[00:00.000 --> 00:04.900]  Today's technical production team at KPFA in Berkeley includes Rose Katopche and Scott Pham.
[00:05.060 --> 00:06.940]  Our intern is Neela Smith-Dorfman.
[00:07.340 --> 00:09.260]  FSRN is a worker-run collective.
[00:09.620 --> 00:15.000]  Major funding comes from the Pacifica Foundation, community radio stations nationwide, and individual donors.
[00:15.200 --> 00:17.780]  You can visit us online at fsrn.org.
[00:17.780 --> 00:22.580]  You can send questions, comments, or news tips to comments at fsrn.org.
[00:22.580 --> 00:23.360]  Thanks for listening.
[00:23.560 --> 00:25.320]  In New York, I'm Dorian Marina.
[00:30.780 --> 00:33.940]  And you're listening to radio station WBAI New York.
[00:34.100 --> 00:35.300]  The time is just about 7 o'clock.
[00:35.480 --> 00:36.660]  Time, once again, for Off the Hook.
[00:42.750 --> 00:44.730]  The telephone keeps ringing.
[00:45.170 --> 00:47.270]  So I ripped it off the wall.
[00:48.190 --> 00:50.250]  I cut myself while shaving.
[00:50.850 --> 00:52.770]  Now I can't make a call.
[00:53.510 --> 00:55.590]  We couldn't get much worse.
[00:58.490 --> 01:01.030]  Diddly bump for the best, expect the worst.
[01:01.570 --> 01:03.590]  I hope that's understood.
[01:03.770 --> 01:04.490]  But diddly bump!
[02:29.700 --> 02:31.720]  And giving it to you right, the program is Off the Hook.
[02:31.820 --> 02:34.620]  Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
[02:34.860 --> 02:36.120]  Joined tonight by Gus.
[02:36.240 --> 02:36.620]  Oh, hi.
[02:36.840 --> 02:37.160]  Jim.
[02:37.660 --> 02:37.980]  Hello.
[02:38.220 --> 02:38.620]  Redhack.
[02:38.700 --> 02:38.900]  Hello.
[02:39.100 --> 02:39.620]  Dot Rhett.
[02:39.840 --> 02:39.940]  Hello.
[02:39.940 --> 02:40.480]  Rob T.
[02:40.900 --> 02:41.300]  Firefly.
[02:41.560 --> 02:41.920]  Good evening.
[02:42.160 --> 02:42.560]  Voltaire.
[02:42.720 --> 02:43.920]  Greetings from New York, Delphia.
[02:44.440 --> 02:46.960]  Yeah, unfortunately, the joke's on you because I think the mic's not working.
[02:47.320 --> 02:48.120]  Try that again.
[02:48.520 --> 02:50.020]  Greetings from New York, Delphia.
[02:50.260 --> 02:50.920]  No, I'm sorry.
[02:51.060 --> 02:52.060]  I think it's your voice.
[02:53.520 --> 02:55.020]  It's just not working right.
[02:55.300 --> 02:56.660]  Well, it's not going through the microphone.
[02:56.660 --> 02:57.260]  What can I say?
[02:59.760 --> 03:01.580]  And joining us on the telephone is Bernie S.
[03:01.720 --> 03:02.220]  from Philadelphia.
[03:03.060 --> 03:04.160]  Greetings from Philadelphia.
[03:04.680 --> 03:06.640]  Also joining us on the telephone is Mike.
[03:07.480 --> 03:08.220]  Hi, how are you?
[03:08.340 --> 03:09.340]  You're not in the studio, Mike.
[03:09.340 --> 03:09.860]  Where are you now?
[03:10.320 --> 03:11.380]  I'm in Vancouver.
[03:11.860 --> 03:12.640]  You're in Vancouver?
[03:13.340 --> 03:15.220]  Well, I wasn't expecting that, actually.
[03:15.620 --> 03:15.980]  Wow.
[03:16.400 --> 03:17.780]  Okay, what brings you to Vancouver?
[03:18.760 --> 03:19.400]  An airplane.
[03:20.100 --> 03:22.400]  All right, well, I guess we're going to be cagey about why you're in Vancouver.
[03:22.480 --> 03:24.040]  Well, see, this is part of the problem.
[03:24.300 --> 03:26.660]  I took this trip sort of at the last minute.
[03:26.660 --> 03:29.860]  I could go for a very small amount of frequent flyer miles.
[03:31.420 --> 03:34.100]  And when I got here last night, they asked me the same question.
[03:34.580 --> 03:36.220]  And I didn't really have a good answer.
[03:36.360 --> 03:38.800]  And they like to know why you're visiting their country.
[03:40.000 --> 03:44.160]  So I got really inspected thoroughly by the customs people.
[03:44.620 --> 03:46.500]  And did they find anything interesting?
[03:47.560 --> 03:49.100]  No, they were very disappointed.
[03:49.400 --> 03:49.720]  I see.
[03:50.320 --> 03:53.800]  Well, okay, that's kind of interesting, then.
[03:54.320 --> 04:00.320]  Well, I guess if any of our listeners have a good reason for me to be here, send an email to OTH at 2600 and consider it.
[04:00.520 --> 04:02.300]  Yeah, so you're in Vancouver.
[04:02.820 --> 04:07.100]  And I guess if you're looking for something to do over there, our listeners can probably help out in some way.
[04:07.860 --> 04:08.860]  You've never been there before?
[04:09.420 --> 04:10.100]  No, I haven't.
[04:10.260 --> 04:10.480]  Okay.
[04:10.840 --> 04:13.280]  Well, it's got the largest Chinatown, supposedly, in North America.
[04:13.280 --> 04:15.060]  I keep hearing that, but I don't know if it's true.
[04:15.200 --> 04:17.820]  Yeah, it's the Asian population there in general is big.
[04:17.900 --> 04:19.460]  There's a lot of really great Japanese boutiques.
[04:19.460 --> 04:23.240]  I think that our Chinatown, and yeah, Japanese is not Chinatown, though.
[04:23.280 --> 04:24.220]  That's the thing, you know?
[04:24.720 --> 04:26.060]  I think our Chinatown is bigger.
[04:26.240 --> 04:28.040]  I just, I walked around there.
[04:28.180 --> 04:29.400]  Vancouver will fight you on that.
[04:29.540 --> 04:31.080]  Well, we'll have to have a showdown.
[04:31.200 --> 04:33.620]  Are there Lower East Side hipsters in your Chinatown?
[04:34.680 --> 04:35.040]  Ah.
[04:35.900 --> 04:37.000]  I guess he can't hear you.
[04:37.380 --> 04:37.400]  Okay.
[04:37.720 --> 04:38.240]  Well, I...
[04:38.240 --> 04:39.380]  Chinatown's smackdown.
[04:39.760 --> 04:40.120]  All right.
[04:40.180 --> 04:45.040]  I haven't been to the Vancouver Chinatown yet, so I don't want to take position on this issue quite yet.
[04:45.280 --> 04:45.560]  Mm-hmm.
[04:46.020 --> 04:49.440]  Okay, well, I'm sure our listeners will come through and come up with us.
[04:49.440 --> 04:52.160]  We'll come up with all kinds of fascinating things for you to do there.
[04:53.100 --> 04:57.920]  Anything else going on in people's lives that they wish to update the world about this week?
[04:58.160 --> 05:02.820]  We should mention probably that DebConf is going on this week, and DebConf and DebCamp.
[05:03.000 --> 05:03.280]  Okay.
[05:03.360 --> 05:04.400]  What is that exactly?
[05:04.640 --> 05:07.380]  That's a large gathering of Debian developers.
[05:08.000 --> 05:08.960]  It's really neat, actually.
[05:08.960 --> 05:20.640]  I was hanging out with some other folks last week at, or last Friday, I guess it was, at Resistor NYC, and one of the really cool things about the conference is they've been really good about bringing in people from around the world.
[05:20.800 --> 05:26.620]  They have a lot of scholarships, and so we had folks there from, I think, Belgium and Mexico and a lot of other countries.
[05:26.820 --> 05:28.460]  And it was some really neat discussion.
[05:28.600 --> 05:29.280]  They're really cool people.
[05:29.460 --> 05:30.960]  What is a Debian developer?
[05:30.960 --> 05:34.220]  A person who works on the Debian flavor of Linux.
[05:34.540 --> 05:34.880]  I see.
[05:35.040 --> 05:35.200]  Yes.
[05:35.200 --> 05:44.520]  And they hate the people that work on Red Hat or Ubuntu or the other distributions of Linux and, God forbid, FreeBSD or NetBSD or even Windows or Mac OS.
[05:44.720 --> 05:47.940]  I'm not throwing any gang signs in terms of Linux development.
[05:47.940 --> 05:49.340]  It just gets out of control sometimes.
[05:49.340 --> 05:49.960]  It really does.
[05:50.160 --> 05:51.360]  So anyway, that's happening here in New York.
[05:51.440 --> 05:51.660]  Yes.
[05:51.740 --> 05:52.320]  That's up at Columbia.
[05:52.540 --> 05:52.860]  Columbia.
[05:53.000 --> 05:53.180]  Okay.
[05:53.340 --> 05:53.540]  All right.
[05:53.860 --> 05:57.320]  And is it open to all, or do you have to show a particular...
[05:57.320 --> 05:59.540]  Actually, from what I understand, it's a free conference.
[05:59.700 --> 06:01.080]  And I think you can just drop in.
[06:01.240 --> 06:02.120]  People kept saying...
[06:02.120 --> 06:02.440]  I hope you're right.
[06:02.680 --> 06:04.940]  If we send all these people up there and it's not free...
[06:04.940 --> 06:05.320]  Yeah, it's really cool.
[06:05.420 --> 06:06.380]  Yeah, there'll be some...
[06:06.380 --> 06:08.040]  And also, 2,600 meetings are this Friday.
[06:08.180 --> 06:09.600]  So that's always fun as well.
[06:09.680 --> 06:11.900]  Maybe we'll get some Debian developers dropping by.
[06:12.140 --> 06:12.580]  They should.
[06:12.680 --> 06:13.240]  They should come visit.
[06:13.380 --> 06:13.620]  Yeah.
[06:13.980 --> 06:15.780]  See what the real hackers are up to.
[06:15.960 --> 06:19.320]  So we go to your local 2,600 meeting or start one ASAP.
[06:19.460 --> 06:19.700]  Yes.
[06:19.900 --> 06:24.340]  And more information on that, www.2,600.com slash meetings.
[06:24.900 --> 06:27.300]  We should have a hackathon this Friday and have our own...
[06:27.760 --> 06:28.900]  What is a hackathon?
[06:29.300 --> 06:30.420]  What happens at a hackathon?
[06:31.080 --> 06:35.760]  Just like a code for like overnight and make your own Debian spinoff.
[06:35.840 --> 06:37.940]  It's like a slumber party, only with geeks.
[06:38.140 --> 06:38.760]  Oh, boy.
[06:39.120 --> 06:40.480]  Yeah, I've been to a couple of them.
[06:40.580 --> 06:42.160]  And they're generally like...
[06:42.160 --> 06:44.740]  Well, they don't have to be, but generally they're sponsored events.
[06:44.860 --> 06:51.060]  And then people just stay up all night and drink, you know, caffeinated beverages and eat pizza and write cool stuff.
[06:51.520 --> 06:55.580]  Well, if they need caffeinated beverages, I know of one that can be delivered to them.
[06:55.580 --> 06:58.400]  There was a lot of Klubmata down at Resistor when I was down there, actually.
[06:58.620 --> 07:01.740]  I think it was in the fridge with the giant things of liquid nitrogen that they have.
[07:01.860 --> 07:05.040]  Yeah, those are beer kegs, not liquid nitrogen.
[07:05.360 --> 07:06.640]  They look like they're liquid nitrogen.
[07:07.040 --> 07:09.520]  They came over with a semi to pick up a lot of that stuff.
[07:09.660 --> 07:11.880]  You wouldn't need to put liquid nitrogen in a refrigerator.
[07:12.220 --> 07:12.920]  Oh, right.
[07:13.180 --> 07:13.580]  All right.
[07:13.640 --> 07:14.960]  Well, you want to keep it really cool.
[07:15.320 --> 07:18.120]  Well, you said there are Klubmata down at Resistor.
[07:18.180 --> 07:20.000]  Why aren't there Klubmata up at Columbia?
[07:20.420 --> 07:21.180]  I don't know.
[07:21.360 --> 07:22.100]  Let's bring them there.
[07:22.100 --> 07:23.920]  Yeah, we can do a pilgrimage.
[07:25.600 --> 07:26.320]  Okay, any...
[07:26.320 --> 07:26.740]  Yes, go ahead.
[07:26.880 --> 07:30.100]  I don't know if you're aware of this, but it was kind of cool.
[07:30.260 --> 07:32.020]  I was in Finland last week.
[07:32.100 --> 07:32.880]  Yeah, that is kind of cool.
[07:33.020 --> 07:33.880]  And I was...
[07:33.880 --> 07:36.100]  Well, that wasn't the story, but...
[07:36.100 --> 07:38.620]  Well, being anywhere other than here can be cool.
[07:38.800 --> 07:43.220]  And I was in a restaurant there that has really good food, so I had to go there.
[07:44.540 --> 07:46.040]  But they actually...
[07:46.040 --> 07:47.240]  The restaurant is...
[07:47.240 --> 07:49.580]  The property they're on is owned by like a local church or something.
[07:49.580 --> 07:55.420]  So they used to have a liquor license when I lived in Finland, but they don't have it anymore because the church didn't want them to serve liquor or something.
[07:56.160 --> 07:56.480]  Unimportant.
[07:56.840 --> 07:56.940]  Yeah.
[07:57.020 --> 07:58.580]  I asked, what do you have to drink?
[07:59.940 --> 08:00.580]  And they...
[08:00.580 --> 08:02.080]  I said, do you have anything interesting?
[08:02.260 --> 08:03.720]  You know, not just like Coca-Cola or something.
[08:03.880 --> 08:05.040]  It's like, well, we have Klubmata.
[08:05.200 --> 08:06.060]  Would you like some of that?
[08:06.140 --> 08:06.640]  In Finland?
[08:06.960 --> 08:07.920]  Yeah, at this restaurant in Finland.
[08:08.260 --> 08:10.880]  And they had regular Klubmata and they had Klubmata cola.
[08:11.040 --> 08:12.400]  So I had a Klubmata cola.
[08:12.640 --> 08:12.940]  Uh-huh.
[08:13.080 --> 08:15.080]  That's a cola-flavored Klubmata.
[08:15.080 --> 08:16.500]  Let's settle this once and for all.
[08:16.500 --> 08:20.840]  Well, you guys can insist on saying Klubmata and the people in Germany call it Klubmata.
[08:21.120 --> 08:24.840]  So, I mean, why are we adding the extra pronunciation that even the Germans don't use?
[08:24.840 --> 08:26.940]  Because it's Ford and we want to pronounce it differently.
[08:27.900 --> 08:28.260]  Okay.
[08:28.260 --> 08:28.780]  That's why.
[08:29.280 --> 08:29.480]  Yeah.
[08:29.560 --> 08:31.300]  That's the only reason I can think of.
[08:31.300 --> 08:35.880]  I mean, I went to the plant where they make the stuff and you'd think that they would pronounce it properly.
[08:36.080 --> 08:37.540]  So I'm just going by what they say.
[08:37.600 --> 08:37.900]  Klubmata then.
[08:38.060 --> 08:38.400]  Rob?
[08:38.560 --> 08:40.940]  As long as they're not calling it Klubmate, I'm ready to let it slide.
[08:40.960 --> 08:41.880]  Yeah, that's wrong.
[08:42.000 --> 08:42.400]  That's wrong.
[08:42.500 --> 08:43.320]  It's not Klubmate.
[08:43.600 --> 08:44.960]  That much we know.
[08:44.960 --> 08:46.200]  Well, because if you were to spell...
[08:46.200 --> 08:53.360]  I mean, I don't think in the Klubmate logo it has the accent, but I think in general Yerba Mate is spelled with an accent over the E.
[08:53.760 --> 08:54.160]  Okay.
[08:54.440 --> 08:54.700]  Yes.
[08:54.840 --> 08:55.100]  Mate.
[08:55.220 --> 08:55.880]  That is true.
[08:56.500 --> 08:59.220]  It's very controversial, the accent over the E.
[08:59.440 --> 08:59.900]  It is.
[09:00.100 --> 09:01.720]  Because you don't have it in Spanish.
[09:01.720 --> 09:05.180]  If you put the accent over the E in Spanish, that means I killed.
[09:05.600 --> 09:08.100]  And that's not something you'd want to drink.
[09:08.460 --> 09:09.220]  One other thing.
[09:09.360 --> 09:12.300]  I saw an interesting kind of thing like that happening.
[09:12.300 --> 09:17.260]  There's a Finnish company called Kone, which means like machine, and they're an elevator company.
[09:17.400 --> 09:18.500]  Their elevators are all over the world.
[09:18.800 --> 09:23.480]  When I was in France, there was an accent over the E because without the accent, it would have...
[09:23.480 --> 09:26.360]  If you pronounced it in French, it would have said something like not...
[09:26.360 --> 09:28.840]  I don't remember what the meaning was, but it was not good.
[09:29.000 --> 09:29.260]  Okay.
[09:29.420 --> 09:29.940]  So they put in...
[09:29.940 --> 09:35.580]  So I thought that was kind of interesting that in their logo in France, they put an accent over the E so it wouldn't be mispronounced.
[09:35.580 --> 09:47.060]  Now, speaking of Finland, there is a story that we got fairly recently proclaiming that Finland has become the first country in the world to make broadband a legal right for every citizen starting on July 1st.
[09:47.180 --> 09:53.580]  Every Finn had the right to access a one megabit per second broadband connection.
[09:54.080 --> 09:59.940]  Finland has vowed to connect everyone to a 100 megabit per second connection by 2015.
[10:00.960 --> 10:11.660]  Over in the UK, the government has promised a minimum connection of at least two megabit per second to all homes by 2012, but has stopped short of enshrining this as a right in law.
[10:11.780 --> 10:13.800]  But Finland, wow, that's pretty amazing.
[10:13.940 --> 10:14.640]  What do you think of that?
[10:14.720 --> 10:20.660]  I'm curious how they're going to set up the infrastructure, if it's going to be wireless or something else, because the country is mostly trees.
[10:20.900 --> 10:22.880]  I mean, so there's a lot of big kind of gaps.
[10:23.100 --> 10:23.660]  Yeah, well...
[10:23.660 --> 10:24.240]  But I think that it...
[10:24.240 --> 10:25.160]  They didn't say wireless.
[10:25.340 --> 10:26.580]  They just said a broadband connection.
[10:26.740 --> 10:28.300]  Well, that could mean any kind of connection.
[10:28.300 --> 10:30.880]  It's a right, though, an actual human right.
[10:31.160 --> 10:31.580]  I guess...
[10:31.580 --> 10:32.420]  Maybe that puts...
[10:32.420 --> 10:40.720]  I mean, I haven't read the law, but maybe it puts the, you know, the responsibility on like the broadband providers that if somebody says, I want to have a connection, you have to connect them.
[10:40.820 --> 10:41.120]  I don't know.
[10:41.120 --> 10:42.540]  That would be nice here in New York City.
[10:42.700 --> 10:43.000]  I'd like...
[10:43.000 --> 10:43.620]  Because how else...
[10:43.620 --> 10:44.080]  How else...
[10:44.080 --> 10:51.920]  I mean, how else would you make it a right if I go to, you know, Verizon and say, I want an internet connection in my apartment, and they say, too bad, you know.
[10:52.120 --> 10:54.460]  I mean, does then the law say, well, no, you can't say that?
[10:54.480 --> 10:54.880]  I don't know.
[10:55.000 --> 10:56.700]  I haven't read the law, but I'm just saying that it seems...
[10:56.700 --> 11:13.580]  Well, I've heard about using things like WiMAX or other 4G-capable type wireless to use for infrastructure for the last mile, as they say, for the more rural areas.
[11:13.700 --> 11:15.220]  The country is pretty well connected.
[11:15.480 --> 11:22.240]  You know, I noticed when I was living there that if you basically typed in a city or town name, .fi, a website came up for that town.
[11:22.240 --> 11:23.360]  And I tried this.
[11:23.460 --> 11:27.800]  I took a map out, and I looked, and I found the northernmost dot I could find on the map.
[11:27.840 --> 11:33.680]  And I typed that in and put .fi, and I was looking at pictures of their town and of their one-room school and all this stuff.
[11:33.740 --> 11:34.900]  Was it actually coming from there?
[11:34.900 --> 11:35.400]  So the country is fairly well connected.
[11:35.400 --> 11:36.780]  Was it actually coming from that town, though?
[11:36.820 --> 11:38.060]  Was it maybe a centralized place?
[11:38.160 --> 11:41.560]  Well, but somebody in the town has to be able to update the website, so they must have internet connection.
[11:41.920 --> 11:42.760]  Maybe, maybe.
[11:43.060 --> 11:45.420]  Somebody in a central location can update websites, too.
[11:45.540 --> 11:50.060]  But, I mean, the country is pretty advanced technologically already in many ways.
[11:50.060 --> 11:56.700]  And so, I guess they probably do have the infrastructure already, at least where they want it, right?
[11:56.760 --> 12:00.480]  A lot of people there have summer homes and probably don't care and have a connection to this.
[12:00.500 --> 12:00.660]  Rob?
[12:01.000 --> 12:02.520]  I'm wondering about the provider end of this.
[12:02.580 --> 12:07.460]  Are they making it a municipal thing, like water and power, that type of deal, where, you know, they have to get into it?
[12:07.460 --> 12:07.980]  It seems that way.
[12:08.000 --> 12:12.900]  It seems that's something that is a right, something that you absolutely cannot be denied.
[12:13.140 --> 12:19.740]  I know in this country, if you went to, you know, Verizon or whoever and said you have to give people Wi-Fi, they'd be like, you know, they'd tell you where to go, I think.
[12:19.740 --> 12:21.880]  But I wonder if that applies to prisoners as well.
[12:22.060 --> 12:23.620]  Do they have a legal right to broadband?
[12:23.940 --> 12:24.780]  Wouldn't that be something?
[12:24.920 --> 12:25.160]  Voltaire?
[12:25.500 --> 12:30.940]  No, I think all about prisoners, I think that when you go to a prison, you lose a lot of rights, like free speech, right?
[12:31.100 --> 12:31.660]  In America.
[12:31.760 --> 12:32.180]  In America.
[12:32.620 --> 12:33.020]  This is true.
[12:33.220 --> 12:36.420]  And other countries probably have similar policies, but it doesn't have to be the same.
[12:36.520 --> 12:44.420]  But back to the issue about it being very loosely populated and lots of thousands of miles between houses.
[12:45.400 --> 12:48.380]  This is hundreds of kilometers, let's put it that way.
[12:48.740 --> 12:52.080]  There are plenty of other countries besides the U.S.
[12:52.140 --> 12:53.560]  that have handled this really well.
[12:53.660 --> 12:56.800]  In fact, basically all the other civilized countries besides the U.S.
[12:58.120 --> 13:06.800]  There's been a really good Berkman Center study about this and how all the foreign countries have, even the rural ones.
[13:06.800 --> 13:10.600]  Because a lot of times you'll hear like ISPs saying, oh, we can't, the U.S.
[13:11.020 --> 13:14.500]  internet speeds suck because there are too many rural people.
[13:14.660 --> 13:17.520]  But they've shown that there's really no correlation between that.
[13:17.880 --> 13:18.900]  Yeah, I mean, I didn't...
[13:18.900 --> 13:19.320]  Sorry.
[13:19.380 --> 13:22.200]  I didn't mean to make it sound like the country is full of farmhouses.
[13:22.380 --> 13:22.780]  I mean, there's...
[13:22.780 --> 13:23.400]  But it is.
[13:23.540 --> 13:27.700]  No, it's a really high-tech country, you know, in a lot of ways.
[13:27.880 --> 13:29.220]  And their mobile systems are great.
[13:29.280 --> 13:31.580]  I was in the middle of nowhere while I was there at a summer home.
[13:31.680 --> 13:35.620]  And we still had, you know, internet access and via cell phone and stuff like that, so...
[13:35.620 --> 13:37.160]  Yeah, that's sort of...
[13:37.680 --> 13:40.080]  Yeah, not to imply that Finland is at all backwards.
[13:40.220 --> 13:42.440]  I mean, Finland consistently scores better than we do.
[13:42.560 --> 13:44.000]  Like, it's the top in the world for education.
[13:44.000 --> 13:46.180]  So they're really like, they're about to eat our lunch.
[13:47.560 --> 13:50.060]  But, yeah, it's interesting to hear about all these other countries.
[13:50.640 --> 14:03.720]  Specifically, you know, you hear about developing countries as well where, you know, the last mile problem we supposedly had in the United States for so long with providers providing wired internet access is not a problem because they are so-called leapfrogging the,
[14:03.720 --> 14:07.080]  you know, the other technologies and just going straight to usually mobiles.
[14:07.140 --> 14:12.180]  And there's a lot of work being done on using mobiles to help people in various African communities.
[14:12.240 --> 14:16.060]  I was looking at the Earth Institute at Columbia's page about that just the other day.
[14:16.060 --> 14:22.140]  And they're, you know, working on getting, you know, livestock prices for market to people's phones and things like that.
[14:22.140 --> 14:26.680]  So, yeah, I mean, like, it doesn't surprise me, especially with Finland having Nokia and is Ericsson there as well?
[14:26.740 --> 14:28.000]  Or is that Sweden?
[14:28.260 --> 14:28.500]  I forget.
[14:29.120 --> 14:29.480]  Yeah.
[14:29.800 --> 14:30.560]  Nokia is the big one.
[14:30.760 --> 14:30.900]  Yeah.
[14:31.400 --> 14:33.120]  Well, yes, go ahead, Bernie.
[14:34.160 --> 14:54.560]  Here in the United States of America, I think that free government provided broadband as a right to everyone is viewed by our incumbent elected officials as a downright un-American, as evidenced by legislation or laws in place in many states, including Pennsylvania,
[14:55.200 --> 15:06.740]  that telecom providers and companies like, you know, and other major ISPs like broadband, other broadband providers, have actually gotten laws in the books in many states in the U.S.
[15:06.840 --> 15:15.580]  to make it illegal for state legislatures or municipalities to provide free municipal Wi-Fi.
[15:15.840 --> 15:24.480]  Here in Pennsylvania, it's illegal for any community in Pennsylvania to provide free municipal Wi-Fi to its citizens.
[15:24.680 --> 15:37.900]  And they carved out the mayor at the time, or the governor at the time, Ed Rendell, carved in a couple exceptions, I think, for Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, but no other cities in Pennsylvania can the community provide free municipal Wi-Fi.
[15:37.960 --> 15:38.980]  And I think it's really a shame.
[15:38.980 --> 15:39.780]  It's wonderful.
[15:40.020 --> 15:47.860]  I think if everybody has free, no-cost, you know, fast access to the Internet, it opens up so many opportunities to everybody.
[15:48.020 --> 15:56.020]  But there's... not only is it not, you know, provided in this country, it's viewed as un-American and made illegal to provide.
[15:56.600 --> 15:57.740]  We are so screwed.
[15:58.720 --> 16:02.640]  Yeah, yeah, I guess that would be the theme we come back to on occasion here.
[16:03.400 --> 16:08.840]  Well, hopefully we're not so screwed at the radio station because we are still on the air.
[16:08.980 --> 16:10.320]  We are still moving forward.
[16:10.840 --> 16:14.100]  And this is the first show of our summer mini-thon.
[16:14.320 --> 16:18.760]  Mini-thon means it's not as big as the usual marathons that we have the other times of the year.
[16:19.320 --> 16:25.340]  But we do need to ask our listeners to help support the radio station and, hence, the radio show.
[16:25.860 --> 16:41.120]  So if you find yourself riveted to the radio listening to us bantering on about this particular issue, as well as many others over the years, then perhaps you could find it in your heart to give us a call and pledge your support to the radio station with however much you can afford.
[16:41.160 --> 16:46.320]  We have some exciting incentives that will hopefully get you to call up.
[16:46.320 --> 16:57.360]  The first being a brand-new autographed copy of our book, Dear Hacker, Letters to the Editor of 2600.
[16:57.720 --> 16:58.180]  Rob T.
[16:58.300 --> 17:00.740]  Firefly, you're holding the book in your hand right now.
[17:00.900 --> 17:07.000]  And, in fact, it's hard getting your attention because you're just so captivated by what's in there.
[17:07.140 --> 17:09.600]  Give us an example of some of the things you've seen so far.
[17:09.780 --> 17:10.300]  I am indeed.
[17:10.560 --> 17:18.700]  One of the first things I noticed was the helpful note at the top of the 1985 section here that says, some letters in this chapter may contain URL addresses that are no longer active.
[17:20.100 --> 17:20.960]  1985, eh?
[17:21.180 --> 17:21.440]  Yes.
[17:21.700 --> 17:22.400]  Well, that's quite possible.
[17:22.500 --> 17:23.680]  But there are some that still work, I bet.
[17:24.100 --> 17:24.980]  I imagine they are.
[17:25.120 --> 17:25.980]  1985, really?
[17:27.420 --> 17:27.780]  Wow.
[17:28.480 --> 17:30.800]  Any excerpts you'd like to read to us?
[17:30.840 --> 17:36.560]  Because we do have a lot of letters from our readers of 2600 magazine that have appeared over the years.
[17:36.680 --> 17:38.080]  And some of them are phenomenal.
[17:38.220 --> 17:38.960]  Some of them are classics.
[17:38.960 --> 17:44.500]  And, of course, some of the responses are really kind of interesting and historic as well.
[17:45.320 --> 17:46.980]  There are some interesting things in here.
[17:47.160 --> 17:52.980]  A lot of these, like this I'm noticing, is right about the time that not too long after the Big Bell breakup.
[17:53.480 --> 17:58.720]  And all these companies that were once one were now many, but they were still sort of doing each other favors.
[17:58.720 --> 18:04.920]  As someone known as No Name wrote in 1985.
[18:05.080 --> 18:06.640]  Yeah, he wrote a lot of letters, actually, that guy.
[18:07.340 --> 18:09.380]  I think he was competing with that anonymous dude.
[18:10.180 --> 18:16.340]  But in 1985, he writes, Dear 2600, I recently had my telephone disconnected due to the fact that my roommate had forgotten to pay the bill.
[18:16.540 --> 18:17.780]  I have no dispute with the billing.
[18:17.900 --> 18:18.900]  However, my question is this.
[18:19.060 --> 18:20.780]  My Pac-Tel bill was around $15.
[18:21.440 --> 18:24.560]  We had paid off $85 of our bill, leaving a balance of $82.
[18:25.540 --> 18:29.460]  Therefore, I would assume we had paid our debt to Pac-Tel and only owed money to AT&T.
[18:29.560 --> 18:35.780]  Now, at the bottom of my monthly long-distance statement, it says the billing is only provided as a service to AT&T, with whom Pacific Telephone has no connection.
[18:36.060 --> 18:39.040]  If this is the case, under what authority did they cut off my telephone service?
[18:39.200 --> 18:41.680]  If I failed to pay my MCI bill, would Pac-Tel cut me off?
[18:42.200 --> 18:45.420]  Shouldn't I just be cut off from AT&T's lines and collecting is their problem?
[18:45.540 --> 18:47.400]  Just a little more confusion resulting from the breakup.
[18:48.200 --> 18:53.180]  And to which the response was, Nobody should really be surprised when two companies that were once one do each other favors.
[18:53.180 --> 18:55.400]  We've heard quite a few similar tales and would like to hear more.
[18:55.900 --> 18:59.680]  Perhaps we could gather them together and go to the right person and get these companies in a big pile of trouble.
[18:59.860 --> 19:01.300]  Nothing like freak revenge, they say.
[19:01.940 --> 19:02.700]  Yes, indeed.
[19:04.320 --> 19:07.100]  And that book is about, what, 500, 600 pages?
[19:07.880 --> 19:09.300]  So it's really big.
[19:09.960 --> 19:11.880]  Yeah, 550 or so.
[19:11.880 --> 19:25.280]  Yeah, and it's chock full of letters to the editor about various hacker issues, injustices to people who ask too many questions, all kinds of stories, and all types of replies.
[19:25.460 --> 19:30.720]  It's yours for a pledge of $75, 212-209-2950.
[19:30.900 --> 19:32.020]  That's our phone number.
[19:33.020 --> 19:42.820]  And we take Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and also anybody who pledges $35 and above will get a brand new off-the-hook t-shirt in the size of your choice.
[19:42.940 --> 19:51.480]  So if you pledge $75, you'll get an autographed copy of Dear Hacker, and you'll get a copy, or you'll get an off-the-hook t-shirt, which you can only get by pledging to the radio station.
[19:51.480 --> 19:53.000]  212-209-2950.
[19:53.900 --> 19:54.680]  What else you got there?
[19:54.760 --> 19:55.980]  You got another letter for us?
[19:56.660 --> 19:59.420]  I happen to open up to the page of...
[19:59.420 --> 20:02.400]  You know, you just let anyone write to this magazine of yours.
[20:03.380 --> 20:05.320]  This was one of mine from 2002.
[20:05.500 --> 20:06.660]  Just happened to open up to that page.
[20:06.660 --> 20:07.960]  Just happened to open up to that page, yes.
[20:07.960 --> 20:08.180]  Oh, okay.
[20:09.000 --> 20:15.940]  And it tells about how I've recently discovered the joys of searching for asterisk.eml files on Kazaa.
[20:16.060 --> 20:16.680]  Remember Kazaa?
[20:17.300 --> 20:17.940]  I do, I do.
[20:18.720 --> 20:23.500]  Microsoft Outlook saves email messages as .eml, even though they're just normal text files.
[20:23.620 --> 20:25.860]  Lots of people have emails saved, which they don't realize they're sharing.
[20:26.460 --> 20:36.680]  So far, I've gotten instructions to call the American Embassy in Lebanon, two moms cursing up a storm about some other mom who goes to their kids' hockey games, some homewrecker begging the, if it wasn't for her, could you have feelings for me question,
[20:37.040 --> 20:39.680]  lots of product registration codes, and lots of pictures of ugly strangers.
[20:39.840 --> 20:40.180]  It's fun.
[20:40.920 --> 20:45.120]  Just be warned that lots of these are viral, since I guess people want to save viral messages as evidence or something.
[20:45.120 --> 20:48.380]  Even worse than that, though, are the massive amounts of cheesy-forwarded jokes you'll get.
[20:51.240 --> 20:51.640]  Wow.
[20:52.040 --> 20:52.620]  Voltaire, go ahead.
[20:52.900 --> 20:55.520]  Anything about Barack Obama not being American?
[20:56.000 --> 20:57.420]  Not in 2002, no.
[20:58.040 --> 20:59.960]  I think in 2002 he was still American.
[21:00.620 --> 21:01.020]  Interesting.
[21:01.160 --> 21:05.560]  But that was a lot of fun, and I actually forgot I wrote this until I found it again in this book.
[21:06.120 --> 21:06.560]  Wow.
[21:06.980 --> 21:10.380]  Well, who knows how much other history you'll find hidden in there.
[21:10.620 --> 21:17.600]  If you give a call, 212-209-2950, pledge $75, you'll get your own copy of this book autographed.
[21:17.680 --> 21:22.700]  And for a pledge of $35 and above, you'll get an off-the-hook t-shirt.
[21:22.820 --> 21:29.780]  Now, I don't know if you guys remember, but at the HOPE conference only a couple of weeks ago, people were lined up to buy copies of this book.
[21:31.080 --> 21:34.880]  And now we have them available here for the radio station to support the radio station.
[21:34.940 --> 21:36.580]  So you're doing a couple of really good things.
[21:36.780 --> 21:44.100]  You're learning about the history of the hacker world, and you're supporting the radio station at the same time.
[21:44.660 --> 21:47.360]  So it's something that I think you'll really enjoy.
[21:47.500 --> 22:02.440]  This is a book that was fun putting together, but I think it's a bit more accessible than the previous book that we had, The Best of 2600, because this isn't just purely articles about various, machines and software and things like that.
[22:02.560 --> 22:12.260]  This is something that encompasses all aspects of life and all kinds of subjects that people felt compelled to write to us about.
[22:12.340 --> 22:13.240]  Some of it makes no sense.
[22:13.360 --> 22:17.600]  People write to us with all sorts of conspiracy theories, and they want to just spout off.
[22:17.660 --> 22:22.540]  And sometimes it's healthy to let them do that and to add our own two cents.
[22:23.280 --> 22:28.640]  Sometimes, though, there are very pertinent and concise stories stories that really make you think.
[22:29.040 --> 22:34.900]  In any event, it's a fascinating read, something that you can show to your parents and grandparents and kids.
[22:35.340 --> 22:36.860]  Everybody will get something out of this.
[22:36.940 --> 22:39.020]  212-209-2950.
[22:39.040 --> 22:39.580]  Pledge us.
[22:39.800 --> 22:43.300]  $75 gets you the book and the Off the Hook t-shirt.
[22:43.700 --> 22:44.100]  Rob?
[22:44.340 --> 22:47.880]  I will say, this is a really good look at how hacker culture has evolved over the years.
[22:48.000 --> 22:50.160]  I mean, the previous book was great for that, too.
[22:50.280 --> 22:56.340]  But while the previous book contained what we were trying to teach each other, this contains what we were actually saying to one another over the years.
[22:56.360 --> 23:03.620]  And it's really interesting to watch us, you know, to see us talk about things that happened, speculate on things that have since come to pass.
[23:04.080 --> 23:05.640]  And also, it's just really interesting.
[23:05.760 --> 23:11.680]  I mean, I know when I read the magazine still, the first thing I turn to is the letters page just because it's that cool.
[23:11.740 --> 23:14.320]  It's the favorite part of the magazine for just about everybody.
[23:14.600 --> 23:21.460]  Young and old that I've talked to, I guess they just like the dialogue back and forth because there is a lot of back and forth in the letters section.
[23:21.460 --> 23:26.900]  And the letters section over the years has grown to be the biggest part of the magazine as well.
[23:27.000 --> 23:32.680]  I think we print more letters per page, per total amount of page, than any other magazine around.
[23:33.480 --> 23:36.800]  And it's, as you say, the first place a lot of people stop.
[23:37.000 --> 23:38.100]  We have one call on the line.
[23:38.240 --> 23:39.380]  Let's make that three or four.
[23:39.540 --> 23:41.800]  212-209-2950.
[23:41.800 --> 23:44.740]  We have some other things to share with you as well.
[23:45.180 --> 23:48.160]  But we want to bring those phone numbers, phone calls in.
[23:48.200 --> 23:48.560]  Go ahead, Bernie.
[23:48.560 --> 23:51.420]  I just want to say, this is an excellent collection.
[23:51.580 --> 24:01.800]  I was looking through this book, and I, as a youth, was deeply inspired by Mad Magazine's section called the Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions.
[24:02.300 --> 24:10.800]  And I shouldn't say that most of the questions or letters that were submitted to 2600 were stupid questions.
[24:10.800 --> 24:12.680]  But you have to...
[24:12.680 --> 24:20.960]  Many of the answers that you provided, as the editor of 2600, two people who wrote in, made me smile.
[24:20.960 --> 24:26.940]  Because your wry sense of humor in some of the questions is just...
[24:26.940 --> 24:27.920]  It's just classic.
[24:28.740 --> 24:30.640]  But I made some very serious answers, too.
[24:30.640 --> 24:43.700]  Some of the questions that really bring up some very heartfelt issues and make you feel inspired or awed or gut-wrenching stories from people.
[24:43.920 --> 24:50.760]  But there's a lot of stuff that anybody reading this book could get a lot of humor from.
[24:50.760 --> 25:05.400]  And you don't have to be technical at all to get your humor in your wry responses to so many of the people who ask questions knowing that the kind of answers they're going to get are going to be humorous.
[25:05.500 --> 25:18.900]  So I urge our listeners to call area code 212-209-2950 and get this really classic collection of hacker history and discourse from a non-technical basis.
[25:18.900 --> 25:22.800]  It's just really funny and amusing and heartfelt stuff.
[25:22.960 --> 25:29.380]  And not only do you get this great book for a pledge of $75, but you get an auto-key shirt designed by our own Rob P. Firefly.
[25:29.560 --> 25:31.240]  It's a very cool Fernfreak design.
[25:32.160 --> 25:32.920]  Give us a call.
[25:33.040 --> 25:34.780]  212-209-2950.
[25:34.780 --> 25:37.940]  It's a great radio station to support.
[25:38.320 --> 25:40.500]  And you get some great gifts for doing it.
[25:40.700 --> 25:41.720]  Yeah, you certainly do.
[25:41.880 --> 25:45.220]  Not the least of which is the continuance of the radio station.
[25:45.220 --> 25:46.940]  That's probably the most important thing.
[25:47.120 --> 25:47.900]  That's why we're all here.
[25:48.540 --> 25:58.140]  Now, yeah, you know, it's not hard to come up with wry and witty answers to some of these questions and comments that people write in with.
[25:58.140 --> 25:59.860]  And it's a whole lot of fun as well.
[25:59.960 --> 26:03.400]  And I think that goes for everybody who takes part in the whole process.
[26:03.540 --> 26:10.060]  I think people even write letters for the specific purpose of getting one of these responses in return.
[26:10.400 --> 26:13.700]  But there also is so much history here.
[26:14.000 --> 26:17.340]  Things that happen, monumental events in the hacker world.
[26:17.340 --> 26:35.600]  And one of the things that was a real monumental event for us was being sued by the Motion Picture Association of America back in 2000 for linking to the DECSS code that allowed people to play DVDs on Linux machines and basically throw the whole entertainment industry into turmoil.
[26:35.600 --> 26:37.760]  Well, here's a letter from that period.
[26:37.900 --> 26:39.100]  There are a bunch of them printed here.
[26:39.220 --> 26:42.480]  But here's one of them that asks a very simple question.
[26:42.620 --> 26:44.040]  What exactly is the argument?
[26:44.040 --> 26:47.060]  When you buy a DVD or anything else for that matter, it's yours.
[26:47.280 --> 26:49.480]  Therefore, you should be able to do whatever you please with it.
[26:49.540 --> 26:53.740]  You should be able to watch it on a computer or see a European DVD on an American player.
[26:53.740 --> 26:57.300]  Why is it that you are being sued for helping people do this?
[26:57.520 --> 26:58.720]  And that signs Steve.
[26:59.620 --> 27:05.400]  Now, the response to this is basically something that we've said many, many times.
[27:05.860 --> 27:07.060]  It's a very good question.
[27:07.200 --> 27:10.060]  The short answer is that they're trying to change the rules.
[27:10.200 --> 27:15.280]  When you buy something, they want you to be merely buying a license to use it as they decree you should.
[27:15.280 --> 27:20.360]  That means you would have to accept all kinds of conditions, like not having the ability to skip over commercials.
[27:20.420 --> 27:25.440]  If you figured out a way to do this, you would be in violation of the contract and subject to what we're facing.
[27:25.740 --> 27:34.880]  What's interesting is that the MPAA and the film studios had to deceive the courts and the public by claiming this was about piracy when that was not the issue at all.
[27:35.240 --> 27:40.620]  Either they don't understand their own case or they realize just how far they would get by telling the truth.
[27:41.120 --> 27:45.280]  Well, I think that sums up a lot of what we were going through back in 2000.
[27:45.500 --> 27:47.840]  And we had a whole bunch of letters.
[27:47.940 --> 27:54.880]  Here's a letter that follows this from somebody who used to work for one of the major Hollywood studios telling us some inside information from there.
[27:55.360 --> 27:59.240]  We had all kinds of people contributing various bits of information.
[27:59.240 --> 28:05.260]  And it's all crammed into this 550-page book that is yours for a pledge of $75.
[28:05.260 --> 28:10.000]  But you have to call now within the next hour, 212-209-2950.
[28:10.520 --> 28:16.560]  Again, the autographed copy of Dear Hacker is yours along with an Off the Hook t-shirt for every pledge $35 and above.
[28:16.800 --> 28:22.940]  Now, this also brings me into something else related to that same period of time because we're offering one other thing tonight.
[28:22.940 --> 28:26.220]  We're also offering the full archive of Off the Hook.
[28:26.400 --> 28:28.100]  That's also for a pledge of $75.
[28:28.160 --> 28:33.900]  You'll get every edition of this radio program from 1988 to the end of 2009.
[28:34.380 --> 28:42.460]  And I'd like to play an excerpt from Off the Hook back in 2000, back at this very period where we were being sued by the Motion Picture Association of America.
[28:42.840 --> 28:48.800]  And it's kind of a summation of what we were going through in the early days of that lawsuit.
[28:49.000 --> 28:54.320]  Keep in mind, Kevin Mitnick had just been released from prison, I believe, on January 15th of 2000.
[28:54.320 --> 29:03.680]  And literally, literally the same day was when we had to scramble to deal with all of this nonsense coming to us from the Motion Picture Association of America.
[29:04.260 --> 29:11.700]  So there is a lot of history in the archives of the radio show as well that you can certainly benefit from and learn all sorts of things.
[29:11.980 --> 29:14.920]  And that's what we're going to play for you now is an excerpt from that.
[29:14.920 --> 29:24.920]  Now, you can get the full archive of Off the Hook, and that's about 20 different DVDs filled with audio, by pledging $75, 212-209-2950.
[29:25.000 --> 29:30.140]  Or you can get Dear Hacker, the book about 2,600 letters throughout the years.
[29:30.520 --> 29:31.860]  Again, a pledge of $75.
[29:32.160 --> 29:37.360]  If you want both, including the t-shirt, a pledge of $125 will get you everything.
[29:37.860 --> 29:42.100]  And that's what we're offering tonight, 212-209-2950.
[29:42.820 --> 29:49.660]  We're going to go back to 2000 now, listen to what was said right after we were served with papers.
[29:49.680 --> 29:55.660]  And I put that in quotes, too, because as you'll hear, the serving of papers is not exactly what you might expect.
[29:56.180 --> 30:04.620]  And this is just one little bit of the history that has been demonstrated here on this one radio show, on this one radio station.
[30:04.620 --> 30:10.260]  212-209-2950, February 1st, 2000.
[30:10.700 --> 30:23.780]  While we were out there, while we were in California, in fact, the very day before Kevin was set to be released, in fact, right after I got out of the prison visiting him, I checked my voicemail on my phone, because I wasn't allowed to bring the phone into the prison.
[30:24.500 --> 30:30.480]  And there was a message there saying that, actually, you know, it goes back even further than that, because we haven't been on the air in three weeks.
[30:30.480 --> 30:41.340]  We talked about the lawsuit that was filed against us, actually against me specifically, for the DVD, I guess, encryption cracking code is the best way to describe it.
[30:41.960 --> 30:49.020]  There was a second lawsuit filed shortly thereafter, right after our last show on these airwaves.
[30:49.100 --> 30:51.640]  A second lawsuit was filed in the state of New York.
[30:51.800 --> 30:56.060]  Now, the reason we were kind of jovial about the last one was because it was filed in California.
[30:56.060 --> 31:00.980]  It didn't really affect us that much, and it was filed against... how many people, Mackey?
[31:01.720 --> 31:02.200]  Hundreds.
[31:02.660 --> 31:03.940]  500 John Doe's.
[31:04.100 --> 31:05.260]  Yeah, a whole lot of people.
[31:05.620 --> 31:15.480]  Well, there was another lawsuit filed a couple of weeks after that in federal court, federal court in New York, and that was against four individuals.
[31:15.620 --> 31:19.980]  Actually, I'm sorry, it was against three individuals, and it was also filed in Connecticut against one other individual.
[31:20.300 --> 31:22.060]  Now, I was one of the individuals.
[31:22.700 --> 31:23.940]  It was really pretty surprising.
[31:23.940 --> 31:26.200]  I learned this when I was in New York the last couple of days.
[31:26.460 --> 31:27.780]  I think it was on a Friday.
[31:28.220 --> 31:32.540]  Yeah, it was a Friday, a week before Kevin was to be released, the 14th.
[31:33.040 --> 31:37.480]  And that's when I found out that this lawsuit had been filed.
[31:37.640 --> 31:40.560]  I found out, Mackey, you called me on the phone, in fact, while I was driving.
[31:40.560 --> 31:41.840]  I was in New Jersey at the time.
[31:42.260 --> 31:43.500]  Oh, yeah, yeah, I remember that.
[31:43.620 --> 31:49.300]  And I, you know, you left me, well, you called me and said, hey, guess what, there's another lawsuit, and you're one of three people named.
[31:50.780 --> 31:52.400]  And I was pretty shocked by that.
[31:52.400 --> 31:57.140]  And what was even more amazing was that, obviously, this time, they would have to serve it in person.
[31:57.340 --> 32:03.260]  We were waiting for them to serve us with legal papers last time, wondering what we had to do, if we tip the guys when they come, you know, things like that.
[32:03.500 --> 32:04.860]  But they never actually came.
[32:04.920 --> 32:05.960]  They just mailed it to us.
[32:06.200 --> 32:09.940]  This time, they actually, well, they tried to deliver it in person.
[32:10.200 --> 32:11.140]  A story in itself.
[32:11.140 --> 32:17.340]  A more bungled attempt I cannot possibly come up with, if you gave me, you know, the best fiction writers in the country.
[32:18.100 --> 32:21.560]  These two guys came to where they thought I was at the time.
[32:21.620 --> 32:23.120]  Of course, I was in another state at the time.
[32:23.540 --> 32:30.000]  And they said to the people there, listen, we have to serve this, you know, and I promise you this will not be painless.
[32:30.120 --> 32:31.600]  I don't know what that even means, you know.
[32:31.600 --> 32:34.120]  I think the guy meant to say this will not be painful.
[32:34.480 --> 32:38.440]  And in fact, one of the people there said, don't you mean to say, I promise you this will not be painful?
[32:38.560 --> 32:41.880]  And the guy got all perplexed and said, look, just take the thing.
[32:42.040 --> 32:44.840]  And the people there said, no, we're not going to take it.
[32:44.920 --> 32:46.620]  You know, we're not taking things for other people.
[32:46.800 --> 32:48.840]  You have to serve it to the person yourself.
[32:49.900 --> 32:51.540]  They pitched it through the door.
[32:51.840 --> 32:56.340]  They actually took the legal documents and they threw it football style through the door.
[32:56.620 --> 33:00.000]  You know, the door was open because they were talking to them and right into the house it went.
[33:00.000 --> 33:06.560]  And apparently, I am told, I am told that that is considered legally serving somebody, if you can believe that.
[33:06.720 --> 33:10.920]  That, in this country, is legally serving somebody, pitching it through the door of a house that you're not even in.
[33:11.560 --> 33:13.560]  Well, maybe a volleyball-style server.
[33:14.120 --> 33:17.200]  Well, in any event, that was the extent of it.
[33:17.280 --> 33:19.920]  And then later, right after that, apparently they went out to the...
[33:19.920 --> 33:24.040]  Well, they must have done this beforehand, because this happened at about 6.30 at night on Friday.
[33:25.020 --> 33:31.400]  Before that, they apparently tried to serve the post office box that is registered at 2,600.
[33:32.500 --> 33:37.940]  Now, the reason I know they did that was because we received in the mail something addressed to the P.O.
[33:37.960 --> 33:40.420]  box from the very post office that the P.O.
[33:40.420 --> 33:41.020]  box is in.
[33:41.520 --> 33:46.860]  So that meant that these cement heads must have gone out there, thinking that they were going to find us at the P.O.
[33:46.860 --> 33:47.220]  box.
[33:47.320 --> 33:50.020]  You know, standing at attention by our P.O.
[33:50.040 --> 33:50.280]  box.
[33:50.380 --> 33:51.380]  That's where we conduct business.
[33:53.260 --> 33:54.600]  Or maybe they knocked on the box.
[33:54.720 --> 33:55.100]  I don't know.
[33:55.220 --> 33:58.120]  They were trying to get into the box somehow to serve us with this documentation.
[33:58.360 --> 34:01.360]  And the post office must have explained to them, look, this is how post offices work.
[34:01.580 --> 34:02.520]  You can't do that.
[34:02.640 --> 34:05.180]  So the best you can do is mail it to us from the post office.
[34:05.260 --> 34:05.880]  And that's what they did.
[34:06.620 --> 34:08.220]  So we got a copy there as well.
[34:08.980 --> 34:20.800]  Okay, so this lawsuit has been filed on the 14th of January against me and two other people in New York, one of whom, by the way, runs the internet service provider who we may know as escape.com.
[34:20.980 --> 34:35.760]  Roman Kazan, who has been on this show quite a few times, he was actually served with a lawsuit because one of his customers had the DECSS code on his website, on that person's personal website that was hosted by escape.com.
[34:35.960 --> 34:38.640]  Roman had no idea this was even going on.
[34:38.720 --> 34:39.580]  No idea at all.
[34:39.720 --> 34:41.380]  And he was brought into this whole thing.
[34:41.380 --> 34:42.500]  It's insane.
[34:43.160 --> 34:48.840]  So the way it worked out, we had literally a day, literally a single day to prepare everything.
[34:49.020 --> 34:57.240]  And there was just no way to do it in time where we had to come up with a whole defense and all kinds of proclamations and documentation and things like that.
[34:57.360 --> 35:01.180]  And plus, keep in mind that I was on the way to California to see Kevin get released.
[35:01.900 --> 35:05.540]  So for some reason, we had to submit everything by Wednesday at 7 a.m.
[35:05.540 --> 35:06.500]  That just did not happen.
[35:11.380 --> 35:13.760]  And also, that week was a holiday week.
[35:14.220 --> 35:15.200]  Martin Luther King Day was Monday.
[35:15.220 --> 35:17.140]  So that means we only had Tuesday to do this.
[35:17.240 --> 35:17.800]  It's incredible.
[35:18.000 --> 35:20.820]  I just cannot believe that this is how justice works.
[35:21.140 --> 35:23.760]  So the hearing was actually held on Thursday.
[35:24.500 --> 35:27.820]  And this was a preliminary injunction against material on the website.
[35:28.560 --> 35:44.560]  So as I was getting out of prison in Lompa, California, on that Thursday afternoon, checked my voicemail, and there was a message for me from one of the lawyers over at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who very graciously have stepped in to spearhead the challenge to this whole thing,
[35:45.000 --> 35:50.020]  saying that the preliminary injunction was ruled upon in New York and that we had lost.
[35:50.600 --> 36:05.780]  And so then we were faced with a rather serious choice as to what we should do then because technically they could issue a warrant for my arrest at that particular moment in time for having this on the website, even though it's the magazine's website,
[36:05.780 --> 36:08.060]  and I don't even necessarily have the authority to do this.
[36:08.200 --> 36:10.920]  They had my name from the Whois documentation on the Internet.
[36:11.120 --> 36:13.880]  They said, well, this person is the technical contact.
[36:13.880 --> 36:17.540]  That's how they got Roman's name, because he was the technical contact for this other site.
[36:17.540 --> 36:20.980]  So therefore, they're guilty, and they have to take the site down.
[36:21.500 --> 36:25.560]  Now, of all the contacts, the technical, you'd think it'd be the administrative or the billing?
[36:25.760 --> 36:26.640]  Yeah, you'd think so.
[36:26.680 --> 36:29.920]  Or in my case, I am the administrative as well, but in Roman's case, he was not.
[36:30.020 --> 36:30.560]  He was just the tech?
[36:30.700 --> 36:33.000]  I have no idea why he was brought into this in the first place.
[36:33.180 --> 36:33.420]  It's insane.
[36:33.560 --> 36:34.560]  It's completely crazy.
[36:34.720 --> 36:39.520]  So, Mackie, I guess maybe you could describe what we did at that point as far as the...
[36:39.520 --> 36:45.560]  Well, and the voicemail specifically said, you know, this judge would think nothing of sending you to jail.
[36:45.560 --> 36:49.660]  Well, and it's a federal case, so even though we're in California, it would be the U.S.
[36:49.800 --> 36:51.600]  Marshals from the prison coming out.
[36:51.620 --> 36:53.900]  Yeah, they just have to walk across the lawn.
[36:54.540 --> 36:55.340]  What timing!
[36:55.460 --> 36:56.260]  What amazing timing!
[36:56.400 --> 36:59.720]  And this was about, you know, 12 hours before he was going to get released.
[36:59.920 --> 37:05.620]  And it was also less than 48 hours after the hearing, which took place out in California on the previous Tuesday.
[37:05.860 --> 37:09.640]  The one time in my life, I decided to travel light and leave my laptop at home.
[37:10.460 --> 37:19.060]  So, we had to quickly get this stuff off our webpage if we wanted to avoid the warrant.
[37:19.060 --> 37:29.420]  So, we had to drive to the nearest Kinko's, which was about 45 minutes away in the next town, and use their public Internet terminals.
[37:30.120 --> 37:43.300]  So, we stayed up all morning, and we wrote an article to explain what had happened, typed up a copy of the injunction ruling, and removed the software from the site.
[37:43.440 --> 37:48.880]  I gotta say, it's kind of cool to have a Kinko's for situations like that, because we pretty much took over that place.
[37:49.020 --> 37:55.420]  We were pacing around, yelling and screaming, kind of debating the whole process, what we should do, what we should say, how we should say it.
[37:55.420 --> 37:59.060]  And, you know, it was good, because we had the material we needed to be able to write things.
[37:59.160 --> 38:08.980]  But the thing that I really objected to was being forced into that position, where we had to pretty much bypass our security, because I don't think logging in from a Kinko's is a very safe way of doing anything.
[38:09.480 --> 38:10.840]  But we had no choice, literally.
[38:11.320 --> 38:19.460]  If it wasn't at Kinko's there, I don't know what would have happened, because we had no way of getting the stuff off the site, other than dictating it to people over the phone, and who wants to do that?
[38:19.540 --> 38:39.560]  Having spoken to the lawyers on your side of this issue, Emanuel Love, they assured me that this judge would not hesitate to file a contempt of court order against you personally, in which case you would have been arrested, handcuffed, and taken to jail if you did not remove this software forthwith.
[38:40.080 --> 38:44.180]  So it would have been hard for you to fight this thing from behind bars.
[38:44.180 --> 38:46.840]  So I think you... I know you felt...
[38:46.840 --> 38:53.720]  I knew you had a lot of strong feelings about taking this information down off of the website, but we need you out.
[38:54.540 --> 38:57.700]  Well, yeah, I like to think I'm better off on the outside, too.
[38:57.960 --> 38:58.800]  But, yeah, you're right.
[38:58.800 --> 39:01.600]  It was a horrible feeling having to submit like that.
[39:02.360 --> 39:09.720]  I was comforted by the fact that we were still able to figure out ways to get the message out anyway, namely through having links on the website.
[39:09.980 --> 39:11.460]  Since then, we've gotten all kinds.
[39:11.560 --> 39:13.960]  We haven't been able to keep up with the number of links that have come in.
[39:13.960 --> 39:20.700]  And if you go to the website now, you'll see that we have all kinds of articles, all kinds of transcripts, and things like that.
[39:20.760 --> 39:26.160]  But one of the things that we have there is a way for people to submit links to sites that still have the information up there.
[39:26.300 --> 39:27.640]  Now, they may go a step further.
[39:27.740 --> 39:29.660]  They may outlaw links as well.
[39:29.760 --> 39:30.960]  They're trying to do that right now.
[39:31.040 --> 39:34.320]  They're trying to file papers to make it illegal to put links up.
[39:34.500 --> 39:36.520]  When they do that, we'll have to figure something else out.
[39:36.520 --> 39:38.920]  But the thing is, we're not going to be silenced easily.
[39:39.880 --> 39:40.280]  Wow.
[39:40.500 --> 39:40.800]  Okay.
[39:41.060 --> 39:44.240]  That brings it all back pretty vividly there.
[39:44.920 --> 39:46.140]  You guys remember this?
[39:46.540 --> 39:47.160]  I do.
[39:47.360 --> 39:47.640]  Yeah.
[39:49.220 --> 39:55.260]  I remember getting a frantic phone call that night from Carl, who was staying at the 2600 headquarters.
[39:55.440 --> 39:57.460]  And he said, Bernie, I can't get a hold of Emanuel.
[39:57.640 --> 40:01.760]  These two big dudes showed up at the door, and they tried to serve me, and I wouldn't let them.
[40:01.840 --> 40:02.900]  And they threw the thing at the door.
[40:02.980 --> 40:03.580]  What do I do?
[40:03.720 --> 40:05.160]  It was crazy.
[40:05.160 --> 40:07.540]  And then it just got more crazy from there on.
[40:07.800 --> 40:08.860]  It really did.
[40:08.960 --> 40:10.100]  It got extremely crazy.
[40:11.060 --> 40:14.740]  And the story just continues on, on that one episode alone.
[40:15.360 --> 40:17.240]  You can hear the whole saga.
[40:17.440 --> 40:33.060]  You can hear many more sagas that we've been through in our 20-plus years on the air here at WBAI by pledging $75 and getting the full off-the-hook archive in stereo sound, just as it aired over the radio from 1988 to the end of 2009.
[40:33.940 --> 40:37.540]  It's hundreds and hundreds of hours of material there.
[40:37.800 --> 40:40.100]  212-209-2950.
[40:40.100 --> 40:41.640]  We have a couple of different premiums.
[40:41.700 --> 40:43.040]  We have the full off-the-hook archive.
[40:43.040 --> 40:55.940]  We also have the Dear Hacker Letters to the Editor of 2600 Compilation, 550 pages of history in the hacker world, letters to 2600 Magazine, and various responses to those letters.
[40:56.520 --> 40:58.960]  You can get everything for a pledge of $125.
[40:59.400 --> 41:00.920]  You'll get the Dear Hacker book.
[41:00.920 --> 41:02.240]  You'll get the off-the-hook archive.
[41:02.460 --> 41:05.400]  And you'll get an off-the-hook t-shirt in the size of your choice.
[41:05.540 --> 41:08.400]  But you have to give us a call now while we're on the air.
[41:08.520 --> 41:09.980]  We're only on from 7 to 8 tonight.
[41:10.640 --> 41:12.020]  212-209-2950.
[41:12.020 --> 41:13.620]  We have one call on the line.
[41:13.620 --> 41:14.700]  It's been a little light.
[41:14.820 --> 41:16.680]  We need to get a bunch more than that.
[41:16.720 --> 41:21.400]  I don't know if we're going to be able to continue doing this kind of thing in the future.
[41:21.540 --> 41:21.720]  Rob?
[41:22.440 --> 41:26.900]  I'd just like to say I saw quite a few of the off-the-hook shirts at Hope, and that was really cool.
[41:27.160 --> 41:33.740]  And I'm sure I thanked most of you in person and probably made you uncomfortable with the way I glomped you and said, yay, the shirt.
[41:34.220 --> 41:35.780]  Well, you made the shirt, so...
[41:35.780 --> 41:37.900]  It was very cool to see that.
[41:38.080 --> 41:42.600]  And, yes, thank you all who have supported the station in the past for your support.
[41:42.660 --> 41:47.440]  And thank you for continuing to support the station and ensure that we're still here to do what we do.
[41:47.440 --> 41:54.360]  Rob, I was sure, like, Jim was gesturing at his shirt earlier saying, this is the shirt, this is the shirt, but apparently the shirt has changed.
[41:54.460 --> 41:55.340]  What does the new shirt look like?
[41:55.440 --> 41:59.180]  The new shirt is in two colors, white and sort of turquoise.
[41:59.400 --> 42:03.980]  And it's got a neat off-the-hook logo that's sort of made out of a phone.
[42:03.980 --> 42:09.000]  And it's got the radio station, WBAI 99.5, and the web address.
[42:09.120 --> 42:10.700]  And I think it's pretty neat.
[42:10.720 --> 42:11.420]  I'm rather proud of it.
[42:11.480 --> 42:14.060]  Now, the shirts are yours for a pledge of $35 and above.
[42:14.060 --> 42:25.180]  And everybody who pledges for any of the other premiums that we're offering tonight, whether it be the book, whether it be the off-the-hook archive, or the combination package, you'll get one of the shirts as well in the size of your choice.
[42:25.280 --> 42:28.600]  We have two calls on the line, 212-209-2950.
[42:28.600 --> 42:29.780]  This is a really good deal.
[42:29.780 --> 42:38.360]  This is something that we're only prepared to offer during the WBAI fundraiser because it's a place worth supporting.
[42:38.500 --> 42:46.100]  We want to support it in the way that we can, and we hope that you're able to support it in the way that you can by calling 212-209-2950.
[42:46.480 --> 42:50.300]  How about Mike, Bernie, any magic you want to lend to getting people to call in?
[42:50.700 --> 42:52.760]  Yeah, Emmanuel, I just want to make a special appeal.
[42:52.860 --> 42:59.100]  I know we have Canadian listeners, and one thing I noticed now that I'm here in Canada is that the exchange rate has basically been abolished.
[42:59.540 --> 43:08.160]  So if you're thinking this $125, $75 pledge is going to be like twice that or something when your bill comes in Canadian dollars, it's not the case anymore.
[43:08.160 --> 43:13.560]  So there's really no excuse for Canadians or for anyone else to avoid pledging.
[43:14.420 --> 43:16.600]  212-209-2900 is the number.
[43:17.240 --> 43:18.620]  2950 is the number, actually.
[43:18.840 --> 43:19.960]  2950, I'm sorry.
[43:21.480 --> 43:23.540]  I cross borders and numbers get flipped.
[43:24.560 --> 43:28.560]  But give us a call and pledge your support no matter where in the world you are.
[43:29.640 --> 43:30.780]  That's the truth.
[43:31.560 --> 43:33.760]  Yeah, 212-209-2950.
[43:33.880 --> 43:34.240]  Go ahead, Bernie.
[43:34.660 --> 43:41.300]  I just want to say, too, for our listeners out there, this is a great compilation for a pledge of 125.
[43:41.300 --> 43:42.540]  I know that's a lot of money.
[43:42.680 --> 43:45.560]  It's very expensive running a radio station like WBAI.
[43:45.720 --> 43:46.940]  It's crazy expensive.
[43:47.680 --> 43:49.180]  People don't get paid much there.
[43:49.340 --> 43:51.380]  And none of us get paid a dime for this.
[43:51.460 --> 43:53.260]  So we don't get any of this money.
[43:53.440 --> 44:13.680]  These are donations provided by $2,600 just to allow people to have an incentive as if they really need one to support an amazing radio station like WBAI, the AI that provides an amazing, eclectic, diverse assortment of stimulating intellectual property.
[44:13.920 --> 44:29.540]  But we're most concerned about off the hook, obviously, because it's such a historical, ongoing log of what goes on behind the scenes in the world from a hacker standpoint.
[44:29.540 --> 44:39.100]  And these are really core issues that affect all of us with regard to, like, intellectual property rights, which is what the whole DMCA case was about.
[44:39.360 --> 44:41.240]  I mean, this is really important stuff.
[44:41.400 --> 44:55.320]  And you can't really figure out where we are today without looking back and seeing how we got here, which is why this amazing DVD compilation of every single off-the-hook program over the past...
[44:55.320 --> 44:57.180]  Dad, how many years, Emmanuel?
[44:57.380 --> 44:58.700]  Well, we started in 1988.
[44:58.700 --> 45:00.640]  1988, that's the first show that's on the compilation.
[45:00.640 --> 45:02.460]  And it goes to the end of 2009.
[45:02.520 --> 45:05.120]  So that's over 20 years right there.
[45:05.280 --> 45:06.580]  So that's a lot.
[45:06.820 --> 45:08.180]  212-209-2950.
[45:08.180 --> 45:10.000]  Join the three callers on the line now.
[45:10.880 --> 45:11.500]  Dotright, what do you have?
[45:11.640 --> 45:14.040]  Yeah, Bernie brings up a good point.
[45:14.100 --> 45:21.140]  When we're up here asking for people to help donate money, none of the people you hear on this show get a dime out of that.
[45:21.320 --> 45:32.320]  You know, it all goes to running this radio station, which is the medium which we get to bring this great information to the public that otherwise there wouldn't be anything comparable.
[45:32.820 --> 45:33.600]  And it's...
[45:33.600 --> 45:36.760]  Running a radio station is not cheap, especially in New York City.
[45:36.960 --> 45:40.260]  Not in New York City and especially at the power that we operate at.
[45:40.400 --> 45:42.180]  We're on top of the Empire State Building.
[45:42.320 --> 45:43.540]  We reach into four states.
[45:44.020 --> 45:46.100]  And I know a lot of people listen on the internet as well.
[45:46.260 --> 45:49.500]  And that also costs to keep that going.
[45:49.880 --> 45:52.140]  But the important thing is we're reaching people.
[45:52.260 --> 45:55.180]  We have reached people over the past 20 years or so.
[45:55.180 --> 45:56.860]  And the radio station has been here for 50 years.
[45:56.880 --> 45:59.140]  And we want to reach people into the future.
[45:59.140 --> 46:01.220]  And that's so vital that we remain here.
[46:01.300 --> 46:03.140]  And that's where your pledge comes in.
[46:03.280 --> 46:06.620]  It's the only public radio station remaining in New York.
[46:06.740 --> 46:07.380]  I believe so.
[46:07.380 --> 46:11.740]  You can call things public radio, but it's only public if the public is a part of it.
[46:11.820 --> 46:13.400]  And the public is a part of this radio station.
[46:13.860 --> 46:17.500]  Are they a part of those other stations that ask you for funds?
[46:17.500 --> 46:23.500]  Or do they just basically play the music you like And I'd tell you to stay the hell away from them otherwise, you know?
[46:24.000 --> 46:25.760]  212-209-2950.
[46:25.920 --> 46:26.180]  Voltaire.
[46:26.420 --> 46:31.740]  Yeah, I think the great thing about BAI is it's not just a 50,000-watt radio station.
[46:31.780 --> 46:44.340]  It's a cultural institution that serves the entire city and the entire planet with all the great programming that has come through these walls and through things we co-sponsor, like meetings and such.
[46:44.720 --> 46:46.660]  We have a really great history here.
[46:47.520 --> 47:05.640]  Actually, I was listening to recently an audio recording out of Berkeley, a Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies program, and the professor was saying about how he got active in nonviolent issues and stuff.
[47:05.920 --> 47:14.860]  And the way he got involved back in the 1960s, he was actually right at Asher Place, a subway station we are all familiar with.
[47:14.860 --> 47:26.940]  He was at a cafe there, and a convertible drove by, and on the radio was playing an interview with a civil rights leader.
[47:27.060 --> 47:38.340]  I forget which one, but he found, and while the person was blasting the interview, he was listening to it, and he found it so inspirational that he dedicated the rest of his life to this cause.
[47:38.340 --> 47:47.560]  Well, it's amazing that a convertible driving by playing an interview is something that would inspire somebody, but this radio station is full of stories like that.
[47:47.660 --> 47:51.480]  And we want you to help us make more stories like that possible.
[47:51.480 --> 47:55.160]  Maybe there's a convertible driving by right now playing us and inspiring some other people.
[47:55.220 --> 48:11.080]  I've talked to so many people at the conference and just throughout the year that listen to the show, and they say their lives have been changed, mostly for the better, because of the things that we talk about and the stories we tell and the way we open up and have people call in and tell their stories and send in their mail.
[48:11.840 --> 48:13.420]  That's what the important thing is.
[48:13.600 --> 48:30.700]  And by having the book, by having the archive, we have the history right here, and we'd like for you to share in that history and to benefit from it as well just by calling 212-209-2950, pledging 75 for the book or the archive, or 125 for both.
[48:30.920 --> 48:32.980]  And in either case, you'll get an off-the-hook t-shirt.
[48:33.640 --> 48:34.940]  You'll be a part of that history.
[48:35.060 --> 48:36.620]  212-209-2950.
[48:36.760 --> 48:45.060]  Now, I really want to play another excerpt from the show, and this is something that speaks to the phone freak in so many of us, people who play with telephones.
[48:45.620 --> 48:50.880]  This is a guy that we talked to back in 1991, July 31st, 1991.
[48:50.880 --> 48:53.940]  His name, I just knew him as Mr. French.
[48:54.040 --> 49:06.960]  And the reason I called him Mr. French is because I ran into him by accident on a very primitive voicemail system where we would take over corporate names, names of people who weren't using the voicemail system.
[49:07.240 --> 49:15.520]  And this guy just mysteriously sent messages to other people, and I realized he was not the actual Mr. French who was on the system.
[49:15.520 --> 49:18.260]  He was somebody else that had taken over an account.
[49:18.440 --> 49:20.100]  And, of course, I was enthralled by that.
[49:20.100 --> 49:21.340]  I wanted to talk to this person more.
[49:21.520 --> 49:27.200]  I met one of the most fascinating people I'd ever met in my life by pursuing that relationship.
[49:27.700 --> 49:37.640]  And this is an excerpt from a program that he was on where he describes some of the really early telephone history and what switches sound like and how things have changed.
[49:37.740 --> 49:39.260]  Now, keep in mind, this is 1991.
[49:40.100 --> 49:43.640]  How much have things changed in the nearly 20 years since then?
[49:44.160 --> 49:45.260]  It's simply incredible.
[49:45.260 --> 49:52.220]  And nowhere else, nowhere else will you hear this kind of history, this kind of documentation of things that meant so much to us.
[49:52.580 --> 49:58.180]  I mean, the telephone, you pick up the telephone, and it's a very personal thing.
[49:58.320 --> 50:03.240]  It's something that we're all familiar with, yet the history is lost if we don't save it somehow.
[50:03.520 --> 50:12.960]  This is just one small piece of one program of the archive of over 20 years of Off the Hook, available to you, 212-209-2950.
[50:12.960 --> 50:14.800]  Let's go back to 1991.
[50:15.760 --> 50:28.100]  Okay, one of the great desires of Alexander Graham Bell was to come up with an automatic telephone, something that you didn't have to turn the crank or flash the operator and have the operator dial the number for you.
[50:28.880 --> 50:31.260]  And he always wanted to come up with this.
[50:31.660 --> 50:34.460]  Unfortunately, somebody else beat him to it.
[50:35.200 --> 50:37.480]  A man by the last name of Stroger.
[50:38.040 --> 50:52.540]  And he invented a Stroger switch, which was nothing but a relay and a set of contacts, almost like an old-fashioned TV tuner, you know, where you go channel 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, you know, when you spin the dial, you're selecting channels.
[50:53.080 --> 50:58.640]  This picture in your mind, that same little tuner on your TV set, that you're spinning around being motor-driven.
[50:59.180 --> 51:02.580]  And the thing that controls the motor is your rotary dial phone.
[51:02.700 --> 51:05.340]  Do you remember those things that you spin the little wheel around?
[51:05.440 --> 51:05.800]  It goes...
[51:07.100 --> 51:10.780]  Every time it clicks, it's like selecting another channel.
[51:12.680 --> 51:18.680]  And finally, what later was the Bell system bought this patent.
[51:19.440 --> 51:29.620]  But for many years, another phone company, GTE, which later became GTE, actually had automatic dial systems before Bell did.
[51:29.820 --> 51:36.280]  But that's one of the earlier types of automatic dial systems.
[51:36.300 --> 51:40.280]  And there's still one or two of them around today in the United States.
[51:40.280 --> 51:42.540]  They have real strange-sounding rings.
[51:43.180 --> 51:49.000]  If you want me to, I have a sample recorded on tape of the last step office of its type.
[51:49.180 --> 51:49.900]  Oh, please, yes.
[51:50.080 --> 51:52.240]  What kind of step office is this, and where is it located?
[51:52.840 --> 51:55.100]  I don't know the name of the town offhand.
[51:55.100 --> 51:56.400]  It's in Connecticut someplace.
[51:56.760 --> 51:58.360]  I can't remember the name of the town.
[51:59.800 --> 52:00.980]  Can you tell us the...
[52:00.980 --> 52:02.420]  It still remains, and it belongs...
[52:02.420 --> 52:07.300]  It's an old Western electric, you know, the Bell system, back when it was the Bell system.
[52:07.640 --> 52:10.000]  Is this the famous Willomantic, Connecticut?
[52:11.340 --> 52:12.720]  I think that is the name of the town.
[52:12.740 --> 52:13.380]  Willomantic, yes.
[52:13.460 --> 52:15.520]  And this would be area code 203.
[52:15.620 --> 52:16.200]  What's the exchange?
[52:17.020 --> 52:17.380]  423.
[52:17.940 --> 52:18.300]  423.
[52:18.340 --> 52:22.260]  So I don't know if we have any listeners in the 423 exchange in the 203 area code.
[52:22.440 --> 52:24.980]  But you're the last one of its kind.
[52:25.020 --> 52:31.920]  So if you don't like it, if it's old, if it takes a long time to die a long distance, just say, hmm, it's an antique.
[52:32.160 --> 52:34.140]  It's been around since the late 40s.
[52:34.820 --> 52:36.660]  Now, what kind specifically is this again?
[52:37.000 --> 52:51.880]  This is a step-by-step switch, and it's made by Western Electric, and it's been nicknamed by phone freaks as a city ring step-office, because only in large cities do you hear a ring that sounds...
[52:51.880 --> 52:54.080]  or did you hear a ring that sounds like this?
[52:59.690 --> 53:01.330]  And that's the type of ring that it has.
[53:01.330 --> 53:04.710]  I remember that ring well from my early days in New York.
[53:05.290 --> 53:06.910]  Almost every phone seemed to sound like that.
[53:06.950 --> 53:09.150]  In fact, well, every phone sounded different.
[53:09.370 --> 53:10.750]  You know, now they all sound the same.
[53:11.090 --> 53:13.290]  Yeah, they were all plastic to me.
[53:13.730 --> 53:21.650]  All of the phones rang like that in the city that I'm from, and all of the phones rang a little bit different in the outlying areas.
[53:21.910 --> 53:26.950]  Like if you lived in an outlying area, it had a different kind of step ring.
[53:27.930 --> 53:33.490]  And also, teenagers have discovered that they could talk in between the little space.
[53:33.670 --> 53:37.370]  You know, you get a ring, and then there's a couple seconds of silence, and then another ring.
[53:38.190 --> 53:44.170]  What you're going to hear here is one of those rings with teenagers talking in the background here.
[53:44.290 --> 53:44.830]  Just a second.
[53:45.130 --> 53:45.390]  Okay.
[53:56.820 --> 53:58.780]  Did you hear the human voice there?
[53:58.780 --> 53:59.340]  Yes, I did.
[53:59.460 --> 53:59.860]  I did.
[53:59.980 --> 54:01.920]  I only heard one human voice, but there was a couple...
[54:01.920 --> 54:06.340]  Yeah, but that's just before it started to ring again and the number answered, so I didn't get anything more than that.
[54:06.340 --> 54:11.480]  But that's the way the rings rang out in the country or in the outlying areas.
[54:11.700 --> 54:11.920]  Uh-huh.
[54:12.260 --> 54:21.260]  Now, when you say that the step phone, the step office that you played us, the ring from before, is the last of its kind, you don't mean it's the last step of its kind.
[54:21.440 --> 54:23.860]  I mean, you don't mean it's the last step office in the United States.
[54:23.860 --> 54:24.420]  No, no, no.
[54:24.580 --> 54:31.300]  I would guess that there's less than 100 step offices left in the U.S., not including Canada.
[54:32.280 --> 54:36.320]  I presume there's quite a few still in Canada, but in the U.S.
[54:36.460 --> 54:42.520]  proper, the mainland U.S., not including Alaska or Hawaii or Puerto Rico.
[54:43.680 --> 54:45.260]  There's not very many of them left.
[54:45.440 --> 54:46.740]  There's quite a few in Texas.
[54:47.200 --> 54:47.640]  Uh-huh.
[54:47.740 --> 54:48.700]  Quite a few in Kansas.
[54:49.500 --> 54:58.820]  Now, we may be getting, you know, all kinds of letters and telegrams from people saying, hey, wait a minute, my ring sounds like that, but why would somebody's ring sound like that if it's not a step office?
[54:59.780 --> 55:02.660]  Well, they also have crossbar, which is a later invention.
[55:02.860 --> 55:10.300]  It's kind of like step is the oldest, and what we have now is a computer-generated thing, and it's new.
[55:10.880 --> 55:12.500]  Like I said earlier, it's plastic.
[55:12.500 --> 55:14.680]  It's just a computer that switches things nowadays.
[55:14.920 --> 55:20.200]  But in between the oldest and the new is the middle, and it's called crossbar.
[55:20.380 --> 55:25.480]  Now, I think a good example of city ring crossbar is, but there aren't any more in 212 area code.
[55:25.600 --> 55:26.460]  They wipe them all out.
[55:26.680 --> 55:28.160]  I know of one in 212.
[55:28.580 --> 55:28.840]  Do you?
[55:29.100 --> 55:31.400]  Well, 9X has claimed that they've wiped them all out in 212.
[55:31.520 --> 55:31.920]  Are you sure?
[55:32.080 --> 55:33.140]  Uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh.
[55:33.180 --> 55:37.000]  Area code 212-555-1212 is directory assistance.
[55:37.020 --> 55:39.120]  Call it, and you'll get a city ring crossbar ring.
[55:39.180 --> 55:40.200]  That's a very good point.
[55:40.300 --> 55:41.080]  That's a very good point.
[55:41.260 --> 55:44.600]  I guess they weren't counting that, but that's true.
[55:44.660 --> 55:46.440]  I do remember that you did get that.
[55:46.740 --> 55:49.320]  I was thinking of the 718762 exchange.
[55:49.400 --> 55:52.600]  I know that one is a city ring crossbar.
[55:52.900 --> 55:54.360]  A nice, deep, baritone ring.
[55:54.400 --> 55:55.160]  Unless they've cut it over.
[55:55.280 --> 55:59.980]  Sometimes they cut things over overnight, and you get the same generic ring as everything else.
[56:00.120 --> 56:03.160]  But do you want to give us some talk about crossbars?
[56:03.620 --> 56:05.460]  Yeah, I have somewhere around here.
[56:05.740 --> 56:06.680]  You caught me off guard.
[56:06.700 --> 56:09.700]  I have 718769 crossbar.
[56:09.880 --> 56:11.780]  That's probably the same area.
[56:12.600 --> 56:12.940]  Yeah.
[56:13.860 --> 56:14.580]  Let's see here.
[56:14.940 --> 56:15.960]  Here's the ring to it.
[56:23.250 --> 56:27.290]  Now, I don't know what part of Brooklyn or Brooklyn or whatever 769 is.
[56:27.930 --> 56:31.130]  I really hate to do this, but we have to step over.
[56:31.330 --> 56:32.350]  This is so fascinating.
[56:32.510 --> 56:36.010]  We're all riveted to the radio listening to this history here.
[56:36.250 --> 56:38.670]  And, wow, we just are out of time.
[56:39.570 --> 56:50.070]  Please give us a call so you can get the archive that includes this episode of Off the Hook with all kinds of demonstrations of old phone systems and current phone systems of the time.
[56:50.070 --> 56:51.390]  This was back in 1991.
[56:52.250 --> 56:56.310]  212-209-2950 is our telephone number.
[56:56.890 --> 57:00.070]  Join the callers that are on the line right now for a $75 pledge.
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[57:17.070 --> 57:18.630]  It's yours for a pledge of $75.
[57:20.070 --> 57:21.090]  Dear Hacker book.
[57:21.510 --> 57:23.230]  Letters to the editor of 2600 Magazine.
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[57:27.370 --> 57:32.150]  $125 is the total, and you'll get an Off the Hook t-shirt along with that.
[57:32.490 --> 57:38.570]  We really need to have a flurry of calls come in if we're going to get anywhere near where we're supposed to be for this hour.
[57:38.610 --> 57:41.570]  And we only have three minutes left, so please call now.
[57:41.690 --> 57:43.630]  212-209-2950.
[57:44.670 --> 57:45.050]  That's...
[57:45.050 --> 57:45.750]  Yes, go ahead, Bernie.
[57:45.850 --> 57:47.110]  Please get those calls coming in.
[57:47.190 --> 57:49.330]  I could be listening to that stuff for hours.
[57:49.330 --> 57:51.630]  It's just fascinating historical stuff.
[57:51.750 --> 57:56.330]  It's so relevant to look back where we were to find out how we got where we are today.
[57:56.590 --> 58:08.010]  I had the privilege of being inside two step-by-step stradger offices in the 717-596 and 717-735 exchanges.
[58:08.210 --> 58:13.730]  And it was an amazing experience to stand inside these step-by-step switches.
[58:13.730 --> 58:18.110]  And it's really worth listening back to all this material.
[58:18.370 --> 58:27.370]  And please, I urge our listeners to call 212-209-2950 to get this amazing compilation of all the off-the-hook episodes back to 1988.
[58:27.370 --> 58:29.910]  And you get a wonderful t-shirt designed by Rob T.
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[58:31.090 --> 58:43.670]  Or you can play and get the amazing book going back to all the 2,600 letters or many of them, hundreds of pages of them, by also placing 75 and getting the t-shirt.
[58:43.790 --> 58:45.730]  212-209-2950.
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[58:50.730 --> 58:51.150]  That's right.
[58:51.250 --> 58:54.430]  We have to run out of here now, but please make those phones ring.
[58:54.430 --> 58:58.530]  Remember, you're getting over 20 years with about 50 shows per year.
[58:59.090 --> 59:00.750]  And that's a lot of audio.
[59:00.750 --> 59:03.170]  A lot of audio coming your way for a pledge of $75.
[59:03.630 --> 59:10.190]  Or you'll get the 550-page book of letters to the editor of 2,600, again, with all sorts of history and commentary.
[59:10.430 --> 59:11.410]  Pledge of $75.
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[59:16.510 --> 59:18.810]  212-209-2950.
[59:19.250 --> 59:21.950]  Literally down to the last couple of minutes here.
[59:22.110 --> 59:23.190]  We'll see you next week.
[59:24.170 --> 59:24.590]  Wendy?
[59:25.810 --> 59:26.730]  Yes, Lisa.
[59:27.590 --> 59:29.230]  Is the water warm enough?
[59:30.390 --> 59:31.330]  Yes, Lisa.
[59:32.550 --> 59:33.670]  Shall we begin?
[59:35.350 --> 59:36.330]  Yes, Lisa.
[01:00:05.850 --> 01:00:07.570]  Where is my love life?
[01:00:09.450 --> 01:00:10.890]  What can I be?
[01:00:13.110 --> 01:00:15.010]  There must be something wrong.
[01:00:15.570 --> 01:00:16.810]  She's red.
[01:00:20.310 --> 01:00:22.390]  Where is my love life?
[01:00:23.870 --> 01:00:25.450]  What has it gone?
[01:00:27.930 --> 01:00:31.610]  Somebody bring me, tell me what the hell is wrong.
[01:00:34.570 --> 01:00:37.210]  Till I find the righteous one.
[01:00:37.550 --> 01:00:38.490]  Computer blue.
[01:00:41.880 --> 01:00:44.380]  And this is the first sentence.
[01:00:44.380 --> 01:00:44.420]  And this is the second one.
[01:00:44.860 --> 01:00:46.760]  I'm just a little pause... and we're back.