WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:03.000 AT&T 00:30.000 --> 00:33.000 My name is Ace and I'm a Leo, on a digital highway 00:33.000 --> 00:35.000 My name is Neo and I'm a Nero 00:35.000 --> 00:38.000 In a flash I'll screw you on burning Dreamcast 00:38.000 --> 00:41.000 You need some ISO? Let me through my hard drive rifle 00:41.000 --> 00:43.000 Our exchange you could never stifle 00:43.000 --> 00:46.000 In a digital hug, you just caught the love bug 00:46.000 --> 00:50.000 I bootlegged your CD, I caused a fight between Un and Jay-Z 00:50.000 --> 00:52.000 Your CG, it's all gonna be free 00:52.000 --> 00:55.000 Whether we take it by force or we take it nicely 00:55.000 --> 00:57.000 You feel that rattling your bones? 00:57.000 --> 00:59.000 When I tell you we just hacked out Jones 00:59.000 --> 01:01.000 And NASDAQ leaves your fight on your back 01:01.000 --> 01:03.000 Cause I am he who loves to hack and crack 01:03.000 --> 01:06.000 Cause I am he who loves to hack and crack 01:06.000 --> 01:09.000 This is dedicated to the hackers and the craps 01:09.000 --> 01:14.000 Serial cards, source codes, ISO, RAN, Zip, Zip 01:14.000 --> 01:18.000 Hello and welcome to a very special Binary Revolution Radio 01:18.000 --> 01:22.000 Episode number 123 for November 22nd, 2005 01:22.000 --> 01:23.000 I'm Strom Carlson 01:23.000 --> 01:25.000 I'm Black Ratchet 01:25.000 --> 01:27.000 We have Natus this evening 01:27.000 --> 01:28.000 Yo 01:28.000 --> 01:30.000 You have me for a little bit 01:30.000 --> 01:31.000 A little bit 01:31.000 --> 01:34.000 Yeah, Natus might be leaving so he can get an Xbox 01:35.000 --> 01:37.000 I don't even want the thing, I just wanna sell it 01:38.000 --> 01:42.000 So much for that five minute long discussion we had about not blowing what you're gonna do with it 01:43.000 --> 01:47.000 Yeah, well he's just hard, he's that hardcore for making money 01:48.000 --> 01:49.000 This is a man who's definitely employable 01:49.000 --> 01:50.000 He's definitely employable 01:50.000 --> 01:53.000 He's going to wait in line for nine hours to buy an Xbox 01:54.000 --> 01:55.000 That's dedication 01:55.000 --> 01:57.000 If that's not dedication, I don't know what is 02:00.000 --> 02:02.000 And I'm getting calls right now too 02:05.000 --> 02:08.000 Our special guest is Natus during the introduction 02:08.000 --> 02:15.000 All right, we don't have any housekeeping this evening 02:15.000 --> 02:17.000 Do you have any housekeeping, Strom? 02:17.000 --> 02:20.000 Oh, I've got tons of housekeeping, but it's not related to the show 02:20.000 --> 02:21.000 Oh, yes 02:21.000 --> 02:23.000 You're gonna have to clean up your computer supplies 02:23.000 --> 02:28.000 And all your floor covered in Western Electric 500 parts 02:28.000 --> 02:29.000 And that's it exactly, yes 02:30.000 --> 02:33.000 Your Western Electric transistors and such 02:34.000 --> 02:35.000 I've got relay valves 02:35.000 --> 02:37.000 I've got mousetraps that work with relays 02:39.000 --> 02:41.000 You got step-by-step mousetraps? 02:41.000 --> 02:42.000 Exactly, exactly 02:42.000 --> 02:43.000 Exactly 02:44.000 --> 02:45.000 The mouse eats the cheese 02:48.000 --> 02:49.000 That'd be pretty cool 02:49.000 --> 02:50.000 You got a little flutter right there 02:50.000 --> 02:51.000 And you got to go snap right at the end 02:52.000 --> 02:54.000 It doesn't sound kind of like a snap right at the end of a step-by-step 02:55.000 --> 02:56.000 Yes, okay, just so you all know 02:56.000 --> 02:57.000 This is a phone episode 02:58.000 --> 03:00.000 So if you're all, in case you couldn't tell from the intro 03:01.000 --> 03:02.000 Phone, phone, phone 03:03.000 --> 03:05.000 And we'll reveal why it's such a very special binary revolution radio 03:06.000 --> 03:07.000 After we get through all the normal stuff 03:08.000 --> 03:10.000 So, why don't we get right to the email? 03:10.000 --> 03:14.000 Well, it's special because Natus is going to be waiting in line 03:15.000 --> 03:16.000 Yes, sort of 03:17.000 --> 03:18.000 That's just part of the specialness 03:19.000 --> 03:21.000 Xbox will be released today as this episode airs 03:22.000 --> 03:25.000 And Natus is going to be sitting there in line this evening 03:26.000 --> 03:27.000 With his friend 03:28.000 --> 03:29.000 Somewhere in the United States 03:31.000 --> 03:34.000 Hey, but I thought this was a special Gen 2 episode, Black Ratchet 03:35.000 --> 03:37.000 Oh, it's our special Gen 2 iPod and Asterisk episode? 03:37.000 --> 03:40.000 Yeah, it's our all Gen 2, all iPod, all asterisk 03:41.000 --> 03:42.000 Mega-spectacular 03:42.000 --> 03:47.000 Seriously, if you want to come on here and just rant about how Gen 2 is the shizzle 03:47.000 --> 03:48.000 We can get you 03:49.000 --> 03:50.000 We can get, oh, who else runs Gen 2? 03:51.000 --> 03:52.000 Like, you know, half the IRC channel in here 03:53.000 --> 03:54.000 Except, you know, Tioski 03:56.000 --> 03:57.000 He runs OpenBSD 03:58.000 --> 04:00.000 I don't know, we'll get like half the IRC 04:00.000 --> 04:05.000 And you guys can all like rant for like, you know, a full hour on how Gen 2 is the shizzle 04:07.000 --> 04:11.000 And then I can just see you right now and say, okay, why is Gen 2 so cool? 04:11.000 --> 04:14.000 And you'll be like, well, I can compile stuff from source 04:15.000 --> 04:17.000 And that's it, that's all you'll be saying 04:18.000 --> 04:19.000 Because Gen 2 sucks! 04:19.000 --> 04:23.000 Gen 2 04:23.000 --> 04:24.000 Gen 3 04:24.000 --> 04:26.000 Gen 3 04:26.000 --> 04:28.000 Gen 3 04:28.000 --> 04:29.000 Gen 3 04:29.000 --> 04:30.000 Gen 3 04:30.000 --> 04:31.000 Gen 3 04:31.000 --> 04:32.000 Gen 3 04:32.000 --> 04:33.000 Gen 3 04:33.000 --> 04:34.000 Gen 3 04:34.000 --> 04:35.000 Gen 4 04:35.000 --> 04:36.000 Gen 3 04:36.000 --> 04:37.000 Gen 3 04:37.000 --> 04:38.000 Gen 3 04:38.400 --> 04:39.000 Gen 3 04:39.000 --> 04:42.000 Our first email is from Candela 04:42.000 --> 04:48.160 And he says, just want us to let you know that episode 122's left audio track came out way low in volume. 04:49.460 --> 04:52.940 I had to use Audacity to increase the volume so I could enjoy the show. 04:53.680 --> 04:54.120 FYI. 04:54.460 --> 04:55.140 Great job. 04:55.260 --> 04:56.700 I enjoy every single show. 04:57.020 --> 04:57.420 Candela. 04:58.220 --> 05:01.220 Yeah, well, first off, I'd like to thank Candela. 05:01.800 --> 05:06.820 He included a, I guess it's sort of like a text-to-speech engine of someone saying his name. 05:07.580 --> 05:09.620 And it sounded very nice, and we knew how to pronounce it. 05:09.620 --> 05:17.520 And so props to him, and, you know, for people who complain that we butcher names, that's what you need to do right there. 05:18.540 --> 05:21.120 And, yeah, I don't know why. 05:21.120 --> 05:27.200 It sounded fine to me before I encoded it down to MP3, and I never actually checked the quality of the MP3 before I uploaded it. 05:27.380 --> 05:28.740 And I guess it sucks. 05:29.220 --> 05:38.900 So hopefully sometime this week I'll fix it in the archives, and therefore it'll be fine and happy and feel good, and everyone can listen to it. 05:38.900 --> 05:43.380 This is what happens when I take over mastering the show for a couple weeks and then let Ratchet do an episode. 05:44.180 --> 05:49.420 Well, no, it's all Zygmunt's fault, because he was using his crappy-ass soft phone. 05:51.120 --> 05:52.800 Soft phones are the work of the devil, dammit. 05:53.320 --> 05:54.540 Yeah, it's hard phones forever. 05:55.560 --> 05:56.440 Or VoIP phones. 05:56.880 --> 05:57.100 Yeah. 05:59.100 --> 06:01.560 Well, my Cisco phone is a hard phone, in my opinion. 06:02.340 --> 06:03.120 Well, not really. 06:03.280 --> 06:05.440 It's an IP phone, but it's a tangible telephone. 06:05.560 --> 06:06.960 I can pick it up and talk to you on it. 06:07.740 --> 06:10.060 Yeah, but I can pick up my laptop and talk to you on it. 06:11.040 --> 06:12.020 That's something tangible. 06:12.340 --> 06:18.460 Yeah, but your laptop isn't designed to be pressed nicely against your ear and held comfortably in the palm of your hand at the same time. 06:18.520 --> 06:19.600 Have you ever seen my laptop? 06:20.120 --> 06:20.780 Yes, I have. 06:20.840 --> 06:22.520 It's not like it has a telephone coming out of it. 06:24.740 --> 06:25.100 Maybe. 06:25.400 --> 06:25.980 It does. 06:26.520 --> 06:26.760 That's right. 06:26.760 --> 06:31.400 I'm going to, like, wire an RJ-11 up to my sound card and plug it in that way to the microphone. 06:31.580 --> 06:36.720 I can just see you running off, you don't understand, none of you understand, and then wiring something up. 06:36.800 --> 06:38.620 See, see, I told you, I told you. 06:39.620 --> 06:42.360 Actually, I don't even think my microphone, my computer has a microphone. 06:43.160 --> 06:43.960 I could be wrong. 06:44.220 --> 06:44.720 I don't know. 06:44.720 --> 06:48.120 Next email tonight. 06:48.240 --> 06:50.040 Yeah, it comes from Hack5190. 06:51.220 --> 06:59.620 He says, you talk about asterisk frequently, but until finding a link about installing asterisk on a Linksys WRTGS box, I never seem to have enough spare time. 06:59.920 --> 07:03.880 What do you know about this project, and what would you recommend for a total asterisk noob? 07:04.460 --> 07:06.520 And that's, you want to do the tiny URL, Ratchet? 07:06.520 --> 07:10.980 That's tinyurl.com slash 8NovemberYankeeVictor9. 07:12.500 --> 07:13.860 That niner ass breath. 07:14.260 --> 07:14.760 Ha, ha, ha. 07:16.000 --> 07:25.580 Um, I don't know, see, I couldn't really tell if you actually installed it already, or, as Natus starts to prepare to go out into the... 07:25.580 --> 07:26.460 What, can you hear me? 07:26.980 --> 07:27.360 Yes. 07:27.940 --> 07:28.400 Oh, okay. 07:29.140 --> 07:33.360 It's great, we just hear you, like, getting naked or something. 07:33.360 --> 07:36.980 No, I'm just a little backpack, I'm packing something else. 07:37.260 --> 07:37.320 Yeah. 07:37.440 --> 07:40.960 Don't graduate all the ladies out there, Natus is fucking hot. 07:42.720 --> 07:44.160 So anyways, yeah. 07:45.100 --> 07:47.360 Are you packing provisions for tonight's... 07:48.440 --> 07:50.280 Yes, I am, I'm packing, I'm packing ammo. 07:50.640 --> 07:53.120 Let me get this out, actually, let me tell you exactly what I'm packing. 07:53.360 --> 07:56.420 Yes, I'm curious, what does one pack to wait in line for an Xbox? 07:57.400 --> 08:00.240 Start a small profit big in real estate. 08:01.020 --> 08:03.300 Learning Pearl, uh, 4th edition. 08:04.080 --> 08:09.780 PHP and MySQL for Dummies, because I'm a noob, and, uh, this is an interesting one. 08:09.940 --> 08:13.980 AT&T, GBCS Products Security Handbook. 08:16.180 --> 08:18.020 GBCS, what is GBCS? 08:19.020 --> 08:19.740 What is it, Strom? 08:20.280 --> 08:21.420 Strom knows what it is. 08:21.600 --> 08:23.000 What, G as in golf? 08:23.680 --> 08:23.800 Yeah. 08:24.360 --> 08:24.920 GBCS? 08:25.140 --> 08:26.240 Oh, GBCS. 08:26.420 --> 08:26.760 Hmm. 08:26.880 --> 08:27.160 Yeah. 08:28.160 --> 08:29.560 That I've never actually heard of. 08:30.380 --> 08:30.700 Really? 08:30.880 --> 08:31.620 To be honest, yeah. 08:32.560 --> 08:34.180 Oh, damn, I thought you knew what it meant. 08:34.520 --> 08:37.500 Uh, uh, Blake Ops knew what it meant, and he told me. 08:37.880 --> 08:38.140 Hmm. 08:38.300 --> 08:39.120 I'm trying to look it up. 08:39.160 --> 08:39.540 Hold on. 08:40.200 --> 08:43.020 You don't know what it is, but you're going to read a book about the security issues. 08:43.560 --> 08:44.840 Well, it's about phone security. 08:45.060 --> 08:47.120 It's just some AT&T-like acronym. 08:47.120 --> 08:52.440 Great big computer system. 08:54.420 --> 08:55.240 I don't know. 08:55.640 --> 08:58.660 Well, anyway, while you look that up, we'll actually answer Hack 190's email. 08:58.760 --> 09:00.040 Hack 5190 email. 09:00.780 --> 09:07.380 I'm curious if the 5190 is a birth date, or if he just likes the number that AOL Instant Messenger sits on. 09:07.380 --> 09:21.980 So, um, I really couldn't tell if you already had it installed or not, but if you're a noob with Linux and you have a WRT54G, um, I really wouldn't recommend installing it. 09:22.040 --> 09:25.400 I'm not even sure if you can install it without a Linux box already installed. 09:26.200 --> 09:26.840 Lord only knows. 09:26.840 --> 09:38.280 But if you're, like, a noob for Linux or you're a noob for Asterisk, I would kind of recommend you might want to shy away from your WRT54G projects for the time being. 09:39.100 --> 09:42.280 If you haven't installed it yet and you're completely new to Linux, don't do it at all. 09:42.760 --> 09:44.700 It's an interesting process. 09:44.940 --> 09:52.140 I've never actually done it, but I've known people who did, and they've, it was a while ago, so it might have improved, but they said it was rather hairy. 09:52.140 --> 09:57.760 And if you don't know what you're doing, you have a good chance of, uh, ending up with a big blue paperweight. 09:58.200 --> 10:07.240 That doesn't really work good, because they're rather light, but, um, as for Asterisk, if you have Linux installed on the WRT54G or whatever the heck they call it, 10:07.280 --> 10:15.980 because you called it a WRTGS, I don't know what the difference is, um, it should be pretty easy for you to get it running on it, 10:16.000 --> 10:19.220 and it should be rather the same as getting it running on a real PC. 10:19.220 --> 10:28.500 Um, it's a fun project, but, I don't know, as it stands, I would kind of shy away from this if I were a noob, as you stated. 10:29.100 --> 10:34.520 Just, just get a cheap computer, toss, toss Debut on it, not Gen2, because Gen2 sucks. 10:35.640 --> 10:38.580 And, uh, you know, grab, grab Asterisk and install it on that. 10:38.700 --> 10:41.640 So, so, I think it'll save you time and effort and pain. 10:42.140 --> 10:46.360 Yeah, easier, easier to learn it in a native environment, and then, once you're familiar with it, 10:46.360 --> 10:49.140 try and cram it to somewhere where it really isn't designed to go. 10:49.620 --> 10:49.820 Yes. 10:50.660 --> 10:55.620 Well, I mean, the WRT54G is designed for Linux, I mean, it runs Linux in the first place, 10:55.780 --> 11:03.020 but it's just kind of more along the lines of, you're, I don't know what you would kind of compare it to. 11:03.700 --> 11:06.580 You're cramming it, yes, but you're, it's designed to go there. 11:08.640 --> 11:10.260 Oh, that could be taken out of context. 11:10.640 --> 11:11.040 Oh, really? 11:11.040 --> 11:17.860 Yeah, I told my mom I was going to Walmart to hang out all night, she's like, yeah, 11:17.920 --> 11:21.640 and she sees me packing this bag, she's like, yeah, like, you're going to Walmart all night. 11:21.640 --> 11:26.100 She doesn't know how hardcore you really are. 11:26.600 --> 11:29.280 She doesn't know how much I own people's money. 11:30.560 --> 11:32.060 Natas, Natas is hardcore. 11:33.220 --> 11:38.000 All right, so if you, just out of curiosity, if you have the chance to buy two, are you going to do it? 11:38.500 --> 11:38.860 Hell yeah. 11:39.420 --> 11:40.720 I'll buy them all, I'll have a credit card. 11:40.720 --> 11:44.420 The young investor. 11:45.680 --> 11:47.000 Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. 11:47.640 --> 11:48.540 Kind of weird. 11:48.780 --> 11:51.920 I mean, I, I, I kind of, it's cool that Natas is doing this, 11:51.980 --> 11:54.560 but it kind of sucks if you actually want to get an Xbox at Walmart. 11:56.180 --> 11:59.580 And this one nut buys out all eight just to eBay them for a profit. 12:00.780 --> 12:00.980 Mm-hmm. 12:01.060 --> 12:01.760 Oh, you know what? 12:02.940 --> 12:05.460 That's, uh, what's that called in the business world? 12:05.580 --> 12:06.340 Supply and demand. 12:07.260 --> 12:07.540 Yep. 12:07.540 --> 12:10.940 Speaking of supply, don't forget to bring stuff to eat. 12:11.980 --> 12:12.440 Oh, yeah. 12:12.880 --> 12:14.180 Yeah, I, I would do that, too. 12:14.260 --> 12:18.540 I, I did notice that on your whole stuff that you did not list in your... 12:19.300 --> 12:20.800 There's a grocery store right next to it. 12:21.600 --> 12:22.140 So it's all good. 12:22.620 --> 12:24.760 Is it a, is it a, is it a 24-hour Walmart? 12:25.500 --> 12:25.900 No. 12:26.380 --> 12:26.660 Uh. 12:27.800 --> 12:30.040 So they haven't even closed, they haven't even closed yet. 12:31.000 --> 12:33.180 Because it's only like 9.30, they closed at 10. 12:35.320 --> 12:37.080 Well, just think, you're just going to sit out there, 12:37.080 --> 12:38.360 and you're going to just wait. 12:39.100 --> 12:40.460 Oh, I am trying to find a dresser. 12:43.260 --> 12:45.940 What you should do is you should, like, uh, dress up like a Halo guy. 12:47.680 --> 12:49.020 You dress up like Master Chief and sit down there. 12:49.220 --> 12:52.020 Hold on, my, hold on, my partner in crime or business is calling me. 12:52.480 --> 12:52.980 I'll be right back. 12:53.300 --> 12:53.680 All right. 12:55.200 --> 12:56.000 Another email. 12:56.620 --> 12:57.420 Glorious episode. 12:57.860 --> 12:58.400 Oh, yes. 12:58.880 --> 13:00.060 You guys sound like default. 13:00.340 --> 13:02.140 Well, this week, yes, yes, you're right. 13:02.860 --> 13:04.480 We're pre-recorded and everything. 13:05.100 --> 13:05.400 Yep. 13:05.400 --> 13:07.940 What's the next email, Strom? 13:08.080 --> 13:08.260 All right. 13:08.260 --> 13:09.820 The next email is a bit of a long one. 13:09.900 --> 13:10.860 It says, hey, guys. 13:11.700 --> 13:14.480 Yes, you can get John to work under Windows, at least with Sigwin. 13:14.820 --> 13:17.580 It can work with both NT hashes and LAN manager hashes. 13:17.960 --> 13:20.360 The weakness exploits you were talking about are LM hashes. 13:20.460 --> 13:25.380 And, yes, new versions of Windows XP are vulnerable unless you turn off the storage off LM hashes. 13:25.460 --> 13:26.140 It's on by default. 13:26.360 --> 13:28.180 Turn off the storage off LM hashes. 13:28.180 --> 13:28.900 Thank you. 13:28.960 --> 13:29.600 Appreciate it. 13:29.960 --> 13:34.180 Last crack, Kane and John all use as vulnerable to crack SAM files faster. 13:34.640 --> 13:36.560 Exact details can be found in this video. 13:37.360 --> 13:43.520 That's tinyworld.com slash delta mike hotel to fox. 13:44.120 --> 13:45.360 But the gist is this. 13:45.840 --> 13:48.280 LM hashes are quick to crack because of the algorithm. 13:49.000 --> 13:50.880 One, convert password to uppercase. 13:50.880 --> 13:54.860 Two, pad the plain text with null characters to make it 14 bytes long. 13:55.200 --> 13:58.200 Three, split into two seven-character byte chunks. 13:59.060 --> 14:04.880 Four, use each seven-byte chunk separately as keys to des-encrypt the magic value, which is... 14:05.780 --> 14:08.140 This very long string. 14:08.400 --> 14:09.460 You can look it up online. 14:09.460 --> 14:13.400 Capital G, capital S, bang, at, pound, dollar, percent. 14:14.180 --> 14:14.940 Or in hex. 14:15.560 --> 14:16.780 I don't know if you're a father reading that. 14:17.500 --> 14:21.500 Step five, concatenate the two ciphertext from step four to produce the hash. 14:21.700 --> 14:23.760 Step six, store the hash in the SAM file. 14:24.320 --> 14:28.880 Since the password is always uppercase and split into two seven-character chunks, 14:29.140 --> 14:32.860 it's really like cracking two seven-character password hashes with a limited key space, 14:32.860 --> 14:37.500 which is much faster than cracking one 14-character password of both upper and lowercase. 14:37.500 --> 14:41.180 Rainbow tables with pre-generated hashes make it even faster. 14:41.380 --> 14:44.800 Since there is no randomizing assault, it's possible to make these pre-generated tables. 14:46.320 --> 14:52.000 NTLM hashes, all versions, are more secure, but can still be cracked with John's lost crack at Kane given time. 14:52.440 --> 14:54.700 Turn off LM hash storage in XP to the following. 14:55.500 --> 14:59.840 Step one, turn off LM hash storage in the SAM via local policy registry or GPO. 14:59.840 --> 15:01.680 And that's tinyurl.com. 15:03.200 --> 15:07.240 Slash nine, Victor, Sierra, Whiskey, Yankee. 15:08.100 --> 15:14.080 Number two, if you use a password longer than 14 characters to no LM hash will be stored, try using a passphrase. 15:14.940 --> 15:15.900 I enjoy the show. 15:15.980 --> 15:16.800 Keep up the good work. 15:17.280 --> 15:17.960 Iron Geek. 15:18.800 --> 15:19.280 Wow. 15:19.880 --> 15:21.000 That's an awesome letter. 15:22.140 --> 15:23.240 Iron Geek's the man. 15:23.680 --> 15:23.820 Yeah. 15:23.960 --> 15:25.520 Iron Geek never fails to impress. 15:25.780 --> 15:27.760 He does some crazy shit. 15:28.840 --> 15:30.100 Oh, he does it really good, too. 15:30.220 --> 15:32.820 Like, he does everything with a really good quality, you know? 15:33.140 --> 15:35.960 Like, all those videos he puts together, he doesn't half-ass it. 15:37.660 --> 15:38.460 No, he doesn't. 15:39.180 --> 15:42.820 Actually, since we're talking about his videos, we're going to go pimp his website out here at 15:42.820 --> 15:44.660 IronGeek.com. 15:45.340 --> 15:50.440 And I believe he's also on TWAT at TWATech.org from time to time. 15:51.040 --> 15:53.380 And he also hangs out on binrev.com forums. 15:53.380 --> 16:00.660 So, go to binrev.com forums and hang out with Iron Geek, myself, Strom, Natas, and the rest 16:00.660 --> 16:02.360 of the crazy Binrev gang. 16:03.600 --> 16:04.100 All right. 16:04.160 --> 16:04.540 Hey, guys. 16:04.940 --> 16:05.840 Hey, I got to go. 16:06.620 --> 16:08.000 I'm going down to Walmart right now. 16:08.060 --> 16:09.300 I'll call back in a little bit, okay? 16:09.660 --> 16:10.540 See you guys for the show. 16:10.560 --> 16:15.420 We're going to have our live check-in from the Walmart line waiting for the Xbox. 16:16.320 --> 16:16.640 Yeah. 16:16.900 --> 16:17.320 All right. 16:18.320 --> 16:18.700 Late. 16:18.700 --> 16:19.120 See you guys. 16:22.460 --> 16:25.620 Yeah, Natas said he was going to be on for the whole episode, but I guess not. 16:27.100 --> 16:28.060 So much for that. 16:29.780 --> 16:32.900 So, letter number whatever it is. 16:33.380 --> 16:33.880 Hey, guys. 16:33.980 --> 16:35.040 Greetings from New Zealand. 16:35.200 --> 16:38.460 Just listened to episode number 122, and I thought you might be interested in this little 16:38.460 --> 16:39.940 program I came across a while ago. 16:39.940 --> 16:44.060 It's a fantastic free open-source hex editor for Windows called FR Head. 16:45.140 --> 16:46.840 Or Fred, maybe. 16:46.840 --> 16:52.520 That's www.kibira.de slash f-r-h-e-d dot h-t-m-l. 16:54.280 --> 16:58.660 Also, I thought I'd tell you my favorite email client for Linux is Sylphied Clause. 16:59.360 --> 17:03.120 It's little known about client, but I love it far more than any other mail client on Linux. 17:03.480 --> 17:04.180 It just works. 17:04.480 --> 17:06.040 It has a Windows port, but it sucks. 17:06.400 --> 17:08.220 Just use Thunderbird when you have to use Windows. 17:08.880 --> 17:13.440 That's clause dot Sylphied, S-Y-L-P-H-E-E-D dot org. 17:13.440 --> 17:16.960 Anyhow, keep up the good work on the show, Blair. 17:17.300 --> 17:19.220 And he says he's Trogs on IRC. 17:19.880 --> 17:25.260 Hey, I forgot to a tiny URL that Fred or FR Head for... 17:25.260 --> 17:26.420 I guess it's... 17:26.420 --> 17:26.780 I don't know. 17:26.880 --> 17:29.480 It's from German, so Lord knows how to sound stuff over there. 17:29.540 --> 17:29.660 Yeah. 17:30.320 --> 17:32.300 Fred, what in guys? 17:32.560 --> 17:32.880 And... 17:32.880 --> 17:35.900 It's probably something like totally non-conceivable. 17:36.300 --> 17:37.820 Like, it actually sounds like palm tree. 17:38.480 --> 17:39.040 Yeah, probably. 17:40.400 --> 17:46.760 Anyway, the tiny URL for that is tinyurl.com slash 4-2-Zulu-5-Hotel. 17:47.340 --> 17:49.540 And I've got to say, Blair, hey, New Zealand. 17:49.740 --> 17:50.140 All right. 17:51.560 --> 17:55.260 This actually occurred to me while I was reading his email and he saw you're from New Zealand. 17:55.260 --> 18:00.920 I really want to create like a map of all the listeners and everyone can check in right where the hell they are. 18:01.720 --> 18:02.480 I think it would be cool. 18:02.620 --> 18:06.860 So far, we've got one from Taiwan, one from New Zealand, one from Poland. 18:06.860 --> 18:07.260 And... 18:07.260 --> 18:10.680 Is actually have, you know, that giant map and get all those little colored pushpins. 18:11.600 --> 18:12.180 Oh, yes. 18:12.380 --> 18:14.820 You know, actually stick the pushpins into the map. 18:15.180 --> 18:19.420 And then we can put like a webcam on it so people can see it all the time. 18:19.440 --> 18:19.460 Yeah, exactly. 18:19.460 --> 18:20.000 Map cam. 18:20.580 --> 18:20.840 Yeah. 18:21.200 --> 18:22.920 No, I actually found this website. 18:24.060 --> 18:27.400 It makes you like do little maps and it uses a Google Maps API. 18:27.720 --> 18:29.780 I need to research on what the website is. 18:29.780 --> 18:35.880 I saw it someplace and I haven't narrowed down to where it is, but I just need to figure out what the actual URL is. 18:36.860 --> 18:42.420 Um, I know, also, speaking of your, this was a response to our, in case you hadn't paid attention last week, 18:42.540 --> 18:47.840 Straum didn't pay attention because probably he didn't listen to the episode, um, was the whole software that we like. 18:48.220 --> 18:51.740 And this is our, this email and the next are responses to it. 18:52.380 --> 18:57.560 Um, I, I never touched fur head or Fred or palm tree. 18:57.560 --> 18:59.360 Um, it looks pretty cool. 18:59.520 --> 19:05.660 I, I downloaded it and I ran it and I fiddled with some stuff and it looks like a very run-of-the-mill, standard, functional text editor. 19:06.380 --> 19:10.620 Um, simple, not too many bells and whistles, and it just looks like it works. 19:10.700 --> 19:12.780 It does one thing very, very well from the looks of it. 19:12.900 --> 19:16.800 It's kind of like the, the AK-47 of hex editing, I guess you could call it. 19:16.800 --> 19:19.060 Um, you know, it's designed to shoot people. 19:19.160 --> 19:23.860 It doesn't have many bells and whipples, bells and whistles as the M16, but it always seems to work. 19:24.160 --> 19:25.540 Shift one, shift one, shift one. 19:26.080 --> 19:26.400 Yes. 19:26.940 --> 19:27.600 Shift one. 19:27.780 --> 19:28.140 Yeah, right. 19:28.240 --> 19:29.060 Bang, bang, bang. 19:29.060 --> 19:32.240 Um, Silphied. 19:32.740 --> 19:33.960 I, I think that's how you pronounce it. 19:33.980 --> 19:34.740 I'm not exactly sure. 19:35.360 --> 19:37.460 Um, I played with Silphied a few years ago. 19:37.800 --> 19:40.120 It was before Thunderbird even came out. 19:40.140 --> 19:45.280 I believe, actually, when I played with it before, it was pre-Firefox or pre-Phoenix or whatever the hell they called it back then. 19:45.380 --> 19:46.440 Firebird, I think it was. 19:46.740 --> 19:50.800 Well, it was, it was Firefox and Firebird, and I think before that it was Phoenix. 19:51.320 --> 19:51.580 Hmm. 19:52.400 --> 19:54.300 Because it was, that, that's the original one. 19:54.380 --> 19:57.360 And then they got into a problem with the Phoenix BIOS trademark, 19:57.360 --> 20:02.600 and then they got into trouble with the Firebird trademark, which is a, a lightweight sequel engine, I think. 20:03.480 --> 20:09.440 Then they came out with Firefox, and then there was the, the, the Firewhatever, who, uh, where it came out with, 20:09.980 --> 20:16.780 it was a plug-in for Firefox, and it would, uh, change the Fire, it would change the name of Firefox every time you started up to, like, you know, 20:17.300 --> 20:20.320 adjective and bird, like, you know, wet dog. 20:24.260 --> 20:26.360 It was like, yeah, I think it was, like, called, like, Firewhatever. 20:26.360 --> 20:36.180 Um, I, it was usable, I, I didn't have any major problems with Chill Feed, but I, I just never really got too comfortable with it. 20:36.320 --> 20:43.500 I, I, I, now that I think of it, um, it could have been the fact that I think I was still in a very much a KDE zealot stage back then, 20:43.500 --> 20:47.720 and I really didn't like the, the known look and feel on top of my KDE screen. 20:47.720 --> 20:53.680 But, uh, as far as I remember, I, there was no real major complaints with it, unless, of course, there was something very horrible with it, 20:53.680 --> 20:55.980 and I just decided to completely suppress that memory. 20:57.100 --> 20:57.980 Um, who knows? 20:58.060 --> 20:59.100 It was a very well-done client. 20:59.360 --> 21:00.600 Um, I did enjoy it. 21:00.700 --> 21:01.660 It never really stuck. 21:01.980 --> 21:08.260 Um, and right now, Firefox, not Firefox, Thunderbird is out there, so, who really cares, honestly? 21:08.820 --> 21:11.600 Unless you really, unless it's really, really, really good. 21:11.600 --> 21:17.380 So, try, try it anyway, uh, sylfeed, S-Y-L-P-H-E-E-D dot org. 21:18.560 --> 21:24.740 And there's claws dot, S-F-I-L-F-E-E-D dot org, just, but, I think I actually just used the original one. 21:26.460 --> 21:27.840 So, Natus, what have you been doing? 21:27.920 --> 21:31.240 Oh, wait, he's not here, he's, he's trucking down to the Walmart. 21:31.840 --> 21:32.780 OMG, Walmart. 21:33.340 --> 21:38.380 Um, I'm, you know, I'm probably gonna, we're probably gonna get, like, tons of hate mail from people who hate Walmart. 21:38.920 --> 21:39.320 Oh, yeah. 21:39.320 --> 21:44.260 All, all, all, all this, Natus, I can't believe you're going down there, you evil, evil person, you. 21:44.480 --> 21:49.760 All the trendy, anti-consumerist pseudo-hippies are going to email us. 21:49.880 --> 21:51.160 They're, they're, they're, they're dirty hippies, come on. 21:51.680 --> 21:51.980 Yeah. 21:52.400 --> 21:54.620 No, no, no, they're not even any real hippies, they're pseudo-hippies. 21:54.720 --> 21:55.300 Didn't you hear me? 21:55.840 --> 21:59.160 No, no, no, it's a dirty, dirty hippie, dirty hippie is a state of mind. 22:00.220 --> 22:01.000 Eh, I guess so. 22:01.400 --> 22:03.940 Being from California, I should know that, but it is. 22:04.440 --> 22:05.960 Hell, you, you, you're infested out there. 22:06.300 --> 22:06.700 Yeah. 22:06.700 --> 22:10.080 So, anyway, well, Strom, what have you been doing? 22:10.140 --> 22:10.560 How about that? 22:10.940 --> 22:13.760 Oh, I have been playing with smart cards galore. 22:14.280 --> 22:14.740 Oh, really? 22:15.040 --> 22:15.380 Yes. 22:15.620 --> 22:16.860 What have you been doing with smart cards? 22:16.960 --> 22:18.620 I have been hacking them. 22:19.040 --> 22:20.600 Oh, you're hack-soaring the smart cards? 22:20.660 --> 22:22.020 Yes, I'm hack-soaring the smart cards. 22:22.020 --> 22:28.460 I'm actually to the point where I feel confident enough to throw together a presentation, and 22:28.460 --> 22:34.320 I'm actually, so I threw together a, an outline and a summary, and I sent it into the Layer 22:34.320 --> 22:40.380 One conference, and with any luck, I'll be speaking about this at Layer One, but it's 22:40.380 --> 22:44.200 pretty interesting, because what I've been doing is I've been playing around with the smart 22:44.200 --> 22:45.760 cards you get at FedEx Kinko's. 22:45.760 --> 22:51.220 Oh, that could be interesting, because that's where they, that's where they store all your 22:51.220 --> 22:53.120 change and everything, right? 22:53.400 --> 22:53.720 Yep. 22:54.320 --> 22:54.580 Oh. 22:54.580 --> 22:58.020 Everything, as it turns out, is completely unencrypted. 22:59.000 --> 23:00.920 Oh, no. 23:00.920 --> 23:06.500 So, it's a 256-byte double EEPROM, and everything's stored unencrypted on it. 23:06.560 --> 23:11.800 You can't write to it until you select, until you write the correct three-byte security code, 23:12.280 --> 23:16.620 and at least there's a prevention against brute force attack, because if you write the 23:16.620 --> 23:18.780 wrong code to the card three times, it burns out. 23:18.880 --> 23:21.420 You can't write any more codes to it, or anything else there, for that matter. 23:22.240 --> 23:27.660 So, if I wanted to brute force it, it would take 5.6 million cards, so I don't think I 23:27.660 --> 23:30.840 have that kind of money or time, but... 23:30.840 --> 23:32.180 Oh, it's three bytes. 23:32.320 --> 23:32.600 Okay. 23:32.880 --> 23:33.160 Yeah. 23:33.280 --> 23:36.540 For a second there, I thought you were talking about, like, three bytes, as in it could be 23:36.540 --> 23:39.820 anywhere of 100, anywhere of 999 combinations. 23:39.980 --> 23:43.340 And I was just like, I'm pretty sure these cards are easy to get. 23:44.240 --> 23:44.820 Yeah, they are. 23:44.900 --> 23:49.040 Yeah, no, if it were only, like, 999 possible combinations, are you kidding? 23:49.040 --> 23:52.380 I'd have a stack of cards, and I'd be doing this for the next week. 23:53.140 --> 23:55.900 Yeah, 300, yeah, after you DEF CON by phone and everything. 23:56.480 --> 23:56.700 Yeah. 23:57.660 --> 24:02.800 Um, yeah, because I was going to say, okay, well, you know, 5.7, for those of you who 24:02.800 --> 24:07.100 don't, have never been to Kinko's, or FedEx Kinko's, or whatever the heck they call themselves 24:07.100 --> 24:12.940 now, all of your, instead of, like, putting quarters in the copy machine, you get these 24:12.940 --> 24:18.860 smart cards, and they write, like, you give the person a $5, and they write $5 to the card, 24:18.900 --> 24:20.560 and that's what they use to all the copy machines. 24:20.800 --> 24:23.000 I don't think they officially accept change anymore. 24:23.600 --> 24:27.640 Yeah, no, you can't actually, you could theoretically buy a card from the cashier. 24:27.640 --> 24:31.100 And say, hey, I've got a bunch of coins, can I get a card from you for this much? 24:31.600 --> 24:33.460 And the cashier will make one up. 24:33.980 --> 24:37.980 But, uh, typically, you just go with bills to the kiosk, and you press the button, and 24:37.980 --> 24:42.520 you get a card, and then you stick the card into the kiosk, and stick bills into the kiosk, 24:42.540 --> 24:44.860 and then take, get your card back, and make your Xeroxes. 24:45.820 --> 24:50.400 But actually, one of the fun things is, is that, like, especially around colleges, if 24:50.400 --> 24:54.520 you go, and you go root around, because, like, once people are, quote-unquote, done with 24:54.520 --> 24:57.240 their cards, they'll leave them around, and occasionally, like, find one with, like, a 24:57.240 --> 24:58.220 dollar or so on it. 24:58.360 --> 24:58.560 Mm-hmm. 24:58.620 --> 25:01.180 You find a lot of, like, a lot of them are, like, five cents, ten cents. 25:01.480 --> 25:01.720 Mm-hmm. 25:01.760 --> 25:05.360 If you really want to get them, you can, but occasionally, you do find a gold mine. 25:05.360 --> 25:10.240 And I think I do have one with, like, actual, like, three dollars on it in my pocket right 25:10.240 --> 25:14.380 now, that I found at the, right outside of Brown University Kinko's. 25:16.200 --> 25:17.680 Before it was FedEx Kinko's, yes. 25:18.500 --> 25:20.440 And I, I, I, that made my night. 25:20.660 --> 25:23.640 Yeah, I've got some of the older Kinko's pre-FedEx cards. 25:23.900 --> 25:24.120 Yeah. 25:24.640 --> 25:25.940 In my pile of cards here. 25:26.300 --> 25:29.640 But, uh, but no, it's really interesting, because all the data is just stored unencrypted. 25:29.640 --> 25:35.200 Uh, it stores, like, a serial number, and it stores a timestamp when the card was created, 25:35.200 --> 25:42.160 and then it stores your, um, it stores your dollar value in, like, standard IEEE, uh, double 25:42.160 --> 25:43.680 precision floating point format. 25:43.960 --> 25:44.800 Oh, God. 25:45.720 --> 25:47.140 Double precision floating point. 25:47.300 --> 25:47.420 Oh. 25:47.840 --> 25:48.040 Yeah. 25:49.140 --> 25:50.080 Little Indian, of course. 25:50.460 --> 25:55.760 And, um, and so, really, I, my theory is that all the cards have exactly the same, 25:55.760 --> 25:58.140 uh, exactly the same security key. 25:59.760 --> 26:00.760 That would make the most sense. 26:00.760 --> 26:04.020 Yeah, and it's not, I mean, because everything else about this card is turned out to be stupid 26:04.020 --> 26:05.180 easy, so something's, like. 26:05.500 --> 26:09.520 Actually, half-brained, like, oh, let's base a security card on a hash of something that's 26:09.520 --> 26:14.460 on the card already, would be, uh, be too, uh, too intelligent for the system, I think. 26:15.300 --> 26:20.060 So, the key now is to figure out what that security code is, and then I've got a really 26:20.060 --> 26:21.400 solid presentation, you know. 26:21.680 --> 26:24.620 Why not to do this for a stored value system? 26:25.960 --> 26:30.000 But even if I don't figure out the security code, you know, I think it still makes a really 26:30.000 --> 26:31.260 interesting, solid presentation. 26:31.780 --> 26:32.380 Well, not even that. 26:32.380 --> 26:35.640 I think you have a very, if you, if you figure out the security code, you have a very solid, 26:35.740 --> 26:36.920 uh, business. 26:38.800 --> 26:41.000 A solid security consulting business? 26:41.480 --> 26:48.580 Well, no, more like, just go and sit out for a, uh, hey, you know, give me $5, I'll give you a Kinko's 26:48.580 --> 26:49.240 card for $15. 26:49.760 --> 26:50.120 Mm-hmm. 26:50.120 --> 26:55.100 I'm sure it's questionable legality, but hey, you know, if they give you the card, it should 26:55.100 --> 26:56.080 be yours what to do with. 26:56.160 --> 27:00.260 Yeah, why even bother sitting outside at Kinko's, you know, just, just do it on Craigslist. 27:01.500 --> 27:03.260 $15, exactly, there you go. 27:03.660 --> 27:05.460 God, that would be a very bad scam, wouldn't it? 27:05.580 --> 27:05.860 Mm-hmm. 27:06.860 --> 27:08.420 God, they probably wouldn't even be able to tell. 27:08.620 --> 27:09.560 Oh, man, that's creepy. 27:09.760 --> 27:13.580 As Kinko's is probably listening to the show right now, ready to bust down our doors. 27:13.820 --> 27:14.300 Oh, yeah. 27:14.300 --> 27:16.860 Well, I mean, I'm going to present it at Layer 1 anyway, so. 27:17.580 --> 27:22.220 Well, my, my small, my small foray in the smart card, which didn't even get anywhere close 27:22.220 --> 27:28.120 to what you did, was I, I was planning to reverse engineer our, uh, laundry cards back 27:28.120 --> 27:31.580 in our dorm room, back when I was in college, because they used to use all the smart card 27:31.580 --> 27:33.200 system, and it was the same concept. 27:33.340 --> 27:38.140 It had, like, a debit system, you put, like, $5 on, you used that in the, uh, uh, washing 27:38.140 --> 27:38.900 machine and the dryer. 27:39.500 --> 27:40.360 I always find that stupid. 27:40.440 --> 27:41.920 You had to pay for the dryer and the washer. 27:42.040 --> 27:42.420 Come on. 27:42.940 --> 27:43.420 What the hell? 27:43.420 --> 27:45.680 Hey, that's how it is in my, uh, apartment. 27:46.760 --> 27:47.080 Complex. 27:47.620 --> 27:48.280 See, that's silly. 27:48.400 --> 27:51.420 You shouldn't be able to, dryer should be complimentary, because you've got to dry 27:51.420 --> 27:52.120 your clothes somehow. 27:52.360 --> 27:52.760 Come on. 27:53.520 --> 27:57.680 Well, you, you pay for the convenience of, of drying it in the dryer rather than going 27:57.680 --> 28:00.100 out to the clothesline in the back and using the clothespins. 28:00.300 --> 28:05.420 Well, still, from, well, especially, I guess if you're in Southern California, that's, 28:05.480 --> 28:07.240 that's an option all during the year. 28:07.680 --> 28:11.680 But if I, if back in my, back in Boston, you know, you, you hang that out in the middle 28:11.680 --> 28:14.600 of the winter, you get frozen clothes rather than, uh, dry clothes. 28:14.600 --> 28:16.420 But frozen clothes are the best kind. 28:16.500 --> 28:17.440 Don't you like shirtsicles? 28:17.980 --> 28:19.500 Mm, I was about to say a clothesicle. 28:21.240 --> 28:21.940 Mm, yes. 28:22.000 --> 28:25.320 So we, uh, took your clothes, we, uh, wrapped them around a stick, and we put them in the 28:25.320 --> 28:26.040 freezer for a while. 28:26.240 --> 28:26.720 Clothesicle. 28:27.720 --> 28:28.340 Oh, yay. 28:28.340 --> 28:30.540 I, I always find that stupid. 28:30.660 --> 28:35.940 And it's, uh, just all the exorbitant charges, $1.25 to wash, not $1.25 to dry. 28:36.760 --> 28:38.380 Of course, I'm probably dating myself there. 28:38.440 --> 28:40.340 It's probably up to, like, $1.50 or $1.75. 28:40.900 --> 28:41.180 Mm-hmm. 28:41.900 --> 28:46.020 Actually, my, my fiancée, or, well, back then she was my, just my girlfriend, what I 28:46.020 --> 28:50.360 used to do is I, she, she got her laundry free, so I used to basically truck down my 28:50.360 --> 28:55.000 dirty clothes to Providence, which is about an hour drive, because I was going to see her 28:55.000 --> 28:56.740 anyway, and I'd just abuse her washing machine. 28:57.420 --> 28:59.000 One of my, I only did that once or twice. 28:59.320 --> 29:03.020 Yeah, one of my ex-boyfriends, actually, uh, would, would, would schlep his clothes all 29:03.020 --> 29:06.900 the way out to his parents' house, and, uh, and wash it there, because it was free. 29:08.680 --> 29:10.120 Well, that, that's understandable. 29:10.480 --> 29:10.680 Even though he moved out, yeah. 29:11.560 --> 29:12.600 Oh, well, should he move down? 29:12.640 --> 29:15.840 I used, I used to do that during when I, when I had to go home for a weekend, and I'd 29:15.840 --> 29:19.300 bring my dirty clothes, and I'd do my laundry, and I'd go back, and I'd have a nice 29:19.300 --> 29:24.180 clear clothes, and I'd save myself a, $10, no, $5, one, two, yes. 29:24.180 --> 29:24.660 Mm-hmm. 29:24.660 --> 29:25.660 So I'd have to do two loads. 29:26.260 --> 29:28.500 And oh, boy, they were, they were, those loads were crammed. 29:28.820 --> 29:29.660 I'd fill up everything. 29:31.540 --> 29:33.200 On all your whites turned gray. 29:35.040 --> 29:40.700 Yeah, we, oh, come on, the whole color and white thing, it's, it's a bunch of lies, but 29:40.700 --> 29:41.580 the laundry industry. 29:44.520 --> 29:47.160 Boy, remember that, kids, tide is all lies. 29:47.400 --> 29:49.480 It's, it's made of lies and coloring. 29:50.360 --> 29:54.840 Horrible, horrible, mean people who monopolize the, the clothes washing industry. 29:55.620 --> 29:57.500 I was talking about the detergent itself. 29:57.600 --> 29:58.580 I don't know what you're talking about. 30:00.640 --> 30:01.620 Yeah, that's what I was saying. 30:01.740 --> 30:04.600 Anyway, I, I think we've been talking about too much about laundry. 30:05.720 --> 30:07.600 Hey, that'll be our, our next running joke. 30:07.900 --> 30:09.620 iPods, Gentoo, and laundry. 30:10.260 --> 30:10.800 That'd be great. 30:10.840 --> 30:14.200 We should have a laundry episode, because most people probably hear, bro, right around, 30:14.280 --> 30:16.540 right around when people go to college, we should have a laundry episode. 30:16.540 --> 30:17.940 Yeah, I think we should do that. 30:18.040 --> 30:22.640 We should have like a, a tips for actually surviving outside of your parents' house episode. 30:23.580 --> 30:25.920 Ramen noodles are nutritious and delicious. 30:29.640 --> 30:32.900 Buying a five pound bag of rice will feed you for weeks. 30:33.180 --> 30:33.500 Yes. 30:34.900 --> 30:36.660 Anyway, here's what I've been doing. 30:37.680 --> 30:39.520 I haven't done my laundry, thank God. 30:39.520 --> 30:47.760 Um, actually my, my, I've been buying a house, buying a condo down, down on the south shore 30:47.760 --> 30:48.400 of Massachusetts. 30:49.500 --> 30:53.380 So that, that's where I was gone last week, and I may be gone next week doing that, or 30:53.380 --> 30:56.240 basically fading in and out for the next month or so. 30:56.500 --> 30:58.400 Hopefully always being here, but you never know. 30:59.260 --> 31:03.660 Um, also I decided to finally break down and gut my Windows server and rebuild it. 31:03.660 --> 31:09.740 So now I have a freshly installed Windows server that runs at a relatively decent speed again. 31:11.580 --> 31:17.780 Um, of course, you know, Thanksgiving this Thursday, gotta get all, get all that going 31:17.780 --> 31:20.500 on there and getting ready to eat and everything, I guess. 31:20.740 --> 31:24.060 Don't forget to stuff yourself with turkey when you go back to your parents' place, because 31:24.060 --> 31:30.000 if you're living alone, I can, and you're a young 20-something hacker, I can guarantee you 31:30.000 --> 31:31.000 you're probably not eating right. 31:31.000 --> 31:33.360 One word, leftovers. 31:33.840 --> 31:34.160 Yes. 31:34.860 --> 31:35.680 Take home leftovers. 31:35.680 --> 31:37.080 All the leftovers you can. 31:38.020 --> 31:43.200 Stuff it in your, stuff the stuffing in your pockets, and put a couple of slices of turkey 31:43.200 --> 31:48.360 in your shirt pocket, and stuff it down your pants, and then you drive through and wonder 31:48.360 --> 31:50.380 what the hell you've been doing with the turkey. 31:52.880 --> 31:58.940 Well, turkey is the, Thanksgiving is the only day that you can celebrate stuffing your hand 31:58.940 --> 31:59.800 up a turkey's ass. 31:59.800 --> 32:02.100 Oh, boy. 32:02.320 --> 32:02.740 Of course, you know. 32:02.740 --> 32:05.540 What is that thing where they put, like, multiple birds inside each other? 32:05.640 --> 32:06.520 Is that a turducken? 32:06.760 --> 32:07.360 A turducken! 32:07.640 --> 32:11.800 Yes, I was watching a tur, uh, on Home and Garden, no, not Home and Garden TV. 32:12.080 --> 32:16.240 Food Network on, on turducken, and it looks very weird. 32:16.480 --> 32:19.260 What is it, it's a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey, or? 32:20.240 --> 32:22.720 Oh, I think, uh, yes, I think so, yeah. 32:23.920 --> 32:25.260 Chicken, duck, turkey, yes. 32:25.700 --> 32:26.060 Turducken. 32:26.060 --> 32:27.960 Ha-ha, that, that makes sense, doesn't it? 32:28.520 --> 32:28.760 Yeah. 32:30.960 --> 32:32.420 Yeah, I, I don't understand that. 32:32.480 --> 32:36.280 I guess that if you're, if you're rich and you're yuppie-ish, that's kind of what's a trendy 32:36.280 --> 32:40.460 thing to do a couple years ago, and it's just kind of hanging around there right now. 32:40.460 --> 32:46.120 That kind of, like, strikes me as falling in the same trendy but bad idea category as 32:46.120 --> 32:46.620 tofurkey. 32:48.160 --> 32:49.280 Tofurkey's just plain weird. 32:49.420 --> 32:53.140 Turducken actually is, it's weird, but not as much so. 32:54.080 --> 32:55.820 Yeah, at least it's still real birds. 32:56.200 --> 32:57.300 Yes, at least it's a turkey. 32:57.420 --> 32:59.200 I mean, you can't call a tofurkey a bird. 32:59.740 --> 33:00.140 No. 33:00.520 --> 33:06.440 Yeah, it's, it's a soybean that has been horribly tortured into resembling turkey on some levels. 33:06.440 --> 33:08.500 So, pilgrims did not eat tofu. 33:09.360 --> 33:11.540 They didn't even know what the hell tofu was. 33:11.720 --> 33:15.440 I can just imagine the pilgrims sitting around with, you know, their, their, their, their 33:15.440 --> 33:18.740 miso soup and their California rolls. 33:19.940 --> 33:21.440 Mmm, California rolls. 33:21.800 --> 33:22.720 And their shrimp tempura. 33:23.560 --> 33:24.040 Exactly. 33:25.940 --> 33:30.780 Um, also, I'm, I'm still Linux server-less for some reason. 33:31.360 --> 33:32.620 Still haven't gotten that fixed. 33:32.620 --> 33:34.980 I, I still need a motherboard and a power supply. 33:34.980 --> 33:36.800 And all kinds of stuff. 33:36.880 --> 33:40.220 Koresh, if you're listening, give me that damn motherboard, damn it. 33:41.180 --> 33:47.740 Yeah, sadly, like, my, um, my USB ports on my desktop system, I think they've just taken 33:47.740 --> 33:48.720 a turn for the worse. 33:49.320 --> 33:50.100 I don't know why. 33:50.620 --> 33:54.080 Stopped working or taking a turn for the worse, as in they're coughing up phlegm? 33:55.220 --> 33:57.140 Well, you know, they actually are coughing up phlegm. 33:57.260 --> 34:01.700 But, uh, but no, like, little, like, small things, like my graphics tablet, works just 34:01.700 --> 34:01.980 fine. 34:01.980 --> 34:05.500 But every time I try and plug a hard drive into it, no matter what hard drive it is, or 34:05.500 --> 34:11.380 what USB port I'm plugging it into, it, uh, says, USB device not recognized. 34:13.600 --> 34:14.880 That's, that's weird. 34:15.220 --> 34:15.480 Yes. 34:17.160 --> 34:19.440 Radio have been revved dot com, if you know the solution. 34:19.640 --> 34:21.920 Help Strom out, get a hard drive working, blah, blah, blah. 34:21.980 --> 34:24.620 Yeah, it's, it's doing it in Windows and Linux. 34:24.620 --> 34:27.720 So, I don't think it's a software problem. 34:27.940 --> 34:29.540 Yeah, it definitely sounds like a hardware issue. 34:30.060 --> 34:31.400 I have no luck with hardware. 34:31.500 --> 34:32.160 Did I mention this? 34:33.300 --> 34:34.760 Hey, well, you buy enough, God. 34:35.340 --> 34:37.260 How many computers have you gone over the past year? 34:37.740 --> 34:39.040 Uh, I don't even want to count. 34:39.400 --> 34:39.620 Yeah. 34:41.220 --> 34:44.380 Ah, so anyway, uh, so my, my Linux server is still dead. 34:44.460 --> 34:49.900 I'm currently running all my Astra stuff off a Pentium 233 laptop, sitting on my floor. 34:49.900 --> 34:54.360 And I'm always, I always pray to God that I don't step on it when I'm kind of stumbling 34:54.360 --> 34:56.280 around in the morning, when I'm not fully awake. 34:57.160 --> 35:00.840 But it's just so convenient down on the floor, because I don't have any other place to put it. 35:01.240 --> 35:02.960 Mumble, mumble, squash! 35:03.160 --> 35:04.340 Oh, fuck. 35:05.140 --> 35:06.340 No phone for me. 35:06.460 --> 35:06.880 Oh, no. 35:09.160 --> 35:14.120 All right, well, our specific show talk, oh, would you, would you like to explain why today 35:14.120 --> 35:15.280 is such a special day? 35:15.940 --> 35:16.180 Yeah. 35:16.260 --> 35:17.080 In the world of telephony. 35:17.080 --> 35:21.260 Today is a very special day, and that's why this is a very special Bin Rev Radio, because 35:21.260 --> 35:24.200 We should, like, have, like, little, like, Mr. Rogers music going in the background. 35:24.480 --> 35:24.780 Yes. 35:25.360 --> 35:26.800 I'll find someone, I'll dub it in. 35:28.660 --> 35:33.440 Today is a very special day for Bin Rev Radio, because we're both phone freaks in the world 35:33.440 --> 35:34.000 of telephony. 35:37.220 --> 35:39.140 I'm going to dub this action stuff actually in. 35:41.320 --> 35:44.620 It's a very special day for Bin Rev Radio, because we're both phone freaks. 35:44.620 --> 35:49.020 It's a very special day in telephony, because today, well, actually, this is the episode 35:49.020 --> 35:53.760 that broadcasts in the 22nd, so yesterday, from the point of view, the broadcast, but 35:53.760 --> 35:59.640 because we're recording on Monday, today, today, 11-21-2005, while you'll be listening 35:59.640 --> 36:08.400 to this tomorrow night on 11-22-2005, today, November 21st, 2005, is Merger Day! 36:08.400 --> 36:13.020 Well, dubbing sounds of party horns there. 36:15.120 --> 36:15.400 Yay! 36:16.860 --> 36:24.100 Today, SBC, no, actually, on Friday, SBC closed their acquisition of AT&T, and today, they 36:24.100 --> 36:31.480 rebranded themselves AT&T, which is, so this is a historic milestone in telephony. 36:32.420 --> 36:33.260 American telephony. 36:33.260 --> 36:39.140 Well, maybe to a little bit, but... 36:39.140 --> 36:41.440 AT&T's got a global reach, so... 36:41.440 --> 36:41.920 Yeah, true. 36:42.520 --> 36:45.520 So, it is somewhat of a milestone for global telephony. 36:47.700 --> 36:58.700 So, they've unveiled a new logo, they're busy consolidating everything, and Bell is back, 36:58.760 --> 36:59.160 sort of. 37:00.160 --> 37:01.180 No, not really. 37:01.180 --> 37:02.100 Yeah, not really. 37:03.360 --> 37:07.300 www.thenewatt.com 37:07.300 --> 37:12.240 Yeah, check out their new logo, which I think looks pretty cool, even though it looks either 37:12.240 --> 37:15.180 like a beach ball or a lozenge, depending on how you're looking at it. 37:15.360 --> 37:18.100 It did look a lot like a lozenge, now that you say it. 37:18.520 --> 37:20.140 That's what I was thinking of. 37:20.840 --> 37:24.160 It does look like something like candy or something, that you're just like, you put in your mouth 37:24.160 --> 37:28.180 for far too long, and you've been, like, you take it out afterwards, and you see, like, all the, like, 37:28.200 --> 37:29.680 the striations of the... 37:29.680 --> 37:29.880 Mm-hmm. 37:31.200 --> 37:32.880 You get the hair candy shell is gone. 37:33.140 --> 37:37.100 It's the AT&T Everlasting Gobstopper, is what it is. 37:37.280 --> 37:39.440 Well, the Everlasting Gobstopper wasn't round, though. 37:40.000 --> 37:40.420 Was it? 37:41.020 --> 37:41.920 No, it was round. 37:42.160 --> 37:44.860 In the movie, it was kind of oddly shaped. 37:45.000 --> 37:46.300 Which movie are we talking about? 37:46.540 --> 37:47.720 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. 37:47.720 --> 37:49.060 Are we talking about the 19... 37:49.060 --> 37:50.260 Oh, the 1971 film. 37:50.360 --> 37:54.640 Okay, it's been forever since I've seen that, but I always recall, from reading the book, 37:54.700 --> 37:56.340 as imagining them as being perfectly spherical. 37:56.940 --> 38:00.460 Oh, no, when I read the book, I imagined them perfectly spherical, too, and I remember 38:00.460 --> 38:03.980 watching the movie and seeing one, and it's just kind of... 38:03.980 --> 38:05.040 I don't even call it. 38:05.080 --> 38:09.620 It looks a lot like an asterisk if it was three-dimensional, but, like, with all kinds 38:09.620 --> 38:10.940 of, like, you know, jets going out. 38:11.300 --> 38:13.720 So kind of like a really, really big cold virus. 38:14.500 --> 38:15.700 Yes, yes, a lot like that. 38:17.720 --> 38:20.840 Of course, everyone's going, oh, cold virus, what the fuck does that look like? 38:20.900 --> 38:21.120 Jesus. 38:22.460 --> 38:23.900 Yeah, read a science textbook. 38:25.340 --> 38:25.560 Yes. 38:25.780 --> 38:30.620 So, yes, AT&T is now SBC, or SBC is now AT&T. 38:30.820 --> 38:35.040 Basically, AT&T is no longer SBC, but AT&T is... 38:35.040 --> 38:36.300 Yeah, you're confusing it. 38:36.600 --> 38:38.840 Yeah, I know, but that's what I'm kind of going for. 38:38.940 --> 38:42.240 Basically, basically, AT&T is dead. 38:42.860 --> 38:43.920 Long live AT&T. 38:44.380 --> 38:44.720 Yes. 38:44.720 --> 38:52.440 The AT&T that was there last week really is no longer the AT&T that we know today. 38:52.820 --> 38:53.120 Yes. 38:53.620 --> 38:54.140 Thank you. 38:54.240 --> 38:54.580 All right. 38:54.760 --> 38:56.260 All right, well, that wraps up the episode. 38:56.640 --> 38:57.080 Yeah, there. 38:57.300 --> 38:57.700 Yeah, no. 38:58.080 --> 38:58.800 Well, actually, no. 38:58.840 --> 39:02.340 We're going to, like, you know, do this with a little background, so we're going to let 39:02.340 --> 39:05.320 Strom wrap on about, you know, Bell System history. 39:05.500 --> 39:06.680 Where should I start? 39:06.680 --> 39:07.660 Yeah, I don't know. 39:07.740 --> 39:14.800 I think the best thing to start is, well, when was the phone invented? 39:14.920 --> 39:15.400 How about that? 39:15.520 --> 39:19.040 Okay, let's do a very, very, very quick and dirty history of the telephone. 39:19.520 --> 39:19.800 All right. 39:20.460 --> 39:21.560 Oh, oh, dial me harder. 39:23.660 --> 39:24.640 Here's your dirty bit. 39:24.640 --> 39:34.320 Anyway, the telephone was, the way AT&T tells it, the telephone was invented in 1876 by 39:34.320 --> 39:35.300 Alexander Graham Bell. 39:35.460 --> 39:39.220 There were, if you read into the history of it, there were actually a lot of other people 39:39.220 --> 39:43.300 who came up with ideas which were similar, but I think Bell was the first one to file 39:43.300 --> 39:43.780 a patent. 39:44.360 --> 39:44.620 Yes. 39:44.620 --> 39:52.940 And, what was it, Antonio Miucci is recognized as the inventor of the phone, but I, from what 39:52.940 --> 39:54.540 I've read, he didn't quite get it. 39:54.620 --> 40:00.200 Like, it was almost there, but it was Alexander Graham Bell who actually got it functionally 40:00.200 --> 40:03.460 near what we have today. 40:03.940 --> 40:04.100 Yeah. 40:04.360 --> 40:08.020 Oh, there's all kinds of conspiracy theories out there that, you know, Bell stowed his 40:08.020 --> 40:10.480 idea from Miucci and blah, blah, blah. 40:10.480 --> 40:15.720 But, okay, as it stands today, Bell invented the phone in 1876. 40:16.060 --> 40:16.300 Mm-hmm. 40:16.900 --> 40:17.120 Yeah. 40:17.180 --> 40:20.580 So, actually, I think IEEE, weren't you the one who was telling me this? 40:21.640 --> 40:21.840 Hmm? 40:22.160 --> 40:25.820 Weren't you the one who was telling me about the IEEE thing, the 130th anniversary of the 40:25.820 --> 40:25.840 phone call? 40:25.840 --> 40:31.660 Yes, yes, IEEE is planning to do a get-together in Boston. 40:31.780 --> 40:36.780 Actually, the interesting fact is that the phone was invented in Boston by Alexander Graham Bell. 40:36.780 --> 40:42.840 It was invented about three blocks from my work, so if you cover, you know, nine square 40:42.840 --> 40:49.840 blocks of, actually, no, it would be, if you, it's 100 Court Street for Alicia Curious. 40:49.940 --> 40:54.500 It's actually right in, about one block away from the Bowdoin Street Exchange in Boston, 40:55.020 --> 40:58.860 and there's, right outside the JFK Federal Building, there's a little plaque that says, 40:59.120 --> 41:02.740 on this site, on 1876, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. 41:02.740 --> 41:08.860 And it was a little courtroom that he was, not much, a little courtroom, a little apartment 41:08.860 --> 41:17.160 that he was renting, and actually, IEEE is planning to have a 130th anniversary party, 41:17.320 --> 41:18.820 gala, I don't even know what the hell they're doing. 41:18.980 --> 41:20.860 I just heard a rumor about this. 41:21.180 --> 41:22.000 A soiree. 41:22.220 --> 41:23.020 A soiree. 41:23.100 --> 41:23.860 I don't even think that. 41:24.020 --> 41:28.680 It's just kind of like an expo or something to say, hey, they invented the phone 130 years 41:28.680 --> 41:29.840 ago today, isn't it spiffy? 41:29.840 --> 41:30.200 Yeah. 41:30.560 --> 41:31.280 Woo-hoo, cake. 41:32.380 --> 41:32.740 Exactly. 41:32.900 --> 41:33.460 I hope there's cake. 41:33.660 --> 41:34.540 I hope there's cake. 41:34.900 --> 41:35.820 I think there's... 41:35.820 --> 41:41.580 Apparently, a friend of mine who works at AT&T, the new AT&T here in Southern California 41:41.580 --> 41:45.960 somewhere, tells me that it was pretty much just a party day there. 41:46.040 --> 41:50.580 They were having cake, and they were getting free T-shirts, and all sorts of fun stuff. 41:50.900 --> 41:53.040 Yeah, I hope you don't get the T-shirt with the pink slip in it. 41:54.320 --> 41:54.680 God. 41:55.600 --> 41:56.240 You're cynical. 41:56.240 --> 41:58.640 Come on. 41:58.720 --> 42:00.200 Do you really think that's not going to happen? 42:00.600 --> 42:02.760 Well, sure, but they're not going to give you pink slip in T-shirts. 42:03.920 --> 42:04.480 You never know. 42:04.580 --> 42:04.780 Hey. 42:05.600 --> 42:06.900 Well, we'll get into that later. 42:07.340 --> 42:07.460 Yeah. 42:07.460 --> 42:14.360 So, Bell invented the telephone in 1876, and what happened? 42:14.400 --> 42:20.700 He patents the phone, and things go slowly for the first 20 years or so, and then his 42:20.700 --> 42:25.460 patent expires at, like, around about the late 1890s, and a whole bunch of independent 42:25.460 --> 42:29.540 phone companies spring up to do telephone service. 42:29.540 --> 42:34.220 But the problem was that all these various little telephone exchanges couldn't talk to 42:34.220 --> 42:34.660 each other. 42:35.200 --> 42:37.800 They didn't have any concepts of interconnect agreements. 42:38.460 --> 42:42.280 So, Bell ended up buying up all the telephone systems to make them all work together. 42:43.280 --> 42:46.600 Actually, just to interrupt you for a second, I found a fun tidbit today. 42:47.000 --> 42:52.740 The first telephone exchange on Tremont Street in Boston, the first one they used, you actually 42:52.740 --> 42:54.100 couldn't talk to anybody. 42:54.880 --> 42:58.160 For example, if you had a phone and I had a phone, I couldn't talk to you. 42:58.620 --> 43:01.880 I would have to call the operator, and she would have to relay everything. 43:02.600 --> 43:03.280 Oh, that's funny. 43:03.800 --> 43:05.580 Yes, I never knew that until today. 43:06.220 --> 43:08.000 Until they actually came up with the first switchboard. 43:08.740 --> 43:09.020 Wow. 43:09.520 --> 43:09.840 Yes. 43:10.640 --> 43:12.460 So, no secrets on the telephone. 43:14.340 --> 43:17.040 The trunk trawler lives back in the 1890s. 43:20.120 --> 43:22.220 Anyway, getting back to what you were talking about. 43:22.220 --> 43:31.980 So, basically, over the course of the next couple decades, AT&T was originally the American 43:31.980 --> 43:36.180 Bell Telephone Company, and AT&T was created as a subsidiary of the American Bell Telephone 43:36.180 --> 43:42.020 Company in like 1889 to start building out the long-distance network. 43:42.220 --> 43:45.740 And I think there was some sort of reverse merger in which American Bell's assets were 43:45.740 --> 43:49.200 sold to AT&T, and AT&T became the governing company. 43:49.200 --> 43:55.640 But, basically, by the time the 40s and 50s rolled around, you pretty much had the structure 43:55.640 --> 43:57.400 of the Bell system. 43:57.600 --> 44:05.760 You had, you know, like 22 local Bell operating companies, and you had AT&T, which was the 44:05.760 --> 44:07.860 corporate parent of everything. 44:08.320 --> 44:12.000 There was AT&T Long Lines, which was the long-distance part of the network. 44:12.000 --> 44:15.080 There was Western Electric, which was the manufacturing company. 44:15.220 --> 44:19.460 And there was Bell Telephone Laboratories, which was the research and development arm 44:19.460 --> 44:20.060 of the Bell system. 44:21.260 --> 44:22.280 God bless Bell Labs. 44:22.380 --> 44:27.560 Bell Labs actually brought you all kinds of wonderful things like the transistor, C, Unix, 44:28.260 --> 44:29.440 stereos. 44:31.020 --> 44:33.440 I think the motion picture soundtracks came from Bell Labs. 44:33.440 --> 44:34.820 Oh, yeah, motion picture soundtracks, too. 44:34.940 --> 44:35.060 Yep. 44:35.660 --> 44:36.480 Crazy shit. 44:36.640 --> 44:37.000 Radar. 44:37.080 --> 44:37.380 It's amazing. 44:37.700 --> 44:39.340 Yeah, radar came from Bell Labs, too, I think. 44:39.700 --> 44:40.140 Didn't they? 44:40.140 --> 44:40.640 Mm-hmm. 44:41.100 --> 44:41.760 Well, I don't know. 44:41.800 --> 44:42.600 I'll take your word for that one. 44:43.340 --> 44:45.600 It's amazing what kind of stuff came out of Bell Labs. 44:45.700 --> 44:49.660 They're a very research-orientated thing, and I guess that's what happens when you're 44:49.660 --> 44:51.400 a government-sponsored monopoly. 44:51.640 --> 44:54.820 Well, when you're the biggest company in the world at the time, you can afford to have 44:54.820 --> 44:57.500 a research lab that comes up with all sorts of wonderful inventions. 44:58.060 --> 44:58.600 Yes, true. 44:58.740 --> 44:58.940 True. 45:01.120 --> 45:07.640 So, fast forward to 1984, and actually there are various other antitrust things in AT&T's 45:07.640 --> 45:13.420 past, but the big one comes in the late 70s when the Department of Justice files an antitrust 45:13.420 --> 45:14.500 suit against AT&T. 45:15.260 --> 45:16.320 1978, I believe. 45:16.440 --> 45:17.840 Yeah, like 1978 or so. 45:18.100 --> 45:23.300 Court case goes on for a couple years, four years, and then in something like February 1982, 45:23.640 --> 45:27.220 AT&T announces that it's going to break itself up. 45:27.220 --> 45:32.160 Basically, what happened was that the Justice Department, there were two options for AT&T. 45:32.160 --> 45:37.800 One of them was to spin off Western Electric and Bell Labs and continue with the telephone 45:37.800 --> 45:41.500 monopoly, but get rid of the manufacturing and research development stuff. 45:42.220 --> 45:45.800 And the other was to spin off the local operating companies, but keep the manufacturing and R&D. 45:46.420 --> 45:50.800 And what AT&T believed was that by spinning off the local operating companies, they could 45:50.800 --> 45:52.600 get into the new computer business. 45:53.240 --> 45:55.060 And they thought that's where all the money was. 45:56.540 --> 45:59.300 And they were right, but not for them. 45:59.300 --> 46:00.580 Yeah, not for them. 46:01.280 --> 46:11.060 So, in 1984, AT&T split itself up into AT&T, which was, AT&T Corp had Western Electric and 46:11.060 --> 46:11.620 Bell Labs. 46:12.360 --> 46:17.300 And then the seven local operating companies, which, well, the 22 local operating companies 46:17.300 --> 46:22.200 were sold off to seven regional holding companies, which were specifically created for their purpose. 46:22.200 --> 46:29.140 And those seven regional holding companies are 9X, or were 9X, Bell Atlantic, Bell South, 46:29.360 --> 46:33.700 Ameritech, Southwestern Bell, U.S. West, and Pacific Telesis. 46:35.880 --> 46:39.640 So, you know, we really want to get to piss off strong. 46:39.740 --> 46:41.300 We can ask them to aim all 22 companies. 46:41.460 --> 46:44.020 And he will sit here for 15 minutes trying to do it. 46:44.160 --> 46:45.500 And he will actually eventually get it right. 46:45.640 --> 46:46.380 Kudos to him. 46:46.560 --> 46:49.420 Yeah, I will eventually get it right, but I just don't remember it all off the top of my head. 46:49.420 --> 46:53.900 And I'm sure you don't want to hear me sitting here for 15 minutes struggling to remember 46:53.900 --> 46:57.520 the name of the diamond-made telephone company from Delaware. 46:58.560 --> 46:59.780 TMP Telephone. 47:00.380 --> 47:00.560 Yeah. 47:01.920 --> 47:08.800 So, and then you have the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which basically deregulates the phone industry 47:08.800 --> 47:11.640 quite a bit and opens up things for competition. 47:11.640 --> 47:18.240 And so the first thing that happens is Southwestern Bell buys up Pacific Telesis. 47:20.180 --> 47:25.880 And so Pacific Telesis Group ceases to exist, and Pacific Bell and Nevada Bell become the subsidiaries 47:25.880 --> 47:27.260 of Southwestern Bell Corporation. 47:28.380 --> 47:29.980 And then that was in 1997. 47:29.980 --> 47:38.500 In 1999, Southwestern Bell buys Ameritech and Southern New England Telephone and becomes 47:38.500 --> 47:42.020 the SBC we all know and love as of last week. 47:43.620 --> 47:46.520 And so, and then what else goes on? 47:47.720 --> 47:53.220 Well, around 1996 or so, Bell Atlantic bought 9X. 47:53.540 --> 47:57.580 Yeah, Bell Atlantic buys 9X a little bit after Southwestern Bell buys Pacific Telesis. 47:57.580 --> 48:01.020 Yes, Bell Atlantic consisted of all kinds of telephone companies. 48:01.180 --> 48:06.900 And 9X, my wonderful, nonverful 9X, consisted of a New England Telephone and New York Telephone. 48:08.320 --> 48:11.460 Or New England Telephone and Telegraph, as I like to refer to it as. 48:11.480 --> 48:12.460 New York Telephone. 48:13.880 --> 48:14.880 We're the one for you. 48:15.840 --> 48:17.540 Oh, yeah, the New England Telephone jingle. 48:18.040 --> 48:19.400 I like the New England Telephone jingle. 48:19.780 --> 48:21.480 I was so thrilled when I found that online. 48:21.540 --> 48:26.820 I was like, yes, because I just, I literally, I looked for this, for some reason I wanted to 48:26.820 --> 48:29.740 find this jingle after I, it just came to me one day. 48:30.360 --> 48:36.040 And I like searched all kinds of like my old VCR tapes from like the 19, early 90s and 48:36.040 --> 48:37.080 everything. 48:37.300 --> 48:41.140 And by that point, everything was 9X, so I couldn't actually find the jingle because 48:41.140 --> 48:42.340 I remember this from my childhood. 48:42.880 --> 48:48.640 And then on like some obscure GeoCity site, someone actually has like the audio of a complete 48:48.640 --> 48:51.060 commercial and it had the jingle at the end. 48:51.180 --> 48:53.340 I was, I was completely thrilled when I found that. 48:53.560 --> 48:55.420 Should we sing the jingle to the secret of our listeners? 48:55.420 --> 48:56.640 No, we shouldn't. 48:56.740 --> 48:57.300 I can't sing. 48:57.520 --> 48:58.200 I'll sing it then. 48:58.700 --> 48:59.420 Oh, God. 49:00.460 --> 49:04.640 We're the one for you, New England, New England Telephone. 49:04.860 --> 49:05.720 Part of the 9X family. 49:06.140 --> 49:07.680 Oh, man, that's, that's painful. 49:08.120 --> 49:08.400 Yes. 49:08.760 --> 49:11.560 I think you should actually splice it in here so people can actually hear it. 49:11.920 --> 49:13.860 Yeah, well, send me the file and I'll splice it in. 49:14.160 --> 49:14.540 All right. 49:16.840 --> 49:17.680 So, yes. 49:17.680 --> 49:19.120 So, okay. 49:19.120 --> 49:24.180 So, Bell Atlantic buys 9X in like 1997 and changes everything to Bell Atlantic. 49:24.800 --> 49:30.640 And then in 1999, Bell Atlantic starts talking to DTE, which was the large independent telephone 49:30.640 --> 49:31.080 company. 49:31.780 --> 49:37.760 And they eventually merge in 2000 to form Verizon Communications, which is the lamest name 49:37.760 --> 49:38.140 ever. 49:38.580 --> 49:38.820 Yes. 49:39.340 --> 49:40.420 Made up names suck. 49:40.420 --> 49:46.200 And in 2000, Quest buys U.S. West. 49:48.400 --> 49:52.480 And this whole time, Bell South is just kind of tottering along and saying, we're Bell South. 49:52.600 --> 49:53.360 We're not going to change. 49:53.500 --> 49:54.180 La, la, la, la, la. 49:54.900 --> 49:56.540 Well, where did Quest come from? 49:56.640 --> 49:58.820 Because what company did that consist of? 49:58.820 --> 50:01.440 Oh, Quest was a fiber optics company, basically. 50:01.640 --> 50:07.200 I think, I forget the exact history, but I think it was something along the lines of, the 50:07.200 --> 50:11.460 company was formed as a contractor to lay fiber for other companies. 50:11.820 --> 50:15.260 And then they realized, you know, hey, nothing in our contract stipulates that we can't lay 50:15.260 --> 50:16.780 fiber for ourselves as well. 50:17.640 --> 50:20.200 Since we got the trench here anyway, and additional fiber is cheap. 50:20.200 --> 50:24.780 So they laid a bunch of fiber, and that's how that got started. 50:26.080 --> 50:29.940 So then Quest, that was like 1996 or so. 50:30.040 --> 50:36.640 And then over the next four years, Quest just builds up this huge market capitalization on 50:36.640 --> 50:37.980 the stock market. 50:38.920 --> 50:42.160 You know, investors really believe that that's the future and so on. 50:42.320 --> 50:45.300 And this completely inflated market capitalization allows Quest. 50:45.300 --> 50:46.160 Look at the left hand. 50:46.300 --> 50:47.460 Look at the left hand. 50:50.200 --> 50:56.980 So Quest, with this insane amount of cash that they suddenly have from the investors, 50:57.140 --> 51:01.720 manages to buy U.S. West, the regional bell operating company serving, like, the old 51:01.720 --> 51:06.640 mountain bell states, the Pacific Northwest, and then, like, Minnesota and Nebraska and 51:06.640 --> 51:07.120 so on. 51:08.660 --> 51:11.660 Because Nebraska, that's high telephone up there. 51:12.180 --> 51:12.460 Yeah. 51:13.660 --> 51:15.280 U.S. West got screwed, man. 51:15.600 --> 51:15.860 Yeah. 51:17.360 --> 51:19.440 They're kind of like at a Ma Bell's will. 51:19.440 --> 51:21.140 They're the one with, like, the bastard child. 51:22.900 --> 51:28.560 Yeah, well, we like you, but we're going to give you all the shitty, uh, shitty, uh, states. 51:28.760 --> 51:29.660 Shitty territories, yeah. 51:30.060 --> 51:34.240 Nebraska, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado. 51:34.840 --> 51:36.360 We'll give you, you know, Seattle. 51:37.180 --> 51:39.280 And Minneapolis and Denver and Phoenix. 51:39.480 --> 51:39.720 Those are your big cities. 51:39.740 --> 51:42.860 Well, Minneapolis and Denver, but, like, you know, the Midwest states, like, nothing's out 51:42.860 --> 51:43.140 there. 51:43.340 --> 51:45.520 Nothing personal to anyone who lives in the Midwest. 51:45.520 --> 51:49.700 I know one person, actually, lives in Colorado, so we won't insult him. 51:51.020 --> 51:52.020 He doesn't listen, who cares? 51:52.380 --> 51:53.920 Yeah, Denver's nice, but it's kind of gray. 51:55.720 --> 51:56.700 And always snowy. 51:57.280 --> 51:57.420 Yeah. 51:57.460 --> 51:58.700 I watch South Park. 51:58.780 --> 51:59.860 I know how Colorado works. 52:00.800 --> 52:03.300 Their summer, like, last one-half-hour episode, it was horrible. 52:03.300 --> 52:07.160 And so, let's see, who are the other major players? 52:07.300 --> 52:08.040 Oh, yeah, Sprint. 52:08.220 --> 52:14.160 Sprint, um, Sprint originally started off with the Southern Pacific Railroad, and the, uh, 52:14.160 --> 52:18.320 the Southern Pacific Railroad laid communication lines along its right-of-way for its own internal 52:18.320 --> 52:19.200 telecom system. 52:19.640 --> 52:23.580 And I think, I'm not sure whether this is true or not, but I believe that Sprint stands 52:23.580 --> 52:31.800 for Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Telecommunications, or Southern Pacific Railroad, um, something 52:31.800 --> 52:32.180 network. 52:32.180 --> 52:39.120 I, I, I, I'm going to guess what the intercommunication, inter-telecommunications or something. 52:39.460 --> 52:40.780 Yeah, internal telecommunications. 52:40.900 --> 52:41.980 Internal telecommunications. 52:42.040 --> 52:45.760 That sounds cooler, and it actually kind of fits better than whatever the other one 52:45.760 --> 52:46.000 was. 52:46.660 --> 52:47.880 Let me see what Wikipedia said. 52:47.940 --> 52:48.640 Let me take a look here. 52:49.580 --> 52:52.000 So, there was Sprint, and then there was also MCI. 52:52.000 --> 52:58.940 And MCI, the MCI was the, basically, they prided themselves in the 1980s as being the first 52:58.940 --> 53:00.540 completely fiber-optic... 53:00.540 --> 53:01.260 No, that was Sprint. 53:01.260 --> 53:02.120 That was Sprint? 53:02.240 --> 53:03.060 I thought that was... 53:03.060 --> 53:03.920 I thought it was MCI. 53:03.920 --> 53:04.700 Well, yeah, no, no, no. 53:04.740 --> 53:07.720 Sprint's whole thing was, everything's so clear, you can hear a pin drop. 53:08.180 --> 53:08.740 Oh, it was Sprint. 53:08.740 --> 53:12.320 Their ticker symbol was F-O-N, which sits for fiber-optic network. 53:13.140 --> 53:14.380 Oh, so it was just phone. 53:15.460 --> 53:15.760 No. 53:15.880 --> 53:16.100 Oh, look at that. 53:16.100 --> 53:17.300 F-O-N, fiber-optic network. 53:17.640 --> 53:18.280 Yeah, yeah. 53:18.320 --> 53:19.460 Learn something new every day. 53:20.040 --> 53:20.240 Yes. 53:20.240 --> 53:23.440 I actually think I remember hearing that now that you mentioned it, but I'll play dumb 53:23.440 --> 53:26.020 and let the other people say, oh, I'm smarter than Black Ratchet. 53:26.020 --> 53:29.540 So, there was MCI... 53:29.540 --> 53:30.620 So, where did MCI get started? 53:30.700 --> 53:31.320 They stand for... 53:31.320 --> 53:32.100 MCI, yeah. 53:32.240 --> 53:33.640 Microwave Communications, Inc. 53:34.300 --> 53:34.520 Inc. 53:34.620 --> 53:34.980 Oh, Inc. 53:35.020 --> 53:35.780 I thought it was international. 53:35.960 --> 53:36.060 Yeah. 53:36.060 --> 53:37.680 Microwave Communications Incorporated. 53:39.680 --> 53:41.020 And I think they did a lot of microwaves. 53:41.020 --> 53:44.340 Sprint may stand for a special psychiatric rapid intervention team. 53:44.340 --> 53:51.620 Well, honestly, with them buying Nexito like they did, I wouldn't be surprised if they 53:51.620 --> 53:52.120 needed one. 53:54.700 --> 53:55.220 Yeah. 53:55.960 --> 53:57.200 So, what happened? 53:57.420 --> 54:02.360 MCI was Microwave Communications, Inc., and they started off with, like, one link between, 54:02.540 --> 54:05.520 I think, Chicago and somewhere in Texas. 54:07.060 --> 54:08.580 That's a hell of a microwave link. 54:08.980 --> 54:09.200 Yeah. 54:10.560 --> 54:11.320 So, yeah. 54:11.320 --> 54:16.500 So, it's either Internal Telecommunications or Southern Pacific Railroad Information Network. 54:18.700 --> 54:19.520 One of the two. 54:19.860 --> 54:22.920 If you know, feel free to email us, radio at binrev.com. 54:23.160 --> 54:23.300 Yeah. 54:23.300 --> 54:28.300 Anyway, so, we have MCI Sprint Quest, SBC, or... 54:28.300 --> 54:31.820 Actually, did they name themselves SBC by this point, or were they still Southwestern Bell? 54:31.920 --> 54:36.020 In 1995, they changed their name from Southwestern Bell Corporation to SBC. 54:38.740 --> 54:39.640 And then Verizon, yeah. 54:39.640 --> 54:43.500 And this is where it stands today, or stands... 54:43.500 --> 54:46.640 Actually, no, this is where it stood about, oh, six months ago. 54:46.960 --> 54:47.240 Yes. 54:47.240 --> 54:55.720 So, in January, SBC announced that they were going to buy AT&T for whatever AT&T's market 54:55.720 --> 54:57.200 cap was at the time, like $16 billion. 54:58.600 --> 55:03.900 And keep in mind that, although $16 billion sounds huge, SBC's market cap was like $85 billion, 55:04.740 --> 55:08.060 and Verizon's market cap was like $90-something billion. 55:08.600 --> 55:09.800 I think it was more than that. 55:10.400 --> 55:10.780 Was it? 55:10.840 --> 55:12.540 No, I don't recall it ever being over $100 billion. 55:12.860 --> 55:13.380 Oh, okay. 55:13.380 --> 55:16.940 I remember being like in the mid to the high 90s, last I looked. 55:17.240 --> 55:20.360 And for those of you who don't know what market cap is, like you don't know the stock market, 55:20.600 --> 55:21.640 A, you should know. 55:22.140 --> 55:22.920 Stock market's fun. 55:23.020 --> 55:24.200 It's like legal gambling. 55:24.200 --> 55:30.700 And what a market cap is, is basically it's all the stock you have currently out for sale, 55:30.860 --> 55:32.500 and that's all the value of all the stock. 55:32.620 --> 55:37.740 So, it's basically all the cash you currently can, all the cash people currently have part of your company. 55:38.420 --> 55:38.620 Mm-hmm. 55:41.600 --> 55:43.980 Basically, it's a quick and easy measure of what a company's worth. 55:45.140 --> 55:45.440 Yes. 55:46.180 --> 55:49.000 So, SBC announces that they're going to buy AT&T. 55:49.560 --> 55:49.900 Mm-hmm. 55:49.900 --> 55:51.680 And then, in response... 55:51.680 --> 55:52.520 Oh, yes. 55:52.580 --> 55:57.180 And then, in response, Verizon says, well, shit, we don't want to be cocked with our pants down. 55:57.260 --> 55:58.200 We're buying MCI. 55:59.820 --> 56:10.480 And then, poor Quest, because Quest is kind of, you know, the really poor performer among the now four regional bell operating companies. 56:11.680 --> 56:12.520 Well, I mean, look at them. 56:12.540 --> 56:13.760 They have all the Midwest states. 56:14.240 --> 56:14.400 Yeah. 56:15.680 --> 56:17.160 No, there's like two telephones in Kansas. 56:17.160 --> 56:19.080 Kansas is Southwestern Bell, mister. 56:19.900 --> 56:21.200 Oh, Kansas is Southwestern Bell? 56:21.400 --> 56:21.660 Mm-hmm. 56:21.720 --> 56:21.860 Fine. 56:21.940 --> 56:22.300 Wyoming. 56:22.620 --> 56:23.060 Is it Wyoming? 56:23.280 --> 56:24.340 Yes, Wyoming is Quest. 56:25.100 --> 56:25.660 Yeah, Wyoming. 56:25.840 --> 56:27.360 They have like three telephones out there. 56:28.520 --> 56:30.180 I don't think Montana has any telephones. 56:30.760 --> 56:32.480 There's like one phone number in all of Montana. 56:32.620 --> 56:33.660 That's why they have just one area code. 56:34.100 --> 56:34.540 Yes, yes. 56:34.580 --> 56:37.540 Can I get a, what is it, 207? 56:37.740 --> 56:38.280 No, that's Maine. 56:39.080 --> 56:40.040 208, I think, is Montana. 56:40.200 --> 56:40.720 208, yeah. 56:41.040 --> 56:43.620 No, can I get 208-7, please? 56:43.920 --> 56:44.220 Okay. 56:44.640 --> 56:46.820 No, it's 408 is Montana. 56:46.820 --> 56:48.180 No, 40... 56:48.180 --> 56:49.320 Shit, I can't remember now. 56:49.320 --> 56:50.440 It's, it's, it's something. 56:51.100 --> 56:51.460 Ah! 56:51.580 --> 56:53.060 And I have a friend who lives in Montana, too. 56:53.200 --> 56:53.700 I'm so embarrassed. 56:53.700 --> 56:54.140 Shame on you. 56:54.900 --> 56:58.240 So, anyway, this is where we're saying there was like three phones in Montana. 56:58.400 --> 57:00.020 There really isn't, but that's what we're trying to say. 57:00.760 --> 57:00.940 Yeah. 57:00.940 --> 57:06.360 So, Quest goes and says, oh, we, we, we, we want to buy MCI. 57:06.640 --> 57:06.880 Mm-hmm. 57:07.540 --> 57:09.320 And thus a bidding war ensued. 57:09.480 --> 57:09.760 Oh, yeah. 57:09.760 --> 57:20.100 Essentially what it boiled down to is MCI's, Quest kept on offering more and more and more money for, for MCI. 57:20.100 --> 57:23.140 And Verizon kept kind of upping them, but it was always lower. 57:23.760 --> 57:29.820 But the problem with all of the, the problem with Quest is that they're, they're still very heavily into debt. 57:30.400 --> 57:30.560 Mm-hmm. 57:30.560 --> 57:31.780 They're like, how much are they into debt? 57:31.840 --> 57:32.920 Like, billions and billions? 57:33.020 --> 57:33.540 Yeah, billions. 57:33.680 --> 57:37.260 And they only have a market cap of like $8.9 billion or something. 57:37.380 --> 57:40.240 And they were offering $8.9 billion for MCI. 57:40.240 --> 57:41.740 So, this was getting totally ridiculous. 57:42.000 --> 57:48.160 It's like, yes, you, you, you, you can't spend your entire worth to buy another company that doesn't buy work. 57:49.520 --> 57:50.680 Montana is $406. 57:50.780 --> 57:51.440 Okay, I was close. 57:52.140 --> 57:52.860 Okay, yay. 57:53.280 --> 57:56.360 For those of you who want to dial the three phones in Montana, you can dial $406. 57:57.760 --> 58:06.960 So, what it actually boiled down to is, you know, Quest kept on offering more and more money, but everyone in MCI started saying, sorry, Quest, you suck. 58:07.000 --> 58:08.060 We want to go with Verizon. 58:08.060 --> 58:11.060 Because the thing is, it made more sense. 58:11.220 --> 58:18.240 See, the reason why SBC is buying, or SBC bought AT&T, is that, you know, SBC is a local phone company. 58:18.980 --> 58:22.840 They, they have local service in their 13-state footprint. 58:23.980 --> 58:32.420 And, and because of, you know, federal restrictions, SBC can't carry its own long-distance traffic. 58:32.420 --> 58:40.840 I mean, what they've actually done is, you know, with relaxed rules now, they've been able to start offering long-distance service, but it's not their own long-distance network. 58:40.960 --> 58:43.920 They're actually just offering a resale of somebody else's long-distance service. 58:44.000 --> 58:50.680 And depending where you are, it's a, it's a gamble as, as to what network you're going to be placing your call on. 58:50.680 --> 58:57.500 And also Verizon is the same way. Verizon actually, their long-distance service is actually a separate company within Verizon. 58:57.680 --> 59:00.020 I think it kind of gets them around, skirts them around certain things. 59:00.160 --> 59:02.820 Yeah, well, yeah, same with SBC. There's like SBC long-distance. 59:03.340 --> 59:03.520 Yeah. 59:03.560 --> 59:04.840 There's Verizon long-distance. 59:04.840 --> 59:14.180 And actually, if I, if I dial certain out-of-area numbers, and like I dial invalid ones, I actually, it is, it does seem to use AT&T a lot. 59:14.260 --> 59:17.120 Like I get a lot of AT&T error message or intercepts. 59:17.440 --> 59:24.660 Yeah, I seem to recall that Verizon long-distance was actually AT&T, and SBC long-distance was also, for the majority, AT&T. 59:24.660 --> 59:38.380 Yeah, so it made, it made sense for SBC to buy AT&T, and I think part of the reason why Verizon wanted to say, oh, crap, we need one of these now, is because I don't think SBC wants to sell Verizon long-distance service when they could be selling their own. 59:38.800 --> 59:39.200 Exactly. 59:41.500 --> 59:46.980 So, it makes sense, you know, you're, you're putting together a local operating company and a long-distance company. 59:47.420 --> 59:53.560 And the thing about Quest is, Quest already has a long-distance network, even before buying MCI. 59:53.560 --> 59:55.760 All that gaudy amount of fiber. 59:56.160 --> 01:00:00.660 Yeah, tons and tons of dark fiber capacity, sitting there unused, ready for purchasing. 01:00:01.440 --> 01:00:06.680 But the reason that Quest really wanted MCI was for the, for the business customers of MCI. 01:00:07.220 --> 01:00:09.200 They really just wanted MCI for the revenue. 01:00:09.740 --> 01:00:11.320 Verizon wanted MCI for the network. 01:00:12.300 --> 01:00:16.040 So, eventually, Verizon won out spending, how much did they spend for MCI? 01:00:16.200 --> 01:00:17.780 Like, are they spending like eight, nine? 01:00:18.360 --> 01:00:20.500 No, I thought it was somewhere in the range of 16 billion. 01:00:20.880 --> 01:00:21.840 No, that was AT&T. 01:00:21.840 --> 01:00:23.860 MCI was like eight or nine billion dollars. 01:00:25.180 --> 01:00:26.180 Let me look it up. 01:00:26.320 --> 01:00:27.800 I'm not such an expert as you. 01:00:28.560 --> 01:00:29.240 Yeah, let's see. 01:00:29.340 --> 01:00:31.480 MCIP is their stock symbol. 01:00:32.840 --> 01:00:33.260 Yeah. 01:00:33.680 --> 01:00:35.000 Last trade, 1982. 01:00:35.480 --> 01:00:38.200 Market cap, 6.5 billion. 01:00:38.380 --> 01:00:38.580 Okay. 01:00:39.440 --> 01:00:41.120 That doesn't seem right, but okay. 01:00:41.460 --> 01:00:44.920 I seem to recall it was, let's see, six months. 01:00:45.000 --> 01:00:46.100 Let's look back here. 01:00:46.100 --> 01:00:51.320 Oh, yeah, MCI took a major dip for some reason in early to mid-October. 01:00:51.540 --> 01:00:54.320 It dipped from like $26 a share down to under $20 a share. 01:00:54.920 --> 01:00:56.300 Oh, there were dips because they did it. 01:00:56.440 --> 01:00:57.740 Oh, I'm so funny. 01:00:58.160 --> 01:00:58.920 Ha, ha, ha. 01:00:59.120 --> 01:01:02.480 But, yeah, no, at $26 a share, I think their market cap was closer to like eight or nine 01:01:02.480 --> 01:01:03.100 billion dollars. 01:01:03.100 --> 01:01:09.540 So, I think Verizon is buying MCI for like $8.9 billion. 01:01:09.940 --> 01:01:10.620 Yeah, that's it. 01:01:10.620 --> 01:01:12.240 $8.9 billion is the number that's coming to mind. 01:01:12.860 --> 01:01:13.160 All right. 01:01:13.280 --> 01:01:14.300 That sounds about right. 01:01:14.400 --> 01:01:15.220 So, I'll just let you go. 01:01:15.820 --> 01:01:16.000 Yeah. 01:01:16.000 --> 01:01:22.860 So, now, so, basically, you know, we've got Merger Mania, SBC and AT&T are now one, 01:01:22.940 --> 01:01:26.280 and Verizon MCI are going to be one company shortly enough. 01:01:27.660 --> 01:01:31.320 And it makes sense because, you know, if you've got a company that's offering local and long 01:01:31.320 --> 01:01:33.880 distance service, that company should have their own long distance network. 01:01:35.280 --> 01:01:40.020 So, now we really have four major players in the long distance and local markets. 01:01:40.300 --> 01:01:41.300 We've got SBC. 01:01:42.660 --> 01:01:44.520 I'm going to have to get out of the habit of saying that. 01:01:44.520 --> 01:01:45.620 We have AT&T. 01:01:46.340 --> 01:01:47.900 We have Verizon. 01:01:48.380 --> 01:01:51.960 Did we actually mention that SBC has actually opted to take AT&T's name? 01:01:52.440 --> 01:01:52.940 Yeah, yeah. 01:01:53.040 --> 01:01:56.800 SBC is abandoning the name SBC, and they're operating now as AT&T. 01:01:57.520 --> 01:01:59.760 I like to, I actually like to call them SBC and T. 01:02:00.180 --> 01:02:01.120 SBC and T, yeah. 01:02:01.600 --> 01:02:03.360 Well, I like MCI then. 01:02:06.220 --> 01:02:06.860 I don't know. 01:02:06.920 --> 01:02:08.800 It doesn't just roll right off the tongue. 01:02:10.120 --> 01:02:14.380 But, yeah, because the whole WorldCom scandal and the fact that MCI has never been 01:02:14.380 --> 01:02:19.560 known for having amazing quality service, I think Verizon would do very well to drop 01:02:19.560 --> 01:02:20.440 the MCI name. 01:02:21.540 --> 01:02:21.980 I bet so. 01:02:22.060 --> 01:02:28.280 I'm sure that MCI won't exist in name any time after the merger. 01:02:28.280 --> 01:02:28.940 Mm-hmm. 01:02:30.520 --> 01:02:32.040 So, you have like, what do you have? 01:02:32.060 --> 01:02:33.480 You have four major players in the market. 01:02:33.980 --> 01:02:36.360 AT&T, Verizon, Quest, and Sprint. 01:02:38.220 --> 01:02:40.160 And speaking of that, there goes my telephone. 01:02:41.040 --> 01:02:45.120 So, yeah, all of those have some sort of local footprint and a long distance network. 01:02:47.180 --> 01:02:50.940 So, it'll be interesting to see how things shape up with that. 01:02:50.940 --> 01:02:56.440 Because now, they're all perfectly capable of transitioning that network into a nationwide 01:02:56.440 --> 01:02:57.280 IP network. 01:02:58.000 --> 01:02:58.280 Mm-hmm. 01:02:58.600 --> 01:03:05.080 So, you've got four major IP networks competing against each other in the not-too-distant future. 01:03:05.920 --> 01:03:08.740 And that'll be really interesting to see how that plays out. 01:03:09.640 --> 01:03:10.020 All right. 01:03:10.080 --> 01:03:13.560 Well, I think the question is, what is in store for the future? 01:03:13.560 --> 01:03:16.140 I mean, we see Quest over here. 01:03:16.580 --> 01:03:19.180 And do you think Quest is actually going to happen anytime soon? 01:03:19.300 --> 01:03:20.900 It's going to be lasting anytime soon? 01:03:22.240 --> 01:03:22.700 I don't know. 01:03:22.880 --> 01:03:25.020 I mean, Quest has the potential. 01:03:25.560 --> 01:03:34.760 Quest has the potential for massive, you know, to be competitive with SBC and with AT&T and Verizon. 01:03:36.600 --> 01:03:37.040 Apparently. 01:03:37.520 --> 01:03:38.380 It's only the first day. 01:03:38.560 --> 01:03:39.920 You have an excuse now. 01:03:40.060 --> 01:03:41.660 You can last a couple of months. 01:03:41.980 --> 01:03:42.120 Yeah. 01:03:42.120 --> 01:03:46.280 I mean, heck, they still had Ameritech signage up on a lot of the CEOs. 01:03:46.960 --> 01:03:47.480 That's true. 01:03:47.760 --> 01:03:53.280 But no, apparently, someone got a call from somebody at AT&T today and said, and the person 01:03:53.280 --> 01:03:55.600 said, hi, this is my calling from SBC. 01:03:56.040 --> 01:03:57.180 I'm sorry, AT&T. 01:03:57.220 --> 01:03:58.020 I've done that all day. 01:04:02.400 --> 01:04:04.160 Well, heck, I mean, that's what it is. 01:04:04.160 --> 01:04:08.100 I mean, I couldn't imagine my company changing names and suddenly have to be calling it. 01:04:08.100 --> 01:04:14.200 I think the only people that have ever actually done that were the WWF people, apparently, 01:04:14.520 --> 01:04:18.800 because one of my friends was marking, oh, man, when they changed your name, no one made 01:04:18.800 --> 01:04:19.260 a mistake. 01:04:19.360 --> 01:04:20.000 It was weird. 01:04:20.000 --> 01:04:23.100 And then I laughed at him because he watched his wrestling. 01:04:23.400 --> 01:04:24.780 Well, that's because that's all pre-scripted. 01:04:25.820 --> 01:04:32.540 Well, I can imagine that, but I couldn't have someone, because it was like WWF to WWE, and 01:04:32.540 --> 01:04:34.420 it's just, if you're used to saying it, I guess. 01:04:35.820 --> 01:04:36.680 Lord only knows. 01:04:38.360 --> 01:04:38.520 Hmm. 01:04:38.520 --> 01:04:41.580 So how we went from phones to wrestling, I don't know. 01:04:42.400 --> 01:04:43.940 It was a whole name change thing. 01:04:44.240 --> 01:04:44.480 Yeah. 01:04:45.280 --> 01:04:52.460 But, yeah, Quest definitely has the potential to compete in the market against AT&T and Verizon, 01:04:53.460 --> 01:05:00.300 but the problem is they're so massively in debt that I don't think they're having a lot 01:05:00.300 --> 01:05:04.080 of trouble getting loans from the banks. 01:05:04.080 --> 01:05:11.460 So they really don't have the cash on hand to be able to fuel, to pour into a marketing 01:05:11.460 --> 01:05:13.740 effort to compete. 01:05:14.860 --> 01:05:19.540 Yeah, because I remember them when they were, like, right around the dot-com boom, they were 01:05:19.540 --> 01:05:24.500 advertising left and right about how they were so great in fiber optics, and you can get 01:05:24.500 --> 01:05:27.340 every movie ever made in a hotel room or something. 01:05:27.620 --> 01:05:27.900 Mm-hmm. 01:05:27.900 --> 01:05:30.660 And I always looked at them and said, what the hell is this? 01:05:30.660 --> 01:05:35.240 But, yeah, well, here's a question. 01:05:35.420 --> 01:05:41.620 I mean, what could happen to the network within the next couple of years for people to compete? 01:05:41.720 --> 01:05:47.300 Because, well, with the whole Sprint and Nextel merger, Sprint's dropping their local and 01:05:47.300 --> 01:05:49.980 their landline services. 01:05:50.660 --> 01:05:51.580 That's what I hear. 01:05:51.640 --> 01:05:57.040 I don't know for sure, but from what I understand, Sprint is going to divest their local operations 01:05:57.040 --> 01:05:58.860 sometime in the next few months here. 01:05:58.860 --> 01:06:00.780 Yes, it is official. 01:06:00.940 --> 01:06:01.700 It was on their website. 01:06:02.120 --> 01:06:02.540 Oh, was it? 01:06:02.860 --> 01:06:03.140 Yes. 01:06:03.300 --> 01:06:04.360 What did they say? 01:06:04.420 --> 01:06:07.080 Are they spitting it off to somebody else, or are they selling it to somebody else? 01:06:07.160 --> 01:06:10.440 They didn't actually say of what they're going to do with it, but they did say that they 01:06:10.440 --> 01:06:12.120 are going to do it whatever it is. 01:06:12.520 --> 01:06:12.700 Hmm. 01:06:13.140 --> 01:06:13.940 Did they give a date? 01:06:14.700 --> 01:06:15.560 No, they did not. 01:06:15.640 --> 01:06:20.240 I actually just read this after they announced the whole name change things with Nextel. 01:06:20.240 --> 01:06:27.260 So, they said that it is going to happen, but as for what actually is going to happen, 01:06:27.360 --> 01:06:27.980 the Lord only knows. 01:06:28.440 --> 01:06:28.640 Mm-hmm. 01:06:29.180 --> 01:06:32.020 Well, I think what's going to happen is they're going to spit it off into – either – one 01:06:32.020 --> 01:06:33.040 of two things is going to happen. 01:06:33.420 --> 01:06:35.600 They're going to spin it off into an independent company. 01:06:37.280 --> 01:06:38.420 Probably what's going to happen is that. 01:06:38.480 --> 01:06:42.420 They'll spin it off into an independent company, and then either one of the large independents, 01:06:42.420 --> 01:06:47.640 like CenturyTel, is going to buy them up, or they're going to get bought up by one of 01:06:47.640 --> 01:06:52.080 the bigger companies, like maybe AT&T or Verizon. 01:06:52.900 --> 01:06:53.980 I don't think that would really go. 01:06:53.980 --> 01:07:02.200 Would the FCC even allow, like, you know, AT&T or SP – see, now you've got me doing 01:07:02.200 --> 01:07:06.420 it, damn it – AT&T or Verizon to buy another company, because they're starting to become 01:07:06.420 --> 01:07:07.760 tremendously huge. 01:07:07.760 --> 01:07:16.300 Well, I mean, the local phone operations of Sprint are only like a $6 billion company 01:07:16.300 --> 01:07:20.440 in revenue, and I think market capitalization is even less. 01:07:21.560 --> 01:07:31.880 So, I think it probably wouldn't be that difficult for, you know, Verizon or AT&T to buy them up. 01:07:34.680 --> 01:07:36.380 I'm not really sure exactly what's going to happen. 01:07:36.460 --> 01:07:37.680 That's probably what's going to happen to that. 01:07:38.120 --> 01:07:39.400 It's going to get bought up by somebody else. 01:07:40.400 --> 01:07:46.200 So, I don't know why Sprint is divesting it, because it's a local phone operation. 01:07:46.300 --> 01:07:47.060 It's revenue generation. 01:07:47.060 --> 01:07:51.600 Well, I guess Sprint's whole future is going wireless here. 01:07:52.140 --> 01:07:52.580 That's true. 01:07:52.660 --> 01:07:52.960 That's true. 01:07:53.440 --> 01:07:54.400 And they're walkie-talkie. 01:07:54.700 --> 01:07:55.540 They're Boost Mobile. 01:07:56.800 --> 01:07:57.540 Where you at? 01:07:58.660 --> 01:07:59.580 Yeah, that's right. 01:07:59.700 --> 01:08:03.900 Also, yeah, now that I think about it, the reason, I think, part of the problem for Sprint 01:08:03.900 --> 01:08:09.360 local is that a lot of their territory is in really fast-expanding metro areas like Las Vegas. 01:08:09.360 --> 01:08:15.860 And the areas are expanding so fast, they're having to pump a lot of money into new facilities 01:08:15.860 --> 01:08:20.760 and new plants so quickly, and there's such huge demand for it that they're not seeing 01:08:20.760 --> 01:08:21.740 any return on investment. 01:08:21.740 --> 01:08:24.140 So, that's losing money left and right. 01:08:24.700 --> 01:08:25.040 Really? 01:08:25.140 --> 01:08:29.880 I always kind of foresee it as if it was expanding really fast, you would kind of make money as 01:08:29.880 --> 01:08:31.360 long as you had utilization up to that. 01:08:31.360 --> 01:08:36.500 Well, I mean, yeah, you expand and you make money, but I think there's a threshold where 01:08:36.500 --> 01:08:41.080 you expand at a certain rate and you get a certain return on investment, you know, but 01:08:41.080 --> 01:08:45.660 if you're pumping a lot, because don't forget, I think, you know, the cost to install a phone 01:08:45.660 --> 01:08:49.040 line, it only pays for itself after a certain number of years. 01:08:50.140 --> 01:08:50.580 Huh. 01:08:51.560 --> 01:08:54.740 So, you know, with all the facilities you need. 01:08:55.320 --> 01:08:56.680 So, I think that's the problem. 01:08:56.920 --> 01:08:59.160 There's a point where you can't expand too fast. 01:08:59.160 --> 01:09:01.920 True, I guess I could see that. 01:09:02.020 --> 01:09:05.980 You pump too much money into facilities and everything and you get the customers, but 01:09:05.980 --> 01:09:12.380 it's going to take you so long to recoup that lost cash that it's not worth it. 01:09:13.620 --> 01:09:13.880 Hmm. 01:09:14.180 --> 01:09:15.340 So, it's a balancing act. 01:09:16.760 --> 01:09:17.780 That's very interesting. 01:09:19.680 --> 01:09:22.680 Now that you mention that, it kind of seems like it makes sense. 01:09:24.400 --> 01:09:28.220 So, do you see Bill South actually surviving, or do you see that being gobbled up by somebody? 01:09:28.220 --> 01:09:31.560 Or do you see someone gobbled up by Bill South? 01:09:32.940 --> 01:09:33.300 Let's see. 01:09:33.360 --> 01:09:36.860 I think Bill South is actually pretty solid as far as their revenues go. 01:09:36.900 --> 01:09:39.920 I think Bill South Corp is like $38 billion market cap. 01:09:40.000 --> 01:09:40.500 Let's see. 01:09:42.800 --> 01:09:44.660 Market cap $49.72 billion. 01:09:45.920 --> 01:09:52.360 So, yeah, they're pretty damn solid considering that they have a relatively small in-state region. 01:09:52.360 --> 01:10:02.960 But don't forget, Bill South also owns 40% of singular wireless, whereas Quest is on far less stable footing because they don't have a wireless division anymore. 01:10:03.780 --> 01:10:10.500 I think they have to sell the wireless division off in order to get operating cash. 01:10:10.500 --> 01:10:13.240 Which, yes, I believe that sounds correct. 01:10:13.620 --> 01:10:13.800 Mm-hmm. 01:10:15.600 --> 01:10:28.180 So, well, I'm also, the other question with Bill South is, you know, with the whole Katrina business, I think they had to replace, like, about at least 10 or 12 central offices at the cost of some obscene amount of money. 01:10:28.340 --> 01:10:29.680 Yeah, but that's what they have insurance for. 01:10:29.980 --> 01:10:30.320 True. 01:10:30.320 --> 01:10:34.160 But, I mean, how much is that covered? 01:10:34.260 --> 01:10:34.900 That's the question. 01:10:35.820 --> 01:10:36.240 I'm sure. 01:10:36.360 --> 01:10:41.960 I mean, you know, you put central office, which is an area which is prone to hurricane, you insure those things against flood damage. 01:10:42.500 --> 01:10:46.300 Unless, of course, you've got some bean counter upstairs going, you know, oh, we don't need that. 01:10:46.380 --> 01:10:47.740 Hurricane will never hit New Orleans. 01:10:48.480 --> 01:10:51.580 Ah, well, I mean, let's see their stock price over the last six months. 01:10:53.560 --> 01:10:59.300 Really, it's, you know, kind of at the same level it was in June. 01:10:59.300 --> 01:11:07.880 It took a dip after Katrina, you know, it dipped in September, hit a low in early October, but it's back up to where it was now. 01:11:09.220 --> 01:11:09.740 Fascinating. 01:11:10.260 --> 01:11:10.460 Mm-hmm. 01:11:11.880 --> 01:11:13.200 See, stock market, kids. 01:11:13.280 --> 01:11:14.140 Stock market is fun. 01:11:14.520 --> 01:11:15.640 Yeah, stock market is very fun. 01:11:15.640 --> 01:11:16.700 Especially if you like numbers. 01:11:17.220 --> 01:11:17.820 Especially if you like charts. 01:11:17.820 --> 01:11:18.800 It's legal gambling. 01:11:20.580 --> 01:11:22.560 Yeah, charts are always cool. 01:11:23.200 --> 01:11:23.480 Mm-hmm. 01:11:24.320 --> 01:11:26.760 Plus, you can sound erotic talking about it on Hacker Radio. 01:11:28.280 --> 01:11:28.720 Exactly. 01:11:28.720 --> 01:11:32.120 And people are just like, man, where's my wares? 01:11:33.580 --> 01:11:33.880 Yeah. 01:11:34.820 --> 01:11:40.440 We should say Linux, iPod, Gen 2, asterisk right now, just to satisfy the kiddies. 01:11:41.720 --> 01:11:43.100 It's asterisk about phones, though. 01:11:43.120 --> 01:11:45.220 We can't talk about phones because we're turning into the next default. 01:11:45.720 --> 01:11:46.120 That's true. 01:11:46.200 --> 01:11:46.500 That's true. 01:11:47.340 --> 01:11:49.540 So, oh, my gosh. 01:11:49.860 --> 01:11:52.940 Monday, AT&T plans to resurrect the wireless brand. 01:11:54.260 --> 01:11:54.660 Really? 01:11:54.660 --> 01:11:56.760 Yeah, let me read this right off the AP Newswire. 01:11:56.880 --> 01:11:59.240 Monday, November 21st, 6.16 p.m. Eastern Time. 01:11:59.380 --> 01:12:00.880 So, a few hours ago. 01:12:02.380 --> 01:12:06.560 AT&T to resurrect wireless brand for service provided by a singular partnership with Bell 01:12:06.560 --> 01:12:06.880 South. 01:12:06.880 --> 01:12:13.920 AT&T, Inc., the company created by SBC Communications, Inc., just completed purchase of its former corporate 01:12:13.920 --> 01:12:18.580 parent, plans to resurrect the AT&T wireless brand for cell phone service provided by a singular 01:12:18.580 --> 01:12:20.280 wireless partnership with Bell South Corp. 01:12:20.840 --> 01:12:24.760 No time frame or details have been set for the plan, which is permitted under the joint venture 01:12:24.760 --> 01:12:28.400 agreement with Bell South, but could generate friction between the partners when it comes 01:12:28.400 --> 01:12:31.640 to decisions such as allocating Singular's financial resources for marketing. 01:12:32.460 --> 01:12:36.960 AT&T declined to say whether the AT&T wireless brand might be marketed broadly under a specific 01:12:36.960 --> 01:12:37.840 consumer segment. 01:12:39.520 --> 01:12:43.720 We plan to sell our wireless service under AT&T Wireless at some point, but we don't have 01:12:43.720 --> 01:12:48.740 any definitive plan now, said AT&T spokesman Selem Bingal, confirming comments made by Chief 01:12:48.740 --> 01:12:50.520 Executive Ed Whitaker to USA Today. 01:12:50.520 --> 01:12:57.100 Bell South and Singular appeared to be caught off guard by their remarks, but downplayed 01:12:57.100 --> 01:12:57.700 the significance. 01:12:58.260 --> 01:13:01.760 They stressed that every new customer would generate revenue for the joint venture regardless 01:13:01.760 --> 01:13:04.100 of whether it is under the Singular or AT&T brands. 01:13:04.840 --> 01:13:09.300 Still, the return of AT&T Wireless also may spell new competition for Singular's existing 01:13:09.300 --> 01:13:13.780 52.3 million customers, particularly those who reside in the western and midwestern states 01:13:13.780 --> 01:13:16.180 where a former SBC is the dominant local phone company. 01:13:16.180 --> 01:13:21.240 AT&T is investing billions to upgrade its local network in those markets to deliver cable 01:13:21.240 --> 01:13:25.640 TV and multimedia capabilities so it can keep and win customers with a bundle of services 01:13:25.640 --> 01:13:26.480 on a single bill. 01:13:27.240 --> 01:13:31.900 Together, the former SBC based in San Antonio, Texas, and Atlanta-based Bell South Corp have 01:13:31.900 --> 01:13:35.860 poured billions of dollars into advertising and building the Singular name since they merged 01:13:35.860 --> 01:13:39.800 their cellular operations consisting of 11 different local brands in 2000. 01:13:40.560 --> 01:13:43.380 This does not change in any way how we'll market Singular. 01:13:43.380 --> 01:13:47.320 This is still a national brand, and they support our marketing Singular as a national brand. 01:13:47.740 --> 01:13:52.640 Singular spokesman Mark Siegel said, Singular is a well-recognized brand with a huge base 01:13:52.640 --> 01:13:55.860 of customers, and I'm sure this will be taken into account with these decisions. 01:13:56.600 --> 01:14:01.020 The decision marks another confusing twist in the recent lineage of the AT&T and AT&T Wireless 01:14:01.020 --> 01:14:01.500 names. 01:14:02.380 --> 01:14:02.860 Confusing? 01:14:02.980 --> 01:14:03.340 Hell yeah. 01:14:04.200 --> 01:14:09.620 The two brands went separate ways in 2001 when AT&T Corp spun off AT&T Wireless Communications, 01:14:09.620 --> 01:14:11.020 Inc. as an independent company. 01:14:11.020 --> 01:14:15.280 But the branding arrangement between the two companies called for the right to the AT&T 01:14:15.280 --> 01:14:19.360 Wireless name to revert to AT&T Corp if the cell phone company was ever acquired. 01:14:19.900 --> 01:14:23.680 And that provision was triggered about a year ago when AT&T Wireless agreed to be acquired 01:14:23.680 --> 01:14:24.980 by Atlanta-based Singular. 01:14:25.640 --> 01:14:29.640 With that, AT&T announced plans to return to the cellular business with its own brand of 01:14:29.640 --> 01:14:30.540 mobile phone service. 01:14:30.920 --> 01:14:34.840 Until the long-and-distance company agreed to be acquired earlier this year by the former 01:14:34.840 --> 01:14:36.060 subsidiary, SBC. 01:14:36.060 --> 01:14:41.020 Cutting full circle, SBC has now decided to rename itself and most of its products under 01:14:41.020 --> 01:14:43.700 the more familiar AT&T brand that came with the acquisition. 01:14:44.600 --> 01:14:48.300 Under their joint venture agreement, Bell South and SBC share equal management control 01:14:48.300 --> 01:14:52.320 over Singular, though Bell South owns a 40% stake and the former SBC owns 60%. 01:14:53.200 --> 01:14:59.380 Bell South's shares fell 17 cents to close at 27.19 on the New York Stock Exchange, while the 01:14:59.380 --> 01:15:02.040 former SBC fell 1 cent to close at 24.37. 01:15:02.040 --> 01:15:05.060 Oh my god, one cent! 01:15:06.020 --> 01:15:06.880 Who knows? 01:15:07.660 --> 01:15:09.480 Well, with the volume of shares they had out there. 01:15:09.480 --> 01:15:10.420 Let's just recap this. 01:15:11.320 --> 01:15:13.200 Well, yeah, I mean, that is a lot of money. 01:15:13.320 --> 01:15:15.980 It always just sounds like stupid with, oh my god, one cent. 01:15:16.300 --> 01:15:17.800 So, let's recap. 01:15:18.660 --> 01:15:24.760 AT&T had cable modem in cable business, because I do remember getting AT&T broadband cable. 01:15:25.180 --> 01:15:26.140 Yeah, what happened was AT&T bought that. 01:15:26.140 --> 01:15:27.540 And now they sold that off. 01:15:27.540 --> 01:15:32.660 AT&T bought TCI and Media One in, like, 1999 or 1998 or something. 01:15:33.360 --> 01:15:34.120 I don't even think it was that. 01:15:34.180 --> 01:15:35.580 I think it was, like, 96 or so. 01:15:35.700 --> 01:15:37.080 No, it was the late 90s. 01:15:37.420 --> 01:15:37.820 Oh, really? 01:15:38.080 --> 01:15:41.800 Yeah, because they redesigned their logos slightly in 1999 because of the merger. 01:15:42.500 --> 01:15:42.720 Oh. 01:15:43.080 --> 01:15:45.560 So, what is it? 01:15:45.560 --> 01:15:48.860 So, AT&T... 01:15:48.860 --> 01:15:50.140 But they sold that off. 01:15:50.560 --> 01:15:53.200 Well, yeah, they had wireless, but they sold that off. 01:15:53.240 --> 01:15:54.860 But now they're getting back into both. 01:15:55.120 --> 01:15:56.480 Well, okay, here's what happened. 01:15:56.660 --> 01:15:58.220 They're not getting back into the cable business. 01:15:58.300 --> 01:16:03.880 What happened was AT&T bought the cable company, because AT&T at the time was only inter-exchange. 01:16:03.880 --> 01:16:08.500 And they figured the best way to compete with the local phone companies was to offer service over cable lines. 01:16:09.420 --> 01:16:11.160 Offer phone service over cable lines. 01:16:11.160 --> 01:16:14.620 So, that's why they bought the cable companies. 01:16:15.980 --> 01:16:22.060 So, this turned out to not be such a good idea, and it spelled financial ruin for AT&T. 01:16:22.700 --> 01:16:29.540 AT&T had to sell that off to Comcast for a fraction of what it bought it for just to sustain its operating cash. 01:16:29.840 --> 01:16:34.300 And then I think the reason they spun off AT&T Wireless was, again, just for operating cash. 01:16:37.360 --> 01:16:38.720 I want operating cash. 01:16:38.720 --> 01:16:42.080 Yeah, I want operating cash, too, to the tune of a couple billion dollars. 01:16:42.860 --> 01:16:43.680 Yeah, tell me about it. 01:16:43.680 --> 01:16:44.260 I'd be all set. 01:16:44.620 --> 01:16:44.840 Mm-hmm. 01:16:46.340 --> 01:16:46.840 All right. 01:16:46.920 --> 01:16:47.920 So, that's what it is. 01:16:47.960 --> 01:16:52.280 And now we're coming full circle all the way back down, at which point we can get AT&T Wireless again. 01:16:52.580 --> 01:16:57.980 I wonder if they're going to, like, say, like, AT&T Wireless is back, when in reality it's just part of Singular now. 01:16:59.460 --> 01:17:02.340 So, it is a new company, but we're still having the name. 01:17:03.040 --> 01:17:04.220 I wonder how they're going to market that. 01:17:04.260 --> 01:17:05.160 It's going to be very interesting. 01:17:06.280 --> 01:17:08.320 I should hold on to Singular.com. 01:17:09.720 --> 01:17:10.160 Tingular. 01:17:10.300 --> 01:17:11.080 AT, no, come on. 01:17:11.120 --> 01:17:11.920 It's AT and Tingular. 01:17:12.240 --> 01:17:14.300 Yeah, I have ATTingular.com. 01:17:15.440 --> 01:17:17.940 No, now it should be SBC and Tingular. 01:17:18.880 --> 01:17:19.600 SBC and Tingular? 01:17:20.720 --> 01:17:21.160 Yes. 01:17:21.300 --> 01:17:22.340 SBC and Tingular, yeah. 01:17:22.340 --> 01:17:29.440 But, no, what AT&T is going to do now, the new AT&T, they're not doing television over cable. 01:17:29.540 --> 01:17:30.360 They're doing it over fiber. 01:17:31.740 --> 01:17:37.160 The bet is that there's going to be more demand for multimedia and bandwidth services in the future. 01:17:37.160 --> 01:17:43.920 So, they're running lots of fiber, you know, out to neighborhoods and out to premises to give customers more bandwidth. 01:17:44.340 --> 01:17:51.720 And the hope is that in addition to offering high-speed DSL or high-speed internet access service, they'll also be able to offer television over IP. 01:17:51.720 --> 01:17:54.020 So, that's the whole IPTV thing. 01:17:54.880 --> 01:17:55.220 Toip! 01:17:55.480 --> 01:17:56.500 I want to get a toip button. 01:17:57.040 --> 01:17:57.300 Toip. 01:17:58.120 --> 01:17:58.520 Toip. 01:18:01.120 --> 01:18:03.720 Well, it's... 01:18:03.720 --> 01:18:14.240 I've got to love this whole crazy merger and acquisition, and I just want to know when I can get a cell phone with a rotary dial. 01:18:16.000 --> 01:18:17.900 We never talk about BellSouth, I think. 01:18:17.940 --> 01:18:20.820 I think there are a lot of loose ends we need to wrap up. 01:18:21.340 --> 01:18:21.640 All right. 01:18:21.700 --> 01:18:22.700 Well, let's talk about BellSouth. 01:18:22.760 --> 01:18:22.980 Oh, yeah. 01:18:23.240 --> 01:18:28.960 BellSouth has a market cap of almost $50 billion, which is pretty big considering they have a small footprint. 01:18:28.960 --> 01:18:35.260 But they have 40% of singular wireless, which contributes to that greatly. 01:18:35.920 --> 01:18:40.960 And I'm not sure whether or not BellSouth is going to... 01:18:41.980 --> 01:18:42.400 I'm wondering. 01:18:42.680 --> 01:18:46.500 BellSouth might buy up some long-distance company, like one of the smaller ones. 01:18:47.900 --> 01:18:50.320 They could theoretically buy up Global Crossing. 01:18:52.280 --> 01:18:57.960 So, I think that's the only long-distance company left that is solely long-distance. 01:18:59.760 --> 01:19:07.920 Well, see, my personal fantasy is Sprint, local, when they spin off, they buy Quest. 01:19:08.980 --> 01:19:12.660 And then we get to enjoy a company called Sprest. 01:19:13.200 --> 01:19:13.680 Ah, yes. 01:19:13.740 --> 01:19:16.280 Which sounds just like this really bad soda. 01:19:17.560 --> 01:19:22.720 I can just picture this little bubbly-type logo on it, and this guy with little cans. 01:19:22.880 --> 01:19:25.600 Enjoy the refreshing telephony of Sprest. 01:19:27.220 --> 01:19:28.780 Mmm, it's good. 01:19:29.420 --> 01:19:29.700 Yes. 01:19:31.380 --> 01:19:31.820 Yeah. 01:19:32.100 --> 01:19:34.260 Voice, data, lemon-lime. 01:19:34.480 --> 01:19:35.260 That's Sprint. 01:19:38.480 --> 01:19:39.780 Mm-mm, Sprest. 01:19:40.220 --> 01:19:40.600 Mm-hmm. 01:19:40.920 --> 01:19:41.360 Exactly. 01:19:42.060 --> 01:19:42.500 Exactly. 01:19:44.980 --> 01:19:47.000 So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens. 01:19:48.480 --> 01:19:50.180 One of two things is likely to happen. 01:19:50.180 --> 01:19:56.580 Well, either Bell South is going to continue on its merry way, but I think the competitive 01:19:56.580 --> 01:20:00.280 pressure is going to force them at some point to buy up some inter-exchange carrier, and 01:20:00.280 --> 01:20:01.340 they might just buy up Quest. 01:20:02.100 --> 01:20:02.360 Hmm. 01:20:02.360 --> 01:20:04.340 Because Quest is cheap right now. 01:20:05.460 --> 01:20:08.020 Well, considering how loaded they're debt into, it's not surprising. 01:20:08.460 --> 01:20:08.740 Yeah. 01:20:09.240 --> 01:20:14.200 I mean, I think it might be, you know, feasible to buy up Quest and their debt and still pay 01:20:14.200 --> 01:20:16.380 it off and make a profit, because Bell South has the revenue. 01:20:17.240 --> 01:20:18.560 Oh, Bell South can definitely do it. 01:20:18.560 --> 01:20:21.780 It's just, you know, more questionable about whether Sprint can do it. 01:20:21.780 --> 01:20:24.260 And also, Bell South just seems to be happy of where they are. 01:20:24.600 --> 01:20:24.740 Yeah. 01:20:24.740 --> 01:20:27.920 They're running a good product down in the southeast of the United States, and they just really 01:20:27.920 --> 01:20:29.340 don't care about anything else. 01:20:29.460 --> 01:20:29.660 Mm-hmm. 01:20:30.540 --> 01:20:36.540 And I guess their stockholders are just really, yeah, okay, yeah, that's fine, just keep making 01:20:36.540 --> 01:20:37.160 us money, we're cool. 01:20:37.440 --> 01:20:37.720 Mm-hmm. 01:20:38.120 --> 01:20:41.860 They're not worried about, like, you know, ooh, got to sustain double-digit growth every 01:20:41.860 --> 01:20:42.820 year, blah, blah, blah. 01:20:44.940 --> 01:20:51.360 So, it'll be interesting the way this actually affects the telecommunications landscape and 01:20:51.360 --> 01:20:52.700 the United States. 01:20:52.960 --> 01:20:53.160 Mm-hmm. 01:20:54.000 --> 01:20:54.300 Yeah. 01:20:54.440 --> 01:20:58.780 So, yeah, merger mania, it's, well, I guess we only have a few minutes left, so let's 01:20:58.780 --> 01:21:01.620 get to the practical upshots of what this all means, really. 01:21:02.620 --> 01:21:09.780 Basically, the various companies will now be able to pretty much offer everything. 01:21:10.720 --> 01:21:15.940 You know, local, long distance on their own network, and mobile phone service on their 01:21:15.940 --> 01:21:21.760 own network, and to a degree, you know, internet service and, you know, television service. 01:21:21.840 --> 01:21:24.940 And, I mean, it's really all going in the direction of everything being internet service 01:21:24.940 --> 01:21:25.240 anyway. 01:21:26.120 --> 01:21:26.440 Mm-hmm. 01:21:26.720 --> 01:21:32.060 I mean, in fact, on AT&T's website, there's a graphic of the future of the network, and 01:21:32.060 --> 01:21:35.940 it shows, you know, today, a separate path for everything, and tomorrow, everything goes 01:21:35.940 --> 01:21:38.200 over IP, over a single IP network. 01:21:39.160 --> 01:21:40.940 I want my cell phone over IP. 01:21:41.460 --> 01:21:41.720 Yes. 01:21:41.900 --> 01:21:42.220 Quipe. 01:21:43.820 --> 01:21:44.220 Mm. 01:21:44.420 --> 01:21:45.060 Cell phone. 01:21:46.680 --> 01:21:51.120 Which I think with all, like, EVDO and all that crazy crap, that's going to be possible. 01:21:51.540 --> 01:21:51.880 Oh, yeah. 01:21:52.060 --> 01:21:52.220 Yeah. 01:21:53.180 --> 01:21:56.940 So, yeah, if you people have thoughts on the mergers, feel free to mail us. 01:21:57.420 --> 01:21:58.560 Radio at binrev.com. 01:21:58.800 --> 01:22:03.320 I'm sure everyone's either shut us off by now, or if they're listening, they're just 01:22:03.320 --> 01:22:06.580 sort of, like, sitting back and drooling on themselves, because we've just gone all kinds 01:22:06.580 --> 01:22:08.700 of crazy ways about it. 01:22:09.600 --> 01:22:09.960 Yep. 01:22:10.480 --> 01:22:10.720 Yep. 01:22:10.940 --> 01:22:20.560 So, eventually, it's just ironic the way that, in 1984, the Bell system broke up, and 01:22:20.560 --> 01:22:25.140 here it is, about 20 years later, and everything is just coming back together. 01:22:25.420 --> 01:22:27.120 Well, I mean, two factors have contributed to that. 01:22:27.260 --> 01:22:31.020 One is the fact that, you know, the market then was different than it is now. 01:22:32.000 --> 01:22:32.400 True. 01:22:32.400 --> 01:22:35.240 You know, back then, it was really monopoly. 01:22:35.960 --> 01:22:41.060 These days, there are enough competition rules in place, and there's enough competition 01:22:41.060 --> 01:22:44.700 in place from different technologies that, really, the whole monopoly thing doesn't apply 01:22:44.700 --> 01:22:45.020 anymore. 01:22:45.460 --> 01:22:45.760 Mm-hmm. 01:22:45.760 --> 01:22:53.000 So, and the fact that, also, the price, the margin of the services has gone down immensely. 01:22:53.220 --> 01:22:57.940 I mean, look at the cost per minute and the price per minute of long-distance service. 01:22:58.360 --> 01:23:01.400 Hell, look at just the fact that we have unlimited long-distance now. 01:23:01.680 --> 01:23:01.940 Mm-hmm. 01:23:02.620 --> 01:23:02.980 Exactly. 01:23:03.080 --> 01:23:04.460 Who would have conceived of that 20 years ago? 01:23:04.540 --> 01:23:04.800 Nobody. 01:23:05.600 --> 01:23:05.800 No? 01:23:06.540 --> 01:23:06.940 MCI. 01:23:07.820 --> 01:23:08.440 MCI, yeah. 01:23:08.440 --> 01:23:15.160 So, that'll be interesting to see where this all goes. 01:23:16.420 --> 01:23:21.000 And hopefully, it'll move toward the better, but chances are, no, that's not going to happen. 01:23:21.260 --> 01:23:26.800 Well, we'll do a, what's the title of the show? 01:23:27.500 --> 01:23:31.240 We'll do a Merger Mania Revisited at some point in the not-tearly distant future. 01:23:31.480 --> 01:23:33.160 Merger Mania Redux. 01:23:33.780 --> 01:23:34.220 Yeah. 01:23:34.220 --> 01:23:37.820 So, let's wrap it up. 01:23:39.740 --> 01:23:40.440 Look at our show. 01:23:40.440 --> 01:23:40.840 I don't know. 01:23:41.020 --> 01:23:42.940 We have no announcements this week. 01:23:43.060 --> 01:23:44.740 It's relatively quiet. 01:23:46.900 --> 01:23:48.300 Do you have any announcements? 01:23:48.700 --> 01:23:49.380 Natas, do you have any? 01:23:49.420 --> 01:23:49.780 Oh, wait. 01:23:49.860 --> 01:23:50.360 No, he's not here. 01:23:50.780 --> 01:23:51.140 Yeah. 01:23:52.200 --> 01:23:52.820 We have an announcement. 01:23:53.020 --> 01:23:56.980 Natas freezes to death in outside New England Best Buy. 01:23:58.880 --> 01:24:00.080 No, Walmart, Walmart. 01:24:00.300 --> 01:24:01.080 Or Walmart, yeah. 01:24:01.080 --> 01:24:02.920 We're not even sure if he's in New England anymore. 01:24:04.220 --> 01:24:05.400 He may be someplace else. 01:24:06.260 --> 01:24:07.300 Yeah, I think it's New England. 01:24:07.840 --> 01:24:10.840 Well, he, he, he, that kid goes everywhere. 01:24:10.980 --> 01:24:12.460 I really don't even know where the hell he is now. 01:24:12.660 --> 01:24:13.020 He does. 01:24:13.120 --> 01:24:13.960 Yeah, he does go everywhere. 01:24:14.220 --> 01:24:14.340 Yeah. 01:24:15.180 --> 01:24:17.560 Well, we'll send, we'll go right into shouts. 01:24:17.680 --> 01:24:18.460 So, shouts to Natas. 01:24:18.500 --> 01:24:19.440 Don't die on us, man. 01:24:19.640 --> 01:24:19.920 Mm-hmm. 01:24:20.040 --> 01:24:23.660 And may you have lots of fun purchasing and reselling your Xboxes. 01:24:23.660 --> 01:24:30.240 And if you, if you want an Xbox for slightly above retail price, uh, Natas says, go contact 01:24:30.240 --> 01:24:32.580 him via PM at forums.bidrev.com. 01:24:32.680 --> 01:24:34.420 He'll be, he'll be sure to sell you one. 01:24:34.720 --> 01:24:34.980 Mm-hmm. 01:24:35.000 --> 01:24:37.160 Because he's just that little, young entrepreneur. 01:24:39.120 --> 01:24:40.320 Um, side of the week. 01:24:41.240 --> 01:24:42.440 Uh, att.com. 01:24:42.520 --> 01:24:42.860 Might as well. 01:24:43.000 --> 01:24:44.280 Yeah, the new att.com. 01:24:44.280 --> 01:24:45.680 The new att.com. 01:24:46.180 --> 01:24:46.620 Yes. 01:24:46.720 --> 01:24:47.220 Go there. 01:24:48.160 --> 01:24:49.280 Look at the new logo. 01:24:50.080 --> 01:24:50.920 Learn to love it. 01:24:50.920 --> 01:24:53.560 Email, radio.bidrev.com. 01:24:54.560 --> 01:24:59.500 And, uh, we'll, we'll, we'll let you introduce our closing quote-unquote music tonight. 01:24:59.640 --> 01:25:01.380 Yeah, our closing music is not really music. 01:25:01.540 --> 01:25:06.300 It's a, um, it's a recording which was made by Mark Brené in the late 1960s that he played 01:25:06.300 --> 01:25:12.920 on the telephone line, which, uh, which explains the, how do I put it? 01:25:13.180 --> 01:25:15.880 It explains the philosophical views of a bunch of phone freaks. 01:25:16.000 --> 01:25:18.160 The philosophical and religious views of a bunch of phone freaks. 01:25:18.160 --> 01:25:21.940 And, uh, that's, I think, all I have to say about that. 01:25:22.060 --> 01:25:22.840 You will enjoy it. 01:25:23.240 --> 01:25:23.980 It's, it's humorous. 01:25:24.100 --> 01:25:25.000 It's a chunk of it a listen. 01:25:25.480 --> 01:25:28.720 If you don't listen to the closing music, just, just give this a listen for the hell of 01:25:28.720 --> 01:25:28.840 it. 01:25:28.960 --> 01:25:31.080 If you close halfway through, hey, what's he gonna do? 01:25:32.240 --> 01:25:36.560 So, well, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll send shouts out to Natas one more time and hopefully 01:25:36.560 --> 01:25:37.160 he won't die. 01:25:37.260 --> 01:25:38.360 It's actually supposed to be raining. 01:25:38.860 --> 01:25:40.300 Well, it depends on where he is. 01:25:40.640 --> 01:25:40.840 Mm-hmm. 01:25:41.460 --> 01:25:42.960 Either way, good luck. 01:25:43.480 --> 01:25:44.160 Have a good time. 01:25:44.200 --> 01:25:45.140 And we'll see you next week. 01:25:45.220 --> 01:25:45.880 Same hack time. 01:25:46.160 --> 01:25:46.860 Same hack channel. 01:25:46.860 --> 01:26:01.800 Hello again, my friends. 01:26:02.740 --> 01:26:05.900 This is Reverend Mark Bernay of the Universal Life Church. 01:26:06.880 --> 01:26:08.440 Thank you very much for calling. 01:26:09.500 --> 01:26:14.620 So many of you have been calling me lately and asking me what the church is all about 01:26:14.620 --> 01:26:21.280 that I thought I would put it on a recording to explain to you, the public and all my dear 01:26:21.280 --> 01:26:27.160 friends, just what are the basic principles of the First MBS Church of Seattle. 01:26:27.160 --> 01:26:33.820 Our church is a church of the Universal Life. 01:26:33.820 --> 01:26:42.300 We believe that there is one common controlling thing that is throughout the universe and that 01:26:42.300 --> 01:26:47.780 is the secret and the wisdom behind all living and non-living things. 01:26:47.780 --> 01:27:00.040 We believe that we believe that this one entity, this one universal being created us. 01:27:00.720 --> 01:27:05.080 We came from within it and without it we are nothing. 01:27:05.080 --> 01:27:12.560 Now what is this thing, this universal life force? 01:27:13.820 --> 01:27:16.580 It is your telephone, my friends. 01:27:17.740 --> 01:27:20.040 That's right, your telephone. 01:27:20.040 --> 01:27:34.420 What else is there that can connect you anywhere around the world immediately? 01:27:34.420 --> 01:27:37.060 Nothing but the telephone. 01:27:37.060 --> 01:27:46.300 Surely, it must be that one overall universal being that I spoke of earlier. 01:27:49.300 --> 01:27:56.260 No, of course, I am not saying that your one telephone in your one house is the creator 01:27:56.260 --> 01:27:57.020 of the universe. 01:27:57.020 --> 01:27:58.900 That surely is ridiculous. 01:27:58.900 --> 01:28:08.140 But it is the essence of the telephone, the interrelationship, the connections between 01:28:08.140 --> 01:28:10.660 all the telephone systems in the world. 01:28:10.660 --> 01:28:15.800 These, all together, are the universal life. 01:28:17.080 --> 01:28:24.260 And each individual telephone and each individual call is a manifestation of its greatness. 01:28:24.260 --> 01:28:37.280 This universal system, which in this country we call the mother, was truly the creator of 01:28:37.280 --> 01:28:37.740 us all. 01:28:40.460 --> 01:28:44.180 It has been on earth as long as earth has been. 01:28:45.500 --> 01:28:49.040 And in the universe as long as the universe has been. 01:28:49.040 --> 01:28:58.240 For reasons of its own, it did not show its true nature until recently in human times. 01:28:59.800 --> 01:29:08.160 But the modern telephone system is the same thing that created the universe and that our 01:29:08.160 --> 01:29:12.080 ancients talked about in their scriptural works. 01:29:12.080 --> 01:29:19.680 This is why, my friends, we say that you must not play with your telephone. 01:29:21.360 --> 01:29:24.140 This is why it will anger the mother if you do. 01:29:26.060 --> 01:29:29.820 For you will be playing with your creator if you do. 01:29:31.820 --> 01:29:38.340 I will be explaining in future discussions just why the universal life force chose to manifest 01:29:38.340 --> 01:29:41.020 itself as a telephone system. 01:29:42.840 --> 01:29:47.920 But for now, my friends, please recognize it for what it is. 01:29:49.540 --> 01:29:55.300 That instrument that you are holding in your hand now while you listen to me must be handled 01:29:55.300 --> 01:29:57.320 with the greatest of love. 01:29:58.320 --> 01:30:02.420 For it is a part of our mother of the bell. 01:30:02.420 --> 01:30:09.700 Now, I would like to leave you with the immortal words of our forefathers. 01:30:13.700 --> 01:30:18.240 So, thank you for calling. 01:30:19.320 --> 01:30:27.560 And if we can be of any spiritual guidance to you, please call us in person at Emerson 5-8110. 01:30:27.560 --> 01:30:32.360 Goodbye for now.