[00:00.000 --> 00:07.260]  Many African countries, the Middle East and indigenous areas of India also have high sickle cell rate.
[00:07.420 --> 00:16.320]  But for India, little funding for research and education about the disease has been the case due to these deaths being labelled as natural causes.
[00:16.860 --> 00:27.520]  Although the Indian government has showed little interest, the community leaders say they will exert more pressure on the government for counselling and research to gain control over disease.
[00:28.240 --> 00:33.500]  From Chota Udaypur in central India, Ben Wellex for Free Speech Radio News.
[00:33.800 --> 00:35.700]  And that's it for Free Speech Radio News for tonight.
[00:35.840 --> 00:37.260]  It's time now for Off the Hook.
[01:01.300 --> 01:04.060]  I hope that's understood, but did it move?
[01:34.530 --> 01:35.470]  And good evening to everybody.
[01:35.670 --> 01:41.010]  The program is Off the Hook, back after a two-week absence, back after an absence even longer than that.
[01:41.670 --> 01:44.530]  We're back for the indefinite future, it looks like, finally.
[01:45.610 --> 01:54.310]  And actually, it's kind of a good thing because we've all been frenzied preparing for this upcoming conference of ours July 9th through 11th here in New York City.
[01:55.150 --> 01:59.770]  The Fifth Hope Conference is coming your way like a speeding train.
[02:00.550 --> 02:05.070]  And we just put up the speaker list with all the panels that are scheduled.
[02:05.530 --> 02:07.230]  About 70 of them, if you can believe that.
[02:08.090 --> 02:10.510]  So we're a bit frenzied as far as that goes.
[02:10.730 --> 02:17.910]  We used the time well, and now we just have to make sure people show up to this thing and that it all goes off without a hitch.
[02:18.550 --> 02:21.350]  Joining us tonight in the studio is Red Hacked.
[02:21.450 --> 02:21.710]  Hey.
[02:21.910 --> 02:22.250]  Jim.
[02:22.530 --> 02:22.750]  Hello.
[02:23.030 --> 02:23.450]  And Mish.
[02:23.590 --> 02:23.710]  Hey.
[02:24.070 --> 02:25.550]  And Bernie joins us on the phone.
[02:26.290 --> 02:26.730]  Hello.
[02:26.990 --> 02:27.330]  How you doing?
[02:28.410 --> 02:29.810]  Frenzied like yourself, Emmanuel.
[02:29.990 --> 02:30.710]  Isn't it something, though?
[02:30.730 --> 02:32.350]  I mean, we do this every couple of years.
[02:32.990 --> 02:37.150]  Yeah, I think we get better at it every time, but it's still, the frenziness part never goes away.
[02:37.150 --> 02:39.070]  We're always running around like crazy people.
[02:39.190 --> 02:42.810]  And I know we'll be doing that up until the day of the conference and probably throughout.
[02:43.810 --> 02:44.930]  It's very exciting.
[02:45.330 --> 02:46.690]  Wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
[02:47.310 --> 02:48.030]  Nothing like it.
[02:48.310 --> 02:48.490]  Yeah.
[02:48.710 --> 02:52.450]  Well, we're going to go over some of the talks and presentations that are scheduled.
[02:52.750 --> 02:53.970]  We'll do that in a little bit.
[02:54.550 --> 02:59.330]  But first, I think we need to update things news-wise, what's been going on in the world.
[02:59.410 --> 03:04.130]  Now, there's a story involving the Supreme Court that people were talking about before the show.
[03:04.950 --> 03:06.470]  Who wants to take this one?
[03:06.570 --> 03:07.090]  I'll take this one.
[03:07.150 --> 03:07.690]  All right, Jim, go ahead.
[03:07.710 --> 03:09.910]  This is something we mentioned back in October.
[03:09.910 --> 03:17.610]  The website, though not updated for this, is www.hibbel.com.
[03:18.230 --> 03:22.650]  Essentially, a guy from Nevada was stopped by police.
[03:22.890 --> 03:26.530]  There was suspected spousal abuse in a pickup truck.
[03:26.530 --> 03:31.330]  When the cops got there, nothing was going on, and they asked him to identify himself.
[03:31.330 --> 03:34.250]  He refused because there was nothing going on.
[03:35.430 --> 03:43.250]  Apparently, in Nevada and 22 other states, or 22 states total, I'm not sure, there's a law that says if a cop asks you, you have to identify yourself.
[03:43.490 --> 03:44.370]  Not if it's...
[03:44.370 --> 03:47.590]  No caveat that it's investigating a crime.
[03:47.770 --> 03:52.550]  No caveat that it's if you're a witness, if you're near a crime, if you match the description of the suspect.
[03:52.850 --> 03:55.670]  Just if a policeman asks, you have to identify yourself.
[03:56.130 --> 04:01.910]  Well, he refused, and he was found guilty in Nevada, and he appealed this all the way up, and the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4.
[04:02.350 --> 04:02.790]  Yeah.
[04:03.270 --> 04:05.910]  If a cop stops you, you do have to identify yourself.
[04:06.370 --> 04:08.730]  Well, and if you don't...
[04:08.730 --> 04:12.670]  And if you don't, whatever the law pertains, applies.
[04:12.890 --> 04:14.330]  First of all, what was he convicted of in Nevada?
[04:14.730 --> 04:15.970]  Not identifying himself.
[04:16.170 --> 04:17.490]  Is that a crime in Nevada?
[04:17.570 --> 04:18.350]  That's a crime in Nevada.
[04:18.350 --> 04:18.970]  Already a crime, yeah.
[04:19.370 --> 04:19.670]  All right.
[04:19.770 --> 04:24.570]  Now, what if you identify yourself, but you identify yourself as somebody that you actually are not?
[04:25.150 --> 04:29.090]  I would think that you're not really identifying yourself, so therefore that would be a crime.
[04:29.270 --> 04:30.130]  Well, the other thing is...
[04:30.130 --> 04:41.070]  In fact, misidentifying or giving any false information to a law enforcement officer is a crime in virtually every state and commonwealth, and it's illegal federally as well.
[04:41.150 --> 04:42.370]  If you say anything...
[04:42.370 --> 04:43.410]  That's how they got Martha Stewart.
[04:43.810 --> 04:44.370]  Not on...
[04:44.370 --> 04:44.630]  No.
[04:45.530 --> 04:46.170]  Wait a minute.
[04:46.350 --> 04:51.310]  Martha Stewart's case, the federal law, is such that you can't lie to a federal investigator.
[04:51.310 --> 04:56.350]  In fact, they made great hay during that case that in most states, the state law is not such.
[04:56.790 --> 04:58.470]  You can lie to the cops.
[04:58.730 --> 05:00.210]  Well, you cannot lie to the cops.
[05:00.210 --> 05:04.730]  If she had said her name was Phyllis Diller, she would have lied to federal law enforcement officers.
[05:04.850 --> 05:06.670]  Federal law and cops are not the same thing.
[05:06.910 --> 05:12.250]  But I'm saying it's a similar law in the federal level and on state level.
[05:12.550 --> 05:20.930]  It's a law in every state I know of to give any false information to a local or state law enforcement officer.
[05:21.950 --> 05:30.170]  If you misidentify yourself, that in and of itself is a crime, as well as just shutting your mouth and not saying anything about your identity, that's a crime.
[05:31.070 --> 05:32.750]  And you can be jailed in both offenses.
[05:34.850 --> 05:37.910]  Now, does this mean that you are required to carry any kind of ID?
[05:38.270 --> 05:40.810]  I mean, what if you don't have any ID and you say who you are?
[05:41.010 --> 05:42.250]  I mean, how do they even know you're telling the truth?
[05:42.250 --> 05:48.270]  The ruling is not particularly certain on that, on actually carrying the ID.
[05:49.850 --> 05:56.550]  It just addresses the constitutionality of a state law that requires people to identify themselves verbally.
[05:57.010 --> 05:57.790]  It does not...
[05:57.790 --> 05:58.470]  It does not...
[05:58.470 --> 06:05.850]  This Supreme Court ruling does not address whether states can pass laws that say you have to carry paper ID with you.
[06:08.170 --> 06:08.870]  I don't know.
[06:08.950 --> 06:10.170]  The one question...
[06:10.170 --> 06:15.310]  One thing that I saw about this was there was one case where you didn't have to identify yourself.
[06:15.950 --> 06:17.610]  Like, in the case of...
[06:17.610 --> 06:17.730]  What?
[06:17.790 --> 06:19.570]  If it'll incriminate you or something?
[06:19.570 --> 06:25.030]  Yeah, supposedly the Supreme Court says that if naming yourself incriminates you, you don't have to do that.
[06:25.130 --> 06:35.070]  But at that point, with a law like this on the books, and if the cops say, you know, under the law, you have to identify yourself, if you say, no, I'm not going to, it's like, well, let's run this guy in.
[06:35.190 --> 06:36.510]  Obviously, he's hiding something.
[06:37.050 --> 06:37.670]  It's one of...
[06:37.670 --> 06:43.470]  The dissenting opinion by the Supreme Court was that you could...
[06:43.470 --> 06:51.330]  It's just the people that lost in the Supreme Court said that the Fourth and Fifth Amendment applied here, and you didn't have to tell the police officer your name or anything else for that matter.
[06:51.450 --> 06:57.350]  But they lost, and the majority won, and the Fourth and Fifth Amendment do not apply in these state laws.
[06:57.950 --> 07:00.510]  That's interesting, too, if you look at the vote, what was it, 5-4?
[07:00.590 --> 07:01.050]  5-4.
[07:01.230 --> 07:05.650]  I mean, these Reagan appointees, they really are changing things quite a bit.
[07:06.190 --> 07:06.610]  And...
[07:06.610 --> 07:07.570]  Well, the court...
[07:07.570 --> 07:11.110]  These narrow margins tell you just how contentious the issue is.
[07:11.310 --> 07:17.270]  The court also gave the impression that this really wasn't the best case to test this sort of law.
[07:17.630 --> 07:25.530]  And, in fact, I've been thinking, because I would be a perfect test case if we could find a constitutional lawyer out there to design the incident.
[07:25.710 --> 07:26.710]  I'm on probation.
[07:26.970 --> 07:28.130]  Can't leave the city of New York.
[07:28.970 --> 07:36.550]  There should be some situation where I would be asked for ID in a case where I would not be in trouble.
[07:36.570 --> 07:41.030]  In other words, I don't want to go and, like, walk five steps outside of Queens into NASA,
[07:45.570 --> 07:46.250]  says, what's your name?
[07:46.530 --> 07:51.170]  We have problems even without me giving the name because I've obviously, you know, done something there.
[07:51.290 --> 07:59.390]  But there should be a case where a cop would reasonably ask my name and my giving it would put me in probation violation by being outside the city limits.
[07:59.750 --> 08:06.510]  Now, if somebody can design that, I'm willing to be the test case if you'll give me free legal representation.
[08:06.930 --> 08:08.830]  What's the penalty for leaving New York?
[08:08.890 --> 08:11.090]  I would get 90 days in jail, probably, but anyway.
[08:12.190 --> 08:12.530]  Interesting.
[08:13.650 --> 08:14.610]  Okay, well, that's...
[08:14.610 --> 08:16.490]  Actually, you're resentenced is what the deal is.
[08:16.570 --> 08:17.810]  Oh, you know how to cheer me up.
[08:20.430 --> 08:21.690]  All right, well, let's see.
[08:22.090 --> 08:23.130]  Moving on to more news.
[08:23.310 --> 08:31.650]  British Telecom has taken the unprecedented step of blocking all illegal child pornography websites in a crackdown on abuse online.
[08:32.210 --> 08:40.990]  The decision by Britain's largest high-speed internet provider will lead to the first mass censorship of the web attempted in a Western democracy.
[08:41.250 --> 08:43.550]  I'm not quite sure how they're going to pull this off.
[08:43.850 --> 08:45.470]  they'd have to find all the sites first.
[08:45.830 --> 08:46.910]  They have to track them down.
[08:47.270 --> 08:47.730]  Good luck.
[08:47.970 --> 08:54.910]  And then they have to actually physically block every single one of them and keep updated when they change their names and things like that.
[08:55.050 --> 09:00.770]  But also they have to define what is child pornography and, you know, what sites have...
[09:00.770 --> 09:03.450]  Pornography involving minors with anyone under 18?
[09:03.730 --> 09:06.650]  Yeah, but, you know, that's been stretched to...
[09:06.650 --> 09:08.190]  Or anyone who looks like they're under 18.
[09:08.210 --> 09:10.250]  Anyone who looks like they're under 18 or, you know...
[09:10.250 --> 09:12.370]  Or a drawing of someone that looks like they're under 18.
[09:12.390 --> 09:14.090]  ...or stories with somebody, you know, and there's all kinds of things.
[09:14.230 --> 09:21.730]  It's a stepping stone to blocking things based on political affiliation, based on links to terrorism, based on all kinds of controversial things.
[09:21.730 --> 09:25.730]  It's never been attempted before in a Western-style democracy.
[09:25.930 --> 09:26.330]  And I'm curious.
[09:26.470 --> 09:26.890]  It's clear...
[09:26.890 --> 09:28.350]  It's been going on in China forever.
[09:28.630 --> 09:29.810]  Yeah, that's not a Western-style democracy.
[09:29.810 --> 09:30.490]  Yeah, I know, I know.
[09:31.090 --> 09:32.370]  It's clear, by the way...
[09:32.370 --> 09:32.670]  I'm here.
[09:32.930 --> 09:34.710]  No thanks to the MTA, but I am here.
[09:35.570 --> 09:46.330]  It's clear that the proper entity to decide, of course, what is and is not child pornography is not the judicial system, but British Telecom.
[09:47.150 --> 09:47.550]  Yeah.
[09:48.890 --> 09:55.890]  Well, I'm happy that they're the ones doing this because, you know, if it was the British government doing it, I guess it would be a bit more ominous.
[09:56.030 --> 09:58.750]  Because what happens if somebody tries to go to an address that's blocked?
[09:59.030 --> 10:00.690]  Does their name get reported?
[10:00.850 --> 10:03.570]  Does their, you know, IP get reported?
[10:03.850 --> 10:05.110]  What exactly happens here?
[10:05.810 --> 10:07.890]  There's all kinds of questions that are raised by this.
[10:07.990 --> 10:13.970]  And, you know, the reason they go after child pornography and terrorism first is because anybody who questions this is seen as defending those two things.
[10:13.990 --> 10:18.730]  And we have to look at the bigger picture and see, how this could be used in everyday society.
[10:18.950 --> 10:26.410]  Well, in terms of finding the sites anywhere, I think there are actually organizations that do this and they track these sites down and try to shut them down.
[10:26.730 --> 10:27.530]  Of course, you know...
[10:27.530 --> 10:29.590]  How do they advertise for new people to work for them?
[10:29.650 --> 10:30.110]  I'm just curious.
[10:30.290 --> 10:30.490]  Yeah.
[10:30.690 --> 10:34.830]  You know, it makes me wonder about the people who actually work there, you know, maybe.
[10:36.110 --> 10:36.510]  But...
[10:36.510 --> 10:40.590]  I actually know somebody who knows someone else that works in customs, U.S.
[10:40.670 --> 10:40.970]  customs.
[10:41.870 --> 10:44.430]  And his job is to look for child pornography.
[10:45.210 --> 10:49.990]  And my friend tells me, this guy is an absolute pervert and that's why he picked that job.
[10:51.230 --> 10:53.750]  Well, that's something to keep an eye on and see if that gets extended.
[10:53.830 --> 10:54.630]  I suspect it will.
[10:54.750 --> 11:05.550]  I suspect they'll say, well, this works so well, let's also include all hacking-related sites and it'll be like, you know, easy everything where you can't even access any site having anything to do with hacking except it'll be a whole country.
[11:06.750 --> 11:11.210]  Because it could be potentially used for things they don't like.
[11:11.390 --> 11:12.210]  Yeah, exactly.
[11:12.530 --> 11:18.850]  And once you get your foot in that door, you kind of, you subvert the whole meaning of what the internet was originally about.
[11:19.130 --> 11:26.410]  And especially once you establish the infrastructure to accomplish this, then it's not that hard to get, you know, to expand that.
[11:26.570 --> 11:27.350]  No, absolutely not.
[11:27.390 --> 11:35.330]  But I mean, I feel like anything like this trying to block something, especially in such a wide medium as the internet is...
[11:35.330 --> 11:36.590]  I mean, it's like the war on drugs.
[11:36.770 --> 11:37.650]  It's near impossible.
[11:37.810 --> 11:38.890]  There's always ways around it.
[11:38.970 --> 11:39.570]  You know, there's encryption.
[11:39.770 --> 11:42.550]  There's all sorts of things that you could do to get around this and subvert it.
[11:43.610 --> 11:45.070]  It's just a matter of people setting it up.
[11:46.130 --> 11:54.390]  Now, on this subject, police are now planning to patrol internet chat rooms as part of a multinational crackdown on pedophile rings.
[11:54.570 --> 11:56.130]  It always has to do with pedophiles.
[11:56.170 --> 11:57.370]  That's how they get their foot in the door.
[11:58.170 --> 12:04.090]  Now, they're going to seize the finances of website operators who peddle child pornography and freeze the credit cards of their customers.
[12:04.390 --> 12:04.930]  Fine, whatever.
[12:05.270 --> 12:12.350]  But they're also going to be wandering all over the place on all kinds of internet chat rooms looking for any suspicious activity.
[12:12.470 --> 12:14.530]  Now, do you honestly think they're going to stop there?
[12:15.010 --> 12:21.890]  You know, if they see people talking about hacking into a computer system or something like that, oh, of course, they're going to expand that.
[12:22.030 --> 12:29.810]  Or if they see some kind of maybe subversiveness of any sort, plans for a demonstration against a political party that happens to be in town.
[12:30.050 --> 12:35.690]  Well, I mean, they caught Mafia Boy, who was responsible for taking down like eBay and all that, through IRC.
[12:35.870 --> 12:42.510]  He was bragging on internet relay chat, and they happened to have people who had been sitting in those channels for months see this.
[12:42.510 --> 12:48.470]  in this looking in chat rooms for people talking about child pornography, we're addressing speech here.
[12:48.570 --> 12:50.010]  This is purely speech.
[12:50.170 --> 12:51.970]  And what if it's just two people role-playing?
[12:52.150 --> 12:57.670]  If that was how they got their jollies is just to role-play as a youngster and an older person.
[12:58.290 --> 12:59.290]  This is speech.
[12:59.470 --> 13:00.390]  It should be protected.
[13:00.930 --> 13:02.370]  And they're going after it.
[13:02.470 --> 13:03.830]  I saw a great cartoon the other day.
[13:03.870 --> 13:06.650]  I forget where it was, but basically this person was incensed.
[13:07.150 --> 13:13.550]  It's absolutely repulsive and disgusting how I'm always being hit upon on the internet whenever I pretend to be an 11-year-old girl.
[13:16.690 --> 13:18.850]  So that's the internet for you right there.
[13:18.910 --> 13:27.370]  Now, Bernie, you forwarded a story to us shortly before Showtime about infiltration of various activist groups.
[13:28.010 --> 13:29.470]  You want to tell us something about that?
[13:29.610 --> 13:33.710]  Basically, somebody discovered that a cop had been coming to their meetings?
[13:34.030 --> 13:34.430]  Yes.
[13:34.550 --> 13:37.470]  Actually, I don't have it in front of me, but I can tell you the gist of the story.
[13:37.470 --> 13:41.350]  I don't know exactly where it happened, but there was an activist group.
[13:41.350 --> 13:47.430]  It was an anti-war group that was engaged in protesting the war on Iraq.
[13:49.230 --> 13:49.710]  Nothing...
[13:49.710 --> 13:59.010]  They weren't being charged with any crimes and so forth, but they had a new member who was sitting in meetings and taking notes and sort of the quiet guy in the back of the room.
[13:59.010 --> 14:00.130]  And they had not thought of it.
[14:00.250 --> 14:02.010]  They just thought it was just, you know, that's his personality.
[14:02.310 --> 14:15.250]  Well, one day, they saw a newspaper story that said a police officer, a motorcycle or motorcycle riding police officer, was killed riding his motorcycle by hitting...
[14:15.250 --> 14:21.250]  He got hit by a car and there was this picture there and it was this new volunteer, this new person who was showing up at their meetings for the past several months.
[14:21.390 --> 14:23.530]  And they're like, look at this face.
[14:23.670 --> 14:24.790]  Do you recognize this face?
[14:24.970 --> 14:28.330]  It's not the name that we were told that this guy said he was.
[14:28.470 --> 14:32.050]  It turns out he was an undercover police officer who was sitting in.
[14:32.050 --> 14:34.610]  This was not a state or federal.
[14:34.750 --> 14:35.990]  This was a local police officer.
[14:36.090 --> 14:37.350]  I don't know the jurisdiction.
[14:37.650 --> 14:49.430]  Who was sitting in on his annual war meetings apparently investigating and taking notes very much like what happened in Philadelphia about four years ago before the RNC case.
[14:50.170 --> 14:53.590]  And that's how this guy's cover was blown.
[14:53.690 --> 14:54.510]  He got himself killed.
[14:54.510 --> 15:24.550]  But, you know, in Philadelphia four years ago state police officers Pennsylvania state police officers posed as Carpenter Union members who were interested in protesting the Republican National Party and they actually effected arrests that proved to be unconstitutional and proved to be illegal and our own layout artist layout person Shapeshifter was one of the victims of that Actually,
[15:24.670 --> 15:32.270]  Bernie, it went beyond that because they basically got around the state law prohibiting such things by importing policemen from Washington, D.C.
[15:32.330 --> 15:33.350]  to do their dirty work.
[15:33.510 --> 15:34.590]  Well, it wasn't a state law.
[15:34.710 --> 15:35.690]  It was a city ordinance.
[15:35.870 --> 15:36.550]  Was it a city ordinance?
[15:36.790 --> 15:36.910]  Okay.
[15:36.930 --> 15:47.730]  This went in effect after the whole MOVE thing where a Philadelphia police officer bombed the community and killed something like 15 or 20 people against the MOVE activist group.
[15:47.730 --> 15:57.510]  And after that it was a city ordinance was quickly passed saying that Philadelphia police officers could not surveil political groups.
[15:57.910 --> 16:09.910]  And so the Philadelphia police just went around the law and got out of the area police officers both Pennsylvania state police officers and police officers from Washington, D.C.
[16:10.150 --> 16:11.830]  to come up and sit in their place.
[16:12.550 --> 16:16.230]  So if there's ever a case of police subverting the law there you go.
[16:16.450 --> 16:16.590]  Yeah.
[16:16.790 --> 16:20.670]  And the thing that surprises me here is this took place in Fresno.
[16:20.850 --> 16:23.250]  I don't know why they're surprised by this.
[16:23.350 --> 16:26.290]  This kind of thing has been going on for decades in the hacker community.
[16:26.290 --> 16:33.550]  You have to always assume people are federal agents or cops or something like that in meetings or in gatherings of any sort.
[16:33.750 --> 16:35.290]  And the same thing is true of activist groups.
[16:35.410 --> 16:36.570]  This has always been happening.
[16:36.870 --> 16:40.830]  And yeah, it's not right but I just don't see how you can be surprised by it.
[16:40.910 --> 16:48.930]  In fact, Bernie, Bernie, didn't you give out IDs to feds at H2K specifically for them if you were able to convince them to reveal their identity?
[16:49.150 --> 16:50.630]  Oh, the hot pink IDs.
[16:50.770 --> 16:54.830]  Yes, there were a handful of hot pink IDs that were given to law enforcement officers.
[16:54.970 --> 17:10.030]  But what's interesting is the Patriot Act is what made it legal for law enforcement officers to surveil political groups without probable cause to believe a crime was being planned or in progress.
[17:10.290 --> 17:12.290]  And that's the crucial difference here.
[17:12.550 --> 17:24.210]  Now it is legal for police officers on a local, state or federal officer local, state or federal level to surveil any group they feel like without any probable cause whatsoever.
[17:24.530 --> 17:26.990]  And that's what's really dangerous and scary in my opinion.
[17:27.210 --> 17:36.670]  I'm really unclear as to what exactly is new here as I'm sure BAI listeners know the New York police have been doing this the famous red squads in the 60s.
[17:37.010 --> 17:41.990]  There was a declaration that said all right we're going to stop for a little while.
[17:42.570 --> 17:51.530]  Recently in the name of fighting terrorism this declaration they just kind of changed their mind and said all right we're going to start surveilling groups that aren't breaking the law again.
[17:52.470 --> 17:55.590]  This really I'm unclear as to what's new.
[17:57.850 --> 17:58.990]  I think we're all unclear.
[17:59.230 --> 18:05.250]  Well they have more legal foundation to do this with impunity now than they had before.
[18:05.470 --> 18:06.950]  They've always done it with impunity.
[18:07.230 --> 18:13.310]  Well they have but now it's codified in law that they are free to do this.
[18:13.470 --> 18:35.210]  Well I think in this particular case it might just be the way they found out by seeing the guy's picture in his obituary that he was actually a plant because I think the Fresno Sheriff's Department is refusing comment so you know this is the kind of thing that they do and this is the kind of thing you have to expect and of course with RNC coming here in August and September you know that kind of
[18:35.210 --> 18:36.810]  thing is going to be happening a whole lot.
[18:37.110 --> 18:38.590]  Not is going to be, is happening.
[18:38.670 --> 18:41.810]  Yeah it's already happening of course there's probably infiltrators in this very room.
[18:44.810 --> 18:45.890]  I'm always suspicious.
[18:46.270 --> 18:47.350]  I don't even trust myself.
[18:48.490 --> 18:48.650]  Okay.
[18:48.790 --> 18:50.410]  Where do you think I was the first 10 minutes?
[18:50.450 --> 18:52.030]  Yeah you know we're going to talk about that later.
[18:52.990 --> 18:57.230]  All right so we're talking about cyber cops in chat rooms and infiltration.
[18:57.350 --> 18:57.850]  How about this?
[18:58.190 --> 19:08.870]  Beijing, according to the Taipei Times, Beijing is waging cyber war against the headquarters of the Democratic Progressive Party of Taiwan.
[19:09.430 --> 19:30.190]  An army of hackers based in China this is how the story reads has broken into the DPP databases stealing classified information such as President Chan Shui Wang's personal personal itinerary this is the first time we have found that the DPP headquarters computer systems were breached by Chinese hackers the official said.
[19:30.290 --> 19:35.830]  It's amazing how hackers have been militarized and used as tools of governments.
[19:35.930 --> 19:37.110]  An electronic water gate.
[19:37.730 --> 19:41.170]  I wonder you know we'll never find out but I wonder just how exactly they did it.
[19:41.230 --> 19:46.650]  Was it just a website that they went to that had a list of all this information you know it could be anything.
[19:46.890 --> 19:47.410]  Open proxy?
[19:48.270 --> 19:55.370]  Whatever it is I don't think it was a bunch of people you know pouring over hacking manuals figuring out ways to use the latest exploits.
[19:56.050 --> 19:57.330]  I don't know I could be wrong though.
[19:59.210 --> 20:04.750]  Okay this we just found out about AT&T is going to stop selling consumer phone service in seven states.
[20:05.310 --> 20:06.370]  And California is next.
[20:07.030 --> 20:25.830]  Yeah it's not California Washington New Hampshire Louisiana Arkansas Ohio Missouri and Tennessee you will not be getting regular local long distance phone service if you are a new customer with AT&T and they say this move is likely to be followed by rivals like MCI so you have to wonder what does this mean for the future of phone service
[20:40.810 --> 20:45.390]  I'm Now, remember, they cut pay phones not too long ago.
[20:45.710 --> 20:47.790]  Now they're cutting residential customers.
[20:48.550 --> 20:50.790]  So you have to wonder, who are they actually serving?
[20:51.010 --> 20:52.230]  Here's the stupid question.
[20:52.390 --> 20:55.330]  Who is serving residential customers in these areas?
[20:55.430 --> 20:57.710]  Are there phone companies coming in to take the gap?
[20:57.830 --> 21:04.390]  Or is it going to be that it's going to be impossible to get a phone line unless you go over voice over internet or get a cell phone?
[21:04.390 --> 21:05.650]  Well, AT&T doesn't provide you a local loop.
[21:05.750 --> 21:06.970]  That's Verizon, at least here.
[21:07.190 --> 21:07.710]  Oh, okay.
[21:07.710 --> 21:12.970]  So you don't really need AT&T for connecting your phone calls.
[21:13.170 --> 21:23.550]  There's an explosion of new phone companies, a lot of them using voice over IP, that can give you rates that AT&T cannot compete with using their particular network.
[21:23.710 --> 21:26.230]  So I don't think the consumers are really going to be hurt by this.
[21:26.310 --> 21:31.570]  But it's a little interesting how AT&T is kind of shifting its focus.
[21:31.870 --> 21:51.730]  And there's a recent court decision also that it's going to really radically change the local service offerings by non-local exchange carriers, for instance, AT&T, MCI, who could offer you local phone service for the past few years under, I believe, an FCC regulation,
[21:51.990 --> 22:10.470]  now probably are getting out of that business because the FCC, I think, recently ruled or regulated that local exchange carriers, like Verizon, for instance, no longer had to offer their local loops at a wholesale discount to competitors to resell to consumers.
[22:10.710 --> 22:15.790]  So that's going to radically change local phone service from a standpoint of choices.
[22:16.130 --> 22:22.350]  And you're pretty much going to be stuck with your local exchange carrier, Verizon, or whoever is in your area with local service from now on.
[22:23.850 --> 22:24.250]  Interesting.
[22:24.250 --> 22:26.690]  The phone system continues to evolve and devolve.
[22:26.850 --> 22:28.430]  So we'll be following it here on Off the Hook.
[22:28.890 --> 22:29.490]  Isn't it interesting?
[22:29.630 --> 22:35.330]  I mean, if you look back since 84, it's been 20 years now since the divestiture and the breakup of AT&T.
[22:35.490 --> 22:35.910]  Actually, more.
[22:35.930 --> 22:37.770]  I think it was 83 that broke up.
[22:37.850 --> 22:44.510]  Well, yeah, it was around 84, but it's been 20 years, over 20 years now, and it's really coming full circle.
[22:44.630 --> 22:45.130]  It's amazing.
[22:45.870 --> 22:46.090]  Mm-hmm.
[22:46.650 --> 22:49.890]  Yeah, and, you know, the baby bells have turned into giant bells all over again.
[22:49.890 --> 22:51.850]  You just have more of them now.
[22:52.650 --> 23:10.970]  But one thing that I think has changed, Bernie, is when we were making phone calls, free phone calls back in the 80s, you know, illegal phone calls, where we were using blue boxes and MCI codes and all kinds of things, the company PBXs, one of the main reasons was simply to keep in touch with people in other parts of the country,
[23:11.030 --> 23:14.350]  other parts of the world, because phone calls were so astronomically expensive back then.
[23:14.630 --> 23:15.190]  Take a look.
[23:15.290 --> 23:19.430]  If you save your phone bills over the decades, take a look at how things are different.
[23:19.430 --> 23:29.650]  I remember living out on Long Island, calling New York City was considered long distance, and you would pay for every single phone call per minute, and pretty hefty rates, too.
[23:29.750 --> 23:32.950]  And considering inflation and all that, it's a lot of money back then.
[23:33.150 --> 23:34.430]  It really was a lot of money.
[23:35.190 --> 23:46.570]  And even further back, back into, like, the 50s and 60s, if you look at what calling another country would cost, we're talking multiple dollars a minute, you know, in those terms back then.
[23:46.570 --> 23:47.670]  Again, that was a fortune.
[23:48.430 --> 23:54.050]  Things have changed radically in the past 20 years, as far as the ease of which it's now possible to make a phone call.
[23:54.690 --> 23:57.730]  You're talking unlimited connection anywhere in the country.
[23:57.830 --> 23:58.970]  That seems to be a standard now.
[23:59.030 --> 24:05.030]  I remember we were surprised when, what was it, 9X offered unlimited regional calling here in the New York area.
[24:05.030 --> 24:06.050]  That was a big deal.
[24:06.250 --> 24:09.010]  I could call New York City from Long Island and talk as long as I wanted.
[24:09.010 --> 24:11.650]  Now, I can call Hawaii and talk as long as I want.
[24:11.730 --> 24:14.170]  Not that I know anybody there, but it's just kind of interesting.
[24:14.430 --> 24:20.450]  And I imagine we're only a step or two away from having that worldwide, if some companies haven't gotten there already.
[24:20.890 --> 24:21.590]  Looks that way.
[24:21.730 --> 24:21.850]  Yeah.
[24:21.950 --> 24:24.690]  So, you know, the whole nature of telecommunications has changed a lot.
[24:24.790 --> 24:27.050]  I don't know if you even still need companies like AT&T.
[24:27.630 --> 24:29.410]  You know, certainly I don't think the consumer does.
[24:29.670 --> 24:31.290]  I don't think they're going to go away completely.
[24:31.430 --> 24:38.030]  They're just going to have to really change how they do business and offer different technologies to keep up with the competition.
[24:38.030 --> 24:41.330]  And I think that's a good parallel to what's happening in the recording industry, too.
[24:41.550 --> 24:43.630]  You see the technology has changed.
[24:44.010 --> 24:55.190]  AT&T could have gone the legal route and forced people to not be able to make phone calls for, say, a penny a minute or unlimited because they have to protect their investment.
[24:55.310 --> 24:58.210]  They have to protect the, you know, sanctity of the phone call.
[24:58.650 --> 25:00.510]  Instead, though, they're adapting.
[25:00.730 --> 25:02.030]  They're changing along with the times.
[25:02.110 --> 25:06.290]  And they're moving on to something else while phone call prices have plummeted.
[25:06.290 --> 25:12.610]  Now, the record industry obviously is changing, too, except the recording industry cannot get it through their head that they have to change as well.
[25:12.910 --> 25:18.250]  And that's why you have all these battles going on between college kids and the recording industry.
[25:18.430 --> 25:23.810]  In the very early days of voiceover IP, I remember back in 95, I believe.
[25:23.970 --> 25:41.770]  In fact, I remember reading about this while I was in prison, that AT&T and several other long-distance companies were, had consorting or formed a consortium to battle companies that were offering, I forget, it was an Israeli company that was offering one of the very early voiceover IP client programs.
[25:41.770 --> 25:46.890]  You'd run it on your PC and you could actually have a point-to-point phone conversation over the Internet.
[25:47.390 --> 25:49.510]  And they were very concerned and afraid of this.
[25:49.590 --> 25:54.390]  But shortly after that, they said, wait a minute, we're going to dig ourselves into a hole here.
[25:54.390 --> 25:59.610]  So they got out of that fight, and eventually they're going to have to join the club.
[26:00.450 --> 26:01.010]  That's right.
[26:01.150 --> 26:01.990]  Technology is changing.
[26:02.510 --> 26:07.770]  That's something that we've been watching since we began the magazine in 84, since we began this show in 88.
[26:08.610 --> 26:09.470]  It's fascinating.
[26:09.650 --> 26:10.250]  It's fascinating.
[26:10.250 --> 26:13.810]  And you've got to change with it because it's an evolutionary process.
[26:14.030 --> 26:17.010]  It's instructional to read back old information.
[26:17.010 --> 26:22.190]  As you mentioned, look at your old phone bills, if you could find one from 10, 20, 30 years ago.
[26:22.310 --> 26:22.850]  It's amazing.
[26:23.270 --> 26:24.850]  And look back over old...
[26:24.850 --> 26:30.270]  I was looking back over some reprints because the Secret Service stole all my original copies of 2,600 back to 84.
[26:30.570 --> 26:31.790]  Well, they have to read them, too, you know.
[26:33.090 --> 26:34.550]  But that's how they learn, I guess.
[26:34.650 --> 26:35.470]  They just steal stuff from people.
[26:35.470 --> 26:36.090]  They won't subscribe.
[26:36.510 --> 26:38.630]  But if you read this stuff...
[26:38.630 --> 26:39.550]  Oh, you know that.
[26:39.610 --> 26:40.410]  They don't subscribe, huh?
[26:40.590 --> 26:41.610]  No, I said they won't.
[26:41.810 --> 26:42.270]  Oh, they won't.
[26:42.650 --> 26:43.390]  They just steal.
[26:43.550 --> 26:46.650]  But in any case, if you look back, it's an amazing resource.
[26:46.650 --> 26:56.250]  Looking back over the past 20 years now of 2,600 magazine, it's very instructional to see where we've been and where we are and where we've come from.
[26:56.330 --> 26:59.470]  Because if you just look at where we are now, it doesn't give you much of a picture.
[26:59.630 --> 27:07.110]  But if you can see trends and see how things have changed, it really gives you a much better mindset as to how things happen.
[27:07.710 --> 27:10.510]  Yeah, I can't believe it's been 20 years since we began the magazine.
[27:10.770 --> 27:16.050]  And I like to think one of the things that hasn't changed in our pages over those two decades is the spirit.
[27:16.250 --> 27:19.370]  You know, the spirit of exploration, discovery, sharing information.
[27:19.370 --> 27:20.810]  I think that's still pretty strong.
[27:20.810 --> 27:22.170]  In fact, I think it's stronger than ever.
[27:22.710 --> 27:27.170]  And that's part of the fun of what we do and what we're going to do this summer with the conference.
[27:28.450 --> 27:30.010]  Actually, I'd like to get into that a little bit more.
[27:30.110 --> 27:31.250]  First, let's read a couple of letters.
[27:31.730 --> 27:36.510]  And you can mail us letters, OTH at 2600.com, if you have anything to say, opinions to spout.
[27:37.190 --> 27:43.550]  If you're off the hook, last show you guys talked about how it is against Google policy to put negative ads based with a given keyword.
[27:44.730 --> 27:46.830]  If so, this one slipped through the digital cracks.
[27:46.870 --> 27:52.890]  If you search for Fahrenheit 9-11 or Michael Moore, an ad comes up from michaelmoorehatesamerica.com.
[27:52.970 --> 27:54.830]  Not exactly a positive ad for the search topic.
[27:55.690 --> 27:58.230]  Now, Mike, what do you think about this?
[27:58.430 --> 28:00.150]  I think it's very fascinating.
[28:01.130 --> 28:12.190]  I know that in my case, when I had an ad for Covance Undercover, Covance, of course, being the multinational biomedical testing company that abuses animals and censors free speech.
[28:12.590 --> 28:19.790]  In that case, Google took about a week, a week and a half, to notice my ad for Covance Undercover.
[28:20.790 --> 28:25.930]  And so it's possible that this Michael Moore ad is just slipping through the cracks.
[28:26.790 --> 28:29.290]  Or it's possible that something more sinister is at work.
[28:29.370 --> 28:30.250]  It's really hard to say.
[28:31.050 --> 28:32.870]  Yes, it is the... just looked at it right now.
[28:33.050 --> 28:37.330]  And it is the first sponsored link, michaelmoorehatesamerica.com, if you type Michael Moore into Google.
[28:37.590 --> 28:39.390]  So, yeah, there's a bit of hypocrisy here.
[28:39.510 --> 28:40.830]  Or maybe they just haven't caught it yet.
[28:41.290 --> 28:43.990]  But we're reporting it now, so let's see if they do anything about it.
[28:44.370 --> 28:44.550]  Indeed.
[28:45.310 --> 28:48.770]  All right, this, of course, being the week that Fahrenheit 9-11 opens, and that's sure going to be interesting.
[28:48.810 --> 28:50.470]  I think it's opening already here in New York, isn't it?
[28:51.030 --> 28:51.690]  Friday, I think.
[28:51.930 --> 28:53.150]  Yeah, but it's opening early here.
[28:53.150 --> 28:55.270]  New York is playing in the Lowe's in the village.
[28:55.370 --> 28:57.710]  Yeah, because we're cooler than the rest, so we have to have it first.
[28:58.250 --> 28:59.130]  Have you seen it yet?
[28:59.290 --> 29:00.770]  No, I have not, because I'm not that cool.
[29:00.910 --> 29:02.310]  But I intend to.
[29:02.390 --> 29:03.630]  I intend to very, very soon.
[29:04.950 --> 29:12.590]  It's pretty cool how all this publicity has resulted in, you know, probably more distribution than he would have gotten if Disney had distributed it in the first place.
[29:13.050 --> 29:15.010]  So that's another hacker thing, you know.
[29:15.090 --> 29:22.650]  When a big corporation says something stupid or threatens you, you publicize it, and all of a sudden it just backfires in their face, and you get more publicity than ever.
[29:23.870 --> 29:29.930]  And winning the Cannes Film Festival first prize for documentaries didn't hurt either.
[29:29.990 --> 29:31.130]  No, that didn't hurt at all, actually.
[29:32.170 --> 29:33.410]  That helped quite a bit, I'll bet.
[29:33.990 --> 29:37.070]  This kind of thing, you know, could actually decide an election.
[29:37.270 --> 29:38.630]  I mean, it's no joke.
[29:38.730 --> 29:39.210]  It really could.
[29:39.330 --> 29:41.330]  It's a great campaign ad against Bush.
[29:41.530 --> 29:44.950]  If you can drag people to see it who might vote for Bush.
[29:45.050 --> 29:45.690]  That's the thing, you know.
[29:45.710 --> 29:49.650]  How do you get people to actually come to this thing if they support the president?
[29:49.650 --> 29:50.270]  You know, it's...
[29:50.270 --> 29:55.450]  Well, if they really, really support him, they probably won't come or will be angry and yell at you afterwards.
[29:55.690 --> 29:58.830]  Pay for my ticket and I'll go.
[30:00.330 --> 30:03.970]  Well, I mean, the thing is, people have to be willing to open their minds to different opinions.
[30:04.330 --> 30:15.570]  Well, wouldn't it be great if some billionaire like George Soros just said, all right, I'm going to buy an hour on all the national TV networks and buy the rights for this movie to broadcast it on all media sources.
[30:15.750 --> 30:17.930]  I mean, if somebody had enough money to do that, that'd be terrific.
[30:18.210 --> 30:21.510]  Well, I mean, you know, that sounds a little totalitarian right there.
[30:21.630 --> 30:25.090]  But even if one network had it, you'd still have to get somebody to watch it, though.
[30:25.210 --> 30:26.850]  You know, you can't force people to watch TV.
[30:27.910 --> 30:28.230]  So...
[30:28.230 --> 30:29.310]  And that's a good thing.
[30:29.390 --> 30:30.070]  Yeah, it is a good thing.
[30:30.070 --> 30:35.030]  But send it out on DVDs like AOL sends out their CDs to everybody on the planet.
[30:36.530 --> 30:37.070]  You know?
[30:37.190 --> 30:37.710]  Why not?
[30:38.850 --> 30:41.210]  I'm sure it'll get out there one way or another.
[30:41.970 --> 30:42.570]  Okay, continuing.
[30:42.810 --> 30:47.170]  Dear Off the Hook, I've been working through a schedule change, just getting caught up on the past shows via the web.
[30:47.250 --> 30:48.890]  Thanks for providing your audio archives.
[30:49.450 --> 30:51.490]  I'm pleased to know Freedom Downtime is now on DVD.
[30:51.510 --> 30:53.070]  I want to buy it from the 2600 store.
[30:53.150 --> 30:55.350]  The question remains, when will it be available?
[30:55.870 --> 31:00.410]  Yes, we offered it on the recent fundraiser, a not-so-recent fundraiser, here on WBAI.
[31:00.770 --> 31:04.210]  And it's not quite yet on the store page.
[31:04.250 --> 31:06.910]  It will be, though, very soon, certainly by the conference time.
[31:06.910 --> 31:09.070]  We're going to debut the thing at the conference, okay?
[31:09.110 --> 31:10.150]  So we might as well tell people that.
[31:10.270 --> 31:22.530]  But I've got to tell you, you know, we had a world of trouble with all kinds of DVD issues, because this DVD has so many different features that we had to make sure it worked in just about every platform imaginable.
[31:23.030 --> 31:24.750]  And one of the major problems...
[31:24.750 --> 31:25.570]  I didn't tell you about this, Mike.
[31:25.630 --> 31:29.110]  One of the major problems that I was having when I was proofing the whole thing...
[31:29.110 --> 31:35.250]  You know, when you proof this, you have to go through virtually all the video, all the audio, and we have multiple audio tracks, multiple video tracks.
[31:36.070 --> 31:38.350]  And I was double-checking captioning.
[31:38.430 --> 31:40.630]  I was double-checking, you know, the video quality.
[31:41.030 --> 31:47.510]  And this one thing kept happening that was driving me insane, and it must have added a week to production time because we were trying to figure out what was causing it.
[31:47.910 --> 31:54.310]  But when I would start the film, after exploring the menus, the captioning would come up in Chinese.
[31:55.150 --> 31:58.670]  I would always be getting Chinese subtitles, and it was driving me insane.
[31:59.770 --> 32:03.750]  And we were going back and forth with all kinds of different people trying to figure out why this was happening.
[32:03.810 --> 32:05.410]  It wasn't happening on other DVD players.
[32:05.530 --> 32:07.230]  It was only happening on my DVD player.
[32:07.270 --> 32:09.090]  You could take the opportunity to learn Chinese.
[32:09.350 --> 32:10.210]  I could have done that.
[32:10.270 --> 32:11.030]  I could have done that.
[32:11.230 --> 32:12.150]  But I chose not to.
[32:12.190 --> 32:14.510]  I chose instead to figure out why in God's name this was happening.
[32:15.170 --> 32:19.270]  And wondering if people would be too upset if every time they played the film it would show up in Chinese.
[32:20.450 --> 32:25.490]  Finally, we just did some testing of the different brands.
[32:26.610 --> 32:31.170]  And I asked several people, what kind of DVD player are you looking at this with?
[32:31.410 --> 32:34.190]  And some people were looking at it with a Sony.
[32:34.410 --> 32:36.710]  Some people were looking at it with JVC.
[32:37.390 --> 32:40.890]  I was looking at it with a player, a region-free player called Malata.
[32:42.270 --> 32:44.030]  And I did some checking.
[32:44.490 --> 32:46.970]  It turns out it's a Chinese DVD player.
[32:47.390 --> 32:54.410]  So what this thing was doing was basically saying to itself, this person is messing around with the menus.
[32:54.670 --> 32:56.910]  He probably doesn't understand the language.
[32:57.390 --> 33:00.390]  Therefore, I'm going to give him the Chinese...
[33:00.390 --> 33:10.290]  Since Chinese is labeled, since the machine recognized Chinese as one of the subtitle tracks, I'm going to give this person the Chinese subtitle track, which is probably what he's looking for, since I'm a Chinese DVD player.
[33:10.970 --> 33:13.030]  That's the kind of hassle we've been dealing with.
[33:13.170 --> 33:14.990]  That's why it takes so long to do these things.
[33:15.450 --> 33:16.690]  But at least we figured it out.
[33:16.830 --> 33:21.470]  But believe me, that cost us a lot of time trying to figure out what was going on there.
[33:21.610 --> 33:29.570]  It was a case of programmers who wrote the microcode for the DVD player who decided that they knew better than the consumer on how to do things.
[33:30.550 --> 33:30.850]  Uh-huh.
[33:31.370 --> 33:32.150]  Yeah, absolutely.
[33:33.670 --> 33:39.970]  Okay, and one final letter here, and then we're going to talk about some of the fun we've had at the conference, and we'll take some phone calls as well.
[33:39.970 --> 33:46.690]  Well, dear, off the hook, I caught the article about the nitrate sniffer at the New Carrollton train station near D.C.
[33:46.870 --> 33:55.990]  A valuable experiment would be to brush with a toothpaste for sensitive teeth, for example, green Sensodyne, and slobber it, and then attempt to go through the station.
[33:56.170 --> 33:59.170]  Some toothpastes contain an agent for desensitizing teeth.
[33:59.430 --> 34:03.190]  That agent is potassium nitrate, the chief ingredient in gunpowder.
[34:03.330 --> 34:09.130]  It would do well to educate transportation security personnel about the many things that can cause false alarms.
[34:09.690 --> 34:13.770]  What if you're working in your garden, Emanuel, and you just spread fertilizer around in your garden?
[34:13.950 --> 34:14.630]  Well, I don't do that.
[34:14.690 --> 34:15.270]  It's too dangerous.
[34:15.530 --> 34:16.790]  Well, suppose you were.
[34:16.890 --> 34:17.650]  I mean, people do that.
[34:17.710 --> 34:25.670]  You can buy it at any agricultural store, and, you know, and then you walk through the station, and you get collared because you're a gardener.
[34:26.490 --> 34:28.930]  Yeah, well, you know, you have to test these people out.
[34:29.030 --> 34:31.730]  You know, they may just be a gardener, or they may be evil gardeners.
[34:31.790 --> 34:32.250]  You don't know.
[34:32.610 --> 34:33.750]  It's only one way to find out.
[34:34.670 --> 34:39.210]  Okay, Mike, you want to talk about some of the nightmares we've been going through in the last couple of weeks, conference-wise?
[34:40.190 --> 34:41.410]  We've had shipping problems.
[34:41.410 --> 34:45.010]  Yeah, I would just like to advise our listeners, do not ship anything ever.
[34:45.230 --> 34:48.950]  Yeah, I mean, I would say do not ship via this company or that company, but you know what?
[34:48.950 --> 34:49.630]  They all contribute.
[34:49.870 --> 34:50.990]  They're all part of the conspiracy.
[34:51.630 --> 34:58.370]  We've had at least one problem with each of FedEx, UPS, and the post office in the past two weeks, so there's really no discrimination.
[34:58.690 --> 34:59.730]  Well, the best one was...
[34:59.730 --> 35:01.930]  The first one, actually, was when we were trying to ship...
[35:01.930 --> 35:06.530]  We're not going to tell you what we were shipping because that would be giving away too much, but basically these are all conference-related things.
[35:06.990 --> 35:10.110]  We had to ship something from, I believe, Brooklyn down to North Carolina.
[35:10.230 --> 35:11.470]  Six large boxes.
[35:11.490 --> 35:12.410]  Six large boxes.
[35:12.530 --> 35:12.990]  Not a big deal.
[35:13.290 --> 35:15.270]  Between 30 and 45 pounds apiece.
[35:15.390 --> 35:15.550]  Uh-huh.
[35:16.230 --> 35:17.430]  And what happened was...
[35:17.430 --> 35:17.770]  Oh, go ahead.
[35:17.770 --> 35:23.730]  Yeah, they all left the mysterious secret location in Brooklyn all at the same time on the same UPS truck.
[35:24.170 --> 35:29.430]  And two days later, five of them arrived in the other mysterious location in North Carolina.
[35:29.950 --> 35:30.910]  In Burlington...
[35:30.910 --> 35:31.670]  But you said six.
[35:32.230 --> 35:35.770]  Yeah, five arrived in Burlington, North Carolina.
[35:36.470 --> 35:38.370]  So six minus five equals one.
[35:38.490 --> 35:46.430]  Yeah, so this one box, UPS, insists, is in Raleigh, North Carolina, which is close to Burlington.
[35:46.430 --> 35:48.450]  It's only a few hours away, I understand.
[35:48.710 --> 35:53.110]  But it just kind of sat there, according to UPS, for days and days.
[35:53.550 --> 35:56.530]  And you can call UPS and say, you know, we really need this stuff.
[35:56.610 --> 35:57.370]  Where is it?
[35:57.430 --> 35:58.710]  And they don't care.
[36:00.950 --> 36:04.950]  They give you some song and dance about how they care, but they don't actually care.
[36:05.150 --> 36:07.410]  So it was, what, just staying in Raleigh, North Carolina?
[36:07.410 --> 36:10.470]  As far as the website says, it's still in Raleigh, North Carolina.
[36:10.910 --> 36:11.970]  It's still there, okay.
[36:12.130 --> 36:12.470]  It's still there.
[36:12.790 --> 36:26.630]  It turns out that, for some unknown reason, UPS decided to send the box back to Brooklyn, but not to the place in Brooklyn where it came from, but to the old address where that company used to be three years ago.
[36:26.970 --> 36:31.070]  Probably because that's what their account might say, but it didn't say that on the package.
[36:31.270 --> 36:31.430]  No.
[36:31.990 --> 36:36.730]  Not to mention that it had the address that it was supposed to go to on the package, and for some reason, they opted not to do that.
[36:37.170 --> 36:38.670]  This all took, what, about a week?
[36:38.930 --> 36:39.550]  About a week.
[36:39.750 --> 36:42.590]  And then two more days for it to actually get to North Carolina.
[36:42.970 --> 36:44.910]  And keep in mind, these were things that could not be replaced.
[36:45.230 --> 36:45.410]  No.
[36:45.530 --> 36:48.350]  It would be a catastrophe if we did not have this finished.
[36:49.930 --> 36:52.450]  There's more to the story, by the way, that you don't even know about.
[36:52.690 --> 36:53.550]  Do I need to know?
[36:54.090 --> 36:55.270]  Probably as well tell our listeners.
[36:55.270 --> 36:55.570]  Go ahead, go ahead.
[36:56.190 --> 37:01.370]  Now, you have to understand that I am neither the shipper nor the recipient, so I have no...
[37:01.370 --> 37:06.330]  Despite the fact that there are stuff in the box, UPS doesn't really care what we have to say.
[37:06.570 --> 37:13.990]  But for some reason, UPS decided to call me last night, offer to send me a claim form, because as far as they know, they totally lost the package.
[37:14.550 --> 37:33.070]  When I called them back today to give them my fax number, because why not, they decided that it had been more than 24 hours since they called me, despite the fact that it was only about 15, and that they had already put it in the mail for who knows where.
[37:33.350 --> 37:34.930]  They certainly don't have my address.
[37:36.630 --> 37:37.110]  So...
[37:37.110 --> 37:39.190]  You should have insured it for a million dollars.
[37:40.410 --> 37:50.970]  Well, we also had a nightmare with shipping of the last issue, where basically Yellow Freight, I don't know how many people use them, they were shipping it to our main distributor, I believe somewhere in Pennsylvania.
[37:51.590 --> 37:56.790]  And for reasons unbeknownst to me or anybody, really, it sat in their warehouse for a week.
[37:56.790 --> 37:59.690]  So a lot of people were wondering where the issue was, why it wasn't on the stands.
[38:00.110 --> 38:04.350]  It was there, in their loading zone, just for no reason at all.
[38:04.670 --> 38:05.650]  They just did this.
[38:06.310 --> 38:07.290]  That's what I forgot about.
[38:07.410 --> 38:08.090]  Now, FedEx.
[38:08.250 --> 38:10.330]  Okay, FedEx entered into this as well.
[38:11.530 --> 38:15.430]  We had a test desk for the DVD that we had to look at last week.
[38:15.830 --> 38:18.310]  This was urgent, because we're on deadline here.
[38:18.350 --> 38:23.390]  We have to have the DVD ready for the conference, obviously, and for the people who pledged for it at WBAI.
[38:24.830 --> 38:27.250]  Well, all day long, we're waiting for this thing to show up.
[38:27.390 --> 38:28.270]  And it doesn't show up.
[38:28.390 --> 38:29.570]  It does not show up at all.
[38:29.950 --> 38:32.930]  And so finally, you know, I call FedEx and say, where's the package?
[38:33.110 --> 38:34.950]  You know, it should be here by now.
[38:35.110 --> 38:41.350]  And I said, oh, yeah, well, unfortunately, sir, and I have to tell you, every sentence this person spoke to me began with the word unfortunately.
[38:42.070 --> 38:45.990]  Unfortunately, sir, we had some equipment problems and weren't able to deliver that.
[38:46.090 --> 38:55.070]  And I'm looking at the tracking number, I'm looking at their website, and it says that it's sitting in their depot in Ronkonkoma, New York, since 1.38 p.m.
[38:55.790 --> 38:57.770]  And so I asked him, well, you know, it's in Ronkonkoma.
[38:57.870 --> 38:58.950]  Why can't you deliver it to me?
[38:59.050 --> 39:00.410]  I'm only a few miles away from there.
[39:00.830 --> 39:06.190]  Well, unfortunately, sir, there's a problem with the airplane that there's equipment problems.
[39:06.550 --> 39:09.850]  And I said, you know, there aren't any airplanes between Ronkonkoma and where I am.
[39:10.570 --> 39:12.350]  You use trucks, as far as I understand.
[39:12.590 --> 39:15.530]  Far be it for me to tell you how to do your job, but you don't need an airplane at this point.
[39:15.610 --> 39:19.310]  Well, unfortunately, sir, we have equipment problems.
[39:19.350 --> 39:20.070]  That's all I can tell you.
[39:20.190 --> 39:21.770]  And she could not get past that.
[39:21.850 --> 39:22.630]  It was like a barrier.
[39:22.830 --> 39:24.350]  She could not progress beyond.
[39:25.070 --> 39:27.450]  Finally, I did some investigation on this.
[39:27.530 --> 39:29.750]  I had to send somebody down to actually get it from them.
[39:29.970 --> 39:30.730]  And that's the thing.
[39:30.790 --> 39:32.550]  I said, I'm going to send somebody down to get this from you.
[39:33.010 --> 39:37.290]  And they said at that point, well, if you wait another 45 minutes, the driver will be back by then.
[39:37.890 --> 39:41.810]  So if the driver was out with our package, why couldn't the driver deliver it to us?
[39:42.950 --> 39:50.970]  So when I did some investigation on this, it turns out that because it came from California, it got on the airplane late or the airplane left late or something like that.
[39:51.090 --> 39:54.270]  It arrived at their depot at about one o'clock in the afternoon.
[39:54.410 --> 39:57.610]  Apparently, if something arrives at one o'clock, they can't deliver it the same day.
[39:57.890 --> 40:00.190]  So it just sat there all day long.
[40:01.350 --> 40:06.090]  And it's funny because under delivery attempt, it says package, not delivered, not attempted.
[40:07.510 --> 40:09.050]  So there it is right there.
[40:09.350 --> 40:10.490]  They did not even try.
[40:11.130 --> 40:12.170]  They did not even try.
[40:12.170 --> 40:19.330]  Anyway, and the really funny thing was 553 is when the person I sent down there arrived to pick it up.
[40:19.490 --> 40:21.270]  And on their website, it says delivered.
[40:22.690 --> 40:26.310]  They're claiming credit for delivering it when someone had to go down there and get it.
[40:27.270 --> 40:32.010]  And needless to say, that was nerve wracking in itself because, you know, we had no idea where this thing was.
[40:32.090 --> 40:32.650]  It was urgent.
[40:32.770 --> 40:33.490]  We had to get it.
[40:34.370 --> 40:35.030]  Extremely important.
[40:35.210 --> 40:39.230]  And I don't want to spend too much time on this, but it's just been an incredible week of delivery nightmares.
[40:39.870 --> 40:44.470]  We have one other package which is being sent to us from Illinois.
[40:45.150 --> 40:46.130]  Actually, two packages.
[40:46.430 --> 40:48.710]  One arrived yesterday and one on...
[40:48.710 --> 40:49.950]  This is on UPS, on their site.
[40:50.090 --> 40:51.690]  It says package missed.
[40:53.030 --> 40:55.230]  Package missed, no delivery attempt made.
[40:56.390 --> 40:58.070]  I don't understand what that means.
[40:58.490 --> 41:01.410]  Mike, did you talk to UPS and ask them what in God's name...
[41:01.410 --> 41:02.610]  They came at the same time.
[41:02.730 --> 41:04.190]  How could this have happened to them?
[41:05.350 --> 41:07.110]  We're clearly not meant to understand.
[41:07.350 --> 41:09.070]  We're clearly not meant to get packages, I think.
[41:09.230 --> 41:10.850]  That's what we're not meant to do.
[41:10.950 --> 41:11.850]  Well, not only not...
[41:11.850 --> 41:14.950]  If we didn't get packages and we knew why, that would be one thing.
[41:15.070 --> 41:17.350]  But, you know, just the whole system is a mystery.
[41:17.450 --> 41:24.710]  There's all this finger-pointing going on and stock phrases that they throw at us, but it's obvious they're lying when you probe a little deeper.
[41:25.350 --> 41:25.710]  Unfortunately.
[41:28.790 --> 41:29.150]  Unreal.
[41:29.370 --> 41:32.910]  Okay, so that's some of the nightmares we've been going through just getting the conference organized.
[41:33.230 --> 41:37.870]  But some of the good things include the fact that we have released our speaker list.
[41:37.870 --> 41:39.470]  And boy, what a speaker list it is.
[41:40.270 --> 41:44.190]  About 70 different panels are being presented this summer at the Fifth Hope.
[41:44.230 --> 41:45.730]  And that's just on the first two tracks.
[41:45.970 --> 41:49.710]  I mean, there's always the third track where people can show up and give a talk.
[41:50.030 --> 41:54.210]  There's a third track where, yeah, it's unscheduled, so people can go in.
[41:54.230 --> 41:56.730]  It's a room of about, maybe 100 people can fit in there.
[41:57.230 --> 42:03.990]  Not as big as the other two tracks, but it's something for people who arrive and decide to do something or, you know, spur-of-the-moment kind of thing.
[42:04.570 --> 42:06.070]  It's also where Rebel probably will speak.
[42:07.890 --> 42:16.930]  But we have 70 tracks, 70 tracks, 70 speakers, 70 panels, 70 talks that are all on our website right now.
[42:17.350 --> 42:18.130]  Go to...
[42:18.650 --> 42:21.350]  The easiest one to give out is www.hope.net.
[42:21.770 --> 42:24.310]  But there's one called thefifthhope.net as well.
[42:24.450 --> 42:25.590]  You can type all that in.
[42:26.050 --> 42:29.630]  And that has full details and a schedule.
[42:30.430 --> 42:37.110]  And let's just go over a couple of these things just so people have a sense, in case you don't have net access, of some of what we're offering here.
[42:38.290 --> 42:40.770]  I printed this out before I came here.
[42:41.430 --> 42:42.830]  About 16 pages, actually.
[42:43.170 --> 42:44.050]  27 with bios.
[42:44.970 --> 42:47.070]  There's a talk on building hackerspaces.
[42:47.570 --> 42:50.810]  It's a panel discussion how to build and maintain a hackerspace.
[42:50.850 --> 42:51.510]  What's a hackerspace?
[42:51.530 --> 42:56.310]  It's basically a clubhouse where people get together and discuss hacker issues.
[42:57.330 --> 43:01.750]  There are current ones called the Philadelphia Walnut Factory, the Hasty Pastry.
[43:03.490 --> 43:09.570]  There's ASCII in Amsterdam, Pewski in Utrecht, and formerly there was the Loft in Boston.
[43:10.170 --> 43:13.510]  There's the Hacker Halfway House now in Brooklyn, New Hack City.
[43:14.070 --> 43:15.190]  These things exist all over the world.
[43:15.290 --> 43:15.410]  And then there was not work.
[43:15.570 --> 43:16.510]  I'm sorry, go ahead, Bernie.
[43:16.790 --> 43:18.110]  And then there was not work.
[43:18.190 --> 43:18.810]  Oh, yeah, yeah.
[43:19.010 --> 43:21.370]  I mean, there are all kinds all over the place.
[43:21.610 --> 43:24.210]  And they exist throughout the world, as I said.
[43:24.870 --> 43:30.850]  That's one panel, just how to run one, how not to run one, tips on how to start one, things like that.
[43:30.850 --> 43:33.370]  We also have Cheshire's Rant Session.
[43:34.170 --> 43:41.970]  That's right, Cheshire Catalyst will be hosting a rant session where basically you can contribute a, was it 45 seconds or a minute and a half?
[43:42.030 --> 43:51.810]  No, 45 seconds he's allowing you to have on some corporate stupidity thing that could get fixed as a result of their having their spies at the conference.
[43:51.930 --> 44:04.850]  He did the same thing two years ago and was amazed at how all of a sudden all the things that were broken at his job, he works as a directory assistance operator, suddenly began to get fixed after being publicly aired at the conference.
[44:05.570 --> 44:08.550]  Also, we have the American debut of the CryptoPhone.
[44:08.930 --> 44:11.370]  Yes, we played with the CryptoPhone over in Europe.
[44:12.090 --> 44:15.590]  It's our friends Rob and Barry have put this thing together.
[44:15.790 --> 44:19.770]  It's a way of speaking on a cell phone securely.
[44:20.390 --> 44:21.170]  Point to point.
[44:21.230 --> 44:21.570]  Point to point.
[44:21.590 --> 44:23.570]  You have to wonder why no one has come up with this kind of thing.
[44:23.610 --> 44:26.430]  No back doors for anyone else to listen.
[44:26.750 --> 44:28.090]  Yeah, and this is open source.
[44:28.490 --> 44:29.170]  It's fascinating.
[44:29.530 --> 44:33.910]  You can play with it, get hands-on experience with it, learn all about it.
[44:34.330 --> 44:37.530]  And this is revolutionary right there, CryptoPhone.
[44:37.630 --> 44:39.810]  So that's one of the panels that we're giving.
[44:40.050 --> 44:43.850]  Cult of the Dead Cow, yes, they're back, but they're doing things differently this year.
[44:44.150 --> 44:53.930]  They're having a hacktivism panel talking all about how governments from China to Zimbabwe have strangled access to information critical of their regimes, often with the aid of American companies.
[44:53.930 --> 45:02.110]  It's going to be a very fast-paced, interesting panel of discussion with a bunch of experts on that particular field.
[45:03.090 --> 45:07.750]  We also have basically Robert Steele.
[45:07.890 --> 45:08.610]  Remember Robert Steele?
[45:08.710 --> 45:10.470]  He gave our keynote back in 1994.
[45:10.470 --> 45:16.070]  He's going to be talking about everything you ever wanted to know about spying, 9-11, and why we continue to screw up.
[45:16.290 --> 45:18.170]  He's a former CIA analyst.
[45:18.410 --> 45:18.990]  That's right.
[45:19.250 --> 45:19.890]  That's right.
[45:19.970 --> 45:28.890]  He frightens a lot of people, but he's one of our friends as far as hope is concerned, and he's been with us for a very long time at the conference.
[45:29.110 --> 45:37.330]  It's going to be an EFF discussion, Hackers and the Law, covering current legal crises around privacy, free speech, intellectual property.
[45:37.570 --> 45:41.330]  If you have any legal questions, of course, that's something to attend.
[45:42.830 --> 45:45.990]  Bernie, you're going to be doing a panel on hacking the invisible world.
[45:46.090 --> 45:46.970]  You want to tell us something about that?
[45:46.970 --> 46:07.230]  Well, there's all around us, there's all kinds of signals floating around in the air, not just Wi-Fi, wireless networking, but for decades and from now on, there will continue to be all sorts of unusual radio signals that you can intercept and analyze and probe and look out for because they could be used against you or not.
[46:07.470 --> 46:11.250]  But there's a whole lot of stuff floating around that people don't know about and we're going to let them know about it.
[46:11.590 --> 46:12.090]  All right.
[46:12.170 --> 46:21.070]  And also, if you ever wanted to know how to talk to the press, we have the associate editor of IEEE, Spectrum Magazine, Stephen Kass, coming by to give a talk on just that.
[46:21.190 --> 46:30.230]  If you're an activist planning a campaign, a hacker caught in a legal squabble or just a bystander buttonhole on the street, dealing with journalists can be an essential part of ensuring that your views are heard.
[46:31.430 --> 46:33.330]  Or so the journalists would have you believe.
[46:33.850 --> 46:34.010]  Yeah.
[46:34.350 --> 46:35.270]  Well, I think it is true.
[46:35.370 --> 46:36.990]  I think getting to the media does matter.
[46:37.230 --> 46:44.130]  For one thing, and that's something I think that relates to the conference itself, the success of our conference will depend on how many people show up.
[46:44.970 --> 46:47.190]  So we need to get the word out to people.
[46:47.330 --> 46:48.650]  Now, we have WBAI to do that.
[46:48.730 --> 46:49.830]  We have 2600 to do that.
[46:49.910 --> 47:00.690]  But if the mass media doesn't go along with it, if the word doesn't get out to the average person out there, the person who has not yet woken up and heard alternative views, they're going to miss out and we won't have them in attendance.
[47:01.010 --> 47:02.550]  And we need to get to those people.
[47:02.550 --> 47:17.210]  So what we should do, I think, is call upon people who hear this, people who read the site, people who read the magazine, to spread the word, get people to show up because these things cost a ton of money and the only way to ensure that they continue in the past is to have good attendance.
[47:17.570 --> 47:18.690]  So it's really important.
[47:18.770 --> 47:20.950]  Again, information at www.hope.net.
[47:21.370 --> 47:23.110]  We have pre-registration online.
[47:23.270 --> 47:25.650]  You can pre-register using credit cards online.
[47:26.030 --> 47:27.550]  That's only going to be open for another week.
[47:27.650 --> 47:28.790]  A week from today, that closes down.
[47:28.930 --> 47:33.890]  If you're overseas, that's only open for another two days because we have to ensure that you get your verification form.
[47:34.490 --> 47:35.870]  So again, please spread the word.
[47:35.990 --> 47:37.270]  This is a terrific conference.
[47:37.410 --> 47:40.090]  We have all kinds of people who have worked very hard on it for months.
[47:40.830 --> 47:45.390]  And you can see the entire speaker list at www.hope.net.
[47:46.030 --> 47:46.950]  And boy, it's going to be something.
[47:47.130 --> 47:47.890]  July 9th or 11th.
[47:47.930 --> 47:52.290]  We guarantee everyone who attends will learn a lot and have a lot of fun.
[47:52.550 --> 47:52.950]  Yes.
[47:53.270 --> 47:54.570]  Or we'll know the reason why.
[47:54.790 --> 47:57.810]  So please, show up and spread the word.
[47:58.550 --> 48:00.890]  212-209-2900 is our telephone number.
[48:01.670 --> 48:03.770]  And Red Hack, do you want to be the one to press the buttons this time?
[48:03.970 --> 48:04.270]  Of course.
[48:04.410 --> 48:04.750]  Hang on.
[48:04.870 --> 48:05.610]  I'll hand you the phone there.
[48:05.690 --> 48:07.950]  The phones haven't started ringing yet because I just gave out the phone number.
[48:09.830 --> 48:10.330]  All right.
[48:11.370 --> 48:13.350]  And I'm going to take that when you know who that probably is.
[48:14.010 --> 48:14.450]  Go ahead.
[48:14.510 --> 48:14.810]  Go ahead.
[48:15.050 --> 48:15.590]  Take it.
[48:16.810 --> 48:17.870]  You've got to press hard.
[48:18.190 --> 48:19.070]  You know how to do this.
[48:20.350 --> 48:20.570]  No.
[48:20.650 --> 48:21.070]  There we go.
[48:21.150 --> 48:21.410]  Good evening.
[48:21.490 --> 48:21.870]  You're on the air.
[48:29.850 --> 48:36.810]  But I'm looking for a digital voice recorder and a mini-disc is really out of my price range.
[48:37.030 --> 48:37.610]  Do you all...
[48:37.610 --> 48:41.610]  Can you all recommend either a brand or a model that you think is a good buy?
[48:42.030 --> 48:42.870]  Mitch, do you have something?
[48:43.010 --> 48:47.630]  I just saw that Office Max had a $20 one with a $20 rebit today.
[48:47.790 --> 48:49.990]  But they might be sold out by now.
[48:50.150 --> 48:51.150]  What technology?
[48:51.270 --> 48:52.210]  It was...
[48:52.210 --> 49:02.890]  It was some sort of solid state that was able to hold about 400 hours of voice and it was only like $20 minus $20 for the rebate.
[49:03.150 --> 49:03.310]  Wow.
[49:03.730 --> 49:10.370]  Do you need to be able to record and then dump the audio or the audio files to your computer or is that not...
[49:10.370 --> 49:11.630]  Our caller has left us.
[49:12.150 --> 49:12.810]  Oh, well, never mind.
[49:12.830 --> 49:13.770]  Let's move on to the next call.
[49:13.850 --> 49:14.070]  Good evening.
[49:14.130 --> 49:14.550]  You're on the air.
[49:15.370 --> 49:16.090]  You've got to press the button.
[49:16.470 --> 49:17.630]  Jeff is a lot faster than you.
[49:17.770 --> 49:18.750]  If you don't do it...
[49:18.750 --> 49:18.990]  I got it.
[49:18.990 --> 49:19.630]  I'm going to do it myself.
[49:19.770 --> 49:19.990]  Good evening.
[49:20.070 --> 49:20.430]  You're on the air.
[49:21.190 --> 49:22.690]  Yes, I was wondering...
[49:22.690 --> 49:23.030]  Oh, man.
[49:23.290 --> 49:23.530]  All right.
[49:23.990 --> 49:24.450]  You do it.
[49:24.470 --> 49:25.730]  You're not pressing the buttons correctly.
[49:26.310 --> 49:26.770]  Good evening.
[49:26.770 --> 49:27.090]  You're on.
[49:28.230 --> 49:28.850]  Go ahead.
[49:29.850 --> 49:30.290]  Whoa.
[49:30.550 --> 49:31.070]  Yes, go ahead.
[49:31.190 --> 49:31.670]  I'm on.
[49:31.890 --> 49:32.070]  Yeah.
[49:32.610 --> 49:35.410]  Well, let me turn the computer.
[49:37.610 --> 49:50.030]  I've been listening and the thing I think is that maybe we wouldn't have to give out our real name like, say, our internet name to the cops instead of, like, just our real name.
[49:50.630 --> 49:51.350]  I don't know.
[49:51.430 --> 49:52.070]  It's a crime in most states.
[49:52.290 --> 49:54.670]  Yeah, I don't know if that would be acceptable under the eyes of the law.
[49:54.710 --> 50:00.270]  I was going to suggest that you try it next time you get pulled over by the cops and don't tell us what happened.
[50:00.590 --> 50:00.730]  Yeah.
[50:01.010 --> 50:01.670]  Good luck with that.
[50:01.910 --> 50:02.210]  Good evening.
[50:02.310 --> 50:02.630]  You're on the air.
[50:04.130 --> 50:04.450]  Hello?
[50:04.710 --> 50:05.150]  Yeah, where are you calling?
[50:05.170 --> 50:05.570]  From an airplane?
[50:06.230 --> 50:06.950]  No, no, no.
[50:07.090 --> 50:07.670]  I'm in a car.
[50:07.830 --> 50:08.130]  Okay.
[50:08.390 --> 50:08.890]  Well, be careful.
[50:08.890 --> 50:10.350]  I have my, I have my earpiece in.
[50:10.690 --> 50:11.130]  Okay.
[50:11.630 --> 50:14.550]  I'm calling, uh, actually to find out some information.
[50:14.550 --> 50:17.710]  I'm having a problem with a carrier that I just terminated.
[50:17.910 --> 50:20.030]  Actually, I wasn't aware that I terminated a contact with.
[50:20.070 --> 50:20.870]  It was Nextel.
[50:21.210 --> 50:27.870]  I switched over and I, I called them in May, basically, just to find out about some phones that were coming out.
[50:28.190 --> 50:28.950]  I didn't like it.
[50:28.990 --> 50:34.610]  I discussed with the representative that I was, you know, leaving because I thought that my contract was up.
[50:35.510 --> 50:38.710]  Make a long story short, about a week ago, I switched over to T-Mobile.
[50:38.930 --> 50:43.470]  I got a bill from Nextel for a $200 termination, you know, early contract fee.
[50:43.930 --> 50:45.810]  And so I called up to discuss this.
[50:46.090 --> 50:56.650]  They tell me that I was under contract until October 2005 and I know that I did not sign a contract, an additional two-year contract last year.
[50:57.130 --> 50:58.430]  Ask to see the contract.
[50:58.690 --> 51:00.870]  Yeah, I mean, basically, they do this in one or two ways.
[51:00.930 --> 51:09.910]  They auto-renew you, but you need to, you need to confirm that some way by either a voice recording that they make of you or by signing something.
[51:10.150 --> 51:13.530]  If you have not done either of those things, then yes, they are definitely in the wrong.
[51:16.680 --> 51:17.080]  Okay?
[51:17.520 --> 51:22.820]  What you have to do, though, is simply contact them, say there is no record of this.
[51:23.040 --> 51:31.940]  For instance, right now, okay, years ago, in, I guess, a weak moment, I agreed to subscribe to Time magazine, you know, because it was very cheap.
[51:32.260 --> 51:36.180]  Now, what they've been doing is they've been auto-renewing me year after year.
[51:36.760 --> 51:38.760]  And I've just been too lazy to do anything about it.
[51:39.200 --> 51:43.280]  This year, they auto-renewed me and for some reason, my credit card number changed or something like that.
[51:43.540 --> 51:49.640]  Now, they're mad at me and they're sending me collection notices saying, you are not paying and I never agreed to pay in the first place.
[51:49.880 --> 51:55.780]  So I'm just going to see how ugly it gets and then at some point, I'm going to present the evidence that I never agreed to this.
[51:56.260 --> 51:59.460]  These companies make a lot of assumptions and a lot of them are bad assumptions.
[51:59.700 --> 52:14.560]  I've found with wireless carriers, what's very effective is if you write a letter to the Better Business Bureau, the Better Business Bureau will actually, the wireless carriers get very upset when you do that and they will really go overboard trying to resolve the situation.
[52:14.800 --> 52:21.120]  In this case, the guy wants to get a copy of the contract you signed or a copy of the voice recording that he said, yes, I agree to this.
[52:22.080 --> 52:22.320]  All right.
[52:22.900 --> 52:23.920]  And good evening, you're on the air.
[52:25.260 --> 52:25.620]  Yes.
[52:26.140 --> 52:26.840]  No, no, no.
[52:27.120 --> 52:28.300]  Good evening, you're on the air.
[52:31.630 --> 52:32.770]  And good evening, you're on the air.
[52:34.090 --> 52:34.630]  Go ahead.
[52:35.950 --> 52:36.310]  Hello?
[52:36.530 --> 52:37.170]  Yes, you're on the air.
[52:37.230 --> 52:37.450]  Go ahead.
[52:38.590 --> 52:49.110]  Yes, I was curious if you're aware of a way to get mini-disc recordings onto the computer somehow, into like an iTunes or something like that so that it's easy you're organized.
[52:50.930 --> 52:53.990]  Are we doing the same radio show that these people are listening to?
[52:54.130 --> 52:57.370]  We talk about all these issues and suddenly we're at the tech support desk.
[52:58.150 --> 52:58.590]  I don't know.
[52:58.910 --> 52:59.890]  Anybody want to answer that question?
[52:59.930 --> 53:01.950]  Yes, I am aware of a way.
[53:02.830 --> 53:03.430]  That's your answer?
[53:03.710 --> 53:04.810]  You answered the question.
[53:04.990 --> 53:08.530]  Does anybody have anything to talk about as far as all the issues we've been discussing in the last hour?
[53:08.650 --> 53:09.110]  I'd like to know.
[53:09.650 --> 53:12.850]  We only have about a minute left, so please, it's 212-209-2900.
[53:13.010 --> 53:14.070]  And good evening, you're on.
[53:14.510 --> 53:15.370]  This is Astro.
[53:15.630 --> 53:16.250]  I'll call him Chelsea.
[53:16.650 --> 53:17.050]  Okay.
[53:17.550 --> 53:20.550]  What was the name of that movie again, criticizing Bush?
[53:20.970 --> 53:21.990]  Fahrenheit 9-11.
[53:22.510 --> 53:23.130]  9-11.
[53:23.290 --> 53:29.130]  Well, you know, I was watching the great singer and a painter there, Tony Bennett, on television, right?
[53:29.630 --> 53:39.150]  And he went to the premiere of that movie there, and he said, the man who produced that movie is really for the people, not like the politicians there.
[53:39.950 --> 53:45.810]  And you know, Tony Bennett, a great singer there, and a great artist, and a painter too, you know.
[53:46.050 --> 53:46.470]  Uh-huh.
[53:46.670 --> 54:04.450]  And let me tell you something, there's a quarter million homeless veterans in the United States, according to a full-page article in the Daily News, and not only that, the people demonstrating against the war, watch out for not getting cancer from the sun,
[54:04.630 --> 54:08.350]  exposure to the sun, because that's very possible.
[54:08.530 --> 54:10.630]  I spoke to a cancer specialist about that.
[54:10.950 --> 54:12.370]  Okay, well, we appreciate the tip.
[54:12.590 --> 54:12.990]  My pleasure.
[54:13.210 --> 54:13.390]  Thanks.
[54:13.490 --> 54:14.170]  Thanks for your call.
[54:15.090 --> 54:17.950]  Okay, well, that's the most on-topic call we've had so far.
[54:18.170 --> 54:18.750]  All right.
[54:19.510 --> 54:20.770]  Thanks for that call.
[54:21.390 --> 54:23.110]  And let's take this one over here.
[54:23.210 --> 54:23.510]  Good evening.
[54:23.610 --> 54:24.050]  You're on the air.
[54:24.330 --> 54:24.890]  All right.
[54:24.990 --> 54:26.350]  That's kind of on-topic, too, I guess.
[54:26.470 --> 54:27.630]  But let's try one more.
[54:28.010 --> 54:28.610]  Good evening.
[54:28.750 --> 54:28.970]  You're on.
[54:30.270 --> 54:30.930]  Go ahead.
[54:31.470 --> 54:32.570]  Oh, I'm on.
[54:33.130 --> 54:45.670]  I just was curious about, you know, would the Republican National Convention would be getting a whole bunch of, you know, how could we do technology to support, you know, protesters?
[54:45.970 --> 54:48.850]  And, you know, could we, you know, I'm a ham radio operator.
[54:49.030 --> 54:50.070]  Could we set up ham radio?
[54:50.070 --> 54:53.610]  You know, like just ways to organize people better so that...
[54:53.610 --> 54:58.970]  You need to attend some of our panels at the conference because we're going to be talking about exactly that kind of thing.
[54:59.410 --> 55:03.090]  That's not to sound like I'm pushing it too much, but that's one way to find out.
[55:03.210 --> 55:09.190]  Other ways, of course, are just, you know, going to indie media sites and expressing thoughts and opinions that way.
[55:09.570 --> 55:12.030]  Do you actually have a panel planned on that specifically?
[55:12.030 --> 55:13.570]  Yes, we have...
[55:13.570 --> 55:18.190]  Well, Mike, you're involved in indie media and the RNC and DNC and all that kind of thing.
[55:18.390 --> 55:18.630]  Right.
[55:18.810 --> 55:21.250]  That's for media work, independent media work.
[55:21.250 --> 55:27.190]  There's also a panel on technological vulnerabilities that Shapeshifter's running.
[55:27.610 --> 55:42.250]  Yeah, Shapeshifter, again, being our layout artist who was held on half a million dollars bail at the last Republican National Convention, he'll tell his story and also ways of infiltrating how you can listen, how you can communicate yourself, things like that.
[55:42.870 --> 55:45.950]  We're out of time, unfortunately, so that's going to have to be our last call.
[55:46.350 --> 55:49.750]  I want to thank everybody who did call in and hopefully more people will call in next week.
[55:49.930 --> 55:51.410]  Yes, we'll be on again next week.
[55:51.530 --> 55:52.690]  Amazing as it may sound.
[55:53.530 --> 56:01.090]  Until then, go check out that speaker list, www.hope.net and write to us, OTH at 2600.com.
[56:01.390 --> 56:01.990]  Have a good night.
[56:06.650 --> 56:43.770]  When I have a brand new PC I'll run Linux, not MS Word Ergonomically free and easy I enjoy being a nerd Whenever I have to reboot My sysadmin says not a word As user I yearn to be rude I enjoy being a nerd I click on the mouse When I get lonely, I chat with those strangers on the net.
[56:44.190 --> 56:51.330]  I lurk and I wonder if I'm only web-searching for the life I'll never get.
[56:51.890 --> 56:55.430]  A net-surfing eunuchs guru.
[56:55.950 --> 56:59.110]  I run with the website herd.
[56:59.410 --> 57:03.270]  I'll send all my gift files to you.
[57:03.270 --> 57:06.550]  I enjoy being a nerd.
[57:06.550 --> 57:14.130]  I lust for your high-speed cable modem and 500 megabytes of RAM.
[57:14.810 --> 57:18.470]  I'll turn all your floppies into hard ones.
[57:18.730 --> 57:21.950]  That's exactly the kind of scuzzy girl I am.
[57:21.950 --> 57:25.630]  I'm simply an e-mail female.
[57:25.650 --> 57:33.910]  And my future, I hope, will be dialed in with a guy who'll be male.
[57:34.170 --> 57:36.950]  Who enjoys being absurd.
[57:36.950 --> 57:39.670]  Having a nerd.
[57:40.170 --> 57:45.390]  Like a digital girl in an analog world.
[57:45.390 --> 57:48.430]  I enjoy being a nerd.
[57:49.870 --> 57:51.770]  Ooh, I like being a nerd.
[57:51.950 --> 57:52.830]  Nerds are fun.
[57:53.390 --> 57:56.470]  Stay tuned for a bunch of us.
[57:57.150 --> 57:58.770]  Here at the Personal Computer Show.
[57:59.770 --> 58:01.350]  Coming up after this message.
[58:01.930 --> 58:02.070]  8.
[58:02.170 --> 58:07.370]  46, 47, 48, 9, 50, 51, 52, 53.
[58:11.110 --> 58:12.970]  See how relaxed you're getting?
[58:13.810 --> 58:15.270]  You're tuned to Hi-Fi.
[58:16.110 --> 58:19.070]  WBAI 99.5 on your FM dials.
[58:19.310 --> 58:19.830]  New York.