:56.220 --> 23:58.820]  Uh, the school administrators seemed to know what was going on with Kevin.
[23:58.920 --> 24:02.200]  But from what I heard, uh, um, I have to doubt that.
[24:02.200 --> 24:07.720]  Um, and the second thing, your, your site, www.267.com, isn't allowed by Surfwatch.
[24:08.460 --> 24:12.560]  One of those, uh, programs that, uh, block things that are objectionable.
[24:13.020 --> 24:16.820]  Uh, it's kind of funny because your site doesn't really violate anything on, on the list.
[24:17.440 --> 24:17.580]  Um.
[24:17.940 --> 24:22.640]  Well, the excuse that I've gotten is that, uh, uh, that we have pornography on there.
[24:22.640 --> 24:24.320]  Well, probably because it's one of the hacked websites.
[24:24.560 --> 24:25.240]  That's exactly where it is.
[24:25.260 --> 24:28.140]  Yeah, well, I guess if you, if you, if you delve deep enough into anything, you'll find pornography.
[24:29.680 --> 24:33.460]  Um, but, uh, I, we've been blocked for all kinds of other reasons, too.
[24:33.560 --> 24:33.640]  True.
[24:33.780 --> 24:35.960]  Just illegal information, things like that.
[24:36.120 --> 24:37.820]  And, you know, there's no illegal information on there.
[24:38.000 --> 24:41.340]  Everything we talk about is pretty much information that's, you know, information.
[24:41.560 --> 24:42.660]  It's, it's, it's free speech.
[24:43.700 --> 24:45.180]  People have weird conceptions.
[24:52.640 --> 24:52.800]  CSIS.
[24:52.940 --> 24:54.200]  Yeah, it's pronounced CSIS.
[24:54.500 --> 25:00.240]  That's, their website is www.csis, C-S-I-S, dash, S-C-R-S, dot, G-C, dot, C-A.
[25:00.400 --> 25:00.780]  That's C-A.
[25:00.880 --> 25:01.520]  You see, I was right.
[25:02.460 --> 25:03.000]  Well, yeah.
[25:03.400 --> 25:03.900]  Of course.
[25:06.620 --> 25:13.820]  And, uh, this, uh, listener says, uh, yes, we may bear the brunt of all your jokes, but, uh, we have the best country in the world, according to the U.N.
[25:14.320 --> 25:16.980]  Canada should be given at least as much respect as the U.S.
[25:17.540 --> 25:19.160]  Although, I give it more respect than the U.S.
[25:19.200 --> 25:22.620]  Although, most people are not aware of this, uh, CSIS was only started in 1910.
[25:22.640 --> 25:24.420]  1984, I guess I should say CSIS.
[25:24.700 --> 25:28.380]  CSIS was started in 1984 as one of the youngest intelligence services in the world.
[25:28.920 --> 25:38.960]  According to the CSIS Act, 1984, CSIS is only allowed to operate, uh, within Canada's national borders and is mostly occupied with counterintelligence and counterterrorism.
[25:39.620 --> 25:43.080]  Uh, I doubt we were trying to invade our biggest trading partner.
[25:43.180 --> 25:46.160]  Oh, yeah, we were, we were raising the flags about Canada invading us last week, weren't we?
[25:46.240 --> 25:46.820]  Yes, that was.
[25:46.980 --> 25:47.120]  Yeah.
[25:47.460 --> 25:52.760]  Well, um, I guess maybe that's not so much of a threat, but, uh, better keep an eye on those borders.
[25:54.820 --> 25:58.480]  All right, um, to you off the hook, I'm an independent contractor.
[25:58.720 --> 26:01.460]  One of my clients bought a building that was once used as a bank.
[26:02.120 --> 26:06.580]  While, uh, remodeling the building, he found a box that appeared to be something related to the phone system.
[26:06.700 --> 26:09.360]  He gave it to me, asking if I could use it, but I'm not sure what it is.
[26:09.360 --> 26:12.140]  On the back it says 551-A-K-S-U.
[26:12.320 --> 26:13.500]  Yeah, I replied to this one.
[26:13.720 --> 26:14.660]  Yeah, what did you say?
[26:14.760 --> 26:19.740]  It may very well be an AT&T Western Electric 551-A-K-S-U.
[26:19.800 --> 26:19.980]  Thank you.
[26:20.560 --> 26:21.220]  Which, uh...
[26:21.220 --> 26:21.940]  Which...
[26:21.940 --> 26:23.240]  Hey, imagine that.
[26:23.240 --> 26:24.340]  Do you want to tell us what that is?
[26:24.720 --> 26:30.740]  Uh, it's basically an interface for PBX and, like, an internal company phone system.
[26:30.800 --> 26:32.800]  Well, the person wants to know, should I just throw it away?
[26:32.800 --> 26:34.260]  No, I sent him the mail.
[26:34.380 --> 26:36.160]  It's, like, worth about 100, 125 bucks.
[26:36.280 --> 26:36.720]  It's not bad.
[26:36.960 --> 26:37.180]  It's not bad.
[26:37.180 --> 26:37.640]  What about you, Bernie?
[26:37.700 --> 26:39.420]  If you found a, uh...
[26:39.420 --> 26:40.940]  Well, Bernie would probably try to use it.
[26:41.140 --> 26:41.280]  Yeah.
[26:41.460 --> 26:42.140]  Well, what would you do with it?
[26:42.920 --> 26:46.340]  I'd hook it up to a 48-volt power supply that I have here and, uh...
[26:46.340 --> 26:47.000]  And use it, yeah.
[26:47.140 --> 26:48.200]  And see what I could do with it.
[26:48.900 --> 26:51.840]  Yeah, but I don't think this guy would be very interested in, like, playing around.
[26:52.300 --> 26:52.700]  Although I did...
[26:52.700 --> 26:52.860]  How do you know?
[26:52.960 --> 26:58.440]  I did suggest the possibility that he could transfer calls from, like, the living room to the kitchen to the bedroom to things like that.
[26:58.720 --> 27:01.040]  Well, if he doesn't want to hook it up, he could take it apart.
[27:01.040 --> 27:04.580]  I mean, if you learn something, it's by taking it apart and looking at all the innards.
[27:05.820 --> 27:06.140]  Yeah.
[27:06.420 --> 27:07.640]  That's a technical term, innards.
[27:07.720 --> 27:08.020]  Innards.
[27:08.100 --> 27:11.180]  Taking things apart and looking at their innards is what a lot of hackers do.
[27:12.100 --> 27:15.600]  Now, we also were talking about DSL last week, about my DSL experience.
[27:15.700 --> 27:18.500]  And as I predicted, they said it was going to be fixed in a day.
[27:18.540 --> 27:20.100]  Of course, this hasn't been fixed as of yet.
[27:20.100 --> 27:20.940]  It was Bell Atlantic.
[27:21.120 --> 27:21.680]  What did you expect?
[27:21.680 --> 27:22.260]  It's not Bell Atlantic.
[27:22.400 --> 27:23.660]  Well, actually, Bell Atlantic did come out.
[27:23.980 --> 27:24.380]  Oh, they did?
[27:24.500 --> 27:26.760]  Well, first of all, they utterly lied.
[27:26.880 --> 27:28.580]  They said they tried to come out last week.
[27:28.580 --> 27:31.020]  At the very time I was there with the guy from the DSL company.
[27:31.040 --> 27:32.560]  And they said they couldn't get access.
[27:32.860 --> 27:33.720]  They got lost.
[27:34.060 --> 27:34.760]  They couldn't get access.
[27:34.760 --> 27:34.900]  That's right.
[27:35.020 --> 27:36.420]  They couldn't get access to your house.
[27:36.580 --> 27:40.140]  Yeah, they couldn't get access to Logic because they couldn't find their way anyplace.
[27:40.940 --> 27:44.440]  So they just lied about it and said we couldn't get access, so we didn't come out.
[27:44.580 --> 27:45.440]  But if they had OnStar.
[27:46.600 --> 27:46.960]  Yeah.
[27:48.440 --> 27:49.760]  So eventually they came out.
[27:49.880 --> 27:51.820]  Then they blamed the problem on the DSL company.
[27:51.880 --> 27:56.460]  Now the DSL company is trying to, you know, serve their match now, I guess.
[27:56.520 --> 27:56.860]  I don't know.
[27:57.380 --> 27:59.520]  It's just a big corporate game at this point.
[27:59.680 --> 28:00.700]  It's a big waste of time.
[28:01.560 --> 28:08.800]  Meanwhile, I'm asking around about getting access to routers when you have DSL, and I'd like to get some surveys on this.
[28:08.880 --> 28:11.620]  Apparently, some companies allow it, some companies don't.
[28:11.640 --> 28:19.520]  I just think it's really upsetting that they can actually say, no, we're not going to allow you access to the router that's inside your house, inside your office.
[28:19.820 --> 28:21.080]  You can't touch that.
[28:21.180 --> 28:22.640]  You can't change settings on it.
[28:22.700 --> 28:26.760]  Like right now, for instance, it's set at some crazy speed that nobody has ever gotten.
[28:26.920 --> 28:30.060]  And all that needs to be done, according to them, is the speed has to be lowered.
[28:31.340 --> 28:32.560]  Now, I can do that.
[28:32.760 --> 28:36.120]  If I can get into the thing, I can type one command and lower the speed.
[28:36.600 --> 28:37.800]  But no, that's not allowed.
[28:37.900 --> 28:43.260]  They have to send some guy from Manhattan all the way out there to get access to enter that command.
[28:43.460 --> 28:49.360]  And the thing is, coordinating schedules so that people are around when this person wants to come out, well, we've wasted a week already.
[28:49.900 --> 28:51.800]  It's liable not to get fixed anytime soon.
[28:53.040 --> 28:58.980]  One listener wrote in with information on ISDN, actually, because we mentioned that we're still using ISDN.
[28:59.420 --> 29:02.540]  You mentioned you were using DOV, Data Over Voice 112K.
[29:02.880 --> 29:09.480]  As of July 1st, 1999, the Switchways data tariff ended for most, maybe all, New York State, but Atlantic customers.
[29:10.560 --> 29:12.300]  Well, I've been hearing this for a while, actually.
[29:12.760 --> 29:12.760]  128.
[29:13.040 --> 29:13.320]  Yay.
[29:13.440 --> 29:22.940]  Since the tariff was, in traditional BA speak, impossible to read, and impossible to read, we had people, myself included, make some test calls as data for the first couple of months.
[29:22.940 --> 29:24.260]  There were no data surcharges.
[29:24.740 --> 29:29.120]  I've been up pretty much 24-7 for the past three months, and no surcharge.
[29:29.240 --> 29:32.020]  Not a single person I know has been hit with it either.
[29:32.020 --> 29:32.880]  But here's the thing.
[29:33.300 --> 29:37.860]  I've been trying to get official word from Bell Atlantic that that surcharge is gone, and I can't do it.
[29:37.940 --> 29:39.120]  I can't see it in writing.
[29:39.260 --> 29:40.560]  When I see it in writing, then I'll believe it.
[29:40.640 --> 29:44.840]  Until then, I have to be afraid that months from now, they're going to backbill you for all this.
[29:45.060 --> 29:46.520]  You know, that's what really worries me.
[29:46.780 --> 29:48.020]  It wouldn't be unheard of.
[29:48.300 --> 29:49.300]  Oh, it certainly wouldn't.
[29:49.440 --> 29:50.340]  It's gotten backbilled before.
[29:52.040 --> 29:56.060]  All right, some feedback from our Takedown review of last week.
[29:56.940 --> 29:59.980]  After listening to you bitch about the movie Takedown, I had to laugh.
[29:59.980 --> 30:03.140]  For the record, I work as a personal assistant to a producer.
[30:03.860 --> 30:06.940]  Just how many based-on-true-life movies do you think are factual?
[30:07.240 --> 30:09.500]  Look at Pirates of Silicon Valley.
[30:10.220 --> 30:15.860]  Yes, it was loosely based on the facts, but a lot was glossed over and lost in the film, if not completely made up.
[30:16.060 --> 30:19.140]  How factual do you think the messenger is to the real-life story of Joan of Arc?
[30:19.360 --> 30:22.140]  Was hackers a real portrayal of the hacker lifestyle?
[30:22.860 --> 30:28.340]  Movies are about entertainment, and if what happened in real life isn't exciting enough, there's always the creative license.
[30:28.740 --> 30:34.440]  By the way, I've seen the movie, and while there are a few glaring errors, I think Kevin Mitnick comes off looking like an anti-hero, not a criminal.
[30:35.020 --> 30:43.860]  Not to bang this comparison too much, but if you've seen Pirates of Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs looks like a complete ass in parts of the film, but by the end, he came off looking like an anti-hero.
[30:44.340 --> 30:44.980]  Anti-hero.
[30:45.540 --> 30:52.020]  The anti-hero is a movie character that kind of flies in the face of society as a whole, and in a good film, the audience will identify with the character.
[30:52.380 --> 30:55.940]  On that note, takedown isn't what I would call a great film, but it could have been worse.
[30:56.220 --> 30:58.340]  If the film offends you that badly, that's Hollywood.
[30:58.560 --> 31:01.600]  They portrayed Bonnie and Clyde as heroes after all, so what did you expect?
[31:01.820 --> 31:02.960]  Well, listen, listen, listen.
[31:02.960 --> 31:03.980]  I replied to this one too.
[31:04.220 --> 31:06.180]  Okay, you gotta show us your replies.
[31:06.340 --> 31:08.140]  Well, I'll have to forward it to you then.
[31:10.920 --> 31:12.020]  What did we expect?
[31:12.140 --> 31:12.960]  Well, we expected this.
[31:13.020 --> 31:14.720]  That's why we've been complaining about it for over a year.
[31:14.760 --> 31:15.200]  Wake up.
[31:15.320 --> 31:20.280]  You know, we've been battling Miramax about this film, about getting it right.
[31:20.440 --> 31:26.080]  So, yeah, you know, to say that we expected it to be right and we're surprised is kind of inaccurate.
[31:26.080 --> 31:27.220]  We expected it to be wrong.
[31:27.220 --> 31:31.960]  We were very pessimistic about it, and our fears seem to be somewhat confirmed.
[31:32.260 --> 31:33.700]  Well, it's generally disappointment.
[31:33.700 --> 31:45.640]  I mean, they could have potentially put out a very good movie which told the story of the whole Mitnick saga completely truthfully.
[31:46.380 --> 31:50.520]  However, it is very difficult to properly produce a documentary film.
[31:50.680 --> 32:04.720]  It takes a lot of time, a lot of talent, a lot of effort, and some serious capability on the part of the producers, the director, and those people, including associate, producer, assistant type people, to actually know what the hell they're doing.
[32:04.860 --> 32:05.000]  Right.
[32:05.320 --> 32:15.180]  And it's far easier to go around and have, like, one character hit the other in the head with a garbage can and, you know, basically try and make the entire thing float on action adventure.
[32:15.380 --> 32:19.020]  I mean, why make a Citizen Kane when you can make a Die Hard 3?
[32:19.500 --> 32:27.500]  You know, it just goes to show that the goal of this studio from the beginning was to draw people to a theater and make money.
[32:27.500 --> 32:31.400]  And they could have done it either way, but they did it the cheap way, which is what insult is insulting.
[32:31.400 --> 32:34.440]  I understand all that as far as how Hollywood works and how movies are made.
[32:34.560 --> 32:43.480]  But when you're dealing with real people, real people's names, people who can't defend themselves because they're in prison, you know, you would hope that the story would try to be somewhat accurate and fair.
[32:43.660 --> 32:48.420]  And those are the things that we've been objecting to is the unfairness and the inaccuracies that have come out.
[32:48.700 --> 32:53.040]  I mean, you know, we're talking about a film where Kevin calls his mother a bitch for no reason at all.
[32:53.080 --> 32:56.180]  He never did that in his life, but they just decided to throw that in there.
[32:56.180 --> 32:58.080]  Because it spices it up.
[32:58.280 --> 32:58.960]  Spices it up.
[32:59.020 --> 33:00.540]  They had two avenues to go with this.
[33:00.620 --> 33:03.880]  They could have made a serious documentary film, and they could have made a really good one.
[33:03.900 --> 33:03.960]  Tell me something.
[33:04.020 --> 33:05.660]  Why does Shimomura not call anyone a bitch?
[33:07.480 --> 33:10.380]  Because they're making a Die Hard 3 instead of a Citizen Kane.
[33:10.700 --> 33:12.420]  And that's what I think is disappointing.
[33:13.520 --> 33:14.940]  If they had actually spent the...
[33:14.940 --> 33:16.420]  This is a very interesting story.
[33:16.640 --> 33:17.180]  It sure is.
[33:17.240 --> 33:18.180]  I wish somebody would tell it.
[33:18.440 --> 33:21.940]  Well, unfortunately they didn't.
[33:22.620 --> 33:23.920]  That's where I'm disappointed.
[33:23.920 --> 33:39.980]  I expect as much from Hollywood, but I would have been actually praising this film if they had gone the extra mile and put some real effort into it and made a solid film that probably could have brought the director and a lot of other people a great deal of praise and gone down in history.
[33:40.180 --> 33:40.580]  That's true.
[33:40.680 --> 33:48.580]  But this is just going to be another Die Hard 3, a Jaws 14, or, you know, that kind of get the people in the seats, make them watch the movie, they go home and they forget about it.
[33:48.600 --> 33:49.680]  Might not even get the people in the seats.
[33:49.740 --> 33:50.480]  Might go straight to video.
[33:50.660 --> 33:51.600]  We'll have to see about that.
[33:51.600 --> 33:52.780]  We'll know more pretty soon.
[33:52.880 --> 34:01.860]  Has Kevin's lawyer spoken out about any of the, any kind of libel type act?
[34:02.440 --> 34:14.160]  I do know there was a separate suit involving libel, which I believe was somewhat settled a while back, enough to make the film go ahead, because the film would have gone on no matter what.
[34:14.320 --> 34:17.780]  So, you know, there's very little you can do when you're a plaintiff in prison.
[34:18.500 --> 34:19.640]  Oh yeah, that's for sure.
[34:20.680 --> 34:27.580]  Okay, and now the, uh, the main story of the night, and this is something that, uh, I read before and just really upset me a lot.
[34:27.880 --> 34:32.380]  We've, we've talked about many cases here on this radio show over the, over the past decade or so.
[34:32.620 --> 34:34.600]  Uh, we've seen Phiber Optik go to prison.
[34:34.720 --> 34:39.020]  We've seen Bernie S go through hell and we've currently, uh, witnessing the whole Kevin Mitnick saga.
[34:39.200 --> 34:40.020]  I'm not going anywhere.
[34:40.760 --> 34:43.760]  You're not going anywhere, but, uh, not, not at the moment anyway.
[34:43.760 --> 34:49.960]  But a lot of people, a lot of people are, and it just, it never seems to end.
[34:50.960 --> 34:51.940]  Listen to this story.
[34:52.060 --> 34:53.220]  This is, this is really incredible.
[34:53.660 --> 35:04.060]  At age 19, hacker Eric Burns has already wandered the underpinnings of the web where few had gone before, including an illicit visit inside computers at the White House in May.
[35:04.060 --> 35:12.980]  Uh, I didn't really think it was too much of a big deal, said Burns, hacker named Zyklon, who admitted responsibility for some of the most sensational attacks on corporate and government internet sites.
[35:14.760 --> 35:23.360]  Now, Burns pleaded guilty on September 7th through a single felony count of intentionally hacking into one computer, but he admitted involvement in the spate of electronic assaults.
[35:23.560 --> 35:27.760]  Uh, he was initially indicted May 13th on charges of breaking into computers for the U.S.
[35:28.160 --> 35:36.460]  Information Agency and two businesses, and that was four days after the, uh, White House internet site, uh, www.whitehouse.gov was electronically assaulted.
[35:36.540 --> 35:40.080]  The thing about that one is that one was up for about maybe two minutes before it was, it was fixed.
[35:40.180 --> 35:40.880]  Nobody saw it.
[35:41.620 --> 35:44.560]  It was, it was never actually up there for a prolonged period of time.
[35:44.700 --> 35:54.620]  Some of these other sites have been up for a very long time, but I don't think in any of these cases, I see nothing in this story or in any of the other stories I've read about this case to indicate that, uh, this person destroyed anything, caused any damage,
[35:54.700 --> 36:00.740]  simply basically, you know, when you, when you hack a website, you rename index.html to something else, okay?
[36:00.840 --> 36:01.340]  That's all you do.
[36:01.340 --> 36:06.100]  You, you, you, you save the original copy and then you, you, you simply put your own little thing on there.
[36:06.160 --> 36:08.060]  That's, it's, it's really ridiculously simple.
[36:08.300 --> 36:11.800]  It's ridiculously simple and it's also ridiculously easy to fix.
[36:12.100 --> 36:14.300]  Well, it's a little more complex because you have to...
[36:14.300 --> 36:16.220]  Yes, the immediate fix is easy.
[36:16.220 --> 36:21.180]  The immediate fix is to copy the file back, but the other fix is something that should have been fixed to start with, which is mainly security.
[36:21.460 --> 36:24.000]  So it's not like the person broke something.
[36:24.000 --> 36:27.220]  It was broken to start with and, and he took advantage of that.
[36:27.340 --> 36:29.180]  That's, that's basically how web hacks work.
[36:31.620 --> 36:35.160]  Zyklon, they point this out too, which is kind of silly and pointless.
[36:35.260 --> 36:37.940]  Zyklon is the name of a poisonous gas used by Nazis against jews.
[36:39.360 --> 36:43.400]  I don't think, you know, the implication there is that the person is...
[36:43.400 --> 36:47.620]  A computer is a device made of silicon transistors embedded on a small piece.
[36:47.800 --> 36:48.380]  Come on.
[36:48.540 --> 36:49.220]  It's silly.
[36:49.480 --> 36:55.760]  Just extra information that really is not relevant to the article, and yet tries to push a particular point that this guy is supposed to be really evil.
[36:56.900 --> 36:58.800]  Ah, the wonderfulness of media.
[36:59.180 --> 37:01.280]  I mean, first of all, poison gas doesn't know who's using it.
[37:01.380 --> 37:02.540]  It's poison gas, you know?
[37:02.780 --> 37:04.680]  It could have been on our side for all we know.
[37:04.880 --> 37:06.940]  And then we would have been praising the name Zyklon.
[37:07.500 --> 37:07.980]  You know?
[37:08.100 --> 37:08.720]  Think of it that way.
[37:09.180 --> 37:13.860]  Federal prosecutors said Burns boasted of the White House attack online even before it happened.
[37:14.740 --> 37:16.060]  That was a good trick, wasn't it?
[37:16.400 --> 37:24.020]  And Burns admitted as sentencing Friday that he was among three people who altered the site briefly to show a black webpage with the names of hacker organizations.
[37:24.120 --> 37:24.960]  We were one of them, actually.
[37:25.540 --> 37:29.260]  Along with messages, your box was owned and stop all the war.
[37:29.980 --> 37:32.160]  It's a political statement of sorts.
[37:32.780 --> 37:39.400]  And we also, we looked at the logs to see how many people hit us based on that, which told us how long the site was up.
[37:39.600 --> 37:43.200]  And nobody hit us because the site was hardly up for more than a couple of seconds.
[37:44.080 --> 37:54.220]  He said Monday in a telephone interview from his home in Shoreline, Washington, that he will refuse to identify his two partners to the Secret Service, partly because he believes the criminal penalties for hackers are too steep.
[37:54.980 --> 37:56.160]  Sounds familiar, eh, Bernie?
[37:56.780 --> 37:57.240]  Oh, yeah.
[37:57.480 --> 38:01.400]  I have to respect this guy for not giving up others.
[38:01.800 --> 38:10.440]  It's very hard not to when you're facing extra time behind bars for just refusing to rat out other people.
[38:10.540 --> 38:12.060]  So I commend this guy.
[38:12.060 --> 38:14.560]  Well, let me tell the folks what actually happened to him.
[38:14.760 --> 38:24.360]  We're talking about somebody who basically did some mischief, basically hacked into some sites, replaced some web pages.
[38:24.360 --> 38:32.760]  If you look on our web page, 2600.com, which hopefully hasn't been hacked, you'll see a whole list of hacked web pages.
[38:32.780 --> 38:36.480]  In fact, probably a couple today that have gone up.
[38:36.480 --> 38:37.660]  We archived them.
[38:38.160 --> 38:39.980]  Some of them are stupid.
[38:39.980 --> 38:41.400]  Some of them are ugly.
[38:41.760 --> 38:43.680]  Unfortunately, a lot of them are stupid and ugly.
[38:43.780 --> 38:43.920]  Yeah.
[38:44.120 --> 38:45.780]  Well, you know, a lot of people are stupid and ugly.
[38:46.500 --> 38:50.520]  We love them all, but, you know, no offense to anybody, but come on, let's face it.
[38:51.780 --> 38:53.960]  So some of them are really interesting, though.
[38:54.020 --> 38:54.980]  Some of them are political statements.
[38:55.120 --> 39:06.020]  Some of the ones from Indonesia were simply amazing because these are people in the firing line and they're putting up websites, getting their point across and using the government that they're opposed to to do it.
[39:06.620 --> 39:08.900]  We see hacked websites from Mexico.
[39:08.900 --> 39:10.440]  It's all the Zapatista movement.
[39:12.000 --> 39:15.080]  All over the place, everywhere, people are getting into this.
[39:15.140 --> 39:16.020]  It's a form of expression.
[39:16.160 --> 39:19.600]  Whether or not you agree with it, it's really hard to deny that it's a form of expression.
[39:20.400 --> 39:28.600]  Now, if somebody destroys a site, completely wipes it out, first of all, you should always have backup so that that should never actually affect you too much.
[39:28.920 --> 39:30.800]  But that's obviously a bad thing.
[39:30.880 --> 39:31.720]  That's not what happened here.
[39:31.820 --> 39:32.680]  That's not what we're talking about.
[39:32.720 --> 39:35.680]  We're not talking about someone who vandalized the site and destroyed something.
[39:36.080 --> 39:45.720]  Okay, so we're talking about somebody who hacked into a couple of sites, changed some pages, admitted it, and I imagine told people exactly what he did in the first place.
[39:46.520 --> 39:50.560]  And on Friday, he was sentenced to 15 months in prison.
[39:51.480 --> 39:55.920]  15 months in prison for that and a fine of $36,240.
[39:56.460 --> 39:57.360]  That's actually...
[39:57.360 --> 40:02.140]  that's restitution because they say that's the damage that he caused by doing this.
[40:02.420 --> 40:03.120]  Give me a break.
[40:03.420 --> 40:04.520]  This is insane.
[40:04.700 --> 40:05.880]  This is absolutely crazy.
[40:06.020 --> 40:08.240]  That includes the donuts for the people who had to reinstall the software.
[40:09.820 --> 40:14.940]  Under a judge's order, he won't be allowed to touch a computer for three years after his release.
[40:15.940 --> 40:16.600]  U.S.
[40:16.960 --> 40:24.480]  Attorney Helen Fahey said Burns attacked computers on the Internet controlling websites for NATO, a U.S.
[40:24.900 --> 40:28.660]  embassy and consulates, and even Vice President Al Gore.
[40:29.040 --> 40:30.960]  And he didn't attack him personally.
[40:30.960 --> 40:32.460]  It was just a website.
[40:32.800 --> 40:33.520]  The U.S.
[40:33.780 --> 40:37.120]  Information Agency website was shut down for eight days after Burns' attack.
[40:37.320 --> 40:38.980]  Now, some clarification here.
[40:39.160 --> 40:41.100]  He did not shut down the website for eight days.
[40:41.120 --> 40:46.960]  He did not keep it offline by constantly attacking it and forcing people to log off and things like that.
[40:47.160 --> 40:48.200]  They did this.
[40:48.300 --> 40:51.620]  They took it off because they said, hey, our website's in lousy shape.
[40:51.620 --> 40:52.580]  We need to fix it.
[40:52.620 --> 40:54.260]  And it took them eight days to fix it.
[40:54.320 --> 40:55.420]  That's how broken it was.
[40:55.600 --> 40:56.500]  He didn't break it.
[40:56.560 --> 40:57.780]  It was broken to start with.
[40:58.560 --> 41:03.660]  All told, according to prosecutors, the attacks cost the government and businesses more than $40,000.
[41:04.880 --> 41:12.600]  Now, when the White House site was vandalized, and again, I object to the use of that word even because it connotates all kinds of things that just aren't true.
[41:13.320 --> 41:14.760]  Experts had to shut down.
[41:14.920 --> 41:18.620]  Obviously, they're not really experts if they have to keep doing that.
[41:19.360 --> 41:26.700]  They had to shut down the web server, disconnect both the public and private computer networks from the internet for two days, and reconfigure the computer system.
[41:27.880 --> 41:28.660]  It's unbelievable.
[41:28.700 --> 41:29.620]  He's not in prison yet.
[41:29.620 --> 41:31.820]  He's supposed to report in four to six weeks.
[41:32.820 --> 41:35.520]  That'll let him spend Thanksgiving and the holidays with his family.
[41:36.160 --> 41:42.020]  And his lawyer says, with time off for good behavior, he might spend as few as 13 months behind bars.
[41:42.800 --> 41:43.760]  Oh, glory.
[41:45.520 --> 41:46.880]  Bernie, what do you think of something like this?
[41:46.960 --> 41:47.580]  I mean, it just...
[41:47.580 --> 41:48.400]  It never seems to end.
[41:48.560 --> 41:51.040]  We think we're making progress, but it just happens all over again.
[41:51.440 --> 41:54.500]  He's going away for almost exactly the same amount of time I did.
[41:55.340 --> 41:57.580]  And it's an awful...
[41:57.580 --> 42:02.360]  It doesn't seem like a long time, but when you're sitting behind those bars, it's a hell of a long time.
[42:03.800 --> 42:20.200]  This myth keeps getting portrayed, which it's amazing that the public still buys this baloney that, you know, the thousands of dollars worth of damage or that hacking a website has somehow damaged equipment or cost a lot of money to repair.
[42:20.280 --> 42:22.020]  I mean, it's a complete lie.
[42:22.480 --> 42:34.940]  And, you know, I'm hoping the public becomes a little more technically savvy as more and more people get more adept with computers, but the government's just been pulling the wool over people's eyes, and it's amazing, but it's...
[42:34.940 --> 42:37.620]  Now, you know, we're going to get email, and, you know, I have to acknowledge this.
[42:37.680 --> 42:39.460]  People are going to say, what right do you have to do this?
[42:39.520 --> 42:40.060]  How dare you?
[42:40.160 --> 42:42.160]  You have no respect for people's privacy, blah, blah, blah.
[42:42.520 --> 42:45.780]  Okay, you may not like the things that these people are doing.
[42:45.900 --> 42:46.540]  You may not agree with it.
[42:46.560 --> 42:48.820]  You may think it's wrong, but let's put it in perspective.
[42:48.820 --> 42:54.820]  We're talking about somebody who basically changed a file, and they're being treated the same way as somebody who basically torched a building.
[42:55.420 --> 43:00.080]  It's very different, and you have to keep in mind that this is something that is so incredibly easy to do.
[43:00.220 --> 43:04.400]  Don't the people running these sites have some obligation to have a security...
[43:04.400 --> 43:06.060]  I mean, the White House, for God's sake, the U.S.
[43:06.380 --> 43:07.840]  Information Agency, you know, the Pentagon.
[43:08.160 --> 43:12.840]  These are people, they should know something about securing a website, if not securing a country.
[43:13.020 --> 43:20.020]  You know, they really have to learn these things, and I think they're being taught in a very nice way, hey, guys, your security needs fixing.
[43:20.360 --> 43:30.060]  You know, if you punish somebody for telling you that and for showing you, because most of the time if you tell somebody that, they won't believe you, so you kind of have to show them, and you have to show the world, too, how insecure they are.
[43:30.640 --> 43:34.520]  You know, if you start punishing people for doing that, then they just won't do it anymore.
[43:34.700 --> 43:35.420]  They won't tell you.
[43:37.020 --> 43:41.780]  A manual of government punishing people for making them look stupid.
[43:42.060 --> 43:43.300]  Does that sound familiar?
[43:43.640 --> 43:44.180]  Yes, yes.
[43:44.220 --> 43:46.020]  Well, that's what put you in jail for almost two years.
[43:46.880 --> 43:49.700]  And the same kind of situation with this guy.
[43:49.860 --> 44:06.280]  I mean, you point out that some government employees are stupid, and they'll lash out and take it personally and use the full force and power of the federal judiciary system to lock somebody in a cage for years.
[44:07.400 --> 44:08.100]  It's horrible.
[44:08.540 --> 44:14.020]  It's a real crime, and I don't see what kind of effect this is going to have, what kind of message this is going to send.
[44:14.140 --> 44:20.160]  If anything, it just makes people respect authority far, far less, because you just see how crazy it is.
[44:20.320 --> 44:28.420]  Someone does something relatively harmless like this, and they're sent away, their lives are practically ruined as a result.
[44:29.240 --> 44:35.940]  You know, it's cruel treatment, and you don't respect people who torture you like that.
[44:36.760 --> 44:39.900]  I doubt people are going to stop hacking websites.
[44:40.060 --> 44:49.620]  In fact, I believe this will probably wind up with more people hacking websites as a result of some sort of protest, and maybe more people will wind up getting in trouble in this way, too.
[44:50.220 --> 44:58.160]  It doesn't have the kind of effect that they seem to think it's going to have, where people are just going to toe the line and stop acting like this.
[45:00.180 --> 45:01.400]  Or just build more prisons.
[45:01.820 --> 45:03.580]  Now, I've got a comment.
[45:03.980 --> 45:15.720]  At Beyond Hope, the conference in 1997, weren't there some stickers made up that were the exact size and coloring of the Nynix, not Nynix, Bellatlantic stickers that are on the top of phone booths?
[45:15.720 --> 45:22.180]  And didn't a lot of them actually end up over the Nynix sign on the top of phone booths?
[45:22.200 --> 45:22.820]  You noticed that, huh?
[45:22.920 --> 45:24.860]  Yeah, there were Beyond Hope stickers.
[45:25.180 --> 45:27.460]  In fact, it's funny, because we made those Beyond.
[45:27.560 --> 45:29.520]  I'll admit it right now, because Nynix doesn't exist anymore.
[45:29.520 --> 45:30.180]  They can't hurt us.
[45:30.760 --> 45:31.320]  All right.
[45:31.320 --> 45:32.680]  We made up...
[45:32.680 --> 45:33.260]  Actually, they do.
[45:33.640 --> 45:34.460]  Don't interrupt me, Isaac.
[45:34.620 --> 45:43.060]  We made up those blue stickers that were the exact same size as the Nynix, things on top of phones, which are no longer there.
[45:43.140 --> 45:44.340]  Now it's the ugly Bellatlantic thing.
[45:44.840 --> 45:52.900]  And they fit really nicely on there, and you couldn't tell right away until you were walking down the street, and maybe a block later, suddenly a light bulb would go on above your head, and you say, wait a minute, that said Beyond Hope.
[45:52.900 --> 45:53.780]  It didn't say Nynix.
[45:54.280 --> 45:56.460]  And you had other ones downtown that said different things.
[45:56.560 --> 45:57.520]  Other people did it as well.
[45:57.740 --> 45:57.880]  Right.
[45:57.880 --> 45:58.320]  Yeah.
[45:58.720 --> 46:03.240]  Now isn't that analogous to what generally goes on when someone hacks a web page?
[46:03.260 --> 46:03.360]  No.
[46:03.360 --> 46:04.140]  It's not analogous at all.
[46:04.200 --> 46:04.480]  You know what?
[46:04.500 --> 46:05.040]  It's worse.
[46:05.340 --> 46:06.900]  Because those things are stickers.
[46:07.060 --> 46:08.220]  They were sticking on top of it.
[46:08.380 --> 46:09.660]  You had to peel them off.
[46:09.860 --> 46:11.700]  You know, you're talking about some physical damage there.
[46:11.820 --> 46:12.340]  You really are.
[46:12.420 --> 46:13.360]  It's a physical thing.
[46:13.580 --> 46:14.460]  It's totally blocking.
[46:14.580 --> 46:15.780]  You can't just rename a file.
[46:15.960 --> 46:18.400]  The original is still there.
[46:18.440 --> 46:18.920]  It was still there.
[46:18.920 --> 46:21.220]  Just as it usually is in a hacked website.
[46:21.740 --> 46:21.960]  Yeah.
[46:22.040 --> 46:23.760]  It was still there, but you had to peel it off.
[46:23.940 --> 46:25.040]  It was more effort.
[46:25.120 --> 46:32.220]  What's the difference between a hacked website and a payphone that's on somebody's private property, okay?
[46:32.420 --> 46:38.480]  You really should have locked the gate to keep people from running across the lawn to the payphone and putting the sticker up.
[46:38.600 --> 46:41.800]  You really should have had higher security on your website.
[46:42.760 --> 46:47.500]  Yes, it's illegal, but nothing overall is seriously damaged.
[46:49.200 --> 46:50.760]  Yeah, that's definitely true.
[46:51.040 --> 46:57.240]  And yet, you hear somebody hacking a webpage, and it's like, let's play global thermonuclear war.
[46:57.940 --> 46:59.080]  I think it's absurd.
[46:59.540 --> 47:00.000]  Very absurd.
[47:00.320 --> 47:01.900]  What do you think, listeners?
[47:02.040 --> 47:03.840]  212-209-2900.
[47:03.920 --> 47:05.400]  Are we making any progress here?
[47:05.540 --> 47:06.820]  I still find this somewhat disturbing.
[47:10.420 --> 47:19.920]  The general argument of, well, you shouldn't have left the door open still does not sit well with me, because it comes down to a matter of common courtesy.
[47:21.560 --> 47:26.320]  You don't go wandering through your neighbor's homes and, you know, hey, you got a new photo on the mantel.
[47:26.320 --> 47:28.000]  But the House analogy just does not hold up.
[47:28.100 --> 47:30.220]  I'm sorry, the House analogy fails as well.
[47:30.980 --> 47:32.280]  I've got a better analogy.
[47:32.480 --> 47:33.240]  You have another one?
[47:33.360 --> 47:34.080]  I have another one.
[47:34.240 --> 47:34.760]  You have a better one?
[47:35.520 --> 47:49.940]  Being the Eminence Grease here, I don't know how many people remember, in 68 or so, Ertha Kipp, the singer, was at the White House performing for President Johnson and came out with an anti-Vietnam statement.
[47:51.600 --> 47:58.180]  Yeah, it's tacky, you know, doing it in the House of the President, but still, there's a purpose behind it.
[47:58.280 --> 48:03.540]  It's similar in many, many hacks of websites, that you're doing it for a political or similar reason.
[48:03.680 --> 48:05.400]  You're hitchhiking a ride onto something.
[48:05.780 --> 48:06.260]  Exactly.
[48:06.680 --> 48:13.480]  Which I wouldn't have a problem with, except the bulk of these hacks are generally just some person putting up A's for fours.
[48:13.560 --> 48:14.300]  Okay, but...
[48:14.300 --> 48:15.420]  I rule you, fear me.
[48:15.420 --> 48:16.200]  Well, yeah, but...
[48:16.200 --> 48:18.560]  That's going a step further and judging the merit of the message.
[48:18.680 --> 48:19.620]  I don't think that's even relevant.
[48:19.860 --> 48:27.100]  In those cases are minor vandalism, and in the other cases are political protest, in which nothing is seriously damaged.
[48:27.300 --> 48:39.300]  I mean, there's political protest in which, you know, you're the Brothers Berrigan, and you take a hammer and smash the warheads of missiles, and there's political protest where you dangle from a bridge like Greenpeace and put up a banner.
[48:39.700 --> 48:40.000]  Mm-hmm.
[48:40.300 --> 48:40.620]  Okay?
[48:40.740 --> 48:45.680]  And a web hack that is a political statement is the political protest type of thing.
[48:45.780 --> 48:47.460]  I have less of a problem with those.
[48:47.580 --> 48:55.180]  If you have a 14-year-old kid going and making a political statement on the White House webpage, I think that's something that you've got to look at with some admiration, you know?
[48:55.240 --> 48:59.820]  Someone actually, first of all, able to figure out how to do it, and second of all, actually caring enough to say something important.
[48:59.960 --> 49:01.460]  Well, is it really important?
[49:01.660 --> 49:02.120]  I don't know.
[49:02.180 --> 49:04.680]  We have to judge that based on the merit of the message.
[49:04.880 --> 49:05.540]  I have...
[49:05.540 --> 49:09.800]  I don't think they looked at the message and said, well, you know, you weren't really...
[49:09.800 --> 49:11.800]  you didn't have a valid political point here.
[49:11.900 --> 49:12.840]  I don't think they said that.
[49:12.900 --> 49:13.140]  No, but they did.
[49:13.140 --> 49:16.480]  I think they just said, you vandalized our site by logging into it,
[49:21.800 --> 49:33.780]  if it was a much more prominent and more captivating message to be given, I would think that you would have a lot more people backing you for the hack that you had done.
[49:34.000 --> 49:35.240]  For instance, the Chinese.
[49:35.800 --> 49:37.540]  Yeah, stop all the war sounds like a pretty...
[49:37.540 --> 49:40.000]  Stop all the war is okay, but I mean, what was the rest of it?
[49:40.040 --> 49:44.260]  It was links to 2600 and probably the L0pht and a couple of other...
[49:44.260 --> 49:45.540]  What's wrong with links to 2600 and the L0pht?
[49:45.760 --> 49:46.460]  But it wasn't the primary message.
[49:46.460 --> 49:47.660]  You can't get better links than that.
[49:47.780 --> 49:49.000]  It wasn't the primary message.
[49:49.400 --> 49:53.080]  The intent was not to make a political statement.
[49:53.200 --> 49:54.260]  The intent was to show off.
[49:54.260 --> 49:56.440]  Again, I don't think it's the message that's the issue here.
[49:56.500 --> 49:58.720]  I think it's just the fact that somebody dared to do this.
[49:58.860 --> 50:00.900]  And I think that's what they're so upset about.
[50:00.960 --> 50:02.300]  Let's hear what our listeners have to say.
[50:02.380 --> 50:03.680]  212-209-2900.
[50:04.160 --> 50:04.540]  Good evening.
[50:04.620 --> 50:05.000]  You're on the air.
[50:05.900 --> 50:06.560]  Yeah, hi.
[50:06.700 --> 50:09.180]  You said that the house analogy didn't make much sense.
[50:09.380 --> 50:10.940]  Could you just expand on that?
[50:11.040 --> 50:20.020]  Okay, well, the reason that doesn't make much sense is because hackers don't, as a rule, break into computers belonging to you on your desk in your bedroom.
[50:20.020 --> 50:24.620]  They break into things that are, say, university computers, corporate computers, governmental computers.
[50:24.780 --> 50:35.880]  It's the equivalent of walking into a university you don't pay for, going into a governmental building that you're not really supposed to be in, wandering into a tunnel that maybe, you know, is off limits.
[50:36.160 --> 50:40.240]  And if you want to take that a step further, maybe painting some graffiti while you're there.
[50:40.360 --> 50:41.520]  That is what we're talking about.
[50:41.620 --> 50:45.740]  Now, you wouldn't send somebody to prison, certainly not for a year in a month for that, would you?
[50:45.920 --> 50:52.040]  I think the issue here is that the punishment is far to excess.
[50:52.040 --> 50:55.860]  The punishments are ridiculous that are being levied here.
[50:56.220 --> 51:05.640]  But I think to really get some credibility, we have to come out with some sort of statement that says, you know, some things are off limits and some things are just not right.
[51:05.660 --> 51:12.040]  And I don't think that the analogy to, you know, walking into someone's house when the door is unlocked is out of the question.
[51:12.040 --> 51:16.480]  I think that's a very pertinent analogy.
[51:16.500 --> 51:17.700]  I think it's totally out of the question.
[51:17.900 --> 51:24.880]  The reason I believe it's out of the question is because, you know, when you say walk into your house, you're making it into a very personal thing.
[51:25.020 --> 51:28.340]  That's somebody, someone's going to stand up and say, I can't have intruders in my house.
[51:28.340 --> 51:31.860]  Okay, how about I break into the office and sit down at your desk and go through your desk drawers?
[51:32.720 --> 51:39.140]  If my office is in a building that's unlocked and all the doors are wide open, then, you know, I wouldn't be surprised seeing somebody doing that.
[51:39.140 --> 51:46.180]  The virtual world is a place where you can't, you know, there's not that many differences between the virtual world and the physical world.
[51:46.260 --> 51:59.140]  And I think there are things that are going on in the virtual world that, you know, you know, just because things are bits or things are added doesn't mean that there's, you know, not a crime or not something wrong going on.
[51:59.200 --> 51:59.380]  Okay, fine.
[51:59.380 --> 52:07.180]  And I think if you concentrate on that, you're blowing over the issue that the punishments are absurd that they're being levied against these people.
[52:07.240 --> 52:10.300]  I think you have to separate out the two so that people take them a little bit more seriously.
[52:10.520 --> 52:18.600]  If we do focus on them as real-world analogies, though, as you say, the punishment does not fit the crime at all.
[52:18.760 --> 52:24.720]  And that's, I think, what the real injustice here, even if it is breaking into somebody's house, the punishment would not be anything like this.
[52:24.800 --> 52:31.060]  I don't think that's a valid comparison, but for some reason the punishment on a computer system is ten times worse.
[52:31.280 --> 52:45.540]  And I think we should also focus on the fact that when these people are accused or convicted of crimes and then there's legislation that you can't use a computer for three years after you get out of jail, that's like saying you can't use a telephone or you can't drive your car.
[52:45.620 --> 52:52.180]  I think we really have to focus on the fact that the punishments are outrageous and the terms that are put on people after they come out.
[52:52.820 --> 52:57.000]  You know, if unfortunately they get incarcerated or something or just plain absurd.
[52:57.280 --> 53:01.620]  The other thing I wanted to say was you mentioned that you were getting some DSL service.
[53:02.040 --> 53:02.280]  Yeah.
[53:02.400 --> 53:10.600]  And I know you did a whole thing on ISDN which I really enjoyed about a couple years back when you were finally getting that but I don't really hear much about the trials and tribulations of DSL.
[53:10.740 --> 53:12.220]  If you guys can do some more on that I'd appreciate it.
[53:12.220 --> 53:15.680]  Okay, we'll keep people updated as the trials and tribulations continue.
[53:15.800 --> 53:18.620]  We do want to move on with the phones though because we have very little time left.
[53:18.740 --> 53:21.020]  Just in summary, my point, he's absolutely right.
[53:21.200 --> 53:31.580]  We're stuck trying to make analogies between the virtual world which we're just starting to move into and having to tie it back to the real thing so that the courts can manage to figure out what's going on.
[53:31.720 --> 53:38.740]  The basic point I'm trying to make is you're not supposed to be doing this kind of thing but if you're going to I can understand it but at least make it worthwhile.
[53:42.900 --> 53:47.800]  Yes, my name is Al and I'm in Queens and I have one big problem with my telephone.
[53:48.200 --> 53:51.620]  Someone is calling my number and I cannot get their number.
[53:51.760 --> 53:53.600]  All I get is out of area.
[53:54.200 --> 54:03.900]  Okay, what that means is that they're either calling from a PBX that doesn't send caller ID information out or they're calling from indeed out of the area.
[54:04.980 --> 54:13.600]  If it's an annoyance call you can always call the annoyance call bureau of the phone company and give them the exact time and date of the phone call and they will put a stop to it at that point.
[54:13.620 --> 54:17.400]  We can go into this in more detail in future shows but let's try to stay on the topic here.
[54:17.460 --> 54:18.200]  Good evening, you're on the air.
[54:19.420 --> 54:24.400]  Yeah, I totally agree with you about the fact that people don't have their systems secure.
[54:24.480 --> 54:31.760]  In other words, you're talking about computers that are not secure and people get into them and then they get blamed for I guess electronic trespassing.
[54:32.060 --> 54:51.880]  For example, you can make if you go to a hotel and you use the phone and you just instead of dialing direct you just have the operator got all the numbers for you and then you just make a free phone call but the hotel has to pay for it and I've had a case where the hotel has sent me a bill at my home address saying,
[54:52.020 --> 54:53.120]  hey, you didn't pay for your phone call.
[54:53.300 --> 54:59.660]  Well, that's like, you know, saying, hey, hotel, and you should have identified your phone as a hotel phone.
[54:59.960 --> 55:00.400]  Okay.
[55:00.660 --> 55:04.260]  Now, when you get into the hotel phone things, I know it's time for us to move on to the next call here.
[55:04.580 --> 55:05.140]  Good evening.
[55:05.220 --> 55:05.680]  You're on the air.
[55:06.100 --> 55:07.300]  Yes, good evening.
[55:07.700 --> 55:10.880]  I wanted to tell you that I hacked into WBAI.
[55:11.540 --> 55:17.220]  You know, Fred's message when you begin says 209-2800 or 2900.
[55:17.700 --> 55:20.640]  It's not O, it's you talk to Bell Atlantic.
[55:20.640 --> 55:22.660]  Oh, please, what is with these people?
[55:22.760 --> 55:25.780]  They always fall onto the same thing over and over again.
[55:25.840 --> 55:26.160]  0-9.
[55:26.580 --> 55:30.060]  I mean, we had the same call maybe six months ago, the 0-9 controversy.
[55:30.200 --> 55:31.920]  Is that the best we can do in the 1990s?
[55:32.120 --> 55:33.120]  Good evening, you're on the air.
[55:33.960 --> 55:35.280]  Yeah, and also...
[55:35.280 --> 55:39.300]  Listen, stop calling the station or we're going to send people out to hurt you.
[55:39.400 --> 55:40.280]  Good evening, you're on the air.
[55:42.240 --> 55:42.560]  Hello?
[55:43.360 --> 55:44.560]  Hello, is this...
[55:45.020 --> 55:46.220]  WBAI, yes, and you're off the hook.
[55:46.320 --> 55:46.940]  I mean, you're on the air.
[55:49.300 --> 56:09.580]  Well, I understand that this is like a totally new area for laws to be made and all that, so I guess what they're trying to do is, you know, they're writing these laws in stone right now, and they're saying, if you do this, this is what's going to happen because in the future it's going to be a very sensitive area with everyone getting online,
[56:09.840 --> 56:11.180]  the free computers and all.
[56:11.760 --> 56:20.100]  They're just trying to set an example now, and these guys are being made examples of for the future generations who plan on hacking into computers.
[56:20.680 --> 56:21.920]  Well, thanks for the call.
[56:22.000 --> 56:24.000]  The thing is, though, it's not a new thing.
[56:24.240 --> 56:25.620]  This has been going on for quite a while.
[56:25.740 --> 56:28.440]  We've been following cases like this for ages.
[56:28.580 --> 56:40.800]  In fact, you know, you saw all the fuss we made back in the early 90s when Fiber went to jail for a year and a day, and the things that he was charged with were actually far more menacing than this.
[56:40.840 --> 56:44.060]  We were talking about, you know, all kinds of things like giving information
[56:49.100 --> 56:53.300]  this is talking about copying a file, a single file, changing one web page.
[56:53.480 --> 57:00.260]  We were talking about criminal conspiracy and wiretapping people and playing with feds and, you know, all kinds of other things.
[57:00.460 --> 57:01.000]  Kevin, too.
[57:01.200 --> 57:08.220]  Kevin has been accused of things that are worse than this, even though I think 99% of them aren't even true.
[57:08.500 --> 57:13.200]  The point is they're sentencing people for virtually nothing these days.
[57:13.800 --> 57:17.440]  And I don't think that's something that's going to go away.
[57:17.720 --> 57:19.520]  These punishments do not fit the crime.
[57:19.680 --> 57:20.520]  No, not at all.
[57:20.760 --> 57:22.000]  They're incredibly expensive.
[57:22.000 --> 57:24.860]  What do you think would be a good punishment for something like this?
[57:25.060 --> 57:25.960]  Hacking a web page?
[57:26.360 --> 57:27.780]  Maybe some community service.
[57:28.180 --> 57:34.600]  At the very least, the person who manages to do the hack tells the administrator, this is how I did it.
[57:34.700 --> 57:35.720]  Yeah, and I think they did that.
[57:35.980 --> 57:37.640]  I'm pretty sure most times that's what happened.
[57:38.000 --> 57:40.060]  It's kind of a general thing that is done.
[57:41.080 --> 57:42.300]  It's common courtesy.
[57:43.020 --> 57:44.240]  Bernie, closing comments from you.
[57:45.300 --> 57:49.480]  I think the administrators need to be held responsible too, and there's got to be some kind of accountability.
[57:50.920 --> 57:51.460]  I agree.
[57:52.260 --> 57:59.800]  All right, we'll be following this case and keeping people updated on it, but it really is a tragic situation and one that I'm sure will be repeated many, many times.
[58:00.120 --> 58:04.740]  How the hacking community responds to this and what happens in the future is anybody's guess.
[58:05.440 --> 58:07.200]  But you'll hear about it here on off the hook.
[58:08.000 --> 58:09.560]  Isaac, you have something upcoming?
[58:09.920 --> 58:16.260]  Yeah, tonight, Art Bell has a gentleman coming on by the name of Aaron Fieldman.
[58:16.480 --> 58:19.980]  He works with, I believe they're called Fortress Tech now.
[58:20.080 --> 58:21.720]  It used to be DSN Technologies.
[58:21.720 --> 58:23.100]  They make the Net Fortress thing.
[58:23.520 --> 58:25.280]  Anyway, he's going to be on talking about hackers.
[58:25.960 --> 58:26.680]  Oh, that should be fun.
[58:26.940 --> 58:28.320]  Yeah, that's going to be real fun.
[58:28.420 --> 58:29.520]  Does he know anything about what he's talking about?
[58:29.520 --> 58:30.460]  I have no idea.
[58:30.640 --> 58:32.620]  I have a feeling that he's not going to.
[58:32.620 --> 58:38.520]  If you're here in the city, it's 770 WABC from 1am to 5am.
[58:38.660 --> 58:39.440]  Oh, the Nazi station.
[58:39.560 --> 58:40.080]  Yeah, okay, cool.
[58:40.300 --> 58:42.660]  Hey, let's not go there.
[58:42.740 --> 58:43.820]  They say it in their promos.
[58:43.960 --> 58:44.360]  All right.
[58:44.520 --> 58:48.840]  We'll be back again next week with another fun-filled edition of Off the Hook.
[58:48.940 --> 58:53.340]  Until then, Emmanuel Goldstein for Isaac and Bernie, have yourselves a good night.
[58:53.800 --> 58:54.520]  And happy Thanksgiving.
[58:54.520 --> 58:55.900]  Yeah, that's it.
[59:00.700 --> 59:11.800]  The telephone keeps ringing So I ripped it off the wall I cut myself while shaving Now I can't make a call But
[59:15.670 --> 59:22.610]  they would But the best expect the worst I hope that's understood But they let me go