Jackie 60 with Johnny Dinell to make you spin, spin, spin, and club impresario Chichi Valente,
the brains and beauty behind verbal abuse.
That's Poetry Jackie 60 style, Saturday, December 18th, 3.30 to 5 p.m.
With myself, Jeannie Hopper on WBAI 99.5 FM in New York.
It's Wednesday, it's 10 o'clock, and that means it's time for 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,
Von Diddley Bonk would the best expect the worst, I hope that's understood, Von Diddley
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Okay, here are some items that have been taking place over the past couple of weeks that may interest those of you out there that are interested in this kind of thing.
In Boston, there is a production of Tommy, you know, the play Tommy by the Who.
It's supposed to take place on December 2nd. Well, it didn't, and the reason it didn't was because the computers didn't work.
That's right, the opening Boston performance of the high-tech musical was canceled because several computers required to stage the show suffered technical difficulties as a result of being shipped to the Colonial Theater from Louisville, where the production completed a one-week run on the Sunday previous.
According to David Balsam, the show's local press representative, touring is apparently becoming more funky on the computers than anyone anticipated.
It's the kind of music we used to play when we were at Muzak Station.
In the December 12th edition of the New York Times, the cover story on the business section is about Apple's Newton handheld computer project.
I got to play with a Newton this past weekend. They're fascinating little machines that you can actually write on, and they recognize your handwriting, and they translate it into ASCII text and all kinds of wonderful neat things like that.
But it wasn't so wonderful and neat developing the Newton. The pressure to finish exhilarating at first eventually overwhelmed some of the young designers.
After 18 hour days, some engineers went home and cried, some quit.
One had a breakdown and ended up in jail, and one took a pistol and killed himself.
So as you can see, some of us take our work a lot more seriously than others.
And we have an interesting story out of, again, the Boston area.
Michael Jackson is shot dead in front of a live studio audience.
No, no. Wrong story.
This has to do with call forwarding and MIT.
It comes from Samson Garfingle. I'm sorry, Simpson Garfingle, who writes to the Risks Digest.
And according to the November 1993 issue of MIT Information Systems Journal, there was an article called When Call Forwarding Goes Awry.
Have you ever heard, he says, have you ever heard from people who tried to dial you directly at your MIT extension but got the MIT operator instead?
Or perhaps got the operator at the Whitehead Institute, or someone with no connection at all to your department.
Well, there's a reason for that, and there may very well be a system like this here in New York.
Turns out that at MIT you can initiate a call forwarding command by dialing 78 and then the number that you want to forward to.
So just by dialing 78 and then either the extension or the full number that you want your calls to be forwarded to. It's that simple.
Now, to dial an outside number, you have to dial 9. So you would dial 78 and then 9 and then the number you want to forward to.
Otherwise, you would dial 78 and then the 5-digit extension.
Well, you guessed it. People are dialing outside numbers like, here's an example, 7885000, which is the main number for Bay Banks.
And they're forgetting to dial the 9. So what happens is, somebody dials 7885000, the system thinks that they're trying to forward their telephone.
Because it sees the initial 78, and then it takes the 85000 and translates that to an extension.
And so, a lot of people's telephones are being forwarded to extension 85000, which is the main number at the Whitehead Institute.
Now, it's an amazing story of mix-ups and blunders. And the whole reason for it is because the people that designed this system,
as it's described, zillion-button digital phone sets at MIT, well, they neglected to design it in such a way that call forwarding looks unique.
You know, where you use a pound sign, perhaps, or a star, or something different.
Instead, they use 78, so that it looks like a telephone number.
The result being, lots of confusion.
That's one telephone horror story. It's not really a horror story, it's kind of a confusing story, because there are people out there that will never figure it out.
They won't know why they're not getting any of their telephone calls.
They won't know why all their calls are being forwarded someplace weird.
And certainly, the people calling them won't know why either.
And finally, we talked about changing addresses, and how easy it is, and how little security there is as far as changing your address.
Well, here's an interesting story.
This comes from an anonymous contributor.
After a recent move, I decided to fill out a change of address form at the U.S. Post Office to have my mail forwarded for me as my personal name, me as my sole proprietorship,
both of the names of the little informal businesses I and each of my two friends have formed, to be on better terms with larger companies.
And since each of my friends occasionally sends mail from our hobby-slash-ventures to my place, for them as well, for a grand total of five forwarding orders.
I expected the large number of forwarding orders to be questioned.
It wasn't.
And I was not pleased to learn that just anyone can walk in and fill out one of these things for me.
And how did I come to that conclusion?
I was not asked for any ID at all.
And finally, when I asked if it was okay for me to fill out a change of address for someone else,
that is, the ones with my friends' names on them and my signature,
the mail clerk responded,
as long as they don't mind.
The anonymous contributor suggests that we try having 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue forwarded, to see if anyone minds.
And we have a live story.
Well, a story that will be told to you live, in the first person.
Something that actually happened right here in New York.
Yes, we do have stories that happen here in New York.
And this concerns another security breach.
And this comes from an anonymous contributor.
However, the difference is that the anonymous contributor is here.
So, anonymous contributor, tell us your story.
Hi, yeah, I teach at a college in New York City.
And in the cafeteria, they had a UPS Dropbox.
And knowing that UPS Dropboxes always are set, the combinations on the locks are always set to the default.
They use the Simplex locks.
Yeah, Simplex locks.
I decided, I was walking with my girlfriend, I decided to just open it.
Before I checked around, I opened it and there was security watching.
And eventually security tracked me down.
They took me up to the main office, the main security office.
I talked to the head of security at the college.
And he wanted to know where I got the information.
And they were treating it very seriously.
So I told them, basically, that everyone knows this.
And the locks are set to their defaults.
And I got the information out of 2600.
And it's been published.
And he asked me to bring the article from 2600.
And I did with a little note saying how the locks are really a sham.
And they don't really do anything.
And he sent it down to UPS.
And he called me a few days later and told me that UPS wanted to prosecute me for opening the box.
And I was actually lucky because he didn't give my name to UPS.
Because it was an internal thing.
And he realized that I was just playing around.
But UPS took it pretty seriously.
So we're dealing with a company here that has a default password.
Now, that's the password that every single Simplex lock is shipped out with.
You can find out.
But just by going down to a hardware store and seeing the combination in demo mode.
And UPS has them on every single one of their drop boxes throughout the nation with the default password.
Default combination.
And because of that, because you're one of the people that was demonstrating this to somebody, you didn't take anything.
No, I didn't take anything.
I opened it.
And I closed it right away.
Just to show that it could be done.
I always do that.
I always walk up to these things and open them and close them.
And just to show people how easy it is.
Because a lot of people don't believe you until you actually do it.
And, you know, people are shocked when they realize how easy it is.
Now, the fact that Federal Express uses these things and they have the same password on all of them throughout the nation,
at least they don't have the default password.
I mean, it's still just as easy to guess.
But it's default.
You know, it's what everybody sees.
So it's incredible.
So, yeah, I guess UPS deserves a little slap in the face for that.
So you won't be brought up on charges.
That's good.
And hopefully you'll stay out of trouble.
I'll keep my hands out of UPS boxes.
All right.
Thanks for that story.
Obviously, this person has to remain anonymous for reasons that are pretty obvious.
Okay.
Somebody also sent in a – I want to thank them for doing this.
They remained anonymous too.
But they sent in a copy of the AT&T page that has people talking on telephones throughout the world.
And you see people in South America, North America, Europe.
Well, actually, the person from Asia is kind of standing in Europe.
I don't know why they're doing that, but I imagine they're the person that's supposed to be in Asia.
And you probably can't see Asia because they're all the way around the other side of the world.
And there's nobody from Australia.
You can't even see Australia.
But the person from Africa is a gorilla.
Yeah?
The person from Africa is represented as a monkey, gorilla, what have you.
And, of course, this caused a bit of a stir.
It's on a magazine called Focus, September 1993, page 50.
And it's underneath a section called Fun and Games, the AT&T International Quiz.
Very interesting.
So I'm glad I got to see this finally, and I'll make sure as many other people as possible see it as well.
Because such things should not be unremarked when they happen.
All right.
We also have a couple of pieces of listener mail I'd like to get to.
This is from Holmdel, New Jersey.
Two off the hook.
You mention often that cable and wireless provides surcharge-free credit card access via 950 numbers.
AT&T has a similar service.
The AT&T calling card lets you call without any surcharge from any phone booth, hotel room, etc.
under the following conditions.
Listen up.
You have to subscribe to the Reach Out America plan.
It costs $10 a month, and it includes one hour of free out-of-state off-hours, weekends, or 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. calls from home or using the calling card.
After using one hour of calls, you pay $0.10 a minute for out-of-state off-hour calls.
The plan also reduces your evening calls, 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., by 25 percent, and daytime calls by 10 percent.
If you don't call off-hours or out-of-state, then there is a calling card surcharge of $0.50, but the discounts still apply.
It took me quite a while to pull out this information from AT&T operators.
Even if they have a good thing going, it is difficult to find it out.
Well, I don't know really if this is such a good thing because it's very, very complicated.
I've read this three times, and I don't really understand it all that well because it's not something that is a simple thing of picking up the telephone and making a call and knowing what you're going to be charged for.
You have to pay a $10-a-month fee.
I'm not sure if that's a minimum or if it's a fee.
I feel like it's something you pay on top of whatever charge you have for phone calls, which is a lot of money.
$10-a-month is a lot of money just to have a service.
I mean, it's not costing them anything to provide you with a service because they're charging you when you use it, so the $10-a-month is sheer profit.
And then these only apply for out-of-state off-hour calls.
The thing with 950 numbers is there is no surcharge ever, at least with the ones that I was talking about, namely Metromedia, long distance, and cable and wireless.
Those two services just offer you cheap calls any time of the day or night from any phone in your local area.
In Metromedia's case, any phone within the country for the most part.
Most areas are covered.
It's something that is dying out, unfortunately.
Sprint used to offer this.
Initially, it was meant for people to be able to use their long distance calling cards or carriers, actually, when they didn't have equal access.
In other words, you couldn't choose your long distance company, so you would dial a 950 number and use your Sprint code, and it would be billed to your phone number, and there wouldn't be any surcharge.
Well, now as everybody is getting equal access, those days are drawing to a close, and people are expected to either choose a long distance company or pay a surcharge every time they use a different long distance company.
Now, it's not really a fair way to do things, and it's something that I've been speaking out against for quite a bit.
And I think one way to speak out against it is to show when good things are happening.
In this particular case, those two companies are offering a fairly good service, although it's like pulling teeth getting it from them.
So, I think they could make a lot of money if they offered this to people.
I mean, imagine the convenience of walking up to any pay phone anywhere in the country, making a phone call, staying on for one minute, and having it cost you 10 cents or 15 cents or something like that, instead of, you know, a dollar like AT&T, MCI, and Sprint charge you if you use their calling cards.
I mean, a surcharge to me implies some sort of a penalty for doing something above and beyond what the service initially offers.
In this case, though, that is the service. There should not be a surcharge.
I think a lot more people would be making phone calls if the system was a bit more affordable.
Okay, one more letter from our listeners.
This comes from... where does this come from? I see our address on it. Well, it comes from somewhere in New York City.
I'd love to call into your show, but the new phone switch that cuts callers off after 30 rings makes it a most aggravating experience.
This is much more convenient, writing a letter that is, and I hope you will oblige me by reading this.
All right.
Next time 9X asks for a rate hike, the PSC should tell them to go screw.
I thought of putting blank spot instead of saying screw, since I'm writing this for radio, but screw is in one of the seven dirty words, so why bother?
Yeah. Anyway, there's... here's some fun phone stuff I've noticed.
While cycling across Manhattan's 55th Street near 3rd Avenue, I noticed all sorts of phone switches on the sidewalk.
There's a New York telephone building there, and they were throwing out the old stuff.
Yep, 55th Street near 3rd Avenue. Maybe this stuff's still there.
I assume they were replacing the old stuff with new digital switches.
All you techies out there may appreciate this information.
And since I'm a bicycle messenger, I use pay phones a lot.
The other day, I picked up the handset, put my quarter in, and dialed.
Bicycle messengers are another group of people, by the way, that would benefit from 950 numbers a lot.
Because instead of wasting a quarter every time you make a local phone call, which is probably going to last about ten seconds,
you can spend less than half of that and not have to worry about change and mechanical pay phones breaking down.
Anyway, this is what happened to this person.
I couldn't hear the dial tone before I put the money in, but I thought that was because of my wool hat.
Once I got my hat out of my ear, the line was dead.
I must have misdialed, was my impression.
I pressed down the receiver to start over.
When the receiver was down, I heard a dial tone.
Right? Press the receiver down, you hear a dial tone, lift the receiver up, you don't get a dial tone.
I mean, that makes perfect sense to me.
So I lift the receiver up, and it went away.
This went on for a couple of tries, but then it reversed itself.
This, of course, flabbergasted me.
When I reported this to 611, I joked that, no, I'm not on drugs right now.
I recently got my own phone line at home, so I am now motivated to report the loss of quarters and pay phones in order to get credit.
I've noticed that when one reports the loss of money, the operators just take your word for it.
This is obvious, since sometimes I end up reporting the loss on a different pay phone, and they say the same thing every time.
They ask for my phone number, to which they can credit the 25 cents, and say, credit has been arranged.
I haven't gotten the bill yet to tell if they were actually crediting the account.
Usually it shows up in a weird place.
It shows up on your local page, that one with the box on it that tells you how many calls you made to a particular region.
And underneath, underneath the subtotal, you have operator credits.
It says minus three operator credits, and it gives you a figure for that.
And that's really the only way you know.
You don't know when you got the credit, you don't know what the credit was for, and that's supposedly how it's done.
And finishing off this letter, to close, I want to mention a high-tech blooper with my checking account.
This is something weird.
I wrote a check to Con Ed, which, for those of you that are in outer space, New York City's electric and gas company.
The check was not for the entire amount of the present bill.
I had already paid the previous charges, but not in time to be reflected on the present bill.
The next time I made a deposit to my checking account, I noticed that my balance was not where I expected it to be.
So I investigated.
Con Edison cashed my check for the amount shown on the bill, not the amount of the check.
This was immediately rectified, but it could have cost me dearly.
If my checking account was near zero, their overcharge would have pushed my account below zero
and caused that, along with several other checks, to bounce.
And that's not cheap.
Con Edison's error taught me two things.
First, funds for a check are electronically deducted from my account by another bank, not by my bank.
Second, always write on the bill how much money you are sending along for I had not.
Thanks for a great and interesting show, Emmanuel.
Fiber will miss you.
Thanks for the letter.
And thanks for the warning.
That's something I've never heard of happening before.
I mean, imagine if you could do it that way.
Imagine if somebody sent you a check and you could just sort of write a different number on a piece of paper
and say, well, I'd like to deposit it for this number instead of what the person gave it to me for.
And the bank just takes your word for it.
You see, if you're a big institution like Con Edison, you can get away with things like that.
But we, as mere mortal humans, it's not so easy.
Well, Fiber is here.
Good evening. How are you?
I'm doing okay.
Okay, you had an interesting story a couple of weeks ago when you were brought into,
I'm not sure if it was to be sentenced or, it was when you were inside a building.
Do you recall the story I'm talking about?
You were in the lobby of a building and you were entrusted with something.
Do you want to tell the folks about that?
Yeah.
Well, one interesting story.
First of all, I guess we should update people that you were indicted for computer hacking,
sentenced to a year and a day in prison, which begins on January 7th.
And at what point in the story does this take place?
This is basically when I was notified a couple of weeks ago by my lawyers
that the Secret Service had contacted them and said that they were cleaning up house
and were giving me the option to pick up my old junk or else they would basically throw it away.
Did they use the word junk?
I don't know if they used the word junk or not,
but I really got the impression that they basically just would have gotten rid of the stuff
as if it were trash if I hadn't gone to pick it up.
I see.
So I headed down there with a couple of friends and this, of course,
after missing the guy numerous times over the period of a few weeks,
he was obviously never around whenever I called the Secret Service headquarters.
So we went down there to Six World Trade and in the lobby we have to go through metal detector
because obviously we're not treasury agents.
So I always have problems going through metal detectors because I wear steel-toed boots.
At least you have an excuse.
I always have trouble and I don't know why.
Like a steel plate in my head or something.
I don't know what the reason is, but it takes forever to figure it out.
But you at least have a reason.
You have steel in your shoes.
Yeah.
Just to cause trouble.
No other reason, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
So I'm explaining to the guy the reason why the metal detector is going off
and I'm doing a little dance sticking one foot into the detector at a time
so he can see that it actually does go off because of my feet.
And I don't know whether this was convincing enough or not,
but he said I would have to wait while he called upstairs to clear me to come into the building.
Now while he was off and wherever he was making that phone call,
a treasury agent rushed into the building,
saw me as a plainly visible person near the entrance,
and proceeded to flash his badge at me as if I was giving him the okay to enter the building.
So the treasury people thought that you were in charge at that point.
Yeah.
Apparently this treasury agent had figured that I was the guard of the building
and he was flashing his badge and walking in.
When he realized that we were all laughing, then he sort of felt a little embarrassed.
Well, I mean you could have had more fun than that.
You could have stopped him and he could have asked for more ID and all kinds of other things,
signing in and put him through the metal detector after all.
Wow.
So between that and being put in the same room as the World Trade Center bombers, I don't know.
It's an interesting organization, the Secret Service there.
One interesting experience after another.
Yeah.
Well, speaking of interesting experiences,
we did something over the past couple of weeks that was kind of historical, I guess.
We mention it here only too briefly,
and it's changed quite a bit in the past few weeks since we did mention it,
and that was starting up a Usenet news group on the Internet,
basically meaning that anybody throughout the world, theoretically, that has ties to the Internet,
can read this particular news group, which is known as Alt.2600.
Now, there's all kinds of news groups.
What we read from virtually every week here is a news group called Comp.Risks,
and that gets sent all over the place.
It's one of the more popular ones.
It comes in the form of a publication.
But there's all kinds of other ones.
You pick any topic, any place, from Star Trek to virtual sex to anything.
You can imagine there is a news group for it someplace,
the most arcane scientific facts that there could possibly be, everything.
I mean, there is no topic anybody can mention that is not covered somewhere on the Internet.
So we figured it was high time to put 2600 magazine in there,
and the hacker world having its own news group.
And so we started this Alt.2600 news group,
and almost immediately we were met with all kinds of controversy,
which rages to this day.
But it's controversy of such a nature that you have to sort of sit back and laugh at it,
because, well, the first thing that happened,
and I think the first message that was actually posted in the Alt.2600 news group,
and the reason it was the first one was because not everybody got access at the same time.
In other words, the news group was created on the various systems at Amman.
It didn't reach those systems for a couple of days.
So the people that got to it first were not really the people that had started the news group.
So the very first message was something to the effect of,
at last, a news group for the Atari 2600.
Boy, I've been waiting for this all my life.
And so the first couple of dozen messages were taken up by people battling back and forth,
saying, no, you fool, this is not for the Atari 2600.
This is for 2600, the hacker people.
And the whole big discussion got started on that.
And eventually, I think, Alt.Atari, that 2600,
got started as another news group to satisfy those people.
But that wasn't the height of the controversy.
The real controversy started when people in the hierarchy of news groups
got upset at the way this news group was created.
And, Fiber, maybe you can explain a little better to me,
as far as how the hierarchy works and how the whole network kind of fits together
or tries to fit together and what they were upset about.
Sure.
Basically, the alt, or alternative hierarchy of news groups,
is meant to be an uncontrolled hierarchy where basically anyone can create a news group.
You don't have to be a grand, high, exalted news administrator,
much revered on the Internet, no doubt.
And what happened was that this group was simply created
without taking certain steps that other people are more used to, for better or for worse.
There's a news group in the alt hierarchy called alt.config,
where people often propose, as they see fit, as a common courtesy
and allow people to have a vote to see if they'd like to accept this news group at their site.
While myself and numerous other people feel that the alt hierarchy was created
because it should not be controlled and no one is going to try and say
that they're in charge of whether or not a group should be carried or not under that hierarchy.
Is there any danger in that, though, having something that's not controlled at all?
Yeah, basically, probably the reason that alt.config came into place,
which still doesn't prevent the problem anyway,
but people often create news groups just to be annoying,
simply because when you create a news group, every news administrator everywhere
gets an email message saying that this new group is created
and they can opt on whether or not they want to carry it.
And some people simply use the motions of creating a new news group
as a means of sending an annoying message to people.
Like, for instance, alt.fill in the person's name.die, die, die
is a typical thing that people often do to express dismay in something they don't like.
But sometimes those news groups catch on.
Sometimes they do catch on, yeah.
And then people actually post to them and send messages to them.
Yeah, it does happen sometimes.
But yeah, every day there's a couple of dozen news groups that get passed along.
Now, okay, why the controversy over alt.2600, a fairly clear-cut news group?
Right. The smaller controversy was just that.
They felt it was rude that it was simply created without discussion, without having a vote.
That in and of itself wasn't enough.
It was the fact that on the Unix operating system, as well as lots of other operating systems,
the way that news is stored on the actual site that's providing Usenet news to subscribers,
the news groups are stored as subdirectories with files in them, which are the actual articles themselves.
So, for instance, if you have a news group such as comp.risks, you would have a directory hierarchy.
You'd basically have a directory on the Unix machine, for example, that kept all the spools of news articles.
And under that, there would be a subdirectory called comp.
And branching off the subdirectory comp, there would be a series of subdirectories for the next level under that,
for instance, another subdirectory called risks.
Okay.
Now, the problem comes into play when you have numbers as one of the elements of the name of the news group,
for example, alt.2600.
The problem you run into is that you can't have a directory and a file with the same name.
But the actual message numbers are stored as numbers, correct?
Yeah, the actual articles themselves are stored as numbers.
So message number 500 in the comp.risks digest series would be stored as file number 500.
The file name would be 500 in the risks subdirectory.
Right, that's correct.
So the problem arises when there's a number as the name of the news group.
Right, as one of the elements of the name of the group.
And basically, my argument and lots of people's argument is that you will never have a news group simply called alt.
Because that doesn't accomplish anything, nor should anyone be allowed to make the argument that,
oh, well, we can't have a news group called alt. and then a number
because someone might create an alt news group that's simply called alt.
And then what would happen when this alt news group reached article number 2600?
Okay.
Basically, one of two things would happen.
If a directory called 2600 already existed, then that news group would bomb out
and wouldn't be able to receive any new articles.
If it was the other way around, if alt existed previously and there was an article number 2600,
any attempt to create a news group called alt.2600 would fail.
Okay, now maybe we can make this a little clearer by showing a normal type of news group
and showing how that could cause a problem if somebody did something else.
Like, I don't know, let's look at comp.sys.unix, which probably isn't a real news group anyway.
Okay, now let's take that news group.
How could we potentially have a problem of this nature in an existing news group like that?
Okay, say for instance that this hypothetical comp.sys.unix,
and say for instance that there was some version of Unix called 2000, just for sake of argument.
Okay.
And some news administrator somewhere out on the net decided that he was going to create a news group
to discuss Unix system 2000.
So he basically sent out a control message to create a new group,
and basically if someone chose to carry that group, a new subdirectory would be created
somewhere under the news full directory, comp.sys.unix.2000.
Okay.
Now, if there was a news group called simply comp.sys.unix,
and it just happened to have 2000 articles in it, the creation of that new news group would fail.
Okay, so the 2000 would collide with message number 2000 in comp.sys.unix.
Yeah, since a directory itself is a file.
Right.
You can't have a file, or two files rather, with the same name.
Okay, so it makes sense in certain situations, but in the alt.2600 case, it doesn't appear to make any sense.
Yeah, in that particular instance, it's a moot point to argue,
because he simply will never have a news group called alt,
because that doesn't really define any subject matter,
and that should be something that they should be arguing about.
Right.
It's ridiculous to block the creation of this group.
Well, it hasn't really been blocked, but in several places there has been trouble getting it through.
Well, the official word as far as the news admins, they basically request that people do not carry this group.
Interesting.
Well, it's kind of funny how no matter what we get involved in, it's surrounded by controversy somehow.
I mean, our very name is causing trouble here, 2600 being a number.
It's causing people headaches, the fact that it's made up of letters,
and the way in which it was gone about not going through the hierarchy,
which doesn't really exist in the first place,
and also the fact that it coincides with Atari 2600s.
I think it's just too perfect.
But despite that, there have been over 450 messages posted in the past couple of weeks,
and at least enough people are getting it to have an interesting forum.
So if your system doesn't get it, request it.
And there's really no reason why.
I mean, is there any technical reason why you should not be able to get it?
No, none at all, unless whoever you're getting your news feed from is simply being very uncooperative.
Except for just obstinance. That's the only real reason.
That's it.
Okay.
Well, I think that explains things as clearly as they can possibly be explained.
Hopefully people on the net will also catch wind of this explanation
and maybe put an end to that particular aspect of the controversy so we can move on to the next one.
All right.
Speaking of moving on to the next thing of sorts, we're going to move on to phone calls.
212-279-3400.
Let us know if you have any questions on the Internet, on telephones, technology, credit cards,
change of address forms, or anything else of that nature.
212-279-3400.
Let's take the first phone call.
Good evening.
You're on.
Yeah.
Hi.
I want to report today on the meeting of the Public Service Commission.
The commissioners met in Bank in New York City on Broom Street for the purpose of determining what they would do about the case,
you know, $300 million, the recommended decision of the case 0665,
recommended a $300 million rate reduction for New York telephone.
That is passed on to the commission.
They had an open meeting.
The public wasn't allowed to speak, but you could hear their deliberations.
There was an open meeting that nobody was allowed to speak at?
Yeah.
Okay.
They had a chance during the pendency of the case.
Now, this, by the way, is a big departure from commission policy.
For many, many years, once the case was completed, the commission had a thing called oral arguments,
and all the parties that were interested could appear before the commission for a certain amount of time,
whatever it was, if it was a phone company, 20 minutes, and speak directly to the commissioners sitting in Bank.
So you told them what you thought was the most important.
And what instead we heard was like five jerks sitting there and supposed to be the commissioners
making rulings on all kinds of gas, electricity, water power, telephone rates,
and having very little concept of what's going on there.
So the commission staff and the senior staff, which is like a gang of four,
for many years they've been processing things in an anti-consumer way.
But anyway, what they're doing now is of this $300 million, if it is found the commission agrees, that's it,
they want to give that to certain aspects of the rate schedule of the phone company.
But the one thing they want to avoid in the worst way is to give back any of this money to the residential consumers.
Now just about two years ago the phone company came up with a big rate increase,
and naturally they slapped most of the increase on the rates paid by basic residential consumers.
Now that was a claim revenue deficiency.
Now we have what we expect to be a found revenue excess of $300 million.
So you'd think one of the first places they would go to would be to give some of this money back to the residential consumers.
That's the one thing they just seem to avoid completely.
Instead they're talking about reducing some of the touch-tone rates and switch-access rates and long-distance rates.
Long-distance rates?
I mean bigger time-of-day discounts, which may apply to some people some of the time.
But the one thing they didn't mention, none of the commissioners even said,
what about giving any money back to the basic residential customers?
Now Erie County, Nassau County, and the city of Buffalo put in a lot of testimony and everything
saying the rate calling for giving this money back, or some of it, back to residential customers.
But none of this gets through to the commission unless it passes through the unleaky sieve of the senior staff of the commission
and the administrator of law judges who turned this thing down in their recommended decision.
They said the basic rates are still being, the residential rates are still being subsidized,
so it would be misdirected to put this money back in the, I mean to reduce them at this time.
Well it sounds like the status quo is just going to be upheld forever as long as these meetings carry on like this.
This is the background. They couldn't finish their deliberation and arrive at a decision today.
So they arranged for a special meeting, not one of their regular bi-weekly meetings,
but a special meeting is going to be held in Albany at 1 o'clock on Monday.
And what I'm pleading with any of your listeners who are interested in this to do
is to write a letter or a postcard or just call up the PSC, ask for Chairman Peter A. Bradford
and tell him that you want the basic residential customers to participate in rate reductions as well as the other things.
Okay, do you have an address or a phone number?
No, I don't have the phone number handy, the Public Service Commission, but there is a local number here in New York.
The operator will give it to you. It's in the blue pages of your phone book.
The fellow's name is the Chairman of the Commission, Peter A. Bradford.
I think he'd be the most important one to get this message home to.
And there is time to do this between now and Monday.
Should people be mailing this to Albany or to New York?
The best bet is to mail it to Albany is fine.
Well, New York, I can give you the address in New York. It's 400 Broom Street.
That's B-R-O-O-M-E, right?
Yeah.
And even a phone call, a quick phone call might do the job.
Just tell them, please tell the Chairman of the Commission we want them to have the basic rates paid by residential customers to be part of the rate reductions.
Okay, well, thanks for the information.
You're welcome.
All right, take care.
And as a further public service here, we're going to try and get that phone number for you
so that we can actually have people call up the Public Service Commission and pass on whatever message you want to pass on.
So let's get our trusty dial tone here and dial information live on the air.
New York Telephone.
Hello, I need the number for the Public Service Commission, please.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hello?
Yeah.
Okay, I'm checking under the title of Public Service Commission.
Yeah.
I don't have anything listed as Public Service Commission.
You don't mean Public Service Department, do you?
No, I doubt the Public Service Commission is unlisted.
They're the ones that regulate phone rates.
Okay.
It might be listed under PSC.
Okay, it's Public Service Department now.
I guess they must have changed that.
I don't think so.
No, it sounds listed here.
It says Communications, and they have gas, electric, and water under there.
Uh-huh.
Well, it's the PSC, the Public Service Commission.
That is their title.
Yeah, I know that's how they were listed,
but now I guess they must have changed it to PSD for Public Service Department O.
Really?
Okay, well, give us that then.
Okay, which is it for?
It's for telephone service.
For telephone.
Okay, thank you.
PSD.
The toll-free number is 800-342-3377.
Again, the toll-free number is 800-342-3377.
If you need further assistance, please stay on the line and an operator will help you.
Well, that won't be necessary,
but it's interesting how we've got a toll-free number
and we have to pay 45 cents to get information for a toll-free number.
Now, let's verify that.
We can call regular toll-free information.
Let's not pay anything
and see if we get the same number when we ask for the Public Service Commission.
800 Directory, Mary.
Hi, I'm looking for the Public Service Commission in New York State, please.
Is that under government, sir?
Yeah, I think it is.
For state or federal?
State government.
Federal or for state?
State.
Pardon me?
State.
For what state?
New York.
New York?
Yes.
You fade out every time you say something.
Yeah, there's something wrong with the phone.
That's why I'm calling them.
Service?
I'm sorry?
Public Service?
Public Service Commission.
Okay, I have the New York Public Service Commission consumer service number.
Okay.
The toll-free number is 800-342-3355.
Whoa.
800-342-3355.
It was almost the same.
If you have further questions, a Directory Assistance Operator will return.
Okay, well, we seem to have sort of a similar number anyway.
It's either 800-342-3377 or 800-342-3355.
Either way, you don't pay for the call, and if there's any confusion, you can spread it around as much as possible.
Let's go back to the phones.
Good evening.
Yes, is this BAI?
Yes, it is.
You're on the air.
Oh, okay.
The only thing I'd like to say is I'm not really concerned about being on the air.
I just wanted to say how much I really appreciate the Secret Museum of the Air with Citizen Kafka and Pat Conti.
Okay, well, we appreciate your thoughts.
You know, I really wasn't aware of what was going on on the air at this point.
I thought I might be talking to somebody that wasn't on the air.
No, that's not possible right now, but maybe you could tell us when that particular program is on.
Okay, Saturday night at 9 p.m. until 10 p.m.
Okay.
I have made quite a great effort to tell my family and friends about it because I think it's a great show.
I just discovered it last week, and it's a great show.
Hopefully people will listen to it after hearing your announcement this evening.
Okay, thank you.
Thanks for calling.
Bye.
It's nice to get calls like that occasionally.
Let's see what else we have out here.
Good evening.
You're on.
Hi.
I have some stuff about tone dialers.
Tone dialers.
Okay.
Yeah, right.
Well, I tried to call last week.
Remember that guy who was asking about tone dialers last week?
Yeah.
Well, there's a company out in Van Nuys, California called All Electronics, and they specialize in a lot of surplus stuff.
Their catalog right now has a tone dialer for $3.75.
Really?
Now, what kind of tone dialer is this?
Okay, I've never seen the thing, so I can't tell you all that much.
I can tell you what the ad says.
It says, touch-tone phone dialer.
Originally designed to enable customers to access long-distance phone service,
this pocket touch-tone dialer has one number programmed into it which can't be changed.
However, it will remember the last number dialed, so it could be used as a 16-digit memory redialer or just as a touch-tone generator.
So, I mean, I guess if you want a DTMS dialer maybe for co-cops or could.
I mean, it says it can do, it can redial the last number,
so you could maybe change it to try to turn it into a red box, but the timing might be off.
In fact, I'd say it probably would be off.
Well, I don't know about that, but what's this number that can't be changed?
I don't know.
I mean, the reason it's probably surplus is because the company that made them probably goofed.
So, I mean, it's got this one number here that you can't change,
but it says it will remember your last number dialed and redial it.
If somebody gets a touch-tone dialer with a number in there they can't change,
and they don't know what that number is.
I pity the person that belongs to that number.
That's going to be interesting.
Well, I mean, for the price, I guess it's certainly worth it if you need a touch-tone pad,
but I wouldn't count on turning it into a red box.
Do you want me to give out that number?
Sure, go ahead.
All right.
They're 1-800-826-5432, and, I mean, they're good for all kinds of electronic stuff and dirt cheap.
Okay. Thanks for the information.
One more thing.
Yeah.
The thing about red boxes, the thing about making a red box without starting with a tone dialer just from scratch,
I don't think that's all that difficult a thing to do.
I think, I mean, you could use a 555 timing IC to control the burst,
and every elementary electronics book has a circuit for tone generators.
So I think if you just slap two of those together with a timer,
I think it wouldn't be all that hard to make the thing.
Well, I think Fiber might have something to say on that.
Yeah, you might check the past two issues of 2600.
Uh-huh. Take a look at that.
Yeah, there was something similar in there.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah.
All right. Well, thanks a lot.
Okay.
Have a good night.
Good night.
I guess great minds think alike, eh?
Well, we'll have to see how that goes.
But what do you think about being able to modify that particular dialer?
Do you think that's...
Well, I think it's a shot in the breeze not knowing what's inside the guts of the dialer.
Yeah, you'd have to know a lot more about it.
A lot of people modified the Radio Shack dialers because they knew a lot about those things.
Okay, let's go to another phone call.
Good evening. You're on.
Oh, okay. Thanks.
One way you can help people who don't want to dial up for 30 rings and then get cut off
is to simply pick up to everybody and put them on hold and then take them when you're ready.
Yeah, well, that's good, except that we don't have a hold mechanism here, embarrassingly enough.
At this particular console, there is no way to put somebody on hold.
You can tell Mike Ettle no longer works at the station.
Yeah.
A couple of things.
Actually, I remember a possibly apocryphal story about that at BAI when he was the engineer
and the phone service was cut off, and he came in and he says,
You've got phone service now. I don't know how long it'll last.
And someone called out, and after three minutes, someone broke in and said,
For the next five minutes, deposit $0.10.
And he looked at the handset inside BAI and said,
Well, I know where Mike got the line, but I don't know how I'm going to deposit that extra $0.05.
Anyway, a couple of things.
If you can give out the information on those remaining companies that still have the 950 access.
I had a couple of unpleasant experiences with pay phones in New York.
One of them is the pay phone in the basement of what used to be the speakeasy in the village
where I went to call someone locally and noticed that it was not a 9X phone.
So I decided to call and charge it to my home phone number.
I discovered when I got the bill that the local access company charged about $2.75
for a call from Greenwich Village to the Lower East Side.
My mother was so upset by that that she took umbrage and called up the company and yelled at them,
and they dropped about $2.50 of the charge and apologized to her.
The other was a call in a local health clinic made on a phone which swore that it was a 9X phone
and that all long distance was handled by AT&T.
And I needed to make a long, uninterrupted call.
So, again, I charged the call to my home number using my AT&T and 9X access card,
figuring it would cost me a little more, but at least I wouldn't have to worry with the change.
So I dialed the number using the zero and the 10AT&T or whatever,
and I got not the thank you for using 9X or AT&T,
but I got an interrupt from a different company called Encore.
And I immediately hung up, called their number.
I think I called information. I don't remember how I found them.
And what I got was I got a live human being from Encore.
That's what happened.
And I said, who are you and why are you interrupting my local call in New York City from New York City?
And he said, well, we have a long distance contract for that phone,
and any time you dial long distance access, you're going to get us.
And I said, I didn't dial long distance access.
And I got transferred to their customer service and got the name and the information
and yelled at them a bit, and then I called up, I believe I called up AT&T's business office.
I still have not complained to the Public Service Commission about who is legally responsible for changing the plaques on the phone,
but I was told that to get my local service, I had to dial the 00 and not dial anything further.
And I got a live operator from 9X, told her what was going on,
and she took great umbrage at this and said they're pulling something fishy,
and they may not be even able to interrupt and intercept those calls.
As bad as 9X is, at least they're dependable as far as what they are going to charge you,
and they don't pull any of the sleazy stuff as far as charging you $250 or $275 for a local call.
Now, every COCA, which is the kind of phone that you came up against, customer-owned, coin-operated telephone,
every one of those is required to be able to connect you to a local operator, that is, a New York Telephone 9X operator.
And at the same time, you can also get AT&T.
If you can't get AT&T directly, you can dial their 800 number, which is 1-800-321-0ATT,
and that will allow you to place a calling card call.
What you have to be careful with, though, when you talk to these operators,
is that you don't get the operator-assisted rate, because that's much more expensive.
You must tell them that it's impossible for you to dial them direct, and they will charge you the regular rate.
Right. AT&T used to have an 800 number.
I don't know if they still do, that just said 1-800-CALL-AT&T,
which I used to use and give out to people all the time as a way to do that.
Right.
But in order to go back to what you used to be able to do with Sprint and MCI,
to call on a payphone to a 950 number and be able to call from a payphone and get a lower rate,
or at least call for 25 cents, which you can't do with these new, as you say, the owned local payphones,
is there a way to get around paying those companies when they own the phones?
There's always a way to get around it. It's not easy, as far as avoiding their wrath.
Because if I'm calling from a phone that is not a 9X phone, but I want to have 9X put the service through,
I'm not aware of a way I can do that.
Well, yeah, they are required to put you through to an operator, a 9X operator.
They will not do that.
Well, then they're breaking the law.
Well, why do they care? They're in Florida or they're somewhere else.
Most of these companies are not New York City-based.
Okay, but the person that owns the payphone should care, because odds are they're in New York,
and they're the ones that can be charged with a crime for having a phone that is accessible to the public.
For instance, there's a law that says you have to access 911.
I'm not in the habit of going around testing 911 on all the payphones.
I assume they work, but if there was one that didn't,
the person in charge of that establishment would be in a lot of trouble.
Same thing goes for operator services.
They have to allow you access to a local operator.
If they don't, they're breaking the law.
All right, because I think when I spoke to the 9X operator, the 9X operators are not aware of that.
They say, well, they own the calls, and it goes through their wires, not our wires,
and they charge you when we have nothing to do with it.
There's no way you can, if they don't connect you to us, we can't bill you.
They're the ones who bill you for using their phones.
Right, but you see there's a bit of hypocrisy there, too, because it is 9X that winds up billing you in the end.
They act as the billing agent for those companies, and you get it on your 9X bill.
If you just got a bill from this crazy company somewhere in the country.
It was a separate sheet included with the AT&T and the 9X and everything else.
It was on their stationery for that one call.
Right, it's a separate sheet, but it's part of your 9X bill.
Now, if you just got a bill from some crazy company, you could ignore it.
You could fight them one-on-one, but this way they drag 9X into it, and it becomes a whole big bureaucratic mess.
And 9X kicks and screams and says, don't call us.
We're just legally responsible for giving you the bill, but we don't handle it.
Call them, call them.
Right.
Everyone points the finger.
What you're going through is being gone through by a lot of people.
Most of them don't know what to do about it, but really the thing to do is to complain.
Talk to the Public Service Commission.
Talk to your phone company as well.
Maybe if enough people complain, they'll stop acting as billing agents.
Oh, I'm also going to scream to my health clinic and say, why the hell did you take the service away?
And do you realize what you're doing to the people who have to use that?
I can't even remember the name of the place that took over the old Speakeasy bar and grill.
Right.
But you were saying Metro Media and one of those other services.
Yeah, two companies, Metro Media, long distance, and cable and wireless.
If you call 800-INFORMATION, you can get numbers for both of them.
And they still have the 9-5-0s?
Well, they do, but it's hard to get.
You've got to ask for it and you've got to be kind of persistent, unfortunately.
All right. Thanks a lot.
Thanks for calling.
My method is generally, I don't know about you, Fiber, but what I do is if I find a pay phone I don't like, I just leave it off the hook.
Just let it dangle there for a while, and that sort of gets it all confused and upset.
It's quite common we warn people and point out the differences between a real New York telephone pay phone and a cheap lowly co-cut.
Yeah, but, I mean, co-cuts could be good if they were programmed better, if they provided different services.
There's one series of co-cuts that allows you, I think, $0.25 per minute access anywhere in the country.
And that's not a bad service.
If you make a one-minute call for $0.25 to California, it's better than paying 9X's, what, $2.50 for that first minute.
So they can provide services that are useful and not a rip-off, but it's those few companies that are ripping people off that are making it bad for everybody else.
And the co-cut industry should really do something about it as well because they're the ones suffering.
And we're all going to suffer now because we're out of time.
This has been Off the Hook.
I want to thank everybody for listening and for calling in.
We'll be back again next week with another edition of this program.
Stay tuned now for the WBAI Evening News.
This is Emanuel Goldstein for FiberOptic.
Good night.
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And this is the news for Wednesday, December 15, 1993.
Defense Secretary Les Aspin has announced his resignation.
Aspin told reporters that it was time for him to take a break
after his efforts to upgrade the military.
President Clinton said he accepted the resignation
with real sadness.
Clinton expressed hope that Aspin would accept
other assignments in his administration.
The president praised Aspin for providing solid leadership.
And Clinton said Aspin led the Defense Department
with character, intelligence, and wisdom.
The president listed Aspin's achievements
during his short tenure as Defense Secretary,
including the way he's handled the downsizing
of America's military.
Aspin's year as Defense Secretary
was marked by policy and health difficulties.
Clinton concluded his remarks by saying
he would always be very, very grateful to Aspin.
Aspin is expected to remain in the cabinet
at least until January 20, 1994,
the first anniversary of the administration's taking office.
The president said Aspin would stay even longer,
if necessary, to assure a smooth transition.
Now to Verna Avery-Brown with other top stories.
Delegates of 117 countries approved by consensus today
the long-negotiated GATT treaty.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe,
whose country was responsible for much of the drama
and brinkmanship in the trade talks,
said he never wants to hear about GATT again.
197 Palestinians exiled to a South Lebanon no-man's land
returned home today, one year after their expulsion.
Daud Qutb reports.
The return of the deportees who were arrested temporarily
marks the implementation of an understanding
reached between Israel and the U.S.
following international condemnation of Israel last year
for expelling more than 400 Palestinians.
Half of those expelled were allowed to return last September
and today's return marks the end of a controversial chapter
of Israeli collective punishment.
The implementation of the Israeli promise
to return the deportees is viewed positively
among Palestinians who are worried about Israeli delays
for the beginning of the signed peace agreement.
Some analysts, however, suggest that the Israeli action
is aimed at showing the PLO that Israel might consider
dealing with the Islamic Hamas movement
if the PLO leadership does not accept
Israeli suggestions for the peace agreement.