Do you think that New York State laws protecting a woman's right to choose an abortion are
safe?
You do, huh?
Then why is the New York State Assembly preparing to vote on parental consent and notification
Medicaid restrictions, and a mandatory 24-hour waiting period for all women seeking a safe
and legal abortion.
Join the National Abortion Rights Action League for their Albany Lobby Day on Tuesday, April
27th.
NARAL will provide training, bus transportation, and briefings.
For information and reservations, call 212-724-5770.
That's 212-724-5770.
And keep abortion safe and accessible in New York State.
This has been a public service announcement of WBAI on behalf of the National Abortion
Rights Action League.
And in case you couldn't make it out, he was trying to say WBAI New York.
It's 10 o'clock on a Wednesday night, and we're going to go from night to day.
That's right.
From the Software Prevention Association to Freedom of Information.
Stay with us.
We'll explain just what we mean here on Off the Hook.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall I cut myself while shaving,
now I can't make a call It couldn't get much worse, but if they could
they would One diddly-bump for the best, expect the worst
I hope that's understood, one diddly-bump
I hope that's understood, one diddly-bump
I hope that's understood, one diddly-bump
You know, it's been said that when you take away access to information, that only the
privileged and elite will have the information in the first place, and that's something
to bear in mind when you have people coming after you saying, you've got to pay $500
to use this program, and you know, that's not even enough.
That's not even enough.
You know, I don't know how many of you are listening to the program before this fascinating
discussion with someone from the Software Publishers Association, which I call the Software
Prevention Association, because if we all play by those rules, there'll be no software
because nobody will be able to afford it.
I mean, we do a lot of programming geared for individual people, not corporations, regular
people, you know, like you, the people that support this radio station, and if all of
you were expected to go out and pay a couple of thousand dollars just to run word processors
and modem programs and operating systems and all that kind of business, not just once,
no, that's not good enough, not just once, but for every time you copy it onto another
machine.
If you have, say, a PC and a 286 and a 386 or something like that in your house.
Some people have two computers, or if you have a computer at work and a computer at
home, you've got to pay every time.
If you work in an office that has, say, four or five computers, you've got to pay every
time, so the reasonable $500 price for a particular bit of software winds up costing you $2,500
bucks.
Now, some of us in the corporate world might be able to afford that kind of talk, but those
of us here on planet Earth, it's a bit more difficult.
Now, I don't know of any college students within the sound of my voice that is real
struggling college students, which is kind of what the tradition of the word is.
I don't know any of them that can afford to pay even $100 for something like that.
Now, of course, you can't give this stuff away for free, but to charge full corporate
rates for everybody, it's self-defeating.
It's bad for all of us, not just bad for the individuals, it's bad in the end for the people
making the software as well.
And by the way, I should point out that we've already filed the paperwork here at BAI, actually
a couple of us over at 2600 The Hacker Quarterly suspect that some folks over at SPA might
be reading some unauthorized copies of 2600, so we're sending a team over there, we're
demanding that they allow us in.
And for every sentence we find that was taken from 2600, for every word that may have been
used in our magazine at some point, we're going to require them to pay a penalty and
buy another subscription.
All's fair.
Well, I'd like to know people's opinions on that, though, from a more individualistic
point of view, because there's two worlds, there's the corporate world, there's the individual
world.
And if you don't believe me, take a look at things like $2000 toilet seats that the CIA
gets suckered in for, or whoever it was that wound up doing that.
Individuals tend to ask questions a lot more, and big, faceless corporations tend to sign
the checks.
It's something to think about.
And speaking of unauthorized words, we've got an unauthorized word or two to read to
you that was leaked to us from a newsletter, actually the newsletter didn't leak it to
us.
I'm sure the newsletter would be very upset if they knew we had this, but somebody gave
this to us.
I can't identify who they are.
Newsletter is called I-4.
I-4 and I, I don't really know what it means.
Oh, here's what it means.
Thank you.
International Information Integrity Institute.
Four I's.
I-4.
Get it?
International Information Integrity Institute.
Doesn't that sound self-righteous?
Well, the article, small article here is entitled, More Trouble from 2600.
Now we figure since they're writing about hackers, and a lot of you out there are hackers
and people who are interested in hackers might do us all some good to hear what they say.
But don't copy these words or use them irresponsibly.
The article is written by Don Parker, Don B. Parker.
The spring 1992 issue of 2600, The Hacker Quarterly, gives more bad news for the computing
world and especially for information security staffs.
This issue will probably unleash a new batch of viruses, mostly in the United States.
Europe can still worry about the new viruses emanating from Sofia and Moscow, the subjects
of a session at the Helsinki Forum 16.
At least three articles should be of concern to you.
How to Create an MS-DOS Star.com Virus with Complete Annotated Coding Instructions, MS-DOS
Batch Viruses also with Detailed Coding, and How to Beat Virus Scanner Products, particularly
products from McAfee Associates.
Other articles of interest include How to Hack WWIV, a popular hacker bulletin board
operating system with detailed code, an alternative approach to Unix password hacking, spelling
bad news for unprotected Unix users, a description of how to dismantle pay telephones, bad news
for telcos, a review of Steve Jackson's new hacker card game that is sure to stimulate
a new wave of juvenile hackers, a list of about 200 schools using simplex push-button
door locks, the autumn 1991 issue explained how to beat these locks, and a personal ad
from a former U.S. Army electronic warfare technician with a top-secret clearance looking
for surveillance work, which requires cunning, ingenuity, and skill.
2600 continues to skirt the criminal laws in New York State and hides irresponsibly
within the First Amendment rights of free speech.
Hacker Emanuel Goldstein has been emboldened by the attention and support he has received
at the recent Anti-Virus and Computers Freedom and Privacy Conferences in New York and Washington
D.C.
He fails to understand in his irrational hacker thinking that our civil rights come with responsibility
to treat them with respect and use them for good purposes.
We suggest that those using McAfee services check with their suppliers about updated products
to deal with the new threats.
Simplex push-button door locks are often found in industrial research labs.
Security departments should replace them.
Remember the hacker wars are not over yet.
Information obtained in recent SRI interviews with communications industry security people
indicated in one case that by explicit count at least 12,000 dangerous hackers are out
there who probably are exchanging even more sinister information than found in 2600.
To avoid any residual messages that might be compromised, the newest pirate bulletin
boards are now using a chat mode of messaging communication restricted to only real-time
exchanges.
And that's the threat from us here hiding irresponsibly behind the First Amendment.
Come join us.
It's getting lonely back here.
Too bad they can't make CDs queue up cleanly, but I guess that's one of the challenges of
the 90s.
Let's see what's going on in the world, the real world, the world of fun.
The Tag Spiegel, which is a Berlin daily, carried an article on Monday describing the
problems encountered switching from middle European time to middle European summer time
on Sunday.
That's what they call it over there.
It seems that the Bavarian police computer system was caught unawares and responded by
closing down.
Inpol, I-N-P-O-L, which stores all information about persons the police are looking for,
as well as having connections to the car and stolen car registries and other databases,
well, it just stopped.
From 3 a.m. on, no checks could be made at the borders, no checks could be made for stopped
cars except for alcohol tests.
A dragnet action scheduled for 4 a.m. was conducted despite the data loss, but only
resulted in 16 arrests for driving under the influence.
The cause of the error was still being feverishly searched for as the paper went to press.
Last week we told you about the majority leader of the Minnesota legislature having to resign
because his son got a hold of his calling card and started sharing it with his friends
and before he knew it, well, the situation was a bit out of control.
$85,000 phone bill.
Well, the fraud occurred because the majority leader's son revealed his father's access
code to the state phone system to a few of his friends, who then told two friends and
so on and so on and so on.
The system was set up to allow users to dial in on an 800 number, enter the code, and then
dial any number.
And once the fraud was publicly revealed, the scandal has grown.
The leadership of the DFL, which is the Minnesota Democratic Party, has been working overtime
on damage control.
Already there are articles in the local press, normally supporters of the DFL, suggesting
that they've become too arrogant in their power.
Since the discovery of the fraud, the following has occurred.
As we said, the majority leader was forced to resign from his post.
There's been an effort by the Democrats to shift the blame to MCI, the legislature's
long-distance provider.
The Republicans, sensing a political opportunity, are battling efforts to shift the blame.
And the House suspended its rules to approve an amendment to Minnesota's Open Meeting Act,
which restricts what types of public business can be conducted in private.
The amendment adds the legislature to the list of public bodies which are affected by
the law, which is a step that many have felt desirable for years.
And in addition to the investigation that's going on by the county attorney, State Attorney
General Hubert Humphrey III has opened a criminal investigation into the matter.
And let's see what else we have here.
A mangled zip code can lead to a nightmare.
Bet you didn't know that.
Ben Hoyne writes to the Risks Digest, I am a member of the Columbia House CD Club.
The way such clubs work is you get a bunch of newly free CDs at the beginning of your
membership, it's maybe a penny or 99 cents or something like that, and they raise the
price.
And then it's an obligation to purchase a certain number within a specified time.
They reserve the right to bill you for unpurchased CDs if you do not fulfill the obligation.
Well, last summer, it's a nice summer, the U.S. Post Office gave us a new zip code.
They do that occasionally.
I sent a change of address form in which the change from the zip code of 55369 to 55311
was noted.
After this, well, their monthly mailings stopped.
And last week, I received a letter from a collection agency due to my unfulfilled agreement.
The address was so incredibly mangled, I was amazed the post office was able to route it.
The zip code had only one digit right.
It was 54762.
The city and street names were mangled as well.
Apparently, their data entry operator damaged the record when entering the change of address.
My guess is that Columbia House attempted to send their bulk class mailings to this
mangled address and never got them routed, or never got a proper response to the address
correction requested notation.
I don't suppose the post office spends a lot of time trying to route misaddressed bulk
mail.
Rather than trying to send me anything by first class mail, they turned it over to a
collection agency to make this attempt.
Seems pretty inefficient since the cost of the collection agency has to be more than
the first class letter.
Finally, I called Columbia House's 800 number to clear this up.
The operator corrected the address online, but made the comment that he had to make sure
the change took.
Apparently, they have experienced regular problems with entering an address change,
only to have the system not actually make the change to the database record.
They either have a software or a training problem there.
The simple change of two zip code digits led to far more chaos than it should.
Here's a note on Teenage Hackers.
Also comes to us from the Risk Digest contributor, Jim Haynes, sent in this one.
And he got it from the newsletter of the Purim Foundation, Miracles in Trust.
July 1911, in Los Angeles, teenaged radio amateur operators trained at Los Angeles Polytechnic
High School intercepted and disclosed collusion over the Catalina wireless circuit involving
the Hearst newspapers, with much attendant publicity and a criminal prosecution later
dismissed.
The Wireless Association of Southern California, of over 200 young Los Angeles amateurs, formed
as a result of the incident.
Operated a 2-kilowatt spark transmitter using the call signs ALA.
And finally, in what must be a great embarrassment to NSI officials, security at the InterNIC
host for registration services was compromised on the second day of official services to
the internet community.
Through a series of accidents, a user of their FTP service was able to access directories
normally off-limits to anonymous FTP services.
As a result of this access, the user was able to obtain a copy of the system's ETC slash
password file that could be used to decode passwords of users on the system through the
use of a password cracking program.
The user was also able to access system logs, including a log of anonymous FTP transactions
by users around the world.
In the course of this investigation, the user was able to find numerous other security holes,
including world-mountable file systems.
Although no further action was taken, these holes would enable a malicious hacker to easily
penetrate the system.
Or a malicious anyone, really.
An InterNIC admin was in the process of fixing the security holes at the time of this release.
The InterNIC Registration Services is funded by NSF to administer registration of network
numbers, domain names, autonomous system numbers, and other functions crucial to the operation
of the global internet.
The date of this is April 2nd, and the contributor notes that this is not an April Fool's joke.
Those of you who want to subscribe to the Risk Digest can do so completely free of charge,
simply by actually using the program RN or NN or one of the news programs on the internet.
You have to be on the internet.
That's the only condition.
Or something that is connected to the internet somehow.
The newsletter is called comp.risks.
The internet is something else that has to be made available to people for low cost.
It's very, very important.
You can put a price that's completely unaffordable and say that it reflects the cost and all
the expenses entailed in running a computer, building a computer, developing a computer,
and all the software, etc., etc., and nobody will be able to use the system.
Or you can have a system like the internet, which is usable by students in college, and
some students in high school even, and also a small number of commercial users, smaller
number of commercial users that is, ever-growing in all fields.
Now if we're able to expand that, make it more accessible to more people at lower costs
or no cost at all, all of a sudden you'll have a lot of educated people.
I know that's a scary thing to a lot of us out there.
All right, we're going to be taking phone calls on the issue of access, and also a rather
exciting thing is happening in many parts of our area in the next week or so.
Caller ID is coming, or as New York Telephone has renamed it, Call ID.
I don't know why they do that, but they have to name it something different in every area.
If you have any questions on that, how it's going to affect you, not everybody's going
to get it, too, by the way.
Some of you may think you're going to get it, but you're not.
That's just the way it is.
Some of us are elite, and some of us are not.
That's the way it goes.
But everybody will have it eventually.
Everybody will have the capability, and we will all be affected by it one way or another,
and that's what we have to address.
I recommend, I always recommend this, that everybody who is capable of doing it, and
those of you in New Jersey, you're not capable of doing it because you didn't make enough
of a fuss about it.
Now look where you are.
Don't go the way of New Jersey, New York.
New York can block their phone numbers from being sent every time they make a phone call.
New York can remain anonymous the way it's been the whole time.
New York can keep things the way they are.
Or, if they choose, they can change.
But New Jersey never had the choice.
Everybody had to change, and they can't prevent it.
So that's why I recommend to everybody that has the ability to keep all call block on your phone,
and when you choose to send your phone number, you can send your phone number.
It's as simple as that, and we'll tell you how.
We'll tell you all the information you need to know about caller ID.
Our phone number is 212-279-3400, and if you get a busy signal, don't be disheartened
because we hang up on people pretty quickly sometimes, and lines open up, so just keep trying.
And if you're lucky enough to have that keep calling when the phone is busy feature,
well, use that.
No, don't use that, because that costs money.
They charge you 25 cents or 75 cents every time you do that.
I don't know how they get away with things like this.
This is something else that I don't know how they get away with.
That's the touchtone debate.
This is an article that appeared in the December 14, 1992 issue of Communications Week,
and what's particularly interesting about it is that it was not written by me.
Yes, somebody else is upset about touchtones.
Not upset by touchtones. Touchtones are great.
We all love touchtones, but the fact is, how do they get away with charging you to use them?
I mean, they come from your telephone,
yet they try to convince you that there's an extra service when there is none.
This article is entitled, The Great Touchtone Service Ripoff Continues,
written by Edwin E. Meir.
It's a marketer's dream come true to sell a product that millions must buy
and that every customer must continue to pay for every month for the rest of their lives.
No, it's not some new super-addictive form of crack cocaine.
It's touchtone phone service.
Remember murdery telephones, like those heavy, metal, black, nuclear-proof
Western electric phones that you see in the old movies?
Those phones used pulse dialing.
Well, here we are 20 years later, and we're still paying a few bucks every month for touchtone.
Today, you'd be hard-pressed to find a phone, or a modem for that matter,
that uses only pulse dialing, but that doesn't matter.
About 20 years ago, dual-tone multi-frequency DTMF dialing,
better known by AT&T's trademarked name, Touchtone,
came to the local phone network.
The local phone companies rushed out to add DTMF processors to their switches,
and they had to recoup this major investment, of course.
So they sold their state public utility commissions on letting them charge
just a few bucks a month to every customer, residential and business alike,
that had access to touchtone dialing.
It's true that the telephone companies have incredibly long depreciation schedules
for new equipment investments, but this is ridiculous.
They can't still be paying off the decades-old equipment that added DTMF support.
Do you have to get touchtone? No.
But just try to get out of paying for it.
I asked my phone company what would happen if I dropped touchtone.
What I got were dire predictions of equipment incompatibility and service disruptions,
and veiled threats about what would happen if they caught me using DTMF equipment on my line
without paying the touchtone surcharge.
You'd be in big trouble, they said.
Big trouble.
Three years ago, a friend of mine in New York decided to risk it.
He cancelled his touchtone service and continued using his DTMF phone.
After a while, he started getting threatening calls from the phone company.
They warned him they'd make it so he couldn't use DTMF,
and he'd have to try to find a pulse dial phone.
He dared them to do it.
A month ago, they did.
But still, rather than pay for touchtone, he scrounged around
and finally found a pulse dial phone at an estate sale.
A telephone company engineer I know confided to me that the phone company
has quite a bit of engineering to do to cut off someone's touchtone.
They probably spent thousands of dollars in person hours to find, track, and then turn off
only touchtone to just one customer, he explained.
But making an example of a troublemaker in preserving this lucrative, unearned windfall
is probably worth it to the telephone companies.
Figure a buck and a half per month per phone line and 100 million phones,
that's about $2 billion a year.
What a scam.
I wonder if ISDN basic rate interface customers are also still being made to pay
for touchtone service.
An article written by Edwin E. Meir,
president of Meir Communications at Princeton Junction, New Jersey,
based Network Consultancy.
You can reach him on MCI Mail,
M-I-E-R at T-I-G-G-E-R dot J-V-M-C dot net
on the internet.
One thing I've got to take exception to,
it's not very hard for them to turn off touchtones.
In fact, in the current issue of 2600,
we print the two lines that are necessary to type to turn on touchtone.
Turning off is not very hard either.
Fiber Optics in the studio,
and you know something about turning off touchtones, do you not?
Yeah, and I don't know what genius phone company employee
I don't know how you talk to this nice gentleman, but
a phone company engineer, I'd be really surprised.
Well, you know, it's nice to think of them going to a lot of trouble
to track somebody down, but it didn't.
I mean, computers do this.
Computers can find out if somebody is, you know,
they can find out what numbers you're pressing.
They can find out what numbers you're calling and what time you do it.
They can tell you everybody that called Guam at 11 o'clock last Tuesday.
I mean, that's what computers are for,
so they can easily find out who's using a touchtone phone before.
Touchtone service can be enabled and disabled in the blink of an eye
as easily as you and I can breathe.
It's not something that requires any intelligence
or any sort of special planning.
It's simply done by entering a few simple commands
into a computer, a telephone switching system.
What's particularly ironic is, in my case,
I had touchtone service all my life.
I lived in pretty much the same neighborhood all my life
and never paid for it.
Well, as a kid, of course, I never paid for it,
but even when I actually got to the point of paying bills,
I never paid for it because it was a crossbar switch
and they had no way of differentiating the lines on the crossbar switch,
so everybody simply got it.
And if you paid for it, great, you paid for it.
If you didn't pay for it, well, you should pay for this, you know,
but they never actually said anything.
But last summer when they cut us over to a 5ESS,
well, they figured out a way to actually isolate the lines
and find those people that weren't paying that fee
and selectively tell the dialtone to ignore it.
But we've been over this 100 times.
It's something that refuses to go away.
It's gone away in some places.
California, I believe, doesn't charge anymore.
I think Washington, Wisconsin, a growing number of states don't charge.
So that's a positive sign.
Call your public service commission in New York and Albany.
If they're listening, please do something about this.
This is not fair.
All right, before we get to the phones,
one letter which we got to the radio station to Off The Hook.
Gentlemen, I have never been able to reach you during your program.
And I guess a lot of people out there have never been able to reach us,
and we are sorry about that.
There's not a damn thing we can do about it.
I have an old-fashioned rotary dial telephone.
I have been receiving mystery calls for the last several years.
I receive more of these calls than real personal calls.
When I pick up the phone, there is no answer but a beep.
If I hold on for a while, there are sometimes three beeps.
Or sometimes there is just a dial tone.
The mystery caller, if he reaches my answering machine,
sometimes I don't pick up the phone when home,
makes a horrible noise for a few moments
which does not register on my answering machine,
which I guess leads to the good question
as to how they would know that if it doesn't register and they're not home.
But we'll skip over that part.
Should I suspect a Martian or the CIA?
Could it be a hacker or prankster?
Is someone trying to fax me?
Well, briefly, I don't know whether to laugh or cry about this.
I would really appreciate an answer.
And we're going to try to answer that question for you on the radio.
We don't know. It could be anything.
It could be a fax machine because faxes do beep sometimes,
and they do try repeatedly.
It sounds to me like it's a machine of some sort
because machines are pretty relentless.
But you don't have to take this.
You don't have to take this at all.
Recently, I had an experience with a voicemail system
that was calling one of our numbers repeatedly,
every 15 minutes for weeks.
And there's a service that's available.
It's a service that doesn't cost money and never will cost money
as long as we have something to say about it.
It's called the Annoyance Call Bureau.
And in New York...
Yeah, New York. That's good.
In New York, it's 890-6200.
It doesn't cost anything to call that number.
And they're open until 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
And you simply open up a case with them if you're getting harassed.
If it's a machine that's harassing you, you tell it.
You tell them what time the machine called you.
If it's calling your answering machine,
your answering machine has to be able to tell them what time it called.
And inside of a week, they can usually figure out
where those calls are coming from.
In our particular case, we had...
Apparently what happened was a hacker
had gotten into some company's voicemail system
and thought it would be real cute to have that voicemail system
call our voicemail system and every 15 minutes
keep updating us that we have a message waiting on some system
where we don't even know where it is.
And, you know, that was all funny and cute and all that.
But after a while, we grew annoyed.
And not so much annoyed at the person that did this as a prank
because, you know, a prank is a prank.
But it was annoying that this machine would call us
and not tell us where it was coming from.
You know, it would call and say,
You have a message. Go get your message.
And, of course, we couldn't get the message
because we didn't have the password.
You know, we'd say, Okay, let's hear the message.
And they'd say, Well, what's the password?
You don't know the password? Well, you're not authorized.
But you called me!
You called me in my house,
and you're telling me I'm not authorized.
And then you hang up, and the thing calls you back 15 minutes later.
Every day.
Every 15 minutes.
That is harassment, my friends.
And I hold the company
operating the voicemail system
responsible for that.
They have to be able to control their system.
They have to be able to identify themselves.
They have to be able to provide you...
Imagine if I had a rotary phone.
I had no way of even pressing a button.
Imagine if I didn't have an answering machine.
And I was being woken up at 4 in the morning
by this machine somewhere telling me I have a message.
Can't allow that to happen.
And there's no reason why you should.
So that's what the Annoyance Call Bureau is for.
I have to say they were able to track it down
and stop it.
I don't know what they had to do to stop it.
Maybe that phone...
That particular company somewhere in the country
pulled out all of its lines
and went out of business or something.
I don't really care.
You can't go harassing good, decent people.
And that's what it all boils down to.
So if you're being harassed,
call the Annoyance Call Bureau,
they're there to help.
I know that sounds like an advertisement for them,
but no, I'm telling you, they're there to help.
And they'd better help.
And if they don't help, let us know.
And let the Public Service Commission know.
And let other people know as well.
All right, it's just about time for us to go to the telephones.
In fact, it is time for us to go to the telephones.
So without any further ado,
let's go to the phones.
Good evening, you're on Off The Hook.
Hi, good evening.
I'd like to make a comment.
That's what you're here for. Go ahead.
Well, the thing that you said about
software, and I think
I feel the same way about it.
Because I know
when I was in high school, if I never
had the chance to use somebody else's software,
I would have never
become a software consumer.
I wouldn't have been worth anything
to these software companies
who are trying to sell anything.
Because I would have been too intimidated
to buy anything that expensive.
And the thing is,
I would have never
developed into a customer
and that's what they want.
Isn't that true?
If you don't know anything about computers to start with,
how can they expect
somebody to go out and pay this huge amount of money
for something they don't even know if that's what they want?
You need to be able to play with something for a while
and then you become part of the whole process.
Now, I saw an advertisement
for DOS 6 for about
$40 or $50.
That's a reasonable price, I think,
for an operating system.
And I might actually go out and get that if that's what I want.
But you've got to keep things within
the reach of people.
And if you start making it so that regular people
cannot afford them,
and even small businesses cannot afford them,
then you cannot be surprised
when people start acquiring them
because people are going to take technology anyway.
They're not going to be told
they're not allowed to use this,
they're not allowed to run this program.
Yeah. And another thing I want to
make a comment on
is to the caller
who talks about Chemical Bank all the time.
And if he keeps doing that,
then I won't be able to make
free phone calls either because the world will be out.
That's right.
Thank you very much.
Not that we advocate
making free phone calls from Chemical Bank,
but really, Chemical Bank, what's your problem?
I mean, this has only been mentioned on this
radio program now for about the last year.
It's about time that
maybe you turn that service off.
There's all kinds of other evil things
that can be done from Chemical Bank,
but we won't get into that right now.
Let's go to the phones. Good evening. You're on the air.
Yeah. Good afternoon.
Last week, some person called in
about
how to...
They want information on how to seal their identity.
I have
some information
that I get from a book.
I have the address, really.
Do you want me to give it over to you?
Why do you have the address? Yes.
Okay. It's from our CRB Research Books,
Incorporated.
They're located at
P.O. Box 56,
Carmack,
C-O-M-M-A-C-K,
New York.
The zip code is 11725.
This book,
I don't have it in front of me,
but I have an ad for it.
They say they have a lot of information
about how to seal your identity
and stuff like that.
It's about $18.95.
Probably postage is included.
You can probably write to them
and ask for a catalog.
You can ask for a catalog also.
They send you a catalog also.
These people,
I have dealt with them a couple of years now,
so they are pretty good.
Okay. Well, thanks for passing that on to us.
Okay. Thank you very much.
212-279-3400.
Good evening. You're on Off the Hook.
Hi.
On the previous show,
one of the things that struck me as particularly
weird was that they
made a statement
that most of these corporations
buy X number of
copies of the software to fit
their machines, and then they only use
one copy of it, and the rest of it stay in a closet
somewhere in shrink wrap.
Right.
And the amount of resources that are wasted
that way, I mean, why can't they prearrange it
and just sell the manuals or something like that?
I mean, the idea that the
non-renewable resources that
this software production uses up
is just being used for it to be put in storage
like they used to pay people to grow grain
to put in silos.
It's the same logic, I guess.
But yeah, it's a good point. The manuals are something...
Horrifying.
The way this show makes such an odd,
ironic pitch for the homeless
at the end, and still
subscribes to this conspicuous
consumption, I'm nauseated
by it.
Well, you know, I'm not sure if they actually subscribe to that notion.
It seemed to me they were battering the guy from SBA pretty well.
Well, I hope so.
But the thing is, it goes against
what individuals feel,
I think, to expect you to pay
this horrendous charge
for something, and then, you know, if you copy it...
Let's say you have a kid, and he has
a computer, too. You're trying to
tell me that they have the right to come into your
house and charge you with a crime if you copy
a program and give it to your kid
to use on their computer. No, you have to buy
it again.
Imagine if this happened with books, you know?
Libraries would go out of business, for one thing, but every time
you gave a book to somebody, you'd have to
pay a fee. It's unhealthy, and it's not
natural.
Well, keep up your good work, and I
will be encouraged by that.
Okay. Well, thanks for calling.
All right. 212-279-3400.
Good evening. You're on. Off the hook.
Am I on for radio?
Uh, yes.
Okay. I would like to make a...
I would like to make a comment
about the call ID and
the Internet. Well, go ahead.
Yes. I just got
on the Internet a few months ago,
and I noticed a few
anonymous services
on the Internet. Why come...
Well, I won't name any now.
Oh, there's one coming out of Finland.
There's a couple others in the works.
I just found out that most of them are being
killed off by
agencies such as the FBI
and security agencies.
Well, I don't know if that's necessarily true.
I haven't heard of the FBI
killing off something anonymous.
I mean, they'd like to, I'm sure, but I don't
think they actually have...
It's a general trend that's continuing
that you're not supposed to remain
anonymous on the Internet, basically.
And that's a bit scary,
because you can't...
If you want to make a comment
or something, you don't want to be
threatened
or things like that.
Well, now,
there's a risk in being anonymous,
obviously. You can say something
that might not be true, and there's nobody
that will back it up. You can start rumors.
You can just spread complete lies.
Or you can also leak information
that otherwise would not be leaked.
It's a two-edged sword,
so you have to have a degree
of responsibility. Now, there's a lot of people
that say, well, if you've got nothing to hide,
then you've got nothing to worry about.
But that just doesn't hold. It doesn't hold
in the caller ID argument. It doesn't hold
in the day-to-day life
argument. We all have privacy
we want to maintain,
and we don't always want to advertise our presence
when we say something or when we call somebody.
And for that reason alone,
I think it's important that there be a way of saying something
anonymously.
And I would also like to make a comment
about piracy.
I'm in New York, and
there are a million, million boards
with pirate boards in New York,
and
the activity on them is
amazing. And I don't know
how the SBA
thinks it's doing, but I don't think it's doing anything,
really. Uh-huh. Are you saying
the SBA should shut down these boards?
Well, mostly these
boards are being used by kids.
Okay. They're just downloading games,
so I think that
they should be left alone.
Well, shouldn't these kids have to pay $500, too,
for whatever program it is they're downloading?
Well, mostly it's games, and it's,
you know, they don't, they can't really
afford it to buy
X amount of games. Well, then
in the words of the person from the SBA
who was here before, or to paraphrase them,
then they shouldn't have access.
They shouldn't be using it at all.
They should be doing something else.
Oh, they should be
going after the people overseas,
the major, major pirates.
Look, I think it's a good sign when
people take an interest in something, and a lot of people
are taking an interest in software and hardware
and computers and technology,
and that's something we should be encouraging,
not discouraging. Uh-huh.
All right, thanks for your call.
Okay, thank you.
Let's see who else is out there. Good evening.
Hi, I have a question and a statement,
but first I wanted to address the guy who made
a couple of phone calls.
Okay, that's three things. Go ahead.
I'm the person who called the last show, actually,
about installing the 50 copies of software
but only opening one, and I just wanted
to let that guy know that we actually
called some of these companies and told them,
you know, this is what we're doing. Can we just buy a site license
for 40 or 50 machines? But a lot of these companies
won't sell site licenses
for that small an amount. They'll only sell
for like 500 and up. Uh-huh.
Companies like Lotus, so we realize
that it's stupid to be buying
all these, you know, things that are never going to be open,
but unfortunately that's the only way
we can do it and stay legal with these companies, too.
Yeah. My question is,
I've been looking all over the city for 2600
and I can't find it at newsstands. Can I pick it up
anywhere? Actually, it's all
over the place. You can find it in Tower Books, you can
find it, I believe, at St. Mark's Books,
and, uh,
what's that one on Broadway? Hudson
News, Shakespeare Books.
It's, uh, just ask around. I'm sure you'll find it.
Okay, I've been looking. Okay.
And my statement is, geese fly low.
All right. Thank you. All right, thanks for that statement.
That was, uh, much needed.
You know, I saw swans flying
today. I just want to point that out.
That's the first time in my life I think I've ever
seen swans flying.
And they flew high, but it was
a miraculous sight. And you could tell they were swans because
their heads were about a half mile in front of the rest of
their bodies. Good evening.
Yes, good evening. I'm sorry to keep you waiting.
Yeah, could you speak up a little bit? Yeah, hi.
Actually, it's digital delay, not tape delay.
Digital delay. It must be expensive.
Quick question.
First of all, I'll compliment you on the existence of your show,
which is really fantastic.
I'm curious
if, uh, regarding cable
television,
conventional coaxial cable TV,
do you have any
conception as to how a cable company
could know whether you have
one or two or more
installations within your house?
Um,
well, no, I don't
really know how they would know that.
Maybe it has something to do with
a signal that gets sent
back or something like that. I mean, they can tell
sometimes if somebody is using an illegal
box because it's a two-way signal in
many cases. They send a signal out
and they wait for some sort of an acknowledgement, or
you're supposed to send a signal at a certain time, and if
that signal doesn't show up... A basic system
isn't really that sophisticated?
A basic system shouldn't be that sophisticated, no.
I mean, I have used cable TV
in the past, and I've hooked up
different TVs, and, um,
nobody has ever said anything, and I don't think
they knew that this was being done.
But that was a number of years ago. I haven't really been active
in the technology, so I'm not
sure what they're capable of knowing. But the overall
consensus out there seems to be that they're capable of knowing
everything, which is always a scary
conclusion to reach.
They're using a scare tactic to, uh,
to, um,
to get people to pay up, or what.
The other thing is, why is the 26...
What is the meaning of 2600?
What are the meanings?
What is the meaning of 2600?
Well, 2600 hertz is
a frequency. I'll let FiberOptic explain that one.
2600 hertz
is a frequency used on, uh,
trunk lines connecting, uh,
switching equipment between central
offices, and these trunk lines carry, uh,
signaling information as well as
speech information between offices.
And, uh, it's getting to be
outdated, and it's not used
anymore in the long-distance network.
But what's the significance of using it for a hacker magazine?
Oh, I see. Well,
well, traditionally it was used in the, uh,
60s and 70s
by, uh, hackers, well, actually,
more appropriately by, by phone freaks
to, uh, explore the telephone
network by, uh, mimicking the signaling
information that was sent over trunk lines
by, uh, signaling
these audible frequencies, these tones.
So 2600 is
kind of like a, you know, a cry
for freedom, I guess. Free telephone calls
or whatever. Back in the 60s.
Keep up the good work and, uh, hope you stay around.
Okay, well, thanks for calling. Take care.
And, uh, this is
OffTheHook. Emanuel Goldstein here, FiberOptic
in the studio as well. We have about 10 minutes
left, and we're taking your phone calls at
212-279-3400.
Good evening. Hi, um, do you know
that, um, you're, you guys are talking
about software stuff here. Um,
I, I'm gonna buy DOTS
6 because it is
only 50 bucks for one reason.
And there's another alternative to that. It's called
Shareware. Okay, there's a lot
of good stuff out there on Shareware
for one. Right.
Registration is pretty
reasonable. Um...
I get the impression that SPA and,
and the commercial clearinghouses don't really
like Shareware all that much. In fact, uh...
Yeah, they mention that. Lots of times
they will tell you that, uh, if you
use Shareware, you might get a virus.
Yeah, well, that's not true because I,
I managed, I'm a co-systems operator
on a board, and, uh,
we check all our software. I just
want everyone to know that. Uh-huh.
It's, it's a fallacy that you pick up viruses
from BBSes. Okay?
We check at least
our BBS and, and the network that we're
on in the Hudson Valley here. Um,
we check every piece of software
that comes in for viruses with the latest
virus scanners, and we
get some from people that you can't
get, and
we let people know. We let the other systems
operators along the network
know who's
out there, you know, who's circulating
viruses, if any are there, and we
tell our users that they're going
to be thrown off the board if they give
us a virus. Right, and more than a couple
of times, um, commercial software
has contained viruses, too. Oh, yeah, well
that's where you get, that's where you get the viruses
from. You know, any case I've seen of viruses
um, has always come
from somebody downloading
a demo or some piece of
commercial software. It's not happened
much from Shareware or stuff that you pick
up on bulletin boards. That's ridiculous.
Uh-huh. And, uh, how can people
get a hold of your board? Um, they can
dial area code 914,
uh, 297,
2915. Uh,
9600 board or better.
Okay. Well, thanks for calling.
Okay, have a good night. All right.
Yeah, Shareware is, uh,
certainly something that, uh,
the commercial, uh, software houses
don't really appreciate all that much,
and it's something that, uh, you can find a lot of good
stuff out there. You really can. You have to look
a little bit, and, uh,
you have to make a few phone calls, but, uh,
it's worth it.
Good evening. Hello?
Hello. Yeah, go ahead. Uh,
yes, I'm calling for the...
Oh, you're on. You're on the air.
All right, let me turn the radio down there. Yeah, good idea.
Okay, uh, uh, two questions.
I have internet access through my
school. Okay. And, um,
I wanted to know, I can use the
telnet. I can use the telnet command,
but I don't know, like, what node to telnet
out to or... Well, what do you want to telnet
to? Like, um, well, see, I'm not really
that acquainted with, uh, the internet.
So, like, uh, if I could get
on to something like the well...
Okay, well, using telnet is like, you know,
getting on an airplane. You have to know where you're going,
and you want to go to the well. Yeah. So,
what you do is, you type telnet, you get the telnet
prompt, and then you type, uh,
open, space,
and for the well, you would type well
.sf.ca.us.
.sf.ca?
.us.
.us. As in San Francisco,
California, United States.
And once you hit return, the next
thing you should see is connected to the well,
et cetera, et cetera, and it'll ask you to log in, and it'll give
you the instructions on how to log in for a new user,
and all that kind of thing. And it's the same
basic system
for any system in the world.
You just have to know the address. You have to know
where you're going, and you type it that way.
You can also type telnet followed by it
on the same line,
but there's a reason why people don't do that.
Fabio, would you like to get into that?
Yeah, just a minor note is that when you type telnet
with the address immediately following it,
if you care at all about other people
seeing where it is you're telnetting to,
the easiest thing all they have to do is just see
your process status of the processes
you're running, and right there it'll say
telnet in the system you're connected to.
It's not really a big thing, but if you care
about privacy and don't want people
bothering you about where you're connecting to,
just run telnet by itself, and then
within telnet, open a connection.
Then it'll simply say that you're using telnet.
And one other
question. I know that
cordless phones use
what is called a rotating security
code or something like that.
Every time you make a call, the security
code changes? The newer ones do, yes.
I was wondering if
with regard to cellular phones,
if they're going to start using that with the ESN
and the MEN?
I think that would solve a lot of problems if they did.
Have you heard
anything about that? No.
I haven't heard that they're going to.
They seem to be comfortable saying that
it's illegal to listen to cellular phone calls,
and that's the only privacy that people
are going to get.
If you use a cellular phone, remember, there's people out there
listening, and they can hear you,
and it might be illegal to listen,
but come on. Let's get real
here, you know?
Until that happens, use phones
that offer security.
Unfortunately, cellular phones are not.
I'm on the other side of that spectrum.
I'm the one with the scanner.
Oh, well, just make sure you avoid those
illegal frequencies.
You've got to be careful
what you listen to these days.
99.5 is a legal frequency, though.
Good evening. You're on the air. Good evening, Emmanuel.
How are you doing? Interesting program as always.
Thank you. And to your guests and so forth.
I am having
a lot of trouble with freedom of speech, you know?
Not that I should be on
as much as I am. I would love it if
other people called in critically,
and that's the thing about freedom of speech.
You're on an awful lot, though, aren't you?
You're on virtually every program.
If you had a half hour more,
I wouldn't be angry.
I just want to ask one question.
Is there any radio program you have not been on
on this station?
This is an example of why we need a new telephone system,
because two people talk at the same time,
and while I hear him, he doesn't hear me.
And that's a big problem.
It's a problem with communication.
So if anybody out there knows how to build
a phone system where you can both hear each other at the same time,
please help us out. Let's go to another call.
Good evening. Yes, Emmanuel.
Yes, go ahead. Milo Phoneville.
Hey, Milo Phoneville, you're an old
friend of mine from the past.
Yeah, second time I got through.
That's right. You called us once before.
Yeah, listen, where'd you get your blue box plans?
Blue box plans?
The ones on the 2600 shirts?
Maybe.
Well, I don't know. I can't really reveal that on the air,
but if you come to a 2600 meeting,
I'm sure we can have a conversation about it.
Okay. Are you going to be at Trenton?
I don't think so.
You know Fiber's going to be there?
I am. Fiber doesn't know that.
It's iffy at best for me.
I can tell you that.
Okay, well, Fiber's supposed to be there going head-to-head
with some cop or something.
Don't tell me. Don Delaney again?
Could be.
Yeah, I've seen those pamphlets printed up.
They print out the pamphlets before they ask anybody if they want to go.
Yeah, of course, you don't get them
until, what, a week before?
Something like that. Sometimes after.
Yeah, what I want to know is, has anybody figured out
how to speed up these 33-number dialers?
Which dialers are you talking about?
The Rat-Shack ones.
Speed them up? In what way?
Yeah, like, you know, normally
I use a Hayes modem
to do my speed dialing.
I'm looking for, like,
S11 equals 50.
Ah, okay, I see what you're saying.
Yeah, I know what he's saying, too, and I know why he's saying it.
But, uh,
what it all boils down to really is,
well, the answer to your question
is really no, because the timing is
internal to the circuitry of the chip they're using,
which is just a repertory tone dialer.
Yeah, I see it's potted.
What's that? I see the chip is potted.
Yeah, it's one of those little custom jobs, probably.
But you can get repertory tone dialing
chips relatively
cheaply, but
the timing for the dialing
from memory is hardwired into the chip.
But, um,
as I tell everyone, it's a lot easier.
If you want to do something right, simply build it yourself.
Yeah, well, when you get old, you become an appliance operator.
Yeah.
It's been known to happen. Listen, we're out of time, but thanks for calling.
Okay. See you later.
Okay, and we'll be back again next week
with yet another fun-filled
hour.
The program
has been off the hook. We'll be again
next week, and the program
coming up next will be a repeat of the
evening's news.
So until next week, keep your eyes on technology.
Write us a letter
or a question if you see something
that's interesting. Our address is off the hook.
Care of WBAI, 505
8th Avenue, New York, New York.
10018.
Until next time, Immanuel Goldstein.
Take care.
I
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